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COMMEMORATIVE TRIBUTE TO 
 
 GEORGE LOCKHART RIVES 
 
 By WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE 
 
 PREPARED FOR 
 
 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 
 ARTS AND LETTERS 
 
 1920 
 
 AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 
 
 ARTS AND LETTERS 
 
 1922 
 
COMMEMORATIVE TRIBUTE TO 
 
 GEORGE LOCKHART RIVE;S 
 
 By WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE V 
 
 PREPARED FOR 
 
 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 
 
 ARTS AND LETTERS 
 
 1920 
 
 AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 
 ARTS AND LETTERS " 
 1922 
 
 H^ 
 
V \'\ J 
 
 Copyright, 1922, by 
 The American Academy of Arts and Letters 
 
 m -.? 1922 ^ Q- 
 
 ©CIA681175 :^ 
 

 I 
 
 GEORGE LOCKHART RIVES 
 
 By William Milligan Sloane 
 
 ]\Ir. Rives's volumes entitled TJie 
 United States and Mexico, 1821-1848, 
 constitute a history of events leading 
 up to the war of 1848. Its publication 
 revealed the author as a foremost 
 American historian, and gave him a 
 chair in the American Academy of 
 Arts and Letters. To those unac- 
 quainted with his career the event was 
 perhaps startling, but to his nearer cir- 
 cle and the more observant critics it was 
 a foregone conclusion. His long, full, 
 active life had been a preparation for 
 exactly such a culmination. His was 
 the well-known Virginia family which 
 gave to the public service senator and 
 
 
 ACADEMY NOTES 
 
 
2 
 
 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 
 
 
 diplomat, with a great engineer and 
 authors of renown. He, however, de- 
 scended on his mother's side from fa- 
 mous New York Colony stock, was 
 born in New York City in 1849, ^^^ 
 died there in 191 7. Educated at Co- 
 lumbia, and in Cambridge, England, 
 he was eminent both in scholarship and 
 sport. His vocation was the law ; being 
 rather more devoted to jurisprudence 
 than to practice at the bar, it was as 
 a legal adviser and administrator that 
 he early became a foremost citizen of 
 the metropolis. He was Assistant Sec- 
 retary of State to Mr. Bayard under 
 Cleveland, president of the commission 
 to revise the New York charter, Cor- 
 poration Counsel, and a member of 
 the Rapid Transit Commission. He 
 was a director of four great financia' 
 corporations and president of the New 
 York Hospital. But above all he was 
 president of the Public Library and of 
 the Trustees of his Alma Mater. From 
 
 
 OF ARTS AND LETTERS 
 
OF ARTS AND LETTERS 
 
 three leading universities he received 
 the highest academic degree. He was 
 the author of many papers and mono- 
 graphs, and of several volumes, local 
 in interest, as well as of the more 
 national work mentioned above. This 
 recapitulation, together with the fact 
 that in some circles he was virtually a 
 social dictator by reason of his varied 
 gifts, his recognized station, and his 
 judicious pronouncements, are suffi- 
 cient to explain his presence in our 
 company, for membership in the Acad- 
 emy should indicate not only great 
 achievement but personal qualities 
 equally eminent. 
 
 His personality was very marked 
 and in our day quite exceptional. Im- 
 posing in looks and figure he possessed 
 in high degree the two un-American 
 traits of reticence and tranquillity. 
 Saez'is tvanquillus in undis might have 
 been his motto. Indeed he was a man 
 of the William of Nassau type, aware 
 
 AND MONOGRAPHS 
 
THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 
 
 of his opportunities, silent when can- 
 dor did not forbid. Sternly self-re- 
 specting, he took the responsibilities 
 of his own opinions and was entirely 
 fearless in action. In the sense of 
 knowing and keeping company with 
 the best in life and letters he was an 
 aristocrat, his private library was one 
 of the most select known to the present 
 writer. Yet he was essentially dem- 
 ocratic in the power of putting himself 
 in every man's place and securing 
 every man's point of view. 
 
 This was the secret of his enormous 
 influence. His writing is thoroughly 
 studied, its contents are carefully con- 
 structed, and his judgments are emi- 
 nently fair. Identical qualities were 
 exhibited in his life. The Public 
 Library of New York literally enfolds 
 the masses of the city in its "interpre- 
 ter's" palace ; Columbia University 
 represents in almost exact proportion 
 each single element in the total popu- 
 
 ACADEMY NOTES 
 
OF ARTS AND LETTERS 
 
 5 
 
 lation of the metropolis. Both became 
 under the Board over which he 
 presided so democratically popular 
 that their numerical enormity renders 
 their vast resources scarcely as ade- 
 quate as the pence in a palmer's scrip. 
 But like the pilgrim they take little 
 thought for the distant scene and 
 march on in the present. For such a 
 policy Air. Rives felt and assumed his 
 full share of obligation and was always 
 at the post of duty. 
 
 While in a sense history was his 
 avocation, yet in his devotion to "door- 
 step" activities he was the outstanding 
 example that service in the larger 
 sphere is valuable in almost exact pro- 
 portion to its perfection in its imme- 
 diate surroundings. 
 
 
 AND MONOGRAPHS 
 
 
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