Part 34

"He took an active part in the last presidential campaign, when he and Mr. Blaine were the candidates on the presidential ticket, and had a strong influence in holding the soldier vote fast in the Republican ranks."

Mr. Logan's views in regard to the immortality of the soul was clearly expressed in a speech delivered at the tomb of General Grant on Memorial Day, 1886:

"Was any American soldier immolated upon a blind law of his country? Not one! Every soldier in the Union ranks, whether in the regular army or not, was in the fullest sense a member of the great, the imperishable, the immortal army of American volunteers. These gallant spirits now lie in untimely sepulcher. No more will they respond to the fierce blast of the bugle or the call to arms. But let us believe that they are not dead, but sleeping! Look at the patient caterpillar as he crawls on the ground, liable to be crushed by every careless foot that passes. He heeds no menace, and turns from no dangers. Regardless of circumstances, he treads his daily round, avoided by the little child sporting upon the sward. He has work, earnest work, to perform, from which he will not be turned, even at the forfeit of his life. Reaching his appointed place, he ceases even to eat, and begins to spin those delicate fibres which, woven into fabrics of beauty and utility, contribute to the comfort and adornment of a superior race. His work done, he lies down to the sleep from which he never wakes in the old form. But that silent, motionless body is not dead; an astonishing metamorphosis is taking place. The gross digestive apparatus dwindles away; the three pairs of legs, which served the creature to crawl upon the ground, are exchanged for six pairs suited to a different purpose; the skin is cast; the form is changed; a pair of wings, painted like the morning flowers, spring out, and presently the ugly worm that trailed its slow length through the dust is transformed into the beautiful butterfly, basking in the bright sunshine, the envy of the child and the admiration of the man. Is there no appeal in this wonderful and enchanting fact to man's highest reason? Does it contain no suggestion that man, representing the highest pinnacle of created life upon the globe, must undergo a final metamorphosis, as supremely more marvelous and more spiritual, as man is greater in physical conformation, and far removed in mental construction from the humble worm that at the call of nature straightway leaves the ground, and soars upon the gleeful air? Is the fact not a thousand-fold more convincing than the assurance of the poet:

"It must be so; Plato, thou reasonest well; Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this dread secret and inward horror Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man, Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought."

"On December 26th, 1886, the strong man succumbed to rheumatism. His death was a great shock to his numerous friends throughout the Union, and he was mourned by a great and mighty nation. From the lowly ranks to whom he belonged by birth, to the most exalted circles, the sympathy for the bereaved was genuine."

JAMES G. BLAINE.

Few men are more prominently placed before the vision of a mighty nation to-day than James G. Blaine. Born in obscurity, he possesses traits of character which are peculiar to himself; they differ widely from that of any statesman who ever spoke in the legislative halls at Washington.

Colleges, of themselves, make no man great. An 'educated idiot' will never make a statesman, notwithstanding the too prevalent notion that the possession of a diploma should entitle any one to a place in our social aristocracy. The great, active, relentless, human world gives a man a place of real influence, and crowns him as truly great for what he really is; and will not care a fig for any college certificate. If the young man is determined to succeed in the world then a college is a help. The trouble is not in the college, but in the man. He should regard the college as a means to attain a result, not the result of itself. The question the great busy world asks the claimant is: What can he do? If the claimant enter school determined to succeed, even if he sleeps but four to six hours out of the twenty-four, he will be benefited. However, study like that of Webster, by New Hampshire pine knots; and like Garfield's, by a wood-pile; generally proves valuable. Blaine's life is thus beautifully described by his biographer:--

"James Gillespie Blaine, the subject of this biography, was born January 31st, 1830. His father, Ephraim L. Blaine, and his mother, Maria Gillespie, still lived in their two-story house on the banks of the Monongahela. No portentious events, either in nature or public affairs, marked his advent. A few neighbors with generous interest and sympathy extended their aid and congratulations. The tops of the hills and the distant Alleghanies were white with snow, but the valley was bare and brown, and the swollen river swept the busy ferry-boat from shore to shore with marked emphasis, as old acquaintances repeated the news of the day, 'Blaine has another son.'"

Another soul clothed in humanity; another cry; increased care in one little home. That was all. It seems so sad in this, the day of his fame and power, that the mother who, with such pain and misgiving, prayer and noble resolutions, saw his face for the first time should now be sleeping in the church-yard. In the path that now leads by her grave, she had often paused before entering the shadowy gates of the weather-beaten Catholic church, and calmed her anxious fears that she might devoutly worship God and secure the answer to her prayer for her child.

