USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > Noted men of Connecticut as they look in life : as published in the columns of The Evening Leader of New Haven : being a collection of portraits and biographical sketches of representative men of Connecticut who have made and are making the history of the states > Part 2
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Outside of Yale, from which he received the degree of M.A., he has received a medal from the Paris Exposition, was elected an original member of the International Institute of Statistics, which contains only 50 members, the most distinguished in the world, also an orig- inal member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and is president of the American Economical Association.
A man of such wealth of attainments, such nobility of mind and purpose cannot be summed up in a few words, but among his characteristics which have been most frequently noted are his originality, his quick, clear mentality, his philosophical memory, his wonder- ful executive capacity, and that strong, practical view which is the result of his Yankee ancestry.
In politics an independent, but an ardent free trader, he has kept well without the political world, yet has been called on to fill the important office of labor commissioner. It was during the term of Governor Henry B. Harrison, by whom he was appointed, and in spite of the fact that the appointment was not enthusiastically received by either capital or labor, he won the friendship of both by his tactful and helpful administration between the years 1885 to 1889.
President Hadley is fond of college fraternal life and during his course was a member of Delta Kappa, Delta Beta Xi, Delta Kappa Epsilon and Skull and Bones. He is now a member of the Graduates Club of New Haven and the Century and Reform Clubs of New York City.
Although primarily the teacher, the scholar, the writer, President Hadley enjoys the social side, the out-of-door avocations, the love of which rounds out and completes his char- acter.
He is partial to whist and chess in which he is expert, and is an enthusiastic athlete, being particularly interested in golf and tennis.
A very busy man, this is the ideal college president. In debate he is superb and his public addresses are always an inspiration to mankind. They are meaty, full of sound logic and graceful language. The thought and its expression are beautiful and when he speaks the nation listens. His attitude on all public questions is sane, wholesome and clearly defined. Yale glories in the possession of such a president, the country exults in such a man.
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Hon. GEORGE L. LILLEY
HON. GEORGE L. LILLEY, WATERBURY
Congressman-at-Large
George Leavens Lilley is the son of John Leavens Lilley, who was born in Auburn, Mass., in 1827, and Caroline W. Lilley, who was born in West Woodstock, Conn., in 1837. Soon after the marriage of the elder Lilley, he moved to a farm near Oxford, Mass., and it was there that the son was born on August 3, 1859. Here . all of his early boyhood was spent. From his very young years, he was an earnest help to his father in the farm work. When still under the age of 10, it was his custom to rise at 3 o'clock in the morning to cover a milk route, and after doing a day's work to attend the country school along with the other children at 9 o'clock.
The boy was successful in spite of this handicap, and he got his sleds and skates as rewards from his father for standing at the head of his classes. His father knew the value of such discipline and made the boy earn most of his luxuries by strict merit.
Those were days, and that the region where hardships were counted a necessary part of life and it was no occasion for comment then that young Lilley often drove the cows in from pasture and peddled milk in his bare feet after the snow had fallen.
When young Lilley was fourteen years of age, the family moved to the village of Oxford, but, mere boy though he was, he remained behind to run the farm of his uncle, which he did entirely alone, except for the help of one man in haying time. Then he drove a stage for a summer at Falmouth. From there the family went to Middleboro, where the boy peddled meat from a cart for his father.
At this time an incident occurred that showed the reliance that was placed in him and the early development of a strong commercial instinct that has in later years had much to do with his great success in business. His father was in the habit of sending him to Bos- ton to buy goods. On one of these trips the boy discovered that while there was a short- age of potatoes in eastern New England, there was a plenty in Nova Scotia. Seeing an opportunity to profit by these facts, the lad laid the matter before a wealthy old merchant of Boston whom he knew, and who admired the boy's sturdy character, with the result that the merchant loaned him $2,000 without security. With this money, young Lilley, then eighteen years old, departed post haste for Nova Scotia, where by shrewd buying, he gath- ered up a cargo of potatoes and eggs, and, chartering a schooner, he brought his treasure back to Boston and without difficulty cleaned up a large profit after paying back the loan to the trusting benefactor. His next step was to secure employment with a wholesale meat house in Worcester, driving a delivery wagon. In this city he had the advantage of a year's studies at the Worcester High School and a year at the Worcester Polytechnic Insti- tute.
