Famous Givers and Their Gifts

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

"He had selected, catalogued, and described for his projected museum seventeen cases of antique glass vases, bronze work, and terra-cotta statuettes, dating back far into the centuries, and which illustrate the creative genius of those early ages of our race."

Such a youth wasted no time in foolish pleasures or useless companions. Like his father he loved history, and sought out, says Dr. Newman, the place where Pericles had spoken, and Socrates died; "reverently pausing on Mars Hill where St. Paul had preached 'Jesus and the Resurrection;' and lingering with strange delight in the temple of Eleusis wherein death kissed his cheek into a consuming fire."

At the close of Dr. Newman's memorial address the favorite hymn of young Leland was sung, "Tell Me the Old, Old Story." From this crushing blow of his son's death Mr. Stanford never recovered. For years young Leland's room in the San Francisco home was kept ready and in waiting, the lamp dimly lighted at night, and the bedclothes turned back by loving hands as if he were coming back again. The horses the boy used to ride were kept unused in pasture at Palo Alto, and cared for, for the sake of their fair young owner. The little yellow dog whose broken leg was set was left at Palo Alto when the boy went to Europe with his parents. When he was brought back a corpse, the dog knew all too well the story of the bereavement. After the body was placed in the tomb, the faithful creature took his place in front of the door. He could not be coaxed away even for his food, and one morning he was found there dead. He was buried near his devoted human friend.

"Toots," an old black and tan whom young Leland had brought from Albany, was much beloved. "Mr. Stanford would not allow a dog in the house save this one," says a writer in the San Francisco Chronicle. "'Toots' was an exception, and he had full run of the house. He was the envy of all the dogs, even of the noble old Great Dane. 'Toots' would climb upon the sofa alongside of Mr. Stanford, and forgetting a well-known repugnance he would pet him and say, 'There is always a place for you; always a place for you.'"

The year following the death of young Leland, on Nov. 14, 1885, Mr. Stanford and his wife founded and endowed their great University at Palo Alto. In conveying the estates to the trustees, Mr. Stanford said, "Since the idea of establishing an institution of this kind for the benefit of mankind came directly and largely from our son and only child, Leland, and in the belief that had he been spared to advise us as to the disposition of our estate he would have desired the devotion of a large portion thereof to this purpose, we will that for all time to come the institution hereby founded shall bear his name, and shall be known as the 'Leland Stanford, Jr., University.'"

Mr. Stanford and his wife visited various institutions of learning throughout the country, and found consolation in raising this noble monument to a noble son—infinitely to be preferred to shafts or statues of marble and bronze.

This same year, 1885, Mr. Stanford's friends, fearing the effect of his sorrow, and hoping to divert him somewhat from it, secured his election by the California Legislature to the United States Senate. He took his seat March 4, 1885, just a year after the death of his son. He did not make many speeches, but he proved a very useful member from his good sense and counsel and kindly leaning toward all helpful legislation for the poor and the unfortunate. He was re-elected March 3, 1891, for a second term of six years.

He will be most remembered in Congress for his Land-Loan Bill which he originated and presented to the Senate. "The bill proposed that money should be issued upon land to half the amount of its value, and for such loan the government was to receive an annual interest of two per cent per annum."

"Whatever may be thought by some of the practical utility of his financial scheme," says Mr. Mitchell, a senator from Oregon, "which he so earnestly and ably advocated, and which was approved by millions of his countrymen, for the loaning of money by the United States direct to the people at a low rate of interest, taking mortgages on farms as security, all will now agree it indicated in unmistakable terms a philanthropic spirit, an earnest desire to aid, through the instrumentality of what he regarded as constitutional and proper governmental influence, not the great moneyed institutions of the country, not the vast corporations of the land, with several of which he was prominently identified in a business way, but rather the great masses of producers,—the farmers, the planters, and the wage-workers of his country."