Description
“INGALLS’ DEMOCRACY.” - - When (Kansas U. S. Senator) John J. Ingalls was a young man, living at a boarding house, there came to the house a runaway slave from St. Joseph, named Tarleton Pendleton, who was employed as a waiter. Tarleton was then a man approaching 40 years of age. He attracted young Ingalls' attention by attention to business and his courteous treatment of the guests of the house, and when Ingalls was married and set up housekeeping for himself, he took Tarleton as his house servant and kept him until at last the old man, grown grey in his service, passed away. For a quarter of a century the faithful servant looked after the Ingalls household, caring for the children, looking after many things about the house and acting as guide, philosopher and friend to the man who was growing in prominence in the country. It was in 1887, after Senator Ingall's had reached the height of his fame, that the old man died and then the busy senator stepped aside from affairs of state and, at the graveside pronounced an eulogy upon the life and character of his black friend. Recently Mrs. Ingalls, looking over some of her husband's papers, came upon a manuscript copy of this eulogy, which is appended here: "For more than 20 years Tarleton Pendleton has been in the service of my family. During this long period he has always manifested the same interest in my affairs as if they had been his own. I never knew him to do a dishonest act nor to speak an untruthful word. He was faithful, upright, and loyal in all the relations of life. “At the open grave all men are equal. In the democracy of death, the rich man is as rich as the richest. Here the wealthy man leaves his possessions, the proud man surrenders his honors and dignities - the worldly man relinquishes his pleasures, and nothing remains but those moral qualities which define our relation to our fellow creatures and to God. Pendleton could neither read nor write. His long life of humble toil is ended - his name will be heard no more among men. But he leaves the memory of virtues which the highest may imitate with advantage and an example which all may follow with profit and safety. It was such as he that were in the mind of the Divine Teacher on the mountain of Judea when He declared that the lowly of spirit should possess the Kingdom of Heaven, that the meek should inherit the earth, and that the pure in heart should see God. Here we leave him. He is at rest. May his soul abide in peace and felicity until the great day when the Lord shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”Date(s) of Creation
6/23/1921