He was indefatigable as a workman and was soon promoted to the position of sales- man. No less successful in this position, he was within a year offered a partnership by two competitors and he resigned to accept one of the offers. In order to keep him from going to their rivals, Swift & Co. offered him the management of their new branch in
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Waterbury, with an interest in the business, the Swifts supplying the capital, and Lilley the dynamics, the firm name to be Lilley, Swift & Co. In establishing the business in Water- bury no detail of work was beneath the new manager and he delivered many of his sales in person. A great business whose trade extends from Greenwich to Hartford and Winsted, grew out of this enterprise.
The partnership continued until the death of G. F. Swift, which dissolved it, although the old name is retained for trade reasons.
Mr. Lilley is one of the largest holders of real estate in the Naugatuck valley and indeed in Connecticut. He holds valuable properties in the heart of Torrington, Water- bury, Winsted and Naugatuck. A keen talent for barter, shrewd foresight and great faith in the future of that industrial valley, have marked his transactions in real estate and fructi- fied them.
Mr. Lilley always took an interest in the municipal affairs of his town and was an ardent Republican, but he never entered politics until the fall of 1900. The occasion and manner of his entry were characteristic of him. Waterbury was misgoverned by a dual system of town and city government that was honeycombed with graft and political abuses. With the same energy that marked his business career, he entered a town meeting packed with the adherents of the controlling ring and denounced its extravagance. He was howled down and even threatened with personal violence.
The ring proposed to award for road repairs a contract in the sum of $35,000, which Mr. Lilley offered to take under bond for $3,500. The meeting broke up in a bedlam, so stoutly and fearlessly did Lilley fight, though single-handed. Then he went to the press for aid in arousing lethargic citizens. He offered to conduct the town government, which was costing $180,000 yearly for $80,000, and when later he announced himself a candidate for the legislature with the avowed purpose of working for the consolidation of the city and the town government, he was elected by a majority close to 1,000 in a town that was at that time normally 1,500 Democratic.
He succeeded in getting the bill passed, and its benefits are so apparent that his former opponents now admit its wisdom. In the legislature Mr. Lilley showed the same aggressive interest in affairs. He achieved a state reputation when, as a member of the railroad committee, he took the part of the little Connecticut Western road in its mem- orable fight with the New Haven road, because he believed the former to be in the right. It required great moral courage to maintain this stand, for he was not only be- sought by many of his warmest personal friends who have been sent to wrestle with him to change his attitude, but when they failed to move him, he was threatened with political extinction by agencies that were very powerful in his own party.
Mr. Lilley introduced the bill dividing the state into five congressional districts when the state became entitled to that number of representatives, but the legislature thought it wiser to provide for a Congressman-at-large. At that time he had no thought of himself for the place. It was after the session had expired that some of his friends in the legis- lature put his name forward. He determined to enter the race, and he was nominated in the Republican State Convention in September, 1902, against the spirited opposition of
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the leader of the state party organization. He received the votes of all the 510 delegates, except 97 for Edward C. Frisbie of Hartford, and 2 for Judge John H. Perry of Fairfield.
On the succeeding election day he was chosen by the votes of the state by a majority of more than 13,000 over Homer Cummings of Stamford. He was renominated and re-elected in 1904 by a majority exceeding 33,000 over ex-Senator William Kennedy of Naugatuck.
Most of the "freshmen" in congress are traditionally innocuous, but the new Con- necticut member had not been there a month before an incident occurred that showed his force. A bill extending the exclusive franchise of an American company to supply the Hawaiian Islands with electricity for thirty-five years and fixing the price to be charged at 20 cents per kilowat hour, was before the committee on territories. No one opposed it and a unanimous report in its favor seemed probable. Mr. Lilley waited with proper mod- esty until the vote was about to be taken.
