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John J. Ingalls 
 
 HIS LIFE, HIS PUBLIC SERVICES, AND HIS 
 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 BY 
 
 GRANVILLE H. MEIXELL 
 
 M.A. (VANDERBILT) 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND 
 
 LITERATURE, HISTORY, ECONOMICS, 
 
 AND SOCIAL SCIENCE IN 
 
 MIDLAND COLLEGE 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 The Home Printing Company 
 
 Atchison, Kansas 
 
 1896 
 
 1 *r 
 
 
 \%l\~ 
 
I 
 
 tk 
 
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 Copyright, 1896 
 By GRANVILLE H. MEIXELL 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
bt 2 
 
 TO 
 
 MRS. JOHN J. INGALLS 
 
 IN 
 
 GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 KIND AND GENEROUS SERVICE RENDERED 
 
 TO THE AUTHOR IN ITS PREPARATION, 
 
 THIS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 IS MOST RESPECTFULLY 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
PRE FA TOR Y NO TE 
 
 This essay appeared in substantially the same 
 form in the issues of The Midland for March 
 and April, 1896, and met with the approval 
 of those whose opinion and judgment deserve 
 the highest consideration. It is believed that 
 this sketch forms the most co?uplete and sym- 
 metrical single account of the life, public ser- 
 vices, and personal characteristics of John J. 
 Ingalls, that has yet been published; and it is, 
 therefore, now reprinted and re-issued in more 
 convenient shape. 
 
 Granville H. Meixell. 
 
 Midland College, 
 Atchison, Kansas, 
 April 15, 1896. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Introduction 9 
 
 His Ancestry.. n 
 
 JiiRTH and Early Life.. 13 
 
 At College 14 
 
 After Graduation 15 
 
 Emigration West. 16 
 
 Early Political Career 17 
 
 Early Literary Efforts 18 
 
 Suggests Great Seal 19 
 
 Election to the Senate 21 
 
 career in the Senate 22 
 
 Honored by his Colleagues 24 
 
 Speeches in the Senate 26 
 
 Command of Language 27 
 
 Oratorical Style.. 28 
 
 Literary Style 30 
 
 ♦'A Statesman without a Job" 33 
 
 Writes for the Press 34 
 
 His Essays 35 
 
 As a Platform Lecturer 35 
 
 Personal Traits 37 
 
 literary Tastes 39 
 
 " Oak Ridge " 39 
 
 Conclusion 41 
 
" History is the essence of 
 innumerable Biographies."— Carlyle. 
 
John J. Ingalls 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 GRANVILLE H. MEIXELL 
 
 
 w Ar 
 
JOHN j. INGALLS 
 
JOHN J INGALLS 
 
 "rom his latest photograph by Kleckner, Atchison 
 
JOHN j. INGALLS 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 John J. Ingalls is, without doubt, the 
 most distinguished statesman, the most 
 brilliant orator, and the most fluent and 
 versatile writer that the state of Kansas 
 has ever produced. No citizen of Kansas 
 has ever represented this commonwealth 
 so ably in the deliberative councils and 
 in the legislative forum of the Republic, 
 or received such honorable recognition 
 from his fellow-citizens in the state and 
 in the nation, as has the man whose event- 
 ful life, distinguished public services, 
 and peculiar personal characteristics, it 
 
10 JOHN J. IXGALLS 
 
 is the purpose of this essay briefly to trace 
 and portray. While such a sketch must, 
 however, of necessity be very condensed 
 and incomplete, it is yet hoped that what 
 little may be here presented from the 
 mass of available material and authori- 
 tative data at hand, may be so carefully 
 selected and so skillfully ordered as to 
 form at once a review that is interesting 
 and instructive, and an estimate which, 
 however inadequate, may not be alto- 
 gether unjust. 
 
 History, indeed, is largely composed 
 of biography, and consists chiefly of a 
 record of the achievements of great 
 men, or of the movements and events 
 in which great men were the foremost 
 leaders and the principal actors; and 
 the history of the past is revealed to us 
 to a remarkable degree through the lives 
 and deeds of the master-spirits who, 
 consciously or unconsciously, have di- 
 rected the trend of civilization into its 
 modern channels, and have moulded and 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 1 1 
 
 controlled, by their personal power and 
 influence, the character and destiny of 
 states and of nations. It has also been well 
 said that " history is past politics ; pol- 
 itics, present history." Examined from 
 these points of view, a study of the lives 
 and deeds of our prominent public men 
 can not fail to prove highly interesting 
 and truly profitable. 
 
 The professional and political career 
 of John J. Ingalls is contemporaneous 
 with the entire history of the state of 
 Kansas, and is closely identified with 
 the industrial development and the po- 
 litical vicissitudes of the same ; while 
 for over two decades, he has beeu one 
 of the ablest, most popular, most unique, 
 and most influential figures identified 
 with the political affairs, the economic 
 questions, and the social problems of the 
 entire American nation. 
 
