The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1920-05-19

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 one of the first families OF
Virginia" in a 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 de-
scendant of Cromwellian colonel
who had signed the death warrant of
a King. no president has had long
err, more historic lineage. With the
exception of the Adamses, the Harri--
sons 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 and properly is classed with
the eight or ten demiocrities who have
since had the greatness OF the preSl-
dency thrust upon them. He was
elected not because he was a great
statesman or great soldier, but be-
cause he was thoroughly representa-
tive of the great New West, which
was flattered to see in the white
house for the first time man created
in its own image.
One among the four presidents who
were not bred to the law, Harrison
was in Philadelphia, under the pat
ronage of his fathers friend, Robert
Morris, where he was studying to be
physician when desire for Indian
fighting, so common to American boy
hood, stirred his blood. He was only
IS when he plunged into 2O-year
struggle to win the Ohio Valley for
peaceable settlement by the white
man. After campaigning with Mad
Anthony Wayne he was elected terri
torial delegate to congress at 26.
There he took the lead in protecting
the Virgin soil of the great west from
the landgrabbing lobby which had ris-
en- to exploit it. At q he was gov
ernor of the Territory of Indiana.
/ Although an ordinary man in his
mental qualities, with no more ply
steal courage than was possessed by
! the general run of adventurous men in
i the western wilds, Harrison won his
i way to leadership by his downright
i honesty and by a sobriety of habit that
! was rare on the frontier. With no
| legislature to check him and no press
! to watch him he exercised for years
i almost the despotic power of a Roman
| governor over all the vast country ly-
ing between the western 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 it.
Early in his term there rose among
the Indians nr0nhat who Il
abroad the welcome gospel that the
Master of Life was himself red man
and was about to restore his people to
their rightful supremacy over their
white interiors, who should be tram
pied under foot. BY the side of this
religious fanatic stood his warrior
brother, Tecumseh. That pair of say.
age crusaders were restrained for
years from taking the war 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
1872, and they struck the long-delayed
blow. But Harrison, with his 800 from
tIeA'men, got rather the better of
them in a famous little skirmish at
| Tippecanoe, Ind. With the actual
oPShIiS VI iIOSllllllSS peIN60u lne
Americans and the British, the say.
ages became the allies of the British,
and the entire future of the great Mid
die West was at stake
At Harrson's request, Oliver Haz-
ard Perry was sent out TO build and
fight squadron of ships. 1t was to
the general that the victorious naval
commander dispatched from the Bat
tie of Lake Erie his celebrated mess
age: We 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 Harrison
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 war