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."