 HIS ANCESTRY 
 
 Ex-Senator Ingalls is the direct de- 
 scendant of two noted Puritan families. 
 
12 JOHN J. INGALLS 
 
 coming on both his father's and his 
 mother's side "from an unbroken strain 
 of Puritan blood without any intermix- 
 ture." His original ancestor on his 
 father's side was Edmund Ingalls, who, 
 with his brother Francis, came over 
 from Yorkshire, England, in 1628, and 
 founded the city of Lynn, Massachusetts. 
 His father was Elias T. Ingalls, of Ha- 
 verhill, Massachusetts, who was char- 
 acterized as "a typical New Englander 
 — aristocratic, austere, devout, scholarly 
 — successful in business and respected 
 by all." Mebitabel Ingalls, a first cousin 
 of Elias T. Ingalls, was President Gar- 
 field's grandmother. On his mother's 
 side, Mr. Ingalls is related to the noted 
 Chase family, of which the late Chief- 
 Justice, Salmon P. Chase, was a promi- 
 nent member. The original member of 
 this family was Aquila Chase, who came 
 to America in 1630 and settled in New 
 Hampshire. His mother, whose maiden 
 name was Eliza Chase, is still living- ut 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 13 
 
 Haverhill, Massachusetts, at the ad- 
 vanced age of eighty-four years. 
 
 BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE 
 
 John James Ingalls was born at Mid- 
 dleton, Essex County, Massachusetts, 
 December 29, 1833. He was the oldest 
 of nine children, and is said to have been 
 a "delicate child," u precocious in his 
 intellectual development," and able to 
 read intelligently when but two years 
 old. At the same time, his "disposition 
 was excessively sensitive, shy, and diffi- 
 dent," without giving any promise of the 
 " virility and audacity" that have char- 
 acterized his later career. He was edu- 
 cated in the public schools until he was 
 sixteen, after which time he continued 
 his studies preparatory for college under 
 a private tutor. His literary genius had 
 begun to manifest itself before he left 
 the public schools, and his "earliest in- 
 tellectual activity found expression in 
 
14 JOHN J. IN G ALLS' 
 
 years of age, he was "an occasional 
 contributor to local and metropolitan 
 newspapers, but always anonymously." 
 
 AT COLLEGE 
 
 He entered Williams College, at Wil- 
 liamstown, Massachusetts, in September, 
 1851, of which institution Dr. Mark 
 Hopkins, at this time in the prime of 
 his remarkable intellectual activity, was 
 then President. Many of Mr. Ingalls' 
 fellow-students at Williams "afterward 
 achieved distinction and even prominence 
 in political and other walks of life," the 
 most famous of them being, no doubt, 
 his distant kinsman, James A. Garfield, 
 who was one year behind him in the 
 collegiate course. After parting at col- 
 lego, the two friends did not meet again 
 for eighteen years, when Mr. Ingalls 
 was serving his first term in the Senate, 
 and Garfield, who " had changed beyond 
 recognition," " was a recognized leader 
 and power in the House. Their old 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 15 
 
 friendship, thus renewed, was warm and 
 constant until Garfield's tragic death." 
 
 AFTER GRADUATION 
 
 After his graduation from college in 
 1855, Mr. Ingalls entered upon the study 
 of law, and was admitted to the bar in 
 his native county of Essex in 1857. The 
 bold and fearless character of the states- 
 man and the politician had begun to be 
 foreshadowed in the college student, 
 especially toward the close of his 
 academic career. Into his graduating 
 i nation he incorporated views that were 
 objectionable to the faculty, and which 
 were cut out when the authorities re- 
 vised his commencement production. 
 When he came to deliver it, however, 
 he spoke it as originally written, for 
 which offense his diploma was withheld 
 until 1864, after he had begun to make 
 a name for himself in the West. Twenty 
 years after granting him his first 
 diploma, his Alma Mater honored him 
 
1 6 JOHN J. INGALLS 
 
 and itself by conferring upon him the 
 degree of Doctor of Laws. 
 
