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 MEMORIAL ADDRESS 
 
 B1 
 
 ROBERT Gi COUSINS, LL. I) 
 
 ON THE 
 
 LIFE AND SERVICES 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 Senator Jonathan P. Dolliver 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE 
 OF THE STATE OF IOWA 
 
 ON ITS INVITATION 
 
 MARCH 16, 1911 
 
 ^ - =J 
 
£76 £f 
 
 Dolliver inherited no political prestige. He had no Duke of 
 Rutland for a sponsor. The cliffy hills and lofty mountains of 
 Virginia were his great godfathers and the honeyed valleys of 
 that romantic birthland whispered their soft dreams into his 
 eager, boyhood ears. The rivers and the hills of loyal Illinois 
 gave welcome to his trudging weary feet and encouraged his 
 exalted hope. The rolling plains and honeysuckled woodlands 
 of our river-bordered Iowa sang thrice welcome to the bright- 
 eyed continental wayfarer and won his wondrous heart and 
 scintillating brain for its historic heritage. 
 
 3 o v u ■_ 
 
Members and Guests of the Legislature of Iowa: 
 
 Your greatly esteemed invitation, which I could regard but 
 virtually as a complimentary command to appear before you on 
 this occasion, could not fail to bring to my mind another event many 
 years ago, when occupying seat numbered "69," on yonder aisle, 
 the House of Representatives of the Twenty-first Assembly of our 
 State elected me for a far different duty to perform in a matter 
 then pending before the Senate. And scarcely could it have been 
 imagined then that a quarter of a century later, I should be bid- 
 den by this Assembly to speak in memory of one who was then 
 my earliest companion in the campaigns of his adopted common- 
 wealth, this my own native State. 
 
 But the destinies of men can seldom be foreseen and fate 
 forever loves to mystify their future and their plans. Nevertheless, 
 it seemed certain to many of us then that Jonathan P. Dolliver was 
 made and marked for eminent success. 
 
 No words of mine are needed now to fasten up the fame which, 
 by his great abilities, he wrote across the nation's sky. No praises 
 or encomiums are required to carry his illustrious name into the 
 devoted households and the hamlets and the cities of the State of 
 Iowa. 
 
 Mysteries of Life. 
 
 Human life, in fact all life, is the strangest and most won- 
 derful of the mysteries. So, too, is death — save for the teachings 
 of some philosophers — likewise mysterious. But the natural phe- 
 nomena of autumn time with gently fading colors, with swift reced- 
 ing vigor, seem almost easily accounted for — an inexorable, known, 
 expected fact. The setting sun and all its twilight hues are sure, 
 decided, known, and fixed as is the picture painted by the artist's 
 brush. 
 
But, who feels certain of the dawn or of a single day, much 
 less of the course of a human life? Will the sign of Aries or Leo, 
 or Sagittarius or Aquarius or any sign or star under which a human 
 life starts out, determine its course, its rising or its downfall? Not so. 
 The teachers of the zodiacal science tell us that the possibilities of one 
 born in the sign of Aquarius are greatest of all and also may be the 
 poorest and the worst. How, then, is a human soul to be separated 
 from the infinite mysteries that attend it? Who can know what 
 bloom of sunny clime, or frigid zone, or axioms of our childhood 
 faith, or mystic teachings of some far-off land shall lift, or thwart, or 
 guide straight onward to its fairest goal a human soul? How is it 
 that in one case environment, associations, or conditions shall inspire 
 a human mind so that it leads on to the splendid glory of uncommon 
 and incalculable achievement, may be by winning the souls of men 
 with mighty eloquence and reason, or thrilling them with melodies so 
 great and sweet that they seem almost to have been dying through- 
 out the centuries of time with the pain of silence; and in another case 
 of the very same conditions and environment, some other human being 
 seems ignomimously to lose itself along the way of life without achieve- 
 ment or distinguishment and without the exultation of success. I have 
 sometimes thought that the secret of it all is like the secret of a perfect 
 love, which in our mortal world can never be, without complete, un- 
 stinted sacrifice of self. 
 
 However all this may be, the man whose brilliant and unusual 
 career we memorialize today, achieved and felt in fullest measure 
 the exultation of singular success. He put his life upon the altar 
 of his hope and art and there it was consecrated to the end. 
 
 Environment. 
 
