Fifty Years of Public Service Part 36

as Lincoln needs no memorial, being one of the dozen supremely great rulers of men the world has ever seen."

The Library was completed in 1904, and I was invited to deliver the dedicatory address, which invitation I was very glad to accept.

It was an interesting occasion, held in the main room of the library building, which was crowded with the very best people of the city.

I give a few extracts from the speech I delivered that evening:

"Mr. Chairman: It was a great pleasure to me to be invited by your library board to partic.i.p.ate in these exercises attending the opening of this splendid library building.

"I can not resist on this occasion the inclination to say a few words in reference to Springfield and my early relations to it.

"Old historic Springfield! Here have taken place many of the most important events in the history of Illinois. Springfield has been the centre of the political struggles of both parties since it has been the capital of the State. Many of the great statesmen of Illinois have occupied seats in the legislative hall in Springfield.

Here were mobilized during the Civil War the thousands of troops who went forth to do and die for the Union. Here the greatest General of the age received his first command. Here Lincoln and Douglas met, and from here Lincoln went forth to a.s.sume a task greater than any President has been called upon to undertake in all our history.

"Springfield is endeared to me by all the sacred memories of friendship, family, and home.

"I came here fifty years ago. In Springfield I received my legal education, was admitted to the Bar, and in your old courthouse here I practised my profession. In Springfield I married and reared my family, and here my children are laid in their final resting-place.

"Those early days of my residence here are among the happiest of my life. Official duties have necessitated my absence a great part of the time for the past twenty years, but my heart lingers with it, and the ties which made those early days so happy will never be broken so long as I shall live."

After giving a history of the library and referring to the generosity of Mr. Carnegie, I continued:

"This is a material age. Carnegie, the great captain of industry, is a typical representative of the leaders of this age. It is well worth our while to stop to consider why he should devote a part of his great wealth to the founding of public libraries.

"Andrew Carnegie was a poor boy, enjoying none of the advantages and opportunities which are afforded by a good library. He missed in his early life the opportunity for culture which is now obtained through the facilities supplied by libraries in the towns and cities. He knew that there was no other agency so valuable for the purpose of spreading culture among the people as the public library. No word so precisely describes the influence of good reading as does the word 'culture'. Emerson tells us that the word of ambition of the present day is 'culture.'

"Andrew Carnegie, the great leader of the industrial world, desiring to give to the young men and the young women of this day an opportunity for education, for culture, whose value to the young he realizes so well, has devoted the enormous fortune of over one hundred million dollars for the founding of public libraries. . . .

"There should be no pleasure like the pleasure derived from reading a good book. Emerson, expressing our debt to a book says: 'Let us not forget the genial, miraculous, we have known to proceed from a book. We go musing into the vaults of day and night; no constellation shines, no muse descends, the stars are white points, the roses brick-colored leaves; and frogs pipe, mice cheep, and wagons creak along the road. We return to the house and take up Plutarch or Augustine, and read a few sentences or pages, and lo, the air swims with life, secrets of magnanimity and grandeur invite us on every hand, life is made of them. Such is our debt to a book.'

"The founding of public libraries is the surest mark of advanced civilization. The origin of libraries is lost in the dim twilight of the early ages. When they commenced, how they commenced, we do not know; but we have authentic records that centuries before the Christian era the temples of those countries of the East where civilization had made the greatest advances, contained libraries of clay tablets, carefully shelved in regular order. Among the Greeks, private libraries existed at least four hundred years before the birth of Christ. The Roman Caesars returning from conquest to the development of the arts of peace, established libraries in the then great Capital of the World.

"But the United States is pre-eminently the home of the free public libraries, supported by taxation. This country has more free public libraries than any other country in the world.

"What a great thing it is for our people to have these advantages!

The foundations of our Republic are being well laid. The family, the church, the school--and the library! A people who will adhere to the great principles of the sacredness of the family, the church, and the school, will not perish from the earth. Virtue and intelligence are the necessary foundations on which a republic must rest. Education is more necessary in a republic, where the people are the sovereigns, than it is in a monarchy, where the people are subjects. With education and the library comes culture. The family, the church, the school, and the library are all necessary to qualify the citizen for the great duties of life. . . .

