The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-05-01

CLEVELAND AND THE BALL PLAYERS.
ments common to others are denied them;
! there is no more for them in Office or after
the expiration of their terms such thing
as contentment. 1t is all restlessness, re-
| greet, yearning, vainglorying-som
or other which destroys the possibility Of
true happiness. General Grant was never
happy after leaving the executive man
sion. He sought relief by change of scene
and travelled around the world coming
back to his native land only to suffer his
restlessness to drive him into that unfor-
tunate mistake of trying for a third term
Mr. Hayes probably has come as near be-
ing a contented man after leaving the
White House as it is possible for one to be,
partly because of his temperament and
partly because he had the good sense to put
behind him from the first the ambition to
succeed himself. In that way he saved
himself a large share of the worry with
which the lives of many presidents are
wrecked, but even Mr. Hayes now occu-
pies peculiar position in life and one not
wholly satisfactory. The descent from
that great height of power, the chief mag
lstracy OF the greatest of nations, is too
! much for the human soul TO bear with
| equanimity. 1t is impossible to resume
ones former place in society, to take again
his old view of things, his old interest in
the affairs of life. There is haze of the
past over everything, an involuntary COM
parison of everything that is with that
which has been. The eX-p president reminds
me for all the world of the proud, sensitive
woman who has been very rich, but who is
now very poor. Can contentment ever
come TO her this side the grave? No more
can 1t to the man who has been president
and who is SO fortunate as to still live
Lincoln might have been happy had he
lived, for his work in the presidential Office
had been Of unique character. he might
have found peace in surveying the spec
tacie OF a nation reunited after four years
of the bloodiest and fiercest war the world
has ever known. But ne fell with the shot
OF the assassin, and was more fortunate
than poor Garfield in that he was not com
/ PEELED TO linger and suffer I never so into
/ the Whise House, rich as it is with bright
er recoliecuons but / think of Lincoln's
dead body lying in the great East room,
and of Garfield looking out from his bed of
suffering upon the waters of the Potomac
and the green hills of Virginia beyond and
uneonsciously say TO myself, What is it TO
| be president. anyway"
| The presidency killed William Henry
Harrison. and it killed Lincoln and Gar.
field. Just as surely it killed Arthur. for
it was in the White House that he took in
the germs of the fatal disease. and when
his heart broke because his party would
not renoninate him the end quickly came.
James q. Blaine has sacrificed MANY of
the best years of his life by lingering too
near the presidential candle Now. while
he should be in his prime, his life Of ten
sion, of expectation. of hope, despair. labor,
disappointment, has brought him 70 a con
dition In which his nearest friends would
not at any moment be surprised to hear
the end had coIae.
The presidency OF the United States 5