Famous American Statesmen

The life of George Washington will ever be an example to young men. He had the earnest heart and manner – never trivial – which women love, and men respect. He had the courage which the world honors, and the gentleness which made little children cling to him. He controlled an army and a nation, because he understood the secret of power – self-control. Well does Mr. Gladstone call him the "purest figure in history;" unselfish, fair, patient, heroic, true.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

"To say that his life is the most interesting, the most uniformly successful, yet lived by any American, is bold. But it is, nevertheless, strictly true." Thus writes John Bach McMaster, in his life of the great statesman.

In the year 1706, January 6 (old style), in the small house of a tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, on Milk Street, opposite the Old South Church, Boston, was born Benjamin Franklin. Already fourteen children had come into the home of Josiah Franklin, the father, by his two wives, and now this youngest son was added to the struggling family circle. Two daughters were born later.

The home was a busy one, and a merry one withal; for the father, after the day's work, would sing to his large flock the songs he had learned in his boyhood in England, accompanying the words on his violin.

From the mother, the daughter of Peter Folger of Nantucket, "a learned and godly Englishman," Benjamin inherited an attractive face, and much of his hunger for books, which never lessened through his long and eventful life. At eight years of age, he was placed in the Boston Latin School, and in less than a year rose to the head of his class. The father had hoped to educate the boy for the ministry, but probably money was lacking, for at ten his school-life was ended, and he was in his father's shop filling candle-moulds and running on errands.

For two years he worked there, but how he hated it! not all labor, for he was always industrious, but soap and candle-making were utterly distasteful to him. So strongly was he inclined to run away to sea, as an older brother had done, that his father obtained a situation for him with a maker of knives, and later he was apprenticed to his brother James as a printer.

Now every spare moment was used in reading. The first book which he owned was Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and after reading this over and over, he sold it, and bought Burton's "Historical Collections," forty tiny books of travel, history, biography, and adventure. In his father's small library, there was nothing very soul-stirring to be found. Defoe's "Essays upon Projects," containing hints on banking, friendly societies for the relief of members, colleges for girls, and asylums for idiots, would not be very interesting to most boys of twelve, but Benjamin read every essay, and, strange to say, carried out nearly every "project" in later life. Cotton Mather's "Essays to do Good," with several leaves torn out, was so eagerly read, and so productive of good, that Franklin wrote, when he was eighty, that this volume "gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than on any other kind of reputation; and, if I have been a useful citizen, the public owe the advantage of it to that book."

As the boy rarely had any money to buy books, he would often borrow from the booksellers' clerks, and read in his little bedroom nearly all night, being obliged to return the books before the shop was opened in the morning. Finally, a Boston merchant, who came to the printing-office, noticed the lad's thirst for knowledge, took him home to see his library, and loaned him some volumes. Blessings on those people who are willing to lend knowledge to help the world upward, despite the fact that book-borrowers proverbially have short memories, and do not always take the most tender care of what they borrow.

When Benjamin was fifteen, he wrote a few ballads, and his brother James sent him about the streets to sell them. This the father wisely checked by telling his son that poets usually are beggars, a statement not literally true, but sufficiently near the truth to produce a wholesome effect upon the young verse-maker.

The boy now devised a novel way to earn money to buy books. He had read somewhere that vegetable food was sufficient for health, and persuaded James, who paid the board of his apprentice, that for half the amount paid he could board himself.

Benjamin therefore attempted living on potatoes, hasty pudding, and rice; doing his own cooking, – not the life most boys of sixteen would choose. His dinner at the printing-office usually consisted of a biscuit, a handful of raisins, and a glass of water; a meal quickly eaten, and then, O precious thought! there was nearly a whole hour for books.

He now read Locke on "Human Understanding," and Xenophon's "Memorable Things of Socrates." In this, as he said in later years, he learned one of the great secrets of success; "never using, when I advanced anything that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons; or, it is so, if I am not mistaken… I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure… To this habit I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow-citizens, when I proposed new institutions or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public councils when I became a member; for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, and yet I generally carried my points." A most valuable lesson to be learned early in life.

Coming across an odd volume of the "Spectator," Benjamin was captivated by the style, and resolved to become master of the production, by rewriting the essays from memory, and increasing his fulness of expression by turning them into verse, and then back again into prose.

James Franklin was now printing the fifth newspaper in America. It was intended to issue the first —Publick Occurrences– monthly, or oftener, "if any glut of occurrences happens." When the first number appeared, September 25, 1690, a very important "occurrence happened," which was the immediate suspension of the paper for expressions concerning those in official position. The next newspaper, – the Boston News-Letter, – a weekly, was published April 24, 1704; the third was the Boston Gazette, which James was engaged to print, but, being disappointed, started one of his own, August 17, 1721, called the New England Courant. The American Weekly Mercury was printed in Philadelphia six months before the Courant.

