He was a common man expanded into giant proportions; well acquainted with the people, he placed his hand on the beating pulse of the nation, judged of its disease and was ready with a remedy.

In this tribute, Speed portrays the subject as simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary: a “common man” whose experience among everyday people enabled an uncommon grasp of national realities. The medical metaphor—hand on the nation’s “beating pulse,” diagnosing its “disease,” and offering a “remedy”—casts political leadership as practical, empirical, and restorative rather than ideological or abstract. The praise hinges on intimacy with public sentiment and moral clarity under crisis: the leader’s greatness is framed not as aristocratic refinement but as an expanded capacity to understand, judge, and act for the whole country. The line thus elevates democratic accessibility as the foundation of statesmanship.