 EMIGRATION WEST 
 
 Allured by a highly colored litho- 
 graph — a copy of which forms a much 
 treasured ornament in a conspicuous 
 place on the wall above the mantel- 
 piece of his library — Mr. Ingalls emi- 
 grated to Kansas in the fall of 1858, and 
 took up his abode at Sumner, a town 
 founded by an enthusiastic adventurer 
 from Massachusetts, John P. Wheeler 
 by name, who had come to Kansas two 
 or three years before this time. Sumner 
 was located about three miles below 
 Atchison, on the western bank of the 
 Missouri river ; was established as a 
 rival free state settlement to Atchison, 
 which was controlled by pro-slavery 
 sympathizers ; and at this time had a 
 population of about two thousand, live 
 hundred more than Atchison. Here 
 Mr. Ingalls began to practice law, but 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 17 
 
 Sumner, being a "boom" town, had be- 
 gun to decline before his arrival, and 
 soon after became a veritable "deserted 
 village," most of its population moving 
 to Atchison, which had the advantage 
 of a more favorable location, and had 
 been built up by a more natural and 
 substantial growth. In 1860, a tornado 
 finally wrecked this ill-fated town, and 
 Mr. Ingalls, though one of the last to 
 desert it, also moved to Atchison and 
 opened his law office in that town. He 
 still has the official seal of Sumner in his 
 possession ; its motto reads, Pro lege et 
 grege. 
 
 EARLY POLITICAL CAREER 
 
 Meanwhile, the future statesman had 
 entered upon his political career, and 
 was winning rapid promotion. In 1859, 
 he served as a delegate to the Wyan- 
 dotte Constitutional Convention. In 
 1860, he was Secretary of the Territorial 
 Council. In 1861, he was Secretary of 
 
1 8 JOHN J. IN GALLS 
 
 the State Senate. In 1862, he was 
 elected a member of the State Senate 
 from Atchison county. And changing 
 his activities from the political to the 
 military field, he served as Major, Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel, and Judge Advocate of 
 Kansas Volunteers from 1863 to 1865. 
 In 1862, and again in 1864, he also ran 
 as a candidate for Lieutenant-Governor 
 on what was then known as the "Union 
 State Ticket," in revolt against the 
 arrogant assumptions of such tyrannical 
 political demagogues as " Jim" Lane 
 and his followers, whose overthrow was 
 not accomplished until 1866. For this 
 coarse, Mr. Ingalls was accused of be- 
 ing disloyal to his party, but the circum- 
 stances seem to have made his attitude 
 not only justifiable, but praiseworthy as 
 well. 
 
 EARLY LITERARY EFFORTS 
 
 "For eight } r ears after the war," 
 writes J. W. D. Anderson, "Mr. 
 Insralls devoted himself to newspaper 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 10 
 
 and general literary work — indeed, it 
 was as a literary man that he first made 
 a state reputation. We learned to 
 know and admire the classical style, 
 the incisive method, the wealth of words, 
 and the fulness of information which 
 have since made him so noted as an 
 orator. Much of this literary work was 
 in praise of Kansas, and as a genuine 
 affection is nearly always returned in 
 kind, Kansas soon came to love and to 
 delight to do him honor." For three 
 years he was editor of the Atchison 
 Champion, "and subsequently won 
 national reputation by a series of bril- 
 liant magazine articles upon themes of 
 western life and adventure," the most 
 noted of which were entitled "Catfish 
 Aristocracy," " Bluegrass," " Regis 
 Loisel," and "Cleveland, the Last of the 
 Jay hawkers." 
 
 SUGGESTS GREAT SEAL 
 
 It is also of interest to note in this 
 connection that Mr. Walls suggested 
 
20 JOHN J. ING ALLS 
 
 the original design for the great seal of 
 Kansas upon the admission of the state 
 into the Union, together with the motto, 
 Ad astra per aspera ( u To the stars 
 through difficulties"). Unfortunately, 
 however, the simplicity and beauty of 
 his original design were marred by the 
 committee to whom it was submitted 
 for adoption. The history of this em- 
 blematic device can best be given in 
 ex-Senator Ingalls' own characteristic 
 words : 
 
 "I was Secretary of the Kansas State Sen- 
 ate at its first session, after our admission in 
 1861. A joint committee was appointed to 
 present a design for the great seal of the 
 state, and I suggested a sketch embracing a 
 single star rising from the clouds at the base 
 of a field, with the constellation (representing 
 the number of states then in the Union) 
 above, accompanied by the motto, Ad astra 
 per aspera. 
 
 "If you will examine the seal as it now 
 exists, you will see that my idea was adopted, 
 but in addition thereto, the committee in- 
 corporated a mountain scene, a river view, a 
 herd of buffalo chased by Indians on horse- 
 
A BIO OR A PHICA L SKE TCH 2 1 
 
 back, a log cabin with a settler plowing in 
 the foreground, together with a number of 
 other incongruous, allegorical and metaphor- 
 ical augmentations, which destroyed the 
 beauty and simplicity of my design. 
 
 " The clouds at the base were intended to 
 represent the perils and troubles of our ter- 
 ritorial history; the star emerging therefrom, 
 the new state ; the constellation, like that on 
 the flag, the Union, to which, after a stormy 
 struggle, it had been admitted." 
 
