[186] These are Roger Sherman and Henry Wilson, already noticed, and Daniel Sheffey, Gideon Lee, William Claflin, John B. Alley, and H. P. Baldwin. In answer to the question, "What shoemaker has risen to political or literary eminence in the United States?" a writer in the Philadelphia _Dispatch_, besides speaking of the four remarkable men we have selected as examples, says, "There are other famous names of graduates from that profession. _Daniel Sheffey_ of Virginia learned the trade, and worked at it many years, and from 1809 to 1817 represented his district in the Congress of the United States. His retort to John Randolph of Roanoke, who taunted him on the floor of Congress with his former occupation, was, 'The difference, sir, between my colleague and myself is this, that if his lot had been cast like mine in early life, instead of rising, by industry, enterprise, and study, above his calling, and occupying a seat on this floor, he would at this time be engaged in making shoes on the bench.' ... _Gideon Lee_, a mayor of New York City, and a member of Congress from about 1840 to 1844, was a working shoemaker, and afterward a leather dealer. _William Claflin_, an ex-governor of Massachusetts and a member of Congress, worked at the shoemaker's trade when young, and is now at the head of a very large shoe-manufacturing firm. _John B. Attey_, an ex-member of Congress from Massachusetts, was in the shoe trade, as was also _H. P. Baldwin_, ex-governor of Michigan, and ex-member of Congress from that State." J. G. WHITTIER, "THE QUAKER POET." The last name we have to give in this long, but still incomplete, list of illustrious shoemakers is that of _John Greenleaf Whittier_, who happily is still living to charm and educate the English-speaking people on both sides of the Atlantic with his simple, spirit-stirring poetry. Whittier is frequently spoken of in the States as _the Quaker Poet_. This designation is sufficiently distinctive, for poets are not very numerous in the Society of Friends. Preachers, patriots, philanthropists, orators, and writers of prose are numerous enough, but poets are very hard to find in this intensely earnest and practical religious community. Like his coreligionists in every generation since the days of George Fox and William Penn, Whittier is "right on all points" relating to social and religious reform. The assistance his vigorous, thrilling lines have given to every philanthropic movement in the United States is beyond calculation. For many years he was the _Hans Sachs_ or _Ebenezer Elliott_ of the Liberation cause, giving similar help by his songs to the work of emancipation in America to that which the German gave to the cause of Protestantism on the continent of Europe, and the Englishman gave to the labors of the Anti-Corn Law League in Great Britain.