JOHN PERCIVAL JONES.

 

            BORN in England or Wales, brought to the United States when five years of age, or, as he in jest was wont to say : "Not liking the customs of the old country, I left Wales at five years of age for the United States, and brought my whole family with me."

            He passed fifteen years in and about Cleveland, Ohio, attending the schools there ; then at twenty turned his face westward, graduated among the California mountains, and took his post-graduate course on the Comstock.

            Who can give to those who never met him an idea of John P. Jones?

            He was perhaps five feet nine and a half inches in height, massive, weighing say one hundred and eighty pounds, ruddy complexion, with dark gray or black eyes, a face at once striking, joyous, genial and commanding.

            He was a profound thinker, but this he was wont to keep masked except in the seclusion of his own library, among trusted friends, or when a few times in the senate of the United States he made clear to the great scholars there that they had never learned the alphabet of the language which was needed to make clear some of the deeper sciences of government or of the philosophy of money. He was generous as the sunbeams that come in the spring to drive the chill from the earth and clothe it with verdure and flowers ; his affections were of the very deepest ; his courage was equal to any test : and all the time his sense of humor was so exquisite, his conversational powers so wonderful that an hour with him when he was care- free was better than food to the hungry or medicine to the sick. His judgment of men was infallible. He once said to Senator Lodge of Massachusetts :

            "Senator, I have heard many of your speeches, have read all your published thoughts. It is a pleasure to me to tell you that you are an eloquent speaker : that with your epigrams and metaphors, your logic and figures of speech and speaking the

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exact words needed to make clear your thoughts, it is a delight to read your books. Only, Senator, you have never come down to earth. You don't know a blessed thing in the world of how a poor man goes to work to make a living and to feed his babies."

            Still, when in joyous conversation, he would frequently pronounce a dozen words that would make clear that a pro- found problem had been mastered by him in a way that settled it forever. He read much, and his range of reading covered everything that was beautiful or deep or grotesque. He would have been at home with Aristotle or Socrates. He would have looked Julius Caesar squarely in the eyes and told him if some proposition of his w r as faulty; he would have been perfectly at home with Curran or Sheridan or Bobbie Burns. Still the stalwarts, Conkling, Chandler, Morton and the others, leaned upon him as upon an immovable pillar of strength.

            His early life in the solemn mountains had its effect upon him as it does on all thinking people, for in the hills man grows close to nature. This supplemented with the depths of a great mine where in the darkness men search for ore bodies, is never outgrown. Such a man is not easily surprised and when the strain is over, disappointment after that is met with no emotion which is apparent to others.

            It was from that school that J. P. Jones emerged with honors and soon after was elected to the United States Senate, and held the place for thirty years. He made but few speeches, one or two on the tariff, two or three on the silver question, as it was carried on from 1873 to 1893." Of those speeches it may be said they were never replied to. Other senators discussed the question, but never essayed to answer what he said. There was a reason for this they could not.

            When we consider the state of the exchanges between the United States and the Orient, to turn back and read what Senator Jones said on that question reads like a solemn prophecy.

            In his first speech in the senate the experiment was made to bombard him with questions. It was not long persisted in, for the more questions that were asked, the more it was apparent

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that his knowledge of his theme was the master's, that of his inquisitors was but as a schoolboy's.

            From the first he drew to him in friendship and respect those whose friendship and respect were most to be coveted.

            It could not have been otherwise. He had read all the literature that any of them had ; his views were quite as high and pronounced as those of the most exclusive of them all, and still he was geniality itself and was at home everywhere ; and everywhere when he asserted himself, he held the center of the stage.

            General Grant believed in him implicitly. He was never very friendly with President Harrison, and we believe this was through a misunderstanding. President Harrison was thought to be cold and reserved. The truth is he was merely shy. Could the right man have introduced them and shook them both out into free converse, they would have been friends always.

            President Arthur leaned upon Senator Jones, I believe, more than upon any other senator. Senator Jones and President Cleveland never affiliated. Senator Jones exactly appreciated President Cleveland ; in return Mr. Cleveland never had the slightest idea of the nature of Senator Jones. Senators Conkling and Cameron were in love with the Nevada senator, and so was President McKinley.

            Senators are easily made, at least sometimes, but the rare thing is to find an all-around great man, one who would have been great had no books ever been written. One who, after books were written could read them, storms: in memory all the gems of thought and discarding the rest : one who was as great as the best, but who, while holding himself the peer of the highest, had his ears open always to the right, and who could detect real manhood under the gray shirt of a miner as quickly as under a senatorial robe.

            He spent a good deal of money in his first campaign, though he knew that his election was sure from the first. But it seemed natural to him to be generous to the men who were joyously working for him.

