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Show THE Cl 56 Memorable Political Phrases who wishes to be at I feel quite serene over the reTHE historian same time accurate and insult As the Lord sent upon us an teresting draws freely upon the words , Ass in the shape of a preacher and of the important men of the period he a rainstorm to lessen our vote in New is describing. This is particularly York, I am disposed to feel resigned true of Mr. James Ford Rhodes, who to the dispensation of defeat which has recently added to his valuable flowed directly from those agencies. History of the United States' a volThe burdens of men who achieved ume which embraces the period from the presidency are illustrated by GarHayes to McKinley. The twenty fields remark to Blaine: I have been years beginning with 1877 were rife dealing all these years with ideas and with political action and debate; and here I am dealing only with persons. Mr. Rhodes, who prepares historical I have been heretofore treating of the narrative with a carelessness and fundamental principles of government clearness not excelled in any other and here I am considering all day American historian now living, has whether A or B shall be appointed to used quotations with good effect. The this or that office. And again in his reader finds himself, if he is of middle cry: My God! What is there in this or later age, stumbling upon phrases place that a man should ever want to which were familiar in his youth or get into it? We can understand this boyhood. Side of Garfield better through a senGeneral Grant, whose political imtence from the letter written to him as was in the Hayes regime portance by John Hay declining to be his seca possible third term candidate, wrote retary: One thing thou lackest yet; to General Adam Badeau in 1879: and that is a ossification of the slight 1 am not a candidate for any office, heart. I wofully fear you will try nor would I hold one that required hard to make everybody happy an . any maneuvering or sacrifice to obtain' Later, when he .was asked whether he would not be disappointed if the country did not return him to the White House, Grant said: No, not at all, but Mrs. Grant would. General William' T. Sherman was the one man who shut the door as hard as he could on the presidential nom- ination: I would account myself a fool, a madman, an ass, to embark anew at 65 years of age, in a career that may at any moment become tempest tossed by the perfidy, the defalcations, the dishonesty or neglect of any one of a hundred thousand subordinates utterly unknown to the president of the United States, not to say the eternal worriment of a vast host of impecunious friends and old military subordinates. Neither Blaine nor John Sherman, the generals brother, could move him: I would not for a million dollars subject myself and my family to the ordeal of a political canvass and afterward to a four years' service in the White House. Even after that Republicans like George William Curtis and George Frisbie Hoar believed that General Sherman would not decline if nominated. These men's efforts were brought to an end, however, by the sinister whisper of other Our people do not want delegates: a Father Confessor in the White House, the reference, as Mr. Rhodes remarks, being to the religion of General Shermans wife. Four years later, in the vilest political campaign ever waged, as Andrew D. White described it, religious prejudice was the cause of two well remembered phrases. We are Republicans' said the Rev. Mr. and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism and rebellion' Mr. Blaine, the victim of this blunder, wrote to a friend a week after the election: Bur-char- d, office which is outside of your constitutional powers. Garfields successor was not a man of popular phrases. But Blaine said about Arthur a bitter thing which the historian remembers: I neither desire nor expect the nomination, but I dont intend that man in the White House shall have The first epigram of the Cleveland dra was uttered in the Democratic convention of 1884: We love him for the enemies he has made. Of it' Clevelands own striking phrases Mr. Rhodes quotes in their proper places, inoccuous desuetude, supercilious and it is a condition which confronts us, not a theA man who had once petitioned ory. Cleveland for the appointment of a blackleg, came again for a favor. Well, do you want me to appoint another horse thief? asked the blunt president. Mr. Rhodes attributes to Senator Vance a classic story which has been attributed to several others: Senator Vance, of North Carolina, was indignant at the indifference and even disrespect with which he was treated by the president with regard to the patronage of his own state, but he saw the. humorous side of the situation well enough to be reminded of one of his own legal cases which concerned a small estate left by an old man to his two sons. The settlement was repeatedly put off by the court to the disgust of the heirs, until at last the elder son broke out, 'Duraed if I aint almost sorry the