AFTERNOON SESSION.
Mr. White, from the Special Committee thereon, reported resolutions expressing the sorrow of the Senate on the death of Benjamin L. Davenport, recently a member of this body, from the County of Elkhart: as follows:
MR. PRESIDENT--Your Committee appointed to propose resolutions expressing the sorrow of the Senate on the death of Hon. Benjamin L. Davenport, late a Senator from the County of Elkhart, beg leave to present the following:
Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow of the death of Hon. Benjamine L. Davenport, late a Senator from the County of Elkhart, and a member of the former body.
Resolved, That in his death the State has lost a most noble and trustworthy citizen and a worthy Senator,ever ready to work for the best interest of his people and the State; and we can but revere his many private and public virtues.
Resolved, That as Senators who had the pleasure of serving with him in this body during the last session, knowing his many noble qualities, shall ever cherish his as one guided only by the brightest sense of justice and right; that a copy of these resolutions be sent by the Secretary to the bereaved family.
Resolved, That as a testimonial of our respect to the memory of our brother Senator, that the Senate do now adjourn.
D. H. WHITE,
A. H. SHAFFER,
D. J. HEFRON.
Mr. White, in moving the adoption of the resolutions, said he did so with the deepest feeling of respect, for the deceased Senator represented his constituency with that fidelity and honor which he ever endeavored to carry out to the best of his ability. Rising from the people, he knew what was their desires, and endeavored to carry out their wishes.
Mr. W. then proceeded to give a historical account of the life of the deceased.
Senator Shaffer spoke as follows:
MR. PRESIDENT-I arise in support of the resolution which has just been offered by the Senator from Elkhart, to pay common tribute of respect to the memory of a friend with whom I have been so very intimately associated at the last session of the Legislature. I had the pleasure of sitting by his said during the whole term as well as the extra session of the Fifty-first General Assembly. I knew him well, and to-day we should not only revere the name of Benjamin L. Davenport, but the ordinary business of this Senate be suspended that the attention of all its members may be directed, for a few moments, to an event full of admonition, and which awaits us all. Not long ago he whom we now mourn was amongst us in robust health, giving promise of many years of usefulness: but his great heart has ceased to beat, and he sleeps the sleep that knows no waking. We are yet beyond his honored grave, and can only recall the graces and good qualifications of his life. A good man has gone to his rest, and The world is poorer for his loss, though richer and better because he once lived. No word of mine can add anything to the sorrow which envelopes the memory, nor increase the respect which in life his high character challenged from all who came in contact with him.
Benjamin L. Davenport was a man without and pretentions. He was industrious, earnest and true; without obstinacy, he was firm; without selfishness, he was unscrupiously honest and conscientous in all things, faithful and just to his opponents.
Mr. President, the shafts are falling thick and fast among us. The Senate is called upon by this dispensation for the second time to mourn the loss of one of its members from the County of Elkhart, and in this just tribute we can only bow our heads in humble submission and testify our grief at the tomb of the State's public servants. But, sir, it is admitted that the most gracious boon conferred by a merciful Providence upon all of us is that we may not know the hour or the manner of death. When it comes to us in the full vigor of our activity, especially after long, long years of well-spent life, as a relief from care, with an humble Christian hope of a future and better life to come, such a departure calls neither for tears nor mourning in his behalf, whose life has been so blessed by its ending with the full confidence that his name is not only remembered by his friends, but by the people of the State. Then, Mr. President, we have presented to us in these memorial services the subject of an honest, patriotic citizen. His patriotism was too ardent to lend its ear, to the voice of mere policy. He was a most valuable member of the Republican party, for he was in it from conviction, and was unswerving and unceasing in labor and counsel to keep alive the aggressive spirit which leads to party achievements. He did not falter, though others fell behind. he wrought life's work with a fervent heart; his duties had been well performed, and his days well spent.
- "Oh, what glory doth this world put on
- For him who with fervent heart goes forth
- Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks
- On duties well performed and days well spent.
- For him the winds, aye, the yellow leaves
- Shall have a voice and give him eloquent teaching;
- He shall hear the solemn hymn that Death
- Has lifted up for all, that he shall go
- To his long resting place without a tear.
