consolidated. The question I had prepared myself on passed wholly out of
sight, and the whole entanglement of an insolvent railroad, twenty-five
years old, and lying across four States, and costing $20,000,000, came
upon us at once. There were seven lawyers in the case besides me. On one
side were John A. Campbell, of New Orleans, late member of the Supreme
Bench of the United States; a leading New York and a Mobile lawyer.
Against us were Judge Hoadley, of Cincinnati, and several Southern men.
I was assigned the duty of summing up the case for our side, and
answering the final argument of the opposition. I have never felt myself
in such danger of failure before, all had so much better knowledge of
the facts than I, and all had more experience with that class of
litigation? but I am very sure no one of them did so much hard work, in
the five nights and six days of the trial, as I did. I am glad to tell
you that I have received a dispatch from Mobile, that the court adopted
my view of the case, and gave us a verdict on all points."

Who can doubt, after reading of these two cases, that had Garfield
devoted himself to the practice of the law exclusively, he would have
made one of the most successful members of the profession in the
country, perhaps risen to the highest rank? As it was, he was only able
to devote the time he could spare from his legislative labors.

These increased as years sped. On the retirement of James G. Blaine from
the lower House of Congress, the leadership of his party devolved upon
Garfield. It was a post of honor, but it imposed upon him a vast amount
of labor. He must qualify himself to speak, not superficially, but from
adequate knowledge upon all points of legislation, and to defend the
party with which he was allied from all attacks of political opponents.

On this subject he writes, April 21, 1880: "The position I hold in the
House requires an enormous amount of surplus work. I am compelled to
look ahead at questions likely to be sprung upon us for action, and the
fact is, I prepare for debate on ten subjects where I actually take part
in but one. For example, it seemed certain that the Fitz John Porter
case would be discussed in the House, and I devoted the best of two
weeks to a careful 're-examination' of the old material, and a study of
the new.

"There is now lying on top of my book-case a pile of books, revisions,
and manuscripts, three feet long by a foot and a half high, which I
accumulated and examined for debate, which certainly will not come off
this session, perhaps not at all. I must stand in the breach to meet
whatever comes.

"I look forward to the Senate as at least a temporary relief from this
heavy work. I am just now in antagonism with my own party on legislation
in reference to the election law, and here also I have prepared for two
discussions, and as yet have not spoken on either."

My young readers will see that Garfield thoroughly believed in hard
work, and appreciated its necessity. It was the only way in which he
could hold his commanding position. If he attained large success, and
reached the highest dignity in the power of his countrymen to bestow, it
is clear that he earned it richly. Upon some, accident bestows rank; but
not so with him. From his earliest years he was growing, rounding out,
and developing, till he became the man he was. And had his life been
spared to the usual span, it is not likely that he would have desisted,
but ripened with years into perhaps the most profound and scholarly
statesman the world has seen.




CHAPTER XXX.

THE SCHOLAR IN POLITICS.


In the midst of his political and professional activity, Garfield never
forgot his days of tranquil enjoyment at Hiram College, when he was
devoted solely to the cultivation of his mind, and the extension of his
knowledge. He still cherished the same tastes, and so far as his
leisure--he had no leisure, save time snatched from the engrossing
claims of politics--so far, at any rate, as he could manage the time, he
employed it for new acquisitions, or for the review of his earlier
studies.

In January, 1874, he made a metrical version of the third ode of
Horace's first book. I quote four stanzas:

"Guide thee, O ship, on thy journey, that owest
To Africa's shores Virgil trusted to thee.
I pray thee restore him, in safety restore him,
And saving him, save me the half of my soul.

"Stout oak and brass triple surrounded his bosom
Who first to the waves of the merciless sea
Committed his frail bark. He feared not Africa's
Fierce battling the gales of the furious North.

"Nor feared he the gloom of the rain-bearing Hyads
Nor the rage of fierce Notus, a tyrant than whom
No storm-god that rules o'er the broad Adriatic
Is mightier its billows to rouse or to calm.

