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In private life he presents still another side. In memory of his father he established in Chicago hotels where the down-and-out might get both bed and breakfast. Of his two children (aside from his adopted ones) his daughter, Carolyn, is married. The other, Rufus Fearing, was drowned in 1912 in Lake Geneva, Wis., just after being graduated from Princeton. At the funeral was read a eulogy of the boy—a son who in many ways took after his father— which Mr. Dawes himself had written. It contained some illuminating passages:
"The truly great character must unite unusual strength and determination with great gentleness. My boy was imperious. He recognized no superior on earth, and yet was the tender and intimate friend of the weak and humble.
"I have taken him with me among the greatest in the nation and looked in vain for any evidence in him of awe, or of curiosity. He has taken me, asking me to help them, among the poor and lowly of earth.
"He commenced early in life to set himself against the crowd, for no man rises to real prestige who follows it. Of his own initiative he joined the Church. For a long time he taught a Bible class at Bethesda Mission. He did not smoke, nor swear, nor drink. He was absolutely clean. Yet in his stern opposition to the drift, he mingled tolerance in just that quantity which contributed to real power to be used in opposition, and for that purpose alone.
"He died suddenly in the midst of happiness. He died with all his ideals unlowered. He died with all the noble illusions of a high-minded youth undisturbed and undispelled. He died without having lost ambition, with his eyes fixed on the high mountains of life, where, beyond any question, had he lived, he would have climbed.
"But, dear young friends of my boy, he had already climbed the high and rough ways which lead up the steep mountains of character. . . ."
* He wasn't a soldier. He was caught wearing garters under his puttees. On one formal occasion General Pershing had to send General Harbord to him, with a request to button his coat, one of the customs of the Army.