MEMORIAL 
 
 BENJAMIN HARRISON 
 
MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 THE BAR OF INDIANA 
 
 UPON THE OCCASION OF THE DEATH OF 
 
 BENJAMIN HARRISON 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS, SATURDAY, MARCH SIXTEEN, NINETEEN 
 
 HUNDRED & ONE, IN THE SENATE CHAMBER, UPON 
 
 THE CALL OF THE STATE BAR ASSOCIATION 
 
 OF INDIANA & THE INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 BAR ASSOCIATION 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 
 rcw^^jL^ \Vi*^ 
 
 STATE BAR ASSOCIATION. ef^iM>IANA 
 
 # 
 
 PRINTED AT THE HOLLENBECK PRESS 
 NINETEEN HUNDRED & ONE 
 
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PROCEEDINGS OF THE MEETING IN MEMORY 
 
 BENJAMIN HARRISON 
 
 HELD BY THE 
 
 BAR OF INDIANA AND INDIANAPOLIS IN THE SENATE CHAMBER 
 
 AT INDIANAPOLIS, MARCH SIXTEEN 
 
 NINETEEN HUNDRED & ONE 
 
 The Bar of Indiana met in the Senate chamber at two 
 o'clock in the afternoon. The meeting was called to order 
 by the Hon. Theodore P. Davis, president of the State Bar 
 Association, who said: 
 
 "The members of the Indiana and Marion County Bar 
 Associations have met to take appropriate action on the 
 death of our eminent and esteemed brother, General Harri- 
 son. The executive officers of the two associations have 
 selected Judge William A. Woods to preside over the meet- 
 ing." 
 
 Judge Woods, upon taking the chair, spoke as follows : 
 
 Gentlemen — I am sensible of the great honor implied in 
 being designated to preside over a meeting, like this, of law- 
 yers of the state and city, assembled for so notable a purpose. 
 I am not vain enough, however, to think the distinction a 
 
personal one merely or mainly. It is due rather to the office 
 which I hold and to the fact that I hold it by the appointment 
 of President Harrison. 
 
 We are assembled as members of the bar associations of 
 the state and city to do honor to the memory of Benjamin 
 Harrison, whose mortal remains lie in state in the corridors 
 below. As lawyers we naturally think of him primarily as 
 a lawyer, but any adequate estimate of his character must 
 be far more comprehensive. A man may be a great lawyer 
 without being a statesman, but no one who is not a great 
 lawyer can take first rank as a statesman. A thoroughly 
 equipped all-round lawyer, possessed of great natural abili- 
 ties, with faculties trained to ready obedience to a strong will, 
 readily adapts himself to the emergencies of any situation. 
 If for the purpose of a case in which he is employed it be- 
 comes necessary to master and appropriate the knowledge of 
 a specialist on a subject, he can do it, and if from the walks 
 of his profession he is called to the service of his country, 
 whether in low or high station, in one department or another, 
 he is better prepared to meet any possible demand upon him 
 than one not a lawyer could be. No better illustration of the 
 lawyer's adaptability to meet emergencies of the most deli- 
 cate and varying character could be presented than Harrison 
 in the office of president. If it became necessary to take into 
 his own hands the portfolio of a secretary he was able to 
 do it, not only without loss, but in notable instances, with 
 great advantage to the public service, — just because he pos- 
 sessed the legal training which his secretary of state, the 
 most brilliant public man of his day and country, lacked. 
 
 I first met Mr. Harrison, and heard him speak, in the 
 campaign of i860, at Crawfordsville. In all the years since 
 I have never heard a political speaker who impressed me 
 4 
 
more profoundly. Much, of course, was due to the circum- 
 stances. He was a young man, and I some years younger, 
 and just out of college, with professional ambitions which 
 made me the more observant of one who was but starting 
 in his career. He was, as I knew, the grandson of a presi- 
 dent, and it struck me then that he might well aspire — per- 
 haps was destined — to succeed to the same distinction. As 
 the years went by and he grew in force as an orator and in 
 leadership, and many years before his nomination to the 
 presidency, I became convinced that his elevation to that 
 office was probable. 
 
 General Harrison, of course, could not escape his environ- 
 ment, and necessarily was affected in character and in career 
 by the circumstances of his life. But he was in no sense an 
 accident. Great in ancestry he has been greater in himself. 
 His eminence and success in professional and public life 
 were deserved, because they were earned. They were at 
 once the result and the just reward of great gifts and great 
 attainments, devoted through a lifetime to the thorough 
 performance of every duty and undertaking as he came to 
 them. Of the statesmen and lawyers of his day I know of 
 none whom I would pronounce his superior. Of all the 
 men in public life whom I have known there is none whom 
 I have regarded as quite his all-round equal. In his very 
 nature it was impossible that he should sacrifice or swerve 
 from his well matured beliefs or opinions, when fundamental 
 principles in morals or in government were involved. 
 
 Just now the public is not thinking so much of his earlier 
 career and doings as of his recent attitude and utterances. 
 More than by any message which he ever sent to congress, 
 the heart of the country has been stirred by what he has said 
 and written upon the questions brought upon the country 
 5 
 
by the result of the Spanish war. These questions, however, 
 are burning questions, which we must debate to the end, but 
 their merits will be determined only in the calmer perspective 
 of the future. But, whatever the final judgment, the name 
 of Harrison, as citizen, soldier, statesman, patriot and philan- 
 thropist shall shine with undiminished luster. 
 
 At the conclusion of the remarks of Judge Woods, Mr. 
 Ovid B. Jameson, president of the Indianapolis Bar Associa- 
 tion, moved that the following named persons serve as com- 
 mittee on memorial : 
 
 Robert S. Taylor, of Fort Wayne; 
 
 Timothy E. Howard, of South Bend ; 
 
 JuDSON H^ARMON, of Cincinnati ; 
 
 George W. Grubbs^ of Martinsville ; 
 
 William H. H. Miller, 
 
 John S. Duncan, 
 
 William A. Ketcham, 
 
 Howard Gale and 
 
 Harry J. Milligan, of Indianapolis. 
 The motion was adopted by a unanimous vote, and the 
 committee withdrew to prepare the memorial. 
 
 When the committee had withdrawn, the chairman called 
 upon the Hon. John V. Hadley, of the Supreme Court of 
 Indiana, who spoke as follows : 
 
 REMARKS OF JUDGE HADLEY. 
 
 As an all round man, mentally and morally. General Har- 
 rison has had, perhaps, no superior, and few equals in this 
 country. As a lawyer, as a statesman, as the chief executive 
 officer of the national government, as a writer, as a consistent 
 6 
 
exponent of the Christian rehgion, he was pre-eminent. 
 Strong as he was in every station where the fortunes of life 
 cast him, he mastered no vocation as he did that of our pro- 
 fession ; and I beHeve I do no gentleman, in this learned 
 presence, injustice, to say that he stood conspicuously first at 
 the bar of this state. His earliest and fiercest contests were 
 at the forum, where his achievements advanced him, within 
 my recollection, from the little leased cottage into a compe- 
 tency, and into a preparedness for the highest duties imposed 
 upon an American citizen. He not only learned but practiced 
 the law as an exact science. His pleadings were models of 
 clearness and conciseness. His cases always ready for trial 
 when called, so far as he was responsible. He had unusual 
 tact in finding authorities, and studied those against, as well 
 as those supportive of his position. Having familiarized 
 himself with the facts and evidence and determined upon the 
 theory of his case, he clothed it with legal principles, and a 
 logical arrangement of the evidence. No important witness 
 could testify till his time came, nor until he had heard from 
 the witness's lips the testimony he would give. I have some- 
 times thought that his greatest element of strength as a trial 
 lawyer was in the cross-examination of witnesses. He had 
 most extraordinary skill in exposing falsehood. A keenness 
 of perception that overlooked no foolish word, no unnatural 
 embarrassment, no uneasy manner, and no evidence of dis- 
 honest testimony. An honest witness with a consistent story 
 had nothing to fear at his hands, but the dishonest witness, 
 with a lie upon his tongue, was in constant peril. Such a 
 witness he would politely lead along, first over easy ground, 
 cautiously testing him here and there by the standard of 
 truth, and when fully convinced of his prevarication, would 
 proceed to conduct, or drive him, as the case required, into 
 