 To be born of frugal, healthy parents in an environment that 
 is stimulating is a great advantage. The green fields of Virginia far 
 away, and the hills and vales and mountains of that statesmen-mould- 
 ing commonwealth, first heard the voice of Jonathan Prentiss Dolliver. 
 They had heard the unctuous and exhorting voice of his dear old 
 father before him, and the voices of seven of our presidents in their 
 youthful days. But Virginia was the cradle also of thousands whose 
 
reputations never crossed its hoi (Ins . Dollivei was born also in a most 
 favorable sign, on the 6th day oi February, 1858; bul million . ol 
 whose names the world and you and 1 have nevei heard, first saw tin- 
 light in that same sign and under that same In kv star. 
 
 Training and Tugging. 
 
 Educated well at home and finished will: a college touch, our 
 seventeen-year-old Virginian looked over the mountains ol his birth- 
 land, took the sun for his pilot and Horace Greeley for his advisoi 
 and started on foot for the empire of the pioneers. We were all 
 here waiting to help him and to shout for him. Both ol my '.'unci 
 fathers had been here for more than thirty-five years welcoming 
 such bone and flesh and blood. He tarried in Illinois and dug 
 potatoes while a local school board were deciding to elect him 
 teacher. Little did the people of Sandwich, Illinois, know what 
 they were missing when they let the young Virginian leave them 
 and locate in Iowa between the two great rivers. But of course 
 they and nobody else ever knows what may come out of a hickory 
 shirt and a celluloid collar. Thousands had come away from 
 there, thousands from New England and Ohio and Indiana and 
 other states, but nobody knew which ones were geniuses until the 
 mettle of their intellects came in contact with the flint of circum- 
 stances and experience. 
 
 When Dolliver came to Ft. Dodge in the Spring of 1878, 
 nobody knew about it except his brother who accompanied him. and 
 the landlord of whom they rented a small office. When the struggle 
 became so hard that they had to sleep in the office, his brother went 
 back to Virginia into the ministry and Jonathan, as he tells us him- 
 self, worked on the streets for a dollar and a half per day. 
 
 Awakening of Souls. 
 The soul of every individual must always have an awakening 
 if it is to expand. If that awakening does not come, we shall 
 never know much of the individual. Perhaps many lives have been 
 wasted for want of an awakening. 
 
Nothing tends so much to bring out true worth as trouble. 
 Nobody ever amounted to very much in this world unless he had to. 
 The best flowers of genius have blossomed from Bleeding Hearts. 
 
 Bulwer Lytton tells us of his young physician who studied 
 and who suffered long and patiently in the community and that 
 finally "Abbey Hill let him feel its pulse." Robert Burns suf- 
 fered and sang so sweetly in the provincial region of Ayr that 
 finally he was invited to Edinburgh. 
 
 When Ft. Dodge had discovered Dolliver, they must share 
 him with the whole State. He was invited to Des Moines. He 
 spoke to a state convention and the nation took up his name. Of 
 course he plagued the opposition and had fun with the mugwumps. 
 He said they treated their consciences as if they were the stock 
 in trade of a baking powder factory — they solemnly protest that 
 everybody's conscience has alum in it except theirs. But no mat- 
 ter, he was awakened and from that moment his real life began. 
 He was a permanent factor in American politics and in all political 
 campaigns. He campaigned with Blaine and with all of the best 
 of them from that time on. 
 
 With the enviable reputation which his first convention speech 
 had given him throughout the country, and with his local prestige 
 which had been gradually building and with the earnest aid of such 
 strong characters as the late Governor Carpenter, it is not strange 
 that he was soon chosen for Congress in the Tenth District. 
 
 Intellect and Office. 
 
 There is always in every community a natural fraternity of 
 intellectuality. There is a certain magnetism of intelligence that is 
 always and everywhere irresistible. Thomas B. Reed once said : 
 "There is no refinement quite equal to the graceful, mighty intel- 
 lectuality. That of itself is always a commanding charm. It rules 
 wherever it appears. Wealth bows to it and seeks its patronage 
 while even ignorance reveres it." 
 
 Men are chosen for important offices, such as Congress, on 
 account of being singularly known in the communities for something, 
 either for unusual ability or for some signal success. Of course, by 
 dint of dollars, in preliminary squabbles, men sometimes break into 
 important offices, creating wonderment as to how they got there. But, 
 
as a general rule, a man's name on the roll ol the Ameri an ( 01 
 can be accounted for. I remember on entering I ongr< nearly two 
 decades ago I began running over the list of names and t<> m\. h .ii- 
 the probable reason for the presence of certain membei there. I here 
 was the name White. How did he get there? On investigation I found 
 he was the author of White's Yucatan chewing gum, a wealth) gentle- 
 man, the leading citizen of his community, and a large employer of 
 workmen. Then there was the name Cochran, the famous Irish 
 orator of New York. There was the name Sorg, whom I found to 
 be one of the leading tobacco manufacturers of the world, a large 
 employer of men and a liberal spirit in his State. Then there was 
 Thomas Dunn English, partly accounted for by the fact that he was 
 the author of the famous "Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt," and so on through 
 the list. The name Dolliver was there, already accounted for by his 
 fame fairly well established before he came. He had been in the 
 noted Fifty-first Congress, known as the Reed Congress, and had 
 taken part in the discussion of the McKinley Bill. He was already 
 established so that his appearance for a speech attracted attention 
 and commanded silence. 
 
