Newspaper Page Text
THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE: WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 4, 1882.
5
WHIT CONGRESS IS DOING.
Congress has not accomplished much in the way
of completed legislation during the past week.
In the Senate, on Thursday, the 23d ult., among
the petitions introduced was one from various
officers of the Grand Army of the Republic, praying
Congress to pass a bill for the purpose of remunerat
ing female nurses during the late war. which was
referred to the Committee on Military Affairs. The
only bills of importance passed, were those provid
ing for the sale of tho military barracks at Savan
nah, Georgia, and the lauds upon which they are
lecated; and placing General Grant upon the
retired list of the Army. When the latter bill came
up on its passage, Senator Bayard moved, as a sub
stitute, to pension all ex-Presidents for life, at tho
rate of one-quarter the President's salary, but only
five votes were recorded in its favor. Many who
approved the principle expressed in the substitute
objecting to it as antagonizing the present measure,
which was finally adopted by 35 yeas to 17 nays,
Senators Brown, Call, and Davis, of West Virginia,
on the Democratic tide, voting for it. A joint reso
lution, introduced by Senator George, of Mississippi,
appropriating $100,000 for the purchase aud distri
bution of rations among the victims of the Missis
sippi overflow, was adopted without objection.
In the Senate, on Friday, the 24th, a resolution
introduced by Senator Davis of West Virginia, was
unanimously adopted, instructing tho Committee
on Military Affairs to consider the expediency of
increasing the annual appropriation for the support
of the militia in the several States and Territories.
The appropriation ($200,000) has not been increased
since 1808, when it was first voted. Mr. Bayard
submitted a resolution for tho investigation of tho
now notorious Peruvian commercial contracts,
which was referred to the Committee on Foreign
Eelatious. The urgency deficiency bill was con
sidered at length in Committee of the Whole, and
after being amended in various minor particulars,
was finally passed.
The Senate was not in session on Saturday.
The Senate was only informally in session on
Monday, the 27th ultimo.
In the Senate on Tuesday Mr. Windom, from the
Committee on Foreign Relations, reported an origi
nal resolution providing for the appointment of a
committee to examine into the loss of certain letters
pertaming to tho Peruvian-Chilian embroglio, which
went over under the rule.
Upon the expiration of the morning hour the
Chinese bill came up, but was temporarily laid aside,
and the House resolution of thanks to Mr. Blaine
for his memorial address was concurred in. Subse
quently the Chinese question was taken up and
continued as the subject of discussion up to our
o'clock, when the Senate, after a brief executive
session, adjourned.
Wednesday the resolutions offered by Mr. WTln
dom on Tuesday providing for a committee to in
quire into the loss of certain papers from the State
Department were taken up, and after a slight
amendment were adopted.
The Chinese bill then came up as unfinished
business, but was laid aside and the new library
bill taken up, Mr. Voorhees having the floor.
House.
Ih the House on Thursday, the 23d ult., a com
munication was presented from the Commissioner
of Pensions asking that more adequate provision be
made for the payment ef expenses of obtaining
evidence of the extent of the disability of those
pensioners of tho United States and applicants for
pension who reside in foreign countries. The Post
Office appropriation bill was taken up in Committee
of the Whole and the clause relative to star-route
traiisporation specially considered.
An amendment offered by Mr. Holman was pend
ing providing that whenever any contractor shall
sub-let his contract for the transportation of the
mail on any route for a loss sum than he contracted
to perform the service, the Postmaster-General may
declare the original contract at an end, and enter
into a contract with the sub-contractor, without ad
vertising, to perform the service on the terms at
which he has agreed with the original contractor to
perform the same.
Mr. Atkins offered as a further amendment that
when a contract is declared void on account of hav
ing been sub-let, the contractor shall not be entitled
to one month's extra pay as under existing law.
Both amendments were adopted by a close vote.
The Senate joint resolution "authorizing the Secre
tary of War to expend $100,000 in rations for the
victims of the Mississippi overflow was reviewed
and passed without discussion.
