The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1922-04-27
On the One Hundredth Anniver-
sary of General Grants Birth.

The lives of most OF our national
heroes arc the stories of steady
ascent to greatness, but GRANTS was
otherwise The careers of WASHING
ToS and LINCOLN would be charted
with straight lines ever inclining
upward; but tho line Of GRANTS his
tory is one of peaks and valleys.
And although 1t is by the peaks that
a grateful country remembers him,
their grandeur Is emphasized by the
depths from which they rose.
The youth Of GRANT before his
West Point career was not different
from that Of any Ohio farm lad. His
record ut the Military Academy was
distinguished by excellent horseman-
ship and fair intellectual qualities.
His behavior in the Mexican war was
brilliant, the quiet young man exhib-
iting a spirit worthy Of the most
dashing hero of fiction. It GRANT
had been killed at the storming of
Chapultepec or the capture of Mex
leo city the people at home would
have felt that a young Lieutenant
had persisted who, had he survived,
would have gone on steadily TO sue
cess.
Why GRANT did not go on to that
Immediate success which his friends
predicted is a problem for the 3sy.
biologists. Six years after his spar
king career in the Mexican war he
was out of the army by the army's
wish rather than his own. That fine
character, with all its background of
Scotch strength, all its native purity
and honesty, had been unable to cope
with the loneliness OF the frontier.
The young man of promise had de-
scended into the valley and there
was none who could return him to
the heights except himself.
From 1854, when he was 90, I'M
I'll 1861, when he was 80, ULYSSES 5.
GRANT was as fiat failure as any
Point with ambition. He failed at
small farming; he failed in the real
estate business. He was forced back
to seek employment with his father
at a wage at which any clerk OF
to-day would laugh. II must be
doubted whether any spark OF am
bition remained in the scourged soul /;
but there still remained what meant
more to GRANT and more to his coun.
try than ambition or success. The
character, the determination, the will
10 do as best he could what came
next to his hand-these had not de
serted the man who had failed.
We may be confident that these
virtues stayed with GRANT in tho
dark years in tho valley, for wher
better times came they were IN
changed by victory. The cold nerve
that gave TO the North its first real
victory at Fort Donelson; the grin
determination that drove through al
obstacles to win Vicksburg; the re
lentless drive that slgnalized the vii
derness; the patience that at last re
suited in Appomattox: the msgnanim
iiv with which the commander suf
fored the gossip and the SANDER that
were heaped on him as he fought bis
way back to the mountaintop-thesc
must have been alive within hin
when nearly all who knew him hat
given him up az a failure beyond
hope.
II was lucky thing for the United
States that LINCOLN had Grant ant
shat GRANT had Lincoln. Without
GRANT the war might have been lost
but without LINCOLN General GRAN
could not have risen TO the top Of tho
army, there to exercise that military
skill which restored the shaking for
tunes of the North. LINCOLN mus
have seen that the quiet, bearded sol
dier had come out OF the valley witt
all the qualities which COP had put
In him; that he was no longer thu
failure Of whom Ohio gossiped; M
longer the lonesome man made In
temperate, but great soul who hat
drawn wisdom from misfortune and
strength from misery.
Once again, twenty years after tht
war was over, the country saw
ULresEs GRANT come back as mag
nifcently as he returned TO victory
in 1861. This time u was not q wal
against secession but battle against
poverty and race with death. TIL,
doctors had signed GRANTS dealt
warrant before he began to write, II
an effort to leave his family provided