 ELECTION TO THE SENATE 
 
 The first election of Mr. Ingalls to 
 the National Senate, in 1873, came almost 
 as a surprise to himself and his friends. 
 Senator S. C. Pomeroy was a candidate 
 for re-election, but he was suspected of 
 dishonesty by some of the members of 
 the State Legislature. His support, 
 however, was so strong that there was no 
 hope of defeating him, and the opposi- 
 tion in his party had not even united on 
 a candidate. On the day that the houses 
 met in joint session, State Senator York 
 secured the floor, accused Senator 
 
22 JOHN J. 1 Nil ALLS 
 
 Poineroy of bribery, exposed the fact 
 that he had offered to himself (State 
 Senator York) seven thousand dollars 
 for his vote, and carried the money to 
 the presiding officer's desk, requesting 
 that it be used in prosecuting the 
 offender. This sensation at once turned 
 the tide away from Pomeroy, and Mr. 
 Ingalls, who was in Topeka to argue a 
 case before the Supreme Court, and 
 who had received but one vote in caucus 
 the day before, at once became a favor- 
 ite candidate, and was elected upon the 
 first ballot. 
 
 CAREER IN THE SENATE 
 
 Ex-Senator Ingalls' career in the up- 
 per chamber of Congress is so well 
 known that it may be rapidly passed in 
 review in this sketch. His record was 
 so satisfactory to his constituents that 
 he was returned to his seat in 1879, and 
 again in 1885. Jn 1887, after the death 
 of Vice President Hendricks, he was 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 2 3 
 
 unanimously elected President pro tem- 
 pore of the Senate, and this election was 
 later, by a special rule which has since 
 been followed, made permanent until 
 the inauguration of a new Vice Presi- 
 dent ; or until, in case the Vice President 
 is living, the Senate should have changed 
 its political complexion. While Senator 
 Ingalls, therefore, was President of the 
 Senate, he enjoyed all the honor, dignity, 
 and distinction pertaining to the office 
 of Vice President, and his family was 
 accorded all the social precedence and 
 recognition belonging to this position. 
 
 His public utterances upon the floor 
 of the Senate were invariably marked 
 by strong partisan bias, and his political 
 opponents were frequently made to wince 
 under his caustic and penetrating criti- 
 cism and his flood of withering sarcasm; 
 but yet his speeches were, at the same 
 time, always characterized by a certain 
 distinctive individuality and independ- 
 ence that marked the quality of their 
 
24 JO II X J. 1 NG ALLS 
 
 style and thought as being peculiarly 
 his own. When, however, he was ele- 
 vated to the office of Acting Vice Presi- 
 dent, he at once rose to the full measure 
 and dignity of the high position to which 
 his fellow-Senators had chosen him ; and 
 as President of the Senate, he performed 
 the functions of that office with unusual 
 grace and with absolute impartiality. 
 
 The defeat of the famous "Force 
 Bill," which Speaker Reed had pushed 
 with characteristic dispatch through the 
 House, was attributed by many of his 
 party colleagues to Senator Ingalls. 
 When he w T as requested to lend his aid 
 as presiding officer to force the bill 
 through the Senate, he " peremptorily 
 refused to play this role," and sharply 
 rebuked those who were attempting to 
 resort to tactics not in keeping with the 
 dignity of the Senate. 
 
 HONORED BY HIS COLLEAGUES 
 
 As a mark of their high respect and 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SHETCH 2 5 
 
 of their appreciation of his uniformly 
 "calm, impartial, and judicial" attitude 
 as their presiding officer, the Senators, 
 upon his retirement as President of the 
 Senate, presented him with the clock 
 that had counted time for the Senate 
 from 1852 to 1890, which memento now 
 adorns the wall above the landing of the 
 stairway in the spacious hall of the Ex- 
 Senator's residence ; while upon the wall 
 of his library, artistically engrossed and 
 appropriately framed, is found the orig- 
 inal copy of the following resolution, 
 upon which comment would be super- 
 fluous : 
 
 " Resolved, That the thanks of the Sen- 
 ate are due, and are hereby tendered, to 
 Hon. John J. Ingalls, a Senator from the 
 State of Kansas, for the eminently courte- 
 ous, dignified, able, and absolutely impartial 
 manner in which he has presided over the 
 deliberations and performed the duties of 
 President pro tempore of the Senate. 
 
 Attest : Anson G-. McCook, 
 
 Secretary." 
 
2 6 JOHN J. INGALLS 
 
 SPEECHES IN THE SENATE 
 
 Mr. Ingalls first won national fame as 
 an orator while serving in the Senate, 
 and many of his forensic efforts upon 
 the floor of that body will never be for- 
 gotten. Whenever it was announced 
 that the eloquent Senator from Kansas 
 was to make a speech, the galleries and 
 corridors of the Senate chamber were 
 always crowded, and those who were so 
 fortunate as to hear him, never came in 
 vain. His speeches on "The Race 
 Problem" and "The Financial Ques- 
 tion," his eulogies on Senator Hill of 
 Georgia and on Congressman Burnes of 
 Missouri, and his debates with Senators 
 Voorhees and Blackburn, are among his 
 best known oratorical efforts in the 
 Senate. 
 