 The Great Arena. 
 
 The House of Representatives, under certain circumstances, is 
 probably the greatest arena in the world. Few men have been able 
 to hold and control it for any great length of time. You can count 
 on the fingers of your hands the occasions during the last two decades 
 when different speakers have commanded it in such quietude that the 
 speaker could be distinctly heard for a continuous hour. Under such 
 circumstances it is a rare and wonderful arena. The English House 
 of Commons is a play house compared with it. I have heard Balfour 
 and Bannerman on the same day in the House on a government issue 
 and have witnessed a dozen occasions in the American House of Rep- 
 resentatives that far surpassed such a noted session of the Commons. 
 Usually in the House there is constant conversation whi'.e the ordinary 
 member is speaking. That is the general rule. But sometimes, while 
 full to overflowing, the House becomes intensely quiet and remains so 
 if the speaker has the ability to hold it. Dolliver was one of the 
 few who at times commanded silence. 
 
It is not my purpose on this occasion to produce a biography or 
 the history of a congressional epoch. I shall content myself with 
 citing a few instances of this man's singular power as a speaker in 
 that great arena. 
 
 Early Advocate of Navy. 
 Not Theodore Roosevelt, nor any Secretary of the Navy, or 
 Assistant Secretary, but Johnathan P. Dolliver, early in his congres- 
 sional career, in the Fifty-third Congress of 1 894, long before the 
 Spanish War, was the first to make an effectual appeal for a sub- 
 stantial navy. On May 9, 1894, among other strong utterances in 
 the House of Representatives, he said: 
 
 "I came into the Fifty-first Congress and, by some mysterious movement of 
 Providence that I never was able to understand, I was assigned to duty upon the 
 Committee on Naval Affairs. I am very glad that it was so, because it led me 
 to interest myself in this great national enterprise and to enlist the sympathetic 
 interest of a great community which is not directly concerned in the management 
 and expenditures of those sums which Congress puts at the disposal of the Navy 
 Department. As a friend of the new American Navy, I want now to enter a 
 humble protest against what appears to me to be a conspiracy of scandal and 
 libel and unfounded criticism that is fast undermining the faith of the people of 
 the United States in the integrity of the administration of the Navy Department 
 and in the value and seaworthiness of the new steel ships, which are the pride 
 and the boast of the people of the United States." 
 
 Great Counselors and Common Sense. 
 
 In that same Fifty-third Congress, while his alert mind was study- 
 ing the propositions of reduction of protection for our agricultural 
 products in the Wilson Bill, he came forward in behalf of his con- 
 stituents and in behalf of sound principle, in a mighty speech, some 
 of which can be appropriately and non-partisanly quoted here, be- 
 cause it signalizes the name of Andrew Jackson, the most conspicuous 
 of Democrats, in agreement and in sympathy with the views of Ben- 
 jamin Franklin, Horace Greeley and Abraham Lincoln on the most 
 vital issue of our industrial history. On that great occasion, when the 
 most illustrious minds were engaged in the debate, Representative 
 Dolliver, who had before that time manifested in a powerful way his 
 great and genuine interest in the cause of the farmers of our state by 
 a continued and mighty effort in behalf of the settlers of the Des 
 Moines River region, entered the congressional debate again in the 
 
cause of the farmers and wool growers of the country and is fairly 
 represented in that historic record by these strong and eloquent utt€l 
 ances : 
 
 ' Common sense is the most splendid possession of the human mind. It is 
 the only absolutely reliable human faculty. If this world were full of phil- 
 osophers, of statesmen, of orators, of political economists, it would hardly be 
 possible for a plain man to live in it at all. 1 hey would talk h : m to death; 
 or if he escaped that they would argue him, after the manner of Edward At- 
 kinson's recent address to the workingmen of Boston, into the belief thai by 
 some new pr.nciple of cookery the shin bone of a beef can be so prepared as 
 not to be distinguished from a sirloin steak. (Laughter.) Fortunately, we have 
 had in the history of the country at least four resplendent types of American 
 common sense — Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Horace Greeley, and 
 Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.) 
 