 7 
 
such inconsistencies or contradictions as would bar retreat, 
 and then, with merciless energy and directness, accomplish 
 the witness's overthrow. The activity and far reaching 
 sweep of his thoughts while engaged in this exercise were 
 wonderful. When a witness was turned to him, before pro- 
 ceeding, he would seem to cast the search light of his percep- 
 tion over the manner of the witness, and the testimony he 
 had given, noting whether consistent and strong, or weak 
 and assailable ; if unassailable, his course was to avoid em- 
 phasizing it to the jury by dismissing the witness without a 
 question, but if vulnerable, before asking a question, he 
 would decide upon his objectives, and in proceeding he 
 would not propound a single interrogatory that did not have 
 behind it a particular purpose. A general, rambling exam- 
 ination, that had no other aim than to confuse the witness, 
 was foreign to his method. 
 
 As an advocate he was peculiarly forcible but not eloquent 
 as the term is usually employed. He never lost the attention 
 of the jury, and never sought victory by indulgence in flow- 
 ers of speech, nor by appeals to prejudice or passion; but 
 by the plain, simple, easy logic of which he was the master, 
 he made his appeals to the sounder and more enduring side 
 of the human judgment. His intercourse with the court, 
 and opposing counsel, was winsomely polite. His manner 
 was dignified ; his candor impressive ; and his logic irresisti- 
 ble. 
 
 The late strength of his mind was hardly more due to the 
 natural strength of his intellect, than to the wise and un- 
 yielding discipline to which he always subjected his thought 
 and conduct. He did everything by rule and in regular 
 season. Whatever thing he took up was, by logical gradients, 
 thoroughly finished before it was laid down, or another as- 
 8 
 
sumed. He accepted nothing as truth that was not supported 
 by what was to him satisfactory evidence. Expediency and 
 popular opinion when founded upon error were uniformly 
 rejected. His aim was to gain something by every working 
 hour, and to conform his life, in thought and action, to truth 
 in the concrete, as he was able to see the truth, avoiding 
 redundancy of speech, frivolous waste of mental energy and 
 indulgence in unprofitable pleasures. By nature of rich en- 
 dowment, by habit ceaselessly methodical and industrious, by 
 close application to books, by daily contest and struggle with 
 problems and propositions arising in the affairs of a busy life, 
 he grew, as the oak grows, mighty, by contending with oppo- 
 sition forces. His greatness and renown were not spasmodic, 
 nor phenomenal, but of steady, ceaseless, progressive growth, 
 and upon the fateful day upon which he was stricken, he 
 was stronger than upon the yesterday. His intellectual 
 achievements were wonderful. In his impromptu addresses, 
 in respect to instantaneous comprehension of the subject and 
 its environments, in the logical arrangement of his ideas, in 
 the terseness, clearness, and forcefulness of expression, in 
 the simplicity and appropriateness of his words, I am 
 not able to recall an equal. His utterances were uni- 
 formly so elegant and polished and free from verbiage as to 
 require a rare critic to distinguish between those made ex- 
 tempore, and those upon preparation. In his last appearance 
 before the supreme court, his argument was extemporane- 
 ous, but taken, printed, and filed, as the principal brief in the 
 case. His life was well lived and conspicuously successful. 
 It was a life consistent, strong, useful, and absolutely free, 
 in my judgment, from the obstructing and weakening in- 
 fluences of vice or excess. 
 
At the conclusion of Judge Hadley's remarks, Judge Tay- 
 lor, as chairman of the memorial committee, presented the 
 following : 
 
 MEMORIAL. 
 
 Nature achieves her best only rarely. She tries her hand 
 on a thousand lawyers to produce one great one. It takes 
 her best stuff, her happiest combination, her finest finish to 
 do it. All wise men respect lawyers, but only lawyers know 
 each other. We measure ourselves by ourselves. We stand 
 up together and we know who is tallest. We wrestle with 
 each other and learn who is strongest. We study each other 
 as men of no other profession can. We are constantly in 
 each other's sight. We take turns as players and critics. 
 Our judgments of each other are just, but inexorable. No 
 shams deceive us ; no excellence fails of recognition. Hence 
 it is that to be accounted a great lawyer by lawyers is one of 
 the highest certificates of greatness that men can bestow. 
 
 Millions of citizens turn their thoughts to-day to the 
 memory of Benjamin Harrison. To most of them he was 
 the great statesman ; the strong, wise, patriotic, good presi- 
 dent. To the diminishing band of veterans of the war for 
 the Union he was, besides that, the gallant soldier, the 
 comrade in arms. To us he was, besides both, and more 
 than either, the greatest lawyer of our state and time. 
 
 Not all great lawyers are safe models. Strong idiosyn- 
 cracies tempt mediocre men to weak imitations. It is easier 
 to copy a man's gesture than the sweep of his thought. Gen- 
 eral Harrison offered no such temptation to us. He had no 
 extravagances. He had not a quality which a young man 
 lO 
 
could not be advised to follow — if he could. Never were a 
 lawyer's powers more evenly balanced. 
 
 When you heard him argue a law question to the court, 
 you thought that was where he must be strongest. When 
 he addressed the jury, that seemed his appropriate place. 
 To the dishonest witness writhing under his cross-examina- 
 tion, he was an avenging fate. In the office or the court 
 room, before judge or jury, dealing with law or facts, he 
 was everywhere alike the same strong, tactful, perfectly 
 equipped lawyer. 
 
 To name all the strong characteristics of such a man would 
 be to make a catalogue of human excellences. But there are 
 two that may be mentioned with prominence. The first is 
 clearness and simplicity of thought and style. He never 
 spoke or wrote a vague, unintelligible sentence. Behind 
 this, of course, was the vigor of intellect which resolved all 
 things to their final elements. He never let go a problem 
 half worked out. The analysis was finished, the conclusion 
 demonstrated in his own mind before his thought was ut- 
 tered. Then it came clothed in words transparent to its 
 sense. 
 
 While these were the predominating characteristics of his 
 speech, — strength, clearness, directness, it was remarkable 
 also for beauty of diction, felicity of illustration and that 
 subtile touch of humor which imparts the highest quality to 
 all oratory. A bit of sarcasm stinging like the thrust of a 
 cambric needle, a metaphor so unexpected and appropriate 
 that it was wit and argument in one, a caricature so dextrous 
 that it was like a flash-light of ridicule, these were the inci- 
 dents of a style which charmed while it instructed and con- 
 vinced. But they were always subordinate to the solid 
 thought. They never interrupted the argument. They were 
 II 
 
like a delicate tracery of ornament on a massive stone col- 
 umn. 
 
 The other characteristic referred to was the unexhausted 
 reserve of power which remained, and of which his hearer 
 was distinctly conscious when he had spoken. He never 
 strained his strength to its limit. He rather restrained him- 
 self to the occasion. He said enough. He refrained from 
 more because he had said enough. 
 
 General Harrison came to his work as a lawyer under a 
 disadvantage. He was handicapped by a great ancestral 
 name. Thoughtless persons fancy that such a name is an 
 advantage. It is not so to a lawyer. The first condition of 
 his success is to live it down, to show what he is within and 
 of himself. This the young man Harrison did. The older 
 man Harrison, triumphant in his own right in every field 
 which he entered, revived the memory of the relationship 
 and gave new luster to the name. 
 
