fl«ei5ICflN LIBRARY OF CONGRESS DDDDfl75D142 (^IflfiGL tlNSLGY MURPHY Class. Book Copyright N"_ C0I5fRIGHT DEPOSIT. William Penn A merican Lead ers By Mabel Ansley Murphy Author of "Greathearted Women" PHILADELPHIA THE UNION PRESS 1816 Chestnut Street Copyright, 1920, by the American Sunday-School Union ©C(.A597100 CONTENTS Chapter Page I. The Father of Pennsylvania 9 William Penn (1644-1718) II, The Man Who Stood Before Kings. 17 Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) III. The Father of His Country 25 George Washington (1732-1799) IV. The Financier of the Revolution . . 35 Robert Morris (1734-1806) V. The Orator of the Revolution 45 Patrick Henry (1736-1799) VI. The Friend of the People 55 Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) VII. The Little Lion 65 Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) VIII. The Author of the Monroe Doc- trine 73 James Monroe (1758-1831) IX. The Monarch of the Fur Trade 81 John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) 5 6 CONTENTS Chapter Page X. The Pathfinders 91 William Clark (1770-1838) Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) John C. Fremont (1813-1890) XI. The Mill Boy of the Slashes 103 Henry Clay (1777-1852) XII. The Great Expounder of the Con- stitution 113 Daniel Webster (1782-1852) XIII. The Liberator of Texas 123 Sam Houston (1793-1863) XIV. The Frlend of the Friendless 131 William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) XV. The Man of the People 139 Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) XVI. The Antislavery Editor 149 Horace Greeley (1811-1872) XVII. The Plumed Knight 157 James G. Blaine (1830-1893) XVIII. The Man of the Open Door and THE Golden Rule 167 John Hay (1839-1905) • XIX. The Boy Without a Birthday 177 Booker T. Washington (1857-1915) XX. The American 189 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) INTRODUCTION We all like to read stories. And long before we were able to read for ourselves, we showed our innate love of tales by begging, "Tell me a story!" If the story was forthcoming, our first comment was, "Is it a true story?" Biography not only tells us stories, but it tells us true tales, tales more wonderful than the im- agination has ever cast in fiction form. So many generations have known this that the truth has crystallized into a proverb: "Truth is stranger than fiction." Not only has the true story a charm lacking in fiction, but its characters are greater than any the imagination depicts. Why? Because the men and women of fiction are the creations of the human mind, while the men and women of biography are the creations of the infinite mind of God himself. We love — and rightly — our fiction friends. But what one ever measured up in nobility of char- acter to Abraham Lincoln or Theodore Roosevelt? So, while we keep our friends of fancy, let us en- large this circle of companions of the spirit by ask- ing into it the great and good of all time. It is well 7 8 INTRODUCTION to begin modestly, perhaps, by forming a speaking acquaintance with some of the men who helped to make our own country. These sketches, brief as they are, may introduce you to some men whom you will want to know better. They are ready to be your friends — friends whose latchstring is always out; friends who will talk to you when you will; friends who never take offence when you are in- different. Nor will you have to wait for hours to snatch a hasty interview. Great though these men are, your pleasure is theirs. They will grant you audi- ence when you will. In them you will find the same traits as in yourself, and you will learn that all men are brothers, that any difference there may be is of degree and not of kind. ^ M. A. M. AMERICAN LEADERS CHAPTER I The Father of Pennsylvania On October 14, 1644, on Tower Hill, in London, William Penn was born. His father was a wealthy admiral in the British navy, and from his mother, a woman of unselfish character, William inherited many noble traits. When he was sixteen years of age he went to Oxford, where he studied Greek and Latin, and learned to speak with ease French, German, Italian, and Dutch. He excelled not only in his studies but also in games and sports, espe- cially in boating. One day he heard a Quaker preach. The Quak- ers, or Friends, believed that in God's sight aU men were equal; so in speaking to everyone they used the intimate form of address of "thee" and "thou." They also dressed in long gray coats in token of this belief — that each man stood on the same level as his fellow-man. In their meetings there was neither music nor preacher, but each member waited in silence for God's message. After 9 10 AMERICAN LEADERS listening to Thomas Loe, William felt that he could no longer attend the college chapel exercises. For refusing to do this he was fined. This angered Penn's father. He thought that a gentleman's son should have nothing to do with so lowly a sect. In order to make William forget the Friends, Admiral Penn filled his purse and sent him to Paris in the company of a rich nobleman. Dur- ing the two years William lived there he was a great favorite at the court of Louis XIV, and when he came home his father was proud of him. He carried his sword in the French fashion; he lisped fine speeches to the ladies; he was courtly in his manner to all. In addition, he was so tall and well built, he had such beautiful dark eyes and hair, that in all England there was no young man more handsome. But when the dreadful plague of 1665 came to London, William again began to think of Quaker- ism. This time, to turn his thoughts from the sub- ject, his father sent him to Ireland to manage the Penn estates. There William helped to put down a mutiny. For this service he was given a com- pany of soldiers to command. The young man was so proud of his military success that he had himself painted in his armor. Shortly afterward he chanced again to hear Thomas Loe. This time he joined the Society of Friends and put on their sober garb. THE FATHER OF PENNSYLVANIA 11 At once his father called him home and ordered him to give up his new belief. When William re- fused the admiral turned him out of doors. But his mother begged that he might be forgiven, and finally William returned home. Soon afterward Admiral Penn died and left all his large estates to his son. William at once determined to use his fortune for the good of others, especially for the good of the Quakers, who were everywhere per- secuted. His opportunity came in this way: Charles II, king of England, owed Admiral Penn a great sum of money. Penn offered to take in payment a tract of land in America, planning to use it as a home for the persecuted Friends. The king willingly paid his debt in this way, deeding to Penn a stretch of land three hundred miles long and one hundred and sixty wide, lying directly west of the Delaware River. ''Sylvania," or "Land of Woods," Penn named it, but the king suggested tliat "Penn" be prefixed in honor of Admiral Penn. Eagerly the Quakers accepted Penn's invitation to come to this refuge. In 1681 almost three thousand Friends crossed the sea to this new land where they might worship God in their own way. The next year Penn himself came with another party. He said to the colonists, "You shall be governed by laws of your own making." That 12 AMERICAN LEADERS this might be, he drew up carefully a plan of gov- ernment, which arranged, among other provisions, that only a Christian could be a citizen or hold office. Under Penn's direction the Friends laid out a city on the high ground where the Schuylkill River joins the Delaware. The streets running north and south were numbered, as Front, Second, Third, and so on; those running east and west were named for trees which were plentiful in the vicinity, as Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, Pine. The city itself he named Philadelphia, "The City of Brotherly Love," for that was the spirit he wished the people to show toward one another. In his wise planning Penn did not forget the Indians, the original owners of the land. Under a great elm tree he met the chiefs, and paid for their land in knives, kettles, beads, and other things they wanted. They exchanged pledges of friendship with Penn, telling him, "So long as the sun and moon shall endure, the Indians and the Friends will live together in love and peace." In token of this pledge they gave Penn a belt of wampum, in which were woven the figures of an Indian and a white man clasping hands. This treaty between Penn and the Indians is said to be the only treaty "never sworn to and never broken." THE FATHER OF PENNSYLVANIA 13 Soon afterward Penn returned to England. James II had fled to France, and his son-in-law, William of Orange, was ruling in his stead. Penn was accused of receiving letters from his warm friend James II, and on the charge of treason he was thrown into prison. At the same time the king claimed that on account of Penn's absence his colony was in disorder. William announced that though the Quakers did not believe in fighting, Pennsylvania must have military defence. He ap- pointed a governor who tried to muster into serv- ice all the men among the Friends. As a result there was great confusion in the colony. After many months Penn was cleared of all charges of treason, and allowed to return to his be- loved Pennsylvania. He opened a home in Phila- delphia and one in the country, on the Delaware River, even more beautiful. Here at Pennsburg Manor he entertained freely whoever came: Eng- lishmen, Swedes, Indians, or negroes. But trouble arose. England and France were at war, and the trouble between them spread to their colonies in America. King William announced that all English colonies must be put under governors appointed by him. Penn sailed at once for England to urge his own claim. Shortly after he landed the king died and was succeeded by Queen Anne, a warm friend of Penn. Immediately she assured 14 AMERICAN LEADERS him that he and his heirs after him should govern the province. Business matters detained Penn in England, and in course of time another trial came upon him. A dishonest agent of his English property brought a false claim against him. Penn refused to pay and was thrown into prison. Just at this time his health failed. Powerful friends secured his release, but too late to restore him to strength and vigor. In 1718 he died, leaving as a heritage the name of being one of the most upright men of his time ; one who all his life tried to serve God and obey the Golden Rule. Until the American Colonies formed a united goverimient, Penn's heirs governed the colony he had founded so wisely. Benjamin Franklin CHAPTER II The Man Who Stood Before Kings "Franklin's life is the most interesting, the most uniformly successful ever yet lived by any American." Isn't that a bold statement? But no bolder than this: ' 'Franklin was one of the greatest philosophers, scientists, statesmen, and authors of all time." Yet both quotations tell the truth. He was born January 17, 1706, in a little house opposite Old South Church in Boston. He was the youngest boy in a family of seventeen. His father, a soap-boiler and candle-maker, found it hard work to clothe and feed his family, so at ten years of age Benjamin left school to work in his father's shop. How Benjamin did hate the business! But he worked faithfully. Most of his spare time he spent in reading. He had but few books — Plutarch's Lives, Robinson Crusoe, and Pilgrirn's Progress — but those he read and reread. After a time his father apprenticed him to an older half-brother, James, who was a printer. In this position Benjamin had access to more books. That he might buy books he proposed to his brother that he board himself on half the money the board had been costing so that he might have 17 18 AMEIUCAN LEADERS the other half for books. James consented and Benjamin was able to buy some of the books he longed for. In thne he contributed articles to his brother's paper, which were received with great favor. But his brother was a stern, hard task- master, who often beat Benjamin cruelly. Finally he determined to leave his brother's employ. By seUing some of his loved books he got enough money to pay his way to New York. No work was there for a printer, so he pushed on to Philadelphia. The last fifty miles he went on foot, through a heavy rain, and he reached Philadelphia in October, 1723. His money was almost gone, so he went into a bakery and bought three large rolls for breakfast. He tucked one under each arm, and went up Market Street eating the third. Deborah Read laughed at the awkward boy passing her father's door, little thinking that later she would be his wife. In a short time Benjamin found work at his trade. Then followed a long struggle with poverty. But he was always cheerful and light-hearted. One of his rules for conduct was: "Whatever you have to do, do it with a brave heart." In 1729 he was able to buy the Pennsylvania Gazette, which he made the best newspaper in America. He had also a printing and stationeiy business. In 1732 he began to publish Poor Rich- ard's Almanack. For the next twenty-five years he THE MAN WHO STOOD BEFORE KINGS 19 sold each year ten thousand copies of this almanac, and the wise sayings of "Poor Richard" are still quoted today. Some are: "One today is worth two tomorrows" ; "God helps them that help themselves" ; "Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt." Many have been translated into French, Danish, Swedish, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Bohe- mian, modern Greek, Welsh, GaeUc, and Chinese. All this time Franklin studied. He spoke French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin. He learned, too, to play on the harp, guitar, violin, and vioHncello. Always he showed a deep interest in public af- fairs. He started a subscription for an academy, which grew into the University of Pennsylvania. He organized the first police force and the first fire department in the Colonies. He was one of the founders of the American Philosophical Society; he was originator of the street-paving system, and im- proved the method of city lighting; he helped to found a city hospital, and also started one of the earliest — if not the earliest — circulating libraries in the Colonies. In 1753 he, with William Hunter, was put in charge of the post office, which posi- tion he held until 1774. He greatly increased the efficiency of the postal service, and visited nearly every post office in the Colonies. When he was about forty-two years of age he began to study the sciences. In order to give his 20 AMERICAN LEADERS entire time to this he finally sold his printing- house, newspaper, and almanac for ninety thou- sand dollars and retired from business. His scien- tific studies soon bore fruit. He invented the Franklin stove, which became very popular, be- cause it was so much better than an open fireplace. He showed how farmers could raise better crops by using fertilizers. He advised the use of oil to calm the waves during a storm. But his greatest scientific discovery was that lightning is the same thing as electricity. Making a kite out of silk and flying it with a hempen cord, he was able to draw so much electricity from a thunder cloud that he could get sparks from an iron key fastened to the kite string. It was a great discovery and made Benjamin Franklin famous as a scientist. Both the Royal Medical Society of Paris and the Medical Society of London recog- nized Franklin's knowledge of medicine by elect- ing him to their membership. His most important direct contribution to pathology was the invention of the bifocal eyeglass, which he himself used. As an author Franklin is by no means to be over- looked. His Autobiography is classed with the few great autobiographies ever written, and he wrote many political pamphlets, to which are related his economic writings. His work on the Gazette and his Sayings of Poor Richard we have noted. THE MAN WHO STOOD BEFORE KINGS 21 Only a few of Franklin's many public services can be noted here. Just before the Revolutionary War he was sent to England to secure the repeal of the Stamp Act. He was elected to the Continental Congress, where he served on as many as ten com- mittees. He was one of the five men appointed to write the Declaration of Independence. After the signing of this historic document on July 4, 1776, he was sent to France to secure aid for the Ameri- can cause. The aid which France gave us was largely because of Franklin's services. In 1785 Franklin left France, after having repre- sented his country there for nearly ten years. All France was sorry to see him go. When he landed in America, cannon, church bells, and crowds greeted him with glad welcome. He was made governor of Pennsylvania, and served three terms. He served as a delegate to the convention that drafted the Constitution of the United States. April 17, 1790, near midnight, this great man slept quietly out of this life. By his own request he was buried beside his wife, under a plain marble slab in Christ Church Cemetery, Philadelphia. The inscription reads simply: BENJAMIN I ^^j) I FRANKLIN DEBORAH ^^^^ George Washington CHAPTER III The Father of His Country Our first and best — his ashes lie Beneath his own Virginia sky. So sang John Greenleaf Whittier at the dedica- tion of the arch at Washington Square, New York City, in 1889. Not a schoolboy in the land but knows that resting place— the sunny slopes of Mount Vernon overlooking the Potomac River just a few miles below Washington. For over a century this peaceful spot has been the visible center of the nation's patriotism. There is not a day in the year but some pilgrim stands uncov- ered by the vault where sleeps "the Father of his Country." Reverently they pass through the house that knew him in life. December 14, 1799, he left it forever, but the love of a nation keeps it as if its door had closed after him but yesterday. Not so with his birthplace in Westmoreland County, Virginia, some twenty miles below Wash- ington on the Potomac River. No one has lived on the farm since fire destroyed the house and negro cabins when Washington was a little boy. But a plain shaft stands in the long-abandoned clearing, the nook wrested from the wilderness by Washing- 25 26 AMERICAN LEADERS ton's great-grandfather in 1657. To him who seeks the deserted spot, the marble says : Washington's Birthplace. Erected by the United States, A. D. 1895. George Washington was born at a time when the country had just been freed from fear of Indian massacres. He went to a "little, old field school kept by one of his father's tenstnts, named Hobby, an honest, poor old man, both sexton and school- master." Here, as later, George was a leader. He divided his schoolmates into two divisions, French and American. William Bustle commanded the French, George himself the American. Every day, with cornstalks for muskets and gourds for drums, these two brave armies turned out to march and fight. His father's death put an end to the plan of send- ing George to England for his education, but he studied so diligently at home and at a little school near Bridges Creek, that at sixteen he was com- missioned by Lord Fairfax to survey his lands in the New World. After three years of this work in the primeval forests of western Virginia, George Wash- ington received from William and Mary College the equivalent of a degree in civil engineering. At this time "he was straight as an Indian, six feet, two inches in his stockings, weighing one hun- THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY 27 dred and seventy-five pounds." He had light- brown hair, blue-gray penetrating eyes, a firm mouth, and a way about him that won friends, even though he was naturally reserved and retiring. Even thus early in life those about him were con- scious of his reserve power, the power which led one of his coworkers later in life to say, ''There was ever about the man something which impressed one with the conviction that he was fully equal to what he had to do. He was never hurried, but in his study, at a levee, before Congress, at the head of an army, he was ever just what the situation re- quired." These words were true of George Washington as President. True, too, when the young surveyor was sent by the king one thousand miles into the wilderness in the middle of winter to discover the exact extent of the trouble between the French and Indians on one side and the English on the other. True, also, when war finally broke out between these fighting frontiers, and Washington, as com- mander of the Virginia forces, was the man who saved from utter massacre the fleeing troops after Braddock's disgraceful defeat. True, as well, when, this seven years' war ended, he married and retired to his Virginia estate, which he managed success- fully while still serving the public as a member of the House of Burgesses. 