Benjamin Franklin and Horace Greeley.
By R. M. Kilgore
These great men in some respects served well the day and generation in which they lived, and no period has been more eventful than that which is bounded by the years of their activity. Franklin, in 1772, witnessed the commencement of the century which terminated as Horace Greeley, in 1872, closed his earthly career. The contrast between the ages in which they lived is doubtless greater than that between any other since time began. The growth of our own country, the increase of its population, the accumulation of its wealth, and its abundant resources, well illustrate the rapid strides with which the world is moving. Then, about two million of souls constituted the population of the United States of America; now, its numbers can be set down at thirty-nine million. Then, it had no treasury that it could call its own; while in 1872, its expenditures are reported to have been three hundred and seventy-seven million, four hundred and seventy-eight thousand, two hundred and sixteen dollars ($377,478,216), while its receipts amounted to four hundred and eighty-four million, four hundred and two thousand, five hundred and seventy-three dollars ($484,402,573), and the total valuation of the United States for 1869, was twenty three billion, and four hundred million dollars ($23,400,000,000). Then, it was without resource; now, its extensive commerce, its numerous manufactories, shipyards, arsenals, &c., and its unparalleled agriculture, producing food for its living millions of man and beast, show that its resources are exhaustless. Then, it is stated that Benjamin Franklin, the Post master General of the American colonies, by appointment of the crown, made his official inspection of the principal routes in his gig. The report from the same office in 1872 shows a total of seven thousand, two hundred and fifty-nine (7,259) post office routes in operation, aggregating in length two hundred and fifty-one thousand, three hundred and ninety-eight (251,398) miles, which would require six years and a half of incessant railroad traveling, at the rate of one hundred and twenty miles per day, to pass over the routes. And the total weight of the mails exchanged with European countries exceeded eight hundred and twenty tons. Though Benjamin Franklin reached heavenward, caught and tamed the lightning, Horace Greeley lived at a time when it could speak the English language; and employing it as an agent, could converse with a friend in the old world as if face to face. While the Prussians were throwing their missiles of death into Metz, he could inform the numerous readers of the New York Tribune that a terrible battle was raging in France. At the same time that the devouring element was doing its work, the buildings falling, and the volumes of flame and smoke were ascending, he knew that the news-boys, in the streets of London and Paris, were screaming Fire! Fire! and announcing that Chicago and Boston were in flames. He could also have witnessed the destruction completed, and the work of rebuilding in progress, in the same time it would have taken to inform the people in Benjamin Franklin’s time that such calamities had occurred. Benjamin Franklin was compelled while journeying from place to place to ride in his gig, or trudge along on foot. But Horace Greeley could step into one of Nahum’s chariots at New York city and in seven days find himself safely landed at San Francisco. And should he continue his journey westward, he could reach his family again in New York city, from the east, having made the entire circuit of the world in eighty-five days. In speaking of the number of years that he lived, the New York Herald says:— “Horace Greeley, aged sixty-one years and nine months,” will probably be the record on the great publicist’s tombstone. But comparison of the life which he lived with that of Benjamin Franklin shows the life of Horace Greeley to have been that of a Methuselah. Franklin thought himself lucky if he crossed the Atlantic in thirty days, or made the journey from Philadelphia to the city of his boyhood in ten days; while in Horace Greeley’s time a trip to Europe had become so trivial an event that on one occasion when he had business in London, he sat at his desk preparing copy for the next day’s Tribune until the half hour before the steamship cast off her moorings, and then, with hardly a “good-bye” to anybody, he picked up a valise full of clean linen, and trudged off as though on a mere flying visit of a few weeks to a friend. It was not uncommon to see the great editor at his desk on Sunday, and hear from him by telegraph in Wisconsin or Minnesota on the next Saturday; and whenever any important action on the tariff was pending in Washington, the clerks in the Tribune counting-room were often really unable to tell a visitor whether he was in his little room up-stairs or in the federal city. He was an unremitting reader, and whether traveling from New York to San Francisco or taking a momentary rest after writing one of his pungent leaders, he studiously informed himself of the actual condition of the civilized world as reported by the telegraphers of the day. Thus steam and electricity gave him years on years of knowledge that Franklin could not command. Add to this the wonderful fertility of a brain which could, as Horace Greeley did in his late visit to the west, make in a single day twenty-two such speeches as many men would have required months to prepare, and we may make a faint estimate of the number of years that he really lived.
Why this contrast? Why these facilities of communication, and modes of traveling, and all the wonderful inventions that have appeared37within the last fifty years? Why this development of the arts and sciences, and methods of imparting instruction? Why this array of light that is shining forth from the pages of God’s prophetic word, dispelling the mist and darkness of past ages? The only answer that can be given is, that God has lifted the seal that closed those prophetic pages, and the time has come for many to run to and fro, and knowledge to be increased. Dan. 12:4. The world has reached the “time of the end;” and as if impelled by the power of gravitation, the nearer it reaches the termination of its race its speed is accelerated. The apostle Paul said that in the last days perilous times should come, because he saw that then iniquity would abound, and evil men would “wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” That men would be “heady” and “highminded;” that they would forget God and despise those that are good, and in their mad lust to get gain and to satiate their love for “pleasure,” would rush headlong until the world would be at last within the coil of the vortex, having no power to escape, but rushing “round and round the fatal circle of absorbing ruin.” The fields are already ripening for the reapers. Dear reader, remember that this is but a short work. Harvest is soon over. Are you saved? If not, can you answer why? Will you raise the bitter lamentation, the harvest is past, and the summer is ended, and I am not saved? “Behold now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation.” “But if you still this call refuse,
And all his wondrous love abuse
Soon will he sadly from you turn,
Your bitter prayer for pardon spurn.
“Too late! too late!” will be the cry—
“Jesus of Nazareth has passed by.”
Webster City, Iowa, Jan. 1, 1873.