Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/83

 THE GREEN BAG Carter, which he delivered within half an hour after the news of Mr. Carter's demise reached him. It was as follows: "James C. Carter has passed away within the last twenty-four hours. I have been requested to call -the fact to your honors' attention, and I understand that I have the permission of the Court so to do. "He was a man, great as lawyer, as jurist; greater still in his individuality, as a citizen of New York and of the United States. The whole Bar, throughout the whole country knows him well. There is not a court that ever sat to which he addressed himself that was not confident that light would be thrown upon the questions under considera tion, and that not only of a purely intel lectual character, but the light that shines because of the moral attribute of the man. "I do not feel that I can do any justice to that which has been asked of me. I never felt so utterly inadequate to do any thing I was called upon to do. I cannot speak properly and reasonably of him, for I not only suffered in common with the great mass of the Bar, with the great mass of the Bench, everywhere, but I have the personal peculiarity of the loss of the best friend I ever had. I know your honors will pardon me. Fifty years — forty years to be more precise — forty years we have been warm, close, personal friends — I the gainer always. He did everything for me that a friend could do for another. And therefore, when I come to ask the Court to recognize the great loss that we have suffered, I feel that you will excuse me, and I am compelled to say that I have suffered the greatest, and am utterly unable to picture as I should, the great merits of this man. "I have but to ask that in commemora tion of the man, whom we all regard as princeps, facile princcps, and who has been taken away from us in the full measure of a grand life, that we shall give to him the respect of an adjournment until such time as it may please the Court." Many of his most effective and beautiful

speeches were entirely lost. Such was the fate of his speech in the Senate Chamber at Albany in 1902 on the bill to prohibit political contributions by judicial candi dates; and his great speech before the Board of Estimate and Apportionment in 1900, which killed outright the proposed Ramapo contract. But after all, it was as a man that Wheeler H. Peckham exerted perhaps his greatest influence, and will be remembered by those who knew him with the deepest affection and reverence — an influence which he, in his extreme modesty, was entirely uncon scious of. The exaltation of his character was felt by every one who came in contact with him. He would have nothing that was not the very best, and was the most inveterate and uncompromising foe of every sham and false pretense. Unsparing and relentless in his exposure of chicanery and fraud, and in his denunciation of what ever tended to lower the high standards of life, his heart was free from malice, and he was absolutely without continuing per sonal resentment, and the most humane and forgiving of men; charitable, generous, and in his final judgments, always just. He was gifted with an abundant sense of humor and a ready and caustic wit, which made him a most delightful companion : one had to be ever on the alert not to lay him self open to his playful thrusts. The writer here desires to make confession that a few years ago, after a commemoratory ceremony in which he and Mr. Peckham had taken part with no little feeling, Mr. Peckham took him aside, and with the merriest twin kle in his eye and the pleasantest of smiles on his face said, "Hayes, whatever you do, don't ever attempt to write my obituary!" One of Mr. Peckham's defects of character was his almost entire lack of hope, and yet it was allied to one of his greatest virtues. A man with hope in his heart is ready for any combat, but it is a strong and resolute soul that can fight when hope is dimmed. Such was Mr. Peckham. The sustaining