In the House on Friday, the 24th ult., a substi
tute offered by Mr. Kasson for a resolution brought
forward by Mr. Belmont was adopted, providing for
an investigation into the Peruvian commercial con
tracts and the alleged theft of important papers
from the State Department. The session was occu
pied principally with the consideration of bills on
the private calendar, among them being that to re
instate Major W. P. Chambless in the Regular army
and place him on the retired list, which was passed
after a long but not very exciting debate. It ap
peared from the speeches in support of the bill that
the Major was fairly riddled with bullets receiving
ao less than ten wounds in a gallant charge at the
battle of Gaines's Mills, and after lying ten days on
the field, exposed to the rain and scorching sun, was
taken to Libby Prison at Richmond, where he was
at the point of death for many weeks. Considerable
debate was also provoked by the bill to give the
widow of Brig.-Gen. Hays, of Pennsylvania, a pen
sion of $50 per month from May 5, 1S64, when he
was killed in the battle of tho Wilderness, in lieu of
her present pension. Mr. Bland, of Missouri, oppos
ing it on the ground that it was neither politic nor
right to pass special bills of this kind, but it was
adopted by the House on a vote of S9 yeas to 14
a ays.
In the House on Saturday the Post-Office appro
priation bill was further considered in Committee
of the Whole, and after the adoption of an amend
ment providing that hereafter all Department cor
respondence shall be transmitted in penalty en
velopes was reported back to tho House and passed.
By almost a strict party vote a resolution was
adopted for the appointment of a select committee
of nine members on woman suffrage. Among the
bills reported were the following :
Mr. Stephens (Ga.J reported a bill to authorize
the coinage of silver dollars and fractions thereof
of full standard value on the metric system.
Mr. Money (Miss) reported a bill to provide for
ocean mail service betv. een the United States and
foreign ports.
Mr. Smith (Ills.) reported a bill for the retire
ment of trade dollars from circulation.
Mr. Grant ( Vt.) reported the bill to establish the
Territory of North Dakota, and providing a tempo
rary government therefor.
The House transacted no business on Monday,
the 27tlr ultimo, adjourning immediately after the
Garfield memorial services out of respect to the oc
casion. Tuesday's proceedings in the House wore of little
public iuterest.
Mr. Calkins, chairman of the Committee on
Elections, submitted tho report of that committee
on the contested election case of Campbell vs. Can
non, accompanied by a resolution declaring neither
the contestant nor contestee is entitled to a seat on
the floor. He also submitted a minority report
declaring Mr. Campbell entitled to the seat, while
Mr. Moulton submitted a further resolution, (signed
by Messrs. Atherton, Davis of Illinois, Moulton,
and Jones of Texas,) declaring thtit Mr. Cannon
was duly elected a Delegate to Congress. The re
ports were laid on the table for future action.
Subsequently tho House went into Committee
of the Whole, but very little was accomplished, how
ever, up to the hour of adjournment.
Wednesday in the House, on motion of Mr. An
derson, Saturday, March 25, was set apart for con
sideration of the bill enlarging the powers of the
Department of Agriculture.
Under the call of committees a large number of
bills were reported and disposed of, but none of
them were of general iuterest.
Several bills were subsequently introduced, and
among the number one by Mr. Pound providing
for the establishment of a board of review of pen
sion and land-warrant claims which have been
disallowed and to prevent frauds in tho granting
of pensions.
GARFIELD MEMORIAL SERVICES,
MR. BLAINE'S EULOGY.
i&The following comprises tho more material por
tions of Hon. James G. Blaine's memorial oration
upon tho life and services of the late President
Garfield delivered in the Hall of the House of Rep
resentatives on Monday.
The vast Hall was packed to overflowing, the
chief offisvrs of the Government, both Houses of
Congress, the Supreme Court, diplomatic corps, and
most distinguished officers of the army and navy
being present, besides many ether prominent per
sons from distant Stages.
At half-past twelve Mr. Blaine took his stand at
the clerk's desk and began :
Mr. President: For the second time in this
generation the great departments of the Govern
ment of the United States are assembled in the Hall
of Representatives to do honor to the memory of a
murdered President. Lincoln fell at the close of a
mighty struggle in which the passions of men had
been deeply stirred. The tragical 'termination of
his great life added but another to the lengthened
succession of horrors which had marked so many
lintels with the blood of the first born. Garfield
was slain in a day of peace, when brother had been
reconciled to brother, and when anger and hate had
been banished from the land. ''Whoever shall
hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will
show it as it has been exhibited where such ex
ample was last to have been looked for, le him not
give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted
by revenge, tho face black with settled hate. Let
him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, blood
less demon ; not so much an example of human
nature in its depravity and in its paroxysms of
crime, as an infernal being, a fiend in the ordinary
display aud development of his character."