old man self-righteousne- Woodrow Wilson wrote this of Grover Cleveland: The air at Washington filled with murmur against the domineering and usurping temper and practice of the executive. Power had somehow gone the length of the avenue and seemed lodged In one man. President Harrison, author of the outside the breastworks letter, was even more disliked than Mr. Cleveland by politicians. Blaine, said Senator Hoar, would refuse a request in a way that would seem like doing a favor. Harrison would grant a request in a way that seemed as if he were denying it A western senator told Hoar that if Harrison were to address an audience of ten thousand men he would capture them all; but if each one of them were presented to him in private he would make him his enemy. Harrison uttered a lasting phrase: I cannot find myself in full sympathy with this demand for cheaper coats which seems to me necessarily to involve a cheaper man and woman under the coat. There is a seeming echo of this in a speech of McKinleys in 1890: They say so would be cheap if we everything only had free trade. Well, everything would be cheap and everybody would be cheap. Contemporaries less successful than the presidents made memorable phrases. There are Hancocks the tariff question is a local question; John Shermans I came west purely on private business to repair my fences; Thomas B. Reeds This. is a billion dollar country; W. W. Dudley's Divide the floaters into blocks of five; John J. Ingalls The purification of politics is an irridescent dream and Dennis Kearneys The Chinese must go! Mugwump was a great word of. the period and Mr. Rhodes noted that the Sun made it a national nickname. Those who examine the quotations in Mr. Rhodes admirable work in the light of conditions of today are likely to regard with lively curiosity the remark of Mr. Wilson on President Cleveland, which we have quoted. But that which will arouse the readers admiration most is a remark attributed to Cleveland at the time of the Chicago strike: If it took every dollar in the treasury and every soldier in the United States army to deliver a postal card in Chicago, that postal card should be delivered. That is the spirit of America today N. Y. Sun. CORONA TION By Helen Hunt Jackson. dfed. The graceful Lowell, returning from the Court of St. James, said to Mr. I come to you like St. Cleveland: Denis, with the head you have cut off' under my arm. At the kings gate the subtle noon . Wove filmy yellow nets of sun; Into the drowsy snare too soon The guards fell one by one. found it hard to please. He knew it and used to recite Tildens description of him: He is the kind of a man who would rather do something badly for himself than to have somebody else do it well In the Atlantic Monthly, March, 1897, then, A beggar went and laughed, This brings Me chance, at last to see if men Fare better being kings. Mr. Cleveland -- Through the kings gate, unquestioned The king Bat bowed beneath his crown', Propping his face with listless hand; Watching the hourglass sifting down Too slow its shining sands. i Poor man, what wouldst thou have of me?" The beggar turned, and, pitying, Replied, like one in dream, Of thee, Nothing, I want the king. Up rose the king, and from his head Shook off the crown and threw it by. 0 man, thou must have known, he said, A greater king than I. Through all the gates, unquestioned then. Went king and beggar hand in hand. Whispered the king, Shall I know when Before his throne I stand? The beggar laughed. Free winds in haste Were wiping from the kings hot brow The crimson lines the crown had traced. This is his presence now. I At the kings gate, the crafty noon Unwove its yellow nets of sun; Out of their sleep in terror soon The guards walked one by one. Ho, here! Ho, there! Has no man seen The king? The cry ran to and fro; Beggar and king, they laughed, I ween, The laugh that free men know. On the kings gate the moss grew gray; The kifig came not. They called him dead; And made his eldest son one day Slave in his fathers stead. EXERCISE -- Emmy brought in a load of wood for the fire. My dear, said her husband, you shouldnt do that. She lifted the heavy case of berries to the table and sat down to look them over. Td help you, said her husband, if I wasnt waiting for Bates to come over and look at the new filly. The grocers boy deposited fifty pounds of sugar upon the floor and Emmy picked it up and put it in the sugar can on the pantry shelf. You really shouldnt lift that, said her husband. Finally she lugged the iron preserving kettle to the sink for the last time and went for another pail of water from the spring down in the pasture. I hate to see you lift so, Emmy, repeated herhusband. My! How many glasses have you got? Its my favorite jam. Ill get you a case of cherries tomorrow. Emmy went on getting up a hearty Seems as if you didnt eat supper. commented her husband!;' much, Dont you want to walk down to Jones with me tonight? Taint much more than a mile, and I want to fin-ls- h that rubber with Stetson. The exercise will do you good, Emmy' |