I have often question my own humanity, as it seems that I am frequently without the level of emotion I see in others. On the other hand I have often congratulated myself on being logical in most things. However, I have come to realize that it is all a ruse on myself. It is more what I want to be than what I am and as a result, I fear that if I am going to get said what I wish to say I am going to have to read much of it.
It is a great honor to be asked to stand and speak upon the passing of a man like Winslow Drummond. An honor that I am certain I cannot do justice to as I lack the power with words that many posses. I am grateful that Bob Compton is here to assume most of the burden of adequately remembering our friend Winslow.
It is a regrettable reality that any speech on the passing of a person can only take one of a few forms, yet each is necessarily unique if it truly reflects the person and life of the one passed. Any sincere eulogy necessarily reflects upon the person of the speaker as well, as we only know one another in the context of our own personalities. Each of us, it follows, knew a slightly different Winslow Drummond and I ask that you bear that in mind as I share my Winslow with you. Try not to quarrel with my reflections, if they differ from yours, rather try and use them to open new insights on the edges of your own.
It is common to remark upon the courage, with which the departed faced death, and to ascribe it to a deep religious faith. In many, perhaps most instances both the courage and the faith are exaggerated and often made on the assumption it is what people want or at least expect to hear. I cannot speak with authority upon Winslow’s religious beliefs; he did not wear them on his sleeve or his car bumper as many do these days. However, I think I can speak upon how he approached death and for me it provides a subtle but essential insight into who he was as a man.
Winslow was above all else a man of reason. For Winslow mythology was no substitute for reality and this attitude informed his approach to death as it had his approach to life. I do not think it is correct to say that Winslow approach death with courage; he did not need courage, because he had reason. Freed of any fear bearing dogma, he rather approached death with equanimity, realizing that there was nothing more to fear after death than there was to fear before birth.
Shakespear summed Winslow’s view:
It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.”
A matter of fact statement about a matter of fact reality.
I have known none who took death’s hand with greater dignity than Winslow. His final weeks were market only with the natural regret that all who are living happy productive lives must feel when faced with the fact that their course has been run.
This attitude toward death reflected an essential aspect of his personality. But Winslow’s philosophy was not about death it was about life and here again, an arbitrary hand me down mythology based code of right and wrong was no substitute for reason when it came to defining personal conduct and morality. Winslow Drummond had as developed and deeply felt sense of right and wrong, of personal obligation, of social and community commitment as any man I have know and given that includes Henry Woods and Sid McMath, that is saying something. (It makes one feel so small to worked among such giants)
In fact, the three had much in common as relates to what they valued. They shared values because they shared a perspective, a perspective that springs from realizing the social imperative in the human condition, realizing that we owe what we have achieved as a species to our ability to work together in a community, realizing that community is only possible with order and that order is only tolerable if it comes with justice. To Winslow Drummond’s mind the greatest technological achievement of all time was the concept of law, not arbitrary law but law that springs from reason and which produces justice as well as order. Such law is the essential ingredient in civilization.
Sid and Henry and Winslow were all three historians, because they all three reveled in the reality of the human adventure. It amazes me how many people are so insular or self absorbed that they have no apparent awareness of the adventure we are collectively on as a species - in so far as we know, unique in the Universe. People who have a conscious awareness of that adventure, who have absorbed its significance naturally develop a sense of duty to honor what has been achieved in the past and a sense of duty to personally contribute to its continuation. Such people evidence a sense of duty to the community and the common course. For such people, service to others and service to the community is the price one pays to claim a part in the grand adventure which man is on, an adventure in search of Truth. People who do not have that perspective are doomed to live hollow lives searching for meaning in places it cannot be found.
It is intriguing to me how fluid human society is to the coming and going of individuals. Making room for each, without obvious perturbation at birth, making more room in exact proportion to what each is able or more likely willing to fill as they mature, and then filling in behind just as discretely as we depart, with hardly a discernible ripple on the stream of humanity as it courses through time.
Yet of course each person does have an impact in some way and we certainly impact the lives of those around us.
Some people, like Win, Sid and Henry, make a conscious decision, usually in their youth, that they want to have a positive influence on the lives of others and on their society; they want to give more than they take. Especially in the past, I think that many people, who entered upon the study of the law, did so with such a commitment in mind. Many of course forget it along the way.
