Norwich bulletin., 1920-06-02

as little man alTnos lost sight under 'grandfather's hat" But there was noth- ing of he social aTistocrat about the man who had the longest ancestral line of any of our presidents.
 Graduating from small Ohio col lege, Harrison married at 20 the girl to whom he engaged himself at IS, and they went to housekeeping in a little three-room cottage in Indianapolis. He was not admitted to he bar until after his marriage and the first money he ever made was as a court crier at $2.5e day Later on he helped out his lean practice with his salary as clerk of the Supreme Cour of the State. Then came the Civil war, ill which he served gallantly as 9 colonel and marched with Sherman to the sea. Afterward he rose to a high and prosperous rank in the practice of law
 As in a dozen other instances, the presidency overlook and surprise Harri- son when he was going away from it rather than toward it. TTis strange how often the highest prize has fallen to men who had been disappointed in their race for lesser prizes.
 The only political office Harrison ever held before his election to the presidency was a seat in the senate. Defeated for reelection to that body in the year before he was elected president, he left Wash ington with no though that he would soon return as president-elect, and he frankly described himself as "a dead duck"
 The only candidate that the rank and file of the republicans wanted to norni- nate in 1888 was Blaine. But he was not well and refused to make a contest for the nomination. At last he cabled from Scotland, Take Harrison And the convention indifferently took him.
 Harrison was rather the best public speaker we have had in the presidency, with the exception of Lincoln. His fn- ished little speeches which he daily de- ! livered to the crowds that were rail- roaded into Indianapolis by the party managers, were most helpful to his can didacy.
 Money waxed still more eloquent in that campaign. Clevelands tariff mes- sage was answered by a record break l ing fund for the republicans. Fry the I fat out of the protected industries" was l the command of the chairman of the l republican national committee, and those industries were done to turn.
 The more notable events of the Har- rison adninistration-the Mckinley tariff act; the silver act, winch more than l doubled the purchase of that metal bJ 1 the treasury the Sherman law on the | subject of trusts; the dependent pensior l act, and the first Pan-American congress 1 hardly belong to this little story, be l cause none of them originated with the i president himself. He did not rise tt leadership, and congress took the reins All the while he sat in the White House l in cold aloofnesS
 A lone little figure throughout his life the presidency isolated him still nor, completely from his fellows Now walk with God" his closest political con hdant was chilled to hear him say cleo tion night. Without offering a chair t, his callers at the White House, he sa tapping his desk, impatient for them t go. Don't feel insulted by anything h may do or say" a friendly apolegis l warned a party of men and women tha he was about to lead into the presiden tial presence; it is only his way"
 senator said that when Harrison ad dressed 10000 men he captured them al but if they met him separately and pri vately every one of them would com
 enemies in the world Speaker Ree drawled. Harrison has appointed one (
 them to office in my town and pardone
 the other out of the penitentiary"
 With the cry of God help the SUI
 plus"' the republicans gave the cour
 try in Harrisons administrations tt
 first "billion-dollar congress- the al propriations for the two-year term ri
 ing to that unprecedented total To tt
 popular protest, Speaker Reed retorteG
 This is a billion dollar country" But u
 country did not feel rich enough to pa
 the higher tariffff rates of the McKil | ley act
 i That law was passed only seven weel
 before the congressional elections
 1890. Of course, everyone who had an
 thing to sell seized upon the excuse
 mark up prices. The shopping womel
 rose in their fury at the higher cost
 living, and the voters overwhelmed t
 republican majority in the house.
 That was the forerunner of a st
 greater political overturn in the preside
 tial election in 1892, when Harris
 went down under a sweeping victory f
 Cleveland The lass of his wife Def
 him only ten days before he lost t
 presidency. After 9 few years a '