"Hold on, Mr. Chairman," said he, "if no one else here will object to this measure, I consider it my duty to do so."
Asked for his reasons, he said :
"I am opposed to giving any corporation a license to steal for thirty-five years, and I consider this bill little short of that. We ought not to be more liberal than the Hawaiian monarchy, which made the life of this concern ten years, and anything above a charge of 15 cents per kilowat hour will be sheer robbery of the Hawaiians."
Neverthless the bill passed the committee with Lilley, the sole objector to a favorable report. Judge Robinson of Indiana, a Democratic member, who was to report the bill, agreed not to report it in Mr. Lilley's absence. He did so, however, on the following Mon- day, and had spoken in its favor about forty-five minutes when Mr. Lilley entered the chamber and was astonished at the situation.
At the conclusion of his remarks, Mr. Lilley renewed his fight on the floor and suc- ceeded in having the bill re-submitted to the committee by an overwhelming vote, and there it was afterward amended in accordance with his views.
In the next session, Mr. Lilley made a vigorous attack upon the free distribution of seeds from the agricultural department. It was originally intended to promote the interests of agriculture in the country by giving rare and valuable seeds to the farmers. The demand for them grew, and the members of congress, with an eye to the support of the farmers, encouraged it until it became the practice for the members to flood the rural parts of their districts, not with rare and valuable seeds, but with old and common trash, because the other kind could not be supplied in "political" quantities.
To attack this abuse on the floor of the House was to subject one's self to being mis- understood as unfriendly to the cause of agriculture, but with his usual courage, Mr. Lilley rose and denounced the practice-not the distribution of rare and valuable seeds, but the wholesale draft on the agricultural department for cheap seeds for purely political ends. He was told he would lose the "farmer vote" in Connecticut, but he believed the farmers too intelligent to misunderstand, and any way he was attacking a wrong, and that was the first thing to be thought of. He mustered only three votes for his resolution.
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Nothing daunted, at the 1905 session, Mr. Lilley renewed his battle with the same vigor. His re-election proved that he had not lost the "farmer vote," and it put some cour- age into his confreres, with the result that more than 100 votes were cast on Mr. Lilley's side, but the measure still lacked a sufficient number to carry.
In the Forty-Eighth Congress, Mr. Lilley was a member of the committee on territories and the committee on postoffice expenditures. In the Fifty-Ninth Congress, he has been an active member of the committee on naval affairs, and as such, he took a prominent part in the discussion of the naval bill which appropriated about $100,000,000 for the enlargement of the navy and the strengthening of our coast defenses.
In the fall of 1904, Mr. Lilley introduced the resolution that eventually resulted in the trial and conviction of the General Paper Co., popularly known as the paper trust, and the dis- solution of the combine, which had arbitrarily advanced the price of print paper to the news- papers of the country. These results were due almost wholly to the Connecticut Congress- man, committee of the House and afterward the legal department of the government to action.
In his entire incumbency, Mr. Lilley has been a loyal and enthusiastic supporter of President Roosevelt and his policies. In only one instance did he find himself at all at vari- ance with the President, and this was in the case of the Philippine tariff measure; and it may be mentioned that with a single exception the entire Counecticut delegation took a similar attitude. They had been overwhelmed with petitions from Connecticut tobacco growers and dealers and members of cigarmakers' unions, asking them to oppose the entry of free tobacco from the Philippines, and not a single petition in favor of the measure, and they voted, as they believed, for the best interests of a great Connecticut industry, when they acceded to these requests.
Mr. Lilley's energies and vote in Congress have always been given for measures intended for the public welfare and for economy in government expenditures.
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Hon. N. D. SPERRY
HON. N. D. SPERRY, NEW HAVEN
Congressman, Second District
It has been suggested recently that Mr. Sperry's initials, N. D., might well stand for "Never Defeated." The facts sustain the suggestion : he has yet to haul down his colors in a personal campaign. That single statement gives us so true a picture of the man that other words seem unnecessary, if not impertinent ; the man who always wins must have substantial, winning qualities. The votes of freemen are not long given to the incompetent or to the unworthy.
