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MARCH '23, 190
The Commoner.
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TO THE OLD CHUMS LIVING
AND THE OLD CHUMS DEAD
qpti-TTT ;
"Friendship" wrote Jeremy Taylor, "is like
the rivers and the strand of the seas, and the air,
common to all the world; but. tyrants and evil
customs, wars and want of love have made them
proper and peculiar. Some friendships are made
by nature, some by contract, some by interest and
some by souls."
It is difficult to account for some friendships.
Years ago a man nearly twice my age called me
to accohnt for a newspaper article. The ac
quaintance that then began in heated contro
versy grew into a pleasant relation and ripened
into an intimate friendship that has thrived with
out interruption for twenty years. This friend
ship may have begun at the point when it dawned
upon both of us that neither intended injustice
to the other, and the ripening process probably
went into ' operation when it developed that we
hold views In common on political questions. He ..
was a man little understood by his neighbors
generally. Some regarded him as a selfish man
with no kindly impulses, but in common with all
others who knew him well I knew him as a
tender-hearted man, exact in requiring his portion
in a business deal but generous in responding to
the wants of deserving people in distress. I know
that when this good old man shall pass away his
epitaph will be written in words of love upon the
hearts of many men, women and children, to
whom, in an unostentatious way, ho has given
relief, even as his name is engraved, indelibly
upon the tablets of my own heart.
Tor nearly twenty years I have had a per
sonal acquaintance with a gentleman distinguished
in his country's service, famous as a stalwart re
publican, and now the faithful attorney for a
great corporation. He has frequently gone so far
as to refer to me in my presence, of course
as an anarchist. Sometimes I have felt that he
really believes that'my simple faith in democracy
as it was written at Chicago in 1896 justifies the
appelatioh he has put upon me, although I'dci not
think 'lie ranks me among the life-des'troying
variety, because I have been the beneficiary of
many kindnesses at his hands; and he has often
taken the trouble to speak well of my worlc
where it did not relate to politics. I can only
approach a description of the poor opinion this,
gentleman has of my political views by saying
that it will measure up fairly well with the
contempt I have for the party which he has served
so faithfully. But in spite of our differing views
on these questions he has been my friend for
many years; and now as he lies upon a bed of
pain I understand better than ever before the
deep affection I have felt for him during the
twenty years of our acquaintance.
Another gentleman whom I have for many
years been proud to claim as friend, recently
wrote to me; "I can do nothing with your fatal
incorrigibility in politics. Yours is a hopeless
case, indeed." This Is a mild statement com
pared with some of the blunt remarks with which
this gentleman has often seen fit to characterize
my politics. For many years he was a democrat;
indeed", he still lays claim to that title, although
with, perhaps, the exception of 1904, he has not
in recent years "worked much at his trade." Ho
insists that those who remained at their posts
in 1896 and 1900 were the deserters, while he and ""
others who went away were "doing business at
the old stand." So far as political views are
concerned, an inseparable gulf lies between this
gentleman and myself. So confident is he in
his position that he has regularly chastised me
for my shortcomings, yet I have "borne t calm
ly, though a grievous woe, and still adore the
hand that gave the blow." This is so because I
have found that while he may not seem to have
great concern for men in masses, he keenly sym
pathizes with the sufferings of individuals. He
is one of the men who would literally surrender
their last dollar to give aid to a fellow creature.
The sufferings of a bird or beast would move
him to tears; he delights in the companionship
of little children, who, in their turn, are Instinctive
ly drawn to him. His loving kindness toward his
fellows and his appreciation of the higher things
that make life worth living have kept his heart
young; and although now past the seventieth
mile post, he is an active man and loses no
opportunity aBide from politics to render aid to
helpless men and women.
These illustrations perhaps of an all too.
personal nature are used because tney;doubt
less represent the common experience and -serve
to show that the most enduring friendships often
spring up in unaccountable ways and between
men of radically differing and uncompromising
views.
Real friendships do not depend upon the ob
ligations of a secret order, upon communion in
church circles or association in politics. Just as
it was written "I do not love thee, Doctor Foil,
the reason why I cannot tell, but this I know full
well, full well, I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,"
so these friendships are often inexplalnable and
in many cases seem to grow oven as the gulf
between tho friends, on some questions, seems to
widen.
Did it ever occur to you as strange that al
though as we grow older wo grow weaker phy
sically and mentally, nevertheless our friend
ships grow stronger? "Friendship is the shadow
of the evening which strengthens with tho set
ting sun of life." The Indians understood at'
once what William Ponn meant when in ad
dressing them he said: "Tho friendship between
me and you I will not compare to a chain; for
that the rains might rust or tho falling tree might
break."
