RUTHERFORD B. Hayes, nineteenth President of the United States, was born in Delaware, Ohio, on the 4th of October, 1822. His ancestors were soldiers of the Revolution. His primary education was received in the public schools. At the age of twenty, he was graduated from Kenyon College. In 1845 he completed his legal studies, and began the practice of his profession, first at Marietta, then at Fremont, and finally as city solicitor, in Cincinnati. During the Civil War he performed much honorable service in the Union cause, rose to the rank of major-general, and in 1864, while still in the field, was elected to Congress. Three years later, he was chosen governor of his native State, and was reelected in 1869, and again in 1875.

2. In the summer of 1877, in consequence of a threatened reduction in the wages of railway employes, occurred what is known as the Great Railroad Strike. On the 16th of July, the workmen of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad left their posts and gathered such strength in Baltimore and at Martinsburg, West Virginia, as to prevent the running of trains. The militia was called out by Governor Matthews, but was soon dispersed by the strikers. The President then ordered General French to the scene with a body of regulars, and the blockade of the road was raised.

3. Meanwhile, the trains had been stopped on all the important roads between the Hudson and the Mississippi, and business was paralyzed. In Pittsburgh the strikers, rioters, and dangerous classes, gathering in a mob to the number of twenty thousand, held, for two days, a reign of terror unparalleled in the history of the country. The insurrection was finally suppressed by the regular troops and the Pennsylvania militia, but not until nearly one hundred lives, and property to the value of more than three millions of dollars, had been lost. Riots also occurred, or were threatened, at Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Columbus, Louisville, Indianapolis, and Fort Wayne. By the close of the month, the alarming insurrection was at an end.

4. In the spring of 1877 a war broke out with the Nez PercÉ Indians of Idaho. The national authorities in 1854 purchased a part of the Nez PercÉ territory, large reservations being made in northwestern Idaho and northeastern Oregon, but some of the chiefs refused to ratify the compact, and remained at large. This was the beginning of difficulties.

5. The war began with the usual depredations by the Indians. General Howard marched against them with a small force of regulars; but the Nez PercÉs, led by their noted chieftain Joseph, fled. During the greater part of summer the pursuit continued. In the fall they were chased through the mountains into northern Montana, where they were confronted by other troops commanded by Colonel Miles.

6. The Nez PercÉs were next driven across the Missouri River, and were finally surrounded in their camp north of the Bear Paw Mountains. Here, on the 4th of October, they were attacked, and completely routed by the forces of Colonel Miles. Only a few, led by the chief White Bird, escaped. Three hundred and seventy-five of the captive Nez PercÉs were brought back to the American post on the Missouri.

7. During the year 1877 the public mind was greatly agitated concerning the Remonetization of Silver. By the first coinage regulations of the United States the standard unit of value was the silver dollar. From 1792 until 1873, the quantity of pure metal in this unit had never been changed, though the amount of alloy contained in the dollar was altered several times. In 1849 a gold dollar was added to the coinage, and from that time forth the standard unit of value existed in both metals. In 1873-74 a series of acts were adopted by Congress bearing upon the standard unit of value, whereby the legal-tender quality of silver was abolished, and the silver dollar omitted from the list of coins to be struck at the national mints.

8. In January, 1875, the Resumption Act was passed by Congress. It was declared that on the 1st of January, 1879, the Government should begin to redeem its outstanding legal-tender notes in coin. The question was now raised as to the meaning of the word "coin" in the act; and, for the first time, the attention of the people was aroused to the fact that the privilege of paying debts in silver had been taken away. A great agitation followed, and in 1878 a measure in Congress was passed over the President's veto, for the restoration of the legal-tender quality of the old silver dollar, and for the compulsory coinage of that unit at a rate of not less than two millions of dollars a month.

9. In the summer of 1878 several of the Gulf States were scourged with a Yellow Fever Epidemic. The disease made its appearance in New Orleans, and from thence was scattered among the towns along the Mississippi. A regular system of contributions was established in the Northern States, and men and treasure were poured out without stint to relieve the suffering South. After more than twenty thousand people had fallen victims to the plague, the frosts of October came and ended the pestilence.

10. By the Treaty of Washington (1871), it was agreed that the right of the United States in certain sea-fisheries in the neighborhood of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, hitherto claimed by Great Britain, should be acknowledged and maintained. The government of the United States agreed to relinquish the duties which had hitherto been charged on certain kinds of fish imported by British subjects into American harbors; and, in order to balance any discrepancy, it was further agreed that any total advantage to the United States might be compensated by a gross sum to be paid by the American government. This sum was fixed at five million dollars in November, 1877, and a year later the amount was paid to the British government.