From the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth
till the uprising against Charles First, about twenty
thousand emigrants came from old England to New
England. As they came in pursuit of intellectual
freedom and ecclesiastical independence rather than
for worldly honor and profit, the emigration nat
urally ceased when the contest for religious liberty
began in earnest at home. The man who struck
his most effective blow for freedom of conscience by
sailing for the colonies in 1620 would have been ac
counted a deserter to leave after 1640. The oppor
tunity had then come on the soil of England for
that great contest which established the authority
of Parliament, gave religious freedom to the people,
sent Charfcs to the block, and committed to the
hands of Oliver Cromwell the supreme exocutive
ifcithorifcy of England. The English emigration was
never renewed ; and from these twenty thousand
men, wllh a small emigration from Scotland and
from France, are d(sc.nled the vast nnmberawho
hsye New England blood in their veins.
In 1635 the invocation of the edict of Nantes by
Louis XIV scattered to other countries four hun
dred thousand Protestants, who were among the
most intelligent and enterprising of Fresch sub
jectsmerchants of capital, skilled manufacturers,
and handicraftmen, superior at the time to all
others in Europe. A considerable number of these
Huguenot French came to America ; a few landed in
New England and became honorably prominent in
its history. Their names have in large part become
anglecised, or have disappeared, but their blood is
traceable in many of the most reputable families,
and their fame is perpetuated in honorable memo
rials and useful institutions.
From" these two sources, the English-Puritan and
the French-Huguenot, came the late President his
father, Abram Garfield, being descended from the
one, and his mother, Eliza Ballou, freni the other.
It was good stock en both sides none better,
none braver, none, truer. There was in it an in
heritance of courage, of manliness, of imperishable
love of liberty, of undying adherence to principle.
Garfield was proud of his blood; and, with as much
satisfaction as if he were a British nobleman
reading his stately ancestral record in Burke's
Peerage, he spoke of himself as ninth in descent
from those who would not endure the oppression of
the Stuarts, and seventh in descent from the brave
Prench Protestants who refused to submit to t j ranny
even from the Grand Monarque.
General Garfield delighted to dwell on these
traits, and, during his only visit to England, he
busied himself in discovering every trace of his
forefathers in parish registers and on ancient army
rolls. Sitting with a friend in the gallery of the
House of Commons one night after a long day's
labor in this field of research, he said with evident
elation that in every war in which for three cen
turies patriots of English blood had struck sturdy
blows for constitutional government and human
liberty, his family had been represented. They
were at Marston Moor, at Naseby, and at Preston ;
they were at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga, and at Mon
mouth, and in his own person had battled for the
samo great cause in the war which preserved the
Union ef the States.
Losing his father before he was two years old, tho
ea&clyli'e of Garfield was one of privation, but its
poverty has been made indelicately and unjustly
prominent. Thousands of readers have imagined
him as the ragged, starving child, whose reality too
often greets the eye in the squalid sections of our
large cities. General Garfield's infancy and youth
had. none of their destitution, none of their pitiful
features appealing to the tender heart and to the
open hand of charity. He was a poor boy in the
same sense in which Henry Clay was a poor boy;
in which Andrew Jackson was a poor boy ; in which
Daniel Webster was a poor boy; in the same sense
in which a large majority of the eminent men of
America in all generations have been poor boys.
The Speaker then went on to say, that up to the
date of his graduation from college the history of
Garfield's life presents no novel features. Said Mr.
Blaine:
He had undoubtedly shown perseverance, self
reliance, self-sacrifice, and ambition qualities
which, be it said for the honor of our country, are
everywhere to bo found among the young men of
America. But from his graduation at Williams
onward, to the hour of his tragical death, Garfield's
career was eminent and exceptional. Slowly work
ing through his educational period, receiving his
diploma when twenty-four years of age, he seemed
at one bound to spring into conspicuous and
brilliant success. Within six years he was success
ively president of a college, State senator of Ohio,
major-general of the Army of the United States,
and Representative elect to the National Congress.
A combination of honors so varied, so derated,
within a period so brief, and to a man so young, is
without precedent or parallel in the history of the
country.
