The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-01-25
TWO REpREsENrAr1vE MEN.
Senator Harrison and Ex-senator MeDonaid
Sl1etched by an Artistic Hand. fs~sa

Senator Harrison and Ex-senator MeDonsld
sketched by an Artistic Hand. fayta
Lawrenceburg Press. 1~sC ,ftnl F. aalG.}
We recently saw Ben Harrison and Joe Me-
Donald sitting on the same stage together, and
comparison was inevitable though compafal
sons are said to be odious The part each played
credtable to his heart and his taste. Nc
Donald was Mortons personal friend but polih-
cal enemy Harrison was his political friend
but was personally estranged from him. Nc
Donald, put on the programme officially, did his
part in a way so clumsy and laundering so weak
of voice and weak of manner, that the effect was
painful, and nobody mentioned the matter of his
discourse afterward Harrison, called out by
the great audience. consuming much less time, so
spoke to the heart of the occasion and the audi
ence that it Numbered its cheer to his sentiment
and the State responded from the furtheSt cor
ner to the reverberations of his clarion tongue
and his sympathetic heart.
Mcdonald sat somewhat shrunken in black
suit he once had filed, plainly remnant of
departed age A rounded and rosy corpulence
had become somewhat habby and his thin, long
hair could not give size enough to his head to
suit statesman's place. You could neither find
the height or breadth you sought. The eyes had
fallen in some, and seemed inoffensive holes
His face is beginning to have the dropping
leathery appearance of age, and though pleas
antly benignant, did not seem complete without
a streak of tobacco juice pendant from each
corner of his mouth The figure belonged plainly
to the hog and honiny period of Indiana history;
to the simple days when the typical Indi-
ana farmer hauled his wheat fifty miles,
sold it for fifty cents bushel and paid twenty
five cents yard for calico-a forever honeped
and noble period-but it was thirty, forty fifty
years ago. The mills were on the creeks. There,
was no steam there were no railroads, no fact04
ries no machinery no buggieS,S pianos or thresh-
ing machines in the eountly-no tin-bHeket brig
ade in the cities. There were no cities. But
there was free trade, wildcat banks and Defioc
racy. and robust Representative Mcdonald Yet
shade of the last magnificent twenty five years,
here sits the remains, posing for the presidency
Does the old man know that the son of the farmer
of his time manures his land, sends his sons
and daughters off to college, drives q
reaper and carriage, deposits in
bank sells his wheat for a dollar and finds a
station within five milesl Does the old man
know that every county seat is full of factories,
and that the presidents pick their teeth at four
dollaraday hotels when they travel and send
their wives to the sea-shore in summer Does
he know that the workmen at these factories
know all about political economy, send their
children to the best schools and have Brussels
carpet and piano in the house?
II is impossible to look at him and think that
he knows any of these things have come to pass.
No wonder when he lately delivered an address
on alleged present political economy he began
with the Ph9nicians and before he got down to
the Hoosiers the matter was so uncertain that
our friend of the Recorder remarked There's
nothing in II"
What of Halrison2
Wei, he sat there and spoke as the repre-
sentative of the active intelligence and aspira-
ton of today-representative of the hard think
ing, self-respecting scholarship of Indiana and
the nation. He has eyes that are alive and
head bullying with brains. He belongs, in every
lineament, pose, and apparel to these times. He
sees how it is to-day, and is alert for tomorrow.
He is not a "reminiscences. He is alive and grow
ing now If to morrow puts him into the Whita
House. whatever our divergent views, we shall
all know that man of courage, of nerve, and
of ability is at the helm, and that he knows
what the United States is now.