The Van Buren press. [volume] (Van Buren, Ark.) 1859-1914, 1898-07-09
TWENTIETH CENTURY MEN.
Who VIII lie Leaders in the Immf~
nent Years ?-Famous Men of
This Century.

Where shall we look for the men or the
women whose names are likely to rise
aloft in the world at the opening of the
twentieth century, now less than three
years off?
We are all familiar with the names of
the men who were conspicuous at the
opening of the nineteenth century in
which we live.
There was Napoleon, the cenqueror,
whose renown passed thato all his con-
temporaries, and who, in the first year
OF the century, when he had just passed
the thirtieth year of his life, was the
master of victorious armies.
There was the youngest Pitt, the Brit
ish statesman, who, soon after the CEN
fury had opened became premier of
England for the second time, and who
then formed those mighty coalitions
that were devised for Napoleon's over
throw.
There was Thomas Jefferson, the il
lustrious American statesman, who be-
came president Of the United States in
the first year of the century, and who
had drawn up the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, and had been one of the fore
most leaders of the American revolu"
ton
There was Humboldt, the foremost
naturalist OF his time who, when this
century began, was engaged in prose-
cutting those scientific researches upon
which his fame rests, and who was a
diplomatist as well as a scientist.
There was Goethe, the world-re-
nowned man of letters, who in an early
year of this century gave to literature
the masterpiece of his life, the tragedy
of Faust" and who, until his death in
1882, was a fertile and potent author.
And there was Byron, the storm-tossed
poet, who was eight years of age at the
opening of the century, and who, seven
years after it had opened, began his po-'
etical career.
When this century came into exist
ence Daniel Webster was IL years old;
William Cullen Bryant was 6; WASH
ington Irving, 7; Emerson, 3; Andrew
Jackson, 80; Tennyson, o; Carlyle, 81;
Wellington, 81; George Stephenson, 10;
Gar Nicholas L., a; Mazzini, z; Boil
war, II, and Won Moltke, less than
year.
In the first decade of the present CEN
fury, Abraham Lincoln, Garibaldi, Louis
Napoleon, Darwin, Pope Leo XIII. and
not few other men who became re-
nowned in their generation were born.
In this decade Robert Fulton ran the
first steamboat on the Hudson river.
1t were easy to tell the names of many
persons whose heads doomed above or
binary peoples heads at or near the
opening of the nineteenth century, or
who were young in the early years of 1t.
| But who can look ahead so far as to
tell the name of anyone who is likely
TO stand near the front at the openingof
the twentieth century or at any other
time of it?
1t may be that there is among us to-
day some stripping, some young man, or
some one in the prime Of life, who IS
| destined to stand aloft or to achieve
greatness in the coming century. There
is certainly good reason for indulging
IN such thought, MS each and every
generation Of mankind has had It's
men of eminence; and as we have had a
share Of them in our country within the
century that has passed since George
Washington was president ofthe United
States.-N. Y. Independent