The speaker next gave a synopsis of the late
President's military history, which the nation
knows by heart, and reviewed briefly his services
in Congress, familiar as household words to the
American people. In this connection, Mr. Blaine
said :
There is no test of man's ability in any depart
ment of public life more severe than service in the
House of Representatives; there is no place where
so little deference is paid to reputation previously
acquired, or to eminence won outside; no place
where so little consideration is shown for the feel
ings or the failures of beginners. What a man
gains in the House ho gains by sheer force of his
own character, and if he loses and falls back he
must expect no mercy, and will receive no sympa
thy. It is a field in which tho survival of the
strongest is the recognized rule, and where no re
tense can deceive and no glamor can mislead. The
real man is discovered, his worth is impartially
weighed, his rank is irreversibly deereed.
And again
As a parliamentary orator, as a debater on an
issue squarely joined, where the position had been
chosen and the ground laid out, Garfield must be
assigned a very high rank. More, perhaps, than
any man with whom he was associated in public
life, he gave careful and systematic study to public
questions, and he came to every discussion in which
he took part with elaborate and complete prepara
tion. He was a steady and indefatigable worker.
Those who imagine that talent or genius can supply
the place or achieve the results of labor will find no
encouragement in Garfield's lifo. In preliminary
work he was apt, rapid, and skillful. He possessed,
in a high degree, the power of readily absorbing
ideas and facts, and, like Dr. Johnson, had the art
of getting from a book all that was of value in it
by a reading apparently so quick and cursory that
it seemed like a mere glance at the table of con
tents. He was a pre-eminently fair and candid man in
debate, took no petty advantage, stooped to no un
worthy methods, avoided personal allusions, rarely
appealed to prejudice, did not seek to inflame
passion. Ho had a quicker eye for the strong point
of his adversary than for his weak point, and on
his own side he so marshaled his weighty argu
ments as to make his hearers forget any possible
lack in the complete strength of his position. He
had a habit of stating his opponent's siie with such
amplitude of fairness and such liberality of conces
sion that his followers often complained that he
was giving his case away. But never, in his pro
longed participation in tho proceedings of the
House, did he give his case away, or fail in the
judgment of competent and impartial listeners to
gain the mastery.
These characteristics, which marked Garfield as
a great debater, did not, however, make him- a
great parliamentary leadei. A parliamentary
leader, as that term is understood wherever five
representative government exists, is necessarily and
very strictly the organ of his party. An ardent
American defined the instinctive warmth of patriot
ism, when he offered the toast, "Our country,
always right, but right or wrong, our country."
The parliamentary leader who has a body of follow
ers that will do and dare and die for the cause, is
one who believes his party always right, but right
or wrong, is for his party. No more important or
exacting duty devolves upon him than the selection
of the field and the time for contest. He must
know not merely how to strike, but where to strike
and when to strike. He often skillfully avoids the
strength of his opponent's position and scatters
confusion in his ranks by attacking an exposed
point, when really the righteousness of the cause
and the strength of logical intrenchment are
against him. He conquers, often, both against the
rfght and the heavy battalions; as when young
Charles Fox, in the days of his toryism, carried the
House of Commons against justice, against its
immemorial rights, against his own convictions, if,
indeed, at that period, Fox had convictions, and, in
the interest of a corrupt administration, in obedi
ence to a tyrranical sovereign, drove Wilkes from
the seat to which the electors of Middlesex had
chosen him and installed Luttrell in defiance, not
merely of law but of public decency. For an
achievement of that kind Garfield was disqualified
disqualified by the texture of his mind, by the
honesty of his heart, by his conscience, and by
every instinct and aspiration of his nature.
Referring to his nomination to the Presidency,
Mr. Blaine said :
Garfield's nomination to the Presidency, while
not predicted or anticipated, was not a surprise to
the country. His prominence in Congress, his solid
qualities, his wide reputation, strengthened by his
then recent election as Senator from Ohio, kept him
in the public eye as a man occupying the very
highest rank among those entitled to be called
statesmen.
And in reference to his candidacy :
As a candidate Garfield steadily grew in popular
favor. He was met with a storm of detraction at
the very hour of his nomination, and it continued
with increasing volume and momentum until the
close of his victorious campaign :
" No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure 'scape; black-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gffll up in the slanderous tongue."
