REPORT OF THE SECKETARY. 49 



GAKRET A. HOBAKT. 



At the same meeting of the Regents Senator Piatt announced the 

 death on Nov^ember 21, 1899, of Vice-President Garret A. Hobart, a 

 Regent of the Institution, and said: 



As an associate and friend of the deceased Vice-President, Garret A. 

 Hobart, I wish to speak briefly of him and of his life. 



He was taken away from us, from the countiy which honored him 

 and which he greatly honored, in the prime of his manhood and the 

 height of his usefulness. Though born without the accessory of for- 

 tune, his ancestry was of the best and his ]>lood the purest. A poor 

 boy, facing the world alone, he wrought out a career indeed enviable, 

 furnishing one more of the many examples of what a boy may become 

 in the estimation of all under our republican institutions. He pos- 

 sessed in a large degree the only am])ition worth cherishing — the ambi- 

 tion to make the most of himself, that he might l)e most useful. Like 

 other self-made men, he struggled for an education and for a place 

 among his fellow-men. Nature endowed him with its most generous 

 gifts — sagacity, manl}" force, cordiality, charity, intellectual and moral 

 attributes. Few men have possessed in a greater degree the capacity 

 to make and retain friends, ready to serve him and to promote and 

 advance his purposes. 



It is often said that to succeed one must make enemies. Garret A. 

 Hobart was an exception to this rule. He had no enemies, but "troops 

 of friends." Of him it can bo said more truh^ than of anyone I have 

 ever known — 



None knew thee l)ut to love thee. 

 Nor named thee but to praise. 



Office and honor sought him more than he sought them. He Ijrought 

 to the office of Vice-President a new dignity and new usefulness. He 

 achieved wealth only to bestow the blessings which wealth gives the 

 opportunity to scatter. In the life of such a man we are all ennobled; 

 in his death we are all bereaved. 



He seems like one lent to our social, political, and business life as 

 an uplifting force and as an example to be emulated. Such men do 

 not really die; they live, because they have impressed themselves upon 

 the history of their age. 



I think it most proper that resolutions expressing our unstinted 

 admiration of our departed associate should be placed upon the rec- 

 ords, and that we conununicate to his widow and family our most 

 sincere and heartfelt sympath3^ 



The following resolutions were adopted b}^ the Board: 



Resolved, That in the death of Garret A. Hobart, Vice-President of 

 the United States, and ex officio a member of the Board of Regents, 

 the Institution has sustained a severe loss and the members of the 

 Board a personal bereavement. 



Besolved^ That we desire to place on record our appreciation of his 

 services as a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution and our tribute of 

 regard for his personal character and worth, as well as our intense 

 sympathy for his widow and family, to whom his loss is most irrepara- 

 ble. Mr. Hobart was a man of rarest quality, a typical and thorough 

 SM 1900 4 