 Concerning his well known reply to 
 Senator Voorhees, it is worthy of men- 
 tion that ex-Senator Installs regards it 
 as ' the least creditable of all his per- 
 formances, though it is undoubtedly the 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 2 7 
 
 best remembered of all his public utter- 
 ances ; and he regrets that the occasion 
 made such a speech in the Senate neces- 
 sary.' He also claims that his criticisms 
 of McClellan and Hancock had reference, 
 not to their military records, but to their 
 political attitudes, and that his remarks 
 were perverted by his political opponents 
 for the purpose of placing him u into a 
 very disagreeable position." 
 
 COMMAND OF LANGUAGE 
 
 His command of language is remark- 
 able, and his sparkling wealth of words 
 seems to come to him as easily and as 
 naturally as the poverty of language is 
 a prevailing characteristic of most of his 
 fellow-beings. He is equally fluent in 
 conversation, upon the platform, or 
 with his pen. A prominent newspa pel- 
 correspondent, in reporting a recent in- 
 terview with him, bears the following 
 testimony to his wonderful conversa- 
 tional powers : 
 
2 8 JOHN J. TNG ALLS 
 
 " Mr. Ingalls' language is so exact, 
 his words balance his meaning so nicely, 
 that the average conversational sloven — 
 and very few are not slovens in conver- 
 sation — listen to the Kansas statesman, 
 first with surprise, then with gratifica- 
 tion, and finally with a strong ambition 
 to emulate his niceties of speech. I 
 defy any man of average conversational 
 eapacit}' to hold a thirty minutes' con- 
 versation with Mr. Ingalls without find- 
 ing new powers of expression at the 
 command of his own tongue." 
 
 ORATORICAL STYLE 
 
 As a public speaker, however, Mr. 
 Ingalls' powers of expression seem to 
 have attained their greatest range and 
 their highest development. He is, 
 moreover, a scholar, a philosophical 
 thinker, and a close student of our 
 social and political problems, as well as 
 an orator and rhetorician. Many of his 
 oratorical productions, viewed in the light 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 2 9 
 
 of their magnificent and forcible style, as 
 also with reference to their thought con- 
 tent, may, indeed, be termed " classical. 1 ' 
 A characteristic passage, taken from the 
 introduction to his eulogy on Congress- 
 man Burnes, is here inserted for the sake 
 of illustration : 
 
 "In the democracy of the dead all men at 
 last are equal. There is neither raDk nor 
 station nor prerogative in the republic of 
 the grave. At this fatal threshold the phi- 
 losopher ceases to be wise, and the song of 
 the poet is silent. Dives relinquishes his 
 millions, and Lazarus his rags. The poor 
 man is as rich as the richest, and the rich 
 man is as poor as the pauper. The creditor 
 loses his usury, and the debtor is acquitted 
 of his obligation. There the proud man 
 surrenders his dignities, the politician his 
 honors, the worldling his pleasures ; the in- 
 valid needs no physician, and the laborer 
 rests from unrequited toil. Here at last is 
 Nature's final decree in equity. The wrongs 
 of time are redressed, injustice is expiated, 
 the irony of fate is refuted, the unequal dis- 
 tribution of wealth, honor, capacity, pleas- 
 ure, and opportunity, which makes life so 
 cruel and inexplicable a tragedy, ceases in 
 
3 JOHN J. IN G ALLS 
 
 the realm of death. The strongest there has 
 no supremacy, and the weakest needs no 
 defense. The mightiest captain succumbs 
 to the invincible adversary who disarms 
 alike the victor and the vanquished." 
 
 In a similar compact, epigrammatic 
 style, is his oft-quoted estimate of Lin- 
 coln : 
 
 "Abraham Lincoln, the greatest [leader] 
 of all, had the humblest origin and the scan- 
 tiest scholarship. Yet he surpassed all ora- 
 tors in eloqueuce, all diplomatists in wis- 
 dom, all statesmen in foresight, and the most 
 ambitious in fame." 
 
 LITERARY STYLE 
 
 The limits of this essay will permit 
 the insertion of but two specimens from 
 his more purely literary productions not 
 composed for public delivery — one in 
 poetry and one in prose — and both 
 written since his retirement to private 
 life. The first is a sonnet entitled "Op- 
 portunity," the original draft of which 
 was written on the back of an envelope 
 in traveling on a train from Kansas to 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 31 
 
 Washington, and which appeared in fac 
 simile manuscript form in the New York 
 Truth, in February, 1891. The arrange- 
 ment of the lines here given follows the 
 original copy of the poem : 
 
 OPPORTUNITY. 
 
