I •• • c c « %^i£n/^,^aMun/ Martin B. Madden Public Servant A SKETCH Edgar Weston Brent CHICAGO 1901 V- r & 1 ll Copyright, 1901 BY EDGAR WESTON BRENT PREFACE. DURING the height of the excursion season, eighteen months ago, there were assembled, one evening, in the lounging room of San Francisco's principal hotel, a score of travelers, each from a different distant part of the world. They were all engaged in the same conversation. This had centered on the topic of the Pacific coast's great opportunities in Oriental trade. The traveler whose authority seemed most acceptable to all the others, in reply to a question, said: "President Lincoln selected the site on this coast where the greatest city should be built. He caused it to be surveyed and laid out. The place is opposite Victoria, British Columbia, on the southern side of the great strait leading from the ocean to Puget sound. It is called Port Angeles. It has every advantage needed for the making of a metropolis. The harbor is the nearest in the United States to Asia, is immense in capacity and the most accessible on this coast to transcontinental railways. It is extraordinary that a man from Illinois should have been able to foresee the value of that location. No less marvelous is it that the same state possesses to-day the best city-building talent anywhere assembled in the world. The greatest muni- cipal accomplishment of modern times is the construction of the city of Chicago within about one generation. The next was by the same men who did that and was the 5 M205200 6 PREFACE creation of the White City at the Columbian Fair. New York grew. Chicago was builded. I could name twenty men now doing business in that city who could, if they would undertake to do it, make Angeles the greatest port in the world and one of the greatest cities. They would do the work in a few years, too. These Chicagoans are constructors, city builders, by nature. There are no other men in their class." Asked for their names, the traveler gave them, accom- panying each with a brief oral sketch, and then contin- ued: "The city made by these builders has already the best press in America, the greatest book-buying com- munity, the most advanced school system, and the most democratic population. Its business men are at the same time the most enterprising and the most conservative ; its labor the most intelligent and the most reasonable; its bankers the most liberal and the most careful. If the biographies of the men who have made Chicago should be properly written, the literature would do more than all other essays to allay the growing discontent of the poor. These lives would perfectly exhibit the fact that in a country like this poverty is often the result of the lack of managerial talent and seldom caused by the suc- cess of the rich. "They would clearly display this other truth — that the prosperous American, as a rule, in his business creates new wealth and adds it to the stock already in existence, taking from it only a fair share for his labor of produc- tion, letting the rest go into general distribution. It would be valuable beyond calculation to have the unpros- perous convinced that the prosperous have not thrived at the expense of the poor; that wealth is generally obtained PREFACE 7 by creative hard work of a kind few can do, and that the doing of this work, instead of resulting in appropriation, really increases distribution. Write w T ell the story of Chicago's money-makers and you will help the poor." When one of the twelve was asked for the facts in his history, he replied: "My history? There it is, in that row of records. They contain everything recorded about me. Take them. You will find the whole truth, but much more condemnation than commendation." Chicago, July, igoi. CONTENTS. CHAPTER. PAGE. I. An Illinois Pioneer's Boy — The Patriotic Cousins — Going to School — The American Temptation to Work 11 II. The Water Carrier of Lemont — At Night School — Studies Stone and Law — Chooses Stone 17 III. Climbing the Ladder — Arrival at the Top — Profi- ciency and Integrity the Means 27 IV. Labor Saving Inventions — Madden's Method of Introducing Them — Labor's Friend 35 , V. Contractor Careless — The Mistake of Tolerating Dishonesty — Accepting Punishment 41 VI. The Justice of Friendship — The Demands of Law — Friendship Saves 52 VII. Enters Public Life — The Novice Among Aldermen — A Lucky Mistake 59 VIII. Public Service Begins— The Chicago Problem — The Solution Undertaken 64 IX. The Cry of "Boodle"— The Cause of It— Who Use It.... 75 X. Street Railway Franchises — The Best Solution — Some Examples 83 XI. A Great Financier — The Way Chicago was Financed —The Way it is Now 93 XII. Entertaining World's Fair Guests — A Battle for Morality — A Great Speech 105 XIII. Refuses Mayoralty Three Times — Nominates Rival — Sacrifice for Pure Ballot 115 XIV. Meets Unparalleled Abuse for Public Service — Eloquent Parliamentary Speech 129 XV. Starts Civil Service Reform Movement — Furnishes it Arguments — Many New Ideas 146 9 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTER. PAGE. XVI. Passes Civil Service Reform Bill — Ignores Ingrati- tude — Rescues Law from Destruction 168 XVII. Assures Chicago's Supremacy in Manufacture — Saves Lake Front — Creates Park There 175 XVIII. Secures Government Help for Chicago Trade — A Convincing Argument 186 XIX. First Republican Manager to Declare for Gold — Undertakes to Get Word in Platform 192 XX. Illinois Forces "Gold'' into St. Louis Platform — The Argument that Won 201 XXI. Cook County Republicans Misrepresented — Mad- den's Sacrifice In Their Behalf — Marvelous Per- sonal Victory 210 XXII. Uses Blaine's Reciprocity Argument — Makes Novel Application — Effect on Silver Men 220 XXIII. Bryan's Nomination a Surprise — Forces Change in Republican Plan— The Effect 225 XXIV. On the Stump — Many New Arguments — Their His- torical Value 2.'U XXV. Urged to Accept Senatorship from Illinois — Rea- sons Therefor — Necessary Votes Secured 243 XXVI. Goes to Philadelphia Convention — Represents Illi- nois on Platform Committee 249 XXVII. Writing the Republican Platform for 1900— Inserts the Word Isthmian — Secures Fair Play for France 255 XXVIII. Saves the Republican Party from Committing a Blunder— A Witty Speech 265 XXIX. Plans the Republican Campaign for 1900— New Sil- ver and Expansion Argument 272 XXX. Makes the Best Public Statement on Trusts — Pro- poses the Best Solution 282 XXXI. Proposes an Effective Method of Accomplishing Annexation of Canada 294 XXXII. Opposes Free Chinese Immigration — Some New and Convincing Arguments 299 XXXIII. Study of a Perfect Public Servant— Essential Qual- ities He Must Possess 308 CHAPTER I. AN ILLINOIS PIONEER S BOY— THE PATRIOTIC COUSINS— GOING TO SCHOOL — THE AMERICAN TEMPTATION TO WORK. ill ARTIN BARNABY MADDEN was born in Dar- / T 1 lington, England, on the 20th day of March, A. D., 1855. His father, John Madden, was a plain man, of the agricultural class. His mother was Eliza O'Neil, of the ancient ruling family. Her father was a classical scholar of renown. He had been professor of Latin and Greek at a Dublin university, and afterwards in one of the schools in Paris, France. Mrs. O'Neil Madden was a woman of uncommon mental gifts and strength of char- acter. She was domestic in taste and disposition and fond of learning. Some time before the birth of Martin, his uncle, Peter Warden, the husband of Mrs. Madden's sister, and a man of considerable importance, had moved into the northern part of Illinois, then the most attractive part of the United States for immigrants. Mr. Warden was a native of Pennsylvania and of Dutch-Huguenot ancestry. He was a well-educated man and had for a time taught school before moving west. He at first settled in the territory now Chicago, afterwards locating in Lemont, at present a metropolitan suburb. The Wardens prospered from the first. In Mrs. Warden's correspondence with her sister she 11 12 MARTIN B. MADDEN convinced her and her husband that the West, as Illinois was then known, was the best place in the world for the rearing of children possessing qualities for the creation of careers. • The Maddens landed in Boston in i860, when Martin was four years old, and at once went to Lemont, where they took up a farm. Help was scarce in the West, then, - and few farmers could successfully manage agricultural land there unless they had boys of their own able to work. His children being small, John Madden did not become affluent at farming. As both boys and girls of working age were more valuable as farm help than they could be at any other occupation among the Illinois pioneers, it was almost impossible to secure attendance at any but the primary schools. The public educational system was beginning to extend over the West, and when the little red school-house made its advent in 'Lemont its good offices, for a long time, were confined to the younger chil- dren. The Wardens, with more and larger boys, fared bet- ter than did the Maddens. Peter Warden became a citizen of influence and means, and widely known. He was soon a leader. He was one of the men who estab- lished the first Baptist church organized in Chicago. Of this he was elected the first clerk, the most important and influential position a man could have in the commu- nity, next to that occupied by the preacher. One of his sons was the fourth white male child born in the city. Mrs. Madden and Mrs. Warden, as well as their hus- bands, were of patriotic texture, and became intensely interested in the country. The Wardens had become absorbed in the slavery agitation, as it had been carried PUBLIC SERVANT 13 on by Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, and the Maddens had not long been residents of Illinois when they were as thoroughly American as their elder rela- tives who had induced them to become citizens. When the War of the Rebellion began, in 1861, Mrs. Warden had seven sons grown up. She sent six of them as soldiers on the Union side. To spare one son was a serious sac- rifice, in a country where every man was so valuable ; to send six out of seven was heroic. These people loved their country. They would have given to Lincoln's work everything they had, without the least hesitation. These six sons served all through the war. John War- den, one of them, was one of the 200 soldiers who volun- teered to lead the called-for charge over the ramparts of Vicksburg, during the Federal siege of that city. Every man of these 200 was wounded in that terrible task, and but nine returned from it alive. John was one of the nine. He was shot through both knees. So extraor- dinary was the heroism put forth by these intrepid men, that Congress declared a national vote of thanks to them and ordered a special medal to be struck, and presented for each. When John Warden finally, in 1893, received the Government's notice that his medal was awaiting him, the information was sent by President Cleveland. Warden refused to take the decoration from his hands because, as a soldier, he thought the President's conduct in the treatment of deserving pensioners was unfair and unjust. It was with difficulty that the soldier's cousin, then Alder- man, prevailed upon him to accept the nation's gift and treasure it for what it meant. At six years of age, Martin was sent to the public school. He attended it until he was ten. At that time 14 MARTIN B. MADDEN the great value of the stone, now everywhere celebrated as the Athens limestone, underlying all the Lemont region, was beginning to attract general attention for building, paving and curbing purposes. Capital was hurried into the country for quarry development, the new town of Chicago's growth furnishing the demand and market. Labor was scarce and at a premium. Inducements were held out to boys to go to work in the quarries that were being opened up all over the neigh- borhood. It made Martin restive to see other lads easily acquiring by light work the cash that made them inde- pendent and important or useful in the region where trade had been nearly all barter, and where money had for a long time been so scarce that only big men could occasionally get any. The world was changing in his young eyes, and the desire to get his hand in became irresistible. He begged his parents to permit him to take advantage of the many opportunities lying all about. He was tall, healthy, and strong. He was, however, such a bright and promising scholar that both his parents had mapped out for him a career of learning, and he met with a stout resistance. The management of the chil- dren was in the mother's province, and the boy pointed out to her that the recently opened night school was better equipped with teachers than the one conducted during the day; that he could' learn more at it; that what he would have to do if he went to work would be like playing for pay to a boy of his strength and activity, and that for this recreation he could bring into the family exchequer every week almost as much good hard money as his father would get by the barter of farming; "and then, mother, don't you see, I'll be earning more and PUBLIC SERVANT 15 father needn't work so much." The lad attacked his mother on her vulnerable side. She yielded, thinking a boy of his age would soon change his mind, and the experiment would do him no harm. In fact, it might cure him of the craze that was afflicting all his comrades, and steady him in the pursuit of knowledge. The boy knew, what his mother did not suspect he perceived, that his help was really needed and would greatly aid his father in the support of the family. He was permitted to seek work, but was to submit whatever proposition he got, before accepting it, to his mother for her approval. She knew he was perfectly truthful and reliable. So when he soon afterward reported that the Superintendent of the Lemont Stone Company had offered him the job of carrying water to the men engaged in its quarry work, the mother could not at first comprehend the situ- ation. There was no boy so young as her son hired in any of the stone works; and at the Lemont there were many scores of men employed. How could a lad like Martin supply them with water? "It was like this," said the Superintendent. "He made us a proposition." " A proposition ! Absurd. How could a boy like that make you a business proposition? Why, he is hardly ten years old. ' ' "All the same, he did. He's more than ten up here" (tapping his forehead). "Says he, 'Can you give me something to do in the quarry?' 'And what can a little boy like you do in a stone quarry?' says I. And says he, 'Anything. * And then says he, 'What do you pay the men?' Tickled at that, I says, 'Two dollars a day each.' And he says, 'They have to go a long way to 16 MARTIN B. MADDEN drink. And they all go. I've patched them. I could carry the water to them for less Man two dollars a day.' Labor is scarce and we've gov to pay high for it. It didn't take me long to figure out that what was in the lad's head was right. The time lostby the men going to and from the pumps makes up more in wages than the boy would save it for. So we've made a new job for the boy. We're going to make him water-carrier. There's money in it for both of us. " The three dollars a week offered Martin was less than his work would save the company in a day, and when his mother twitted him with not getting a larger part of the saving for accomplishing all of it, he said he didn't think the company would hire him unless they made by it, and, besides, any other boy could do the same thing. 'Yes," laughed his mother; "if he would think of it." "But the company would think of it," replied Martin. CHAPTER II. THE WATER CARRIER OF LEMONT — AT NIGHT SCHOOL — STUDIES STONE AND LAW— CHOOSES STONE. THE maternal consent could not now be withheld, and Martin Barnaby Madden began his career. His judgment about the night school and the nature of the work he was employed to do were both correct. The night school had better teachers than those working among the day attendants, because the pupils were older and more capable. Among these young Madden made better progress in his studies than he possibly could have achieved in the more juvenile classes. The water-carry- ing for a long time was as easy as playing ball. The quarries grew, however, and then the business got to be a little more serious. Martin regarded his occupation always as important. The more .he became acquainted with the quarrymen and the nature of the hard labor they performed for their wages, the more thought and care he bestowed upon his task. He never had to be called; he was always at his post. He never thought of saving himself steps by dealing out tepid drink to the hard- working men. He busied himself keeping cold, fresh water ready at all times. When the number of quarry- men grew to the point of taxation upon his energy, he established convenient stations and kept the receptacles at all of them full of newly-brought fresh cold beverage. He was for years after he had passed on from this work 2 17 18 MARTiN ii. MADDEN referred to as the best water-carrier ever known in Lemont. A boy who did his work in that way was bound to attract the attention not only of the men, but of his employers as well. In addition to anticipating and being ever ready to cater to the thirst of the former, the ves- sels he used were not permitted to be unduly exposed, but were kept clean, bright and under shelter, and every evening carefully housed. He found time to move vari- ous tools, within his ability to handle, about to save the tired employes running after them. He made himself so useful in this respect, and often grouped implements so advantageously for emergencies, that the Superin- tendent one day created another new office for him, at increased wages — that of tool custodian. This was quite a rise for a boy of his age, and stimu- lated his pride and love for order. In his new position he began to display executive talent. As water-carrier he had become familiar with the different localities in the quarries. Now, he began to observe the differences in the trend of the stratifications and to note the variations in the quality of the stone. The workmen all liked him and answered his queries with geological information chat never fell on barren ground. In time it was found that not only were the tools well kept and well disposed, but they were often located with considerable scientific insight into the nature of the anticipated work. It was manifest that the lad was getting interested in the work- ing of stone. His providence in the distribution of the implements, his foresight in the conduct of his task, became proverbial as one of the striking economies of the quarry. Every man engaged by the company grew PUBLIC SERVANT 19 interested in the boy. The workmen saw that the higher he rose in the company's employ, the better their welfare was provided for. The overseers realized that the more responsible the lad was made the better the condition of the property and the more satisfactory the results. It came about, therefore, that although young Madden never asked a favor of anybody, but attended strictly to what he had to do on his own volition always, every one in the business was interested in pushing him up. He became a sort of institution in the quarry, which was now fast growing into a great Chicago industry. Fondness for the work was developing in him. He loved to watch the skillful extraction of the stone from the layers formed by nature ; to see it fashioned afterwards for the builders, and then follow it into the final place in structures.. He studied nature's process and man's real- izations from it, and grew to regard the stone-handler's work as one of the noblest employments of men. From the dust, or the gravel, or the animal deposits, to the finished occupied building was, to his young mind, a providential arrangement all planned ages ago and now carried out as originally conceived. He was witnessing the final process of the evolution and having a small hand in it. It exhilarated him, made him love the work, and was fast attracting his whole life into it. He was interested during the day; when he went home explained it all to his listening mother and father; he thought of it while at his evening school; and next morning was in a hurry to be first at the works, solicitous not to miss any- thing that might transpire. As he kept at the head of his class his parents as yet saw no occasion to fear for his education. His father was proud of him, and crowded 20 MARTIN B. MADDEN all the information he could pack into the inquisitive con- ferences the lad brought on at all the family meetings. At fourteen years of age, Martin was appointed time- keeper at the quarries. That was a phenomenal appoint- ment for one so young. It made him the talk of the whole district. To be trusted by the company to look after its interests in seeing that it got the receipt of all the time it paid for from several hundred employes, was a distinction no boy of that age had ever before attained anywhere, so far as known, in Illinois. It made the Mad- den lad a public character. Boys who still fished and hunted birds pointed to him with pride as an acquaint- ance, and youngsters who did not dare to claim fellow- ship looked upon him with awe. His employers were certain he would not permit them to be cheated and the men knew he would be fair to them. Both sides would take his decision any time. He was now earning more money in cash than his father's farming realized, and the question of educa- tion had to be settled. The parents admitted that Mar- tin's evening studies and his constant questionings had enabled him to acquire more knowledge of real value than they, or anyone within their acquaintance, had had at fourteen years of age. Of course, the son could not speak or write either Greek or Latin as his grandfather could; but he was proficient in English and in mathe- matics and several other branches. Then most of the knowledge concealed in the Greek and Roman languages Martin had drawn out of the scholars in the locality without having had to learn the scripts, and the lad said : 4 * Father, they have given it to me in better shape than I could have quarried it out of the original myself. " PUBLIC SERVANT 21 The mother's good, hard, practical sense, inherited from sturdy ancestors and cultivated in the severe task of maternal management, cropped out in the youth. He contended that his work was not wearying and that he would continue to attend night schools of higher grades, and depend upon his parents to keep him right in his reading and to help him prevent waste in pursuing his studies. The policy, once outlined, was carefully adhered to. The time-keeper added book-keeping, mechanical drawing, the higher mathematics and history to his studies, with special instructors. He rapidly became proficient and soon was promoted to the mechanical drafting corps of the company. In this body his econom- ical devices were so many and valuable that he rose to the head of the staff, and at eighteen years he was the official chief. He was now attending the evening sessions of the principal commercial college in Chicago. He grad- uated at the head of his class, and was made Chief Gen- eral Accountant and then Paymaster for the company, which now was employing about 900 men. While attending the Lemont night schools Madden' s memory attracted general attention and became an object of wonder. At one time when he was in the higher classes he was able upon demand to give the boundaries of every country, state and territory in the world; to name the capital of every state and nation ; and to locate every known navigable stream, its source and mouth, state its length, and describe it direction. He could remember all things equally well and never forgot any- thing he noticed. He never ' ' memorized, " and seemed absolved from all necessity of doing it. Whatever reached his mind in any way was retained there and ever after 22 MARTIN B. MADDEN was instantly available. This prodigious faculty of absorbing, retaining and reproducing explains his remark- able progress in acquiring as well as his skill in using knowledge. He was very fond of debating and public speaking, and in both was so decidedly the superior of any other youth in or about Lemont as to be without rivalry. It was noticed that in the declaiming feats, then the fashion among schoolboys in northern Illinois, other lads were always more or less constrained in their efforts because of the apparent labor of their memories, while Madden's speech seemed spontaneous and from abun- dance. In after life, when he was old enough to explain, mental operations, he attributed this difference to the fact that they, having committed to memory the amount of speech they were to deliver, when upon their feet were visibly engaged in the effort of adhering to their limits; while he, having more to say than he had time to utter, was really engaged in the work of extemporaneous selection. This difference in the mental work gave his orations more natural action and appearance than could accompany mere feats of remembrance. During this period it was decided by the local author- ities to provide increased school room for the rapidly enlarging classes. Plans for a new building were under consideration when young Madden suggested to the Directors that an addition to the one in use could be devised that would answer requirements for several years to come. The officials were amazed at what they thought was audacity on the part of the youth, and in a pleasant taunter replied that they would like to see a plan of such an addition. The boy sat down at once and in their presence drew what was asked, with specifications com- PUBLIC SERVANT 23 plete. It was a revelation to the officials and answered all purposes so completely that it was at once accepted. The addition was constructed in strict accordance with the boy's draughting, and the school building so enlarged met the needs of that locality for a long time. The Directors, after accepting the plans, laughingly asked their author to send in a bill for "professional services." He put his figure at $50. "Why, it didn't take you more than half an hour to make your drawings," said one of the Board. "But it took me many months to learn how," was the response. The fee was cheerfully paid and the incident became one of the legends of Lemont. The building was afterwards called "Madden's School House," and was pointed out to visitors as one of the features of the district. At twenty-one years of age, Madden's proficiency was so great that he was placed in full charge of the stone work on the new county building in the city of Chicago, all of which was furnished by the company he was work- ing for. The building is one of the most elaborate, massive and highly ornamental stone structures in the world, everywhere among architects regarded as a model. Unfortunately, it has never been completed according to the original design, and the ground upon which it is piled has proven uneven in supporting power. Every stone in the building was quarried under the per- sonal supervision of young Madden. He drafted the design for every one as it was to appear in the building, marked it for the place it was to occupy, personally supervised its cutting, its trial, its transportation, and its final setting in place, besides keeping time on the pro- duction of each piece, its moving and its placing. He 24 MARTIN B. MADDEN * remained with this work until it was completed and labored on an average from 6 a. m. until 9 p. m. every day. That was in 1876, and he had but passed his youth. Between his eighteenth and his twenty-second years, among his other studies he pursued that of law. He graduated from the law school and passed his examina- tion for admission to the bar early in the year after attaining his majority, being one of the twelve that got through the ordeal that year. He had for a long time been ambitious to be a lawyer. Now that he had the right to practice, many brilliant offers were made to him. He took the matter under contemplation. He now had many people depending upon him. His salary was $200 per month. If he remained in the stone business he was assured of $3,000 a year immediately, with a prospect of soon getting $6,000. The best offer he could depend upon in the practice of law would not at once yield him a certainty of more than $1,500 per annum, with the future problematical. He decided to remain .in the business he had been working at for twelve years and retain the large and valuable clientage he was certain of therein. The company for which he was now working was known as the Enterprise Stone Company. It had been evolved from several smaller concerns engaged in quarry- ing the Athens stone at Joliet and Lemont and employed over 1,000 men. The Paymaster was soon promoted to the office of Superintendent. In that position he got out of the quarries all his employers paid for and placed it in the market with such expedition that there was the least possible loss on the way. He remained Superintendent until 1881. PUBLIC SERVANT 25 On the 16th of May, 1878, two months after passing the twenty-third anniversary of his birth, Martin B. Madden took the most important step of a good man's life : he married. The union was one of perfect natural selection, the result of a long acquaintance. The bride was Miss Josephine Smart, of Downer's Grove, Du Page county, Illinois. Her grandparents on both sides had emigrated from England to New York when her father, Elijah Smart, was six years of age and her mother, Eliza Fell, six months. When Elijah Smart married he and his young wife started west. They journeyed in a wagon all the way from Cattaraugus county, N. Y., where they were reared, to Illinois and located at Down- er's Grove. Here their daughter Josephine was born. At an early age she exhibited literary^and musical talent of a high order, and her parents had her carefully edu- cated. She attended Wheaton College and then pursued and finished her studies at Northwestern University. At the time of her marriage Miss Smart, because of her accomplishments and graces of person, was one of the greatest social favorites in northern Illinois. She had no superior among her sex in the entire West in either musical skill or developed talent in literary composition, prose and poetical. She might easily have reached any place before the public within a woman's ambition. Love of home, however, predominated in her disposition. After marriage she devoted her all talents to the woman's side of family and domestic life, and so became abso- lutely the partner of her husband. Heaven has entrusted these two with a daughter, now in her fifteenth year. A short time after Mr. Madden 's marriage some neighbors were discussing with his mother the departure 26 MARTIN B. MADDEN of her son from home and the probabilities of his career. His history was recounted and compared with that of many men then prominent in affairs, and the conviction was expressed that he would be "heard from." It was this conversation that drew from Mrs. Madden the remark- able statement so often quoted: t4 I have raised a son who will not lie, nor take any- thing that does not belong to him, nor own anything that he has not paid for in full. He will not say anything against his neighbor, even if that neighbor be his enemy. He will not go into debt for himself. He will live on less than