Ti 



I Carmona has encouraged the ex- 

 pectation of a now republican con- 

 'atitution and new electoi-al laws, 

 cnablinfj tlio pooplo to form a Par- 

 liament, whereupon they would bo 

 in a pofdtion to rlcrt a President. 

 After that, he says, the power will 

 be with "the political party which 

 can understand and carry out best 

 the reforms and improvements made 

 under the dictatorship" — an enig- 

 matic statement which awaits inter- 

 pretation. Ilis announcement of an 

 economic restoration throughout the 

 country by his government is merely 

 anticipatory. But he has shown 

 that he is thinking seriously of im- 

 portant public questions. Hope will 

 accompany curiosity in regard to his 

 political career. 



The Adams Dynasty 



Somebody on a time coined the 

 the phrase "the Adams dynasty." 

 For whatever purpose it may have 

 been intended, in whatever spirit it 

 may first have been used, it may 

 fittingly be applied to what perhaps 

 is the most remarkable family rec- 

 ord in the history of the United 

 States, and a record now brought 

 to mind by the passing of Mr. 

 Brooks Adams, great-grandson of 

 the man who fought for the dec- 

 laration of independence in the Con- 

 tinental Congress and the successor 

 of Washington in the presidency. 



John Adams, the head of the great 

 line, was tho second President; 

 John Quincy Adams, his son, was 

 the sixth President. 



John Adams was our first min- 

 ister to England, John Quincy 

 Adaihs also was minister to Eng- 

 land, and Charles Francis Adams, 

 the grandson of the second Pres- 

 ident, for seven years filled that 

 ■great post under conditions which 

 made his service comparable only 

 with that rendered the American 

 republic by Benjamin Franklin. 



John Adams was one of the three 

 commissioners who negotiated the 

 peace that terminated the war for 

 independence; John Quincy Adams 

 was one of the five commissioners 

 who arranged the treaty which 

 ended the second war with Eng- 

 land; Charles Francis Adams was 

 the American member of the court 

 of arbitration of five members 

 which decided the Alabama Claims. 



John Quincy Adams was only 11 

 years old when he went with his 

 father on his first mission to Paris 

 in 1778 as his secretary and he 

 served in the same capacity when 

 his father was busy with the nego- 

 tiations which ended the revolution; 

 Henry Adams as a young man was 

 secretary to his father, the Amer- 

 ican minister in London, through 

 the civil war period; Brooks Adams, 

 also in early manhood, attended his 

 father in a like capacity during the 

 Alabama arbitration proceedings. 



Perhaps it is not too much to say 

 that the history of no country ofl'ers 



the most tempestuous political sea- , 

 son that the world ever witnessed, 

 when the elements of civil .society 

 are rapidly and inevitably returning 

 to chaos in Europe, and at the mo- 

 ment when the fame of the prede- 

 cessor has heaped to such accumula- 

 tion the burdoi of the successor's 

 task." And he ends in ' .sonorous 

 Latin: "It remains for me as a man, 

 as an American, and as your son, 

 only to say quod felix faustumque 

 sit." , 



Charles Francis Adams left four' 

 suiwiving sons. The eldest was John 

 Quincy Adams, 2d, who gave much 

 attention to politics and whose 

 career illustrates the singular in- 

 dependence of opinion and action 

 which has been a marked character- 

 istic of the family. The second son, 

 Charles Francis Adams, Jr., was the 

 civil war soldier, the railway ex- 

 pert, and a tireless investigator of 

 historical questions. Henry Adams 

 possessed the versatility to produce 

 such varied works as a History of 

 the United States, covering the ad- 

 ministrations of Jefferson and Mad- 

 ison; such famous works as Mont 

 St. Michel and Chartres, the Letters 

 to a Niece, and the Education, as 

 we]l as two novels, one the anony- 

 mous "Democracy," the other "Es- 

 ther," given to the public under a 

 pseudonym. Brooks Adams stEirtled 

 all New England with his Emanci- 

 pation of Massachusetts in 1887, and 

 again by his remarks on democracy 

 in an address delivered in 1915. 



Ti-uly a wonderful succession. 

 Longevity seems to have been in 

 the blood. John Adams passed away 

 when nearly 91, John Quincy Adams 

 in his 81st year, Charles Francis 

 Adams and one of his sons attained 

 the age of 80, and two other sons 

 were 79. 



One thing many times we have 

 wondered about. After John Quincy 

 Adams retired from the presidency 

 he did not retire from public life. 

 He entered the House of Represen- 

 tatives, and there held a seat from 

 1831 to 1848. In his seat, on the 

 afternoon of Feb. 21 in the latter 

 year, he received his fatal stroke, 

 and he died two days later. Abra- 

 ham Lincoln was a member of 

 that Congress. Did he witness the 

 scene and , participate in the excite- 

 ment when the " old man eloquent" 

 sustained that blow? 



