Representative James Henry Trewin View All Years

JAMES H. TREWIN

MR. PRESIDENT: Your committee appointed to prepare resolutions commemorating the life, character and public service of James H. Trewin, late of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, beg leave to submit the following:

We feel that we can do no better than to repeat here what appeared in one of his home papers:

“As he realized that death approached, Senator Trewin penned an unique letter to a lifetime friend, asking him to write his obituary, which Mr. Trewin desired to be ‘truthful, not fulsome.’ That request was complied with as follows:

“Trewin, James Henry, lawyer, born Bloomingdale, Du Page county, Illinois, November 29, 1858, son of Henry and Mary Ann Trewin; educated at Bradford Academy, Cedar Valley Seminary and Lennox College, Iowa; married Martha E. Rector of Earlville, Delaware county, Iowa, April 14, 1883 (she died in 1911); one son, Harold Rector; was married to Nellie S. Hatton of Cedar Rapids, April 17, 1915. Taught school 1874-80; admitted to Iowa bar 1883; practiced at Earlville, 1883-89, Lansing 1889-1900, since at Cedar Rapids; member of firm of Trewin, Simmons and Trewin since 1916. Owns farms in Iowa and takes a great interest in agriculture. Member of the Iowa House of Representatives 1894-96, Senate 1896-1904; member of Iowa Commission St. Louis Exposition 1904; member Iowa state board of education 1909-15; president 1909-14; chairman of the committee to codify laws 1919-24; state director of education in Principles of American Government. Member of the United States commission on uniform legislation. Republican. Presbyterian. Member Iowa and American Bar Associations. Mason (32nd, K. T.). Member of Country Club.”

Such is the brief outline of the high points in the life of Hon. James Henry Trewin as set forth in the 1927 edition of “Who’s Who in America.” Even this outline indicates a life “full, rich and abundant.”

Now that he has passed into the great silence, it is more than fitting—it is just—that something more than an epitome of his life should be set out before his fellowmen. We, who attempt to do this at his request, made in a touching letter written as he felt the end drawing near, would fain do it as he said he thought he would. “You will,” he wrote, “be truthful, not fulsome.”

Let us consider his long and useful life, under several heads:

PREPARATION.

He worked on a farm, and as a teamster as a young man, and taught school for six years—in the country and in town. He attended a pioneer academy and a small college. Splendid discipline for body, mind and spirit.

We are wont to pity the school children of forty to fifty years ago, because of the bare schoolrooms of those days--their lack of library and laboratory facilities and of professionally trained teachers; and, thus thinking and pitying, we forget a priceless thing the school children of those day did have—the inspiration of many men like young J. H. Trewin, who taught school as a stepping-stone, and who put into their teaching all the force and nobility of their aspiring natures, and who left an impress that molded character and pointed the way to larger fields and higher realms, as no other type of man could.

The former schools were not better than those of today, but those of today are poorer in the sense that they do not now have the inspiration of the ambitious young men of the country as teachers as they did half a century ago and for some time thereafter. Nearly all the men who later became leaders in the various walks of life in the early history of the middle west taught school, and they taught well, and left a lasting impression on every worthwhile boy and girl who was so fortunate as to be their pupil.

AS A LAWYER.

Mr. Trewin’s law school was the office of a good lawyer in Dubuque. From this type of law school came many of the great lawyers and jurists of former generations and of that which those trained recently call “the passing generation.” Doubtless these young men missed much which is now obtainable in the modern law school. But the law of compensation was at work. Those who graduated in law from law offices and remained in the practice and became distinguished had to develop an initiative and a resourcefulness which only self-reliance and hard knocks can give.

That James H. Trewin became a great lawyer--one of the leaders of the Iowa bar—goes without saying. This fact has been acknowledged in Iowa for at least thirty years. He won many a hard fought and difficult legal battle. In his latter years he was primarily a business man’s lawyer, devoting the major portion of his time and talents to business organizations--pointing the way to safety for business men rather than getting them out of difficulties which might have been avoided.

AS A LEGISLATOR.