It seems strange now, in the light of other experiences, that no tradition or record of a mother's prophecy concerning the future greatness of her son comes down to us from that birthday, or from his earliest years. But the old European customs and prejudices of her Irish and Scottish ancestry seem to have lingered with sufficient force to still give the place of social honor and to found the parent's hopes on the first-born. To all concerned it was a birth of no special significance. Outside of the family it was a matter of no moment. Births were frequent. The Brownsville people heard of it, and passed on to forget, as a ripple in the Monongahela flashes on the careless sight for a moment, then the river rolls on as before. Ephraim Blaine was proud of another son; the little brother and the smaller sister hailed a new brother. The mother, with a deep joy which escaped not in words, looked onward and tried to read the future when the flood of years should have carried her new treasure from her arms. That flood has swept over her now, and all her highest hopes and ambition is filled, but she seems not to hear the church bells that ring nor the cannon that bellow at the sound of his name.

"All his early childhood years were spent about his home playing in the well-kept yard gazing at the numerous boats that so frequently went puffing by. For a short time the family moved to the old Gillespie House further up the river, and some of the inhabitants say that at one time, while some repairs were going on, they resided at the old homestead of Neal Gillespie, back from the river, on Indian Hill."

At seventeen he graduated from school and, his father, losing what little property he did have, young Blaine was thrown upon his own resources. But it is often the best thing possible for a young man to be thus tossed over-board, and be compelled to sink or swim. It develops a self-reliant nature. He secured employment as a teacher, and into this calling he threw his whole soul. Thus he became a success as an educator at Blue Lick Springs. He next went to Philadelphia, and for two years was the principal teacher of the boys in the Philadelphia Institution for instruction of the blind. When he left that institution he left behind him a universal regret at a serious loss incurred, but an impression of his personal force upon the work of that institution which it is stated, on good authority, is felt to this day. Mr. Chapin, the principal, one day said, as he took from a desk in the corner of the school-room a thick quarto manuscript book, bound in dark leather and marked 'Journal:' "Now, I will show you something that illustrates how thoroughly Mr. Blaine mastered anything he took hold of. This book Mr. Blaine compiled with great labor from the minute-books of the Board of Managers. It is a historical view of the institution from the time of its foundation, up to the time of Mr. Blaine's departure. He did all the work in his own room, telling no one of it till he left. Then he presented it, through me, to the Board of Managers who were both surprised and gratified. I believe they made him a present of $100 as a thank-offering for an invaluable work." The book illustrates one great feature in the success of Mr. Blaine. It is clear, and indicates his mastery of facts in whatever he undertook, and his orderly presentation of facts in detail. The fact that no one knew of it until the proper time, when its effect would be greatest, shows that he naturally possesses a quality that is almost indispensable to the highest attainment of success.

He left Philadelphia for Augusta, Maine, where he became editor of the Kennebec Journal. While editor and member of his State legislature, he laid the foundation which prepared him to step at once to the front, when in 1862 he was sent to the National Congress, when the country was greatly agitated over the Five-twenty bonds, and how they should be redeemed. Mr. Blaine spoke as follows:

"But, now, Mr. Speaker, suppose for the sake of argument, we admit that the Government may fairly and legally pay the Five-twenty bonds in paper currency, what then? I ask the gentleman from Massachusetts to tell us, what then? It is easy, I know, to issue as many greenbacks as will pay the maturing bonds, regardless of the effect upon the inflation of prices, and the general derangement of business. Five hundred millions of Five-twenties are now payable, and according to the easy mode suggested, all we have to do is set the printing-presses in motion, and 'so long as rags and lampblack hold out' we need have no embarrassment about paying our National Debt. But the ugly question recurs, what are you going to do with the greenbacks thus put afloat? Five hundred millions this year, and eleven hundred millions more on this theory of payment by the year 1872; so that within the period of four or five years we would have added to our paper money the thrilling inflation of sixteen hundred millions of dollars. We should all have splendid times doubtless! Wheat, under the new dispensation, ought to bring twenty dollars a bushel, and boots would not be worth more than two hundred dollars a pair, and the farmers of our country would be as well off as Santa Anna's rabble of Mexican soldiers, who were allowed ten dollars a day for their services and charged eleven for their rations and clothing. The sixteen hundred millions of greenbacks added to the amount already issued would give us some twenty-three hundred millions of paper money, and I suppose the theory of the new doctrine would leave this mass permanently in circulation, for it would hardly be consistent to advocate the redemption of the greenbacks in gold after having repudiated and foresworn our obligation on the bonds.

