The Carbon County news. [volume] (Red Lodge, Mont.) 1924-1931, 1930-04-03

pressive enough, for he dared the
wrath successfully of Thomas Jeffer-
| son, James Madison, John Marshall,
| John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams,
| Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and An
| drew Jackson. He asked no
| quarter of the best of them, and no
| weak man could have stood moment
| against the least of these.
| Certain of the elements of greatness
| John Randolph of Roanoke possessed
| beyond the shadow of doubt. In in
! tellectual keenness and alertness, ne
| rivalled the great virginians; in cour-
age no man among them surpassed
! him and not all were his equals; in
| depth of learning he was superior to
most of them perhaps to all! in per-
| sonal integrity not Washington him
| self was further beyond reproach. In
| addition Randolph possessed quail
! ity which none of the stars in Vir-
! ginia's political armament shared in
| anything like the first degree. This
| quality was his sheen, his coruscation,
his sheer, binding briliance.
But for all this he was man at
tended by fatality, the heir of the
House of Usher. Born to the purple,
wealthy, a handsome youth, charming
in his personal relations and equipped
| with maR0lHceHt IiHui IL oOOhioN
upon his entrance into public life that
all the beneficient powers had COM
bfned to insure his happiness and his
glory. But his fair prospects were all
illusory. Instead of primroses, his
| path was strewn with stones and
tborns. Instead of becoming
even the stepfather of his country, i
mean the Commonwealth of Virginia"
he urged her along road strikingly
similar to the one he trod, and which
led not to glory everlasting, but to
defeat, madness and death.
For q physical affliction which Ran
dolph sustained at the age Of nine
teen, following an attack of scarlet
fever, changed the whole course Of
his life and made him an embittered,
frustrated man. To the end Of his days
he retained curiously boyish appear
ance, beardless, with a shrill, high
mitchell voice. This fact, coupled with
the statement that he was "the first
orator. of his time and his own state
ment of 81 am an aristocrat. | love
Justice and hate equality" only &C
centuates the grotesque character Of
the Dicture of the man who was John
Randolph of Roanoke. when he was
over forty a spectator In the house
gallery was dumfounded at learning
that the skinny youth he saw ON the
floor and whom he had believed to be
about sixteen, was the great Mr.. Ran
dolph of Virginia"
The result of this affliction was in
eyitable. "Here was an intensely proud
member of proud race, a man who
cherished his lineage above all his
material possessions, man to whom
the family was not merely a sacred,
but downright awe-inspiring institu-
ton. deprived of the privilege of con-
tinuing his family" writes Johnson.
"Here was scornful man doomed
forever TO be the target of the shafts
of the scornful. Here was romantic
man ridicuously debarred from am
orous romance. Here was man whose
finest quality, perhaps, was his capac-
ity for unnagging devotion to the dom
este interests of his kin, denied the
possibility Of setting up a domestic
establishment of his own. 1t is in
conceivable that this Illustration, this
profound humiliation should have
failed to work out in bitterness of
spirit"
So John Randolph of Roanoke, who
had in him the elements Of greatness,
lust missed greatness. If he had not
been such a strong man, his story
would be a pathetic one. His Gown
people have remembered him with a
curious mixture of terror, pride and
wild delight. For, dark as is his story,
on occasion 1t glitters and sparkles
as does that of no other American of
anv generation. 1t is the story Of a
fighting man of the breed of Roland,
and no one who is stirred by a tale
of warrior who lays about him with
a right good will can fail to be stirred
nv Randolph But 1t is above all else
fantastic tale, frequently verging
upon the grotesque. The incredibly
long, incredibly lean figure was Don
Ouiyote to the life; but John RAN
dolnh's own were the glittering eyes,
and the almost fabulous forefinger
with which he seemed to transix a
shivering opponent"-this, the strang-
| est American,