Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-07-23

There is not in the world 1. single country
other than ours where there are 80 many
educated and experienced men competent to
meet any political emergency, or to fill any
post pertaining to our general government
or local legislatures. And in nothing is this
more strongly exemplified than in the fact,
that in some of our great conventions and
caucuses the names of leading personages,
with undoubted claims to public considera-
ton, are frequently set aside for new ones,
or for those of individuals of less promi-
nence, though the undercurrent of whose
ability may have made itself felt in more
than one department of our economy. Our.
whole population is rife, so to speak, with
such characters; and hence the readiness
and security with which such changes are
made and hence also the establishment of
the fact that, in this country at least, no
man is regarded as possessed exclusively of
those abilities which are necessary to the
adequate discharge of even the most impor-
tant and exalted duties that can be imposed
upon him by the people.
In England, the masses are shut out from
the upper house of the legislature, and, in
effect, from the lower house also. Birth, on
the one hand and great landed interests on
the other, are the two millstones between
ground to powder These reprehensible
elements of political advancement are, how
ever, unknown to this great republic; for
here the lists are open to all citizens being
restricted to Americans in one relation only
that of the Presidency
In presenting to our readers the portrait
of Mr.. Miller, just elected at Albany to the
United States Senate, we are again reminded
of the uncertainty of early leading nomina-
tons in any political convention, as well as
of the yastness of our resources in the re
lation already referred to. True, that pre-
viously he had been no stranger to public
life; but then we are not SO sure that this
enhanced the chances of his recent success
in any degree whatever. Be this as it may,
his name seems not to have been taken into
| consideration during the carly deliberations
of his party in the State capital but all at
| once he appears on the scene, and after a
sharp contest carries the day and succeeds
Mr.. Platt to the extreme qualification of
the Administration, and of all those who
had become weary of the prolonged and
unseemly struggle at Albany, and who were
almost ready to accept any candidate likely
| to bring it to close.
Warner Miller was born in Oswego coun-
ty, N. Y, August II, 1888. He was edu-
| Gated at Union College where was he held in
high estimation and graduated with honors
in 1860. Soon after this latter period he
was employed as teacher in the Fort Ed
ward Collegiate Institute, where he distin-
guished himself in a marked degree, and
remained until the breaking out of the
civil war, when he enlisted as private in
the Fifth New York Cavalry, serving sub
sequently in the Shenandoah Valley. His
career as a soldier also may be gathered
from the fact that he was steadily promo
ted through the intermediate ranks until he
became lieutenant, when he was taken
prisoner at the battle of Winchester. In'lS72
he was delegate to the National Conven-
ton at Philadelphia; and in 1874, and also
| in 1875, he was elected to the New York
| legislature. He was subsequently the Re
publican representative to the Forty-sixth
| Congress, from the Twenty-second district,
| comprising Herkimer, Jefferson and Lewis
counties, and was reelected last fall
| Mr. Miller has lived in Herkimer for many
years, and is paper manufacturer of large
means and influence. He is gentleman of
confirmed views, although of somewhat
retiring disposition. His habits are simple, and
his moral character without blenish, the as
sertions of his political opponents to the con-
tary, notwithstanding. At juncture and
under circumstances SO peculiar as the pres
ent, we must hope for very impartial es-
innate of his career, either in private or in
public from certain parties but the fact of
his having risen from the ranks, in the
army, and of his having been sent again
and again, by those who ought to know him
best to fill positions of great trust and re-
sponslbility, seems to us very full and con-
elusive answer to those who are now taking
such unwarranted liberties with his name.