, 1884-06-24
A M PUZZLE.
Some of the Achievements of George
Francis Train
Traits OF nm I~ridescent Mind
Strangely Balanced Between
Lunncy and S-uperhuman -~
sPsychoAp


tCor. st. Paul Pioneer Press
Some thoughtful but unknown friend has
sent me George Francis Trains HNew Bill
Tweed" which made its appearance on
W~ashington's birthday. 1t is a production
as anomalous as the Madison square philoso.
pher himself. 1t is curious how people in the
interior are puzzled by such characterz. The
Great American Traveller, Daniel Pratt, and
the crushed tragedian, Count Johannes,
were never fully appreciated as far west rs
the Mississippi valley; and che editor of the
New Bill Tweed will go down to his grave
as the Coming Dictator. who never dictated
anything to anybody. II Goethe could have
seen and talked with Train we should haye
had a greater than Wilhelm Meister or Faust
His iridescent mind is so balanced between
lunncy and ~superhuman sense that it t. files
analysis and is the despair Of m~etaphysL-
clans.
To realize this, read column after column
OF his mingled wisdom and drivel, and re-
member that the same mind thirty years ago
gave Australia the finest stage coach system
in the world, and later her present railways
and te~legraphs. 1t was Train who gave us
the Union Pacific, engineered its finances in
the face OF sneering doubt, and created the
Credit Mobilier. Three years before Cakes
Ames' memorandum book was in existence,
Train invited Garfield into his Credit Foncier,
and tho dead president would have accepted il
he had had the necessary money. 1t was Train,
too, who got James Brooks into the
Credit Mobiisr. not as a bribed con-
gresham, but as an honest CAPT
talist Brooks died in a cloud therefor. 1t
was Train who vanquished the Watchdog OBJ
position Of Charles A Damn, Holman and
Elihu Washburne, and put through tho
Union Pacific subsidy.
IL was Train who started the first line of
ntreet-cnra in ENGLAND nj pirkauh.ad oa.r
Liverpool, John Stephenson building his cars.
The popular opposition brought on a riot, the
tracks were torn up, and the concern went
bare OF dividends for twenty years; but is
now, of course, hourishing. The street-car
is now a settled institution in all the cities of
Europe, but it was the erratic American who
took the idea over to them.
1 remember a charming conversation about
George Francis Train several years ago with
Mrs, A. d. I. Whitney, New England's best
producer Of the ideal young woman's novel.
George was n cousin of Mrs Whitney, whose
maiden name was Train. From ~urchinhood
he was queer. Left parentless, his uncle, Mrs.
Whitney's fathe-, undertook to give him a
home and educauLp. For a year he staid in
his counting room, aud but for his leaving
would have received promotion. The first
his friends knew, how sver, he had quit and
gone TO driving q grocr RS wagon-to gain a
thhhce, ho salu, 70 Auuy human nature
From this he went to sea and from that he
wandered inland, always studying human
nature, aud himself affo ding others much
TO study in the same lin His Boston rela-
tives heard nothing from him for years.
His oddity was shown when he was to sail
for England on the way to Australia In 1853.
He and his wife went Off leaving their first
aud only child dead at thor rooms, and
friends had to step in and bury it
The Dictator is apparently penniless nova
days, and his bills are paid by his children,
who are well supplied with fortunes. Bar
mum recently made a genuine offer of $780,
600 to get George Francis to lecture one year
in the United States and Europe, and doubt
less could make money with him even at that
high figure. There are few more graceful
and brilliant speakers living, while his fund
Of observation and reference, to say nothing
OF "psychos," makes what he says worth
hearing. H