28 AMERICAN LEADERS These quiet years for him were stormy ones for the country. Troubles with England thickened and the Colonies, perplexed, called the First Continental Congress. Washington was a delegate, and though he said but little the other representatives knew him for the strongest man among them. So also did the men of the Second Continental Congress, which in 1775 declared war against England and appointed George Washington commander in chief of the armies. July 3, under the great elm still standing at Cam- bridge, Mass., he assumed command. From that moment he was the inspiration of the Revolution. His coworkers were brilliant and able and Wash- ington avaOed himself to the utmost of their advice and help ; yet these men were ever the first to give credit to Washington for bringing about the success of the Revolution. Great they all were, but they looked up to him as greater. Of four pitched battles against troops led by dis- tinguished British officers he lost three and made of the fourth a draw. But he made his defeats step- ping-stones to success, for he had a cautious, bal- ancing, weighing habit that enabled him to ''grasp the general strategy of war so thoroughly that no military critic has ever detected him in a mistake." He conducted successfully two sieges, Boston and Yorktown; brilliantly he destroyed two outposts, THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY 29 Trenton and Princeton; and all the time he dis- solved jealousies, reconciled differences, and held together an army, ofttimes without having food, clothing, or shelter to give it. "Valley Forge will ever be a synonym for suffering." It was there — where three thousand soldiers walked barefoot in the snow — that a Quaker farmer, passing a thicket, heard a deep voice speaking. Peering between the branches, he saw Washington on his knees, praying so earnestly that his cheeks were wet. The farmer went home and told what he had seen, adding, "Now I know America will prevail." America did. Then came to Washington a great temptation. The restless, unpaid army besought him as a military dictator to take control of the disordered country. Before, in the world's history, the same situation had tempted great leaders: Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon. Each in turn had compromised with this dream of power or yielded to it. Not so with Washington. Indignantly he put aside the request; not because he feared re- sponsibility, but because he saw clearly that was not the wise way to meet the situation. The little room in New York where he said fare- well to his staff is kept to this day to show to vis- itors, but the formal resignation to Congress of his commission as commander took place at Annap- olis, December 23, 1783, and his farewell address 30 AMERICAN LEADERS is still cherished as one of the two most memorable speeches ever made in the United States. The Confederation failed to bring order out of chaos, and, together with Madison and Hamilton, Washington evolved a better union, a national movement, with a constitution which his com- manding will, more than any other single factor, brought into existence. All turned to Washington to head the new gov- ernment, and for eight years he served as Presi- dent. Henry Cabot Lodge says: "He came into office the heir of a bankrupt, broken-down con- federation. When he laid down the Presidency we had an organized government, an established revenue, a funded debt, a high credit, an efficient system of banking, and an army." Then, his duty to his country ended, he went back to his farm and to the simple life of a country gentleman. But that meant rising at four in the morning and riding ten to fourteen miles every day; for eight thousand acres, even when divided up into farms, cannot be visited in one round. Punctually at a quarter to three he would return home and at three sit down to dinner. At nine the quiet home evening ended. He carried on this active life. to the very end of his days. One rainy morning he was busy with a compass marking out improvements in the grounds THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY 31 about Mount Vernon. Two evenings later his life on earth was ended. Not so his influence. So long as the republic endures, his example and his words will be the in- spiration of its people. In a yellowed letter that he wrote in 1793 we read a message for today: "If it can be esteemed a happiness to live in an age of great and interesting events, we of the pres- ent time are very highly favored. The rapidity of national revolutions appears no less astonishing than their magnitude. In what they will terminate is known only to the Great Ruler of events. Con- fiding in his wisdom and goodness we may safely trust the issue to him, only taking care to perform that part assigned to us in a way that reason and our own conscience approve." Robert Morris CHAPTER IV The Financier of the Revolution The "financier!" The word itself has a cold, cal- culating, disinterested sound, and in repeating it it is hard to picture the warm, kindly personality of the man known by that name. So generous and loyal was he that he numbered many, many friends among the greatest of Americans. The closest of these friends were John Jay, Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington; but for all who came his way he kept open house. So open-hearted was he that he moved out of his own home to give the President a suitable residence while the national capital was in Philadelphia. Greatly as men enjoyed his hospitality, their love was given to the man himself — just, sincere, free from all vanity, keen-minded, optimistic, and given to witty turns of speech whatever the topic under discussion. ''When future generations celebrate the names of Washington and Franklin, they will add that of Morris," says one historian. Another adds, "Had it not been for Robert Morris' services in raising funds, it is hard to see how the Revolution could have succeeded." 35 36 AMERICAN LEADERS Liverpool, England, where he was born Jan- uary 31, 1734, was his home until he was thirteen. At that age the motherless boy joined his father, who was a buyer of tobacco in America. He was put into school, but so slow was he with his studies that his father gladly accepted an offer made by a Philadelphia merchant to give him a place in his business. At once Robert proved that he had a business head if not a scholar's pate. He advanced rapidly, and at the age of twenty became a member of the firm. "Willing & Morris" soon took rank among the first business houses of the city. They owned a fleet of trading vessels, and many a voyage Robert Morris made in the interests of the firm. On one of these trips the ship was captured by the French, with whom England was at war. How- ever, by repairing a watch for a French officer, he secured permission to get off at a port where he could take ship for America. It meant great financial loss for the firm, yet Robert Morris supported the colonies in their de- termination to buy no article made in England so long as the Stamp Act was in force. However, at the beginning of the Revolution he counseled mod- eration, and he hoped that the colonists would find a way out of their difficulties other than the rough road of war. At the same time he signed the THE FINANCIER OF THE REVOLUTION 37 Declaration of Independence as a member of the Second Continental Congress. Indeed, since April of 1776 he had been serving as a committee of one to suggest methods of procuring money for the impending war. Does it seem strange that in this way he was willing to serve the Congress whose judgment did not coincide with his own? Hear his own explanation: "I think the individual who declines the service of his country because its councils are not con- formable to his ideas makes but a bad subject; a good one can follow, if he cannot lead." Against the advice of Morris Congress issued paper money. Soon so much was in circulation that paper was worth almost nothing. Shoes cost $125 a pair; hats, $400. Robert Morris never once said, "I told you so," but instead he bent all his energ}^ to retrieve the mistake. Trenton was a splendid victory for the ragged Continental Army, but the day after the battle Washington wrote to Robert Morris that unless he had $50,000 in gold and silver many of his men would not reenlist and follow up the success won. Their families were in dire distress and the men would not accept the worthless paper bills. He did not need to add that unless the campaign was pushed at this time in all probability the American cause was lost. But Morris understood. So, early 38 AMERICAN LEADERS New Year's Day, even before it was really light, he routed his friends out of bed, begging them for money. He collected and sent the entire amount in "hard money" to the man whom he termed ''the greatest man on earth." Another time Washington needed cartridges. The Colonists had given all the lead they had ; every scrap to be found had gone for bullets. Just at this critical moment one of Robert Morris' vessels sailed up the river, loaded with ninety tons of lead. At once he set one hundred men to work molding bullets, and within two days Washington had the ammunition he so sorely needed. In 1781 Congress asked Robert Morris to serve as Superintendent of Finance, or as "the finaijcier" of the Government. He assented on condition that no more paper money be issued, adding, "The United States may command everything I have ex- cept integrity, and the loss of that would effectually disable me from serving them now." This was the literal truth, for men who did not trust the promises to pay made by Congress did believe that the word of Robert Morris was as good as gold. At one time his private notes, issued to meet the demands of the army and navy, amounted to $600,000. Not only did he borrow for the coun- try on his own credit, but he advanced every dollar of his own that he could lay his hands on. For THE FINANCIER OF THE REVOLUTION 39 three long years he worked night and day raising the money to push the war to a victorious con- clusion. In Philadelphia he started the Bank of North America, the first bank ever incorporated in America for the purpose of serving the Govern- ment. He induced men of wealth to buy its stock and to put gold and silver into its vaults. When he had succeeded in establishing the bank's credit, he was able to do much more for the suffering army. From this bank in six months he loaned the Gov- ernment $400,000, and the state of Pennsylvania $80,000. During this arduous time he was "Agent of Marine" as well. That meant he had to see that the little navy was supported and built up. Not until November 1, 1784, was he relieved from these duties. He was a member of the Congress that framed the Constitution, and served in the first Senate. Afterward he was a member of the Penn- sylvania Legislature. Washington asked him to be Secretary of the Treasury in the new government, but Morris declined, sajang, "Alexander Hamilton is a better financier. He is the one for the place." Robert Morris had given much of his fortune to his country, but so successful were his business ventures after the war that soon he was again one of the wealthiest men of the day. When every 40 AMERICAN LEADERS obligation incurred during the war was met, he lavished money on his wife and seven children with princely generosity. Mrs. Morris, a most charming woman, was known as the "second lady in the land," for during Washington's administrations she always stood in the first place on Mrs. Washing- ton's right at public functions. "Morris' home was the real social capital of the Middle States." The home best loved by the family was on a bluff above Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, a great country house on the knoll known today as Lemon Hill. Unfortunately there came a time when generosity outran discretion. For $50,000 Robert Morris bought the square in Philadelphia enclosed by Chestnut, Walnut, Seventh, and Eighth Streets. Here he began "the grandest house ever attempted in Philadelphia for the purpose of private life." Owing to the procrastination and extravagance of the architect, this marble palace was never finished. In 1800 its doors and windows were boarded up, and in time it was torn down. The man who began this house, however, had vision far in advance of his day. After the war he bought heavily of land in Washington, then only a city on paper. He bought thousands of acres in the South, in western New York, and in Pennsylvania, thinking the country would grow by leaps and bounds. THE FINANCIER OF THE REVOLUTION 41 "Don't go into these speculations, Morris," Washington urged. "They will ruin you." "I cannot help it," answered Morris. 'T must go in deep or not at all. I must either be a man or a mouse." But the time came when he needed ready money, and he could find no purchasers for these wild lands, or for the lots in the future Washington. A dis- honest partner involved him in many trying law- suits and finally had him imprisoned for debt. Friends and family did all that they could to extricate him from his difficulties, but the pit he had dug was too deep. His debts totaled $3,000,000 — today in value three times that amount. He was made as comfortable as possible in prison, where his wife and daughter visited him daily. Other friends came, among them Washington; but the laws of the day permitted no hope of his release. Jefferson, when organizing his Cabinet, wrote to James Monroe: "If Robert Morris could get from confinement and the public gave him confidence, he would be a most valuable officer as Secretary of the Navy." Morris endeavored to bear his lot philosophically. "To meet the bad as well as the good with fortitude, and to make the best of whatever happens, this I can do, thank God!" he wrote to his son. Again he wrote, "I will do all I can, consistently with the 42 AMERICAN LEADERS principles of integrity, to make the best of my af- fairs." His life in prison exemplified one of his earlier sayings: "Dignity is in duty and in virtue, not in the sound of swelling expressions." At last, possibly with Morris' case in mind. Con- gress passed a law providing that a debtor, on peti- tion of his creditors, could be declared bankrupt and set free. So August 26, 1801, after three and one-half years in prison, Robert Morris stepped out, a free man. Gouverneur Morris, ever a fast friend, entertained him as an honored guest in the summer of 1802, but for the most part he passed his time quietly in the little home friends had saved for his wife. Old, broken in body and spirit because of his inability to clear his name, the man who had sacri- ficed all to help create a new republic passed out of this life May 7, 1806. In the family vault, in Christ Churchyard, Philadelphia, lie his mortal remains. Patrick Henry Delivering His Famous Speech, March, 1775 CHAPTER V The Orator of the Revolution On the summit of Church Hill, Richmond, Va., stands a little white frame church whose walls echoed one spring day to words that will live as long as the Republic endures. St. John's stands in the midst of a three-century-old God's Acre. An- cient trees shelter it, the perfume of roses is heavy on the air ; in this historic spot sleeps the man whose words made this place a shrine of patriotism. Many miles westward, on his own plantation of Red Hill, a marble shaft tells the curious, "His fame is his best epitaph." To millions of Americans that fame rests upon the speech made in St. John's on a warm March day in 1775. The church was crowded, and people hung over the sills of the opened windows to hear the proceedings of the second Revolutionary con- vention of Virginia. Before it was the question of arming the militia for the defense of the state. Many members argued, "War with Great Britain may come, but yet it may be prevented." "May come!" exclaimed Patrick Henry. "May come? It has already come!" And rising in his pew — hallowed to this day by his ringing words — 45 46 AMERICAN LEADERS he broke out into that remarkable speech which "fills so great a space in the annals of Revolutionary eloquence." Its climax was reached in the words, "Gentle- men may cry out 'Peace! peace!' but there is no peace. . . . Our brethren are already in the field. ... Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take, but as for me give me liberty, or give me death!" Virginia's reply was instant and whole-hearted, for in response she took her place by Massachusetts in the fight for freedom. Little promise of the eloquence that was to lift the name of Patrick Henry "almost to the rank of some mythical hero of romance" had been given by the boy born May 29, 1736, on a backwoods clear- ing. In fact up to the time he was twenty-four the world termed him shiftless. Nor was it wholly wrong. As a little boy he would not study, though his Scotch father tried to urge him to diligence by telling him tales of his ancestors, some of them scholars of renown. But the call of the forest about the little farm was stronger than the urge of shadowy forefathers, and Patrick hunted and fished, or spent long hours dreaming, lying full length on some mossy bed in the depths of the woods. The THE ORATOR OF THE REVOLUTION 47 one thing he did regularly was to go to church each Sunday with his dearly loved mother. And with equal regularity he afterward repeated to her the text, the sermon heads, and as much of the dis- course as he could remember. With nothing at all to live on he married at eighteen a neighbor's daughter, younger than him- self. He tried to make a living by keeping store. When he failed at this he went to work with the negroes his wife's father gave him on a patch of land donated by his father. Again failure was his portion and again he essayed storekeeping. Though he was the best fiddler, the best story-teller, and the jolliest joker in the country, he could not earn a living for his wife and children. "But," said his wife's father, endeavoring to sum up his good points, "he does not swear, nor drink, nor keep bad company." Then at twenty-three years of age he decided to study law ! So thoroughly in earnest was he that in four months he prepared himself to pass the state examinations. Soon his opportunity to practice came. Virginia had passed a law limiting the salaries of the clergy. This law the king had declared null and void. In the ranks of Virginia's clergy were many good and earnest men, but unfortunately the larger number were in the Church only for the living it afforded 48 AMERICAN LEADERS them. They loved horse-racing, dice-playing, and wine. They ignored the poor and courted the rich. So they sued the tax collectors for the pay due them under the king's decision. Few lawyers were will- ing to oppose them, but Patrick Henry, poor and unknown, had nothing to lose by undertaking the unpopular cause of the planters. His own father was presiding judge. Twenty clergymen sat in a row. The twelve jurymen faced them while the curious packed the little brick courtroom of Hanover County. Shabby, awkward, Patrick Henry rose timidly. He spoke slowly, al- most stopping at times. The planters hung their heads, the clergymen lifted their eyebrows super- ciliously, and Judge Henry covered his face with his hand. But in a flash the long, lank young man straightened to his full height and his words rang out, clear and strong. For many minutes he held the people spellbound by his logic and his elo- quence. "A king, by annulling so salutary a measure, de- generates into a tyrant and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience!" he thundered. On he went with his plea, and tears streamed down the faces of his listeners. When he ceased the jury went out for five minutes to bring back a verdict of one penny damages. Then the crowd arose as one man and carried Patrick Henry out on their shoulders. THE ORATOR OF THE REVOLUTION 49 This case, the "Parsons' Cause," brought Patrick Henry business in abundance, and that spelled money, advancement, and in time power as a politician. At last he had found his work, and into it he poured all the reserve strength he had ac- cumulated in his fruitless years. Politics called him first to the House of Burgesses, where he electrified the assembly by his bold speech asserting Virginia's right to fix her own taxes. He closed by saying, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Crom- well, and George the Third — " "Treason! treason!" shouted the king's friends. "And George the Third may profit by their ex- ample !" he ended. Then folding his arms and draw- ing himself up to his full height, he cried, **If that be treason, make the most of it!" Virginia sent him as delegate to the First Con- tinental Congress, where he thrilled the meeting by declaring, "The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvahians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an Ameri- can!" Home