Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1883-01-31
GAMBETTA.
A Statesman who Saved his Country.

The death of Gambetta leaves France
without any statesman OF eminent
ability or wide popularity, any whose
voice has been listened to by the nation
at large, or who has stamped his own
individuality on It's history. The death
of Bismarck or of Gladstone would
leave similar blank with more imme-
date perturbing results, but without
the same suggestion of an unfinished
career or of possible future crisis, like
those Of the past, which no one still left
would be competent to grapple with.
There can be no doubt as to which of
these three men has shown the highest
capacity and achieved the greatest
work. Without Bismarck it is impos-
sible to believe that the chief power in
Europe to-day would be newly founded
German empire, nodded out OF discor-
dant elements and established through
q military prowess which was itself the
creation as we'll as the instrument of a
policy equally daring, far.sighted, and
astute. No one imagines that Gladstone
could have performed a feat OF this
kind but even his opponents must ad.
NIT that no parliamentary leader has
ever controlled and held together o
body of followers of more divergent
views and sentiments, or gained a
stronger influence over the masses OF his
countrymen, or been able to shape leg
islation in closer conformity to his own
ideas of right and expediency. Gam
beta cannot be ranked with either the
founders or the successful administra-
tors of governments. Neither he nor
Theirs nor any one else can be said to
have established republic which owed
its existence to the sheer force of events
and the proved impossibiity ofreyiving
institutions utterly defunct.
His failure to unite discordant fac
tions in support Of common policy,
to impose his own will on the legisla'
ture, to retain the position for which he
had been designated by the general
voice and which he had seemed to oc.
cupy as of right, sufliced, in the eyes OF
many persons, to discredit all his claims
to craftsmanship and reduce him to the
level of an obstructive agitator. But it
is not on his defects or his failures that
the glance of posterity will dwell. 1t
may be that he was only the man for
emergencies, for the slime Of danger"
not for shat OF difficulties" to use the
distinction employed by himself, not
perhaps without inward forebodings,
when the dividing line was reached
Not the less were the qualities which
he displayed, such as appeal most
strongly to the imagination, and the
part he took in the events of his time
that which will be recalled with the
deepest interest.
The man who alone in the presence
of overwhelming defeats and perils did
not despair of his country, who inspired
it with fresh courage and nerved its
crippled arms to fresh exertions, who
saved it at least from abject humiliation
and all but turned back the tide of in
vasion, will assuredly fill no mean place
in history. And the cool frmness
which he evinced at later crisis proved
that his was no mere impulsive nature,
unguided by insight or incapable OF
self restraint. 1t was through Gambet-
ta's policy of "opportunism" that tho
republic was enabled to divest itself OF
ominous associations without condemn
ing itself to sterility, to enter on the
path of progress without giving pre-
text for reaction, and to inspire that
confidence in it's stability at home and
abroad which was the one thing needed,
and which time may be trusted to diff
fuse and deepen. Nor should it be
forgotten that Gambetta, like the two
men of former period who belong to
the same type, Mirabeau and Danton,
has persisted prematurely; that he
sprang into power unaided and at a
single bound, and played the part which
will give him an enduring fame at an
age when few statesmen in other coun-
tries are intrusted with serious respon-
sibilities; and that when the full histo-
ry of his later years is disclosed, it may
be expected to reveal not a mere
story of weaknesses and mistakes, but
one of obstacles and embarrassments
such as might have baflled the strongest
spirit. Some perception OF this, some.
thing akin to sentiment of remorse,
had, we suspect, share with the more
common feeling that drew the immense
concourse of mourners to his funeral.
Certain it is that whenever again day
of darkness and danger falls upon
France, the first thought OF the nation
will be one of regret that there is no
Gambetta to meet it. And in times of
peace and security he will have an equal
right to be remembered, not only as
the most fervent and sanguine Of patri.
OTIS, but as a republican full of ardor yet
devoid of fanaticism.