 General Harrison's career as a whole was as beautiful 
 and symmetrical as his individual development. From the 
 humble beginnings of a struggling young lawyer it broad- 
 ened and rose like the flight of an eagle in widening and 
 ascending circles to the zenith of human attainment. Then 
 from his great office of president he came back to the bar, 
 to be again a lawyer and win new renown in his profession. 
 All too soon for clients, courts, friends and the world, death 
 has suddenly cut short his work. His cases stand untried 
 on the dockets ; his briefs unfinished on his desk. 
 
 The race of great lawyers is not extinct. The profession 
 renews its ranks ftom generation to generation, from the 
 young blood and brains of a fruitful country. Great lawyers, 
 undiscerned as vet, are in training for the days that are to 
 
come. But for to-day, as we think of him who has gone, 
 and look about us, we see not his like. 
 
 Any reference to the life of General Harrison, even as a 
 lawyer, would be incomplete if it omitted that element of 
 manhood without which all other things are insufficient to 
 true greatness — the element of character — simple, strong, 
 sincere, God-fearing, man-loving character. We can say it 
 of more men, but we can not, after all, say more of any man 
 than that he was a good man. To his learning, his eloquence, 
 his skill as an advocate, his greatness as a lawyer, was added 
 the crowning excellence of a pure and noble life and an un- 
 spotted character. 
 
 While we are met as lawyers to pay our tribute to the 
 memory of the lawyer who has passed from us, scant justice 
 will be done if we attempt to circumscribe his fame or con- 
 fine his memory to the narrow and restricted field of the 
 practicing lawyer. 
 
 General Harrison was a lawyer; a great lawyer; but he 
 was much more than a lawyer. In the heyday of his youth, 
 when for him life was young and sweet, when his little chil- 
 dren were playing round his knee and the wife of his youth 
 was by his side, there came to him, as there came to all in 
 those dark but glorious days, the cry of his distressed coun- 
 try, and he denied not the call. 
 
 His training, his education, his ambitions were all for 
 peace, and the prizes that it offered to him, but turning his 
 back upon them and the enticement and the sweet serenity 
 of home and fireside, he buckled on his sword and rode 
 forth at the head of the Seventieth Indiana, never to return 
 until peace and honor came "with his happy feet to his long 
 deserted home," having borne well his part in the immortal 
 struggle for freedom and a restored country. 
 13 
 
.^ 
 
 He immediately resumed the active practice of the law, 
 and speedily forged to the front, first in his county, then 
 in his state, and finally in the nation, and there, with the 
 many qualities that have been mentioned, easily held a front 
 rank until the voice, first of his own state, then of all the 
 people of all the states, called him to a supreme position in 
 the nation. 
 
 His one term in the senate was not crowded with great 
 incidents or great achievements, but rather, as were his 
 career in the army and his service at the bar, a great prep- 
 aration for the greater career he was required to fill as 
 president. 
 
 From 1 88 1 to 1887 was not an eventful period in the 
 history of the country. The great questions that had come 
 up by the war, and that had grown out of the condition of 
 unrest that followed in its wake, had been, so far as legisla- 
 tion could determine it, practically disposed of, and the 
 economic questions that were then coming to the front and 
 have since become so acute were just making their appear- 
 ance. 
 
 It was as president and as an ex-president that the great- 
 est luster has been shed upon his name and fame. 
 
 As a soldier he had learned well the lesson of love for his 
 country. To him who has seen them in the smoke of battle, 
 the stars and stripes have taken on a new meaning and have 
 awakened love deep as the heart of man. His careful training 
 as a lawyer had cleared his brain, strengthened his mind and 
 enabled him to grasp and comprehend the intrinsic questions 
 of the law, natidnal and international and constitutional, 
 upon which our political fabric and our relations with abroad 
 rest, and his quiet, studious, unostentatious service in the 
 United States Senate gave him fitting and perfect training 
 14 
 
in the correlative rights, duties and obHgations of the sepa- 
 rate departments of the government, so that when the 4th 
 of March, 1889, found him at the head of the executive de- 
 partment of his country, it found him fully armed and 
 equipped for every duty with which he might be confronted. 
 
 In the estimation of the great majority of his countrymen, 
 that date found him a fairly equipped country lawyer whom 
 the advantage of location in a pivotal central state had ad- 
 vanced to the lofty position that had been filled by Washing- 
 ton, Jefferson, Lincoln and Grant. 
 
 The 4th of March, 1893, and every day thenceforward, 
 found him in the estimate of the whole nation a man fitted 
 to fill and grace the place that had been honored by his great 
 predecessors. For every position in his cabinet, secretar}'^ 
 of state, secretary of treasury, attorney-general, or an}'^ 
 other, the president was as fully equipped and as amply able 
 to meet the manifold exigencies as they arose as though 
 each particular place had been the duty of his life. He was 
 in fact as well as in name the president of the country and 
 of the whole country. Under his wise, conservative, cour- 
 ageous statesmanship, the country advanced to a deserved 
 recognition and honor among the unwilling nations of the 
 earth. At home and abroad there was peace with honor and 
 honor through peace. 
 
 When he retired from the White House it was with the 
 merited plaudit : "Well done, good and faithful servant." 
 
 "And his fame on brightest pages, 
 Penned by poets and by sages, 
 Shall go sounding down the ages." 
 
 From March 4, 1893, ^o the hour of his death he grew 
 in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man. 
 
 15 
 
The people recognized, as they had not fully comprehended 
 whilst he was living in midst of that "fierce light that beats 
 upon the throne," when the struggles and the bitterness of 
 partisan rancor had blinded their eyes to their great deserts 
 and his great achievement, what manner of man he was ; 
 recognized his wise statesmanship, his profound ability, his 
 intense patriotism and his devotion to his country and its 
 best interests until, as great and embarrassing complications 
 arose, the desire of all was to know what Harrison's views 
 were. 
 
 In these days when widening boundaries, increasing terri- 
 tories and added peoples have laid upon us new responsibili- 
 ties, when new policies, wise though they may be, were de- 
 manding consideration, the people turned instinctively to 
 the great man who is now no more, to catch from his tongue 
 and pen the inspiration and the logic that they had learned 
 to trust. 
 
 "Milton thou shouldst be living this hour. England hath 
 need of thee." 
 
 The venerable head with its silvered crown shall no more 
 greet our welcome eyes upon our streets. There is left to 
 us now naught but the memory of his great name and his 
 great achievement. 
 
 "All ye that are about him bemoan him, and all ye that 
 know his name say, how is the strong staff broken and the 
 beautiful rod." R. S. Taylor, 
 
 T. E. Howard, 
 W. H. H. Miller, 
 John S. Duncan, 
 W. A. Ketch AM, 
 Geo. W. Grubbs, 
 Howard Cale, 
 Harry J. Milligan. 
 i6 
 
BY HONORABLE ROBERT S. TAYLOR. 
 
 I am told that it is expected of me to add something to 
 this meeting. I know not what I might say that would be- 
 come the occasion, unless it may be that the spontaneous 
 thought that swells up from a man's heart at the death of his 
 friend will be sufficient. I can not say that I was intimately 
 acquainted with General Harrison. I became somewhat 
 acquainted with him at a very early period in my life. I met 
 him a few times in the court-house — not very many times — 
 once or twice as colleagues, once or twice as adversaries. 
 I always heard his speeches when I could; I read all that 
 he had to say relative to public questions that I could find. 
 He and I were in like lines of life ; both lawyers ; both re- 
 publicans; both giving some time to public questions. 
 Through all my life he was to me the perfect man. My 
 every contact with him was a reminder to me of how great 
 he was in all the qualities of manhood. When I heard him 
 speak it was with the despairing sense of the impossibility 
 of my equaling his speech ; when I talked with him on public 
 questions and laid my ideas alongside of his, it was with the 
 discouraging sense of the poverty of my thought and the 
 richness and strength of his. He was ever to me an inspira- 
 tion, a model unattainable, always stimulating and inspiring. 
 One element of his character, not always found in public 
 men, was a sturdy, incorruptible, stubborn integrity. I never 
 knew any public man who seemed to me to guide his life 
 by as high an idea, or to be as incapable of an unworthy 
 thought or motive. 
 