Benjamin's work was hard and constant. He not only set type, but distributed the paper to customers. "Why," thought he, "can I not write something for the new sheet?" Accordingly, he prepared a manuscript, slipped it under the door of the office, and the next week saw it in print before his eyes. This was joy indeed, and he wrote again and again.

The Courant at last gave offence by its plain speaking, and it ostensibly passed into Benjamin's hands, to save his brother from punishment. The position, however, soon became irksome, for the passionate brother often beat Benjamin, till at last he determined to run away. As soon as this became known, James went to every office, told his side of the story, and thus prevented Benjamin from obtaining work. Not discouraged, the boy sold a portion of his precious books, said good-bye to his beloved Boston, and went out into the world to more poverty and struggle.

Three days after this, he stood in New York, asking for work at the only printing-office in the city, owned by William Bradford. Alas! there was no work to be had, and he was advised to go to Philadelphia, nearly one hundred miles away, where Andrew Bradford, a son of the former, had established a paper. The boy could not have been very light-hearted as he started on the journey. After thirty hours by boat, he reached Amboy, and then travelled fifty miles on foot across New Jersey. It rained hard all day, but he plodded on, tired and hungry, buying some gingerbread of a poor woman, and wishing that he had never left Boston. His money was fast disappearing.

Finally he reached Philadelphia.

"I was," he says in his autobiography, "in my working dress, my best clothes being to come round by sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to look for lodging. I was fatigued with travelling, rowing, and want of rest. I was very hungry, and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the people of the boat for my passage, who at first refused it, on account of my rowing, but I insisted on their taking it; a man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little.

"Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till near the Market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to, in Second Street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as we had in Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none such. So, not considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater cheapness, nor the names of bread, I bade him give me threepenny-worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and, having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other.

"Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous figure. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river water; and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther."

After this, he joined some Quakers who were on their way to the meeting-house, which he too entered, and, tired and homeless, soon fell asleep. And this was the penniless, runaway lad who was eventually to stand before five kings, to become one of the greatest philosophers, scientists, and statesmen of his time, the admiration of Europe and the idol of America. Surely, truth is stranger than fiction.

The youth hastened to the office of Andrew Bradford, but there was no opening for him. However, Bradford kindly offered him a home till he could find work. This was obtained with Keimer, a printer, who happened to find lodging for the young man in the house of Mr. Read. As the months went by, and the hopeful and earnest lad of eighteen had visions of becoming a master printer, he confided to Mrs. Read that he was in love with, and wished to marry, the pretty daughter, who had first seen him as he walked up Market Street, eating his roll. Mr. Read had died, and the prudent mother advised that these children, both under nineteen, should wait till the printer proved his ability to support a wife.

And now a strange thing happened. Sir William Keith, governor of the province, who knew young Franklin's brother-in-law, offered to establish him in the printing business in Philadelphia, and, better still, to send him to England with a letter of credit with which to buy the necessary outfit.

A mine of gold seemed to open before him. He made ready for the journey, and set sail, disappointed, however, that the letter of credit did not come before he left. When he reached England, he ascertained that Sir William Keith was without credit, a vain man and devoid of principle. Franklin found himself alone in a strange country, doubly unhappy because he had used for himself and some impecunious friends one hundred and seventy-five dollars, collected from a business man. This he paid years afterward, ever considering the use of it one of the serious mistakes of his life.

He and a boy companion found lodgings at eighty-seven cents per week; very inferior lodgings they must have been. There was of course no money to buy type, no money to take passage back to America. He wrote a letter to Miss Read, telling her that he was not likely to return, dropped the correspondence, and found work in a printing-office.

After a year or two, a merchant offered him a position as clerk in America, at five dollars a week. He accepted, and, after a three-months voyage, reached Philadelphia, "the cords of love," he said, drawing him back. Alas! Deborah Read, persuaded by her mother and other relatives; had married, but was far from happy. The merchant for whom Franklin had engaged to work soon died, and the printer was again looking for a situation, which he found with Keimer. He was now twenty-one, and life had been anything but cheerful or encouraging.

Still, he determined to keep his mind cheerful and active, and so organized a club of eleven young men, the "Junto," composed mostly of mechanics. They came together once a month to discuss questions of morals, politics, and science. As most of these were unable to buy books – a book in those days often costing several dollars – Franklin conceived the idea of a subscription library, raised the funds, and became the librarian. Every day he set apart an hour or two for study, and for twenty years, in the midst of poverty and hard work, the habit was maintained. If Franklin himself did not know that such a young man would succeed, the world around him must have guessed it. Out of this collection of books – the mother of all the subscription libraries of this country – has grown a great library in the city of Philadelphia.

