Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/206

 JAMES GIBBONS By J06BPH Lbokabd Cabbico JAMES GIBBONS, Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore, oc- capies a uniqae position in American life. No other churchman of this country is or has been so well known and so generally esteemed by all classes. It is quite as true that no other private dtizen has exercised more or better influ- ence on the development of our national life and spirit For a full half century he has been a leader in thought and action, enjoying an unsought popularity that has widened through- out the States and far beyond. And to-day at the age of eighty he commands with youthful energy the accumulated forces of his long life. B^ name is of course a household word in all the GathoUc homes of the land, and few indeed are the non-Catholics who are not familiar with it. The story of his life is as simple and straightforward as the great prelate himself. Anyone who seeks in it the sensa- tional will be disappointed. It would not be easy, however, to find a career ttiat will show to better advantage the signifi- cance of personal character in hxmian affairs and the infal- lible effect of consistent endeavor in the cause of human wel- fare. James Gibbons was bom in Baltimore, July 23, 1834, the son of Thomas and Bridget Gibbons, Irish immigrants who had like so many others come to seek their fortunes in the land of opportunity. Little, doubtless, did even the proud IMurents dream that their child was to become the pride of Baltimore, the foremost dtizen of Maryland, and cardinal primate of their church in the United States. Owing to fail- ure of his health, Thomas Gibbons in 1837 returned with his family to Ireland, where they were to live permanently. But after his death some ten years later the energetic Mrs. Gib- bons came bade to this country with her six children, and set- tled in New Orleans. James had attended for several years a good private school in Ireland by which he had profited