Winslow never did, and it stressed him as much as anything that so many in the profession viewed their license to practice law as nothing more than a means to personal gain. The idea that a lawyer any lawyer would measure his or herself professionally in terms of money or wealth was abhorrent to Winslow. For Winslow, an advocate could be measured just as well by the cases he lost as by the cases he won, not every worthy cause that deserves to be heard ends in victory. For Winslow the practice of law was the highest calling, and a lawyer had a duty not just to himself and his client, but to the bar, the law and the society it serves. Any lawyer who’s approach to the practice of law was defined entirely by self interest, who was willing to commercialize the profession, who did not give back in proportion to what he took, was a leach unfairly drawing upon something he did not create.
In his words: “Our system of justice is in the hands of the lawyers, whether on the bench or before the bar. We alone have the power to destroy or to preserve and enhance that system. And we alone have been granted the authority to confront and to prosecute those who would destroy it.”
A few weeks before his death, in a private moment, when he could have shared any thought he wished with me, the thought he chose to share was:
“What has mattered the most to me, what I have wanted most, is to be thought of by my peers as having honored my profession.”
By that measure, his own measure, Winslow Drummonds life was a tremendous success.
But even so, Winslow’s approach to his profession and civic responsibility does not entirely define him any more than his approach to death. Winslow liked a good time and knew as well as any I have known how to share one. He could lift a moment into gaiety with the simple pouring of a martini. In that lighter vein let me share a secret about Winslow’s military carrier.
As private in the Army, he was required to attend an assembly where the commanding officer read the code of military conduct. At the conclusion, Private Drummond stood and requested permission to speak. Upon that being granted, he announced that the entire thing was unconstitutional, as the President had no authority to define the law of criminal conduct. Needless to say, his independent bent of mind was not conducive to success in the military.
In my view, it is clear that the main problem was that he chose the wrong service, he should have been in the Navy. Win was never happier or more completely his jovial self than on a boat. He loved to boat and he loved to entertain on his boat. If you were his friend you were expected to be entertained on his boat, whether you liked it or not. I always enjoyed it myself and on many occasion had the opportunity to bring my children. My middle son Phillip, having been taught well not to pee in Pappa’s pool, climbed into the lake to tinkle on Winslows deck. Winslow took it well, handling the fouling of his boat with only slightly less equanimity than his impending death.
In closing, let me borrow the words of another eulogist that poses poetry that mine do not:
"He was a worshiper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: “for justice all places a temple, and all seasons, summer.” He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep tonight beneath a wilderness of flowers." (Robert Green Ingersoll eulogy of his brother.)
It is a great honor to be asked to stand and speak upon the passing of a man like Winslow Drummond. An honor that I am certain I cannot do justice to as I lack the power with words that many posses. I am grateful that Bob Compton is here to assume most of the burden of adequately remembering our friend Winslow.
It is a regrettable reality that any speech on the passing of a person can only take one of a few forms, yet each is necessarily unique if it truly reflects the person and life of the one passed. Any sincere eulogy necessarily reflects upon the person of the speaker as well, as we only know one another in the context of our own personalities. Each of us, it follows, knew a slightly different Winslow Drummond and I ask that you bear that in mind as I share my Winslow with you. Try not to quarrel with my reflections, if they differ from yours, rather try and use them to open new insights on the edges of your own.
It is common to remark upon the courage, with which the departed faced death, and to ascribe it to a deep religious faith. In many, perhaps most instances both the courage and the faith are exaggerated and often made on the assumption it is what people want or at least expect to hear. I cannot speak with authority upon Winslow’s religious beliefs; he did not wear them on his sleeve or his car bumper as many do these days. However, I think I can speak upon how he approached death and for me it provides a subtle but essential insight into who he was as a man.
Winslow was above all else a man of reason. For Winslow mythology was no substitute for reality and this attitude informed his approach to death as it had his approach to life. I do not think it is correct to say that Winslow approach death with courage; he did not need courage, because he had reason. Freed of any fear bearing dogma, he rather approached death with equanimity, realizing that there was nothing more to fear after death than there was to fear before birth.
Shakespear summed Winslow’s view:
It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.”
A matter of fact statement about a matter of fact reality.
I have known none who took death’s hand with greater dignity than Winslow. His final weeks were market only with the natural regret that all who are living happy productive lives must feel when faced with the fact that their course has been run.