"What form, or what pathway of death him affrighted
Who faced with dry eyes monsters swimming the deep,
Who gazed without fear on the storm-swollen billows,
And the lightning-scarred rocks, grim with death on the shore?"

In reviewing the work of the year 1874, he writes: "So far as individual
work is concerned, I have done something to keep alive my tastes and
habits. For example, since I left you I have made a somewhat thorough
study of Goethe and his epoch, and have sought to build up in my mind a
picture of the state of literature and art in Europe, at the period when
Goethe began to work, and the state when he died. I have grouped the
various poets into order, so as to preserve memoirs of the impression
made upon my mind by the whole. The sketch covers nearly sixty pages of
manuscript. I think some work of this kind, outside the track of one's
every-day work, is necessary to keep up real growth."

In July, 1875, he gives a list of works that he had read recently. Among
these are several plays of Shakespeare, seven volumes of Froude's
England, and a portion of Green's "History of the English People." He
did not limit himself to English studies, but entered the realms of
French and German literature, having made himself acquainted with both
these languages. He made large and constant use of the Library of
Congress. Probably none of his political associates made as much, with
the exception of Charles Sumner.

Major Bundy gives some interesting details as to his method of work,
which I quote: "In all his official, professional, and literary work,
Garfield has pursued a system that has enabled him to accumulate, on a
vast range and variety of subjects, an amount of easily available
information such as no one else has shown the possession of by its use.
His house at Washington is a workshop, in which the tools are always
kept within immediate reach. Although books overrun his house from top
to bottom, his library contains the working material on which he mainly
depends. And the amount of material is enormous. Large numbers of
scrap-books that have been accumulating for over twenty years, in number
and in value--made up with an eye to what either is, or may become,
useful, which would render the collection of priceless value to the
library of any first-class newspaper establishment--are so perfectly
arranged and indexed, that their owner with his all-retentive memory,
can turn in a moment to the facts that may be needed for almost any
conceivable emergency in debate.

"These are supplemented by diaries that preserve Garfield's multifarous
political, scientific, literary, and religious inquiries, studies, and
readings. And, to make the machinery of rapid work complete, he has a
large box containing sixty-three different drawers, each properly
labeled, in which he places newspaper cuttings, documents, and slips of
paper, and from which he can pull out what he wants as easily as an
organist can play on the stops of his instrument. In other words, the
hardest and most masterful worker in Congress has had the largest and
most scientifically arranged of workshops."

It was a pleasant house, this, which Garfield had made for himself in
Washington. With a devoted wife, who sympathized with him in his
literary tastes, and aided him in his preparation for his literary work,
with five children (two boys now at Williams College, one daughter, and
two younger sons), all bright and promising, with a happy and joyous
temperament that drew around him warmly-attached friends, with a mind
continually broadening and expanding in every direction, respected and
appreciated by his countrymen, and loved even by his political
opponents, Garfield's lot seemed and was a rarely happy one. He worked
hard, but he had always enjoyed work. Higher honors seemed hovering in
the air, but he did not make himself anxious about them. He enjoyed
life, and did his duty as he went along, ready to undertake new
responsibilities whenever they came, but by no means impatient for
higher honors.

Filling an honored place in the household is the white-haired mother,
who, with justifiable pride, has followed the fortunes of her son from
his destitute boyhood, along the years in which he gained strength by
battling with poverty and adverse circumstances, to the time when he
fills the leading place in the councils of the nation. So steadily has
he gone on, step by step, that she is justified in hoping for him higher
honors.

The time came, and he was elected to the United States Senate in place
of Judge Thurman, who had ably represented the State in the same body,
and had been long regarded as one of the foremost leaders of the
Democratic party. But his mantle fell upon no unworthy successor. Ohio
was fortunate in possessing two such men to represent her in the highest
legislative body of the nation.