he earns and ever have money on hand to help himself and his friends along. He will all his days do for his employers more than he may be paid to do. He has a fine mind, a good tongue and a clean soul, and he will keep them that way as long as he lives, I know. He cannot easily be deceived, can take care of himself, and will never deserve any shame. He will rise from the time he left home and will not fall until he dies, and he will always stand up tall and straight among his fellow men. I am satisfied altogether with him and proud of what I have done in rearing him. The greatest states- man can do no more for the country than I have done in giving Martin to it — God bless them both. " CHAPTER III. CLIMBING THE LADDER — ARRIVAL AT THE TOP— PROFICIENCY AND INTEGRITY THE MEANS. IN 1881 all the companies quarrying the Athens stone formed a central organization known as the Chicago Building Stone Company. Of this Mr. Madden was made the Financial Manager. This association did the market- ing and collecting for all the companies producing the stone. The Manager handled the sales and collections with consummate skill and great profit for one year. The hard indoor work he did not like and he resigned at the end of a year, for the purpose of going back to out- door life. He had bought an interest in the Joliet Stone Com- pany and in the Crescent Stone Company of Joliet, and was made Vice-President and General Manager of both. He reorganized the concerns, making the Joliet the handler and the Crescent the producer. In the first year of his management he netted the stockholders $60,000 in profits. He conducted the business of both companies from that time until 1891 each year paying large divi- dends. So thorough was now his knowledge of the quarry- ing, handling, transportation and marketing of building, paving and curbing stone, and so comprehensive his acquaintance with the building trade in all parts of the 27 28 MARTIN B. MADDEN country, that he was everywhere sought for his mana- gerial ability and talent for making money in the stone and construction business. The Quarry Owners' Association, owning stone lands between New York and Denver, elected him President for two successive terms of two years each. He was the youngest man who had ever held that responsible office, and the only one ever elected twice to it. He declined the third election offered to him because he could no longer spare the time to properly attend to the business of the office. He was for two years Vice-President of the Builders' and Traders' Exchange of Chicago, and was on its direc- tory during that time as Chairman of the Finance Com- mittee. He represented the builders of Illinois as delegate to the National Convention of Builders at St. Paul in 1890; New York in 1891; Cleveland in 1892, and St. Louis in 1893. In 1 89 1 the Western Stone Company, a powerful and rich corporation, composed of a number of the wealthiest business men in Chicago, which had absorbed all the companies quarrying and handling the Athens limestone, except the Joliet and Crescent, offered Mr. Madden the general management of the corporation at any salary he might choose to ask. He refused the offer, on the ground that he was responsible for the financial manage- ment of the two independent companies, and that his partners were not practical stone men. He was pressed to accept the offer, but positively refused, as he said, to leave his inexperienced stockholders in the lurch. Then the Western Stone Company offered to buy out his PUBLIC SERVANT 29 interest in the two concerns, if he would accept the man- agement offered. He declined to sell. After that it offered to buy all the stock of both the Joliet and Cres- cent. To this Mr. Madden replied he would say nothing until he had consulted his partners. He placed the prop- osition before them, They were a good deal surprised at the loyalty of their Manager. The acceptance of the corporation's offer would have placed him at the very head of the stone business in the United States, with unlimited capital for operation. That was a most envia- ble position for any man, especially for one scarce thirty- five years of age. They asked him for a frank statement of his desire in the affair as well as of the advice he thought best. He did not hesitate to admit that the proposal was agreeable to him and in the line of his com- mercial ambition; nor did he conceal his conviction that the salary proffered was much greater than the business of his partners would enable them to pay him. He thought the best solution would lie in a sale of the Joliet and Crescent, if that could be effected on satisfactory terms. Then, he said, their investment would remain in his management under more advantageous conditions. If they took cash for their stock, At might be difficult to invest it as well as it was already placed, but if they managed to have it merged in the larger company it might yield still greater dividends. However, if his partners concluded to hold on to their independent busi- ness, he would stay with them. They quickly agreed to sell, proposing an attempt to merge. They put the price of all the stock in both their companies at the high figure of $350,000, but empowered Madden to make the best disposition of "it he could. He 30 MARTIN B. MADDEN at once saw the powers of the Western Stone Company, and within half an hour sold to them the stock of the Joliet and Crescent for $300,000 in the shares of the corporation, a far better deal than for $350,000 cash. The contract of sale included his employment as Vice- President and Manager of the Western Stone Company. This concern now had the sole quarrying and sale of all the Athens limestone known to be available in the neighborhood of Chicago. As Vice-President and Man- ager, Madden at once set about the task of increasing the business of his employers. He introduced labor-saving devices to improve the efficiency of the company's labor. This was for the purpose of decreasing the cost of pro- duction and increasing the sales by broadening the market for all forms of the stone. It was not long before the President of the company became aware that much new business was being secured and transacted that he had no hand in. He misunder- stood the duties of his office and supposed that he was to be consulted about every detail. He soon adopted the policy of interference, and carried it so far as to prohibit the initiation of any new method in the management of the corporation's varied operations until he had been consulted. As he was a very rich man, engaged in many other enterprises and seldom about the premises of the Western Stone Company, his attitude, if acquiesced in, would leave the Manager idle a great part of the time. The result would be a loss of orders and a diversion of much trade the company might secure. To a man of Madden's energy and practical knowledge this was fool- ish as well as exasperating. He at once hunted up his superior to bring matters to an issue. The Manager PUBLIC SERVANT 31 claimed that it was his province to run the business, make sales, attend to the collections, and earn the divi- dends, under whatever policy the Board of Directors should adopt, and that the President's duty was confined to seeing that the policy was adhered to. As long as the Manager, who was always present, correctly adhered to the outlined policy, the matter of details was altogether one of management, he alone being responsible for results and employed to accomplish them. The situation was delicate. The President was Chairman of the Board of Directors at the time, and felt that he was called upon to manage as well as direct. The directors were all rich, prominent and powerful men, and, without looking closely into the merits of the question, seemed to indorse the President's view. The latter was really unable to give sufficient time to become well acquainted with all the circumstances necessary to keep in view for the proper carrying on of such an immense business. His attitude was one of obstruction, dangerous to the stock- holders' interests, and likely to produce successful com- petition. One day he carried much indignation into the office of the Manager and criticised him severely for arousing the animosity of outside competitors. "Why," said the President, "with your mechanical appliances you are reducing the price of stone to such a point that your undersales are provoking criticism. The men in the trade all over the country are sending in complaints to the board all the time. This thing must be stopped, or the company will not have a friend left in the trade." It seemed useless to argue with a powerful man labor- ing under such a trade misconception. The Manager, however, felt sure of his ground, and pointed out the 32 MARTIN B. MADDEN danger of allowing competitors to regulate the policy of the company. He maintained that the only way to carry on the business was to increase the sales as much as pos- sible in every legitimate way. The best way of all was to reduce the prices of stone to the lowest point attaina- ble, by every scheme available, to attract, enlarge and retain trade, letting competitors look out for themselves. To protect them by refusing to adopt economical devices and methods was to share with them business that prop- erly belonged to the corporation's own stockholders. The President w T as obdurate. He even went so far as to appoint a sort of superintendent to take his own place during necessary absence and to- assist the Manager in retarding the business. Mr. Madden declined to permit the new appointee to have anything to do with the management of the busi- ness, even to draw a salary. His own pay was a matter of contract, as was his position. He then assembled the many stockholders who had invested their money in the company's shares on the strength of his management, explained the situation to them, and asked to be relieved of responsibility for the care of their investments. He urged the abolition of his office because its duties were so usurped by the President that there was no field for vice-presidential work. There was a general demurrer to this and a clearing of the atmosphere. He was asked to take the presidency. This he positively refused to do. He preferred the management if. it could be freed from unnecessary interference so that he would be able to develop trade and earn dividends. The consultation resulted in his retention of his office and a modified inter- ference. PUBLIC SERVANT 33 The effects of the panic of 1893 were becoming more widespread and a general stoppage of building and public improvements was going on. The division of power and maladjustment of duties in the management tended still to impede the seeking of trade and the earning of income, and in 1894 the corporation's business reached the point of serious loss. That brought the stockholders and direc- tors to the whole truth. They lost no time in reorganiz- ing the entire management. They made the presidency the managerial office of the concern and elected Mr. Madden to the place. He accepted and was installed on the 16th of January, 1895. The water-carrier of Lemont, after footing every round of the ladder, was now at the very top. The new President had gone through every experience in the stone trade. He was the most thoroughly experienced and enlightened man in the business in the entire coun- try, and had the wjdest knowledge of the building industry. It had taken him thirty long years of hard toil to gain his mental equipment. He was asked to take the supreme control of the largest and most completely organized concern for the quarrying, handling and marketing of building stone in the world; to earn divi- dends on the immense property and to do it in the period of the greatest depression ever known to the trade. He took hold of his task with as much confidence as he dis- played when he carried his first bucket of water. He had a capital of $2,500,000. The stockholders were all rich and able, as well as willing, to put up all the assess- ments that might be needed. There were 50 boats and 500 teams of horses at the yards; 2,700 men were at work. There was a deficit in the past year's accounts of 8 34 MARTIN B. MADDEN $90,000 and a debt of $158,000. He at once increased the expenditures $108,000 to improve the equipment. He cut off 400 useless salaries. He reduced the cost of quarrying, cutting and transporting the output 33 1-3 per cent. He put down prices and enlarged the demand. He sold 12,000 carloads of cut stone in outside markets that year, besides hundreds of boat-loads in Chicago. From the very first day of his term he increased the receipts so that he was enabled to make money by advancing cash on outstanding current debts and in this way discounted every bill against the house during the year. When he gave account at the end of twelve months to his employers, he turned over clear receipts for the debts, 4 per cent, net on every dollar of the stock, and a business larger and more profitable than the investors had ever before had for their money. CHAPTER IV. LABOR SAVING INVENTIONS — MADDEN S METHOD OF INTRODUCING THEM — LABOR'S FRIEND. THE principal difficulty experienced in the manage- ment of the large number of skilled laborers it was necessary to keep employed in the development of the Lemont and Joliet stone quarries was in the introduction of machinery. The men were getting high wages, labor was scarce, the workers realized the value of the monopoly they had, and they were jealous and watchful of their own interests. Much of the time the demand for stone kept ahead of the supply. A strike at any period was calamitous for the companies. To attempt to increase the output by the introduction of machinery was gener- ally perilous. It could under few circumstances be brought in without the consent of the men. They had been taught by their leaders that labor-saving machines were rivals to human hands, and their attitude was usually one of opposition. The task of meeting the diffi- culty was always imposed on Madden. In him the men had confidence. They had seen him labor like them- selves. He had always been their friend. His sym- pathies were, as a rule, with them in their differences with the employers. He had risen in their sight by pure merit. Every accession of power that had come to him had been earned; not one had been sought, schemed for, 35 36 MARTIN B. MADDEN or secured by any kind of outside aid. The more powerful he grew the better their interests were cared for. What- ever he had to say was listened to. Madden himself devised most of the mechanical con- trivances put into the quarries. From the time he fin- ished his studies in mechanical drawing and civil engin- eering it had been his idea that the business of handling stone should be gradually transformed until it became like that of handling lumber. Instead of blasting out unshaped masses and putting them on the market as they came from the quarries, they should be shorn of waste, he thought, and put into form where taken out. That would at the beginning lessen prices by cutting off trans- portation charges on useless material. The decrease in price thus obtained would enlarge the demand and increase the quarrying. The men easily saw that, and there was not much trouble in bringing about a combination of cutting and blasting at the works. They rather liked the increase of the laboring population brought about by the combina- tion. It raised the value of lots and the circulation of money in the neighborhood, and made business thrive. Then the number of forms was increased. This went on until Madden, had succeeded in getting into stock shapes all sizes of steps, balustrades, newel posts, door and window sills and tops, door and window side uprights, hearth-stones and chimney cappings, in addition to the old stock forms of flagging, paving and curbing blocks. Each new form added to the old jobbing stock was the result of much investigation of the possibilities of the building market, as it had to be put into competition with lumber stocks. But Madden thought that stone PUBLIC SERVANT 37 might with advantage be worked into the market as a competitor of the inflammable and perishable material. When he had succeeded in finding sale for all the shapes in which stone might take the place of wood in the staple parts of building material, the problem became one of holding and enlarging the market. That brought it down to the question of cost of production solely. The cutters saw this. The quarrymen were, of course, with Madden in his efforts to increase the sales of the finished stone. So w r ere the cutters, if it augmented their earn- ings or added to their number without cutting down wages. But it was not easy to get more masons. The subject of new machinery had, therefore, to be met. Madden devised a number of machines for drilling, sawing, planing, squaring, roughing and otherwise masoning the stone. He proposed their introduction one by one, demonstrating in each case that the appliance, having to be operated by a skilled mason, lessened his work by throwing most of the hard part of it on the machine. It, therefore, increased the man's efficiency and lightened his toil. In the next place, it enabled each man to greatly increase his day's output. If the market did riot increase, this, of course, would enable the company to supply it with less masons. On the other hand, the vastly enlarged manufacture at practi- cally no increased cost, because the machines would become part of the plant, would enable the company to reduce prices so as to sell all the present number of masons employed could turn out. If the lessened prices could be got down to the point where stone would be preferable to wood, then the demand for stone would be so enlarged that it would require more masons to supply 38 MARTIN B. MADDEN it. In that case the machines would not only make the work of the masons easier, but would enlarge the num- ber employed, and might even result in higher wages for less actual hard work. No reasonable cutter would strike against an experiment with such an end in view. By such consideration of the feelings of the men, and through demonstrations all looking to their interest, Madden succeeded in gradually introducing every one of his many inventions. In every case, without an excep- tion, his theories, as he placed them before the men, worked out better than he had ever intimated they would. He had always made it a rule in his dealings with his men to tell them the truth; to never dissimulate or equivocate at all; and to always theorize or promise moderately and as far as possible within the mark. The quarrymen and masons were accustomed to seeing his word result better than his pledge. As one after another of .his labor-saving devices came into use, the company's business grew until the total historical result was that the quarries quintupled the number of their employes and wages all around were exactly trebled. The machines had enabled the management to reduce the wholesale prices of the principal staple forms of stone from 52 to 16 cents a piece; from 87 to 35 cents a piece; from $1.50 to 50 cents a piece; and of all other shapes proportionately. The market as a result was enormously and permanently enlarged and the stockholders profited as well as the men. It is a fact that to-day (July, 1900) the men employed by the companies under Mr. Madden's management are the best paid stone workers in America, and their work is lightened by most efficient mechanical appliances. PUBLIC SERVANT 39 The lowest form of labor engaged in any of his quarries receives 25 cents a day more than the same class of work gets anywhere else in the world. He has always been the workingman's friend. His sympathies are naturally with the poor. He understands poverty and realizes how much of it is due altogether to fortune. As a business man he knows that the best labor is the happiest; the happiest the best'paid. His studies in political economy have shown him that the two interests in this world that need wages — that cannot subsist without them — capital and labor, are necessarily partners in the firm of Produc- tion; that labor will best enable capital to get its wages, interest, when capital best helps labor to get its pay, wages. Where he lives, in the community where his entire laborious, useful life has been spent, since his youth in public, responsible capacities, he is recognized by all as the fairest man to the interests of both capital and labor. The recognition of his position in this respect is so general and so undisputed that in most cases of dis- pute he is solicited by both sides to act as arbiter. And such is the confidence in his intelligence and uprightness that when controversies are placed with him for decision, in all cases wherein he can incline to neither side, both retreat from their contention and leave the adjustment to his individual creation. While conducting the large and complicated business of the Western Stone Company, Mr. Madden also acted as Treasurer of the Legnard-Madden Brick Company, Treasurer of the Cable Building and Loan Association, Director of the Garden City Banking & Trust Company, Director of the Commercial and Loan Company, and Trustee of the State Reformatories. 40 MARTIN B. MADDEN He was selected by Governor Altgeld for the latter office because of the financial talent needed in the man- agement of the new building at Pontiac, which was to cost $500,000 and be capable of properly housing 1,500 inmates. As bank and building and loan association director, Mr. Madden solved the problem of eliminating the evil of. one-man power from the institutions with which he was connected — the evil that invariably results in the financial destruction of every fiscal enterprise in which it is permitted to hold sway. In the banking business he insisted on having the President confined in his work to carrying out the instructions of the directors and on hav- ing them consider, decide and order every action involv- ing the responsible use of the funds. To prevent abuse of power on the one hand and neglect on the other in the management of association business, necessarily left largely in the hands of the one official under salary and always on duty, Mr. Madden conceived and had put into practice the plan of limiting the expenses to such a per- centage on the money authorized by the directory to be loaned as would make it to the interest of the Manager to keep that sum out and at the same time prevent finan- cial abuses. CHAPTER V. CONTRACTOR CARELESS — THE MISTAKE OF TOLERATING DISHON- ESTY — ACCEPTING PUNISHMENT. IN any large business wherein the policy is formed and controlled by a board of directors and carried out by the executive head of the concern, while he necessarily has a large discretion it must often happen that his actions will be hampered or assisted by the unofficial con- duct of the members. It is difficult indeed to obtain a perfect business manager. He must be a man who thoroughly understands the business he is trusted to conduct, who can be depended upon to get out of it all the results his stockholders are entitled to obtain, and who at the same time possesses, and will exercise, the tact to inspire all his employers to let him have his own way entirely. Mr. Madden's experience and his knowl- edge of himself made him self-reliant. He was willing to be advised and always invited counsel, but early in his business career he had discovered that he was far more apt than most of his commercial associates to go to the bottom of things before taking action. He, therefore, depended not only on his own judgment but upon his impressions of men, particularly those formed of a man acting off guard. A well-known and large dealing contractor called one day at the offices of the Western Stone Companv to enquire 41 42 MARTIN B. MADDEN about the prices of many sizes of building stone. He presented good references and established sufficient credit for the transaction on hand, and after more or less bargaining placed a large order for material. Mr. Mad- den, in issuing instructions for its delivery, cautioned the executive clerks to conduct the details of all dealings with this man with especial care. The contractor had made so good an impression by his personal appearance, manner, and general way of carrying on his part of the negotiation, that the caution attracted much attention. One of the officers of the company asked why this cus- tomer had been singled out for special remark. 4l Be- cause," replied Madden, "he is handling other people's money and is not careful enough to get full value for all he pays out. " 4 'Why, he is one of the easiest men to deal with that ever came here for material," was rejoined; "he didn't haggle at all. We got through with him in no time/' "That's just it. Whenever a man who is spending funds entrusted to him is not particular enough to haggle for all he can get for the money, he is Hot as honest as a man should be. This man did not push matters here at all; if he had been diligent he might have made a much better bargain. Why should we not watch him when he himself places right before us evidence of his unreli- ability?" The contractor continued his patronage and it was valuable. He always paid his bills promptly and became such a favorite in the office that he received especial con- sideration each time he came. In most of his dealings, however, there was some little looseness. He would fail sometimes to insist on getting certain pieces of stone PUBLIC SERVANT 43 due, or carelessly approve accounts superficial examina- tion would have shown to be incorrectly tallied against him. The office was continually finding out and correct- ing these errors on its own initiative. The head clerks used these incidents as arguments in favor of the cus- tomer. "You see," they would say, "he has absolute confidence in the company; he knows it will not see him cheated; it all shows what a good reputation we have." "On the contrary," the General Manager would reply, "it shows that the company is constantly making gifts to the man to save his backers from the losses his own infidelity to their trust would otherwise cause them. We, of course, do not want and would not keep anything he pays for; but no man is altogether square who does not get all that others trust him to buy after he pays their money for it. Such a man is either intentionally or unintentionally not quite honest. He should be watched, for often such lapses as this man is continually making here are intentional. When they are, he will record them all in his memory as an investment against this house, and in his own good time he will attempt to realize upon them by some assumption or demand which he will cal- culate we cannot then very well refuse. It is my order that his account be scrupulously kept and that extra care be taken that no debit shall arise against us through any lapse of his." Some of the executive clerks attributed this to preju- dice, but Mr. Madden was sure he entertained no preju- dice except what the customer's methods would naturally arouse in any conscientious business man. The con- tractor's personality was so engaging that it would be dif- 44 MARTIN B. MADDEN ficult not to like him. His way of doing business was alone objectionable. Matters went along in this way for about five years, during which the business relations between the company and the contractor continued as above described. The General Manager had about concluded to allow the senti- ment of the office to control his judgment in its dealings with Mr. Careless, and to keep the prejudice he could not stifle all to himself. About this time the city was hurrying up the work of track elevation within the corporate limits. An important section of work, which would cost $1,000,000 to accomplish, was about to be let, and Mr. Careless was anxious to secure it. On one of his business visits to the offices of the Western Stone Company, he disclosed his desire to Mr. Madden and asked him for a personal letter of introduction to the President of the company that would let the $1,000,000 job. This gentleman and Mr. Madden were close friends, but Careless gave no indication that he was aware of that. The request was a fair one under all the circumstances — it was for a mere letter of introduction from one business man to another for a customer who had largely patronized the one and wished to make a proposal to the other. As President of the stone company, Mr. Madden wrote the letter. In it he simply affirmed that he had known the bearer in a business way for about five years; that he was a con- tractor who understood his business; that he had pur- chased a great deal of material from the Western Stone Company during the period mentioned, and had always paid the bills for it promptly. A few days after giving this letter Mr. Madden was PUBLIC SERVANT 45 called to the long distance telephone by some one 600 miles away who wished to speak to him on an important matter. It was th6 President. "Madden, your friend, Careless, has presented your letter of recommendation to me along with a bid for that $1,000,000 contract. We want to give it to him on your account, but his bid is altogether too high. We have told him to reduce it, and that then we'll give him the job. He needn't make his figures the lowest, with the testimonials he has." The President was acquainted with Madden's habit of conservatism in business correspondence and had without any study extended the meaning of the letter. There was no man in the city the company would rather have interested in the construction work going on than the President of the Western Stone Company. Contractor Careless, it is needless to say, obtained the contract. When the award had been made he called upon Mr. Madden and asked him to become bondsman for fulfillment of the contract. While holding this request under consideration he received over the 'phone, from the letting company's office, a request that he endorse the contract as bondsman, since the Western Stone Company was furnishing all the cut stone used by the different contractors in the work going on, the let- ting companies obligating themselves to see that the Western would be paid. To this message there was nothing to answer except assent. At this time Mr. Madden had completed preparations for taking a holiday trip to Europe with his wife, and was on the point of departure. He found that the con- tractor had secured as his other bondsman an intimate wealthy business friend of Mr. Madden. Hastily con- 46 MARTIN B. MADDEN ferring with him it was agreed that before endorsing the contract it should be arranged that the bondsmen should have the selection of a mutual friend to superin- tend the work done under it, for their protection, the choice to be left to Mr. Madden's colleague. The bond required placed the signers under a $50,000 obligation to see that the work was done according to the specifications send that all bills should be paid as they fell due during the progress of the work. Just as Mr. Madden was about to board his train on the way to enjoy his vacation his secretary overtook him with the com- pleted papers in the case and obtained his signature. Work under .the contract was commenced at once, with the superintendent chosen by the other bondsman in charge as overseer. Mr. Madden remained away altogether seven weeks. When he reached the quarantine station at New York on his return, he received by special delivery, a telegram from Chicago, marked "Rush." "Important." It stated that everything had gone wrong in the contract enterprise, and asked him to wait at the Fifth Avenue Hotel until his fellow-bondsman should arrive, stating that he would take the first train after being apprised of the acceptance of the appointment, and urged a "rush" answer. The whole situation disclosed itself, and a reply was telegraphed to call Madden up by telephone at the Hotel at two o'clock next afternoon. It was night, the ship would have to lie at quarantine until sunrise, and could hardly land its passengers in time to keep appoint- ments in the city much befoi*e that hour. The vessel was fortunate in getting through next day earlier than had been calculated and Mr. Madden lost no time in calling PUBLIC SERVANT 47 up his own office in Chicago by telephone and learning the whole story of the trouble. Thus equipped he met. his partner at the wire at two o'clock and then got his tale. It didn't differ much from the one already received, but it contained the statement that the bondsman had already been compelled to pay out over $70,000 in cash, besides assuming unknown amounts of liability, and that things would have been much worse but for the diligence of the superintendent. Madden said he would take the first through train home; it would pass Elkhart, Ind. , at a certain hour; if the overseer would board the train there with a full written statement of the accounts and able to give complete explanations, a plan of action might be devised by the time Chicago was reached. At the Indiana town the overseer boarded the cars and Madden and he were soon engaged in sifting the case. It required but a short time and but little questioning to convince Mr. Madden that his informant was either at sea on the facts, or was in collusion with the contractor and was attempting to deceive him, as he felt he had probably fooled the other bondsman. His repeated efforts to secure the contractor's dismissal and his boast- ings of how he had worked night and day to prevent matters from becoming worse then they were suggested in some way dishonesty. Towards him an inquisitive but non-committal policy was maintained the remainder of the journey. Soon after the train left Elkhart a tele- gram was received asking for a meeting at nine o'clock that night in Chicago. As the train was not due until that hour, it was evident that the waiting partner was in an excited frame of mind and that the condition of the 48 MARTIN B. MADDEN business was growing worse. An appointment was tele- graphed for the next morning. As soon as the city was "reached Mr. Madden saw his wife home and* spent the night getting the real facts. When these were in hand it was apparent that unques- tionable control of the case would have to be obtained and that a large amount of cash would be needed early in the morning. The times were hard and money was difficult to raise even under the most favorable circum- stances. Nevertheless, it was got. The partners met next morning, the one naturally feverish, but the other steady and fixed for action. 