Great Americans Who Have Achieved World-Wide Reputations By
Reason of the Success That Has Attended Their Careers,
Ascribe Their Triumphs to Maternal Influence.
_An original article written for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
The debt which the United States owes to the mothers of its citizens is
one that is beyond the expression of either figures or language. It is a
debt on which the republic can only pay the interest--interest that
consists of the manifestation of an ever-increasing reverence for American
motherhood; for, with all its magnificent resources, the nation is too
poor to make even a feeble attempt to pay the principal.
No better evidence of the effect of maternal influence on the careers of
successful Americans need be adduced than that which is offered here.
In the lives of the Presidents of the United States, it is found that the
nation owes much to American mothers.
George Washington was only eleven years old when his father died, leaving
the widowed mother, Mary Washington, with five children to educate and
direct. She used daily to gather her children around her and teach them
the principles of religion and morality from a little manual in which she
wrote all her maxims.
That manual was preserved by Washington as one of his most valued
treasures, "and was consulted by me many times in after-life." A French
general, on retiring from the presence of Mary Washington, remarked: "It
is not surprising that America should produce great men, since she can
boast of such mothers."
Andrew Jackson.
A few days previous to the birth of Andrew Jackson his father died, and
the widow and her two little sons rode to the churchyard in the wagon
with the coffin. The support of the family fell, then, entirely upon the
mother. She went to the home of her brother-in-law and there engaged
herself as housekeeper.
Until her sons were old enough to take care of themselves she toiled for
them, clothed them, and educated them as best she could.
Many stories are told of Mrs. Jackson's benevolence, her thrift, her
decision of character, and "a rigid honesty and pride of good name that
went hand in hand with a quick and jealous self-respect which was not
likely to be patient under any injustice."
When Andrew Jackson became President, he said of his mother:
"One of the last injunctions given me by her was never to institute a suit
for assault and battery, or for defamation; never to wound the feelings of
others, nor suffer my own to be outraged. These were her words of
admonition to me. I remember them well, and have never failed to respect
them."
Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson's father died when the lad was fourteen, and then his
mother became more than ever his companion and adviser. Thomas had,
indeed, always lived more under the influence of his mother than of his
busy father. She was a woman of unusual refinement of character, having
the culture of the best society. Thus equipped, she assumed the training
of Thomas. Upon the death of her husband she found herself her children's
guardian, responsible for a vast entailed estate that was to go to the
eldest son, Thomas.
John Quincy Adams.
John Quincy Adams's father was devoted to his family; but, engrossed in
political activities, he was frequently absent from home for long periods.
From the hour in which the boy learned to talk, his mental activities
received an uncommon stimulus from his mother.
"Being taught by my mother to love my country," wrote John Quincy Adams,
when he became President, "I did it literally by learning to love the
actual hills and rocks and trees, and the very birds and animals." And he
added elsewhere: "All that I am my mother made me."
It is an interesting coincidence that the three martyred Presidents should
each have been peculiarly dominated by a mother's influence.
Abraham Lincoln.
That expression of habitual melancholy in Lincoln's face, for example, was
really a reproduction of the features of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, his mother.
For, through long drudgery and privation, in cabin after cabin, Mrs.
Lincoln had lost all her comeliness, and became bent and care-worn and
sad-faced while Abraham was still an impressionable youth.
How Lincoln reverenced that mother is told by all his biographers. She it
was who, possessing the accomplishments of reading and writing, not common
at that time among the poor people of Kentucky, taught Abraham his letters
and gave him his first lessons in writing.
When Mrs. Lincoln died her son spent months roving the woods, vainly
trying to recover from his grief. The mother was buried without any
funeral service, there being no minister in the vicinity. But Abraham
traversed the country for twenty miles in every direction till he found an
itinerant preacher and induced him to come to his mother's grave and there
preach a funeral sermon.
"Now," he said, "I have henceforth but one purpose in life: to live as she
would have me live."
And in after years Lincoln was deeply and visibly affected whenever he
heard of any incident involving the love of mother and son.
James A. Garfield.
What a contrast is this experience of Lincoln's to that of General Ulysses
S. Grant, whose mother survived his Presidential career, and to that of
Garfield, whose mother lived to stand by his side when he read his
inaugural address on the steps of the Capitol and then to weep at his
tomb! And to that of McKinley, upon whose venerable mother the eyes of the
nation were turned with tender interest on March 4, 1897, when she was the
first person to whom McKinley spoke as President of the United States!
