ur religion, and of the justice and hospitality born of our
most holy faith.

_Question_. What is your opinion of making ex-Presidents Senators
for life?

_Answer_. I am opposed to it. I am against any man holding office
for life. And I see no more reason for making ex-Presidents
Senators, than for making ex-Senators Presidents. To me the idea
is preposterous. Why should ex-Presidents be taken care of? In
this country labor is not disgraceful, and after a man has been
President he has still the right to be useful. I am personally
acquainted with several men who will agree, in consideration of
being elected to the presidency, not to ask for another office
during their natural lives. The people of this country should
never allow a great man to suffer. The hand, not of charity, but
of justice and generosity, should be forever open to those who have
performed great public service.

But the ex-Presidents of the future may not all be great and good
men, and bad ex-Presidents will not make good Senators. If the
nation does anything, let it give a reasonable pension to ex-
Presidents. No man feels like giving pension, power, or place to
General Grant simply because he was once President, but because he
was a great soldier, and led the armies of the nation to victory.
Make him a General, and retire him with the highest military title.
Let him grandly wear the laurels he so nobly won, and should the
sky at any time be darkened with a cloud of foreign war, this
country will again hand him the sword. Such a course honors the
nation and the man.

_Question_. Are we not entering upon the era of our greatest
prosperity?

_Answer_. We are just beginning to be prosperous. The Northern
Pacific Railroad is to be completed. Forty millions of dollars
have just been raised by that company, and new States will soon be
born in the great Northwest. The Texas Pacific will be pushed to
San Diego, and in a few years we will ride in a Pullman car from
Chicago to the City of Mexico. The gold and silver mines are
yielding more and more, and within the last ten years more than
forty million acres of land have been changed from wilderness to
farms. This country is beginning to grow. We have just fairly
entered upon what I believe will be the grandest period of national
development and prosperity. With the Republican party in power;
with good money; with unlimited credit; with the best land in the
world; with ninety thousa