BIO: Wesley H. Schwartz, Tillard Pen Pictures, 1911, Blair County, PA

Contributed April 2003 for use in the USGenWeb Archives 
by Judy Banja <jbanja@comcast.net>

Copyright 2003.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/blair/
_________________________________________ 

                Pen Pictures of Friends and Reminiscent Sketches
                                by J. N. Tillard

             Altoona, PA: William F. Gable & Co., Mirror Press, 1911 

                          From Canal Driver To Editor

       WESLEY H. SCHWARTZ Forged to The Front Entirely by His Own Efforts
                           and Through Sheer Ability

SOME fifty years ago a little lad clad in homespun toiled along the tow path 
of the Pennsylvania Canal, driving ahead of him the long-eared motive power, 
the best method of transportation fully developed up to that time. While his 
labor was very prosaic and there was but little that appealed to the 
imagination in the society of the mules, and but little that was picturesque 
about the packet except the language of the captain when things did not go to 
his satisfaction, yet there was no grime or soot in the surroundings, and the 
country through which the watery highway lay was peaceful, calm and serene.
  "The childhood shows the man, as the morning shows the day," and this boy 
could be as stubborn and unbending as the animals he drove. Perhaps in his 
weary vigils he imbibed something of their spirit. In any case, his 
steadfastness of spirit has served him well in the fierce conflicts of 
journalism into which he has been thrown in later days. What his ambitions 
were, and what broad fields of endeavor he crossed in his musings, who can 
tell? The highways and byways of the young nation were full of boys, obscure 
and unknown, who were to make the coming generation greater than any of its 
predecessors in material development and progress. They were thinking great 
thoughts and dreaming bright dreams that were afterward to materialize into 
mighty performances. Of course, the development was to be hindered or moulded 
by many accidents of environment and opportunity, for it was a case of "hoe 
your own row." There was no guiding hands to lift them out of the hard 
conditions of poverty and guide their feet along easy paths of light and 
learning. The only qualities that served to bring their heads above the 
surface was native capacity and dogged persistence in the effort to get 
somewhere, the where being contingent upon the quality of the inborn talent 
and the opening of the way for its employment.
  Wesley H. Schwartz meant to get somewhere; probably just where, he had no 
very definite idea. But he availed himself of whatever opportunity there was 
in his surroundings for the acquisition of learning, and as his wistful eyes 
steadily gazed his horizon widened. Indeed, it probably enlarged its 
boundaries faster for him than most of his contemporaries, for at an early 
age he found himself with the power of the pedagogue in his hands and the 
doors of knowledge opening before him, while others, by force of 
circumstances, were compelled to keep to the treadmill of physical labor in 
order that the wolf might be kept from the door of loved ones who were 
dependent upon them.
  However, he embraced his opportunities and presently found a larger 
audience and wider field than the school room. He ascended one of the seats 
of the mighty and began to mould the opinion of his native county. In the 
main, his writings were clean, strong and made for righteousness. Many a 
toiling man and discouraged woman has felt their loads lightened and burdens 
lifted because of the cheer and strength of his facile pen. Of course, there 
were phases of his work, when he was dealing with matters political, in which 
he may have been justly accused of using language to conceal thought, or even 
usurping the power of his position to punish enemies, but by and large the 
paper he has so ably edited for a generation has been fortunate to have had 
his services.
  A powerful friend and bitter enemy, he has probably lost more than he 
gained by personal animosities. After all, the Sermon on the Mount is the 
constitution of the Kingdom of God, and any mental attitude that won't square 
with its truths will react upon the individual who stubbornly adheres to his 
personal piques. His worst political enemies will admit his ability, if their 
think tanks are not so shallow as to reflect nothing but their own assinine 
sense of importance, and, leaving political matters out, Wesley Schwartz has 
been a zealous editor. Day after day, month after month, year after year, 
amid the rush and whirl, the grind and travail incident to the making up of a 
daily newspaper, he has never faltered or failed.
  The editorial page of the Tribune has never been dull to those with 
intelligence enough to appreciate good newspaper work. Whether the reader 
agreed with the sentiments expressed or not, the vigorous English, clear 
reasoning and clean, moderate modes of expression challenged his admiration 
and respect. He is never petty or prejudiced in the way of viciously pursuing 
a defenseless victim. In a moment of heat or smarting under a sense of 
injury, he may have launched his thunderbolts at a comparatively defenseless 
enemy and wrought ruin or inflicted injury greater than he intended, but he 
never persisted in kicking a fallen enemy.
  Whatever his infirmities may have been, their evil results have been turned 
toward himself rather than working injury to others. When the day of ultimate 
reckoning arrives and final accounts are cast, it will probably be found that 
the good that lives after men will largely dominate whatever of evil may have 
resulted from the life work of this worker in a field prolific of results. 
The responsibilities of the individual who daily controls the destinies of a 
paper that reaches an audience greater than all the church congregations of 
the city can scarcely be measured. The potentialities of the place are big 
with portent, and when the frailties of humanity are considered, he who holds 
the balance even, does well.
  Though fast approaching the allotted time of man, the vigor of his 
intellect does not seem a whit abated. His capacity for work gives no 
evidence of failing, so far as the readers of his productions can see, and he 
seems less inclined to indulge in matters of controversy or indulge in 
rancorous antagonisms. He doubtless feels that he has no longer any 
reputation to make or unmake as a writer and can in this respect afford to 
rest on his oars. The past is secure and the future so comparatively short 
that it is not worth while to engage in profitless struggle. If in his 
estimate of his work and character in this brief sketch, written at the 
behest of duty, the writer has failed to properly measure his subject, it 
must be charged to his imperfect judgment and not to any desire to be unjust 
or unduly bestow either praise or condemnation.
  There will come a day in the lives of each of us when the circle of our 
endeavors will begin to narrow. Its circumference will contract and one day 
we will not be able to go to our accustomed place in the work-a-day life of 
the world. The next day will be bounded by our door-yard. Then the chair, the 
pallet, the coffin and the tomb. When those days come upon us and we feel 
that the closing circle of earth will soon expand and widen to the reaches of 
the unknown and infinite spaces, the only hold upon the eternal verities 
worth having is the consciousness that, like Abou Ben Adhem, we have loved 
our fellow-men and have done no soul to death. Therefore, let us be just. May 
the subject of our sketch find strong comfort in the evening shadows, and 
when they are past, walk in the Elysian Fields.

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