"Eliza," said the father of James A. Garfield to his wife, on his
dying-bed in a log cabin in the wilderness bordering the Ohio River, "I
have brought you four young saplings into these woods. Take care of them."
The future President was then only two years old. His mother was left to
fight the battle of life alone. She managed, by hard work, to run the
little farm, and even found time to give her sons daily lessons in
Bible-reading. Upon James in particular she impressed her personality,
until her own high nature dominated him deeply.
When James was old enough he drove mules on the tow-path of the Ohio
Canal. One pay-day his wages fell short of the proper amount.
"I want every cent for my mother," he said to his employer, insisting upon
the few extra pennies.
Finally he earned enough to enable him to enter the seminary at Chester,
ten miles from his home. While there, he spent a certain holiday, with his
classmates, on a mountain. As darkness gathered about them--they were to
remain overnight--Garfield took a Testament from his pocket and said:
"Boys, I read a chapter every night simultaneously with my mother. If you
please, I will read it now."
And on the day of his inauguration, he turned to his mother, saying:
"It's all because of you, mother."
William McKinley.
At the outbreak of the Rebellion a "war meeting" was held in Poland,
Ohio, in the Sparrow Tavern. There were speaking and beating of drums, and
finally an appeal for volunteers to defend the flag. The first to step
forth was William McKinley, Jr.
"No, my son," said the senior McKinley, laying a restraining hand upon his
son's arm; "you are too young."
"No, he is not too young--none are too young to carry a light in this dark
hour."
The speaker was William's mother.
"And thus, strange to say," wrote William McKinley, years afterward, "the
usual order of things was in my case reversed: my father would have held
me back from the mighty struggle that was to ensue, on the ground that I
was only eighteen years old; and my mother was the one to say 'Go!' For
she had, and still has, a strong and passionate patriotism. Next to God,
she loves her country. She believed in freedom, and was ready to offer up
even a woman's most priceless jewel--her child--to save her country's
flag. She had convictions, and the intellectual powers to impress those
around her--impressing most of all her son."
McKinley's mother was still living at Canton, Ohio, at the age of
eighty-seven, at the time of her son's first inauguration as President.
That day a seemingly trifling incident endeared the new President in the
hearts of the mothers of the country. For William McKinley, as soon as he
had taken the oath of office, went to his mother and kissed her.
Levi P. Morton.
Levi P. Morton once established a dry-goods house in New York, and failed.
But to his creditors he gave all he possessed, settling for fifty cents on
the dollar. Years afterward he made a great success as a banker, and then
he again gave thought to those whom he had not paid in full as a merchant.
One day all his former creditors received invitations to a banquet. His
guests took their seats at the table, and as each opened his napkin he
found a check for the full amount of his claim, with interest.
"Gentlemen," said Mr. Morton, "the one who deserves the credit for
the--shall we say favors of the evening?--is not your host, but the
mother who, by her early influence, has guided him through life. My
father's salary as the village parson was not sufficient for all the
household expenses; so I went to clerking in the village store for a few
dollars a month. When I brought my wages to my mother she said:
"'Levi, do you owe any of this money to anybody? Yes? Then go at once and
pay it, if it takes every dollar. If you owe money, you are not a free
boy.'
"My emancipation to-night, gentlemen, is the direct result of that
mother's early counsel."
Rockefeller and Rogers.
"My mother," says John D. Rockefeller, "taught me to make everything
count. When I became partner in a grocery, I got some barrels of
beans--cheap, because there were many black ones among them. I expected to
sell them cheap, too. But my mother said:
"'John, put in all your spare time, night and day, sorting those beans,
and then they will be all extra quality and you can sell them at an extra
price.'
"For weeks I worked, picking over those beans, by hand, throwing out all
the black ones. It was a lesson I have never forgotten. Through me, my
mother says to all young men:
"'Throw the worthless out of your life; make everything count.'"
Henry H. Rogers, of the Standard Oil Company, said recently:
"Up to a very few years ago I went to my mother with all my joys and all
my woes, just as I did when a boy."