This attitude toward death reflected an essential aspect of his personality. But Winslow’s philosophy was not about death it was about life and here again, an arbitrary hand me down mythology based code of right and wrong was no substitute for reason when it came to defining personal conduct and morality. Winslow Drummond had as developed and deeply felt sense of right and wrong, of personal obligation, of social and community commitment as any man I have know and given that includes Henry Woods and Sid McMath, that is saying something. (It makes one feel so small to worked among such giants)
In fact, the three had much in common as relates to what they valued. They shared values because they shared a perspective, a perspective that springs from realizing the social imperative in the human condition, realizing that we owe what we have achieved as a species to our ability to work together in a community, realizing that community is only possible with order and that order is only tolerable if it comes with justice. To Winslow Drummond’s mind the greatest technological achievement of all time was the concept of law, not arbitrary law but law that springs from reason and which produces justice as well as order. Such law is the essential ingredient in civilization.
Sid and Henry and Winslow were all three historians, because they all three reveled in the reality of the human adventure. It amazes me how many people are so insular or self absorbed that they have no apparent awareness of the adventure we are collectively on as a species - in so far as we know, unique in the Universe. People who have a conscious awareness of that adventure, who have absorbed its significance naturally develop a sense of duty to honor what has been achieved in the past and a sense of duty to personally contribute to its continuation. Such people evidence a sense of duty to the community and the common course. For such people, service to others and service to the community is the price one pays to claim a part in the grand adventure which man is on, an adventure in search of Truth. People who do not have that perspective are doomed to live hollow lives searching for meaning in places it cannot be found.
It is intriguing to me how fluid human society is to the coming and going of individuals. Making room for each, without obvious perturbation at birth, making more room in exact proportion to what each is able or more likely willing to fill as they mature, and then filling in behind just as discretely as we depart, with hardly a discernible ripple on the stream of humanity as it courses through time.
Yet of course each person does have an impact in some way and we certainly impact the lives of those around us.
Some people, like Win, Sid and Henry, make a conscious decision, usually in their youth, that they want to have a positive influence on the lives of others and on their society; they want to give more than they take. Especially in the past, I think that many people, who entered upon the study of the law, did so with such a commitment in mind. Many of course forget it along the way.
Winslow never did, and it stressed him as much as anything that so many in the profession viewed their license to practice law as nothing more than a means to personal gain. The idea that a lawyer any lawyer would measure his or herself professionally in terms of money or wealth was abhorrent to Winslow. For Winslow, an advocate could be measured just as well by the cases he lost as by the cases he won, not every worthy cause that deserves to be heard ends in victory. For Winslow the practice of law was the highest calling, and a lawyer had a duty not just to himself and his client, but to the bar, the law and the society it serves. Any lawyer who’s approach to the practice of law was defined entirely by self interest, who was willing to commercialize the profession, who did not give back in proportion to what he took, was a leach unfairly drawing upon something he did not create.
In his words: “Our system of justice is in the hands of the lawyers, whether on the bench or before the bar. We alone have the power to destroy or to preserve and enhance that system. And we alone have been granted the authority to confront and to prosecute those who would destroy it.”
A few weeks before his death, in a private moment, when he could have shared any thought he wished with me, the thought he chose to share was:
“What has mattered the most to me, what I have wanted most, is to be thought of by my peers as having honored my profession.”
By that measure, his own measure, Winslow Drummonds life was a tremendous success.
But even so, Winslow’s approach to his profession and civic responsibility does not entirely define him any more than his approach to death. Winslow liked a good time and knew as well as any I have known how to share one. He could lift a moment into gaiety with the simple pouring of a martini. In that lighter vein let me share a secret about Winslow’s military carrier.
As private in the Army, he was required to attend an assembly where the commanding officer read the code of military conduct. At the conclusion, Private Drummond stood and requested permission to speak. Upon that being granted, he announced that the entire thing was unconstitutional, as the President had no authority to define the law of criminal conduct. Needless to say, his independent bent of mind was not conducive to success in the military.
In my view, it is clear that the main problem was that he chose the wrong service, he should have been in the Navy. Win was never happier or more completely his jovial self than on a boat. He loved to boat and he loved to entertain on his boat. If you were his friend you were expected to be entertained on his boat, whether you liked it or not. I always enjoyed it myself and on many occasion had the opportunity to bring my children. My middle son Phillip, having been taught well not to pee in Pappa’s pool, climbed into the lake to tinkle on Winslows deck. Winslow took it well, handling the fouling of his boat with only slightly less equanimity than his impending death.
In closing, let me borrow the words of another eulogist that poses poetry that mine do not:
"He was a worshiper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: “for justice all places a temple, and all seasons, summer.” He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep tonight beneath a wilderness of flowers." (Robert Green Ingersoll eulogy of his brother.)
P.S. At the time I had not read the entire eulogy from which the forgoing quote was extracted, nor did I know anything about the author. The entire eulogy is short and can be read here:
