The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1875-04-09
MisrrAanFnHs.
Dewitt cLIHToNIN 1925.

From an Unpublished AutObiograPSy.l
now come to a new distraction, and
my earliest connection very remotely
with politics, and my tir=t journey 10
any distance ftom hong. l,ittle dtd |
dream what a politician and what
traveller | should one day become.
wish sometimes had never been either
The year 1925 was exceptional in
American politics One of the regular
processes which the Constitution recog
nIyed in n Presidential electlon had been
put in operation, and Ir John Quincy
Adams had, by y majority Of States, as
represented In the House Of Represen-
tatives, been chosen President. He
had made Mir. Clay Secretary Of State,
aud the atmosphere was electrical with
all manner of excitement. Though
GEN. jackson. li:,i hecu deJeaied in a
way calculated t. give him the benefit
of all sorts of sympathy, l!ir great pop
ularliy which lac a;t'rWari commanded
had not, ~ It Frre, CrySIaili4ed, and no
one cnuii SAY What the next four years
might produce ia the way Of ca"dida-
tnra. There was one public man whose
attitude was peculiar, and, in a certain
sense undeyeloped, who thought hum
self, and whose friends Thought him,
very i'll used Neither side-n,isher the
friends Of Mr Adams nor of Gen. Jack
son-spem to haYe considered him. THIS
was Dewitt Clinton, then Governor %
New York. He had been candidate
for the Presidency against Mr.. Madison,
in 1913, and been badly beaten. He
had afterward had his fluctuations in
New York, but finally had triumphedin in
the triumph of his great public improve
hlent scheme. Tha only line of water
of, between East and West was his.
Why in the next canvass, thought his
friends and thought he, should not lie
be the corning man Ii was the day, rs
have said, of initiate Internal improve
ments, and everybody WAS excited about
them. Pennsylvania Was beginning to
stir herself. Ohio had done so, and al
ready matured her plans. It was a
Dropitious moment for an internal i'm
provement candidate TO make himself
manifest. Accordingly Mr.. Clinton and
his friends put themselves in motion.
The initial movement was made in
Philadelphia. The Chesapeake and
Delaware Canal was to be opened with
pomp and ceremony, and the New York
Governor was invited to assist. He
visited Philadelphia in the early sum-
mer of 1926, and was feaSted and re-
ceived with all manner of kindness, if
not with enthusiasm. Philadelphia
was, however, an Adams Clay city, and
Mr.. Clinton was supposed to incline to
Jacksonism, and, besides. there was no
great zeal for a New York President
under any circumstances. The visit
was brief and inconsequential
Ii was in Ohio the great movement
was to be made. Her canal from Lake
Erie vas TO be built, and on the 4th of
July, 1925, with great pomlp, at least for
those days, the work WAS TO be begun.
Gov Clinton was invited and agreed TO
attend, aud my father having been one
OF his 1910 friends, he invited me to ac-
company him. 1t was a great delight,
of course, for, except one journey to
New York, never had been hundred
miles away from home Ii was an eight,
weeks trip, beginning on the 18th of
June and ending Oh the 10th of August
1925, the slow and simple travelling of
hfty years ago. OF course diarized-
and very dull the diary is-and all my
companions dead. l note that in pass
lug through New York went to court
and heard Thomas Adds Emlnet, and
saw, sitting in chair, a mere physical