11. The year 1878 witnessed the establishment of a resident Chinese Embassy at Washington. For twenty years the great treaty negotiated by Anson Burlingame had been in force between the United States and China. The commercial relations of the two countries had been vastly extended. On the 28th of September the embassy chosen by the imperial government was received by the President. The ceremonies of the occasion were among the most interesting ever witnessed in Washington. The speech of Chen Lan Pin, the minister, was equal in dignity and appropriateness to the best efforts of a European diplomatist.

12. In June, 1878, the Life Saving Service of the United States was established by act of Congress. The plan proposed the establishment of regular stations and lighthouses on all the exposed parts of the Atlantic coast and along the Great Lakes. Each station was to be manned by a band of surfmen experienced in the dangers peculiar to the shore in times of storms, and drilled in the best methods of rescue and resuscitation. Boats and other appliances of the most approved pattern were provided and equipped. The success of the enterprise has been so great as to reflect the highest credit on its promoters. The number of lives saved through the agency of the service reaches to thousands annually, and the amount of human suffering and distress alleviated by this beneficent movement is beyond computation.

13. On the 1st of January, 1879, the Resumption of Specie Payments was accomplished by the treasury of the United States. After seventeen years' disappearance, gold and silver coin, which during that time had been at a premium over the legal-tender notes of the government, again came into common circulation.

14. The presidential election of 1880 was accompanied with the excitement usually attendant upon great political struggles in the United States. The Republican national convention was held in Chicago on the 2d and 3d of June; a platform of principles was adopted, and General James A. Garfield, of Ohio, was nominated for President. For Vice-president, Chester A. Arthur, of New York, received the nomination. The Democratic national convention assembled at Cincinnati on the 22d of June, and nominated for the presidency General Winfield S. Hancock, of New York, and for the Vice-presidency William H. English, of Indiana. The National Greenback party held a convention in Chicago on the 9th of June, and nominated General James B. Weaver, of Iowa, for President, and General Benjamin J. Chambers, of Texas, for Vice-president. The election resulted in the choice of Garfield and Arthur. Two hundred and fourteen electoral votes, embracing those of nearly all the Northern States, were cast for the Republican candidates.

15. Soon after retiring from the presidency, General Grant, with his family and a company of personal friends, set out to make a TOUR OF THE WORLD. The expedition attracted the most conspicuous attention both at home and abroad. The departure from Philadelphia on the 17th of May, 1877, was the beginning of such a pageant as was never before extended to any citizen of any nation of the earth. General Grant visited Europe, India, Burmah and Siam; China and Japan. In the fall of 1879 the party returned to San Francisco, bearing with them the highest tokens of esteem which the great nations of the Old World could bestow upon the honored representative of the New.

16. The Census of 1880 was undertaken with more system and care than ever before in the history of the country. The work was intrusted to the superintendency of Professor Francis A. Walker. In every source of national power, the development of the country was shown to have continued without abatement. The total population of the States and Territories now amounted to 50,182,525—an increase since 1870 of more than a million inhabitants a year! The center of population had moved westward about fifty miles, to the vicinity of Cincinnati.

17. During the administration of Hayes several eminent Americans passed from the scene of their earthly activities. On the 1st of November, 1877, the distinguished senator, Oliver P. Morton, died of paralysis at his home in Indianapolis. His reputation in his own State and throughout the Union was very great, and his sterling character had won the respect even of his political enemies. As War Governor of Indiana, he had been one of the main pillars of support to the Union in the trying days of the Civil War. After that event he had become one of the foremost men of the nation. Although but fifty-four years of age, he had risen to be a recognized leader in American statesmanship. His death was regarded as a public calamity, and the Nation, without distinction of party, joined with his own State in doing honor to the memory of the great dead.

18. Still more universally felt was the loss of the great poet and journalist, William Cullen Bryant, who on the 12th of June, 1878, at the advanced age of eighty-four, passed from among the living. For more than sixty years his name had been known and honored wherever the English language was spoken. On the 19th of December, in the same year, the illustrious Bayard Taylor, who had recently been appointed American Minister to the German Empire, died suddenly in the city of Berlin. His life had been exclusively devoted to literary work; and almost every department of letters, from the common tasks of journalism to the highest charms of poetry, had been adorned by his genius. On the 1st day of November, 1879, Zachariah Chandler, of Michigan, one of the organizers of the Republican party, and a great leader of that party in the times of the civil war, died suddenly at Chicago; and on the 24th day of April, 1881, the noted publisher and author, James T. Fields, died at his home in Boston.