The Wilmington morning star., 1946-12-25
Garfield Al The Turning
Point

Point
At the annual newspaper carriers
Christmas party, Judge John Jay Bur-
ney was discussing the lives of some
great men in the nations history from
the viewpoint of their success in self
character-building. Among them Judge
Burney mentioned President Garfield
and told Of his youthful decision to
make a mar of himself.
Judge Burney did not go on to tell
what it was that brought young Jim
!Garfield to his momentous decision,
and because the incident probably is
known and remembered by few today
it is told here.
Young Jim at the time was a mule
driver on the old Erie Canal. Canal
boat captains hired boys to drive their
mules along the tow-path for little more
than board and keep. When the boats
were tied up, the boys were free to do
what they wished, but were usually
too tired for playing;sand for the most
part spent their time sleeping or lean
ing on the boat rail.
One day, while the Garfield young
ster was id1fng at the rail he saw some
thing in the muddy canal that he
thought was a fish, and the sight was
so exceptional that he leaned too far
out and losing his balance fell into the
water. He couldn't swim.
But as he hit the water he grasped
a tow rope hanging from a hawser. The
harder he pulled the faster the rope
was paid out, and young Jim, all but
exhausted, thought his time had come.
Then the rope stopped. He gave a
tug and not another inch of it came
through the hawser.
With his strength all but gone, young
Jim managed to climb up and finally
tumbled over the rail to the dirty deck
VI CIc CdIldl UOdC.
AS he lay painting there he noticed
that the tow rope, which was not made
fast to the boat, had kinked at the
hawser and the knot, or loop, stopped
It's descent within a few feet of the end.
He could not stand up but he managed
to kneel and said to himself: "Jim Gar
tleld, God did that for you, and it
means He expects you to make a man
of Yourself"
No finer tribute was paid President
Garfield when he was assassinated than
that by an aged Negro bootblack. When
word spread through Washington that
the President was dead this old man.
bowed of back, grizzled, trembling with
grief, closed his little s~hoe-shining
stand, gathered his polish and brushes,
and shambled off to the shack he called
nome. He had no money for mourning
rlooons but, hardly able to see through
MS tears, he blackened his hovel with
MS polish and shined it with his brushes,
ana induced a passer-by to write a few
words on a piece Of paper which he
then tackled on the door.
While foreign rulers were sending
condolences in polished rhetoric, and
the nations press was weighing the
murdered Presidents attributes, this
bent and feeble e~x-slave's message read
HE helped to set me free"
That loop in the Erie canal boat tow
rope had done the work.
Instead Of progressing, we have stagnated
With other countries going ahead, we mus
watch out least we become a second = rate
power scientifically.
Sen. Brien Mcmahon (D) of Connecticut
Unless the Soviet system can be made
to abandon an armament race that will in
clude both atomic and germ warfare, Arma
geddon may still be to come.
DR.. William Y. Elliott of Harvard U