If the comparatively young man of today
would obtain some conception of the way old
friendships lay hold upon the aged, let him
when nearlng'the meridian of life move from the
place where the greater number of his years
have been, spent. Whenea man gets along in
years he finds it more difficult to make new ac
quaintances. The difficulty is largely within
himself, of course; he feels such a reverence for
the time honored friendships that he is reluctant
to admit strangers to the sacred precincts .in
habited by them. He begins; long before his time,
to live in the past. He appreciates, as others
may not, the reverence gray-haired men have
for the old-time ties and the pleasures they find
in reviving the tender memories of the long ago
by pilgrimages, as it were, through the Kirig-dom-of-Never-Forget.
Ho better understands tho
words of the gray-haired poet written for" tho
benefit of his gray-haired classmates;
"Fast as the rolling seasons bring
The hour of fate to those we love,
Each pearl that leaves-the broken string ;
Is set in Friendship's crown above. . '"
. As narrower grows the earthly -chain, '
The -circle widens in the sky;
These are our treasures that, remain,
But those our stars that beam on high."
There are many men and women even some
who do not regard themselves as aged who take,
occasionally, a journey into the Kingdom-of-Never-Forget.
"Oft in the stilly night ere Slumber's
chain has bound me, fond memory brings . the
light of other days around me;" the smiles, the
tears, of boyhood's years, tho words of love then
spoken; the eyes that shone now dimmed and
gone, the cheerful hearts now broken." And
sometimes, then, we "feel like one who treads
alone some banquet hall deserted, whoso lights
are fled, whose garlands dead, and all but he
departed.'
These pilgrimages into the Kingdom-of-Never-Forget
remind us that every friendship cultivated
in life yet holds a niche in our hearts. Some of
the parties to those friendships may be dead;
a few may have proved unworthy; miles of land
and leagues' of sea may separate us from others;
from many we may not have heard for years; but
the tender memory Is there and needs but to be
revived by "the light of other days" In which we
traverse the Klngdom-of-Never-Forget.
How these familiar figures come trooping in
review, marshalled to very life by a wave of
memory's baton. There is the little girl in
pinafores with whom we made our first mud
pies; here the rosy cheeked lad with whom we
took our first swim; then the sallow faced youth
with whom we had our first fight (we can feel
his swift punches even now) and then the first
teacher to win us by her tender devotion to her
pupils; the first sweetheart of our boyhood days,
perhaps now the mother of stalwart sons of her
own, but always to hold a place of honor In our
hearts, and, although now a matron, always to bo
remembered as the brown-haired girl arrayed in
calico and sun-bonnet and one whose beauty was
adorned the most because it was adorned the
least; the woman who was the first to teach us
of the laws of God: the man who was the first to
tell us of tho government of men and at whose
knee wo first learned the principles of democ
racy. Then there !g "Tom," sensitive as a girl
but in his friendship faithful unto death; and
"Jim' rough on the exterior but polished like a
diamond within. Wo all have our "Toms" and
"Jims." Perhaps tho one Is dead and tho othor
far away, but the mysterious forces of friendship
keep the llviug and the' ,dead over at our side,
for those who taught us of love and loyalty to
ono'B frionds are Immortal in our hourtB.
What an ftrmy of boys and girls, and men and
women friends of tho long ago come, even with
out beck or call, once fond memory brings the
light of other drCys around us!
It is with smiles, as well as sighs and tears,
that wo conclude our pilgrimage through the
Kingdom-of-Nevor-Forgot; and when we emerge
from the shadows and tho sunbeams of that do
main we feel like writing upon its outer walls
this sign of, loyalty and of lovo to the old chums
living and tho old chums dead:
"From the wreck of tho past, which hath perished,
Thus much I at least may recall,
It hath taught mo that what I most cherished
Deserved to bo dearest of all;
In the desert a fountain is springing;
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee."
RICHARD L. METCALFE.
A VETERAN EDITOR
After thirty-three years of continuous service
as editor of the Butler County (Neb.) Press,
Charles D. Casper has retired and will spend the
remainder of his time on a government claim
in tho northwest. When Mr. Casper first located
in Butler county there were not enough demo
crats in the county to furnish candidates for all
the offices. He presided over the first democratic
convention ever held in tho county, and by his
diligent efforts as a democratic mfasionary he
wrought material result?, not only in his home
county but throughout the state. Under his man
agement tho Press becamo a power for good. Ho
has served four terms in the legfslattire on as
senator and three as representative, and repre
sented his district as a delegate to tho St. Louis
convention In 1904. Earnest, ablo and courageous,
Mr. Casper has been a leader among Nebraska
democrats for upwards of a quarter of a century,
and he' will be missed.
JJJ
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