Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-05-15
FiDe Minutes 4 Day
With Our Presidents
SIlnxs end ArroMs
BY JAMES MORGAN.

"a - 49, ~ A1 $3.50
lCrown," which amusingly portrayed
THE imperial family" Somehow the
simple soldier President did not fit
well into the picture as Emperor
Ulysses L." But the Grown Prince
Frederick" Prince jesse" and the
other Imperial H~ighhesses" were bet
ter suited to their absurd parts in
his burlesque court at h White
House.
The only member of the Presiden-
tial family who won much popular
favor was Nellie Grant. Boil g a
spirited. unconventional girl, Nellie
was sent away from her throng OF
icourtlers to give her time to mature
in Europe. And she came home en-
Jagged to AgeTnon Sartoris. an En-
lglishman whom she met on shipboard.
1.-THE match was not at all TO the lik-
ling of her fond father. After he had
given her away In a brilliant White
| House wedding, he was buried in a
pillow, a prey to grief.
When Grant left the White House,
freed from public care r the first
time in Is years, his uppermost wish
was TO visit his daughter in England.
where he was surprised by the pub
lie welcome that greeted his arrival.
He was puzzled TO find himself a
parsonage said James Russell Low
ell. But his political friends were
quick to see in his triumphs abroad
la chance to restore their " pres
tiee at home, and they urged him on
until he had completed a tour OF
the world, which remains. perhaps,
unequalled in brilliance. As he went
his way from London TO Toxic, En-
|perors and Kings honored him, mar
halls paraded their troops before him,
But he pore himself amid all the
splendid %pageantry as simply as II
he were an unlocking bystander.
Coming home after n three years
absence, III weakly yielded to the
politicians who were using his name
in a desperate adventure to regain
power for the "~Stalwart" faction of
the Republican party. But the wise,
unwritten law against a third term
was INDICATED in his defeat in the
Republican convention of 1880.
The simple truth Is Grant was in
need of employment. After counting
over his money left after his long,
costly trip, he saw, as he wrote to a
friend. hat he would have ito live
in Galena or on a farm" II
not in the White House.
Failing the White House, he was
tempted by a young Napoleon of
Finance" into the whirlpool of New
York and to become a partner in a
Wall Street bank. Into that blind
venture he put what little money he
had and most of all his
name.
The great but modest soldier had
always a weakness for mere rich men,
who had succeeded where he failed.
Established in a big house in New
York, with the money rolling in upon
his partner, the hero of Appomattox
actually felt battered by the thought
that at last he was a success" and
could meet millionaires on a level!
After dwelling three years In thai
fools paradise he was rudely awak-
ened from his dream of wealth by
the young N~apoleon's" request that
he go borrowing from William H..
Vanderbilt to save the bank from
crashing. He was lame from a fall
on an icy street when the truth was
broken to him. but he limped into
the Fifth Avenue palace of the multi
millionaire and came u with $780,
600.
AS he entered the bank. two days
later. he was met with the crushing
news that the firm of Grant e Ward
had zone down in a shameful failure.
Hours afterward a clerk found the
broken man still sitting at his desk
In silent despair. his head dropped
forward. his hands gripping the arms
of his chair.
The trial of the partner and of an
|other man involved In the big swindle,
which ended in their conviction and
imprisonment, opened Grants eyes to
what a dupe he had been. ~ have
made 1t a rule of my life," he
grieved. ito trust a man long after
other people give him up; but 1 don't
see how i can ever trust any human
being again."
Had not a stranger, grateful for
services ending April, 1865" come
instantly to his rescue, Grant would
have been reduced to actual want in
New York again. Is he had been just
30 years before. when he landed in
1.-THE city an ex-army officer in dis
lgrace. Vanderbilt took from him the
little real estate that he owned, even
his swords. even the trophies of his
victories in war and of his triumphs
abroad. These latter We're afterward
given to h Government and are now
treasured i'm the National Museum at
Washington. a melancholy reminder
of an extraordinary pawn.
Out OF bad came good. Grant
opens his personal Memoirs with
q frank admission that he consented
to write that great narrative only
because. he was living on borrowed
money when a publisher proposed the
undertaking. AS he pursued his
tAhAS hG was SiatAiSu 70 uI-tONcT I'LL
unsupported gift for unfolding a NOV
ing tale of his adventures and achieve
ments In the field. He wrote on until
he had finished a story as imposing
In its directness and simplicity as
his " nature. And the first sales
of 1t brought his wife, when he was
gone. more money than all the earn
ings of his lifetime.
One. day, in the midst of his writ
ing, as he was eating a peach. he
felt a stabbing pain in his throat, A
deadly cancer had him in its clutch.
With grim heroism. he fought It UNI
til he had completed the two volumes
of his Memoirs although he was
reduced to the necessity Of whisper
ling his dictation in the ear of a stem
o~grapher. Finally he was left speech
Hess and had to write out the closing
chapters on a pad In his lap.
At the coming of summer, he was
taken upstate to a cottage on Mt.
McGregor. There he silently well
coined, as he sat on the piazza, the
visitors who came to see him, among
them General Simon Bolivar Buck
ner. To that classInate at West
Point and foeman at Fort Donaldson,
Grant gave his last message to his
countrymen. a message OF rejoicing
that his sufferings had united North
and South in a common sympathy.