The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-04-04
THE TWO JOHN BROWNS.
The Hero-Martyr of Harper's Ferry and tho
GiIIie of Windsor Castle.

Gillie of Windsor Castle.
Gath, in Cincinnati Enquirer.
An Englishmap said to me recently
man who had been many years in our coun-
try, and was pretty well satisfied here from
his worldly success and democratic turn of
mind:
"Did you see about the death OF John
Brown"
Ferry?'
"Oh, no; mean the Queens chief groom
and companion"
"Ohl' said |, sis he dead? What killed
him?"
Want of opposition, 1 think. He had
been having his way ever since the death of
the Prince Consort, and continued healthy
for some years because he had some worlds
left 10 conquer. But after a while he bullied
all the courriers out. was the next will to the
Queen in the royal household, and then he
seemed to get gangrened and sicken because
he had no more rivals"
What is the lesson of the death of John
Brown2'
THE American John Brown has left ar
enormous lesson. He is as big man in his
tory as Spartacus, or RienZi, or Judas Mac
cabeus. He never was in a royal court, and
hardly ever in a rich mans house. But he
stored away an enormous thought like mental
dynamite, and carried it around in his breast
till he found the place to explode it, and the
echoes of the explosion are heard yet along
the whole line of the Appalachian range. He
was the simplest kind of man. He had read
few books, the Bible chiefly, had been once
to Europe, probably going over in the steer
age of a ship, and looked into military ques-
tons in queer way somewhat; but in the
main he was poor tanner and wool-buyer,
and rather failure in both. Yet he wrote
his name among the very highest in the
world as a man of great original act, honest
and broad in its inception, bold in its exe6l-
ton, totally ineffective in immediate results,
but in its secondary. results like the
execution OF JesuS-an episode of which the
world will never cease to read with admira-
ton, You cannot compare John Browns
act with that of Joan of Arc, for instance
the great episodical heroine Of France
She had the King at her side when she rode
to battle Brown had all the Governors and
the President and almost his own family
against him. He did not strike merely pa
triotic blow to redeem his country, but to
give their rights 10 the lowest OF mankind
John Brown, of Windsor Castle, was lackey
all his days. and vet he is more in the line OF
ambition of some of the richest men in
America than John Brown of Harper's
Ferry"
you are satirica" said l.
"Oh, no. The Scottish John Brown was Al. /
ways at the head of society. He was with
his sovereign and her family when nobody
else could get in. He had nothing to
do with the newspapers, and would not give
an item away about.the court, The Queeny
wrote about him in her books He went pic |,
nicking with the Queen. Now, don't youil
suppose that on Fifth avenue, New York \
there are 900 persons who would Ike g.
| have been in John Browns boots, and beet1
lackey to some princess or person of TIL
tle2 Yet not one on that avenue would havi
stood at the side of John Brown in any 81
mis- trials, magnificent as they were. 1 meai
John Brown, of Harpers Ferry"
What do you infer from this singular an
tithesis?''
why, 1 infer that the respectable side
life, as it calls itself in the United States,
going TO be forever destined to disappoint
ment The doctrnaires, the respecters
persons. the social Pharisees those who cal
themselves the better element of the Reput
lican party, and the old regime of the Demo
cratic party, are merely the Scottish JOIN
Browns, content to be classed up somewhere
near the hollow effigy of Queen, while tn
great characters who move the age and give
human nature pyramids to reckon by come.
out of the simplest class, are often men VIII
have no scientific accuracy, who are not p
ltical economists, and who do not live
their opinions instead of their deeds. Tt
Democratic heroes will always belong to I'll
common-nasal horny type of John Brow
of Harper's Ferry. instead OF the type
John Brown of Windsor Castle" II