Keimer proved a business failure; but kindness to a fellow-workman, Meredith, a youth of intemperate habits, led Franklin to another open door. The father of Meredith, hoping to save his son, started the young men in business by loaning them five hundred dollars. It was a modest beginning, in a building whose rent was but one hundred and twenty dollars a year. Their first job of printing brought them one dollar and twenty-five cents. As Meredith was seldom in a condition for labor, Franklin did most of the work, he having started a paper – the Pennsylvania Gazette. Some prophesied failure for the new firm, but one prominent man remarked: "The industry of that Franklin is superior to anything I ever saw of the kind. I see him still at work when I go home from the club, and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed."

But starting in business had cost five hundred more than the five hundred loaned them. The young men were sued for debt, and ruin stared them in the face. Was Franklin discouraged? If so at heart, he wisely kept a cheerful face and manner, knowing what poor policy it is to tell our troubles, and made all the friends he could. Several members of the Assembly, who came to have printing done, became fast friends of the intelligent and courteous printer.

In this pecuniary distress, two men offered to loan the necessary funds, and two hundred and fifty dollars were gratefully accepted from each. These two persons Franklin remembered to his dying day. Meredith was finally bought out by his own wish, and Franklin combined with his printing a small stationer's shop, with ink, paper, and a few books. Often he wheeled his paper on a barrow along the streets. Who supposed then that he would some day be President of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania?

Franklin was twenty-four. Deborah Read's husband had proved worthless, had run away from his creditors, and was said to have died in the West Indies. She was lonely and desolate, and Franklin rightly felt that he could brighten her heart. They were married September 1, 1730, and for forty years they lived a happy life. He wrote, long afterward, "We are grown old together, and if she has any faults, I am so used to them that I don't perceive them." Beautiful testimony! He used to say to young married people, in later years, "Treat your wife always with respect; it will procure respect to you, not only from her, but from all that observe it."

The young wife attended the little shop, folded newspapers, and made Franklin's home a resting-place from toil. He says: "Our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. My breakfast was, for a long time, bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon: but mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress in spite of principle. Being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a china bowl, with a spoon of silver. They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of three and twenty shillings! for which she had no other excuse or apology to make, but that she thought her husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his neighbors."

The years went by swiftly, with their hard work and slow but sure accumulation of property. At twenty-seven, having read much and written considerable, he determined to bring out an almanac, after the fashion of the day, "for conveying instruction among the common people, who bought scarcely any other book." "Poor Richard" appeared in December, 1732; price, ten cents. It was full of wit and wisdom, gathered from every source. Three editions were sold in a month. The average annual sale for twenty-five years was ten thousand copies. Who can ever forget the maxims which have become a part of our every-day speech? – "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." – "He that hath a trade, hath an estate." – "One to-day is worth two to-morrows." – "Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day." – "Employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure; and since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour." – "Three removes are as bad as a fire." – "What maintains one vice would bring up two children." – "Many a little makes a mickle." – "Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship." – "If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing." – "Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt." – "Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."

An interesting story is told concerning the proverb, "If you would have your business done, go; if not, send." John Paul Jones, one of the bravest men in the Revolutionary War, had become the terror of Britain, by the great number of vessels he had captured. In one cruise he is said to have taken sixteen prizes; burned eight and sent home eight. With the Ranger, on the coast of Scotland, he captured the Drake, a large sloop-of-war, and two hundred prisoners. At one time, Captain Jones waited for many months for a vessel which had been promised him. Eager for action, he chanced to see "Poor Richard's Almanac," and read, "If you would have your business done, go; if not, send." He went at once to Paris, sought the ministers, and was given command of a vessel, which, in honor of Franklin, he called Bon Homme Richard.

The battle between this ship and the Serapis, when, for three hours and a half, they were lashed together by Jones' own hand, and fought one of the most terrific naval battles ever seen, is well known to all who read history. The Bon Homme Richard sunk after her victory, while her captain received a gold medal from Congress and an appreciative letter from General Washington.

So bravely did Captain Pearson, the opponent, fight, that the King of England made him a knight. "He deserved it," said Jones, "and, should I have the good-fortune to fall in with him again, I will make a lord of him."

No wonder that Franklin's proverbs were copied all over the continent, and translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Bohemian, Greek, and Portuguese. In all these very busy years, Franklin did not forget to study. When he was twenty-seven, he began French, then Italian, then Spanish, and then to review the Latin of his boyhood. He learned also to play on the harp, guitar, violin, and violoncello.

