viser and friend. Indeed, from the time of his landing in San Francisco, the two were almost inseparable, and this intimate companionship may be said to have imbued our subject with his highest aspirations and worthiest aims in life. The sketch of that great man elsewhere in these pages, renders unnecessary any further allusion to this particular point. Truly fortunate was the advent of Mr. King in San Francisco, not only for the church which he raised out of bankruptcy by the magic of his genius, but for the State and the country; for to the splendor of his eloquence is largely owing the sentiment which saved California from the vortex of secession and the horrors of civil war. Since his arrival in California, Mr. Swain has seen the affairs of the Unitarian Society changed from the most deplorable financial aspect to one of flourishing prosperity-a result traceable in no small degree to his own prudent management and unwearied efforts. the time of his retiring from the Presidency of the Board of Trustees, the pews rented for a premium of $24,750 above the annual assessments, amounting to $12,000; enabling the society to wipe out entirely the debt of the church, which had lingered along from the time the new edifice had received the shock of its illustrious builder's decease two months after it was consecrated. Mr. Swain resigned only when the society was free from debt.

About

Although frequently solicited to serve in a public capacity, having been several times applied to by nominating conventions to become a candidate for Senate and Assembly, he invariably refused. While claiming to be an ardent and original Republican, he shrunk from contact with the coarser machinery of politics, preferring the dignity of his own calling as a merchant and his books, to active participation for personal ends in a political canvass. Early in 1863, he was appointed, without solicitation, and as we believe without his knowledge, Superintendent of the United States Branch Mint at San Francisco. Following the rule that had invariably guided him hitherto, he hesitated before accepting, but finally yielded at the request of many citizens and all the officers of the Mint. The complimentary manner in which the office

was tendered by President Lincoln, would scarcely have justified a refusal.

The office upon which Mr. Swain now entered has of late years come to be regarded as more strongly identified with the interests of California than any other in the gift of the Federal Government. It has been a reliable bank of deposit for the miner, with a capital of thousands of millions behind it for security, and to some extent the regulator of finance on the Pacific coast. The position was no sinecure. The Mint is a hard-working mill, with the glare and heat of a chemist's laboratory. It has never been a stepping-stone to political preferment; it has never been a school for Senators or Congressmen. It requires skilled labor and scientific attainment. The amount of work done within its walls may be imagined from the fact that since its creation in 1854 not far from three hundred millions of dollars, or more than half the sum coined by the Philadelphia Mint since 1793, has been struck from its presses. Mr. Swain's management of the vast funds. placed in his charge, merits a much more lengthy and detailed description than can be here devoted to the subject. In the manipulation of the precious metals, the Government supposes that there will be a considerable natural loss or wastage, and accordingly a large allowance is given by law to the officers of the Mint for that purpose. Although in some years, under a previous administration, this allowance had not only been exhausted but largely exceeded, under that of Mr. Swain the loss in no year was ever more than a few hundred dollars, showing the nation an instance in which a great public trust was conducted as honestly and thoroughly as any private business. It has been said of Mr. Swain, that "he has succeeded in accomplishing what few men ever accomplish -administering a department of the government service so as to disarm party animosity, and leave no place for criticism to hang a complaint upon." In assuming control, he resolved to be uninfluenced by cliques, combinations, or parties. Of course, tremendous pressure was brought to bear for places, but office brokers and office hunters soon learned that the new Superintendent could not be

used as a tool. While demanding that the employés should be unconditionally loyal to the Government, integrity, capacity, and faithfulness, were the chief requisites. The Mint was a branch of the Government especially requiring the public confidence, and he steadily refused to permit it to be prostituted to political ends; and this course met the entire approval of Mr. Lincoln and of several Secretaries of the Treasury. The remarkable success of Mr. Swain in the discharge of his duties for six years, we think, may in a great measure be attributed to this policy.

After holding the position for about two years, consulting rather his own tastes and inclinations than the notoriety of public station, he tendered his resignation of the Superintendency. It may be that this course partly grew out of an honest indignation in his own. breast at the persistent misrepresentations by persons anxious to supplant him, to meet which Mr. Swain, with becoming dignity and conscious rectitude, would not descend to a contradiction. The letter was sent without the knowledge of his many friends and the public generally. His popularity and the estimation in which his services were held is shown by the fact that as soon as it became known that his resignation was in the hands of the Department at Washington, a paper, signed by all the bankers and many of the leading merchants of San Francisco, was presented to him, requesting that he withdraw the document, and a dispatch from the same gentlemen in reference to the matter was also sent to Secretary McCulloch. By a singular coincidence, this dispatch was crossed on the wires by one from the Secretary himself preferring the same request to Mr. Swain. Thus urged, he consented to retain his place at the head of the Mint, which he continued to hold until the summer of 1869-his administratien of its affairs compelling the unqualified endorsement of the Department, while the character and unimpeachable integrity of the Superintendent was made the theme for special encomium on the floors of Congress.

