COLONEL WILBUR F. SANDERS.

 

            A MASTERFUL man was Colonel Sanders of Montana, and perhaps for forty years did more to shape events in that state than any other one man. When he reached there in the early sixties the region was almost without law, and desperate men were in control.

            Colonel Sanders took his life in his hand and went about to subdue the lawless and to establish order. The decent people rallied to his support and the transformation was made. To do this it was necessary that a few of the worst of the ruffians should be hanged, and that duty was cheerfully performed. The transformation being made, the work of putting the region in order for the coming of full enlightenment was begun, and there has never been any break in its upward way since, except for a brief time when ambitious men were fighting for place by methods which were calculated to demoralize, rather than uplift the people.

            Through the forty or more years of Colonel Sanders' life there, no one ever doubted his power or discounted his influence. If he did not have all the honors that were his due, no one was to blame but himself. His soul was as imperious as ever was Caesar's, and his tongue was perpetually firing poisoned arrows. He was tall and large and swarthy, and when excited his eyes were flames and like Job's war horse, his "neck was clothed with thunder."

            Nevertheless he was a most genial man, and while as proud as Lucifer, he had not a trace of false pride. A finished scholar and fine lawyer and with talents that made him well- nigh invincible, down deep his thought was that the highest call in this world was that of duty, and that no man was so poor or unfortunate that he was not entitled to justice.

            He was not always right, but he always meant to be right. There was no compromise with him. Everything must be either right or it was all wrong, and when aught trenched upon the right, with him there was nothing to be done but

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crush the wrong. As all men cannot see alike, this disposition on his part made him enemies, but they all admitted that he was a fair fighter. He was passionately fond of Montana. He felt that the character of the magnificent state was in part his work, and he was as jealous of the state's reputation as of his own. He wanted every man within its borders to be brave and every woman fair.

            He was a wonderful speaker on the hustings, and there his fashion was to discomfit his opponents with an irony at which no offense could be taken, but which convulsed his hearers and annihilated opponents.

            He was as loyal to his country as to his state, as jealous of its honor, and its flag was to him the symbol of absolute justice, truth and enlightened liberty.

            When Montana entered the Union he was one of its first United States Senators, and served with great benefit to his state, with great honor to himself. The east is prone to look askance at senators from new states. In their eastern provincialism they assume as a matter of course that much that is crude and not quite refined must be expected from such sources. One glance at Wilbur F. Sanders was enough to undeceive such people. He looked as high-born as a king, and when he opened his mouth the shrewdest of them all sat up and took notice.

            A fatal malady kept him at home for several years prior to his death, but he never for a moment lost interest in all public matters and he worked at his profession to the very end. Estimating men we often compare one with some other man of national reputation. That cannot be done in Colonel Sanders' case. In his bearing he was what Roscoe Conkling might have been had he when a youth pushed out on the frontier for half a dozen years. But I never knew any western man that much resembled him. His was a type of manhood most rare. I believe that what he coveted most in the world was the love of his fellow-men, but not many could discern this unless brought close to him. He would stoop to help up a poor man who had fallen, but he would not have doffed his hat to Julius Caesar unless Caesar had set him the example. His home was

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a most happy one ; his grandchildren could work him in every way they pleased, and his last word was one of endearment to his wife.

            Could he have been given his health ten years longer, his name would have been as familiar in the nation as it was and is in Montana; but his call came just when the fruition of his hopes seemed to be taking form in a setting of glory before him, and without a murmur he accepted his fate. On the day of his funeral, a Montana paper said :

Men of Montana ! Bare your brows today.

Stand at salute before the open grave

That waits to gather to its arms the clay

Of him who was the bravest of your brave.

            He was the most potential figure among the strong men of his state. For years he was looked up to by a majority of them as their uncrowned sovereign, and the saddest act of their lives was to smooth his final couch, and to repeat above him their all hails and farewells.