44 We've been robbed!" exclaimed the one. "I've already been obliged to put up $70,000 in cash, in these times when money is the hardest thing in the world to get. I've had to stand pat on the contract and assume all kinds of liability. There are 1,800 men at work. I have had to pay all their wages now for seven weeks, and there's no way of letting them go. I'm nearly distracted over the whole business. And here you are as placid as if nothing at all had happened. Are you not worried over this thing?" 44 No, it's too serious for worrying or being nervous. We need our energies for work. That is the only thing that will save us both from far more serious cause for worry." 44 Well, but what are you going to do; what can you do?" 44 The first thing I am going to do is to pay you back the money you have lost and the money you have paid out on my account. You have, I find, paid out, under the demands of the contract we endorsed, $70,000 in PUBLIC SERVANT 49 wages. Half of that I am responsible for; the other half you are. But you would not have risked this responsi- bility except for my partnership. There's $35,000 in cash. It makes you whole for your half of the loss. The other half, which you have voluntarily advanced for me, I will make good to you. That will leave you without any loss on the contract and just where you started. Now we can talk business. " The atmosphere being now cleared and calm, Mr. Madden told his partner this: the overseer was worse than the contractor. The contract had simply been worked as a means of securing business in other direc- tions. Politicians with influence in the letting of con- tracts had been supplied with guarantees of votes by put- ting their workers on the pay-roll with nothing to do but district organizing. There were hundreds of such already on the contractor's books, not one of whom had lifted a shovel. It was the excess of cash expenditure on this wage account over the amount of actual construction done and collected for, that had been dunned out of the bondsman. The conspiracy was unquestionably the device mainly of the overseer. The contractor might calculate on getting other jobs for this political help, but the real conspirator was the superintendent. He was worse than the other man and must be dismissed at once. Next the whole work of construction must be shut down to end expense, and not be resumed until the whole business was purged. To the dismissal of his own appointee the bondsman reluctantly consented but he jumped at the general proposition. 4 50 MARTIN B. MADDEN The two then agreed to send for a lawyer. When he came, Mr. Madden explained the affair to him and said that he had decided to secure the assignment of the entire contract over to the bondsmen, with all monies due and owing, and a bill of sale for all materials on hand and arranged for, tools and everything. The law- yer saw great difficulty in compelling any man to assign such a valuable contract. "Tell Careless," said Mad- den, "that if he refuses to assign we will go to law for relief as bondsmen and allege as grounds all we know; if he consents, we will retain him to carry on the work as long as he does so to our satisfaction. ' ' The attorney put his great skill at once to work and procured the assignment, taking care to make the employment clause in the consideration optional with his clients as to con- tinuance. When the assignment had been secured, "What are you going to do with the contract now that you have it?" Mr. Madden was asked. "Sub-let it?" To everybody's amazement he answered: "Operate it myself. I'll take charge of the work. " He did. He had reached Chicago on September 5th. It had taken him two days to complete his investigation, pay his partner, get rid of the overseer, obtain the assign- ment and hire Careless. He began work on September 7th. He found 1,800 men on the pay roll. He was sat- isfied 800 were all he needed. Selecting that number of the most efficient, he dismissed the rest When Careless began again, as he soon did, to pad the pay rolls, Madden discharged him and put in his place an expert of his own selection. It was not long before Careless began to make demands under legal advice for various rights claimed under the original contract or through the alleged PUBLIC SERVANT 51 invalidity of the assignment. Madden treated these as attempts at blackmail and to make his way clearer had the letting company make a new contract with him and his fellow-bondsman direct. The work was suspended for a while in November. At that time stock was taken. Madden had recouped the whole $70,000 originally lost and had $8,000 net profit besides. When work was resumed, all sorts of schemes were devised to beat the new invaders in the contracting field. Superintendents from the concern letting the work con- stantly interfered with it, demanding all sorts of changes in the specifications. Every reasonable change was assented to but charged up. They amounted to more than $60,000 in the additional expense of carrying on the construction, and the company was so struck with the reasonableness of the demand for compensation for the changes that it ordered the amount added to the contract bill. The work was finished in the following November, and was so carried on that it was not allowed to interfere in any way with Mr. Madden's care of any other of his numerous business duties. When he closed the books he divided $60,000 net profit with his partner bondsman, in addition to the previous $70,000 that had canceled their early loss. "There," said he, "ends the punishment for not adhering to a first well-founded impression.'* CHAPTER VI. THE {USTICE OF FRIENDSHIP — THE DEMANDS OF LAW — FRIEND- SHIP SAVES. THE demands of legal justice are often unjust. They sometimes deprive the world of the services of good men. To properly thwart the unfair claims of the law calls for the action of a person who must himself be beyond suspicion and good indeed. Business men are sometimes called upon to face much unsound criticism because a correct sense of right impels them to withstand popular clamor in cases wherein the public, even with all the facts, is incapable of true insight into the actual merits of the happening. For its own protection the Western Stone Company adopted a plan of closing its books on the last day of each month. No matter what the amount of business done the arrangement required the balancing of accounts by midnight on the last day of each lunar division. At eleven o'clock on such a night one of the young men in the office had not yet reported for duty after the evening meal. He must be ill, it was .thought, as it was the first time during the twelve long years of his faithful service such an absence had occurred, and he was well aware the staff was overtaxed. The books were all sat- isfactorily closed by extra work without his aid. Next morning he continued absent. Everybody in the estab- lishment grew concerned and the books were opened 52 PUBLIC SERVANT 53 anew without his presence. When noon arrived without him, anxiety ga\i$ way to dread, and a special messenger was dispatched to his boarding house to learn the nature of the malady. He was not there. He had gone away the night before in as good' health as he ever had. No explanation was left by him; he had simply disappeared. He had been with the company over half his life and had risen from one clerkship to another until he had become cashier, entirely trusted with the handling of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that every year found their way to and from the corporation's strong box. He was handsome, talented, modest, accommodating, inval- uable, and only twenty-two years of age. He was moral and had no bad habits. He must have met with some accident or unfair play, since his accounts balanced to a penny. Some long head threw out the suggestion, " Tally the bank book with the cash book." The tally was tried. There was $5,150 difference. That much had come into the office that had not gone into the bank. As the miss- ing man received all the cash as well as made the deposits, the discrepancy could be explained by him only. Perhaps he did not wish to give the explanation and to avoid it remained away. More research showed that on one day during the past four the company's credit at the bank received $1,500 less than the cash receipts; on another, $1,500; on still another, $1,500, and on the last of the four, $650 less. It was too plain — the young man had gone wrong. In the whole history of the company no man connected with its management had ever been so upset as was the President when he was made aware of this. With no 54 MARTIN B. MADDEN abatement of * his affection for the youth, he put on his hat, took all his energy with him, and se^t out on a search for the truth. It was the races. The cashier had run against the races and had lost? The President learned all there was in the whole story. He came back to his office sad, sorry as a strong man can be. He thought awhile. Then he drew out his personal bank check book, filled out an order for $5,150 payable to the order of the Western Stone Company, signed it, took it to the Directors' room, handed it to the proper official and said: 4 'That covers the whole amount of the company's loss. Take it and call it square." * 'But that would condone the offense. It would let the cashier off. That'll never do. He must be arrested and punished." "No," said the President, "he must not be arrested and disgraced. He is not guilty. He is not to blame. I know, for I have found out. I make the company whole. Let that end it and stop the fuss. I'll find the young man, and don't you go on sending him to the devil. Leave the boy to me." Everybody in that office knew that what the President said must be true — true, too, in just the way he said it. He was the man to chase wrong clear around the world and then clear off it. But right — well, right knew him for a friend. But the thing got out. There are tongues that have no business but bad business. They work a thousand times harder than the tongues that praise. And so the police got astir. The police befriended the reporters, and then the editors began to palaver justice. And all PUBLIC SERVANT 55 the time the only person that knew anything about the case was the President, and he was out trying to baffle the whole crowd. He engaged the-smartest detectives in town and said to them: "Go find that young man. When you've found him take him in my name, and tell him to trust me as he always did. Put him some place where he can't be got at. Don't bother him -with ques- tions and don't let anyone else. But make no record, and, beyond all, no charge. And don't break his heart by letting him think he's under arrest." The men went. But remorse beat them. The cashier had given himself up at a- police station just before the detectives arrived there in their quest. They succeeded in carrying out the rest of their instructions. The President made haste to the station, re-estab- lished relations with the boy, and obtained a clean breast from him. They had got from him, in the first place, all he had, the $2,500 it had taken him twelve years to save. Then he saw how easy it would be to get that back with the money he had on hand as executor of a young girl's estate. The $1,800 he had in his safety deposit box belonging to a fellow clerk would surely fetch both back. There was so much now out that nothing but the com- pany's $5,150 would ever save him and the girl and the clerk. And then, the awakening; with no iiope left. He wanted to go right away to the penitentiary, where he would never again see any people but people like him- self, so he could look in someone's face. He couldn't live unless he could look human beings in the face, and outside Joliet there was no hope for him. Newspapers can create a public appetite. This appe- tite then must be satisfied, and the creators of the taste 56 MARTIN B. MADDEN must furnish the victim to be devoured. They are bound to care for their own progeny. Who is eaten is another question. So it came that there was a public demand for the destruction of the clerk. The demand began to * press upon the Directors, and they commenced exertion upon the President. He told them of the whirl that took the clerk off his feet. He had been firmly on his feet for twenty-two years, and was now on them, and no doubt would remain erect the balance of his life unless the law threw him down. He had lost his footing for only a few days. He was dizzy when he went down; couldn't see straight. He had been whirled. There had been a woman, capable of blinding the moral'sight like Eve did with the apple on Adam; and men adept in the art of hypnotizing. These people had succeeded in creating a period of moral unconsciousness in the life of the clerk, a period during which he had to do what they wanted him to do, and was not responsible. The Directors all thought this, too, at first; but then the press was making demands and so was the public, and it wouldn't do for men conducting great business affairs to ignore what the public demanded. They were inclined, therefore, to insist upon the President doing his duty in response to public sentiment, and having an indictment duly brought. The President saw the point, the point of sensibility in the directory. The clerk had been the^most popular man in the company's service with all the builders and contractors in the city and for miles around who were in the habit of coming to the office to buy and settle for building stone. Scores of them .had been in to ask about his fate. PUBLIC SERVANT 57 "It is left. in my hands, " said the President, "with instructions to prosecute. " "And can't the order be changed?" "Not as long as the public demand calls for justice. The Directors sympathize with the boy but are influ- enced entirely in their decision to turn him over to the law by the public demand." "Public demand! There's nothing in that. You can't lay your finger on it. Suppose there was a public demand that had people in it, men you knew and could calLby name. What effect would that have upon the Directors?" "It would be hard to tell until it appeared and tried to do something." "Well, we'll see." Then a great petition asking the President of the Western Stone Company to refrain from prosecuting the cashier, who had attracted and retained so many cus- tomers, etc., etc., was circulated for signatures. It came back with hundreds and hundreds of autographs, with the name of nearly every man and every firm that had ever done any building, paving, or construction work in, or anywhere near, the city of Chicago for many years past. When the Board got that it called in the President and said: "There has been a great change in public opinion. Just look at these names. It appears that the public is now almost unanimous in the opinion that the company should not prosecute the case against the cashier. Mr. President, you need not carry the case any further." And so a carriage went round by a back way, to avoid reporters, and took the clerk to the President's house, 58 MARTIN B. MADDEN where his wife had assembled many of the young man's relatives, and he was turned over free to them and went home with them. He is a rising man in the world now and fills a responsible position, and every week redeems part of his debt. He has a bright, sound future. And nobody tells this story as often as he does, since the newspapers made it public, and no one else tells it so well. He relates it that the real truth may be circulated to overtake and destroy the lies, as well as to induce young men to abso- lutely avoid having any financial dealings whatsoever with any people in this world who are engaged in callings not entirely respectable as well as legitimate. CHAPTER VII. ENTEkS PUBLIC LIFE— THE NOVICE AMONG ALDERMEN— A LUCKY MISTAKE. IT was inevitable that a man whose career had been so conspicuously valuable to all who had entrusted him with the care of their interests should be called upon to assume some public duty in a community like that of Chicago. The city was commencing to attract the atten- tion of the world as a possible metropolis. Its expansion was certain and was already being determined by events. Mr. Madden had lived in the locality known for a long time as the Fourth Ward for about seventeen years. The district was proud of him as a resident and referred to him as one of its principal examples of Chicago ability and enterprise. A deserving young man one day called upon him and asked him for a letter of recommendation for a political clerkship at the disposal of the representative of that part of the ward in the City Council. Mr. Madden knew noth- ing about the methods of handling patronage, nor any- thing respecting the processes of politicians. The appli- cant was fully competent and the letter was given. Not long afterwards the recipient called again, said the recom- mendation had not been effective, and requested Mr. Madden to personally say a good word to the local dis- penser of offices. He went to the trouble of doing this, got a promise he deemed satisfactory, and supposed the 59 60 MARTIN B. MADDEN affair to be then settled. In a week or so the young man called again and reported that he was still unemployed. Surprised, Madden made another trip and obtained more positive assurances. But the applicant continued idle. Then Madden went to headquarters to learn why such shuttling was carried on. He was amazed at the dis- covery that the representative who had made him so much trouble was really unable to do anything in the case. He had agreed to let a political organization which had assisted in his election control the appointments belonging to his district, and as this organization had no interest in the ward the places properly belonging to its quota had been filled by people living elsewhere. The unfairness and the dilatory character of the whole pro- ceeding aroused Madden's sense of justice. He criticized the policy in vogue in a style that caused the most indus- trious quotation and comment. This attracted political attention to him for the first time. His stand was so manly, straightforward and pop- ular that requests began to reach him urging him to accept a nomination to the City Council as one of the representatives of the ward. At last these requests were combined Into a great petition signed by 3,000 voters, one-half of the total number entitled to suffrage in the division. He accepted the nomination, equivalent, as he thought, to a demand and election, and in April, 1889, went sent by a plurality of 106 votes to represent the Fourth Ward in the Board of Aldermen. So little did he then know about what is called prac- tical politics, notwithstanding his broad and deep educa- tion regarding public affairs and principles, that when he went to take his seat in the city legislature he entered PUBLIC SERVANT 61 the city hall for the first time, and when the session opened he saw for the first time a political branch of the government in operation. He had always been a Republican and as such had been elected. But he was looked upon as so unsophisti- cated politically by the managing members of his party in the Board that when the committees were formed for the session's work, the new member from the Fourth was assigned to that on Wharves and Public Grounds. The wharves were fixtures requiring little legislative atten- tion and the public grounds were then of so little impor- tance that putting a member on that committee was something like sending him abroad to get rid of him. The new member, however, did not know this, nor did he even suspect it. He took it for granted that he was made a committeeman to work. He studied the duties of his new position. When he knew what they were, he saw that there was a great deal to be done by his committee, although it had not had much to attend to for a long time. Its work had been so long appropriated by other committees, which by usage had obtained title to it and regular reference of it, that the one on Wharves and Pub- lic Grounds for many sessions had seldom been heard of, except in the list when some new member in the Board was banished into it. It was not long before the legisla- ture was regularly treated to surprises. Every time any- thing properly belonging to the work Madden's commit- tee was originally created to do was on the point of being referred elsewhere, he arose and corrected the proceed- ing and had the task sent where it should be attended to. It seemed extraordinary at first that any man in the Council should actually hunt for work, as the " green" 62 MARTIN B. MADDEN member seemed to be doing. The older sitters thought he would 4t get over it ;" but he did not. He kept on until his committee was before the house oftener than any other, and until the whole body was fully educated as to its prerogatives, and all attempt to encroach upon them was abandoned. By that time the annexation movement, which more than quadrupled the city's terri- tory, caused the creation of new divisions, and brought the addition of immense park areas, had made of the ignored committee the most desirable, if not the most important, in the legislature, and all the members were desirous of getting into it. The "greenhorn" from the Fourth was, however, as a fellow-member expressed it, now "at the head of the procession." He had attained his position simply by attending to the business to which he had been assigned. In the work he had dis- played such intelligence, business ability and capacity for "getting things through" that there was not the sug- gestion of an effort to either supersede him or to inter- fere with him. He was recognized as a great addition to the Board, and his ward commenced to gain influence in municipal legislation. At the first meeting of the Republican members of the Council after the appointment of the committees Madden moved the adoption of a resolution pledging the mem- bers to unity of action in all matters respecting the city's welfare. He showed that some such action was neces- sary. The party was in a minority in the Board. If its vote always appeared solid in favor of good legislation and against bad, it would retard the latter and help the former, and besides create a public opinion that would surely increase the party representation in future Coun- PUBLIC SERVANT 63 cils. This motion was greeted with surprise and pleas- ure. It was adopted. It drew attention to the mover and made him popular at once with his party associ- ates. CHAPTER VIII. PUBLIC SERVICE BEGINS— THE CHICAGO PROBLEM— THE SOLUTION UNDERTAKEN. IN the June following Madden's sudden advent into the public life of Chicago, the great annexation movement that had been agitating the community for a long time culminated in the addition to the city of all the region of Hyde Park, all of the town of Lake, all of Jefferson township, all of that of Lake View, and part of Calumet and Cicero townships. Never before was effected a municipal enlargement so stupendous in the difficulties it involved. When London expanded it simply took under one municipal government all the finished, contiguous and long adjusted parts of one great town. When Greater New York was formed the act of consolidation simply abolished separate local governments in the different parts of a community that had long been hom- ogeneous. It was altogether different in Chicago. The old city was compact, well built, well developed, and well gov- erned. It contained but thirty-seven square miles of territory. The occupied streets were graded, paved, watered, sewered and lighted. The transportation sys- tem was sufficient. The town was rectangular, long and narrow, running north and south along Lake Michigan. The tramways ran from the northern boundary to the southern in thoroughfares a few blocks apart and suffi- ciently accommodated the people. Hardly a cross-town 64 PUBLIC SERVANT 65 line existed. There had not been travel enough back and forth across the narrow city to call into existence tramways for its accommodation. The police, fire and water service were more than ample. The water revenue had a surplus in the treasury of $800,000. All at once the town's area was increased from thirty- seven square miles to 186. One hundred and forty-nine square miles, more than four times the size of the old cit}% was added at a stroke. This new territory was practically rural or farm land. Little of it was improved in an urban sense. So keen was the sense of speculation on the part of most of the owners of all this farm land that the act of consolidation inspired them to at once have it staked off into city lots. So large, white and dense were these stakes, that to travelers the city looked for a long time as if surrounded by old-fashioned country graveyards. There were few gradings, fewer pavements, hardly any sidewalks, no lights, no police, no fire system, no water mains, no sewerage. Here were 149 square miles thrown all at once upon a rather small, well organ- ized city, to sewer, water, light, grade, police and govern. The new population wanted to be metropolitanized immediately. It was given full representation in the city legislature and it simply raised municipal pande- monium over every postponement of the miraculous. Thousands of smart, unscrupulous men rushed into the territory, picked up bargains in unimproved land, sur veyed and divided it into lots, put them on the market, with guaranteed improvements, at high prices, and then fell upon the Council with every art influence, scheme and corrupt proposition deemed necessary to loot the cor- poration and assist their speculations. 