“Mr. President, among the trials, the cares, the labors, and sometimes the bitterness that public life brings there are rewards. They are neither so many nor so delightful as the outside world may suppose, but there are some very real rewards. One of them, the chiefest, perhaps, is to be found in the friendships and associations which men closely associated together as we are in this chamber are certain to form, but like most happinesses and rewards in this world, they have their inevitable penalty connected with them. The penalty comes in the severance of the friendships, by the partings that must occur. These partings come to us here every two years. They bring sorrow, not the ‘sweet sorrow’ of Shakespeare’s immortal lovers, but a very real sorrow which grows more serious and more grim as the years pass by and age advances. “It is with a feeling of great sorrow that I--and I am sure that I express the sentiments of all other senators--find myself compelled to part with the senator from Indiana. He has been the official leader of his party during four years, a position which has put him in the front of conflict. I can only say that he has borne himself with fairness, with courtesy, with unvarying good temper to those opposed to him, and, Mr. President, wholly apart from that, I am sure that the feeling I am about to express is shared by all. We are losing a friend. He has been to me not only a very valued friend, but a very good friend, and it is sad for me to think that he is about to withdraw from the interests and activities we have so long shared together. His kindness, his good temper, and the generosity he has just shown in his cordial words with regard to his successor have endeared him to us all. It is hard to say ‘good bye,’ and I will not say it, but I will say that he goes back to private life carrying with him the affectionate regard of all those who have been associated with him here, quite as much of those who sit on this side of the aisle as of those who sit on the other side. He carries with him every good wish that we can give for his health, his happiness, and his peace of mind in the years to come.” As soon as Senator Lodge resumed his seat Senator Hoke Smith of Georgia, secretary of the interior during the second Cleveland administration, rose on the Democratic side of the chamber. “Mr. President,” he said, “it is not necessary for Democratic senators to tell Senator Kern, the senate and the country how much we esteem him and how much we will miss him. “Just two years after he came here he was elected by his Democratic associates their leader. Two years later he was again unanimously elected their leader.