 'If the young men of the United States can find a doctrine of practical 
 politics upon which that little group of statesmen are agreed, it is a waste of 
 time to hang around the lecture rooms of a free-trade university in the hope 
 of getting a patentable improvement on their wisdom. (Applause.) The doc- 
 trine of the protective tariff, vindicated by the united judgment of these men, 
 may be attacked, may even be for a time discredited, but can not be perma- 
 nently dislodged from the sober judgment of the people. The storm of clamor 
 and hearsay and interest may threaten it, but in the end it will find an anchorage 
 in the public judgment that is sure and steadfast. Can any sane man bel:eve 
 that God gave to our fathers the far-sighted prudence of Benjamin Franklin if He 
 had intended this country to be guided by the advice of John Randolph, who 
 used to say that he would go a mile out of his way to kick a sheep? (Laughter 
 and applause.) 
 
 "Can it be believed that Andrew Jackson made the eighth day of January 
 notable and famous only to give certain orators of our own times an opportunity 
 to exploit the free-trade notions upon which the ordinance of nullification in 
 South Carolina was predicated in 1832? (Applause.) Is it credible that 
 Horace Greeley, faithful journalist that he was, made a daily record of the 
 famine, in the midst of which the people celebrated the Christmas of 1854, if 
 the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is now to persuade us that 
 the starving multitudes of that afflicted winter were really enjoy;ng the bless- 
 ings of a 'symmetrical industrial development'? (Laughter.) 
 
 "Can any man in his senses suppose that Abraham Lincoln was called 
 to think, to labor, to suffer, and at last to die, that through his martyrdom the 
 struggling millions of the earth might be free, if, after all, his countrymen are 
 to cast away his counsel and reorganize their affairs on the lines laid down in 
 the Confederate constitution? (Loud applause.) So that I for one am not 
 discouraged, even if this Congress should enact the proposed bill into law with- 
 out substantial modification, because I know that the people of the United 
 
 1 1 
 
States, having learned their lesson in the midst of broken fortunes and im- 
 poverished industries, will come back speedily to the historic standards of 
 American common sense." (Applause.) 
 
 Save for the forensic contests of the Fifty-third Congress, in 
 which the mighty intellect of Thomas B. Reed was actively engaged 
 upon the floor, those of the first session of the Fifty-fifth, in 1897, 
 were perhaps the greatest in our recent history. On the 23d day of 
 March, in that great year of restorative legislation in Congress, Mr. 
 Dolhver made one of the most attractive speeches of his life. I quote 
 a brief sample of Dollivenan style and strength: 
 
 The American Farm. 
 
 "Originally the American farm, except in some textile fibers, was entirely 
 without competition, and for that reason no duties were needed to protect the 
 ordinary products of the farm. But that slate of things no longer exists in the 
 United States. Last year Mexico sent to us nearly 300,000 head of cattle. 1 
 received a telegram night before last from a packing house in Chicago, stating 
 that the proposed duty of $6 on Mexican cattle was prohibitory, and adding 
 that they were buying their canners in Mexico. I replied that the duty of $6 
 on Mexican cattle was intended to be prohibitory, and that we had canners for 
 sale out in our own western states. (Laughter and applause on the Republican 
 side.) Last year the Dominion of Canada — and I should like to have the at- 
 tention of our friend from Missouri (Mr. Dockery) — poured into the American 
 market place, a market place helpless and distracted, millions of dollars' worth 
 of the ordinary products of the farm. 
 
 "Against that state of things, whether the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
 Dockery) knows it or not, the American farmer has complained, and his com- 
 plaint has reached the ears of the committee which prepared these schedules. I 
 do not know but what we shall live long enough, to be able to get into Canada 
 without going out of the United States (applause) ; but until that time comes 
 I intend to support no tariff law that does not set before the American farm 
 the shield of the same law that shelters the American factory. (Applause.) 
 
 Food and Factories. 
 
 "I live in a State almost entirely devoted to agriculture and if our people 
 out there had no other interest in a protective tariff except its indirect effect on the 
 American market place, if they had no foreign competitors, as my friend (Mr. 
 Dockery) claims, I should still feel authorized to appear for them in behalf of 
 this bill, because if there is one thing that we have learned by experience, and 
 a bitter experience at that, it is the hardsh'p and burden of trying to sell farm 
 produce in a market place stricken and prostrate by the idleness of a popula- 
 tion once busy and prosperous. (Applause.) The farmers of the United 
 States, my brethren, are eager, not for the fabled markets of the world; they 
 are longing for the music of the old factory bell, call.ng back the idle millions 
 
to the deserted workshops of the United Stales. (Applause oil the Republii an 
 side.) The roar of furnaces that are now cold, the noise of looms that arc 
 now silent, will mean a good deal to the working people of the United States. 
 It will mean not less to the scattered households on distant prairies remote from 
 smoke and noise where, for four years, industrious men have seen the fruits 
 of their toil waste in the fields that produced them. 
 
