The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1920-09-06

Tennessee, and there he nailed above
the door of a two room house the sign
upon which the weather beats to this
day:
A. JOHNSON, TAILOR.
No other private occupation did he
ever have. From the table on which
he sat cross-legged as he worked at
his trade, he stepped directly into
congress. and he remains the only
president who describe himself as a
hand-craftsman. He continued most
of his life to make his own clothes,
and when he was governor of Ten
nessee, he complimented the governor
of Kentucky by making suit for him.
Johnson's tailor shop was also his
only schoolroom. He never was in any
other, even for a day. But he was
not his own teacher. The post was
filled by Miss Eliza McCardle, who
had CHANGED to see the North Carolina
boy walking into town and had gigglsG
to her companions, as so many gig
Cling girls have done: There goes my
beau"
In less than a year, though. the
bride only II, and the groom not yet
10. they were married and keeping
house in the two-room tailor shop.
Johnson could only read a little.
| and could painfully form the letters
Of the alphabet. But his wife became
his first teacher, reading to him while
| he piled his needle, or guiding his
hand while he practiced writing. Her
| eager pupil was most apt in oratory,
and soon his shop became the forum
Of debating society, where other am
bilious workers joined the tailor in
wordy combats.
| Before he was of age, this village
| Demosthenes was elected an Alder
man on workingmen's ticket, and two
years more he was mayor. Then for
eight years he was in the legislature;
| for ten years a representative in con-
| gress; for two terms governor of Ten
nessee, and finally he was elected to
the senate. His worthiest monument
as legislator is the Homestead law,
which opened the great national do.
main to the landless poor that he i'll
troduced and that he perseveringly
championed against a lobby of land
grabbers.
No one ever questioned Andrew
Johnson's honesty any more than his
courage as he rudely forced his way
up the ladder, rung by rung, in hard
hitting, rough-and-tumble contests. He
neither gave nor asked quarter It
was a poor school in manners, taste
and temper. His triumphs over those
who boosted their descent made him
bostful of his own ascent, and this
| self-made man never forgot his maker
The bold self-reliance of Johnson be.
came heroic in the eyes of the nation
when he alone among the % southern
| senators breasted the wave of seces
sion which engulfed his section and
which swept out of the union even
the state from which he helo his Gre
dentials. He not only fought secession
in the senate, but he challenged il
on his own ground, in, Tennessee
where he faced a cloud of deadly
threats. Pulling out his pistol at one
place, he pointed it at his mutterina
audience and defiantly shouted: IN
any man has any shooting to do lei
him begin now" No one venturing tc
second that motion to a hip pocket
Johnson laid his weapon on he table
and opened a vocal bombardment Of
the foe.
BY Lincoln's appointment, he was
made military governor of Tennessee
where his stout. fiery soul became {
very fortress for the union in the
midst of the enemy's country. 1t was
from that outpost that he was called
to the vice presidency. and in a month
more he was president.
Exiled from his home and family a:
he had been, his house seized by the
confederacy as the property of "ar
alien enemy" the long struggle ha,
been indeed a civil war to Andrew
Johnson, and left him in a most un
civil mood toward the confederat,
leaders. Yet through it all he has re
manned as stubbornly a southernor ant
a Democrat as he was a union man
1t was as a war Democrat and as
| southern unionist that he was nomi
, mated on the ticket with Lincoln il
1864, when the partisan designation U
Republican was lad aside for tn
broader name of the National Uniol
party. What his course would be nov
that he had taken the wheel was tn
riddle of one of the most anxious an,
pregnant hours in American history