West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1882-03-08
WEST VIRGINIA FREEMAN.
MIR. RLAINE'S EULOGY ON
PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

4h w. piSoib VI Vic CCOollo
time in this generation the great
departments of the Government of
the United States are assembled in
this Hall of Representatives to do
honor to the memory of murdered
President. Lincoln fell at the
close of mighty struggle in which
the passions of men had been deep
ly stirred. The tragical termina
ton Of his great life aided but an
other to the heightened succession
Of horrors which had marked so
many lintels with the blood of the
frst-born. Garfield was slain in a
day of peace, when brother had
been reconciled to brother, and
when anger and hate had been
banished from the land. "Whoev-
er shall hereafter draw the portrait
of a murder. if he will show it as it
has been exhibited where such ex-
ample was least to have been look
ed for, let him not give it the grim
visage of Moloch, the brow knitted
by revenge, the face black with set
tied hate. Let him draw rather a
decorous, smooth faced, bloodless
demon; not so much an example of
human nature in it's depravity and
in its paroxisms of crime, as an in
fernal being, fend, in the ordi-
nary display and development of
his character"
NorE.-Here, Mr.. Blaine, trac-
ing President Garfeld's descent
back to its sources in the English
Puritan and French Huguenot,
came back with the family through
the wonderful history of our coun-
try, in the historical portion of his
grafton that will preserved in the
future as an invaluable classic.
This, for lack of space, we are COM
PEELED to omit here. Passing over
the orators eloquent tributes to the
murdered Presidents political and
military services and triumphs, we
give, as of most immediate interest
to our readers, who may not read
the grafton entire, the closing por-
ton, beginning with the last Pres
idential campaign.
General Garfield's nomination to
the Presidency, while not predicted
nor anticipated, was not a surprise
to the country, His prominence in
Congress, his solid qualities, his
wide reputation, strengthened by
his then recent election as Senator
from Ohio, kept him in the public
eye as man occupying the very
highest rank among those entitled
to be called statesmen. 1t was not
mere chance that brought him to
this high honor. eve must" says
Emerson, "reckon success as a con-
stitutional trait. If Eric is in ro-
bust health and has slept we'll and
is at the top of his condition, and
thirty years old at his departure
from Greenland, he will steer West
and his ships will reach Newfound-
land But take Eric out and put in
stronger, bo,der man, and his ships
will sail six hundred, one thousand,
fifteen hundred miles further and
reach Labrador and New England.
There is no chance in results"
AS a candidate, Garfield steadily
grew in popular favor. He was
met with storm of detraction at
the very hour of his nomination,
and it continued with increasing
volume and momentum until the
close of his victorious campaign:
sNo might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure 'scape; back -wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous
tongue?"
Under it all he was calm and
strong and confident; never lost his
self-possession, did no unwise act,
spoke no hasty or ill-considered
word. Indeed, nothing in his whole
life is more remarkable or more
creditable than his bearing through
these five full months of vitupera-
tion-a prolonged agony of trial to
a sensitive man, a constant and
cruel draft pom the powers of NOR
al endurance. The great mass of
these unjust imputations passed