The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1920-11-29
AN INTIMATE INSIGHT INTO THE
LIFE OF JAKE L. HAMON

In Mr.. Hamon, a great man is dead.
My love for him was so intense; admiration for him so
high that it is hard to comprehend that he is no more.
Excepting his associate, Mr.. Ketch, l perhaps most init
mately enjoyed Mr.. lannon's confidence. In this close per-
sonal association, the inner life of US both was barred and
known to the other. He was neither a negative nor a neutral
character. His great mind, heart and soul shot forth with
flaming intensity for those he loved, and in equal intensity for
those he hated, for being human, he hated those who would
betray him, and to make things even, he was as ruthless as they
His capacity either created or enlarged opportunity.
He had a contempt for ostentation, external show and
social conventions. He scorned pretense and loathed hypocrisy.
Defects were his, but they were obscured by his mighty per-
sonality.
did them well. With his riches, he may have retired in lux
ury, but he believed that a nations greatness. apd a peoples
welfare could be developed by strength springing from wealth
and by judgment gained from experience.
He d~eliberated with caution. acted with promptitude, OPP
posed with firmness, and yielded with graciousness.
Larger communities offered him inducements to move his
offices there, but his love for Ardmore1for the place and her
~people-where his heart was lodged, held him. He one time
said to me that Ardmore and its environment had done more
to make him what he was than any other force in life.
For those he loved, he would sacrifice without stint or
limit. He learned the art of giving and the exquisite joy that
comes to him whose left hand knoweth not what the right hand
doeth.
Recently when talking about a certain individual he said
to me: THAT man has neither honor nor conscience. He would
Ibetray Christ as Judas did, and l propose to destroy him."
He was a banker without usury, an oil man without ran
|cour, a railway constructor without prejudice, town-builder
without spleen, and above all a man without fear.
momen tae qiy asfgy was: nov aR i pe with hAf friends nc sp snd Wonders ie1t
ing how best to help them"
In politics he deceived not; he flinched not. When once
committed either to a candidate or to a cause, he was stead
fast unto the end.
On one occasion I saw one of the really big men of Ameri-
ca act u~ngentemeny, and l thought purposely toward Mr..
Hamon. The fact that he had won his victory this fall, and
he himself had risen to great heights, l reminded him Of this
insult years ago, because frankly the spirit Of revenge was in
me; he said to me: mo old man, we will forget it. You and
know he was wrong, but he is probably as sorry about it
now as l am. Lets make friends of him, and show him that
between the two men am the better"
God gave him a strong mind and a stout body to house
it in.
The law of his life was work. His prizes in lfes battle
were won by integrity, energy, caution, loyalty, perseverance
and patience.
He was one of the greatest men 1 ever knew, raising
himself from mediocrity to power and from obscurity to great
ness. He was uncanny in his political prescience and an uner-
ring appraiser of men and measures. So penetrating was his
insight in business propositions that only ignorance dared to
present for his consideration a defective proposition.
He was dynamic. -
He was an inspiration.
He was essentially a product of our great open spaces
where the wind constantly blows over our western praries,
where the wheat and alfalfa grow, where but yesterday the wild
beasts wallowed, and where man stands close to God, because
nature made it so.
He accomplished many things in a short time, but great
as they were, they were but a prologue to the masterful things
that knew by reason of his confidence in me, he had in con-
temptation. His experience and his accumulations, gathering
momentum as they went, would have gone on and on until the
power of his brain and the results of his accomplishments
would have made him one of the very few of the great captains
of industry Of this country.
Vice President Marshall says that as you approach great
ness it shrivels. True. But there was that indefinable, intan-
gible, incomprehensible something about Mr.. Hamon that did
not dwindle in ones approach to him. TO the contrary. it grew
until one hung with rapture and with the most intense inter-
est upon his appraisement, and his analysis of problems and
his potential conceptions, and upon his broad view and phil
osophy of human life.
He di dmore for Ardmore than any man who ever lived
here. Had he survived he would have been greater still.
The Republican party suffers a most distinct loss and the
next president of this Republic was one of his warmest friends.
In the language of Shakespeare, "Al the world can stand
up and say, here was a man"
He lived a lover of his felowman; he died loved by them.
j. S. MULLEN.
HIS WORD WAS AS GOOD AS HIS