"But if it be intended to redeem the legal tenders in gold, what will have been the net gain to the Government in the whole transaction? If any gentleman will tell me, I shall be glad to learn how it will be easier to pay sixteen hundred millions in gold in the redemption of greenbacks, than to pay the same amount in the redemption of Five-twenty bonds? The policy advocated, it seems to me, has only two alternatives--the one to ruinously inflate the currency and leave it so, reckless of results; the other to ruinously inflate the currency at the outset, only to render redemption in gold far more burdensome in the end.

"I know it may be claimed, that the means necessary to redeem the Five-twenties in greenbacks may be realized by a new issue of currency bonds to be placed on the market. Of results in the future every gentleman has the right to his own opinion, and all may alike indulge in speculation. But it does seem to me that the Government would be placed in awkward attitude when it should enter the market to negotiate the loan, the avails of which were to be devoted to breaking faith with those who already held its most sacred obligations! What possible security would the new class of creditors have, that when their debts were matured some new form of evasion would be resorted to by which they in turn would be deprived of their just and honest dues?

"Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus would supply the ready form of protest against trusting a Government with a new loan when it had just ignored its plain obligation on an old one.

"Payment of the Five-twenty bonds in paper currency involves therefore a limitless issue of greenbacks, with attendant evils of gigantic magnitude and far-reaching consequence. And the worse evil of the whole is the delusion which calls this a payment at all. It is no payment in any proper sense, for it neither gives the creditor what he is entitled to, nor does it release the debtor from subsequent responsibility. You may get rid of the Five-twenty by issuing the greenback, but how will you get rid of the greenback except by paying gold? The only escape from ultimate payment of gold is to declare that as a nation we permanently and finally renounce all idea of ever attaining a specie standard--that we launch ourselves on an ocean of paper money without shore or sounding, with no rudder to guide us and no compass to steer by. And this is precisely what is involved if we adopt this mischievous suggestion of 'a new way to pay old debts.' Our fate in attempting such a course may be easily read in the history of similar follies both in Europe and in our own country. Prostration of credit, financial disaster, widespread distress among all classes of the community, would form the closing scenes in our career of gratuitous folly and national dishonor. And from such an abyss of sorrow and humiliation, it would be a painful and toilsome effort to regain as sound a position in our finances as we are asked voluntarily to abandon to-day.

"The remedy for our financial troubles, Mr. Speaker, will not be found in a superabundance of depreciated paper currency. It lies in the opposite direction--and the sooner the nation finds itself on a specie basis, the sooner will the public treasury be freed from embarrassment, and private business relieved from discouragement. Instead, therefore, of entering upon a reckless and boundless issue of legal tenders, with their consequent depression if not destruction of value, let us set resolutely to work and make those already in circulation equal to so many gold dollars. When that result shall be accomplished, we can proceed to pay our Five-twenties either in coin or paper, for the one would be equivalent to the other. But to proceed deliberately on a scheme of depreciating our legal tenders and then forcing the holders of Government bonds to accept them in payment, would resemble in point of honor, the policy of a merchant who, with abundant resources and prosperous business, should devise a plan for throwing discredit on his own notes with the view of having them bought up at a discount, ruinous to the holders and immensely profitable to his own knavish pocket. This comparison may faintly illustrate the wrongfulness of the policy, but not its consummate folly--for in the case of the Government, unlike the merchant, the stern necessity would recur of making good in the end, by the payment of hard coin, all the discount that might be gained by the temporary substitution of paper.

"Discarding all such schemes as at once unworthy and unprofitable, let us direct our policy steadily, but not rashly, toward the resumption of specie payment. And when we have attained that end--easily attainable at no distant day if the proper policy be pursued--we can all unite on some honorable plan for the redemption of the Five-twenty bonds, and the issuing instead thereof, a new series of bonds which can be more favorably placed at a low rate of interest. When we shall have reached the specie basis, the value of United States securities will be so high in the money market of the world, that we can command our own terms. We can then call in our Five-twenties according to the very letter and spirit of the bond, and adjust a new loan that will be eagerly sought for by capitalists, and will be free from those elements of discontent that in some measure surround the existing Funded debt of the country.