 " Master of human destinies am I! 
 
 Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait. 
 Cities and fields I walk : I penetrate 
 
 Deserts and seas remote, and passing by 
 Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late 
 I knock unbidden once at every gate! 
 
 If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise before 
 I turn away. It is the hour of fate. 
 And they who follow me reach every state 
 Mortals desire, and conquer every foe 
 
 Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate, 
 Condemned to failure, penury and woe, 
 
 Seek me in vain and uselessly implore . 
 
 I answer not, and I return no more! " 
 
 As a good specimen of his prose 
 literary style, the following paragraph, 
 contributed in 1893 to a symposium by 
 our leading literary men and women on 
 4 'How to be Happy," is here inserted : 
 
 i% Happiness is an endowment and not an 
 acquisition. It depends more upon tempera- 
 ment and disposition than environment. It 
 
3 2 JOHN J. JXG ALLS 
 
 is a state or condition of mind, and not a 
 commodity to be bought or sold in the mar- 
 ket. A beggar may be happier in his rags 
 than a king in his purple. Poverty is no 
 more incompatible with happiness than 
 wealth, and the inquiry how to be happy, 
 though poor, implies a want of understanding 
 of the conditions upon which happiness de- 
 pends. Dives was not happy because he was 
 a millionaire, nor Lazarus wretched because 
 he was a pauper. There is a quality in the 
 soul of man that is superior to circumstances, 
 and that defies calamity and misfortune. 
 The man who is unhappy when he is poor 
 would be unhappy if he were rich, and he 
 who is happy in a palace in Paris would be 
 happy in a dug-out on the frontier of Dakota. 
 " There are as many unhappy rich men as 
 there are unhappy poor men. Every heart 
 knows its own bitterness and its own joy. Not 
 that wealth and what it brings is not desirable 
 —books, travel, leisure, comfort, the best 
 food and raiment, agreeable companionship— 
 but all these do not necessarily bring happi- 
 ness, and may co-exist with the deepest 
 wretchedness ; while adversity and penury, 
 exile and privation, are not incompatible 
 with the loftiest exuitations of the soul. 
 
 1 More true joy Marcellus exiled feels, 
 Than Caesar with a Senate at his heels.' " 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 3 3 
 
 When Senator Ingalls fell a victim to 
 the Populist upheaval in Kansas in 1891, 
 and was obliged, much to the regret of 
 the country at large, to yield his seat in 
 the Senate to Mr. Peffer, his political 
 adversaries took delight to refer to him 
 by his self-applied title of u a statesman 
 without a job." In this respect, how- 
 ever, their expectations were not real- 
 ized, for the man of genius and industry 
 is never out of employment. The}' failed 
 to recognize that a statesman must not 
 necessarily hold public office in order 
 to be either successfully or advantage- 
 ously employed, and that if his services 
 as a public man have been of consequence, 
 men will not likely let his talents remain 
 unemployed as a private citizen. Upon 
 his retirement from public life, Mr. In- 
 galls had a number of exceedingly tempt- 
 ing offers — both in the East and in the 
 West — to accept the editorship of prom- 
 inent newspapers, all of which he de- 
 
34 JOHN J. INGALLS 
 
 clined, mainly because their acceptance 
 would require him to transfer his family 
 and his citizenship out of his adopted 
 state. 
 
 WRITES FOR THE PRESS 
 
 After his return from a trip to Eu- 
 rope, his library, his pen, and the lecture 
 platform, have profitably occupied his 
 time and talents, and a number of timely 
 articles upon the principal economic, 
 political, and social questions of the 
 period, have appeared from his pen in 
 the leading periodicals of the country. 
 Among his more practical articles, may 
 be named those on u The East and the 
 West," "Politics and Newspapers," 
 "Immigration," "Politics," "The So- 
 cial Malady," "Capital and Labor," and 
 "Oar Political Parties;" among his 
 more purely literary essays, those on 
 "Oratory," "Blaine," "The Tragedy 
 of '81" (Garfield), and "The White 
 City" deserve special mention. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 3 5 
 
 HIS ESSAYS 
 
 His essays are always in great demand, 
 are said to " command larger prices than 
 those of any other man in America, with 
 the exception of Oliver Wendell Holmes 
 and James Russell Lowell," and are not 
 only intensely interesting, but highly 
 instructive as well. They do not ex- 
 press ideas merely struck off at random, 
 but embody the valuable results and con- 
 clusions of years of faithful study and 
 ripe experience. It is a real misfortune 
 that these writings are not extant in 
 collected form, and that they are only 
 accessible in the tiles of the papers and 
 magazines in which they were first pub- 
 lished, or in clippings from the same. 
 
