Few men are more prominently placed before the vision of a mighty nation to-day than James G. Blaine. Born in obscurity, he possesses traits of character which are peculiar to himself; they differ widely from that of any statesman who ever spoke in the legislative halls at Washington.
Colleges, of themselves, make no man great. An 'educated idiot' will never make a statesman, notwithstanding the too prevalent notion that the possession of a diploma should entitle any one to a place in our social aristocracy. The great, active, relentless, human world gives a man a place of real influence, and crowns him as truly great for what he really is; and will not care a fig for any college certificate. If the young man is determined to succeed in the world then a college is a help. The trouble is not in the college, but in the man. He should regard the college as a means to attain a result, not the result of itself. The question the great busy world asks the claimant is: What can he do? If the claimant enter school determined to succeed, even if he sleeps but four to six hours out of the twenty-four, he will be benefited. However, study like that of Webster, by New Hampshire pine knots; and like Garfield's, by a wood-pile; generally proves valuable. Blaine's life is thus beautifully described by his biographer:—
"James Gillespie Blaine, the subject of this biography, was born January 31st, 1830. His father, Ephraim L. Blaine, and his mother, Maria Gillespie, still lived in their two-story house on the banks of the Monongahela. No portentious events, either in nature or public affairs, marked his advent. A few neighbors with generous interest and sympathy extended their aid and congratulations. The tops of the hills and the distant Alleghanies were white with snow, but the valley was bare and brown, and the swollen river swept the busy ferry-boat from shore to shore with marked emphasis, as old acquaintances repeated the news of the day, 'Blaine has another son.'"
Another soul clothed in humanity; another cry; increased care in one little home. That was all. It seems so sad in this, the day of his fame and power, that the mother who, with such pain and misgiving, prayer and noble resolutions, saw his face for the first time should now be sleeping in the church-yard. In the path that now leads by her grave, she had often paused before entering the shadowy gates of the weather-beaten Catholic church, and calmed her anxious fears that she might devoutly worship God and secure the answer to her prayer for her child.
It seems strange now, in the light of other experiences, that no tradition or record of a mother's prophecy concerning the future greatness of her son comes down to us from that birthday, or from his earliest years. But the old European customs and prejudices of her Irish and Scottish ancestry seem to have lingered with sufficient force to still give the place of social honor and to found the parent's hopes on the first-born. To all concerned it was a birth of no special significance. Outside of the family it was a matter of no moment. Births were frequent. The Brownsville people heard of it, and passed on to forget, as a ripple in the Monongahela flashes on the careless sight for a moment, then the river rolls on as before. Ephraim Blaine was proud of another son; the little brother and the smaller sister hailed a new brother. The mother, with a deep joy which escaped not in words, looked onward and tried to read the future when the flood of years should have carried her new treasure from her arms. That flood has swept over her now, and all her highest hopes and ambition is filled, but she seems not to hear the church bells that ring nor the cannon that bellow at the sound of his name.
"All his early childhood years were spent about his home playing in the well-kept yard gazing at the numerous boats that so frequently went puffing by. For a short time the family moved to the old Gillespie House further up the river, and some of the inhabitants say that at one time, while some repairs were going on, they resided at the old homestead of Neal Gillespie, back from the river, on Indian Hill."
At seventeen he graduated from school and, his father, losing what little property he did have, young Blaine was thrown upon his own resources. But it is often the best thing possible for a young man to be thus tossed over-board, and be compelled to sink or swim. It develops a self-reliant nature. He secured employment as a teacher, and into this calling he threw his whole soul. Thus he became a success as an educator at Blue Lick Springs. He next went to Philadelphia, and for two years was the principal teacher of the boys in the Philadelphia Institution for instruction of the blind. When he left that institution he left behind him a universal regret at a serious loss incurred, but an impression of his personal force upon the work of that institution which it is stated, on good authority, is felt to this day. Mr. Chapin, the principal, one day said, as he took from a desk in the corner of the school-room a thick quarto manuscript book, bound in dark leather and marked 'Journal:' "Now, I will show you something that illustrates how thoroughly Mr. Blaine mastered anything he took hold of. This book Mr. Blaine compiled with great labor from the minute-books of the Board of Managers. It is a historical view of the institution from the time of its foundation, up to the time of Mr. Blaine's departure. He did all the work in his own room, telling no one of it till he left. Then he presented it, through me, to the Board of Managers who were both surprised and gratified. I believe they made him a present of $100 as a thank-offering for an invaluable work." The book illustrates one great feature in the success of Mr. Blaine. It is clear, and indicates his mastery of facts in whatever he undertook, and his orderly presentation of facts in detail. The fact that no one knew of it until the proper time, when its effect would be greatest, shows that he naturally possesses a quality that is almost indispensable to the highest attainment of success.
He left Philadelphia for Augusta, Maine, where he became editor of the Kennebec Journal. While editor and member of his State legislature, he laid the foundation which prepared him to step at once to the front, when in 1862 he was sent to the National Congress, when the country was greatly agitated over the Five-twenty bonds, and how they should be redeemed. Mr. Blaine spoke as follows:
"But, now, Mr. Speaker, suppose for the sake of argument, we admit that the Government may fairly and legally pay the Five-twenty bonds in paper currency, what then? I ask the gentleman from Massachusetts to tell us, what then? It is easy, I know, to issue as many greenbacks as will pay the maturing bonds, regardless of the effect upon the inflation of prices, and the general derangement of business. Five hundred millions of Five-twenties are now payable, and according to the easy mode suggested, all we have to do is set the printing-presses in motion, and 'so long as rags and lampblack hold out' we need have no embarrassment about paying our National Debt. But the ugly question recurs, what are you going to do with the greenbacks thus put afloat? Five hundred millions this year, and eleven hundred millions more on this theory of payment by the year 1872; so that within the period of four or five years we would have added to our paper money the thrilling inflation of sixteen hundred millions of dollars. We should all have splendid times doubtless! Wheat, under the new dispensation, ought to bring twenty dollars a bushel, and boots would not be worth more than two hundred dollars a pair, and the farmers of our country would be as well off as Santa Anna's rabble of Mexican soldiers, who were allowed ten dollars a day for their services and charged eleven for their rations and clothing. The sixteen hundred millions of greenbacks added to the amount already issued would give us some twenty-three hundred millions of paper money, and I suppose the theory of the new doctrine would leave this mass permanently in circulation, for it would hardly be consistent to advocate the redemption of the greenbacks in gold after having repudiated and foresworn our obligation on the bonds.
"But if it be intended to redeem the legal tenders in gold, what will have been the net gain to the Government in the whole transaction? If any gentleman will tell me, I shall be glad to learn how it will be easier to pay sixteen hundred millions in gold in the redemption of greenbacks, than to pay the same amount in the redemption of Five-twenty bonds? The policy advocated, it seems to me, has only two alternatives—the one to ruinously inflate the currency and leave it so, reckless of results; the other to ruinously inflate the currency at the outset, only to render redemption in gold far more burdensome in the end.