Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/47

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��GRANITE MONTHLY,

A NEW HAMPSHIRE MAGAZINE

Devoted to Literature, Biography, History, and State Progress.

��Vol. VI.

��NOVEMBER, 1882.

��No. 2.

��HON. WILLIAM E. CHANDLER.

��V,\ HENRY ROBINSON.

��It is not yet time to sum up the life of William E. Chandler. When that time shall come, an abler, more ex- perienced hand shall carefully trace the interesting details of a public ca- reer intricately woven with the politi- cal history of his country. Although now comprising in himself more than his numerical proportion of the wis- dom and sagacity of the President's Cabinet, he is still young, active, earn- est, and ambitious, and far from the sear and yellow leaf. Mr. Chandler is well known personally to the people of New Hampshire, many of whom might question our priority of right to discuss him at all, and we shall assume to say nothing new of him. But he belongs to the whole people, and our apology for this hasty sketch of one of New Hampshire's most eminent sons, is to make the present a vantage- ground only, whereon, in the crude outlines of a splendid past, may be caught some reflection of the brilliancy of future promise. To be the fore- most politician of his state, in a state so closely and hotly contested that every good citizen is to some extent a politician, is no cheap encomium. We mean politician in the bes't and true sense of the term. Writing in the smoke of individual prejudices, whilst yet the smart of his partisan conquests is still felt, and personal pique and dis- appointment are rife at his successes,

��and whilst yet burning jealousies ran- kle, — to speak of him now fully and frankly as it is in our heart to do, might be premature, and might be impolitic toward him as well as toward others. To narrate the thrilling history of his eventful public career, with the ade- quate reasons for his positive courses and pronounced views, through a life of the most unswerving independence and indefatigable zeal, might be to in- vite invidious discrimination, to awaken unpleasant comparisons, and to arouse unprofitable discussion of important issues hardly yet cold enough in the interest of living men for an unpreju- diced autopsy. It might, too, open the writer to the charge of over- praise.

But William E. Chandler is indeed a great man ; and why should it not be said? He is a man in whom we should all take pride, and of whom we should speak as becomes his real worth to his native state, where he is not without honor. He is a man of won- derful readiness of mind, of remarka- ble ability, and, above all else, of un- doubted integrity. His political op- ponents will tell you that. He says in the fewest words possible what he has to say, and he says what he means, and means what he says, — you may re- ly upon it. His word is to him a bond. This is one great reason why those who know him best love him

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