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MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 U 
 
 WILLIAM STOKES 
 
 i L . ■' >m S i ;a). 
 
 DELIVERED IN 1 HE 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATE, 
 
 FIFTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS, 
 
 First Session. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 
 1 |02 
 
E 
 
 
 JA.N 13 
 D, ofD. 
 
TABLE OF CONTEXTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Proceedings in the House of Representatives 5 
 
 Address of Mr. Lever, of South Carolina 
 
 Address of Mr. Hay, of Virginia 22 
 
 Address of Mr. De Armond, of Missouri -'1 
 
 Address of Mr. Jenkins, of Wisconsin 28 
 
 Address of Mr. Williams, of Mississippi 3° 
 
 Address of Mr. Elliott, of South Carolina 33 
 
 Address of Mr. Wadsworth, of New York 37 
 
 Address of Mr. Scarborough, of South Carolina ;•," 
 
 Address of Mr. Gilbert, of Kentucky 44 
 
 Address of Mr. Richardson, of Tennessee 47 
 
 Address of Mr. Johnson, of South Carolina .So 
 
 Address of Mr. Lamb, of Virginia 5 2 
 
 Address of Mr. Thomas, of North Carolina 57 
 
 Address of Mr. Candler, of Mississippi 60 
 
 Address of Mr. Talbert, of South Carolina 66 
 
 Address of Mr. McCall, of Massachusetts % ~ '■■ 
 
 Address of Mr. Small, of North Carolina 75 
 
 Proceedings in the Senate 79 
 
 Address of Mr. Tillman, of South Carolina 83 
 
 Address of Mr. Mcl.aurin, of South Carolina 90 
 
Death of Hon. J. William Stokes. 
 
 Proceedings in the House. 
 
 January 13, 1902. 
 
 Mr. LEVER. Mr. Speaker, it becomes my sad duty to 
 announce to this House the death of my distinguished prede- 
 cessor, Hon. J. William Stokes, late a Representative of 
 South Carolina from the Seventh Congressional district. His 
 death occurred at his home in Orangeburg, S. C, on the morn- 
 ing of the 6th of July last. Mr. Speaker, in his death this 
 House has lost a valuable and attentive member, his district 
 an able and earnest Representative, and his State a Christian 
 citizen. I offer the following resolutions: 
 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the House has heard with profound sorrow of the death 
 of Hon. J. William Stokes, late a Representative from the State of 
 South Carolina. 
 
 Resolved, That as a mark of respect to his memory the House do now 
 adjourn. 
 
 Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate. 
 
 The resolutions were unanimously agreed to; and accordingly 
 i at 4 o'clock and 55 minutes p. in. ) the House adjourned. 
 
 March 18, 1902. 
 
 Mr. LEVER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 
 
 Saturday, April 26, beginning at 1 o'clock p. m., be set aside 
 
 for eulogies on the Hon. J. William Stokks, late a member 
 
 of this House from South Carolina. 
 
 5 
 
6 Proceedings in the House. 
 
 The Speaker. The gentleman from South Carolina asks 
 unanimous consent that April 26 next, at 1 o'clock p. in., be 
 set aside for eulogies on the late Representative Stokes, of 
 South Carolina. Is there objection 5 [After a pause.] The 
 Chair hears none, and it is so ordered. 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 April 26, 1902. 
 
 Mr. Lever. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to now 
 call up the special order for to-day. being the eulogies upon the 
 late J. William Stokes, former Representative from the State 
 of South Carolina. 
 
 The Speaker. The gentleman from South Carolina, by 
 reason of the fact that we are within fifteen minutes of the time 
 set for the special order, asks unanimous consent that the 
 House now proceed to take up the special order, being eulogies 
 upon our late colleague, Mr. Stokes. Is there objection? 
 
 There was no objection. 
 
 Mr. Lever. Mr. Speaker. I submit the following resolu- 
 tions. 
 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the business of the House lie now suspended that oppor- 
 tunity may be given for tributes to the memory of Hon. J. William 
 Stokes, late a member of the House of Representatives from the State of 
 South Carolina. 
 
 Resolved. That as a particular mark of respect to the memory of the 
 deceased, and in recognition of his eminent abilities as a distinguished 
 public servant, the House, at the conclusion of these memorial proceed- 
 ings, shall stand adjourned. 
 
 Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate. 
 
 Resolved, That the Clerk be instructed to send a copy of these resolu- 
 tions to the family of the deceased. 
 
 The Speaker. The question is on agreeing to the resolu- 
 tions. 
 
 The question was taken, and the resolutions agreed to. 
 
Life and Character off. William Stokes. 
 
 Address of Mr. Lever, of South Carol:' 
 
 Mr. Speaker: To-day the ordinary functions of the greatest 
 legislative body on earth are suspended in order that members 
 of this House desiring the privilege may each add his sincere 
 tribute to the memory of our departed friend. The right to 
 add a single flower to the chaplet which garlands the brow of 
 goodness and greatness is esteemed a high prerogative. 
 
 For the time all else is merged into the desire to do full duty 
 to the dead, and, at the same time, leave to posterity a correct 
 record of the life and character of the subject of our eulogy. 
 The universality and sincerity of our sorrow buries all differ- 
 ences, harmonizes all discords, obliterates all partisan or sec- 
 tional lines, and each of us is glad to add his testimony of the 
 sterling worth of the great dead. 
 
 To me the sorrow is intensified by the deep personal loss I 
 feel. His wise counsel, personal and sympathetic interest in 
 my welfare, and his almost paternal guidance made whatever 
 success I have attained in life a possibility, and the reverence I 
 feel for his memory can not find expression. To me he was 
 the ideal Christian statesman and truth-loving gentleman, and 
 I can pay him no higher eulogy than to recite the unvarnished 
 story nf his life — its struggles, its hopes, its triumphs, its 
 virtues. 
 
 J. William Stokes, the first son of James .Stokes, was born 
 near Orangeburg City, S. C, on December 12, 1853. 
 
 He came of an ancestry of planters, his immediate progenitor 
 being a successful farmer and mill man. His intense love for 
 farming as an occupation and his interest in the fanner as a 
 class are the intensified and crystallized feelings of his ancestry. 
 
Address of Mr. Lever, of South Carolina. 9 
 
 an exemplification of the predilections of generations of his 
 family. To him the farm was the nursery of greatness and 
 goodness, the farmer the ideal of independence, morality, and 
 civic virtue, most nearly combining in correct proportion the 
 elements entering into the compositions of active Christian 
 citizenship. The philosophy of his public efforts was that the 
 happiness and prosperity of the American farmer meant the 
 contentment and well-being of the American people. 
 
 As a boy he was industrious and intelligent in his work, 
 obedient to his parents — doing the odds and ends of farm work 
 with that readiness and system afterwards so characteristic of 
 the man. 
 
 In the country and village schools he showed a quick and 
 investigating mind, given more to searching for reasons than to 
 accepting conclusions it did not understand. Mathematics was 
 his favorite study, though he loved the mysteries of logic and 
 reasoned with great clearness and precision. This prejudice in 
 favor of the more strenuous branches marked his entire course 
 in college and university, and showed its full development in 
 the winning of the Taylor scholarship in mathematics, a prize 
 much coveted, both in point of honor and money value, at 
 Washington and Lee University, which institution he entered 
 at the age of 19, graduating therefrom with the honors of his 
 class — a rare distinction. 
 
 By earnest application to work, faithfulness to friends and 
 the precepts of right and truth, by his unassuming though 
 dignified deportment, the strength of intellect and character, 
 he won the confidence and esteem alike of his fellow-students 
 and the faculty. He was an enthusiastic college man, filled 
 with the college spirit, and took an active part in its athletics, 
 society, and class work, and in the work of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association and Bible classes. In none of these did 
 he take second place. 
 
ro Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 His diploma meant more to him than an evidence of his 
 having completed certain prescribed studies: it meant his vic- 
 tor} - over almost insurmountable obstacles. The South lay 
 stunned, her future uncertain, her labor demoralized, her gov- 
 ernments unstable and unsatisfactory, the life and property 
 of her citizens insecure, and investments apprehensive and 
 development at a standstill. The social and political status of 
 millions of former slaves had been changed: society was in 
 chaos; opulence found itself reduced to poverty; money was 
 scarcely to be had at all. and never except at the most exorbi- 
 tant rates of interest. 
 
 Xii State suffered more of these'horrors than South Carolina, 
 and the devastations overtook all and fell especially heavy 
 upon the father of young Stokks. leaving him entirely unable 
 to aid his son in getting a college training. No young man 
 ever faced a darker future, nor did anyone ever meet it with 
 more self-reliance and Christian fortitude. Possessed of that 
 pluck that snaps its finger at difficulty, he managed to effect a 
 loan, paying 12 per cent interest, and with this borrowed 
 money completed his education, repaying it after his gradu- 
 ation. Thus early the indomitable courage of the man showed 
 itself in the invincible spirit of the boy. 
 
 Leaving the university with most convincing testimonials of 
 merit from president and professors, lie easily secured the first 
 position he sought — ass iciate principal, afterwards president, of 
 a fine school in Tennessee. During this first work his trials 
 were enough to overcome a less brave man. The president of 
 the school died, leaving unpaid the salaries of all his assistants, 
 Mr. STOKES included. Upon his accession to the principal- 
 ship of the school he assumed its obligations, giving his indi- 
 vidual notes and meeting them as early as possible out of his 
 next vear's salarv. Without a murmur lie bore these Strug-- 
 
Address of Mr. Leva, of South Carolina, 11 
 
 gles. a must beautiful consideration for the feelings of his loved 
 ones causing him to keep the knowledge of their hardships 
 from his home folk. But they were not without compensation 
 both to him and his fellow-man. 
 
 Adversity is not without its blessings. It brings men in 
 close encounter with the rough edges of the world, awakening 
 iu them a consciousness of their power, a confidence in their 
 ability to cope with its complex and difficult problems, and 
 emphasizes the most valuable of all lessons to the young man — 
 the lesson of economy. Lord Bacon says: 
 
 Self-reliance and self-denial — 
 
 And they are both the legitimate offspring of poverty — 
 
 will teach a man to drink out of his own cistern, and eat his own sweet 
 bread, and to learn and labor truly to get his own living, and carefully to 
 expend the good things committed to his trust. 
 
 This philosophy was most completely embodied in the life 
 of Congressman STOKES. Early and forced economy gave him 
 a most distinct and sharp idea of value. To him economy in 
 everything was a virtue, though he was by no means parsimo- 
 nious, being, on the contrary, generous to a fault. To him 
 Life was a trust estate, the conditions being that every moment 
 of time should be given in an effort to better the condition of 
 his fellow-man and to add some worthy deed to the sum total 
 of human achievement. To frit the moments away in idleness 
 and vain endeavor was to violate a sacred trust. Work was a 
 duty, a sacred command. 
 
 While the number of persons who owe their education to his 
 generosity, largely increased, no doubt, by his own early 
 struggles, can not at this time be accurately determined, it is 
 sufficient to say that all over his own and several other States 
 many "rise up to call him blessed." In his charity- he was 
 liberal to the full extent of his ability, adopting a system 
 
12 Life and Charade) off. William Stokes. 
 
 which is now being followed by his devoted widow, by winch 
 he was able to discriminate between the worthy and unworthy 
 applicants for his help. 
 
 He continued teaching in Tennessee and Mississippi for 
 man\ years, in the meantime graduating in medicine at Van- 
 derbilt University while teaching; near Nashville, and, though 
 hampered by the duties of the schoolroom, taking a beautiful 
 gold medal for a thesis on a given subject over a large number 
 of competitors. 
 
 He seemed, however, to have little fancy for the medical 
 profession, practicing it only a short time, the quiet work of 
 the schoolroom being more in keeping with his character and 
 the bent of his mind. 
 
 As a teacher he was eminently successful, many of the best 
 equipped and thoroughly disciplined schools of Tennessee and 
 Mississippi standing, even now, as monuments to his ability 
 and systematic organization. His students loved him for his 
 gentle firmness and patient sincerity. His kindly sympathy 
 and his inherent knowledge of the subtle influences entering 
 into and shaping every life touched a responsive chord in the 
 breast of the student body, as a result of which teacher and 
 student worked together in perfect harmony, disciplined by 
 mutual love and sympathy. 
 
 Doubtless his experience in organizing, disciplining, and 
 controlling children was of great value to him in the organ- 
 ization of men. The same tact and knowledge of human 
 nature are essential in each instance, for men are but grown- 
 up children plus experience and age. 
 
 In iSSi, while teaching in Tennessee, he married Miss Ella 
 Landes. of Fayetteville, a most refined and highly educated 
 lady, whose tact, thoughtfulness, and svmpatln in his work 
 contributed in no small measure to his ultimate success and 
 universal popularity. In everything she was his helpful 
 
Address oj Mr. /.ever, of So?//// Caroli?ia, 13 
 
 companion, resourceful, practical, and in thorough accord with 
 the noble purposes of his life. Their mutual devotion was 
 most beautiful and touching, and their married life of twenty 
 years one beautiful dream of happiness, a moon-lit evening 
 on the seashore. 
 
 He was preeminently of a religious turn of mind, and in early 
 life connected himself with the Methodist Church, giving to 
 it his most earnest support. He was a Methodist both by 
 choice and heredity, his name being among those of the most 
 influential members of that church in the State. There are 
 not less than a half dozen consecrated men of his name serving 
 the ministry in the Methodist conference of his State at this 
 time. He was more than a mere passive church member; 
 he was an active worker in the cause of the Master, a working 
 Christian. He saw in the church the appointed way to the 
 higher and better ideals taught by holy writ, and neither the 
 glamour of public life nor its burdens caused him to neglect 
 his Sunday school and church work. During all of his life 
 he was one of the strong stakes in the Sunday school, and 
 while in Washington regularly taught a large Bible class. 
 
 It was while thus equipped with a strong. Christian char- 
 acter, a classic education, a wide knowledge of human affairs, 
 and a keen and cultivated insight into human nature that 
 his father died, necessitating his return home to take charge 
 of the estate. 
 
 This event, sad as it was to him, was the crisis in his 
 political career. The political storm which broke with the 
 fury of a hurricane in 1890, arousing the most intense excite- 
 ment, was gathering rapidly. At Bennettsville, Captain Till- 
 man, now Senator Tillman, thundered forth the demands of 
 the farmer, and called upon him to assert his rights. 
 
 The Farmers' Alliance, which had taken deep root in many 
 ot the Western States, was beginning to find favor among 
 
14 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 the farmers of South Carolina, who were chafing under then 
 existing conditions and dissatisfied with the management of 
 vState and national atfairs. It was at this point that I >r. 
 Stokes became a factor in the great movement that must 
 ever remain one of the most interesting chapters in the histor} 
 of South Carolina. He saw in the purposes of the Alliance 
 great possibilities for the agricultural interests of the country, 
 and it was hut natural that his love for and belief in the 
 rights of the people should find expression in a zealous advo- 
 cacy of the part}' which he believed promised the most ultimate 
 good to all the people, and, like most of the great Alliance 
 leaders, gravitated inevitably into what was known as the 
 reform movement. 
 
 His comprehensive mind took in the situation in all its aspects. 
 The people were dissatisfied, restless, and demanding a change; 
 hut they were in a state of chaos, without organization and sys- 
 tematic leadership. These conditions had to be met, and he set 
 himself at once to the work of organizing the farmers of his 
 county into Alliances, having for their purpose social and indus- 
 trial improvement. Into this work he entered with all his mind 
 and soul, bringing to it his wide experience in dealing with men 
 and his vast accumulation of economic knowledge. 
 
 His enthusiasm was not of the kind born of ulterior motives. 
 He was fighting for principle. In this work he met with remark- 
 able success, ami his great ability as an organizer found ready 
 recognition throughout the State. About this time he bought 
 the Cotton Plant, making it the official organ of the Alliance. 
 As its editor he showed his full acquaintance with the great 
 issues then agitating public thought and his intense love lot the 
 people. His style was clear, logical, and plain, his statements 
 fair and honest, appealing always to the reason of his readers. 
 