 AS A PLATFORM LECTURER 
 
 Mr. In^alls has also been in great de- 
 mand as a popular platform lecturer 
 since retiring from the Senate, his ser- 
 vices in this capacity command the very 
 
3 6 JOHN J. INGALLS 
 
 highest prices, and as a lecturer and 
 orator he has probably only two peers 
 on the American platform — Depew and 
 Watterson. This field of activity opened 
 to him spontaneously, unsought by 
 himself, and contrary to the usual ex- 
 perience of the successful orator, it is, 
 strange to say, absolutely distasteful to 
 him. In a recent interview he ex- 
 pressed himself as follows on this sub- 
 ject, and his own words are quoted here 
 because they help to reveal one of the 
 characteristics of the man : 
 
 " I have a dread of public speaking. When 
 I approach the place where I am to ma&e a 
 speech or deliver a lecture, I am filled with 
 a nameless terror. Sometimes it becomes 
 almost uncontrollable, and I am tempted to 
 turn and fly. For more then twenty years, 
 at the bar, on the stump, on the platform, 
 and in the Senate, I have practiced the art, 
 but the trepidation is as great now as when 
 I began. But for this drawback, I should 
 enjoy lecturing, because it brings one in con- 
 tact with the best people of many communi- 
 ties ; and my engagements are so arranged 
 that the traveling is not arduous." 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 3 7 
 
 Mr. Ingalls' platform lectures are not 
 cast into any stereotyped form, are al- 
 ways related to our current political and 
 social problems, and as he is a student 
 of all affairs of public interest, and "of 
 the changing times," he gives to his 
 lectures "a contemporary flavor from 
 day to day through his knowledge of 
 current public affairs." The subjects of 
 his principal lectures are " Plutocracy 
 and Anarchy," "Dives and Lazarus," 
 "Political and Social Problems of Our 
 Second Century," and "Garfield." It 
 is worthy of mention in this connection 
 that ex-Senator Ingalls never permits 
 tickets to be sold, or gate money to be 
 taken, for any speeches that he delivers 
 in Kansas. This rule he violated but 
 once, and then permitted himself to do 
 so, not for his own profit, but to help to 
 raise funds to clear a charitable institu- 
 tion from debt. 
 
 PERSONAL TRAITS 
 
 The tastes of a man are always a good 
 
3 8 JOHN J. INGALLS 
 
 index to his character. The clothes he 
 wears, the company he keeps, and the 
 books he reads and ponders — these de- 
 clare the man. Mr. Ingalls is tall and 
 striking in his personal appearance ; 
 dignified and self-possessed, yet withal 
 friendly and polite, in his demeanor ; 
 and while affecting some peculiarities of 
 dress, always dresses tastefully and 
 well. While he would not permit any 
 one to make free with him in the sense 
 in which some men suppose good 
 fellow-ship must be cultivated, he is yet 
 approachable by the humblest laborer as 
 easily as by the most exalted in rank, 
 position, and influence. He is neither 
 the "aristocrat" that he is sometimes 
 represented to be, nor yet the "agricul- 
 turist" in the sense in which he is repre- 
 sented to be such. He personally super- 
 intends the care of his lawns and 
 orchards, but he does not engage in 
 "farming." He enjoys exercise in the 
 open air, and horseback riding is his 
 favorite physical recreation. 
 
w 
 
 o ■-» 
 
 Q a 
 
 — x. 
 
 ,f^^ 
 
A BIO GRA PHICA L SHETCH 3 9 
 
 LITERARY TASTES 
 
 Ex-Senator Ingalls' literary tastes are 
 of the highest classical order, and his 
 reading is confined almost entirely to 
 the standard authors in English and 
 American literature. The Book of Job, 
 Shakespeare — especially "Hamlet," 
 Gray's "Elegy," Shelley's "Skylark," 
 Keat's "Eve of St. Agnes," Longfel- 
 low's Poems, Hawthorne's "Scarlet 
 Letter," Dickens' "Pickwick Papers," 
 and Drummond's "Natural Law in the 
 Spiritual World " — these, with others 
 by the same authors, and by other stand- 
 ard authors of the same class, form his 
 favorite reading; and the continued 
 reading and study of such literature 
 doubtless, in a measure, accounts for his 
 Yaried vocabulary, his own fine literary 
 style, and for his pure literary tastes. 
 
