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From Canal Boy to President; or, The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield, a fiction by Horatio Alger |
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Chapter 35. Mr. Depew's Estimate Of Garfield |
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_ CHAPTER XXXV. MR. DEPEW'S ESTIMATE OF GARFIELD My task is drawing near a close. I have, in different parts of this volume, expressed my own estimate of our lamented President. No character in our history, as it seems to me, furnishes a brighter or more inspiring example to boys and young men. It is for this reason that I have been induced to write the story of his life especially for American boys, conceiving that in no way can I do them a greater service. But I am glad, in confirmation of my own estimate, to quote at length the eloquent words of Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, in his address before the Grand Army of the Republic. He says of Garfield: "In America and Europe he is recognized as an illustrious example of the results of free institutions. His career shows what can be accomplished where all avenues are open and exertion is untrammeled. Our annals afford no such incentive to youth as does his life, and it will become one of the republic's household stories. No boy in poverty almost hopeless, thirsting for knowledge, meets an obstacle which Garfield did not experience and overcome. No youth despairing in darkness feels a gloom which he did not dispel. No young man filled with honorable ambition can encounter a difficulty which he did not meet and surmount. For centuries to come great men will trace their rise from humble origins to the inspirations of that lad who learned to read by the light of a pine-knot in a log-cabin; who, ragged and barefooted, trudged along the tow-path of the canal, and without money or affluent relations, without friends or assistance, by faith in himself and in God, became the most scholarly and best equipped statesman of his time, one of the foremost soldiers of his country, the best debater in the strongest of deliberative bodies, the leader of his party, and the Chief Magistrate of fifty millions of people before he was fifty years of age. "We are not here to question the ways of Providence. Our prayers were not answered as we desired, though the volume and fervor of our importunity seemed resistless; but already, behind the partially lifted veil, we see the fruits of the sacrifice. Old wounds are healed and fierce feuds forgotten. Vengeance and passion which have survived the best statesmanship of twenty years are dispelled by a common sorrow. Love follows sympathy. Over this open grave the cypress and willow are indissolubly united, and into it are buried all sectional differences and hatreds. The North and the South rise from bended knees to embrace in the brotherhood of a common people and reunited country. Not this alone, but the humanity of the civilized world has been quickened and elevated, and the English-speaking people are nearer to-day in peace and unity than ever before. There is no language in which petitions have not arisen for Garfield's life, and no clime where tears have not fallen for his death. The Queen of the proudest of nations, for the first time in our recollections, brushes aside the formalities of diplomacy, and, descending from the throne, speaks for her own and the hearts of all her people, in the cable, to the afflicted wife, which says: 'Myself and my children mourn with you.' "It was my privilege to talk for hours with Gen. Garfield during his famous trip to the New York conference in the late canvass, and jet it was not conversation or discussion. He fastened upon me all the powers of inquisitiveness and acquisitiveness, and absorbed all I had learned in twenty years of the politics of this State. Under this restless and resistless craving for information, he drew upon all the resources of the libraries, gathered all the contents of the newspapers, and sought and sounded the opinions of all around him, and in his broad, clear mind the vast mass was so assimilated and tested that when he spoke or acted, it was accepted as true and wise. And yet it was by the gush and warmth of old college-chum ways, and not by the arts of the inquisitor, that when he had gained he never lost a friend. His strength was in ascertaining and expressing the average sense of his audience. I saw him at the Chicago Convention, and whenever that popular assemblage seemed drifting into hopeless confusion, his tall form commanded attention, and his clear voice and clear utterances instantly gave the accepted solution. "I arrived at his house at Mentor in the early morning following the disaster in Maine. While all about him were in panic, he saw only a damage which must and could be repaired. 'It is no use bemoaning the past,' he said; 'the past has no uses except for its lessons.' Business disposed of, he threw aside all restraint, and for hours his speculations and theories upon philosophy, government, education, eloquence; his criticism of books, his reminiscences of men and events, made that one of the white-letter days of my life. At Chickamauga he won his major-general's commission. On the anniversary of the battle he died. I shall never forget his description of the fight--so modest, yet graphic. It is imprinted on my memory as the most glorious battle-picture words ever painted. He thought the greatest calamity which could befall a man was to lose ambition. I said to him, 'General, did you never in your earlier struggle have that feeling I have so often met with, when you would have compromised your future for a certainty, and if so, what?' 'Yes,' said he, 'I remember well when I would have been willing to exchange all the possibilities of my life for the certainty of a position as a successful teacher.' Though he died neither a school principal nor college professor, and they seem humble achievements compared with what he did, his memory will instruct while time endures. "His long and dreadful sickness lifted the roof from his house and family circle, and his relations as son, husband, and father stood revealed in the broadest sunlight of publicity. The picture endeared him wherever is understood the full significance of that matchless word 'Home.' When he stood by the capitol just pronounced the President of the greatest and most powerful of republics, the exultation of the hour found its expression in a kiss upon the lips of his mother. For weeks, in distant Ohio, she sat by the gate watching for the hurrying feet of the messenger bearing the telegrams of hope or despair. His last conscious act was to write a letter of cheer and encouragement to that mother, and when the blow fell she illustrated the spirit she had instilled in him. There were no rebellious murmurings against the Divine dispensation, only in utter agony: 'I have no wish to live longer; I will join him soon; the Lord's will be done.' When Dr. Bliss told him he had a bare chance of recovery, 'Then,' said he, 'we will take that chance, doctor.' When asked if he suffered pain, he answered: 'If you can imagine a trip-hammer crashing on your body, or cramps such as you have in the water a thousand times intensified, you can have some idea of what I suffer.' And yet, during those eighty-one days was heard neither groan nor complaint. Always brave and cheerful, he answered the fear of the surgeons with the remark: 'I have faced death before; I am not afraid to meet him now.' And again, 'I have strength enough left to fight him yet'--and he could whisper to the Secretary of the Treasury an inquiry about the success of the funding scheme, and ask the Postmaster-General how much public money he had saved. "As he lay in the cottage by the sea, looking out upon the ocean, whose broad expanse was in harmony with his own grand nature, and heard the beating of the waves upon the shore, and felt the pulsations of millions of hearts against his chamber door, there was no posing for history and no preparation of last words for dramatic effect. With simple naturalness he gave the military salute to the sentinel gazing at his window, and that soldier, returning it in tears, will probably carry its memory to his dying day and transmit it to his children. The voice of his faithful wife came from her devotions in another room, singing, 'Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah.' 'Listen,' he cries, 'is not that glorious?' and in a few hours heaven's portals opened and upborne upon prayers as never before wafted spirit above he entered the presence of God. It is the alleviation of all sorrow, public or private, that close upon it press the duties of and to the living. "The tolling bells, the minute-guns upon land and sea, the muffled drums and funeral hymns fill the air while our chief is borne to his last resting-place. The busy world is stilled for the hour when loving hands are preparing his grave. A stately shaft will rise, overlooking the lake and commemorating his deeds. But his fame will not live alone in marble or brass. His story will be treasured and kept warm in the hearts of millions for generations to come, and boys hearing it from their mothers will be fired with nobler ambitions. To his countrymen he will always be a typical American, soldier, and statesman. A year ago and not a thousand people of the old world had ever heard his name, and now there is scarcely a thousand who do not mourn his loss. The peasant loves him because from the same humble lot he became one of the mighty of earth, and sovereigns respect him because in his royal gifts and kingly nature God made him their equal." _ |
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