16 SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES For six years, in the Forty-first Congress, the Forty-second, and Forty-third. Only two of his predecessors ever held this position for a longer period, and only two others have equaled it. His rulings were so satisfactory that even the Democratic press spoke heartily of his mastery of parliamentary rules, his wonderful despatch in business, and his fairness. When he made his closing address, and walked down from the chair, said a newspaper report, “An outburst of hand-clapping and cheers broke from the upstanding members, and was joined in by the immense assemblage on the floor and in the galleries. Never before was witnessed such a scene at the close of Congress.” SENATOR AND SECRETARY OF STATE. In 1876 he was elected Senator for four years, and appointed Secretary of State by President Garfield, March 5th, 1880. For four months he showed himself able to handle the interests of a great country in such a manner as to quicken respect for America the world over. Twice before the present year he has been a leading candidate for the highest office in the gift of the American people. In 1876 he received 351 votes; necessary to a choice 379, thus lacking twenty-eight votes. In 1880, when James A. Garfield was elected, Mr. Blaine received 284 votes. Mr. Blaine was President Garfield’s trusted friend and admirer. He was arm in arm with him when the fatal shot was Jired by the assassin; he was at his bedside during much of those trying weeks, when the whole world hoped, and prayed, and waited. He pronounced that exquisite eulogy in the Capitol, closing with the words, “As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, fmm its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or die as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face, tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean’s changing wonder^; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon, on the serene and shining pathway
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=