 His promotion continued. He was elected State organizer of 
 the Alliance, the most prominent place on the lighting line: and 
 
Address of Mr. Lever, of South Caroli?ia. 15 
 
 later became its president, holding the latter position for several 
 terms. He was the great leader of the Alliance, a fearless and 
 aggressive fighter, a cautious and conservative counselor, armed 
 at all points with facts and authorities and the equal in point of 
 equipment to any foeman or occasion. He applied the cold 
 steel of argument to the position of his adversaries and met their 
 assaults in kind. His prominence drew upon him the full fire 
 of the opposition; but no amount of criticism, sarcasm, or ridi- 
 cule could diminish his zeal for the cause, or induce him to 
 modify to the extent of a "jot or tittle" the demands of his 
 organization. 
 
 He stood steady through it all and directed his forces with a 
 judgment almost unerring. He was calm, calculating, judg- 
 matic—quick to seize a strategic point or profit by a tactical 
 blunder, neither allowing his judgment to become befogged by 
 enthusiasm nor permitting an infatuation with an idea to warp 
 his reason or entrap his conscience. His ultimate and complete 
 leadership in the organization was assured, and from this time 
 on he became the loved oracle of the farmers' organization. 
 
 It is not in place at this time to discuss the merits of that 
 controversy nor the fruits of that movement. It is sufficient 
 for the generations who may wish to study his life to "point a 
 moral or adorn a tale" to know that he won the complete con- 
 fidence and esteem of his followers by a fearless and faithful 
 adherence to his conception of right and merited the respect 
 and admiration of his opponents by the fairness and catholicity 
 characterizing his attitude toward them. 
 
 It is a most distinct testimonial of the purity of his character 
 that at this period of extreme bitterness no word was ever 
 uttered in assault upon it, or the integrity of his purposes. 
 His most bitter political enemy conceded his high moral char- 
 acter and patriotic sincerity. His partisanship was so tem- 
 pered with conservatism and a proper regard for the opinions 
 
16 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 of others that when the smoke of that bitter conflict had cleared 
 away there was no one unwilling to testify to his ability, fair- 
 ness, and manly conduct. 
 
 He was elected to the State senate in 1S90, after a thorough 
 canvass of his county, defeating one of its most brilliant and 
 honored sons. In the senate he was generally recognized as 
 a strong, thoughtful, and conservative man, possessing well- 
 defined convictions on public questions and in most thorough 
 accord with the dominant thought of the State. His eminent 
 services in the senate made him the logical candidate of the 
 farmers for the Democratic nomination for Congress in 1892. 
 
 He was opposed by Hon. W. H. Brawley, at present a dis- 
 trict judge, and was declared defeated by a small majority. In 
 this campaign his great powers as a debater first showed them- 
 selves to advantage. His opponent was a past master in the 
 art of disputation, eloquent, resourceful, and adroit, while he 
 was untried and untrained. But when the clash came, before 
 great popular audiences, where the pulse beat is high and true, 
 the great ability and tremendous earnestness of the farmers' 
 champion supplied his lack of prior training, and he proved 
 himself the full equal of his opponent in every respect. 
 
 Congressman Brawley. having been appointed district judge 
 by President Cleveland, resigned his seat. 
 
 Undaunted by defeat, confident of the correctness of his 
 conclusions and of their ultimate triumph, loved as he was 
 by his followers, he again became their standard bearer for the 
 unexpired term, and was again defeated for the nomination, 
 by a decreased majority, by Judge James F. Izlar, an able 
 jurist, an impelling orator, and a most popular man with the 
 masses. 
 
 These- reverses did not diminish his optimism nor lessen his 
 faith in the final success of the principles he advocated: and 
 
Address of Mr. Lever, of South Carolina. 17 
 
 though thus defeated, his ability and sincerity had so impressed 
 the leadership of the State that the State convention of 1892 
 elected him a delegate at large to the national Democratic 
 convention, and the same year he was an elector on the 
 Democratic ticket. 
 
 1 11 1S94 he received the Democratic nomination for Congress 
 without opposition, being opposed in the general election by 
 T. B. Johnson, a white Republican, who, failing of a majority 
 in the election, appealed his case to the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, which, in the final determination of the issue, 
 declared the seat vacant. In 1S96 he was again awarded the 
 certificate of election for both the unexpired term of the 
 Fifty-fourth Congress and the full term of the Fifty-fifth, 
 and again Mr. Johnson contested his seat, though the case 
 abated upon the death of the contestant. 
 
 He was a member of the constitutional convention in 1895, 
 and was one of the leaders of that body, contributing largely 
 to the high character of its debates and serving with distinc- 
 tion on its most important committees. Feeling the immense 
 responsibility of this position and the necessary permanency 
 of the work, he spared neither mental nor physical effort to 
 inform himself to the end that he might act wisely and for 
 the best interests of the State. 
 
 He was elected to the Fifty-sixth Congress without oppo- 
 sition, though his nomination by his party was contested 
 by Hon. Thomas F. Brantley. He received the unanimous 
 nomination of his party in 1900 — the most convincing testi- 
 monial of his good service and the confidence of his people — 
 and in the general election had only a farcical opposition, which 
 met little encouragement from the more respectable element 
 of the Republican party in the district. 
 
 As a Congressman he gave his entire time to his duties. 
 H. Doc. 71 ; 2 
 
iS Lit < and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 Regular in attendance upon the sessions of his committees 
 and the House; attentive to the work of the departments: 
 prompt in answering the demands, however trivial, of his 
 constituents, however humble; alert to the needs of his dis- 
 trict, he was at the same time a close student of economic 
 conditions, an original thinker, and an honest and elaborate 
 investigator, in full sympathy with the conservative ideas of 
 the age and intensely devoted to the cause of the people. 
 
 His intimate and accurate knowledge of the needs of his 
 people convinced him that he could serve them in no more 
 practical and material way than by giving better mail facil- 
 ities to rural communities, and he resurrected the idea of 
 rural free delivery. The system had been getting a desultory 
 support from several preceding Congresses, but was languish- 
 ing for lack of earnest and aggressive sympathizers. In a 
 carefully prepared and exhaustive speech he called attention 
 to the needs of the farmer in this respect, and pointed out 
 the great and beneficent possibility of a perfected system of 
 rural free delivery. 
 
 The effect is known and appreciated by the 10,000,000 
 farmers daily served by the system. It is his greatest work, 
 his most lasting triumph, his best legacy to the generations 
 that must ever and ever receive its increasing and multiplied 
 benefits. This, together with his authorship of the idea of 
 free delivery on star routes, and his fight against gambling in 
 cotton futures, gave him a reputation unbounded by district 
 and vState lines, and it even went beyond the seas. 
 
 He was intensely patriotic in his work, his vote at all 
 times representing the concurrence of his reason and con- 
 science. No command of partisanship could ever drive him 
 into committing the national conscience to an ethical wrong. 
 
 He was greatly loved by the membership of the House for 
 liis purity of character and faithfulness to every obligation, 
 
Address of Mr. Lever, of South Carolina. 19 
 
 and the spontaneous and sincere expressions of regret for his 
 taking off were eloquent tributes to his worth. 
 
 He was neither a genius nor an orator in the ordinary ac- 
 ceptation of tin ise terms. He was a powerful and effective 
 debater, a strong controversialist, quick to detect a weak point 
 in a line of defense, and as alert to marshal his forces against 
 it, though he lacked the rich imagination, the nervous energy, 
 the command of soul-stirring language, and the personal pres- 
 ence which give the orator the power to touch the hidden 
 chords of the emotions and for the moment still the voice 
 of reason. 
 
 His intellect was of the steady, substantial kind, without 
 the meteoric brilliancy which enchains the emotions momen- 
 tarily and then goes out in darkness. He was a most able 
 man, both by natural endowment and judicious training, con- 
 servative in his opinion, safe in his judgment, and content to 
 take a practical and human view of things. In his extraor- 
 dinary capacity for work he was most undoubtedl}' a genius. 
 His well-stored, well-poised mind was the effect of his zeal 
 and perseverance in equipping, cultivating, enriching, and 
 expanding it. He made the very best use of his natural 
 endowments, and this constituted whatever genius he pos- 
 sessed; and it is this kind of genius that is in the reach of 
 everyone who will pay its price — conscientious, honest labor. 
 
 He was a good man, an accommodating neighbor, a devoted 
 son, a tender husband, and thoughtful friend and Christian 
 citizen, and an able statesman, whose influence upon every 
 community in which he lived was most salutary. To touch 
 the circle of his influence was to have the soul raised heaven- 
 ward. He bound his friends to him with hooks of steel, and 
 their loyalty to him alive and to his memory dead is the 
 highest tribute to his unselfish and generous character. The 
 Golden Rule was his rule of conduct toward his fellow-man. 
 
2o Life and Character of J. William Slakes. 
 
 To the young man struggling against the tide, baffled, dis- 
 couraged, and despairing, his life is a hope, an inspiration, and 
 an exemplification of the maxim, "The gods sell everything 
 for labor." Preferments came to him as victories: fortune 
 never smiled upon him. Each higher position in the public 
 esteem was but a natural evolution, a just recognition of his 
 faithfulness and ability in the discharge of less responsible 
 duties. He literally won succe^--. 
 
 "Tis not in mortals to command success, 
 
 But we*ll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it. 
 
 His death was pathetically sad, coming at a time when he 
 had reached the prime development of mental and moral man- 
 hood, the full embodiment of civic virtue and Christian char- 
 acter. The difficulties of young manhood had ceased to be an 
 unpleasant memory in the grand triumphs and honors of full 
 maturity; partisan and factional bitterness had yielded to the 
 nobler feeling of reconciliation, and he had found solid lodg- 
 ment in the affections of all his people, being stronger in 
 their love at the time of his death than at any time during 
 his career. 
 
 The full stature of the man was beginning to break upon 
 tlie people of his State, and the fondest dream of his ambi- 
 tion — the honor of representing his great State in the Senate 
 of the United States — in all probability would have found an 
 early realization in the expressed will of his people. But how 
 uncertain are human calculations. 
 
 For several years prior to his death his health had been fail- 
 in-, and for months immediately preceding it he was confined to 
 his room, where tender and intelligent care did all in its power 
 for him. He continued to sink, despite the efforts of the best 
 physicians in the State. The worry, confinement, and constant 
 mental and physical strain incident to public life had made 
 
Address of Mr. Lever, of South Carolina. 2\ 
 
 irreparable inroads upon his constitution and it was too weak 
 to withstand the assaults of disease. 
 
 He had literally worn himself out in the service of his people, 
 and on July 6, iqoi, at 5 o'clock in the morning, the hour when 
 darkness salutes the dawn and bids her welcome to her place, 
 death came. With a calmness and serenity born of Christian 
 fortitude and hope and faith he faced the ordeal of his disso- 
 lution, and even in this dread hour the old familiar smile, so 
 dear to those who knew him, rested on his face, giving an 
 assurance that the bright star of earthly existence had only 
 sunk into the more brilliant dawn of a new and better life. 
 
 It is a sweet thought — the thought of immortality — the belief 
 that death is only the beginning of a brighter and more joyous 
 life, the faith in the promise that those who keep His command- 
 ments shall meet again in the "house of many mansions." 
 Such a kind philosophy dispels the gloom of the grave and 
 brings a solace and an assurance to the broken-hearted and 
 disconsolate. 
 
 A great statesman has gone, and his greatest monument will 
 be the heritage he has left posterity in the example of a faithful. 
 Christian life. 
 
 As said he in eulogizing the late Senator Earle, so can I with 
 equal appropriateness say of him: 
 
 If I were to attempt to sum up in one term the quality which lay at 
 the foundation of his character, I could find no fitter term than the single 
 word "faithful" — faithful to social obligations, to political obligations, 
 to public obligations, to private obligations, to family obligations, and, 
 back of all, faithful to his obligations to his God. 
 
22 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 Address of Mr. Hay, of Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: Friendships made during a sen-ice in this 
 House are often very close, and the ties here contracted last for 
 years, but the dearest friendships are those made in college. 
 There we come to know intimately all the good and all the bad 
 about our fellows, and when once we leant to love and honor a 
 college mate no time nor distance can efface the impressions 
 then formed. I knew Mr. Stokes at Washington and Lee 
 University, Lexington, \*a., and was closely associated with him 
 while there. We roomed in the same house, were coeditors of 
 the college magazine, and were thrown constantly together. I 
 learned to admire, honor, and love him in those days. He was 
 gentle, yet firm. His was a character which commanded the 
 respect of all with whom he came in contact. He had the 
 undivided confidence of faculty and students, and was one of 
 the most popular students in college. 
 
 He took a high stand as a student, and left college with the 
 high regard of all. While I. at times, heard of him and from 
 him, I did not see him again until I met him in the extra ses- 
 sion of the Fifty-fifth Congress. It was a delight to find him 
 the same in character and in standing here as he had been 
 at college — conscientious, hard working. Representing with 
 fidelity his constituents, having the confidence of his associates 
 on this floor, and playing his part here with distinguished 
 merit, he had the profound regard of all the members of 
 this House. 
 
Address of Mr. Hay, of Virginia. 23 
 
 His death was most untimely. In the flower of his age, at 
 the height of his usefulness, in the fullness of experience, he 
 was taken from that sphere of action in which he was dis- 
 playing the sound common sense, the graceful tact, which 
 were his characteristics. We can but deplore his taking off 
 and mingle our tears with those of his people, who honored 
 him and whom he honored. 
 
24 Life and Character of J, William Stokes. 
 
 Address of Mr. De Armond, of Missouri. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: The proud State of South Carolina lias fur- 
 nished to the country many distinguished men and made a 
 great deal of history. Among those whom she sent to public 
 life perhaps no one deserves to stand higher as a modest gentle- 
 man and faithful representative than our departed friend, to 
 whose memory we pay tribute to-day. 
 
 It is common in eulogies to exaggerate; indeed, it is common 
 to deny to people while living credit for the good qualities 
 which they possess, and common after they have departed from 
 life to attribute to them good qualities which they did not pos- 
 sess. Thus we often do injustice to the living and do more 
 than justice to the memory of the dead, withhold the kindly 
 word and generous commendation when they might be of value, 
 and spout fulsome praise when praise is useless. 
 
 What has been said to-day, touchingly and appropriately, by 
 the young member from South Carolina [Mr. Lever] who suc- 
 ceeded our departed friend lias also been said truthfully, and 
 therefore it is really a fitting tribute, full and just, to the good 
 man who has gone hence. Dr. STOKES possessed in a marked 
 degree the amiable and excellent qualities of manhood. He 
 was modest and firm; he was true and faithful. It has been 
 said of him very justly that in this House he had not a foe and 
 that every man who knew him was his friend. He gave offense 
 to no one, he did wrong to no one, he spoke harshly of no one, 
 he felt ill toward no one. He was singularly free from malevo- 
 lence and envy and jealousy and all disposition to harm any of 
 
Address of Mr. De Armond, of Missouri. 25 
 
 God's creation. He possessed in a notable degree, upon the 
 contrary, the inclination to help, to treat kindly, to advance, to 
 build up. 
 
 I did not know Dr. Stokes until he came to this body as a 
 member of it. I saw all sides of him and learned to know a 
 good deal of his character during the time when the contest 
 over his seat was pending in this House. No one who has not 
 had the experience of a contest can fully understand or properly 
 appreciate what care and anxiety and vexation it may bring. 
 The mere observer can only judge of it partially and imper- 
 fectlv. When the contest is on, when bitterness frequently is 
 aroused, when often unfair things are attempted and unkind 
 things are frequently said, it is not remarkable to find one 
 engaged in such a contest giving the rein to his malevolent 
 feelings, if he have any, and suppressing his kindly and more 
 generous sentiments. As a member of the committee which 
 considered and reported upon the election contest of Johnston 
 against Stokes I was most favorably impressed, as I think every 
 member of the committee was, by the honorable bearing of 
 Dr. Stokes. 
 
 Not a solitary thing, in private conversation or publicly, in 
 committee or in the House, ever escaped his lips calculated to 
 show the least feeling against the contestant or the least desire 
 for anything but a fair consideration of his case. He was calm, 
 good-humored and fair, generous and kindly, through it all. 
 He had no doubt about the fact of his election, and he had a 
 confidence that fair play would be done him in the House. 
 When the decision was finally reached, which denied to the 
 contestant the seat and, removing the contestee from it, vacated 
 the seat, he left for his South Carolina home without exhibit- 
 ing any evidence of the least bitterness or disappointment, and, 
 I am sure, without an unkind feeling toward anybody in the 
 
Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 House, anybody in his own State, or anybody in the wide 
 world. 
 
