The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1868-06-04
Who Is SCHUYLER Colfax,

who Is Schuyler Colfax?
Very few Americans will ask this ques-
ton, for he is one of the best known of
all our public men, His trip ACROSS
the Continent" and subsequent lectures,
have made him personally familiar to the
people of nearly all the States from Maine
to California. We find in Putnam
Magazine for June the following sketch
of the next Vice President of the United
States:
Schuyler Colfax was born at a house
in North Moore street, near West Broad
way In the city of New York, March 25,
1923. His mother is but sixteen years
his senior. He received good common
school education; was bred printer, and
settled in Indiana in 1886. He soon be-
came foreman and assistant editor of the
village paper of South Bend. It was
then a very small sheet, such as every
Western settlement issues as a sort Of fly
er to a job printing business, as soon as
it has got its school house, grocery, hotel
and blacksmith shop, and begins to think
about having meeting house.
The typo out West frequently gets
the start of the preacher, though the
race is close. Those who saw Colfax
then ''at the case describe him as light
spindling, faxen-haired, boyish-looking
vouth-clever rather in the Yankee than
the English sense-with a delicacy of
temperament which suggested doubt
whether he had the stamina to live to man
hood, without the faintest suggestion
that IN his mature years he would be
Speaker of the House, and the second
choice Of the country for President. The
news then came to the South Bend by
stage from Detroit, or up the St. 10 river
from the Lake. There was but little of
it, and though Mr.. Colfax became editor
and publisher of the South Bend Regis
ter as soon as he became of age, other
to establish his claim to intellectual supe-
riority
In lS4S he was delegate to and Secre-
tary of the Wing National Convention.
In 1850 he was member of the Indiana
Constitutional Convention. In 1852 he
was again Secretary of the Wing Nation
al Convention. He was elected to the
Thirty fourth Congress and has been
regularly reelected to every subsequent
Congress He was elected Speaker of
the Thirty eighth Congress. and has been
reelected Speaker Of the Thirty ninth
and Fortieth. He was urged but declin-
ed to accept seat in the Unrted States
Senate, preferring his presiding chair in
the House. His open, pleasant face has
become familiar to large audiences
throughout the country, who have listen
ed to his addresses upon political topics,
upon the late President Lincoln-by
whom he was warmly loyed-upon his
tour across the continent to the Pacific,
or upon subjects connected with the work
of the Sanitary and Christian Commits
sions.
He Is pure in his personal and moral
habits, has broad, outspoken and cath
clio sympathy with every good work of
reform, whether political, moral, inteliec-
tual or religious, and has the warm and
enthusiastic confidence of christians and
reformers throughout the
country. He attends, and we believe is
a member of the Reformed Dutch
Church, and is thorough teetotalist.
Without being educated as scholar, IN
dustrlous reading has given him much of
what is valuable in scholarship unalloyed
by its pedantry, its clannishness or its
egotism. Without being bred a lawyer,
practical familiarity with legislation has
taught him all that is most valuable in
law, freed from the conservatism and in
aptitude for change and reform which rest
like an incubus on so many of those minds
which are bred by the habits Of the legal
profession to look for precedents which
show what the law has been, rather than
to brood principles which settle what the
law ought to be. Yet Mr.. Coltax has
shown the happiest familiarity
Iolt
OF parliamentary practice.
As presiding officer he IS the most
popular the House has had since Henry
Clay. His marvellous qnickness of thot',
and talent tor the rapid administration OF
the House of Representatives, even in it's
most boisterous and turbulent moods
As an orator, Mr.. Colfax is not argumen-
tatlve, except as clear statement and
sound judgment are convincing. He
few politics which the average sense of
intelligent men cannot be made to assent
to on clear statement of his position.
He is emminently representative.
He knows men well, estimates them
correctly, treats them all fairly and can
didly. No man will get through his bus
mess with you in fewer minutes. and yet
none is more free from the horrid brusque-
ness of busy men. There are heart and
kindness in Mr.. Colfax' politeness Men
leave his presence with the impression
that he is at once an able, honest and kind
man. Political opponents like him per-
sonally, as well as his political friends.
We have never heard that he has any
enemies. The breath of SANDER has been
silent toward his fair, spotless fame. The
wife Of his youth, after being for long
time an invalid sank to her final rest sew
eral years ago, leaving him childless His
mother and sister preside at his recep-
tons, which for many years have been,
not the most brilliant, but the most popu-
lar OF any given at the CAPITOL.