 At such a time as this, I think, perhaps, those of us who 
 knew the friend who is gone can render no better service 
 than to bring forward some incident illustrating his charac- 
 
 17 
 
ter. I was once walking with him in Washington, while 
 he was senator, and he said to me : "What do you think 
 about the propriety of a senator having stock in national 
 banks?" I said, "I think he may do it with perfect pro- 
 priety." "Well," he said, "congress is called upon constantly 
 to legislate in regard to these banks. It has their affairs in 
 hand." "So it has," said I, "and so it has all other kinds of 
 business. Laws enacted by congress touch all kinds of busi- 
 ness. If a senator can not ovv^n bank stock, he can not own 
 anything." "Well," he said, "I have been trying to look at 
 it that way, myself. Some friends of mine are proposing 
 to organize a national bank out west. It is thought to be a 
 progressing enterprise, and they have asked me to take some 
 stock in it. I had pretty nearly concluded to do so when an 
 incident occurred that changed my mind. There is another 
 senator here, not connected with my friends, having no 
 particular occasion to be taken into the enterprise, who 
 heard of it, and he applied for some stock, stating that it was 
 a good thing for a national bank to have a friend at Wash- 
 ington. That turned the current of my thoughts." 
 
 Those of us who have heard General Harrison speak — 
 most of us, I think, — would be surprised to know that he 
 was timid and nervous about the function of public speaking, 
 but he was. He approached every occasion of public speech 
 with a sense of timidity and reluctance. He spoke in Ft. 
 Wayne, in the campaign of 1880, and stopped at my house. 
 He was as nervous as a boy upon graduation. He said: 
 "You have no idea how I dread this night. I would give 
 one hundred and fifty dollars if I could run away and go 
 home," and from that room he went forth and made one of 
 the most brilliant speeches I ever heard. 
 
 None of us can measure the value of the great man — of the 
 18 
 
great example of the great life. Beside all his public serv- 
 ice ; beside all he did for his state ; beside all he did for the 
 nation, he has rendered invaluable service to us, and to the 
 young men among us, for whom I can wish nothing better 
 than that they should emulate his splendid example. 
 
 BY HONORABLE TIMOTHY E. HOWARD. 
 
 When the roll of great Americans is made up from age to 
 age, as the centuries come and go, the name of Benjamin 
 Harrison will always be found far up on the list. Of dis- 
 tinguished lineage, he added luster to the glory of ancestry. 
 But by no one who has walked the road of honor and reached 
 the heights of greatness, was less due to adventitious aids. 
 One aid he did have, the priceless advantage of a youth of 
 poverty. Born in a modest home, struggle roused his native 
 vigor, and made keen and strong an intellect of unusual 
 breadth and force. Success came to him, not by flash or 
 bound, but slowly, steadily, surely, as the result of persistent 
 effort and unremitting toil ; and he developed, strengthened, 
 broadened, evenly to the end, until the earnest student stood 
 before the world, in the quiet modesty of greatness, as the 
 first citizen of the republic. 
 
 The same characteristics of thoroughness, finish, complete- 
 ness, marked every phase of work in his varied life. In 
 college ; at the bar ; on the field of battle ; in the senate ; in 
 the executive chair ; before the tribunals of the world, plead- 
 ing for the rights of nations and peoples, — he was ever the 
 same resolute, resourceful, complete man. And the man 
 grew greater with his years ; nor was this greatness depend- 
 ent upon the station which for the time he occupied. He 
 19 
 
grew deeper, broader, higher, even to the day when he lay 
 down to die. Not while sitting in the highest deliberative 
 body of the world ; not while directing the destinies of the 
 great republic; not while pleading before the most august 
 tribunal of history, did he so impress his greatness of char- 
 acter upon the minds and hearts of his countrymen, as when, 
 as a private citizen, in the last years of his life, he gave to 
 the people, in the most exquisite language, the highest teach- 
 ings of American patriotism and statesmanship. In this 
 he recalls the memory of his comrade in arms and predeces- 
 sor in the presidency, General Grant, whose true greatness 
 and breadth of character did not reach out, unclouded to the 
 world, until it streamed in sunset radiance from the heights 
 of Mount McGregor. 
 
 To us of Indiana who have been so honored by the re- 
 flected glory that has proceeded from the career of Benjamin 
 Harrison; to the members in particular of this State Bar 
 Association, of which he was the first president, — it is a 
 duty, as it is a melancholy pleasure, to make grateful record 
 of our esteem, love and veneration for the honored states- 
 man, whose departure from earth we mourn to-day, but 
 whose memory remains with us as an inspiration to good 
 citizenship and love of country for us and for our children 
 during all the years to come. Let the memorv- of such men 
 be cherished and their example followed, and the free insti- 
 tutions of our beloved country will be secure forever. 
 
 BY HONORABLE JOHN B. ELAM. 
 
 The great lesson of these sad occasions is the same. Some 
 truths are so hard to remember and make the rule of daily 
 
life that no appropriate occasion should pass without recall- 
 ing and enforcing them. As to these subjects limits can 
 hardly be fixed for reiteration. 
 
 Once more then, while under the influence of the great 
 life that has ended, those who are taking the first steps in 
 our profession as well as those who may sometimes grow 
 weary of its labors, may well be admonished that there is 
 absolutely no career of usefulness or honor but in simple 
 and sincere devotion to the duties that each day brings. 
 Every temptation to seek easy or glittering paths must be 
 treated as from the author of evil. 
 
 From the humble beginning to the highest place, as citi- 
 zen, soldier, statesman and citizen again, Benjamin Harri- 
 son was everywhere and always the very incarnation of 
 conscience, industry and courage. No duty was small 
 enough to be neglected nor great enough to flee from. The 
 old hard way which he followed upward is familiar enough. 
 It is not needful to describe it, but it is, perhaps, quite as 
 important as it ever was to emphasize the fact that it is 
 absolutely the only way. 
 
 The age in which General Harrison's lot was cast was 
 full of doubt. Many circumstances conspired to make it a 
 time of speculation as to things once believed to be funda- 
 mental and fixed. 
 
 Easy communication with great masses of men eager for 
 something new, the extension of commerce, the rapid ac- 
 cumulation of wealth, and much beside, gave great oppor- 
 tunities for the demagogue and the charlatan. No man was 
 more keenly alert to all that was passing and ready to accept 
 what was good, but General Harrison may well have said 
 "none of these things move me." 
 
 He followed the simple life of the great men of all time, 
 
 21 
 
and, as to the fundamental truths of reHgion and the rules 
 essential to correct living, he adhered steadily to the faith 
 and practice of the best of those who have made and pre- 
 served us a nation. 
 
 His career as a lawyer was no accident. He had from 
 nature, or as a noble inheritance, a mind singularly clear 
 and well ordered. But even greater talents have often been 
 buried in indolence or indifference. With him every mental 
 gift was accepted as in trust for his fellow-men and culti- 
 vated to the utmost. 
 
 It goes without saying that his preparation for the pre- 
 sentation of causes was most thorough. I wish only to refer 
 here to a few methods that were somewhat peculiar and 
 characteristic. 
 
 He was always most concerned about the actual cause 
 committed to him. What had been said in others closely re- 
 sembling it had consideration and furnished suggestions. 
 He never cited many precedents, and I can not recall that 
 he ever read more than a few lines from any book while 
 addressing a court. 
 
 He preferred to master the case under consideration, and 
 present the principles that he believed should decide it in his 
 own language. Adequate preparation tends to brevity of 
 speech and his addresses were never long. Often his 
 thoughts were expressed in sentences that were epigram- 
 matic. 
 
