The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-01-26
BY HUGH w. ROBERTS

A LTHOUGH the effort 10 conquer
"a the air has not achieved Its
\ full tithe of success, the world.
nevertheless, moves along pretty rap
idly. For instance. at noon you can
settle down In the cushion of the yef-
low coach of the Chesapeake and Ohio
railroad and glide for half day with
out q thought of toll or trouble and
settle down again In tho valley of tho
Shenandoah where stonewall Jackson
in years long ago. frighted the hearts
Of those who reigned at Washington.
It is a wonderful country through
which you ride. Your train races with
the broad and turb ulent Ohio. the river
never losing sight of tho locomotive
and the locomotive never permitting
the river to twist Its course out of
view. To your right are the blue fields
Of Kentucky now capped with the
frosts and SHOWS of winter. To your
left Is the fertile soil of Ohio on which
frozen fodder stands stiff in Its shocks
and yellow pumpkin occasionally,
like . solitary eye. beams out with a
smile upon you.
On both sides of the river with
hardly q gap between them, are lit
tie cities. quaintly builded. the people
of which. at the approach of the train.
come running from every direction, re-
minding the visitor of the multitude
of ants which twists. strikes against
itself and separates in particles, each
moving SO rapidly that you marvel and
laugh despite yourself.
Then Comes Blennerhasset
And thus you come to the ilse of
Observation-Disclosures lived the simple
B1ennerhasset surrounded by his slaves
and his acres freely yielding fruit and
grain. where Aaron Burr came with his
dream of empire, with his artful per-
suasion to inspire In others that glor-
ious dream, came breathing contagion
and bringing disaster.
And one thinks of that strange and
potent Burr. that man about whose
heart cold ambition gripped itself Sc
curely. the vice president who plotted
treason and sedition, who fell a Beaten
eagle-himself lost to fame and re-
nown, his kidred suffering. Inundated
and all those who had listened to his
siren lisp wrecked in goods and spirit
And one thinks that he would rather
have been a youth in simple garb,
a peasant without the gift of speech
to thrill and STILL or the inspiration
10 conjure dreams of wealth and en-
pire. peasant toiling in the fields
with his grain ripening in the amor
Gus kisses of the August sun. would
rather have gone down, like that peas
ant, "into the tongueless silence of the
dreamless DUST than to have been that
personation of ambitious force and
dangerous cunning known in history
as Aaron Burr
And on the other side of the river.
that side on which the train is glid-
ing, one sees where touched the foot
of Henry Clay, and one contrasts the
lives of the two. the one driven on
over the wreck of his friends, his kim
dred and himself. his hand soiled with
the blood of one as great as he, driven
on by an ambition that needed not the
dire warning of terrible war and the
other man, the great pacifcator, whose
glorious work in the Congress of the
nation postponed for half century the
inevitable and most dreadful fratricidal
conflict in the history of the world
Other Famous Sons
And one while passing through Ken
great state dwells Daniel Boone
and In his Imagination sees the will
erness wrere villages now stands in
which skulxs the murderous redskin,
cunning, cruel and crafty redskin. de-
termined by that little force which he
possessed to estop the progress of those
armed with the excuse that they
brought civilization, who were deter
mined to rob them of their country.
And, through the space of a hundred
years, from Boone to Davis, the wan
dering mind lightly leaps. and one beholds
the plantation which two Presidents
of rival nations first saw the light of day
jefferson Davis, at the head of those m
sisting the sovereign was the state, and
Lincoln at the head of those who cried,
''The union at any cose must be pre-
served"
And out OF the yesterday, the traveller
feels himself jerked to earth again when
with a tired heave the train slows up
ana halts at Ripley. lie behods a soli-
fary hack owned and driven by S. d.
Pumpeley. He sees very little of this
village celebrity, and perhaps will never
zee him again. But Pumpelley is a
familiar parsonage for he lives every
where. He is a quaint, elderly fellow,
not very tender, but not very cruel
Ehrewd in trade, calculating and careful