Mr. Sperry was born of sturdy New England stock, dating back to that Colonial Rich- ard who won a unique place in our history as the friend of the regicide judges; his boyhood was passed on a farm among the rugged Woodbridge Hills, and the erect, supple, enduring body, which has made him a marked man physically, is due to his life there. Now add strong New England theology and the stern discipline of the country school which nourished his mind and gave him the principles which have shaped his career, and your Book of Gene- sis is complete. Exodus naturally comes next. Over the Woodbridge Hills went the hum of a city-a modest little city enough then, but a metropolis to the ambitious country boy seek- ing place and opportunity ; over those same hills came the rugged lad in response to the call. An incident of the first days indicates the native shrewdness and independence he had brought to the new life. The family for whom he was to "do chores for his board" did not wish the raw countryman to appear in their pew in the fashionable College Street Church, and pointed out the obscure chapel of another denomination, where he might more appro- priately worship. He "saw the point" of the trick and boldly marched into the gallery of Dr. Bacon's Church on the Green, where he worshipped after the manner of his fathers, and introduced himself to the preacher at the close of the service, beginning thus a friendship with the great theologian which lasted the latter's life. He continued to worship in Center Church till circumstances took him to Chapel Street, now the Church of the Redeemer, where he has since remained a faithful and useful member.
Strenuous was not a word much in use in those anti-Rooseveltian days; men took life as it came without trying to define it with picturesque adjectives. But those were strenu- ous years for young Sperry ; doing chores for his board, working hard to learn his trade (that of mason-builder) through the summer months, teaching school in the winter. When the trade was mastered and apprenticeship ended, Mr. Sperry was not content to remain a journeyman, and, in 1848, formed a partnership with the late Willis M. Smith, under the name of Smith & Sperry. Thus was established a firm destined to become con- spicuous in the business life of New Haven, and to whose enterprise, energy and skill, both the city and the university are indebted for many of their most important buildings. The business, in which Mr. Sperry has always retained an interest, still continues vigorous and progressive, now under the title of Sperry & Treat.
But the lines of a private business, however broad, could not curb the energies of such a man. He was by instinct a public man ; it was natural for him to be interested in every
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enterprise that touched the public welfare, and to seek increased facilities and better condi- tions for the people. Only a few of the channels through which his energy and public spirit made themselves felt need be mentioned. He originated a company to construct and oper- ate the New Haven, Fair Haven and Westville Horse Railroad, and by his personal per- sistence and influence secured the first charter for a horse railroad ever granted in Con- necticut. He was for ten years the president of the company, and managed its affairs with discretion and success, laying the foundations of the great business known to-day as the Consolidated Railway Company. He was a director in the New Haven and Derby Railroad Company, the New England-Hudson Suspension Bridge Company, and other important cor- porations.
Like all men trained in public schools, and privileged to teach in them, Mr. Sperry believed in the American school system with all his heart, and believed in preserving these schools as they were. In 1878 the New Haven board of education issued an order discon- tinuing the reading of the Bible in the schools. No action could have more strongly stirred his fighting blood. He at once attacked this order with characteristic vigor. By public addresses, by fervid newspaper articles, by personal influence, he roused such a public senti- ment that every ward in the city voted to restore the Bible to the public schools. For this splendid service he received a cordial commendatory letter from Sir Charles Reed, chairman of the London School Board, which he zealously guards among the prized trophies of his long public career.
Mr. Sperry came into his political kingdom by way of the board of selectmen of the town of New Haven (1853), and the common council (1853), and the aldermanic cham- ber of the city (1854). So wise and useful did he prove himself in local affairs, that he at once became a powerful factor in the state and in the nation. His wide career begins in 1855, when, but for the legal disqualifications of his youth, he would have been his party's nominee for the Governor of the state. He was, however, nominated and elected secretary of state, and re-elected in 1856. It was during this period that he called a few friends to his office to consider problems of the suffrage. From that meeting came the constitutional amendment making ability to read a qualification for voting, which was proposed, prepared and made operative at his suggestion. Thus the future Congressman began to see the weak- nesses of our system and to handle great fundamental questions.
