Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1909-06-03

able project, whose executive genius
planned and carried it forward, and
whose loyal persistence has brought
it to this successful completion. That
man is DIR. Benjamin H. Orndoff of
Chicago; and it is to him that this
hour, with it's message of consum-
mated purpose, rightfully belongs.
But in the goodness of his heart he
has given way to me, SO that might
have the double privilege of holding
up to your honor and gratitude two
of my good friends-the man whose
lineaments, done in imperishab,e
bronze, I unveil to you tonight, and
the man whose mind and heart gave
birth and maturity to the design.
When l shall disclose to you this
bust, it will be seen that it is in
every way worthy of its subject, and
the art of the sculptor has succeed
ed in expressing, in a peculiarly ad-
equate fashion, all Of those quail
ties that go to make up the strong
personality of the man and the char
acter of his greatness. 1t is the
work of Miss Mary Washburn of
Chicago, to whom our thanks are
due for the large grasp she has dis
played of the subject of her art.
1t will be seen that the front
view of the bust gives the impress
sion of the alert man of science in
moment of animated discussion,
while the profile reveals wonderful
strength of purpose. And no des-
cription could better fit the char
acter of the man it represents.
Byron Robinson is unique
character, as all great men are.
Every great man stands, more or
less, upon a solitary peak. The
dominant notes in his personality
are a keen imaginative vision that
can sweep horizons, and an irrepress-
ible cyclonic energy that can beat
it's way through a thousand tangled
mazes to reach them. He has a su-
preme disregard for all the petty
conventionalities of life, but all the
time in the world for the kind of
detail that counts. These are the
qualities that make him great. He
has human qualities that make him
beloved and revered by those who
know and understand him to the ex-
tent of perpetuating his memory in
this signal fashion.
He is, as the bust faithfully por-
trays him, an alert and skillful man
of science. He has message to
deliver, and knows how to deliver
it. Something more than the bare
facts of science, which of themselves
do not constitute truth. Not, but
what he has the facts, and has
them right-has them at first hand.
But he is, above all else, a scien-
fist and philosopher; he beats the
facts on the anvil of philosophy and
FORCES them into living principles.
If 1 should attempt to sum up
his influence upon medical science
in a single sentence, l should say
that it lies in the broad scientific
basis on which he has foundationed
it's emperical truths.
Slowly-more slowly, we are some
times tempted think, than any other
department of neutrality-suspicious.
science is moving toward the goal
| that every science must ultimately
reach-the assembling of it's phenom-
ena under, one unifying law of caus-
alton and effect. 1t is to this great
central progress of medicine and sur
gerry that Byron Robinson has con-
tributed a part such as only the in
sight and imaginative faculty of
genius could achieve.
To be great is to be misunderstood.
The recognition of Byron Robinson's
great service to medical science has
been rather slow in coming. In the
course of a fearless and uncompro-
missing crusade against established
error in high places, he has natural
ly made many critics, and even en-
emies. 1t is at once Robinson's tenn
poral undoing and his abiding crown
of usefulness that he does not
deal in concrete things at all except
as bases for philosophic principles;
and medical science, in common with
the rest of the world, does not take
kindly to it's philosophers until their
philosophy has become concrete
part of the rest of it's knowledge.
But among right-thinking men this
man, who has fought so long, single
handed, a battle against irrational
surgery, backing up every inch of his
way with the unansWerable logic of
his scalpel and his pen, is at last
coming into his own, and the prin-
ciples for which he has stood are