From Canal Boy to President; Or, the Boyhood and Manhood of James A. GarfieldAlger, Horatio, Jr.
History
From Canal Boy to President; Or, the Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
Garfield, James A. (James Abram), 1831-1881 -- Childhood and youth; Presidents -- United States -- Biography
My youngest readers will remember the sad excitement of that eventful
day. They will remember, also, how the public hopes strengthened or
weakened with the varying bulletins of each day during the protracted
sickness of the nation's head. They will not need to be reminded how
intense was the anxiety everywhere manifested, without regard to party
or section, for the recovery of the suffering ruler. And they will
surely remember the imposing demonstrations of sorrow when the end was
announced. Some of the warmest expressions of grief came from the
South, who in this time of national calamity were at one with their
brothers of the North. And when, on the 26th of September, the last
funeral rites were celebrated, and the body of the dead President was
consigned to its last resting-place in the beautiful Lake View Cemetery,
in sight of the pleasant lake on which his eyes rested as a boy, never
before had there been such imposing demonstrations of grief in our
cities and towns.
These were not confined to public buildings, and to the houses and
warehouses of the rich, but the poorest families displayed their bit of
crape. Outside of a miserable shanty in Brooklyn was displayed a cheap
print of the President, framed in black, with these words written below,
"We mourn our loss." Even as I write, the insignia of grief are still to
be seen in the tenement-house districts on the East Side of New York,
and there seems a reluctance to remove them.
But not alone to our own country were confined the exhibitions of
sympathy, and the anxious alternations of hope and fear. There was
scarcely a portion of the globe in which the hearts of the people were
not deeply stirred by the daily bulletins that came from the sick couch
of the patient sufferer. Of the profound impression made in England I
shall give a description, contributed to the New York _Tribune_ by its
London correspondent, Mr. G.W. Smalley, only premising that the sympathy
and grief were universal: from the Queen, whose messages of tender,
womanly sympathy will not soon be forgotten, to the humblest
day-laborers in the country districts. Never in England has such grief
been exhibited at the sickness and death of a foreign ruler, and the
remembrance of it will draw yet closer together, for all time to come,
the two great sections of the English-speaking tongue. Were it not a
subject of such general interest, I should apologize for the space I
propose to give to England's mourning:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account