Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-09-27

Y English on either side of the ocean was h
i, superior in the command of its resources
) Whatever was to be known of the operatio
!, of those political forces of conservative or d,
, struction which in all ages work upon all GOV
! ernments he knew. He was student bot
! diverse and minute. He was graced wit
/ the adornments of literature as well q
armored in its panoply. 1T was pecr
; I liar to this man that all he knew h
know to use, He played many parts and re
ceiyed plaudite in all. he had been q lahore
with his hands; a college president; theology
an; a soldier, and a statesman Each ,voca
tlon was but a process in constructing .th
perfected man, and now that all externals hav
been taken away and the work has ended VI
can see an edifice of such manhood, so widel,
spread, SO spacious and SO high that ther
are few such IN the realm of history. TIL,
natural elements of the man were plainly dis
cerniblc through the pellucld simplicity of hi
character. His perception of duty was clear
and his tendency to its performance was e
moral gravitation. He doubtless had great
ambition, but it was to noble ends
it was the ambition which honors seek and
which runs not after honors. Ready to
serve but not self-serving, would be an ap-
propriate motto for the man. He was not
that padded statesman, too well known in our
day, made up of newspaper commentators.
Nor can any taint be found in his career of
that dastardly self-promotion which wins its
Infamous way over the destruction of other
men-that caitlff envy which spends its malig-
nant force In the despoilment of larger and
better natures. His logical processes seldom
consisted in scholastic ability of deduction,
but instructive sense and exposition of the
| true relation of facts and situations to princi.
| pals. They were constructive, selective and
analogical, and the result was that his con-
clusons and the ways by which he reached
them, argued for themselves, as a perfect
piece of architecture does.
This cursory estimate of this scholar, soldi-
er and statesman would be imperfect If it fail
ed to recognize an endowment which he had,
and which is rarely possessed by men of affairs,
He was endowed with the imaginative faculty
to an extent unequalled by an American states.
man. 1t was subtle, far seeing and brought
into correlative relations things most remote
and diverse. The tributary forces of his
scholarship were therefore always at his COM
mand, and the result was wealth of illustra-
| tive power in which he resembled Edmund
Burke. Who will ever forget the sentence
which fell from his lips upon the tumultuary
convention at Chicago; "But remember it is
not the pillows but the calm level of the sea
from which all heights and depths are
measured" And that convention,
measuring its duty from that
standard, chose the man who doubtless repre-
sented best the calm level of popular thought.
With his accession to the presidency an ex-
perity opened all hersgarners. 1t seemed as if
our years of trial were past and gone, and that
under the rule of this large-natured generous
man the Saturnan days had come again.
| But in a moment all was changed. The
president, who by constitution and action, was
| showing himself 10 be an antagonist to every
| corroding political evil of the times, who
combined the virtues of our best statesmen
with the endowments of the ripe learning by
which States are made great and governed well,
Was shot down by disappointed Office seeker
in the capital of the nation. 1t was brutal
murder, like those assassInations which marx
the annals of every corrupt state when office
and plumber become the controlling forces vi
administration.
1t becomes us at this moment, when sorrow
makes every mind capable to instruction to
learn the lesson of the hour. For sometimes
nations can be taught only by calamity, and
this instructor cites us before her now. We
must raise our processes of popular govern
meut to higher plane, through reforms deep
and permanent or we are but at he beginning
of ca aamities like this. 1t is the instruction of
all time that when government becomes per-
sonal, when It becomes merely the instrument
of personal aggrandizement through few or
many offices, corruption and violence strike
hands together for its destruction. Since the
foundation of this government three political
murders have been committed, and the victim
N every instance has been the personal expo
nent of what was best in public sentiment,
killed by one of whom what was worse had
taken full possession. Hamilton, Lincoln and
Garfield, each in their time, represented the
elements of thought which tended best to-
wards our national greatness and perpetuity
Do not misunderstood me as alluding here to
any of those temporary and incidental dlstinc-
tions in the workings of American thought
which have the name of party. The occasion
and the fact prohibit this. mean to say that
these were men whose abounding love of coun-
try had welded them to principles which rose
above the feeting party distinctions of the
hour, and whose duty and love it was to place
our institutions on more lasting basis than
mere party sentiment ever can. Each of these
great men was victim to the personal poll
tics which preceded and disgraced their times.
These evils have debauched the public con-
science for many years. The strife to get
Office, to retain office, or to dispossess from
Office, is the master passion Of our politics.
Our statesmen have become too often mere
leaders of personal following who fight in
the hope of reward. Our politics consist in
mean advantages, in disreputable practices, in
the use of men, in the assassination of charac-
ter, and the enjoyment of office. For many
stirred the stagnant, rottlng level of our
political life. This lust and self-seeking for
office has become the pysemia of our system,
and, predict recovery as we may, the patient is
dying of political assassination.
The shot which has laid our hopes so low
could never have been fred In the better mes
of the Republic. We have our duty to gather
to our hearts the bloody instructions of eur
loss. Death has left US this to do. 1t grasped
l Nor I'd 10 CT 1od
never more to beat highein triumphant antici-
patton of a country made greater and better by
his powers. 1t trod the chambers of that
| massive brain and thought, and the soul left
their earthly palace to live eternal in the heav
ems in house not made with hands. 1t
smote with it's spetri6c mace" that manly
form, and it ceased to be the tabernacle of life.
1t is sight to call up prophets to walk the
| land crying -wo! wo! to all who live therein,
Who could believe that here where
schools abound, here where all
men are free, here where religion teaches
| from more than ten thousand pulpits the les
sons of heaven to earth, here where the awful
sword and the righteous scales of justice are
suspended high and untarnished over all,
where thought and speech are free, that the
fountain of official life could be changed to a
pool of blood?
The genius of free government mourns over
her slaughtered son. She calls up from the
hells of history the assassns of past times
| for an excuse and parallel, but she finds none.
| They say, cite us motive struck at evils
when we struck at men, and she says as she
gathers the ashes of Lincoln and of Garfield,
and lays them reverently in the everlasting
urn of history, so, my children, it is you
who have made possible these acts! The
lessons which I taught you, you have
forgotten! You are depraved with
pride, lust for power, wicked am
bilious, hatred, malice and all
uncharitableness, and here is the bloody end.
Unto your care, o people. l committed my
choicest son from the sweet security of do
mestic life and set him to rule over you. He
was gifted with the learning of ages; what
ever was taught by the records of the ancient
republic, or Of later times, he knew for you
| The love of country burned in that stainless