Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-03-26
Five Minutes A Day
With Our Presidents
Games and Dolly Madison.
BY JAMES

AS James Madison maze u BIed'
name for himself before entering the
PRESIDENCY and added nothing TO II
while in the White House, 1t must be
that he was a good deal of a man hut
not much of a President.
Like all the more famous Virgin
tians, Madison was not of the highest
aristocracy, but the son of q plain,
well-to-do GARNER in an outlying coun-
ty. His whole life was passed at
MONTPELIER. the farm which his grand
father had wrested from the Indians;
from 1t he drew his only private in
tcome and at last he was buried In Its
soil. He was dependent on his father
until he was fifty when the latter DIED
and the place became his own with
one hundred slaves, who continued al
ways to address him simply as Master
Jimmy"
Standing only i've feet six and one
lquarter inches, he was. with Grant,
the smallest of u Presidents.
Naturally thin and frail his zeal Tor
Istudy nearly wrecked his health while
"a tuden at Princeton College where
for months at a time he slept only
three hours out of the tW~enty-iour
UNITED FOR military duty when the
Revolution came, he went to the
Virginia Legislature instead. Yet THIS
seemingly broken-down young man
was destined to be the longest lived
of all the Presidents, with the single
exception of John Adams.
When q candidate for reelection TO
the Legislature, Madison revolted
against the old Virginia custom or set
ting up the drinks. His morality was
mistaken for %stinginess and the thirsty
voters focked to the ~capacious barrel
of his opponent who was elected. Inc
defeated candidate had to wait a
dozen years for his first chance to dis
.tinguish himself. Still no time was
lost, for, while he was waiting. he
diligently prepared to meet opportun-
ity when 1t should come and made q
close study of all governments, an
Client and modern.
Although q shy, blushing little man,
with a quiet thin little voice, which
modestly sank almost to a whisper at
the end of every sentence. by sheer
force of his wide knowledge and sound
judgement, he took first place at once
In the immortal assembly of wise men
which met to draft the Federal Con-
Istitution. Mere oratory counted for
nothing in tina convention, which was
held behind locked doors, with no gal
|lery to applaud the orator and no re-
|porters to play him up on the first
page.
Madison himself was the only re-
porter present, but his report was not
published until after he was dead and
until all his colleagues had returned
to dust. Each day u~nfailingly found
this most illustrous member of the re-
portorial craft in his place, down In
front of Washington. the presiding
officer, where he made notes of the
speeches in a shorthand of his own,
he laboriously wrote out In bis
room at night.
Having earned, by his constructive
|labors in framing 1t, the title OF
Father of the Constitution" he took
a leading part in putting the principles
of the convention Into practice. AS a
member Of Congress. he was h first
CONGRESSMAN to rise and say Mr..
Speaker" He was the author of the
first tariff and of the law creating the
State, Treasury and Wa Departments.
and he introduced the first ten amend
ments to the Constitution. With the
rise Of the parties, he took his stand
by the side of Jefferson. who made
him his Secretary of State and his heir
to the Presidency.
If Madison had not been crossed
and blessed in love, posterity might
not catch him on his human side at all
and only yawn over this prosy. ser-
lious, %studNou5, coo1-tempered I'M
aggressive, weakened, little great man.
HE was already a mature bachelor of
l1IlH-lH E1ld q ~ SA~
~tinental Congress. when a sixteen
|year-old girl In his Philadelphia
boarding house was the first to touch
O soft spot in his heart. A young
clergyman who hung and sighed over
her harpiscord cut him out, and he
was painfully awakened from his hrst
dream of love by O letter of dismissal
which, for reasons kno to this
later generation, the young miss scaled
18th !, ninnh Of rye dough. After
two a had brought their healing,
the Tilted lover took part In another
unsuccessful engagement, but no one
seems to know who sent the rye Dug
L. this second instance.
Madison was past forty. and well
into his indian Summer. when he be-
came involved in still another board
;Only, instead of q lady boarder. he
fell In love this time with a landladys
laughter Dolly Payne Todd, who was
Icnly twenty-six, had lost her husband
and was living with her mother, VINO
received into her house a few gentle
men b~oarders." Among these was
Senator Aaron Burr of New York.
Madison himself was staying at an
other house, where he and two other
future Presidents, Jefferson and Mon
roe, were living sthree in a room.
There the fame Of the pretty young
lQuakeress travelled to him, and he
asked Burr-they were at Princeton
Itogether-to take him to see her. The
match famed up in the flash of an
eye, and Dolly and her boy were borne
to Montpelier, where she proved
her t%actfulness and kindness by
dwelling in peace under the same roof
with her mother-in-law thirty-nve
Years. ,,
Aaron Burr stands charged with
Having parted several couples. The
brilliant scamp must be credited witt
having united one of the happies'
couples in the domestic annals of the
presidency.
Tomorrow:A Fugitive from the
White House.