America has no Gladstone, no Salisbury, no Bright. Lincoln, Blaine and Sumner are names which impress me as approximating greatness; they made an impression on American history that will be enduring. Then there are Frye, Reed, Garfield, McKinley, Cleveland, who were little great men, and following them a distinguished company, as Hanna, Conkling, Hay, Hayes, and others, who were superior men of affairs. A distinctly great national figure has not appeared in America since Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Rufus Choate--all men too great to become President. It appears to be the fate of the republic not to place its greatest men in the White House, and by this I mean great statesmen. General Grant was a great man, a heroic figure, but not a statesman. Lincoln is considered a great man. He is called the "Liberator"; but I can conceive that none but a very crude mind, inspired by a false sentiment, could have made a horde of slaves, the most ignorant people on the globe, the political equals of the American people. A great man in such a crisis would have resisted popular clamor and have refused them suffrage until they had been prepared to receive it by at least some education. Americans are prone to call their great politicians statesmen. Blaine, Reed, Conkling, Harrison were types of statesmen; Hanna, Quay, and others are politicians.
The Lower House was a disappointment to me. There are too many ordinary men there. They do not look great, and at the present time there is not a really great man in the Lower House. There are too many cheap lawyers and third-rate politicians there. Good business men are required, but such men can not afford to take the position. I heard a great captain of industry, who had been before Congress with a committee, say that he never saw "so many asses together in all his life"; but this was an extreme view. The House may not compare intellectually with the House of Commons, but it contains many bright men. A fool could hardly get in, though the labor unions have placed some vicious representatives there. The lack of manners distressed a lady acquaintance of mine, who, in a burst of indignation at seeing a congressman sitting with his feet on his desk, said that there was not a man in Congress who had any social position in Washington or at home, which, let us trust, is not true.