 Dr. Stokes was a singularly modest and diffident man. won- 
 derfully considerate of the feelings and the rights of all others; 
 one who would rather suffer the deprivation of some of his own 
 rights and privileges than, by any chance or any accident, 
 trench upon those of others. He passed in and out of the 
 House pursuing his duties quietly, unostentatiously, and 
 faithfully. 
 
 South Carolina may have had— doubtless has had — more 
 brilliant Representatives, but she never had a more faithful 
 one or one better disposed to the performance of every duty. 
 She has sent to this body and into public life many men of 
 high qualities and chivalrous bearing, but never, I think, did 
 she have in public life a man more faithful to her interests, 
 more blameless throughout his whole public and private life, 
 than the man to whose memory we pay tribute to-day. 
 
 A good man has gone; a faithful servant has been removed 
 from a service valuable to his constituents. He has left a 
 good record at home, a good record here, and I verily believe 
 that every man, woman, and child who knew him remembers 
 him kindly. I am sure that not one with whom he came in 
 contact has a bitter, revengeful, or unkind feeling toward him. 
 He earned a good name and left it a legacy. 
 
 Passing through life thus kind and gentle, doing good upon 
 every occasion and according to the full measure of every 
 opportunity, doing harm to none and wishing harm to none, 
 and finally, full of honor, crowned with the glory of a well- 
 spent and useful life, passing, when the sun was at meridian, 
 to the great life beyond, few have left and few can leave, 
 according to their opportunities in the spheres in which they 
 move, a better record — one which can be looked upon with 
 more pride and more pleasure by friend and fellow-citizen, by 
 
Address of Mr. De Armond, of Missouri. 27 
 
 relatives and by those unrelated — than that of the gentleman 
 who lately represented a district of the old Palmetto State 
 that gave him birth, honored him, and was served by him 
 and finally laid his mortal remains away in historic soil, 
 enriched by the ashes of the immortal dead. 
 
 I am glad on this occasion to pay my tribute to the worth 
 of the modest gentleman, faithful Representative, kind friend 
 ntle ways and blameless life, our friend, J. William 
 Stokks. 
 
28 Life and Character of J. William Stairs. 
 
 Address of Mr. Jenkins, of Wisconsin. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: I should not feel as though I was properly 
 discharging my duty if I allowed this opportunity to pass 
 without adding my tribute to the life and memory of the 
 Hon. J. W. Stokes. 
 
 It was my pleasure and good fortune to meet him at the 
 opening of the Fifty-fourth Congress, and I had every oppor- 
 tunity to familiarize myself with every phase of his nature. 
 
 His right to his seat was contested, and the case came before 
 a committee of which I was a member. This relationship 
 brought me in close contact with him. The hearing- was of 
 great interest to him. He was not only personally interested, 
 but he felt a deep interest in the result as affecting the State 
 which he in part so honorably and ably represented. 
 
 To his credit it can be said that he simply relied upon the 
 law and the fact to entitle him to succeed, and he scorned any 
 attempt to have influence exerted in his behalf, at the same 
 time fully appreciating the earnestness and kindness of his 
 many friends. 
 
 In the discharge of my duty I was compelled to ask him a 
 great many questions, to more fully develop his case. His 
 answers were always prompt, candid, and full, without regard 
 as to how they affected him. While opposed to me in politics, 
 I appreciated the care with which he investigated all public 
 questions, and he tried to and did represent his people, his 
 State, and his country, in a strong, able, and dignified 
 manner. 
 
 He was rapidly developing as a close student and an able 
 
Address of Mr. Jenkins, of Wisconsin. 29 
 
 and just legislator. His utterances were always manly, pure, 
 and elevating, showing the nobleness of genuine Christian 
 character. 
 
 I was greatly pained and surprised to learn of his sudden 
 and untimely death. 
 
 In mid-life, a man of splendid habits, I thought he had a 
 great future before him, and did not realize that grim-visaged 
 death was hovering so near to summon him to eternal life. 
 
 Mr. Stokes came from a section of the country that needed 
 just such characters in public life as he was. His broad, 
 manly way in treating public questions, and greeting those 
 he came in contact with so cordially and so pleasantly, natu- 
 rallv made him loved and respected by all who knew him, 
 and did much for the State which he in part represented. 
 
 Knowing him as I did. I know that he lived a good life. 
 Appreciating his manliness. I know that the country met 
 with a great loss in his death. His manner was so quiet, per- 
 souallv unobtrusive, thoughtful and reflective in his nature, 
 that he endeared himself to all who had associations with him, 
 and it is perfectly proper that we pause in the discharge of 
 public business to fitly honor his memory by paying the last 
 tribute of respect to the honored and lamented dead. 
 
 Verily, a good and patriotic man has fallen! 
 
 His life was gentle; ami the elements 
 
 So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up, 
 
 And say to all the world, " This was a man! " 
 
Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 Address of Mr. Williams, of Mississippi. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: Philosophy has been defined to be "the con- 
 templation of death." Whether this be true or not it is certain 
 that all of man's philosophizing about other things sinks into 
 insignificance in the contemplation of the dread incomprehensi- 
 bility. 
 
 To what an exact equality of nothingness, when viewed from 
 an earthly standpoint, does it bring us all — rich and poor, wise 
 and foolish, great and obscure, studious and idle, virtuous and 
 vicious, king and lackey, emperor and bootblack! At the end 
 the ants have swarmed and fought, worked hard to store up for 
 a winter's day, begotten their kind, died, and given way to 
 other ants. 
 
 The flies on the spokes of the wheel of the universe have 
 gone round with the wheel, fondly imagining that they had 
 something to do with its evolutions, have some day unexpect- 
 edly dropped off, and other flies have settled there. If it were 
 all of life to live and all of death to die, if the race only were 
 immoral and the individual sank, body and mind, into the 
 hideous rottenness of death, who could find a rational cause to 
 prefer one course of life to another, except only to prefer pleas- 
 ure to pain, ease to labor, soft places to hardships 2 
 
 "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die, " would 
 be the only philosophy taught by " the contemplation of death , ' ' 
 except, perhaps, this: When life becomes misery, seek the 
 "quietus" of "a bare bodkin," congratulating beforehand the 
 leaser worms upon the feast you are preparing for them. 
 
 The very fact that mankind does not act and has never acted 
 on that theory is proof that they do not believe, have never 
 
Address of Mr. Williams, of Mississippi. 31 
 
 believed, and will never believe that the body is the man. the 
 tenement the tenant, or the destruction of the tenement the 
 annihilation of the tenant — in a word, that body-death stops 
 soul-growth. "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough- 
 hew them how we will." 
 
 There can, of course, be no physical proof of a spiritual fact, 
 and yet the spiritual instinct of mankind has led them ' ' at all 
 times and in all places ' ' to the great central truth on which 
 depends even earthly progress, development, virtue, civiliza- 
 tion — the only possible "working hypothesis" of life, viz, that 
 the real man, the .breath o: the Infinite within the tenement of 
 clay, can not die. Revelation only confirmed it, making a live 
 faith of that which was a philosophic as well as an instinctive 
 belief. It is this faith which keeps hope in the human breast, 
 and with hope the work-motive. 
 
 Xo man in Congress known to me ever lived a life or pos- 
 sessed a character more entirely molded in the mold of that 
 faith than William Stokes, of South Carolina. I served 
 with him in the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth and Fifty-sixth 
 Congresses. We were not only fellow-members, but fellow- 
 committeemen. It is upon committees that Representatives 
 learn best to know one another. Xo duty was so small as to 
 miss his attention: none so difficult as to make him shirk it. 
 Sweet tempered and patient in public life, he was affectionate, 
 loving, and temperate in private life, deserving, and to an 
 unusual degree possessing, the love of his family and his 
 friends. 
 
 He made no boast of it and never any ostentatious show of 
 it, and yet he was, as a matter of fact, one of the best educated 
 and most broadly informed men in the House. He was, mure 
 than that, deeply cultured in the highest sense. His mind had 
 dwelt much upon the humanitarianism of the Here and the 
 eternal verities of the Hereafter. The broad world-love of 
 
32 Life and Character off. William Stokes. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth had sunk deep into his heart and found 
 there an abiding place and a home. Mind culture had broad- 
 ened and deepened into soul culture. I will not say " May his 
 soul rest in peace," because he himself did not believe that rest 
 was the summum bonum of man's existence or the goal of his 
 destiny. 
 
 I would rather say: May his soul continue to grow in power 
 throughout all the ages of the "other time." 
 
Address of Mr. Elliott, of South Carolina. 
 
 Address of Mr. Elliott, of South Carolina. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: When, during the last session of Congress, 
 we learned that Dr. Stokes had left his post of duty to go 
 home on account of the state of his health, it never occurred to 
 me for a moment that he was in any real danger. And I had 
 this feeling because he was so self-contained, so thoughtful, so 
 resourceful, so wise in the solution of every problem that con- 
 fronted him, and so prompt and efficient in the doing of that 
 which his judgment dictated that it did not occur to me that 
 he would fail to overcome this clanger as he had all difficulties 
 that had confronted him. During my term of service here with 
 Dr. Stokes, extending over several terms, I had learned by the 
 closest and most familiar contact that he possessed all these 
 admirable qualities — qualities that might well justify him in 
 feeling that for him there was no such word as fail. 
 
 I did not know Dr. Stokes until it was my good fortune to 
 meet him here as an associate in this body. There were two 
 prominent circumstances that tended to bring us together from 
 the outset. One was that he then represented in great part 
 that splendid constituency of the Seventh district which had 
 supported me so bravely in many a hard-fought battle. We 
 had both been greatly honored by the same people; we had both 
 learned in the hard field of experience how to value their stead- 
 fastness, their integrity, and. more than all. their quiet but firm 
 determination to maintain at every sacrifice the predominance 
 of decent government. 
 
 Nothing was more natural than that we should be drawn to- 
 gether by such ties, and I know that our friendship derived 
 II. Doc . 71 ;, — 3 
 
34 Life a?td Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 strength from the character of the people through whom we 
 were bound together. This was one of the circumstances that 
 first made us friends, and a most pleasant one it was. The 
 other was of a different character, one that might well be called 
 the horror of Congressional life. We were both involved in the 
 disaster of having to maintain and defend in this forum our 
 right to the seats to which our constituents had elected us. I 
 would not refer to such a matter on this solemn occasion were 
 it not that our common misfortune, which entailed upon us an 
 endless amount of work and worry, made conspicuous the ad- 
 mirable traits of Dr. Stokes's character and first made me value 
 him at his true worth and have absolute reliance upon him. 
 From this time on until the end we were firm friends, and 
 our intercourse was of the most delightful character. And 
 the more I knew of him the more I liked and admired him. 
 For he was one of those men who, from their quiet and 
 unpretentious demeanor, must be well known to be appreciated. 
 He was absolutely without guile or pretense; he was as true 
 as steel: he was faithful to every trust: he was diligent; he 
 was sound in judgment and prompt in execution; he was 
 untiring in work; he was courteous to everyone, but firm as 
 a rock in the performance of what he believed to be his duty. 
 He never faltered, but kept on in the even tenor of his way 
 until the thing he had to do was done. 
 
 As I have already said, I learned never to associate failure 
 with our dead colleague. This was because he was a thorough 
 believer in hard, systematic work and had a wholesale contempt 
 for mere show and promise of performance. To this was due 
 the strong hold he had on his people, a hold that grew stronger 
 with each year of his service, until at the time of his untimely 
 taking off he had practically the unanimous support of his 
 district. And he deserved all this, Mr. Speaker, because we 
 who were familiar with his daily life here well know that there 
 
Address of Mr. Elliott, of South Carolina. 35 
 
 never was a more faithful Representative than he, and that his 
 constant thought was what more he could do for the people 
 who had honored him. 
 
 As in his Congressional career, so it was in his previous 
 life — all that Dr. .Stokes accomplished was by hard, untiring 
 work. Born in Orangeburg County, S. C, in 1S53, he was 
 brought up to farm life, meanwhile attending the county 
 schools until his entrance into Washington and Lee University, 
 from which he graduated in 1876 with high honors. In order 
 to pay off the debt contracted in procuring an education he 
 taught school a number of years in Tennessee and Mississippi, 
 and while so engaged in Tennessee utilized his spare time in 
 studying medicine at Yanderbilt University. 
 
 Notwithstanding this drawback, Dr. Stokes graduated at 
 the head of his class, and bore off from many competitors 
 the prize for the best essay. In 1S89 he returned to South 
 Carolina and to farm life, and was prominent in organizing 
 the Fanners' Alliance of the State, of which he was president 
 for two terms. He became State senator in 1890; was one of 
 the delegates at large to the Democratic convention at Chicago 
 in 1892; a Presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in the 
 same year, and a member of the constitutional convention of 
 1895. He was still further honored by his people by being 
 elected to the Fifty-fourth, Fifty-fifth, Fifty-sixth, and Fifty- 
 seventh Congresses. Those of us who did not know him until 
 we served with him here could easily understand that his 
 previous successful career, his promotion from one high trust 
 to another, were due to his untiring, unostentatious, and faithful 
 work. 
 
 To quote from one who knew him well: 
 
 There is another side of Dr. Stokes's life that is not generally known, 
 which accounts for the strong hold he had on the affections of the people. 
 Having no children of his own to care for and educate, it was his delight 
 
V Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 to assist others. There is many a young man to-day pursuing his college 
 course who will niis^ the assistance of Dr. Stokes. There are many 
 young men at home and abroad who owe their education to the kind- 
 heartedness of Dr. STOKES. Of this the public knew little, only those 
 interested in each particular case knowing the facts. 
 
 While in Tennessee Dr. Stokes married Miss Ella S. Lan- 
 dless, of Fayetteville, Tenii., a woman universally beloved for 
 her charming personality and most admirable character. Their 
 married life was an unbroken chain of complete happiness 
 riveted together by mutual love and esteem. From what I 
 know of his true and faithful heart I do not doubt that the 
 presence and tender ministrations of his devoted wife in his 
 last hours robbed death of its sting. 
 
 I can not obtrude upon what we all know to Lie a life sorrow. 
 Mr. Speaker, I esteemed it a mournful privilege to be able 
 to attest by my presence at the last solemn rites my admira- 
 tion of his character and my affection for him as a friend. 
 The vast throng there assembled, the evidence of sorrow 
 depicted on every countenance, the solemn and impressive 
 services of the church of which he had been for many years 
 a devoted and consistent member, all testified to the esteem 
 in which our dead colleague was held at his home. And 
 when we had given his body to its last resting place we knew 
 that we had consigned to the keeping of the soil he loved so 
 well all that was mortal of an earnest Christian, a devoted 
 husband, a loving son and brother, a true and faithful friend, 
 and an upright, honorable, and zealous public servant. 
 
Address of Mr. Wadsworth, of New York. 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. WADSWORTH, OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: It was my pleasure to serve on the Committee 
 on Agriculture with Mr. J. William Stokes during the entire 
 period of his membership in the House of Representatives. 
 
 His appointment to the committee was a timely, fit selection. 
 Mr. Stokks was brought up on a farm, and his knowledge of 
 agricultural conditions, especially in the Southern States, quali- 
 fied him perfectly for service on the committee which has all to 
 do with the Federal connection with agricultural affairs. Ik- 
 had a farm boy's love for country and a farmer's perception of 
 the needs of the calling. He was a close student of the agri- 
 cultural conditions of the country, not confining himself to the 
 section in which he resided, but showing equal interest in the 
 North and West. 
 
 No member of the committee was more attentive and earnest 
 in his duties. He was a constant and regular attendant at all 
 of the sessions and showed a keen, intelligent interest in every 
 subject brought up for discussion. As to his personality, Mr. 
 Stokes was a gentle, lovable gentleman, who made for him- 
 self a very warm place in the hearts of all those who came in 
 daily contact with him. Those of us who were fortunate 
 enough to have close association with him in the preliminary 
 work performed in the committee were, perhaps, better quali- 
 fied to judge of the character of Mr. Stokes than others who 
 simply saw him on the floor of the House. He was not a man 
 who was self-assertive, but was of such disposition that he 
 seemed to try at all times to smooth the pathway of others 
 rather than to put himself forward. Industrious and pains- 
 taking in all that he did, his gentleness of character endeared 
 him to all. 
 
