Mr. Higinbotham’s public activities did not cease with the World’s Fair. After its close, the Field Columbian Museum of Natural History was organized, and he served for seventeen years as its president. For its occupancy the authorities reserved, during a quarter-century, the beautiful Fine Arts Building of the Exposition, from which it removed, in 1920, to the permanent structure south of Grant Park. To this museum its president contributed not only seventeen years of devoted service, but also the collection of precious stones made by Tiffany & Co. for the Exposition, which was installed as the Gem Collection in Higinbotham Hall. Indeed, during the last twenty-five years of Mr. Higinbotham’s life, most of his leisure was devoted to the people of Chicago, especially the poor and suffering. In 1897 President McKinley offered to appoint him Ambassador to France, but excessive modesty, and love of his own place, caused him to decline. When the city proposed to spend thirty-five million dollars for a new drainage district, and the project was in danger of capture by incompetent politicians, he was active in organizing a non-partisan opposition, and accepted membership in a nominating committee which presented to the voters an able and incorruptible group of six candidates. Then, as chairman of the Finance Committee, he personally collected thirty thousand dollars for campaign expenses, and conducted a whirlwind campaign of only thirty days which resulted in the election of the entire independent ticket. Thus the city was assured not only proper economy, but such professional competence in the construction of the Drainage Canal as should insure the future health of its citizens. This was but one instance of his many inconspicuous but valuable public services. Besides countless private philanthropies, certain charitable institutions deeply engaged his interest. For many years he was president of Hahnemann Hospital and of the Newsboys’ and Bootblacks’ Association; and he organized, and was the first president of the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, located on a tract of one hundred and sixty acres in the northwestern part of the city. But the Home for Incurables was his best beloved philanthropy—if one can call by that name a veritable child of his spirit which engaged his love and devotion for nearly forty years. When he was first importuned, in 1880, to become a member of the board of such an institution, which had then gone no further than to take out incorporation papers, he felt that he could not consent, in justice to other charitable institutions with which he was connected, not to speak of the arduous and exacting duties of his private business.