6 66 MARTIN B. MADDEN Hundreds of farmers' sons became ambitious to be policemen or firemen. Their parents, now city tax- payers, revenged themselves upon the men in town who stood in their way. The old laws set aside for sewerage purposes two mills on the total assessed valuation. Water mains were laid and connected by a plan that had always met every demand. When there were enough houses on a street to be mained to yield an annual water tax of ten cents a. lineal foot, the water was put in; where there were not enough to do that it was furnished at the expense of the property owners along the way, who received certificates for the excess taxation. These entitled the holders to rebates, as soon as the receipts along the improvement yielded the money. When it came to draining farms, however, the case was disastrously different. It would have cost $350,000 to lay the first main sewer in the town of Jefferson, to say nothing of laterals. The assessed valuation of the town at the city rate would not have yielded enough to lay that one drain in seventy years. Street improvements, which included watering, sewering, grading, and paving were obtained by ordi- nance secured by petition. The speculators who planned to have their far-out lands equipped with water would obtain the ordinance for general improvement in the regular way, then, when the water mains were in and connected, they would secure the passage of another ordinance repealing the first, in this way getting water and escaping the costs of other improvements. There were few railroad facilities in any of the annexed territory. Where any existed they cost the passengers extra fares. These new tax-payers demanded PUBLIC SERVANT 67 extension of the car lines until they should cover both the length and breadth of the city, and that the companies should carry passengers for single fares with universal transfers. The car companies had got their franchises for twenty years in 1883, and in 1889, the period of annexation, were in a rather independent position. It was not long before it was realized that the city was being rushed straight into bankruptcy. The water fund had lost its $800,000 surplus, and the department was $1,500,000 in debt. All the departments were over- strained with work and being rapidly submerged in excessive expenditures No inhabited territory in the world had so many miles of steam railway in busy opera- tion. Several hundred people were killed every year at the crossings. These were in the city now, and the cor- poration was more easily reached in the courts than the companies could be. Damage suits for millions were piled up and clogged the courts. It looked as if the pawnbrokers of the world would get Chicago. It was the largest city on the globe in area, trying to carry on a metropolitan business on a village plan. It was a metropolis twenty-five miles long by fourteen miles wide attempting to parade in swell dress in the yardage that clothed it when it was eight by four. Incredible as it now seems, it is a fact that few of the dangers thrust upon the giant young city had been fore- seen or arranged for in the terms of annexation. The people appeared intoxicated with the greatness of Chi- cago's opportunities and they grasped at bigness with a kind of fury of strength. They were confident, of pos- sessing full ability to meet and solve any problem that W MARTIN B. MADDEN sudden greatness might put upon them. They made no preparation for the titanic struggle, and unequipped they met it without a shirk. Such a risk was never before taken by any population since men began to live in communities. Looking back over the life of Chicago it must strike the historian that its people are the best poised and most courageous of all the assemblages of men. They are the indomitables of the race, and they are capable of any- thing the progress of civilization makes possible in civic r life. No other local legislature that ever existed had such unparalleled difficulties to meet as were pressed upon the Board of Aldermen of Chicago from the period of annex- ation in June, 1889, until the formative period of the city's marvelous growth was passed in 1897; and no other law-making body ever acquitted itself of its task so creditably, all things considered, as did this body. No other had such abuse and misunderstanding to contend against, and no other deserved them less. The Alderman from the Fourth Ward had innocently precipitated himself into the forefront of the struggle by building up work for his obscure Committee on Wharves and Public Grounds. The annexations had made the committee properly the one of first importance at the start. Madden being a sound lawyer by education and commercial experience, soon found himself a directing power in the legislature's work of assimilation. His experience in handling men of all nationalities, as well as his ability to meet people of financial power, enabled him to avert danger by judicious compromise. His insight and power of statement made it easy for him to PUBLIC SERVANT 69 clear the disputes of irrelevant matters and bring the essential things into the clear view of all. His character rapidly won general confidence and concentrated atten- tion upon whatever he espoused. The colleagues of his own party rallied about him as a safe leader, and those of the opposition gradually abandoned all attempts to meet him on anything but the real merits of the ques- tion. The presence and activity of such a man in a leg- islative body always results in that kind of public econ- omy which prevents wasteful discussion. Matters have to come to a head, as it wer^ when he is around on business intent. The ways and means of getting revenue for the city began to assume first importance in the Council's legis- lative work soon after the shock of the first .raids upon the treasury brought the seriousness of the gigantic expansion home to the municipal powers. The Finance Committee of the Council, which had always had control of the methods of raising and disbursing the public funds, had never been much in the public eye before annexa- tion, because of the practically automatic character of the city's income and outgo. But now the income was a problematical matter, while the only thing that could be relied on respecting the expenditures was that they would constantly tend to be both incalculable and ruin- ous. Financial talent became indispensable on the com- mittee, and it was sought. The business career of the member from the Fourth was known to every well- informed citizen, and his financial skill was one of the town's boasts. He was pressed by his party colleagues to go on the Finance Committee; not only as a member of it, but as its Chairman. There was no difference of 70 MARTIN B. MADDEN opinion among them as to his superior qualifications for the place. His political opponents conceded that he was the best man in the Board for the finance chairmanship, but, having a majority in the body, they made a party question of it and voted against giving him the office when he was proposed for it. The result was that he was put on the Finance Committee to do the work every one said he could do better than anyone else, but by party influence he was prevented from having his own way there. He became a member of the committee in his second council manic year. After serving two years on this committee, in 1893 he was made Chairman by the unanimous vote of the whole Council, which as a body always elected that officer. He was Chairman five years, the longest period the office has ever been held by one man in the history of the city. It did not seem to make any difference to Madden whether he was at the head of a committee or at the tail of it. so long as there was any work to be done. He never cared much for what is called credit for doing things. If they were to be done, he simply did them. He had such a capacity for accomplishing results that wherever he was in a working body, especially one that had financiering to do, he was practically the body, whether he was called the one end or the other or the middle. One of the first things Mr. Madden set about rectify- ing was the facility the old laws afforded speculators of acquiring improvement of their outlying lands at public expense. This was accomplished by throwing the bur- den of the cost entirely on the property benefited. If the land was worth improving, he contended, it should PUBLIC SERVANT 71 be made to bear the cost. An ordinance was framed enacting that public improvements might be obtained by petition ; but that when ordered the property bene- fited should be assessed the full cost of the changes, and that this sum, plus an extra charge for surveying and other incidental expenses, should be paid into the city treasury before any of the work would be done. When the city had in hand all the money that its officials should assess for the contemplated improvements, it would have the work done under a uniform public system of its own, and when through it would rebate to the prop- erty owners any surplus left. This would, by applying a general system of work, cost the property owners less than individual effort, and would secure uniformity in the city's development. The plan gave due publicity and opportunity for appeal and rectification, and con- served all but dishonest interests. It was bitterly opposed by open and secret attack, but it was carried through. It kept down unnecessary and unhealthy, as well as criminal, exploitation and gave the municipality proper control of its own growth. Each man's taxes for improvements were spent on his own land. The excess in the assessments enabled the city to have money on hand to include the square pieces of streets at intersec- tions when the ordained improvements ran from one block to another, as they often did. How important this was may be inferred from the fact that under this ordi- nance the people of Chicago afterwards built as much as 150 miles of streets, 150 miles of sewers, 150 miles of water mains, and sixty miles of buildings in a single year. The town was growing during the period of this improve- ment at the rate of 10.000 inhabitants every month. 72 MARTIN B. MADDEN The task of putting an end to railway manslaughter at the grade crossings was mainly left to the Fourth's representative. He from the first advocated the enforced elevation of all steam railway tracks throughout the entire city. Within the corporate limits there were sev- eral hundred miles of these tracks, and it was thought impossible to ever force the costly elevation of so much busily engaged trackage. It would be cheaper for the railroad companies to pay damages for deaths at any figure than endure the expense of some hundreds of mil- lions of dollars for raising their roadbeds. Madden thought differently, and persistently agitated track eleva- tion as not only politic but right in itself. Finally, early in 1892, he secured the appointment of a commission to investigate the subject and report to the Council the best method of solving the question. He was put on this committee and by it elected Chairman. The body visited all the cities in the East which had brought about track elevation. It studied the whole subject more thoroughly than it had yet been investigated. It found that in Rochester, N. Y., and in the state of New Jersey, the localities containing the most mileage of elevated steam roads, the companies had defrayed one-half the cost of elevation and the tax-payers the other, the damages to abutting property being met equally by each. The com- mittee on its return concluded to report in favor of com- pulsory elevation. In justice to the roads, however, the members agreed to confer with their officials to avoid injustice. The controversy at this stage was largely left to Madden. He lost no time in impressing upon the companies the determination of the Council to compel elevation, and the necessity of reaching some understand- PUBLIC SERVANT 73 ing. It was pointed out that the city could interrupt traffic at every street crossing and make it absolutely impossible for the companies to transact business; and that it would resort to the use of this and every one of its other rights to force the raising of the roads and put an end to the destruction of human life in the streets. When the railway powers realized that further parley was useless and agreed to discussion, Madden, who was as good a business man as any of them, soon convinced them that in the long run it would pay the roads to ele- vate and do it at once, not only in the saving of litiga- tion, the payment of damages, and the injuries from public hostility, but also in the vastly increased business that could be done on the same mileage with tracks in the air, entirely free from cross traffic and all the obstructions and dangers to be encountered on the sur- face of a busy commercial city twenty-five miles long and fourteen miles broad. The principal companies were brought over by his facts and reasoning, and he prepared, with their consent, and submitted to the Council and induced it to pass, the most extraordinary ordinance of the kind ever attempted in this country. It made the raising of the tracks throughout the city mandatory upon the companies; put the entire expense on them, and made them subject for all damages to abutting property. The latter he got the companies to agree to by pointing out that juries would give verdicts that way anyhow. Under this ordinance upwards of $50,000,000 has already been spent in the work of track elevation in Chi- cago, and under it there is assured the utter abolition of every grade crossing in the town. The street paving question was left entirely by the "74 MARTIN B. MADDEN Board of Aldermen in Mr. Madden's hands. How he ever obtained the time to master this problem in the way he did can only be surmised by attributing it to some kind of prodigious genius for work. He visited the cities in America and Europe noted for the qualities of their pave- ments, and carried on a correspondence with street engi- neers of special experience and authority all over the world. As a result of all this labor he prepared a pam- phlet on street paving. It contained all the information in existence upon the subject, with such profound and valuable suggestions by the author that when it was handed in to the Board in his report, 10,000 copies were at once ordered printed for general circulation. The book rapidly gained such a reputation that it is yet used as a text authority in both European and American institu- tions wherein civil engineering is taught. CHAPTER IX. THE CRY OF "BOODLE" — THE CAUSE OF IT — WHO USE IT. IN the new city there were 5,600 miles of streets and alleys on the map. The extension of those in the old town called for this great mileage of thoroughfare. The transportation of the populace became at once the most pressing of the work thrust upon the legislature. The tramway lines in existence were nearly all served by horse-power, and few of them reached into the annexed territory. It was necessary to find means of inducing the car companies to build their lines to the northern and southern ends of the whole city, to introduce new parallel routes where the existing lines were too far apart, and to make cross-town connections at convenient distances. The people demanded single fares and universal trans- fers. Investigation showed that while the trunk lines, that is, those north and south, might afford transfer fares, few cross-town, or feeder, lines could. If such fares were made the condition for obtaining franchises for the east and west lines, therefore, it would be impossible to procure their construction by independent companies. Manifestly, the solution was in franchising the trunk line companies to make the connections as well as the exten- sions and to permit the fare question to remain in abey- ance. That method was adopted. Even under the arrangement it was difficult to procure the rapid building 75 76 MARTIN B. MADDEN of roads into the long stretches of thinly inhabited terri- tory. About this time the introduction of the cable and electric trolley methods of street car propulsion was being agitated in the larger cities. In this the Aldermen found a means of solving the entire transportation diffi- culty. Franchises for the substitution of cable or electric power for that of horses were bestowed' in consideration of the necessary extensions or new constructions, and in this way the city secured the rapid development of the street car service it now has, justly claimed to be the most extensive and convenient in the world. When the surface service began to prove inadequate, elevated railway companies were invited to come to the rescue. They soon, as a matter of economy, abandoned steam for electric service. Hence, Chicago streets are free from the noise, dirt and general old-fashioned ugli- ness of the little racking steam motors that are still trying to do business on the elevated railways of New York City. While the population gladly availed itself of every improvement in the transportation system, it seemed ever ready to assume or believe that each step in the progress was obtained by corrupt means. Seldom was any grant made to a street car company that a cry of "boodle" did not accompany it. Perhaps in no city of recent growth has there been less corruption than in Chicago in the work of developing street car service. Nevertheless, nearly every Alderman who had the courage to stimulate the investment of capital in the big town's street car lines, either by voting an extension of franchises, additions to them, or new charters, had to PUBLIC SERVANT 77 face open or covered attacks upon his conduct. Matters grew so very bad in this habit of reckless abuse of the city's public servants, that men on assuming the duties of an aldermanic career were often compelled to start out with a firm resolution to wholly ignore the criticisms of the press. In this way the newspapers frequently lost their power altogether. If people would not believe what they said about good men, what they said about wicked servants was also ignored. This immunity kept many men in the public life of the city whose stay would have been impossible if the city press had conserved the power of its criticism. A great deal of the injustice that characterized much of the newspaper work during the period of Chicago's most rapid growth was due to the fact that much of the literary talent employed in the city at that time was nec- essarily imported from older cities of the East, principally from New York and Washington. There corruption unquestionably accompanied much of the public work, and the writers spoke with knowledge. Their constant acquaintance with official dishonesty led them to believe it was a universal accompaniment of public life, and they looked for it as a matter of course. In the new city these writers, having no real acquaintance with the men who were engaged in the herculean labor of giving the metropolis form, took it for granted they were the same as the eastern looters, and gauged their written censure upon this conjecture, making it severer and more ram- pant upon the hypothesis that the opportunities were greater than the well plucked East afforded. The conditions were, however, entirely different. The East was old and had a large population displaced 78 MARTIN B. MADDEN by business competition. This population yielded the adventurers whose only remaining chances of making money, within any cover of respectability, lay in holding- office under the opportunities afforded by the spoils system that gave them entry. In Chicago there was no old pop- ulation. There were no crowded-out men. There was work for all in normal times. There were outlets for every species of honest endeavor. The chances of mak- ing money were so numerous that it was difficult to get men to take part in public life. As a rule, only those accepted public tasks who could afford to work for little or no pay. These were either ambitious politically or were men inspired to do their share in the constructive work then necessary. There were exceptions, certainly, but they were fewer than the story of the building of any other large town could show. In Chicago the number of men who needed watching in public life never was large enough to dominate any period of its legislation. During the eight years following the great annexation, the time during which the city was shaped and fitted out for its career, the Board of Aldermen was composed almost wholly of "city builders;" of men broad-gauged, able, honest, hard-working; who knew the requirements of a cosmopolitan city, believed firmly Chicago had them all, and who had enough civic pride and national patriotism to give their time, their talents and their means to the arduous, and generally thankless, task of constructing the most suitable foundation for the largest city in the world, and then seeing to it that the work of superstruc- ture was properly commenced and adequately prose- cuted. Said an eastern political reformer one day to. Mr. PUBLIC SERVANT 70 Madden: "I am perfectly astonished at you and your methods in the Board." 44 What causes your astonishment?" was the reply. "The fact that you allow such men to be members of the Council as many that have seats, and the fact that a man like you should act with them and. secure the pass- age of bills with their votes. Why, some of them are not gentlemen at all; their language and demeanor show that. What will become of your city, if its laws are to be made by men who are not even gentlemen?" 44 If all the voters in Chicago were clergymen, I sup- pose the Council would be composed of bishops," answered Madden; 44 if the suffrage were limited to col- lege graduates, the Aldermen might all be professors. But as things are this cannot be. Suffrage is universal here, and the people who have the right to choose their lawmakers will not select bishops and professors. These voters prefer to have their laws made by people just like themselves. It may be they imagine that folks like themselves are more apt to give them what "they as tax- payers pay for than clergymen and school teachers would be. However that may be, the Board of Aldermen is elected by the tax-payers, and is perhaps just the kind of body the people desire to make their laws. Now, it is the law that neither I nor any other mail can get a city ordinance legally made unless it receives the consent of a majority of the men who are elected Aldermen, whether they are what you call gentlemen or not. If we should refuse to propose any city legislation until all the mem- bers who have a right to vote on it were what you might certify to be gentlemen, the city, I think, would stop, and I am afraid it would stay stopped a long time. 80 MARTIN B. MADDEN Every man in that Board has the same right in it that I .have; his vote counts as much as mine does; he repre- sents what his constituency wants in the city government just as thoroughly as I do what the Fourth Ward desires; and his people believe he is just as much of a gentleman as my people think I am. People differ in their views as to what a gentleman is. I believe no ward in this city has sent any member here who is not considered a gentleman by those who sent him. They are, therefore, according to the powers that have the deciding voice, all gentlemen — the whole sixty-eight of them — gentlemen of different kinds. Our population is cosmopolitan. The Scandinavian wards send Scandinavian gentlemen; the Polish wards, Polish gentlemen; the Italian wards, Italian gentlemen; the Bohemian wards, Bohemian gen- tlemen; the German wards, German gentlemen; the Irish wards, Irish gentlemen; the American wards, American gentlemen, and so on through the thirty-four wards composing the city. It so happens that the foreigners in town outnumber the native-born three to one. On this account, there are more foreign gentlemen in the Council than native. It is the result, you see, of the American system of representative government. Now which of these foreign gentlemen would you have me refuse to do busi- ness with in my efforts to get city legislation enacted? Shall I refuse to procure a needed ordinance if a Pole pre- sumes to vote for it, or a Swede or a Bohemian? Oris it the Italians or the Germans you think are not gentlemen? It may be that you would bar out from your class only the Irish members? You see, if only the Americans in the Board are gentlemen according to your standard, and you confine the making of the city laws to them, there PUBLIC SERVANT 81 are not enough to pass any. The Irish, the German, and the other foreign gentlemen are needed to help. It is the American system, my dear sir, and in Chicago we find it works very well indeed. Much confusion arises in our minds sometimes when we forget that a man may be well informed and very able, although he makes a poor show- ing when he attempts to speak our language. That may be the only thing he lacks knowledge of. Several of those Aldermen whose speech makes you and the galleries laugh are much better educated and informed than others whose statements you applaud as the utterances of gentlemen. If you will permit me to put myself in your class, what sort of an impression would you and I make, with all our knowledge and polish, if we were in the civil government of Paris and attempted to talk good political economy in bad French? You see, representative govern- ment compels us to do the best we can with the legislative material the people give us. The more you look into it the less funny it is and the more serious and good." The auditor grew very restive while getting the answer to his shallow inquiry. He was hardly gentle- man enough to wait for it all. "Beg pardon," said he; "I didn't know, you know. Good-day. " "Oh, I beg pardon, too," rejoined Madden; "I cannot believe you didn't know; you simply didn't think. Think better of us hereafter, please." To a celebrated college President who made a similar criticism, Mr. Madden said: "Legislation in this Council is almost invariably the result of compromise. Chicago is a city of nationalities. All the countries of the world are largely represented in the two millions of people we legis- late for in this Board. We have more Poles, more Bohemi- 6 82 MARTIN B. .MADDEN ans, more Germans, more Irishmen in Chicago than there are in most of the large cities in Poland, Bohemia, Germany or Ireland. The Americans are in the minority with us. Our city government is a representative government. In it all classes of our people have an equal voice. What prevails does so by the consent of the majority. That consent must be obtained for success. These different men are here to speak for our differing peoples because the latter cannot all be here to speak for themselves. I do not see the man solely — in him I always see the people who sent him here to make . their wishes known ; I see the constituency. Each constituency is equal. The men here may be unequal as men ; but in the law they are equal as representatives. They must be looked upon in that way and so treated or there cannot be fair legislation. It is unjust to think that because a constit- uency of foreign-born Chicagoans desires some legislation that an American district does not ask or wish, it is on that account bad. Very little bad legislation has ever been sought in this Council since I have been in it. I know that much of the legislation proposed here has been called bad, but I also know that nearly every allegation of fraud that has ever been made against Chicago Coun- cil action was inspired by the 'stop-thief principle. It is the cry of the schemer who is 'knocked out' or fears to be, raised to save himself or to revenge himself. Every ordinance proposed to improve civic conditions causes the evil threatened with displacement to howl 'corruption!' and every bill granting the use of a public utility to a deserving corporation draws from the rejected seeker the cry of 'boodle!' These slanders sometimes deceive the press and often do the public, but they seldom fool the Aldermen." CHAPTER X. STREET RAILWAY FRANCHISES—THE BEST SOLUTION— SOME EXAMPLES. ONE of the greatest evils which resulted from the unthinking and indiscriminate attacks upon the motives of the city's legislators was that which grew into a general demand that every public franchise within the city's gift should, when about to be bestowed, be put up at public auction and sold to the highest bidder. It was argued that if public utilities were worth anything in the nature of cash payments, the city should get all the pro- , ceeds instead of having them intercepted, as was alleged, by the city's legislative servants. The argument, without examination, seemed plausible; but upon analysis, really proved fallacious. If corporations had to pay for fran- chises, under the spoils system then prevailing in Chi- cago, it would have been better to let the Aldermen take the pay than to leave the money for the City Hall to appropriate, upon the assumption that both the legisla- tive and executive branches of the municipal government were equally corrupt.. The former could have claimed they were the discoverers of the money. This would have been an inconclusive claim, of course, but the City Hall had none at all. It required a good deal of fortitude to stand up against the public demand for cash payment for franchises at ; ' 83 84 MARTIN B. MADDEN that time in Chicago. The municipality was all the time in arrears and all the time in need of money. It was growing so fast that it was generally found impossible to keep income and expenditure in tally. Mr. Madden, however, after bestowing all the study he could upon the question, concluded that it was better to not sell fran- chises for lump sums and put the money into the local treasury. It would be better to obtain all the franchises were worth in some other way. Gradually he worked out a plan of obtaining franchise values that would all go to the town without any possible diversion. The question had now become one of absorbing interest, because most of the street car lines were being consoli- dated and the corporation supposed to be operating them was putting out tenders to ascertain on what basis the city would extend all the tramway franchises that expired in 1903. Several measures bearing upon this movement were introduced and discussed in the Board of Aldermen. The discussion provoked resulted in the formation and general entertainment of the opinion that a twenty-year renewal would bring the sum of $20,000,000 from the corporation. Such an amount was desirable to the municipality for public improvements and to the spoils politicians for handling. The Alderman from the Fourth, in a public address on civic reform, boldly declared that he was opposed to cash sales of franchises. He stamped them as transactions that could always in municipal governments be made to partake of the nature of blackmail. He took the ground that in the case of a street railway company seeking a franchise for the use of a public thoroughfare and willing to pay for it, there were three parties interested in the payment whose PUBLIC SERVANT S5 rights should be considered. There was, first, the general public that made up the municipality; second, the people owning the property on both sides of the way to be trav- ersed; third, the travelers who paid the fares and whose patronage supported the line and returned the cost of its construction. If the city got the money, neither the injured property owners nor the fare payers might ever receive benefit from any part of its expenditure. If the sum were spent on the street used, then citizens living elsewhere, who never rode in that street, would not obtain any advantage from the fund. If the payment were made in reduced fares altogether, then neither the property owners along the road nor any other citizens, unless they patronized the line, would derive any advan- tage. If the payment were divided into a reduction of fares and a care of the street used, all interests would receive consideration. The general public would be relieved of the cost of maintaining the thoroughfare. It might cut down taxation that much, or spend that much more on other streets. The property owners would be assured of constantly well ordered pavements and a well kept street in front of their houses. The passengers would ride for less along the line and by an extension of the policy would have the certainty of being able to ride everywhere else in the city for less. This plan, Mr. Madden argued, would use the money paid for street railway franchises in a way that would give the benefit of it to those who made the railways possible. It would reach every one of this class. No other plan would. He, therefore, advocated it as the municipal policy. To the clear-headed and disinterested Madden's pro- posed solution was instantly acceptable. Those belong- 86 MARTIN B. MADDEN ing to other classes could see no value in it, or pretended they could not. The proposition was assailed on many sides from many motives. Madden was challenged to produce an instance of the successful operation of any plan in any way similar to his. He accepted the chal- lenge. The Wentworth Avenue car line was operated under a franchise that lapsed on that part between Twenty- second and Thirty-ninth Streets. The company requested a renewal. Mr. Madden asked as compensation that the company pave the street between curb and curb, keep it constantly in repair, keep it clean in all kinds of weather and sprinkled in summer, and curb the sidewalks on both sides. The company did not hesitate at all over the proposition. The company operating the car line in Indiana Avenue desired to change its power from horses to elec- tric trolley. It was given permission subject to the con- sent of a majority of the property owners on both sides of the thoroughfare. This ran through Madden's ward. The street was fully occupied and nearly all the houses were of the better class, many of them palatial. The horse cars were bad enough, with their slow, irregular service, their noise and dirt. The proposed trolley was deemed by many intolerable. Mr. Madden was appealed to for advice. He examined the situation. Much of the pavement was Nicholson wooden block, sunken, uneven, rotting. He got from the company an acquiescence in the proposition to pave the entire street with asphaltum of the best quality from sidewalk to sidewalk; keep the roadway always in complete repair; keep it sprinkled in summer and free from snow in winter, and always clean, PUBLIC SERVANT 87 and to lay and maintain the curbing on both sides, for the privilege of substituting the trolley for the horse. He advised the property owners to accept these terms. He pointed out the superiority of the trolley service, its greater cleanliness, speed, regularity and power, and dwelt on the advantage of having asphaltum instead of wood, and of having the roadway always clean and clear. He also said the company, in case the propostion was rejected, would undoubtedly sooner or later obtain the majority consent needed, even if it had to purchase it, which would really be cheaper than to carry out the pav- ing, cleaning and maintenance proposal. The people were excited and angry and stubborn. They declined the company's overtures. The result was what Madden foresaw. The company eventually secured the majority consent and erected the trolley. It gives Indiana Avenue one of the best street car services in the country, but the beautiful thoroughfare still has the unsightly patched-up pavement and the uneven curbing. One of the most valuable freight lines in the metrop- olis is the Calumet and Blue Island route in South Chi- cago. This road was originally proposed by the Illinois Steel Company. It desired to erect an additional mill at its plant on the Calumet. It needed additional railway accommodations to do that. Without them it would be compelled to increase its facilities by erecting the pro- posed new mill at its Joliet plant. The mill would fur- nish employment at the start for 3,000 men. The com- pany asked the Council for a franchise for a right of way that would place the tracks about four blocks from the water along three-quarters of a mile of the lake shore. I The entire right of way would be through marshes and 88 MARTIN B. MADDEN sand-dunes. To go elsewhere would cost for right of way more than the enterprise would be worth to the company. The appearance of the proposed ordinance granting this application raised a storm in the Council and a bigger one in the northern part of the city, where the merits of the question could not be seen. It was many weeks before the Council. The oftener it was brought up for consideration the more public denunciation it aroused. The interests opposed to its passage succeeded until the very last in inflaming the people against it. One of the most successful schemes devised to defeat its adoption was the proposal by an objecting property owner to donate the city sixteen acres for park purposes on the lake front between Ninety-sixth and Ninety-eighth streets if the Council would refuse to allow the road to be built along that route. This caught the popular imagi- nation. Delegations of all kinds went before the Aldermen and besought them to save the water front for the weary workers of South Chicagp and secure the proffered 44 breathing spot" and 44 play-ground" for the 44 babies and women at least." One deputation of ladies made a pathetic appeal on this score. The Illinois Steel Com- pany was under a cloud in the popular mind because of recent strikes among its employes, and the cry was raised that the railway scheme was a subterfuge to acquire a right to part of the lake front. The Chicagoans were sensitive to everything that looked like an encroach- ment on the lake front. Mr. Madden and other public men had educated them into the resolution of setting apart forever for park uses the entire lake front in the city. There appeared to be no hope for the bill. None PUBLIC SERVANT 89 but a few of the hardiest men in the Board dared advo- cate it. The Alderman from the Fourth voted with his party, which had declared opposition to the ordinance. He had not looked carefully into the matter, taking it for granted that his party's leaders had sufficiently done this to justify his action. The fact was that these leaders had not examined into the merits of the question. Their attitude was taken on the general principle that it was wise to oppose anything desired of the Council by the Illinois Steel Company. After Mr. Madden had twice voted against the bill and had by so doing made its pros- pects hopeless, Mr. Marshall Field and other prominent business men, who were thoroughly acquainted with the facts in the case and alive to all things conducive to the city's welfare, called a conference of citizens to consider the merits of the dispute between the Council and the great steel company. The meeting appointed a commit- tee to visit South Chicago and look into the matter on the ground. This committee requested Mr. Madden to be its guest during the journey. He accepted the invitation and went. The investigation was thorough and convinced Mad- den that his attitude was wrong. He at once changed it and went before the Council and told it the truth. He said it was foolish to oppose the measure simply because the steel company wished it passed; that the bill had merits of its own which appealed with particular force to the interests of the city. With the road the company could afford to put up the additional mill. Without it, it could not. The erection of the mill meant the employ- ment at once of 3,000 more skilled workmen at high wages. That would add no fewer than 15,000 inhabitants 90 MARTIN B. MADDEN to the city. The gain would be but the initial advantage, as the mill would grow with the increased railway facil- ities the new road would furnish the steel company. The railway proposed would open up a new region then unin- habited because inaccessible, and would in a short time add the population of a ward to the city. All the munic- ipality had to do for this was to grant a franchise that would endanger no public interest, interfere with no private right, and cost nothing. Men having faith in the enterprise were ready to take all the risk of it and put up all the money necessary to carry it through. In regard to the opposition that had been aroused against the project and which had deceived him into voting twice against it, he was prepared to state from personal inves- tigation that there was no good ground for it. In fact, it had been started and built up entirely by people who wanted the road between the agreed terminals, but who insisted on having it laid out along another route. This would take it through property they had to sell. One of these people had 300 lots he believed the company would have to buy if the project as before the Council could be defeated and the road diverted into the only other route it could take. The park land offered lay buried, he said, in from twelve to fourteen feet of Lake Michigan water, out- side of other immersed territory the donor proposed to re- tain for himself. " Why, I rode all over it on a tug drawing ten feet!" he exclaimed. To fill in the proffered breath- ing spot and raise it sufficiently to enable the breathers to stand upon it with dry feet would cost the city not less than $500,000, and that expenditure would make the donor's inside contiguous reserve worth a large fortune to him. It was these land speculators alone who had PUBLIC SERVANT 91 raised all the opposition. He was prepared to give their names either privately to Councilmen desirous of know- ing the truth, or to the whole Board if that were necessary to remedy the wrong that was being done. Against all this was the steel company's plan of erecting additional works at a cost of $2,000,000, in which would be paid out in new wages every year several hundred thousand dol- lars. Every person who would be affected in any way by the road if constructed^ except those speculators, not only desired the building of the tracks, but wished it done along the route asked for of the Council. Mr. Madden's report and the cold, hard facts he gave made those who had been caught by the apparent philanthropy of the opposition feel silly. His statement, coming from a colleague above suspicion, had the effect of bring- ing over to the support of the enterprise enough mem- bers who secretly favored it, but had not dared to openly vote for it, to secure its passage, in spite of even the Mayor's public opposition. When the Calumet and Blue Island ordinance was passed by Mr. Madden's influence, there was a furore of public denunciation, which lasted for a long time and was powerful enough to destroy any man vulnerable to public attack. An example of its influence was seen in the conduct of a public man who believed fully in the enterprise and for a long time advocated it, and was even on the committee with Mr. Madden which was sent to look into the scheme. He joined with the Alderman and the others of that committee in unanimously recommend- ing that the Council pass the ordinance. But the public storm frightened him into complete desertion from any further support, either private or public. 92 MARTIN B. MADDEN The road has proven one of the best for the city and its people ever allowed by the Council to be constructed. The Illinois Steel Company to-day employs more than five times as many men at its South Chicago plant as it had at work before it obtained permission to build the road, which is five times as many as it could employ there without the road. These examples of fairness to railway corporations and justice to the tax-payers added to Mr. Madden's influ- ence in public life. They also gave vogue to his steady and intelligent opposition to the idea of selling franchises for sums of money to be turned into the treasury as temptations to official cupidity or public extravagance. As the time approaches for the expiration of the street car franchises, as 1903 draws near, public opinion in Chicago is. rapidly crystalli^ng into the Madden senti- ment, that the best payment for the use of the city streets by transportation companies is the one that will result in lower fares to the travelers and complete care .of the roadways occupied. For nearly a decade he has claimed that a twenty-year renewal of the franchises expiring in 1903 should net the city at least the sum of $20,000,000, to be expended at the rate of $1,000,000 a year on the streets used, as well as a reduction of fares to perhaps three cents per passenger. CHAPTER XL A GREAT FINANCIER — THE WAY CHICAGO WAS FINANCED — THE WAY IT IS NOW. THE process of obtaining the revenue for the annual expenditures and of appropriating it when esti- mated was laborious and complicated. The first step was the ascertaining of the amount the city would prob- ably secure for the expenditure. This was arrived at by calculating the sum two per cent, of the assessed valua- tion of the real and personal property owned in the cor- porate limits would yield after the town assessors had completed their estimates and they were corrected by the State Board of Equalization. When this amount was arrived at, there was added to it what all the saloon and other licenses would bring from January ist to December 31st of the year under consideration. The license rev- enue could nearly always be calculated with approximate exactitude; that from taxation never could. The latter was uncertain because of constant legal resistance, tax- dodging and loose methods in collection. While the license fees produced cash, the taxes took about twelve months to gather. To bridge over there were two expedients. One was to pay expenses from the general fund, and the other was to borrow on vouchers bearing on the taxes as they came in. The general fund was the sum that had been saved by all the departments of the municipal government from the appropriations made to 93 94 MARTIN B. MADDEN them during the previous year. As a rule, the total of these savings was always inadequate to meet the deficit caused by slow or irregular collection of the taxes, owing to the very rapid growth of the town and the constant emergency expenses. The borrowing was habitual, expensive and frequently so difficult to accomplish that thousands of municipal employes were often kept from their salaries months at a time. When the estimates of revenue were made up by the Finance Committee of the Council, whose business it was to attend to all this preliminary work, it could be guessed how much money the city could afford to spend during the coming year. The next step was to find out how much all the departments desired to use. This was learned by calling upon the official heads of each to send in detailed demands for all their probable financial needs for the whole year ahead. These demands included the number of persons to be employed, the title, position and salary of each, and the description of the work or duty every one of them was to be assigned to perform ; the amount needed for buildings, repairs and other construc- tion and maintenance purposes; and the costs of new bridges, sewers, streets, and subways, as well as water and sewer pumping, street cleaning, and so on. T^nese demands were called for on the first of the year. Generally it took about a month to get them all in hand. When they were in, the Chairman of the Finance Committee called that body together and placed before it in detail all the information collected respecting both the revenue expected and the appropriations demanded. The items on both sides were then scrutinized, debated and sifted down to the minutest detail. This work occu- PUBLIC SERVANT 95 pied many hours every day for three or four weeks. It was usually completed about March ist, and was nine times out of ten accomplished by scaling down the demands to about one-fourth their original sum. The committee then reported its recommendations to the Council. The Board organized itself into a committee of. the whole and worked over the matter for perhaps a week. The result was placed before the Council in reg- ufar session. In this, open controversy dealt with all the items, each interested department obtaining some kind of hearing against the paring down decided on. Finally, the Council adopted the Finance Committee's report in its amended condition. The report as approved was now sent to the Mayor as the year's appropriation bill. To him rushed all the dis- satisfied department interests and made their last essays. The Executive had the right to veto any item in the bill, or any number of items, and to approve the others. He returned it to the Board, with or without vetoes. It required a two-thirds vote in the Council to pass any vetoed item. The opposition to the Mayor seldom could rally such a vote, and he often succeeded, when all other interests had failed to do it, in killing certain proposed expenditures. When the bill was at last voted on by the Council, after coming from the Executive's hands, it became the legal appropriation for the city's expendi- tures for that fiscal year, which began on January ist. The work had to be completed by midnight on March 31st. Failure to finish the task then made it impossible for any of the city departments to obtain any regular income for the ensuing twelve months. When the appropriation bill was passed by the Board 96 MARTIN B. MADDEN of Aldermen, it became the duty of the Finance Commit- tee to see that all the departments received the share of the revenue assigned to them ; to attend to the task of see- ing that the money was used for the purposes towards which it was contributed; and then to arrange for extra allowances when they became necessary, and procure the cash to meet them. The committee generally left this all to its Chairman, who was elected by the whole Council because of his ability in this kind of work. The Chairman of the Finance Committee, it will be seen, was practically the most important member of the city legislature. He was of necessity the Finance Minis- ter of the municipality. It was his duty to know at all times what the condition of the city's financial resources were; to visit all departments of the government every day; to see that those in charge were conducting them in an economical manner, and that they were not exceed- ing the appropriations set apart for them without abso- lutely good reasons. He had to familiarize himself with every detail of the management of each department ; to know its needs and be able to say whether the number of men asked to perform the work going on was requisite or in excess; to listen to complaints on disputed claims against the corporation and to secure evidence thereon ; to act with the Mayor and Comptroller on all important financial matters in which the city was interested; to be a traveling encyclopaedia of information on every question of municipal administration; to carry out all orders of the Finance Committee, whose executive officer he was, and all orders the Council saw fit to give him to attend to relating to city business of every kind. He had to investigate and report on additional water, sewer, PUBLIC SERVANT 97 bridge, and street needs; to enquire into and inform the Board about every occasion or emergency requiring unforeseen expenditure of public money, and to stand between the tax-payers and all attempts to collect dis- puted bills. In addition, he had to adjudicate all claims against the city for damages before the cases were turned over to the law department for final action. These claims amounted to millions every year, and hundreds and thousands of them were annually cast out after inves- tigation. The enormous amount of work thrown on the Chair- man of the Finance Committee during the seven years after annexation required his best thought and energy for an average of not less than eight hours every day during the greater part of each year. He had to per- sonally see not less than one hundred people each day and discuss with them every question put to him on any phase of the city's business. He was obliged to circum- vent the efforts of the crafty to impose upon the public, and to withstand the enmity and revenge of the disap- pointed. He was the great buffer between the treasury and all its assailants, and he had to possess vast resisting as well as extraordinary recuperative powers. No other man that ever was elected to the Chicago Board of Aldermen succeeded in performing the duties of Finance Minister more than a couple of terms in succes- sion ; Madden held the office five. His five years were the most trying in the history of the city. They were the years of adjustive growth; those in which a financial policy had to be extracted and formed out of conditions so new that there was no experience on which to base operations. The work pulled him down and nearly 98 MARTIN B. MADDEN brought him to a grave. But he stuck to it, completed it, and when at last he did retire he left an established system that was nearly automatic. When he first assumed the cares of that office the con- dition of the city's financial business was such that it had required never less than ten full days to get the Finance Committee's annual appropriation report passed as a bill by the Council. During his last year in office he had accomplished such systematic method in the conduct of financial legislation that the longest time it then required to obtain the Board's acceptance of the same committee's annual budget was twenty-seven minutes, and the short- est seventeen. Only once was any reduction made by the Council in any of his annual appropriations, and that amounted to $265. When elected Finance Minister the General Fund was inadequate by $1,500,000 at least every year; when he resigned it had been built up to reliable and automatic sufficiency. During his first year as Finance Minister he saved the city $1,000,000, and during his second $1,500,000, by cutting off unnecessary expenditures without any impair- ment of the public service, while he at the same time increased its revenue. He found the salaries reasonable and refused to permit them to be reduced. He insisted that none of the public servants was overpaid and resisted every effort to put them on poverty wages. He stood for efficient and well paid labor and effected his econ- omies by destroying extravagant or useless expenditures. He augmented the revenues by developing the locality's commercial and manufacturing advantages, in this way increasing the population and enlarging the taxable prop- erty. By such means he managed gradually to raise the PUBLIC SERVANT 99 public school appropriation from $3,000,000 to $8,000,000 per annum. Whenever the departments found it neces- sary to legitimately spend more than had been allotted to them, he never hesitated to help them out. If the short- age resulted in difficulty in meeting the pay rolls, he would without delay procure a loan rather than have the employes suffer. An instance of his disposition in this respect was his borrowing from a number of banks the sum of $600,000, during November, 1894, to pay the fire and police salaries for the two previous months, when the necessary con- struction accounts of these departments, added to tax delinquencies, left no money on hand with which to pay these needy and deserving men. The Alderman never lost his early sympathy for labor. While in New York on business one day during the period of his finance ministry, in November, 1894, he noticed in the papers of that city serious reflections on Chicago's treatment of its public laborers. The incident that furnished the jealous writers foundation for their abusive attacks on Chicago's credit was the sudden and summary discharge from employment, without pay, of 200 poor men who had been engaged at moderate wages in shifting the water' mains in Lake street. This was hard and unhealthful toil. It had been made necessary by the construction in that thoroughfare of the pillar foundations for the elevated railway then being erected. When the Council had granted the company permission to build, Mr. Madden had secured a proviso that it should, before the commencement of work, deposit in the city treasury sufficient cash to cover the cost of removing the water pipes away from the line of the pillars. Surveys 100 MARTIN B. MADDEN showed that this work would cost $35,000. The com- pany agreed to the proposition. When the Alderman read of the discharge of the 200 laborers he knew they could not have been set to' work at first unless the company had carried out its part of the contract, as there was no other fund than that arranged for with it available for their employment. He at once telegraphed asking why the men had been dismissed. He was answered there was no fund at hand with which to pay their wages. Astounded, he took the first express train home. He went straight to the treasurer's office and found there the railway company's certified deposit of $35,000. Going to the department of public works, he learned that office had to let the men go and stop the work because the Comptroller refused to cash the warrants drawn on him for the wages of the laborers, on the ground that he had no funds on hand applicable for the purpose. When the Alderman informed him of the presence of the company's money in the treasury, the Comptroller replied that he had no official knowledge of its presence there, as the Treasurer had not yet legally notified him of it. There was a rustle in that department and the workmen got their money and re-employment. The episode shows one of the many causes of popular discontent with official man- agement of public affairs. Instances like this were not rare. All kinds of schemes were resorted to by people who desired to have money out safely at good rates to get and keep the city in their debt. Sometimes officials connived at this. At others the creditor derived advantage from official unwillingness to divulge shortage in other directions. The gas bill against the city was permitted to run and PUBLIC SERVANT 101 accumulate for sixteen months, until it had reached the sum of $190,000. In this way the municipality was per- mitted to fall into arrears. It was so solvent that invest- ors seeking interest allowed their claims to rest as long as they could; it was so unreliable as to dates of payment that creditors exacted and obtained high rates for their patience; and heads of departments were so constantly pressed for money because of the astonishing and incal- culable development of the town, that they were prone to incur any kind of obligation that would enable them to have funds for unanticipated needs. It was no won- der that the total arrearages grew until they amounted to the sum of $7,000,000. Then there was an attempt to induce the city government to issue bonds to raise this amount. This could not be done without the consent of the State Legislature, the city being prohibited by law from issuing bonds. Chicago's possibilities were so uni- versally appreciated that there was no time after-i88o, and particularly after the fair of 1893, that it would have experienced difficulty in floating a vast public debt at any reasonable rate. Such a debt would have been hailed by investors everywhere as a desirable lodgment for surplus money. The Finance Minister was strongly and ener- getically opposed to every plan set on foot to induce the city to bond for any purpose. His position, declared on every available occasion, was that Chicago should pay as she went; should invite world-wide attention as the one great city without a large public debt; should conserve hei^ credit by keeping it free from burden at least until events demonstrated beyond dispute just what position in the world municipalities she was destined to occupy, when she might desire at one great stroke to settle all 102 MARTIN B. MADDEN question of rivalry and would have the most available as well as the most valuable financial standing with which to then attain her aim. When sent to Springfield on a special committee to secure legislative consent to bonding or issuing interest- bearing warrants for the purpose of adjusting the $7,000,000 of arrearage, he made no secret of his prefer- ence for a permit to issue the warrants for the amount, rather than one for bonding. The latter would create a bad precedent and a financial interest in keeping the city in debt for a source of income to investors. The war- rants would be negotiable and would be a kind of demand notes, whose existence would always act as a warning to economy and against further indebtedness. The Leg- islature refused to sanction bonding and legalized the issue of the warrants bearing interest, thus affording relief in a way every disinterested financier now admits was the best. The result of the Alderman's untiring efforts to finance Chicago through the spendthrift period of youth, by increasing its business and its taxable assets; by reduc- ing its extravagances and its outlay; by enlarging its opportunities and its credit, is plain now. The lakeside metropolis has more unincumbered assets than any other city in the world. It has more unburdened opportun- ities, and greater ability to either utilize them or realize on them. As a corporation it has the greatest potential- ity of all municipalities, because whatever it decides to do it has the power easily to do, having no debt impedi- ment. During the five years Mr. Madden acted as finan- cier for the city of Chicago, he not only practically led in shaping the legislation that made the place what it is, PUBLIC SERVANT 103 but he superintended the collection of $125,000,000 of revenue for municipal uses, and personally controlled the expenditure of every dollar of that vast sum. His work shows that the city has assets to display for every shilling of the investment. When on March 22, 1897, with health nearly worn out by hard, long public service, he was compelled to announce physically enforced retirement from further Aldermanic labor, his valedictory aroused sentiment whose applause it took a long half hour to express. * * When I entered this Council as a member," he said, "the city contained but thirty-seven square miles of territory. It now has 186. It then had 880,000 people. It has 2,000,- 000 now. We have in eight years constructed 500 miles of new sidewalks, laid 618 miles of water mains, built 814 miles of sewers, and paved 947 miles of new streets. We have erected 345 miles of buildings and spent on them $311,600,000. We have increased the water rev- enues from $1,621,786 to $3,716,835. We have by law abolished grade crossings on several hundred miles of railways, and have substituted the cable, the electric line and the elevated road for horse car service in the streets. We have now 392 miles of this improved transportation system in operation within the city limits. We have established civil service in the city, and all who do pub- lic work now do it for the tax-payers who pay their sal- aries and for no one else. We have secured the lake front forever to the people for park purposes and put the pleasure grounds for all time alongside the business streets. The city is at present spending $50,000,000 for the construction of a drainage canal that will both cleanse the town and secure for its population an unlimited and 104 MARTIN B. MADDEN an indestructible supply of the best drinking water avail- able in any community in the world. We have at an expenditure of $30,000,000 built a White City that has made all mankind acquainted with the fact that here live the greatest city builders the human race has ever had. To-day the streets of Chicago have more of the rush and activity of modern life than have the thoroughfares of London. Into our city every twenty-four hours 1,500 trains arrive and depart, and 200,000 strangers come and go. In eight years the permanent assets of our city have been increased from $24,000,000 in value to more than $56,000,000. We have more property belonging to the public now than we then had by an amount exceeding $32,000,000 at actual cost, and at real value by an amount exceeding $160,000,000. The city's credit is to-day the best possessed by any municipality on earth. Our prop- erty is the least encumbered and is the most available of any owned by cities. We owe practically less money than any other civic corporation. Our bonded debt, all told, is net but $11,670,000. Less than one-half our yearly revenue would pay all we owe. So that Chicago has the best borrowing power of any existing civic cor- poration, and she has the greatest power to achieve any great task her future ambition may decide on. Chicago is better founded, better started, and has more power for endurance and improvement in the race for municipal supremacy than any other place now inhabited by men, whatever claims and aspirations any other may put forth." CHAPTER XII. ENTERTAINING WORLD'S FAIR GUESTS— A BATTLE FOR MORALITY- A GREAT SPEECH. IN 189 1 Mr. Madden was prevailed upon to be a candi- date for re-election to the Board of Aldermen for a second term of two years. He had two opponents, an Independent and a regular Democratic nominee. He was Chairman of the Councilmanic Committee for the Colum- bian Fair. During the campaign the Fair Directory sent into the ward and had circulated a request that the voters of all parties unite in keeping Mr. Madden in the Board. The Directors belonged to different political organiza- tions, and their circular contained