The San Francisco call., 1895-05-19
The Life of Samuel j. Tilden.

Solomon fancied that he had fallen upon
a bookmaking age, and undoubtedly he
was right. In any age, however, there can
| be no end to making many books SO
| long as books are living, so long they must
| be recorded. How our Libraries had peen
enriched could some literary light of old,
say, for instance, Ezra the Scribe, have
given us the "Life and Letters of Solomon"
| himself There was bookmaking for you! !!
| There are not enough books in the world
so long as there are unrecorded lives OF
| our great men, Biography will always
| find readers, for needless though we some
| times seem, the science of life is, after all,
the subject in which humanity is most in
terested. There is something fundamental
in the interest good biography always in
! spires among intelligent men and women
| 1t lies at the base of all life and is felt be-
| cause, consciously or unconsclously, we
recognize a oneness, even with greatness
We are vitally and personally interested
| in the causes that have gone to make up
the notable nature. Events apparently
the most insignificant become portentous
in the light of after developments. We
want the facts of ancestry, of training, OF
environment, and, given these, the task OF
building that every mans life represents
becomes to the reader fascinating process.
Such process John Bigelow has devel
oped in his "Life of Samuel J. Tilden,"
lust published in two handsome, sub
stantial volumes, by Harper & Bros
That Mr. Bigelow's ife of Tilden is good
biography goes without saying to those
VIII are 1.miliar with his life of Benjamin
Franklin and of William Cullen Bryant.
1t was his privilege to enjoy almost lie
long friendship with Tilden, and he has
also edited the writings and speeches of
the statesman.
While he who has served his country
well needs. as Voltaire has said, no ances-
tors, yet the fact remains that the men
who leave the greatest impress upon tnelr
times usually have had ancestors and an
authentic ancestral record. Greatness IN
any line of achievement is not sporadic
growth. Its evolution can usually be very
directly traced.
The life of Samuel ]. Tilden is no ex-
ception to this rule. He came of a long
line of honorable ancestry, which it was
one of the pardonable pastimes OF his last
year of life to trace back, In an unbroken
sequence, to the days of the Conqueror.
The Tildens of America date back to
Nathaniel Tilden, who, with his wife and
seven children and seven servants, came
to this country in the Hercules, in 1884.
He was "a man of substance and lmpor-
tance," and men of substance and lmpor-
tance his descendants in this country have
since been. Elam Tilden, greatgreat-
grandson of Nathaniel Tilden, married
Polly Younglove Jones in 1902. and to this
worthy couple was born at New Lebanon,
New York, February 8, 1914, their fourth
child whom they christeneG Samuel Jones
Tilden. a good deal of space is devoted
by Mr.. Bigelow to tracing the. various
or lose fop famiIU connections
all of which makes interesting reading.
Samuel J. Tilden's grandmother was re-
markable woman and exerted large in
huence upon him as young man, but
the relation between the coming states
man and his father, as shown in the book,
is particularly delightful. A good many
letters are printed that passed between
them-full of considerate, kindly friend
ship and good counsel on the fathers part,
of confidence, respect and affection on the
part of the son.
The bent of Samuel J. TiIden's mind
m manifested itself at very early age.
Statesmanship was his ruling interest, and
from the earliest TO the latest years Of his
life Thomas Jefferson was, more than any
other man, his model. His writings shaped
the young mans early thought; the prln-
ciples enunciated by him swayed the states
mans after conduct. When young Tilden
was years old he had severe illness,
WHICH drugs were
from the effects of which he never wholly
recovered. He was always delicate, nearly
always sickly. His whole life was one
long struggle with semi-invalidism. His
education was got between severe attacks
of illness.
His early mental development was re-
markable. He was but Is or 19 years old
when he began writing pamphlets and arti-
cles upon the burning questions OF the day,
and even at that early age he showed the
same keenness of intellectual grasp, the
same power to comprehend principle and
| state it clearly that characterized his ma
| turer powers.
| conviction a Democrat. Throughout his
| lifetime, however, he was never an advo-
| cate of extreme measures when dealing
| with public opinion or sectional interests.
| This characteristic showed itself as early
as 1883, when, some days before the ap-
| pearance of President Jackson's nullifca-
| tion message, he wrote:
81 am decidedly friendly to protective
! system Though not prohibitory one) and
should regret exceedingly to see it aban-
doned, but if it can only be sustained by
producing such deep and settled dissatis-
faction as exists in the South, and which
has enabled a few disappointed dema-
gogues to bring us to the verge of dis
union, it must go. Mutual conciliation
and compromise is preached from every
quarter, but every man seems waiting for
his neighbor to practice it,"
He became, even as young man, one of
the recognized forces of his party in the
State AS a member of the Assembly he
was elected to the convention called to re-
wise the State constitution in 1916, and had
| more than any one else to do with shaping
the provisions of the constitution regard
ing the management of canals, then SO
important feature of his States policy.
When the troublous times of the decade
before the war arose Mr.. Tilden was free
| soiler. He was strongly opposed to the war
itself, cf which he predicted, long before his
fellow-statesmen would believe it, that the
| little cloud on the horizon meant deadly
internecine strife. But earnestly as he
labored to avert the war and to thwart the
| measures that seemed to him calculated to
/ precipitate it, when. without any response
bility on his part the war came, he never
for moment hesitated as to the course he
was to pursue. He felt it was the duty of
every citizen to sustain the Government in
its resistance to territorial dismem berment,
and to this task every energy of his mind
was bent.
/ The second volume of the book is largely
devoted to the ever-memorable Presiden-
tial campaign of 1876 and the long exam
n