Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1914-01-28
Former Senator's Wish
to See Lincoln Memorial
Completed Defeated.
STATE'SGRANDO OLD MAN
Personal Friend of Martyred
President, Filling Offices in
State and Nation.

Washington. ID. c., Jan. 2S-Formel
Senator Shelby NJ. Cullom of Illinois
! died today after an illness of more
than a week during which he hovered
between life and death. His last
words were a wish that he might have
lived to see the completion of the Ma
tional Memorial to Abraham Lincoln,
who was his personal friend.
His last hours were divided between
spells OF unconsciousness and short
at the bedside.
little more than a week ago Cul-
lom was taken with grip. He was S5
and had a record of 80 years contin-
uous public service.
Cullom's first and second wives and
all his children are buried at Spring
field. Ill. There will be brief funeral
service at the Cullom home at 10 to-
morrow, and the body will leave for
Springfield, ILL.,, at 11:45 a. m.
Shelby Moore Cullom's death ended
so years of continuous public service
that had made him a figure in Amer
icsn national life and brought him into
official relations with every president
from Abraham Lincoln to Woodrow
Wilson. President Taft once said of
him:
why. here's my old friend Uncle
Shelby; he comes nearer connecting
the present with the days of Washing
ol- 7
AS a ploughboy driving his fathers
oxen over the fresh prairie of Illinois
he had known and talked with surviv
ors of the revolution and on the rug
ged foundations of life begun in pio-
neer hardships of a family of II chill
dren had built a career that took him
to the Illinois legislature as a men,
Der; speaker of the assembly, two
terms in the governors chair. service
in the national house of representa-
tives. and 80 consecutive years in the
United States senate.
His nearest living contemporary
probably is Uncle Joe" Cannon,
whose senior he was some seven years
by birth and some three years in ma
tional service.
Born In 1929.
Andrew Jackson was president of
he United States when Mr.. Cullom |
vas born in 1929 down in the Elk |
Spring valley of Kentucky, near the |
Cumberland where the Culloms of |
Maryland and the Coffeys of North |
carolina, drifting westward with the
ides OF immigration that set in at
81 he Cd
heir early home.
During the year 1929" Mr.. Cullom
ecently wrote to illustrate the epoch
n which he began life. the crown of
treat Britain descended from King
ieorge the Fourth TO King William
he Fourth: that region passed away
nd have lived to see the long reign
( Victoria come and go: the reign of
ing Edward come and go and the ac-
ession of King George the Fifth.
harles the Fifth ruled in France,
rancis the First in Austria, Frederick |
lillian the Third in Prussia, Nicho- /
IS the First in Russia, while Leo the l
welfth governed the papal states, the
ngdom of Italy not yet having come
to existence. The United Kingdom of
reat Britain and Ireland had not yet I
population OF 24.0O0.000 all told No I
an who had not served his country '
some capacity in the Revolutionary {
ar had been elevated to the presi- 4
.ncy of the United States and this +
as the case until 1s43." C
Times and events in his own country O
ere no less stirring and his part in
EN- was a marked one. Kentucky
as a slave state at his birth and the
ntroversy which was to hatch into a {
eat Civil war was in the process of 4
cubation. in fact the Culloms moved q
Illinois 10 be in a free state and =
licago then was a small village. The
Ter Cullom was then friend of 2
moo n 4, s,recommendingthe struggling
ckwoods lawyer TO prospective eli
rs. Young Cullom's first recollec-
N of the future war president was
der such circumstances. Scrapping
yether the rudiments of an educa-
n. gained by toiling over rough prim-
al roads. he became successfully a =,
dent at Mount Morris academy. a m
lntry school teacher and a lawyer. :,