 The crude material for an argument was as the block of 
 marble brought from the quarry to the sculptor. The office 
 was the studio in which superfluities and deformities were 
 cut away until a figure, bright, symmetrical and beautiful 
 stood forth as a thing of life. 
 
 What was done slowly and laboriously at first was after- 
 22 
 
ward accomplished with marvelous facility. He was a 
 student in the highest sense, but not a great reader of the 
 mere words of other men. He burned little midnight oil, 
 but caught quickly the thought of an opinion or book, and it 
 was at once his own to be used and perhaps carried forward 
 to new applications. His own mind rather than the library 
 was the workshop. With him the argument usually pro- 
 ceeded upon a broad and always upon a high plane, but 
 long experience made him familiar, also, with the art of 
 effective discussion. He was an adept in what may be 
 called the cut and thrust of debate. 
 
 I was struck with what he once said to me about the use 
 of illustrations in argument. He advised me to use them 
 sparingly and with the greatest care. He said that if an 
 illustration fits the case exactly nothing is more effective, 
 but if it does not and an adversary can turn it against your 
 position, you can furnish him with no better weapon. "When 
 I feel tempted," said he, "to use an illustration in any im- 
 portant argument, I never venture to do so until I have 
 stood it up in the office and walked all around it." 
 
 I can think of nothing he ever said that better illustrates 
 his method of study, and at the same time his "art of putting 
 things," than this remark. Many a time I have seen him 
 walking around ideas in the office until he was sure he had 
 seen every aspect they could present. 
 
 Constant practice in walking around his mental products 
 before they were placed upon the world's market insured 
 good workmanship. All will remember that when he en- 
 tered upon a larger field and ingenuity and party zeal were 
 exhausted in the effort to find some vulnerable point in a 
 long series of public addresses, the critics walked around 
 them in vain. They had been anticipated. 
 23 
 
Of General Harrison as a public speaker it is not fitting 
 that I should speak at length. A few words as to his per- 
 sonal relations to his hearers may perhaps be pardoned. 
 
 There never was an orator worthy of the name who did 
 not feel the presence and inspiration of his audience. 
 
 It has often been said that General Harrison's self-pos- 
 session and dignified reserve amounted to a misfortune or 
 a fault. But no orator ever felt the presence of his audience 
 more profoundly. He was always a ready and convincing 
 speaker, but at first he displayed little imaginative power 
 or humor and had confidence in his own resources. 
 
 When he began to make addresses on occasions of great 
 public interest he always went to the rostrum with timid 
 hesitation and sometimes almost with trepidation. 
 
 I recall as a marked instance of this his manner and feel- 
 ing when he went to Detroit to make his well-remembered 
 address before a great political club. 
 
 Often as he had won just applause, he never quite got rid 
 of a certain apprehension that he might not be exactly equal 
 to the cause or the occasion; and doubtless a speaker who 
 becomes so absolutely confident and at his ease that his 
 mental activities are not fully awakened has lost an impor- 
 tant part of his power. 
 
 I shall always remember vividly an incident of the presi- 
 dential campaign of 1888. General Harrison was weary 
 and worn with much thinking and not a little speaking. The 
 republican state convention was in session in the largest hall 
 of our city. The interest was great and an immense crowd 
 was in attendance. General Harrison was to address the 
 convention and the throng of spectators. As I walked with 
 him from our law office it seemed that he had never ap- 
 peared so pale and agitated. He made his way with diffi- 
 24 
 
culty and apparent hesitation through the crowd and to the 
 front of the stage. The great assemblage gave him such a 
 reception as could only come from his friends in Indiana 
 and his neighbors in Indianapolis. The inspiration of it 
 was amazing ; the speaker found his voice, and in a moment 
 the ringing tones, quivering with feeling, were finding the 
 hearts of the great audience. Apprehension was lost in 
 astonishment at the transformation. In the course of his 
 address he spoke most feelingly of the then recent death of 
 General Sheridan. What was occurring recalled the mar- 
 velous transfiguration of that quiet little commander in 
 camp into that tremendous Sheridan who, in the thickest of 
 the conflict, rode along his lines looking like a new incarna- 
 tion of Mars. 
 
 With experience, General Harrison's readiness as a public 
 speaker greatly increased. He was one of the men that did 
 not cease to grow. In his later addresses there appears a 
 humorous strain, keen but delicate and kindly. His intimates 
 knew long ago that he possessed a rare humor, but he did not 
 greatly value it, or, at least, thought that his public addresses 
 should be occupied almost wholly with serious discourse. 
 There were few occasions which he regarded as worthy of 
 speech at all when he was not too much in earnest for jest- 
 ing. 
 
 Perhaps his greatest power as a speaker and writer was 
 due to his rare ability to put what was, in a vague way, in 
 all minds into striking form. 
 
 "True wit is nature to advantage dress'd; 
 What oft was thought but ne'er so well express'd." 
 
 The poet's definition might well be extended so as to in- 
 clude not only wit but eloquence and every form of impres- 
 sive speech. 
 
 25 
 
I will detain you with nothing biographical. For almost 
 a half century Indiana's capital city has been the home of 
 the illustrious dead. 
 
 For almost forty years this great state has been proud 
 of his growing fame and grateful for the beneficent influence 
 of his life. Its chief events are familiar to every citizen and 
 will be studied by generations yet to be. 
 
 The blow is so heavy and recent that I can not at this 
 time and in this presence seek to measure its extent or to 
 give proper expression to the sense of loss felt by the Indiana 
 bar. Still less am I able to speak adequately for the mem- 
 bers of our local bar, to whom, for so many years, this great 
 life has been a constant example and an inspiration to all 
 worthy efifort. Nor can I in this place enter upon a critical 
 analysis of the life and services of Benjamin Harrison and 
 express a judgment as to their character and value. 
 
 It was decreed that the great citizen who had once led in 
 defending Rome from the invading Gaul should not be tried 
 in the Campus Martins where the judges could see the 
 capitol. 
 
 Everything about us suggests some memory of our dis- 
 tinguished dead, and recalls his services to his fellow-men. 
 Here met one of the legislative bodies that often profited by 
 his wise counsels and whose laws he helped to interpret. On 
 this floor is the library where he studied and the court room 
 where he urged the causes of his clients. Near by stands 
 the magnificent monument to Indiana's martyrs, and a noble 
 building dedicated to what he believed to be just principles 
 of government. Both owe much to his suggestion and pow- 
 erful advocacy. Not far away are other court rooms where 
 his ringing voice seems yet to echo. At our feet lies a stately 
 city that he saw grow almost from a village. There are the 
 26 
 
public halls where, on great occasions, his voice was so 
 often the trumpet call to duty, and the school-houses where 
 gather the children who loved him. 
 
 Every day of these long years his simple, manly, open 
 life has strengthened every impulse to personal and civic 
 virtue. Every good cause has had in him an earnest and 
 efficient champion. He did much to make his home "no mean 
 city," but one distinguished for benevolence and all good 
 works. No, my friends, not here, not here ! I can not judge 
 Manlius in sight of the capitol. 
 
 BY HONORABLE WILLIAM R. GARDINER. 
 
