66 of General Hawley's services to the country in terms of highest praise. One of them related the following anecdote: When I left the Senate in 1891, I had then three riding horses of which I was fond, and which I would not sell, but was willing to give away. I offered one to General Hawley. This was long ago when he was strong, a strong, chivalrous gentleman he always was. He thanked me with tears in his eyes and said: 'I have not money enough to pay for his keep; give him to some senator who is able to take care of him.'" I quote these words of exSenator Spooner, as they are set down in the Congressional Record, because they show, in a pathetic manner, how utterly incommensurate with the work he performed and the service he rendered was the remuneration which he received therefor, and how much, or rather how little he was worth in dollars and cents after nearly fifty years of public service. With him "The path of duty was the way to glory. He never shall be shamed: Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, Glancing now, more particularly, at some of General Hawley's most distinctive traits and qualities, we find, first of all, that they were all grounded in a fundamental and predominant natural honesty. Out of this came that consuming and contagious passion for what he deemed right, of which we have already spoken. With the people generally he was "Honest Joe Hawley," long before and after other official titles were conferred upon him. Honesty of nature means simplicity as well as sincerity of character, truth in the inward parts, and no hidden things of dishonesty or deceitfulness. Therefore, his hands were clean, his eye single, and, like Sir Galahad "his strength was as the strength of ten because his heart was pure." A GENTLEMAN General Hawley had the natural instincts and the acquired habits, manners and morals of a gentleman, not of the veneering sort of a thin and polished politeness, but of that other kind, of which Sir Roger de Coverly, Benjamin Franklin and Colonel Newcome are different specimens, whose gentlemanly qualities all true gentlemen instantly recognize as wrought into the grain and texture of character, essential, solid and substantial. Doubtless he was sometimes, in the eagerness of his very earnestness, a little rough and perhaps imperious, but inwardly and obviously a brave, true, honorable, hearty, wholesome, generous and genial gentleman, whose natural dignity and simplicity gave his courtesy a grace beyond all art of courtliness, and whose visible human kindness and tender-heartedness gave to every gentlemanly virtue a peculiar charm. He was a fruit of Puritanism grown ripe and mellow. Conscientious as a Puritan, he was chivalrous as a cavalier. Severely tested in this particular by the provocations of political controversies, he stood that test, was courteous in combat, fought fair, and could salute either a victorious or a vanquished, if honorable, antagonist. Sometimes vehement and even volcanic in utterance, I doubt if he ever polluted his lips or disgraced debate with the dialect of vituperation. That which he said of a public man whose opinions he detested: 'We must judge opinions by the light we have, and men by the light they have," was characteristic of his justice and generosity. That other famous sentence, "Uncle Sam must be a gentleman," was no cunningly-coined phrase, but the spontaneous expression of a ruling sentiment within him. He was just the kind of a gentleman that "Uncle Sam" and Uncle Sam's public men ought to be. HIS APPEARANCE AND MANNER General Hawley's personal appearance, carriage and demeanor were unusually indicative of some of his striking characteristics. A casual, if keen, observer might have inferred such things in him as vigor of mind, energy of will, a commanding spirit, uprightness and straight-forwardness, positive convictions and the courage of them, a big and breezy generosity of good nature, and an ardent temperament capable of impulsive and impetuous manifestations. In the kindly light that so often shone in his deep, clear, searching eyes and irradiated his strongfeatured face, in the cordiality that so often gave a peculiar winsomeness to his voice and manner, there were signs of other and gentler qualities more fully disclosed to acquaintance. He was a man of strong affections and attachments, a loving and a lovable man. Underneath a rugged exterior there was a most beautiful and bountiful brotherly-kindness, and living springs of almost feminine tenderness, of which every comrade and friend was aware. His heart was democratic in its hospitality, catholic in its sympathy and charity. Let it not pass without honorable mention here that, when the occasion came, this man stood up as bravely and spoke out as boldly for the yellow man and for justice to him, as he had done for the black man and the red. Much as there was in him to inspire respect and to invite confidence, there was also something to warn the unwary and to ward off the crooked and perverse. Mr. Facing-Both-Ways and all his sort of folks were likely to find him somewhat curt and brusque. It was obviously difficult for him to conceal his impatience with duplicity, his contempt for moral cowardice, his disgust for impurity, his indignation and wrath against "whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie." Therefore, in certain moral, or immoral atmospheric conditions, the sunshine and serenity of his habitual good nature assumed an aspect overcast and menacing as that of a summer-day sky in a thunder storm. He mightily loved righteousness and equally hated iniquity and whatever fault there may have been in his outspokenness