for dog lovers like me

[Milossarian]

… thought you might find this as moving as I did.

This was voted “Best Speech of the Millenium” by William Safire in the New York Times Magazine. It was spoken by George Graham Vest, from the oxymoronic home of Sweet Springs in Saline County, Missouri.

Vest was a member of the Confederate Congress during the Civil War, and from 1879 to 1903 he was a Senator from Missouri. He is remembered, however, for a speech he made as a young lawyer and repeated hundreds of times throughout his life.

Vest was representing a plaintiff who sued a neighbor for the killing of his dog. He ignored his client’s charges and the defendant’s testimony; instead, he won the case with this summation:

The best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may become traitors to their faith.

The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.

A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer; he will lick the wounds and sores that come in an encounter with the roughness of the world.

He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies.

And when that last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death.

Is that awesome or what? Chokes me up every time I read it. They don’t write speeches like that about cats.

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“You should tell the truth, expose the lies and live in the moment.” - Bill Hicks

[Prairie_Rose]

(wiping happy tears from eyes) Thanks Milo, I needed that. I think I’ll go hug Sox and give her a dog biscuit.

PR

[system]

You had me right up till that last comment.

Michi,
Animal Lover (Cat Owner)

[suiyobi]

at one point i had two cats, two fostered baby deer mice, and a dog in alabama-- now i have two cats, a dog here, a dog in alabama, and a common cat we in my complex feed/care for-- all of whom came to me by sheer circumstance and all of whom deserve the same memorial when they pass. i have been fortunate to know them all.

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the hog squeal of the universe is coming from my modem!