 Mr. Chairman — When one of the controlling spirits in 
 a great enterprise dies, the enterprise is, to that extent, weak- 
 ened, but when the master spirit is stricken down, the loss 
 is immeasurable. We stand to-day midst the universal sor- 
 row of a common woe. We are called upon to witness the 
 touching verification of Webster's words : "When a great 
 man falls, the nation mourns." Those who are gathered 
 here at this hour to pay tribute to the memory of him, who, 
 though lying dead, yet lives, and shall live forever, have, by 
 personal contact in one of the arenas where the earthly rights 
 of men are solved, enjoyed superior opportunities to observe, 
 to study, to know and to measure the character of the great 
 man, to whose greatness millions, with bowed and uncovered 
 heads, stand to testify. Individual attestations of his worth 
 from personal associations and relations, individual decora- 
 tions of sorrow, seem to me almost selfish. Those are noble 
 manifestations of the sympathy of the heart in condolences, 
 but I take it that no man can properly stand by the broad 
 27 
 
 I 
 
way so justly and so heroically trod by the gifted Indianian, 
 and claim more than a citizen's share of the luster of his 
 fame, for the people of all the land with one accord acknowl- 
 edge him their common king. He did not agree, I am told, 
 on one occasion, when some other distinguished brethren 
 expressed the wish that their end might come without warn- 
 ing and without pain. It seemed to him that it were better 
 to have at least a little while within which to arrange the 
 drapery of the spirit before it should be ushered into the 
 presence of the great King. Of him we fain believe that the 
 drapery of the spirit is accepted, and we rejoice that the op- 
 portunity was afforded him for its arrangement before he 
 stood in the awful presence to receive the divine pronounce- 
 ment: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter 
 thou into the joy of thy Lord." How fittingly the above 
 expression typifies the exalted character of Benjamin Harri- 
 son. Careful preparation for event and for the performance 
 of duty he held to be essential in all those matters where his 
 conduct was to operate upon the affairs of other men. We 
 shall miss him in the flesh, but when the great trials are on ; 
 when wise utterances seem to be called for ; when courage 
 and patriotic duty and deeds are to be done ; when the 
 grandeur and the glory of our free institutions are to be 
 upheld; when the beauty and purity of Christian faith are 
 to be exalted, he will be there an inspiration. 
 
 BY AUGUSTUS LYNCH MASON. 
 
 I shall feel undying gratitude for the fact that, during the 
 last eight years of General Harrison's life, I was brought 
 into close personal relations with him. He honored me with 
 28 
 
his confidence and his friendship. It was permitted me to 
 make a close observation of his great genius. The prominent 
 quality of his mind was its equipoise. He was a searcher 
 for truth; he never rested until he found it. Speaking to 
 me once, he said : "Never state a proposition in a law suit 
 until you have tramped all around it and looked at it from 
 every side." At another time he said : "A lawyer who can 
 not see the strength of his opponent's position is dangerous. 
 The man who can only see one side of a question closes the 
 debate so far as his own mind is concerned. Such a man is 
 an unsafe counsellor." 
 
 Notwithstanding his great natural endowment of intel- 
 lectuality; notwithstanding the fact that his reason always 
 maintained with him a clear ascendancy, he was still a man 
 of intense feeling, and he recognized with unerring percep- 
 tion the part which feeling plays in the affairs of man. On 
 the occasion when Mr. Gladstone wrote his remarkable let- 
 ter, after the Armenian massacre, in which he denounced the 
 Sultan as "that wicked old man" and declared it to be the 
 duty of England to protect Armenian Christians from mas- 
 sacre, I spoke of Mr. Gladstone's letter to General Harrison 
 and asked him if he did not think that it was unimportant 
 because it was all mere sentiment. "Yes," said he, "it is mere 
 sentiment ; but sentiment rules mankind.'' 
 
 He had, indeed, profound sympathy for the weak and op- 
 pressed. On the evening of March 6th, immediately pre- 
 ceding the fatal illness with which he was seized on the fol- 
 lowing morning, I rallied him about his recent article on the 
 Boer war, saying that when he next went to England he 
 would not be a welcome guest at the court. "Well," said 
 he, with a quick flash of the eye, "I can go to see Krueger." 
 
 He loved little children. Every spring he spent many 
 29 
 
hours at the Summer Mission for Sick Children. He looked 
 after the arrangements for cooking and baths. He gave at- 
 tention to the size and comfort of the cribs and swings for 
 these children of the poor. He was a devout man, a believer 
 in God and in righteousness. He did not look on the future 
 of this country with untroubled eyes. He believed that 
 great perils were ahead of the republic. In his last con- 
 versation with me, before his illness, almost his closing sen- 
 tence was : "It looks as if force and greed ruled the world." 
 iet, he was no real pessimist. A few weeks before his 
 death we were talking of the utterances of a certain public 
 man. General Harrison said: "The trouble is that he 
 leaves God out of the twentieth century. In my judgment 
 God will have a large share in the disposition of events in 
 the twentieth century. Whoever leaves God out of his cal- 
 culations can not rightly judge of the future." 
 
 Although one of the greatest lawyers of his time, he can 
 not be measured by that alone. Neither is the fact that he 
 was president of the United States of supreme importance. 
 Our belief is that his chiefest service to his country was his 
 courageous advocacy of certain principles of government. 
 In his latest hours he stood for a government of limited 
 powers and against absolutism in whatever place and under 
 whatever disguise it w^as sought to be exercised. He in- 
 sisted that, in respect to the right of self-government and 
 independence, the weakest nation in the world is morally 
 equal to the strongest. 
 
 In the belief that his most notable service to the world 
 was his application of the moral law to the conduct of na- 
 tions, as to that of individuals, we commit his name and fame 
 to history. 
 
 30 
 
BY HONORABLE JOHN W. KERN. 
 
 Mr. Chairman — Under ordinary circumstances I am 
 averse to appearing on occasions of this kind. But I con- 
 fess that when notified last night that I had been selected as 
 one of the speakers this afternoon, I was gratified, because 
 it gave me an opportunity, as an earnest adherent of the 
 political part}' to which General Harrison did not belong, to 
 emphasize the proposition that all the people of Indiana are 
 in mourning upon this day ; it gave me an opportunity, as a 
 humble representative of nearly one-third of a million men 
 of Indiana, good and true, who did not vote as General 
 Harrison voted, to lay to-day a wreath upon his coffin, in 
 token of their regard for Benjamin Harrison as a man, in 
 token of their veneration for Benjamin Harrison, the patriot ; 
 it gives an opportunity for me to testify in this presence as 
 to the broad tolerance and great charity always manifested 
 by General Harrison toward his political opponents. He 
 was broad enough to understand that, in a free government 
 like this, at least two great political parties are necessary to 
 the well being of the whole people. And so, no matter how 
 heated the conflict, no matter how fiercely raged the battle, 
 General Harrison was always ready to yield to his political 
 opponent the same liberty of conscience he claimed for him- 
 self. It was my pleasure to attend the convention which 
 nominated General Harrison for president of the United 
 States. I shared in the pride felt by you republican Indian- 
 ians for the honor conferred upon him. It was my pleasure, 
 afterwards, when this population turned out to greet the 
 delegation returning home, in celebration of the event, to take 
 part in that demonstration, notwithstanding I was a candi- 
 date upon the opposite ticket that year, and recognized in 
 
 31 
 
General Harrison a most dangerous opponent. These things 
 were done with hearty good will, and, to-day, in the presence 
 of death, I thank God therefor. I first saw General Harri- 
 son on the occasion of my first visit to the federal court 
 room in this city, about the time I was admitted to the bar — 
 perhaps a little before. The celebrated trial of Lambdin P. 
 Milligan vs. Alvin P. Hovey et al., was in progress and was 
 attracting great attention. Milligan had been convicted and 
 sentenced to death by a military court-martial; which the 
 Supreme Court of the United States afterwards held to be 
 without lawful authority. Milligan's life had been saved by 
 executive clemency, and he, after his long imprisonment had 
 ended by reason of the decision of the supreme court, 
 brought suit against the military officers who had constituted 
 the court-martial, and others, for damages for false impris- 
 onment. Under the decision of the supreme court referred 
 to, there was no question as to the technical liability of the 
 defendants, and the real question before the jury was wheth- 
 er the plaintiff should recover more than nominal damages. 
 There were many lav^?yers engaged in the case, but I only 
 remember that Governor Hendricks was for the plaintiff and 
 General Harrison for the defendants. General Harrison's 
 argument in that case was in my judgment one of the great- 
 est and certainly one of the most effective ever delivered in 
 Indiana. It was a plea for his comrades, at a time when the 
 smoke of battle was yet in the air. He argued that they 
 could have had no malice— that, as soldiers, they were re- 
 quired to obey the order which detailed them as members of 
 the court-martial— 'that they were performing a patriotic duty 
 as American soldiers, and that it would be monstrous to 
 compel an American soldier to pay civil damages for obey- 
 ing the order of a superior officer. 
 32 
 
I have never forgotten the telling effect with which, in 
 this connection, he quoted those lines from Tennyson's 
 Charge of the Light Brigade : 
 
 "Theirs not to reason why; 
 Theirs not to make reply; 
 Theirs but to do and die." 
 
