The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1920-06-17

Willard Fillmore, the second vice !
president to be promoted by death,
was the most commonplace president
even in a twenty-year period when
the presidency remained at low-water
mark. Tall and with magisterial front
but cold and hollow, he looked the
part which he played-the dummy OF
Northern trimmers in politics and OF
Southern traffickers in slaves.
A fable of the day hit off the truth.
the new president must have car
rage, and "Old Edward Moran,
White House attendant in many ad-
ministrations, took him to see a hand
some outfit, whose owner was leav-
ing Washington and would sell it at
a bargain.
This is all very well, Edward" Fill.
more unused, according to the popular
yarn; but how would it do for the
president of the United States to ride
around in a secondhand carriage?"
But, sure" argued "Old Edward"
Your Ixcellency is only Secondhand
president"
Fillmore was from New York, which
is the unwilling mother of vice-presi-
dents, with no less than ten to her
credit. Instead of big states bullying
little states, as the fathers feared, our
biggest state has been mostly disap
pointed in its ambitions for the presi-
dency, and it Is the custom to give it
the vice-presidency as a consolation
purse. Of the four New York presi-
dents, three had to take the second
place before they could get the first.
Cleveland was the only one of them
to enter the White House by the front
door
In Fillmore we have another from
tier president For Western New
York was an output when he was
born there of New England parents
After receiving about the same kind
of schooling as our other log-cabin
presidents, he was bound out to learn
the trade of wool carder.
While serving that apprenticeship
there happened the most important
event in his life until he suddenly
found himself in the White House. AS
with the race of boys in general, he
fell in love, at nineteen, with a girl
older than himself. Abigail Powers
was the village schOolma'am, and in
his boyish admiration of her superior
ity he was spurred to read and to re-
pair the defects of his education. The
aspiring apprentice excited the inter
est Oh Iuc village lawyer, VINO uelptU
him to become a lawyer. and his mar
riage with the schoolma am followed.
That is the one romance in the life
of the thirteenth president. The rest
| is only string of dates and list of
offices: member of the legislature;
member Of congress; defeated for gov
ernor; elected state controller. On
the strength of having carried New
York for that modest office, the Wings
nominated him the next year for vice
president, and fate made him presi-
dent.
The one enduring act Of the Fill
more administration was taken when
it sent Commodore Perry to knock at
the long-closed gate of Japan, and,
with the gift of a toy railroad and a
toy telegraph. to tempt the Japanese
to come out Of their hermit scclusion.
/ The rest is politics, and that is a chap
ter in itself
AS American men struggled to rise
from the bottom in the more primitive
days Of the country, their women often
failed to keep up with them. By the
time half of Fillmore's predecessors
gained the presidency, their wives
were either dead, worn out or tagging
| behind.
Mrs. Fillmore. finding herself with
out strength or ambition to reign with
| her husband, her place was taken by
| daughter. This girl of eighteen
Miss Mary Abigail, was enough of a
new woman to have insisted on fitting
/