The Cordele Dispatch And Daily Sentinel

A good citizen passes
We count the most sacred privileges
we have in these columns to write
whatever tribute we can to such a
man as C. C. Cleveland when death
comes and breaks the ranks of the
circle in which we move through life.
He understood-as all of us must
understand-that death comes to
strong men as well as to weaklings.
His sunny disposition made us love
him. We never came in hearing
distance of him that he did not let
go with some salutation which only
added to our already unnumbered in-
stances of his kindly, friendly fellow
feeling.
He could not live to himself-
never was for a moment so disposed.
And while he impressed one as be-
ing really happy when some man
among us accomplished something
good, he always manifested a keen
interest in community advancement,
church advancement, civic and local
progress of every character and type.
His heart beat in unison with that
man, or group of men, who was try-
ing to do something to better busi-
ness conditions.
He was a modest man, and so while
he sleeps under his little mound of
clay out in Sunnyside, we want to
keep faith with him still what we
write about him after he is gone
ought likewise to be modest-a kind
of tribute he would like to see. And
we think he would like us say he
loved those who made up the large
circle of friends he knew and among
whom he moved in and out in his dai-
ly duties here.
Friendships meant more to him
than the average man. He shrank
from standing up in great crowds and
protesting his devotion to home,
friends and community, but some-
how in his smile, in his pleasant word,
in his personal interest in us and
what we were trying to do, he al-
ways impressed it.
We shall miss him through long
years of our labors here. He stole
so completely into our lives some-
where not long after we came to
know him along with other men in
Cordele that his death burdened our
hearts with real sorrow. We think
what we write here is true of other
men who must do what they can now
to possess that same courage and
faith that he had.
Somehow, when we understood
that he had gone to meet the Day of
the Great Dispensation, hurried
stock taking of his life as we knew
it gave back an assurance that he
had an individual countenance still
smiling and care free-for he had
fought a good fight--had kept the
faith. He lived like a man who un-
derstood, like one unafraid.
His life in this community was
more nearly what the average man
would want to be. He was not, unu-
sual in any habit or thought so far
as his friends gathered from intimate
acquaintanceship--we think he did
not want to be-and he was not un-
duly harsh with those who went
astray or did him a wrong.
We think his going will burden every
man's heart with sorrow in this
community. His death to us is a
distinct source of bereavement.
May he rest in peace.