Excerpt from Alexander K. McClure's: Recollections of Half a Century The last half century has written the most brilliant records ever given in the same period to the annals of the world's his tory, in every attribute of civilized advancement. Progress has been unexampled in art, in science, in industry, in commerce, in finance and trade, as well as in achievement in field and forum. The great republic of the new world has vastly outstripped the progress of any other half century, or indeed, of any full century since the world was. I shall give in these chapters of random recollections impor tant contributions to history, made especially entertaining and instructive by personal knowledge and incident. After more than fifty years of active participation in political and public ai fairs, and most of the time closely related to the great political movements of all parties in State and nation, with personal se quaintance more or less intimate with the leading Chieftains of peace and war, I hope to furnish new and fresh contributions to the history of our great Republic outside of the ordinary lines of historical record. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.