The Portland daily press., 1880-06-17
A Rare American.
"Gaths" Tribute to Gen. Garfield.

George Alfred Townsend in Cincinnati ENQUIRER.
The writer has known Gen. Garfield pretty
well for thirteen years. He is.a large, well-fed,
hale, ruddy, own-bearded man, weighing
about two hundred and twenty pounds, with
Ohio German colors, blue eyes, military
face, erect figure and shoulders, large back
and thighs, and broad chest, and evidently
bred in the country on farm. His large
mouth is full of strong teeth, his nose, chin
and brows are strongly pronounced. A large
brain, with room for play of thought and long
application, rises high above his clear, discern
ing, enjoying eyes, He sometimes suggests
country Samson-strong beyond his knowledge
but unguarded as a school boy. He pays little
attention to the affectation by which some
men manage public opinion, and has one kind
of behavior for all callers, which is the most
natural behavior at hand. Strangers would
think him little cold and mentally shy. On
acquaintance he is seen to be hearty above ev-
.erything, loving the life around him, his fami-
ly, his friends, his State and country. Low
ing sympathetic and achieving people, and
with large unprofessing sense of the brother
hood of workers in the fields of progress, it
was the feeling of sympathy and the desire to
impart which took him for chief; while as to
the pulpit, or on the verge of it, full of all that
he saw or acquired, he painted to give it forth
after it had passed through the alembic of his
mind. Endowed with warm temperament,
copious expression, large, wide-seeing faculties
and superabundant health, he could study all
night and teach or lecture all day, and it was
providence that his neighbors discovered he
was too much of man to conceal in the pull
pit where his docility and reverence had al
most taken him. They sent him to the State
Legislature, where he was when the war broke
out, and he Immediately went to the field
where his courage and painstaking parts and
love of open air occupation, and perfect free
dom from self-assertion, made him the delight
of Rosecrans and Geo. H. Thomas successive
ly. He would go about any work they asked
of him, was unselfish and enthusiastic, and
had sts ady, temperate habits, and his large
BRAIN and his reverence made everything nov
ell to him.
There is an entire absence of nonchalance OF
worldlness in his nature. He is never indif-
ferent, never vindictive. A base action, or in
gratitude or cruelty may make him sad, but
QOco uOI pIONOhO TctdlldtlOll, uOr alIef JldU
faith in men and Providence which is a part of
his sound stomach and athletic head Gar
field is simple as child; to the serpents wis
dom he is a stranger. Having no use nor apt-
tude with weapons of coarser natures, he often
avoids mere disputes, does not go to public re-
sorts where men are familiar or vulgar and
the walk from his home in Washington to the
Capitol, and an occasional dinner out, COM
prise his life. The word public servant espec-
tally applies to him. He has been the drudge
OF his State constituents, the public the public
societies. the moral societies and of his party
and country. since 1868. Aptitude for public
debate, and public affairs are associated with
military nature in him. He is ON broad scale
aschoomaster of the range of Gladstone, of
Agassiz, of Gallatin.
With as honest heart as ever beat, above
the competitors of sordid ambition, General Gar
field has yet SO little of the worldly wise in
him that he is poor, and yet he has been ac-
cused of dishonesty. He has no capacity for
investment, nor the rapid solution of wealth.
nor profound respect for the penny in and out
of pound, and still is neither careless, improvi-
dent nor dependent. The great consuming
passion to equal richer people, and live finely
and extend his social power is as fo,eign to
him as schemng or cheating. But he is not
suspicious nor a high-mettled man, and so he
is taken in sometimes, partly from his oblig-
ing, unrefusng disposition. Men who were
scheming imposed upon him as upon Grant
and other crudeeyed men OF affairs. The
people of his district, who are quick to punish
public venality or detection, heard him in his
defense in 1873 and kept him in Congress and
held up his hand, and hence he is by their un-
waver;ng support for twenty-five years candi-
date for PRESIDENT and a national character
Since John Quincy Adams no President has
had Garfield scholarship, which is equally up
to this age of wider facts The average Amer
ican, pursuing money all day long, is now pre-
sented to a man who had invariably put
/ the business of others above his own, and
worked for that alleged nondescript-the pub
| lie gratitude-all his life. But he has not la
bored without reward. The great nomination
came to-day to as pure and loving a man as
ever wished well OF anybody and put his shoul-
| der to his neighbours wheel Gariield's big,
boyish heart is panied tonight with the weight
of his obligation, affection and responsibility.
| To-day, as hundreds of kilograms come from
| everywhere, saying kind strong things to him
| such messages as only Americans in their rap
| i'd, good impulses pour upon q lucky friend
| he was with Two volunteer clerks in a room
| opening and reading, and suddenly his two
boys sent him one--little fellows at school
and as he read it he broke down, and tried to
talk, but his voice choked, and he could not