 No skilled elocutionist ever recited those words with great- 
 er effect than did General Harrison in the presence of that 
 j\iry— a jury which had no difficulty in adopting his view of 
 the case. 
 
 All Indianians followed the course of General Harrison 
 with feelings of pride. We always read with interest his 
 polished public addresses, and great legal arguments, and 
 when as a sort of culmination of his professional career, he 
 appeared before that great international court in Europe 
 with Sir Richard Webster— the present Lord Chief Justice 
 of England — as the chief opposing counsel against him, all 
 our hearts thrilled with pride as we followed his course in 
 that litigation and saw that there was more reflected glory 
 for Indiana in his conduct in that great contest. 
 
 Others will speak of his splendid record as a soldier of the 
 Union; of his great patriotic character as president of the 
 United States ; but it has occurred to me that if his military 
 record were obliterated, the history of his administration as 
 president effaced, his record as a public character forgotten, 
 still Benjamin Harrison would tower above most of his fel- 
 low-men because of his life as a model citizen and a Chris- 
 tian gentleman. 
 
 It will be remembered always, and it is perhaps the crown- 
 ing glory of his career, that whether in the great charges at 
 Resaca and Peach Tree Creek, in the presidential chair, or 
 
 LofC. ^^ 
 
in the great international court across the sea, with the eyes 
 of the world upon him — wherever he was, he kept his course 
 Heavenward all the time and never lost sight of the duties 
 he owed to his God and his fellow-men. 
 
 Brethren of the bar, the arrows of death have flown thick 
 and fast in our midst during the few years I have been a 
 citizen of Indianapolis. In that brief time the great firm of 
 Baker, Hendricks, Hord and Hendricks has been obliter- 
 ated ; McDonald and Butler have fallen ; Porter and Fishback 
 are gone; Napoleon B. Taylor, Solomon Claypool, Living- 
 ston Howland and Charles L. Holstein have been called to 
 their reward, with scores of others of our brothers of less 
 prominence. 
 
 It seems but yesterday that I stood within a few feet of 
 General Harrison as he presided over the meeting of the 
 bar, called to take appropriate action on the death of his late 
 partner, Mr. Fishback. How well we remember his tearful 
 eye, and his voice tremulous with emotion as he paid that 
 feeling and eloquent tribute to his departed friend. He ap- 
 peared on that occasion to be in perfect health, and his hold 
 on life seemed as firm and strong as that of any gentleman 
 present ; yet he is gone. Who is to be the next ? Aly breth- 
 ren, it is doubtless true that none of us can hope to attain to 
 General Harrison's eminence as a lawyer or statesman. His 
 equal in that regard is not here. But the humblest and 
 feeblest amongst us may hopefully strive to be his equal in 
 one important respect. We may emulate his virtues as a 
 private citizen, as a God-fearing man, a Christian gentleman, 
 so that when we respond to the dread summons, our brethren 
 can say of us that best of all things said about General Harri- 
 son to-day : "He was ready — he was not afraid." 
 
 34 
 
BY HONORABLE SMILEY N. CHAMBERS. 
 
 An intimate acquaintance with a man for twenty-five 
 years, bringing with it a sincere friendship, should enable one 
 both to judge and speak accurately of his qualities of mind 
 and heart. The man of simple habits, with love of, and de- 
 votion to, home life, dominated by religious faith, and occu- 
 pied in the performance of high duties, can not, if he would, 
 easily avoid a just estimate of his character by those who 
 are close to him. Peradventure, those farther from him 
 might misjudge him, taking reserve of manner for lack of 
 sympathy ; austerity for hauteur ; but at the fireside, in the 
 law office, during long walks and rides for purposes of 
 recreation, the heart is wide open to view. It is under these 
 circumstances true knowledge is acquired and strong friend- 
 ships are created. It is from this, to me, blessed relationship, 
 I speak to-day of our illustrious dead, so far as it is proper 
 to speak out of such a relationship. 
 
 The strength of General Harrison's life lay in the high 
 estimate by him of the value of the talents with which he 
 had been endowed. He did not overestimate the quality of 
 these gifts. In his view they were his sole inheritance, and 
 he was charged by his Creator with the high duty of their 
 best cultivation and honest use. It has seemed to me that 
 this conviction was the center of gravity of his great and 
 useful life and high accomplishments, around which all his 
 acts revolved in near or remote degree. Firmly anchored 
 in this sentiment, possessing a sublime faith in his Creator, 
 believing that accountability was due to him alone, he filled 
 every day with a conscientious performance of its duties. 
 It is easy, therefore, to see that from the beginning to the 
 end his life was growth — an unusual thing for one who lives 
 35 
 
almost his three score and ten. This fact has been empha- 
 sized by one of our most distinguished citizens on yesterday, 
 in what seems to me to be the noblest tribute of all : "More 
 than for anything else, except the high patriotism of his 
 latest utterances, do I honor General Harrison for the in- 
 centive to continuous growth afforded by his own beautiful 
 example of continuous growing." 
 
 What a solid foundation to build upon, and what a noble 
 structure of christian manhood our dead friend was ! 
 
 He borrowed nothing of success from his illustrious ances- 
 try. He had a just pride in it, but fought for and won his 
 own honors. There was no boasting of his lineage, yet it 
 was fully appreciated. In his home, for his own eyes, and 
 the joy of his family and friends, were pictures and souve- 
 nirs of those of his own blood who had wrought great things 
 before. But they were household penates, loved, venerated 
 and cherished, but too sacred for display and public gaze. 
 
 It is easy to see how such a man would value time. In 
 his view it was given him as trustee, the cestuis que trustent 
 were those to whom he owed the duty of service. He once 
 said to me: "I can not carry the burdens of duty as easily 
 as many men. I carry them very heavily." 
 
 These elemental qualities account in large measure for the 
 character of the man ; for his thoroughness in the perform- 
 ance of every duty that devolved upon him. They also re- 
 veal to us the reasons why he was not always received by 
 all men with acclaim. He had no time to throw away ; no 
 talents to waste on immaterial things. Hence he traveled 
 little. He had not crossed the continent until he was Presi- 
 dent of the United States. He did not go abroad until his 
 term expired, and then went as a lawyer engaged in a great 
 
 36 
 
trial. His years were full of labors and consequent hon- 
 ors. 
 
 I have spoken only of some elemental qualities of this 
 man. He also had many graces. The sturdy oak, burly in 
 trunk and strong in fiber, also has its branches and foliage, 
 beauty as well as strength. So this man's devotion to his 
 friends was true and steady as the needle to the pole, and 
 blessed all who came within the shadow of his great per- 
 sonality. His love of children was sweet and tender. I 
 have seen this manifested on many occasions in many years. 
 The tenderest memories I have of him are of this kind. 
 How the hearts of all the parents are touched by those ten- 
 der and pathetic last words to his little girl, "What wouldn't 
 I give to be able to take a walk with you ?" 
 
