USA > Pennsylvania > A biographical album of prominent Pennsylvanians, v. 1 > Part 20
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JOSEPII M. GAZZAM.
that he succeeded in having made a law was one for the protection of the property of absent persons so that it would not go to ruin. By this law the courts were enabled to appoint an administrator to look after the estate until it was definitely known what had become of the absentee, or until death was pre- sumed by law. He also secured the passage in the Senate of a supplement to the act of 1874, extending to women the right to act as incorporators of chari- table, benevolent and missionary corporations. Although this bill failed in the lower House, it subsequently became a law. He secured the free railway law for Pittsburgh and Allegheny City, whereby several important roads have been constructed through those cities resulting in increased railroad facilities. One of the most important bills which he favored and which became a law was an act providing for the receiving, opening and publishing returns of the election of State Treasurer and Auditor-General when the Legislature was not in regular session. This law has saved the State many thousands of dollars. In his speech in support of the bill he said :
" Now, Mr. President, I trust that this bill will not be postponed, but that we will pass it, and I know that there is no bill before the Legislature to-day which will meet with more universal approval. There will be a sigh of relief go out from Lake Erie to the Delaware through the business community. The great trouble is, we have too much legislation, too many laws. We meet here one year and pass a lot of acts, and the next year we follow it up by repealing those acts. I say the people of Pennsylvania would be benefited (with all due respect to my brother Senators and members of the House) if this body would adjourn for five years ; and if the Senate and lower House of Congress would adjourn for ten years it would be beneficial to the people of this State and of the United States at large. The continual agitation of enacting new laws has a pernicious influence upon the business community."
Some of the Senators who advocated frequent and long sessions of the Legis- lature accused him of demagogism, but the sentiment of the people was with Mr. Gazzam in his advocacy of this bill.
His chief aim in legislation was to perfect the laws, remedy the evils that existed in them, and to abolish those that were not for the benefit of the whole State. As a legislator, Mr. Gazzam was watchful, earnest, upright and active. He has great literary taste and is a close student. When he left Pittsburgh and took up his residence in Philadelphia he was as warmly received in the latter city as his departure was regretted in the former. He is not connected with many organizations, but belongs to several prominent ones, notably the Union League, Union Republican Club, The Medical Jurisprudence Society and is a life-member of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. He is also a director in nine corporations, including two railroad companies.
In 1878 he married Miss Mary Anna Reading, only child of John G. Reading, one of Philadelphia's prominent and successful business men, who is a great- grandson of John Reading, a distinguished Governor of New Jersey in colonial days.
T. L. O.
HON. JOHN C. GRADY.
JOHN C. GRADY.
S INGLENESS of aim, carnestness of purpose, and steadfastness of determination to accomplish the ends sought have always been the leading characteristics of those achieving enterprises of enduring success. While some men are made by opportunities, some men make opportunities and many have opportunities thrust upon them, others again in the struggle which ends in the survival of the fittest make a mark in the higher aims of life, in spite of a difficult beginning, and from these examples carefully considered we gain lessons that make existence valuable to ourselves and to our kind. In few men of the State of Pennsylvania is this more strikingly 'exemplified than in John C. Grady, President of the State Senate of Pennsylvania, whose career illustrated in these lines sustains the maxim, that the opportunity depends very much on how the self-made man makes himself. Whether the points of his career are profitable for the study of his fellow-men remains with himself, whatever circumstances may do for him. It is to the infinite credit of this citizen that what he has sup- plemented to his inherited aptitude has brought him into the conspicuous places which he has occupied.
What makes the career of John C. Grady doubly interesting is that through ordinary chances and uncompromising surroundings he has carved a way to high position. Still on the threshold of life, so far as years go, he has attained the distinction of success in business and public life. And wherever his talents have been directed, he has made the mark of a student and a disciplined lawyer. His life has been a busy one from its beginning.
Born in Eastport, a small town on the rock-bound coast of Maine, October 8, 1847, being the eldest son of an industrious, hard-working father possessed of very limited means, and maternally of an intelligent Puritan mother who in early life was a school-teacher, so the subject of this sketch has made the most of the sturdy traits which this lineage gave the one fortunate enough to inherit it. Early taught by his mother, then grounded in the common schools and business institutions, he has enlarged his rudimentary knowledge of books by the obser- vation of men and the conditions that govern the life of the best type of the American citizen. Added to this a mind remarkably clear in perception, accurate in judgment, persistent in action, and we have the groundwork of a genius which development has proved fully equal to the various situations calling forth rare qualifications to meet their requirements. With a conscience ever watchful he has avoided the dangerous rocks which have brought ruin to so many of our public men.