Doubtless this honor would have come sooner to Garfield, for in 1877 he
was the candidate to whom all eyes were directed, but he could not be
spared from the lower House, there being no one to take his place as
leader. He yielded to the expressed wishes of President Hayes, who, in
the exceptional position in which he found himself, felt the need of a
strong and able man in the House, to sustain his administration and help
carry out the policy of the Government. Accustomed to yield his own
interest to what he regarded as the needs of his country, Garfield
quietly acquiesced in what to most men would have been a severe
disappointment.

But when, after the delay of four years, he was elected to the Senate,
he accepted with a feeling of satisfaction--not so much because he was
promoted as because, in his new sphere of usefulness, he would have more
time for the gratification of his literary tastes.

In a speech thanking the members of the General Assembly for their
support, he said:

"And now, gentlemen of the General Assembly, without distinction of
party, I recognize this tribute and compliment paid to me to-night.
Whatever my own course may be in the future, a large share of the
inspiration of my future public life will be drawn from this occasion
and from these surroundings, and I shall feel anew the sense of
obligation that I feel to the State of Ohio. Let me venture to point a
single sentence in regard to that work. During the twenty years that I
have been in public life, almost eighteen of it in the Congress of the
United States, I have tried to do one thing. Whether I was mistaken or
otherwise, it has been the plan of my life to follow my conviction at
whatever cost to myself.

"I have represented for many years a district in Congress whose
approbation I greatly desired; but, though it may seem, perhaps, a
little egotistical to say it, I yet desired still more the approbation
of one person, and his name was Garfield. [Laughter and applause]. He is
the only man that I am compelled to sleep with, and eat with, and live
with, and die with; and, if I could not have his approbation, I should
have had companionship. [Renewed laughter and applause]. And in this
larger constituency which has called me to represent them now, I can
only do what is true to my best self, following the same rule. And if I
should be so unfortunate as to lose the confidence of this larger
constituency, I must do what every other fair-minded man has to
do--carry his political life in his hand and take the consequences. But
I must follow what seems to me to be the only safe rule of my life; and
with that view of the case, and with that much personal reference, I
leave that subject."

This speech gives the key-note of Garfield's political action. More than
once he endangered his re-election and hazarded his political future by
running counter to what he knew to be the wishes of his constituents and
his party; but he would never allow himself to be a slave to party, or
wear the yoke of political expediency. He sought, first of all, to win
the approval of his own conscience and his own sense of right, and then
he was willing to "take the consequences," even if they were serious
enough to cut short the brilliant career which he so much enjoyed.

I conceive that in this respect he was a model whom I may safely hold up
for the imitation of my readers, young or old. Such men do credit to the
country, and if Garfield's rule of life could be universally adopted,
the country would never be in peril. A conscientious man may make
mistakes of judgment but he can never go far astray.




CHAPTER XXXI.

THE TRIBUTES OF FRIENDS.


Before going farther, in order that my young readers may be better
qualified to understand what manner of man Garfield was, I will quote
the remarks made by two of his friends, one a prominent member of the
party opposed to him in politics. In the Milwaukee _Sentinel_ of Sept.
22d, I find this tribute by Congressman Williams, of that State:

"Happening to sit within one seat of him for four years in the House, I,
with others, perhaps had a better opportunity to see him in all of his
moods than those more removed. In action he was a giant; off duty he was
a great, noble boy. He never knew what austerity of manner or
ceremonious dignity meant. After some of his greatest efforts in the
House, such as will live in history, he would turn to me, or any one
else, and say: 'Well, old boy, how was that?' Every man was his
confidant and friend, so far as the interchange of every-day good
feeling was concerned.

"He once told me how he prepared his speeches; that first he filled
himself with the subject, massing all the facts and principles involved,
so far as he could; then he took pen and paper and wrote down the
salient points in what he regarded their logical order. Then he scanned
them critically, and fixed them in his memory. 'And then,' said he, 'I
leave the paper in my room and trust to the emergency.' He told me that
when he spoke at the serenade in New York a year ago, he was so pressed
by callers that the only opportunity he had for preparation was, to lock
the door and walk three times around the table, when he was called out
to the balcony to begin. All the world knows what that speech was.

