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Show FIVE MINUTE CHATS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS By JAMES MORGAN O: C PRESIDENT FOR A MONTH i -V 1773 February 9, birth of William Wil-liam Henry Harrison at Berkeley, Va. 1791 Entered the army. 1801-14 Governor of territory of Indiana. 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe. 1816-19 Member of congress. 1819-21 Member of Ohio senate. 1825-28 United States senator. 1828-29 Minister to Colombia. 1836 Candidate for president. 1841 March 4, inaugurated ninth president, aged 68. April 4, died in the White House, aged 68. ; Q ALTHOUGH Wllllnm Henry Harrison Har-rison was elected to the presidency presi-dency as the log-cabin candidate, In the first of our frenzied, pnrading campaigns, cam-paigns, he was born to one of "the first families of Virginia," In a manor lio!?se on the hanks of the aristocratic lames. As a son of Benjamin Harrison, Har-rison, signer of the Declaration, with ihe Mood of rocnhontas in his veins, mil as a descendant of a Cromwellian colonel who signed the death warrant nf a king, no president has had a longer, mure historic lineage. In ability William Henry Harrison f"ll below the standard of his predecessors, prede-cessors, lie was elected not because 'lie was a great statesman or a great soldier, hut because he was thoroughly n pivsemative of the new West, which was nattered to see In the White House for the lirst time a man created in its own image. At Harrison's inauguration the presidency entered an eclipse and was held for 2l) years by secondary hara iers. who reigned, but did not rule. With men of the eminence of l 'lay and Webster, Calhoun and Ben-Ion, Ben-Ion, latterly Cass and Houston, Doug-Ins Doug-Ins and Davis. Case and Wade. Seward Sew-ard and Sumner in the senate, distinction dis-tinction and leadership passed from I lie White House to the capitol. It was an ignoble period in our politics when both parties were dodging the Irrepressible issue of slavery. In the teeth of a piercing northwest wind, the old farmer president-elect, 'bareheaded and disdaining the protection protec-tion of an overcoat, rode horseback to the capitol. After addressing a great crowd that shivered in its shawls and furs, he insisted, though half-frozen, on remounting his horse and leading the inaugural parade. Xo sooner was the first Whig president presi-dent in the chair than the claims of i actions auu tne ciamor ior patronage assailed him. Clay had declined cabinet honors and labors in the confident expectation of playing the vitsier and more powerful role of the power behind the throne. The imperious im-perious manner of the Great Commoner Com-moner wounding the presidential pride, he was requested to make his calls at the White House as Infrequent Infre-quent and Inconspicuous as he con-. con-. veniently could. Thereupon his total absence became embarrassingly conspicuous. con-spicuous. The one clear mandate of the election elec-tion of 18-10 was to turn out the Democrats Demo-crats and give the jobs to the Whigs. Straightway a hungry horde fell 1 M . J V 1 William Henry Harrison. upon Harrison and literally devoured him. In a month to n day he was dead of pneumonia, the first president to die in oflice throughout the more than 50 years of its existence. This briefest of administrations is a pathetic little story of a simple, lonely old man, lured from his farm to he the sport of politics. Ailing in body and harried in mind, he was without the care and companionship of his good wife, Anna Symnies Harrison, Har-rison, daughter of a New Jersey colonel colo-nel In the Revolution who became one of the pioneer soldiers of Ohio. Broken by the hard toll of a frontier household and sorrowing for the loss of eight of her ten children, this wife of one president and grandmother of another, still was making ready to take up her duties as mistress of the White House- when the news of her tiusband's death 'came to her. JOHN TYLER P C 1790 March 29, John Tyler born In Charles City, Charles City county, Va. 1827-36 United States senator. 1840 Elected vice president. 1841 April 6, became tenth president, pres-ident, aged 51. 1845 March 3, signed joint resolution res-olution for annexation of Texas. 1861 President of the peace convention in Washington. Elected to Confederate congress. 1862 Jan. 17, died in Richmond, Va., aged 71. r. GREATNESS and the presidency found John Tyler down on one knee, playing "knucks" with his boys in a pathway of his dooryard in Williamsburg, Wil-liamsburg, that stately old vice-regal village of colonial Virginia. He had not even heard that Harrison was ill, until destiny, without steam, wire or rail to carry it, sped to him from Washington Wash-ington by boat and buggy with the news that the president had been dead a day aud that the empty presidential chair was awaiting the vice president. Tyler belongs among the third or fourth-rate presidents. Although a clean-handed, kindly man of good presence pres-ence and polished manners, he was a mediocre country lawyer. As John Tyler stepped into the White House, its door closed against fry ; C.- ,S:--??1V'v: ..,?-. ' ':-s. K N 1 - 3. V f -. iT a r John Tyler. the party which had elected him only five months before. Death had turned out the Whigs after 30 days of power and caused a political revolution. Clay looked upon the accidental president pres-ident as only a regent for the Harrison Harri-son administration and for the Whig party. Early in the extra session of congress, that impression of the senator sen-ator from Kentucky was sharply corrected cor-rected by a presidential veto of one of his own bills a banking bill. The Whigs were wild with rage; the Democrats filled with glee. The Democratic senators hastened in a body to the White House, where they were patting Tyler on the back while a Whig mob outside In the yard was making a vociferous, but futile protest. pro-test. When the next veto came in Clay himself called the cabinet together to-gether and the members, with one exception, ex-ception, agreed to resign. The exception was none other than that of the secretary of state, Daniel Webster. "Where am I to go?" the god-like Daniel thundered In his bewilderment- Some told him to go to one place, some to another. He held on for two years, until he had concluded con-cluded the negotiation of the Ashbur-ton Ashbur-ton treaty, which fixed the disputed boundary between Maine and Canada, and then he resigned. Upon Webster's retirement, Tyler installed in the state department his mentor and idol, John C. Calhoun, and thus completed the overturn. The cabinet was now out and out Democratic Demo-cratic and of the pro-slavery brand. Texas had seceded from Mexico, which had abolished slavery, and Its American settlers, who were facing the choice of slave labor or free labor, were anxious to be admitted to the Union. The slave holders of the southern states wanted to expand their power over the vast Texan empire em-pire as an ofTset to the rapid expansion expan-sion of the free states in the great West. But northern sentiment was opposed. At an opportune moment for the annexationists, the ubiquitous John Bull, with his omnipresent gunboat, appeared on the Texan scene as a mediator between Mexicans and Texans. His entry gave the slave interests in-terests the needed villain for the play, and the cry went up that we must annex Texas to keep the British from grubbing It. Nevertheless the senate rejected overwhelmingly the treaty of annexation. annexa-tion. Thereupon Tyler proposed !o beat the devil around the stump, and Texas was annexed the last night of the administration by a simple joint resolution, rushed through the two houses of congress. (Copyright, 1920. by JnmB Murfcan |