 "Open the Statistical Abstract of the United Stales. What do these figures 
 mean? The consumption of wheat fallen off in the United Stales a bushel 
 and a half for every man, woman, and child in it; the consumption of corn 
 fallen off nearly a billion bushels in a single year. Gentlemen, there is 'the 
 skeleton in the corn-crib,' if you will pardon a phrase from your friend Govern- 
 or Carpenter, of Iowa, affectionately remembered by the older members of this 
 House. 
 
 "I stood last winter at a street corner in the city of New York and saw the 
 hungry multitudes wailing to be fed by the hand of Christian charity; and as 
 I looked upon that general assembly of poverty, that rendezvous of human misery, 
 I said to myself, 'Here is a fac simile of the famine of 1855, described by Horace 
 Greeley, in the old New York Tribune, when before his eyes thousands of men 
 fought like wild beasts for a place at A. T. Stewart's daily banquet of free- 
 trade soup.' 
 
 Wool and Wisdom. 
 
 "The proposed bill reclassifies the clothing wool, notwithstanding the state- 
 ment of my friend from Colorado (Mr. Bell) to the contrary. It puts in 
 the class of clothing wool all the wools of the world that can be used for 
 clothing wools, and it restores the protective rates of 1890, in order that the 
 American flocks may not be further scattered and in order that agriculture may 
 enter upon and possess this half-occupied field of domestic production. The 
 existing law was ingeniously framed to give cheap wool to the factories, and it 
 accomplished that, incidentally putting most of them into the hands of a re- 
 ceiver. (Laughter.) Therein lies a double affliction on the American farm, 
 because no rate of duty, as my friend from South Carolina ought to know, is 
 worth anything to the farmer unless the factories of the United States are busy, 
 since the American clip must either be sold in the United States or kept over 
 as a souvenir of legislative stupidity. (Laughter.) 
 
 "The woolen factories of New England, which my friend from South 
 Carolina talked about, r.ever asked for free wool; and they accepted it with 
 doubts and fears; nor is it too much to say that all their fears have been realized, 
 for the statement made yesterday by our honored leader (Mr. Dingley), as 
 to the effect of this legislation on the farm and factory and en the Treasury 
 is fully corroborated by the official reports. It was intended only to slaughter 
 the sheep; it has operated to slaughter the factories and to slaughter the 
 Treasury. They said that the price of wool would be kept up by the activity 
 of the mills, and the revenues of the Government would be kept up by the 
 activity of the custom-house. Their theory is as beautiful as any dream that 
 ever grew in the imagination of man. We were not only to hold our own, but 
 
we were to go out with our free wool cloth and divide with Bradford and 
 Chemnitz the job of clothing the naked inhabitants of the earth. (Laughter.) 
 "That was the theory. What has actually happened may be stated in a 
 few plain words and figures. Ten million sheep driven to the slaughter; 80,- 
 000,000 pounds of American wool displaced in our own market; the importa- 
 tion of cloth multiplied by 2; half the woolen mills idle and locked up, and 
 the other half on scant wages and short time; the Treasury of the United 
 States $21,000,000 shy (laughter); our choice and select gentry disporting 
 themselves in German, English, and French clothes, and the rest of us shinning 
 around in overcoats purchased during Harrison's administration." (Applause and 
 great laughter.) 
 
 War With Spain. 
 
 On the evening of April 1 0, 1 898, invited by the late Presi- 
 dent McKinley, I attended a conference consisting of the President, 
 the Secretary of State and two members of the United States Senate, 
 all, save one, now deceased, to consider the matter of our interference 
 with Spanish government in the island of Cuba. Soon after entering 
 that conference President McKinley said: "I propose to do every- 
 thing for peace that is possible to do with honor to our country. 
 What do you think, and what have you heard from the people?" 
 I said to President McKinley and to the other members of the con- 
 ference that I had spent several years on the Committee of Foreign 
 affairs doing the best I could to prevent war; that I had pigeon- 
 holed many inflammatory resolutions and letters, and that in my 
 opinion there was a matter of far greater importance than the one of 
 immediate interference with Spain, and that was whether we were to 
 recognize the independence of the "Cuba Junta," the government then 
 proposed there, which, as everyone versed in international law knew, 
 would put our officers and soldiers under command of Cuba generals. 
 The President said: "That must not be. That must by all means 
 be avoided." 
 
 On the next day the message of intervention came to the Con- 
 gress, and the vote of the committee and of the House sustained the 
 President's position. 
 
