AMERICAN PRESIDENTS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 95, 14 August 1908, Page 5

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS.

There have been twenty-five Presidents of the United States since the Revolution, and all but two have been English, Scottish, or Scottish- Irish blood. This fact is held to be testimony to the genius for government of the British race, but it would be fairer to remember, perhaps, that not too many men of other than .British blood have had the opportunity of reaching the highest office in the country. It is only in comparatively recent years that other races have established themselves in the United States. An exception has to be made in favour of the Dutch, who founded New York, and, as it happens the two non-British Presidents, Roosevelt and Van Buren, are claimed by the Dutch. As might be expected in a country where the legal profession is the great recruiting ground for Congress, the majority of United States Presidents have been lawyers. Nineteen out of twenty-five have followed the law. Four were teachers, and one was a tailor, before they became lawyers. Both Presidents Johnson and Fillamore were tailors in early life. The army contributed three, President Washington was first a surveyer and then a planter, and President Lincoln commenced life as a farm hand, afterwards becoming a lawyer. Most of the Presidents had college and university educations, but nine of them lacked that scholastic equipment. A man's religion does not enter into the arguments when he is seeking office in America, and the religious census of the President give somes curious results. It is a remarkable fact that although there are nearly eleven million Roman Catholics. and one and three quarter million Jews in the United States neither group uas been represented at the White House. Eight Presidents were Episcopalians, six were Presbyterians and four were Methodists. Of the reformed Dutch Church there were two members, and of Congregationalists two. One was a Unitarian, one a member of the "Disciples," and Bne an unsectarian Christian. Both Mr Taft and Mr Bryan are lawyers, though the Democrat is a journalist as we'll. . Mr Taft .hopes to give Yale its first President?: Harvard has already had three. • Mr Byran graduated at Ilanois College. Both men have been claimed for Ireland"."" Mr Byran would have some difficulty in finding any other country to father him, but Mr Taft aays he is an American, and his Scottish friends say that he is a pure Scot.