“To me there is much satisfaction and pleasure in the fact that we are brought face to face with men who come to us bearing the ripest wisdom of the ages. They come in the friendliest spirit, which, I trust, will be augmented by their intercourse with us and with each other. I am hoping, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that your Parliament will prove to be a golden milestone on the highway of civilization—a golden stairway leading up to the tableland of a higher, grander and more perfect condition, where peace will reign and the enginery of war be known no more forever.”
This hope of a better era is referred to again in the address to the Japanese commissioners quoted above. On that occasion—in 1909—he said:
“I am hoping that future expositions will leave out the machinery of war. I know that we had a warship and the Krupp gun at our own, but I am older now, and I have a higher appreciation of the implements of peace, and an intense dislike, amounting to hatred, of war and all its trappings.
“Let us all hope that this twentieth century will witness the dawn of a new era, that it will go down in history as the age of peace, the age when a common desire seemed to take possession of humanity everywhere to share with all others the blessings they enjoyed. Thus would be augmented the great sum of human happiness.
“The nations of the earth should unite in a movement to maintain a universal court whose duty it will be to determine and adjust all national differences. I would have, representing this court on the high seas, one navy and only one, whose duty it would be to police the seas, prevent possible piracy or improper or illegal commerce, and assist the merchant marine in time of disaster or distress. The money thus saved would go far towards the care of the sick and unfortunate the world over, and would add to the peace and prosperity of the people everywhere, far beyond the power of the human mind to conceive or calculate.”
To such feeling as this, developed and cherished through a long life, the world catastrophe of 1914 was a cruel strain; and for over two years Mr. Higinbotham hoped that his own country might keep out of the struggle. Nevertheless, both before and after the United States declared war, he did what he could to alleviate distress in the suffering nations and to encourage heroic spirit in our own.
The Armistice brought to him, as to all the world, deep relief after the long and bitter strain. It was good that he lived to see the collapse of the anachronistic military autocracy which had caused the war, and to return, in spite of this cataclysm, to his firm belief that the days of war are numbered.
The fatal accident of April eighteenth, 1919, in New York, closed his life while he was still scarcely conscious of old age, and in full possession of vigor of body, mind, and spirit. To the last he was thinking of others—he was on his way to greet returning soldiers of Illinois when he was stricken down by a government ambulance.
One is tempted to apply to him a few sentences he once wrote for a friend who had died:
“He discovered to me a nature rich in every higher attribute, and his communication was so charming in diction, and so sweetly simple in its mood, that I was deeply moved by his conversation. I was impressed by his love for humanity, his patriotism, and the pride he felt in his profession. He was a pure type of the old-school gentlemen. His was the habit and mien of the scholar. His character has stamped itself upon many people, and his example will influence the generations; as his perfect life has blessed the community in which he lived, and benefited those who knew him.