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JOHN JUDSON BAGLEY
BY GEORGE H. HOPKINS
June 7, 1882
For him to be Governor of the State was not simply to occupy a position of honor and trust for an allotted four years and then give way to another. To him it meant incessant, well directed labor. And he left such an example that hereafter to be Governor of Michigan is no easy task. There is not a State institution that did not receive from him an awakening.
He recognized the tendency of institutional life to be of itself retrograding, and hence the necessity of constant watchfulness on the part of the State. The State must care for its institutions or soon the institutions would cease to care for the State.
As Governor, he felt that he represented the State—not in a narrow, nor egotistical way, but in the same sense that a faithful trusted confidential agent represents his employer, and that as the Executive of the State he was her "attorney in fact. " And his intelligent thoughtful care will long continue the pride of the people he so much loved.
He was ambitious. Ambitious for place and power as every noble mind is ambitious, because these give opportunity. However' strong the mind and powerful the will, if there be no ambition, life is a failure. He was not blind to the fact that the more we have the more is required of us. He accepted-it in its fullest meaning. He had great hopes for his State and his country. He had his ideas of what they should be. With a heart as broad as humanity itself, with an intelligent, able and cultured brain, the will and the power to do; he asked his fellow-citizens to give him the opportunity to labor for them. Self entered not into the calculation. His whole life was a battle for others; and he entered the conflict eagerly and hopefully.
Michigan
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