"He was wrapped up in his family. His two boys would come up to the
House just before adjournment, and loiter about his desk with their
books in their hands. After the House adjourned, other members would go
off in cars or carriages, or walk down the avenue in groups. But
Garfield, with a boy on each side of him, would walk down Capitol Hill,
as we would say in the country 'cross-lots,' all three chatting
together on equal terms.

"He said to me one day during the canvass, while the tears came to his
eyes, 'I have done no more in coming up from poverty than hundreds and
thousands of others, but I am thankful that I have been able to keep my
family by my side, and educate my children.'

"He was a man with whom anybody could differ with impunity. I have said
repeatedly, that were Garfield alive and fully recovered, and a dozen of
his intimate friends were to go to him, and advise that Guiteau be let
off, he would say, 'Yes, let him go.' The man positively knew no malice.
And for such a man to be shot and tortured like a dog, and by a dog!

"He was extremely sensitive. I have seen him come into the House in the
morning, when some guerrilla of the press had stabbed him deeper in his
feelings than Guiteau's bullet did in the body, and when he looked
pallid from suffering, and the evident loss of sleep; but he would utter
no murmur, and in some short time his great exuberance of spirits would
surmount it all, and he would be a boy again.

"He never went to lunch without a troop of friends with him. He loved
to talk at table, and there is no gush in saying he talked a God
socially and intellectually. Some of his off-hand expressions were like
a burst of inspiration. Like all truly great men, he did not seem to
realize his greatness. And, as I have said, he would talk as cordially
and confidentially with a child as with a monarch. And I only refer to
his conversations with me because you ask me to, and because I think his
off-hand conversations with any one reveal his real traits best.

"Coming on the train from Washington, after his nomination, he said:
'Only think of this! I am yet a young man? if elected and I serve my
term I shall still be a young man. Then what am I going to do? There
seems to be no place in America for an ex-President.'

"And then came in what I thought the extreme simplicity and real
nobility of the man. 'Why,' said he, 'I had no thought of being
nominated. I had bought me some new books, and was getting ready for the
Senate.'

"I laughed at the idea of his buying books, like a boy going to college,
and remembered that during his Congressional career he had furnished
materials for a few books himself. And then, with that peculiar roll of
the body and slap on the shoulder with the left hand, which all will
recognize, he said: 'Why! do you know that up to 1856 I never saw a
_Congressional Globe_, nor knew what one was!' And he then explained how
he stumbled upon one in the hands of an opponent in his first public
anti-slavery debate.

"A friend remarked the other day that Garfield would get as enthusiastic
in digging a six-foot ditch with his own hands, as when making a speech
in Congress. Such was my observation. Going down the lane, he seemed to
forget for the time that there was any Presidential canvass pending. He
would refer, first to one thing, then another, with that off-hand
originality which was his great characteristic. Suddenly picking up a
smooth, round pebble, he said, 'Look at that! Every stone here sings of
the sea.'

"Asking why he bought his farm, he said he had been reading about
metals, how you could draw them to a certain point a million times and
not impair their strength, but if you passed that point once, you could
never get them back. 'So,' said he, 'I bought this farm to rest the
muscles of my mind!' Coming to two small wooden structures in the field,
he talked rapidly of how his neighbors guessed he would do in Congress,
but would not make much of a fist at farming, and then called my
attention to his corn and buckwheat and other crops, and said that was a
marsh, but he underdrained it with tile, and found spring-water flowing
out of the bluff, and found he could get a five-foot fall, and with
pumps of a given dimension, a water-dam could throw water back eighty
rods to his house, and eighty feet above it. 'But,' said he, in his
jocularly, impressive manner, 'I did my surveying before I did my
work.'"