Under it all he was calm and strong and confi
dent ; never lost his self-possession, did no unwise
act, spoke no hasty or ill-considered word. In
deed, nothing in his whole life is more remarkable
or more creditable than his bearing through those
five full months of vituperation a prolonged agony
of trial to a sensitive statesman, a constant and
cruel draft upon the powers of moral endurance.
The great mass of these unjust imputations passed
unnoticed, and with the general debris of the cam
paign fell into oblivion. But in a few instances
the iron entered his soul, and he died with the in
jury unforgotten if not unforgiven.
One aspect of Garfield's candidacy was unpreci
dented. Never before, in tho history of partisan
contests in this country, had a successful Presi
dential candidate spoken freely on passing events
and current issues. To attempt anything of the
kind seemed novel, rash, and even desperate. The
older class of voters recalled the unfortunate Ala
bama letter, in which Mr. Clay was supposed to
have signed his political death-warrant. They re
membered also the hot-tempered effusion by which
General Scott lost a large share of his popularity
before his nomination, and the unfortunate speeches
which rapidly consumed the remainder. The
younger voters had seen Mr. Greeley in a series of
vigorous and original addresses, preparing the path
way for his own defeat.
Unmindful of these warnings, unheeding the ad
viee of friends, Garfield spoke to large crowds as he
journeyed to and from New York in August, to a
great multitude in that city, to delegations and
deputations of every kind that called at Mentor
during the summer and autumn. With innumer
able critics, watchful and eager to catch a phrase
that might be turned into odium or ridicule, or a
sentence that might be distorted to his own or his
party's injury, Garfield did not trip or halt in any
one of his seventy speeches. This seems all the
more remarkable when it is remembered that he
did not write what he said, and yet spoke with
such logical consecutiveness of thought and such
admirable precision of phrase as to defy the acci
dent of misreport and the malignity of misrepre
sentation. Of Garfield as President, Mr. Blaino said :
In the beginning of his Presidential life Garfield's
experience did not yield him pleasure or satisfac
tion. The duties that engross so large a portion of
the President's time wero distasteful to him, and
were unfavorably contrasted with his legislative
work. " I have been dealing all these years with
ideas," he impatiently exclaimed one day, " and
here 1 am dealing only with persons. I have been
heretofore treating of the fundamental principles of
government, and here I am considering all day
whether A or B shall be appointed to this or that
oliice." He was earnestly seeking some practical
way of correcting the evils arising from the distri
bution of overgrown and unwieldly patronage
evils always appreciated and often discussed by
him, but whose magnitude had been more deeply
impressed upon his mind since his accession to the
Presidency. Had he lived, a comprehensive im
provement in the mode of appointment and in the
tenure of office would have been proposed by him,
and with the aid of Congress no doubt perfected.
Further on :
Garfield's ambition for the success of his adminis
tration was high. With strong caution and conser
vatism in his nature, ho was in no danger of at
tempting rash experiments of resorting to the em
piricism of statesmanship. But he believed that
renewed and closer attention should'be given to
questions affecting the material interests and com
mercial prospects of futy millions of people, lie
believed that6 our continental relations, extensive
and undeveloped as they are, involved responsibil
ity, and could be cultivated into profitable friend
ship or be abandoned to harmful indifference or
lasting enmity. He believed with equal confidence
that an essential forerunner to a new era of national
progress must be a feeling of contentment in every
section of the Union, and a generous belief that the
benefits and burdens of government would be com
mon to all. Himself a conspicuous illustration of
what ability and ambition may do under Republi
can institutions, beloved his countiy with a passion
of patriotic devotion, aud every waking thought
was given to her advancement. He was an Amer
ican in all his aspirations, and he looked to the
destiny and influence of the United States with the
philosophic composure of Jefferson and the demon
strative confidence of John Adams.
And speaking of the political events immediately
preceding the shooting of the President :
The political events which disturbed the Presi
dent's serenity for many weeks before that fateful
day in July, form an important chapter in his ca
reer, and, in his own judgment, involved questions
of principle and of right which are vitally essential
to the constitutional administration of tho Federal
Government. It would be out of place here and
now to speak the language of controversy; but the
events referred to, however they may continue to
be source of contention with others, have become,
so far as Garfield is concerned, as much a matter of
history as his heroism at Chiukamauga or his illus
trious service in the House. Detail is not needed,
and personal antagonism shall not be rekindled by
any word uttered to day.
