Thomas Starr King - gone and probably forgotten

Every state in the union gets to put up two statues of memorable people from that state that it wants to commemorate in the Statuary Hall of the United States Capital building. As Carmen and I once discovered to our great delight, Florida has a statue to the man who invented air conditioning (as well it might).

California has just dethroned one of its favored sons, Thomas Starr King, in favor of Ronald Reagan. I don't mind honoring Reagan, but for a moment lets look at the guy who gets bumped, via the New York Times:

He was a Unitarian preacher, and an amazing one at that; spellbinding, said people who heard him. He spoke up for slaves, for the poor, for union members and the Chinese. Most memorably, he spoke up for the Union, roaming the state on exhausting lecture tours, campaigning for Abraham Lincoln and a Republican State Legislature, imploring California not to join the Confederacy. He succeeded, but he did not live to see the Union victory. He died of diphtheria in 1864, age 39.

“He saved California to the Union,” this paper wrote, quoting Gen. Winfield Scott.

Today the conservative movement would probably drum him out of the Republican Party, which would be a shame, not least because he is an example of social and political activism based on deep religious faith. At a time when the Civil War armies lost many more men to disease than to combat his death at such a young age was not unusual. Every life has something to tell us if we listen.

Well, at least he still has two mountain peaks named after him.

I just had to add that last line from the general.