The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-11-03

anu III the second place, these ianQS-
which l am asked to give away. alas.
are not mine to bestow, My relation
to them is simply that of the trustee
of an express trust. And shall l ever
betray that trust? Never, sir. Rather
perish Duluth Perish the paragon of
cities, Rather let the freezing cy-
clones of the bleak northwest bury it
forever beneath the eddying sands of
the raging st. Croix,"
is in the reference TO our commission
it / nthe reference TO our commission
ers TO Santo Domingo, sent by Presi-
dent Grant to provide a way for annex
ing that republic. The commission
consisted of old Ben Wade, Morrison
r. Waite. afterward chief justice, and
President White of Cornell The en-
tourage embraced Fred Douglas and
Boss Shepherds brother Arthur. A
convocation of cannibals would debate
long time as to the best stew that
could be made of such layout
One of the greatest legal arguments
Knott ever delivered was his speech
on the bill to restrict the removal of
causes from state to federal courts.
In the middle of it he resorted to hu-
NOR. 1t was at the period when Bob
Ingersol was delivering his lecture on
the Mistakes of Moses" Knott I'M
dertook TO imagine what foreign cor
poration knew about those mistakes"
He convulsed the house, but he never
put the speech in the Record
One of the most side-splitting
speeches he ever delivered was at a
Democratic barbecue at Pembroke,
Christian county. KY. in 1871 or 1875.
when Mr.. Justice John NJ. Harlan was
the Republican candidate for COVER
nor. 1t was by the author of the ave-
nue. speech and the Duluth Speech.
Judge Harlan was candidate both
years and | am sure he enjoyed the
humor of Knott as we'll as any one
else. Knott is not a wit after the or
der of Tom Reed There is no sting to
his humor 1t is all genial and never
malicious
Knott voluntarily retired from con-
gress in 1888, and was that year elect
ed governor of Kentucky. "Quinine
Jim" Mckenzie was secretary of state
and H. NJ. McCarty was assistant sec
| retary.~ Alec Grant had position of
some sort. and Robert Burns Wilson.
the poet. was a daily visitor. During
those four years the executive office
building in Frankfort was the most
pleasant place to visit in all this union.
! think Knott expected to reach the
| senate by the governors route The
! Z.
| thinker, statesman, sage, that he IS. If
one would know what a giant grip he
has on political history and on political
principle, let him read Knots lecture
on Andrew JackSOn-d wonderful pro-
duction. He was a candidate to sue
coed Beck in the senate, and was de-
feated by ohm G.. Carlisle / wish
had space to try to draw a parallel Of
these two men-One as severe as the
Gothic. the other as brilliant as the
Renaissance. For some years Knott
had the chair of civics at Center col
lege, but he retired to his old home at
Lebanon, and there lives with his books
and his friends. Who that ever heard
Proctor Knott relate 'Lige Pinkstons
Judgment" of a certain disreputable
dog. ever imagined that this man would
steal a piece of humor from Pat Do
nan, or anybody else? 1t Is the finest
anecdote for rollicking fun in the Ian
| qua ge-as told by Proctor Knott when
| in the vein. I do not believe that Da-
| vid Turpie himself could have picked
thing from literature to which Proc
| tor Knott was a stranger. What
| magnificent head IL isl Big as a BUSH
| el basket, round as an apple. and long
| er from the eyes up than from the
eyes down. Proctor Knott. hadst thou
not been a poet. and hadst thou not
| been cursed with the fatal faculty of
| humor. thou wouldst have ranged
among the greatest speculative states
men of the Anglo-Saxon race,
Chosen. TO the Kentucky constitution
| al convention of 1S90-91 Knott of
| fered this as the keystone of the bill of
| rights. and il ought to be printed in
every school text book in the union:
That all men are endowed by their
Creator with equal rights to life, lib
erty, property. and the pursuit of hap
| piness: that i'm the social compact they
engage TO hold these rights subject to
| Just and impartial laws. under which
each shall be entitled to equal protec-
ton and equal privileges. and shall be
| equally liable to the duties and respon-
sibilities thereby impOs ID 1t is. there
| fore, ordained that arbitrary power
| over none shall be exercised in this
commonwealth; that no privilege. i'm
| munity. eXOneration. or exemption shall
| be granted to any man. or set of men
| that all others under like circum-
stances may not fully exercise and en-
| joy, and that no public emolument
shall be allowed to any one except in
| consideration of public service. the per-
| Torrance of which shall be required
| by law"
That ought TO go with LincoIn's Get
| tysburg Grafton. one for the closet, the
other for the forum
What will become Of the initiative
and referendum when this probe is put
to it, which Knott inserted into com
puisory education?
IF constitutions are intended for
anything at all. they are intended for
! the protection of the minority 1t is
a common saying; that vox populi, vox
Del; nevertheless the populace fire.
| luently commit acts that are not only
unwise, but essentially despotic. and of
| all the intolerable despotisms that nv
! imagination can conceive. the act OF
the state reaching into the bosom of
| the family of one of its citizens. taking
his child from its natural asylum. plac-
| ing itself in loco PARENTS, notWith-
standing he may desire to educate il
| there, is the most atrocious."
! If / were sent to find the truest dis
| ciple of Jefferson among all living
Democrats. and should run across ]
Proctor Knott, l would say Thou art
the man." and my search would be
! finished.
| Copyright 1907. BY E. w. Newman
ABSENT-MlNDED.
Chicago News)
fbarass ,h;of