 These matters I have stated preliminary to offering the Record 
 that shou'd be quoted, in fairness, concerning Senator Dolliver's loyal 
 and masterful upholding of the late President's hands in the difficult 
 and trying proceedings of the Spanish War, and of the adjustments 
 that attended its final outcome. 
 
To begin with, on the 25 th of January, 1 899, he had this to say 
 concerning the beginning of that war, which I have mostly in memory, 
 but which I read, as I have others of his words, from the ( ongressional 
 Record, so they may be accurately stated: 
 
 "It was a hopeful and admirable thing that when the question of declar- 
 ing war arose the nat.on spake as one man, putting away the contentions of 
 domestic politics in the presence of the public danger. It suggested a moral 
 unity never before attained in the United States. There were Tories in the 
 Revolution, there was an opposition party in the War of 1812, our army in 
 Mexico never got beyond the sound of partisan disputes in this Capitol. Every 
 movement of the Government in the Civil War was impeded by a restless and 
 malignant minority in both Houses of Congress. But in the war with Spain, for 
 the first time in our national history, whatever was done was done by the whole 
 American people, in a lofty national spint, from which all the littleness of political 
 strife entirely disappeared. 
 
 "The grandest scene ever enacted in this House was that historic day in 
 the last session when every man on this floor voted to commit to the President 
 of the United States the solemn duty of preparing for the national defense, and 
 for that purpose placed at his disposal the resources of the Government." 
 
 Laurels for Lawton. 
 
 One of the best and greatest utterances of our distinguished 
 friend was that concerning General Lawton on March 7, 1 900, when 
 he, with many of our volunteers and regulars, were striving to estab'ish 
 orderly and peaceful government in the Philippines. This is as non- 
 partisan as patriotism itself, and sets an example of eloquence and 
 high-minded utterance of the highest order. I read it, lest some 
 precious word might be omitted: 
 
 "A few days ago in this city, in a stately ceremonial, his comrades carried 
 to Arlington the bravest of the brave. It was he who, at the time when the 
 printing presses of America were busy with deeds of valor furnished in manu- 
 script by gentlemen who performed them, standing before the multitude at 
 Macon, could only say, 'I am not an orator; I am a soldier. I am not a hero; 
 I am a Regular.' (Applause.) 
 
 "What right have people living under the shelter of our laws to embitter 
 the service of a man like that as he rides under unfriendly skies, careless even 
 of his life, at the head of an American command? Is it not a shame that this 
 old sold'er, who for forty years had obeyed the orders of this Government, re- 
 ceiving hardly enough to support his family and educate his children, with no 
 ambition except to do his duty, should in his last great campaign hear mes- 
 sages from home so filled with banter and criticism and reproach that his heart 
 sank within him, and in his agony of spirit, seeing the shadow upon him, he 
 wrote the words I am about to read? 
 
" 'I wish to God that this whole Philippine situation could be known by 
 every one in America as I know it. If the real history, inspiration, and con- 
 ditions of this insurrection, and the influences, local and external, that now en- 
 courage the enemy, as well as the actual possibilities of these islands and 
 peoples and their relations to this great East could be understood at home, we 
 would hear no more talk of unjust "shooting of Government" into the Filipinos 
 or of hauling down our flag in the Philippines. 
 
 " 'If the so-called anti-imperialists would honestly ascertain the truth on the 
 ground, and not in distant America, they, whom I believe to be honest men 
 misinformed, would be convinced of the error of their statements and coi 
 elusions and of the unfortunate effect of their publications here. If I am shot 
 by a Filipino bullet, it might as well come from one of my own men, because 
 I know from observation, confirmed by captured prisoners, that the continuant 
 of the fighting is chiefly due to reports that are sent out from America. 
 
 "Standing by the grave of Henry W. Lawton, I appeal to the patrioti. 
 millions of my countrymen without regard to politics to put an end to tru. 
 pestilent in fire in the rear which for nearly two years has followed our Army i>. 
 the Philippines, filling the hearts of our own soldiers with despair and the heart* 
 of their enemy with comfort and good cheer." (Loud applause.) 
 
 Gratitude to the Grand Old Man. 
 
 During his mighty and conspicuous service in the Senate, and 
 near its close, came the most delicate test of Senator Dolliver's bril- 
 liant career. After enjoying the helpful friendship of one of the most 
 magnanimous statesmen Iowa ever had, William B. Allison, and 
 when the character of that friend was questioned in one of the prom- 
 inent magazines of the day at a crucial time when his candidacy was 
 before the people of our state, for the last time, Senator Dolliver said 
 to me: 
 
 "I realize that I am the one who should do it, and I am going out among 
 our people and take up the cause of the Grand Old Man. I care not what it 
 may cost me, he has been my friend and the friend of every young man in Iowa 
 public life." 
 
