The Bellefontaine Republican. [volume] (Bellefontaine, Logan County, Ohio) 1855-1905, 1901-09-27
[Fror- the Chicago Interior.l
MORE PRECIOUS
THAN GOLD,

The prophet Isaiah was philosopher as
well as patriot when he said of Judah
its manhood was more precious than its
gold; the character of its rulers worth
more to the state than ingots of purest
metal. Sparta boasted commonwealth
whose people rendered the walls super
fluous. The solidity of republic does
not rest upon forests, farms or mines,
but upon the elemental manhood of its
constituents. Goldsmith spoke the
truth when he said that it Jared
i'll with land "Where wealth accumu-
lates but men decay" An English
writer has told us that the richest her
isage america recsivee from God was
not continent rich with undeveloped
resources, but her first hero, George
Washington, whose virtues made him
s'First in war, first in peace, and first
in the hearts of his eountrymen."
| That Mr.. Mckinley has been twice
elected to the highest Office in the gift
of seventy-ive millions is not due to
the confidence the nation has in his
abilities or its entire sympathy with his
aim, but more than all to the trust it
reposed in him as man. In him the
elements of character are joined which
put his value above all questions of
coinage and tariff, and export and i'm
port, and ship-huilding and territorial
Expansion. Struck down in the very
midst of an era of unwonted CONNER
cial prosperity, the nation, PROSTATE in
its sorrow, does not console itself with
the possessions of sits dying vats and
looms," but SAYS with the old-time man
of God, ga re. is more precious than
fine gold; n.,. ecious than a wedge
OF the gold of Ophir."
The circumstances of his life have
been so singularly varied as to bring
into prominence the complementary
virtues of his personality. His courage
was no less severely tried than that of
our great war captain whose porphyry
sarcophagus rests under the marble
dome of its mausoleum by the Hudson.
But in him it is not the genius of the
! soldier so much as. the character of the
man we admire. The war opened a
natural avenue to promotion before
the eyes of a West-Pointer; but to the
thousands of privates who stood up to
their muskets like William Mckinley
in May, 1861, it meant, as it meant to
him, only devotion to ones country
and probable ruin of ones life work.
But that in his manhood there was the
soldierly element was proven on the
|; dreadful day at Antietam, when as a
boy-sergeant he planned and executed
the relief of his comrades, who on the
outmost line of the doubtful battle were
lighting without food and without
water until the brave lad drove his lit
tie relief train across the bullet-swept
t field and saved the day.
Yet it must be confessed many a lad
came back to his native village with his
e well won maple-leaf, or widespread
ders, debased in language, degenerate
in habits and ruined in morals. 1t was
not so with him. His courage was no,
: of the kind that needed bottle to sup
], port it, or his authority such as car
only be enforced with oaths. Patiently
he began to lit himself anew for the
duties of civil life; and without pres
ltige, without wealth, without single
It pre-eminent gift he toiled from the low
est round to the height of the most hon
orable ambition.
If there be any field which puts vir
tue to the test more than that of tht
II soldiers life it is that of the politician IS
n Every page of our national history i
q blotted with the ruined regulations o
men WHO have sacrificed honor to am
: bition. For some petty Office in a rura
community men have been guilty O
$. acts of which he would not have beel
guilty to be made President. Twice
was he subjected to the fiercest of tina
white light that beats upon an execu
tive career, but not by the bitterest @
his political opponents was he eve
charged with an act unbecoming
Christian or gentleman. In his lif
there were no moral lapses to be cor
Is doned: no doubtful financial transaC
: tions to be explained; no divergence c
public advocacy and private opinion I
be justified. Not since the days of tn
civil war has any President been calle
,a to face such problems; to inaugural
10. such unexpected policies and to CT
by deep such lines of political cleavag,
but even those who have most loudl
protested against his decisions, an
- most forcibly opposed his projects, hay
borne witness to the purity of his ain
and the consistency. of his acts. Il
has maintained throughout his caree
as President that integrity he shove
when, going to nominating CONVEX
tion in the Interests of a friend, he TO
bade the introduction of his own nam
at point when his nomination an
election would have been well-nigh ce
tain. As few other men he has show
i'll his thirty years of political battl'
. that the union of private virtues an
Il public honors was not an ''irridescel
dream"
One cannot well touch upon tn
which is in every mans mind; the d
IL mestic life of the man we love. 1t Is Il
:. sacred. Neither duty, nor ambitio
II nor passion has ever alienated hi
u from the wife of his youth. Whatev,
ii the faults of the age in this respe
es they have not come near him. II
4 love which he early plighted his your
rs bride has never known change,
tx doubt, or decay; and characteristical
8 his first word after he was shot was
PRAYER for his would-be murderer:
second, a tender message to his inval
G,rah mon are all fOO ra