Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 11/An estimate of the character and services of Judge George H. Williams

by Harvey W. Scott

AN ESTIMATE OF THE CHARACTER AND SERVICES OF JUDGE GEORGE H. WILLIAMS

George H. Williams, Oregon's most eminent citizen, died at his home in Portland on the morning of April 4. The following from, the editorial page of the Morning Oregonian of April 5 is a record and estimate of him as a man and a citizen of this state and nation to which all will subscribe:

"The first citizen of Oregon, a man of great and simple nature, yet of intellectual powers the highest, has passed on into history. His services, throughout a long and eventful life, both to the State of Oregon and to our common country, the United States, have been of highest distinction and value. In him personal integrity, intellectual sincerity, intuitive perception of the leading facts of every important situation, quick discernment and faculty of separation of the important features of any subject from its incidental or accidental circumstances, with clearness of statement and power of argument unsurpassed, marked the outlines of his public character. He was a man who never lost his equipoise, nor even studied or posed to produce sensational or startling effects. In his private life and demeanor there was the same simplicity of character, evenness of judgment and temper and unaffectedness in action. His immense powers, of which he himself never seemed aware, were always at his command.

His public career began at the early age of twenty-four, when he was elected a judge in Iowa. This was in the year 1847. In 1852 he was chosen one of the presidential electors of Iowa, and in 1853 he was appointed chief justice of the Territory of Oregon. After four years of service in this position, in which he did much to lay down the principles of our early jurisprudence, he declined a reappointment and took up the practice of law at Portland. Elected a member of the constitutional convention, he was made chairman of the judiciary committee of that body, and bore a leading part in bringing the constitution of the state into its digested and settled form. Approach of the Civil War drew his attention largely to politics. A man of national scope of vision, and an anti-slavery man from the beginning, he threw all his force in favor of the war for maintenance of the Union; and his ability and earnestness brought him the natural reward of election to the Senate of the United States. In this position he at once obtained national recognition. Besides his constant and great services to Oregon, he rose at once to a most important place in the direction of national affairs; he originated many of the measures employed in the reconstruction of the Union, including the Fourteenth Amendment, most important of all. But, owing to the advent into Oregon of great numbers of people, mostly from the South, following the Civil War, the Republican party in the state was for a time overborne; and of course a Democratic party majority in the legislature would not re-elect him. He was, however, immediately after the expiration of his term, appointed by President Grant a member of the commission to frame a treaty for settlement of the Alabama claims, in dispute with Great Britain. In this position his counsels were of high value. A little later President Grant made him Attorney-General of the United States; and in 1874 presented his name for the great office of chief justice of the Supreme Court. The miserable contention that arose over this nomination was due to sectional and social jealousies. Though the confirmation was delayed, it was known that it would carry; but Judge Williams, with a magnanimity that ever was one of his characteristics, caused President Grant to withdraw his name. In the electoral contest of 1876-77 the counsels of Judge Williams were of greatest value. He sent to the Washington Star an article which outlined the expedient and policy of an electoral commission, and which was adopted with but little variation from his tentative plan. After retiring from office at WashWashington, he returned to his home in Oregon, where, these past 30 years, he has been an active participant in all affairs of a public, and semi-public nature, winning and holding the esteem and affection of all, by his qualities of mind and heart. He became mayor of Portland, not for the reason that it could add anything to his dignity or to his fame—for he thought as little of false dignity and mere fame as any man who ever lived.

His greatness, like all true greatness, was rooted in his unconsciousness of it. All the mistakes he ever made were due to the simplicity and trustfulness of his nature. Himself without guile, he never imagined it—even to his latest day—in others. If this was a limitation, it was a fault that leaned to virtue's side.

George H. Williams is beyond praise or blame of men. In him there was intellectual ability the rarest, on one side, and there was unselfishness the rarest on the other. The life of such a man is a heritage of the world and an inspiration to it. Every great career must be estimated by the conditions in which its work is done. They are carpers only—shallow carpers—who say, on review of events, that a great man has made mistakes, and should have done something else—this or that. The something else he should have done—to what would it have led? Great men, though, in a way, they direct events, yet must accommodate their efforts to the situations in which they find themselves. All are subdued, in a general way, to the element they work in. Upstarts now and again will pretend to say in what ways and for what reasons great men have failed. The fact is, if this narrow criticism is to get attention, every great man has failed. Yet his work remains. Great actions, in great crises, decide everything. For great actions, in great crises, great abilities are necessary, large comprehension of affairs, and powers of mind fit for the momentous occasion. Our first statesman of Oregon had abilities that rose to every one of these requirements. Yet he was the least self-assertive and most unselfish of men. Nothing he did had any reference to his own fortunes. This quality was a hindrance to him, doubtless, on many occasions; yet in the long run it brought him respect and honor from all who knew him. The simplicity of his nature made him credulous and trustful on one side and unselfish on the other. But was it a real fault?

Only eight days before he passed away a dinner was given to Judge Williams, on his eighty-seventh birthday. It was attended by a large number of citizens of Portland, who were anxious and eager to pay this tribute to one whose life has honored us all, and has shed lustre on the State of Oregon. The speech he delivered on that occasion, for feeling, beauty, simplicity, grasp of our history and of the life of our state and common country, with addition of its appropriateness to such an occasion, was a marvel to all who heard it. A report of it was printed; but the reported copy fell infinitely below the impression it made on those who heard it. Such a speech, but a few days ago, from lips now forever silent! Whence are we, and what are we?

But a great man is a seed. His life, his character, his influence, cannot be erased from the sum and soul of the world's life and history. Though lost from the daily walks of men, the beneficence of such a life as that of Oregon's greatest man will be an expansive force forever; and its influence hereafter, even to those not brought directly within its recognizable sphere, will be a moving inspiration by its indirect and resultant power, forevermore!