Practically, his career began in Philadelphia as a bookkeeper in the employ of Gould & Co. It is not probable that his associates remarked the strength of the future legislator in the self-absorbed, plodding young bookkeeper who came
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JOIIN C. GRADY.
among them fresh from a mercantile college. But it is still remembered by all who knew him that he was a pattern of assiduous attention to his allotted tasks, and it was as an intelligent and zealous accountant that he recommended him- self to his employers. It is also true that as an untiring worker well equipped with strong powers he has made his mark on the politics of Pennsylvania.
That his success has been no caprice, or the result of happy chance, is shown in the course he has pursued. Looking at the future, clear-eyed and determined, very early in life he gauged his own ambitions, and while forced to begin the struggle of life in the busy surroundings of a great mart, he bent his energies to keeping books by day and the acquirement of the rudiments of law by night. As a boy he fixed his hopes on that profession, which has proved the highway to success, and pursued the hard way that leads to it with a resolute pertinacity not often seen in the youths harassed by the sordid cares of bread-winning. He was but twenty-one when he carried on the double duty of bookkeeper and stu- dent of law. The amount of work, the self-denial and the courage such exactions imply can only be estimated when we reflect on the thousands who enter law and fail, even when the burden of earning a living does not fall upon them.
He was admitted to practice in the courts of Philadelphia in the autumn of 1871. Very soon thereafter he was conceded a standing as an attorney of con- siderable knowledge, admirable powers and ceaseless application. Ample oppor- tunity came to him early to test his untried faculties, not the least significant of which was his immediate retention by his early employers as counsel for the firm with whom he had begun his career, a charge he holds to this day.
Almost simultaneously with his conquest of law he embarked impulsively in politics. In the year 1872 the country was distracted by one of the most violently-contested Presidential contests known in our annals. A large following of Republicans joined the Democratic party under the standard of Horace Greeley, and for a time the historic party of Lincoln scemed doomed to irrevocable wreck. With the glories of the party in his mind, and an unwavering trust in the prin- ciples early instilled into him by war, Mr. Grady took active hold of such agen- cies as came within his reach, and found himself so well appreciated that he was elected President of the district organization of his neighborhood. He was soon recognized as a force, counted upon as a power, and accepted as a leader, not only in his own district, but among the men who then marshalled the forces in the Keystone State. Indeed, those who came to know him declared the young attorney a born politician. Certainly the swiftly progressive promotions, thrust upon him, demonstrate the accuracy of the judgment.
In 1874 he was urged to accept a nomination for the Legislature, which in that District was equivalent to an election, but wisely declined. The time seemed to him premature, for he still had a legal practice to put in such shape as to permit his withdrawal for a time into politics. But in 1876 the time was more ripe, and he was ready ; equipped as very few young men are who begin politics. He was first elected State Senator from the Seventh District, under the new four-year
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JOIIN C. GRADY.
tenure provision of the New Constitution, and his majority was greater than his party's, in that Presidential year when the Republican vote fell off in all the Northern States. He entered the Senate the youngest man in the body, but soon took a place among the older members. He was marked during his term as a sagacious counsellor, an enlightened lawmaker, and a most able party manager. He was renominated in ISSo, and elected without opposition.
During his second term he signalized his fitness for leadership by the part he played in the solution of a very perplexing political problem which threatened the supremacy of his party. The caucus nominee for United States Senator had been rejected by a large number of men known as Independents. Months of angry recrimination and intrigue followed. The party in the State was alarmed. Every form of warfare was applied and exhausted, when Senator Grady extricated his colleagues from the deadlock. He obtained a letter of declination from the bolter's candidate, and secured a compromise with the regulars, of which he was one, that saved a United States Senator to the State and the party. This achieve- ment was pronounced a masterpiece of diplomacy at the time, and gave the astute young negotiator of it commanding influence.