In 1865, Mr. Swain was one of the founders, in con

junction with other philanthropic gentlemen, of the San Francisco Benevolent Association, which patterns after a like society in New York known as the "Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor." Of this institu

tion Mr. Swain has been the President from the date of its organization. At its first anniversary meeting in May, 1866, in an address to the members, he gave a graphic statement of the scope of the Society's usefulness and charities during the year then just ended. Swain said:

Mr.

It is not permitted to the trustees to relate in detail the facts that have been gathered bearing on the extent and nature of indigence and suffering in our city, because a proper regard for the peculiar sensitiveness of the poor has imposed upon them the obligation of secrecy. But if I could divulge a tithe of the information which we have gained-if I could tell of the poverty and despair that is nurtured in our very midst of the squalid destitution prevailing here -which exists not a stone's throw from the abodes of wealth and splendor-if I could make known to the generous-minded people of this city how, through the gentle beneficence of this society, which is but the wise concentration of the individual charities of the members, anguish has been assuaged, bleeding hearts cured, widowed mothers assisted to the necessaries of life, hungry little children fed, and their delicate, naked bodies clothed against the wet and cold; if I could relate a small portion of the tales of wretchedness and woe that have been whispered into the ears of the officers-tales of disappointed ambition, buried hopes and expectations, blasted fortunes, unexpected penury and discouraged hearts; and if I could paint a picture of the army of houseless, homeless, hungry, shivering, dejected, sorrow-stricken people whose sufferings they have relieved, and some of whom have been raised from the slough of despond beyond the necessity of further aid-if I could present such pictures as these to the full gaze of a kind, indulgent public-pictures which have had their reality in the experience of this Association-I am sure that parents who remembered their children, men who have wives, women who have husbands upon whom, perhaps in this capricious age, fortune may one day frown-I am sure that such would never allow this Society to want for funds. For its scope is broad and catholic. It extends the hand of charity to all. It is no respecter of persons, color or race. Whether the applicant be Jew or Gentile, Greek or Roman, American or foreign, black or white, young or old, Protestant or Catholic-whatever the sex, whatever the sect, whatever the skin, so long as it is a being bearing the impress of humanity and made in the image of God, the case receives immediate attention according to its nature and exigency. Nor does it supersede existing charities, but it cooperates with them, and so far as is practicable, makes them the more available to those

for whom they are designed. The work which it performs is various. Some are furnished with food, some with fuel, some with clothing. Some are assisted in the payment of rents, who would otherwise with their children be turned houseless into the streets. Some are assisted to employment; some furnished with the means to reach distant relations, who will care for them; and in one instance, to illustrate the scope and breadth and comprehensiveness of this Society, a beneficiary-a very excellent woman-was provided with a worthy husband, with whom she is now living happily.

To many public charities during the last ten years, Mr. Swain has been a contributor, and of several to this day an active working member, devoting time, money, and labor to alleviating the necessities of his fellowcreatures. At the Southern Relief Meeting held in April, 1867, in San Francisco, he was one of the officers, and took a prominent part by word and action in forwarding the object of the assemblage; during the war, he was an indefatigable member of the Sanitary Committee; for many years he has been Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Ladies' Protection and Relief Society; is Treasurer of the San Francisco Lying-in Asylum and Foundling Hospital, and an officer in several other charitable institutions that need not be mentioned. In the debates and proceedings of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Swain has been a constant participant for many years, and from its earliest days has been Vice President or a Trustee of the institution. The records are replete with the results of his practical suggestions on commercial subjects. His especial pride in life is his mercantile education. At the opening of the new Merchants' Exchange in July, 1867, being introduced in his official capacity of Superintendent of the Mint, he said in the course of a speech of considerable length:

But I am not overpleased, Mr. President, with the association into which you have brought me. It is not as a public officer that I desire to be known. Creditable as it may appear to enjoy the confidence of the people and the Government, I regard the vocation of the merchant in the broadest and the most comprehensive acceptation of that word as the most important of all. In the one case, the accident of position or office may give a factitious importance to the individual, to which he may not be entitled. But in the case of the merchant, his influence, his power, his importance, are not reflected, are not derived, are not uncertain. They spring out of the depths