This is certainly a pleasant picture of a great man, who has not lost
his simplicity of manner, and who seems unconscious of his greatness--in
whom the love of humanity is so strong that he reaches out a cordial
hand to all of his kind, no matter how humble, and shows the warmest
interest in all.

Senator Voorhees, of Indiana, was among the speakers at the memorial
meeting in Terre Haute, and in the course of his remarks, said: "I knew
James A. Garfield well, and, except on the political field, we had
strong sympathies together. It is nearly eighteen years since we first
met, and during that period I had the honor to serve seven years in the
House of Representatives with him.

"The kindness of his nature and his mental activity were his leading
traits. In all his intercourse with men, women, and children, no kinder
heart ever beat in human breast than that which struggled on till 10.30
o'clock Monday night, and then forever stood still. There was a light in
his face, a chord in his voice, and a pressure in his hand, which were
full of love for his fellow-beings. His manners were ardent and
demonstrative with those to whom he was attached, and he filled the
private circle with sunshine and magnetic currents. He had the joyous
spirits of boyhood and the robust intellectuality of manhood more
perfectly combined than any other I ever knew. Such a character was
necessarily almost irresistible with those who knew him personally, and
it accounts for that undying hold which, under all circumstances, bound
his immediate constituents to him as with hooks of steel. Such a nature,
however, always has its dangers as well as its strength and its
blessings. The kind heart and the open hand never accompany a
suspicious, distrustful mind. Designing men mark such a character for
their own selfishness, and Gen. Garfield's faults--for he had faults, as
he was human--sprang more from this circumstance than from all others
combined. He was prompt and eager to respond to the wishes of those he
esteemed his friends, whether inside or outside of his own political
party. That he made some mistakes in his long, busy career is but
repeating the history of every generous and obliging man who has lived
and died in public life. They are not such, however, as are recorded in
heaven, nor will they mar or weaken the love of his countrymen.

"The poor, laboring boy, the self-made man, the hopeful, buoyant soul in
the face of all difficulties and odds, _constitute an example for the
American youth, which will never be lost nor grow dim_.

"The estimate to be placed on the intellectual abilities of Gen.
Garfield must be a very high one. Nature was bountiful to him, and his
acquirements were extensive and solid. If I might make a comparison, I
would say that, with the exception of Jefferson and John Quincy Adams,
he was the most learned President in what is written in books in the
whole range of American history.

"The Christian character of Gen. Garfield can not, with propriety, be
omitted in a glance, however brief, at his remarkable career. Those who
knew him best in the midst of his ambition and his worldly hopes will
not fail now at his tomb to bear their testimony to his faith in God and
his love for the teachings of the blessed Nazarene.

"It seems but yesterday that I saw him last, and parted from him in all
the glory of his physical and mental manhood. His eye was full of light,
his tread elastic and strong, and the world lay bright before him. He
talked freely of public men and public affairs. His resentments were
like sparks from the flint. He cherished them not for a moment. Speaking
of one who, he thought, had wronged him, he said to me, that, sooner or
later, he intended to pour coals of fire on his head by acts of kindness
to some of his kindred. He did not live to do so, but the purpose of his
heart has been placed to his credit in the book of eternal life"

A correspondent of the New York _Tribune_ suggests that the following
lines, from Pollok's "Course of Time," apply with remarkable fitness to
his glorious career:

"Illustrious, too, that morning stood the man
Exalted by the people to the throne
Of government, established on the base
Of justice, liberty, and equal right;
Who, in his countenance sublime, expressed
A nation's majesty, and yet was meek
And humble; and in royal palace gave
Example to the meanest, of the fear
Of God, and all integrity of life
And manners; who, august, yet lowly; who
Severe, yet gracious; in his very heart
Detesting all oppression, all intent
Of private aggrandizement; and the first
In every public duty--held the scales
Of justice, and as law, which reigned in him,
Commanded, gave rewards; or with the edge
Vindictive smote--now light, now heavily,
According to the stature of the crime.
Conspicuous, like an oak of healthiest bough,
Deep-rooted in his country's love, he stood."




