The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-03-20
THE COMING PRESIDENT.

Some Reflections Concerning the Young
Man Who May He President Of tho
United States.
The Drawer would like to know, and
like to have a communication from, the
young man who has just attained his
majority who will, at a date we need
not now fix, be President of the United
States. The young man exists some
where, and We hope he is in training for
his high Office. On the 9Th of January
last Prince Edward of Wales, who is
predestined. if all goes well with him, to
be King of England, came of age. He is
marked and set apart; he is under GER
tain bonds of behavior; his education to
be King must seriously begin, and all
England is interested in it; it will
watch every action and criticise every
tendency. He is no longer free man,
and he can not be self-supporting; there
is no occupation he can enter on for
gaining livelihood consistent with his
coming dignity. The Government must
vote him an annual supply of money.
begin to play his role. Ii he is lad of
spirit, he must chafe under this espion-
age, this restraint, and the limitations
of his dependent condition. His sub
jects 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 shil-
ling, or put him one side altogether.
Subjects? To what, alasi has the King
business come in this nineteenth century?
Our American lad-who may be
reading this paragraph about himself,
for we trust that he can read, and has
not, like Andrew johnson, put off this
elegant accomplishment till after his
majority-is under no such limitations
rs 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 in
stance, 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 ruler, more potent for four
years than the hing of England, over
100, 900, 900 of people, and have TO exc
cute the affairs of the most vigorous
empire in existence. If he now ex-
poets this honor it is safe to say he will
be disappointed, for the voter now-a-
days 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 him! What 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 Presi-
dent? If he is in college, how self
conscious the tutors would be when
they marked him, and how impossible
it would be for him to acquit himself
well at football with the eyes of the
Nation on him! With what content
could he humbly follow a mule on a
canal tow-path, which he may at this
moment be doing, with credit to him
self. and with an eye to the appearance
of this achievement in his biography.
Is the young man a deputy-sheriff? Is
he waiting for clients with his heels on
the table in some country law-office?
Is he just beginning to concern him
self with ward politics with the idea
that the gentleman in politics - is to
be the winning card in the future? Is
he teaching school with view of dis
charging his college debts? or is he
up college debts without any
view of teaching school to discharge
them? Or has he gone into farming in
the West, in order to come forward as
at the right moment, leav-
ing his steam gang-plow 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
But if we knew him, how
we would be about him! If he
is poor-and the chance is that he is
poor and at serious disadvantage
about his educltion-would Congress
vote him $4,000 year in order to put
him in training for his great place, so
that the Nation need not be ashamed
of him when he comes into the White
House? The President of the United
States ought to be able to write English,
and to speak three or four languages
besides his own-at least French and
German and Spanish. Prince Edward
of Wales is being educated for his po-
sition. The probability is that he is not
any brighter than our expected Presi-
dent, who is struggling along unknown
and unaided, but he is being trained in
the knowledge that will be most useful
to him. 1t would be very Notifying
to us if we knew how ignorant our
young man may be at this moment,
as ignorant of history and politics as of
social usageS. We should all want
hand in his education; we should want
to mark out his career. We should
probably spoil him.
Lightly as it may be treated, this is
really very serious matter. The young
man is living here, and is well known
10 some of US. And as no decent young
man can be sure that he is the man,
what follows? Why, that every young
man ought to conduct himself in such q
manner that his biography, when his
life is written, will be pleas
ant reading, and so that he will be in
some measure fitted for the Office to
which he is to be elected. This is not
piece of moralizing; it is matter of
In order to carry on a
republic successfully, the general aver
AGE of conduct and ability must be high.
Ii we were able to pick out our man
now and set him apart and train him.
ne could get on as well as they do in
England, and it would not be much mat
.er what became of the other young
fellows Rut the risks of Our position are