E 
 
 Ml 7^/ 
 
 '4 < 
 
 • e 
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESS 
 
 HON. J. M. ROBINSON, 
 
 OF INDIANA, 
 
 UrON THE 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. WM. S. HOLMAN, 
 
 (Late a Representative from the State of Indiana,) 
 
 DELIVERED IN IKE 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 JULY 8. 1897. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 1S97. 
 
 tof 
 

 Class L_A 
 
 Book Ail: 
 

 MEMORIAL ADDRESS 
 
 HON. J. M. ROBINSON, 
 
 OK 1X1 )IAXA, 
 
 UPON TH] 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 HON. WM. S. HOLMAN, 
 
 (Late a Representative from the State of Indiana. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 JULY 8, 1897. 
 
 WASHINGTON'. 
 
 IS 97 . 
 
* cf 
 
 <r 
 
 <*• 
 
 v 
 
 * 
 
 5* 
 
 
 574 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 The House having under consideration the following resolutions— 
 
 Resolved, That the business of the House be now suspended that opportu- 
 nity may be given for tributes to the memory of Hon. William S. Hoi, many 
 late a representative from the State of Indiana. 
 
 Resolved, That as a mark of respect to the memory of tho deceased, and in 
 recognition of his eminent abilities as a distinguished public servant, the 
 House at the conclusion of these memorial proceedings shall stand adjourned. 
 
 Resolved, that the Clerk communicate these resolutions to tho Semite. 
 
 Resolved, That the Clerk be instructed to communicate a copy of these 
 resolutions to the family of the deceased- 
 Mr. ROBINSON of Indiana said: 
 
 Mr. Speaker: When a member of this Chamber has performed 
 his mission faithfully and well; when the nation has seen one, at 
 an early age, enter into the performance of a conscientious public 
 duty, and has seen his sun cross its meridian and sink to its setting 
 place in the West, and he still in the performance of that duty, 
 without a blot or stain upon him, it is fitting, indeed, that his col- 
 leagues should assemble in this solemn meeting, and the nation, 
 through the lips of its representatives, should proclaim its sanction 
 and erect a monument of words and thought to such able and dis- 
 tinguished public service. 
 
 Beautiful is the custom to honor those whom we knew so well 
 in life, but whose vacant chairs remind us that they have gone 
 "to that bourne" from which we can not recall them, save by 
 kind words, in gentle memories, and thus we meet to-day to per- 
 form this sad yet pleasant duty, to weep with those who weep, to 
 solace by kind words the bleeding heart, to offer a generous nation's 
 tribute to the dead. 
 
 To call our associates back as we knew them and loved them in 
 life, to commune with them across on that beautiful shore, to re- 
 member how we joined in their joys and shared in their sorrows, 
 to call them back on this memorial day, sad and solemn as it is, 
 must always be a pleasant task. 
 
 It is passing strange, but true— it is serious to reflect upon it— 
 that one who but a few short weeks ago met with us here in council, 
 took part in our deliberations, and made this Hall vocal with his 
 arguments and discussion of public questions, in so short a time, 
 from the smiles and pleasant greetings with which he met us at 
 this desk, has passed to the silence of the tomb. 
 
 2817 3 
 
The true Indiana heart throbs to-day with an unwonted pride 
 at this generous outpouring of Representatives and countrymen 
 to honor the memory of Indiana's distinguished son, who fought 
 for so many years on this floor, amid the plaudits of his country, 
 a battle for retrenchment and reform in expenditures of Govern- 
 ment. Such fidelity should be written with a "pen of diamond 
 on tablets of gold." 
 
 Judge Holman omitted no opportunity to learn the needs of 
 
 yhis country; he watched with a jealous care the rights of his con- 
 stituents; he guarded the people's Treasury and protected their 
 interests, and though some may have criticised and others may 
 not have known his doings, yet the thoughtful and just gave due 
 credit, and the venerable legislator in this and in the applause of 
 his own conscience found an ample reward. Others may have 
 had a more brilliant career; others may have received applause 
 more ephemeral but louder, but the record of a public benefactor 
 will never die. He that watches over th9 interests of all at all 
 times makes an impression that sinks deep into the hearts of his 
 countrymen. 
 
 The record of Judge HoLjIan will live in history for ages, when 
 you, sir, who occupy that chair, and you, my colleagues, who 
 listen to my voice — when you and I and all of us shall have passed 
 away, his record will live on as a proud and magnificent example 
 of purity in private life and pubbic station, adherence to the cause 
 and interest of his people, praise and gratitude of a confiding and 
 satisfied constituency, a record which younger statesmen may well 
 follow with pride to themselves and satisfaction to their country. 
 
 The reminiscences of Judge Holman's career, his long service 
 here, save as it is known to history, I leave to older members and 
 worthier tongues than mine; but it is meet that one from his own 
 State, proud of him, though young in the councils of the nation, 
 should pay his tribute and voice his commendations of a career 
 such as has been unfolded by the older members of the House. 
 
