Memorial Address at Funeral

For Congressman Brownlow: First Congressional District - Tennessee

JOHNSON CITY, TN   July 11, 1910

Address of Rev. J. A. Ruble, Chaplain Mountain Branch Soldiers Home, Delivered at the Funeral of Hon. W. P. Brownlow

Our subject is a character at once great and unique.  Losing his father at 10 years of age, with the handicap of poverty, as well as lack of early educational opportunities, nevertheless we see him rising until his name and influence became truly national.  This is impossible anywhere except in a Republic, and rarely occurs here.

May we pause in the presence of the newly stirred earth to inquire how this occurs.  In the exigencies of war, men attain dazzling heights, becoming really great with almost abrupt suddenness, but Colonel Brownlow launched his bark on a placid sea, and amid the tranquil environments of peace did a work and reached an influence which will render his name immortal, giving him an exalted and permanent place among our national legislators.  Estimated by his influence on the lawmaking power of one of the world's greatest nations, by what he achieved for his people, and also by the helpfulness in achievement for the whole Nation, we can but fell that he was truly great.

That we may better understand the work and worth of this man, let us pause a moment for analysis and comparison.  Serving in Congress for 14 years, it is probable that history will attest the truthfulness that no other Congressman has been able to do more for his people, and but very few as much.  Again, see him as he stands related to the many great illustrious lawmakers furnished by the grand old Volunteer State in her history spanning a period of more than a century of years.

Disclaiming a purpose, and deeply desiring to avoid being invidious, love for his memory and loyalty to truth will allow the statement that no other has ever wrought so fruitfully or achieved so much.  Endowed far beyond the ordinary with resources almost limitless, he brought to his task untiring industry.  He studied the needs of the people of his State and of the Nation, and in a continuous effort he dedicated his splendid powers of brain and heart to supply them, which effort was crowned with marvelous success.

The Mountain Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, with its cost of more than $2,000,000, located near Johnson City, Tennessee, and which Corporal Tanner, in the address on Decoration Day, May 30, 1910, characterized "Among all the branches of the National Soldiers Homes you stand as the jewel,"  the National Cemetery at Greeneville, Tennessee, where repose the mortal remains of President Andrew Johnson, and Federal buildings at Bristol, Johnson City, and Greeneville, stand as monuments to his genius for hard and successful work.

He worked more hours per day and took less rest that any other man the speaker has ever known, and the fact that " his sun has gone down while it is yet day" attests the truth, well known among his friends, he died a martyr to hard work.

A most noteworthy characteristic of this public servant was his sympathetic heart power.  Greatness of intellect renders achievement possible, but where this is reinforced by the warmth of heart power success is far greater and more satisfactory.

Into his great heart all classes and conditions of people could enter and be made welcome without ringing the door bell.  In the many, many that we have seen approach him, from the worthy old veteran on crutches to the struggling laborer, whose family was then suffering for the necessaries of life, he never turned one away wounded, but when he could do no more he would send them away with a brother's tear.

He was truly national.  In the points which differentiate the great parties, he was Republican, but as Congressman he was the servant of all, and in his efforts to discharge the duties of accepted responsibility his efforts had in them far more of business than sentimental politics, and while the Congressional District he served was a historic battleground in the sad and stormy days of the sixties, the position of this people being peculiar in that they were radically divided in their sympathies, many loving and clinging to the Confederate cause, more loving and clinging to the cause of the Union, thus causing the desolating waves of grim-visaged war to sweep back and forth, leaving the hates and prejudices as a blighting inheritance to the good people, here his marvelous influence as a peacemaker is seen and felt, so that when the end came the people, irrespective of party, felt that they had lost a true friend.

He was a firm believer in the Bible, believing that Jesus Christ stands for the highest good in the universe.  He always felt and showed the greatest reverence for sacred things, and as the end approached he expressed faith in the spiritual and eternal, prayed earnestly and much, and invoked the prayers of others.