 It is told of him that, in crossing the ocean, when the sea 
 was heavy and the ship rolled so that he could not keep on 
 his feet, he sat in his berth all day long, with his little girl as 
 his companion, cutting and fashioning dolls from paper 
 for her pleasure and amusement. This man who had com- 
 manded armies, tried great suits, contended with the greatest 
 minds in debate, served as president of the United States, 
 honored of kings, the joyful companion of a little girl. It 
 takes a great man to talk pleasingly to children. 
 
 His devotion to his family was a benediction to all of us — 
 his friends — in this beautiful city of beautiful homes. 
 
 In these last ceremonies and tributes of affection, I can not 
 think of him as the general of armies ; the austere senator ; 
 the exalted president of the nation ; the fascinating orator ; 
 the great lawyer. All these attainments are submerged 
 and lost to view in my love for the man, the departed friend. 
 
 37 
 
BY HONORABLE CHARLES L. JEWETT. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen — The lateness of the 
 hour forbids that I should say more than a few words, and 
 I shall not employ that brief time in attempting to add 
 anything to what has been said in praise of the distinguished 
 man whose death we here mourn. Since the hour that he 
 passed away, press, pulpit and bar throughout the nation 
 have extolled and eulogized this first citizen of Indiana 
 until the vocabulary of praise seems exhausted. I prefer 
 rather to say a few words to my professional brethren upon 
 two thoughts suggested by words of Judge Woods on tak- 
 ing the chair and by remarks contained in the memorial ad- 
 dress read in your hearing. Judge Woods said that the 
 life and work of any eminent lawyer entered into and in- 
 fluenced the affairs of men for good ; and the memorial sug- 
 gests that the pageantry and the mourning is for the dead 
 general, the dead senator, the dead president, and that this 
 meeting is for the departed lawyer. This is true. Sitting 
 here I have thought, if we should go out and from among 
 the multitude single out any one, not a lawyer, and ask him 
 what were General Harrison's triumphs at the bar, what 
 were the cases in which he wrought good and wherein which 
 he established the purity and strength of truth, he would be 
 unable to answer. Yet, General Harrison spent the great 
 portion of his manhood in the practice of law, and was, dur- 
 ing the major portion of that time, easily the first lawyer of 
 Indiana, and the first lawyer of Indiana, as we know, — and 
 if we do not know it we gather from what has been said 
 here, — is easily the first lawyer in the highest test of a trial 
 lawyer. What is the thought that comes from this? And 
 we must gain, from General Harrison's death and these 
 38 
 
services, my brethren, something for our own future intel- 
 ligence and strength. The death of no man, no matter how 
 appalling its loss to humanity and his country,— the simple 
 fact of his death is of no value or importance to those who 
 live, except for the example he left, except as an added proof 
 of the great truth that all men must die, and as evidence of 
 the value of right living. This feature that I have mentioned 
 establishes the hard truth that the lawyer lives only during 
 his career as a lawyer. For others is the applause and the 
 memory of posterity. If the highest proof of this state- 
 ment is to be asked, I would give it in the fact that this great 
 citizen and brother of ours, whose remains lie below in honor, 
 is remembered for things entirely apart from the practice 
 of his profession by ninety-nine one-hundredths of all the peo- 
 ple of the state that loved him so well and honors him so 
 highly. Mr. Carnegie, in a letter the other day, when he was 
 likely bestowing money that once would have been a king- 
 dom's ransom, used an expression that struck me with pecu- 
 liar force. It was a letter he transmitted, in which he dedi- 
 cated to certain uses at Carnegie and Homestead five mil- 
 lions of dollars. He was speaking of the difficulties that 
 men of wealth experience in giving up business, and their 
 disinclination to do so. He explained this thing, so far as 
 men of wealth are concerned, by saying, and I thought it a 
 terse and capital saying, that the trouble with most men of 
 wealth is that when they have enough on which to retire 
 they have nothing to retire to. Men who have held the 
 highest position in the nation have, in the past, found diffi- 
 culty in finding congenial,, dignified, suitable and happy re- 
 lations after retirement from public life. History records 
 more or less welcome spectacles of the latter days of pres- 
 idents, but General Harrison had something to retire to, 
 39 
 
and what was that? The practice of the noblest of all 
 intellectual professions. And back to Indianapolis he came 
 and retired to that. He realized the truth of the statement 
 that it is perseverance that keeps honor bright. So he re- 
 turned to the practice of law, and became the first president of 
 our bar association. Therefore, he has exemplified in his 
 own life the truths that I would ask you to consider in con- 
 nection with this solemn occasion, for out of every event 
 we should get something more than eulogy. We should 
 gather for ourselves some inspiration and some strength, 
 because the mighty and noble dead, whose remains lie be- 
 low, needs nothing from us ; his fame is secure in the hearts 
 of his countrymen and in the archives of undying history. 
 But he came back to us, my brethren, he came back here 
 to the bar association of Indiana, and became its first presi- 
 dent. I remember when we met on the second occasion of 
 the annual meeting. Several worthy gentlemen were 
 anxious to be chosen, a most deserving ambition. It oc- 
 curred to me that General Harrison ought always to be the 
 president of the State Bar Association while he lived and 
 was willing to serve, and I suggested his second election. 
 It was taken without question. You remember how he 
 presided that night at the Grand Hotel banquet. The man 
 who had stood in the sight of the world, standing for Ameri- 
 can honor and patriotism in the solution of great interna- 
 tional problems, told me, as we left the hotel, that he had 
 never spent a more enjoyable, social evening in his life than 
 he had spent with us Hoosier lawyers there. It was because 
 of this wholesome love for his own people, his devotion to 
 the duties that were at hand, that Benjamin Harrison will 
 forever abide in our memories, the fragrant and gracious 
 recollection of a noble man. 
 
 40 
 
BY HONORABLE DANIEL W. COMSTOCK. 
 
 Mr. Chairman — I hesitate very greatly to occupy even a 
 moment of time. I have known General Harrison for some 
 twenty years, but not so intimately as many others were 
 privileged to know him. In the presence of his friends and 
 professional brethren, I certainly could not say anything 
 upon his brilliant career as a soldier and as a lawyer that 
 has not already been better said. The accident of distin- 
 guished birth in a republic imposes uncommon burdens upon 
 its subject. General Harrison bravely assumed those bur- 
 dens and added new laurels to a lustrous lineage and ances- 
 tral honors. It was his fortune to begin his career in the 
 community where he first took his lessons in the hard school 
 of the law, and it was his fortune many years afterward to 
 return to that same community and, surrounded by his 
 friends who loved and honored him in life, and who sincerely 
 mourn his departure, to seek his final repose. We know what 
 General Harrison was truly, and we truly know what he 
 did; but what additional obligation he may have placed 
 his countrymen under to him had he longer lived, we can not 
 know. It must be a source of sincere gratification to his 
 friends to remember that he passed away in the fullness of 
 his mental vigor, full of honors if not full of years. It has 
 been my privilege to live in that portion of the state in which 
 intelligence and probity in public and private life are most 
 highly approved. In that section of the state which long 
 years ago believed in the personal freedom of the citizen and 
 of the individual and made sacrifices in that cause ; in that 
 community and portion of the state which later, when the 
 integrity of the Union was threatened, entered into honora- 
 ble rivalry with other portions of the state in its defense, 
 41 
 
and that later, when the country was further imperiled, gave 
 to the republic the services of its favorite son, the great 
 governor of Indiana ; in that community, where purity of 
 public life is honored most. General Harrison has, for many 
 years, been regarded as a bright example. And, in the ab- 
 sence of worthier sons from that section of the state, I have 
 thought that it would have been in bad taste for me not to 
 have attempted, at any rate, however unworthily I may have 
 succeeded, to add my humble tribute to those already paid. 
 
 42 
 
I 
 
APR 29 1901 
 
LIBRftRY OF 
 
 i 
 
 CONGRESS 
 
 013 788 mi 
 
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