JAMES A. GARFIELD.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3199, 29 September 1881, Page 3

JAMES A. GARFIELD.

[By Or. W. G-kittif, United States Consto, AitcktjAnd.] The United States has never had a President more dearly loved by all classes of people than General Garfield. His undoubted courage and conscientious truthfulness, his amiable disposition and sweet and gentla manner, have won for him even the _ respect and admiration of his bitterest political opponents. He has been a prominent figure in the history of American politics for the last twenty years, and during that time not one of our public men who have obtained high position has ever exhibited n more ardent patriotism and a more chivalrous delicacy of honour than he. His ability and accomplishments wero of very high ordw. His learning was exaot, varied, thorough,

and profound. His knowledge of men and things was extraordinary. He was thoroughly vereed not only in history, but in the philosophy of history. His memory was retentive and trustworthy in the extreme. His wit was sparkling and brilliant, and his oratory animating and glowing. His ideas of statesmanship were eminently broad and practical, and all his measures of public policy prompt and decisive. He was wholly free from vanity and selfishness. There was not a particle of deceit or hypocrisy about him. His love of truth was an intuition. _ In no instance did he ever sacrifice principle for expediency. That such a man, moving through the world, working and caring for others, with so little thought of_ self, and leading such a pure and stainless life, should be set apart for the bullet of an assassin, is one of the mysteries of human nature that defies the penetration of the profoundest theologian, and baffles the skill of the wisest teachers of mental and moral philosophy. The news of the dastardly fit tempt upon his life created the profoundest impression throughout the nation. It was received in tears and silence. The festivities of the national holiday were suspended. The people from one end of the Continent to the other bowed their heads in prayer. Words of condolence came from foreign lands. Her Majesty the Q,ueen of Great Britain was amongst the first to express " her heartfelt sense of horror and deep sympathy at this awful crime." " The heart of the country," said Mr Gladstone, "is deeply moved." President Grevy and M. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire, of the French Republic, telegraphed their sorrow. The Emperor of Japan, the Czar of Eussia, the Sultan of Turkey, the King of Denmark, and indeed the Sovereigns and potentates, the nobles and people of nearly all the countries of the earth mingled their prayers for the safety of the President. Such Universal grief, such sympathy from millions of hearts for one individual furnishes perhaps the most eloquent tribute that could be paid to the noble and manly qualities of the chief executive officer of the American Republic. The story of Garfield's life reads like a romance, and it is as inspiring as sunshine. No Prince or courtier ever transcended hini in politeness, or in dignity and elegance of demeanour, and yet he sprang from no illustrious ancestry. He was born poor, and experienced the severest trials of adversity. The world is better that he has lived in it. The youth of every land may well profit by his example. James Abram Garfield was born on the 19th of November, 1831, in the township of Orange, Cuyahoga County, State of Ohio. His father had settled there when the place was a wilderness. On a little farm of about thirty acres, he erected an humble cabin, in which the future President was born. There were four children in all, two boys and two girls; the eldest girl was eleven years old, and the youngest seven. The age of the eldest boy, Thomas, was then only nine years. When James was only two years old death knocked at the door of the little cabin and took away the father. The support of the family now devolved upon the bereaved and heart-broken mother. She was equal to the task. Strength was given her of God to keep the little family together, and bring them in the paths of honor and righteousness. I do not know why it is, but I never think of this noble-hearted woman without a mist in the eye and a throb in the throat, or with feelings akin to those with which the devout Catholic approaches the image of some marble saint niched in cathedral aisle. I have often pictured her to myself, raising her weak arm in honest toil for the support and welfare of those who were now doubly dear to her, on account of the death of their father. What a brave heart she had ! Winter was coming on, and such a winter ! Only those who have experienced a frontier life in the wilds of the great northwest can form the least idea of its storms and hardships. One of the President's biographers tells us that, at this time, the family were so poor that the mother, for many weary months, had to go supperless to bed. It was a long time till harvest, and the corn in the bin became lower and lower, and by and by the poor mother, that her children might have more nourishment, went without her dinner also. When Thomas was only ten years of age he ploughed and sowed the land, and the mother split the rails and fenced in the ground. It is said that the maul was so heavy that she could only just lift it to her shoulder, and with about every blow she herself came down to the ground, but she struggled on with the work, and soon the fence was finished and the little farm in order. We are told that the harvest came at last, and that want was driven away, and that it never again looked in with _ gaunt jaws upon the lonely widow. It is said that James never had a pair of shoes until he was four years of age, and they were bought with the money earned by his brother Thomas, who did the work of a man when he was only thirteen years old. Thomas came home one day and counted out into his mother's lap his first fortnightly wages, all in silver half-dollars. " Now mother," he said, " the shoemaker can come and make James some shoos." A school house was built in the neighbourhood, and James and the two ghls went to school, but at what sacrifice to the slender means of the family ! Young GarfielcV grew to manhood, and at each step on the ladder of life his love and veneration for his mother increased. Parhaps no one ever toiled harder than he. We hear of him as a 1 day laborer, and as a driver, and a boatman on the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal. Fortune at last smiled upon him. In 1849 he entered an academy, and studied with such success that the following winter he undertook the teaching of a district school. He soon had sufficient means to enter Williams' College in Massachusetts, where he graduated in 1856. He afterwards became a teacher in the Eclectic Institute at Hiram, Ohio, and in a short J time was chosen its president. He was elected a member of the Senate of his native State, and in 1860 was admitted to the bar. While engaged in the practice of the law, the war for the maintenance of the Union broke out. He offered his services to his country. He entered the army as Colonel of the 42nd Ohio Volunteers, and soon became actively engaged in the war. He rose to the rank of MajorGeneral, after having distinguished himself for gallantry at the battle of Chickamanga and several other sanguinary conflicts. A± the conclusion of the war he was elected a member of Congress, and in a short time was chosen Speaker of that body. A few years later he was elected by the Legislature of OhiD to succeed Senator Thurman in the United States Senate. In June, 1880, he was nominated by the Republic Convention at Chicago for President, and was elected to that office on the 2nd of the following November by a triumphant majority of the popular vote. Ho was inaugurated President of the United States on the 4th of March, 18S1, amid imposing ceremonies. More than 50,000 strangers were present on the occasion His inaugural address was one of the most eloquent ever pronounced in Washington. Two ladies had seats on the platform just behind him. One of them was his wife, towards whom he had ever evinced the tenderest affection, and the other was his aged mother, with snow white hair and deeply furrowed brow. The eyes of the mother rested proudly on her son, and her cheek flushed perceptibly as the vast audience applauded his utterances. Upon finishing his address ho turned toward the Chief Justice and said, " I am now prepared to take the oath." When the oath was administered to him he kissed the Bible and then turned around and reverently kissed his mother and his wife. It is the only instance in the history of the United States where a mother ever saw her son inaugurated President. It was a proud day for her and for him that she was present to witness his triumph. Ho had been in office not quite four moriths when he was shot by Carles J. Guitoau, a disappointed office-seeker. The President ■whs on his "way to Long Branch, on the 2nd

