Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-04-03
Fiue Minutes A Day
With Our Presidents
An Immigrants Son.
BY JAMES MORGAN.

CIV gdChSOus th0 VI
Ibackwoodsman, treading at the heels
lof John Quincy Adams, the. most cul-
ltured In all he line, presents the
Isharpest contrast to be seen In the
PROCESSION of Presidents.
The first President born In q log
cabin, jackson could not claim as his
own even hat lowly dwelling In the
North Carolina forest, but entered the
world homeless and fatherless. Sprung
from poo Irish immigrants. his par
ents had been In the country only two
years when the father sank into an
unmarked grave a few days before
Andrews birth, leaving his family
without q ROOT or an acre.
With her two little boys who had
been born in the old country. the ex-
mother took refuge in the
home of al invalid sister, where h
served as housekeeper and brought up
her children. 1t was her ambition to
educate Andrew for the Presbyterian
ministry, but small and poor was the
schooling she was able to give him.
The most he ever learned was from
men rather than from books, the
Vicar OF Wakefield being the only
work of literature that he Is known
to have read in the whole course of
his life.
The first teacher to make an i'm
preston upon Andrew Jackson was
the American Revolution, which filled
his breast with a passionate devotion
to his country and a flaming hatred or
its enemies. Among the newly land
pied his part of the Carolinas. the
great conflict became a furious war
between the clans. with raiding bands
hunting one another through the,wild
forests, leaving behind them a trail
Ireddened by blood n fire.
Into that mad strife between neigh
bors. Andrew was plunged at an age
when most boys cannot qualify even
for the mimic combats OF the football
field. At IA. he was dashing about
on his shaggy pony. popping them"
with his musket. as he said. Taken
captive, he was SCARED for life by
the sword of a British officer, whose
muddy boots he Indignantly refused to
brush. Thrown into a foul prison
camp. he suffered from a virulent at
tack of smallpox that for q time left
him a maniac.
No other among American leaders
received from the War of Indepen-
|dence such a legacy of bitter mem
Iories as 1t ~bedueathed to Jackson.
That savage struggle between Wing
and Tory swept away his brave mother
and both his brothers; scattered his
kindred and left him, at Is, alone In
1.-THE world.
A ragged, rowing waif of the Revo-
Hutton, he grew up al wild as a weed.
With no land above him. his high
lspirits led him into the temptations
of his primitive world, whose social
standards were 200 years behind the
times. Drinking, and ~carousing,
gambling, cock fighting and horse
tracing, young Jackson never took a
dare, the rustic sport once stalking his
lhnrca and his all on "a throw nf tho
dice. A bully among rowdies, he went
his registering way along a road that is
not to be laid down on the map of con
duct as a course to the White House.
Still the story points the moral that
If a young man will only keep going.
The will leave the follies of youth be-
hind him. Jackson's faults were the
lvices of his rough surroundings and
they changed with changing circum-
lstances. His simple virtues were
jdrawn from the same rude environ
.ment. which moulded him into a rug
iged, fearless man. who never forgot q
friend n who never stopped to dis
honesty.
Unhappily. his loyal nature could
not forget an enemy either. AS he
rose from a chore boy and a saddler's
apprentice to be a lawyer and a judge
lof the Supreme Court of Tennessee, he
least aside the designations of his care
less youth, but he never lost the
Esprit of the clansman or subdued his
iungovernable temper.
A bare catalog of his quarrels and
fights is too long to be given here. In
lmost of them he was fired with the
l%conviction that he was defending the
name of his wife. This had beer
brought into question only by his own
characteristic imprudence, when he
fell in love with his ~landlady's daugh-
tier, while she vas yet married to an
,other, and when he rashly wed hei
without waiting to verify the mere
Irumor that her offended husband had
lobtained n divorce in a neighborine
State. After two years of welded
life, the too hasty couple learned thai
the woman's first marriage had only
lust been dissolved and they had Il
make a spectacle of themselves a!
they vent through another ceremonN
in order to be united in lawful bonds
Because his wi impulsive conduc
had exposed his honest. devoted wifi
Ito the slanderous tongues of the Cos
sips, Jackson was all the more sensi
tive to her sufferings. For sneerinl
lat her over a bar one mar was stoo(
up at "a PAGES and shot to death b.
the a~venging husband, who kept h
pistols in perfect condition through 8
years, as Barton says. for anyone VIII
dared breathe her name except il
Honor.
Even at the sober age of 46, Jack
son plunged into a tavern brawl a
Nashville with Thomas III. Benton
iafterward the distinguished Senate
from Missouri. and was shattered TO
life by two balls and a slug whicl
jBenton's brother shot into his back
That was his last personal alterca
'tion. In a few weeks he was Gale
Iron his bed of pain to tax part i
a public alteration between til
limited States n Great Britain ant
with his arm still in a sling. he roS
Ito do battle for his country.
(Copyright, 1920, by James Morgan
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