 Indeed, one's being here to-day may be due to the study of such 
 famous sons of Indiana as Hendricks, Voorhees, McDonald, and 
 Hol:.ian, whose fame in Congress sheds an imperishable grandeur 
 on Indiana's illustrious name. 
 
 Judge Holman's death closes a characteristic career essentially 
 his own. The curious may wonder why a life in Congress was 
 devoted to the specialty of opposition to appropriations and Gov- 
 ernment expenditures, a task sometimes not fully understood, and 
 sometimes not fully appreciated. It must be remembered, how- 
 ever, that though Judge Holieax watched with a special care the 
 matter of appropriations— a duty imposed by his committee assign- 
 ments — yet he was always alert and active, and took a deep inter- 
 est in all the great questions before the country. He was qualified 
 3317 
 
5 
 
 by nature and equipped by study to master the economic ques- 
 tions of public expenditures, and by a faithful performance of a 
 duty which he felt incumbent upon him he saved many millions 
 of public money, and I believe that the history of the nation will 
 not disclose his parallel in the lines pursued by him, '■ None but 
 himself could be his parallel." 
 
 By care and patient industry he acquired a knowledge of the 
 country's needs, and beyond those lines no man dared go without 
 meeting his objection. Censure and criticisms came to his lot, as 
 they have to all public men, from the time that the illiterate 
 burgher wanted to banish Aristides for being called "the Just," 
 down to the present hour, but he knew, as others have learned, 
 that censure is a tax one pays to the public for being eminent, and 
 he heeded it not. 
 
 Always fearless in the performance of his duty, he made it his 
 standing policy to "hew to the line, let the chips fall where they 
 may.*' Amid the rugged storms of clashing interests, swept by 
 the washing waves of private greed, on this policy he stood, as 
 firm and unaffected as St. Helena in the midst of the ocean. Com- 
 plaints were met by a kindness of manner and a continued faith- 
 ful performance of duty, and opposing right to special interest, 
 he turned aside the shafts of criticism and exemplified that "only 
 the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust." 
 
 With a vigorous energy and persistence in opposing public ex- 
 travagance, no one ever truly charged him with dishonesty or 
 malevolence. He did not seem to work for short-lived popular 
 applause, but was willing to submit to the test of time for an ap- 
 proval, knowing after all that ambition is but the shadow of a 
 dream. Sallust said of Cato that the less he coveted glory, the 
 more he obtained of it. So was it with Judge Holm ax. 
 
 I will not dwell on the sobriquets "Watchdog of the Treas- 
 ury " and ' • Great Objector." These are known' through the laud, 
 and in the home of the humble are as iudissolubly connected with 
 his name as they are with the sacredness and safety of the peo- 
 ple's Treastiry. 
 
 What he saved to the country will never be known. I only 
 repeat the language of an eminent member of this House when I 
 say that Judge Holman, each term of his career, saved to the 
 nation a sum equal to that which placed upon yonder hill that 
 monument of pride and beauty that reminds us of the immortal 
 fame of the father of our country. 
 
 The principles of economy and democratic simplicity were en- 
 graven on his soul; nor did he seek to cast off these inborn traits, 
 but rather cultivated them by his surroundings and associations. 
 
 Is man molded by his environments? Go to that Indiana home, 
 stand upon the summit of that bluff, within view of the Ohio 
 2817 
 
River and three States, and tell me not that Judge Holman did 
 not imbibe a deep sense of the great obligations upon him. Liv- 
 ing in that rural home, to look about him would bring up a train 
 of associated ideas. One would be led up the Ohio and up its 
 tributaries to the East, down with its waters and back again 
 through the great rivers of the West. Standing on the threshold 
 of that mansion, looking down upon the wrinkled waters of that 
 mighty river, he gathered within the sweep of his perceptive mind 
 and eye a landscape, including countless fertile farms in valleys 
 and glens on lofty hillsides, embracing within this magnificent 
 view three of the great States of the nation, Qhio, Kentucky, 
 Indiana. 
 
 These scenes of his boyhood days, mature manhood, and ripe 
 old age taught the statesman his duty to commerce, to the States, 
 to the nation. These scenes, the resultant thoughts, made him 
 democratic in all his acts, words, and bearing. 
 
 Judge Holman loved his country home, and thither he would 
 go when his Congressional labors were over, and there meet in 
 true democratic simplicity the people he loved. He loved man- 
 kind, and he believed that the pinnacle of ambition was reached 
 when he did good to his fellow-men. He was known to every 
 man, to every woman, to every child, almost, in his district, and it 
 is a pleasure to mention, as it is a compliment to his name to say it. 
 that the children of his district, with childlike glee, saluted this 
 great legislator as " Uncle Billy," and thus they warmed his heart. 
 
