Yet I doubt whether we have any right to complain of such attacks and misrepresentations. As a matter of fact, no nation washes so much of its dirty linen in the face of the whole world as does our own; and, what is worse, there is washed in our country, with much noise and perversity, a great deal of linen which is not dirty. Many demagogues and some "reformers" are always doing this. There is in America a certain class of excellent people who see nothing but the scum on the surface of the pot; nothing but the worst things thrown to the surface in the ebullition of American life. Or they may be compared to people who, with a Persian carpet before them, persist in looking at its seamy side, and finding nothing but odds and ends, imperfect joints, unsatisfactory combinations of color; the real pattern entirely escaping them. The shrill utterances of such men rise above the low hum of steady good work, and are taken in Germany as exact statements of the main facts in our national life. Let me repeat here one example which I have given more than once elsewhere. Several years since, an effort was made to impeach the President of the United States. The current was strong, and most party leaders thought it best to go with it. Three senators of the United States sturdily refused, their leader being William Pitt Fessenden of Maine, who, believing the impeachment an attempt to introduce Spanish-American politics into our country, resolutely opposed it. The State convention of his party called upon him to vote for it, the national convention of the party took the same ground, his relatives and friends besought him to yield, but he stood firmly against the measure, and finally, by his example and his vote, defeated it. It was an example of Spartan fortitude, of Roman heroism, worthy to be chronicled by Plutarch. How was it chronicled? I happened to be traveling in Germany at the time, and naturally watched closely for the result of the impeachment proceedings. One morning I took up a German paper containing the news and read, "The impeachment has been defeated; three senators were bribed," and at the head of the list of bribed senators was the name of Fessenden! The time will come when his statue will commemorate his great example; let us hope that the time will also come when party spirit will not be allowed to disgrace our country by sending out to the world such monstrous calumnies.