we might as well trample on others, and take a short cut at once to repudiation and national bankruptcy. A government that will disregard one solemn pledge cannot expect to be trusted on other pledges."

That Mr. Blaine possessed the full confidence of President Garfield there can be no doubt. Their relations were not official merely; they were bound to each other by the ties of sincere friendship. Mr. Blaine's eulogy on President Garfield was received by the country as the tribute of a friend; but it was received also as a wise and just analysis of the President's character and career. Only a friend could have written the closing passages of the eulogy:

'On the morning of July 2d, the President 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 administration was strong in its grasp of affairs, strong in popular favor, and destined to grow stronger; that grave difficulties confronting him at his inauguration 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 recovering from an illness which had but lately disquieted, and at times almost unnerved him; that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most cherished associations of 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 evil 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

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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 languor, 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 sundering of strong, worn, manhood's friendships, what bitter rending of sweet household ties! Behind him a proud, expectant nation; a great host of sustaining friends; a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood's day of frolic; the fair young daughter; the sturdy sons, just springing into closest companionship, claiming every day and 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. His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the center of a nation's love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the winepress alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the Divine decree.

"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-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly 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 noon-day 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 farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning."

Mr. Blaine's leadership on the floor of the House was interrupted by his transfer to the Speaker's chair at the commencement of the forty-first Congress. He served as Speaker during the forty-first, forty-second, and forty-third Congresses. As a presiding officer he takes a place in the small class which consists of Mr. Clay, Mr. Winthrop, and General Banks.

During the first session of the forty-fourth Congress, Mr. Blaine resigned his seat in the House upon his appointment to the Senate, where he served with distinction until he became Secretary of State in the administration of President Garfield.

It is to be said of Mr. Blaine that he has had a long, varied, and successful career in public life. He has been connected with both houses of Congress, and with the Executive department. If experience is of any value, he is well equipped for the duties of President.

There is a general and aggressive public sentiment which demands the retention of experienced officers in all the subordinate places of government, and at the same time the country indulges in the illusion that the chief place of all may be safely filled, or wisely filled, by a man who is without experience even in the forms of government. The shafts hurled in disappointment, envy, or malice, reach every conspicuous station in life. Every representative man is a victim. Leadership awakens rivalry, and it implies hostility.

In this contest the Republican party does not seek for success in the obscurity of its candidates. It has selected men of large experience, of abilities recognized generally, and often tested.