He cast his fortunes with the American party, and in June, 1855, was a delegate to the national convention in Philadelphia. The party's position on the slavery question was repugnant to his New England conscience and training. With such men as Henry Wilson and Schuyler Colfax he bolted the convention on that issue and helped to prepare the fa- mous Girard House resolution and address, which was really the first utterance of the Repub- lican party. This act committed him and fixed his political affiliations; he has remained from that day a Republican of the Republicans. From this time, for ten years, significant dates appear in his record with startling rapidity.
In 1856, Mr. Sperry was a member of the convention which nominated John C. Fre- mont for the presidency. Shortly thereafter he was made chairman of the State Republican Committee, a position which he held for several years before and during the Civil War. He
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threw himself eagerly into the memorable campaign of 1860, which resulted in the election of Governor Buckingham; because he proved himself adroit, able, absolutely loyal in that contest, he was in a position to render efficient aid in the bitter fight which made Abraham Lincoln President of the United States.
Mr. Lincoln made him postmaster of New Haven in 1861, a position which he con- tinued to hold down to the first administration of President Cleveland. He was re-ap- pointed by President Harrison and served till the re-election of President Cleveland, a period of 28 years, in which he so efficiently conducted affairs and so greatly improved the service that on his retirement the postmaster general placed New Haven first among the four best managed offices in the country.
Mr. Sperry was not a soldier, but his services during the war entitled him to equal con- sideration with any man who went to the front. He was chairman of the recruiting com- mittee during the war, and by his zeal, tact, persistence and personal sacrifices enabled New Haven to fill her quota and stand unabashed beside the other communities of the common- wealth. That the leading city of the state should thus be kept in line, in spite of powerful antagonistic influences, is proof of the strong hold on his fellow-citizens Mr. Sperry had acquired, and of their unbounded confidence in him, as well as of the courage and unshrink- ing loyalty with which he faced the delicate problems of the hour.
With this record before us, we are not surprised to find Mr. Sperry in the convention that re-nominated Lincoln in 1864, neither are we surprised to read that he was made a member of the Republican National Committee, elected a member of the executive commit- tee of seven, and appointed secretary of both the national and executive committees.
This is a part of Mr. Sperry's war record; another part is in the act which wrote his name in imperishable lines into American history. When the Merrimac appeared he real- ized that the crisis was upon us, that unless she could be successfully met nothing could save the Northern coast cities. One can imagine with what joy he listened to Mr. Bushnell's announcement : "I have found the way out." His training as a builder stood him in good stead; after examining the plans of the Monitor he pronounced them feasible; then he proved his faith in Ericcson and the "cheese box on a raft" by his works. That was a brave deed! The incredulous navy department imposed unprecedented conditions, but New England faith and pluck never wavered; at the risk of bankruptcy to himself should the experiment fail, Mr. Sperry became bondsman for the builders of the Monitor.
Subsequently, in 1868, Mr. Sperry was chairman of the state convention which named Grant electors ; still later, in 1888, he was a member of the national convention which nominated Benjamin Harrison and served on the committee on platform.
In 1868, Mr. Sperry was first nominated for Congress, but declined the honor. In 1894, the voters of the district again demanded him as their candidate; after a sharp cam- paign he was elected by an unprecedented majority. Since that time he has been regularly nominated by acclamation and elected by majorities which are the cumulative proof of his growing popularity. It is now commonly admitted that no other man can represent the Second District so long as he chooses to stand for election.
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During Mr. Sperry's twelve years of service in the House, he has been active in all the important legislation enacted. He has served on the committee on the post-office and post- roads ever since his first term. His experience in the postoffice at New Haven fitted him for the work of this committee, and many reforms in our postal service can be traced to Mr. Sperry's suggestion. He was the first to suggest rural free delivery, and when the theory was put into practice, it worked itself out practically on the lines originally advanced by Mr. Sperry many years before. The employes of the postal service give him great credit for always championing their cause, and the public appreciates Mr. Sperry's efforts to better the service.
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