"Mr. Carnegie has given us this building and has requested that it be named in honor of the great emanc.i.p.ator, Abraham Lincoln. Like a number of others who are in this room to-night, I knew Abraham Lincoln intimately and well. We are proud that this city was the home of Abraham Lincoln while living, and now that he has pa.s.sed away, it is the home of his sacred dust. The words of Mr. Carnegie, that no name should be coupled with the name of Mr. Lincoln manifested the highest appreciation by him of the great name of Lincoln. He was a n.o.ble man. Only forty-three years ago, he was going in and out among us, interested in the local affairs of our city, doing his duty in the common affairs of our community, and at the same time grappling with the great questions pressing upon the attention of the people and touching the life of the Nation.

"My friends, in the language of Mr. Carnegie, Lincoln has been 'one of a dozen supremely great rulers of men that the world has seen.'

He was one of a few men in the world's history whose great and n.o.ble life and deeds will be remembered forever. I rejoice that he lived among us and that he was loved by our people while he lived, and that his memory is fresh and green in our hearts.

"My friends, as we reflect upon the progress of our Nation in wealth and power and influence among the Nations of the world in the century just closed, our hearts swell with pride and thankfulness that we have been so favored. As a Nation we are now in the first rank of the nations of the earth.

"Let us do our part in maintaining our national supremacy. We can hold our place by standing by the right as a community, as a State, and as a Nation, adhering rigidly to the foundation principles of our Republican Government, cherishing liberty, and obeying law; upholding the sacredness of the family, the church, and the school; with school, the library will follow, and in the time to come our Nation will endure, and its people will cultivate from generation to generation, a better and higher civilization."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII CONSECUTIVE ELECTIONS TO UNITED STATES SENATE

I was twice elected Governor of Illinois, and have been elected to the United States Senate for five consecutive terms, and as I write this narrative I have served in the Senate more than twenty-eight years. I consider this a greater honor than an election to the Presidency of the United States. I owe the deepest debt of grat.i.tude to the people of the State of Illinois, who have for so many years continued me in the public service. To my many friends who have so loyally supported me during all these years, I am profoundly grateful.

I have already referred to my first election to the United States Senate. At the conclusion of my first term, I was, on January 22, 1889, re-elected without opposition.

The country had turned the Republican party out of power and elected Mr. Cleveland in 1892; and for the first time since 1856, the State of Illinois went Democratic and elected Mr. Altgeld as Governor.

I returned to Illinois, from Washington, to enter the campaign in 1894, having little or no hope that I could be re-elected to the Senate, as I supposed, of course, that the State would continue in the control of the Democratic party. Having been twice elected to the United States Senate, I deemed it my duty to make the best fight I could for Republican success, regardless of my own personal interest in the matter. The Democrats were confident they would carry the Legislature, and Mr. Franklin MacVeagh, who is now Secretary of the Treasury under a Republican President, was the candidate of the Democratic party for the Senate to succeed me.

Mr. MacVeagh made a canva.s.s of the State as a candidate for United States Senator against me. Very much to his surprise, the State went overwhelmingly Republican and elected a Republican Legislature, insuring the election of a Republican to the Senate.

While I had made the canva.s.s of the State, it was not until after the election, when it became known that we had elected a Republican Legislature, that opposition to my re-election developed in the Republican party.

Mr. George E. Adams, and Mr. George R. Davis who had served in Congress and been Director General of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, were candidates against me. Mr. Joseph E. Medill, the owner of _The Chicago Tribune_, also considered the question whether he would be a candidate. He advised with the late Hon. John R.

Tanner, asking him if he thought that he (Medill) could be elected if he could secure the solid support of the Cook County delegation.

Mr. Tanner replied that he could not, that I had a sufficient number of votes in the country outside of Cook to defeat every candidate; whereupon he declined to consider the possibility of election at all.

The Hon. John R. Tanner managed my campaign. He had served in the Legislature, where he had been a very influential member, and was then chairman of the State Central Committee. He was popular and possessed shrewd political sagacity. Tanner was very loyal to me then, and for many years I considered him my closest and most devoted political friend. I have always had the firm conviction that if he had remained loyal and had supported me for re-election in 1900, he would have been re-elected Governor himself, and would have succeeded the late John M. Palmer as my colleague in the Senate.

The Legislature met in January, 1895. I secured the caucus nomination, and on January 22, in the joint session of the Thirty-ninth General a.s.sembly, I was elected the third time to succeed myself in the United States Senate.

