Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1902-07-14
YOUNG ZNENZN POLITICS, I
PAST AND PRESENT.
BY N. RICHARDSON.

most famous British statesmen of our
| time and each was in Parliament before
/ he was twenty-five, DisraeH at twenty
four and his great rival at twenty-three.
Gladstone was only twenty-nine when
Macaulay in a review of his work on
Church and State" referred to him as
"a young man of irreproachable charac-
ter the rising hope Of the stern and I'M
bending Tories"
Z Disrael was just past twenty-four when
he made that miserable failure in attempt
ing to speak in the House of Commons
and turning on the crowd Of jeering men,
bers. exclaimed, THE time will come
when you shall hear mel"
Pamerston was only twenty-three when
! he began his long and wonderful parlia-
mentary career.
Macaulay, already famous in literature.
became a member Of the House of Com
mons on whom all eyes were fixed before
he was twenty-three He was one of the
most brilliant speakers of his day and a
prodigy of industry. While he was one of
the busiest members of Parliament he
was also doing the most laborious and
most lasting literary work of his life.
Bulwer Lytton had barely passed TWEEN
ty-two when he entered Parliament. Like
Macaulay, he was one Of the brightest
literary lights of his generation, as we'll
as an orator of great force.
1t is said that both Macaulay and Lyt-
ton spoke quite as well before they were
twenty-five as they ever did afterwards
and each was ranked among the foremost
of British orators until his death.
Many other instances could be given In
which British statesmen of bygone times
have become famous at an age when the
great majority Of men have not finished
sowing their wild oats and have never
given a serious thought to the real con-
Germs of life, but the history OF our own
country is also rich in similar illustra-
tions, though 1t does not afford so many
of them.
What an upstart. what a hopeless case
of youthful big-head we would consider
any man of twenty-one who should even
announce himself a candidate for gov
ernor OF Georgia!
But there was a young man who was
elected governor of Georgia when he was
but little past twenty-one and had lived
In the state only six years.
This was James Jackson, whose career
was the most romantic in the history OF
our state. He came to Georgia from Eng
land at the age of fifteen. and several
years before he reached his twenty-hrst
birthday was famous as a soldier Of rare
genius and great intrepidity.
Jackson declined the governorship on
the ground of his youth and ineXperience.
In later life he gave still grander exhi-
bltlon Of unselhshhess when he resigned
a seat in the United States senate to be-
come a candidate for the Georgia legisla-
ture. His purpose in doing so was to
drive from the state the conspirators who
had engineered the infamous Yazoo
frauds, to restore to Georgia the vast
tracts of lands of which they had robbed
her and to purge her official records of
every stain they had placed there.
He accomplished his high purpose and
that one work of James Jackson was
worth a lifetime Of effort, but how many
men would now give up q senatorial toga
that they might undertake a like labor?
Patrick Henry was leading the colonists
on the path that led to American indie
pendence before he was twenty-nine.
When a little past thirty he made the
speech that did more than any other APP
peal to fire their hearts to the desperate
determination of liberty or DEATH" and
less than a year later he delivered an
other speech which calm and profoundly
critical Thomas Jefferson said was the
grandest effort he ever heard.
When Washington came to organize
his first presidential cabinet he considered
Alexander Hamilton the best-equipped
man in the United States for the most
difficult office in that council which had
such meager resources at Its command
and so many dangers and difficulties to
deal with. Hamilton was then but thirty