Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1919-07-10

CHAPTER XVIII.
On the Summit.

On the Summit.
My mental assets would give me a
poor rating, I presume, in the COM
merce of modern scholarship when I
went to Washington that autumn with
Senator and Mrs. Wright. Still it was
no smattering that I had, but rather a |
few broad areas Of knowledge which
We're firmly in my possession. My best
asset was not mental but spiritual, if 1
may be allowed to say it, in all mod
esty, for, therein I claim no special adj
vantage, saving, possibly, an unusual
strength of character in my aunt and
uncle. Those days the candles were
lighting the best trails of knowledge
ali over the land. Never has the gen.
eral spirit of this republic been so
high and admirable as then and a little
later. 1t was to speak, presently, in
the immortal voices Of Whittier, Emer-
son, Whitman, Greeley and Lincoln.
The dim glow of the candles had en-
tered their souls and out of them came
a light that filled the land and was
seen Of all men.
The railroads on which we travelled
from Utica, the great cities through
which we passed, were a Wonder and
an inspiration to me I was awed by
the grandeur of Washington itself. I
took lodgings with the senator and his
wife.
"Now, Bart" said he, when we had
arrived, I'm going to turn you loose
here for a little while before I put har-
ness on you. Go about for a week or
SO and get the lay Of the land and the
feel Of it. Mrs. Wright will be your
guide until the general situation has
worked it's way into your conscious
ness"
1t seemed to me that there was not
room enough in my consciousness for
the great public buildings and the pic
lures and the statues and the vast ma
chinery of the government. Beauty
and magnitude have a wonderful eff
feet when they spring fresh upon the
vision of a youth out of the back coun-
try. I sang of the look of them in my
letters and soon I began to think about
them and imperfectly to understand
them. They had their epic, lyric and
dramatic stages in my consciousness.
One afternoon we went to hear Sem
ator Wright speak. He was to an
swer Calhoun on a detail of the bank
ing laws. The floor and galleries were
filled. With what emotion I saw him
rise and begin his argument as all ears
bent to hear him! He aimed not at
popular sentiments in highly finished
rhetoric, as did Webster, to be quoted
in the school books and repeated on
every platform. But no words of mine
and I have used many in the effort
are able to convey a notion Of the
masterful ease and charm of his man
ner on the floor of the senate Or of the
singular modesty, courtesy, aptness
and simplicity Of his words as they
fell from his lips. There were the
thunderous Webster, the grandeur of
whose sentences no American has
equaled; the agile-minded Clay, whose
voice was like a silver clarion the far
seeing, fiery Calhoun, of "the swift
sword'-most formidable in debate
but / was oon to learn that neither
MOI all of these men-gifted of heaven
SO highly-could cope with the suave,
incisive, conversational sentences of
Wright, going straight. to the heart of
the subject and laying it bare to his
hearers. That was what people were
saving as we left the senate chamber.
late in the evening; that, indeed, was
what they were always saying after
they had heard him answer an adj
versary.
He had a priceless and unusual tai
ent for avoiding school-reader English
and the arts of defamation and for
preparing a difficult subject to enter
the average brain. The underlying Sc
cret Of his power was soon apparent
to me. He stood always for that great
thing in America which, since then,
Whitman has called "the divine aggre-
gate" and seeing clearly how every
measure would be likely to affect its
welfare, he followed the compass. 1t
had led him to a height of power
above all others and was to lead him
unto the loneliest summit of accom-
plishment in American history.
Not much in my term of service
there is important to this little task
or mine. l did my work we'll, if I may
believe the senator, and grew familiar
with the gentle, and ungentle arts Of
the politician.
One great fact grew in magnitude
and sullen portent as the months
passed: the gigantic slave-holding in
terests of the South viewed with grow
ing alarm the spread of abolition sen-