The district was very thoroughly canvassed, the Governor addressing good-sized audiences in nearly every large town in it.

The election resulted in the choice of Judge Hayes, he having received 15,279 votes, Mr. O'Meara, 8,602, and Gov. Kirkwood 8,009.

*This was the last political canvass in which Gov. Kirkwood took an active part. He would undoubtedly have engaged in the Presidential one two years later, as his interest in public affairs had not abated, but his health would not permit of his engaging in public speaking.

*If all the anti Hayes votes had been cast for Governor Kirkwood, he would have been elected by 1,832 majority.

M

CHAPTER XXII.

Did More Public Speaking Than Anyone Else in Iowa-Character as a Speaker-As a Man-Blaine's Estimate of Him-Birthday Anniversaries Observed - Always a Friend and Promoter of EducationAn Epitome of the Exploits of Iowa Soldiers-Kirkwood and Pusey in the Senate in 1858–Visit of Old Friends, September, 1892— Those Present-Those Who Wrote They Wanted to be-Speech by Judge Geo. G. Wright-Letters Read from Hiram Price, Samuel Murdock, Jacob Rich, R. D. Kellogg, Judge Woolson and B. F. Gue -Speeches on the Lawn--Gov. Kirkwood as a Poet.

For a period of thirty years-from 1856 to 1886-almost the life time of a generation of men, no man in the State had done more public political speaking, or discussed more elaborately the great questions of the times than Gov. Kirkwood, and crowds always gathered to listen to him, and he never wearied an audience, no matter how long was his discourse. He always secured the attention of his hearers from the first and held it to the last; he seemed to have almost a magic power over them.

As a speaker he was never what is termed "florid or eloquent." Flights of fancy, figures of rhetoric, or highlycolored pictures of the imagination he never indulged in; but cogency of statement, purity of diction, perspicacity of style, directness of purpose, clearness of comprehension, perfection of analysis and aptness of illustration, were qualities he possessed in an eminent degree. He always labored to enlighten the understanding and convince the judgment of his hearers, rather than to arouse their passions or appeal to their prejudices.

The ceaseless, tireless, roaring "loom of time" never sent from the workings of its treadles and shuttle, or unrolled from its beam a stronger, finer or firmer web than when it ushered into official life Samuel J. Kirkwood. With

a masculine understanding, an abundant stock of hard common sense, the courage of his convictions, a stout and resolute heart, an honest and an intense regard for the public welfare, an ardent lover of justice, uprightness and truth in all its relations and applications, he resolutely and fearlessly met every responsibility, and performed with fidelity every public duty imposed upon him.

Jas. G. Blaine recounting the merits of the War Governors" of 1861 in his "Twenty Years of Congress," says:

"The Governor of Iowa was Samuel J. Kirkwood, a man of truth, courage and devoted love of country. Distinguished for comprehensive intelligence, for clear foresight, for persuasive speech, for spotless integrity, for thorough acquaintance with the people, he was a model of executive efficiency."

The Iowa City National Bank was organized in 1882, when Gov. Kirkwood was chosen President of the Board of Directors, which office he continued to hold by repeated re-election until January, 1889; and since that time retaining the directorship until the re-organization of the bank, he has been living in retirement on his place of some twenty acres adjoining Iowa City, where for a long series of years his oldest brother, now deceased, and two of his wife's sisters. Mrs. Col. E. W. Lucas and Mrs. J. E. Jewett, have been his three nearest neighbors. During some portion of the time while president of the bank he was unable from sickness and other causes to perform all the duties of the office, when he shared with Geo. W. Lewis, the vice-president, the honors and labors and the salary attached to it.

During the last few years, on the anniversary of his birth, December 20, it has been the custom here to raise the National flag on the City Hall, the State University and the Court House, and his immediate friends on these occasions, often with a band of music, have called upon him in a body, and presented him their congratulations; and those of his friends that were greeted by him the most heartily were, not

the politicians, but the old soldiers, "his boys," as he used to and still does delight to call them.

No citizen of the State has more deeply interested himself in the cause of education than he. For several years in succession he was sub-director in his school district, and has been a member of the Board of Regents of the State University, and one of the Trustees of the State Agricultural College. He has always taken a lively interest in the State Historical Society; been several times a member and President of the Board of Curators of that institution, and he has been a generous donor of books and pamphlets to its library, contributing at one time 419 bound books and 524 pamphlets. While being an active participant in making history, he has been equally active in securing means for its preser

vation.

He at one time during the war endeavored to secure a photograph of every Iowa colonel for the society, but after obtaining some fifteen he abandoned the work as a hopeless task. It was at his suggestion and on his solicitation that many relics of the war have been sent to the Historical Society for preservation. Writing to Surgeon Cochran, then in the service. he says, "Remember the Historical Society and myself in the way of trophies."

During his gubernatorial term and on his recommendation as a Governor, the first money ($500) was appropriated from the State treasury to the State Historical Society, to be used in the collection and preservation of historical material.

At no time in his life has the Governor been desirous of accumulating a fortune. To become rich above his fellows was never one of his aims. In all his relations of life as a business man, whether in private or official station, "the Eternal Right" was his preference to "the Almighty Dollar." A competence he always had and that to him was satisfactory.

He seemed to have lived and acted upon the maxim that,

"He that holds fast the golden mean,

And lives contentedly between

The little and the great,

Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,

Or plagues that haunt the rich man's door."

When the State voted to issue $800,000 in bonds during his term of office to carry on the war, and only $300,000 was expended, here was a margin of $500,000 left from which large profits could have been made in its expenditure, if we had not then had a faithful watch dog of the treasury in the person of the Executive, aided by the vigilant officers associated with him to carry out his plans and practice his and their honesty and economy.

If there is a branch of the Federal Government that has more than any other been tainted with peculation and jobbery, it is the Department of the Interior, of which he was for a time the head. While he was there not a breath of suspicion was raised that any irregularity attached to his administration of it.

As he sits by his quiet fireside with his life work nearly done, calmly and patiently spending the evening of a wellspent life, there is no portion of it that he reviews with greater pleasure than that in which he was raising troops, sending them to the front and watching the part they took in the great contest wherein they gave Iowa and Iowa soldiers a name and a reputation, of which he and they and all of us were and still are justly proud. Their deeds pre

sent themselves to him as painted in a panorama before the veterans at a reunion in Story county by Hon. Henry L. Wilcox in these glowing colors:

In that awful baptism of fire at Blue Mills 500 of the Third Iowa held the ground for an hour against 4,000 rebels, exhibiting wonderful valor.

At Wilson's Creek the First Regiment stood a wall of adamant, against a flood of fire.

In the charge on Donelson, four Iowa regiments forced the rebel fortifications, and the gallant Second was the diamond point of the mighty spear that entered the rebel breast.