To show their confidence in him, the Republican leaders intrusted him with a mission to General Garfield, then the President-elect. Senator Grady visited Garfield at Mentor, where discussions were going on with eminent members of the Republican party and the conduct of the coming administration mapped out. The impression the young Senator made upon Garfield is shown in his subse- quent selection of the Keystone ambassador to fill the post of Surveyor of the port of Philadelphia, an office which was at the time dividing the party in Phila- delphia into violent factions. Writing with his own hand, Garfield offered Sen- ator Grady the disputed post, urging him to accept the place not only because of his fitness, but because his presence there would soothe the contending factions. But the law-maker wisely declined to leave the more honorable, though less Ini- crative, post of Senator. On his return from his official mission to Mentor the Legislature selected him as a Delegate to represent Pennsylvania at the memor- able Yorktown Centennial celebration.
Perhaps the most conspicuous service he has rendered his State was his con- duct of the investigation of the Standard Oil Company's methods. As Chair- man of the Committee he met the ablest attorneys of monopoly, and it was the general verdict of the press and public that he had been very thorough in the discharge of his duty.
Ilis constituents were not slow to recognize the brilliancy and value of their member. In 1884, against his inclination and wishes, he was compelled to accept a third election. His colleagues of the Senate were equally ready to mark their appreciation of Mr. Grady's powers. He was chosen by them for the most distinguished place in the gift of the Senate. As Chairman of the Judiciary Com- mittee his trained legal mind shone to its highest advantage. He was a second time forced to accept that important chairmanship, although reluctantly; for
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JOHN C. GRADY.
however great the honor, the labor in constant and wearing. The chief member of the Judiciary Committee is in a position hardly less responsible in the various calls made upon the incumbent, than the chief of the State Judiciary. Exhaustive knowledge of law and men is inseparable to the administration of this difficult post. Familiarity with the application of the laws, their historical development and practical application are the least of the resources demanded of the head of the Judiciary Committee, and it is the crown of Senator Grady's achievement that he has been acknowledged equal to the great place.
During his services on this Committee he has brought to solution some of the very gravest problems in the practice of law. It was he who rid the State of the anomalous conditions which enabled detectives to seize our citizens and drag them to another State without process of law, or accountability to the laws of the State or the injured citizen, the usual pretence being the alleged transgression of the laws of the State to which he was to be taken, while in reality it was to satisfy the malice of an enemy, frequently, in his helpless condition, to enable a creditor to exact the amount of a claim whether just or unjust, and often ena- bling the unscrupulous to successfully perpetrate blackmailing schemes. This act for the protection of the citizens of Pennsylvania attracted considerable atten- tion, and has since been incorporated in the laws of New York and other States ; and representatives from those States that have failed to enact it met the repre- sentatives of the States that have done so in convention during the past summer to prepare a law that will unify the practice, and the only wonder now is that such great States as Pennsylvania and New York permitted the existence of so great an evil until the passage of what is known as the Grady Act. For his efforts in this direction these two great commonwealths owe him their lasting gratitude. At the beginning of the last session he was again chosen as chair- man of the Judiciary Committee, thus holding continuously for six years the most important chairmanship, and at the close of the session he was chosen President pro tem. of the Senate, and will, during the next session, be its presid- ing officer in the absence of the Lieutenant-Governor.
A man's public conduct must be, to a great extent, the reflex of his private life. The traits and agencies, the good sense, large insight and definite purposes which have marked Senator Grady's career are the expressions of his daily con- duct. He is a steadfast friend, considerate adversary and a high-minded member of society. Ile is a strong partisan without narrowness ; zealous for his princi- ples, without bigotry. His manner is winning and his bearing, under the most trying circumstances, serene.
Possessing an elastic temperament, he seldom regrets what is unattainable, but is always happy in devising new measures to accomplish desired ends. Ilis remarkable judgment enables him to gauge in an instant those with whom he comes in contact.
Still in the prime of his years and public carcer, it is not rash to prophecy the utmost rewards of public favor for such determination and abilities as have marked his course from the beginning. F. A. BURR.
HON JOHN E FAUNCE.
JOHN EGNER FAUNCE.
