Year: 1876

= rom the Jersey Clty Evening JOurnal.l


In the nomination of Hon. William A.
Wheeler for the Vice Presidency the Republi-
can delegates at Cincinnati did an unusually
judicious thing-in fact they builded much
better than most of them knew. Compare
lively few of the delegates personally knew
how good a man, and how strong a candidate
Mr.. Wheeler will prove to be. We have had
the pleasure and honor of a personal acquain-
tance with VIM. A. Wheeler for q period of
more than thirty years, and can therefore
speak of him and his character and qualifca-
tions fiom positive knowledge. Our own oPiu-
ion Of him is that 1t would be difficult to say
anything good of him that is beyond his merit.
In private and public life, Mr.. Wheeler is a
man of thorough and stainless integrity.
Those, who know him, always trust him
implicitly. So marked and so high is his re-
pute in this regard, that in the community
where he is best known, and where his home
life has been passed, it is enough to say
OF any matter in dispute, that W. A. Wheeler
has passed upon it, and that his opinion is
thus and SO, to secure general acquiescence.
He is eminently just man, calm in tempera-
ment, deliberate in investigating, and weigh
ing every subject, cautious in speech, but firm
in his opinions and resolute in his purposes.
Mr.. Wheeler is one of the last men whom any
one would dare approach with any proposition
that is not strictly honest and honorable.
There is that in his bearing and manner that
suffices to keep schemers and rogues at dis
tsnce from him. During long public career
as legislator, no one has ever ventured to
suggest that Mr.. Wheeler was ever Influenced
in his official actions by any motive of self
interest, or by any consideration except his
conviction of duty. He has passed many years
in the tainted political atmosphere of Albany
and Washington without ever having had SO
much as the suspicion of crookedness or cor
ruption touch him. He is a man of rare and
conspicuous conscientious courage. He is a
statesman without intrigue, q Christian gentle
man without cant or bigotry. If Mr.. Wheeler
is less known to the general public than some
men who have been SO long and SO ex-
tensiyely occupied in public affairs, 1t is be-
cause he is exceptionally modest and unob-
trusiye in his manners and unsmbitious in his
temperament. Public Office and position he
has never sought; they have always sought
him, as in this latest honor which has come to
him without the slightest effort on his part to
obtain it. It is a notable instance of the Office
seeking the man, not the man the office. In
his business habits he is methodical, thorough
and energetic. As a lawyer, broker, railroad
manager and legislator he has always ex-
hibited these qualities, and has been
found fully equal to any demand made upon
him, and he never lodges or shirks any
legitimate responsibility. Politically, Mr..
Wheeler is one of the most consistent and
straightforward of Republicans. Never
violent or hasty In forming or expressing
his opinions, he has yet always been frank
and prom ounced in his convictions, and has
always kept abreast with the advanced
positions Of Republicanism, and his political
nrI fe thrt1t OEf frnn
cowardice. He is q Republican from sincere
conviction, end always lives up to that con-
yiction. But he is not q partisan, in the
lower sense of that term, and has
never hesitated to criticize and differ
from his political associates when his judg-.
ment taught him 1t was his duty to do so.
With rings and cliques In the Republican party
Mr.. Wheeler has never had any connection, and
is absolutely incapable of being made the SER
want of any of them. Nobody can use him
for any sinister purposes. In the complications
and mutations of New York politics he has
been able to keep himself so free from entan-
clement that all parties alike respect and trust
him thoroughly. In his manners Mr.. Wheeler
is reserved and dignifed, but courteous and
easily approachable. He is a man who has
very few intimate friends and who has always
sought his pleasures in the domestic circle of
home, which he always made happy by his
presence and his devotion to the interests of



man of quiet habits and cultivated tastes, he
is an ornament to the society in which he min
giles. Mr.Wheeler's life has been one of steady
industry and patient work. Left fatherless and
poor before he reached his manhood, he de-
voted his early years of activity to the sc-
quiring of his profession and the care and
help OF his widowed mother and two sisters,
one of whom has always been an invalid, and
she is now, we believe, his only surviving near
relative. Mr.. Wheeler recently sustained the
seYerest affliction that can befall q man, In
the sudden death of his beloved and esti-
mabe wife. Their union, though singularly
happy one for thirty-One years, was never
blessed with any children, so that Mr..
Wheeler is a widower and childless. Before
he entered college at the University of Ver-
mont, and, we think, subsequently, death
of his father compelling him to leave the Uni
veTsity without completing his collegiate
course-Mr. Wheeler taught school, by this
means supporting himself and contributing to
the support OF his family, while he undertook
a course of law study. Admitted to the
bar, he rose rapidly in the confidence of
the public, and was soon q successful
lawyer. He pursued his profession for sew
eral years unremittingly, but was gradually
drawn away from 1t to the care of important
banking and railway interests, in which he
was for a long time engaged. The facts rela-
tive to his career in public office, in the Legis-
lature of his native State and In Congress, we
have already published, and need not here re-
peat. Such is William A. Wheeler, the next |
Vice President of the United States, as we
have known and esteemed him for nearly a
generation. 1t was with 8 peculiar sense of |
personal qualification that we aided In securing