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LIFE OF

GENERAL FRANCIS P. BLAIR, JR.

CHAPTER I.

HIS BIRTH, BOYHOOD, AND EARLY HISTORY.

In this country we have not permitted the growth of any families with special privileges apart from the rest of the community; yet it is notable that by mere force of character, or special aptitude for some department of public life, there have been several families all the members of which have become eminent.

The most noted of these is the Adams family, of which we now have the example of four generations of public men, all of whom have evinced a decided genius for diplomatic and legislative careers. There is no doubt that the younger scions of this house are well able to maintain the reputation so justly accorded to the elder branches. Then we have the example of the brothers Washburne, all of them active politicians and filling offices of public trust and honor, though none of them quite reach the rank of

first-class statesmen. In our own day the Lelands, Stetsons, and Colemans are noted for their success in hotel keeping, some ten members, I believe, of the Leland family being proprietors of leading hotels in different cities of the country.

The Blair family are also among the most marked of these members of what Dr. Holmes has called the "Brahmin class." Francis P. Blair is always known as a politician and editor, was never suspected of any act inconsistent with personal honor. He was an able journalist, a shrewd adviser, and a sagacious observer of the tendencies of his times. His son, Montgomery Blair, is a statesman of no mean repute. He has wide political experience, great personal address, and is noted for his earnestness and vigor of character. He is suggestive, keenly sensitive to the tendencies of the times, and whatever criticism there has been on his conduct is due to the irritating effect which a man of great genius and high susceptibility, and keenly conscious of the influence of passing events, has upon his more sluggish and unimpressible associates. General Frank P. Blair, Jr., however, is a person of still more marked peculiarities. His most salient quality is his positive type of character. He is a man of rare courage, moral and physical.

It is the misfortune of our institutions that men of pluck and pronounced views are apt to be set aside in our political contests for an accommodating, compromising, calculating, and conciliating race of politicians. In our close contests, national and local, it is too often deemed prudent to select as candidates

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