H ON. JOHN E. FAUNCE, ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives, was born in Millersburg, Dauphin county, October 29, 1840. Soon afterward, his father having been elected Sheriff of the county, removed his family to Harris- burg, and the subject of this sketch spent his boyhood days in that city. He received his rudimentary education in the public schools, and subsequently became a student at Dickinson College, Carlisle, from which institution he graduated in 1863. He at once registered as a student-at-law in the office of the Hon Charles Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, and simultaneously entered the Law Department of the University of Pennsylvania. Graduating in 1865, he was at once admitted to practice in the Common Pleas Court of Philadelphia as well as in the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth, and began the practice of his chosen profession in the city of Philadelphia.
Mr. Faunce early imbibed a fondness for politics, and took an active interest in the political affairs of his adopted home. In 1868 he was chosen Delegate to the Presidential Convention which met in New York and nominated Horatio Seymour for President. The election was the result of a spirited contest, and may be regarded as the beginning of Mr. Faunce's political experience. In 1874 he was nominated by the Democrats of the Seventeenth Assembly District of Philadelphia for the Legislature, and having been elected by an extraordinarily large majority, he took his seat in that body at the opening of the important session of 1875. That session was the first held with the increased membership, and as most of the laws had to be conformed to the provisions of the new Con- stitution, a great amount of labor was put upon the leading members, and the work they performed was of the greatest moment. Mr. Faunce's first service in the body, though indicating the masterly ability subsequently developed, was characterized by a modesty that challenged attention. Nevertheless lie soon became the recognized leader of his party on the floor. For the first time in nearly a quarter of a century the Democrats were in the majority in the lower branches of the Legislature, and the leadership of the party became a matter of grave importance. But Mr. Faunce, though young in years and experience, rose to the emergency, and his leadership was distinguished for sagacity, prudence and zeal. His speeches were models of cogent and incisive rhetoric, and no matter how intense the feeling on a subject under consideration, the moment Faunce took the floor the most profound and respectful attention was given to him by the members on both sides of the chamber. At each election since, including the last one, Mr. Faunce has been re-elected by the same constituency. His great success excited jealousies, and his manly independence and unswerving integrity engendered enmities which have striven repeatedly to compass his defeat, but all the efforts were unavailing. He had been faithful to his public
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JOHN E. FAUNCE.
duties as well as pure in his private life, and the best sentiment of the community sustained him by its votes, and honored itself by his repeated re-election.
At the session of 1877 he was nominated by his associates of the Democratic party for Speaker, but being in the minority he was defeated. In 1879 and 1881 the compliment was again, conferred, and with the same result. In 1883 the conditions were changed, and though certain pernicious influences were arrayed against him, and every element of opposition concentrated in a bitter fight, he was nominated almost unanimously, and elected. He served during the pro- tracted and acrimonious session of that year, and his services were distinguished for fairness, promptness and ability. During the entire eleven months covered by the session the Speaker was not absent from his seat during a single sitting. Only once he left half an hour before the adjournment. Though political dis- cussion was intense and party antagonisms irreconcilable, his rulings were never questioned, and the record of his Speakership stands to-day the recognized model of excellence, fairness and ability.
In 1878 Mr. Faunce was prominently mentioned for the Democratic nomina- tion for Lieutenant-Governor, and he was supported by a large contingent in the convention, which was held in Pittsburgh that year. After the second ballot, when it was discovered that the Western counties were implacable in their demand for that position on the ticket, Mr. Faunce's name was withdrawn at his own request, and the Hon. John Fertig, a representative of the oil producing interests, was nominated. His name has been canvassed for various State offices since, and every convention has had a considerable number of delegates who were earnestly desirous of nominating him for some important office; but he has invariably refused to allow his friends to carry out that purpose. In fact, he has on several occasions signified his desire to withdraw from active participation in public affairs ; but in this he has been overruled. Nominations come to him unsolicited, and his sense of duty to his party and the State impels him to yield to the demand of his constituents so far as to continue to serve them in the Legislature.
In his profession Mr. Faunce has been as successful as in his political career. Associated with the late Judge Greenbank, he has forged to the front rank at a bar proverbial for its ability. His practice has been mainly in the Common l'leas and Orphans' Courts, though his office practice is both large and lucrative. On legal points his opinions take rank among the foremost of the jurists and great lawyers of the city.
