Senator James Albert Smith View All Years

JAMES A. SMITH.

Senator Kingland, from a special committee, submitted the following report and moved its adoption:

MR. PRESIDENT—Your committee appointed to prepare resolutions commemorating the life, character and public services of James A. Smith beg leave to submit the following report:

James Albert Smith was born in the village of Castile, Wyoming county, New York, February 4, 1851, of New England parentage. He received his education in the local district schools and at the age of eighteen came west and settled at Osage, Mitchell county, Iowa, which was his permanent residence at the time of his death. He was married in 1874 to Mary Alice Crego. He passed away at his winter home in Pasadena, Calif., January 12, 1918. He left surviving him his estimable wife and seven children, six sons and one daughter: Fred C. Smith, Lee A. Smith, Stanley R. Smith, Lloyd Smith, Richard J. Smith, Merrill G. Smith and Mrs. Robert Leach. His son, Stanley R. Smith, was an active member in the House of Representatives of the Thirty-seventh General Assembly, having been elected from Bremer county, Iowa.

For several years after coming to Osage he was actively engaged in civil engineering. He was for a time engaged in the grocery business together with a brother and later he and his brother engaged in the lumber business, in which business he continued until the time of his death. His brother died many years ago and James A. Smith continued in the lumber business and was so eminently successful that at the time of his death he was at the head of one of the largest businesses of the kind in the middle west, and he had at the time of his death amassed a large personal fortune. He was at the time of his death president of the James A. Smith Lumber Company, the Royal Lumber Company, the Smith-Hovelson Lumber Company, the Smith-Thielen Lumber Company, the Superior Lumber and Coal Company, all with headquarters in Osage and with branch offices in Iowa, Minnesota, Dakota and Nebraska, these companies having in all about seventy-five branch offices. He was also vice president of the Farmers National Bank of Osage and had other banking connections at Osage and other places.

In 1887 Senator Smith was elected as trustee of Iowa College, now Grinnell College, and served in this capacity until the time of his death. In accordance with his desire, his sons and daughter attended this college and he was liberal in support of its endowment. He was a prominent member of the Congregational church of Osage and took great interest in the work of the church. The last time that he served at any public gathering in Osage or Mitchell county was at the annual church meeting the day before he left for California for the last time, and he spoke with considerable emphasis of the interest he took in his home church and the prospects for its future, and had in mind the sixtieth anniversary of the church, to be held in November, 1918. His interest in the church was emphasized by his presence at practically all church services and by his most liberal support and in his will, which was drawn several years before his death, he made substantial provisions for the financial benefit of his home church as well as for other churchs, and educational work.

He was a York Rite Mason and a member of the Shrine. He was also a member of the Knights of Pythias.

The worth of the man and the esteem in which he was held by his fellow men is best shown by the many positions of public trust to which he was called and beginning at an early time in his career. He served several terms on the school board and the city council of Osage. He was elected to and served in the House of Representatives in the Twenty-second, Tewnty-third General Assemblies of Iowa and in the Iowa Senate without interruption in the Twenty-eighth, Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth, Thirty-first, Thirty-second, and extra session of the Thirty-second, Thirty-third, and Thirty-fourth General Assemblies. During the last part of his service he was president pro tem of the Senate and chairman of the appropriations committee. He was generally regarded to be one of the ablest men in the Iowa Senate, and while a Republican in politics, he was accorded the deepest respect alike by Republicans and Democratic members.

The high esteem in which he was held is well attested by the fact that his funeral was largely attended by prominent and influential men of the state and from the expressions of some of these who had been close to him and knew best his principles and his motives in his public career, and we take the liberty of making excerpts from the testimony of appreciation delivered by some of these in honor of their deceased friend and co-worker.

Hon. A. B. Funk said:

“Senator Smith seemed to have years of service and satisfaction yet due him. He had lived well within the rules which make for length of days. He had never permitted appetite to menace health or minimize strength. He was clean in mind and heart and habit. Why such a man and such a life should be denied the alloted span of existence, we may not know and it is idle to cavil with destiny.

