The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-01-25

| TRY ana uncompromls1ng devotion to lb-
erty He is pre-eminently the hero of the
common people They now realize his faults
as they did not for years after his death.
but they honor him none the less for his
virtues.
| The reputation of an American president
who accomplishes great things has 10 pass
! through three stages. While he is in Office
/ or political action his enemies assaiI him
with unrelenting fury, and his friends too
often defend him by frantic eulogy or
weak and absurd apology. Death silences
I the critics and creates a new and far more
| cultured class of eulogists, who vie with
| each other in piiing up rhetorical periods
of praise till the real character is totally
| lost, and the Jackson or Lincoln of popu-
| lar song and patriotic eulogy is as much q
mythical character as Romulus or Lycur-
gus The third generation comes, sweeps
away both detraction and eulogy, and
forms tolerably just opinion. We now
have this view of jackson, not yet of Lin
coin. Fifty years from now Americans
will hold view of the latter which would
be simply amazing to men of this time if
they could foresee it.
Illustrative of this principle is the fact
that some of the most extraordinary points
in Jackson's composition quite escaped his
cotempOraries. and have but lately been
made prominent by his biographers. His
parents were Irish, but not Celtic. For
many generations they had dwelt near the
famous Rock of Fergus" and the "BlUe
Presbyterian" tenacity which is inherent
in that people showed in every important
act of Jackson's life. He had never-judg-
ing from the evidence at Communicated
the life of Cromwell or of any of listers
unyielding contestants, yet in every fiber
of his being he was one of them. OF sci
ence, even the rudipents, he was amusing
ly ignorant, and yet Of matters within his
range of observation his judgment was
scientifically exact.
He was of southern birth and rearing
and truly national sympathies. He grew
up in so rough school of frontier manners
that his opponents described him as saw
age in civilized clothing, and even his
warmest supporters in the older states
dreaded the social ordeal for him at Wash
ington; yet the testimony is unanimous
that he eXcelled in courtesy, was never at a
loss in the most cultivated society, and
particularly charmed the ladies of Wash
ington by his suave and courtly bearing.
When the heated campaign of 1892 closed,
no man was more cordially hated in New
England than Andrew Jackson. A few
months later, by his firm action on nuliifi-
cation and the claims against foreign pow
ers, he had gained a popularity there
greater than that of Webster-a populari-
ty scarcely shaken in his long struggle
with their favorite United States bank.
1t adds not little to our admiration for
Jackson's achievements to learn land it is
a fact too often Overlooked) that he was
never really well man. The wound in
his head, inflicted by British officer in
1881, when he was but IA years old; the
prison fever and smallpox which fol-
lowed, and the unskillful treatment gave
his constitution a shock from which it
never recovered. The smallpox eruption
On him and his brother Robert was but
started when they had to walk all day in a
cold, drenching rain. In two days Robert
jackson was a corpse and Andrew raving
maniac. It fills one with indignation and
disgust to read the particulars of the
treatment" There is a suspicion among
medical men that George Washington was
bled to death; it is absolutely certain that
Andrew Jackson was blod and calOmeled
TO the graves verge, and only kept out Of
it by an iron will and a Scotch-Irish con
stitution.
His physicians completed their work by
instructing him in the symptoms, indicating
blood letting as a remedy and showing
him how TO bleed himself. Many time
while III the White House, when he awoke