St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1882-03-11
GARFIELD.
SIafne's Tribute to the Memory of Our
Murdered President.

MR.. PRESIDENT: For the second time in
this generation the great departments of the
Governments of the United States are assem-
oed in the Hall of Representatives to do
honor to the memory of a murdered Presi-
dent. Lincoln fell at the close of mighty
been deeply stirred. The tragical ternina.
ton of his great life added but another to the
iengthened succession of horrors which had
first 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. Whoever shall here
after draw the portrait of the murderer. if he
will show it as it has been exhibited, whose
such example was last to have been looked
for, let him not give it the grim visage of Mo-
ioch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face
black with settled hate. Let him draw rather
decorous, smooth faced, bloodless demon,
with not so much an example of human ma
ture in its depravity and in it's paroxysms of
crime as an internal being--a fiend in the
ordinary display and development of his
character.
From the landing of the Pilgrims at Ply
mouth till the uprising against Charles l.,
about 10000 emigrants came from old England
to New England. AS they came in pursuit of
intellectual freedom and ecclesiastical indie
pendence, rather than for worldly honor and
profit, the emigration naturally ceased when
the contest for religious liberty began in
earnest at home. The man who struck his
by sailing for the colonies in 1920 would have
been accounted u deserter to leave in 1910.
The opportunity had then come on the soil of
England for that great contest which estab
7lished the authority of Parliament gave re-
iigious freedom to the people. sent Charles to
the block and committed to the hands of Oil
yer Cromwell the supreme executive authori-
ty OF England. The English emigration was
slever renewed, and from these 10000 men.
with q small emigration from Scotland and
France, are descended the vast numbers who
r,rr1n l<N0I yy,t univ IN,
1865 the revocation of the edict of Nantes by
Louis XIV. scattered to other countries 100000
Protestants, who were among the most intel
aectual and enterprising of French subjects;
merchants of capital, skilled manufacturers
and handicraftsmen, superior at the time to
all others in Europe. A considerable number
A few landed in New England and became
honorably prominent in its history. Their
names have in large part become anglicized
or have disappeared, but their blood Is trace
able in many of the most reputable families,
and their fame Is perpetuated in honorable
memorials and useful institutions. From
these two sources, the English Puritan and
tue French Huguenot. came the late Presi-
dent. his father, Abram Garfield, being de
seconded from the one, and his mother, Eliza
beth Bailou, from the other. It was good
stock on both sides, none better, none Drawer,
none truer There was in it an inheritance of
of manliness of imperishable love OF
liberty, of undying adherence to principles.
much satisfaetion as if he were a Hritish mo-.
nv
beman reading his stately ancestral record
fin Burlle's Peerage, he spoke of himself as
ninth in descent from those who would not
endure the oppression of the Stuarts, and
seventh in descent from the brave French
Protestants who refused to submit to tyranny
even from the Grand Monarque. Gen. Gar
1ield delighted to dwell on these traits, and
during his only visit to England he busted
himself in discovering every trace of his fore
fathers in parish registries and on ancient
army rolls.
Sitting with friend in the gallery of the
House of Commons one night. after long
days labor in this field Of research, he said.
with evident citation, that in every war in
which, for three centuries, patriots of English
bleod had struck sturdy blows for constitu
'fional government and human liberty, his
family had been represented. They were at
MarstOn Moore, at Naseby, at Preston and at
Monmouth, and in his own person he had bat
tied for the same great cause in the war which
preserved the Union of the United States.
losing his father before he was two years old,
the early life of Garfield was one of privation,
but its poverty has been made indelcately
and unjustly prominent. Thousands of read
ing child, whose reality too often greets the
eye in the squalid sections of our large cities.
Gen. Garfield g infancy and youth had none of
their destitution, none OF eirpitif1l features
same sense in which Henry Clay was poor
boy, in which Andrew jackson was poor
boy, in which Daniel Webster was poor boy;
ln the sense in which large majority of the
eminent men OF America in past generations
have been Door boys. 49, s4s s.
Before great multitude of men, in public
speech Mr.. Webster bore this testimony: at
did not happen to me to be born in a log cab
I'm. but my elder brothers and sisters we're
born in log cabin. raised amid the snow
that when the smoke rose first from it's rude
chimney and curled over. the frozen hills
there was no similar evidence of o white
anan's habitation between it and the settle
nj IN, "a Tiynrs pf Canada raj
still exist. / make to it an annual visit. I
carry my children to it, to teach them the
hardships endured by the generations who
have gone before them ! love to dwell on
the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the
early affections and the touching narratives
and incidents which mingle. with all I know
of this primitive family abode"
With the requisite change of scene the same
words would aptly portray the early days of
Garfield. The poverty of the frontier, where
all are engaged in II common struggle, and
operation tighten the burdens of each, is a
very different poverty, different in kind, diff
8erent in influence and effort, from that con-
scious and humiliating Indulgence which is ev-
boring wealth, ON which it feels a sense of
grinding dependence. The poverty of the
frontier is. indeed; no poverty. 1t Is but the
possibilities of the future always opening be-
fore it. No man ever grew up in the agricul-
tural regions of the West, where a house rails.
fRg, or even corn-husking, is matter of
interest and helpfulness, with any
other feeling than that of a broad minded,
generous independence. This honorable in
marked the youth of Garfield as
1t marks the youth OF millions of the blood
aud brains now training for the future citizen
ships and governmental the republic. Garfield
holder, which has been the patent and pass
port of self respect with the Anglo Saxonrace
ever since Hengist and HOrsa landed on the
shores of England. His adventure on the ca
nal an alternative between that and the deck
of Lake Erie schooner, was farmer boys
device for earning money, just as New Eng
sailing before the mast on a coasting vessel
or on q merchantmen bound to the farther In.
din or China seas No manly man feelsa any
thing of shame In looking back to the early
struggles with adverse circumstances, and no
man feels worthier pride than when he has
the obstacles to his progress But