The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-03-05
THE PLoDDERs IN LIFE.
Some Instances in Which They Fave
Distanced the Brilliant Ones.
From, the PHILADELPHIA T

NEW YORK, Feb. 24-"Give me a we'll
drilled heart that trots me steadily on and
never risks my neck, is one of the lines that
pretty Mrs. Edith Kingdom Gould used to
say when she played the fascinating widow
in Love on Crutches.n
"Ah," replied Ada Rehan in her most win
ming way, ''but it's pleasant to jump the
hedges of the beaten track now and then
and roam where fancy wills"
"Of course it's pleasant, my dear" the
widow rejoined, but how are you going to
get backr'
There's the rubin life as well as in
love.
You'll have to go on crutches in the end
If you keep jumping the hedges for brilliant
dashes across the fields ito Already, where
all the leaves are merry" It's all right
going out; the trouble comes when the
leaves turn and you start to go back; then
you find yourself side-tracked for life, and
the beaten path, once SO dreary and tire
some, looks so fresh aud promising as you
see others trudging along its narrow way,
that you make jump to clear the hedges
and there you are-on crutches. The pro-
cession moves on without you.
If we could all go gamboling over the
fields plucking only the sweets and roses
of life, this would be a merry world in
deed. But we can't Ambition, pride or
avarice makes us all competitors for the
joys of life There are not enough to go
round, and the cup of sorrow, dissap-
pointment or remorse must be drained by
some.
WHO drains it,
Certainly not the ''plodder." Let any
body take the successful men whose careers
are within the range of his personal ac-
quaintance, and how many of them have
won their way except by "plodding." Read
the lives of the great men In any line, ex-
cept, possibly, literature and warfare, and
almost without exception you will find that
their days were a ceaseless round of toll
and plodding of the most tiresome sort.
There are no rockets or meteors among
them. Yet it would be untrue to infer that
they found no pleasure in their pursuits.
They were the sweets of life to them, and
they slipped them. To others, the details of
their work would be rank poison. The
brilliant man, always achieving some great
end, who would march to Moscow before
he Is secure in his own borderland, laughs
away these plodding toilers. Sometimes
he gets there, as did Napoleon, but at what
a cost! Sometime or other, though, be-
fore the end, there comes Waterloo, when
the guns of the plodder bear down on him
even while he treads his primrose path
of dalliance, and he's snuffed out like a
candle.
Take the successful men in statecraft
Grover Cleveland, for instance As Presi-
dent, he is the foremost American citizen.
Make a mental photograph of him sitting
at his desk in his shirt-sleeves until mid
night, porting over his work with as close
attention to detail as he gave to his duties
as Sheriff when he cut the hangman's rope
himself instead of allowing a deputy to
perform that unenviable detail. AS Sheriff,
Mayor or Governor, Mr.. Cleveland was for
years persistentlv and continuously a
drudge. He goes at his labors in his shirt
sleeves, and not in dress suit. No bright
lights of genius illumine his career, as we
look back at it, nor is the stroke of mas
terhand one whit more visible in his public
messages than it was in the blow with which
he sent two wretches to eternity out in Buff
falo fifteen years ago. The milestone on his
path have not been passed with a rush, in a
golden chariot with prancing steeds. More
like the traveller who, tired and dusty,
counts them and with sigh plods YEARLY
on to the next. Yet this ''ploddern was
pitted against man whose brilliancy no
one questions, the idol of party, the leader
almost of nation. Accident, fate or the
peoples caprice, as each may view the con-
test of 1884 gave the victory to Mr.. Cleve-
land over Mr.. Blaine, and the latter de-
feated in an election for the first time in his
life Mr. Cleveland won the highest gift
in the peoples keeping and the hand of
lovely young girl. Both are his to-day.
What more happiness can the world
give, what better reward for years of plod-
ding9
MEN IN THE CABINET.
His Cabinet with two exceptions, are men
of the same mould-plodders.
Neither Mr.. Endicott nor My Whitney
achieved his prominence by his own efforts.
One was born into 1.-THE other married
into it. But take Lamar. Where can be
found a stronger type of plodder than he2
His whole habitation is in the clouds,
among books and students closets The
strongest reason urged against his appoint
ment as a Cabinet officer was that he was
plodder. who never mixed with the world.
His 20 odd years have been spent out of the
ordinary channels. Brilliant2 Not a bit of
itl He is able, learned and a success in life.
That he has scarcely passed his honey
moon days is sufficient assurance that he
is suprernely happy. Thus another plodder
has both happiness and succesS-and that,
too. in the evening of life, when the ''bril-
liant" man is generally but a Pickering,
sputtering spark of his former self.
Pick out the few men who really control
Congress and direct its legislation. l don't
mean the ora; ors and the wits. They are
the headlights-the brilliants, whose names
and talk are run through the newspapers
and fill up the Congressional Record.
Sam Randall is not among these. He never
made brilliant speech nor charmed the
crowded galleries with winning tongue.
Follow his days work and you'll find that
it is filled with routine labor over never
ending details. Yet Randall toiling and
drudging into the midnight hours that
others gives to pleasure comes into Congress
next day and practically controls it. The
fate of policy in which the whole coun-
hands He is the balance of power and as he
goes so goes the victory. 70 a friend who
recently asked him how he had got on in
life the Philadelphia Congressman replied
"By work. lie had mastered great prob
lem by living among books and figures
when others were with more pleasant com
panions, and now that it comes to a pitched
battle ON the greatest question of the day
Mr. Randall is in a position to dictate terms
to both sides.
The Father Of the House, William d. Kel-
ley, is a plodder from way back. He has
been trudging along since l84l, which is the
date on his first economic publication. How
many brilliant lights have outshone him
for a time during the years since them Yet
the veteran Philadelphia s1ines to-day
with added lustre, while the others have
passed away, and he leads his party in Con-
gress in defense Of their principles. Senator
Morrill,, Of Vermont, Is a name that seldom
creeps into the popular mind, yet he is the
author of more legislation than ony other
man who ever sat in Congress. There is no
brilliancy about him ana there never was,