The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-12-20
JOHNSON ON THE STUMP.

The clouds of war and of impeach-
ment have obscured in a large meas
ure one of the most singular and strik-
ing features in the dramatis personae
of the stirring days of three or four
decades ago. This man was Andrew
Johnson, the tailor president. 1t was
a remarkable coincidence that brought
the rail-splitter's maui and the tailOr's
goose together in the highest executive
offices of the country. Realizing this
one is apt to think that politics. like
love, levels all ranks" in this free
land of ours. History shows that it is
often the self-made men-the scions of
the people-who are the picturesque
figures of an epoch In 1892 the son of
a GenoeSe wool cOmber made anew the
map of the world by the discovery of
the western continent; in England the
son of a brewer once stepped into the
shoes of a beheaded king and dictated
the policy of that magnificent govern
ment; in France an obscure artillery
man put on the purple of an emperor
and played with crowns as a child
might play with his blocks; and in
America in the middle of the 18th cen
fury, a rail-Splitter and a tailor were
jointly clothed with the power which
the greatest republic of the world gives
only to its chosen rulers.
g. g @
OF the rail-splitter pages and vol
umes have been written, until the
one of the great men of his time. OF
his coworker less is known, partly be-
cause there was less to tell and partly
because people lost sight of some of
his most striking characteristics in the
swirl of political events, amid which
much of his life was spent. Johnson,
the tailor, the legislator the congress-
man. the governor, the impeached pres
ident, all of these are known to us; but
Johnson, the debater, the ready stump
speaker, is comparatively a stranger
outside of his own state. And yet in no
other capacity was he more successful.
There are dozens of stories of his ex-
periences in this line, of his ready re-
tort and keen rejoinder, which are
worth preserving for the biographer or
historian of the future.
The queer little house in which he
was born, and in which he piled his
trade is still a landmark in Raleigh, N.
c. Here it was, after the days sewing
was done, that he taught himself to
read. But a disappointment in love
made the place hateful to him and he
wandered away to Tennessee. Here he
settled in the little town of Greenville,
and, forming a new attachment, he
soon married. His wife taught him to
write and to cipher. In the village there
was a debating society for the enter
tainment of the young people, and in
this society Andrew Johnson made his
initial bow to the world as an orator.
His fame as a debater spread so far
that when, in 1910, Nicholson and Bell
were stumping the state for Van
Buren, and White respectively, the peo-
pie of the neighboring town of Athens
in which these two were billed to
speak-sent to Greenville for the young
tailor to come and answer them. He
went, and stood up that night in the
court house to reply to Bell, who, as
soon as he finished speaking, had taken
his hat and gone, deeming this raw
tradesman unworthy of his steel, or else
secretly afraid to meet him in argu-
ment.
Now. a feature of the campaign was
a band of singers who chanted dog
gerel rhymes about the different parties
and their leaders. The chief OF the
band was a disreputable looking fellow
wearing a dagger hanging from his
neck and across his shoulders a sash
upon which were the words, Straight
Out" AS soon as Bells speech was
done this man began singing in the
street 10 draw the crown from JONI
son. By dozens Bells supporters start
ed for the door. That's right" called
out Johnson from the platform, you
know whom to distrust Go on home
quickly and lock your stable doors, or
else in the morning you may find this
straight out has made clean out
Go home, 1 say, and lock your DOORS
One by one the men came back to their
seats and sat there squirming while
Johnson poured into them the hot shot
of his arguments.
This speech drew upon him the eyes
of the state, and soon Green county
sent him to the legislature and later
on to the state senate, in both of
which bodies he was so conspicuous a
light that he was made provisional
governor of Tennessee, succeeding