Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1895 — CAREER OF JUDGE GRESHAM. [ARTICLE]

CAREER OF JUDGE GRESHAM.

His Father Was Sheriff of an Indiana County. Walter Quinton Gresham was born March 17, 1832, near Lanegville, Harrison County, Ind. The Greshams are of English ancestry. His father, William Gresham, was sheriff of the county, and was killed in the discharge of his duties when Walter was but two years old. In his boyhood young Gresham did the usual work of a farmer’s son and studied his books at night. His education was gained by the hardest kind of work and self-denial. He went to the district school, and when he was 10 years old he had an opportunity to attend the Corydon Seminary. He got a clerkship in the county auditor’s office, and this helped him to pay his board and school expenses. After two years at the academy he spent one year at the Bloomington University. On his return to Corydon he secured a place in the county clerk’s office. There he studied la w un-, der the direction of Judge William A. Porter. He was admitted to the bar when 21 years old and began practice at once. Two years later he was stumping his district for John C. Fremont, the first presi-i dential candidate of the Republican party,' with which organization Mr. Gresham had always allied himself until 1892, when he declared himself a believer in the Democratic party. In 1850 he married Miss Matilda McGrain, a pretty Kentuckian, whose parents moved to Corydon when she was quite young. < On the eve of forming a law partnership at Indianapolis, destined to lead to fortune as well as fame, he read Lincoln’s call to arms and paused in his negotia-i tions. The Union was in danger. Republican institutions were on trial. If such; as he placed self before country what! would become of the country? Young Gresham grew more and more serious, and never having served in the militia passed all his leisure in studying military tactics. His young wife, not yet 22, with a girl baby two months old and a boy of 3 tugging at her skirts, knew what was in the mind of her young husband, and watched him with fear in her heart. Sumter was fired on in April. The following September Gresham felt that his hour had come. Personally brave, ho was a bit, of a coward when his wife was concerned, for he knew what a sacrifice she would make in giving him up to probable deatli.i Gresham commanded a division marching through Georgia and was terribly w r ounded at Atlanta. He was carried off the field and conveyed to Nashville by a roundabout way to avoid falling into the hands of the enemy. Thirty miles of the journey were made in an ambulance. Imagine the agony to the man who had had an inch and a half of bone shot away. So fearful were the roads that the stone had to be cleared away before the ambulance could proceed, and then it was at the risk of the general’s life. Mrs. Gresham met her husband at Nashville, Strangely enough, as she arrived at the door of the St. Cloud hotel Gen. Gresham was carried on a stretcher through the back door. It was a tight for life. Their next move came to a sudden halt in New Albany. The wounded man could go no further, and thus the Greshams became residents of Louisville’s Indiana suburb. For ten

months Gresham did not leave his bed. After he got out of bed he was five years on crutches. He went into the war a stalwart of 28; he came out a wreck. Six years later, at the age of 34, he found himself lamed for life, with an impaired constitution. In President Arthur’s cabinet he filled first the post of Postmaster General and then of Secretary of the Treasury. Judge Gresham made his first mark as a jurist in the decisions he gave in the intricate Wabash Railway case. The road had the backing of the greatest corporation in the country and the case was defended by the ablest counsel that could be secured. Judge Gresham’s opinion was so fearless and at the same time so just as to gain the admiration of the whole country. Judge Gresham was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President in both 1884 and 1888. In 1888 he received 111 votes on the first ballot; his vote rose to 123 on the third ballot, and then dwindled to 59 on the eighth and last. The People’s party in convention at Omaha July, 1892, practically offered Judge Gresham its presidential nomination, which he refused. Judge Gresham was considered the ideal candidate by the Populists because of his lifelong opposition to tyranny, oppression and injustice of any sort. Judge Greshjam’s final departure from the party at whose birth he had assisted came ip the last campaign. He announced his intention of voting for Mr. Cleveland in a letter dated Oct. 22, 1892, and addressed to Major Bluford Wilson, who was solicitor of the treasury under Grant. After Mr. Cleveland’s election Judge Gresham was offered the premiership of the cabinet and accepted. He was appointed Secretary of State Mareh.4, 1593.