Once a week, in Fairhaven, the model Massachusetts town for which Mr.
Rogers has done so much, he drives to the grave of that mother whom he
loved.
In his mother's cottage while she lived (she would never consent to move
into the great new castle her son built) Mr. Rogers put a long-distance
telephone. Then, every morning in his New York office, at eleven o'clock
precisely, in the very midst of the battle for millions, he would call a
truce for a few minutes "to telephone my mother."
Stephen V. White.
Stephen V. White, "Deacon White," one of the most trusted men in Wall
Street, has a long strip of canvas hanging on his office-wall on which are
painted, in large letters, these lines:
I shall pass through this world but once;
Any good thing which in passing I can do,
Or any kindness I can show to any human being,
Let me do it now;
Let me not defer it,
Nor neglect it,
For I shall not pass this way again.
"That's my philosophy of life," says Mr. White, "as my mother taught it to
me. Every young man should copy those lines and put the copy in the finest
frame he can afford. For those lines I owe my mother much; it was she who
made me repeat them over and over."
Edwin Markham, "The Man with the Hoe," says:
"It was the influence of my mother--my father having died--that dominated
me. She was an extraordinary woman. She kept a general store in Oregon
City, and conducted the business with remarkable energy. She was known as
the 'Woman Poet of Oregon.'
"It was from her that I got my poetical bent. Her poems were full of
feeling and of the earnestness of a strong religious spirit. They were
published only in newspapers--and to-day my scrap book containing poems
written by my mother is my most precious possession."
John Wanamaker.
"When you marry," said John Wanamaker, to a young men's Bible class,
"remember that your mother-in-law is your wife's mother. Never allow a
so-called 'mother-in-law joke' to make you forget that you are reading a
reflection on some one's mother. My own mother I reverenced. Her maxims
taught me forbearance, tolerance, and the homely lesson of live and let
live."
The mother of Henry O. Havemeyer, the "Sugar King," urged her son to don
overalls and go to work in his father's refinery--though the family was
even then very rich.
"So my mother taught me," says Mr. Havemeyer, "to know the joy of work at
a time when I might have slipped into a life of idleness."
The Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, the well-known New York clergyman,
says:
"My father was a farmer, and my mother, with four children on her hands,
and no servant, did all the work of a farmer's wife. Her days were long,
for she also devoted herself to her children, to their character and
education, declining to farm us out to the supervision of nurses or
school-teachers. My mother had the old-fashioned notion that children were
born of mothers in order that they might have mothers to bring them up."
David Starr Jordan, president of Leland Stanford University, was asked
what great man or woman most influenced him as a boy.
He replied, in writing:
"I was far more influenced by my mother than by any other person I ever
knew or heard of."
Fulton, Franklin, and Astor.
Robert Fulton was only three years old when his father died. "So that," he
said, "I grew up under the care of my blessed mother. She developed my
early talent for drawing and encouraged me in my visits to the
machine-shops of the town."
Robert was a dull pupil at school, however, and the teacher complained to
his mother. Whereupon Mrs. Fulton replied proudly:
"My boy's head, sir, is so full of original notions that there is no
vacant chamber in which to store the contents of your musty books."
"I was only ten years old at that time," said Fulton, "and my mother
seemed to be the only human being who understood my natural bent for
mechanics."
The fact that Fulton's mother let the boy have his own way in his
"original notions" had its direct result later in the building of the
first steamboat.
Benjamin Franklin many times, in his own story of his life, mentions the
powerful influence which his mother had over him, referring to her always
with peculiar affection.
"My son," said that mother, "is endowed with more than ordinary talent,
and he shall enter one of the professions, perhaps the ministry."
The family was then very poor, the elder Franklin having no ambition
beyond that of making a bare competence as a ship-chandler. Encouraged by
his mother, however, young Benjamin "took to books" with such ardor that
before he was ten years old his mother spoke of him as "our little
professor," and added:
"He shall serve either humanity or his country; the one as a minister of
the Gospel, the other as a diplomat."
The first John Jacob Astor said: "Whatever I have accomplished through
thrift is due to the teachings of my mother. She trained me to the habit
of early rising; she made me devote the first waking hours to reading the
Bible. Those habits have continued through my life, and have been to me a
source of unfailing comfort. Her death was the greatest grief of my
existence."