Norwich bulletin., 1920-04-30
Five Minutes a Day
 With Our Presidents
 ""s- Copyright 192o-By James Morgan
MOST TRAGIC ADMINS.
 TRATION

1s57-March 4, James Buchanan
 inaugurated 18th President,
 aged 65.
 March 5, Dred Scott decision.
 I855-Lincoln-D D ouglas debate.
 Is59-Aug. 5, Completion of Allan
 tic Cable.
 Oct. 16, John Browns raid.
 No president has come to the dis charge of his duties with a longer of ficial training than James Buchanan, who had been 40 years in the legislative, executive or diplomatic service. Yet no other has left behind him such record of failure.
 Only great leader might have sue eeeded in those most difficult times when Buchanan failed. And office holding does not, cannot make a leader. It is more likely to unfit man for leader ship. Were not Washington and Lincoln among the least experienced in state craft of all the men who have entered the presidency.
 Like the other president of his futile generation. Buchanan was chosen not ot lead on the slavery question, but to mislead the country. He was selected be- cause he had been on the other side of the ocean for three years while the peii- ticians at home had been making bad re- cords for themselves. Besides, he was l nominated in the hope that he could carry his own State of Pennsylvania against the swiftly rising republican par 1 ty under General Fremont
 In the political contests before the | Civil War, Pennsylvania was in truth as in name the Keystone State Hold | ing it's state election in October, which 1 ever party carried it in that month was almost certain to sweep on to a victory l 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 irFeso- 1 lute character, at once surrendered the steering wheel to the most extreme fac tion in the south. Theneeforth he re. mained a helpless, bewildered passenger on the ship of state as it was hurled up. on one rock after another in this mos ] tragic administration. First came ths Dred Scott decision. the very day aftel Buchanan's inauguration, when the su preme court held that all compromise. were unlawful, that all political agita i ton for the restriction of slavery wa, l in vain and that an owner had the sam, right to take drove of slaves as ; drove of horses into any state in thu Union.
 That decree left the republicans ant the Douglas democrats as well appealing from the judgment of the court of las resort, with the battle only remaining tribunal. And the Lincoln-Douglas de bate of 1858 heralded the impending ir repressible conflict.
 Il The fuse of civil war already had beel lighted in Kansas and it continued t sputter throughout Buchanan's term. 4 last if exnIoded hIast eiosA hy Wash ingtan itself. when John Brown of Ossa wattomie carried the Kansan war t Harpers Ferry, then in Virginia, in tn wild dream of melting the slaves them selves to rise in revolt against thei masters. A peaceable political solutio : of the problem having been declared in : possible by the supreme court. fanatic naturally came to the front and attempt ed to settle it by violence, by "diree action" as it is called today. Although the Buchanan administratio was the undertaken of dead past, il
 sombre record is lit up by the first has l of the submarine telegraph cable, Tn conservative president was so doubtful { , this new thing that he suspected tt message of greeting to him from Quee Victoria might be a hoax. Before vel turing reply he cautiously sunamone | all the members of his cabinet. Againl : the advice of some of them he took chance and finally sent his response the queen. Soon afteFward the cab
 broke and as not another message can
 under the sea for eight years the skel ] tics felt justified in their jeers at u l wild absurdity of the invention.
 Tomorrow: Adrift in the Storm.