The Athens Post

A FACTORY BOY NOW SPEAKER.—In the election of Mr. Banks as Speaker, the Fredericksburg Herald thinks it may say, at least that energy has been rewarded, if not integrity of character; for we believe that Mr. Banks has always been somewhat of a slippery politician—generally managing to fall on that side of the fence where the herbage was most luxuriant. We have in Mr. Banks an exemplification of the beauty of our republican system of government. There is no office however high, to which a boy, however humble of birth and destitute of fortune, may not aspire. Mr. Banks began life a bobbin boy in a mill at Waltham, Mass.; his education was that afforded by the New England free school system; he is represented as having studied under great disadvantages, and worked against odds, with hardly anything in his favor save industry and an indomitable will. At the early age of forty-two he has been elected Speaker of the popular branch of Congress—an office scarcely second in importance to that of any other in the United States.