Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-03-29
Five Minutes A Day
With Our Presidents
The Last of the virginians
JAMES MORGAN

n.y. 80 tNAaA y -
important periods in the life of the
Nation. 1t was an eight years crowded
with glorious and lasting victories OF
peace, such victories as swords never
can win.
By q 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 hat long watery
frontier, this simple "gentlemen's
agreement" of 1917 stands before the
world today the most successful exam
pie of disarmament. By a m
sense business transaction, Florida
which was of little use to spain, but
of much use to the United States, was
bought over the counter in 1920, a
peaceable conquest that ranks second
only to the Louisiana Purchase. BY
a civil notice to the Old World, in
1929, the whole New World was set
aside under the Monroe Doctrine as
IAN immense preserve of international
peace. BY giv~e-and-take In the MIS-
souri, Compromise of 1920, North and
South were bound together anew,
though with false ties. Those four acts
of constructive craftsmanship, to the
credit of Monroe's administration,
cannot be matched by any other Presi-
dency.
Monroe's two terms what is
known as 1.-The era of good feelings"
The old F'ederalist party having given
up the ghost, he succeeded to the
Presidency as the last of the Virginia
dynasty almost as easily as an heir ap-
parent 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
~ aafi0n rr-arH11 hnrra hnnn nntirn1Xv n
animous had not a New Hampshire
cast one dissenting ballot.
Yet that EZRA of good feeling" really
vas filled with many bitter feelings
aroused by personal ambitions n
the quarrels of factions. But Monroe
formed one of the strongest cabinets
In history. and, with John Quincy
William H. Crawford. John G.
Calhoun and William Writ among its
members, he succeeded in ~reconciling
to his administration the most diver
gent elements. In his desire for har-
mony, he would also have included
Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson, but
they declined.
One day the British Minister glared
across the White House dinner table
and shouted to the French Minister,
o biting your nails at me, SIR"
The Frenchman responded by drawing
his sword and the two diplomats rush
ed at each other. But as they were
about to clash, the President drew
his own sword between them and
stopped the fight.
That little incident gives US a pic
ture of the spirit of Monroe and his
administration. While he was in the
White House, men and factions had
to leave their quarrels at the door.
The quiet, modest President was not
so successful in keeping the peace
among the women of the official circle,
and their disputes over social rank
and precedence brewed many squalls
about his head. Having been with her
husband at the Courts of Paris and
London, Mrs. Monroe and her daugh-
ter-the schoolmate of Queen Hor-
tense-were accused of putting on
semi-royal airs. 1t was held to be be-
meath their Presidential dignity to re-
turn calls, to permit guests to sit In
the presence of the Presidents wife
or to receive any one not in ceremonial
dress. One poor relation Of Mrs. Mon
roe actually was turned away because
he came in the then n~ew-fangled pam
falcons rather than in proper knee
breeches and silk stockings.
Although Jim Monroe, as he was
Familiarity called, was the last Pres
ident to cling to the ancient knee
brooches. cockade and sword, he was
as plain and easy as an old shoe.
When a newly arrived European diplo-
mat saw a bald-headed, wateryeyed
man in a striped seersucker coat, a
dirty waistcoat spotted with ink and
with slippers down at the heel writing
at a White House desk, he wondered
a ~slovenly clerk until he was dumb
founded to find that he was in the
presence Of the President himself.
In the six years that remained to
Monroe after retiring from the Pres
idency, he set himself, as an express
ident, a high standard Of conduct.
Having received the supreme honor at
the hands of all the people, he felt
that his name belonged to them and
he refused to lend it to any candidate
or any party.
scrupulous in keeping its obligations
to him and neglected to pay a simple
debt that 1t honestly owed. He had
left the White House with hardly a
dollar and without a ribbon-with
nothing to show for a life spent wholly
in the service Of the country save
the badge of an honorable poverty and
the Hessian bullet, which he carried in
his shoulder through the half century
since the battle of Trenton.
Feeble and alone after the death
of his wife, Monroe sold Oak Hill, his
Virginia farm, In the closing months
of his life. With the feelings Of an
exile, the last OF the Virginians left
his native state to live with a son-in-
law in New York City. where he died
on July 4, 1881, the third President
to pass out on the birthday of the
republic.
Copyright, 1920, by James Morgan;
published by special arrangement with
The Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate