James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[246] farmers it urged the duty and policy of high farming. To the strong unemployed young men of cities, it said repeatedly and in various terms, “Go forth into the Fields and Labor with your Hands.”

In the autumn, Mr. Greeley made a tour of four weeks in the Far West, and wrote letters to the Tribune descriptive and suggestive. In December, he spent a few days in Washington, and gave a sorry account of the state of things in that “magnificent mistake.”

‘To a new comer,’ he wrote,

the Capitol wears an imposing appearance: Nay, more. Let him view it for the first time by daylight, with the flag of the Union floating proudly above it, (indicating that Congress is in session,) and, if he be an American, I defy him to repress a swelling of the heart—a glow of enthusiastic feeling. Under these free-flowing Stripes and Stars the Representatives of the Nation are assembled in Council—under the emblem of the National Sovereignty is in action the collective energy and embodiment of that Sovereignty. Proud recollections of beneficent and glorious events come thronging thickly upon him—of the Declaration of Independence, the struggles of the Revolution, and the far more glorious peaceful advances of the eagles of Freedom from the Alleghanies to the Falls of St. Anthony and the banks of the Osage. An involuntary cheer rushes from his heart to his lips, and he hastens at once to the Halls of Legislation to witness and listen to the displays of patriotic foresight, wisdom and eloquence, there evolved.

But here his raptures are chilled instanter. Entering the Capitol, he finds its passage a series of blind, gloomy, and crooked labyrinths, through which a stranger threads his devious way with difficulty, and not at all without inquiry and direction, to the door of the Senate or House. Here he is met, as everywhere through the edifice, by swarms of superserviceable underlings, numerous as the frogs of Egypt, eager to manifest their official zeal and usefulness by keeping him out or kicking him out again. He retires disgusted, and again threads the bewildering maze to the gallery, where (if of the House) he can only look down on the noisy Bedlam in action below him—somebody speaking and nobody listening, but a buzz of conversation, the trotting of boys, the walking about of members, the writing and folding of letters, calls to order, cries of question, calls for Yeas and Nays, &c., give him large opportunities for headache, meagre ones for edification. Half an hour will usually cure him of all passion for listening to debates in the House. There are, of course, occasions when it is a privilege to be here, but I speak of the general scene and impression.

To-day, but more especially yesterday, a deplorable spectacle has been presented here—a glaring exemplification of the terrible growth and diffusion of office-begging. The Loco-Foco House has ordered a clean sweep of all its underlings—door-keepers, porters, messengers, wood-carriers, &c., & c. I care