GEORGE DEXTER ROBINSON

BY FRED. W. WEBBER, A.M

[Assistant Editor of the Boston Journal.]

His Excellency George D. Robinson, at present the foremost citizen of Massachusetts, by reason of his incumbency of the highest office in the Commonwealth, is the thirtieth in the line of succession of the men who have held the office of Governor under the Constitution. In character, in ability, in education, and in those things generally which mark the representative citizen of New England, he is a worthy successor of the best men who have been called to the Chief Magistracy. His public career has been marked by dignity and an untiring fidelity to duty; his life as a private citizen has been such as to win for him the respect and good will of all who know him. He is a man in whom the people who confer honor upon him find themselves also honored. He is a native of the Commonwealth, of whose laws he is the chief administrator, and comes of that sturdy stock which wresting a new country from savagery, fostered with patient industry the germs of civilization it had planted, and aided in developing into a nation the colonies that, throwing off the yoke of foreign tyranny, presented to the world an example of government founded on the equal rights of the governed and existing by and with the consent of the people. His ancestors were probably of that Saxon race which for centuries stood up against the encroachments of Norman kings and nobles, which was led with willingness into the battle, the siege or the crusade that meant the maintenance or advancement of old England’s honor, or in the cause of mother Church, and which was possessed of that brave, independent spirit that, when the old home was felt to be too narrow an abode, sought a new-country in which to plant and develop its ideas of what government should be. However this may be it is certain that from the first settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony the family was always represented among the most honorable of its yeomanry, and among its members were pillars of both Church and State. His immediate ancestors, people of the historic town of Lexington, were active citizens in the Revolutionary period, and in the great struggle members of the family were among those who did brave and effective service in the cause of liberty.

George Dexter Robinson was born in Lexington, February 20, 1834. Born on a farm, his boyhood and youth were spent there, and his naturally strong constitution was improved by the outdoor exercise and labor which are part of the life of the farmer’s boy. But the future Governor did not intend to devote himself to farming. With the aim of obtaining a collegiate education he attended the Academy in his native town, and followed his studies there by further preparation at the Hopkins Classical School in Cambridge. Entering Harvard University he was graduated at that institution in 1856, and receiving an appointment as Principal of the High School in Chicopee, Massachusetts, he accepted it, filling the position with success during a period of nine years. He retired from it in 1865. Meanwhile he had devoted much time to legal studies, which he continued more fully during the next few months, and in 1866 he was admitted to the bar in Cambridge. Chicopee, the town wherein his active career in life had begun, he made his permanent home, and with the various interests of that town he identified himself closely and pleasantly, exemplifying in many ways the character of a true townsman, and associating himself with every movement for the good of his fellow citizens. In 1873 he was elected to represent the town the ensuing year in the State Legislature, and as a member of the House he was noted for the promptness and fidelity with which he attended to his legislative duties. Two years later he was a member of the State Senate, and here, as in the House, he displayed conspicuous ability as a legislator in addition to that fidelity to his responsibilities which had long been characteristic of him in any and all positions. His qualifications for public life received still wider recognition the year he served in the Senate, and he was nominated by the Republicans of the old Eleventh District as Representative in Congress. He was re-elected for two successive terms, and after the re-apportionment was elected from the new Twelfth District in 1882, but before taking his seat was nominated by the Republicans for the office of Governor, to which he was elected. He took his seat, however, in order to assist in the organization of the new Congress, and, after that work was accomplished, resigned to enter upon the duties entrusted to him by the people of the whole Commonwealth. He had sat in the Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Congresses. Of his career in Washington it would not be possible to give a better summary than one given by "Webb," the able Washington correspondent of the Boston Journal, which is here given in its entirety:

Mr. Robinson took his seat in the Forty-fifth Congress, which met in extra session, in October, 1877. He was prompt in his seat on the first day of the first session. Regularity in attendance, and constant attention to public business, have been characteristics of Mr. Robinson’s Congressional career. He is in his seat when the gavel falls in the morning; he never leaves it until the House adjourns at night. He does not spend his time in importuning the departments for clerkships, but he welcomes the civil service law. He does not take the public time, which belongs to his constituents, for his private practice in the United States Supreme Court. He is in the truest sense a representative of the people. He is quick in discovering, and vigorous in denouncing an abuse. He as quickly comprehends and as earnestly advocates a just cause. He is a safe guardian of the people’s money and has never cast his vote for an extravagant expenditure; but he does not oppose an appropriation to gain a reputation for economy, or aspire to secure the title of "watch dog of the Treasury," by resorting to the arts of a demagogue.

