Page:Men of Mark in America vol 1.djvu/528

416 Mr. Grow affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Masonic fraternities, and was a member of the Psi Upsilon society. He received the honorary degree of LL.D., from Amherst, in 1884, He never married. He attributes his success in life to following the advice of his mother and complying with her wish that he go to college and that he make the law his profession in life. He urges upon young Americans that they give faithful and constant attention to whatever they undertake, and that they cultivate habits of industry and sobriety. His greatest achievement as a legislator he considers to be the securing of the passage of the Free Homestead law. He recognized no inconsistency in his public career, and in his speech before the house of representatives, February 19, 1897, he said: "If I had my life to live over again I would not change my action on the great political questions upon which I have been called to act, whether as representative or private citizen." His faith in the perpetuity of the Republic of the United States was voiced in the same speech in these words: "I closed my course of historical reading in the schools with the firm conviction that no nation ever yet died or ever will, no matter what the extent of its territory or how vast its population, if governed by just laws, and if its people are imbued with a spirit of humanity as broad as the race."