Mr. Trewin served directly as a legislator ten years--two in the House of Representatives and eight in the state Senate of Iowa. His work in both houses was distinguished and constructive. He gave the major portion of his attention to two subjects—education and codification of the laws. He was a pioneer in the legislation which later led up to the establishment of the consolidated school system of this state. He was chairman of the legislative committee which formulated the Code of 1897. His indirect service as a legislator covered a period of five years. We refer to his membership and chairmanship of the Code Commission which brought out the Code of 1924. This was a stupendous and a very successful piece of work. Senator Trewin originated the plan whereby the changes in the law were so placed before the legislature when it met to consider the Code Commission’s work, that it could easily be referred to committees and handled intelligently and easily.

IN POLITICS.

“Every man in this country ought to be a partisan,” declared the late Senator Ingalls. Senator Trewin was a partisan. He believed in party regularity, and party solidity. He took an active part in every political campaign for more than forty years. He gave freely of both time and money, whether he himself was a candidate or not. He did not win always, but nobody ever failed to know exactly where he stood on every issue.

AS A PUBLIC SERVANT.

Everything one does of a public nature is a public service, and the doer of it is a public servant. We have already dwelt on his legislative service—direct and indirect. But he performed another type of service equally useful—if not more so. He was a member of the Iowa commission of the St. Louis Exposition, and took a great interest in it. He was a member of the United States commission on uniform legislation, and was state director of a campaign for education in the principles of American government. In each of these things he took a deep and abiding interest. All were useful fields of endeavor.

His greatest service was as a member of the Iowa state board of education. He was one of the original members of that board, on which he served six years, and he was its first president. He had much to do in directing its policies in its formative period, and to this great work he gave without stint. How much he lost in dollars and cents in giving as he did of his time and energy for six years—practically wihtout compensation, no one will ever know. But we do know that he counted it all gain; and we are inclined to believe that he considered membership on this board and the presidency of it the highest honor and the greatest opportunity for service that ever came to him; and we know also that all who worked with him during those years honored him and will forever be mindful of the constructive work he accomplished, and they are proud to have been associated with him.

AS A BUSINESS MAN.

Senator Trewin was born to the soil; he loved it to the end. His farms were not “playthings;” they were business enterprises, and he operated them successfully. As his law practice developed along constructive business lines, he took a constantly increasing interest in business projects per se. During the last few years he was a leader in the promotion of some large enterprises along purely business lines.

To this tribute your committee desires to add the tribute which appeared recently in the Journal of this Senate:

JAMES H. TREWIN.

“Know ye not, there is a great prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel!”

It is the age-old cry—the age-old lamentation. So it has been since first the sun of human history silvered the dawn of the world, and so it will ever be until the end of time.

Nothing that we can say or hear in this chamber, where he was in his day a forceful character, can add to the immutability and finality of death. His work is done. It is recorded today in the history, the politics, the statutes and the affections of the state in which he lived and died, and which he loved so well. His record is not ours to relate to the people of Iowa, for he has left his own record to that end. He was one of the last of the old oaks; sturdy, steadfast and true to all in which he believed and held convictions. One of the last of the two sturdy generations that made Iowa—consistent in all that he believed; courageous to fight for his belief and never faltering in the faith of his convictions. The landmarks of the formative days of our commonwealth are being lost, and growing dim and formless in the march of time. He was one of them, and the call has come to him. His work is ended. Those that he battled with respected him, those that fought on his side loved him. He has fought the good fight. He has finished his course and he has kept the faith as he conceived that faith. No honest man could do more for his fellow citizens that he loved—and nothing is greater than an honest man. If, in another world to which his soul has passed, fidelity to conscientious convictions is honored, and faith and friendship is a virtue, then all is well with him. He has left our state his debtor. In his passing into the inscrutable mysteries of the life hereafter—Hail and Farewell!

Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be spread upon the Journal of the Senate, and that the secretary be directed to send an engrossed copy thereof to the family of the deceased.

W. G. HASKELL,

J. R. FRAILEY,

F. C. GILCHRIST.

Committee.

The resolution was unanimously adopted by a rising vote.