he came to be elected commander of the Revolutionary army — a post he resigned because he was needed in the law-making bodies of both the state and the new nation. He served as delegate to the Second Continental Congress, then for three successive terms as Governor of Virginia. It was he 50 AMERICAN LEADERS who as Governor of Virginia sent George Rogers Clark to win the Northwestern Territory from the English. Because Clark succeeded, the country- known today as Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and a part of Minnesota became a part of the new nation. Patrick Henry's health broke, and at the zenith of his career he retired to his plantation at Red Hill. The nation in vain offered him many posts of honor. He refused to serve as a member of the Constitutional Convention, as United States sen- ator, as governor of Virginia for the fourth time, as chief justice of the United States, as minister to Spain, as ambassador to France, and as vice-presi- dent of the United States. Yet, ever when he was needed to point the way to the people, he was ready to "put his body under" and use his eloquence in his country's service. So it was in 1799, when George Washington wrote to him urging that he show the people of his state that the laws made by Congress were binding on each state; for at this time Virginia was protesting that she could accept them or reject them at will. One March day the news that Patrick Henry was to speak at Charlottesville courthouse brought out the whole countryside, and caused Hampden and Sidney College in an adjoining county to suspend classes for the day. THE ORATOR OF THE REVOLUTION 51 He began his speech as a bowed old man and spoke in a cracked, shrill voice. He ended it with head erect, blue eyes flashing fire, clear voice ring- ing out to the farthest listener of the thousands who overflowed the courtyard. "Let us preserve our strength united against whatever foreign nation may dare to enter our territory." This was his theme and nobly he de- veloped it. At the close, as he was carried half- fainting into the building, the crowd whispered one to another, "The sun has set in all his glory." Back to Red Hill the aged orator went, not again to leave it. For years before his retirement from the law, it had been his custom to spend one hour each day in prayer. This hour — at sunset — ^was sacred, never to be intruded upon. The closing days of his life this hour lengthened, perhaps be- cause his weakness shortened the time of family de- votions. On Sunday evening he was accustomed to read aloud from a volume of sermons, after which the family sang hymns while he accompanied the singing with his violin. This, too, could no longer be. But the man who ended his will by writing, "This is all the inheritance I can give to my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed" — this man, de- nied by bodily weakness the religious forms and customs dear to him for a lifetime, yet knew per- 52 AMERICAN LEADERS feet peace in his last hours. "On the sixth of June he prayed a simple childlike prayer for his family, for his country, for his own soul. Then, fixing his eyes with much tenderness on his dear friend, Dr. Cabell, he asked that the doctor observe how great a reality and benefit religion was to a man about to die. ... He continued to breathe very softly for some moments, after which they who were look- ing upon him saw that his life had departed." Thomas Jefferson CHAPTER VI The Friend of the People Many of the founders of our nation were giants both in intellect and in body. None could better claim the name than Thomas Jefferson. He stood six feet two and one-half inches, "straight as a gun barrel," and he could lift one thousand pounds. Big of hand and foot, with angular features, red hair, blue eyes, and freckled skin, he was not a good- looking boy; but those who knew him at the end of life said he was "quite a handsome old man," Better than good looks, he had good humor, so that the "Jefferson temper, all music and sunshine," was a tradition not only in his own state but in the nation. April 2, 1743, this boy of the best blood of Vir- ginia was born. Although heir to aristocratic priv- ileges from youth he elected to claim no considera- tion other than that which he earned. Even as a little boy he showed a passion for learning. At nine years of age he studied Latin, Greek, and French, and two years later he wrote that music, mathematics, and architecture were his delight. From childhood until middle life, when his right wrist was broken by a fall, his violin was his joy 55 56 AMERICAN LEADERS and his recreation. Even while studying at William and Mary College, which he entered at the age of sixteen, he practiced two hours every day, although each day he was studying fifteen hours, and exer- cising only by a run of one mile out of town and back at twilight. - During college days, and the years following when he was studying law, he made enduring friend- ships. One of these friends — his daily companion — was the teacher of philosophy at the college, a man of bold and original thought; another was the gov- ernor of the state, with whom he dined once a week; and the third, the greatest lawyer of that time, George Wyeth, the man who trained also John Marshall and Henry Clay. Jefferson's summers were spent at Monticello, the one-thousand-acre farm he had inherited from his father. There his constant companion was Dabney Carr, who married Jefferson's sister. Un- der the shade of a great oak the two friends read Shakespeare and the Greek dramatists in the original, while dreaming of the future. One of these fancies was that when life here ended their bodies should Ue side by side under the oak. When Dab- ney Carr was only thirty his grave was made there, but Thomas Jefferson was eighty-three when the pact made in youth was consummated. Farming was his delight, and in seven years he THE FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE 57 increased his farm to five thousand acres. Every detail of the work interested him. He experi- mented with vines, nuts, melons, fruits, and vege- tables from Italy. He was by far the most scien- tific farmer in America. Though still in his twenties he was not only lawyer and farmer, but also surveyor, architect, surgeon enough to sew up a wound or set a broken bone, and astronomer of sufficient ability to calculate an eclipse. He danced as well as he played the violin, and by this time he had added Spanish, Italian, and Anglo- Saxon to the list of languages he had mastered. On the top of Monticello, a hill five hundred feet high, he began the house of his dreams. He was himself architect, builder, and landscape gar- dener. Nearly all the materials — including brick and nails — were made on his own place by negro slaves. His beautiful and charming wife brought him as a dowry forty thousand acres of land, and his plans grew apace. In those days slavery was deemed essential to farming, yet this man with his vast holdings worked most earnestly to abolish slavery! In 1778 he put a bill through the Virginia Assembly prohibiting further importation of slaves. He tried to have freedom given to all born after a certain date ; he tried to secure a law enabling Vir- ginia slave owners to free their slaves without send- ing them out of the state; and in later years he 58 AMERICAN LEADERS tried to have slavery prohibited in the Northwest Territory after 1800. But public opinion was not with him. Reluctantly Jefferson wrote, "The day is not far distant when the state must adopt a plan to free its slaves. Nothing is more surely written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. . . . I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just, for slavery is morally and politically wrong." At the age of twenty-six he began his public life as a member of the Virginia Assembly, and for forty years he served his country in office. He was a delegate to the First Continental Congress and to the second. At the second congress a committee of five, with Jefferson at its head, was appointed to draw up a paper stating that the colonies declared themselves "free and independent" states. For seven years Jefferson had written of America's wrongs. Now in immortal words he told the story again and set down the nation's resolve to be free. With the adoption of this Declaration of Independ- ence, July 4, 1776, the colonies became one nation with one thought — to win freedom at any cost. Back to Virginia Jefferson went to build a de- mocracy in that colony, the most aristocratic of the thirteen. For years he was the only American who really believed the mass of people were ready THE FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE 59 for self-government. "He led the future." After a bitter fight he ended the entail system by which all the land passed to the eldest son of a family. He fought long and hard to separate Church and State in Virginia. He secured the modification of the laws for capital punishment, the passing of wiser naturalization laws, and the moving of the state capital from Williamsburg to Richmond. He planned a complete system of state education, be- ginning at the kindergarten age and extending through a university course. But the counties would not tax themselves to carry out the realization of this wise and farsighted vision. He succeeded Patrick Henry as governor of Vir- ginia at the blackest period of the Revolutionary struggle. Jefferson's wife succumbed to the terrible strain of the war, and by her death Jefferson's in- vincible calm and poise was broken. For months he could do nothing. He was urgently needed in Congress and at last he accepted the call. The work of "the author of the Declaration of Independence" now gave him another sobriquet, "the father of the American dol- lar," for it was he who convinced Congress that our present form of currency was better than pounds, shillings, and pence. In 1784 Jefferson went abroad as Minister to France. He traveled much, studying social and 60 AMERICAN LEADERS political life in the various countries. To South Carolina he sent Lombardy rice, the parent seed of the finest rice grown today in the United States. To the four colleges of the new nation, Yale, Har- vard, University of Pennsylvania, and William and Mary, he forwarded full information of all the new scientific discoveries and inventions. He sent Houdon to America to make the famous bust of Washington. He secured new designs for the state capitol at Richmond. Then in 1 789 he came home to serve as Secretary of State. Between him, the advocate of the least possible governing power, and Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, believer in centraliza- tion of power, there was constant friction. In the building of the nation neither obtained recognition of all his plans, but each one contributed ideas vital to the new republic's welfare. After four years he returned to Monticello. He invented a new plow, a folding chair, the revolving chair now used in every office, and a folding top for carriages ; he made scientific experiments, and he compiled vocabularies of thirty Indian dialects. Of him a friend said, "He is the most industrious person I ever knew," and he himself wrote, "No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any." In 1796 he was elected Vice-President. At the THE FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE 61 Capital he was welcomed by a company of artillery, carrying a huge flag voicing another title, "Jeffer- son, the Friend of the People." In 1800 he became President, the first to be inaugurated in Washing- ton. True to his democratic ideals he rode unat- tended, on horseback, to the Capitol. There he dismounted, hitched his horse to a fence, and walked into the Senate Chamber to deliver his inaugural. He served two terms as President, and during these eight years he guided the new nation wisely, though many comphcations with foreign powers threatened its security. He negotiated the purchase of the Louisiana territory, by which the area of the United States was more than doubled. The Presidents succeeding him carried out his policies, so for almost a quarter of a century Jefferson's ideals of demo- cractic government were supreme. His closing years were clouded by financial dif- ficulties, but to the last Monticello was a synonym for open-handed hospitality. His sister's family of six children had grown up with his own two chil- dren, and now his eldest daughter, Martha Ran- dolph, with her eleven children, ordered his house- hold. Visitors came from all over the world and none were turned away. A beef was eaten in two days! Yet he found time to carry out a cherished project — the founding of a great state university. For sixteen years this was his absorbing interest. 62 AMERICAN LEADERS He drew the plans and made the working drafts of the buildings. He superintended the construction, until he was so weak that he had to be lifted to the back of his spirited horse. The third of July it was evident his strength was almost gone. But from time to time he roused himself to ask, "Is it yet the Fourth?" When at last his nurse answered "yes" he sighed happily and his face lit up with his familiar radiant smile. At noon, fifty years after the signing of the Declara- tion of Independence, he slept, not again to awaken here. At sunset of the same day, in Quincy, Mass., his lifelong friend, John Adams, left this world. His last words were the question, "Thomas Jeffer- son still Uves?" Like worn-out vessels, "the two aged friends cast anchor side by side." Alexander Hamilton CHAPTER VII The Little Lion Nearly two hundred years ago a Scotch mer- chant, James Hamilton, came to picturesque Nevis, one of the islands of the West Indies. He married there Rachel Fawcett, a beautiful and very in- tellectual girl of Huguenot descent. To them was born, on January 11, 1757, a son, Alexander Hamilton. While he was yet a little child, his adored mother died and his father failed in business. His mother's relatives took charge of the boy, and until he was twelve years old he had a wonderful teacher, Dr. Knox, a Presbyterian clergyman. At that age, however, he had to go to work in the countinghouse of Nicholas Cruger. Of this work he wrote, "I contemn the groveling condition of a clerk to which my fortune condemns me." Yet he did his work so well and so faithfully that when Mr. Cruger went to New York on a business trip, he left Alexander, not yet fourteen years of age, in charge. About a year later, in 1772, the islands were visited by a terrific hurricane. Alexander furnished a newspaper with such a graphic description of this 65 66 AMERICAN LEADERS storm that his relatives, urged by Dr. Knox, raised money for his education and sent him to New York. He threw himself eagerly into his studies. Wrapped in a blanket in winter he studied until midnight. In summer dawn found him at work in a cemetery, where he would be undisturbed. In 1774 he was ready for college. Princeton refused him the privilege of taking the course in about one-half the usual time, so he en- tered Columbia — then King's College. He soon won a name as a student, debater, and friend. He was generous and unselfish, full of love for others; hence he won love for himself. July 6, 1774, a "great meeting in the fields" was held to draw together the patriots. Hamilton spoke so eloquently that the people went wild with enthusiasm. He knew war must come, so he ap- plied himself to the study of military matters. When in 1776 New York raised an artillery com- pany, Hamilton was placed in command. While drilling his troops he found time to study about money circulation, rates of exchange, commerce, taxes, etc. He knew that after the war there would be need of someone who understood these matters thoroughly. Meanwhile he did his work as captain so well that General Greene called him to his headquarters and introduced him to Washington. Later, during THE LITTLE LION 67 the fighting on Harlem Heights, Washington saw- some work skilfully done by Hamilton. He invited the young officer to his tent. This was the begin- ning of a lifelong friendship. In 1777 he was given a place on Washington's staff, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He soon was known as the "Little Lion," because of his bravery and nobility. He looked like a mere boy, for he was short and slender, a "dark-eyed stripling, almost delicate in frame." He had many warm friends at this time, as al- ways throughout life. Some, among the famous men of the time, were Lafayette, Baron von Steuben, Laurens, and best of all, Washington. But the great attachment of his life was for Eliza- beth Schuyler, daughter of General Schuyler. De- cember 14, 1780, when Hamilton was just twenty- three, they were married. Throughout the war Hamilton took an active part. At the battle of Monmouth his horse was shot from under him. At Yorktown, at his own request, he led the final charge and captured the enemy's works. When the war was over he studied law. In four months he fitted himself for admission to the bar. At the age of twenty-five he was elected to Con- gress. He was a member of the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States, and 68 AMERICAN LEADERS his treatise on this plan of government "always will be cited by all writers on constitutional law." When Washington was made President he chose Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury. In that office he addressed Congress with regard to providing for the public debt, the establishment of national banks, the founding of a mint, as well as many other matters scarcely second in importance to these. After six years of strenuous public life he resigned in 1795 to resume the practice of law in New York. He desired to devote himself to his home and his family. ''The Grange," his summer home on the Hudson, was especially dear to him. Here were his books, his loved classics, and the Bible, of which he said, "I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man." But he was not to enjoy a quiet home life. He found himself pitted in politics against Aaron Burr, whose fame as a lawyer was second only to his own. Unfortunately Burr's moral nature was far in- ferior to his intellectual gifts. He had failed in many, of his plans for public position ; he was a most am- bitious man and he laid the blame for these failures at Hamilton's door. When Burr's scheme to obtain the governorship of New York failed, in his angry disappointment he challenged Hamilton to a duel. Hamilton was opposed to dueling on moral and re- THE LITTLE LION 69 ligious grounds, but felt forced by public prejudice to comply with the custom of the times. However, at the crucial moment he refused to fire. He fell, a sacrifice to the world's code of honor at that time, but he kept his own. His family was prostrated; his eldest daughter lost her reason. In an interval of relief from suffering he calmed his frenzied wife with the words, "Re- member, my Betty, you are a Christian." Thirty- four hours after the duel, on July 12, 1804, he died. The whole nation mourned for him. While old Trinity Church endures, his resting place, in plain view of one of New York's busiest streets, will be tenderly cherished. On the tomb is this in- scription : To the Memory of ALEXANDER HAMILTON The Corporation of Trinity Have Erected This Monument In Testimony of Their Respect For The Patriot of Incorruptible Integrity The Soldier of Approved Valour The Statesman of Consummate Wisdom Whose Talents And Virtues Will be Admired by Grateful Posterity Long After This Marble Shall Have Mouldered To Dust He Died July 12th 1804 Aged 47 James Monroe CHAPTER VIII The Author of the Monroe Doctrine The man who left to America a document which ranks with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution must have passed an uneventful childhood. This is concluded from the fact that, although he was born at Monroe's Creek, Va., April 28, 1758, history is silent as to his life until 1776. Then it is recorded that James Monroe, with thirty other students and three teachers of William and Mary College, left the schoolroom for the battlefield. The young soldier must have given a good account of himself in the Continental Army, for it was as Lieutenant Monroe that he led the stirring charge of his company at Trenton. ''Now, boys! Down with the Hessians! Show 'em what they get for pestering Americans! Fol- low me! For the guns! Charge!" So it was that Monroe rushed a reinforced Hes- sian battery on a stone bridge. As the Hessians turned to run they fired, and Monroe's right arm dropped limp. From that moment he was to carry a bullet in his shoulder throughout the whole of his life, but he went on, his men after him. They 73 74 AMERICAN LEADERS captured the battery, they held the Hessians at bay, they repulsed a return charge, and finally, by killing the Hessian commander, they helped Wash- ington