38 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 The death of such a man in the prime of his life may not 
 cause great comment in the nation generally. It is likely that 
 the history of his State will he written with but a brief allusion 
 to the services for his constituents and his country, but the 
 departure from this world of such a character leaves a paug in 
 the hearts of those who knew him intimately which is not felt 
 when a man of more prominence and fewer lovable traits is 
 called away. I think I am voicing the sentiments of my col- 
 leagues on the Committee on Agriculture when I say that this 
 man has been greatly missed by all of his committee associates. 
 There are moments when legislative duties are forgotten; and 
 when we think of those who have joined with us in the past in 
 our deliberations it is then that we glance toward the seat 
 which he occupied and feel with keen regret that a kindly, 
 loving frieud has been taken from us and that we never again 
 shall have the counsel and advice of him who has been sum- 
 moned back to his Maker. 
 
Address of Mr, Scarborough, of South Carolina. 39 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. SCARBOROUGH, OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: It is eminently proper that we pause amid 
 the busy activities of life and drop a tear of regret on the grave 
 of a dead comrade. "One touch of nature makes the whole 
 world kin," and I apprehend that no one is so callous as to 
 feel no pang when a fellow-man yields up his life to the 
 grim destroyer. The universality of death does not lessen 
 its terrors. It is one great fact in every life which comes 
 without our volition, and despite our most earnest protest and 
 care. "The living know that they shall die" is the voice of 
 revelation which sings in mournful cadence in every ear. 
 
 Death makes no invidious distinctions. The smiling infant, 
 the sturdy youth, sweet-faced maiden, and aged, care-worn 
 man are alike its victims. It visits alike the disease-stricken 
 beggar on his pallet of straw and the wealthy prince upon his 
 bed of down. Rich and poor, humble and great, young and 
 old, all must die. "The rag of wretchedness and the purple- 
 robe of power find a common level in the democracy of death." 
 The child just budding into conscious existence turns from its 
 play and seeks safety in its mother's lap when it hears this 
 awful subject discussed or when it looks on the face of a dead 
 playmate. Young men and maidens become pensive and quiet 
 when death steals into a community and touches a friend or 
 companion. The man of business starts when he learns that 
 an acquaintance has been torn from family and friends and 
 carried to that bourne whence no traveler returns. The cer- 
 tainty of this dread visitation is the bitter in every cup of 
 happiness, the skeleton at every feast. And the unuttered 
 
4>i Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 question of every palpitating heart as it looks upon the face 
 
 of the dead is, "Who next'" 
 
 Nearly one year ago Dr. J. William Stokes, an honored 
 member of this body, was called to meet this king of terrors. 
 He met him like a warrior faces his foe — grandly, bravely — but 
 a new-made grave in Sunnyside Cemetery, in his much-loved 
 Carolina, is a sad memorial of the unequal contest. 
 
 As a member of the South Carolina delegation, I desire to 
 join my colleagues in paying tribute to one whom the people 
 of my State knew, trusted, and honored, and who died holding 
 a commission from them under which he sat in the Council 
 Chamber of the nation. 
 
 Dr. Stokes needs no eulogy from me. He established his 
 reputation at home by devotion to duty as he saw it. and 
 achieved an enviable distinction here by close attention to 
 affairs of state. Xo work belonging to the duties of his office 
 was too insignificant to receive his attention, none so great 
 as to deter him from attempting its discharge. 
 
 I had not the honor of an intimate personal acquaintance 
 with Dr. Stokes, and hence I shall speak of him as a public 
 character and from what I have learned of him as one of 
 the leading men of our State. 
 
 He was identified with the people — the great body of the 
 people — drew his inspiration from them, was their champion 
 at home as well as in this Hall, and while serving them in 
 the capacity of a Representative in Congress he was true to 
 the trust committed to his hands. He passed unscathed 
 through the troublous times of political revolution in our 
 State and presented to the public a character so pure that 
 no critic could find a blemish upon his escutcheon, a purpose 
 so noble that no opponent could successfully gainsay it. a 
 devotion to his party and friends so loyal that he will live 
 
Address of Mr. Scarborough, of South Carolina. 41 
 
 in the history of the Statu as one who merited all the honors 
 which he received. 
 
 < >thers, however, who knew him well, have spoken of his 
 virtues and pointed out the traits of character which made 
 him great; for, indeed, any man is great who, like him, lives 
 in the hearts of his countrymen. 
 
 A tew days ago I was shown a letter of condolence written 
 by a friend to the wife of the dead statesman. One passage is 
 so pregnant of meaning, and si 1 fully describes the perfection of 
 his manhood, that I will read it. The writer said: 
 
 In a State which has produced so many good men, I know of none who 
 had higher ideals of life and duty or who was more thoroughly con- 
 scientious in the performance of his duties as a citizen, his obligations as 
 a Christian, his pledges as a gentleman, his offices as a friend, and his 
 life as a man. 
 
 But there is one feature of his make-up particularly worthy 
 of note, and that is his lofty Christian character. It is too 
 often the case that political honors and worldly prosperity 
 wean men away from the Christian life and make them forget 
 that religion should be their chief concern. Xot so with Dr. 
 Stokes. Neither the heat of political controversy nor the 
 applause of the multitude could disturb his trust in God or 
 separate him from the deep and rich experiences of a conse- 
 crated life. The allurements of fortune, the seductive influ- 
 ences of high political position, were insufficient to turn him 
 from the King's highway. He overcame self, walked through 
 life with the tread of a conqueror, and kept his face turned to 
 the heavenly hills as truly as the needle points to the pole. 
 A life like his is an inspiration and his triumphal death a 
 benediction. 
 
 Near the banks of the historic Edisto, the scene of strife and 
 carnage in Revolutionary days, sleeps this truly noble man. 
 Neither the criticisms of enemies nor the plaudits of friends 
 
42 Life and Character of f. William Stokes. 
 
 reach his ears. Like a tired child he lies in the bosom of 
 mother earth, and after life's fitful fever is over he sleeps well. 
 Not far from his resting place, in the beautiful home he 
 builded, there sits a sad-faced woman whom he called wife. 
 Almost a year has passed since death robbed her of her loving 
 husband and protector. The frosts of winter nipped the flowers 
 planted on the grave of her gallant knight, who loved her with 
 all the ardor of his nature. Returning spring has recalled 
 these love offerings into life, and still she keeps her holy vigil 
 and longs for — 
 
 The touch of a vanished hand. 
 The sound of a voice that's still. 
 
 Her inconsolable grief is the most eloquent tribute to his 
 worth, and her bitter tears the most touching memorial of his 
 life. The State mourns him, and friends and neighbors claim 
 the right to share in the grief of the heartbroken wife. 
 
 He lies within the light of God, 
 
 Not a -,'nadow on his breast; 
 Where the wicked cease from troubling 
 
 And the weary are at rest. 
 
 Voting in years, full of purpose and energy, it seems almost 
 cruel that he should have been called from his half-finished 
 task. The summons came at midday, but it found him ready. 
 He had secured his passport, and without a murmur he stepped 
 into what we call the yloom and the shadow of the tomb. But 
 no wonder that he quailed not when he stood at the grim portals 
 of death. Years before, when life was full of hope and promise, 
 he had found the Holy Grail. He had been in the Vallej ol 
 Silence of which Father Ryan sang. 
 
 He toiled on heart-tired of the human. 
 
 And moaned amid the mazes of men, 
 Till he knelt long ago at an altar 
 
 And heard a voice call him. Since then 
 He walked down the Valley of Silence 
 
 That lies far beyond mortal ken. 
 
Address of Mr. Scarborough, of South Carolina. 43 
 
 Faithfulness to even - trust was the ruling principle of his 
 life. Knightly as the ideal gentleman of old to the woman 
 he called by the sncred name of wife; loyal to his party and 
 friends: true to himself, his country, and his God, he fell asleep 
 so gently that no trace of suffering rested on his manly brow, 
 and ' ' he died with a smile on his face as though an angel 
 had kissed him." 
 
 After all, the best of him remains — the record of a good 
 name and his lofty Christian integrity. He had fed his soul 
 on the bread of life and quenched his thirst in the living 
 waters. No doubts or fears disturbed his regal spirit or 
 shook his mighty faith. His stalwart mind caviled not at 
 the so-called conflicts of religion and science. To him one 
 was the complement of the other. He read 011 the pages of 
 each the history of his race from creation's dawn to life's 
 fitful close. Grand philosophy, beautiful faith! Each of 
 these twin sisters follow us through all the labyrinthine way. 
 Science stops pensive and sad at the tomb, drops a tear of 
 regret on the sleeping dust of humanity, and writes an interro- 
 gation point for its epitaph. Religion takes up afresh the 
 story of life and destiny and points to home and rest beyond 
 the stars, that move in stately courses across the empyrean 
 blue. 
 
 Full of such knowledge and inspired by such faith, the 
 
 lamented statesman went out with the tide, well knowing 
 
 that he would 
 
 Meet his Pilot fact- u> face 
 When he had crossed the l>ar 
 
44 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 Address of Mr. Gilbert, of Kentucky. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: We are called upon again to contemplate the 
 saddest, the strangest, and most inscrutable event in all of this 
 riddk- of human life— death. It would seem that so many 
 myriads of the living have ceased to move among us that the 
 few survivors would become accustomed to the inevitable and 
 look upon this cessation of life as the natural, normal, and 
 therefore the most uninteresting of all the incidents of our 
 existence; but it is not so, and we can not be made familiar 
 with this dread destroyer. Death, on the contrary, is always 
 new. and always startling, and always awful. 
 
 Into every grave we gaze with new astonishment and over 
 the lifeless form of every friend we stand in silence and amaze- 
 ment. We ask the same old question to ourselves which Job 
 propounded in the morning of history: " If a man die, shall he 
 live again?" And no sufficient answer has ever yet been given 
 to this greatest of all questions. To this question our experi- 
 ence and observation answer, "No." Science and philosophy 
 say "they do not know:" but faith and religion, supported by 
 the universal sentiment of mankind, answer, "Yes." But 
 whatever the answer may be, death still remains, sad and 
 inscrutable. It is sad when gray hairs and tottering limbs 
 warn us of its approach: it is sad when physical suffering 
 and mental decay make us welcome its embrace; but it is 
 sadder still, and saddest of all, when we see a young man sud- 
 denly snatched away in the prime and vigor of his young 
 manhood, leaving behind him a young and devoted wife, and 
 leaving unfinished so much of good that he might have accom- 
 plished and so much which, it seems to us, he ought to have 
 been permitted to accomplish. But at the grave our experi- 
 ence and observation count for but little. We bury there our 
 science and our philosophy, and we turn away, seeing more 
 
Address of Mr. Gilbert, of Kentucky. 45 
 
 \ through the tears and sadness of the hour the truth of 
 that universal verdict of mankind that if a man die he shall 
 live again. For do not that same science and philosophy teach 
 us that — 
 
 If a star were plucked from mi high, 
 
 For ayes would its light. 
 Streaming on down through the sky 
 
 Beam on our mortal sight. 
 So when a good man die-., 
 
 For aye-, beyond our ken 
 The light he leaves behind him shines 
 
 Upon the paths of men. 
 
 Then, it is nut true that either the good or the evil which 
 men do is oft interred in their graves. In the higher and 
 better sense the man does not die, and we have not buried 
 our friend the Hon. J. William Stokks. His body perished 
 and was buried, but the man lives on. His life work is left 
 and his monument has been erected, not of stone or marble 
 it may be, but in the memory of those who knew him, in the 
 influence for good he wielded, and in that molded, rounded, 
 useful life which passes not away. 
 
 I held it truth, with him who sings 
 
 To one clear harp of divers tones. 
 
 That men may rise on stepping-stones, 
 Of their dead selves to higher things. 
 
 The splendors of the Taj-Mehal did not increase the virtues 
 nor lessen the vices of the beautiful Indian ijtieen to whose 
 memory it was erected. Carvings in stone and sculptures in 
 marble can not alter what has been written in the Book of 
 Life. Our marbled pantheon in yonder hall adds not one jot 
 or tittle to the smallness or to the greatness of those whose 
 exterior images have been wrought in stone. Indeed, we are- 
 all sculptors of life, and the universe is one universal pantheon, 
 with a niche for each of us, high or low, as we may choose; 
 and we are all chiseling away, making our own monuments 
 with form and feature and lineaments of our own fashioning. 
 
4 6 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 It is therefore a pleasure, even in the midst of our sorrow, to 
 point you to the exalted niche which Dr. Stokes has carved, 
 and to look at the splendid lineaments wrought by him in a life 
 of honor and usefulness. He was as true to his convictions as 
 was that Roman sentinel whom the lava of Vesuvius could not 
 drive from his post. He was honest and charitable as a man. 
 He was tried and remained popular as a citizen. He was 
 faithful and efficient as a public servant, and. more than all, he 
 was kind, tender, and affectionate as a husband, as a friend, 
 and neighbor. 
 
 The poet was mistaken who said: 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, 
 
 And all that beauty, all that wraith e'er gave, 
 
 Await alike the inevitable hour. 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
 
 They do not lead but to the grave. They do not lead to the 
 
 grave at all, nor even toward the grave. Nothing valuable 
 
 that wealth or beauty e'er gave have been buried. Only gross 
 
 material things are buried. But as to the fine impulses of the 
 
 heart, the achievements of a life, the splendid accomplishments 
 
 of the intellect — there is no death. 
 
 There is no death! The stars go down. 
 
 To rise im Mime fairer shore, 
 And bright in heaven's jeweled crown, 
 
 They shine forever more. 
 
 There is no death! The dust we tread 
 Shall change beneath summer showers 
 
 To golden grain or mellowed fruit 
 Or rainbow-tinted flowers. 
 
 There is no death! The leaves may fall, 
 And flowers may fade and pass away; 
 
 Thev i.nh wait through wintry hours 
 The coming of the May. 
 
 There is no death! An angel form 
 
 Walks o'er the earth with silent tread; 
 
 He hears our best loved things away 
 And then we call them "dead." 
 
Address of Mr. Ricliardson, of Tennessee. 47 
 
 Address of Mr. Richardson, of Tennessee. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: The daily routine of our legislative work 
 is suspended once again that we may pay a brief tribute of 
 respect to the memory of the dead. 
 
 The young may die, the old must die, and the wisest of 
 us know not how soon. This time the member we eulogize 
 was not only my warm political ally, but I was proud to 
 name him in the list of the very first of my personal friends. 
 I had had the pleasure of an acquaiutance with him more 
 or less intimate for a longer period, perhaps, than any mem- 
 ber of this House, except some gentlemen of his own State 
 delegation. I met him first in my own Congressional district 
 in Tennessee nearly twenty years ago. It was while I was 
 a very young member of Congress and when I was strug- 
 gling to make friends and followers in my aspirations to 
 continue a member of this House. It was under these cir- 
 cumstances we first met and he became my warm supporter 
 and advocate. 
 
 You have already been told that Dr. Stokes was born on 
 a country farm, in Orangeburg, within the State of South 
 Carolina, in the year 1853; that there he grew to manhood, 
 enjoying the opportunities of the average country school such 
 as was found in his day and time in his State and through- 
 out his section of the Union: that he graduated from Wash- 
 ington and Lee University in 1876, and that he then entered 
 upon a course of teaching, which he followed until about 
 18SS, or a period of twelve or more years. 
 
 He was elected to the State senate of South Carolina in 
 1890. In 1S92 he was sent as a delegate to the national 
 
4 s Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 Democratic convention, which assembled that year in the 
 city of Chicago, and which nominated for President and 
 Vice-President Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Stevenson. He be- 
 came a Presidential elector in that contest, and made a 
 splendid canvass of his district for the national ticket. He 
 was then laying the foundation of his future career as a 
 Representative of his district in the Congress of the United 
 States. 
 
 He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 
 
 14, to the Fifty-fourth Congress, and reelected to the Fifty- 
 fifth. Fifty-sixth, and Fifty-seventh Congresses. By his death 
 he was prevented from taking his seat in this body in the 
 Fifty-seventh Congress when we assembled in this Hall last 
 December. 
 