 And he went, risking even his health and life. I mention this 
 noble event of his career, not for the purpose of awakening any issue 
 which was involved in that campaign so far as the politics of this state 
 was concerned, but simply to call to memory the gratitude and faith- 
 fulness of the man who had the courage to risk all that he had at stake 
 personal'y. and to offer to the present generation an example of sin- 
 gular and beautiful gratitude. Whoever is without gratitude is lacking 
 in virtue and in manhood. 
 
Dolliver stood by the side of his lifetime friend evincing the noble 
 loyalty of a comrade and a gentleman, and mankind approves his 
 course. He knew, as we all know, that the notorious magazine asser- 
 tion that Senator Allison was a multi-millionaire by illy-gotten gains 
 was a purchased fa'sehood, and he knew that Senator Allison led the 
 simplest sort of life while he labored from early morn to late at night 
 for his country and especially for Iowa and her people. He knew 
 that if Senator Allison had sought great wealth he could easily have 
 gained it. But he knew that he was not wealthy. He did not know 
 then, as is known now, that, including trust funds within his manage- 
 ment and belonging to others, his total accounting at the time of his 
 death was less than a hundred and fifty thousand dol'ars. But he did 
 know that Senator Allison was an honest man, and the charge that he 
 was not stirred the blood of this loyal Virginian and set his eloquent 
 lips on fire. And while they may have uttered words that stung and 
 sounded harsh, the spirit of their utterance was generously considered 
 by understanding minds, and the motive was everywhere considered 
 equivalent to exoneration. I would be a coward on my own account 
 and a coward on his account should I omit mentioning that worthy 
 episode of his illustrious career, and I do not hesitate to offer every 
 word of this memorial, so far as it is applicable and so far as virtue 
 is concerned, in honor of my life-long friend, Senator William B. 
 Allison. 
 
 Integrity of Public Men. 
 
 It belongs to history and to the memory of Senator Dolliver to 
 say also that he knew that the life of the average legislator is an up- 
 right and an honest life. He knew, for example, that Thomas B. 
 Reed, the foremost of American politicians, was sometimes seen going 
 about the railroad ticket offices in Washington trying to buy a cheap 
 ticket to his home in Portland, Maine. He knew that Tom Reed 
 never had a railroad pass, as many of us never had, on any railroad 
 entering the city of Washington. Senator Dolliver knew perfectly well 
 that the average legislator has all he can do to meet his expenses; thar 
 as a rule he is not a man of wealth ; that he is a representative of the 
 people not only in title, but in financial status as well; and he knew 
 this by the experience of many years; and he came to the state and told 
 the story of that grand life that had been devoted for the good of his 
 country and of his state. 
 
A Rainbow in the Gloom. 
 
 Remembering his own hard struggle for a start and for success in 
 life, his voice was always lifted for the good of his generation and 
 of future generations and for his fellow men. He had that tempera- 
 ment which taught him that the most evil seed that can be sown in a 
 community is the seed of suspicion and of doubt, and that the best spirit 
 that can be nurtured is that of faith and confidence and chanty and 
 integrity. Therefore he inculcated the hopeful spirit in his fellow men. 
 He was the sunlight in every social circle of his friends. He was like 
 a "rainbow in the gloom." The language of his ordinary conversation 
 turned the corners of thought so abruptly and so swiftly that there was 
 constant, epigrammatic and inimitable illumination. He was the prince 
 of good cheer and one of the happiest integers of human individuality 
 in our serious, struggling world. 
 
 A Heart Fatigued. 
 
 After all the years of toil and exciting contest for a full decade 
 in the House of Representatives, and with tremendously exhausting 
 work in the Chautauqua service, in which he earned substantial profits, 
 and with all the burdens and embarrassments of his senatorial career, 
 his great heart began to wane. The strongest machinery must finally 
 break. Even steel and iron and hardest granite are not impervious or 
 imperturbable. Whoever touches and commands the hearts of others 
 must always give up something of his own. So many hearts had been 
 touched, so many souls had been stirred in all those great campaigns, 
 that finally his own was worked to the mortal limit. Many the time I 
 met him late at night and early in the morning in those fatiguing cam- 
 paigns when we were out on the road, sometimes sixty to seventy days, 
 and home, maybe three or four nights in all that time, sleeping perhaps 
 four or five hours the night, and having a splendid time, we thought, at 
 that. And they were splendid and historic days when Iowa had the 
 greatest corps of campaigners in the country; when she had two mem- 
 bers in the Cabinet and the Speaker of the House of Representatives; 
 when aforetime Tom Reed had said, ''You have so much talent in 
 your state, it is impossible to do justice to it and to the other states in 
 Committee appointments." 
 