 "Oak Ridge," located on a slightly 
 wooded elevation overlooking the city of 
 
40 JOHN J. 1NGALL8 
 
 Atchison from the southwest, is the 
 name given to Mr. Ingalls' beautiful and 
 cultured home. His former home, lo- 
 cated on the bluffs of the Missouri river, 
 was destroyed by fire, and with it most 
 of his valuable library and unpublished 
 manuscripts, while he was living with 
 his family at Washington. He bought 
 u Oak Ridge" upon his return to Kan- 
 sas, and here, removed somewhat from 
 the commercial turmoil of the city, he 
 enjoys with his family one of the most 
 refined and most comfortable homes 
 in Atchison. He is the father of eleven 
 children, seven of whom — three sons 
 and four daughters — are still living. 
 Mrs. Ingalls, to whom the Senator has 
 always been a hero, has been to him a 
 most loyal wife and helpful companion, 
 and is, moreover, a most faithful and 
 devoted mother to her family, and an 
 ideal housekeeper in the management of 
 her home and in the education and con- 
 trol of her children. By the salutory 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 4 1 
 
 power and influence that Mrs. Ingalls is 
 so constantly exerting over her family, 
 the domestic side of Senator Ingalls' 
 home, in spite of his long career in 
 public life, has not suffered in the least. 
 His home is a cheerful and happy one, 
 in which the higher literary and artistic 
 tastes, and the nobler ideals of life, are 
 assiduously cultivated, and in which the 
 bond of affection is sincere and strong. 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 The historian of contemporaneous 
 events, or the biographer of men still 
 living, can record facts and events, and 
 he may even express his individual opin- 
 ion of their character, their relations, 
 and their importance, but he can do lit- 
 tle more than this. The principal ser- 
 vice that he can perform— and it is im- 
 portant that he should always perform 
 this faithfully and well— is to gather the 
 material which the future historian and 
 biographer must have in order to enable 
 
4 2 JOHN J. INGALLS 
 
 them to write the final account, and to 
 formulate the final estimate, of men, 
 events, and movements, after long years 
 have elapsed, after the passions and 
 prejudices of the present have passed 
 away, and after unerring time has sifted 
 what is fundamental and enduring from 
 that which is merely adventitious and 
 transitory. This final account will be 
 written some time ; and, whether sooner 
 or later, whenever it is written, it will 
 be approximately true and just. 
 
 The contemporary chronicler must, 
 therefore, be sure to make his record as 
 complete and accurate as possible, and 
 he has rendered his best service to pos- 
 terity when that has been accomplished. 
 How much of what he has gleaned will 
 be gathered into the final repository, 
 how much will be discarded, what will 
 be the relative value of what is pre- 
 served, and how much will ultimately 
 be added thereto, the future alone can 
 definitely make known. 
 
A BIO GRA PHICA L SKE TCI I 4 3 
 
 This should not, however, in the least 
 discourage the historian or the biogra- 
 pher from making a close, intelligent, 
 and unprejudiced study of the leaders 
 of his day — whether he adopts all their 
 opinions, and accepts all their conclu- 
 sions, or not — and also of the various 
 events and tendencies of his own time. 
 The historian of the past has furnished 
 him with the data which he must have 
 to enable him to form his own estimate, 
 and thus help to form the final estimate, 
 of the history of the past ; and since the 
 historic chain has never been brokeu, 
 and never will be, he can go on linking 
 event to event, cause to effect, and con- 
 sequent to antecedent, and so may even 
 in his own day, to some extent, estimate 
 the influence of contemporaneous actors 
 and events upon their own period, and 
 may also approximate their probable 
 effect upon the development of the fu- 
 ture. 
 
 The study of human life and destiuy, 
 
44 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 whether iu the concrete or in the ab- 
 stract, in the individual or in collective 
 society, is always of the highest interest 
 and importance ; and the more it is 
 pursued without bias or prejudice, the 
 more profitable the results will be for 
 ourselves, and the more valuable for 
 posterity. 
 
 In such a philosophic spirit of historic 
 inquiry, this biographical sketch has 
 been written ; and however great its in- 
 accuracies and short-comings may be, 
 the study would not prove entirely in 
 vain, even though no one but the writer 
 himself should derive any benefit from 
 the effort. Such efforts, however, are 
 at no time in vain, if the motives that 
 incite to them are honest and right ; nor 
 can a life so full of varied effort and 
 exalted activity as John J. Ingalls' event- 
 ful and distinguished career has been, 
 fail to leave its lasting impress upon the 
 age and the nation in which he lives, or 
 to be a powerful factor and influence in 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 4 5 
 
 giving direction to the life and charac- 
 ter, and in shaping the destiny and wel- 
 fare of the American people in the 
 future. 
 
 The final history of the latter half of 
 the nineteenth century, and the final 
 estimate of the character and achieve- 
 ments of the leading public men of this 
 period, will not be written during the 
 life-time of the present generation, and 
 they may not be written until a number 
 of generations shall have passed away ; 
 but whenever the final account shall 
 have been formulated, and whenever 
 the final estimate of the most dis- 
 tinguished statesmen and foremost 
 leaders of this epoch shall have been 
 made, the name and fame of John J. 
 Ingalls w 7 ill occupy a unique and con- 
 spicuous place among the list of illustri- 
 ous Americans of this eventful age who 
 loved their country most and served her 
 interests best. 
 

 
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