The foregoing chapters have dealt wholly with Mr. Cramp in what may be termed his public capacity,—in his attitude of a public servant of most important rank and most unfailing usefulness. The fact that he has been such a public servant, without official position or emolument, stands doubly to his credit. Viewing him in that relation alone, it may be said that he has designed and built, or has been responsible for the designing and building, more than three hundred ships of all kinds, classes, and destinations during more than half a century. It requires more than a second thought to adequately measure the impress a man makes upon the fortunes and the destinies of his era when he creates over three hundred ships either for commerce or for war.

BATTLESHIPS INDIANA AND MASSACHUSETTS

Dismissing for the moment all thought of the perishability of things made by human hands, the imagination does not need a free rein to fancy an imperishable monument in legend, in tradition, and in history. The ships themselves run their course, meet their fate, and pass away. But the descendants of the men who sailed in them to the uttermost parts of 267the earth, if merchant vessels, or the progeny of the men who fought in them to save the country or to set a weaker people free, if men-of-war, will forever cherish their memories. In such a way Charles H. Cramp has linked his name with the era of his lifetime; and nothing has been attempted in the foregoing Memoir but to make, in assembled form, permanent record of the most important relations he has sustained to the destiny-shapers of mankind, the most arduous of the tasks he has undertaken, the most signal of the triumphs he has achieved, and the most perplexing of the difficulties and obstacles he has encountered.

No attempt has been made to portray the gentler and more genial side of his nature; that could be found in a survey of his social personality for its own sake and dissociated from professional striving or public service. From this point of view purely, another volume equal in extent to the foregoing could be written. But here the opportunity is denied. The boundless hospitality, the unflagging generosity, the inevitable good cheer and helpfulness to all who had in any way earned his confidence or invoked his gratitude, must be passed over with simple mention.

Immersed though he always was in affairs of the most practical and matter-of-fact nature, 268Mr. Cramp could always find time for the society of the clever Bohemians of literature, art, and the drama. No other association was so congenial to him. No other business man of his time numbered so many friends and close acquaintances in that fraternity as he. In him they always found quick appreciation of their abilities and, when occasion might require, ready and cordial responsiveness to their incidents of vicissitude. During the scores of years through which he figured in a capacity as public and in affairs as momentous as ever fell to the lot of the highest official, constantly engaged in operations closely affecting the vitality and integrity of the nation, incessantly subject to a scrutiny hardly less searching than “the fierce light which beats upon a throne,” the files of American print for a lifetime may be searched in vain for an ill-natured personal criticism upon his acts or achievements or an aspersion upon his character. Even partisans of his rivals, no matter what might be the bitterness of contention or the rancor of faction, always halted at personal animadversion upon him. This was not because he himself was reticent in criticism or always cautious in comment. Having always ready and welcome access to the columns of the most noted periodicals an............