Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-04-10
Fiue Minutes A Day
With Our Presidents

By JAMES MORGAN.


Although william Henry Harrison
was elected to the Presidency as the
log-cabin candidate, in the first of our
frenzied, parading campaigns, he was
born to n of the first families OF
Virginia" In q manor house on the
banks of the -aristocratic James. AS
a son OF Benjamin Harrison. signer
OF the Declaration. with the blood
of Pocahontas In his veins, and as a
descendant Of a Cromwellian colonel
who had signed the death warrant of
a King. no President has had a
longer. more historic lineage. With
the exception of the Adamses, the
Harrisons remain the only family
whose name appears twice in the
Presidential line.
In ability William Henry Harrison
fell below the standard Of his prede-
cessors n properly Is classed with
the eight or ten demiocrities who
have since had the greatness Of the
Presidency thrust upon them. He
was elected not because he was a
great statesman or q great soldier,
but because he was thoroughly rep
resentative of the great New West,
which was fiattered to see in the
White House for the first time a man
created In its own image.
One among the four Presidents
who were not bred to the law, Har-
rison was in Philadelphia. under the
patronage of his fathers friend, Rob-
ert Morris where he was studying
to be q physician when a desire for
lndlan hghtfng, so common to Amer
lean boyhood, stirred his blood. He
was only Is when he plunged into a
2O-year struggle to win the Ohio
Valley for peaceable settlement by
white man. After campaigning
with Mad Anthony Wayne he was
elected territorial delegate to Con-
gress at 26. There he too the lead
in protecting the Virgin soil of the
great West from the la~nd-grabbing
lobby which had risen to exploit 1t.
At 27 he was Governor of the Terri
tory of Indiana.
Although an ordinary mar in his
mental qualities with no more ply
steal courage than was possessed by
the general run of adventurous men
in the Western wilds, Harrison won
his way to leadership by his down
honesty and by a sobriety or
habit that was rare on the frontier.
With no legislature to check him and
no press to watch him he exercised
for years almost the despotic power
of a Roman governor over all the
vast country lying between the West
ern boundary of the new State of
Ohio and the Rocky Mountains.
Tempting opportunities for personal
gains came to him among them an
offer of half the land In and about
st. Louis. But he left the office with
hands as clean and pockets as empty
as when he entered 1t.
Early In his term there rose
among the Indians q prophet, who
spread abroad the welcome gospel
thai the Master of Life was himself
a red man and was about to restore
his people to their rightful supremacy
over their white Interiors. who should
be trampled under foot. BY the side
of this religious fanatic stood his
brother. Tecumseh. That
pair of savage crusaders were re-
strained for years from taking the
path by Harrisons bold and
skilful diplomacy and by the general
faith in his word and his character.
The Indians were aroused at last
by rumors Of the approaching War
of 1912, and they struck the long
delayed blow. But Harrison, with
his 500 frontiersmen, got rather the
better of them In a famous little skir-
mish at Ti~ppecanoe. Ind. With the
aCtudi OPCiitHS VI hOolllilltS DGl Cen
the Americans and the British, the
savageS became the allies of the Brit
ish n the entire future of the great
Middle West vas at stake.
At Harrison's request, Oliver Haz-
airy Perry was sent out to build and
fight a squadron of ships. 1t was to
the General that the victorious naval
dispatched from the
of Lake Erie his celebrated
message: I'VE have met the enemy
and they are ours"
That naval victory was followed up
in the fall with an army victory at
the Battle of the Thames, when Har-
rison drove the allied forces of the
foe from the shores as Perry had
driven them from the waters of the
Lake. With only 5000 men he had
carried the val into Canada, Tecum-
sch was slain, and his ally, the Brit
ish General, was put to flight; 600
British troops and all the British
artillery and stores in the West were
captured.
The Battle of the Thames was a
little battle in point of numbers en-
gagged, but it was big in it's effects
1t gave the American Army the con-
troll OF Ontario and freed forever the
Middle West from the ambitions of
the British and from the dread of the
Indians. 1t was one of the few bright
spots IN the American war map. and
his visit to the East. The people
wildly hailed him as the victor in the
NOSE decisive military engagement of
the war. but jealous politicians at
Washington drove him from the
army-an ultimately into the Whita