 I believe he was a member of the constitutional convention 
 which framed the constitution of his State. In all these posi- 
 tions of honor and trust committed to his hands by his people 
 and constituents he bore himself not only with credit to him- 
 self, but with honor to those who gave their interests to him. 
 
 It is always sad to contemplate the loss of such a man as 
 Dr. STOKES. Men like himself can not be well spared from 
 public life, for there are too few such as he, who are willing to 
 give up the quiet ease and comfort of the simple home life to 
 engage actively in the turmoil and excitement of the hustings. 
 He was a modest, unassuming, Christian gentleman, who 
 improved ami elevated the society in which he moved. His 
 career in Congress could never have been what is termed bril- 
 liant or meteoric. He was of different mold. He was to be 
 depended on in all the emergencies where coolness, calmness, 
 and unimpassioned judgment were in demand to solve difficult 
 and trying situations and emergencies. In all things public 
 and private he was honest, sincere, and true. While engaged 
 
Address of Mr. Richardson, of Tennessee. 49 
 
 in his profession of school-teaching he found his way to Ten- 
 nessee and located within the limits of the district I have the 
 honor to represent on this floor. He taught school in two of 
 the counties which then composed and which now compose 
 my district. 
 
 There is where I first met him. and learned to love and to 
 admire him. It was while thus occupied and engaged that he 
 met, wooed, and won the estimable woman who was su1>>l- 
 quentlv to become his partner in life. In a modest country 
 home, surrounded by all that goes to make life pure and hearts 
 contented, they united their fortunes and lives. He could not 
 have been more fortunate in his selection, for while she brought 
 to him the heritage of a good name — there being none better in 
 our State — she was personally worthy of him into whose hands 
 she committed herself. As we utter these words our hearts 
 go out to her in the deepest and tenderest sympathy. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, in the loss of J. William Stokes this House 
 has been deprived of an honest, upright legislator, his State a 
 true and tried Representative, his country a broad-minded and 
 devoted patriot, his church a pious and faithful member, and his 
 widow a loving, tender husband 
 H. Doc. 713 4 
 
50 Life and Character of J, William Stokes. 
 
 Address of Mr. Johnson, of South Carol:' 
 
 Mr. Speaker: To-day, as we lay aside the regular business 
 of this ImmIy, as it is eminently proper that we should do, to 
 pay tribute to the memory and worth of our deceased brother, 
 we are forcibly reminded that death conies with equal pace to 
 the palace and the hut. Though I was not intimately 
 acquainted with the late Representative Stokes, it became 
 my duty as a member of this House to attend his funeral. Dr. 
 .Stokes was not a resident of the city of Orangeburg, but all 
 places of business were closed out of respect to his memory 
 during his funeral. All classes from every section of his own 
 and adjoining counties were there to show their appreciation of 
 him who had served them so faithfully and so well. 
 
 Of his services in this body I shall not attempt to speak, 
 because his colaborers are better fitted for that duty. .Suffice it 
 for me to say that a man of his moral. Christian character 
 could not have done less than his duty as God gave him light 
 to see it. This leads me to refer not to I >r. Stokes nor to 
 Congressman Stokes, but to Mr. Stokes, the modest, unas- 
 suming, Christian gentleman. The official clergyman at the 
 funeral read one of the beautiful Psalms of David, and stated 
 that it was the chapter read by Mr. Stokes when he erected in 
 his home an altar to the living God. Would that every man 
 in an office of honor and trust recognized his responsibility to 
 and dependence on God. and would erect in his home an altar 
 to Him. 
 
 Referring to the funeral, the text was: 
 
 For I know whom I have believed, Mini am persuaded that IK- is able 
 ep that which 1 have committed unto Him against that day. 
 
Address of Mr. Johnson, of South Carolina. 51 
 
 These were the words spoken by Mr. Stokes when the 
 chill, cold hand of death was upon him and he was entering 
 the valley of the shadow of death. What a sublime and 
 beautiful faith ; what a happy ending of life's battles ! 
 
 The highest compliment that can be paid any man is to be 
 able to sa}' of him that he was a Christian gentleman. I 
 believe that the late J. William Stokes was a Christian 
 gentleman. 
 
52 Life and Character of J, William Stokes. 
 
 Address of Mr. Lamb, of Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: In the meridian of life, with a promising 
 future before him, enjoying the confidence and respect of loyal 
 friends and a confiding constituency, surrounded with the com- 
 forts of home and the sweet companionship of a devoted wife, 
 J. William Stokes was called from earth to the abode of the 
 just. On the 7th of July, iyoi, a telegram reached me at my 
 home in Virginia, requesting my attendance at his funeral in 
 Orangeburg, S. C. It was a shock, but not a great surprise, 
 for I had observed with deep regret his declining health. I 
 shall ever regret that the information came too late for me to 
 join my colleagues from the other States and be present when 
 all that was mortal of our friend was laid in the silent tomb. 
 
 It was my good fortune to serve with Representative Stokes 
 on the Agricultural Committee. This gave me an insight to 
 his character and ability that a large number of this House could 
 not enjoy. We know and appreciate the strong ties of friend- 
 ship that are formed through association with the members of 
 our own committees, as well as the opportunity this association 
 affords for estimating the character of the members of the House. 
 It is in the committee room that the legislation of the House is 
 shaped and perfected. The quiet, painstaking work of the com- 
 mitteeman counts for much more than the speeches, too often 
 delivered simply for the effect they may have in the Representa- 
 tive's district. This was the work suited to the taste of mil- 
 deceased friend, and I bear willing testimony to his valuable 
 services in this direction. For this work he was well equipped 
 by training and temperament. 
 
 While for the most part we were in accord on the questions 
 
Address of Mr. Lamb, of Virginia. 53 
 
 that arose in our committee, I call to mind one important 
 subject on which we differed widely, and I bear in mind his 
 gentle forbearance when his own views were combated, and 
 his patience in listening to the arguments of those who opposed 
 him. 
 
 Our friend died with his harness on. On more than one 
 occasion I urged him to obtain leave of absence and go home 
 for rest and treatment. He was a physician and would have 
 given this advice to anyone else. I suggested to his watchful 
 and patient wife that she might be able to persuade him to 
 seek relief in entire rest, but her entreaties were in vain, so 
 determined was he to remain at his post of duty as long as 
 his strength would endure. Even after reaching home upon 
 the adjournment of the Fifty-sixth Congress he devoted his 
 time and taxed his energies for the welfare of his people. 
 
 I learned this through a rural free-delivery inspector who 
 laid out several routes for me in the fall of 1901. When I 
 ascertained that he had been through Xorth and South Carolina 
 I inquired after my colleagues and particularly as to the last 
 days of Representative Stokes. This gentleman spoke in the 
 highest terms of him, saying that he insisted on going with 
 him over every route, though it was apparent that he was 
 suffering and evident to all that he could not long stand the 
 constant strain that he seemed determined to put forth. He 
 was deeply interested in the rural free delivery, as the speech 
 he made on the floor of the House will demonstrate. I have 
 referred to his committee work; while this was performed with 
 diligence and effectiveness, he was ready on all proper occasions 
 to express himself with force and earnestness upon all questions 
 arising in the House. 
 
 His reserve and modesty were known to his colleagues. So 
 far as I could observe he was free from the twin vices that mar 
 human character — envy and jealousy. 
 
54 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 The wisest man who ever lived said, " Envy is rottenness of 
 bones." Again he said. " Who is able to stand before envy? " 
 Pilate knew that from envy the priests and elders of the people 
 delivered Jesus into the hands of the enraged populace. The 
 Philistines envied the amiable and gentle Isaac. Rachel envied 
 her sister. For less cause perhaps many a modern Rachel is 
 to-day filled with envy and uncharitableness. Joseph's brethren 
 envied him; and all over this land to-day, in city and country, 
 in church and state, in private and public life, men envy their 
 fellows. 
 
 Base Envy withers at another's joy, 
 
 And hates that excellence it can not reach. 
 
 Jealousy is the apprehension of superiority, and is often 
 converted into envy. Men who have served in the Army, 
 particularly officers, know something of this evil passion. It 
 has lost many battles and sacrificed many valuable lives. Men 
 in public life are often afflicted with this passion. In years 
 gone by it was a fruitful source of duels; now it finds vent in 
 detraction, misrepresentation, and slander. The Good Book 
 tells us, "Jealousy is the rage of a man." Again. "Jealousy 
 is cruel as the grave." Evil spirits laugh in fiendish delight 
 when, through the influences they appear to wield, they have 
 worked up a desperate case of jealousy. 
 
 Beware, my lord, of jealousy! 
 
 It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock 
 The meat it feeds on. 
 
 I come now t<> speak of his higher nature ami "holier 
 chivalry." A religious philosopher once observed that — 
 
 In Christianity, and in Christianity alone, can be discovered character 
 in harmonious wholeness; at once the "righteous man,'* high in the 
 practice of all social virtues, stern in the inflexible] adhesion to the utter 
 
 right; and the "g 1 man." who has won for himself a revenue of 
 
 affection, at whose name men's eye- sparkle and their spirits glow as if 
 a sunbeam arlinted in. 
 
Address of Mr. Lamb, of Virginia. 55 
 
 ( )ur friend possessed this "harmonious wholeness." He 
 was an earnest Christian. He preserved in his associations 
 and public life the same devotion to his religious obligations 
 that he practiced at home and among his friends. To resist 
 the allurements of the world and keep a conscience void of 
 offense requires strong convictions and resolute will power. 
 He who can safely pass this ordeal in public life is indeed a 
 hero and will wear the victor's wreath at the last. 
 
 No one can fully discern the spiritual relations between a 
 man and his Maker. We can only judge a tree by its fruits. 
 From all that we could see and learn of our lamented col- 
 league we rest assured that he kept himself ' ' unspotted from 
 the world . ' ' 
 
 We believe if a man die he shall live again, and that the 
 spirit of our friend has passed into the city of everlasting 
 peace. 
 
 His day is conic, not gone; 
 
 His sun has risen, not set; 
 
 His life is now beyond 
 • The reach of death or change, 
 
 Not ended, but begun. 
 
 Among the many lovable traits of character possessed l>y 
 our colleague, who has preceded us only a short time, perhaps, 
 to the spirit land, was his gentleness. This is no afterthought 
 of mine or those who unite with us to-day in these sorrowful 
 and not purely perfunctory ceremonies, but was observed often 
 and sometimes commented on, for every man here is estimated 
 according to his real worth and character. We would do well 
 to lay this thought to heart. 
 
 Gentleness is the crowning virtue of man. It is the sun- 
 shine of the soul. It is the beautiful blending of many 
 virtues. It conies from the heart and is not a product of the 
 intellect. It is often assumed, but, like every other counter- 
 feit, is sooner or later detected. It is the natural charm of 
 
56 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 women, but shows its true force or power in strong men who 
 have thought well and struggled hard for their fellows. Its 
 force is potential in the hours of sadness and affliction. It is 
 linked with sympathy and finds an active field in the heroic 
 struggles of the altruistic reformers of this age. 
 
 If ever you have looked on better days, 
 
 If ever been where bells have knelled to church, 
 
 If ever sat at any good man's feast. 
 
 If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear. 
 
 And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied, 
 
 Let gentleness my strong enforcement be. 
 
 In emulating the gentle virtues and shunning the weak- 
 nesses — if he had them — of our lamented friend, let us seek 
 to promote the welfare of those who have clothed us with 
 grave responsibilities, and in the end deserve the just tributes 
 we now pay to his memory. 
 
 With tender recollections of our departed colleague, we pray 
 that peace and happiness may follow her who bears his image 
 in her heart and binds his memory to earth. 
 
Address of Mr. Thomas, of North Carolina. 57 
 
 Address of Mr. Thomas, of North Carolina. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: Amid the cares and responsibilities, the tri- 
 umphs and disappointments, and the changing scenes of political 
 life, we pause a while to-day to pay a slight but appropriate 
 tribute of respect and love to one who for six years was an hon- 
 ored and esteemed member of this House and a faithful Repre- 
 sentative of his people and the State of South Carolina. 
 
 As the years pass like summer clouds, one after another cf 
 those whom we have known and esteemed in this House enter 
 the dark valley of the shadow of death and depart to that "un- 
 discovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns." 
 
 In accordance with the resolution of the House, we suspend 
 to-day its order of business, and remembering the virtues, the 
 patriotism, and the conscientious service of Dr. J. William 
 Stokes, we lay upon his tomb in the Palmetto State a wreath 
 of immortelles. I did not know Dr. Stokes so well as his 
 colleagues from his State, South Carolina, or so intimately 
 as those who served upon the same committees with him, but I 
 knew of him before my first election to Congress on account of 
 his connection with and great interest in the rural free-delivery 
 service. He was one of the strongest advocates of this service 
 which has proven of such great benefit to the people who live 
 in the country, giving to them a daily mail and newspapers, 
 and bringing them in quick communication with the cities and 
 towns and in closer touch with the current events of the world. 
 
 My association with Dr. Stokes in the Fifty-sixth Congress 
 was exceedingly pleasant, and I formed a high opinion of his 
 integrity, character, and fidelity to his trust. I served upon 
 the committee of this House in attendance upon his funeral. 
 A graduate of Washington and Lee University in Virginia, in 
 
58 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 [876, and later in medicine of Vanderbilt University, Tennes- 
 see, his natural inclination seemed toward public life, and his 
 sympathies were especially with the agricultural people, the 
 farmers of his State, whom he served for two terms a> presi- 
 dent of the State Alliance. 
 
 He was State senator, delegate at large to the national 
 Democratic convention at Chicago in 1892, Presidential 
 elector, and a member of the Fifty-fourth, Fifth-fifth, Fifty- 
 sixth, and Fifty-seventh Congresses. In the closing days of 
 the Fifty-sixth Congress it was apparent to his devoted wife 
 and his friends that his health was failing, so that the sad 
 news of his death at his home in Orangeburg in July, 1901, 
 soon after his entrance upon his fourth term as a member 
 of Congress, was not wholly unexpected. 
 
 And yet how few of us ever expect the coming of this 
 greatest of all changes in our human lives, the final sepa- 
 ration from the bright scenes, the joys, the sorrows, the 
 activities, the ambitions of the world, and our transition to 
 another sphere of existence, borne upon and across the wide 
 and fathomless ocean of eternity. 
 
 Whither we go, we know not. We only know that heathen 
 as well as Christian philosophers, since the days of Socrates 
 and Plato, have taught that death i> but a transition: and 
 we can only look up and beyond the mists and shadows which 
 surround the dark valley into the sunshine which rest*- above 
 and beyond, and with confident faith in the teachings oi 
 the dnane Master exclaim: 
 
 And though from nut the bourne 
 
 of time Mini space 
 Tlie flood may bear me far, 
 
 I hope to meet my Pilot lace to face 
 When 1 have crossed the bar. 
 
 Those who love and serve their fellow-men may pass from 
 tlie stage of action, but they still live in the affection and 
 
Address of Mr. Thomas, of North Carolina. 59 
 
 undying" memories of their fellow-citizens; and so, I am 
 sure if loyalty to conviction and duty, if fidelity to trust, if 
 Christian manhood, if service to his fellow-men can prepare 
 a man for transition to a higher and nobler existence, and 
 cause his memory to survive the mighty change of death, then 
 our late colleague in this Chamber, to whom we pay tribute 
 to-day, still lives in his work and his example. 
 
 At his home in Orangeburg. S. C. upon the streets, at the 
 church of which he was an active and beloved member, throngs 
 of his fellow-citizens assembled to manifest their love for him 
 and deep grief in the loss they had sustained. He seemed to 
 be, and he was, in the very zenith of his popularity and useful- 
 ness when the end came, and he still lives in the affections of 
 the people of his district and State. 
 
 He has only passed from earth to some happier existence. 
 Death for him was but transition, and we believe that in the 
 " silence of the receding world he heard the great waves break- 
 ing upon the farther shore and felt upon his wasted brow the 
 breath of Heaven's eternal morning." 
 
 There is no death! the stars go down 
 
 To rise upon some other shore. 
 And bright in Heaven's jeweled crown 
 
 They shine torevermore. 
 
 There is no death! the forest leaves 
 
 Convert to life the viewless air; 
 The rocks disorganize to feed 
 
 The hungry moss they bear. 
 
 There is no death! the dust we tread 
 
 Shall change beneath the summer showers. 
 