the following: " While Mr. Madden has been a zealous guardian of the city's interests, he has also been an earnest and untiring advo- cate before the Council of all measures calculated to advance the interestsof the Exposition, and the Directors feel that they cannot spare his services for the next two years if it is possible to avoid it." The Evening Post, Democratic, published this' appeal March 25, 1891, and said of it: "No higher tribute could be paid to a Chicago Alderman in this, the World's Fair, epoch in Chicago's history. In Alderman Madden'scase the tribute is well deserved." He defeated his opponents by a plurality of 1,500 votes. During this period in Chicago's growth it was what everywhere was known as a "wide open town." There 105 106 MARTIN B. MADDEN was a state law in existence making it illegal to keep drinking saloons and all places of amusement of that kind open for the transaction of business after midnight unless the municipality specially legalized it. The inten- tion of this was in the direction of public morality. It placed the onus of extending license upon the communi- ties countenancing it, the theory being that even as large a city as Chicago would not legalize an "open town" except for some special "good reason," or upon demand of the public. The so-called sporting community of the city had never been able to secure the passage of an extending ordinance, nor had the people ever been able to get more than spasmodic efforts at enforcement of the law as it was. The whole problem remained at a stub- born hitch. There could hardly be a question that because of the scandal and immorality resulting from the openness of the city, the majority of the native citizens were in favor of the midnight law. But they could not get a majority of the Council to vote that way. because a majority of the wards were opposed to the law. It must be remembered that at this time something less than thirty per cent, of the population of Chicago were of native birth. As late as 1896 the school census showed that seventy and one-half per cent, of the people of Chicago were of foreign birth. Not only were these people accustomed to the use of spirituous liquors, but most of them looked upon this country as a land of the utmost liberty, and they resented any public interference with personal habits in the matter of drink. Then the foreign population congregated according to nationality, consti- tuting the larger number of people in most of the wards, the Americans living as a rule by themselves. As each PUBLIC SERVANT 107 of the thirty-four wards was entitled to two members in the city legislature, it will be seen what a difficult prob- lem was that of handling the temperance question through any legislation possible at that time. Neither party could do it, and public men who had personal ambitions to serve were easily persuaded to cater to the foreign and sporting vote. Mayor Washburne, Republican, realized the difficulty of the situation ; but he also understood the impossibility of dealing with it as the "better element' ' desired him to do. The majority and popularity were unquestionably on the other side. After much thought over the whole question, whether it would be better to oppose the majority sentiment favoring freedom and enforce the state law, or fly in the face of the minority and legalize what the greater num- ber wanted continued, he at last decided upon the latter course. He prepared an ordinance permitting the keeping of saloons open in the city after midnight under certain restrictions. He did not take Mr. Madden into his con- fidence. He had 20,000 appointments under his absolute personal control. He could dismiss from the public service any policeman, any fireman, any clerk, any laborer, or any other of the one score thousand people in the city pay. Civil service tests and security of tenure in public place had not yet been introduced into the civic habits of the giant city. He saw each Alderman but the one from the Fourth Ward, separately, described the pro- posed ordinance, gave his reasons for desiring its passage, and in this way obtained a pledge of support for it from sixty-seven of them. Several asked before they gave 108 MARTIN B. MADDEN their pledges: "How does Madden stand on it?" The oracular response, "Oh, Madden is all right," usually convinced the hearer that the Finance Committee's Chairman was to support the measure. When every vote in the Council had thus been secured but that of Madden, the Mayor called upon him, showed him the bill, and then said: "Before submitting the ordinance to the other members or introducing it, I thought it best to obtain your opinion on it as leader of the party in the Council. What do you think of it?" "I think it is bad as morals and bad as a party meas- ure,'* replied the Alderman. "The Republican party is not in favor of legalizing the vicious practice now in vogue, and it would be immoral to sanction it.'' "What would you do if such a measure should be introduced in the Council?" "As a Republican, I should do all in my power to induce the party majority in that body to repudiate the bill; and as a citizen strive with all my might to defeat it." "But sixty-seven members of the Board of Aldermen desire such an ordinance introduced, and have pledged themselves to support it. It is because of this general desire that it is proposed to introduce it at the next meeting. You wuold not place yourself in opposition to the expressed desire of every other member of the Council, would you?" "I certainly would on such a matter as this, because it is wrong. I would try to convince them of its wrong- fulness. ' ' "But when sixty-seven of the sixty-eight in the Council desire the measure, would it not be better to con- PUBLIC SERVANT 109 fine your opposition to voting against it, and refrain from argument? That might simply set them in opposition to you, and impair your usefulness in the Board in the future. The thing is wanted by the whole Council. Why not let them have their way and vote without speaking?" 44 That would be criminal. I should be bound to oppose the passage of such an ordinance with everything in my power and do all I could to persuade the other members against it. There is but one thing for a man in a legislative body to do, and that is to do right with all his might, at the right time, and all the time." 4 'Then you are determined to speak against such a measure if it should be introduced, as well as vote against it?" 44 I am." 44 I am sorry you take that attitude, because the ordi- nance is desired and it will pass by a vote of sixty-seven against one — you that one." "Don't be too sure about that." Mr. Madden went to work among his colleagues, and when the all-night ordinance was introduced he succeeded in preventing its passage by obtaining a tie vote. The Mayor was surprised and disgusted by this vote, "but his surprise," said a daily paper, "was not equal to his anger, which, although well concealed, was boiling over at the action of Madden and some of those he had induced to oppose the measure." What the Chief Execu- tive then did to renew the contest was fully described by the daily papers and reveals the extraordinary character of the political life of the city at that time. "The very men whom the Mayor had looked to for support failed 110 MARTIN B. MADDEN him," said one paper; * 4 he had been generous in his patronage to these very men, and his anger knew no bounds when he heard of their action. At two of them he was especially angry, for he had loaded them down with political favors and allowed them to draw on his resources to pay their political debts. He vowed he would not brook their opposition and would show them who was Mayor by cutting off their patronage. Yester- day afternoon and this morning the Mayor has been quietly at work getting the rebellious Aldermen around again to his way of thinking. This morning another con- ference was held and as a result the Aldermen who opposed the ordinance will now vote for it. They were simply given to understand that if they could not be with the Administration they could not expect any favors and that the favors that had already been granted them would be withdrawn. The threat was effective and the Alder- men became submissive. The ordinance will be sent in again and this time it will be passed." This was in the beginning of September, 1891. At the next meeting of the Council the bill was again intro- duced. An instructed man was in the chair. The meas- ure was no sooner read, the echo of the last word still in the air, than Mr. Madden was on his feet at his place with, 4t Mr. Chairman!" The Chairman nodded to him and automatically responded: 4t The gentleman from the Fourth Ward. " Before he could finish what he intended to say, like a shot there was hurled out a motion for the previous question. Now, such a motion, carried, absolutely cut off all debate, even a remark. There were sixty-seven votes ready to be plumped for the motion; not only PUBLIC SERVANT 111 ready, but impatient. The impatience rapidly grew to fury when it was seen that Madden remained on his feet, pointing to the chair and continuing his call, i4 Mr. Chair- man!" He was white, but cool and calculating, with his whole head on his shoulders. A great cry arose all around him, and for a while there was a perfectly riotous denunciation of his appar- ent opposition to the wishes of the whole body. When the babel of * 'Voter "Vote!" "Question!" "Question!" finally took a breathing spell for a fresh start, the mem- ber from the Fourth was still erect. Seizing his oppor- tunity he sent out straight and clear the cry: "Mr. Chairman, the motion for the previous question is not in order!" That was the most astounding thing the other members thought instantly they had ever heard in that hall. A motion for the previous question, made as theirs had been, not in order! They looked at one another so amazed that silence overcame them, wonder- ing "What next!" "No, Mr. Chairman, the motion for the previous question is not in order, because you gave me the floor, and while I have it no motion is in order." This was a revelation to the whole house. Madden 's word was positively indisputable when given for a fact, to every member of that Council, and they knew he was faultless as a parliamentarian. Here he was saying the floor had been given to him. They had not seen that, and, as if by a common instinct, they held still to see how it was. The Alderman's action was quick. "Before the last word of that proposed measure had lost its sound, on my feet I addressed you in the words, 'Mr. Chairman/ and 112 MARTIN B. MADDEN you responded, beckoning to me, 'The gentleman from the Fourth Ward.' Did you not?" 44 1 did," answered the Chairman. "That recognition was a recognition of my desire to speak, and it legally gave me the floor for the purpose of saying what I had to say. It gave it before the first word of the motion for the previous question was uttered. " He was right. The whole house instantly perceived it after the Chair's admission, and not a sound was now uttered from any other place. "Therefore," continued Madden, "the motion for the previous question is not in order. Neither that motion, nor any other motion, can be lawfully made while I have the floor, nor until I have finished what I have obtained the floor to say. I have not very much to say, and when I am through I will move the previous question, as it is very evident no one else desires to speak. It is plain all the other sixty-seven votes in this body are ready to be cast." There was not a man there who was not both relieved and glad over what was said. Madden' s service and character had been such that his bitterest opponent in the Council would have been sorry to find him in actual error, and every one of them would have sincerely regret- ted if his conduct in setting up against them had proven simply factious. He had never in the hall been either disputatious or wrong. He had always been right and always reasonable. He was both now. They would abso- lutely have applauded him, even in their opposition, such was made their humor in the quick comprehension of his attitude, but they were seized with an overpowering wish to hear what next he had to say. PUBLIC SERVANT 113 He seemed to concentrate his powers of wit, expres- sion and character into a description of the night immor- ality, crime, violence, corruption and official shameless- ness that flaunted their evil upon the world as synony- mous of Chicago life. The story he told made many of even the most experienced of his auditors blush with shame for the government under which their children were going to school, and before the end of it the major- ity had begun to shrink from participation in any share of guilt for the infamy. When every eye was riveted upon him and every form bent his way, in manifest sym- pathy, he concluded: "I have been told by the Chief Executive of the city that in this legislature, where the town laws are all made, the vote upon this bill is arranged to be sixty* seven to one in favor of its passage. Such a vote, if cast, will demonstrate to mankind that it is impossible to stop the evil dragging us all down, as the city legislature is prac- tically unanimous for its continuance. If you are all for it, why not let it alone? If you want it, you are certain of having it without taking any action at all. You cannot doubt that it will continue. The Administration could stop it by executing the present state law which forbids it. But the Administration will not execute the state law, because, like you, the Administration desires a continu- ance of the present condition. So you both want it. You both wish it to continue. You have the assurance that it will continue without any action on your part. The introduction of this ordinance by the Mayor shows that he is committed to continuance. There is, then, no need for any action on your part. You have what you want, and you have executive assurance that you will 8 114 MARTIN B. MADDEN continue to have it. Then why take any action? If you take the action proposed you gain nothing, but you assume responsibility which there is no reason for your taking and that will give you no gain. As things are the Mayor is solely responsible for the open dives. If you pass this ordinance you assume the responsibility which he now bears alone. He will then be free and you will carry the whole load, and you will gain nothing, for he is committed to carrying what there is no excuse for you to bear, except his desire to get rid of it and to put it on your shoulders. You 'now have the condition you wish without blame, and you have assurance that it will con- tinue without any responsibility on your part. The Mayor desires the condition the same as you do, and, like yon, he wishes its continuance. But now he has the blame for it, and in the future he will have the responsi- bility. He wishes to escape both the present blame and the future responsibility,, I ask you to refuse to accept either, there being no necessity for you to do it and noth- ing to be gained by you in doing it. Let both remain where they are now, upon the Mayor. Think how much better it will be to have but one man in this city responsible for these things, than to have the whole com- munity, through you sixty-seven gentlemen, committed to their continuance, when, if you like them, you are just as sure of having them without a single one of you being to blame. " Mr. Madden then moved the previous question and the ordinance was defeated by a majority of ten. CHAPTER XIII. REFUSES MAYORALTY THREE TIMES — NOMINATES RIVAL — SACRI- FICE FOR PURE BALLOT. IN 1893 Mr. Madden accepted renomination. In this campaign he defeated his Democratic opponent by a majority of 2,000. The World's Fair was now about to open and the pressure of the work pertaining to it upon the officials responsible for the vast enterprise was appalling. Mr. Madden had during his past term in the Council been Chairman of the Aldermanic Fair Committee. He had had the direction of the legislation coyering the city's relations to the enterprise, and it had been his task to see that all the transportation companies were impartially encouraged to extend their facilities to the grounds in every possible way without obtaining any permanent encroachment on popular rights. He had in the previous January been sent on a committee to Washington to obtain from Congress permission to have the Exposition open on Sunday, and was now elected Chairman of the committee appointed to entertain the city's guests during the Fair. In this office he was obliged to arrange for the proper reception of all foreigners invited, both when they landed on American soil and when they reached Chicago; see that they were suitably entertained while in the city, and then superintend their departure. The social and the official characteristics of all nationalities had to be 115 116 MARTIN B. MADDEN ascertained and constantly borne in mind during this work. Special programmes had to be studied out and carried through for the guests representing each different people. Some idea may be formed of the cosmopolitan character of the task from such facts as these: Day and evening entertainments were provided every day for five weeks for the eighty officers sent to represent the differ- ent navies of the Old World. Scrupulous adherence to Spanish royal etiquette had to be observed in receiving, entertaining and adieuing the Princess Eulalia and the Duke of Veragua, and this had to be nicely differentiated from the character of reception expected by the Lord- Mayor of Dublin. Not only were distinguished guests from all foreign countries — European, African and Asiatic — entertained in the manner they were accustomed to at home, but Americans from every state and country on the continent were also suitably received and treated. This work was constant, day and night, during the whole period of the Exposition — six months. Not one social "break" was made in it during all that time. All over the world the praises of Chicago as a model host were sounded. General Nelson A. Miles, Commander of the United States Army, served on Mr. Madden's staff, to lend his aid to the proper entertainment of military guests, and men of similar standing and knowledge in other walks of life served to assist in the work of caring for other official visitors. It is said that every one of the scores of programmes made out by Madden during the Fair was correctly drawn up and followed out. After the Exposition had been open for a few weeks the attendance was found to be insufficient. Madden's financial talent was called upon for a remedy. He at PUBLIC SERVANT 117 once devised the competition of the " Great Days." This allotted to each commonwealth in the Union a State Day at the Fair, and apportioned the remaining days to the larger cities, setting aside the Fourth of July as the Nation's Fete Day. The plan incited intense rivalry in attendance between the states, and afterwards among the cities, and filled the grounds and saved the show. The rivalry between New York City and Chicago was phe- nomenal, and assembled the two largest crowds ever gathered at any exhibition in the history of the world. The Chairman of the Entertainment Committee did not spend many hours in repose while the Columbian Fair was open. He has said that the hardest work he ever did was done in that six months. Mr. Carter H. Harrison, Mayor of Chicago, was assassinated on Oct. 28, 1893. The Columbian Exposition was at the very height of its popularity, and the tragedy produced intense excitement. There was no clear legal provision in the city's charter arranging for an immediate succession. It was very unfortunate that this was so, for never in the history of the city had it been more neces- sary to have the government continuously conducted. When the lawyers, who were called on for advice, divided on the question as to whether the Chairman pro tern, of the Board of Aldermen automatically succeeded to the powers of the office until a new Mayor could be elected, or whether the Board had the power to elect one of its members to assume the temporary duties, the situ- ation became threatening. Then the citizens realized how fortunate the municipality was in the character of the men who were leaders in the local legislative body. lib MARTIN B. MADDEN These men held the government well in hand and pre- vented anarchy. Mayor Harrison had been elected on the first of the preceding April for a term of two years. The charter plainly called for a new election when the office became vacant during the first year of the term, but it made no provision at all for a vacancy caused by death. It simply enacted that when a vacancy in the office occurred during the first year a new election should be had to fill the office, without specifying when it should be called. As elections could not be ordered without thirty days notice to the electors, the conditions placed the situation under the control of the Aldermen. They could, appar- ently, postpone action to suit themselves, and if they decided they had the power to fill the office for the time, they could put into the Mayor's chair one of their own members and keep him there an indefinite period. The Council at the time was composed of thirty-eight Republicans and thirty Democrats. As party leader in the city and Chairman of the Republican City Central Committee, Mr Madden had done more than any other citizen to effect the change in the town's politics which had resulted in Republican control of its legislation. The Democrats felt that the office of Mayor belonged of right to their party, as Mr Harrison was a Democrat, and when he died had left eighteen months unexpired of the term which the voters had entrusted the party to fill. The disposition was to resist by every art of filibustering any attempt of the majority in the Board of Aldermen to take advantage of their numerical strength. A caucus was held at the city hall to agree on a line of action. The spokesman designated to announce the result said: "We PUBLIC SERVANT 119 would be satisfied with Alderman Madden as Mayor pro tern, if the Republicans take advantage of their power to elect one, but with no other man in his party in the Board. We would overlook the straining of the law on the part of the Councillors, if they select Mr. Madden. He has been agreed upon by the Democrats as the only acceptable Republican Alderman for the filling of the vacant office until an election can be held. No other man in the Council possesses his qualifications for the office of Mayor. He can secure the co-operation of the Council, which is Republican, with the present heads of the departments in the city government, all of whom are Democrats. He is better acquainted with the finances of the city than any other person connected with municipal affairs, not even excepting the Comptroller, who is a Democrat. Mr. Madden has never allowed himself to be swayed by partisan considerations in the discharge of his duties as Alderman. For that reason the Democrats in the Council, as well as the heads of departments, are dis- posed to gracefully acquiesce in his rule and support and co-operate with him if his party elect him to fill Mr. Har- rison's place, although we realize that if Mr. Madden takes the place pro tern, it will make him the next Mayor by election. " The caucus nominated Mr. John McGillen, the Chairman of their City Central Committee and a member of the Board, to be their Aldermanic candidate for Mayor pro tern, in case the majority concluded to attempt a selection. The Republicans, as well as their Democratic cor- leagues, in the Council were divided on the legal aspects of the problem. Mr. Madden was the leader of the Republicans in the Board. His party in the city had been 120 MARTIN B. MADDEN for a long time practically committed to him as the next Republican candidate for the office of Mayor He was pressed to take it now by Aldermanic election. He hesi- tated to do that, because he doubted the Council's right to choose. Ex-Commissioner of Public Works, George B. Swift, another important member of the Board, and a leader whose Republican following had been urging him forward as a Mayoralty candidate, had no doubts as to the Council's right to put a successor to Mr. Harrison in the Executive office. He not only believed the Board had the right to do this, but he publicly advocated the immediate doing of it to preserve the continuity of the administration of civic affairs. The result of his agita- tion was that the Council concluded to elect a Mayor pro tern., the citizens manifesting a disposition to endorse the act. When the Council met, therefore, on the Saturday following the assassination, Nov 4, 1893, two resolutions were introduced and passed. One called tor a popular election of Mayor on the 19th of December following, and the other for an immediate election from among the, members of the Board of a Mayor pro tern. by ballot. The Democrats nominated Alderman John McGillen and the Republicans, on the motion of Mr. Madden, put up Alder- man Swift. When the ballots were counted the report- ing teller said: "Mr. Chairman, we find that there were cast in all sixty-eighc votes. Of these Swift received thirty-four, McGillen thirty-three, and one was blank. " For a moment there was a breathless silence. If the teller had not used the word sixty-eight, but had reported sixty-seven ballots cast, Mr. Swift would have been declared elected. Counting the blank deposited as a vote PUBLIC SERVANT 121 cast, arrayed thirty-four votes against the Republican candidate. The chair was occupied by Mr. McGillen, who instantly perceived his party's opportunity. He quickly declared there was no election, as neither candi- date had received a majority of the sixty-eight votes polled. This decision provoked a row that eventually degenerated into a riot. The trouble was kept up all day. The Republicans sided with Swift and made his cause theirs. But he did not succeed in changing the result. The unfairness of the decision against him, how- ever, produced such an effect on the people that there was an unmistakable popular demand for its withdrawal. On the following Monday evening the Democrats in the Council retreated from their previous position and per- mitted Mr. Swift to be elected Mayor pro tern. He qualified on November 9th, assumed the office on the 10th, and served until December 29th. Mr. Madden at once declined to allow his name to be put forward as the Republican nominee for the December election. He insisted that Mr. Swift, by the unfair action of the Democrats in the Council, had been made the party's logical candidate. Under no circumstances, he said, would he permit the use of his own name in the conditions existing at the time. The decision discon- certed many of the Finance Chairman's party adherents. They were absolutely sure of being able to elect him to the chief office in the city, because of his general popu- larity and the widespread desire to have at the official head of municipal affairs just such a man as his public conduct had shown him to be. They had calculated to run him at the end of Mayor Harrison's term, when it expired on March 31, 1895, and had no doubt of their 122 MARTIN B. MADDEN ability to elect him against even Harrison himself. Now that the opportunity was presented of putting him up against a weaker man, they were sorely disappointed at his refusal to enter the race. " Don't you want the office?'* he was asked. "You may have it for the trouble of reaching out for it. " "Yes, I would like to be Mayor of Chicago," he answered, "and I believe that I would be elected if I should be nominated. But the nomination belongs to Mr. Swift by right. I could not take it. That would be countenancing what our party has pronounced fraud against Mr. Swift. Let us all turn in and elect him and in that way punish and stamp out unfair politics. " At the Republican Convention, held on December 2d, Mr. Madden, as party leader, presided. When he called the body to order he named Mr. Swift as the man who was to be nominated, and urged the party to do all in its power to elect him, and thus place itself on record as the party of fair dealing in city affairs. Mr. Swift was nom- inated. The Democrats named as his opponent John P. Hopkins. When the ballots were counted, on the night of December 19th, the contest was found to have been close, and the count resulted in the declaration that the Democratic candidate had been chosen to fill out Mr. Harrison's term by a majority of 1,100. He took offic^ on December 29, 1893. The result was not only disappointing, it was irritat- ing, to the majority of Republicans in the city. It was now generally believed by them that Madden would easily have defeated Hopkins. When the latter assumed office he did not gain in popularity. He rapidly lost because of his palpable political use of his place. The PUBLIC SERVANT 123 Madden movement was revived and gained strength until, during the summer and fall of 1894, it was taken for granted that he would be his party's nominee in the spring of 1895, and be elected by a great majority, no matter who ran against him, but especially if Mr. Hop- kins should oppose him. Mr. Madden did not hesitate to allow the use of his name, and he did all he honorably could to further the movement in his interest. He made no concealment of his willingness to be Mayor of Chi- cago, and never hesitated to declare the policy he would adopt and carry out if elected. Every such declaration he made added to his popularity and political strength. The friends of Mr. Swift refused from the beginning to accept Mr. Hopkins's election as honestly obtained. They pointed out evidences of fraud in the count and went to work intelligently and systematically to unearth the criminality. Republicans outside the immediate circle of his friends regarded these efforts for a long time with impatience as the work of indiscreet party men to keep a discredited candidate before the public as a legacy upon the party's fidelity. The Swift men, however, per- sisted in their endeavors. By December, 1894, they had made out a complete case, and were able to convince the public that Mr. Swift had carried the election the year before by a substantial majority. At this time the Republicans were busily preparing for their nominating convention, which was to be held in February, to name their city ticket for the Mayoralty election in April. There was no serious talk of anyone to head the ticket but Mr. Madden. He had become interested in the Swift investigation. When he learned of the disclosures his colleague in the Council was pre- 124 MARTIN B. MADDEN pared to make, he carefully examined into the whole case. He concluded from discoveries he made that Swift had beaten Hopkins by about 4,000 majority, and had been counted out of the office of Mayor of Chicago. At once he determined to do all in his power to rectify the wrong. He realized that there was no redress at law for Mr. Swift, as Hopkins could delay any proceed- ings towards ousting beyond the remaining duration of his term. The Forty Club, a social political organization in the city, had invited Mr. Madden to address it at a banquet to be given on the evening of December 20th. He had accepted the invitation, and as the time approached he made up his mind to use the opportunity for making pub- lic his discoveries in the Hopkins-Swift case. The news- papers carefully reported the entertainments at the club, and would afford a vehicle- for the publication of what he might have to say. The evening came and the guests and the reporters. At the dinner the toastmaster at length proposed "The health of Martin B. Madden, the next Mayor of Chicago. " When the cheers greeting him as he arose had ceased, Mr. Madden thanked his hosts for their welcome and their wishes, and then said: "Much as 1 might like to be the Chief Magistrate of this great city, I am compelled to announce to you, gentlemen, that I shall not be the next Mayor of Chicago. It is my duty to make a Christmas present of the Republican nomination for that office, which this year will be the certainty of election to it, to the Hon. George B. Swift." The auditors were spell-bound. The,y could not real- ize for a few moments that they had heard aright. Mr. PUBLIC SERVANT 125 Madden then told them of what had been ascertained by the Swift investigation. These discoveries, he said, made it the duty of every good Republican, as well as every good citizen, of Chicago to do the utmost in his power to publicly condemn the crime that had robbed Mr. Swift of the office and the honor the public had conferred upon him. The sacredest thing in American public life was the integrity of the ballot. Every institution in the country every phase of its legal, political and national life, depended for its welfare upon the quality of the suffrage. To attack the purity of the ballot was to poison American life at its very source. It was the worst of all public crimes and the most far-reaching. It was so abhorrent that no citizen should rest a moment when action could either punish it or prevent it. In the present case every sacrifice should be made to repair the wrong done, as well as to put the seal of public con- demnation upon the crime. The best way to do both was to again nominate Mr Swift for the Mayoralty, and then elect him by such a large majority that no corruption could overcome it. The result would vindicate the injured man in the only way vindication could at all make amends, and it would^ at the same time warn the crim- inals in the only way public condemnation could affect them. This speech profoundly moved the club and as pro- foundly stirred the public when spread before it next day. Mr Madden followed his oral declaration by a card to the people. In this he announced his retirement from the candidacy as a protest against fraud at the bal- lot box and as an act of possible reparation for Mr. Swift. In this remarkable case there was not the smallest 126 MARTIN B. MADDEN opportunity for any kind of doubt that a man was sacri- ficing a great post for a principle. -The candidate retir- ing had a certainty of success by a phenomenal majority. His act was an absolute presentation of the office of Mayor of Chicago, by a man as ambitious to have it as any man could be, to a political rival he believed entitled to it as an act of justice, but who might not receive the gift, much as he desired it, with any feeling of gratitude. Such donations have provoked enmity of the most injuri- ous and lasting nature in the history of the human race. "He won't thank you for it. He will resent your act as an effort to detract from his ability to get the office without your assistance," was said by an influential Republican leader. 