Page:Challenge of Facts and Other Essays.djvu/394

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FOR PRESIDENT?
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to regard the support of Governor Hayes. It may be accepted upon the testimony of his friends that he is a gentleman of integrity, high character, and spotless honor. Beyond this, however, when the question arises as to whether he has the independent judgment, the original force of mind, the staying-power, which are wanted in the next President of the United States, neither his friends nor any one else can say more than "we believe" that he has. That he has not the wide experience requisite is certain. I repeat what I am not held to say that he has not the former qualities — perhaps he has them. The point is, if I am asked to vote for him, that I have a right to demand to know that he has them, or else, as between him and another who has given guarantees, sound judgment forces me to choose the latter. I received a letter a while ago from a friend of Governor Hayes, who declared that Governor Hayes was a very modest man whose modesty prevented him from accepting the United States Senatorship. I quote it as an instance of what seems to me wrong reasoning on these matters. If Governor Hayes is such a man as is now claimed, it seems to me he is just the man we have sadly needed in the Senate for the last few years, and if he refused to go, he turned his back on the call of public duty. I do not deny his right to refuse, although in general I hold it sound doctrine that a man of good health and independent fortune ought to serve the state when duly and honorably selected; but if Mr. Hayes was ever to be a candidate far the Presidency, he ought to have pursued a public career in the subordinate places which opened to him, he ought to have allowed us to see him in those places, and he ought to have made a record on which we could form a judgment to-day and not be thrown on the say-so of his friends. If he is to