The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-18
J. [. M. CURRY
A TRIBUTE TO HIS LITE AND
 SERVICES.
Eloquent Address by Dr. Edwin A. Alderman of New
 Orleans.

The following address was delivered by Dr. Edwin A. Alderman, President of Tu- lane University, New Orleans, at Rich mond, Va, on the evening of April 26. The occasion of the address was the memorial service held under the auspices of the Conference for Education in the South. Dr. Alderman said:
 "It is altogether proper and beautiful that this great conference after a session Of singular interest and meaning, should cone together to do honor to the memory of the man who helped to form and direct its life. and who stood for its highest ideals; and, likewise to gain from study of his purposeful life, fresh strength and will for the work that lies before us. and will lie before those who come after us. Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, who passed out of this life on February 12, 1903, lived a long. full. varied life of service, of devo- ton. of struggle and achievement. We mourn, therefore no young Lycidas, dead ere his prime, but we come rather to take to heart the lesson of the life of a splen- did Ulysses, who had never known rest from travel and work, who had drunk honorable life to It's lees, and whose spirit at the last still yearned in desire to strive, to seek, to find. and not to yield. J. l.. M Curry had been a soldier, a maker of laws, teacher. a writer of useful books, twice a representative of his government at the court of Spain, and a statesman of that truest sort whose faith in man was unfailing. and whose ambition was to givo them chance to inherit the beauty, the richness and the power of life.
 The intense. rich life of our leader and friend covered an equally intense and rich period of hls country's history. Born in 1895 in the rural. agricultural, isolated lower South, his thoughtful boyhood look ed out upon a crude. healthy. boastfui na- tion, drunk with a kind of democratic passion and getting used. in rough ways. to the shrewd ways of popular govern ment, and yet clinging to the concept of orderly nationality. His young manhood was passed amid the storm of a great argument, rnade necessary by the silence and indecision of the Constitution, as to the nature of this Union. To our minds. cleared of the hot temper of the time, that age seems an unhappy, groping age. but it was a good age in which to be born. for men were in earnest about deep, vital things, It was indeed an age of passion, but of passion based on principles, and enthusiasm. and deep royalties. The cynic. the political idler, the self-seeker, fled before these fiery-eyed men who were probing into governmental theories and constitutional interpretations, and who counted their ideas as of more value l than their lives. The time had its ob- vious faults, and was doomed to fall be- | fore the Avatar of progress; but there | lived in It beauty and force, and a great | central note of exaltation of personality
 above social progress. Around the fire
 side the talk did not fall so much upon | the kind of man who forms the syndicate | or corners the stock market or who wages
 the warfare of trade around the world.
 but rather simple, old questions were
 asked which might have been asked in
 the Homeric age: Is he free from sor- didness or stain? Has he borne himself | bravely in battle? Has he suffered some- | where with courage and dignity? Has
 he kept faith with ideals?
 ''The best and most lasting bequest 1 of the time to the nation was the con-
 ception of politics as a lofty profession | to be entered upon by the best men for | unselfish purposes. Dr. Curry had reach
 ed his prime when the great drama, fate
 determined and fate driven, passed from | argument into war and he, himself
 caught in the grip of that same fate, with | all his gentleness and tenderness, became | of those whose faith and truth on war s | red touchstone rang true metal.'' In the l strength of middle life and in the serene I wisdom of old age, this fortunate man found himself living in another world
 and with sufficient strength of heart | which Is courage, to live in it and of it
 and for it with 8 spirit unspoiled by hate
 or bitter memories, with heart unfret-