NEWTON BOOTH.

 

            WHEN California was filled with great men, there was a merchant in Sacramento who for a time was not heeded among his fellow men as aught but one of the class of merchant princes of which there were many in the state, and of which Sacramento contained a full quota.

            But there came a time when the people were unusually interested in a question and one night at a public meeting this merchant arose and made a brief address. It was published the next day in the papers and then it suddenly dawned upon thousands that a scholar and marvelous thinker had been found. That was Newton Booth. A man above the average size, fair complexion, brown hair and blue eyes, as we recall him. Then he began to be called for oftener and oftener and was soon a factor in public life. When the Republican party was launched in California he was one of the prominent sponsors. He was as eloquent as he was profound.

            When the project of building a transcontinental railroad was launched in earnest, he was its ablest supporter, and the work he did in its behalf was altogether magnificent.

            That the old Central Pacific company was able to obtain a great subsidy from Sacramento and Eldorado counties and San Francisco was more due to Newton Booth than any other one man.

            Next to Colonel Baker, he was the most powerful exponent of Republican party principles among the orators of the state. But he relied wholly upon argument. He could bring none of the magnetism of Baker to the work ; none of the lightning flashes of that inspired soul, but he talked merely as an earnest American.

            After awhile he was nominated for governor and campaigned the state. His speeches were classics of their kind. He stood for Americanism in its highest sense, and for the equal rights and equal opportunities of every American citizen.

            He was triumphantly elected and for four years held the

84 AS I REMEMBER THEM.

high office with signal ability, until his name became a synonym for perfect integrity and for absolute justice under the law.

            In the election of United States senators there had been combinations, deals, and no end of stock- jobbing.

            When Booth was appealed to as the logical candidate for the place and urged to run for the office, his reply was: "It is an exalted office, it is as it was in old Rome when to be a senator was greater than to be a king, but, gentlemen, if the office in California is to cost one unworthy promise or implied promise, or one tainted dollar, count me out in the very inception. If a majority of the legislature of California should, of their free will, unbiased and untrammeled, decide to bestow the honor of that office upon me, I should appreciate it as no man ever did before, but on no other terms would I accept it, for if I ever go to Washington as a senator I must take my full self- respect with me, and must have the full approval of my own conscience.

            He was triumphantly elected, and mingled with the good-byes when he went away were a thousand expressions that "next time we will send you as president."

            But that was practically the end. He made no mark in the senate. Where so much was expected, nothing was realized. We cannot recall one act or speech of his in the senate worth recital.

            It was worse than Senator Nye's account of the first speech of Senator Casserly of California. As Nye told it, when Casserly was elected, the senators gathered around him and asked who this Casserly of California was whom the legislature of that state had elected senator, Nye told them that he was a graduate of the University of Dublin, that then in the most rigid schools he had graduated as a lawyer ; that he had enjoyed a great practice for years in his profession in San Francisco, was a most profound scholar and renowned lawyer, and his coming would be a distinct addition to the senate.

            What follows is in Nye's own words as nearly as we can recall them :

            "He came on to Washington and took his seat. After a

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few days, before he got his sea legs under him at all, some petty question was sprung upon the senate, a question that no one, no matter how gifted, could make a speech on when, to my surprise, the new senator rose to his feet. The president of the senate at once recognized him and he began to speak. He could not say anything; no one could on such a theme, but he stumbled along, and I was searching the marble floor for a knot-hole to fall through. An inch hole would have been big enough. Finally I looked up and Thurman of Ohio, in wiping his face waved his red bandana toward me, and I followed him out to a cloak room. Arrived there, Thurman said : 'Jim, have you any letters patent about your clothes to prove that you are not a d-----d old fool ?' And I announced humbly, 'Not a letter. Not a letter, Allen.' "

            When his term was out Booth returned to his business in Sacramento, but a great silence closed around him.

            After awhile it was told that he was ill of an incurable malady, and a little later he died. We never heard any close friend of his try to account for the swift change that came upon him. We never heard of a parallel case. He was the same to all outward appearances ; in conversation he was the same; there was no hint that his brain was giving way; there was no sign that any great disappointment or anything like a heart wound had come to him ; but the essence of life had gone out. He had simply quit. It must have been that the insidious disease of which he died, had in its first stages paralyzed either his courage or his mental energies, but whatever it was, he died long before he ceased to breathe.

            To show his style, we give the closing paragraph of one of his political speeches, as follows:

            "What is our country? It is not the land and the sea, the river and the mountain, the people, their history and laws. It is something more than all of these. It is a bright ideal, a living presence in the heart, whose destruction would rob the earth of beauty, the stars of their glory, the sun of its brightness, life of its sweetness, love and joy. My countrymen, cherish this ideal. It will exalt you as you exalt it. Make it your cloud by day, your pillar of fire by night.