Year: 1876

Accompanying the feelings of pity, of
sorrow and of deepa and real respect which
are stirred by the not unexpected news of
the death of the Speaker of the National
House of Representatives is certain
sense of relief that the struggles and tor
lures of that slight, pain wasted figure
arc over, and that the soul within, re-
leased from tenement always too frail
and small to secure it against his own
intensity, or to shelter it from the life
tempest which beat over it incessantly,
has taken its immortal shape at last. No
more suffering for him now; no more of
the fever and the worry and the fret of
the world, which from the first looked
coldly and darkly upon him. For the
whole career of this man was struggle
astruggle with poverty a struggle with
his own nature. Born among the poorest,
he worked his way to manhood with a
pick-ax, as it were, starving his body to
his mind, ever aspiring, gloomy,
almost morbid, but full of persist
ence and led by a never-changing pur
pose. The worst his enemies said of
him was that he made an enemy when
ever he took hand. 1t was not so /; for
beneath that ungraceful, perhaps at times
ungracious, exterior, there was some
thing-a mysterious apparition of the
inner spirit Of manly strength, gentleness
and love-which made him friends in
spite of his shy, ungenial way of repell
ing the advance of strangers. Of his
true, devoted and trusting heart, there
is no lack of evidence among the few
who knew him well. No man was more
afiectionate, more confding, at once sim
pie and elevated; "sober, yigilant, of
good behavior, apt to teach, not given to
nlthy lucre." A little household is des-
olatsd; but the public service has lost
leader in good deeds.


Michael q. Kerr was born at Titusville,
Pennsylvania, on the 10Th Of March,
1927. He was therefore in his fftieth
year when he breathed his last. At an
early age he came West, educating him
self as best he might, studying and teach
ing, until he was enabled to enter the law
class of the University of Louisville. How
he labored here, how he denied himself,
how he finally graduated with high
honor, is yet a tradition of the school,
many of his comrades surviving to tell
the story of his deprivations, sacrifices
and noble industry. Selecting New
Albany as his home, he rose to practice
steadily, but not to ready fortune; city
attorney in 1864 the next year county
attorney; and then, after a legislative
term or two, Supreme Court reporter for
the Senate of Indiana, editing five vol
umes of reports. This latter in 1868
As. In the latter year he was elected
to the Thirty-ninth Congress of the
United States. Here admirably prepared
by his severe legal training, he became
very. speedily marked figure; a prodig-
GUS worker in committee; d0ctTindire
in finance and tariff economics; singu-
larly firm, positive in his convictions and
lucid in his presentment of them; an
earnest, pointed speaker, still an untiring
student. He served continuously from
1865 to 1873, all the while adding to his
influence and usefulness. In 1872 he
was placed on the Democratic ticket for
the State at large, sustaining his first
and only defeat by majority of one
hundred and sixty-two votes; but he
was only two years out of the House,
OoAAAuS IL again W q 6AOdh A4oJOAAsy Al
1876, when, as all the country remem-
bers, he was chosen to preside over. the
deliberations of the body of which he
was conspicuously and confessedly the
ablest member.


Thus briefly the career of the dead
statesman, political economist, scholar
gentleman. He was not destined to &C
higher, or to enjoy the high place he had
attained, or even to fill it without q
struggle and pang. The last months
of his life were, among its many years
of pain, the most painful. All that ten
der love could do, all that the encourage
ment and support of political comrades
could do, all that the sympathy and re
spect of political antagonists could do tC
tighten his load and cneer his pathway
to the grave, was done. But 100 late
The hand of death was upon him, and


though the hand of the assassin wa.
stayed, the decree was inexorable; anc
after long illness, he passed away
Peace at last and restl The work il
ended; the wrestle is over; and three
chaste spirits bending over all that is o
the just and upright manVTruth, Homo
and Love!