win the battle of Trenton. Monroe fought also at Brandywine, German- town, and Monmouth, advancing through the various army promotions to the rank of colonel. Home from war he came to enter upon a public career that was to last for forty- three years. In 1782 he was elected to the Virginia Legislature. Well and faithfully he had fought, and with equal skill and sincerity he served his country as states- man, governor, senator, foreign minister. Secre- tary of State, Secretary of War, and President. Opinions may differ as to the soundness of his political views, but there is no dissenting voice when history speaks of James Monroe's clearness of judgment, wisdom, prudence, strength of char- acter, and purity of life. Thomas Jefferson, his lifelong friend and mentor, said, "James Monroe is a man whose soul might be turned wrongside outwards without revealing a blemish to the world." An old Virginia friend wrote, "Mr. Mon- roe, in his family, was not only unvaryingly kind and affectionate, but as gentle as a woman. He was wholly unselfish . . . and one of the most polite men to all ranks and classes I ever saw. During his two presidential terms, he appointed no rela- THE AUTHOR OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE 75 tive or near connection to office, because he was not willing to lay himself liable to the suspicion of being influenced by any other consideration than the public good. He was warmly attached to his friends. Washington and Jefferson he greatly ad- mired, but James Madison he loved with all his heart." Nor does any student deny the value of the serv- ice he rendered in public life. Earliest in point of date was his journey to France as envoy, in 1803, to arrange with Napoleon Bonaparte the purchase and cession of Louisiana, "the largest transaction in real estate the world has ever known." Later, during the War of 1812, Monroe, the Secretary of State, was forced to act also as Secretary of War, and part of the time as Secretary of the Treasury as well. For ten days of this time he did not undress, and almost every hour he was in the saddle. Money was desperately needed, but the country's credit was gone. "If you have no confidence in the Government's securities," Monroe asked the cashier of the Bank of Columbia, "have you confidence in my honor?" "Most certainly I have confidence in your word of honor as a man," came the prompt reply. "Then," demanded Monroe, "accept my word of honor as a pledge. If you give me the money the Government must have, I will pledge my honor 76 AMERICAN LEADERS and my private fortune that the loan will be repaid." So, like Robert Morris, James Monroe offered his all to his country. He did more. With the money thus advanced, he strengthened the de- fenses of Washington and Baltimore, he sent am- munition to Jackson at New Orleans. Even more, he forwarded decisive orders to Jackson, and to the Southern governors, and determined demands for troops. It was due as much to his energy as to Jackson's generalship that the halting, inefi&cient War of 1812 ended in a blaze of glory. His two administrations have always been known as ''the era of good feeling," for there was little party strife during those years. So little, in fact, that in 1820 he received every electoral vote but one. He was entitled to that one also, but the delegate who cast the. vote for Adams declared he did it because no man but Washington ever ought to have the honor of a unanimous choice. The adoption of the Missouri Compromise in 1820 was the only real disturbance in the general quie- tude. Another outstanding event of this time was the visit of Lafayette to America and the warm welcome the country gave the old man, who, as a youth, had sacrificed a brilliant future to serve without pay in the patriot army. But the service which links James Monroe to THE AUTHOR OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE 77 immortality was his enunciation of the doctrine known by his name. Spain's American colonies, one by one, had revolted from her cruel rule and the United States had recognized their independ- ence. But the Holy Alliance, made up of the gov- ernments of France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, proposed to put these colonies again under Spain's control. In 1823 James Monroe, in his annual message to Congress, embodied a clause, commonly re- garded "as an epitome of the principles of the United States with respect to the development of American States." Briefly, in speaking of the con- templated action by the Holy Alliance, this clause stated that we "should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety," adding, "The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." So James Monroe, as President of the United States, crystallized the thought of the republic from the days of its beginning. Washington, Jef- ferson, and John Quincy Adams had expressed the same thought in varying phrase. Indeed, when writing this message, Monroe consulted Jefferson, 78 AMERICAN LEADERS who replied, ''Our first and fundamental maxim should be : Never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe; our second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cisatlantic affairs." In 1825 Monroe retired from office. But his public life had indelibly recorded his firm convic- tion that America is for Americans. Like Robert Morris, he died in poverty. But his closing years were not unhappy, since they were spent in the home of his daughter in New York City. Here, in 1831, one year after his cherished and beautiful wife had entered the life beyond, he followed her. To him, as to Jefferson and to Adams, the end of life here came on the Fourth of July. New York hon- ored his passing, and he was laid to rest by the side of his wife. But in 1858 Virginia, wishing him to lie in his native soil, carried his ashes to Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond. John Jacob Astor CHAPTER IX The Monarch of the Fur Trade Dreams are not iridescent bubbles, beautiful, useless, fleeting. Daydreams are the visions that lure men from the plains of drudgery to the heights of achievement. True, while the eyes are fixed on their beauty, the feet must climb, the dreamer must surmount all obstacles, he must keep steadily on. Those who can do this are the true builders and the real conservers of democracy. Such was John Jacob Astor. He was born July 17, 1763, in Waldorf, Germany, and his youth was one of hardship and poverty. The loss of his own mother and the coming into the home of a step- mother, who "loved not Jacob the father, nor John Jacob the son," added to his longing to leave the country village and make his own way in the great world outside. Even at fourteen years of age he had determined to go to the New World, but it was two years later before his father gave his consent for John Jacob to leave home. No one knew that John Jacob dreamed of America. Perhaps his father would not have yielded to John Jacob's wish had he known all that was in the boy's mind. 81 82 AMERICAN LEADERS By that time John Jacob was a strong, sturdy lad, of whom his Lutheran pastor wrote, "He has a pious, true, and godly spirit, a clear understand- ing, and a sound, youthful elbow grease and the wish to put it to good use." Further in compre- hension the good pastor did not go. He did not know that the boy left Waldorf with his eyes fixed on America. Yet, though John Jacob's head was in the clouds he kept his feet firmly on earth. He realized that before he could cross the sea he must achieve certain definite aims. First, he must earn and save money; second, he must learn the English language ; third, he must acquire all the knowledge possible about the country of his dreams. He set out early one summer morning on foot, with a bundle of clothes hung from a stick over one shoulder. He was bound for the river, a few miles distant, down which he meant to work his way on a raft to the nearest seaport. His friends watched him out of sight, and as the forest engulfed him his teacher said, "I am not afraid for John Jacob. He'll get through the world. He has a clear head and everything right behind the ears." John Jacob's heart swelled with the bigness of his undertaking, and before he reached the river he sat down under a tree and made three resolutions: "I will be honest; I will be industrious; I will not gamble." THE MONARCH OF THE FUR TRADE 83 In London, in his uncle's factory for making musical instruments, where he found employment, he kept his promises to himself, and set himself resolutely to pass the milestones that lay between him and America. So well did he succeed that four years later he stepped on board a ship bound for the New World with the clothes on his back, a good suit in reserve, seven flutes for stock in trade, twenty-five dollars, and a steerage ticket. "There are no accidents." When almost at his destination the ship was icebound in Chesapeake Bay. Two months the passengers waited for the ice to break— ample time for John Jacob to learn from a fur trader on board all the ins and outs of the business. He asked many questions, and his new friend answered them all. By the time John Jacob Astor landed he knew how to trade with the Indians, how much to pay, where to buy, how to preserve, pack, and transport the peltries. He had learned also what price to ask and the names of the leading dealers in New York, Montreal, and London. Again John Jacob dreamed — but kept his feet on earth. After he had served an apprenticeship in the business, he would trade in furs. Straight to New York he went, where his brother, a butcher, welcomed him and offered him a place in the busi- ness. But John Jacob had his vision and he fol- 84 AMERICAN LEADERS lowed it. He got a place in a fur store, where he kept his eyes and ears open. So rapidly did he learn that in a year he was sent through the wilder- ness as far as Montreal, to buy furs. He bargained well with the Indians, exchanging so advantage- ously for furs the trinkets he carried that he as- tonished his employer on his return by the number of skins he brought. One year more he served, then he took unto him- self a wife. Miss Sarah Todd, who was so interested in John Jacob's ambitions that she insisted that her dowry of three hundred dollars be used to set up a store of his own. Soon she knew as much about furs as her husband and was a match for him in business. She it was who managed the little shop when John Jacob went on long journeys into the wilderness, trading with the Indians. Return- ing, he would prepare the skins himself, often aided by his wife, who would come down from their little home above the store to work with him. "She was the best business partner any man ever had," John Jacob Astor often asserted in later years. It was Mrs. Astor who urged the first trip to London with furs. Mr. Astor went in the steerage class. He came home with a paper in his pocket, the gift of a fellow-German, which gave him his real start as a financier. This pass, given by the governor of the great East India House, entitled THE MONARCH OF THE FUR TRADE 85 him to trade freely at any of the ports owned by the East India Company. It was a very valuable concession, as the company controlled all the ports of China. On his return he handed the paper to his wife saying, "But I have no ships, so it is no use to us at present." However, Mrs. Astor suggested that he see a friend in the East India trade and arrange with him to make the voyage, giving Mr. Astor half the profits in return for the use of the pass. James Livermore agreed to this plan, and when he re- turned the pass Mr. Astor's share of the profit was $55,000. At once he invested it in a sailing ship and so became America's pioneer merchant in the China trade — the best market in the world for furs. The cargoes of teas and silks and matting which were brought on the return voyages found a ready sale in the New World. Still John Jacob Astor daydreamed. He looked ahead for the city of his adoption, New York, though at that time Greenwich Village was two miles from the town. Every morning before seven Mr. Astor was at his store, but in the late after- noon he rode up and down Manhattan Island, dreaming as he rode. He looked on meadows and saw solid rocks of substantial buildings. So he bought land — sometimes on the edge of town. 86 AMERICAN LEADERS where he built houses and with the rent bought more land far beyond the town's borders. He bought and built so wisely that years afterward seven thousand houses paid rent to the Astor estate. For his country as well as for his city this seer of visions dreamed dreams. He saw the frontier be- tween America and Canada guarded by forts as far as the country was then known — to the foot of Lake Michigan. He urged a survey from that point to the Pacific Ocean with forts to follow the line thus marked out. From the mouth of the Columbia River he foretold a line of American ships en route for Asia, using the Sandwich Islands as a halfway station. So clear was his vision of the day when this would be, that, at his own expense, he founded Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River. In Washington Irving's Astoria may be read the ro- mantic story of the expeditions which went, one by land and one by sea, to this unknown point on the western ocean. Had John Jacob Astor's instructions to his sub- ordinates been strictly followed, this vision, too, would have become a reality. But, through the dishonesty of one and the carelessness of others, Astoria and the Oregon fur trade fell into the hands of a rival British company and Mr. Astor lost the million dollars he had invested. So miscarried the plan which has been called "one of the grandest and THE MONARCH OF THE FUR TRADE 87 most comprehensive ever framed by the mind of man. The spirit which John Jacob Astor showed was the spirit which has made America. The first American promoters, while seeking personal benefit, were moved by considerations of loyalty and pa- triotism equaled by business men in no other coun- try at any time." In 1820 John Jacob Astor visited Waldorf, the village he had left years before. He studied thor- oughly the need of this remote place, and the out- come was the Astorhaus, a home for the poor, the blind, and the deaf, as well as for the education of all poor children. In his will this home was gener- ously provided for. Provision was made also for all relatives, however far removed; but the bulk of the estate in accordance with Old-World custom was left to his oldest son, William B. Astor. It was fitting that a life spent in piling up oppor- tunity for those who were to follow him should close by giving the Astor Library to the city. At the time it was founded America numbered few writers, but John Jacob Astor foresaw the time when many should feel the need of books of refer- ence. This call of literary workers yet unborn sounded so clearly in Mr. Astor's ears that he sent Dr. Cogswell abroad to collect books that would lay the foundation for a cosmopolitan library of reference. 88 AMERICAN LEADERS Meantime, through all the years of his busy life, he served as a member of the consistory of the Ger- man Reformed Church, and in his will he remem- bered generously this center of religious faith so dear to his heart. March 29, 1848, his life here ended. And yet it did not end, for "John Jacob Astor still lives in the paths he opened for those who came after him." M ■ 9 1 1 Meriwether Lewis CHAPTER X The Pathfinders On May 14, 1804, forty men, one woman, and a baby, left the little town of St. Louis at the mouth of the Missouri River and struck out for the un- known West. Meriwether Lewis, private secre- tary to President Thomas Jefferson, and William Clark, a brother of George Rogers Clark, were in charge of the expedition. Lewis, who was born August 18, 1774, in Charlottesville, Va., had served in the army, helped to suppress the Whisky Insur- rection, and later served under Anthony Wayne against Indian attacks. Clark, who was born in Virginia, August 1, 1770, was an old comrade of Lewis', and he also had served under General Wayne. Both men from their experience were well fitted to undertake the tremendous task as- signed to them. In 1803 the United States Government had pur- chased from France for fifteen million dollars all the land lying between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. No one knew anything about this region, so Congress sent the party out to gather data for maps showing the mountains, rivers, and valleys; to note the kinds of soil, trees, 91 92 AMERICAN LEADERS fruit, animals, and minerals in the different parts of the country; and, most important of all, to make friends with the Indians and to open up the way for trading with them. For two years this little party journeyed through awe-inspiring mountains and across desert stretches. They went through the picturesque lands of Mon- tana where the earth is worn into such shapes that the explorers were sure they had come upon ancient forts. They met buffaloes so tame that they had to be driven away with sticks and stones. They en- countered bears — brown bears, black bears, and grizzly bears — not at all friendly, yet ready to greet them with a hug. Sometimes they marched over plains where the cactus thorns pierced their feet as if their shoes were only made of paper. Clouds of mosquitoes drove them nearly wild. Once Cap- tain Lewis awoke from a nap to find a big rattle- snake sleeping beside him. One night the company was camping on a sand- bar in a river. Hardly were they asleep when the guard called, "Get up! Quick! The sandbar's sinking!" And before they reached the shore the sandbar was out of sight. But the greatest hardship was that for two years they had no word from home. That was even harder than doing without food, as sometimes they were forced to do. William Clark THE PATHFINDERS 95 All the way out to the Pacific Coast they made friends with the Indians, though to do so often de- manded much tact and forbearance. On the re- turn journey they were not so fortunate, for an encounter with the treacherous Blackfeet Indians left the latter bitter foes of the white men ever after. But the little band fulfilled nobly the task set for them. They followed the Missouri River to its source, a tiny stream where a man could stand with a foot on either bank. Three-fourths of a mile westward they came to another streamlet, one of the branches of the Columbia River. This they followed to the Pacific Ocean, arriving there in the rainy season. That winter their clothes and bed- ding were never dry and their main food was dried fish. As soon as spring came they started on the return journey. When in September, 1806, they reached the little village of St. Louis, they were welcomed as men returned from the dead. All hope of their return had been given up. The leaders and men of the exploring party were liberally rewarded. Besides receiving a tract of fifteen hundred acres, Lewis in 1807 was made governor of the northern part of the territory. Lewis, while on the way west to Washington, died October 11, 1809. Clark, after serving as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, died September 1, 1838. 