Norwich bulletin., 1920-03-31
Five Minutes a Day
 With Our Presidents
LAST OF THE VIRGIN
1s2o-By James Morgan

FANS
 1317-James Monroe, Inauqurat-
 ed fifth President, Aged 58.
 1831-July 4, Died in Ne wYork, sa Aged 73.
 Monroes administration was the most serene and yet one of the most important periods in the life of the nation. It was an eight years crowd ed with glorious and lasting victories Of peace, such victories as swords never can win.
 By mere exchange of notes be- tween the United States and England, those two jealous neighbors pledged themselves to disarm forever on the Great Lakes. After more than 100 years of peace on that long watery frontier, this simple "gentlemen's agreement of 1917 stands before the world today the most. successful example of disarmament. By com mon sense business transaction, Flor ida, which was of little use to Spain, but of much use to the United States, was bought over the counter in 1920, a peacea'ble conquest that ranks sec- ond only to the Louisiana Purchase. By a. civil notice to the Old World, in 1923, the whole New World was set aside under the Monroe Doctrine
 n an immense preserve of inter- national peace. By give-and- take in the Missouri Compromise of 1920, North and South were bound together anew though with false ties. Those four acts of constructive statesman ship, to the credit of Monroe's admin istration, cannot be matched by any other Presidency.
 Monroe's two terms cover what | is known as "the era of good feel | ings." The old federalist party hav- | ing given up the ghost, he succeeded | to the presidency as the last of the | Virginia dynasty almost as easily as an heir apparent receives the crown of his father. With the exception of | Washington, he is the only president, who has been unopposed at the polls, and his second election would have been entirely unanimous had not a New Hampshire elector cast one dis senting ballot.
 Yet that "era of good feefing'' really was filled with many bitter 1 feeling aroused by personal ambi- l tions and the quarrels of factions. But Monroe formed one of the strong est cabinets in history, and, with John l Quincy Adams Wm. H. Crawford, John c. Calhoun and William Wirt among it's members, he succeeded in lreconciIing to his administration the most divergent clements. In his de- sire for harmony he would also have included Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson, but they declined.
 l One day the British Minister glared across the White House dinner table and shouted to the French Minister
 Are you biting your nails at me
 sir?" The Frenchman resS onded by drawing his sword and the two dip l lomats rushed at each other. But I as they were about to clash. the Il president drew his own sword be-
 tween them and stopped the fight. l That little incident gives us a pic. l ture of the spirit of Monroe and his administration. While he was in tho White House, men and, factions haC to leave their quarrels at the door,. The quiet, modest president wa not so successful in keeping the peac' i among the women of the officia 1 circle, and their disputes over socia l, rank and precedence brewed many squalls about his head. Having beel : with her husband at the Courts o
 Paris and London. Mrs. Monroe an her daughter-the schaolmate o T Queen Hortense-were accused o l putting on semi-royal airs It wa
 held to be beneath their presidentis
 dignity to sit in the presence of tn 1 presidents wife or to receive any e one not in ceremonial dress. On : poor relation of Mrs. Monroe actual t was turted away because he came s the thjn new-fangled pantaloon : rather than in proper: knee breeche and silk stockings. l
 h Although Jim Monroe. as he wa }. familiarly called, was the last pres n ident to cling to the ancient kne :; brooches, cockade' and sword, he wa T as plain and easy as an old sho :. When newly arrived Europea
 diplomat saw a baid-headed, water is eyed man in a striped seersuckt
 coat, a, dirty waistcoat spotted wit n ink and with slippers down at u 6 heel writing at a White House des