There were a number of very complimentary speeches made on that occasion. My old friend, the Hon. David T. Littler, who then represented the Springfield District in the Senate, made the first speech. He began by saying:

"Mr. President: Twelve years ago, from my seat as a member of the Lower House of this General a.s.sembly, I had the honor to place in nomination as the candidate of the Republican party for the great office of United States Senator, the Hon. Shelby M. Cullom. I took occasion at that time to predict that in the office to which he had been elected he would show his usefulness and increase his reputation not only among the people of our own State, but the whole people of this country. After the lapse of twelve years and with his record perfectly familiar to the people of the whole country, I ask you Senators whether my prediction has not been fulfilled. His name has been connected with every important measure introduced in the United States Senate; and his discussion of important questions there on many occasions testified as to his patriotism and as to his ability as a statesman. I take great pleasure on this occasion to place in nomination for that high office the same Shelby M. Cullom who has served the people of this State so long and so creditably. In doing so I believe I state but the truth when I say he has the longest and most distinguished record in public life of any man who ever lived in the State of Illinois."

Speeches were made in the Senate by Senators c.o.o.n, Aspinwall, and Mussett; and in the House of Representatives William J. Butler, of Springfield, E. Callahan, George W. Miller, D. S. Berry, A. J.

Dougherty, J. E. Sharrock, and Charles E. Selby.

I was present in Springfield, and was invited before the joint session of the General a.s.sembly, after they had elected me, to deliver an address. I appeared before the joint session and expressed my obligations to the members of the Thirty-sixth General a.s.sembly for the high honor conferred upon me. I made a short address, reviewing conditions in the State and the country generally, and concluded by saying:

"The prosperity and happiness of the people depend upon wise and just laws to be enacted both by the State and by the Nation. In the discharge of the high duty which you have just imposed upon me, it shall be my single aim to dy my part in so shaping the policy of the country, that we shall soon stand upon the high ground of permanent prosperity.

"Gentlemen, it should be our ambition so to legislate that the freedom and rights of every citizen shall be secured and respected; that all interests shall be protected; that one portion of our people shall not oppress another, and so that ample remedies shall be found and applied for every existing wrong. To this end an enlarged humanity bids us look forward with renewed hope and trust."

My reference to the Hon. Joseph E. Medill in connection with this contest reminds me that I should say something of Mr. Medill. I regarded him as one of the three really great editors of his day-- Horace Greeley, Henry Watterson, and Joe Medill.

He made _The Chicago Tribune_ one of the most influential newspapers of the United States. At time Medill and I were very friendly, and he gave me his hearty support. At other times he was against me, but we always remained on speaking terms at least, and I admired and respected him very much.

He was one of the most indefatigable and inveterate letter-writers within my experience. From the time I was Governor of Illinois, and even before that, and almost to the time of his death, he wrote me at great length upon every conceivable public question. His letters were always interesting, but as he did not avail himself of a stenographer, and as he wrote a very difficult hand to read, they became at times a trifle tiresome. I have retained a large number of his letters, and as they are so characteristic of the man I venture to quote a few of them.

"The Chicago Tribune, Editorial Rooms.

"_Feb. 6, 1887_.

"Hon. S. M. Cullom,

"Dear Sir:--

"Well, he signed the bill, and it out of the woods. All right so far. His signing it shows that he is a candidate for a second term. That was the test. The next thing is the composition of the Board of Commissioners. The successful working of the law depends upon the action of the Board. There is an impression that he will probably let you name one of the commissioners and Reagan another. If that be so, let me suggest among other names Mr. C.

M. Wicker, manager Chicago Freight Bureau, for the position. You probably know him. He has had large experience in freighting, and is widely known to both shippers and railroad men, and is well liked. He is a friend of the law, and supported it vigorously while before Congress, writing some good letters in its explanation and defence for _The Tribune_. He is a sound Republican though not much of a politician. You may find other and better men to recommend, but I don't think of any belonging to this State at this moment. I hear Judge Cooley's name mentioned. He is of course a first-cla.s.s A No. 1 man, but I write on the hypothesis that your preference will be for an Illinois man if you are allowed to have a say in it.

"The pa.s.sage of the bill is a great triumph for you, if the bill works well. People always judge of measures by their effect; hence the act should have fair play.

"Now that it is safely in the shape of a law, I thought _The Tribune_ might indulge in a little horn-blowing as per enclosed article,

"Yours truly, "(Signed) J. Medill."