Senator Heffron delivered the following address:
MR. PRESIDENT--I rise to join in these memorial exercises and add my humble tribute of respect to the memory of our departed fellow-member and associate. And, Sir, while I participate in these exercises, I am reminded that this venerated custom, these appointed tributes to the memory of our departed associates who have crossed the "dark river," are not the shallow and empty formalities of a deliberative body, but that they are the solemn and refined evidences of our Christian civilization that have their source in the virtues of the Christian character and the deeper sympathies of the human heart. There is no nobler tribute to our intelligence that that which does honor to our dead. Death is the com- page: 60[View Page 60]mon lot of all, none so high and none so low but must pass in the same solemn train.
- "The rich, the poor, the base, the brave,
- In dust without distinction lie."
And this reflection should bring us to a realizing sense of the beauties and excellences of the practice in life of charity, liberality and forbearance toward our fellows. And here I may be permitted to say that no man possessed in a higher degree those noble traits of character than him whose death we mourn to-day.
Mr. President, Senator Davenport was my friend, and, in the well expressed language of another, "he made me his friend by being mine." He was my senior by many years. We came from almost the opposite extremes of the State, and in politics we differed as widely as the Poles. Yet, sir, with his diversity of age, habitation and political opinion, a warm friendship sprang up betwen us that I shall ever cherish as one of the pleasantest associations of the session of 1879. I met him for the first time upon the assembling of this body at its last session, and it was my good fortune to be associated with him upon the same Committee. The duties of that Committee called us many days from the Chamber, and in the discharge of those duties we had to traverse the State from Michigan City to Jeffersonville, and while thus associated with him I had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with him, to some extent, in the social and private ways of life, and, sir, a truer, more generous or kinder-hearted man I never knew. And I recall this moment, with the kindliest recollection, that on entering this Chamber each morning during the last session, and passing that desk yonder, the hand of Senator Davenport was extended to grasp mine in friendly greeting with a warmth of cordiality that made one feel that his heart was given with his hand. This was not a hypocritical friendship. He would not be your friend for a purpose, or because he had designs upon you, but he was cordial arid friendly to all because it was the natural impulse of his nature to be open-hearted, generous and true; because he possessed those noble traits of character which dignify and ennoble human nature; qualities of the heart, sir, by which we are to estimate, not only human greatness, but human perfection.
He laid no claim to superior statesmanship or the qualifications that fit men for the front place in public life, but he possessed that great, good common sense that fit men for the graver and more important duties of citizenship, that common sense that is the symmetry of mind, of character and purpose in the individual combined and which clothes him with dignity, invests him with power and stamps him with superiority. He was not a great man in the sense of oratory or statesmanship. He was not great in the sense that sways multitudes and commands armies, but, sir, he was great in the simple virtues and frugal habits of honorable citizenship. While he brought to the discharge of every public duty devolving upon him a conscientious desire and inflexible purpose to find the right and maintain it without fear or favor, yet, the duties and life of a public servant as he often expressed it, were not to his tastes or inclinations. He preferred to be back where he had spent his boyhood and young manhood, mingling with and directing the artisan and mechanic, the material wealth-builders of our day; back amid the dim and whirl of the machinery that his own enterprise and energy had put in motion, where the pulsing, throbbing heart of active industry sends life and vigor through every channel of business and social enterprise. But, his toils are ended. He was summoned by the Inscrutible Dispenser of the universe to answer the call of the roll in that Chamber not made with hands. By a life of frugality and honorable industry he has left to his stricken family a nandsome competence and the heritage of a good name. Peace to his ashes.
Mr. Comstock did not rise expecting to to add anything to what has already been said in memory of ex-Senator Davenport; he only rose prompted by the common impulse which induces an expression of regret for the death of a worthy citizen. It was not his privilege, as it has been of those who preceded him, to have an intimate personal acquaintance with the late Senator, but was impressed with the fact that he was a man possessed of liberal and broad views, and one who had shown himself to be conscientious, as well as discriminating, in judgment, and no higher tribute can be paid to a member of a deliberative body.
On motion by Mr. Bell the resolutions were adopted by a standing vote.
And then [in accordance with the last resolution] the Senate adjourned.