44 1 can't help what Mr. Swift does about my con- duct," answered Madden; <4 all I know is I have been a candidate for a nomination that belongs to him. When I found out that he was entitled to what I was after, there was nothing for me to do but at once stop my pur- suit. What he may think about my conduct has nothing whatever to do with it. It was not regulated by his thoughts, but by my own. I thought I had no right to the nomination, and that he had every right to it. That being so, what else could I do but what I have done?" "Yes, but you are a stronger candidate than Mr. Swift is. Your election was certain. His is not. It would be better for the city to have Republican govern- ment. Your nomination would have insured that. His does not insure it. Your retirement jeopards Republican success. It is an injury to the party and to the city, too; a greater injury than has been done to Swift." **The injury to Swift," answered the Alderman, "is PUBLIC SERVANT L27 the minor consideration in the affair. By all means it should be repaired, as it can be, by nominating him again. The main thing is the outrage on the suffrage. If Hopkins be renominated, his contest will be one for endorsement of the alleged false count. His defeat by the victim of that count will be the only possible kind of defeat that will be unmistakably a public condemnation of the crime charged. A defeat by any other candidate, myself, say, might be ascribed to many other causes than a public desire to punish offense against the purity of the ballot. A defeat by Swift cannot be ascribed to anything else than such public desire. It is essential that Swift be the Republican nominee, not because he is Swift, but because he alone personifies the cause for which the party must make the fight— -the integrity of the ballot. That is the whole issue. "* The retirement of Mr. Madden concentrated public attention upon the ballot question and made certain Mr. Swift's nomination without opposition. The Republican Convention was held on Feb. 21, 1895. As Chairman of the Party Central Committee, Mr. Madden presided. To make the position he had assumed and had concluded to continue clear beyond cavil, he had gone into the convention with 325 of the 545 delegates entitled to vote on the nominations at his back — a major- ity of eighty-five. For the third time he placed Mr. Swift in nomination for the office of Mayor of Chicago, and in a powerful speech stated his claims and urged united action in his support. The nomination was accorded by a unanimous vote. The magnanimity of the political conduct of the Alder- man from the Fourth Ward in this whole episode was so 128 MARTIN B. MADDEN decidedly in the interests of the public that the citizens rallied to the support of the Republican ticket at once. The indications of popular support were so unmistakable that the Democrats decided not to meet the issue that would assuredly result from the renomination of Mr. Hopkins. They attempted to escape by putting up as their candidate a new man, who had not been identified in any way with the election scandal, and they nomi- nated Mr. Frank Wenter. He was so decisively defeated, the majority against him being 40,000, that there was no attempt at false counting. In that campaign Mr. Madden stumped the entire city for Swift, making several speeches each night, and doing- managerial campaign work during the day. He con- tributed towards the success of the ticket more, perhaps, than any other one-man. CHAPTER XIV. MEETS UNPARALLELED ABUSE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE — ELOQUENT PARLIAMENTARY SPEECH. THE most dangerous strike that ever threatened the safety of a large city in the United States was the Debs outbreak in Chicago in the spring of 1894. The grievances leading to it lay in those economic differences of opinion regarding wages and hours of work, which are characteristic of the unsettled and unscientific relations existing in all modern civilization between capital and labor. The trouble would probably have been early adjusted in ordinary times. But the period was full of troublesome elements. The panic in the manufacturing trade, precipitated by the change in the tariff laws in 1893, had thrown several million men out of employment. These included not only the skilled and unskilled laborers who had been engaged in the closed factories, but hun- dreds of thousands of others who had now nothing to do because of the stoppage in the business of transporting raw material to the shops and finished products away for distribution. The Columbian Exposition had attracted scores of thousands of the idle to Chicago, where for the brief period of six months they had found some means of living. The Fair over, the city was swarming with stranded and desperate men. The general industrial sit- uation grew worse as the winter advanced, and by the middle of spring the western metropolis seethed with 9 129 130 MARTIN B. MADDEN social discontent and thq breedings of anarchy. For every bit of employment that would yield even bread there were many desperate applicants. Tens of thou- sands of strong men never thought of being able to earn both food and bed ; they slept on the grass in the parks and on the turf between the walks and curbs. It was all many employers could do to find business sufficient to run their establishments enough hours every day to keep the machinery from rusting. In such a time to seek increase of wages was considered insane, and to resist any reduction meant tramping. Nothing but an indus- trial explosion could, it seemed, prevent a revolution. The Debs railway men's strike brought the explosion. It prevented formal attempt at revolutionary measures by giving anarchy other vents. During the progress of the strike there was discovered, just in time to prevent its execution, a conspiracy to destroy the city by a con- flagration to be started in many widely separated locali- ties simultaneously. Alderman Madden, as Chairman of the Republican Central Committee, had thoroughly traversed the town ; as a life-long associate, friend and employer of working- men, his attention everywhere was directed to what was going on and what was threatened. When he became convinced that precautionary measures energetically taken on a vast scale would alone prevent the destruction of the city, he called upon the Mayor and Chief of Police and advised them about the whole situation. Both seemed astonished and would not believe the facts for some time. At length, however, the city government arranged to increase the police force by 320 patrolmen and about 500 substitutes. The Alderman agreed to have PUBLIC SERVANT 131 the City Council appropriate money for these extra men during the emergency. When the strike was at its worst the merchants and tax-payers petitioned the Federal Government to come in and save the city, as the state and local authorities were totally unable to do it. President Cleveland found occa- sion to interfere, in the conduct of the strikers stopping the movement of trains hauling United States mail through the town. In the name of all the people of the country he sent troops to protect the passage of the mails, and he sent enough to suppress the whole trouble. By September the strike was over. The general condition of the city was then much betted than before. The Federal soldiers had scared away from the entire locality most of the dangerous temporary population. When the City Council then voted $90,000 as a special appropriation to pay the extra policemen their dues, it passed an order, on Mr. Madden's motion, to reduce the police expenditures by dismissing the 320 extra officers. The Mayor by law had the right to veto any order passed by the Council, and his veto could not be overcome except by a two-thirds councilmanic vote. He vetoed this order, giving as a reason that any action by the Council ordering a reduction of the police force was an interfer- ence with the prerogative belonging solely to the Chief Executive. The Republicans in the Council had but thirty-seven votes, and as the Democrats in the Board stood united by the Mayor, the veto could not be overrid- den. The issue was then joined and it raised perhaps the worst, the most prolonged, and the most scandalous leg- islative storm that ever excited the people of the city, for they all took part in it before it was over. . - 132 MARTIN B. MADDEN The management of the contest in the Board against the Mayor fell upon the Alderman from the Fourth Ward, as leader of the majority and Chairman of the Finance Committee. As matters developed he gradually appeared to be alone in the fight. It was not thought he either could or would maintain his position. The people were unquestionably with the police, and the police to a man were with the Mayor. He was a candidate for renomi- nation in the coming spring, and at the time the struggle was begun Mr. Madden was the only man thought of by the Republicans as their Mayoralty nominee. The people of the city were much dissatisfied with the Democratic management of municipal affairs and the majority of them had been looking to the Finance Chairman to lead in the fight for the Mayor's overthrow. The Alderman's attitude produced much bitterness all around. Many accused him openly of throwing the election away in advance by playing straight into the Mayor's hands. If Mr. Madden had been a politician he would have at once yielded. Even an ordinary hon- est man might have felt compelled to do that under the circumstances. But the member from the Fourth was not a politician. He was a citizen and a business man acting in a representative capacity for the citizens of his own ward and, as Chairman of the Finance Committee, for all the people of the town. In his mind it was per- fectly clear that the Mayor had no right to the 320 police- men and that the Council, therefore, had no right to pay out public money for their salaries. It was the Board's duty to refuse the money and secure the dismissal of the men. As leader of the Council and head of its Finance Committee it was his. duty to see that both were done. PUBLIC SERVANT 133 That was all there was to it. He set himself to the task without any regard to the results to himself. He asked his colleagues to vote down the veto. They refused to do it. The Mayor kept the men. They were assured of their salaries. In October the question of the salaries again came before the Council. Mr. Madden refused the money and had another order passed demanding that the Chief of Police reduce his force. The Mayor vetoed this as he had the other. The same thing was done in November and again in December. As soon as it was found that the September salaries for the new men would not be paid by the Finance Com- mittee, the Chief of Police, in order to keep them, ordered that every man on the force be allotted a vacation of ten days without pay. The money thtis saved he used to pay the extra men, without exceeding the regular appro- priation for police purposes, which was in the Comp- troller's hands and subject to monthly drafts made by the Chief. Mr. Madden having ordered the Comptroller not to allow the regular appropriations to be overdrawn, the department had no way of raising money to pay the unappropriated salaries but that of curtailing expenses, and the reduction of ten days' pay per man on vacation account produced what was wanted. The victory was now, to all appearances, so decidedly in favor of the Administration that the disheartened Repub- lican voters, seeing the prospective control of the city gov- ernment slipping from their grasp, besought, then tried to coerce, and finally attempted to destroy the Alderman as party leader. Through the press they denounced him in 134 v MARTIN B. MADDEN violent language and demanded that he cease attempting to .act as Mayor of the town and permit the actual officer to manage civic affairs. One of the papers accused him of having sold the party out to the Mayor for a consider- ation. Some of the district leaders spread the report that he had really deserted the party and was carrying out an agreement to make the Mayor's renomination and election inevitable by keeping him on the popular side and drawing public odium on the Republicans. News- papers called him a self-appointed czar, dictator and tyrant. They openly charged him with corruption. One went so far as to say he had used his position in the Council to play the Republican party into the Mayor's hands for influence in the department of public works for the purpose of making money by unloading upon the city inferior stone from the quarries he managed. This story contained the circumstantial allegation that he had got the city to buy from him $2,500,000 worth of material at an enormous profit. Prominent editors called attention to the Alderman's happy financial circumstances, and suggestively asked how it was that he had increased his wealth so rapidly since he had become leader in the Council. Every franchise ordinance that had been obtained from the Board of Aldermen was attributed to his alleged cupidity. The "boodle" bills that were passed during his absence were said to have been engi- neered by him, and it was hinted that he took considera- tion for being away to facilitate their enactment. There was not one newspaper on his side. The columns of every one of them were open to every species of attack upon him and closed to all defense. Then the police were set upon him. The roll at this PUBLIC SERVANT 135 time had upon it the names of nearly 4,000 men. Every- one of them was working at reduced pay, and believed Madden was the sole cause of it. The entire force were inspired to act as detectives upon his whole career and spies upon his everyday movements, and to try to drive him out of public life by scattering and exaggerating everything they could dig up possible to use in the work of inflaming the public mind against him. One day a delegation of carefully picked men from the police department waited upon the Alderman in his private office to ask him to alter his attitude. Their language was so uncivil and their threats so open and insulting that it became impossible to discuss the ques- tion with them, and they were on the point of being ordered out, when they revealed the fact that they had a memorial with them. This was a formidable document. It was signed by a majority of the large business firms in the city and petitioned the Chairman of the Finance Committee to cease his attempts to cut down the police force, because the town needed it all for patrolling pur- poses; and to stop compelling the men to work for les- sened pay, as it diminished their spirit and demoralized their service. It was too evident that the signers of this concoction had either not read it or were ignorant of the actual state of affairs, and Mr. Madden felt it to be his duty to talk to the deputation. He began by telling them that he was personally acquainted with everyone of the signers, and that he knew perfectly well that when they put their names to that paper they did it knowing he would do the right thing, whether that was to desist from his opposition to the Mayor or continue it. Then he pointed out that the 136 MARTIN B. MADDEN Mayor's conduct in forcibly docking the salaries of the men on the force was an act of pure despotism without any justification whatever, and done to illegally swell out the Administration's patronage at the financial expense of the regular policemen. Each man's salary was fixed by law and could not be reduced by the Mayor without committing an act of extortion. Ten days* pay had been forced from each man for no purpose but that of finding money to hire new men illegally. The regular men had to submit to this or lose their places. The Council was trying to befriend the old policemen; it was the Administration that was oppressing them. The deputation went away with new light and it opened their minds. Then the city's great editor called and wished to know why the Alderman "carried on" as he was doing. "Mr. Medill," he answered, "if you entrusted me with the financial management of your paper during a period when you could not personally be appealed to, the most effect- ive way you could equip me to protect your interests would be that of entrusting me with the giving out of the checks for the expenses authorized to be incurred for the establishment, wouldn't it?" "Yes, " replied the editor. "Well, then, it would be my duty to refuse to give any out for unauthorized and unnecessary bills?" "It certainly would." "These 320 policemen were put on the force for the specified period of two months, or longer if the strike continued beyond that time. An appropriation to cover that special and specified expense was made. The strike is over and the appropriation is exhausted. The term PUBLIC SERVANT 137 for which the extra policemen were engaged has expired, and they are no longer legally in the city's employ, nor is there any necessity for hiring them. I am Chairman of the city's Finance Committee and may be said to have the giving out of the checks. All I have been author- ized to give out for the extra police service have been paid out. What right have I to pay out any more?*' 4 * None whatever," replied Mr. Medill. . "I am with you on that proposition. But your attitude has been misunderstood. The Tribune will try to remove the misapprehension." It did and was effective. Then public sentiment began to change by enlighten- ment. The police on the regular force found nothing in Mr. Madden's career that could be twisted into con- demnation, and the men were not long in changing about in their view of him. From being the greatest engine of persecution ever set against one man in public life, the force became as a whole his strongest supporter and most efficient agent in vindication. No man in the Board of Aldermen was for one moment deceived by any of all the slander. They all knew that their colleague had a record beyond reproach. He had never sold any stone to the city, not a dollar's worth; had never been personally interested in any franchise given or ordinance passed ; had never once supported or voted for any measure not perfectly clean; had never absented himself from a session possible for him to attend; and had been such a powerful foe to all kinds of vicious bills that most of those that ever passed had been suddenly introduced and rushed through when it was found he would be away. In the Council whatever opposition existed against him was either that of party 138 MARTIN B. MADDEN policy or party expediency. His Republican colleagues stood nobly by their duty as he pointed it out, and grad- ually solidified themselves into a majority always sup- porting him. But the Mayor kept the police. His success in retain- ing them in spite of the Alderman's persistent attempts to have them dropped still continued to fool a majority of the taxpayers. They thought the Administration was engaged in a desperate effort to save the regular force of patrolmen from being reduced. With the memory of the awful days of the strike still fresh, this looked like a noble action in the public interest. On the other hand it seemed as if the Alderman was trying to cripple the Administration by cutting down its police revenue, so that it could not have the thoroughfares sufficiently guarded. It was necessary, a mind like Mr. Madden's reasoned, to defeat the Executive in a way that would completely expose the entire situation to every tax-payer's compre- hension. The difficulty of obtaining or of creating an opportunity to do this successfully was great. The Mayor would hardly risk taking any action that would let it appear he was trying to increase the force; it was more probable he would remain inactive, trusting that any action the majority in the Council might take would continue to be in the direction of dismissing the extra men. That would always look to the people like effort to decrease the police force and cut down the patrolling of the streets. The Alderman never failed to use all his opportunities among his party brethren in the Council for the spread of the arguments buttressing his position. When the first of the New Year approached, he pointed out to PUBLIC SERVANT 139 them that the entire fund obtained by the Chief of Police by the vacation reduction of pay would be exhausted early in January. Then it would be necessary to find new means of meeting the salaries of the extra officers, and a crisis might be looked for. The Republican vote in the Council was kept in full attendance. At one of the sessions in January Alderman Gallagher, acting for the Executive, to every one's astonishment offered an ordinance instructing the heads of departments to ignore the repeated monthly orders of the Board to keep expenditures within the regular appropriations. At most other times the proposed ordinance would have been looked upon as innocent enough and attracted no especial notice. But with observation strained over every Executive act, it was perceived instantly that here was at last an attempt on the Mayor's part to take the initiative for securing legality for the surreptitious increase of the police force. If the Gallagher ordinance were passed, all the previous orders to dismiss the new men would be nullified. They might then be retained and an expectation be founded that the Council would make a new appropriation for their pay. It looked as if the Mayor had concluded that public opinion was now sufficiently aroused in favor of his conduct to warrant belief that it would change the Council's attitude. In an instant Alderman Madden was on his feet. He had just what he desired and had waited for nearly five months. It was an opportunity to effectively bare the whole conspiracy, and at the same time have the Mayor's entire action officially declared illegal. Realizing that what he now might say would be spread before every reader in Chicago next day, he was spurred into one of 140 . MARTIN B. MADDENT those compact, complete, carrying orations which so often distinguished his legislative career. He moved that the Gallagher resolution be placed on file and the action of the Finance Committee, in its January and other notices to the police department to keep its expenditures within the regular appropriation, be concurred in. He pointed out that by placing it on file the Mayor's motion would be practically shelved until the majority chose to take it off file, and that by voting to concur in the Finance Com- mittee's action the Council would officially legalize it without having the committee bring it before the body in the usual form of a report. A report that the com- mittee had ordered the Chief of Police to discharge the extra men, if brought* in and approved by the Council, would become an order. This the Mayor could veto, and as there were not enough Republican votes in the Board to sustain the order over the veto, the whole ques- tion would remain open as before. But as the Mayor had himself brought the entire subject before the Council by the Gallagher resolution to instruct the heads of departments to ignore the Finance Committee's order, the passage of the motion to concur in that committee's action, and at the same time file, would legalize the order to retrench as well as declare the Mayor's retention of the extra police unlawful, without passing an order or doing anything else that the Mayor could veto, or reach by any Executive action. The proceeding would result in making the defeat of the Mayor simply a matter of record, and he could in no way interfere with that. By asking the Council to instruct the departments to ignore its previous orders to keep expenditures within the appropriations, the Mayor was petitioning the Board to PUBLIC SERVANT 141 rescind its several commands to the Police Department to dismiss the men for whose retention there was no appropriation. The request was one to legalize the keeping of the extra men. The mere making of such an application was an Executive admission that the reten- tion of these officers was not yet legal and that they had been kept on the force for five months unlawfully. The refusal of the request would have to be accepted as con- clusive proof that the further keeping of them would be illegal and would cause their instant dismissal. How came these men on the pay roll? The speaker had him- self brought it about. He had directed the attention of the Administration to the danger of the impending riots before the trouble broke out, and had urged increased patrol. He had undertaken to have the Council make a special appropriation to cover the emergency, and that action alone had made it possible to temporarily increase the force. The Council's action had created the 320 extra offices for the Police Department to fill. They were created for the specified period of two months, and became void at the expiration of that time. No execu- tive power, or any other power than that of the Board of Aldermen, could rightfully extend the duration of any one of these offices one day beyond that period. No power but the legislative power of the Board could add one official place to the pay roll or take one away. The Council every year fixed the number of policemen to be employed by the city, and fixed the particular salary each one of them was to get,* from the Chief down. The pay of every officer was specified by law, belonged to him by law, and could neither be reduced nor enlarged by any power but that of the Board while the man 142 MARTIN B. MADDEN retained his place. The Council had ordered the Hayor to add 320 patrolmen to the force for the period of two months. It had specified that they were to be patrol- men, and it had appropriated the sum necessary to pay them patrolmen's salaries for two months, and no longer. At the end of that time the power that put these men on the force ordered them taken off, there being no further need for their services. The matter should have ended there. But the Mayor refused to decrease his patronage and kept the men. When he could not secure a contin- uation of their salaries, he compelled the legitimate policemen to pay it by an enforced subscription of ten days' salary from each man. This was done through the subterfuge of an enforced ten days' vacation without pay. Every dollar of this money belonged by law to the men, and the taking of it from them was an act of unlaw- ful spoliation. This forcing of money from the regular police was done to get a fund to further break the law by hiring employes forbidden by the law to be in the public service. When the extorted sum was used up in this unlawful spoilsmanship other amounts belonging to the police fund were unlawfully expended for the main- tenance of it until the department's appropriation had been exceeded $1 10,000. Every effort ingenuity was able to devise had been used to deceive the tax-payers about the proceeding. The Finance Committee was bound to see that the moneys appropriated by the Council were expended economically and in the work for which they were specifically bestcrwed. When it insisted on this conduct in the expenditure of the police funds, the Administration succeeded in persuading the public to resent what it took for an attempt to lessen the com- PUBLIC SERVANT 143 munity's safety by reducing the police force. There was no attempt to lessen the force, only a resistance to the increase of* it by unlawful means. When the already underpaid regular police were forced to give up ten days' pay per man, they were made to feel that it was a sacri- fice advanced to preserve the integrity of the force. When the Council made no appropriation either to refund the men this squeeze or to cover the enlarged criminal expenditure, the men were made hostile to the city's legislature and indifferent to their duty of enforcing ordi- nances. They were convinced the Council was specially unfriendly to them, was attempting to burden each over- worked man with more labor by compelling a less num- ber to do it all, and was trying to compel men to quit the service by making the receipt