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Page 23 text:
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CORKS AND CURLS 1; Samuel S pencer ; . INCE its foundation in 1819 over sixteen thousand men have gonetout . from the walls of the University of Virginia to strengthen and enrich the life of the nation. His Alma Mater esteems Samuel Spencer to be justly entitled to a foremost place among the elite of this great army. . ' Samuel Spencer was born in Columbus, Georgia, March 2d, 1847. He was, 1 therefore, fifty-nine years of age when his life ended so tragically, November 29th, 1906. T he only son of Lambert Spencer and Vernona Mitchell, his wife, his boyhood was spent in a simple home of good breeding, of reverence and of 'E dignity. He attended the common schools of Columbus, Georgia, until he was ' E : fifteen years old, when he entered the Georgia Military Institute at Marietta. Young Spencer was fourteen years of age in the fateful summer of 1861. In 1863 Eff at the age of sixteen, and with his slight frame and five feet and three inches EEE , of height seeming a mere lad, he donned the gray uniform of a private in the EE Nelson Rangers, an independent cavalry organization, and became one of the men EE who rode with Forrest and Hood to harass the advance 'of Shermanis army, and E to defend the approach to Atlanta. His military career did not come to a. Close El until the surrender of General Johnston, in April, 1865. When the end came, he EE was eighteen vears old, as time is counted, but battles and seiges and days and EEE nights of. danger and trial had greatly matured his young spirlt. E Immediately after Appomattox, he began to prepare for college, entering the EE University of Georgia in the Junior Class, and graduating in 1867 with first WEE honors. Through many sacrihces he came on to the University of V irginia. for 1 a course in, Civil Engineering. He was graduated from this department in 1869 E: with the degree of Civil Engineer, and at the head of his class. There is no more inspiring story in our history as a people, than the story of that rare band of young Southerners who went almost from the nursery into war, and then, as veterans, though in their teens, returned wounded and scarred to the school-bench -. and the-classrooni. I wish some. one of them, gifted with sympathy and insight, '3 would collate and tell the story of this group. It would form a distinct contribu- tion to the impressive annals of human energy, and hope, and dauntlessness. The Choice which young Spencer made of a profession is an indication of the breadth of his vision, for not many eyes then beheld in the ruined and desolated
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Page 24 text:
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44A ... ...- L: a 494:;W'1a43 . wk .. A. . A -;A fymg; V I .wmun 4t i W 12 CORKS'AND CURLS VOL.XX land where he lived, the field and opportunity for the greatest industrial develop- ment of modern times. Immediately after his graduation from this University, he found employment with the Savannah and Memphis Railroad, serving that railroad successively as rodman, leveler, transitman, resident engineer, and assist- ant engineer. Fourteen years from the time when he began the 'duties of rodman on the Savannah St Memphis Railroad, he was President of the Baltimore 81 Ohio Railroad. At his death, he had been President of the Southern Railway for twelve years ; had been President of seven or eight subsidiary systems and director in a score and a half of our great railway and steamship lines. I wish I had space to enumerate barely the detailed story of these fourteen years of striving and achievement, which carried this young rodman to a place of acknowledged leader- ship on this continent in finance and transportation. It is a story of patience, of labor, of mastery, of eager devotion to duty in every phase of railroad building, from the track and the field to the great problems of industrial statesmanship and finance. Indeed, it is the truth to say that Samuel Spencer became in a sense the authorized spokesman of the railway world, in all matters touching their common relation to society and to the state. The man had the mind of a. states- man, and he saw the majestic, imperial side of the great problem of transportation. The victories of Samuel Spencer were not due to luck or favoritism, but tobrain and honesty of word and deed, to energy and fidelity to trust. He is a living and Vivid example to all young men who despair because they fancy there is no chance for them in a busy world, that is eagerly and intently looking for a man to do its work. New and undreame'd of forces require a man to shape them into endur- ing form. One needed but to look into the gray eyes and the strong, beautiful face of this young Southerner, who had grown old in, the light of battle, to see that here was a man who knew what he was about. Great seekers of men were in the alert then, as now, for men of reality and power to carry forward great designs, for an unexploited continent lay before them, as in the early 'days of the century a disorganized and chaotic Europe lay before the immoderate imagination of N apoleon. It is the fashion to abuse railways nowadays. It is unquestioned that they need a more careful scrutiny by the public which they serve. They are, unques- tionably, servants and not masters of the people. It is undeniably true that con- fusion had arisen as to their rights and duties, and it was inevitable that some re-adjustment of the relations between them and the public should come about. 'We should make a capital error, however, if we failed to perceive the railways as the greatest constructive force of the modern world. The men who have built
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