of July last to join Mre G-arfield, who had been ill. lie vvas Walking in the Baltimore and Potompc depot, with Mi , Blame, the Secretary of State, when he was stricken down. There was no political significance attached to the crime ; no faction or party could possibly hare had anything to do with it. Both Democrats aud Bepublicans looked upon it with equal horror. Guiteau, the assassin, appears to have been actuated to the crime by a vile spirit of revenge, and an inordinate love of notoriety. He thought by killing the President he would get the office that had been denied him. He is a man of the coarsest and most brutal instincts. He docs not appear to have had a single redeeming trait of character. He assaulted his sister with an axe. He swindled his brother-in-law, who had befriended him. Ho beat his wife in the most cruel manner, and locked her up in a closet. During Ins imprisonment he has not exhibited the slightest feeling of repentance or remorse, but has frequently expressed a wish that the President would die. The ball which struck General Garfteld was never extracted. It was of large size, nearly an inch in length, and weighed 210 grains, and was charged with 18 grains of powder. When the President was removed to the White House, his first thought was of his wife, and, that the blow might not fall too heavily upon her, he dictated the telegram himself announcing the sad news to her. The telegram was as follows :—" The President bids me tell you that he has been seriously hurt. He hopes you will come to him soon. He sends his love to you." When told by his physicians that there was but one chance in a hundred to his getting well, he said, "We will take that one chance; but if my time has come, lam ready. Let God's will be done." In person he was a strong, powerful-built man, fully six feet in height, and erect and soldierly in carriage. His head was large and well shaped, and rested proudly on his shoulders. His features were smooth and regular. His eyes were light-blue, and keen, and piercing. His father was of Welsh origin, and was the ninth descendant in a direct line from Edward Garfield, who emigrated from Wales to New England in the early part of the seventeenth century. The President's mother's maiden name was Eliza Balow, and she was of Huguenot parentage. A few weeks ago G-eneral Garfield's physicians decided to remove him to Long Branch, where he could have the benefit of a cooler climate and the sea air. The removal was accomplished in safety, and for a time his condition seemed to improve. Surgeon-General Hammond and the London Lancet both expressed the opinion (from the description of the wound) that recovery was impossible. To hope for recovery was like hoping against hope, and believing when faith itself seemed fatuity. His death occurred on the 19th instant at 10.50 p.m. in the presence of Mrs Garfield. The progress of his illness was watched with the deepest solicitude. Everything that could be done was done to relieve his sufferings. He had the tenclerest care of loving hearts, and the wisest medical counsel. But all was in vain; the fatal bullet has done its work. No human power could stay back the awful presence of death.