Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-03-20
Fiue Minutes A Day
With Our Presidents
BY JAMES MORGAN.


Probably John Adams was the un.
happiest man who ever sat in the
Presidential chair. One of a dozen
unwanted Presidents. who were taken
only because the men that were
wanted could not be elected, this
humble role embittered all the re-
naming days of the proudest man in
the line of u Chief Magistrates.
1t was hard enough for Adams to
be the understudy of even George
Washington, while serving as Vice
President. When he became Presi-
| dent 1t was m~addening to his & that
he should be expected to play second
fiddle to Alexander Hamilton, the
| master spirit of the old governing
class, left over from colonial times
and which controlled the Federalisr
party.
The President made the fatal mis-
take of keeping Washington's Cabl-
net, which really had passed under
the control of Hamilton, who presum-
cd to direct the New Administration,
very much as a Tammany boss puts a
Tammany mayor through his PAGES.
AS Adams never had succeeded In
ruling himself it was impossible for
another to rule him..
Like aristocrats everywhere, the
Federalists were thrown into a state
of panic by the French Revolution
and by the rise of the Jeffersonian
democracy in our yet aristocratic re
public. In their alarm they frantf-
cally rushed through Congress the
Allen and Sedition acts, which became
only millstones about their necks.
sinking their party forever. Not sat
isfied with shutting the Revolution
out of the New World, many of them
We're for Joining the monarchial
coalition against 1t in the Old World.
In an uproarious quarrel with the
absurd French Directory, the militia
was called out and Washington SUM
moned to command 1t, after which
the President astonished the jingoes
by suddenly throwing them over and
returning to a pacific policy.
Long afterward, Adams said that
he desired no other Inscription than
this on his tombstone: Here lies John
Adams. who took upon himself the
responsibility of the a with
France. in the year 1900" 1t was
a fitting epitaph for in making that
peace he dub his political grave and
he went to the election of 1900 fore
doomed to defeat.
AS he had been the first Minister to
England, John Adams was also the
first President to take up his resi-
dence in Washington. AS Mrs. Adams
had been the wife Of the first Amer-
fcdIl envoy III lO1luOH SHE var aLoO~
the first mistress of the White House,
If for only a few months. On the way
from Philadelphia she and the Pres
ident lost their trail in the wilderness
until a struggling black came to
their assistance.
The capitol was yet unfinished. and
out of a desolate bog, far off. the un-
finished White House rose to view.
There was neither a fence nor a tree
n tNtyt 1I1a CT ,f1nfrJ ,sn nn6 tho pYnGJ-
dents nearest n~eighbor dwelt half a
mile away. Mrs. Adams had q hard
time to get wood enough to keep her
family warm In the big, bleak man
sion. and she smiles at us still as her
letters tell us Of how she hung her
washing to dry in the great East
Room.
After sitting at his desk until mid
night hastily signing appointments, to
forestall his successor, Adams drove
out of Washington at h dawning of
the day of Jefferson's inauguration.
He had no smiles to bestow on the1
triumph of his rival. and few enough
to light his own pathway through his
remaining years.
On a fine, new farm at Mt. Wollas-
ton. overlooking Boston Harbor. he
nursed for a quarter of a century the
never-forgotten grudges of his politi-
cal life against Washington, Hamilton
and his opponents. With Jefferson.
almost alone he did make peace,
thanks to the kindly mediation of his
wife.
After his brave, good helpmeet had
been taken from him. he lived on
eight years more, lived to see what
no other ex-President has seen, a son
in the White House. At ninety. as he
lay dying in the sunset of the fiftieth
Fourth of July. we were told that his
thoughts turned to the first and most
glorious Fourth and hat his lips muir
INJURED Thomas Jefferson still sur
wives" The author of the Declaration
really had died a few hours before,
and In their flight from earth the
spirits of the I'VE old patriots of 78
were strangely united again.
Copyright, 1920 by James Mar
gan; published by specialN arrange
ment with the Mcclure Newspaper
Syndtcate.)