96 AMERICAN LEADERS These men were pathfinders in the best sense, for they blazed the way for thousands of home- seekers. So long as men shall honor courage and persistence, the names of Lewis and Clark will be respected and revered. Nor will less honor be paid to John Charles Fre- mont, who did for the Rockies and CaUfornia what Lewis and Clark did for the Northwest. Fremont was born in Savannah, Ga., January 21, 1813. Besides serving as instructor of mathematics in the navy for two and a half years, he was as- sistant engineer of a survey for a proposed railway. In 1838 he was appointed second lieutenant of topographical engineers of the army. He sur- veyed for the Government the land lying between the upper waters of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, and also the lower course of the Des Moines River. In 1842 the Government sent him from St. Louis with a band of picked men, guided by the famous scout. Kit Carson. As far as Fort Laramie the journey was easy, but west of that point trou- bles multiplied. Hostile Indians had to be placated. So well did Fremont succeed in doing this that he was invited to an Indian dogfeast. Though he longed to send regrets, he had to go and eat not only one but two bowls of dogstew. The Government was particularly anxious to John C. Fremont THE PATHFINDERS 99 know the height of the peaks in the Rocky Moun- tains. So when Fremont's barometer was acci- dentally broken, he spent two days repairing it with glue made from buffalo hoofs and horn. As a result of this patient work he was able to estimate the height of the peak — since known as Fremont's Peak — then regarded as the highest peak in all the Rockies. There on the topmost rock, 13,790 feet above sea level, they raised the flag August 16, 1842. In 1843 Fremont was sent West again to see whether a good road to the Pacific could be opened. This time he pushed on to the Great Salt Lake, about which little had been known. A third time he went out, in 1845, to explore the Great Basin and the Pacific Coast, and to gain California in view of the possibility of war between Mexico and the United States. When he was near Oregon two white men halted his party. They car- ried dispatches from Washington, telling that war had been declared between the United States and Mexico. Fremont at once turned to the help of California. Americans from all over the state came to join his army, and by 1847 the conquest of Cali- fornia was completed. Fremont was made governor of California and Kit Carson went back to Washington to tell the story. But Fremont's forces were so reduced that 100 AMERICAN LEADERS the Mexicans crept back. Had not General Kear- ney returned in time with Kit Carson, CaHfornia might have been lost to the Union. Later the time came when the Mexican general surrendered all his arms and his men. So California, an empire of gold, was secured for the Union. In 1856 Colonel Fremont was the first Republi- can candidate for the Presidency, but was defeated by James Buchanan. After serving as governor of Arizona from 1878 to 1881 he was put on the re- tired list by Act of Congress. He died in New York City, July 13, 1890. His story, like that of Lewis and Clark, is one of the wonder tales of American history. Henry Clay CHAPTER XI The Mill Boy of the Slashes "The Slashes" are low, swampy lands, and the "mill boy" was Henry Clay, born in Hanover County, Virginia, April 12, 1777. His father, a Baptist minister, died when Henry was but four years old. His mother was left to bring up a family of eight, and very soon Henry began to help by taking the corn to the mill. The neighbors nicknamed him "the mill boy of the slashes," and the name clung to him all his life. Perhaps this was because to every man who knew the meaning .of toil it typified Henry Clay's early acquaintance with poverty and hard work. When he was fourteen his mother married again and the family moved to Richmond. Captain Watkins, a real father to his wife's children, placed Henry in the Chancery Clerk's office. The clerk as- . serted that there was no vacancy. "Never mind," came Captain Watkins' prompt reply, "you must take the boy." In a new suit of gray "figinny" made by his mother, the tall, awkward boy went to work. At first many sly grins were exchanged behind his back by the other clerks, but they were not long-lived, 103 104 AMERICAN LEADERS for the innate power of the boy quickly made itself felt. It attracted the attention of Chancellor Wyeth and he appropriated the fifteen-year-old boy for his private secretary. He soon felt a real affec- tion for him. When he found that the lad did not seek amusement in the evening but studied in- stead, he laid out a course of reading for him; first in English, later in history and in law. Naturally Henry Clay determined that he would become a lawyer. By the time he was twenty he had achieved this goal. As there seemed Httle chance for him in Richmond he followed his parents, who had moved to Lexington, Ky. Before long he had a large practice. He was unusually successful, whether de- fending a criminal, or settling some civil dispute. At twenty-two he married Lucretia Hart, and as soon as he had the means he bought Ashland, a country estate near Lexington. It was an ideal Southern home, the big brick mansion set far back from the highway, in a grove of trees, with great flower and vegetable gardens in the rear. Six daughters and five sons grew up in this home, and here in later days were entertained Lafayette, Webster, Monroe, and other famous men from both America and Europe. When, in 1799, Kentucky considered a project for gradually abolishing slavery, Henry Clay wrote THE MILL BOY OF THE SLASHES 105 and spoke earnestly in favor of it. He felt then as he later affirmed, "I had rather be right than be President." In 1807, before he was thirty, he was sent to the United States Senate to fill an unexpired term, as he was also in 1810. In 1811 he became a member of the House of Representatives. To him fell an honor never before bestowed on a new member, that of being chosen Speaker on the first day he took his seat. For seven successive terms he served in this chair. "Henry Clay stands in the tradition of the House of Representatives as the greatest of its speakers. His perfect mastery of parliamentary law, his unfailing presence of mind, the courteous dignity of his bearing, are remembered as un- equaled." So wrote Carl Schurz. He used his great influence to bring on the War of 1812. For he held firmly that a sailor should be protected by his country; if not by peaceable means then by force. Hotly, in Congress, he urged action. "In such a cause, with the aid of Providence, we must come out crowned with success; but if we fail, let us fail like men; lash ourselves to our gal- lant tars, and expire together in one common struggle, fighting for seamen's rights." He was one of the five commissioners sent to Ghent, in 1814, to arrange a treaty of peace. So wisely did he bear himself in this council that he 106 AMERICAN LEADERS returned home famous. Of him a friend said, "He is commanding in presence, a man who makes friends everywhere; always a gentleman, because always kind at heart." His voice was most mu- sical, his handclasp unfailingly cordial, and his memory of names and faces without a flaw. Add to these characteristics generosity and good humor, and it is small wonder his personal magnetism made him the leader of an admiring host. By his speeches, read everywhere, he moulded the polit- ical opinions of thousands. Little by Uttle the differences in business inter- ests between the North and the South led to an ever-growing difference of opinion with regard to slavery. Each section wanted as many states as possible on its own side in order to increase the number of votes in Congress. When Missouri was asked to enter the Union as a slave state, debate raged furiously. It was Henry Clay who proposed the compromise, adopted in 1820, which for a time postponed the threatening calamity. It won for Clay the name of the "great pacificator," and made him one of the great trio then in Washington: Clay, Webster, and Calhoun. From 1825 to 1829 Henry Clay served as Sec- retary of State under John Quincy Adams, the "accidental President." Three times Clay was nominated for the Presidency and defeated. The THE MILL BOY OF THE SLASHES 107 last time, in 1844, he was unanimously nominated by the Whig party and his election seemed certain. But the Whigs were afraid to come out boldly against slavery, and the Abolitionists so split the Whig vote that the election went to the Democrats. Henry Clay was keenly disappointed and his feel- ing was shared by thousands. Letters by the hun- dred poured into Ashland, and in some sections of the country business was forgotten as the people talked together of ''the blow that has fallen on our country." Financial trouble added to his cares, but friends canceled the mortgage of $50,000 on Ashland. "Had ever any man such friends or enemies as Henry Clay?" At seventy years of age, with a multitude of his friends and several of his dearly loved children gone from life here, Henry Clay's thoughts turned to the life to come. At Ashland he was baptized into the communion of the Episcopal Church. "On one side of the room hung a picture of Washington, an Episcopalian by birth and a devout communi- cant; immediately opposite, on a stand, stood the bust of William Henry Harrison, who was to have been confirmed in the church the Sabbath after he died. Fit witnesses of the scene!" In 1849, seven years after Henry Clay had said farewell to the Senate, he was again unanimously 108 AMERICAN LEADERS chosen for a term of six years. Again he was called to debate and to compromise. The "Missouri Com- promise" of 1820 had kept the country quiet on the slavery question until the close of the Mexican War, in 1848. The winning of this war brought in New Mexico and California. When the latter asked to be admitted to the Union the question of slavery was again bitterly discussed, because at that time the number of free and slave states was equal. Clay introduced his "Compromise of 1850," or the "Omnibus Bill." As he walked up to the Capitol to make his last great speech upon the measure, he said to the friend by his side, "Will you lend me your arm? I feel weak and exhausted this morning." "Can you not postpone your speech?" his friend asked. "I consider our country in danger," Clay an- swered gravely. "If, in any measure, I can avert that danger, my health and my life are of little consequence." He spoke for two days! Among those who listened were many who had come from Phila- delphia, New York, and Boston to hear his argu- ment. But the measure was debated for six months longer. Clay was so ill that he could scarcely walk, but each day found him in his seat in the Senate chamber. Finally Webster, on the seventh THE MILL BOY OF THE SLASHES 109 of March, 1850, employed his eloquence on behalf of the bill and it was adopted. This speech, which won temporarily the peace for which Clay labored, lost Webster his own prestige. Soon the North began to resist by force this bill because of the stringent fugitive slave law which grew out of it. Heartbroken by his failure to bring about a lasting peace, Henry Clay daily grew feebler. Quietly the end came June 29, 1852. From Wash- ington the funeral train passed through Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Buffalo, Cleve- land, and Cincinnati to Lexington. In each place, thousands gathered to do him honor and to mourn their own loss. At Ashland, before the flower- decked bier on the lawn, rich and poor, black and white, bowed in grief together. Henry Clay had not won the Presidency of the nation, but he had won that which was infinitely more precious, its heartfelt love. Daniel Webster CHAPTER XII The Great Expounder of the Constitution January 18, 1782, a slight, delicate boy was born to Ebenezer and Abigail Webster, in the little town of Salisbury, N. H. The baby's frailty won him his mother's special tenderness and later his father's secret resolve to send the boy to college. "I do not remember when or by whom I was taught to read, because I cannot recall a time when I could not read the Bible." So Daniel Webster wrote late in life. But it is a matter of record that he was only eight years old when, with the savings of months, he bought a cotton pocket handkerchief, on whose two sides was printed the Constitution of the United States. Years after- ward he said, "There is not an article, a section, a phrase, a word, a syllable, or even a comma of that Constitution that I did not study and ponder in every relation and in every construction of which it was susceptible." At twelve years of age by some means he got hold of Don Quixote. *T began to read it, and it is literally true I never closed my eyes until I had finished it, so great was the power of that extra- 113 114 AMERICAN LEADERS ordinary book on my imagination." The Spec- tator and Pope's Essay on Man furnished most of his other reading. ''We had so few books that we thought they were all to be got by heart." Later in life Milton, Shakespeare, and the Bible were his inspiration. Once Daniel Webster confided to an old friend, "I have read through the entire Bible many times. ... I pity the man who cannot find in it a rich supply of thought and of rules for conduct." During the year 1 794 Daniel had nine months in Phillips Exeter Academy, where he made great progress in everything but declamation. He would go to this class perfectly prepared, but when his name was called bashfulness held him in his seat! At fifteen he entered Dartmouth College. Here his power as an orator began to make itself known. A classmate said of him, "In his movements, he was rather slow and deliberate — except when his feelings were aroused, then his whole soul would kindle into a flame. . . . No one ever thought of equaling the vigor and flow of his eloquence." He specialized in history and politics, and what he read became his own. "Often I closed my book and recalled what I had read. Then, afterward, if any subject came up on which I had read I could talk easily." No wonder Daniel Webster's fame GREAT EXPOUNDER OF THE CONSTITUTION 115 as an interesting talker grew. Before he was one year in college he had won the fight against shyness and knew the thrill of mastering an audience by the power of the spoken word. From this time on his wonderful skill in debate grew until it com- manded the ear of the nation. After graduating in 1801 he taught school by day, copied deeds at night, and studied law be- tween times. Of him at this time George Ticknor Curtis says, "He was greatly belgved. I never heard him use a profane word, and never saw him lose his temper." In 1805 he was admitted to the bar, and in 1808 he married a girl of extraordinarily beautiful char- acter, Grace Fletcher. They settled in Ports- mouth, and from there he was elected to the House. He took his seat May, 1813, among such noted statesmen as Henry Clay and John C. Cal- houn. To the Southern leaders Webster was often opposed on the great questions of the day. His skill in debating won him the first place among American orators. His oration at Plymouth, in 1820, on the second centennial of the landing of the Pilgrims, was a masterpiece of eloquence. John Adams wrote to him, 'Tf there be an American who can read it without tears, I am not that American. ... It ought to be read at the end of every year, forever and ever." 116 AMERICAN LEADERS Coupled in the thoughts of men with this speech is his first Bunker Hill oration, though it was delivered five years later. He spoke to the survivors of the Revolution. ''You are now where you stood fifty years ago this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in strife for your country. Behold, how altered! . . . Now all is peace. God has allowed you to behold and to partake of the reward of your pa- triotic toils, and he has allowed us to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you." In 1824 he bought eighteen hundred acres of land at Marshfield, on the Massachusetts coast. Here he built a home that was the pride and joy of his life. Especially did he find relaxation in planting trees, setting out shrubs, and laying out beds of perennial flowers. His own course he urged on others, saying, "Plant trees, adorn your ground, live for the benefit of those who shall come after you." In 1828 a tariff bill was passed which divided the North and the South. Two years later Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, made a bitter attack on the bill and on Webster. In conclusion he stated the Southern doctrine that any state had the right to disobey the law of the nation. GREAT EXPOUNDER OF THE CONSTITUTION 117 In one night Webster prepared his answer. To hear it the Senate Chamber was packed. His theme was nationality, and for four hours he held the audience spellbound by his logical appeal for the Union first and the State second. His lifelong study of the Constitution stood him in good stead. He made Americans realize as never before the value and sacredness of union. His closing words, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and in- separable," became the inspiration of schoolboys over all the land. As boys, they declaimed this climax with the thrilling sentences that led up to it; later, as men, they fought to show their loyalty to the truth so eloquently expressed. Webster had made many stirring speeches be- fore, he made many later; but this "Reply to Hayne" capped the climax of his career. To the ringing words was added the magnetism of the man. He was almost six feet tall, with a large, well-shaped head, and deep-set eyes, black and glowing. His voice was wonderful — low and musical when talking, but in debate sonorous, the high tones sounding like a clarion, the low ones rumbling like those of an organ. From this date the lure of the Presidency was ever held before Daniel Webster, but time and again a more "available" candidate was chosen. In 1841 President Harrison appointed Webster 118 AMERICAN LEADERS Secretary of State. After Harrison's death, when Tyler became President, the entire Cabinet, except Webster, resigned. He stayed to conclude the negotiations that were being made with Great Britain at that time, and then he, too, left public life and retired to Marshfield. But very shortly Massachusetts returned him to the Senate, and in 1852 his attitude on the Clay "Compromise of 1850" lost him the nomination for the Presidency, the last time his name could be so mentioned. One term of this compromise called for the en- forcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, which or- dered all escaped slaves found in the North to be returned to their owners. Though Daniel Webster had been a lifelong foe of slavery, he favored this bill. His friends were shocked and disappointed, but today he is less harshly judged. He loved the Union and he desired above all else to avert civif war. Of his own actions he said, ''I cared for noth- ing, but I meant to do my duty." After this last disappointment he retired to his beloved Marshfield. For nine miles before he en- tered its gates friends scattered flowers before his carriage. He entered its doors and sank into an easy chair, murmuring, "I am so thankful to be here. If I could have my will, never again would I leave this home!" Nor did he. The sands of life swiftly ran their course, and on October 24, GREAT EXPOUNDER OF THE CONSTITUTION 119 1852, the end came. A few hours before he whis- pered, "My wish has been to do my Maker's will. I thank him now for all the mercies that surround me." Sam Houston CHAPTER XIII The Liberator of Texas Near Lexington, Va., March 2, 1793, was born a boy destined to be the governor of two states, the president of a republic five times as large as Eng- land, and a Senator of the United States. This boy, Sam Houston, got some schooling at the ''Old Field School." The course was made up of the "three R's," with but the rudiments of the third "R"— 'rithmetic. But he read incessantly. Much of Pope's trans- lation of the Iliad he learned by heart. The Bible, Pilgrim's Progress^ and Shakespeare's works were the only other books in this frontier library. Years later, when commander in chief of the Texan forces, he studied Caserns Commentaries — in trans- lation, of course. Late in life he became a great student of the Bible. After the death of Sam's father, a veteran of the Revolution, in 1806, his mother migrated to Ten- nessee with her nine children. Sam was placed in a trader's store when he was about fifteen, but he ran away eight miles to the Cherokee Indians. Here he was adopted and given the name of Coloneh, "the rover." The Cherokees were a 123 124 AMERICAN LEADERS superior tribe who lived in log cabins, tilled the fields, and held many slaves. They had a written language, devised by their chief, Sequoia, for whom the giant trees of California are named. When Sam's family begged him to return he re- plied, "1 would rather measure deer tracks than measure tape." So he lived with the Cherokees until he enlisted for the War of 1812. In the army he rose rapidly. Under Andrew Jackson, at the famous fight of Tohopeka, he received a wound which troubled him all his life. His heroism in this battle is one of the most thrilling stories of border warfare and won for him the rank of second lieutenant. For nearly five years he served in the army. When he resigned in 1818 he held the rank of first lieutenant. Until his election to the House of Representatives in 1823 he studied and practiced law. He returned to Tennessee as governor in 1827. Colonel Claiborne, who as a little boy saw him in- augurated, says, "He wore a tall, bell-crowned, shining, black beaver hat; shining black patent- leather military stock incased by a standing collar; ruffled shirt; black satin vest; black silk trousers gathered to the waistband, with legs full; and a gorgeous, many-colored Indian hunting-shirt, fas- tened at the waist by a huge, red-beaded sash; embroidered silk stockings; and pumps with large THE LIBERATOR OF TEXAS 125 silver buckles." All his life he wore striking cos- tumes like this. But his great height — six feet, three inches — and his imposing carriage kept them from seeming ridiculous. In 1829 he married Eliza Allen, but three months later, because of domestic unhappiness, he resigned as governor and left the state. He turned to his Indian father, who then lived in what is now Okla- homa. Here Houston lived for three years. In 1832 President Jackson sent him to Texas with a commission to the Indians there, to nego- tiate treaties with them for the protection of American traders on the border. In two months Houston traveled on horseback more than one thousand miles. His mission fulfilled, he remained in Texas to cast his lot with the Americans there - — the men called "the glory of the race of rangers." Repeated acts of injustice on the part of the Mexican government led the Americans in Texas to seek separation from Mexico. This the Mexican government refused; the Texans, in March, 1836, adopted a constitution and made Sam Houston head of the army. But before he took charge, the Alamo fell and the inhuman massacre at Goliad took place. The heroes of both battles were avenged, however, by Houston at the battle of San Jacinto, April 21, 1836. There he trapped and captured Santa Anna, and routed his forces. 