Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1917 — Characteristics of Noted Persons [ARTICLE]

Characteristics of Noted Persons

• * 111. Ben Franklin Although Benjamin Franklin never achieved the fame and honor accredited to some other men such as Washington and Lincoln, he seems to have been a very practical, useful, wonderful man. Washington’s fame, as well as Lincoln’s, was due to being successful in a great war; and war today is looked upon as almost an inexcusable calamity, except in the case of an inevitable crisis as in those which gave these men their fame. Franklin was more of a helpful genius, his greatest desire was to aid and benefit humanity in any way he could, whether in the small affairs of everyday routine work and business or the more important needs of city, state and Government. He wished to help people turn to better ways of living, to higher comforts and more elevated interests, to a life of thought and inspiration and progress personally, as well as toil and the acquirement of means.

Outside of the many missions to foreign countries and his,services as special representative of this country in those foreign countries, his most Srtant work was done as a pubr of books and papers and as a writer. No one familiar with his writings can doubt that he had the literary gift. His-diction is so plain and clear, his sentences support one another without hesitation or confusion and yet there is no air of any note of distinction or a suggestion of the imaginary or ingenious. You tread always the levels of the ordinary world and yet you are struck by the all-round effldenev and practicality of his wisdom and advice. His life and success for the most part was spent by an almost accidental choice in the then staid town of Philadelphia, and the things which he did were those that natural sagacity and a quick insight would suggest in a place where the common interest of an ordered community waited to be served. He possessed unusual diplomacy and tact, in that after being able to conceive projects that would better society, was also successful •• in persuading other men of their utility and in drawing them together in action to make a beginning so that the enterprises might get their natural and wholesome growth. (Tomorrow— Washington) t