GOVERNOR, 1904
and, in the afternoon, introduced by Wayne MacVeagh, I took a pick and broke ground for the erection of the new building of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania at 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia.
On the 28th of May, Senator Quay died. I have endeavored to make an analysis of his character and present his achievement in a paper, prepared at the request of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, and it appears in my Pennsylvania in American History. The feature of his career which impresses me most forcibly is its pathos. Here was a man with a lineage, identified with the state since its foundation, whose forefathers had borne the commissions of the province in the French and Indian and the Revolutionary wars, with a capacity for statecraft, conceded to have been unsurpassed, with literary attainments and skill, with generous instincts and a kindly tolerance for even his enemies, without those elementary impulses which are gratified with the accumulation of money, who devoted his whole life to the advancement of the interests of the state and accomplished very much in her behalf, a soldier who fought for her with distinguished honor, and a statesman who won for her great rewards; and yet ever followed by the persistent abuse of the faithless and incompetent, he failed to receive the appreciation which was his due. A brave knight, he won his many successes only by continuous battle against heavy odds. It is easy to win the applause of the crowd—to give them uphft is a difficult process. Had we given him support, as Kentucky gave it to Henry Clay and Massachusetts gave it to Daniel Webster, in spite of their many delinquencies, it would have been well for the reputation and the welfare of the state. I had seen him a few months before his death. He sent me a telegram from Atlantic City asking me to come down there. I dined with him and he and I were pushed around over the boardwalk in a rolling chair. He talked to me about the family, his people, about his experiences in
