Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-04-29
Fiue Minutes A Day
With Our Presidents
Tho Most Trnuic Administration.
by JAMES MORGAN

Inc Most Tragic Administration
No President has come to the dis
Icharge OF his duties with a longer of.
fcial training than James Buchanan
whO had been 40 years in the legis.
lative, executive or diplomatic service
Yet no other has left behind such O
lTecord of failure.
Only a great leader might have sue
decided in those most difficult times
when Buchanan failed. And office
err. 1t Is moro likely to unfit a man for
leadership. Were not Washington
and Lincoln among the least exper-
fenced in statecraft of all the men who
have entered the Presidency.
Like the other Presidents of his
futile generation, Buchanan was
Ichosen not to lead on the slavery
lquestion, but to mislead the country.
He was selected because he had been
on the other side of the ocean for
three years while the politicians at
home had been making bad records
for themselves. Besides. he was nomi-
mated In the hope hat he could carry
his State OF Pennsylvania against
the swiftly rising Republican party
under General Fremont.
In the political contests before the
Civil War. Pennsylvania was In truth
as in mann the Keystone State. Hold
Ing Its State election in October,
whichever party carried 1t in that
month was almost certain to sweep on
to a victory in the country at large in
November. That Is why Buchanan
was nominated and that is how he was
elected.
The new captain, always an irreso-
lutte character, at nee surrendered the
steering wheel to tho most extreme
faction In the South. Thenceforth he
remained helpless, bewildered passen-
ger on the ship of state as 1t was hurl-
ed upon one rock after another in this
most tragic administration. First
came the bred Scott decision, the very
day after Buchanan's Inauguration,
when the Supreme Court held that all
compromises were unlawful, that all
political agitation for the restriction
of slavery was In vain and that an
owner had the same right to take a
drove of slaves as q drove of horses
into any State In the Union.
That decree left the Republicans
and the Douglas Democrats as well
appealing from the judgment of the
court OF last resort, with battle the
only remaining tribunal. And the
Lincoln-Douglas debate of 1858 her.
aided the impending, irrepressible
conflict.
The fuse of civil war already had
been lighted In Kansas and 1t con
tlnued to sputter throughout Bu-
chanan's term. At last, 1t exploded
a blast close by Washington itself,
when John Brown OF Ossawattomie
carried the Kansan "a to Harpers
Ferry, then in Virginia, in the wild
dream of melting the slaves them
selves to rise IN revolt against their
masters. A peaceable political solu-
ton OF the problem having been de-
clared impossible by the Supreme
Court, fanatics naturally came to the
front and attempted to settle It by
violence, by direct action" as It Is
called today.
Although the Buchanan admins
tration was the undertaken of a dead
past, its sombre record is lit up by
the first fash of the submarine tele-
graph cable. The conservative Presi-
dent was SO doubtful of this new
thing thai he suspected the message
of greeting to him from Queen VIC
toria might be a hoax. Before ven
turing to reply he cautiously sum-
| moned all the members of his cabi-
! net. Against the advice OF some of
them he took q chance and finally
sent his response to the Queen. Soon
afterward the cable broke n as not
another message came under the sea
for eight years the skeptics felt Justi-
| fed In their jeers at the wild absurd
L ity of the invention.