New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-07-10
JOHNNY BOUQUETS WALKS.

PICTURES FROM THE PRESIDENTS LIFE.
GARFIELD AS A sCHOOI-TEACHER OF BOYS AND OF
MEN-HIs LEADERSHIP IN NATIONAL FINANCE
DEVELOPMENT HIS RIPE sTATEsMANsHIP-
HIS LOVE OF HUMANITY AND TRUST IN HUMAN
HATURE-A LOSER IN ONE RACE WHILE WINNING
ANOTHER AND MIGHTIER ONE.
At the Kings sick bed there Is no use for the cap
and bells. Let me walk backward in recollection
alOng some years of President GarHelds life
THE TEACHER-PREsIDENT.
The lake shore of Ohio at that part east of Cleve
land city called the Western Reserve lof Connecti-
cut) is of distinctive scenery, in the West.
Nearly flat, except where the little rivers have
denuded the ribs of gravel or limestone and made
terraces of almost gardeners symmetry, the land
bears strong timber. is dotted with little towns Of
miniature white cottages and thin white church
Ppires, and of such towns Mentor. gainesville aud
Ashtabula alike, strung along the face Lake
Shore Railroad. In the year 1865 l got off at
Ashtabula station in early winter and took the
hack for the town of that Indian name small
white hotel stood in the middle of it. Tho side
walks were manly of forest pine, the broad flat
street in snow looked like a table CLOTH the low
houses like empty plates along it. and the Puritan
householder seemed spreading his arms IN every
big elm trees curving. as If to say, Stranger We
say blessing before eat. here!" No smell of ale
was in the hotel; the landlady's family did the
serving and showed me to a rather lean 70 om in
which lean wood stove and box OF wood seemed
about all the furniture. The cold wood was made
to roar in furious heat Immediately. Being warm
l took meal in which bread and stewed dried
apples were conspicuous. After that the Christian
ASSOCIATION called to say was expected small and
unprepOssessng as / was and that the lecture
course had just been started by our Congressman
Garfield"
had never heard that name before; what WAS
this Congressman's subject7 Well. it was on
hnances-fgures about what owed! Could he
make such subject as that popular? Well. he did,
II Their right down popular!
That was the first idea ! had OF our Congress
man Garfield" then closing his first term at Wash
ingtOn. or entering upon his second.
The surrounding towns spoke of the lecture
with approval. At that time the subject of our
National debt and taxes seemed 20 mere physical
observers either dull and involved or indefinite as
to impoItancc but Garfield only Thirty five years
old and not worth $4,000 probably. had already
mounted the enemy's works before the enemy had
manned them and began to foresee their argu-
ment, to revive the pro-slavery party through the
burdens Of the people, and discourage the idea that
the debt was an honest one could ever be paid
of. He did not open that debate in Congress- to
draw the support of the public creditor and the
hDancier to himself, but among his people of the
Ashtabula District, whose children he had been
teaching, he forced reflection and laid the founda-
charms to the popular conscience viz. pa wing ap
incalculable debt for which nobody could accuse
himself personally
Garfield was not too soon the next year came
out the PendetOn patent to pay the interest on the
debt IN unredeemable promissory notes. On that
issue Pendlcton for the Presidential nomination
two years later. Perhaps the first district in the
West to be instructed on the connection between
morals and finance General Garield's. The
West had peculiar weaknesses concerning this debt
because the bonds held by the general creditor
in the East and it seemed reasonable to the farmer
that money good enough for his potatoes was good
enough for that citzencreditor As school master
In politics. in elementary things the President is
to take his place. He schooled the men of his Dis
trict like the children and when ten years after
ward weak Republicans exclaimed: Let us not
take up the currency question: because the people
are crazy for initation,' voices went up from the
western Rcserve:" Tell us about hard money" and
Governor Allen went down before the smooth coin
sent from the sling of the young David General
Hayes. Garfield had prepaid the ground. He was
not only the first schoomaster that ever reached
the PTcsidcncy-a formidable list of statesmen
were of that calling, like General Cass. Thaddeus
Stevens, MIR. Blaine, Mr.. Chase, Mr.. Trumbull
George Bancroft 5. PrentIss, Horace Maynard,
and Generals Sherman and Schofield but he was
the schOonaster in the presence of death only a
week ago. He his way to a school com
menccment when wounded. his wife was his dear
pupil at Hiram. and he said to the telegraph messen
ger as he lay with cold feet and his flesh ploughcd
with lead, "My boy. say sympathy ,cith me- not
sympathy for me! Always stick to your e,rammarv
The episode of his life on the canal towpath was
short and scarcely relevant. Poor boys will do days
work anywhere for adventure, if not for money
1t is as an instructor in the warm, glowing sense of
one inspired to teach, loving the boys and girls
enraptured with his studies aad apostolic to
communicate them. that Garfield rises from the
bare village lyceum aud fugitive occupation in
little schoohouses to the rank of orator Senator
and President. His very title is more intellglbi
now in that it is held by the head of every college,
KNOWING THE scHooLMAsTER.
In the following spring encountered in the clerk
of CONGRESSES private office at the American Capitol
the lecturer on finance. A large man. with some
thing of the shape of Western horses rather corn
fed with the tasses of the said in his beard
his body filed out everywhere yet not fat and
military exercise denoted in the strong greeves of
his thighs, his heavily booted feet, his massive
chest firm neck, salreurs forehead. He wore a dark
gray walking suit. little shy, or apprchensve,
DR. preoccupied, AMI yet little inqusitive. He had
some work elsewhere to do perhaps ut that minute
At thrty-six schoolmaster but recently sent to
Congress has not settled his character The world
is too clever for him. and successive acquaintances
nj some distinction daze him. as schooboys used to
run behind woodpies at the sight of that prodi-
gous thing, a member of Congress- Relatively
nnimportant / was, had New York connections
with institutions not of his party and all h,s press
acquaintance were then Western. The Editor of
IRE TRIBUNE was Cincinnati writer ut that time
Though only fifteen years ago it was in the under
graduate time of more than half our present public
characters. Cornelius Vanderbilt was still u ship
NJ,