Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1885-02-26
SpecuIations Concerning the Coming
President who has just attained
his Majority.

We would like to know, and ike TO
have a communication from, the young
man who has just attained his majority
who will, at date we need not now hx,
be President of the United States. The
yosnp man exists somewhere, and we
hope he is training for his high office.
On the sth of January last Prince Ed
ward of Wales, who is predestlned. II
all goes well with him, to be King OF
England, came of age. He is marked
and set apart; he is under certain bonds
of behavior; his education to be king
must seriously begin, and all England
is interested in it; it will watch every
acton and criticse every tendency. He
is no longer free man, and he cannot
be self-supporting there is no occupa-
ton he can enter on for gaining live>
libood consistent with his coming dig
nifty. The government must vote him
an annual supply of money, and he
must have an establishment, and begin
to play his role. If he is lad of spirit,
he must chafe under this espionage, this
restraint, and the limitations of his de-
pendent condition. His subjects hold
the purse string; his subjects demand
that he shall be this and shall not be
that; his subjects have now the ballot,
and can cut him off with a shilling, or
put him one side altogether. Subjects +?
To what, alasl has the king business
come in this nineteenth century?
Our American lad-who may be read
ing this paragraph about himself, for we
trust that he can reed, and has not, like
Andrew Johnson, put off this elegant
accomplishment till after his majority
is under no such limitations as his
English brother, Edward OF Wales. Bill
of the United States-for we have no
fiction by which he would be called by
some fictitious title, for instance, Bill of
Nicaragua-is probably unconscious of
his high destiny. By the time he takes
the chair at Washington, or wherever
the chair then stands, he will be the rus
Ter, more potent for four years than the
King of England, over 1O0,OO0,000 of
people, and have to execute the affairs
of the most vigorous empire ia existence.
If he now expects this honor, it is safe
to say he will be disappointed, for the
voters nowadays never choose a man
who lays pipes for the place in advance.
1t is safe to say that he is ignorant of
his destiny.
If it were otherwise, if we all knew
the young fellow just come of age who
is to be President by and by, what an
embarrassment it would be for us and
for himl What a life he would lead
with the reporters of the newspapers! !!
How could he escape the snares laid for
him by the mothers who would like to
be the mothers-in-law of a President !?
If he is in college, how self-conscious
the tutors would be when they marked
him, how impossible it would be for him
to acquit himself well at foot ball with
the eyes of the nation on himl With
what content could he humbly follow a.
mule on canal tow-path, which he may
at this moment be doing, with credit to
himself and with an eye to the appear
ance of this achievement in his biogra-
ply. Is the young man deputy sheriff 2?
Is he waiting for clients with his heels
on the table in some country law Office
Is he just beginning to concern himself
with ward politics with the idea that
"the gentleman in politics" is to be the
teaching school with view of discharg-
ing his college debts or is he running
up college debts without any view of
teaching school to discharge themP Or
has he gone into farming in the West,
or in order to come forward as Cincin>
natus at the right moment, leaving bis
steam gang -plough in the furrow?
All roads in the United States lead to
the Presidency, and it is impossible to
tell what road our young man is trav-
cling. But if we knew him, how uBea-
BY we should be about himl If he is |
poor-and the chance is that be is poor,
and at a serious disadvantage about his
education Congress vote him
s15, 900 year in order to put him in
training for his great place, so the ma
ion need not be ashamed of him when
ae comes into the White House, The
President of the United States ought to
,e able to write English, and to speak