            Two anecdotes of that campaign may not be out of place.

            In the free-and-easy ways of the Comstock, a middl-aged,

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grave and soft-voiced gambler called upon him, and proceeded at once to business. Said he: "J. P., I can control about a thousand votes in this coming election, but it will take some money."

            "About how much money?" asked the would-be senator.

            "As nigh as I can calculate, about ten dollars a head," was the reply.

            ''But who are these gentlemen who desire to sell their votes?' was the next question.

            The sport replied : "They are quiet, low-down chaps that will never peach. An investigating court could not by torture get a word from one of them."

            "You interest me," said Jones. "But who and where are these voters?"

            "It has taken a great deal of work on my part to get them marshaled and all their names put down correctly." was the reply.

            'But who are they, and where are you keeping them?' asked Jones.

            Then the sport's voice grew more soft and insinuating as he said : "They are up in the burying-ground, J. P., I have been a month chipping the moss and syenite dust off their names and copying them."

            Jones told his visitor that he did not believe he wanted that kind of support, and the man, warning Jones that he was likely to be sorry at not accepting the offer, retired.

            A month after election, the candidate met the sport again, who said : "J. P., you had better reconsider the reward that is due me. You see I still have the chisel, and if I should get angry sometime after you are gone I could disfranchise you for all eternity."

            Colonel O., who was a native-born Englishman, but like Jones, a stalwart American, told Jones that in the mines there were a thousand English miners, and they wanted to organize a "Jones British Club," but they had no hall to meet in.

            Jones said: "All right. Find the hall, pay the rent in advance for six months, hire a band for every night up to

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election clay, have some refreshments on hand, and let the boys have a good time. Come to me for what may be needed.''

            The programme was carried out and things went on swimmingly up to election day.

            About noon on election day O. came to Jones and told him that the dirty dogs would not vote until a large assessment which they had levied was paid.

            With a laugh Jones said : "Send word to them that I am awfully busy just now, but I will come down after a while." At about 3 p. m. they sent a messenger that they were waiting. Jones bade the messenger tell them he would be over in a few minutes. A fresh shift of men were at the time coming out of the Belcher and Crown Point mines and hurrying to take their places in line to vote.

            When that line was extended until it was clear it would take until the polls closed for them all to vote, Jones repaired to the hall.

            Mounting the little rostrum he said :

            "My fellow miners, I have taken great interest in your club from the first. When I see English-born men come to America, and see them after they have become familiar with the principles of our free government and understand the opportunities supplied here for true men, take on the solemn obligations of citizenship, I rejoice and say to myself, 'These are worthy descendants of those Englishmen who made England free and held her free when almost all the earth outside was lost in apparent anarchy.' And my comforting thought is that they will be as true to the land of their adoption as they were to the land of their birth.

            "These thoughts are what prompted me to help you in the formation of your club. It was not half so much to get your votes, as because we all came from the same land, and while our allegiance here is equal to any native born Americans, we have beside the memory that it was our forefathers who, while conquering a peace for themselves, at the same time conquered what was crude and wrong and savage in their own natures and dedicated our England to order, to law, to liberty to progress and enlightenment. In the meantime, too, they

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established a literature of their own higher than was ever before founded. On land and sea for a thousand years they have held their place, until the names of her heroes and sages and scholars make the brightest list that ever the sun shone on.

            "An hundred years ago, when England had unworthy citizens she transported those whom she did not hang. I am satisfied that had that still been the custom, not one of you would have ever paid your own passage money to get away. And now, asking your pardon for detaining you so long, I want to explain that the only reason that prompted me to come here today was to have the pleasure of telling the last mother's son of you that you have my full permission to go to h--l, and to hope that none of you will be delayed in reaching your rightful destination."

            There was a rush to reach the polls to vote against the Jones legislative ticket, but it was too late. The whole bunch were shut out.

            He went twice, if I remember correctly, on international monetary commissions abroad, and held his place with honor among the world's foremost authorities on finance. Not until past four score did he retire to his estate at Santa Monica, California, to pass the twilight of his life there.

            It was a most appropriate place. The world with its storms and heat and cold, its fierce winds and tempests, was all behind him. Before him was the great ocean ; its surges, freed from all their deep-sea fierceness and wrath, came rolling in, bringing; in low murmurs refrains from far off shores; bringing to the weary man whispers of peace, which to the aged who are losing their hold on life are what a mother's lullaby is to the child just entering upon life, and so under those murmurs, in the soft air, from his peaceful surroundings there he passed to the deeper peace.

            He lived and died an honor to this western coast.

            Because of him the manhood of the coast was exalted in the world's estimation.

            In his own home, when he died, the light of the world well nigh went out.