The age-herald., 1897-10-12


 saw a congregsltiom made up of the Hers in the lblg wholesale stores of tho neighborhood. Fellows who are helpingi themselves" he said, and sent the pas tor, Dr. Deems, $50,000. Unlike most self made mlsn, Inc placed tl,e highest value upon liberal educsicn and emphaticaa-s 1y lamented lGs own lack of it.
 While am uncompromising friend of tho union during the civil war, he was deep ay interested i'm farmonizing the sections and developing the south when 1t was ever To Bishop McTyedre's plain pre- Eentation of l.she enormous benefits of a university 6n the south he gave l1ospit- able hearing. A sound education equtps young men for broader work and greater usefulness Such an institution of learn- ang was in the line of hdts motto of help ing people to take care of themselves, and he endowed Vanderbilt university with $1000,000. If the good bishop and his associates, foresseing the future, had demonstrate ed the necessity for "a larger sum they would have received it.
 In politics, as in everyithdrg else the commodore was intensely practical and efficient. He revered Washington and believed in Henry Clay.
 The Merrimac and the Monitor revo- lutionized naval architecture. When this first ironclad, sailing into Hamp- ton Roads, crushed and sank the fed eral frfgaIts one after another, there was a panic in New York. A company of merchants, bankers and capitalists from New York appeared the next morning at tfe White House and were at once given audience. by the president. With, in week." said the spokesman, ''the confederate ram will be in our harbor and burn or levy tribute upon our city," We have taken the bonds of the govern- ment and done everything in our power to aid in it's defense. We represent in the men here present three hundred mill lions of dollars and demand, as we think we have the right to, the fullest protection against this peril" MT. Lin coin hesitated a moment and then said, with shrug of his awkward shoulders, "We have no funds in the treasury not much credit and no warship that I know of now which can stand against the Merrimac, but if I had as much money as you say you possess and was as 'skeered as you seem to be, I would go back home and find means of taking care of my property" There was one rich man whose fortune was pecu- liarly in danger who did not go to Wash- ington nor appeal for help. He owned the largest and fastest ship on the ocean He braced her bows with great timbers and then gave her to the gov ernment on condition that she should be hurled alt full spsed against the Mer- rimac. It was a novel application of the ram in naval battle in modern warfare,
 
 struction of both vessels. The arrival of the Monitor and her signal victory prevented this drastic experiment. The Commodore confirmed his gift of the Vanderbilt to the nation. which greatly needed her, and a grateful congress voted him the thanks of the country and commemorative medal for his pa- triotism. d
 The period of the active life of Corne- Illus Vanderbilt was the era of revolu- fion and evolution in our national his--. tory The civil war, and rapidly sue ceeding inventions and discoveries. called for men of great original genius and courage and gave them unexam- psed opportunities. It produced in war, Grant and Lee; in statesmanship, Lln-1 coin; in the pulpit, Henry Ward Beecher; in Journalism, Horace Greeley; in ora tory. Charles Summer and Wendell Phil- lips, Alexander H. Stephens, Henry Winter Davis and Henry w. Grady; and in the industrial and business world men who have left their marks upon every state and city in the Union. Op- portun1ties for large enterprises and vast fortunes were frequent in the mighty upheaval occasioned by the de- struction of old methods and machinery, and the reduplicaltion of force in the application of steam and invention or power, the rapid settlement of statss and creation of cities. Such conditions can never occur again. Few of the men who ruled like soverefgns in their re. spectiye spheres were worthy types of American manhood. But the Commo- dore, chief of them all in the success or his undertakings and in the continuing victories of his campaigns, was in his public spirit, his sterlng integrty. his fidelity to his associates in the great enterprises he built up and his rugSed patrictism, the best representative or the se'. '.-made man.