CHAPTER XXXII.

FROM CANAL-BOY TO PRESIDENT.


James A Garfield had been elected to the United States Senate, but he
was never a member of that body. Before the time came for him to take
his seat he had been invested with a higher dignity. Never before in our
history has the same man been an actual member of the House of
Representatives, a Senator-elect, and President-elect.

On the 8th of June, 1880, the Republican Convention at Chicago selected
Garfield as their standard-bearer on the thirty-sixth ballot. No one,
probably, was more surprised or bewildered than Garfield himself, who
was a member of the Convention, when State after State declared in his
favor. In his loyalty to John Sherman, of his own State, whom he had set
in nomination in an eloquent speech, he tried to avert the result, but
in vain. He was known by the friends of other candidates to be
thoroughly equipped for the highest office in the people's gift, and he
was the second choice of the majority.

[Illustration: INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.]

Mary Clemmer, the brilliant Washington correspondent, writes of the
scene thus: "For days before, many that would not confess it felt that
he was the coming man, because of the acclaim of the people whenever
Garfield appeared. The culminating moment came. Other names seemed to
sail out of sight like thistledown on the wind, till one (how glowing
and living it was) was caught by the galleries, and shout on shout arose
with the accumulative force of ascending breakers, till the vast
amphitheater was deluged with sounding and resounding acclaim, such as a
man could hope would envelope and uplift his name but once in a
life-time. And he? There he stood, strong, Saxon, fair, debonair, yet
white as new snow, and trembling like an aspen. It seemed too much, this
sudden storm of applause and enthusiasm for him, the new idol, the
coming President; yet who may say that through his exultant, yet
trembling heart, that moment shot the presaging pang of distant, yet
sure-coming woe?"

Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, who was the President of the Convention,
in a speech made not long afterward, paid the following just tribute to
Garfield's character and qualifications:

"Think of the qualifications for the office which that man combines. Do
you want a statesman in the broadest sense? Do you demand a successful
soldier? Do you want a man of more experience in civil affairs? No
President of the United States since John Quincy Adams has begun to
bring to the Presidential office, when he entered, anything like the
experience in statesmanship of Gen. Garfield. As you look over the list,
Grant, Jackson, and Taylor have brought to the position great fame as
soldiers, but who since John Quincy Adams has had such a civil career to
look back upon as Gen. Garfield? Since 1864 I can not think of one
important question debated in Congress or discussed before the great
tribunal of the American people in which you can not find the issue
stated more clearly and better than by any one else in the speeches in
the House of Representatives or on the hustings of Gen. Garfield--firm
and resolute, constant in his adherence to what he thinks is right,
regardless of popular delusions or the fear that he will become less
popular, or be disappointed in his ambitions.

"Just remember when Republicans and Democrats alike of Ohio fairly went
crazy over the financial heresy, this man stood as with his feet on a
rock, demanding honesty in government. About six years ago I sat by the
side of an Ohio Representative, who had an elaborately prepared table,
showing how the West was being cheated; that Ohio had not as many bank
bills to the square mile as the East, and that the Southwest was even
worse off than Ohio.

"In regard to the great questions of human rights he has stood
inflexible. The successor of Joshua R. Giddings, he is the man on whom
his mantle may be said to have descended. Still he is no blind partisan.
The best arguments in favor of civil service reform are found in the
speeches of Gen. Garfield. He is liberal and generous in the treatment
of the South, one of the foremost advocates of educational institutions
in the South at the national expense. Do you wish for that highest
type--the volunteer citizen soldier? Here is a man who enlisted at the
beginning of the war; from a subordinate officer he became a
major-general, trusted by those best of commanders, Thomas and
Rosecranz, always in the thickest of the fight, the commander of
dangerous and always successful expeditions, and returning home crowned
with the laurels of victory. Do you wish for an honored career, which in
itself is a vindication of the system of the American Republic? Without
the attributes of rank or wealth, he has risen from the humblest to the
loftiest position."