"As to the particular measures of legislation requisite to hasten the resumption of specie payment, gentlemen equally entitled to respect may widely differ; but there is one line of policy conducive thereto on which we all ought to agree; and that is on a serious reduction of the government expenses and a consequent lightening of the burdens of taxation. The interest-bearing debt of the United States, when permanently funded, will not exceed twenty-one hundred millions of dollars, imposing an annual interest of about one hundred and twenty-five millions. Our other expenses, including War, Navy, the Pension list, and the Civil list, ought not to exceed one hundred millions; so that if we raise two hundred and fifty millions from Customs and Internal Revenue combined, we should have twenty-five millions annual surplus to apply to the reduction of the Public debt. But to attain this end we must mend our ways, and practice an economy far more consistent and severe than any we have attempted in the past. Our Military peace establishment must be reduced one-half at least, and our Naval appropriations correspondingly curtailed; and innumerable leaks and gaps and loose ends, that have so long attended our government expenditure, must be taken up and stopped. If such a policy be pursued by Congress, neither the principal of the debt, nor the interest of the debt, nor the annual expenses of government, will be burdensome to the people. We can raise two hundred and fifty millions of revenue on the gold basis, and at the same time have a vast reduction in our taxes. And we can do this without repudiation in any form, either open or covert, avowed or indirect, but with every obligation of the government fulfilled and discharged in its exact letter and in its generous spirit.

"And this, Mr. Speaker, we shall do. Our national honor demands it; our national interest equally demands it. We have vindicated our claim to the highest heroism on a hundred bloody battle-fields, and have stopped at no sacrifice of life needful to the maintenance of our national integrity. I am sure that in the peace which our arms have conquered, we shall not dishonor ourselves by withholding from any public creditor a dollar that we promised to pay him, nor seek, by cunning construction and clever afterthought, to evade or escape the full responsibility of our national indebtedness. It will doubtless cost us a vast sum to pay that indebtedness--but it would cost us incalculably more not to pay it."

This speech, here referred to, occurring, as it did when the ablest speakers were interested, was pronounced as a marvel. The great rows of figures which he gave, but which space will not allow us to give, illustrates the man, and his thorough mastery of all great public questions. He never enters a debate unless fully prepared; if not already prepared, he prepares himself. His reserve power is wonderful. What a feature of success is reserve power.

In 1876 occurred one of the most remarkable contests ever known in Congress. The debate began upon the proposition to grant a general amnesty to all those who had engaged in the Southern war on the side of the Confederacy; of course this would include Mr. Davis. Hon. Benjamin H. Hill, of Georgia, one of the ablest Congressmen in the South, met Mr. Blaine on the question. As space will not permit us to go into detail at all as we would like to, we give simply an extract from one of Mr. Blaine's replies:

"I am very frank to say that in regard to all these gentlemen, save one, I do not know of any reason why amnesty should not be granted to them as it has been to many others of the same class. I am not here to argue against it. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Kasson) suggests 'on their application.' I am coming to that. But as I have said, seeing in this list, as I have examined it with some care, no gentleman to whom I think there would be any objection, since amnesty has already become so general--and I am not going back of that question to argue it--I am in favor of granting it to them. But in the absence of this respectful form of application which, since May 22d, 1872, has become a sort of common law as preliminary to amnesty, I simply wish to put in that they shall go before a United States Court, and in open court, with uplifted hand, swear that they mean to conduct themselves as good citizens of the United States. That is all.

"Now, gentlemen may say that this is a foolish exaction. Possibly it is. But somehow or other I have a prejudice in favor of it. And there are some petty points in it that appeal as well to prejudice as to conviction. For one, I do not want to impose citizenship on any gentlemen. If I am correctly informed, and I state it only on rumor, there are some gentlemen in this list who have spoken contemptuously of the idea of their taking citizenship, and have spoken still more contemptuously of the idea of their applying for citizenship. I may state it wrongly, and if I do, I am willing to be corrected, but I understand that Mr. Robert Toombs has, on several occasions, at watering-places, both in this country and in Europe, stated that he would not ask the United States for citizenship.

"Very well; we can stand it about as well as Mr. Robert Toombs can. And if Mr. Robert Toombs is not prepared to go into a court of the United States and swear that he means to be a good citizen, let him stay out. I do not think that the two Houses of Congress should convert themselves into a joint convention for the purpose of embracing Mr. Robert Toombs, and gushingly request him to favor us by coming back to accept of all the honors of citizenship. That is the whole. All I ask is that each of these gentlemen shall show his good faith by coming forward and taking the oath which you on that side of the House, and we on this side of the House, and all of us take, and gladly take. It is a very small exaction to make as a preliminary to full restoration to all the rights of citizenship.