AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN
April 18th, 1904.
Hon. Samuel W. Pennypacker,
Harrisburg, Pa.
My dear Governor:
You do not know how I appreciate your knowledge that I am so interested in your welfare as to prize the information that you have sent me.
There is not the slightest doubt that you have acted unselfishly and for the public welfare. But that is not a startling proposition to me, as I have never known you to do otherwise. You have also done what, had I consulted my selfish interest, I would have wished you to do.
What I objected to, and still object to, was that you were being attacked for having done what you considered your duty, and precluded from receiving something that you were entitled to take, because of bitterness engendered against you by your conscientious performance of duty.
My own feeling was that you had a perfect right to go on the Supreme Bench, and that you should not be persecuted for considering that right, because your conscience had driven you to making public enemies.
You know I did not agree with you about the libel act, but I knew you acted from a sense of duty, and it was atrocious that you should have been hounded, as you were.
My feeling about the matter is so complex that I hardly know whether I make myself intelligible. I wanted you to remain governor very much, no one is more interested in having that office in the hands of a fearless and honest man; but I wanted more that you should get what you had a right to desire, and also that there should be no risk that any one should think that you had given up your just desires, because of unmerited abuse.
Your course, however, may prove to be the wisest after all, as some of your detractors may, in view of your self-sacrifice, begin to be ashamed of themselves. This, at any rate, is my ardent desire.
Thanking you again, I remain,
Your sincere friend,
George H. Earle, Jr.
Is it not a little disturbing that as intelligent a body as “The Bar” can be stampeded by newspaper clamor, as it has just been? I suppose character counts for something still; but after this I am at a loss to say how much.