 It was a great honor and a sweet exultation to stand with the van 
 of such a delegation, and the inspiration of it moved the heart of our 
 friend to faster beating until 'twas overworked. 
 
Meridians of Fame. 
 
 But think of the many souls of history that have reached their 
 greatest power and sometimes have worn out their physical machinery 
 before their suns had passed the periods of their brilliant and powerful 
 meridians, yes, even before the shadows fell towards the east. 
 
 Many have been the soldiers who have won their laurels early. 
 The hero of Ravenna was only twenty-two. Italy was conquered 
 twice by military heroes only five and twenty. Innocent III has 
 been called the despot of Christendom at thirty-seven and at that same 
 age Lord Byron died. Victor Hugo wrote "Bug Jargal" at fifteen, 
 and Pascal was a great author at sixteen and died at thirty-seven. 
 Edmund Burke was author of " The Sublime and Beautiful" at 
 twenty-six, and Grattan entered the Irish Parliament and fame at 
 twenty-nine. Richelieu was bishop at twenty-three and Secretary of 
 War and State at the early age of thirty-one. Raphael had become 
 illustrious and died at thirty-seven. William Pitt, the contemporary 
 of our own illustrious Hamilton, and two years his junior, inherited the 
 prestige that gave him a seat in Parliament at thirty-one, through the 
 influence of the Duke of Rutland. He was Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer at twenty-three, and First Lord of the Treasury and Chan- 
 cellor, and practically the controlling power of England, at hventy 
 five and held that position for seventeen continuous years, dying at 
 forty-six. 
 
 Soft Dreams and Mighty Strides. 
 
 Dolliver inherited no political prestige. He had no Duke of 
 Rutland for a sponsor. The clifty hills and lofty mountains of Vir- 
 ginia were his great godfathers and the honeyed valleys of that roman- 
 tic birthland whispered their soft dreams into his eager, boyhood ears. 
 The rivers and the hills of loyal Illinois gave welcome to his trudging 
 weary feet and encouraged his exalted hope. The rolling plains and 
 honeysuckled woodlands of our river-bordered Iowa sang thrice wel- 
 come to the bright-eyed, continental wayfarer and won his wondrous 
 heart and scintillating brain for its historic heritage and gave him all 
 the rich and precious gifts within its political and lavish power. He 
 went out for us and won the successive battles of his life by brilliant 
 strife and illustrious zeal. 
 
 19 
 
His great heart impelled the blood to his fertile brain in many 
 years of swift, ambitious strides, sometimes his judgment differing with 
 yours and sometimes with mine. But it matters not, he had fought 
 the battles of our cause on many a brilliant day, and our tears of ex- 
 ultation for the fame of our great state were mingled on many glorious 
 occasions. Every Hawkeye was proud of his chieftain, proud to 
 have such a splendid champion in the great arenas of public life and 
 on the popular stage. No matter if his clarion voice sounded senti- 
 ments, maybe discordant with our own, he had bared his breast for 
 the Grand Old Man in that final hour of both their great careers. 
 
 Home at Last to Rest. 
 
 And then at last he came home to rest. He had thought always 
 in his recent years of the delightful and peaceful prospect of enjoy- 
 ing the habitude which he had selected and paid for with his hon- 
 orable and strenuous earnings, consisting of some broad acres over 
 there in the magnificent middle of our state, "touched by two rivers," 
 as he described it himself, and situated there beside the city of his 
 early friends. His plans for its improvement and perfection had not 
 yet been completed, but they were in the apple of his eye and heart, and 
 he sat himself down on the porch of his town-house home, in the midst 
 of his charming family of wife and children, where he could see the 
 undulating landscape of his future, rural habitude, in contemplation, 
 and mused over it all in those dearest days of our best October season, 
 when the vines were running over the sunlit hedges in all the golden 
 glory of that rich, autumnal time; and with all apparent faith in the 
 restitution of his health, with his bright soul shining in his eyes and in 
 his usual laughing mood, he counted his pulse beats up to seven, refus- 
 ing to count himself out — like the fighter that he was — but the phy- 
 sician counted more and feebler pulse beats. It seemed as though 
 Infinite Mercy spared our friend the usual suffering and pain that at- 
 tends the exit of great souls. There is no evidence that he suffered 
 even for a moment a gloomy or troubled apprehension. His jovial 
 hand seemed lifted from the grasp of his latest visitor by the hand of 
 The Infinite One. 
 

 
 
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