The motives of those opposing him are not to be
here adversely interpreted nor their course harshly
characterized. But of the dead President this is
to be said, and said because his own speech is for
ever silenced, and he can be no more heard except
through the fidelity aud the love of surviving
friends: From the beginning to tho end of the con
troversy he so much deplored, the President was
never for ene moment actuated by any motive of
gain to himself or of loss to others. Least of all
men did he harbor revenge, rarely did he ever show
resentment, and malice was not in his nature. He
was congenially employed only in the exchange of
good offices and the doing of kindly deeds.
There was not an hour, from the beginning of the
trouble tin, the fatal shot entered his body, when
the President would not gladly, for the sake of re
storing harmony, have retraced any step he had
taken if such retracing had merely involved con
sequences personal to himself. The pride of con
sistency, or any supposed sense of humiliation that
might result from surrendering his position, had not
a feather's weight with him. No man was ever less
subject to such influences lrom within or from with
out. But after most anxious deliberation and the
coolest survey of all the circumstances he solemnly
believed that the true prerogatives of the Execu
tive were involved in the issue which had been
raised, and that he would be unfaithful to his su
preme obligation if he failed to maintain, in all
their vigor, the constitutional rights and dignities
of his great office.
In regard to Garfield's religious belief, he observed:
The crowning characteristic of General Garfield's
religious opinions, as, indeed, of all his opinions,
was his liberality. In all things he had ckarity.
Tolerance w.s of his nature. He respected in
others the qualities which he possessed himself
sincerity of conviction and frankness of expression.
With him the inquiry was not so much what a man
believes, but does he believe it? The lines of his
friendship, and his confidence encircled men of
every creed, and men of no creed, aad to the end of
his life, on his ever-lengthening list of friends,
were to be found the names of a pious Catholic
priest and of an honest-minded and generous
hearted free-thinker.
And in conclusion :
On the morning of Saturday, July 2, the Presi
dent was a contented and happy man not in an
ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly
happy. On his way to the railroad station, to
which he drove slowly, in conscious enjoyment of
the beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of
leisure and a keen anticipation of pleasure, his
talk was all in the grateful and gratulatory vein.
He felt that after four months of trial his admin
istration was strong in its grasp of affairs, strong
in popular favor and destined to grow stronger;
that grave difficulties confronting him at his in
auguration had been safely passed; that trouble
lay behind him and not before him ; that he was
soon to meet the wife whom he loved, now recover
ing from an illness which had but lately disquieted
and at times almost unnerved him; that he was
going to his Alma Mata to renew the most cher
ished associations ef his young manhood, and to
exchange greetings with those whose deepening
interest had followed every step of his upward
progress from the day he entered upon his college
course until he had attained the loftiest elevation
in the gift of his countrymen.
Surely if happiness can ever come from the
honors or triumphs of this world, on that quiet
July morning James A. Garfield may well have
been a happy man. No foreboding of evl haunted
him ; no slightest premonition of danger clouded his
sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant.
One moment he stood erect, strong, confident in
the years stretching peacefully out before him;
the next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless,
doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence, and
the grave.
Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death.
For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and
wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he was
thrust from the full tide of this world's interest,
from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the
visible presence of death and he did not quail.
Not alone for the one short moment in which,
stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly
aware of its relinquishment, but through days of
deadly langor, through weeks of agony, that was
not less agony because silently borne, with clear
sight and calm courage, he looked into his open
grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished
eyes, whose lips may tell ; what brilliant, broken
plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what sunder
ing of strong, warm, manhood's friendships, what
bitter rending of sweet household ties! Behind
him a proud, expectant nation, a great host of sus
taining friends, a cherished and happy mother,
wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and
tears; the wife of his youth, whoso whole life lay
in his ; the little boys not yet emerged from child
hood's day of frolic ; the fair young daughter ; the
sturdy sons just springing into closest companion
ship, claiming every day md every day rewarding
a father's love and care ; and in his heart the eager,
rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him,
desolation and great darkness ! And his soul was
not shaken. "s
As the end drew near, his early craving for the
sea returned. The stately mansion of power had
been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he
begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its
oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its
hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great
people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-tor heal
ing of the sea to live or to die, as God should will,
within sight f its heaving billows, within sound ox"
its manifold voice. With wan, fevered face ten
derly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out
wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders, on
its far sails whitening in the morning light ; on its
restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die
beneath the noonday sun ; on the red clouds of
evening, arching low to the horizon ; on the serene
and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think
that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which
only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us
believe that in the silence of the receding world he
heard the great waves breaking on a fuither shore,
and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of
the eternal morning.