126 AMERICAN LEADERS Thus was Texas freed forever from Spanish domi- nation. Sam Houston was elected president of the new republic and served until 1844. In 1845 Texas came into the Union, and the following year she sent her hero to the United States Senate. Here he served two terms. In the Senate he was noted for his sturdy common sense — and his continual whittling. In 1840 he had married again, a noble Christian woman. He joined the Baptist church and while in Washington was a faithful attendant. During the services he whittled out little toys with his jackknife, but he also listened to the sermon. He was as thorough a Christian as he had been a fighter. In 1859 Houston was elected governor of Texas. He tried to keep Texas from seceding, saying, 'T tell you that, while I believe with you in the doc- trine of States' Rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union." But Texas seceded. In 1861 Houston was called upon to take a new oath swear- ing allegiance to the Confederate government. This he refused to do, saying, "Not that I love Texas less, but I love her more as a state of the old Union than a state of the new Confederacy." This action, of course, cost him his office. Yet he did not want to see his state coerced. So he declined Lincoln's offer to make him a THE LIBERATOR OF TEXAS 127 major-general in the Union army. At the same time he disdained the Confederate regulation of the state. All men over sixteen were required to regis- ter and obtain a pass. Houston did neither, and when halted by an officer he merely snapped, "San Jacinto is my pass through Texas." His last speech, full of his characteristic humor and dramatic sense, was on March 18, 1863. He spoke in the city named for him. Four months later, July 26, he quietly passed away. "Few men have been so written about, and few have deserved it more." William Lloyd Garrison CHAPTER XIV A Friend of the Friendless Not that the boy born December 10, 1805, in Newburyport, Mass., began life with such an un- selfish aim as a "friend of the friendless." To earn bread and butter was the big thought of William Lloyd Garrison's early years. His mother had to eke out the scanty income of a sea captain's wife by nursing. So she placed William, at the age of seven, in a home where by doing chores he could earn his board. When nine years old he was bound out to learn shoemaking. But he did not like this work, nor was he happy until he became an apprentice to a printer. From printing to writing political articles for print was but a step for the ambitious boy. Some of these writings were published anony- mously and won flattering attention. When Gar- rison was only twenty-one he started a newspaper of his own, but for want of capital the undertaking failed. He worked as editor for various reform papers, but his real work did not begin until 1829. That year a mild but most earnest Quaker, Benjamin Lundy, traveled on foot from Boston to Benning- 131 132 AMERICAN LEADERS ton, Vt., to persuade Garrison to go to Baltimore as joint editor of his paper, The Genius of Uni- versal Emancipation. Garrison went. He made the little paper a power in the land. He demanded immediate and unconditional emancipation of the slaves. He de- nounced slaveholders and slavedealers. Slave pens stood on Baltimore's principal streets and every week Garrison told in the Genius of some of the horrors he himself had witnessed. He was sued for libel. A slaveholding court found him guilty and fined him fifty dollars. But as he had no money to pay the fine, he had to go to jail. John Green- leaf Whittier visited him there and wrote a letter to Henry Clay, urging him to free ''the guiltless prisoner." Clay, although a slaveholder, responded favorably, but Arthur Tappan, a prominent New York merchant, paid the fine at once. This interference with the freedom of the press aroused the country. Yet when Garrison started out to give the lectures on slavery which he had prepared in prison, no public hall, not even one church, opened its doors to him ! But Garrison was not to be silenced. Again he started a paper. The Liberator came out in Boston, January 1, 1831, and never ceased fighting until every slave was free. That, however, was many years later. To keep the paper going for its first year, Garrison and his THE FRIEND OF THE FRIENDLESS 133 partner, Isaac Knapp, lived on bread and water and did all the work on the paper in the evening after working all day elsewhere. Later some Abolitionists furnished a little money so that Gar- rison could give all his time to the paper. In the opening number he promised, "I will be as harsh as truth. On this subject, I do not wish to think or speak or write with moderation. I am in earnest — I will be heard." And heard he was. He denounced slavery as a sin and said every Christian should fight it with his might. At such teaching the North was almost as indignant as the South. A grand jury of North Carolina indicted him, and Georgia offered a re- ward of five thousand dollars to anyone who would bring him to that state and convict him. But his paper did exercise a mighty influence and survived to record Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation, and the amendment to the Constitution which for- ever prohibited slavery. Meantime Garrison organized in New England an antislavery society and so brought a mob about the Liberator office. In fact mobs sprang up wher- ever he went. But in Philadelphia, December, 1833, delegates from eleven states met and organized the American Anti-Slavery Society, with John Greenleaf Whittier as secretary. Yet rioting went on. Both in New York and 134 AMERICAN LEADERS Philadelphia disgraceful scenes were enacted. Conservative Boston staged the worst riot of all; the worst because the mob was made up of ''most respectable" people. They broke in upon a meet- ing of the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society while its leader was praying. Garrison was seized and dragged through the streets with a rope about his neck. With great difficulty the mayor rescued him and sent him to the safest place he could think of — the jail! In 1840 Garrison was sent to England to attend the World's Anti-Slavery Convention. But as women delegates, such as Lucretia Mott and Eliza- beth Cady Stanton, from the United States, were refused admission. Garrison refused to enter. He took this action because he felt such injustice should not pass without protest. Meanwhile the Liberator steadily sent forth its message. When the Civil War came it both de- manded and appealed for freedom for the slave. After emancipation was decreed it staunchly sup- ported Lincoln. In 1843 Garrison was elected president of the American Anti-Slavery Society and held this office until 1865. In April of that year he was one of the party who went to Charles- ton to raise the Union flag over the ruins of Fort Sumter. The colored people, nearly wild with joy, greeted him with an address of welcome by THE FRIEND OF THE FRIENDLESS 135 a liberated slave. Garrison made reply, "Not unto us, but unto God be all the glory. Thank God this day that you are free.'' On this trip he stood in thoughtful silence by the grave of John C. Calhoun, who had as sincerely and strongly advocated slavery as Garrison had opposed it. Both had helped to bring about the war which abolished slavery forever. The same year the last number of the Liberator was printed. Its work was done, its mission fulfilled. In 1867 Garrison was entertained in England by such distinguished personages as the Duke and Duchess of Argyle, John Bright, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Prof. Huxley. On his return his own countrymen and friends, among them Sumner, Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Greeley, gave him thirty thousand dollars in recognition of his work. He spent the rest of his life working for temper- ance and woman suffrage. Quietly and peace- fully his days on this earth ended May 24, 1879. About his bed, in his daughter's home in New York City, stood his children singing the hymn he asked for, "Rise, My Soul, and Stretch Thy Wings." Four days later, as the sun was setting, his body was laid at rest in Forest Hills, while a quartette of colored men sang softly, "I Cannot Always Trace the Way." Abraham Lincoln CHAPTER XV The Man of the People Hunger and hardship, penury and pain, Waylaid his youth and wrestled for his life. When Abraham Lincoln opened his eyes on this world, February 12, 1809, it was in the humblest of log cabins. The little home stood on the banks of Nolin's Creek, near Hodgensville, fifty miles south of Louisville, Ky. His father never learned that the secret of suc- cess lies within, but to the end of his days he fancied fortune beckoned him to a new environ- ment. So this honest, good-hearted, inefficient man dragged his two children and brave, frail wife from place to place, but never to a better home. In- deed, when they moved to Indiana, in 1816, after cutting their own way through the wilderness they had to spend the first winter in a half-faced camp — a rude shelter enclosed on three sides by logs and open on the fourth to a great fire kept burning night and day. Log slabs formed the table, log ends served as chairs, and the beds were heaps of leaves. Poor Nancy Hanks, Lincoln's mother, tried hard to make a home. She had little educa- tion, but using as a textbook the only book in the 139 140 AMERICAN LEADERS house, the Bible, she taught her children all she knew. Better still, she gave them her own intense craving for knowledge, her own longing for a wider outlook on life. When, worn out, she quit the struggle for existence, Lincoln, a boy of ten, was crushed with sorrow. He had loved his mother almost to the point of worship, and without her companionship and sympathy the rude cabin was desolate. He knew books could be friends. So this ragged, forlorn little boy borrowed every book in the region. There were not many — only Pilgrim's Progress, yEsop's Fables, and Robinson Crusoe. Meantime, shiftless Thomas Lincoln was like a ship without a rudder. Fortunately, Mrs. John- ston, a widow with three children, consented to marry the helpless man. With her came into the little cabin unwonted luxuries: real beds to replace the bags filled with cornhusks, a bureau, a clothes- press, a table, and chairs; and, vastly more im- portant to the lonely children, she brought love and understanding. Sarah lived to return her love only three years, but Lincoln was always her loyal, faithful son. What wonder, since, as she herself said, **His mind and mine — what little I had — always seemed to run together." She was proud of his love for reading, and when at night he built up the fire THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE 141 to read by she persuaded his father ''not to disturb him till he quit of his own accord." So he kept on borrowing every book within a radius of fifty miles. With his turkey-buzzard pen and his briar- wood ink, he copied many favorite bits; others he committed to memory. All he turned over and over in his mind and recast into words of his own. Weems' Life of Washington, a life of Benjamin Franklin, and Plutarch's Lives shaped within him a vision of the possibilities of a man. Later in Hfe Shakespeare and Burns became daily companions. But neither books nor dreams kept him from ful- filling well his daily tasks. He could "outlift, out- work, and outwrestle" anyone in the country. "He could sink an ax deeper into the wood than any other man I ever saw," said one friend. The twenty-first year of this strong young giant, who stood six feet, four inches in his stocking feet, was an eventful one. In company with two other families Thomas Lincoln made another move, this time to Illinois. Lincoln helped build the new house, then went out into the world for himself. He worked at whatever his hands found to do. Among other things he ran a flatboat down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. He found no charm in this, the first city he had ever seen. In- stead, the slave market with its "negroes in chains — ^whipped and scourged" made him exclaim, 142 AMERICAN LEADERS "Boys, let's get away from this! If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard!" Back in Illinois he clerked in a store, winning the sobriquet of "Honest Abe" because of his rigid honor in weighing, and making change. Later he served as postmaster, as surveyor, as partner in a grocery store. And all the time he studied; not a moment was wasted. At the bottom of a barrel of old books that came to the store he found a copy of Blackstone's Commentaries. Eagerly he set out to master its contents. Meantime he began his political career by speaking on the questions of the day wherever men came together: in the fields, in the schoolhouse, in the town square. For three terms he was sent to the Illinois Legislature ; then he settled in Springfield to practice law. Five years later he married, and the modest white frame house where his boys were born still opens its doors to his friends. Time passed. The whole country was rent with discussion over the extension of slavery and the question of states' rights. In 1858 Abraham Lincoln was the Republican party's candidate for the United States Senate. Stephen A. Douglas was the candidate of the Democrats. In seven de- bates these two men faced each other, and Lincoln won the people by his forcible setting forth of the truth rooted in his heart: "A house divided against THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE 143 itself cannot stand." "Lincoln won a victory for his cause and for his party, but not for himself." By a small majority Douglas was returned to the Senate, The debates, however, destroyed Douglas' hope of being a Presidential candidate, while two years later Lincoln was elected to this, the highest office in the land. Lincoln said good-by to Springfield on a cold, rainy February morning. From the car platform he said to the drenched crowd gathered to bid him Godspeed: "Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended Washington, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. Trusting in him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us con- fidently hope all will yet be well." So he took up the burden of piloting the ship of state while it shook with turmoil and strife. He never spoke of the Civil War as "The Rebellion" but as "This Great Trouble." Visiting a hospital he was told by his escort, "Mr. President, you'll not want to go in these three wards. They're only Rebels." "You mean Confederates, Southern gentlemen," came the quick reply. And he greeted each one with the same cordiality he had shown to the men in the other wards. 144 AMERICAN LEADERS He hoped the Government would emancipate the slaves by buying them from their owners. But this was not to be, and on January 1, 1863, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, "the most vital docu- ment of the century." So the United States pledged itself to freedom. In July of the same year came the terrible tri- umph of Gettysburg. Read The Perfect Tribute by Mrs. Andrews, and learn how, when the following November a part of the battlefield was set aside as a national cemetery, Lincoln, in three minutes, gave voice to the nation's litany, ending, "that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." No less immortal are the words of his second inaugural. By that time, March 4, 1865, the long strain of the war was almost over, and with char- acteristic sympathy and understanding Lincoln spoke. "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in." But "to finish the work" was not given him. Lee surrendered April 9, and for almost a week the President knew some relief from crushing care. Then came the night of April 14, when Mrs. Lincoln had planned a box party at Ford's Theater. Reluctantly Lincoln put on the white kid gloves he THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE 145 SO disliked to wear. But he found relaxation in the play. Just as the third act was about to begin there was a sharp report, a sudden cry in the President's box. Over the railing and down to the stage sprang the assassin, crying "5/c semper tyrannis! The South is avenged!" Into a humble home across the street they car- ried the unconscious Lincoln. In the quiet of early morning his great soul left its earthly tabernacle. The whole world mourned, not only his own coun- try, but foreign lands. Dimly then the people saw what the world visions clearly today — that this was a man absolutely without ambition for him- self, wholly and unreservedly a man of. the people, a lover of humanity, one whose consuming passion was to serve. And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down As when a lordly cedar, green of boughs, Goes down with a great shout upon the hills, And leaves a lonesome place against the sky. Horace Greeley CHAPTER XVI The Antislavery Editor "I CHERISH the hope that the journal I projected and established will live and flourish long after I shall have mouldered into forgotten dust; and that the stone which covers my ashes may bear to future eyes the still intelligible inscription, Founder of the New York Tribune." So wrote Horace Greeley in the closing year of his life. The words were a paraphrase of the ones he had uttered when a tiny boy. A visitor in the little country school patted the six-year-old pupil patron- izingly on the head, asking, "And what are you going to be, my little man?" The thin, white, frail child looked his questioner directly in the eye and answered firmly, "Sir, I intend to be an editor." Between these two statements lay a lifetime of hard work and struggle. Horace Greeley was born February 3, 1811, into a home that knew nothing but work and struggle — except a mother that was all energy and cheerfulness. Her only recreation was to tell stories to the children in the evening while she sewed or mended or ironed, but she never knew discouragement. 