EZRA CORNELL- 1864-1874 303 



While we were thus laboring with the legislature as a 

 whole, serious work had to be done with the Assembly 

 committee; and Mr. Cornell employed a very eminent 

 lawyer to present his case, while Mr. Cook employed one 

 no less noted to take the opposite side. The session of 

 the committee was held in the Assembly chamber, and there 

 was a large attendance of spectators; but, unfortunately, 

 the lawyer employed by Mr. Cornell having taken little 

 pains with the case, his speech was cold, labored, perfunc- 

 tory, and fell flat. The speech on the other side was much 

 more effective; it was thin and demagogical, but the 

 speaker knew well the best tricks for catching the average 

 man. He indulged in eloquent tirades against the Cornell 

 bill as a " monopoly, " a "wild project," a "selfish 

 scheme," a "job," a "grab," and the like; denounced Mr. 

 Cornell as "seeking to erect a monument to himself"; 

 hinted that he was ' ' planning to rob the State ' ' ; and, be- 

 fore he had finished, had pictured Mr. Cornell as a 

 swindler and the rest of us as dupes or knaves. 



I can never forget the quiet dignity with which Mr. 

 Cornell took this abuse. Mrs. Cornell sat at his right, I 

 at his left. In one of the worst tirades against him, he 

 turned to me and said quietly, and without the slightest 

 anger or excitement : ' ' If I could think of any other way 

 in which half a million of dollars would do as much good 

 to the State, I would give the legislature no more trouble." 

 Shortly afterward, when the invective was again espe- 

 cially bitter, he turned to me and said: "I am not sure 

 but that it would be a good thing for me to give the half 

 a million to old Harvard College in Massachusetts, to 

 educate the descendants of the men who hanged my fore- 

 fathers." 



There was more than his usual quaint humor in this 

 there was that deep reverence which he always bore 

 toward his Quaker ancestry, and which seemed to have be- 

 come part of him. I admired Mr. Cornell on many occa- 

 sions, but never more than during that hour when he 

 sat, without the slightest anger, mildly taking the abuse of 