GEN. ROSECRANS CORRECTS MR. BLAINE,
General Rosecrans takes exception to one portion
of Mr. Blaine's oration. Writing under date of
Monday last, he says :
" Mr. Blaine, in his funeral oration before the two
Houses to-day, said, ' When General Garfield as
sumed his new duties he found various troubles
already well developed, and seriously affecting the
value and efficiency of the Army of the Cumber
land.' I was Commanding General of that army.
General Garfield was isy chief of staff. Had this
been the fact, I certainly should have known it.
General Garfield was bound to tell me of it. Jus
tice to the truth of history and to the Army of the
Cumberland requires that I should declare that I
never heard of such a siate of things until the
statement came from the lips of the orator to-day.
The distinguished gentleman has been wholly mis
informed, and the statements above quoted have no
foundation in fact. On the contrary, it was the gen
eral sentiment aud coustant boast of the officers aud
men of that army that the Army ofthe Cumberland
was singularly united and free from dissensions, and
therefore no one's genius was required to heal those
dissensions. I appeal to them to bear witness to this
fact. A few sentences further on Mr. Blaine says ' his
military duties closed on the memorable field of
Chicamauga a field which, however disastrous to
the Union arms, gave to him the occasion of win
ning imperishable laurels.' He might with justice
have added, as Garfield would have added, 'and to
us the key of the South, the objective point of the
campaign, Chattanooga.' - W. S. Rosecrans."
REVIEW OF THE WEEK.
The sensation of the week has been, of course,
the nomination by President Arthur of ex-Senator
Roseoe Coukling, of New York, to tho vacancy on
the Supreme Bench caused by the retirement of
Associate Justice Hunt. It was sent in to the
Senate on the 24th ultimo, and was, excopt to two
or three Senators, a profound surprise, and there
was a "scene" in the executive session when Senator
Hoar got up and demanded that it be referred to tho
Judiciary Committee, instead of permitting it to be
acted on immediately, as is usually the custom when
the nominee is an ex-Senator. He is reported as
having said, with great excitement of manner and
pounding on his desk, that his elevation to the Su
preme Bench would bo a disgrace to the judicial
ermine, and intimated that his character in point
of integrity was not above suspicion a statement
that excited the greatest astonishment. The animus
of the attack may perhaps be found in the fact that
Senator Conkling was instrumental some years ago
in securing the rejection of Senator Hoar's brother,
E. Rockwell Hoar, when he was nominated to the
Supreme Bench. Outside of the Senate the event
has occasioned more comment than any occurrence
since the death of President Garfield. Public as
well as press opinion has been very much divided
as to the wisdom of the choice, but with a few ex
ceptions there has been no acrimonious feeling.
Every one concedes Mr. Conkling's legal acumen
and learning, and Senator Hoar is the only person
who has questioned hit honesty. It is understood
that the nomination was made without the pre
vious knowledge of the ex-Senator, who was at his
home in Utica at the time, and said to a reporter
that he first learned of it through the newspapers.
The widow of Daniel Webster died on Sunday at
New Rochclle, N. Y. She was his second wife.
The seventy-sixth birthday of the poet Long
fellow was celebrated at Cambridge, Mass., and
Portland, Me., on Monday last.
The Governor of New Jersey has vetoed the bill
authorizing the New Jersey Central Railroad to
increase its capital stock, which will probably defeat
Jay Gould's attempt to get possession of the road.
The Right Rev. P. W. Lynch, Bishop of Charles
ton, and one of the most eminent Catholic prelates
in the country, died on Sunday morning last, aged
sixty-five. He was a native of South Carolina.
In a suit just tiied at St. Louis Jastice Miller has
rendered the important decision that the railroad
companies are bound to furnish express companies
with transportation facilities at fair and reasonable
rates.
The survivors of Admiral Farragut's Gulf squad
ron and Mississippi River fleet held their annual
meeting in Philadelphia Tuesday. A committee
was appointed to visit Washington and urge the
settlement of the prize money still due for captures
made at New Orleans in 1S62.
