1
PRgSIDENTlALLIGHTS
THAt-HAYE-FLARJBD and FAILED
THEFIRgT OFTWO NOTABLE ARTICLES
Cy CHAMP-CLARK
SPEAKER?- OF THE HOU S E v OF REPRESENTAT IVES -v
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N POLITICS especially Presi
dential politics as in religion,
many are called but few are
chosen. 'Nevertheless, the theory
that every male American is a
President in posse has been an in
spiration to many a struggling,
ambitious boy whose ultimate
achievement fell far short of the White House.
Surely, however, human ambition lies at the root of
all success, and there can be no higher ambition than
a desire to be President of the United States.
While the theory is that every boy in America
may be President, it can safely be asserted that only
one of the twenty-six Presidents deliberately set out
to bag the great office; and that one was
Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. When he writes
his autobiography, he owes it to an eager and
expectant world to tell precisely when the
Presidential idea first entered his head and
how he consummated the early desire.
Lincoln and Douglas
There is no doubt that Abraham Lincoln
began to cherish Presidential ambitions at a
very early age as far back, it is safe to
assume, as his first service in the Illinois
Legislature. There, he met another young
man of tremendous talents, a young man of
exceeding ambition Stephen A. Douglas
who was destined to be his great antagonist,
and who also had his longing eyes turned
toward the White House. How one of these
men, after years of defeat, reached the glit
tering goal, and how the other missed it,
after an unexampled series of victories, re
mains one of the most thrilling chapters in
the annals of the Republic. Their long riv
alry is one of the most remarkable in Amer
ican history, ranking with those of Hamilton
and Jefferson, Jackson and Clay, Blaine and
Roscoe Colliding.
Everybody about Springfield, Illinois, ap
pears to have known from the beginning of
the Presidential aspirations of Douglas and
Lincoln; for we are assured that both of
them courted Miss Todd, afterward Mrs.
Lincoln, and thai she gave as one reason why
she preferred Lincoln as a husband, her be
lief that he had a better chance to be Presi
dent. This may be apocryphal, but it cer
tainly shows that they were being thought
of, even in their callow days, for the highest
of all political offices. It is undoubtedly
true that both were running for President in 1858,
as seriously as they were running for United States
Senator. Lincoln must have known, when he pro
pounded his crucial question to Douglas at Freeport,
that Douglas, confident of his ability to win back
the Pro-Slavery faction later on, would answer it
with a view to capturing the Senatorship by pleas
ing the Free Soil Democrats. After that historic
debate at Freeport, when friends of Lincoln
Joseph Medill, Long John Wentworth, David Davis
and others denounced him angrily to his face as a
fool for asking Douglas the question, and explained
in language more emphatic than polite that he had
thrown away the Senatorship, Lincoln replied non
chalantly: "The Judge is a dead cock in-the pit, so
far as the Presidency is concerned !" It was even so.
Douglas had won the Senatorship and lost the Presi
dency that drizzling autumn day. His answer to
the Lincoln question was dubbed The Freeport
Heresy, and hung as a millstone about his neck at
the Charleston Convention in 1860. The Southern
ers would have none of him. Had it not been for
Douglas's historic slip, Lincoln might never have
been President.
Question for Would-Be President!
There is much food for thought in these pertinent
questions:
How happened it that twenty-six men hae
reached the Presidency in preference to their eminent
and ambitious contemporaries?
If a boy should take it into his head to become
President, is there any approved method, better than
all others, that lie could pursue in order to gratify
his heart's desire? Is there any particular vocation
that, more than any other or than all others, leads
to the White House?
Is the Presidency to be achieved by toiling, schem
ing, striving, or even by accomplishing great things?
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Phototmph bj Underwood ft Underwood.
The Honorable Champ Clark, of Missouri
Or, is a residence in the Executive Mansion purely
a matter of accident, chance, luck or predestination?
While all the Presidents have been able men
some very able, and a few really great it is a
matter of common knowledge that frequently the
coveted prize does not go to the ablest man of the
country or even of the party to which he belongs.
Truth to tell, were all the statesmen in America at
any one time gathered together and it certainly
would be worth a journey from far lands to look
upon that conclave and were there to be tossed
in their midst a golden apple inscribed To the Ablest,
there would be as big a row as To the fairest pro
voked among the women of old.
According to the doctrine of probabilities, the
chances are that in the next hundred and twenty
four years, we shall have the same number of Chief
Magistrates twenty-six or, perhaps, a few more
than we have had in the period of equal length that
lies behind us. I say a few more, because it is in
teresting to note that more of the later than of the
earlier Presidents have died in office. Indeed, dur
ing the first fifty-two years of the Presidency no
incumbent died, and during the first seventy-six
years none was assassinated; whereas in the past
seventy years five Presidents have died, and in forty
seven years three have been murdered. All of which
tends to enhance the value of the Vice-Presidency,
an oilice regarded with such curious contempt by
ambitious men. It is clear, therefore, that there
are not now in existence more than fifteen or twenty
men and boys destined to be Presidents of the United
States.
What road, then, leads to the White House? If
one there is, its discovery would prevent much mis
directed endeavor, much disappointment, much
heart-burning, much misery. Even the briefest ex
amination into the antecedents of the lucky twenty
six, and of some of their rivals their mental equip
ment, their vocations and i heir habitats
will disclose some interesting answers to the
foregoing questions.
Reserved for Lawyers and Soldiers
Imprimis, every President except one has
been a soldier or a lawyer or both twenty
of them being of the legal profession. We
flatter ourselves on being a pacific people;
but the facts rebuke us: we are the most
belligerent people under the sun. We dearly
love a soldier, as others love a lord. Con
sider 1861, when there were not 20,000 sol
diers on United States soil. Four years
later, the continent trembled under the mar
tial tread of 2,000,000 of the best soldiers
the world has ever seen some in blue uni
forms and some in gray.
Carl Schurz has sagely remarked that
"American voters dearly love the smell of
gunpowder upon the garments of their Presi
dential candidates;" and that illustrious pub
licist might have extended his observation to
candidates for all public offices. Hundreds,
if not thousands, have owed their seats in
House or Senate, in the Cabinet or in Guber
natorial chairs to their military records. In
fact, his own Major-Generalcy did more than
anything else to make Carl Schurz a Senator
of the United States and a Secretary of the
Interior.
A war always makes a President or two.
The Revolutionary War made Washington
President, though he had had considerable
experience as a civilian officeholder, and per
haps rendered more service to his country
as President of the Constitutional Conven
tion than as General-in-Chief of our armies,
or as President. For, had it not been for his
vast influence, no constitution would have been
agreed upon, and if it had not been absolutely cer
tain that he would be the first President, the consti
tution would never have been ratified by the
States.
His military career during the Revolution, as a
very young officer, materially aided James Monroe,
also, in his efforts to reach the Presidency. In fact,
and notwithstanding his long and conspicuous civil
career, Monroe always believed that nature intended
him for a great soldier; and while Secretary of State
during the War of 1812, he assumed also the duties
of Secretary of War, went upon the field and did
much to bring order out of chaos.
Aaron Burr, Thomas Hart Benton and Jefferson
Davis are three other Americans who led long and
distinguished careers in civil life, and brief but bril
liant ones in military life. The first was a Lieutenant-Colonel;
the last two, Colonels. It was by
reason of his military service in 1812 that Colonel
Benton wanted to be Lieutenant-General in the war
with Mexico. That is a queer and interesting story,
in that few realize how near Colonel Benton, of Mis
souri, came to being President, and fewer still realize
