The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-02-10
THE DAYS OF TIPPECANOE.
Veteran Wings Celebrate the 18th An
niversary of Their Famous Leader.
An Entertaining and Instructive Address to
the Tippecanoe Club by Berry Il. Sui
%grovc-The Great Campaign of 1910.

TIE IlppecdnOe CluD Dy Derry IL. OuI-
gr0ye-The Great Campaign of 1910.
Yesterday being the 18th anniversary of Gen.
VIM. Henry Hafrison's birth, the monthly meet
ing Of the Tippecanoe Club, in the Mayors
court room, was of unusual interest. There was
a large attendance of the venerable members
and they manifested the keenest interest in
Berry Sulgrove's address on the life and times of
their hero. Mr.. Sulgrove read as follows:
Mr.. President and gentlemen of the Tippeca-
noe Club:-We Americans are the most devout
and the most capricious of hero-worshippers.
When we make anything of a man we make too
much of him. We make nothing of him if we
can't make him a demi-god. There is no meas
ure or moderation in our adulation. We either
mount a man. on an altar, and smothershim with
incense, or we push him into the mud and refuse
to recognize him in the dirt we have covered him
with. General Grant died on the altar of
national worship. For the first two years of his
career there were more who believed with Reid,
Of the New York Tribune. that he was "a man
OF m = asnss,. luck saa than b eom 9 he
General Mcclellan was the object OF
universal fattery for the lone complete
campaign of the war" as a Chicago paper de-
scribed it, the campaign of West Virginia, and
that was planned and nearly completed by Gen.
OAA = RVk0AO hSAAOAi0 OfOI q
Virginia. But he dropped from his elevation
when he retreated before Richmond, and fell
from a national idol to the level of a party pet.
At one time we all compared Sigel's retreat in
Missouri to Moreau's retreat through the Black
Forest, and then we dropped him into the OBJ
security of a brigadier's place, with little to do
and nothing to win. The same caprice makes
man the pet of one party and the derision of
the other. That is not a feature of political diff
ferences peculiar to this country by any means,
but we have il in a moro ayappAp4tad form The
Democrats saw little more than q rascal in
Blaine, the Republicans little more than a BOBBY
and q lecher in Cleveland, and each, for the
time, was honest and ready TO swear to its con-
v~iction.
No man in the political history of this country
has more signally illustrated this natural charac-
teristic than Gen. William Henry Harrison.
During the last years of his life he was as nearly
vast body of adherents. During the preceding
quarter of a century it was remembered that he
had existed and done the State some SERVICE"
as Othello says, and that was all. Yet, for more
than half of the time he was constantly in pub
lie life as a member of the Ohio Legislature, a
member Of one house or the other of Congress,
aud as a minister to a South American State.
1t was almost like a resurrection when he
was dug out Of the obscurity of the
clerks Office of Hamilton county. Ohio,
and set against Van Buren, in 1886.
There were thousands of voters who
had not entered this mortal world when he
smashed the formidable confederacy, headed by
Tecumseh, by the victory at Tippecanoe, and
completed the work of Gen. George Rogers
Clark in the Northwest territory by smashing
the English and Indian alliance under Proctor
and Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames, two
years later. To them their gen sral, the hero of
Tippecanoe and the father Of the Northwest,
was hardly more than a myth or a legend. Dur
ing twelve years he had ruled a new and turbu-
lentterritory, disordered by wild frontiersmen and
harrassed by conflicts between the natives and
settlers, and ruled it with prudence and the Of
feet of security and good government little less
than was assured to the communities on the At
lantic slope.
A difference with a fussy Secretary of War
forced him from the army soon after his success
in Canada, and the popularity that still held him
up for support in Ohio was tied there. and he
dropped from the position of a national to a local
hero, and then dropped into a county Office, to
make a bare living. In all probability he would
have remained there, if the popularity of Gen
eral Jackson had not repealed Mr.. Clay. in 1886,
from the contest for the presidency with Jack
sons heir-at-law and the executor of the "Old
Hickory" dynasty, Van Buren,. But Clay would
not fight; Webster couldn't, for nobody out of
Massachusetts, wanted him; and in the stress Of
Wing demands for q candidate to Offset
the forgotten hero of Tippecanoe was
evolved. Yet even this was regarded rather as a
convenience than q dependence. The party was
ready to use him but not to idolize him.. That
cQdQC0 came Wneu Inc uQaNcl3l mlSQapS OF van
Buren's administration and the villainies of his
Prices and Swartaouts had 80 weakened the
jackson dynasty that q defeat was at least not
improbable in 1910. Then Clay wanted the NOM
~ination, and then the Wings, to their honor,
chung to the man who had given them his best
help when it was so manifestly a hopeless aid,
and made him not only their candidate but their
idol-their incarnation of all the virtues and
graces of Western manhood. He had the expe-
rience of a favorite-irst honored, then forgot
IAN Shon paicnd into nor Aictsunf;De ard tnn- fNlA
more honored than ever. General Grant passed
through an experience like this, but far less de-
cided and marked in the changes. General Har-
rison, / think, stands alone in his experience of
popular adulation and Indifference.
1t is the pretty well settled Judgment of the
country and history that he met alb out equal
injustice in both turns of fortune. He went too
lev in one and too high in the other. He was
unduly neglected and unduiy idolized. He was
not a man of amazing military genius like Ma
poleon or Hannibal, but he was q cautious, safe
and successful commander at a time when a safe
man was worth a planetload of brilliant men.
He was not a statesman to construct systems of
government or methods of administration or to
hold Earring factions in subsection and accord,
like Cromwell OF Richelieu, but he knew how to
hold a wild territory in q safe path of develop
ment and keep it clear of the stumps that stood
thick in its way. He was the right man for his
time and his work, and that is high praise for
Many power less than divinity. What he might
have been if the situation had demanded differ
ent qualities. We can never know. 1t is enough
to know that he did we'll what he found to do.
No one will deny that there is force in hered-
ity. BLOOD" may not ''tell" in the sense that it
is often strained to, but 1t has its influence
somewhere in character or intellect. Because a
very extraordinary man like Burns or Bona
parte may come of unpromising stock, is no
reason that good stock may not produce good
qualities. General Harrison came Of a sturdy
race, devout in religion, resolute in political
faith, honest, courageous and generous. prompt
TO strike and stern to endure. A General Har-
rison was one of Cromwells best lieutenants, and
one of the purest and most conscientious of the
''regicides," who, as Theodore Parker said, first
taught kings that there was a joint
in their necks." He is probably
best known by the portrait, rather overdrawn,
in SCOTS novel of Woodstock" where he ap-
naars q q nna Of the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS sent hu Cronn.