The Legislature of Utah has adopted a memorial
to Congress protesting against the Edmunds anti
polygamy bill and accusing the Federal officers in.
Utah of every species of wrong-doing. On the
other hand, public meetings indorsing the bill are
being held in all the leading cities of the country.
The Jewish refugees 325 in number have ar
rived at last in Philadelphia. The majority are
trades-people, although there are a few farmers
among them. A committee of citizens took charge
of them and the Pennsylvania Railroad provided
quarters for them in its old West Philadelphia depot.
The Virginia Readjusters have at last succeeded
in electing a State auditor Mr. S. Brown Allen
and five judges of the court of appeals, despite the
secession from their ranks of the friends of ex-auditor
Massey. It is a big victory for General Mahone,
and he will now be able to leave the management
of affairs in Virginia to his lieutenants and Tesmne
his seat in the Senate.
The monument erected at Tappan, N. Y., by
Cyrus W. Field to the memory of Major Andre, was
mutilated on the evening of Washington's birthday
by some unknown iconoclast who evidently classed
the British officer with Benedict Arnold, and was
fired with patriotic ardor or whisky. He cut
away the beautiful inscription composed by Dean
Stanley, planted the Stars and Stripes at the top of
the monument, and left a stirring poem behind as
a memento of his visit.
The memorial tribute to the late President which
the ex-confederates of Cincinnati presented to Mrs.
Garfield on Washington's birthday is described as
being very beautiful. The resolutions were framed
in Tennessee colored marble, highly polished, and
cut from a single block about two feet square. The
United States coat of arms is inlaid in Mexican
onyx at each eorner. Mrs. Garfield was much af
fected. " It had always been the General's greatest
wish," she said, " that there should be no North or
South. His earnest desire was to see a united coun
try, and had he lived" and here the unhappy lady
broke down.
The floods in the Western rivers have partially sub
sided, but the water has not yet receded from the in
undated bottoms on both sides ofthe Mississippi. The
flooded district, according to the statements of Sen
ator George, of Mississippi, embraces all the Missis
sippi delta, between Memphis and Vicksburg, and
is about one hundred and fifty milts in length by at
least forty in width, and the victims number proba
bly from seventy-five to one hundred thousand.
Many of the inhabitants of the desolated section
have been forced to sleep on the roois of their
houses, while of course their cattle have been
drowned and their crops swept away. The appro
priation of $100,000 by Congress for their relief will
not go very far towards relieving their wants.
CAPITAL TOPICS,
The House Committee on Naval Affairs agreed to
the report of the sub-committee, which recommends
an immediate appropriation of $10,000,000 to begin
the construction of a new navy, and appointed a sub
committee to prepare a bill in accordance with the
views embodied in the report.
Senator Gorman, of Maryland, has introduced a
bill appropriating not more than $-100,000 to pur
chase the whole or part of square 469, in the city of
Washington, as a site for a city post-office building
and a building for the use of the Pension Office.
The bill creates the Secretary of the Interior, the
Postmaster General, and the Postmaster of the City
of Washington, a commission to treat with the
owners of the land for its purchase.
General Grant will visit Washington on the 10th
of March, and be the guest of President Arthur.
From Washington he goes South.
The House Committee on Elections has decided
to report to the House that neither Cannon nor
Campbell is entitled to a seat as delegate from
Utah.
At a caucus of Democratic Members of Congress
hold on Tuesday evening Gen. W. S. Rosecrans, of
California, was elected chairman of the caucus for
theForty-seventh Congress. Mr. Belmont, of New
York, and Mr. Blanchard, of Louisiana, were elect
ed secretaries. It was decided to appoint a Demo
cratic Congressional Campaign Committee, one
member to be named by each State delegation.
The compensation of the surgeons who attended
President Garfield, as agreed upon by the auditing
committee, is as follows: Dr. Bliss, $25,000; Drs.
Agnew and Hamilton, $15,000 each ; Drs. Revburn
and Boynton, $10,000 each ; Mrs. Dr. Edson, $5,000 ;
and Mr. Crump, the steward, $3,000. The com
mittee recommends tho appointment of Surgeon
General Barnes to the rank of major general, and
liis retirment at that grade, and the promotion of
Dr. Woodward to the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
The committee has also agreed to grant to Mrs.
Garfield the remainder of her husband's salary for
the current year.