149 150 AMERICAN LEADERS At two years of age little Horace had learned his letters from the big family Bible spread open on the floor. At the age of three he started to the district school, and by the time he was six he had read through the Bible and Pilgrim's Progress. In the home were just twenty books and these he read and reread by the light of pine knots blazing on the hearth. For very early in life he had to give the daylight hours to farm work, but the evening hours were his own, and when a book was in his hand the world was shut out. The first money Horace earned he spent for a volume of Shakespeare. When eleven years old he determined to seek work at the nearest newspaper of- fice, nine miles distant. But the editor looked at the little towhead, and said, "You are too young, boy." Three years later he again tried for work in a printing office — this time with success. He joined a debating society whose other members were the minister, the doctor, the lawyer, and the teachers of the little town. Soon the young printer was ac- knowledged the equal of any in speaking and writing. For four years he worked, learning the trade and sending all money not needed for his living to his parents, who had left the hills of Ver- mont for those of Pennsylvania. Twice the home- sick boy tramped the six hundred miles that lay between, consumed by a longing to see his parents. THE ANTISLAVERY EDITOR 151 In time he made a memorable decision. Small- town work was uncertain and offered no future. He would quit it for the ''great metropolis," as he termed New York City. At sunrise, Friday, August 18, 1831, he landed near the Battery, with ten dollars in his pocket. First he sought a room and board, and found both for two dollars and a half a week! Then he went on a quest for work. But Sunday dawned with nothing in view. He attended church twice, and late at night, undaunted and intending to resume his search the next morning, was about to retire when a visitor to the house called up to him, "I hear Mr. West at 85 Chatham Street wants a printer." At five-thirty the next morning Horace sat on the doorstep of the shop. Two hours later the foreman came and engaged him to work on a poly- glot Testament. By beginning at six in the morn- ing and working until nine in the evening he earned six dollars a week. According to his custom his surplus earnings were sent home. For nine years he struggled to attain his life's ambition to become an editor. Twice he ventured to launch a newspaper. Both The Morning Post and The New Yorker died untimely deaths, though they brought the young editor many complimentary notices and one of them attained a subscription list 152 AMERICAN LEADERS of nine thousand names. Horace Greeley met every financial obligation their failure imposed, but his experience during these trying years led him to say, "Avoid pecuniary obligation as you would pestilence or famine. If you have but fifty cents and can get no more for a week, buy corn and live on it rather than owe any man a dollar." But in 1840 his fortune changed. He had be- come greatly interested in politics and was an ar- dent supporter of the Whig party. That party de- sired a campaign paper to push the candidacy of William Henry Harrison for President. Greeley was asked to edit this paper. The Log Cabin, and so successfully did he fill the editor's chair that he found himself in April, 1841, possessed of enough money to found a newspaper of his own. From the beginning it was a paper of ideals, and its columns were open to every worthy reform movement. Greeley said frankly, "It is better to incur the trouble of testing and exploding a thou- sand fallacies than, by rejecting, to stifle a single helpful truth." Among other movements, women's rights, vege- tarianism, and temperance reform, found a hearing in the Tribune, but preeminently the paper was known for its strong antislavery bias. At the same time Greeley was not a member of any Aboli- tionist society and rarely found time to attend an THE A N TISLA VER Y EDI TOR 1 5 3 Abolition meeting. Yet the feeling against him was most bitter in some sections of the country. At Richmond he was indicted for circulating an in- cendiary publication, and some postmasters re- fused to deliver the paper at their offices. Yet the view he held and the course he advised were less radical than that of many leaders. He advocated interference with slavery by lawful means only and its confinement to the states where it already ex- isted. Strongly he urged buying the slaves instead of going to war. Always he drew a distinct line between social and political reforms. The first he believed should be brought about by the education of the people; the second by Government action through organized parties. His paper became a power in the land and Mr. Greeley was called upon to lecture far and wide. His white hat and white coat became known every- where in the land; and their wearer, by his intensely sympathetic nature and fearless advocacy of any cause he deemed right, became one of the most warmly loved and bitterly hated men in America. After the war he urged suffrage for the black as well as for the white, but he urged also "universal amnesty." He wanted the past buried as quickly as possible, and he was one of the twenty men who signed Jefferson Davis' bail bond for one hundred thousand dollars, and so procured his release from 154 AMERICAN LEADERS Fortress Monroe where Davis had been for two years. In 1872 the Republican party split and the "Liberals" nominated Horace Greeley for President. The Democrats also accepted him as their candi- date; but General Grant, running for his second term, received a half million majority. For years Horace Greeley had served his coun- try and his party with very little political reward. But this blow, which, under normal conditions, would have crushed the man, was preceded by one which made political reverses seem but trifling. One month before the election his deeply loved wife died. After her death Mr. Greeley could not sleep, and, very shortly, brain fever developed. On November 29 he followed her to the "eternal world" which he assured his two daughters, "I ap- proach with an awe that is not fear, and a con- sciousness of demerit which does not exclude hope." The entire nation mourned for him. From men of every walk in life came words of appreciation of his "eminent services and personal purity and worth." The city suspended its business life to do honor to him. His body lay under an arch of flow- ers whose inscription repeated to the thousands who passed it his last words on earth, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." James G. Blaine CHAPTER XVII The Plumed Knight At Indian Hill Farm, near West Brownsville, Pa., on January 31, 1830, James Gillespie Blaine was born. It was a home of memories as well as of hope, for the old stone house, built in 1778, had been the first home built in the wilderness west of the Monongahela River. Sturdily it fronted the old National Road, an enchanted way to a small boy with a vivid imagination. Very early he learned to recognize the Monkey-Box Mail, the Oyster Express, and all the other stage coaches that whirled by. Until he was seven years of age he lived out of doors, then his mother started him on the way of men's learning. Teased, as all little boys are, by the question, "What will you be when you are a man?" he answered promptly, "Maybe I'll be a preacher, or a steamboat captain, or a stage driver." He paused a moment, then looking his questioner directly in the eyes, he added gravely, "But I think I'll be a member of Congress." Early he gave evidence of a remarkable memory. Shortly after he started to school the teacher one afternoon suddenly required every pupil to "speak 157 158 AMERICAN LEADERS a piece." Little James hung back, but when the teacher made clear that there could be no evasion of the edict, the boy suddenly rose and declaimed fervently and reverently the Apostles' Creed! A schoolmate had recited it to him two days before and the solemn dignity of its periods had deeply impressed the nine-year-old boy. When he entered Washington and Jefferson Col- lege at the age of thirteen he knew by heart many chapters in Plutarch's Lives. He soon showed a keen aptitude for logic and mathematics, though he shone also in history and Literature. He was reckoned the best debater in the club, and in knowl- edge of politics he was far beyond everyone else in college. His room became an informal political club, where "Jim" talked by the hour to all who would listen and argue. "Many a night," said his roommate, "have I had to plead with him to stop and let me go to sleep. Often the only way to stop him was to turn out our visitors and the lights at the same time." Sunday invariably found him at church and Sunday-school. His love of this day and its asso- ciations remained with him through life. Years later a special newspaper correspondent wrote, "Saturdays we boys out on assignments used to manage to get back to Augusta, if we could, that we might spend a quiet Sunday afternoon at the THE PLUMED KNIGHT 159 Blaine home. In the evening usually some musical friends of the family would come in, and we all had a good time singing old-fashioned church tunes, for which Blaine had a great fondness." Blaine himself always spoke of his college years as among the happiest of his life. He often said, "To the good old college I owe a debt of gratitude I can never repay." After graduating he taught in the Western Military Academy in Kentucky. Though as young as many of the cadets, he main- tained strict discipline. At the same time he was most popular with the boys, all of whom he knew by name. He knew, too, wherein lay each boy's weakness and his strength. After five years here he went to an institute for the blind, in Philadelphia, as a teacher of science and literature. But his wife, who had been a fellow-teacher in Kentucky, longed for her home in Maine. So in 1854 they moved to Augusta, and Blaine became editor and part owner of the Ken- nebec Journal. His vigorous writing soon made this a leading Whig organ, a powerful influence in politics. The Whig party broke up and Blaine worked strenuously organizing the new Republican party in Maine. From his adopted state he was sent to Philadelphia in 1856 as a delegate to the first Re- publican convention. On his return he gave his 160 AMERICAN LEADERS report at a public meeting. Timidly he began, but as he spoke he forgot himself, and he left the plat- form an acknowledged orator. In 1858 he became a member of the state legis- lature, where he distinguished himself as a hard worker and a fine speaker. Two of three years he spent here he was Speaker of the House, and so impartial were his decisions and so dignified his bearing that he became very popular throughout the state. In 1860 he went as a delegate to the Chicago convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency. Blaine campaigned Maine for Lincoln, winning many friends for the party by his own personal magnetism and by his convincing speeches. "Send us Blaine," asked every committee that wanted a speaker. In 1862 he was sent to Congress and soon proved a warm friend and a trusted adviser of the Presi- dent. Rapidly he forged to the front in the na- tion's councils as he had in that of the state. In 1869 he became Speaker of the National House of Representatives. As a boy in college he had mas- tered Cushing's Manual in one evening. As a man he was distinguished for his thorough knowledge of parliamentary rules, his quickness, and his im- pressiveness in the chair. It is said he never for- got a name, a fact, or a face. It became one of the sights of Washington to see the rapidity and accu- THE PLUMED KNIGHT 161 racy with which Speaker Blaine counted a standing House for ayes and noes. In the Republican National Convention of 1876 Colonel IngersoU presented James G. Blaine's name as Presidential nominee in these words: "Like a plumed knight James G. Blaine marched the halls of the American Congress and threw his sliining lance full and fair against the brazen fore- head of the maligners of his honor." This title of honor clung to him for the rest of his days, and the helmet of Navarre with its long white plume was its visible emblem. Though he was again proposed for nomination in 1880, it was not until 1884 that the National Con- vention nominated him as Presidential candidate. In the meantime he served as Secretary of State under President Garfield. On February 27, 1882, he delivered before the House of Representatives one of the great orations of all time — a eulogy of the martyred President. The closing paragraph is often quoted as an example of pure eloquence: "Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea — to live or to die, as God should will. Within sight of its heaving billows he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders. . . . Let us think that his dying eyes read their mystic meaning. . . . Let us believe that in the silence of the re- 162 AMERICAN LEADERS ceding world he heard the great waves breaking on a farther shore, and he felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning." In 1884 everything pointed to Blaine's election. But the last week of the campaign a minister, Rev. Samuel D. Burchard, head of a delegation visiting him at his hotel in New York, used what he thought was a telling phrase: "We are Republicans and we don't propose to identify ourselves with a party whose antecedents have been Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion." This gave rise to the rumor that Blaine was the avowed enemy of the Catholic Church, though he announced publicly, ''I would not, for a thousand Presidencies, speak a disrespect- ful word of my mother's religion." Later this statement gave rise in turn to the report that Blaine was Roman Catholic in sympathy in spite of the fact that he had been an active member of the Congregational church in Augusta for years. But these wild tales lost New York's vote for him, and the election was so close elsewhere that New York had the casting vote. During the next four years Blaine traveled abroad and also wrote an invaluable reference work, Twenty Years in Congress. He refused to be con- sidered for the Presidential nomination in 1888, but he did serve as Secretary of State under Benjamin Harrison. Never did his staunch Americanism show THE PLUMED KNIGHT 163 itself more clearly than in his reply to Italy. "The United States has never yet permitted its policy to be dictated by any foreign power, and it will not begin to do so now." All his foreign policy was marked by an equal blending of calmness, courage, and firmness. It was James G. Blaine who brought the repub- lics of America together in the Pan-American Con- gress of 1889. This Congress made many wise recommendations, and strongly advised that ar- bitration be adopted as a method for the settle- ment of any difficulties between the American re- publics. In 1892 illness compelled Blaine to resign from the Cabinet, and January 27, 1893, he passed away. Of him Chauncey Depew said, "He will stand in our history as the ablest parliamentarian and the most skilful debater of our Congressional history. He had an unusual combination of bound- less audacity with infinite tact. No man, during his active career, disputed with him his hold upon the people's imagination, and his leadership of his party. He left no successor who possessed, as he possessed it, the affection and confidence of his followers." John Hay CHAPTER XVIII The Man of the Open Door and the Golden Rule In 1841, when John Hay was but three years old, his father, Dr. Charles Hay, moved the family from the little one-storied brick house that was their home in Salem, Ind., to Warsaw, 111., a frontier settlement on a yellow bluff of the Mississippi. The little town was peopled with descendants of the Puritans of New England and the Cavaliers of Virginia. That meant that though life was hard and privation the sauce of everyday existence, yet ideals nurtured the soul and inspired the intellect of the village. At that time it did not seem strange for little John Milton Hay to begin his school life at an age when the babies of today are still in the nursery. From three to thirteen he studied in a little red brick schoolhouse which still stands in the sleepy village. Always he had a "habit of stringing words together into rhymes." As a little lad of six he announced one day to his brother Charles, ''I have seen the end of the world." "What was it like?" "All trees, and birds, and flowers." 167 168 AMERICAN LEADERS So the unbroken forest that elbowed the town looked to the tiny poet. At home his father taught him Greek and Latin. "He spoke German like a native, having picked it up, just as he gathered an inexhaustible repertoire of 'river slang' from the Mississippi River steam- boatmen, which served its turn later on in the Tike County Ballads!' " A schoolmate says, "We all remember John Hay as a red-cheeked, black- eyed, sunshiny boy, chockful of fun and devilment that hurt nobody." Later he studied at a preparatory school in Springfield. Here he was fitted for college. One month before he was seventeen, September 7, 1855, he entered Brown University. One classmate tells us, "He was a comely young man, quiet and re- served, yet frank, manly, and a most delightful companion." Another says, "His voice was mu- sical, his speech and demeanor betrayed the child of a home of refinement." At the first Freshman dinner the toastmaster summoned, "Hay!" "We don't want anything dry," a youth shouted. "Hay that is green can never be dry," retorted the country boy from Illinois. Then he poured out a sparkling speech that once for all made his school reputation. He was recognized as a young man that would MAN OF OPEN DOOR AND GOLDEN RULE 169 neither do a mean act nor tolerate one, and his chivalry long remained a fragrant memory at Brown. At one time he rescued a Freshman whom the Sophomores were smoking out. Years later when Hay was Secretary of State, he was asked for the facts. "I don't remember," he replied. Then he added, whimsically, "But my recollection of everything in those far-off days is dim and heroism was my daily habit. I couldn't sleep nights if I hadn't saved somebody's life. Now I only save a nation now and then." College days over, John Hay entered his uncle's law office in Springfield. Next door was the office of Lincoln and Herndon. Lincoln at once took John Hay to his heart and gave up many evenings to teaching him law. When the White House opened its doors to Lincoln in 1861 he took with him as assistant private secretary the rosy-cheeked young man of twenty-three. Lincoln's private secretary, John G. Nicolay, was a close friend of John Hay, and the friendship grew with the years. Later in life they wrote to- gether an authoritative life of Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln: a History. This, in reality more a history of the times than a biography, will live as long as Lincoln's name lives. One critic says, "As the Lincoln legend grows, men will turn again and 170 AMERICAN LEADERS again to the record of the two young secreta- ries who walked and talked with him, saw him most intimately as man, as statesman, and as saviour of Democracy, and came to love him as hero-friend." For Nicolay and Hay lived several years at the White House within a moment's call of the Presi- dent. During the Civil War, Hay acted not only as secretary but as confidential messenger and family friend. After the war Hay was offered a place in the legation at Paris. But before he sailed the assassin's bullet cut short the life of the master among men who had been as a father to him. After two years at Paris John Hay served an- other two years at Vienna. From there the path of diplomacy led him to Spain. From this country he sent home some delightful articles, afterward col- lected in book form as Castilian Days. After his return to America, in 1870, he served five years as editorial writer on the New York Tribune. Horace Greeley used to say that Hay was the most brilliant writer who had ever entered the office. John Hay's marriage with Miss Stone, of Clever land, took him to that city, where for five years he was in business. But in 1881 he returned to Wash- ington as Assistant Secretary of State. In this city were friends especially dear to him, and ''infinitely more precious to John Hay than anything money MAN OF OPEN DOOR AND GOLDEN RULE 171 could buy were his friendships." With none was the tie closer than with Henry Adams. "Seldom a day passed that they did not see each other." Others of this congenial circle were Clarence King and Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt. Here then John Hay and his family set up a permanent home. His real career as a diplomatist did not begin until 1896, when President McKinley sent him to represent the United States in England. To a friend the President confided, "To my mind, John Hay is the fairest flower of our civilization." Two important services for his country he rendered dur- ing his stay in England. By his personal influence he cemented the friendship between these two Anglo-Saxon nations, and it was his potent per- sonality also which swung English opinion in favor of America during her war with Spain. Reluctantly he returned from England to assume the duties of Secretary of State under President McKinley. Not robust physically, he found the duties of that office wearing to body and spirit. "More than once he was on the verge of a break- down, but he kept on with his work, and the public, not seeing behind the scenes, knew only that with John Hay as Secretary of State the na- tional honor and safety were assured." The assassination of President McKinley was a severe shock to the overworked man. Yet at Theo- 172 AMERICAN LEADERS dore Roosevelt's urgent request he continued his work. The friendship between the two men was strong and enduring. Every Sunday afternoon they walked together, and the President said, "Mr, Hay is the most charming man and delightful com- panion I have ever known." "The Open Door and the Golden Rule" became John Hay's synonym after the attempt of the European powers to partition China. September 6, 1899, is the date of his first famous note on the "Open Door." It was but one of a series of frank, sincere, direct letters with foreign powers. Each note was marked by loyalty to the principles of the "Golden Rule," a distinct departure in diplomacy. Other diplomatic triumphs followed. Working with Lord Pauncefote, the British ambassador, he made a new treaty with Great Britain regarding the Panama Canal. Later, treaties with Columbia and Panama were concluded. In 1899 he settled trouble with Germany in Samoa, and in 1903 through his efforts the disputes about the Alaskan boundary were settled. The same year he chal- lenged Russia as to her intentions in Manchuria, and obtained from her a promise to leave the coun- try. In all, fifty-eight international agreements were concluded