The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1902-04-03
BLAINE'S TRIBUTE TO GARFIELD.
Recalled by Secretary Hays Eulogy
on President 1ckinley.

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Our Ringwood correspondent, 81.
T.. NJ" sends the following with re-
quest TO publish. He says:
notice Secretary Hays EulOgy on
President Mckinley, and his life and
character is depicted in Il mastery
manner. On February 29tb, 1892,
the matchless orator and peerless
statesman, the "Plumed Knight" as
the eloquent Ingersoll termed James
&. Blaine, delivered culogy before
Congress on the murdered President
Garfield. Blaine was the Presidents
Secretary Of State. and was by his
side when the murderer fired the fatal
shot, and Mr.. Blaine's peroation is
the most touching, inspiring ard de-
scriptive elOquence in the English
language. | have the whole address
in splendid book form as publish by
Congress, and committed the psroa-
ton to memory, and will ask you to
publish it for its beauty and i'm
pressiveness:
'Surel y if happiness can ever come
from the honors or triumph of this
world, on that quiet july morning
James A. Garfield may well have been
happy man. No foreboding of evil
haunted him; no slightest Fremont
ton of danger clouded his sky. His
terrible fate was upon him in an in
slant. One moment he stood erect
strong, confident in the years stretch
ing peacefully out before him. The
next he lay wounded, bleeding. help
less, doomed to weary weeks of tor
ture, to silence and the grave.
''Great in life, he was surprisingly
great in death. For no cause, in the
very frenzy of wantonness and wick
edness, by the red hand of murder,
he was thrust from the full tide of
this worlds interest, from its hopes,
its aspirations, its victories, into the
visible presence of death-and he did
not quail. Not alone for the one short
moment in which, stunned and dazed,
he could give up life, hardly aware Of
its REIMBURSEMENT, but through days
of deadly lanquor, through weeks Of
agony, that was not less agony be-
cause silently borne, with clear sight
and calm courage, he looked into his
open grave. What blight and ruin
met his anguished eyes, whose lips
may tell - what brilliant, broken
plans, what baffled. high ambitions,
what sundering of strong, warm
friendships, what bitter rending Of
sweet hOu sehOld ties, Behind him a
proud, expectant nation, a great host
of sustaining friends. cherished and
happy mother, wearing the full, rich
honors of her early toll and tears; the
wife of his youth, whose whole life
lay in his; the little boys not vet
emerged from childhOod's DAYS of
frolic; the fair young daughters; the
sturdy sons just springing in closest
companionship, claiming every day
and every day rewarding father
love and care; and in his heart the
eager, rejoicing power to meet all de-
mand. Before him, desolation and
great darkness! His countrymen were
thrilled with instant, profound, and
universal sympathy. Masterful in
his mortal weakness, he became the
center of a nations love, enshrined
in the prayers OF world. But all
the love and all the sympathy could
not share with him his suffering.
With unfaltering front he faced death
With unfailing tenderness he took
leave of life. Above the demoniac
hiss of the assassin's bullet he heard
the voice of God. With simple
resignation he bowed TO the divine
decree.
LAS the end drew near, his early
craving for the sea returned. The
stately mansion of power had been to
him the wearsome hospital of pain,
and he begged to be taken from his
prison walls, from its oppressive
sitting air, from its homelsssness and
its hopelessness. Gently, silently,
the love of a great people bore the
pale sufferer TO the longed-for healing
of the sea, to live or to die, as God
should will. within sight of its heaviug
pillows. within sight of it's manifold
voices. With wan, fevered face, ten
derby lifted to the cooling breeze, he
looked out wistfully upon the oceans
changing wonders: on its far sail.
whitening in the morning light: on
its restless waves, rolling shoreward
to break and die beneath the MONDAY
sun; on the red clouds of evening
arching low to the horizon; on tn.
serene and shining pathway Of tn.
stars. Let us think that his diving
eyes read a mystic meaning which
only the rapt and parting soul ma,
know. Let us believe that in TIT
silence of the receding world he hear,
the great waves breaking on farthe
shore, and felt already upon hi
wasted brow the breath of eterna
morning.