 I have never seen more sincere sorrow than was depicted on the 
 face of every man, woman, and child at his burial. A statesman 
 who so lives will be remembered by sorrowing friends and asso- 
 ciates after death, and thus erects for himself a monument more 
 enduring than marble and brass. 
 
 This great man, with his public life and triumphs, also had his 
 private sorrows. He loved his family and his friends as every 
 true man loves his; in domestic feelings and affections as kind 
 and tender as a philosopher. A year before his death a sad be- 
 reavement came in the death of his wife. While engaged in gentle 
 banter on their mutual frailties from age, this couple, indissolubly 
 united in affections by the ties of half a century, were separated 
 in a moment of unawares by the swift and noiseless hand of death, 
 one passed to the realms of heaven, her eternal reward, the other 
 left to mourn, and in a year to follow and meet " in that tranquil 
 sphere the loving wife he mourned for here." 
 
 When the partner of his joys and sorrows, in a moment of bliss 
 and contentment, almost without warning, was stricken down, it 
 broke his heart. He could guide his steps with wisdom along the 
 snares and pitfalls of public life; he could meet the storms and 
 
 2817 
 
tempests of acrimonious debate; he could bear the "whips ami 
 scorns" of unjust censure; but when this oompanion of half a 
 century was stricken, it burst his tender heart. 
 
 Many who knew him well thought he would never survivo the 
 shock; but philosophy triumphed, and with the confidence of hi* 
 constituency he returned again to the scenes of his former 1 
 
 This election made him the father of tli- Housej and, c >mmenc- 
 ing his sixteenth term, he served long enough to exceed tb 
 ice of any other man, living or dead. 
 
 Judge Holm ax served in all the Congresses from the Thirty- 
 sixth till the present time, with three breaks in his continuous 
 service, two for one term, the Thirty-ninth and Fifty-fourth Con- 
 gresses, and one for two Congresses, the Forty-fifth and F< >rty- 
 sixth. He had served in his own State of Indiana as prosecuting 
 attorney, judge, member of the constitutional convention, and 
 member of the State legislature. 
 
 When he came here to serve in his last session of Congress, his 
 reception in this Chamber was both cordial and complimentary, 
 and in the nature of an ovation. Members of the Fifty-fourth 
 Congress and new members of this Congress sought a personal 
 acquaintance with the Father of the House, whom they had known 
 for j-ears as a national legislator, and the older members renewed 
 their acquaintance with happy reminiscences, while the employees 
 of the House, who knew him to love him, gave a cordial greeting. 
 "With a youthful fervor he returned these kindly greetings, and 
 in these circumstances and surroundings was not written that 
 " death rides on every breeze and lurks in every flower."' 
 
 He entered into his work with characteristic vim and energy, 
 and none who saw him during the first days of the session but 
 would have predicted more years of useful life. 
 
 Personal to myself, I will say that, as a new membar from his 
 own State, I felt the touch of his kindly influence and good will. 
 What members of this body endear themselves to the beginner? 
 To whom will kindnesses be shown as years roll on? Of whom 
 will kind remembrances be cherished in after years? Go ask it of 
 each new member, and the answer will be, " Those who show us 
 marked and early kindness.'" Such a one I found Judge Holm ax 
 to he. Complimenting me on my first effort in this august body, 
 he little dreamed that my next would be in praise of him. 
 
 Judge Holman closed on the 22d day of April, 1S97, at the age 
 of 75 years, a remarkable and successful career of honest patriot- 
 ism and statesmanship, and left, at this ripe old age. the scenes of 
 his long labors with the confidence and esteem of his colleagues, 
 the admiration of the thoughtful, and the applause of his country- 
 men , all of which was evidenced by the universal toneof the press, 
 2817 
 
8 
 
 according him an unsullied honor, a high sense of public duty, 
 persistence in right, which traits made him a useful public servant 
 in life and makes his death a national loss. 
 
 Indiana mourns with the nation the loss of William S. Hol- 
 man, and we seek consolation in the thought that for a lifetime he 
 served acceptably and well that nation; and now, after a life's 
 work devoted to her service, when he had overlapped that three- 
 score years and ten allotted to man, he is suddenly called, still in 
 line of duty, and a grateful country lays him to rest, like a weary 
 sleeper, under the shadow of the oak beneath the myrtle on the 
 green hillside of his native Indiana home, where the weary sleeper 
 may sleep on while the forest bird sings over him its sweetest song. 
 
 In this Chamber he fought his battles and culled his laurels: he 
 sleeps to-day in the heart of a grateful constituency. These are 
 honors supreme. 
 
 With a consciousness of duty well performed, with applause of 
 constituency and of country, with a long life of devotion to his 
 country "s needs, with gratitude of citizens, States, and nation, the 
 heart of ambition is filled. [Applause.] 
 
 2817 
 
& 
 
 '•' 
 
LhJa'I2