while John Hay was connected with the Department of State. In each one the MAN OF OPEN DOOR AND GOLDEN RULE 173 Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule for all the world were the ground of his policy. In April of 1905, to avert a breakdown, he went to Europe for rest and change. In June he returned but little better, and on going to his summer home in Newbury, N. H., he failed rapidly. The end came July first. Through the woods to the rail- road station. Hay's favorite white horse drew the forsaken husk of his departed spirit. The rain fell in torrents on the plain covered wagon. In- voluntarily there comes to mind his poem, "The Stirrup Cup": My short and happy day is done, The long and dreary night comes on; And at my door, the Pale Horse stands, To carry me to unknown lands. Though many other of his poems are loved and cherished, during the Great War America took one directly to her heart. John Hay wrote it in the dark' days of the Civil War, but its sentiment is timeless: There's a happy time coming, when the boys come home; There's a glorious day coming, when the boys come home; We will end the dreadful story Of the battle, dark and gory, In a sunburst of glory, When the boys come home. 174 AMERICAN LEADERS In 1917 Oley Speaks set this poem to music, and on the fields of France America's sons sang it. And at home, parents and friends sang: Our love shall go to greet them, when the boys come home; To bless them and to greet them, when the boys come home; And the fame of their endeavor Time and change shall not dissever From the nation's heart forever, , When the boys come home. Booker T. Washington CHAPTER XIX The Boy Without a Birthday "I WAS born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. I am not quite sure of the exact place or the exact date of my birth." So writes Booker T. Washington in Up From Slavery, the story of his life. Jane, his mother, a cook for the plantation slaves, gave 1857 as approximately the year of his entry into life here. The one-room cabin he shared with his mother and sister and brother was a poor makeshift for a home. There was no glass in the openings that let in the h'ght, so the cold of winter came in also. The door, too small for the frame, hung on one hinge, and in the center of the earth floor was a hole covered with loose boards, where sweet potatoes were stored for the winter. "We slept on a bundle of filthy rags in one corner. . . . Meals were gotten by us in very much the same manner as dumb animals get theirs, a piece of cornbread here, a scrap of meat there." Freedom brought no change for the better, but rather for the worse. Booker's stepfather, a slave on an adjoining plantation, used his new privilege to migrate to Maiden, a salt and mining town in 177 178 AMERICAN LEADERS West Virginia. As soon as he found work the little family followed. The mother rode in a rude cart with the few household goods, but the children walked nearly all the distance — several hundred miles. They reached their journey's end to find the new home worse than the old. It was but one of a huddle of shanties, surrounded by filth. Worse yet, drinking, gambHng, and fighting went on all the time. Young as they were the two boys were put to work at the salt furnaces. Still Booker clung to the only intense desire of his life, the longing to learn to read. He had had it always from his ear- liest remembrance, and when in some way his mother got him an old "blue-back" speller his joy knew no bounds. He knew the first step was to learn the alphabet, but not one person of his color in the little village could help him. Somehow, he never quite knew how, in a few weeks he had mastered nearly every letter. Soon afterward the colored people planned to open a small school and Booker's hopes ran high. But he reckoned without his stepfather, who told the faithful little worker that he must not quit earning money. His mother shared most sympa- thetically in Booker's keen disappointment. "She sought to comfort me in all the ways she could, and to help me find a way to learn. If I have THE BOY WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY 179 done anything in life, I inherited the disposition from my mother." She it was who kept coaxing the stepfather until he grudgingly allowed the boy to go to school from nine to four, on condition that he be at the salt furnace promptly at four in the morning and return to his work after school. Upon entering school two difficulties arose — the boy had no cap and but one name, "Booker." Never had he worn a head covering; but every other boy in school possessed something that went by the name of "cap," and Booker longed for one, too. His mother solved that problem by sewing together two pieces of homespun. Booker himself solved the other by answering calmly when the teacher asked for his full name, "Booker Washington." Years later the man who as a little lad had given himself a name wrote, "I resolved then that because I had no an- cestry myself I would leave a record of which my children would be proud, one which might encour- age them to higher effort." For only a little time was the boy allowed to go to school. Soon his stepfather put him in a coal mine where he could earn more money for the family. However, he kept on studying at night. One fortunate day he overheard two miners talking as they worked of a school where colored boys could work while they gained an education. Booker 180 AMERICAN LEADERS asked where the school was, but the men knew only that the name was "Hampton." "I resolved at once to go to that school — the thought was with me day and night." He told his brother John of his burning desire and this big-hearted boy at once answered, "I will help you all I can; afterward you can help me to get an education." So encouraged, Booker's desire crystallized into a resolve. In time the way opened for him to work in the home of General Ruffner, the owner of the mine. Mrs. Ruffner sympathized with his aspirations and allowed him to study part of every day. In this household he learned many lessons as valuable as his later education — lessons of order, neatness, system; better still, the value of absolute honesty and frankness. In the fall of 1872 the boy, then about fifteen, started for Hampton. Most of his earnings had gone to the family support, but he and John had saved a little for the great adventure. He went by train and coach so long as his money held out. At a mountain inn he was denied food and shelter even in an outside shed, and to keep warm he had to walk up and down the road all through the night. He reached Richmond without one cent in liis pocket. Never before had he been in a city. Be- wildered and faint with hunger, he finally slipped THE BOY WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY 181 under a boardwalk and, with his little satchel for a pillow, forgot his troubles in sleep. Morning brought cheer, for near by he found men unloading a vessel of pig iron. He helped, and so earned enough money to finish his journey to Hampton Institute. So forlorn in appearance was the boy that the registrar hesitated long about admitting him. At last, handing him a broom and duster, she said, "Clean the room next to this." "I swept three times. I dusted four times. Every piece of furniture had been moved and every closet and corner in the room thoroughly cleaned before I called the teacher." She took her handker- chief to test the quality of the boy's work and finally said, "I guess you will do to enter this institution." So he passed his entrance examination and also paved the way to the post of janitor, the work that supported him for three years until his graduation. These were years rich in opportunity and rich in blessing. The young negro's conception of the meaning of life expanded from the desire for an education as a personal benefit to the vision of an education as a means of service to others. ''Before the end of the first year I began learning that those are happiest who do the most for others. . . . That which made the most impression on me was a great man, the noblest, rarest human being it had 182 AMERICAN LEADERS ever been my privilege to meet — General Samuel C. Armstrong. I do not believe he ever had a selfish thought. Had the students been given nothing but the opportunity of coming into daily contact with General Armstrong, that alone would have been a liberal education. . . . ''There I learned how to use and value the Bible. There I learned to love to read it; so that, no mat- ter how busy I am, I always make it a rule to read a chapter in the morning before beginning the work of the day." In June, 1875, Booker Washington graduated, and entered life, as he had school, without a penny in his pocket. Back to Maiden he went to teach, and by his example and sympathy to transform the life of the community. In two years he prepared his two brothers (one an adopted brother) and four others to enter Hampton. After a year of further study at Washington he was recalled to Hampton to be house-father and preceptor to seventy-five Indian boys whom General Armstrong was bring- ing from the reservations to learn the ways of civilized life. So successful was he that the follow- ing year he was asked to take charge also of a night school made up of students who worked during the day in sawmill and laundry. This "Plucky Class" proved most studious, and became a feature of the school life. THE BOY WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY 183 In May, 1881, General Armstrong was asked to recommend someone to take charge of a school for colored people in Tuskegee, Ala. Under the im- pression that the building and equipment were in readiness, Booker Washington was sent. He found — nothing! The legislature had appropriated two thousand dollars for salaries, but all else was want- ing. Booker Washington, however, was inured to discouragement, and he firmly believed there was a way out of every trouble. "Absolutely nothing could thwart him." The colored Methodist church and an adjoining shanty, both half in ruins, would serve as temporary classrooms ; but where were the pupils? The month of June was spent by Washington in traveling among the people of his color, arousing ambition in families who lived in the most primitive manner. When the school opened, July 4, thirty pupils, most of them of middle age, presented themselves. By the end of the first month there were fifty. Two weeks later Miss Olivia Davidson was added to the teaching force. Booker Washington's aims for the little school, he tells us, were "To teach the students how to care for their bodies; how to clean their rooms ; to give them a practical knowledge of some one industry, together with the spirit of thrift and industry. We wanted them to return home to put new energy and new ideas into farming, as well 184 AMERICAN LEADERS as into the intellectual and moral and spiritual life of the people." The school grew in numbers and also in its need for buildings and equipment. But Booker Wash- ington's faith grew, too. "He believed in himself, in his fellow-men, and in God." Over and over in his life this faith was signally justified; never more was it justified than in the opportunity which came within three months to buy an abandoned plantation of five hundred acres for five hundred dollars. Never in his life had Washington had one hundred dollars, yet he borrowed two hun- dred and fifty and began, with Miss Davidson's help, devising means to earn the rest and to repay the loan. With the students' help he cleaned and repaired the few buildings for use as dormitories and classrooms. Both white and colored helped as they could. One poor old mammy gave Booker Washington a bandanna handkerchief, saying, "I don fotch dese yer six eggs. Put dem inter de eddication of dese yer boys and girls. I'se ig'rant and po', an' all dat, but I kin help a leetle." Such faith and such a spirit of cooperation pro- duced the inevitable result. Tuskegee grew in land, in buildings, in equipment. Better still, it graduated men and women of character — leaders who went out to carry the flame of industry and righteousness to the darkest corners of the Black THE BOY WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY 185 Belt. Incidents innumerable could be told of money that came at opportune times. One of Booker Washington's tenets of faith was, "If we keep this institution clean and pure and whole- some, it will be supported." So for thirty years this great leader worked to make for the negro a place in American life. He visioned a day of good will, respect, and neighbor- liness between the white and the black. "In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hands in all things essential to mutual progress." He spoke thus in his address at the Atlanta Exposition in 1895. Many unsought honors came to him, the direct result of his faithful work for his race. In 1896 Harvard conferred on him the honorary degree of Master of Arts, and in 1899 friends sent him and his wife abroad for a well-earned rest. By this time Booker Washington was a national figure, a lecturer, and the author of many books written for the inspiration of his own people. In October, 1915, at Yale University, he delivered his last address. From there he went to New York, where he suf- fered a complete breakdown. When told that his end was near he asked to be taken home to Tuske- gee. There the morning after his arrival, Novem- ber 14, his spirit fled. "When Booker Washington died America lost one of its greatest spirits." Theodore Roosevelt CHAPTER XX "The American" So the Middle West knew Theodore Roosevelt. So now the whole world knows him. "All men wish that their sons might have within them the spirit, the will, the strength, the manliness, the Americanism of Roosevelt." His friend. General Wood says, "He did more than any other President to make the world realize what the United States stands for." Senator Lodge adds, "He was a great man, above all, a great American. His country was the ruling, mastering passion of his life even unto the end." "Even unto the end," for the night before his death this last message was read to his fellow- Americans: "There must be no sagging back in the fight for Americanism. We have room for but one flag, the American flag — and this excludes the red flag; we have room for but one language here, the English language; we have room for but one soul — loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people." Preeminently an American, Theodore Roosevelt was also statesman, soldier, hunter, ranchman, ex- plorer, writer, and naturalist. Best of all, to count- 189 190 AMERICAN LEADERS less thousands he was the fulfilment of their own good intentions. He was the doer of the deeds that many aspire to but lack the will power to accom- plish. Theodore Roosevelt was born October 27, 1858, at 28 East Twentieth Street, New York City. His father's family had come to "Niuew Amsterdam" when it had but five hundred inhabitants. His mother, Martha Bulloch, was of an old family in Georgia. With perfect sweetness both held their opposing convictions during the Civil War. Once Theodore, when about five, felt he had been wronged by maternal discipline. So he took occa- sion, kneeling by his mother's knee at bedtime, to pray with loud fervor for the success of the Union army. From babyhood Theodore suffered from asthma and for years he could sleep only in a sitting pos- ture. Often in the summer to ease his suffering his father would drive with him half the night. It was at this time, when he was still in kilts, that he read Livingston's Travels and Researches. Cooper soon became an intimate and with Natty Bumpo he lived the life of the frontier. The summer he was nine, with the skull of a seal he started the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History." He began, too, his first book, Natural History of Insects. The opening paragraph reads. "THE AMERICAN" 191 "I will write about ants first. All the insects I write about in this book inhabbit North America. Now and then a friend has told me something about them, but mostly I have gained their habits from ofservation." The summers were spent in the country, and by the time Theodore was thirteen he was studying nature in real earnest. A former companion of Audubon's taught him taxidermy, and another friend explained to him in simple language the scientific theories of the day. He had tutors, and from his father, whom he loved as be never loved any other man, he learned much. And he read. How he read! More in one year than most boys in ten ! His range was wide : history, biography, tales of wildest adventure, and, strangely enough, Little Women and Jo^s Boys. At the age of fourteen one of life's great moments came to him. He read these lines of Browning's, All that the old dukes had been without knowing it, This Duke would fain know he was without being it. That is, you see, the Duke wanted to appear to be like the ancestors he admired without making any effort actually to he like them. "These lines pulled Theodore Roosevelt up sharp, like a lasso. Had he wanted to be like his heroes, or had he wanted only to appear like them?" 192 AMERICAN LEADERS His will was aroused. It expressed itself in the resolve henceforth to dream no dream without translating it into action. The result was that by the time he was fifteen and began to prepare for college he had some traits other boys had not. First, he had a deep-rooted resolve to excel; sec- ond, he saw clearly that no man can attain except by constant struggle against the sloth, the false content in his own heart; third, he realized that mind and body must develop together. So realizing, "Out of a weak child, he made a powerful man; out of half-blindness, he made a boxer, an omnivorous reader, a good shot; out of liking for authorship, rather than a talent for it, he made a distinguished author; out of a voice never meant for oratory, he made a public speaker." He himself said in middle life, "To tell the truth, I like to believe that, by what I have accomplished without great gifts, I may be a source of encourage- ment to American boys." Before going to Harvard at eighteen, he joined the church of his fathers, the Dutch Reformed. His boyhood pastor, speaking in 1919 in the church on Long Island where Roosevelt had worshiped for over forty years, said, "I give you the words Theo- dore Roosevelt spoke when he came to me about joining the church: 'If you believe a thing is good and true, say so. If you see a duty, do it.' " "THE AMERICAN" 193 During all his college life he taught in Sunday- school. Few preachers knew the Bible better than he, or quoted it more apropos. He did many other things at Harvard and did them all well. Increas- ingly fixed became his determination to build up his mind and body so that he might be a man who did things. He made two friendships at this time that influenced his entire life. One was with Alice Hathaway Lee, whom he married the fall after graduation, and lost two years later; the other, with Bill Sewall, a guide in the Maine pine forests. This man said, "We hitched up well from the start. He was fair-minded, Theodore was, and then he took pains to learn everything." He came back from his honeymoon to enter politics, affirming, "He who has not wealth owes his first duty to his family, but he who has means owes his time to the state." His twenty- third birthday found him in the legislature at Albany, and for thirty-five years he served his country in city, state, and nation. Here is a brief epitome of his career: "A young New York Assemblyman; a ranchman; Civil Service Commissioner in Washington; Police Commissioner of New York City; Assistant Secre- tary of the Navy; Lieutenant-Colonel of the Rough Riders in the Spanish War ; Governor of New York ; Vice-President of the United States; President of 194 AMERICAN LEADERS the United States; editorial writer; hunter of big game." And he was a lover of home. For he left the ranch to marry the playmate of his early childhood. In his last book he said, "The primary work of man and woman must be the primal work of home- making and home-keeping. We must do this work, and do it well, that the nation may continue to exist." In his last tribute to his friend, Senator Lodge said, "The absolute purity and beauty of Theodore Roosevelt's family life tell us why the pride and interest which his fellow-countrymen felt in him were always touched by the warm light of love. In the home so dear to him, in his sleep, death came, and So Valiant-for-Truth passed over, and the trumpets sounded for him on the other side." This was January 6, 1919, and yet daily, by thou- sands, fellow-Americans visit his grave. "No such tribute has ever been paid to any other American. To only one other has any such personal devotion ever been given and that other was Lincoln. Of each it may be said, 'He, being dead, yet speaketh.' "