While Mr. Faunce was engaged in his academic labor at Dickinson College the State was invaded by the rebel army, and he laid down his books to take up arms in defence of the territory of the Commonwealth. He enlisted as a private, and served until the danger had passed, when he returned to his college dutics. As soon as the school term was ended and his education completed, he enlisted in the United States service, and remained in the field until his regiment was regularly mustered out. He joined the Nineteenthi Pennsylvania Cavalry, Coloncl
JOHN E. FAUNCK.
Wynkoop, and served for a time with the First New York Cavalry, with which troop he was at the battle of Gettysburg, and participated actively in the fight.
Mr. Faunce comes from a distinguished ancestry. Ilis father was contemporary with and closely allied to James Buchanan, Alexander Ramsey, Simon Cameron, Arnold Plumer, George M. Dallas, Judge Wilkins, and other leaders of the Democratic party of forty years ago. Between himself and Governor Ramsey there existed the closest friendship. Indeed, the two had agreed to join hands in developing the Northwest at the time that Ramsey left his home in Harris- burg to locate in Minnesota. Mr. Faunce, who had been a contractor in th : building of a portion of the Pennsylvania Canal, was detained by reason of fail- ure to get a prompt settlement with the State. While he was awaiting the convenience of the authorities he was nominated by the Democrats for the office of Sheriff of the county. The Democratic nomination in Dauphin county was at that time regarded as an empty honor, and though Mr. Faunce had protested against the use of his name for the place, when the nomination was unanimously conferred on him, accompanied by the assurance that his acceptance would tend to the benefit of the party, his sense of duty to his political associates constrained him not only to accept the responsibility, but to put his energies into operation that the party might be strengthened; and to the surprise of everybody he was elected by a large majority, and became the first Democratic Sheriff of the county, and one of the most able and efficient that has ever served the people. That fact altered his own plans of life, and no doubt was the event that shaped the destinies of his distinguished son. G. D. H.
HON. THOMAS V. COOPER.
THOMAS VALENTINE COOPER.
H ON. THOMAS V. COOPER, State Senator from the Ninth District of Pennsyl- vania, and Chairman of the State Central Committee of the Republican party, was born at Cadiz, Jefferson county, Ohio, on January 16, 1835. Not- withstanding the accidental circumstance of his birth, he is a thorough Pennsyl- vanian. In the latter part of 1834 his father, Dr. J. W. Cooper, for many years a resident of West Chester, Pa., moved his family to Cadiz, where his son, Thomas V., was born three months later ; but he soon tired of life in what was then a frontier State, and his longing for the fertile valley of Chester county brought him back to Pennsylvania in 1835, where he resided until his death, in 1885.
Mr. Cooper was educated in the public schools of West Chester and Philadel- phia, and for a time attended the well-known boarding school of Joshua Iloopes. At the age of sixteen, however, he was compelled to give up his studies, and was apprenticed to Evans & Vernon, of the Wilmington Republican, to learn the art of printing. He took to the trade naturally, and soon mastered it. Ilis father purchased the last year of his time, and presented him with his freedom from apprenticeship. Before he was twenty young Cooper entered into partnership with Dr. D. A. Vernon in the publication of the Delaware American. He has continued in that business ever since, with the exception of the three years spent at the front during the late war, most of the time as a private soldier, and has made the paper one of the best known and influential country weeklies in the State. At the breaking out of the war he dropped his business, which was just beginning to be lucrative, and aided in raising Company F, Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment, which was commanded by Colonel John F. Hartranft, afterward Gov- ernor of this State. Mr. Cooper was elected First Lieutenant, and served with his regiment in that capacity. In 1862 he again entered the service, enlisting in Company C, Twenty-sixth Pennsylvania Volunteers, as a private, and served in that capacity until the close of the war, his regiment being attached to the Second Division of the Third Army Corps. He participated in many of the battles of the Peninsula and in Virginia and Pennsylvania until after Gettysburg, when he was detailed by order of Secretary Stanton to take care of the Government printing office at Camp Distribution. He also edited, while thus detailed, a newspaper known as the Soldiers' Journal, for a year and a half, and turned over the whole profit, $1,800, to the Sanitary Commission. When discharged from the service he was offered the position of Superintendent of the Bureau of Military Printing by Mr. Stanton, but declined it. He returned home, and entered the office of the American as the partner of Dr. Vernon.
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