“While Senator Smith was prepared to live in enjoyment and usefulness, he was by no means unprepared for life’s greatest adventure, even unrelentting death itself. He had not neglected to apply mind and heart to the problems of eternity. All the years of his life, he had lived in faith believing, and, in death, he was soothed and sustained by an unfaltering trust in the sublime promises of revealed religion. The living mourn their loss, not his. He fought a good fight and kept the faith. He achieved largely and honorably in affairs material. He made distinct impression upon a generation of important history and experience. He leaves seven children worthy of their sterling parentage. There is bereavement deep and abiding in the shadow of this decree of destiny but those who mourn are substantially sustained by memories precious and practical. More and more will they realize how very much of a man was the Honorable James A. Smith.”

United States Senator A. B. Cummins said of him:

“I feel so keenly the loss of a dear personal friend that it is with great difficulty I bring myself to give an estimate of his worth as a Republican. I have known him for thirty years and during much of the time, intimately. Above anything else, he was a man of perfect courage and there are not many of them. What he believed to be right, he would say and do, no matter what the consequences might be. He was high minded and unselfish and his first concern was always for his country, his state, his family, and his friends. He was strong and influential because, when he believed in a cause, he fought for it with unrelenting zeal. His place will not easily be filled in either the industrial, political or social life of the state.”

Perhaps no better eulogy could be paid to any man that the following found in an article written to his memory in one of the local papers of his home town, because it is a tribute to the motives and the principle of the man, and after all these are the most important, and we gladly quote this extract from the article referred to:

“The strength and usefulness of James A. Smith was nowhere better exemplified than in public service. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1887, he acquired influence and promoted achievement. When he entered the Senate in 1900 he was at his best in manhood development. Since his service in the House he had acquired poise and ripened judgment while losing nothing in practical sympathy for the public welfare or in courage and useful promotion. Probably the richest man in the whole of that august body, he stood unflinchingly for measures levying tribute upon the wealthy. He did all he could to secure the enactment of an inheritance tax law which would have cost his estate forty or fifty thousand dollars. Closely allied with ‘big business,’ he voted just burdens upon his class and upon himself. The free pass had been to him a valued privilege, yet he led the fight for its abolishment. When the public welfare was involved, when public morals were menaced, he asked no favors and he yielded none. Neither the party lash nor the appeals of comradeship could make him sacrifice his conception of public duty. He could have been more of a leader of legislation had he been more disposed to compromise and to apply his criticism with more politic discretion, but no senator, leader or otherwise, exercised more influence for the better purposes of legislation or as much influence in defeating unworthy or impractical measures. When James A. Smith took the floor to diagram inconsistency or to excoriate evil design it was apt to be very hard sledding for ‘the bill.’ He hated shams. He had no patience with compromise that involved sacrifice of principle. He scorned the arts of insincerity and indiscretion. It was never difficult to locate the senator from Mitchell without waiting for the roll call.”

As Carlisle said, it may be said of the Honorable James A. Smith:

“When he departed, he took a man’s life with him.”

Thus it is, one by one they are called, some in infancy, some in old age, and others in their prime, or just when, from their broad and versatile experience, high and noble natures, they are most useful to their fellow men, their state and nation. At just such a time, was the life of James Albert Smith suddenly terminated. He was in a position to give strong advice concerning matters of highest importance in the state and no other man in the state was better read nor more fully informed on national problems than was this state senator. If he had sought higher offices within or without the state, he would have honored the office, be it that of governor or congressman, and his constituents would have made proud. His family mourn his departure, the community sadly miss his genial nature and wise counsel, and the state of Iowa has lost one of its biggest men.

Therefore Be It Resolved, That the Senate has heard with deep sorrow and regret of his death and that it recognizes the high character of his service to this state, and in his death the state has lost a worthy, distinguished and noble citizen, and,

Be It Resolved, That this Senate extend to his family its sincere sympathy in their great bereavement, and,

Be It Further Resolved, That these resolutions be entered upon the Senate journal and a copy sent to the bereaved family of the deceased.

T. A. KINGLAND,

J. M. WILSON,

B. J. HORCHEM,

Committee.