When the nominee of the convention had leisure to reflect upon his new
position, and then cast his eye back along his past life, beginning with
his rustic home in the Ohio wilderness, and traced step by step his
progress from canal-boy to Presidential candidate, it must have seemed
to him almost a dream. It was indeed a wonderful illustration of what we
claim for our Republican institutions, the absolute right of the poorest
and humblest, provided he has the requisite talent and industry to
aspire to the chief place and the supreme power. "It was the most
perfect instance of the resistless strength of a man developed by all
the best and purest impulses, forces, and influences of American
institutions into becoming their most thorough and ablest embodiment in
organic and personal activity, aspiration, and character."

The response to the nomination throughout the country was most hearty.
It was felt that the poor Ohio canal-boy had fitted himself, after an
arduous struggle with poverty, for the high post to which he was likely
to be called. The _N.Y. Tribune_, whose first choice had been the
brilliant son of Maine, James G. Blaine, welcomed the result of the
convention thus:

"From one end of the nation to the other, from distant Oregon to Texas,
from Maine to Arizona, lightning has informed the country of the
nomination yesterday of James A. Garfield, as the Republican candidate
for the Presidency.

"Never was a nomination made which has been received by friend and foe
with such evidence of hearty respect, admiration, and confidence. The
applause is universal. Even the Democratic House of Representatives
suspended its business that it might congratulate the country upon the
nomination of the distinguished leader of the Republicans.

"James Abram Garfield is, in the popular mind, one of the foremost
statesmen of the nation. He is comparatively a young man, but in his
service he commands the confidence and admiration of his countrymen of
all parties. His ability, his thorough study, and his long practical
experience in political matters gives an assurance to the country that
he will carry to the Presidential office a mind superior, because of its
natural qualifications and training, to any that has preceded him for
many years. He will be a President worthy in every sense to fill the
office in a way that the country will like to see it filled--with
ability, learning, experience, and integrity. That Gen. Garfield will be
elected we have no question. He is a candidate worthy of election, and
will command not only every Republican vote in the country, but the
support of tens of thousands of non-partisans who want to see a
President combining intellectual ability with learning, experience, and
ripe statesmanship."

The prediction recorded above was fulfilled. On the second of November,
1880, James A. Garfield was elected President of the United States.

Had this been a story of the imagination, such as I have often written,
I should not have dared to crown it with such an ending. In view of my
hero's humble beginnings, I should expect to have it severely
criticised as utterly incredible, but reality is oftentimes stranger
than romance, and this is notably illustrated in Garfield's wonderful
career.




CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE NEW ADMINISTRATION.


On the evening of March 3d, preceding the inauguration, the
President-elect met twenty of his college classmates at supper at
Wormley's Hotel, in Washington, and mutual congratulations were
exchanged. He was the first President of the United States selected from
among the graduates of Williams College, and all the alumni, but more
especially the class of 1856, were full of pride and rejoicing. From
none probably were congratulations more welcome to the new President
than from his old academic associates. If I transcribe the speech which
Gen. Garfield made upon that occasion it is because it throws a light
upon his character and interprets the feelings with which he entered
upon the high office to which his countrymen had called him:

"CLASSMATES: To me there is something exceedingly pathetic in this
reunion. In every eye before me I see the light of friendship and love,
and I am sure it is reflected back to each one of you from my inmost
heart. For twenty-two years, with the exception of the last few days, I
have been in the public service. To-night I am a private citizen.
To-morrow I shall be called to assume new responsibilities, and on the
day after, the broadside of the world's wrath will strike. It will
strike hard. I know it, and you will know it. Whatever may happen to me
in the future, I shall feel that I can always fall back upon the
shoulders and hearts of the class of '56 for their approval of that
which is right, and for their charitable judgment wherein I may come
short in the discharge of my public duties. You may write down in your
books now the largest percentage of blunders which you think I will be
likely to make, and you will be sure to find in the end that I have made
more than you have calculated--many more.