When he entered Congress, he went there with the sincerity of a student, determined to master the intricate, peculiar machinery of Congressional legislation. He has become an authority in parliamentary law, and is one of the ablest presiding officers in Congress.

In the Congress which he first entered the Democrats were in power in the House. "They had come back," as one of their Southern leaders (Ben Hill) said, "to their father’s house, and come to stay." Mr. Randall was elected Speaker. He put Mr. Robinson on one of the minor standing committees—that of Expenditures in the Department of Justice—and subsequently placed him near the foot of the list on the Special Committee on the Mississippi Levees. Before the latter committee had made much progress with its business, it was discovered that where "McGregor sits is the head of the table." Mr. Robinson, at the extra session of the Forty-fifth Congress, took little active part in the public proceedings. He was a student of Congressional rules and practice.

At the second session of the Forty-fifth Congress he began to actively participate in the debates, and from the outset endeavored to secure a much needed reform in Congressional proceedings. He always insisted that, in the discussion of important questions, order should be maintained. He followed every important bill in detail, and the questions which he directed to those who had these bills in charge showed that he had made himself a master of the subject. He took occasion to revise upon the floor many of the calculations of the Appropriations Committee, and to urge the necessity of the most rigid economy consistent with proper administration.

It was at the third session of the Forty-fifth Congress, January 16, 1879, that Mr. Robinson made his first considerable speech. It was upon the bill relative to the improvement of the Mississippi River. He was very deeply impressed with the magnitude of the problems presented by that great river, and, while he was willing that the public money should be wisely expended for the improvement of the ’Father of Waters,’ he did not wish that Congress should be committed to any special plan which might prove to be part of a great job, until an official investigation could be had. The interest with which this first speech was listened to, and the endless questions with which the Southern men who favored absolutely the levee system plied him, showed that they understood that great weight would be given to Mr. Robinson’s opinion, and that they did not wish him to declare, unconditionally, against their cause. The speech was a broad and liberal one, but extremely just. It had been intimated in the course of the debate that Eastern members, who did not favor the improvement of the river, refused to do so on account of a narrow provincialism. Mr. Robinson showed them that New England is both just and generous, and that the country is so united that a substantial benefit to any portion of it cannot be an injury to another. He made some keen thrusts at the Southern State rights advocates, who were so eager for the old flag and an appropriation, and he reminded them that whatever might be thought of the dogma of State sovereignty, "the great old river is regardless of State lines, of the existence of Louisiana, and, whenever there is a defective levee in Arkansas, over it goes into Louisiana, spreading devastation in its course." Mr. Robinson insisted that "Congress has no right to spend $4,000,000 out of the public treasury immediately without investigating a theory and a plan which proposes to render such an expenditure wholly unnecessary," and he maintained that the greatest possible safe-guards should be provided against any extravagant expenditure on the part of the Government. The relations of New England to such an undertaking he thus broadly stated:

"I am not deterred by any considerations that when the great river is open to commerce to an enlarged extent more freight will go down its bosom and be diverted perhaps from the great cities on the Atlantic shore. I am willing that the whole country shall be improved and opened for its best and most profitable occupation. This territory, whose interests are affected by this, is greater than the whole of New England. I am not afraid that whatever improvements may be made there New England will be left out in the cold. Whatever conduces to the prosperity of the West or South will benefit the East and North. We are parts of one great whole, and, if it is necessary under a proper policy to spend some money from the Treasury of the United States to meet the wants of those States lying along the Mississippi River, I hope it will not be begrudged to them, but it should not be done, and the Government should not be committed, until the plans, have received a careful consideration and the indorsement of the proper officers."

At the third session of the Forty-fifth Congress, Mr. Robinson, from his minor place on the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Justice, introduced a bill relative to the mileage of United States Marshals, which proposed an important reform.

In the Forty-sixth Congress, at the first session, Mr. Robinson, on account of the marked abilities which he had shown as a lawyer and a debater, was appointed a member of the Judiciary Committee, a position which he held through the Forty-sixth Congress with honor to his district and his State. From the outset of the Forty-sixth Congress Mr. Robinson, to the great surprise of many older members, who were not able to fathom the mystery of the rules, took front rank as a debater on points of order, and showed that his months of silent observation and of earnest study had brought their fruit. His discussion of points of order and of the rules was always characterized by good sense. He did not seek to befog a question by an extensive quotation of authorities. He endeavored to strip the rules of their technicalities and to apply to them the principle of common sense. Sometimes, however, he was almost in despair, and once in the course of an intricate discussion he exclaimed (March 28, 1879): "If there is a standing and clear rule that guides the Chair, I have not yet found it."