 To golden grain or mellow fruits, 
 1 ir rainbow-tinted flowers. 
 
 There is no death! the leaves may fall, 
 The flowers may fade and pass away — 
 
 Thev only wait through wintry hours, 
 The warm, sweet breath of May. 
 
6o Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 Address of Mr. Candler, of Mississippi. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: I always have a feeling of solemnity on 
 occasions like this, when I realize I am in the presence of death. 
 Great minds have traveled through life in awe at the thought of 
 death, and Queen Elizabeth cried out, "All my possessions for a 
 moment's time!" Burns called death " the poor man's friend." 
 and Byron, when the end came, said: "I must sleep now." 
 Mrs. Hemans truly proclaims: 
 
 Leaves have their time to fall, 
 And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath. 
 
 And stars to set; but all, 
 Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death! 
 
 We can not understand it, and we will never know why here, 
 "for now we see through a glass darkly," but by and by we 
 shall know, "for then I shall know even as I am known." 
 Hence " Tis not the whole of life to live, nor all of death to 
 die." I am here to join in paying a tribute to the life and 
 character of the Hon. J. William Stokes, late an honored 
 and beloved Representative in this House from the State of 
 South Carolina. I had not an extensive or long acquaintance 
 with Dr. Stokes. He lived in my home city of Corinth, Miss., 
 about twenty years ago, and was the principal of the graded 
 schools during his residence there. 
 
 I felt highly honored when I received an invitation from his 
 widow, through the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Lever] , 
 to deliver an address on this occasion, and as I did not live in 
 Corinth when Dr. Stokes resided there, I at once wrote to some 
 prominent gentlemen there about him, and I am going to take 
 the liberty of quoting from their replies. He was a teacher 
 
Address of Mr. Candler, of Mississippi. 61 
 
 while there, and it is of that period in his life I shall especially 
 speak. The first letter from which I quote is fjrom Hon. Thomas 
 E. Henry, the present mayor of Corinth. He says: 
 
 It was my pleasure to know the Hon. J. William Stokes quite inti- 
 mately while he was a resident of Corinth. I was the clerk of the board 
 of mayor and aldermen at the time he taught school here, and this gave 
 me an opportunity to know him well. He was not only a thoroughly 
 educated man, but a very practical one. 
 
 He was the founder of graded schools in Corinth. It was the custom 
 when he came here to prorate the public school fund to every private 
 school in town. He questioned the propriety as well as the legality of 
 this practice, and in a short while had the support of the people as well 
 as the authorities in favor of using the public fund exclusively in support 
 of the public graded schools. He established such a reputation for hon- 
 estv. integrity, conservatism, and ability that he was placed in absolute 
 control of the entire school interests and school funds of the city, and 
 was allowed to conduct the school according to his best judgment, and 
 permitted to select his own faculty. He was a strict disciplinarian, but 
 at the same time he was kind and gentle, and one of the most amiable 
 of men. He lived up to his professions in both temporal and spiritual 
 affairs. He was a true man, an excellent teacher, an exemplary citizen, 
 and a consistent Christian. 
 
 I now quote from a letter written me by Hun. J. M. Boone, 
 a prominent attorney of Corinth. He says: 
 
 Hon. J. William Stokes lived here several years, and was during that 
 time principal of our public free school. He was very competent and 
 extraordinarily energetic. He was, I think, as progressive and perse- 
 vering as any man we have ever had here in any line of work. By his 
 ability he built up the public school interest that finds such strong hold 
 in our city now. When he took charge here our people did not seem to 
 rightly appreciate the benefits of an education for their children, but 
 never since his stay with us have I seen a disposition on the part of our 
 people to lag in this work. 
 
 He was a consistent Christian gentleman. He possessed strong will 
 powei and was persistent in his views about his profession. I never 
 heard a remark against his honesty of purpose or a reflection upon his 
 daily life. His life here showed him to be a leader rather than a follower 
 of men. He was open, frank, and candid in all his dealings. In all of 
 his proposed public measures he never seemed to have anything to con- 
 ceal, but dealt with the subject in an open, frank way, and presented his 
 views with the utmost candor. 
 
62 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 The following quotation is from the letter of my family 
 physician, a most .excellent and elegant gentleman. Dr. Charles 
 M. Taylor, of Corinth. He says: 
 
 I am very glad you were requested to say something of Dr. STOKES I 
 went to school to him. He was a great teacher and a most excellent gen- 
 tleman. He was an honest, upright man of undoubted integrity, a man 
 who loved right and abhorred wrong, one who when mistaken had the 
 manhood to acknowledge it, who when right had the moral and ph; 
 courage to maintain it. He was a teacher of great ability. He possessed 
 the happy faculty of being able to impart what he knew in a forcible and 
 pleasing way to the student. He deserved and received the good will, 
 respf « t. and admiration of the pupils and patrons of the school so long as 
 he remained in our midst without, so far as I know, a single exce] 
 His life was such as to lead me to believe he was a devout, true, and 
 sincere Christian. 
 
 I was, as a student, very intimate with Dr. STOKES for two years 
 had a most excellent opportunity to observe his "daily walk and conversa- 
 tion." and he was in all above criticism or reproach. I never heard him 
 discuss relig.ous subjects or mention God but what he did it with that 
 becoming reverence due from the creature to the Creator, from a sinner 
 saved by grace to his Lord and Master. His was a beautiful character. 
 worthy of all emulation. You can not say to., much of Dr. STOKES. He 
 wis a true, manly man, a perfect gentleman, an excellent citizen, and 
 a devout Christian. 
 
 The next quotation is from the letter of Dr. Theodore 
 Borroum, an accomplished and cultured physician of Corinth. 
 He says: 
 
 1 was too young to know much of Dr. STOKES when be lived lure. 
 I have, however, inquired of a great many citizens who did know him 
 and who now remember him well since I received your letter asking 
 me about him. All with one accord speak in the highest terms of him 
 as a man, a teacher, and a Christian gentleman. He taught here some- 
 thing like twenty years ago and was the principal of the city schools. 
 He was eminently successful as an educator. I am sure you may pa\ him 
 the highest encomiums and not speak extravagantly of him. Corinth 
 owes much to his wise counsel and effective work. He made bis impress 
 01 good, and the present most excellent graded schools in our city 
 are an enduring monument to his memory and a blessing to humanity. 
 
 I have preferred to copy these letters verbatim rather than 
 otherwise use- the information brought to me by them, and 
 having done so. I could well stop at this point, for I can pay 
 
Address of Mr. Candler, of Mississippi. 63 
 
 no higher eulogy than these testimonials to the life and char- 
 acter of this great and good man. Here is a verification of 
 that divine truth, "By their fruits ye shall know them." 
 This man, wherever he lived, left his impress for good. He 
 used well his opportunities as a teacher to rightly store the 
 mind and soul of the young with aspirations for loftier things. 
 There is no nobler, higher, or better calling or profession than 
 that of teacher. He who properly instructs, guides, and directs 
 the youth, male and female, of the country is a blessing to 
 humanity, an honor to the world, and a coworker with our 
 Father above. 
 
 Dr. Stokes was a success in this exalted profession, and it 
 prepared him for wider usefulness and for greater endeavors in 
 the field of statesmanship. He was a leader — "a voice, not an 
 echo" — and faithfully and well did he lead onward and upward 
 in things temporal and spiritual. To such a man life was a 
 fjeld of noble activity to prepare for better things by and by, and 
 death had no terrors. The Christ said, " He that believeth on 
 me hath everlasting life." He believed on Him, he trusted in 
 Him, and he simply passed through the "valley of the shadow 
 of death" out into the fuller, purer, and never-ending life in 
 the presence of Him above. The life and character of such a 
 man is encouraging and uplifting: the death of such a man 
 i- sublime and beautiful. In life he dispelled cloud-;, he 
 scattered sunshine. 
 
 He was busy, he was useful. He continually did that which 
 was good. He constrained people into better ways. He was 
 sincere in all his purposes, and was not a passive influence, but 
 an aggressive, active, force. He performed his task faithfully, 
 and has gone to his reward. His life was beautiful, and its 
 close here and its passing through the shadows exemplified the 
 "beauty of death." The mystery of life and the mystery of 
 death met and blended into a transcendent light that brilliantly 
 
64 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 illuminated the pathway to that rest "beneath the shade of the 
 trees," in the "heaven of eternal bliss." Mississippi mingles 
 her tears with South Carolina on the grave of her honored and 
 beloved dead, and plants a most beautiful flower which shall 
 ever be blooming and fragrant in our memories. 
 
 With our united hearts of sympathy we offer condolence to 
 the bereaved widow, and would comfort her with the thought, 
 ' ' Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth ; 
 yea, saith the spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and 
 their works do follow them. ' ' He rests from his labors, but 
 his works still live; they follow him, and they are for good. 
 " He being dead, yet speaketh," and in his works and speech 
 he has exemplified and is exemplifying the true man, the per- 
 fect gentleman, the faithful public servant, and the devout 
 Christian. In truthfulness we can say his life was a success, 
 and that truthful epitaph is a "halo of glory" for any life 
 which will not grow dim e'en with eternity. 
 
 His life and death in their beauty emphasized a great truth, 
 and that truth is that no one can be truly great unless that 
 greatness is used to advance that which is truly good. Would 
 that all would properly realize and appreciate that truth. It 
 contains the climax of a successful life, and without it life is a 
 dismal and never-ending failure. One's life and death can and 
 should always be beautiful; and it can be so by simple faith in a 
 crucified and risen Lord, the fruits of which must be doing the 
 best and most we can for others while on this earth and a crown 
 cf righteousness at God's right hand in the mansions above. 
 Such was the life of the Hon. J. William Stokks. 
 
 Mourn not the dead whose lives declare 
 
 That they have nobly borne their part, 
 For victory's golden crown they wear, 
 
 Reserved for every faithful heart. 
 They rest with glory wrapped around, 
 
 Immortal on the scroll of fame; 
 Their works their praises --hall resound. 
 
 Their name, an everlasting name. 
 
Address of Mr. Candler, of Mississippi. 65 
 
 As life's battle ended the Hon. J. William Stokes, with 
 the great Apostle to the Gentiles, could triumphantly exclaim: 
 " I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have 
 kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
 righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give 
 me at that da}-; and not to me only, but unto all them that love 
 His appearing." 
 
 He is gone, but when he departed he held — 
 
 That golden key 
 That opes the palace of eternity. 
 
 "He is dead, but he ever liveth," for — 
 
 He has but passed 
 
 Beyond the mist that blinds us here, 
 Into the newer and larger life 
 
 Of that serenes sphere. 
 
 And ever near us, though unseen, 
 
 The dear, immortal spirits tread, 
 For all the boundless universe 
 
 Is life! There are no dead. 
 
 H. Doc. 713 5 
 
66 Life and Cliaracter of J. William Stokes. 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. TALBERT, OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 Mr. Speaker: I can add but little to what has been said 
 by my colleagues, and it might possibly be a sufficient eulogy 
 upon my dear friend to say that I have come from a sick 
 bed to be present on this occasion; but that will not satisfy 
 in any degree my own feelings in this 'matter. Yea. I am 
 almost constrained to repeat the words of a warm friend of 
 Tom Moore, who said of him: 
 
 Were 't the last drop in the well, 
 
 As I gasp'd upon the brink, 
 Ere my fainting spirit fell, 
 
 'Tis to thee that I would drink. 
 
 In the gloom and sorrow that overshadows us to-day. when 
 meditating upon the departure of our friend, these words 
 have suggested themselves to me, and I have not other words 
 more adequate to express my high appreciation of the noble 
 character of the deceased in adding this humble tribute to 
 his memory in addition to those paid him by his other 
 colleagues. 
 
 The Grim Reaper has again visited us and taken one of 
 our number, and according to a long time-honored custom we 
 are convened to-day to do honor to and pay the last tribute 
 to one of our late associates, only yesterday with us, so to 
 speak, who now lies with restful hands in the cold and silent 
 grave. These occasions are always sad and solemn, giving 
 us cause for reflection. It is a sad and mournful thought 
 to lose any member of this House, it matters not from what 
 State of the Union he may come. But it is sadder still when 
 death comes closer home to us and claims as its victim one 
 
Address of Mr. Talbcrt, of South Carolina. 67 
 
 from our own State, from our own home — one of our own 
 delegation, one of our colleagues, one of our brothers, one of 
 our intimate friends, one with whom we have associated for 
 years. We are all brethren in a sense, but the members of 
 a delegation from any particular State are brethren and friends 
 in a peculiar sense. 
 
 While a member of Congress represents the interests of 
 all the people at lary;e in a general way, in a more particular 
 sense does he represent the people of his own State and 
 district. And colleagues who have been working for days, 
 months, and even years for the good of the people of their 
 own .State are drawn closer together, and ties of friendship 
 and fellow-feeling are thereby made that are hard indeed to 
 break. This was the case with the South Carolina delegation 
 U ward the man whom we are attempting to speak about 
 to-day. 
 
 A seat has been made vacant in this delegation (though now 
 filled honorably and efficiently by a good and worthy young 
 man, following in the footpaths of his illustrious predecessor); 
 a chair has been draped in mourning; a voice has been silenced; 
 a heart has ceased to beat; a life has been cut off by which this 
 House has lost one of its most useful members, the countrv one 
 of its most ardent defenders, the people of South Carolina ( the 
 masses) one of their best and truest friends, and a most noble 
 and devoted wife bereft of her beloved husband, whom she 
 almost idolized and who in turn was just as devoted and mind- 
 ful of her. This man was the Hon. J. William Stokks. of 
 Orangeburg, S. C, whose honor it has been to represent the 
 Seventh district of that State from the 4th day of March, 1895, 
 till the day of his death, which occurred on the 6th day of 
 July, 1 901. 
 
 The summons from on high came and called him away from 
 us and from the life he lived, but we are led to believe that he 
 
6S Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 is now with his Master, whom he loved to serve on earth, in a 
 more blissful field of glory and heavenly love. While living 
 here you have only to review his record to see how well he 
 served his country and how ably he represented the people of 
 the Seventh district, who have ever loved and honored him in 
 his lifetime, and who now hold sacred his memory, which will 
 live on as long as time shall last. In giving a condensed 
 sketch of the life of this good man I feel that I can do no 
 better than to' reproduce the short biographical sketch given of 
 him in the Congressional Directory, as follows, being only a 
 short outline of his illustrious career: 
 
 J. William Stokks, of Orangeburg, was born in Orangeburg County, 
 S. C, in 1S53; was brought up to farm life, attending the ordinary schools 
 of his county and town until he was 19 years of age; graduated from 
 Washington and Lee University, Virginia, in 1876, and taught school for 
 twelve years, graduating in the meantime from Vanderbilt University, 
 Tennessee, in medicine; in 1S89 he returned to the farm, assisted in 
 organizing the farmers, and was president of the State Fanners' Alliance 
 two terms; was elected to the State senate in 1S90; was a delegate at large 
 to the national Democratic convention at Chicago in 1S92, and was Presi- 
 dential elector on the Democratic ticket the same year; was defeated for 
 tlie Democratic nomination in the old First Congressional district in 1S92 
 by a small majority; in 1S94 was nominated without opposition in the 
 Democratic primaries in the new Seventh Congressional district, which is 
 nearly the same as the old First district. He received the certificate of 
 election to the Fifty-fourth Congress, but the seat was declared vacant. 
 At the election on November 3, [896, he was elected to the short term of 
 the Fifty-fourth Congress, was reelected to the Fifty-fifth Congress, and 
 also to the Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Congresses. 
 
 To know Dr. Stokes well was but to love him much. It 
 was my good fortune to know him quite intimately, having 
 been associated with him in the State work of the Farmers' 
 Alliance, of which he was the president, while I was State lec- 
 turer, before we came to Congress together. While he was an 
 extremely modest and somewhat reserved man, yet at the same 
 time, when the necessity would arise, none were more aggres- 
 sive and bold, none more determined and energetic. He was 
 
Address of Mr. Talbert, of South Carolina. 69 
 
 possessed of a high and laudable ambition and worked his wax- 
 up by energy and industry from the humblest walks of life to a 
 seat in the United States Congress, and it may be truthfully 
 said that during his service here he has always been ready and 
 willing to take good care of the interests of the good people of 
 the Seventh district, whom he had been called to represent. 
 