Into the home of the printer had come two sons, William and Francis. The second was an uncommonly beautiful child, the idol of his father. Small-pox was raging in the city, but Franklin could not bear to put his precious one in the slightest peril by inoculation. The dread disease came into the home, and Francis Folger, named for his grandmother – at the age of four years – went suddenly out of it. "I long regretted him bitterly," Franklin wrote years afterwards to his sister Jane. "My grandson often brings afresh to my mind the idea of my son Franky, though now dead thirty-six years; whom I have seldom since seen equalled in every respect, and whom to this day I cannot think of without a sigh." On a little stone in Christ Church burying-ground, Philadelphia, are the boy's name and age, with the words, "The delight of all that knew him."

This same year, when Franklin was thirty, he was chosen clerk of the General Assembly, his first promotion. If, as Disraeli said, "the secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes," Franklin had prepared himself, by study, for his opportunity.

The year later, he was made deputy postmaster, and soon became especially helpful in city affairs. He obtained better watch or police regulations, organized the first fire-company, and invented the Franklin stove, which was used far and wide.

At thirty-seven, so interested was he in education that he set on foot a subscription for an academy, which resulted in the noble University of Pennsylvania, of which Franklin was a trustee for over forty years. The following year his only daughter, Sarah, was born, who helped to fill the vacant chair of the lovely boy. The father, Josiah, now died at eighty-seven, already proud of his son Benjamin, for whom in his poverty he had done the best he could.

About this time, the Leyden jar was discovered in Europe by Musschenbroeck, and became the talk of the scientific world. Franklin, always eager for knowledge, began to study electricity, with all the books at his command. Dr. Spence, a gentleman from Great Britain, having come to America to lecture on the subject, Franklin bought all his instruments. So much did he desire to give his entire time to this fascinating subject that he sold his printing-house, paper, and almanac, for ninety thousand dollars, and retired from business. This at forty-two; and at fifteen selling ballads about the streets! Industry, temperance, and economy had paid good wages. He used to say that these virtues, with "sincerity and justice," had won for him "the confidence of his country." And yet Franklin, with all his saving, was generous. The great preacher Whitefield came to Philadelphia to obtain money for an orphan-house in Georgia. Franklin thought the scheme unwise, and silently resolved not to give when the collection should be taken. Then, as his heart warmed under the preaching, he concluded to give the copper coins in his pocket; then all the silver, several dollars; and finally all his five gold pistoles, so that he emptied his pocket into the collector's plate.

Franklin now constructed electrical batteries, introduced the terms "positive" and "negative" electricity, and published articles on the subject, which his friend in London, Peter Collinson, laid before the Royal Society. When he declared his belief that lightning and electricity were identical, and gave his reasons, and that points would draw off electricity, and therefore lightning-rods be of benefit, learned people ridiculed the ideas. Still, his pamphlets were eagerly read, and Count de Buffon had them translated into French. They soon appeared in German, Latin, and Italian. Louis XV. was so deeply interested that he ordered all Franklin's experiments to be performed in his presence, and caused a letter to be written to the Royal Society of London, expressing his admiration of Franklin's learning and skill. Strange indeed that such a scientist should arise in the new world, be a man self-taught, and one so busy in public life.

In 1752, when he was forty-six, he determined to test for himself whether lightning and electricity were one. He made a kite from a large silk handkerchief, attached a hempen cord to it, with a silk string in his hand, and, with his son, hastened to an old shed in the fields, as the thunder-storm approached.

As the kite flew upward, and a cloud passed over, there was no manifestation of electricity. When he was almost despairing, lo! the fibres of the cord began to loosen; then he applied his knuckle to a key on the cord, and a strong spark passed. How his heart must have throbbed as he realized his immortal discovery!

A Leyden jar was charged, and Franklin went home from the old shed to be made a member of the Royal Society of London, to receive the Copley gold medal, degrees from Harvard and Yale Colleges, and honors from all parts of the world. Ah! if Josiah Franklin could have lived to see his son come to such renown! And Abiah, his mother, had been dead just a month! But she knew he was coming into greatness, for she wrote him near the last: "I am glad to hear you are so well respected in your town for them to choose you an alderman, although I don't know what it means, or what the better you will be of it besides the honor of it. I hope you will look up to God, and thank him for all his good providences towards you." Sweetest of all things is the motherhood that never lets go the hand of the child, and always points Godward!

Lightning-rods became the fashion, though there was great opposition, because many believed that lightning was one of the means of punishing the sins of mankind, and it was wrong to attempt to prevent the Almighty from doing his will. Some learned men urged that a ball instead of a point be used at the end of the rod, and George III. insisted that the president of the Royal Society should favor balls. "But, sire," said Sir John Pringle, "I cannot reverse the laws and operations of nature."

"Then, Sir John, you had perhaps better resign," was the reply, and the obstinate monarch put knobs on his conductors.