Poem: Opportunity

Opportunity

Master of human destinies am I.
Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
Hovel and mart and palace -- soon or late
I knock, unbidden, once at every gate!
If sleeping, wake -- if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury, and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore --
I answer not, and I return no more.

by John James Ingalls (29 December 1833 - 16 July 1900)



John James Ingalls was born in Middleton, Massachusetts. He was a well-known lawyer and journalist, but became active in politics and served for many years in the United States Senate. He is remembered for the sonnet, "Opportunity".

John James Ingalls graduated from Williams College in 1855. Foreshadowing his later reputation as a wit, his graduation thesis, entitled Mummy Life, was a satire of college life. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1857. Moving to Kansas Territory, Ingalls settled in Atchison in 1860. He joined the anti-slavery forces and worked to make Kansas a free state. He was a member of the Wyandotte constitutional convention in 1859 and is reputed to have coined the state motto, Ad Astra per Aspera.

When Kansas was admitted to the Union in 1861, he became secretary of the first state Senate and state senator in 1862. During the Civil War he served as judge advocate in the Kansas militia. As an editor of the Atchison newspaper, Freedom's Champion, for three years, he won a national reputation for a series of magazine articles. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1873, succeeding Samuel C. Pomeroy, Ingalls served for 18 years. He supported labor and agriculture against monopolies. He also favored the Interstate Commerce Act and the Civil Service Law (US).

In 1887 Ingalls was elected president pro tempore of the Senate. Praised throughout his life for his keen sarcasm and quick wit, John James Ingalls died in East Las Vegas, New Mexico, on August 16, 1900.

In 1905, the state of Kansas donated a marble statue of Ingalls to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection This statue is slated to be replaced by Amelia Earhart.