 He was a man of a high degree of intelligence and refine- 
 ment. He was a strictly temperate and sober man, and pos- 
 sessed of wonderful will power and determination for one of his 
 physical ability, being rather frail and delicate. I can now 
 recall how often his colleagues would tell him during the last 
 session of Congress he attended that he ought to go home and 
 rest, but he would not. He was an active and consistent mem- 
 ber of the Methodist Church; naturally pious, liberal in his 
 views as well as in his contributions; a man of firm and decided 
 religious opinion; an all-round, earnest, useful, and zealous 
 worker in the Master's vineyard, and it can be said that 
 Orangeburg was draped in mourning on the day of his death. 
 
 It was my sad duty to attend his funeral, held in the Metho- 
 dist Church at Orangeburg, of which he was a member, and I 
 will never forget the large concourse of people assembled to do 
 him honor. Well do I recall the words of the text announced 
 by his pastor, which had been selected by himself before his 
 death. It was part of the twelfth verse, first chapter of Paul's 
 second epistle to Timothy, in these words: 
 
 For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to 
 keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. 
 
 Oh, whence and what, if not of God, is this mystery we call 
 mind? What is it that thinks and feels and knows and acts? 
 Who can deny the divinity that stirs within us? He clung 
 fast to the hand that led him, though sometimes it was in 
 darkness, though it was sometimes in deep waters, yet he knew 
 
jo Life and Character of f. William Stokes. 
 
 whom he had believed, and felt persuaded that he could and 
 would keep all that which he had confidingly committed to 
 Him against that day. 
 
 From these impressive words the venerable pastor preached 
 one of the most feeling funeral sermons to which I ever lis- 
 tened, and after it there were very few dry eyes in the vast 
 audience. It was a solemn occasion, and as I sat there medi- 
 tating upon the death of my dear friend I could but recall to 
 mind his many noble traits of character, and to rejoice that he 
 died the death of the righteous, and being comforted with the 
 language: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from 
 henceforth: that they may rest from their labours: and their 
 works do follow them." The Methodist Church has sustained 
 a great loss in the death of this good man, and while we lament 
 we believe the good Lord has taken him to Himself in glory, 
 and that he is now basking in the sunshine of His love. 
 
 We shall miss him, the country will miss him. the House 
 mioses him. South Carolina will feel the loss: his many friends 
 mourn over him, his relatives look in vain for his coming, the 
 poor will feel their loss; but most of all and beyond all he will 
 be missed by that dear, good, noble, conscientious, and Chris- 
 tian woman whom it was his good fortune to woo and win for 
 a life companion, that most estimable, highly cultivated, and 
 refined lady who was his helpmeet, who sat opposite him at 
 table, who presided over his lovely home, who was always with 
 him — sometimes at the banquet, sometimes at the funeral. 
 sometimes at the bedside of the sick, but always with him until 
 his death, like a ministering angel. And now, in this hour of 
 profound sorrow and bereavement, we would extend to her 
 most of all our heartfelt sympathy and condolence. It was 
 never my fortune to witness greater or more affectionate 
 devotion between man and wife. 
 
Address of Mr. Talbert, of South Carolina. 71 
 
 He was not blessed with any children of his own, but he was 
 the benefactor of a great many poor children, having educated 
 a score of young men in his day and time. He loved and 
 helped the children of his community. 
 
 But Hon. J. William Stokes is no more; he has gone; 
 we are nevermore to meet him, nor to work with him, nor to 
 enjoy his company in this world. But let us remember that 
 while he can not come back to us, we may meet him in that 
 happy land, if we will, where parting is 110 more, and where 
 the weary are ever at rest. After all, our sorrow is Heaven's 
 joy. Our loss is his gain, for his faith in the God who rules 
 the destiny of nations as well as individuals has enabled him to 
 fall asleep in this world of sorrow to awake in a brighter and 
 better land, where he can receive that welcome plaudit, "Well 
 done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joys 
 of thy Lord. ' ' 
 
 While he is dead, his influence as a representative of the 
 people still lives, and, far better than that, his example as an 
 humble follower of his Lord and Master stands out in bold re- 
 lief as a rich legacy to all those he has left behind, leading 
 them to a realization of the saying that " 'Tis not the whole of 
 life to live, nor all of death to die." His many good and noble 
 examples are well worthy of emulation by all of us, especially 
 by the young men. Then, as we ponder over the life and 
 character of our departed friend and colleague, who rose from 
 the humblest walks of life by perseverance and toil to promi- 
 nence, serving his people all the while honestly and faithfully, 
 and leaving them, above all things else, a noble Christian 
 example, let us in our ambition to do something and be some- 
 thing in the world feel encouraged by this man's career and 
 learn the lesson he has taught us, that — 
 
 Honor and shame from no condition rise; 
 Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 
 
72 Life and Character of J. William Siokcs. 
 
 Mr. Lever. Mr. Speaker, quite a number of gentlemen de- 
 sired to say something on this occasion, but have been unable 
 to be present. I ask unanimous consent that members may 
 have thirty days in which to print remarks in the Record on 
 the late Representative Stokes. 
 
 The Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Elliott i. The gentleman 
 from South Carolina asks unanimous consent that leave for 
 thirty days be granted members to print eulogies in the Record 
 on the late Representative Stokes. Is there objection? [After 
 a pause.] The Chair hears none. 
 
Address of Mr. McCall, of Massachusetts. 73 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. MCCALL, OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: I avail myself of the leave granted by the 
 House to put upon its records a few words attempting to 
 express, although most inadequately, my appreciation of the 
 character of the Hon. J. William Stokes, late a member of 
 Congress from the State of South Carolina. 
 
 I did not know Mr. Stokes prior to his election to this 
 House, but I became acquainted with him soon after he took 
 his seat in the Fifty-fourth Congress. It happened that his 
 election to that Congress was contested and that the contest 
 was referred to a committee of which I was a member. I had 
 an opportunity to observe him under trying circumstances. 
 
 I was struck with his placid dignity, his serenity, his patience, 
 and his quiet courage. His was a fine and gracious presence, 
 and yet he was a man likely to get credit for less ability than 
 he really possessed. There was nothing spectacular or showy 
 about him. He was not given to self-exploitation, but those 
 who knew him best had no difficulty in discerning the excellent 
 capacity which had given him so large a measure of success and 
 which seemed to justify the hope of his friends of even higher 
 success in the future, if his life had been spared. What most 
 impresssd me about him was the happy temper which, after he 
 had done his utmost, led him to accept apparently without com- 
 plaint or without elation whatever the result might be, as if he 
 clearly saw that the real greatness lay in the nobility of the 
 struggle and in the uncomplaining acceptance of what came 
 after his own responsibility had ended. He would have mod- 
 estly filled a higher place with the ability equal to it, just as he 
 
74 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 would have accepted a more obscure lot without repining. He 
 seemed to me to have lived according to the philosophy in the 
 noble words of Wordsworth: 
 
 If thou indeed derive thy light from heaven, 
 
 Shine poet, in thy place and be content; 
 
 The star that from the zenith darts its beams, 
 
 Visible though it be to half the earth. 
 
 Though half a sphere be conscious of its brightness, 
 
 Is yet of no diviner origin, 
 
 No purer essence, than the one that burns, 
 
 Like an untended watch fire, on the ridge 
 
 ( M some dark mountain, or than those which seem 
 
 Humbly to hang, like twinkling winter lamps, 
 
 Among the branches of the leafless trees. 
 
Address of Mr. Small, of North Carolina. 75 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. SMALL, OF NORTH CAROLINA. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: Oh this day, when we have come to pay a 
 tribute to the memory of our friend, I believe that my own 
 emotions would receive greater satisfaction if I could visit the 
 new-made grave in his native State and silently recall his 
 virtues and recount our loss and that of his State. Words 
 are so often vain things. They may conceal the emotions or 
 they may express the sincerest sorrow; they may be insincere 
 or they may come as utterances warm and pathetic from the 
 true heart; they may be cold and impassive or warm and im- 
 pulsive; they may conceal thought or they may be the acme of 
 candor and truth. While it is only natural 'to approach the 
 bier with reverence and solemnity, and the impulse of every 
 manly heart is to speak nothing but good of the dead, yet 
 undue laudation and the painting of an ideal life are equally 
 to be avoided. How wise and satisfying a course it would 
 be if we should speak of the living nothing that we would be 
 unwilling to speak of the dead. This rule of conduct would 
 not only promote our own happiness, but would remove so 
 many of the rancors, the acerbities, and the disagreeable 
 episodes which so often beset the living, particularly those 
 whose ambitions and activities bring them to the front and 
 keep them in the public eye. 
 
 Dr. Stokes, as his colleagues loved to call him, perhaps came 
 near exemplifying this rule in his daily life. I can not recall in 
 my association with him during the Fifty-sixth Congress, and 
 it was my pleasure to be his friend and to some extent his com- 
 panion, that I ever heard him utter an unkind word about any- 
 one. Being a man of culture and information and high mental 
 
76 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 training, he entertained clear-cut opinions upon public questions 
 and had the courage and the ability to maintain them; but his 
 differences arose from reflection and judgment, and being honest 
 and candid himself, he never questioned the motives of those 
 with whom he differed. 
 
 The only life worth living is that which is stirred by ambition 
 and which is fortified and promoted by industry. But the object 
 must be worthy and the methods must be honorable. After all 
 the main purpose sought is contentment and happiness. Some 
 follow a mistaken ideal and never reach the goal. Wealth, posi- 
 tion, and power do not always bring these two jewels. He who 
 carries sunshine along the pathway, who speaks a kind word of 
 encouragement to the disconsolate, who condoles with sorrow, 
 who remembers the poor, who encourages the struggling, who 
 raises the fallen, who stands by the right because it is right, he 
 it is who has found contentment and happiness and whose life 
 is radiant and beautiful. The man who thus tempers his ambi- 
 tion and curbs his will finds genuine pleasure in success and the 
 world rejoices with him in his daily progress. 
 
 I believe that Dr. Stokes thus found the true source of 
 happiness. Who of us does not recall his sunny disposition 
 and his cheerful manner. In addition he had that mental 
 equipoise and ready self-control which made him a choice com- 
 rade and a valuable ally. His loyalty to his friends was not 
 less conspicuous than his adherence to his convictions. 
 
 I shall not dwell upon the varying steps in the career of 
 Dr. Stokes. The adverse conditions of his youth and early 
 manhood, his loving patience and wisdom as a teacher, his 
 political career and promotion in the politics of his native 
 State, his incisive and brave work as an editor, the culmina- 
 tion of his public life in this House, and the example of his 
 daily life as a Christian have been aptly and interestingly 
 portrayed by his worthy successor [Mr. Lever]. 
 
Address of Mr. Small, of North Carolina. 77 
 
 I can not close this imperfect tribute without a reference 
 to our friend in his daily life as the faithful and loyal husband. 
 My acquaintance with the wife was scarcely less intimate than 
 with him as husband. The home and the hearthstone arc the 
 basis of a nation's greatness. Marriage is the institution 
 blessed of all. and happy are those whose fortunes ami aspira- 
 tions are twined into one loving embrace and who thus tread 
 life's pathway. Charity to the imperfections of the other, 
 loving patience and kindness, loyalty in sickness and in health, 
 loving ministrations one to the other, loyalty and fortitude 
 in adversity, and mutual joy in the hours of prosperity, all 
 crowned with steadfast love — these are the characteristics of 
 a happy union. Nothing is more beautiful to contemplate. 
 Such a marriage is a benediction to all. 
 
 I have observed many men in the relation of husband, and I 
 may say in all candor that I never observed a more beautiful 
 life in this respect than that of Dr. Stokes. He was tender 
 and considerate in his daily life, and never forgot the little 
 attentions and courtesies and thoughtful remembrances which 
 always appeal to the gentle wife and evoke the sweetest 
 emotions. While always the ideal husband, yet when illness 
 came to the partner of his bosom his devotion was unusually 
 constant and to his friends a source of inspiration. 
 
 We know that we have lost a friend and his State a valuable 
 Representative, but this loss is incomparable to that of the wife. 
 For her I pray that the tender memories of the past may sustain 
 and comfort the sad and lonely days of the future. 
 
 A good woman who knew both the husband and the wife has 
 handed me the following quotation, which fittingly describes 
 this beautiful union and the sad parting: 
 
 Sometimes into two hearts great enough to hold it, and into two souls 
 where it may forever abide, there comes the Everlasting Love. It is ele- 
 mental like the fire and the sea, with the depth and the splendor of the 
 
7S Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 surge and the glory of the flame. It makes the world a vast cathedral, in 
 which the two may worship, and where even in the darkness there is the 
 peace which passeth all understanding, because it is of God. 
 
 When the time of parting comes, for there is always that turning in the 
 road, the sadness is not so great because one must goon alone. Life 
 grows beautiful after a time, and even wholly sweet, when a man and a 
 woman have so lived and loved and worked together that death is not 
 good-bye, but rather "auf wiedersehen." 
 
Proceedings in the Senate. 
 
 January 14, 1902. 
 
 A message communicated to the Senate the intelligence of 
 
 the death of Hon. J. William Stokes, late a Representative 
 
 from the State of South Carolina, and transmitted resolutions 
 
 of the House thereon. 
 
 January 15, 1902. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Mr. President, I ask the Chair to lay before 
 the Senate the resolutions of the House, which I have been 
 waiting for some time to call up. 
 
 The Presiding Officer. The resolutions of the House of 
 Representatives will be read. 
 
 The Secretary read the resolutions, as follows: 
 
 In the House of Representative. 
 
 January /,-, 1902. 
 Resolved, That the House has heard with profound sorrow of the death 
 of Hon. J. William Stokes, late a Representative from the State of 
 South Carolina. 
 
 Resolved, That as a mark of respect to his memory the House do now 
 adji mm. 
 
 Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Mr. President, I send to the desk resolutions 
 which I ask may have immediate consideration. 
 
 The Presiding Officer. The Senator from South Carolina 
 asks for the immediate consideration of resolutions which will 
 be read. 
 
 The Secretary read the resolutions, as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the Senate has heard with deep sensibility the announce- 
 ment of the death of Hon. J. William STOKES, late a Representative 
 from the State of South Carolina. 
 
 Rt solved, That as an additional mark of respect to the memory of the 
 deceased the Senate do now adjourn. 
 
 79 
 
So Proceedings in the Senate. 
 
 The Presiding Officer. The question is on agreeing to the 
 resolutions submitted by the Senator from South Carolina. 
 
 The resolutions were unanimously agreed to; and (at i 
 o'clock and 50 minutes p. m. ) the Senate adjourned until 
 to-morrow, Thursday, January 16, 1902, at 12 o'clock meridian. 
 
 April 28, 1902. 
 A message transmitted to the Senate resolutions of the 
 House of Representatives commemorative of the life and serv- 
 ices of Hon. J. William Stokes, late a Representative from 
 the State of South Carolina. 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 
 
 June 3, 1902. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Mr. President, I desire to give notice that 
 
 on Saturday, the 14th of June, at 4 o'clock p. m., I shall 
 
 sul unit resolutions commemorative of the life and character of 
 
 Hon. J. William Stokks, late a Representative from South 
 
 Carolina, and I shall ask the Senate at that time to suspend 
 
 its business in order that fitting tribute may be paid to his 
 
 memory. 
 
 June 14, 1902. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Mr. President, I ask that the resolutions 
 from the House of Representatives in memory of Dr. Stokes, 
 late a member of that body, may be laid before the Senate. 
 
 The Presiding Officer (Mr. Gallinger in the chair). 
 The Chair lays before the Senate the resolutions of the House 
 of Representatives, which will be read. 
 
 The Secretary read the resolutions, as follows: 
 
 In the House of Representatives, April 26, 1902. 
 
 Resolved, That the business of the House be now suspended that oppor- 
 tunity may be given for tributes to the memory of Hon. J. WlUIAM 
 STOKES, late a member of the House of Representatives from the State 
 of South Carolina. 
 
 Resolved, That as a particular mark of respect to the memory of the 
 deceased, and in recognition of his eminent abilities as a distinguished 
 public servant, the House, at the conclusion of these memorial proceed- 
 ings, shall stand adjourned. 
 
 Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate. 
 
 Resolved, That the Clerk be instructed to send a copy of these resolutions 
 to the family of the deceased. 
 