"This honor comes to me unsought. I have never had the Presidential
fever--not even for a day; nor have I it to-night. I have no feeling of
elation in view of the position I am called upon to fill. I would thank
God were I to-day a free lance in the House or the Senate. But it is
not to be, and I will go forward to meet the responsibilities and
discharge the duties that are before me with all the firmness and
ability I can command. I hope you will be able conscientiously to
approve my conduct; and when I return to private life, I wish you to
give me another class-meeting."

This brief address exhibits the modesty with which Gen. Garfield viewed
his own qualifications for the high office for which twenty years of
public life had been gradually preparing him. While all are liable to
mistakes, it is hardly to be supposed that a man so prepared, and
inspired by a conscientious devotion to what he deemed to be right,
would have made many serious blunders. During his brief administration
he made, as the country knows, an admirable beginning in reforming
abuses and exacting the most rigid economy in the public service. There
was every probability of his being his own successor had his life been
spared.

The inaugural ceremonies were very imposing. Washington was thronged as
it had never been before on any similar occasion. Private citizens,
civic bodies, and military companies were present from every part of
the country. Prominent among the eminent citizens present was the
stately and imposing figure of Gen. Hancock, who had been the nominee of
the opposing party, and who, with admirable good feeling and good taste,
had accepted an invitation to be present at the inauguration of his
successful rival.

And there were others present whom we have met before. The wife and
mother of the new President, with flushed cheeks and proud hearts,
witnessed the ceremonies that made the one they loved the head of the
State. To him they were more than all the rest. When he had taken the
oath of office in the presence of the assembled tens of thousands,
Garfield turned to his aged mother and imprinted a kiss upon her cheek,
and afterward upon that of his wife. It was a touch of nature that
appealed to the hearts of all present.

In the White House, one of the best rooms was reserved for his aged
mother, for whom he cherished the same fond love and reverence as in his
boyish days. It was a change, and a great one, from the humble log-cabin
in which our story opens; it was a change, too, from the backwoods boy,
in his suit of homespun, to the statesman of noble and commanding
figure, upon whom the eyes of the nation were turned. The boy who had
guided the canal-boat was now at the helm of the national vessel, and
there was no fear that he would run her aground. Even had storms come,
we might safely trust in him who had steered the little steamboat up the
Big Sandy River, in darkness and storm and floating obstructions, to the
camp where his famished soldiers were waiting for supplies. For, as is
the case with every great man, it was difficulty and danger that nerved
Garfield to heroic efforts, and no emergency found him lacking.

His life must now be changed, and the change was not altogether
agreeable. With his cordial off-hand manners, and Western freedom, he,
no doubt, felt cramped and hampered by the requirements of his new
position. When he expressed his preference for the position of a
freelance in the House or Senate, he was sincere. It was more in
accordance with his private tastes. But a public man can not always
choose the place or the manner in which he will serve his country.
Often she says to him, "Go up higher!" when he is content with an humble
place, and more frequently, perhaps, he has to be satisfied with an
humble place when he considers himself fitted for a higher.

So far as he could, Gen. Garfield tried to preserve in the Executive
Mansion the domestic life which he so highly prized. He had his children
around him. He made wise arrangements for their continued education, for
he felt that whatever other legacy he might be able to leave them, this
would be the most valuable. Still, as of old, he could count on the
assistance of his wife in fulfilling the duties, social and otherwise,
required by his exalted position.

Nor was he less fortunate in his political family. He had selected as
his Premier a friend and political associate of many years' standing,
whose brilliant talent and wide-spread reputation brought strength to
his administration. In accepting the tender of the post of Secretary of
State, Mr. Blaine said: "In our new relation I shall give all that I am,
and all that I can hope to be, freely and joyfully to your service. You
need no pledge of my loyalty in heart and in act. I should be false to
myself did I not prove true both to the great trust you confide to me,