Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1875 — Did He Succeed? [ARTICLE]

Did He Succeed?

Somewhat less than fort)* years ago there moved among the students of Yale College a young man, poorly dressed, but princely in bearing and in mind. He was bred in the country, among humble surroundings, but he was a gentleman frqtm the crown of his head to the soles of his feet and in ever)* fiber of his body and mind. Slender, tall, handsome, with an intellectual brow, a fine voice and a Christian spirit, he had every possession of nature and culture necessary to win admiration, respect and affection. This man was poor; so, before his educational course was completed, he was obliged to leave college and to resort to teaching for a livelihood; but wherever he moved he won the strongest personal friends; Men named their boys after him. Women regarded him as a model man, and the name of Stillman A. Clemens stood in high honor in all the little communities in which it was known. He was particularly fond of mechanics and mathematics—a born inventor, with more than the ordinary culture of the American inventor. He had an exquisite literary faculty, rare wit, a fine appreciation of humor and good conversational powers. Indeed, he seemed to be furnished with all desirable powers and accomplishments except those which were necessary to enable him to “ get on in the world.”' He was born poor, and,the other day, after a life of dreams and disappointments. he died poor. The brown head and beard had grown gray, the spare figure was bowed, and the end of his life was accompanied by circumstances of torture which need not be detailed here. The life w*hich, for thirty years, had been an unbroken struggle with adversity, went opt, and the weary worker was at rest. • v The inventor’s dreams were always large. They all had “ millions in them.” First, in an arrangement of centrifugal force for the development” of motive power-; then in the machine or process

for detaching the nianila fiber; then in a cotton-press of unique construction, for compressing cotton so completely at the 1 gin thaff it woftld .need no further treatment for shipping; then in a flax-dressing machine; and last in a rollway which was to displace forever the present railway system^and solve the problem of cheap transportation. In the cotton-pressing machine lie made an incidental invention, to which he attached no special importance, out of which others have since made the fortune which, during all his life, was denied to him. He strewed his way all along w ith ideas of immense value to all around him. It is not a year since lie read liis paper before an association of engineers at Chicago, exposing in detail his roll way invention; aijd it is said that on the morning of his death He was called upon by a capitalist with reference to subjecting this invention to a practical test. It was a-magnificent project, and we hope that it may yet be tried, though he t in whose fertile brain it. originated is beyond the satisfaction of success and the shame of failure.

Well, did our friend succeed, or did he fail? There were mean men around him who became rich. There were sordid men in the large community in which his later years were spent whose money flowed in upon them by millions. There were brokers and speculators, and merchants and hotel proprietors, and manufacturers who won more wealth than they knewhow to use, while lie was toiling for the beggarly pittance that gave him bread, or floundering in the new disappointments with which et\ch year was freighted. They “ succeeded,” as the world would say, but let us see wliat this man did. He used every faculty lie possessed for forwarding the world’s great interests. lie put all' his vitality, all his ingenuity, all his knowiedge into liis country’s service. The outcome is not yet, but the outcome is just as sure as thc sprouting of a sound seed in good soil. The wealth lie did not win will go into the coffers of others. He never sacrificed liis manhood. He kept himself spotless. He did not repine or whine. The man who saw him in liis last years found him still the courteous, Christian gentleman, bearing liis trials w'ith patience, trusting in the infinite goodness, accepting liis discipline with more equanimity, and still hopeful and persistent. He maintained his courage and his self-respect. He won and kept liis personal friends. He -went to his grave with clean hands’, and his soul ready for the welcome exchange of worldsr He left behind him the memory of a ehar--80161 wjiieh money cannot build and cannot buy. It was an honor to be affectionately a'ssociated with him. It is a high honor to be called upon to record the lesson of his life, aud a high duty to commend it.

Did he succeed? Yes, he did; and the community in which rest his precious remains could do itself no higher honor than to erect over them a stone bearing the inscription: “Here lies Stillman A. Clemens, who died poor in this world’s goods and poor in spirit, but rich in faith, rich in mind and heart, rich in character and in all the graces of a Christian gentleman, and rich in the affection of all who knew him and w ere worthy of his acquaintance.” That he wanted ivealth to bestow upon those whom he loved we do not doubt. That he wanted it to prove that his dreams were not baseless is true, w r e piesume. That he dreamed of it among his other dreams would be very natural. The dream has come true. That dream he carried in a hopeful spirit, Until in death his patient eye grew dim, And the Redeemer called him to inherit The heaven of wealth long garnered ud for him. — Dr. J. G. Holland, in Scribner for August.