 Mr. Tillman. Mr. President, I offer the resolutions which 
 I send to the desk. 
 
 H. Doc. 713 6 Sl 
 
82 Memorial Addresses. 
 
 The Presiding Officer. The resolutions submitted by the 
 Senator from South Carolina will be read. 
 
 The Secretary read the resolutions, as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow the announce- 
 ment of the death of Hon. J. William Stokes, late a Representative 
 from the State of South Carolina. 
 
 Resolved, That the business of the Senate be now suspended in order 
 that fitting tributes may be paid to the memory of the deceased. 
 
 Rt solved, That as an additional mark of respect to his memory the 
 Senate, at the conclusion of these ceremonies, do adjourn. 
 
Address of Mr. Tillman, of South Carolina. 83 
 
 Address of Mr. Tillman, of South Carolina. 
 
 Mr. President: The Senate and the House of Representa- 
 tives, forming as they do component parts of the legislative 
 hranch of the Government, work together in all things where 
 the making of laws is concerned. This intimate relationship 
 necessarily brings the members of the two bodies into close 
 and friendly contact and many lasting friendships have had 
 their origin in a committee room of the Capitol. 
 
 Therefore it is that the custom has grown up for both Houses 
 to take cognizance of the death of a member of either and to 
 pay due respect to the memory of a dead comrade. The 
 feeling is somewhat akin to that of attending the funeral of 
 a fellow-soldier who has died. Not only his immediate asso- 
 ciates attend the last sad rites, but the members of the other 
 companies also attend the funeral; and so when a Senator dies 
 the House takes part on a subsequent day in paying respect 
 to his memory, just as the Senate performs the same duty in 
 regard to a dead Representative. 
 
 The Senate pauses in its labors to-day out of respect to a 
 member of the lower House — a man not known to very many 
 Senators, but one whose character and worth were most highly 
 appreciated by those of us who were acquainted with him. 
 J. William Stokes, a citizen of South Carolina, and a mem- 
 ber of Congress for six years preceding his death, was called 
 to his long rest on the 6th day of July, 1901. He was a 
 member-elect to the present Congress, and had served the 
 people of his district with distinguished ability and zeal during 
 his Congressional career. 
 
 The facts of his personal and political history have already 
 
84 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 been set forth in the eulogy pronounced by Mr. A. F. Lever, 
 his successor in the House, on the 26th of April last, and they 
 will appear in the memorial volume, and as the rehearsal of that 
 record in this presence would be but a repetition, I shall not 
 dwell upon it. I prefer to speak of my dead friend rather from 
 the point of view of a colaborer in a common field and to give 
 some estimate of his character as a man than deal with the 
 subject from the standpoint of a biographer. Owing to the 
 fact that he had left South Carolina immediately after his 
 graduation from the Washington and Lee University of 
 Virginia, and remained away, following his chosen profession 
 as a teacher, until 1889, I had no knowledge of him in his 
 earlier manhood. 
 
 I shall always recollect the first time I met him. It was at 
 the ' ' March convention ' ' of the farmers' movement in the city 
 of Columbia in 1890. He was on the committee to draft a 
 platform, and his thorough insight into all the public questions 
 then agitating the people of South Carolina and his earnest, 
 zealous purpose to present those issues in the best light and 
 frame the demands for reform which were pulsating in the 
 hearts of our people, so as to minimize opportunities for attack 
 and assure so far as practicable the support of all those in 
 sympathy with our purpose, made him a marked member of 
 the convention. 
 
 South Carolinians ordinarily are very jealous of outsiders, 
 and Dr. STOKES'S long absence from the State in tile case of 
 some men would have made it impossible that he should have 
 exerted any influence; but his modesty and the clearness and 
 force with which he presented his ideas and argued any moot 
 question silenced any jealous mutterings, and from the first he- 
 became a leader in the movement in South Carolina to reform 
 the Slate government just as he was soon after among the most 
 
Address of Mr. Tillman, of South Carolina. 85 
 
 prominent men in the Alliance movement in the State which 
 had for its purpose the securing of reforms in the National 
 Government. 
 
 While he was not an eloquent speaker, he was forceful and 
 logical, and his arguments always carried with them weight, 
 if not conviction. Though he was my junior by seven years, 
 his temperament was so calm and judicial that I always listened 
 to his opinions with deference, and very rarely differed with 
 him on public questions. From the first day we met, in 
 March, 1890, to the day of his death there was cooperation 
 growing into the warmest friendship and closest political 
 alliance. In looking back now over those years of arduous 
 labor performed together, I recollect not one single incident 
 which produced bitterness or distrust; and after our entrance 
 upon the national arena, he in the other end of the Capitol 
 and I in this, we were thrown together much more intimately 
 than had been possible previously, and the admiration which 
 his clear and forceful mind had excited was succeeded In- 
 most cordial and warm friendship. The better he was known 
 the more he was loved and respected. 
 
 It was in this intimate association that I came to understand 
 and appreciate the higher and nobler side of the man — not 
 but what all of his attributes were high and noble, but I 
 allude more particularly to his home life and to his chivalrous 
 and almost idolatrous attachment to the noble woman who 
 had won his love. It was in the home and in the company 
 of his wife that Dr. Stokes shone in his most admirable 
 light. Having no children of his own, he was always stealing 
 the heart of some child with whom he came in contact, 
 and my own little ones learned to love him and to run to 
 meet him on his frequent visits with that ardor and abandon- 
 ment of joy which a child alone knows how to exhibit. 
 
86 Life and Character off. William Slokes. 
 
 In the art of winning his way to the hearts of children 
 he was not surpassed by any man I have ever known, and no 
 student of human nature will ask any higher tribute to his 
 character. Children do not love those who are selfish and 
 mean; and, guileless themselves, they are not easily deceived 
 in their estimate of men and women. I would sooner trust 
 the intuition and instincts of a child than depend on the 
 judgment of a grown person where character and goodness 
 are in question. 
 
 A man of the most refined manners, Dr. Stokes was a 
 favorite with all those who came to know him intimately; so 
 while the men respected him for his manliness of principle and 
 high character, the women were his admiring friends because 
 of his chivalry and deference to their sex, while the children 
 loved him for his kindliness and sympathetic interest in all of 
 their little affairs. 
 
 It would be improper to invade the sacred precincts of his 
 desolate home, but the devotion which bound him to his wife, 
 the romantic idealized love, so to speak, with which he regarded 
 her, made the separation of those two who were certainlv "one 
 twain" the more heartrending, I can offer no consolation to 
 that widowed heart that will assuage its longing, but it would 
 not be improper, perhaps, to say to her that he is only gone 
 before, and waits longingly for her coming, and she should 
 trj to win comfort out of the sad consciousness that — 
 
 Tis better to have loved and lost, 
 Than never to have loved at all. 
 
 The world can not give any compensation for her great loss 
 but she is surely happier, or will be happier if she will look at 
 it from this poiut of view till the time shall come for their 
 reunion. 
 
Address of Mr. Tillman, of South Carolina. 87 
 
 In looking over my friend's life in its results I am forcibly 
 reminded of that sad truth contained in Gray's lines: 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
 All that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 
 Await alike the inevitable hour; 
 
 The paths of glory lead— but to the grave. 
 
 Dr. .Stokes was young in years: had scarcely reached the 
 meridian of life. His public career had hardly begun, and the 
 equipment furnished by years of study and extensive reading 
 had promise of rich fruition. He had grown upon the people 
 of our State during the twelve years since his return among 
 us. and while the bitter strife which marked the period of his 
 entry into the political arena had left some scars on other 
 breasts, they seemed to have left none on his own. 
 
 The shafts of envy and malice had fallen hurtless, and his 
 worth and high character had so impressed themselves on the 
 people that in his last election he was unopposed by any 
 competitor, and those who had at one time been his most 
 bitter antagonists had been won to be warm friends, or 
 acquiescent opponents, who had no ill for him. In the zenith 
 of his fame and height of his usefulness he has been stricken 
 down. We can not understand why these things are so: we 
 can not lift the veil to find out why such a man should be 
 taken and so many thousands less useful and less worthy 
 should remain. We can not realize why the cords of love and 
 devotion which bound him to life should have been snapped so 
 ruthlessly. 
 
 The journey of life is full of these mysteries. We come into 
 the world unbidden, or rather without having been consulted: 
 we are hurried hence, often without warning and suddenly, 
 without any power of resistance. We come and go like 
 shadows and we know not why these things are so. Life is a 
 
88 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 battle from beginning to end, and the grave is the only place of 
 rest. We are all hastening to it, and many are unconsciously 
 very, very near its brink. 
 
 It is philosophical to think about death calmly, but the law 
 of life makes us shun and dread it and put off to the very last 
 tlie thought of the time when we shall bid adieu to this active 
 scene. By common consent, all men, both ancient and modern, 
 civilized and uncivilized, heathens and savages, have refused to 
 accept death as an "unending sleep." The idea of annihila- 
 tion is so abhorrent that the human soul recoils with terror 
 from such an ending. Tennyson has most beautifully 
 expressed the feeling of mingled fear and hope pulsating in 
 our hearts when he says: 
 
 yet we trust that somehow good 
 
 Will be tlie final goal of ill, 
 
 To pangs of nature, sins of will. 
 Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; 
 
 That nothing walks with aimless feet; 
 
 That not one life shall be destroyed, 
 
 Or east as rubbish to the void, 
 When God hath made the pile complete; 
 
 That not a worm is cloven in vain; 
 
 That not a moth with vain desire 
 
 Is shriveled in a fruitless fire, 
 Or but subserves another's gain. 
 
 Behold we know not anything; 
 
 I can but trust that good shall fall 
 
 At last — far off — at last to all, 
 And every winter change to spring. 
 * * * * 
 
 Strong Sou of God, immortal Love, 
 
 Whom we that have not seen Thv face. 
 
 By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 
 Believing where we can not prove: 
 
 Thou wilt not leave us in the dust; 
 
 Thou tnadest man he knows not \\h\ ; 
 
 He thinks he was not made t<> die; 
 And Then hast made him: Thou art just. 
 
Address of Mr. Tillman, of South Carolina. 89 
 
 In that blessed reunion to which every human soul looks, in 
 the bright hereafter, ' ' When the wicked cease from troubling 
 and the weary are at rest," may our friend and his loved ones 
 left here be reunited; and may we all so live that when we come 
 to die we shall have as few sins to answer for as the man in 
 whose memory we speak to-day. His was indeed a noble and 
 pure life, and in all my dealings with men I have never known 
 one who more deserved to have it said of him — 
 
 And thus he bore without abuse 
 
 The grand old name of "gentleman." 
 
i • Life and Character of J. William Slakes. 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. MCLAURIN, OF SOUTH CAROL. 
 
 Mr. President: Death is always an unwelcome visitor ami 
 generally surprises us in the midst of the duties and schemes 
 which are engrossing our lives. A noble and useful life is often 
 ended in the heyday of its success and prosperity. It is well 
 that it is so, for if we were permitted to control our mortal des- 
 tiny we could never conveniently fix a time when we would 
 travel to that "bourn from whence no traveler returns." 
 
 It is passing strange that we have the courage, energy, and 
 persistency to pursue so hopefully the aims of this life, when 
 we are so constantly reminded that at any moment the "silver 
 cord may be loosed and the golden bowl broken." 
 
 The inspiration of hope obscures the shadow of the grave 
 and impels us forward upon our earthly careers. Without this, 
 "death on the pale horse " would at every moment cross our 
 pathway and overwhelm us with gloom. 
 
 But with all of our fears of death there is mixed a fixed belief 
 in the immortality of the soul, and that after the struggles and 
 cares of this life there is "rest for the weary." Revealed 
 religion teaches us that death is but the exit from this life into 
 an everlasting heaven of unalloyed happiness. By its clear 
 light alone can we see that man's mission in this world is to 
 build and progress, to lift himself from a high to a higher plane 
 of existence, and to constantly take into his soul and life more 
 of that justice and charity which are to be his divine estate in 
 the great beyond. Some day this great battle that has raged 
 in the breast of each, between our brute natures and our immor- 
 tal souls, will be over, and our discordant natures brought into 
 harmony with the Spirit that controls all things in this great 
 
Address of Mr. McLaurin, of So///// Carolina. yi 
 
 universe, and then, if we have made a good fight, the immortal 
 spirit rises triumphant over mortal flesh, and. looking toward 
 heaven, finds the burden easy and the upward pathway filled 
 with light. 
 
 The death of Dr. J. William Stokes, the Christian gentle- 
 man, the useful citizen, and faithful Congressman, in the 
 meridian of his life work and the midst of. his public duties, 
 makes us all feel that he lived as he should have lived, and 
 that his translation from this life of care and sorrow was to one 
 of rest and happiness in the unending future. 
 
 Dr. Stokes was the idol of the agricultural classes in South 
 Carolina. They loved him; they trusted him; they honored 
 him, and they now revere his memory. He came from their 
 ranks and rose to high position in the State, and by their 
 unswerving confidence and influence was transferred from the 
 arena of State to the wider sphere of national politics. In 
 every position in which he was placed he was true to his people 
 and to the principles of which he was a living exponent. 
 
 When the Alliance movement materialized into a compact 
 an<l influential organization he was one of the leaders in South 
 Carolina, and by his aggressiveness and fidelity to its princi- 
 ples contributed largely toward making it the controlling factor 
 in State politics. He was placed at the head of the State 
 organization, and under his leadership it became a great edu- 
 cator of the masses, inspiring a spirit of independence of 
 thought and action which to some extent at least destroyed 
 party tyranny and gave, in a measure, political freedom to the 
 people. 
 
 Tbe Alliance movement may have given rise to man? 
 "isms" in the politics of this country, and it has been derided 
 as demagogery of the vilest type, but it is an undeniable fact 
 that in the South it awakened the slumbering masses and gave 
 to them freedom from party shackles, and created a wider 
 
9 2 Life and Character of J. William Stokes. 
 
 interest in national affairs. In South Carolina it removed 
 barriers which had existed for years between classes, broke 
 down the traditions of a century, and delivered the people from 
 the oligarchical rule which had controlled the material and 
 political destiny of the State from the close of the Revolution- 
 ary war. 
 
 It was a part of the new era of progress in directing atten- 
 tion to needed reforms, and to the importance of developing 
 the material resources of the State. Dr. Stokes, in the 
 beginning, was one of the guiding spirits in this popular 
 uprising, and well may he have felt that his life's work had 
 left its enduring impress upon the fortunes of his native State. 
 As a public man. Dr. Stokks was pure, modest, and faithful to 
 his creed of principles. He was candid and open in all he did, 
 as firm as adamant in his convictions, and full of an unselfish 
 patriotism. 
 
 His straightforward and manly course commended him to 
 public confidence, and made him hosts of friends who continued 
 him in Congress for several terms. 
 
 As a Representative, he was content to be a working rather 
 than a speaking member. In committee and departmental 
 work he was industrious and faithful. No request from a 
 constituent was ever neglected nor his interest allowed to 
 suffer if Dr. Stokks could prevent it. His most conspicuous 
 work in Congress was in connection with the establishment of 
 rural mail service. His whole soul and energies were in this 
 work, because he felt that this would be to the masse- 
 another step in the great educational work commenced by 
 him as president of the State Alliance. The record of Dr. 
 Stokes in Congress will always stand as a testimonial to his 
 faithfulness as a Representative not only to his own constitu- 
 ency, but to the country people everywhere. 
 
Address of Mr. McLaurin, of South Carolina. 93 
 
 As a private citizen, Dr. Stokes was generous and loyal, 
 ever ready to make sacrifices for the comfort and happiness of 
 others. In whatever position he was placed he never failed to 
 follow his convictions as to right and duty. He was a gentle- 
 man in the highest sense of the term, honorable, cultivated, 
 and refined; all of his instincts were high, and elevating to 
 those who came into contact with him. 
 
 His people mourn his loss and will ever keep in remembrance 
 the shining virtues and unselfish life which made J. William 
 Storks a truly good man, a useful citizen and Representative. 
 
 The Presiding Officer. The question is on agreeing to 
 the resolutions submitted by the Senator from South Carolina 
 [Mr. Tillman]. 
 
 The resolutions were unanimously agreed to; and 1 at 4 
 o'clock and 25 minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned until 
 Monday, June 16, 1902, at 11 o'clock a. m. 
 
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