The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1919-10-23

IHE SEIfER
and is gone-a mockery. a sham, a
lilo a fools vision, its happiness but
dead sea apples, its pain the crunch
ing Of a tyrant's heel.
"If I gagged Riley Grannan's char
acfer correctly, he accepted circum-
stances surrounding him as the mys-
tic officials to whom the universe had
delegated its whole Office concerning
him. He took defeat and victory
with equal equanimity. He was a
man of nlacid exterior. His meteoric
past shows him invincible in spirit,
and il is not irreverently that | pro
claim him a dead game sport. When
I use that phrase l do so feeling that
it is as full of practical human phil
osophy as 1t will hold.
There are those who condemn him.
There are those who are dominated
by medieval creeds. and these be-
l1eVe ludL lUudg hS iS"PAhS ~
fruits of a misspent life. These l am
not addressing. They are ruled by
the skeleton hands of the past. They
fail to see the moral side of a char
acter lived outside their puritanical
ideas. Riley's goodness was not OF
a type that reached its highest mani
festations in ~ceremonious piety. 1t
found it's expression in the handclasp
of friendship. 1t found its voice in
a word of cher to a discouraged
brother. His were deeds of quiet
charity. His were acts of manhood.
Riley Grammar lived in a world of
sport. My words are not minced.
because l am telling what l believe
to be true. 1t was the world of
sport, sometimes hilarity, sometimes
worse. He left the impress of his
character upon us all. and through
the medium of his financial power
he was able with his money to
brighten the lives of all who knew
him.
"He wasted his money! That is
what the world says. But did it ever
occur to you that the class of men
and women upon whom he wasted it
are yet men and women? A little
happiness brought into their minds
means as much as happiness carried
into the lives of the straight and
good. If you can take one ray of
sunshine into the night life, and
thereby carry a single hour of happi-
ness, you are a benefactor. Riley
Grammar did that.
God confined not His sunbeams to
the nourishing of potatoes and corn.
His scattering of sunshine was prod
igal. Contemplate it: He filings the
auroral beauties round the cold
shoulders of the North. He hangs
the quivering picture of the mirage
above the palpitating heart of the
desert. He scatters the sunbeams
like scattered gold upon the bosom
of a myriad of lakes that gem the
robe of Nature. He spangled the
canopy of night with star jewels.
and silvers the world with the re-
fected beams from on high.
"He hangs the gorgeous curtain of
the Occident across the sleeping
room of the sun. God wakes the coy
maid Of the morning to step timidly
from her boudoir of darkness to
climb the steep of the Orient, to
fling wide the gates of morning and
trip over the landscape, kissing the
flowers in her flight. She arouses the
world to herald with her music the
coming of her King, who floods the
world with effulgent gold.
These are wasted ~sunbeams, are
they? / say to you that men and
women who, by the use of money or
power, are able to smooth n wrin-
kle from the brow of human care;
to change one mans sob into song;
or to wipe away a tear and place in
it's stead a jewel of joy, is a public
benefactor. Such was Riley Grammar.
1.-THE time has come to say good
bye. Fol- the friends who loved him
and are not here to say the word,
let me say. Goodbye, old man. We
will try to exemplify the spirit you
left as we bear the grief at our part
ing Words fail me here. Let these
flowers speak, Riley, with their pc
talef lips and perfumed breath
speak in beauty and fragrance those
2 sentiments too tender for words.