Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-08-26 | Page 6 | Judge C. C. Goodwin

JUDGE C. C. GOODWIN. Xo one in the west could write more tender, graceful and luminous character sketches than Judge C. C. Goodwin, who has just passed from among us. The literary compositions which will linger most alluringly in the memory of his friends are perhaps those keen, flashing and yet broadly human pen pictures of the men of the west, great and little, good and bad, he had known and understood un-derstood and some of whom he had loved surpassingly and who had been Honored by loving him. Only old friends of the genius of Mark Twain or Lan Dequille could write as faithfully faith-fully and as truthfully of the gentle judge and gifted editor as he wrote of them. One by one, in remote days, they parted with him at some crossroad, bade him farewell and came not back again. , To speak of those farewells is to evoke sentiments of the deepest pathos, j is to suggest a lonely and sad old age. ! And yet such a picture would be trea son to the character of Judge Goodwin. He outlived by many years some of his most devoted friends, but no pioneer pio-neer of the west ever passed away with more friends gently iDtoning his praise. From decade to decade he acquired ac-quired new friendships and enjoyed them with all the zest of his genial , ' and sunny nature. And he held his friends not merely by the brilliance of ! his wit and the charm of his intellect, but by the fervor and depth of his humanity. Judge Goodwin had become a part of the west. It has been said by some one that every man has two countries his own and France. We might fittingly fit-tingly parallel the epigram by saying that Judge Goodwin had two souls hi3 own and the spirit of the west. He was a peerless interpreter of the west because he was the west. And by the west we mean the pioneering west of the mountains. The Pacific coast of the gold rush, the Comstock lode and Virginia City were his university of life. From them and the men who made them he acquired his knowledge of humanity and the humanities. Had his mind been less receptive, had he been severely introspective instead of genially observant, he would not have acquired that understanding of men and of their west and his west which made him for so many years a writer of commanding com-manding influence as editor of The Salt Lake Tribune. It was in his editorial capacity that the fine flower of his intellect camo to its complete efflorescence. efflores-cence. And it was one of the remarkable tributes to his essential kindliness and gentleness that those who miht very well have been his foes after the eon-tests eon-tests of years sometimes necessarily relentless were eager to be his friends find to join in the general chorus of esteem. fftidgo Goodwin became known throughout the length and breadth of the land not only by his daily contributions contribu-tions to the editorial columns of The Tribune f"r nearly twenty years, during dur-ing which he was editor-in-chief, but by a number of books of high literary value and pleasant appeal. His name was a household word in Utah and in Nevada, where he was well known as a lawyer, judge and editor. And throughout through-out his career he acquired friends by his exceptional ability, attractive manner, kind heart and mild temper and by his wit and humor. He was a fine American Ameri-can of the pioneer type not always the stern and rough type of the eastern imagination. He was a fearless and courageous champion of law and order and advocated what he believed to be right no matter whom it hurt, yet his gracious, considerate and forgiving disposition dis-position healed many wounds. The soul of Judge Goodwin has winged its way beyond the sunset of the golden we?t to the land beyond, but the spirit of his west lingers with us as a benignant memory.