concerning such things was the defect of a virtue. One might say that at times his very honesty was ungovernable. AN OPTIMIST General Hawley was an ingrained optimist, "a man of hope and forward-looking mind." He scouted all lamentations over the decay or decline of either religion, morality, or patriotism. He believed that "the best is yet to be," and rejoiced in the sure though often unsteady forward-marching of mankind and in the ultimate triumph of good over evil. This disposition to the most hopeful views made him "A man of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows," and was an element of his strength; and the outshining of this gladsome light of faith and hope within him was a means of much refreshment and blessing to many. Accordingly General Hawley was an eminently social man. He could mix as well as mingle with men, and was capable of mirth, hilarity and innocent convivialities. Some can recall how 66 he loved to lift up and let loose that deep, melodious voice of his in song, singing with equal fervor, as suitable to the occasion, "Rock of Ages" in the sanctuary, “ Marching Through Georgia at the camp-fire; "Roll Jordan, Roll," at the fireside, or Thackeray's jovial ballad at the Club. One can almost hear again the rumble and roar of his laughter as some shaft of wit went to the mark; and then an arrow from his quiver and the twang of his stout bow; and his boyish glee, in the rivalry and revelry of story, song and jest - for this man never quite outgrew his boyhood. In all such playfulness his natural dignity never deserted him. He thought too highly of it either to lay it aside or to assert it by standing upon it. It simply took care of itself, and made impossible for or with him any familiarities that smacked of indecency or impropriety. Among the various characters depicted in Bunyan's immortal allegory are several that personify certain sterling qualities already designated as characteristic of General Hawley. But in the second part of that story a new character appears who seems to combine in himself the several virtues of those characters with certain other fine and noble qualities peculiar to himself, whose appropriate name is Greatheart. I cannot give a better summary description of General Hawley than by that Greatheart figure, in whose composite character Honest, Faithful, Hopeful, Standfast and Valiant-For-Truth were comprised and blended. HIS POWER AS A PUBLIC SPEAKER By a plenteous endowment of requisite gifts and aptitudes, physical, intellectual, moral and emotional, and by a diligent use and improvement of the same, General Hawley was thoroughly equipped for that vocation of a public speaker to which he was effectually called, and in which by his power of fluent, forcible and persuasive speech he performed a distinguished public service and obtained for himself an excellent report. He had something to say, and said it straight-forwardly and positively, with an air and manner of assurance and authority, in racy, sinewy Anglo-Saxon words, to which a superb physical presence and action gave weight and emphasis, an obvious sincerity gave persuasion, a glowing earnestness gave warmth and color, and a vibrant and resonant voice gave wings and music. He paid little heed, perhaps too little, to those things which adorn discourse and give it grace and charm. The texture of his style was not smooth and soft like silk, but like homespun, rugged, strong and suitable. His speech was the image of his mind. There were few dulcet notes in his periods, but through them all the ring and rhythm of a brave sincerity and truth. He had the knack of making an impressive statement of plain facts, and the rare power of presenting homely and familiar truths in something of their original freshness and sanctity. Occasionally came gleams of humor and flashes of mother-wit, but, sooner or later, in almost every speech, some level sentence in which the whole argument was packed in solid, concrete form and shot home to the mark; as when, at the republican convention at Chicago, in 1868, over which he presided, he gave repudiation a knockdown blow with the memorable sentence "Remember that every dollar of the nation's debt is as sacred as a soldier's grave!" His oratory so expressed himself, his vital convictions, his vigor, ardor, earnestness, intensity, and the unanimity of all his powers, that one may safely say that no man in Connecticut of his generation, spoke to his fellow citizens more acceptably, forcibly and effectually than he. AN IMPOLITIC POLITICIAN The faults of a public man of frank and open nature and fervid temperament are usually obvious. It was so with General Hawley. No report of him would be truthful that did not, in general terms, frankly acknowledge this. But any such acknowledgment would be grossly unjust that did not preclude all supposition of moral delinquencies. There was no stain on his character, no blot on his escutcheon. Such faults as he had were negative, incidental, superficial — failings or foibles rather than faults, distinctly impolitic in a politician, and such as might have seriously handicapped an ordinary man. But General Hawley was much more, everyway, than a politician, and was an extraordinary man. He was otherwise and in his altogetherness a man of such intellectual and moral soundness, dignity, weight and strength, of such promptitude and energy and forwardness at every clear call of duty, that those things which sometimes, in the treadmill routine of ordinary affairs, had the appearance of weakness, sat lightly and loosely upon him, were shaken off by the arousal of responsibility, and were universally regarded as of minor concern. |