HON. HENRY WILLIAM BLAIR.
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��labors in behalf of education in the Houss and Senate and elsewhere show- how carefully he would guard our lib- erties by the universal intelligence and virtue of the people. Over a hundred thousand copies of his speech in the House on Free Schools were printed and circulated by the Republican Congression .1 Committee. In the Sen- ate his bill and speeches in behalf of national aid to education have awak- ened the greatest interest. He points to the perils of illiteracy, and urges an ample appropriation from the National Treasury, and makes conditions to render the aid safe and effective. His speeches have been called for and printed at the expense of friends ■of education by tens of thousands. When the financial policy of the country became a subject of discussion, and many of its strongest minds were carried from their moorings by the Greenback cyclone, Senator Blair stood sturdily for an honest currency and strict honesty in dealing with the government creditors, and by his speeches in congress and on the stump contributed in no small degree to the triumph of those principles and the incidental success of the Republican party. One of his speeches on this subject in the House was printed and circulated by the RepuUican Congres- sional Committee by the hundreds of thousands. The veteran soldier has always found in him a friend who lost no opportunity to speak and vote lor the most liberal pension laws, and who never tired in responding to individual calls for assistance at the department. The representatives of many interests, like those of starch and knit goods, well know how untiring and effective were his efforts for their protection when imperilled by proposed legisla- tion. His other service in Congress has been most conspicuous in his speeches and reports against the Texas Pacific Railroad Subsidies, upon For- eign Markets and Commerce, Election Frauds in the South, the Exodus of Colored People, the Japanese Indem- nity Fund, the Public Land Bill, the
��Commission of Intjuiry into the Liquor Traffic, upon the Administration of the Pension Laws, Tariff Bill, and several other important measures ; his eulo- gies upon Flenry Wilson, Zachariah Chandler, and Evarts W. Farr ; and his reports on numerous subjects which have claimed the attention of his com- mittees. He is rarely absent from his seat, and when present never declines to vote. His first term expires March 3, 1885.
The inadeepjacy of these notes will be apparent when it is known that it takes nearly two pages of the Record to index the Senator's recorded efforts in a single session of Congress.
Mr. Blair is a citizen of Plymouth, and is very public spirited in local affairs. His neighbors claim that it was owing to his promptness and generos- ity that the Normal School was located in the town, and the Holderness School for Boys in the adjoining town. Through his efforts the old court house where Webster began his legal career was preserved from destruction, re- paired, and devoted to the uses of a public library. His residence and most of its contents was destroyed by fire in 1870, and since then his home has been at the Pemigewasset House.
From this brief sketch it will be seen that Mr. Blair owes his excep- tional success in life to no extraneous or acc'dental aids. His parents were poor, and their untimely death depriv- ed him of their counsel and example. His boyhood was a struggle with pov- erty, of which his youth was only a continuance. All he had he earned. What he became he made himself. As a man he has shown great capacity for work and a disposition to do his best in every position. He is always intensely in earnest. He has indomi- table perseverance and persistency, and never allows his abilities to rust in idle- ness. He is an outspoken and aggres- sive but practical reformer : a radical but sagacious Republican. Though his early advantages were few, he has been a voracious reader and a close student, and does not lack for the help
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