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THE GREEN BAG
learning, not for mere gratification or adorn ment but for useful power, and a spirit fearless to embrace the true and reject the false. Enriching his mind from the masters of human thought he imitated none because he early realized that that way lies medio crity, while one's own individuality, de veloped, trained and chastened, is his most precious possession. And he never spared the systematic labor which, whatever one's natural talents, is the price of success. It is no wonder that this sound, sincere, earnest, and wholly unspoiled young man finished his college course with a record which, I am told, remains unequaled. Many young men who graduate with high honors win no more. Either they regard as an end what is only a beginning, or they have cultivated the memory at the expense of the higher faculties, or they lack the courage, the energy or the effectiveness re quired to add doing to knowing. They are like soldiers who shine on parade but fail in battle. It was not so with young Cowen. He had simply taken his own measure, fitted on his armor and learned to use his powers. The world was before him, and there only lay failure or success. But no easy way opened before him. He still had to force the door of opportunity. Again he was compelled to resort to teaching, while he studied law as best he could, until he had earned enough to permit him to give all his time to it. Finally, he walked a long distance to be examined and admitted to practice, one of the examiners being our late President McKinley, then a young lawyer but little older than himself. His home county, being purely agricul tural and largely inhabited by Amish people, a communal sect who are a law unto them selves, was not an attractive field for a young lawyer, so he commenced practice at Mansfield, a growing town not far away. There his industry and ability were fast laying the foundations of success when he was called to the work to which he devoted
his life and by which, with his participation in the duties of citizenship among you, he made an enduring name. Mr. Cowen's nature is revealed by the incident of his removal from Mansfield to Baltimore. Men have won admiration by their learning and their talents, confidence by their integrity and devotion to duty, gratitude by benefits conferred. But many of these have failed to gain the affection of their fellows because their hearts lacked the qualities which set others aglow. Coke, the greatest common lawyer of his race, the champion of liberty and civil rights, seems never to have had a single friend among men or women. He washostile to royal aggressions because they assailed the chartered rights of Englishmen. He maintained those -rights because they were a constitutional heritage. But he was bitter and vindictive in the enforcement of the law. He had no sympathy for the weakness or misfortune of individuals.- He dealt only with intellectual methods of pre cision. He lacked the trait which shows most plainly the touch of the Creator — charity. So he died, honored but unloved. John Cowen would no doubt have wrought out a great career elsewhere, but he owed the opportunity for the one he had to a college friend. The affection between these two reached out and grew across differences in wealth, social position and destination in life. The big, frank, natural farmer boy won the heart of the great railroad president's son and kept it through all the years by the simple and unconscious attraction of a broad and noble nature. And so it wasv throughout his life, with all who came in contact with him. Even those his duty led him to oppose found no venom in the wounds he gave. He had the Celtic fire, but it blazed and never smouldered. When he made war on what he believed to be wrong, he had no malice toward those who maintained the wrong. I think this quality alone will account for his nomination and election to Congress in a district where he
