Page:Herringshaw's National Library of American Biography.pdf/17

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PREFACE
iii


tainments, character and success, must exert a influence

upon

the

rising generation of

wholesome the American

people.

To preserve and perpetuate the important historical

and family history cannot fail to prove invaluable and a source of pride and interest to the nation and to the world. Indeed, there is inherent in us a desire that our descendants should know something of us how we live, and where we spend our lives, for the poet truly facts of personal

says

"To

live in hearts

we

leave behind

Is not to die."

In the preservation of such a record, all the progressive men of life and thought should have a national pride. As heroes of the colonial and revolutionary wars, states-

men, persons noteworthy in the church, at the bar, in literature, art, science and the professions, and those who have contributed to the commercial and industrial growth of each has added luster to its name. this Great Republic In order to seek a competency and fame, these sturdy Americans, inbued with a spirit of self-reliance and indomitable will, have blazed the way through the wilderness, conquered forests, subdued the soil, and made desert In the commercial and industrial world places smile. their names have illumined the marts of trade from the workshops of the inventor have emanated prolific inventions now used throughout the civilized world in literature can be found authors, poets and journalists whose brows are worthy to be crowned with the laurel wreath of fame as philanthropists, the gifts of America's successful men have been munificent; and in the arena of statesmanship, in the halls of legislation, and in the administration of justice the United States has produced men of thought