The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-11-27

ganized French Commune, Marseilles,
Ligue du Midi, October, 90, while on return
trip around the world in so days. Jules
Verne 2 years later wrote fiction OF my
feat. Made independent race for President
against Grant and Greeley, '71-T2. Cornered
lawyers, doctors, clerical, by quoting three
columns of Bible to release Woodhull-Claf-
lin from Jail, ". Now lunatic by law,
through six courts. Now living in Mills
palace, So, against 5000 a week at Train
villa. Daughter always has a room for me
In the country Played Carnegie 40 years
ahead. Three generations living off Credit
Mobilier. Author of dozen books out of
print"
Such is the most remarkable outline of
the contents of the book which follows. 1t
is every way '''Trainish," but it is neverthe-
may be exaggerated. but in the judgment
of Citizen George Francis Train they
have the reality of fact. After making due
allowance for the peculiar vanity of the
man, what remarkable things he achieved.
Shipped in a trading vessel from New Or
leans to Boston, placarded as to destination
like boxes and bales of merchandise; get
ting the scanty education of the New Eng
land country school seventy years ago; a
grocery clerk at fourteen and a partner in
a great shipping house which built the
famous sailing ships for the California
trade in 1S4S-50, when twenty-five years of
age-where can a like record be found? He
had an unerring genius for vast and orig
inal commercial enterprises which startled
conservatism and experience. First in Bos-
ton, then in far-away Australia, next in
Europe and America and last in America,
where his genius devised the Credit Mo-
bilier, which made the building of the first
Pacific railroad possible.
That a man with such an audacious bril-
liancy in great enterprises should have an
other side. so erratic and eccentric that
in later years the public as we'll as the
courts should believe that there were. sew
eral screws loose in the mechanism of his
intellect, would be surprising if there were
not other instances of men of marvellous
genius in whose intellectual and moral
ake-up almost superhuman powers
were separated from insanity by
an almost invisible partition. One
of Citizen Trains weaknesses was
an unquenchable thirst for no.
toriety. He desired to mingle with the
greatest in the world. In the United States
he sought out Daniel Webster. then sec-
rotary of state, and got from him a piece
of paper with his autograph, which he
took to President Fillmore and got his
signature. Then he took the paper TO
Henry Clay for his signature. who observed.
as he wrote. that it took two names to
make Mr.. Webster's paper good. TIL piece
OF paper he subsequently used to secure
an audience with the prime minister OF
Great Britain. He obtained by his audac-
ity and brilliancy audiences with crowned
heads, OF which ne writes in his book more
extensively than he does of some of his
commercial achievements. The man who
was one Of the pioneers in the conception
of the first Pacific railroad and in devising
the means for its construction a few years
later travelled over the country advocating
his own election to the presidency without
putting in operation any OF the machinery
like electoral tickets. confident TO the last
that the people would rise en- masse and
elect him. Yet. when one comes to think
OF IT, his project for building a Pacific
railroad twenty-five years before 1t was
completed would have been regarded as