James A. Garfield, American general and statesman; twentieth President of the United States. Born in Orange, Ohio, November 19, 1831; shot by an assassin, July 2, 1881; died, September 19 in the same year, at Long Branch, New Jersey. From "Garfield's Words." By permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers.
The Atlantic is still the great historic sea. Even in its sunken wrecks might be read the record of modern nations. Who shall say that the Pacific will not yet become the great historic sea of the future—the vast amphitheater around which shall sit in majesty and power the two Americas, Asia, Africa, and the chief colonies of Europe. God forbid that the waters of our national life should ever settle to the dead level of a waveless calm. It would be the stagnation of death, the ocean grave of individual liberty.
GREATEST CONTINUOUS EMPIRE.
The Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone, the noted English statesman and orator. Born at Liverpool, December 29, 1809. From his "Kin beyond the Sea."
There is no parallel in all the records of the world to the case of that prolific British mother who has sent forth her innumerable children over all the earth to be the founders of half-a-dozen empires. She, with her progeny, may almost claim to constitute a kind of universal church in politics. But among these children there is one whose place in the world's eye and in history is superlative; it is the American Republic. She is the eldest born. She has, taking the capacity of her land into view as well as its mere measurement, a natural base for the greatest continuous empire ever established by man. And it may be well here to mention what has not always been sufficiently observed, that the distinction between continuous empire, and empire severed and dispersed over sea is vital. The development which the Republic has effected has been unexampled in its rapidity and force. While other countries have doubled, or at most trebled, their population, she has risen during one single century of freedom, in round numbers, from two millions to forty-five. As to riches, it is reasonable to establish, from the decennial stages of the progress thus far achieved, a series for the future; and, reckoning upon this basis, I suppose that the very next census, in the year 1880, will exhibit her to the world as certainly the wealthiest of all the nations. The huge figure of a thousand millions sterling, which may be taken roundly as the annual income of the United Kingdom, has been reached at a surprising rate; a rate which may perhaps be best expressed by saying that, if we could have started forty or fifty years ago from zero, at the rate of our recent annual increment, we should now have reached our present position. But while we have been advancing with this portentous rapidity, America is passing us by as if in a canter. Yet even now the work of searching the soil and the bowels of the territory, and opening out her enterprise throughout its vast expanse, is in its infancy. The England and the America of the present are probably the two strongest nations of the world. But there can hardly be a doubt, as between the America and the England of the future, that the daughter, at some no very distant time, will, whether fairer or less fair, be unquestionably yet stronger than the mother.
TYPICAL AMERICAN.
Henry W. Grady, the late brilliant editor of the Atlanta Constitution. From an address delivered at the famous New England dinner in New York.
With the Cavalier once established as a fact in your charming little books, I shall let him work out his own stratum, as he has always done, with engaging gallantry, and we will hold no controversy as to his merits. Why should we? Neither Puritan nor Cavalier long survived as such. The virtues and traditions of both happily still live for the inspiration of their sons and the saving of the old fashion. But both Puritan and Cavalier were lost in the storm of their first revolution, and the American citizen, supplanting both, and stronger than either, took possession of the republic bought by their common blood and fashioned to wisdom, and charged himself with teaching men government and establishing the voice of the people as the voice of God. Great types, like valuable plants, are slow to flower and fruit. But from the union of these colonists, from the straightening of their purposes and the crossing of their blood, slow perfecting through a century, came he who stands as the first typical American, the first who comprehended within himself all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty and grace of this Republic—Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and in the depths of his great soul the faults of both were lost. He was greater than Puritan, greater than Cavalier, in that he was American, and that in his homely form were first gathered the vast and thrilling forces of this ideal government—charging it with such tremendous meaning and so elevating it above human suffering that martyrdom, though infamously aimed, came as a fitting crown to a life consecrated from the cradle to human liberty. Let us, each cherishing his traditions and honoring his fathers, build with reverent hands to the type of this simple but sublime life, in which all types are honored, and in the common glory we shall win as Americans there will be plenty and to spare for your forefathers and for mine.
GRATITUDE AND PRIDE.
Benjamin Harrison, American soldier, lawyer, and statesman. Born at North Bend, Ohio, August 20, 1833. Grandson of General William Henry Harrison, ninth President of the United States, and himself President, 1888-1892. From a speech at Sacramento, Cal., 1891.