MR. DEPEW'S ESTIMATE OF GARFIELD.
My task is drawing near a close. I have, in different parts of this
volume, expressed my own estimate of our lamented President. No
character in our history, as it seems to me, furnishes a brighter or
more inspiring example to boys and young men. It is for this reason that
I have been induced to write the story of his life especially for
American boys, conceiving that in no way can I do them a greater
service.
But I am glad, in confirmation of my own estimate, to quote at length
the eloquent words of Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, in his address before the
Grand Army of the Republic. He says of Garfield:
"In America and Europe he is recognized as an illustrious example of the
results of free institutions. His career shows what can be accomplished
where all avenues are open and exertion is untrammeled. Our annals
afford no such incentive to youth as does his life, and it will become
one of the republic's household stories. No boy in poverty almost
hopeless, thirsting for knowledge, meets an obstacle which Garfield did
not experience and overcome. No youth despairing in darkness feels a
gloom which he did not dispel. No young man filled with honorable
ambition can encounter a difficulty which he did not meet and surmount.
For centuries to come great men will trace their rise from humble
origins to the inspirations of that lad who learned to read by the light
of a pine-knot in a log-cabin; who, ragged and barefooted, trudged along
the tow-path of the canal, and without money or affluent relations,
without friends or assistance, by faith in himself and in God, became
the most scholarly and best equipped statesman of his time, one of the
foremost soldiers of his country, the best debater in the strongest of
deliberative bodies, the leader of his party, and the Chief Magistrate
of fifty millions of people before he was fifty years of age.
"We are not here to question the ways of Providence. Our prayers were
not answered as we desired, though the volume and fervor of our
importunity seemed resistless; but already, behind the partially lifted
veil, we see the fruits of the sacrifice. Old wounds are healed and
fierce feuds forgotten. Vengeance and passion which have survived the
best statesmanship of twenty years are dispelled by a common sorrow.
Love follows sympathy. Over this open grave the cypress and willow are
indissolubly united, and into it are buried all sectional differences
and hatreds. The North and the South rise from bended knees to embrace
in the brotherhood of a common people and reunited country. Not this
alone, but the humanity of the civilized world has been quickened and
elevated, and the English-speaking people are nearer to-day in peace and
unity than ever before. There is no language in which petitions have not
arisen for Garfield's life, and no clime where tears have not fallen for
his death. The Queen of the proudest of nations, for the first time in
our recollections, brushes aside the formalities of diplomacy, and,
descending from the throne, speaks for her own and the hearts of all her
people, in the cable, to the afflicted wife, which says: 'Myself and my
children mourn with you.'
"It was my privilege to talk for hours with Gen. Garfield during his
famous trip to the New York conference in the late canvass, and jet it
was not conversation or discussion. He fastened upon me all the powers
of inquisitiveness and acquisitiveness, and absorbed all I had learned
in twenty years of the politics of this State. Under this restless and
resistless craving for information, he drew upon all the resources of
the libraries, gathered all the contents of the newspapers, and sought
and sounded the opinions of all around him, and in his broad, clear mind
the vast mass was so assimilated and tested that when he spoke or acted,
it was accepted as true and wise. And yet it was by the gush and warmth
of old college-chum ways, and not by the arts of the inquisitor, that
when he had gained he never lost a friend. His strength was in
ascertaining and expressing the average sense of his audience. I saw him
at the Chicago Convention, and whenever that popular assemblage seemed
drifting into hopeless confusion, his tall form commanded attention, and
his clear voice and clear utterances instantly gave the accepted
solution.
"I arrived at his house at Mentor in the early morning following the
disaster in Maine. While all about him were in panic, he saw only a
damage which must and could be repaired. 'It is no use bemoaning the
past,' he said; 'the past has no uses except for its lessons.' Business
disposed of, he threw aside all restraint, and for hours his
speculations and theories upon philosophy, government, education,
eloquence; his criticism of books, his reminiscences of men and events,
made that one of the white-letter days of my life. At Chickamauga he won
his major-general's commission. On the anniversary of the battle he
died. I shall never forget his description of the fight--so modest, yet
graphic. It is imprinted on my memory as the most glorious
battle-picture words ever painted. He thought the greatest calamity
which could befall a man was to lose ambition. I said to him, 'General,
did you never in your earlier struggle have that feeling I have so often
met with, when you would have compromised your future for a certainty,
and if so, what?' 'Yes,' said he, 'I remember well when I would have
been willing to exchange all the possibilities of my life for the
certainty of a position as a successful teacher.' Though he died
neither a school principal nor college professor, and they seem humble
achievements compared with what he did, his memory will instruct while
time endures.
"His long and dreadful sickness lifted the roof from his house and
family circle, and his relations as son, husband, and father stood
revealed in the broadest sunlight of publicity. The picture endeared him
wherever is understood the full significance of that matchless word
'Home.' When he stood by the capitol just pronounced the President of
the greatest and most powerful of republics, the exultation of the hour
found its expression in a kiss upon the lips of his mother. For weeks,
in distant Ohio, she sat by the gate watching for the hurrying feet of
the messenger bearing the telegrams of hope or despair. His last
conscious act was to write a letter of cheer and encouragement to that
mother, and when the blow fell she illustrated the spirit she had
instilled in him. There were no rebellious murmurings against the Divine
dispensation, only in utter agony: 'I have no wish to live longer; I
will join him soon; the Lord's will be done.' When Dr. Bliss told him he
had a bare chance of recovery, 'Then,' said he, 'we will take that
chance, doctor.' When asked if he suffered pain, he answered: 'If you
can imagine a trip-hammer crashing on your body, or cramps such as you
have in the water a thousand times intensified, you can have some idea
of what I suffer.' And yet, during those eighty-one days was heard
neither groan nor complaint. Always brave and cheerful, he answered the
fear of the surgeons with the remark: 'I have faced death before; I am
not afraid to meet him now.' And again, 'I have strength enough left to
fight him yet'--and he could whisper to the Secretary of the Treasury an
inquiry about the success of the funding scheme, and ask the
Postmaster-General how much public money he had saved.
"As he lay in the cottage by the sea, looking out upon the ocean, whose
broad expanse was in harmony with his own grand nature, and heard the
beating of the waves upon the shore, and felt the pulsations of millions
of hearts against his chamber door, there was no posing for history and
no preparation of last words for dramatic effect. With simple
naturalness he gave the military salute to the sentinel gazing at his
window, and that soldier, returning it in tears, will probably carry
its memory to his dying day and transmit it to his children. The voice
of his faithful wife came from her devotions in another room, singing,
'Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah.' 'Listen,' he cries, 'is not that
glorious?' and in a few hours heaven's portals opened and upborne upon
prayers as never before wafted spirit above he entered the presence of
God. It is the alleviation of all sorrow, public or private, that close
upon it press the duties of and to the living.
"The tolling bells, the minute-guns upon land and sea, the muffled drums
and funeral hymns fill the air while our chief is borne to his last
resting-place. The busy world is stilled for the hour when loving hands
are preparing his grave. A stately shaft will rise, overlooking the lake
and commemorating his deeds. But his fame will not live alone in marble
or brass. His story will be treasured and kept warm in the hearts of
millions for generations to come, and boys hearing it from their mothers
will be fired with nobler ambitions. To his countrymen he will always be
a typical American, soldier, and statesman. A year ago and not a
thousand people of the old world had ever heard his name, and now there
is scarcely a thousand who do not mourn his loss. The peasant loves him
because from the same humble lot he became one of the mighty of earth,
and sovereigns respect him because in his royal gifts and kingly nature
God made him their equal."