LOYALTY TO SOUTHERN INTERESTS
He was one of the most successful railroad men and promoters of industrial institutions in the South, and one who, from the first days of his public career, has justly and fully presented the claims of the South in her higher achievement along every line.
In his splendid leadership of movements entrusted to his guidance he quickly demonstrated the ability expressive, not alone of his loyalty to the interests of the South, but his broader aspiration that these interests become national, and become so a part of the forces upon which the nation as a whole would find a common interest, that he became one of the men looked to by his fellow countrymen to solve the great problems of our complex twentieth century activities.
The expression of this broader aspiration by which he made the interests of his section the interests of the nation illustrated one of the essential principles of the highly evolved man—the constructive principle—the one that draws man to the building up of big movements that the smaller ones may be inspired to grow and become a part.