Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-09-15
President Hayes and His Admin
istratiOn.
From an article in the Atlantic Monthly by Hon.
Jacob D. Cox of Ohio1

Jacob D. Cox Of Ohio.1
President Hayes put himself beyond the
temptation to court favors, in Congress or
out of it, by his simple and honest adher-
ence to his original withdrawal from fur
ther candidacy. He did not daily with the
matter, or show the slightest wish to change
his resolve. He did not encourage, but re-
PEELED, suggestions that the determination
was ill-advised. He put the thing behind
him once and forever. We shall do well
to study his administration carefully from
this point of view. 1t is an object lesson
in the essential difference there is in the
whole spirit of government when it is alb
solutely free from the suspicion of an ute
rior purpose to aid personal ambition.
Its duties ran on from day to day in
wholesome independence and vigor. 1t
had no need to slur the expression of duty
or to soften its demand for the right. Its
recommendation were known to be honest,
and not warped by cunning policy. 1t gave
those who will carefully look at it and
make comparisons with that which had
gone before, an opportunity to see some of
the permanent benefits which would come
from the adoption of the constitutional
amendment fixing the single six-year term.
1t began under a cloud of odium never par
alleled in our history. Its opponents had
been keyed up almost to the point of armed
instruction. 1t steadily silenced its de-
tractors and gained upon their respect, till,
| ;t IaJ
to the proposition that not only was Presi-
dent Hayes precisely the kind of man for
which the presidency calls, but that he had
given the country precisely the kind of adj
ministration that it needed. We do not
need to say that he had been ideal in wis
dom or in power. That was not what was
called for He was well balanced in judg-
ment, teachable in the school of experience,
single-hearted in patriotic purpose, honest
in seeking only the public good, and so
successful in enforcing honesty in his ad-
ministration that not breath of scandal
stained it. The very quietness and mod
esty of it all was one of its chief merits,
and should make his countrymen pray that
such administrations may become the rule
and not the exception.
And from the time that he laid down his
great office till the day of his death, he de-
voted himself with the same quietness, but
the same untiring industry, to the good Of
his country. Looking to education as the
best guaranty for Republican institutions,
he was especially active in the adminstra-
tion of the Peabody fund, and other en-
dowments of popular education in the
South, believing that increase in knowl-
edge and cultivation would go further than
any other influence in removing the antag-
onisms left by the war. Deeply impressed
by his executive experience with the fact
that prisons are too often the schools of
crime, he gave unstinted labor and time to
the work of prison reform. The hard fate
of the Indians had excited his sympathy,
and his aid was freely given to every effort
for their civilization and fair treatment
He cultivated true comradeship with the
soldiers who had been his companions in
war, though his official messages contained
no recommendation for an enlargement Of
the pension system. From first to last hi:
life was one of consistent and steadfas
obedience to fixed principles and earnest
convictions, and the more intimately i
was known, the more free did it seem from
all subservience to momentary influences
or merely personal ambitions.