JOHN P. ALTGELD

ADDRESS OF CLARENCE DARROW, AT THE FUNERAL

FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1902

In the great flood of human life that is spawned upon the earth,

it is not often that a man is born. The friend and comrade that we

mourn to-day was formed of that infinitely rare mixture that now

and then at long, long intervals combines to make a man. John P.

Altgeld was one of the rarest souls who ever lived and died. His

was a humble birth, a fearless life and a dramatic, fitting death.

We who knew him, we who loved him, we who rallied to his many

hopeless calls, we who dared to praise him while his heart still beat,

cannot yet feel that we shall never hear his voice again.

John P. Altgeld was a soldier tried and true; not a soldier clad

in uniform, decked with spangles and led by fife and drum in the

mad intoxication 0ú the battle-field; such soldiers have not been rare

upon the earth in any land or age. John P. Altgeld was a soldier in

the everlasting struggle 0ú the human race for liberty and justice on

the earth. From the first awakening of his young mind until the last

relentless summons came, he was a soldier who had no rest or fur-

lough, who was ever on the field in the forefront of the deadliest

and most hopeless fight, whom none but death could muster out.

Liberty, the relentless goddess, had turned her fateful smile on

John P. Altgeld's face when he was but a child, and to this first,

fond love he was faithful unto death.

Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile

the brain and soul of man. She will have nothing from him who

will not give her all. She knows that his pretended love serves but to

betray. But when once the fierce heat of her quenchless, lustrous

eyes has burned into the victim's heart, he will know no other smile

but hers. Liberty will have none but the great devoted souls, and by

her glorious visions, her lavish promises, her boundless hopes, her

infinitely witching charms, she lures her victims over hard and

stony ways, by desolate and dangerous paths, through misery, oblo-

quy and want to a martyr's cruel death. To-day we pay our last sad

homage to the most devoted lover, the most abject slave, the fondest,

wildest, dreamiest victim that ever gave his life to liberty's immortal

cause.

In the history of the country where he lived and died, the life and

works of our devoted dead will one day shine in words of everlast-

ing light. When the bitter feelings of the hour have passed away,

when the mad and poisonous fever of commercialism shall have run

its course, when conscience and honor and justice and liberty shall

once more ascend the throne from which the shameless, brazen

goddess of power and wealth have driven her away; then this man

we knew and loved will find his rightful place in the minds and

hearts of the cruel, unwilling world he served. No purer patriot ever

lived than the friend we lay at rest to-day. His love of country was

not paraded in the public marts, or bartered in the stalls for gold;

his patriotism was of that pure ideal mold that placed the love of

man above the love of self.

John P. Altgeld was always and at all times a lover of his fellow

man. Those who reviled him have tried to teach the world that he

was bitter and relentless, that he hated more than loved. We who

knew the man, we who had clasped his hand and heard his voice

and looked into his smiling face; we who knew his life of kindness,

of charity, of infinite pity to the outcast and the weak; we who

knew his human heart, could never be deceived. A truer, greater,

gender, kindlier soul has never lived and died; and the fierce bitter-

ness and hatred that sought to destroy this great, grand soul had but

one cause - the fact that he really loved his fellow man.

As a youth our dead chieftain risked his life for the cause of the

black man, whom he always loved. As a lawyer he was wise and

learned; impatient with the forms and machinery which courts and

legislators and lawyers have woven to strangle justice through ex-

pense and ceremony and delay; as a judge he found a legal way to

do what seemed right to him, and if he could not find a legal way,

he found a way. As a Governor of a great State, he ruled wisely and

well. Elected by the greatest personal triumph of any Governor ever

chosen by the State, he fearlessly and knowingly bared his devoted

head to the fiercest, most vindictive criticism ever heaped upon a

public man, because he loved justice and dared to do the right.

In the days now past, John P. Altgeld, our loving chief, in scorn

and derision was called John Pardon Altgeld by those who would

destroy his power. We who stand to-day around his bier and mourn

the brave and loving friend are glad to adopt this name. If, in the

infinite economy of nature, there shall be another land where

crooked paths shall be made straight, where heaven's justice shall re-

view the judgments of the earth - if there shall be a great, wise, hu-

mane judge, before whom the sons of men shall come, we can hope

for nothing better for ourselves than to pass into that infinite pres-

ence as the comrades and friends of John Pardon Altgeld, who

opened the prison doors and set the captive free.

Even admirers have seldom understood the real character of this

great human man. These were sometimes wont to feel that the

fierce bitterness of the world that assailed him fell on deaf ears and

an unresponsive soul. They did not know the man, and they do not

feel the subtleties of human life. It was not a callous heart that so

often led him to brave the most violent and malicious hate; it was

not a callous heart, it was a devoted soul. He so loved justice and

truth and liberty and righteousness that all the terrors that the earth

could hold were less than the condemnation of his own conscience

for an act that was cowardly or mean.

John P. Altgeld, like many of the earth's great souls, was a soli-

tary man. Life to him was serious and earnest - an endless tragedy.

The earth was a great hospital of sick, wounded and suffering, and

he a devoted surgeon, who had no right to waste one moment's time

and whose duty was to cure them all. While he loved his friends, he

yet could work without them, he could live without them, he could

bid them one by one good-bye, when their courage failed to follow

where he led; and he could go alone, out into the silent night, and,

looking upward at the changeless stars, could find communion

there.

My dear, dead friend, long and well have we known you, de-

votedly have we followed you, implicitly have we trusted you,

fondly have we loved you. Beside your bier we now must say fare-

well. The heartless call has come, and we must stagger on the best

we can alone. In the darkest hours we will look in vain for your

loved form, we will listen hopelessly for your devoted, fearless voice.

But, though we lay you in the grave and hide you from the sight

of man, your brave words will speak for the poor, the oppressed, the

captive and the weak; and your devoted life inspire countless souls

to do and dare in the holy cause for which you lived and died.