of salaries uncertain and cutting down the appropriation. The real truth was, the Board had been struggling to secure each man his full pay and regularity in getting it by preventing diversion of the ample police fund. If the city had plenty of money, the speaker would oppose increasing the number of city employes without good reason. If the treasury were bursting he would not, while he was at the head of the Finance Committee, permit any official to put one man on the pay roll tmless the Council first created a place for that man and appropriated a salary for him. He would use every power available to him as party leader, as member of the Council, and as director of the expenditure of the tax money, to prevent the Mayor, or any other official, from forcing the city to pay unlawful salaries, whether they numbered 320, as in the present case, or but one. That was the position he had taken and held during this entire controversy. It was the only 144 MARTIN B. MADDEN one an honest man could take. It was the one he meant to continue, no matter what the consequences might be to himself. For these he had no right to care. But he besought the other members to stand by him for the city's sake. This speech produced a profound impression. It stirred the spectators into an uproar of applause and brought thirty-seven votes to his side to uphold him in any action he might take. To the executive party in the chamber it was a revelation. They saw it was then or never with the Mayor's scheme. They rushed frantic into a fight as if for life. They moved for a division of the Alderman's motion, arguingMt was two in one. They insisted on having it made into a motion to file and one to conciir. But Madden had anticipated this, and shown that a motion to concur would make it necessary to have his committee bring the matter before the house in a report, which concurrence then the Board would transfer into an order that the Mayor could veto. Now the matter was before the house by the Mayor's own action in the Gallagher resolution. The motion to divide was voted down amid the wildest excitement. The only hope of the administration party was now in adjournment. A motion to adjourn was made and declared carried by the Chair, occupied for the occasion by an administration selection, in spite of a roll call demanded by the major - it}'. This gave the Democrats an excuse for leaving and attempting to destroy the quorum necessary for the trans- action of business. They rushed for the doors and a few got out, through the connivance of the janitor, who swung the portals wide. The Republicans carried the roll call through, showing the motion to adjourn had PUBLIC SERVANT 145 been defeated and that the house was still in full ses- sion, and then by force attempted to save the quorum present by preventing further desertion. In the encoun- ter which resulted, the quorum was saved. The defeated and whipped minority refused to vote. But they were present. Their number made the voting legal, and Mr. Madden 's motion was carried by thirty-seven votes, those belonging to the twenty-three prisoners not being cast. The struggle had lasted four hours and was per- haps as great in the parliamentary skill and eloquence brought into play as any that ever was witnessed in any deliberative body. The Mayor gave up the contest and the police force resumed its normal and legal condition. The men soon realized the value of the presence of a just, enlightened and courageous man in the town Council. There being no "extras" now to be supported by "docking," the reg- ulars received their full salaries. The Council proceedings were fully reported in all the papers next day. They produced such a revulsion of feeling among all classes of citizens as let in the real truth to the public mind. The result was a rally to the general support of the Alderman from the Fourth Ward. If he had retained any desire to be Mayor of Chicago he could have had the Republican noominatin for that office for the ensuing spring election and would easily have defeated the Mayor, who was arranging to run for re-elec- tion , or any other man the Democrats might nominate. But the Alderman had retired from the field in favor of Mr. Swift, and the wholesome political effect of his long, well-fought struggle for the tax-payers went to another man. 10 CHAPTER XV. STARTS CIVIL SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT — FURNISHES IT ARGU- MENTS — MANY NEW IDEAS. jkjk R. MADDEN'S experience with the method of con- / T 1 ducting the municipal government of Chicago con- vinced him not only that civil service reform was the only available method of correcting the evils afflicting the public service, but that its immediate adoption was imperative. It held out the means of eradicating the disease and of preventing its recurrence. Every Mayor- alty election was a contest for 20,000 salaries. These were good for two years. Few of them were to be earned by giving the tax-payers service worth the wages received. Most of them were paid rather for the value of the help rendered in getting the Chief Executive his position, or for the activity expected in procuring him another term. The employer was too ostensibly the Mayor and too evidently not the people who paid the money. The official's interest in the expenditure of these 20,000 salaries could not but be largely personal. He naturally accepted his election under the system as a warrant for exploiting himself at the public expense. His adherents looked upon themselves as in his pay, in his service, at his command. They felt bound to make themselves as valuable to him as they could, to get out of him as much as possible, and to prolong their opportuni- ties to the utmost. by maintaining him in the place of dis- 146 PUBLIC SERVANT 147 tribution. On neither side, that of paying out the wages or that of receiving them, was there a tithe of the con- sideration for the tax-payer that there was for the dis- penser of the places. The cow was fed for the milk she would yield. She might desire to be some other kind of cow, but so long as she did not go dry, the fellow that filled the pail did it solely for the boss, and his thoughts were about butter. Her ladyship might begrudge that use for milk; she'certainly had no interest in butter; but the other two had, and was she not in their hands? The Alderman concluded that if the tax-payers should by law appoint a body of non-partisan competent men with permanent commission to control, under proper public regulations, all appointments and dis- charges in the civic service, the immediate effect would be to bar out from public employment all but those fitted to enter it. This would result at once in the formation of a new class of men, those who had natural aptitude for public work. The moment it should be established that no one w r ould be employed in civic work unless competent, and that once employed a public servant could not be dismissed except for cause, men qualified to do what tax-payers paid for having done would apply for the task with a view of rendering public service equivalent for the salaries paid and making of it a life occupation. These would undoubtedly include the truly worthy among the spoils class, but it would exclude the parasites. That in itself would be a great gain, for it would conserve all that was worth saving of the pernicious system and destroy the rest. It would keep out of administrative office men with nothing but personal following, and put in persons solely for their ability to -manage public 148 MARTIN B. MADDEN affairs. It would prevent re-elections for all reasons but those of continued usefulness. Not only that, it would reduce taxes by making impossible any public expendi- ture except for actual public service. While all the servants the city paid were doing nothing but city work, there would never be employed as many as when a large part of their time had to be devoted to the political in- trigue necessary to keep the Mayor either in office or before the public as a big personality. When Mr. Madden announced his determination to advocate civil service reform in the city government and to do all in his power to bring it about, he was at once beset by every kind of political persecution his party adver- saries could devise and every effort at dissuasion his party associates could invent. The result was a dis- cussion seldom equaled for the skill of the arguments brought into play. One prominent political authority held that the Almighty had himself given the first and best example of the principle that to the victors belong the spoils. Divine service, he said, was induced alto- gether by expected reward — no one " could get either a seat or a harp except by loud praise and effective work. M The member from the Fourth thought this logic feeble, as Love of Him served and not Expectancy was the real inspiration to sound religious living. If not profane to institute a parallel between sacred and lay things it would be much better for public life if party service were attracted by pure love of party principles than by hope of office ; and, as to gratitude, it would be much better to have men grateful to their party than to any individual of it for political favors received, and better yet to have them grateful to their country; as the offices belonged to PUBLIC SERVANT 149 the country, and when they were bestowed by a party they never were the personal gift of the official instru- mental in delivering them. So far as public offices were in the gift of a party, he contended, they were a sort of wage-fund — the only kind of currency the party had to pay its hands with ; and it was just as dishonest for a man elected by a party to an administrative office to liquidate his personal political debts by paying them out of the party's wage-fund as it would be. for a business manager to pay his personal obli- gations out of the company's safe. In both cases the wage-earners might be deprived of their earnings, and in the end both the party and the company would fail because unable to obtain labor. On this account he thought that all such offices as Presidential appointments, for instance, which could not well be included in the civil service list, as the filling of them for securing that change of policy called for by national elections was necessary, should be considered a sort of fund belonging to the party as a whole, and, with few exceptions, like those to a cabinet and the principal foreign appoint- ments, should be at the disposal of the organization and never within the exclusive gift of either the President, Senators or Congressmen. If the members of Congress were allowed to control these appointments, they would more often be used for personal than party advantage, more often given to secure individual retention in place than party retention in power. If the President were permitted to bestow them, he might use them for per-. sonal ends rather than for party advantage. The nearest approach to perfect civil service reform in the bestowal of Presidential places possible, Mr. 150 MARTIN B. MADDEN Madden urged, would lie in a plan that would prohioit the appointment to any of these of any person except upon the certification of the local committee of the party in power of the place where the appointee was to per- form his work. Such a plan would induce the best party men in all localities to be active in committee work, because then they would have real influence in party action. They would see to it that in their local- ities the most deserving as well as the most efficient party workers got the places at the party's bestowal there. Where several candidates possessed equal ability, the one who in addition had that of best serving his party when it was entitled to service in the office would get the place. In this way alone could the best party service be everywhere obtained, because it would assure proper recognition for correct zeal everywhere, and would put office-holders in debt to the organization instead of to individuals. It would be much better for the country as well as for the party in power to have all partisan appointees indebted to the organization for their places than to have them grateful to a mere Con- gressman, or Senator, or even a President. The party was bigger and more important than either or all three together. It was the party which was elected to power and not any individual of it, and the place-holder's obli- gation, where it could not go to the country as a whole, should go to the party as a whole, and never to an indi- vidual of it. Such a policy would also relieve Congress- men and Senators, as well as Presidents, of not only a great deal of useless work and worry, thereby enabling them to attend to their duties better and with more single-mindedness, but it would place the responsibility PUBLIC SERVANT 151 for party appointments upon those to whom it properly belonged — the managers in the localities where the office- holders' work was to be done. The managers would carry this responsibility much better, as a rule, than ever it had been borne under the way things were conducted now. When Presidents, Senators and Congressmen should be confined strictly to the doing of the work they were elected to do, and were deprived of patronage as a means of getting into office or of remaining there once in, better public, work would be done and better men would be elected to do public work. When both the great parties into which the people of this country had always been divided and into which they bid fair to remain divided, were made solely responsible for the policies they advocated by having entire control of the selection of their members who were to carry it out, then only would party government reach the real effi- ciency of which it was capable. No President, no Sena- tor, no Congressman that ever was elected to office pos- sessed either the ability, the knowledge, or the inclination that would enable him to select as good a postmaster, collector, or revenue officer, to perform federal service in any locality, as were possessed for that purpose by such committees of residents as would be induced to manage party interests if this plan of political home rule were generally adopted. It would be ideal civil service reform in Presidential appointments. Mr. Madden intimated it could perhaps be success- fully contended that if the plan he suggested for the reg- ulation of Presidential appointments had long ago been put into operation for all federal offices by both parties, there never would have arisen the necessity for the civil 152 MARTIN B. MADDEN service reform which within recent years had removed so many thousands of government places from the per- sonal control of public men. The whole evil of the so- called spoils system had been due to the personal element in the control of public places. It was the same element that had vitiated the public service in municipalities. It was that alone that had brought about the wretched con- dition of the civil service in Chicago. , V Consider the situation here," he said. "Our Mayors have personal control of about 20,000 appoint- ments. They, appoint every policeman, fireman, clerk, head of department, street sweeper, jailer, and so forth. All these men are at the absolute mercy of the Mayor. He can transfer, suspend or dismiss them — make it pos- sible for them to earn a good living, a poor living or no livelihood at all. The fortunes of all of them are bound up in the Mayor's career. If he desires to remain in office, they must all spend their time electioneering for him instead of serving the public which pays their sala- ries. When their time is in this way partly taken up in the Mayor's service, either the public work is neglected, or more people are required to do it. As the duration of the Mayor's term is that of their employment, they are more likely to use their time 'feathering their nests' than in attending to their duties. If the Mayor is cor- rupt, they are more so. If he is not popular enough to be assured of another term, they increase their looting. If he is an open-town man, they race him preying on vice. No matter what the Chief Executive may be, the entire horde cannot be good public servants, because they are in the service for 'what there is in it' for two years i the administration term. The whole thing is wrong PUBLIC SERVANT 153 from top to bottom. The only cure is civil service reform. We must take all these appointments away from personal control and put them under public control. That can only be done by putting all civic appointments into the hands of a public body which shall represent the tax-payers, select the public employes solely for their fitness to do the work they are to be paid for, and appoint them for life or good behavior. Every fireman passed should be assured of his place while able to work. Every policeman selected should know that he is in ser- vice for life. Every fireman and policeman should be assigned to duty in the district where he has decided to live, so that he may know all the people there and be able to distinguish strangers. "They should not be compelled to pay money or lose time going to and from work. They should know that no one will have the power to annoy them by transfer, and that they will always have their salaries unimpaired by any deduction so long as they do their duty, and that they or their families will be cared for if they are injured in the public service. They should do duty entirely where they live, because their interest there would be greater than it could be anywhere else, and every one in the locality would be a friend and ally in their work. Criminals would be less likely to locate or dwell in neigh- borhoods where policemen live as well as work than in those where they go only as strangers. There should be no change in any but executive officials when there is a change in Executives. The civil service should 'be com- posed of a staff that has been composed to remain, has been selected to stay, and that cannot be either dis- turbed or harried in any way by any change in the mere 154 MARTIN B. MADDEN Mayoralty. It should be the well selected machinery for the running of the business of the city, founded to go right along, irrespective of any change in engineers. The Mayor should be simply the engineer engaged by the corporation to run its machine and not his own, its machine a carefully selected and constructed fixture, manageable by any reputable engineer. " "Yes, but a pure man in the office of Mayor could do a great deal of good with those appointments. You are being urged for the place. See the power for good you would have in the control of 20,000 offices. Why then attempt to destroy the system ; why not stand by it and save it for the influence it preserves for good men?" "The human nature in me might make me as suscep- tible as any other man to the enjoyment of the power lying in the control of such a large number of people depending on me. But I would rather be Mayor with- out that patronage than with it. With the office in view, I am in favor of having it shorn of all this power of appointment. If I should become Chief Executive at a time when the Mayor still had these 20,000 appointments, I would do all I could to fill them with the best men pos- sible to obtain, and might be able in doing it to help the party that elected me and at the same time build up a personal following useful to any ambition I should have for the future. But I cannot see that with all my expe- rience I could fill all these places as well for the tax- pay- ers as could a commission devoted to that work alone. I could not possibly be as disinterested as that body would be, no matter how much I tried ; nor could I give the work of selection as much time and skill. If you should consider me a perfect public servant and your PUBLIC SERVANT 155 opinion and the fact should match, yet a commission would in the work of finding efficient employes for the city surpass me in every way. That being so, if 1 were a candidate for the Mayoralty, for the only good reason warranting aspiration to that office — a desire to serve the public — 1 should be bound to prefer having all the appointments controlled by a permanent non-partisan Board. And so far as personal convenience could- right- fully enter the question, I still would prefer to have the Board control the appointments. I should desire to be as good a Mayor as I could be. It would be easier to be a good Executive with Board appointees to carry on the civil service than with personal appointees, for the former would be far more likely to be all efficient than my own selections. If I had the office already equipped, with all the places filled with better public servants than 1 could pick out, I could give my full time to executive work. If, on the other hand, after being sworn in I had to find 20,000 suitable persons to help me, and then maintain continual political interest in them all, I should have on my hands another job that might prove far more exacting on my time and ability than the office I was elected to fill. Every disinterested consideration of the subject leads surely to this conclusion: that in municipal government the non-executive offices should be perma- nently filled by selections made by a continuous non- partisan Board acting for all the tax-payers. So far as these city servants go they should constitute a fixed fea- ture of the civil administration, like the parts of a machine an engineer is to handle for the concern that employs him. They should be always ready at hand, supplied in advance, permanently appointed, so far as 156 MARTIN B. MADDEN possible; and not subject to change or substitution by each new Chief Executive employed. The Mayor of a city is elected to office to execute the will of the citizens as expressed in the city ordinances. His entire time should be devoted to executive labor. He should not have to find public servants; they should be already in place as parts of the system he is engaged to direct, not form." 41 But isn't the quality of the men elected to the Pres- idency a proof that the old way is the better way? They were all elected under the spoils system." 44 We have elected twenty-five Presidents. Among the thousands of rulers who have governed all other countries there cannot be found an equal number of men comparable in ability and virtue to the twenty-five Pres- idents the American people have elected consecutively. This fact is the greatest of all the arguments in favor of republican form of government. The superior character of all the Presidents who have managed our national affairs successively for over one hundred years does not, in any w r ay, prove value in the spoils system. It does, however, demonstrate the value of placing the responsi- bility for the selection of candidates on the whole party organization, and, properly considered, affords the strong- est of arguments for civil service reform. The history of the Presidential elections conclusively proves that the greater the number of the people who actively engage in the work of selecting federal executives, the better the selection. When the people of the country are divided into two parties, each candidate for the Presidency represents the choice of one-half the population. For more than a century the population has been so divided PUBLIC SERVANT 157 in national elections. The results show that one-half the people have always selected better men for office than smaller divisions have; for the Presidents have all been better men than those elected by smaller constituencies, such as Governors, Senators, Congressmen, and so on. The smaller the number of people making choice of an official, the more inferior, as a 'rule, the man chosen, until you get away down to the constable, in whose elec- tion probably the least number of voters take interest. Now, if the greater the number you can interest in the selection of a public official, the better the man chosen, until you get up to the President, selected by half of the people, it would seem to follow that if you could get all the people to choose you would do better still, as was done in the selection of Washington. That is the very essence of the principle of civil service reform. It assumes that in the selection of men for the performance of public duties, the choice of all the people is the best choice and that of the individual the worst. It proposes, because of this, to remove the selection of public serv- ants from the control of individuals, the worst selectors, and place it in the control of the whole population, the best chooser. This it proposes to do through a Board appointed by all the people and representing them all, having for its purpose the selection of men for the pub- lic service, not'in the interest of any individual or of any party, but of the entire community, comprising all indi- viduals and all parties." Those were remarkable arguments to be made in the five or six years preceding 1895 in Chicago by a man ambitious to be Mayor of the city. They are, per- haps, the best ever uttered on the subject; at least, they 158 MARTIN B. MADDEN have not been excelled. They convey an idea of Mad- den's method of expounding his principles, but do so no better than the two following examples, drawn out by a very recent debate on the same subject with some inti- mate political friends: A managing politician of his own party in the city said to Madden: "This civil service humbug is but a college industry devised to find employment for the sur- plus product of the colleges." "If the colleges do nothing else than educate young men for the public service they will be doing about as good a thing for the country as they can well do," was the response; "for up to date there have been no per- sons at all trained for public employment. Heretofore, men have got their training for office in office at the tax- payers* expense. It will be a good deal gained if the schools at their expense furnish the knowledge before- hand needed to run the offices of the country properly from the start. ' ' "Yes," said another Bourbon, "but this here thing of refining in the tests for officeholding kin be carried too far. They've got it to a point now where it bars out the great majority of the American people from holding any office in the country. When I was a boy any man in the country could hold office. Now, only a few kin stand the tests and get in. All the rest is barred out. Its gettin' to be like China. That's where civil service started. And they've got the thing down so fine there now that all the offices in the empire is held and monop- olized by a few rich fellers that kin afford to put in their whole time on books. The great majority of the Chinese have no hope of ever gettin' any share in the govern- PUBLIC SERVANT 159 ment of their country. That's why they don't care any- thing for the government of their country. That's why there's no patriotism in China. It's gettin' to be the same way here. The people are losing their patriotism. When I was young everybody was a patriot in this country. Then, everybody could hold office if he wanted to. But now civil service bars most of the people out, and they've grown indifferent to the government and don't care as much for it as they used to. People ain't as patriotic as they used to be. Civil service reform has killed patriotism off. It was different in the old days. Then, every Presidential election there was 100,000 offices for the winners, and about 1,000,000 men in each party struggling to get them. That made politics lively. Everyone was interested in the outcome. That stirred everyone up. That made public sentiment healthy. Now there's nothing to fight for. The civil servicers get everything, no matter which party wins. So politics is dead. Nobody cares any more which party wins. So patriotism is dying out. Civil service is killing it." Madden was not taken by surprise at this effort at reasoning. He instantly recognized in it the prevailing ignorant view cultivated by the lowest clas.s of politicians. He said: ''China probably devised the system of public examinations to ascertain the fitness of candidates for office, and has carried it to such perfection that in normal times none but well qualified men can attain important positions in the public service of the empire. The exam- inations are open to all and the tests do not bar any from public place but those not qualified to serve. Li Hung Chang, the son of a farmer, is a conspicuous example of the rise of a Chinaman by means of ability demonstrated 160 MARTIN B. MADDEN at the public examinations. Although Chinese of pure blood, he has by publicly proved ability risen to first place under the foreign government of the Manchu dynasty. In the recent international war he was entrusted alone to negotiate the peace settlement with the representatives of all the powers combined. He had through public tests established perfect confidence in the minds of all his countrymen in his ability to successfully meet all who might be arrayed against him, and his achievement in securing an agreement by the powers to let the indemnity forced on China be paid mainly from the duties on those things on which the foreigners pay the tax, would seem to fully justify the good opinion of him entertained by his people. The partisanship called patriotism has no field for display in China, because the government is paternal and there are no party divisions. The people hate the dynasty because it is foreign and, of course, their patriotism would all be manifested in opposition. Their civil service system, instead of dull- ing their patriotism, really increases their pride in their public officials because of their known and demonstrated ability. "The whole world recognizes the increase of patriot- ism in this country. In the 'old days,' say those of the Revolution, there was a Tory party in the United States. In the War of the Rebellion there still was a party of Copperheads, not, however, so potent as the opposition George Washington had stabbing him in the back. But patriotism has become to nearly universal in the Union that an American President would now practically have no American enemies to encounter in a foreign war. In every instance in the history of the country wherein any PUBLIC SERVANT 161 popular manifestation of dissatisfaction with the govern- ment has occurred, the facts show it was caused by the evils of the spoils system. As these evils have disap- peared, as control of federal offices has been removed from individual power, as consequent corruption and scandal have been eliminated, as civil service reform has been extended in the federal departments and the public service has been improved by trained and efficient servants, patriotism, pride in the government, has corre- spondingly increased, and its manifestations have become proverbial all over the world. 44 The mere mention of the alleged necessity of hav- ing offices to give for political work in order to induce interest in elections in the 'old days,' shows the utter lack of real patriotism in the workers who required such incentive. They didn't labor for their country because they loved their country. They simply loved 4 what there was in it. ' The presence of the successful class of these, 4 crib livers' in the offices of the country did more to dis- courage patriotism and disgust citizens with their govern- ment than any other thing, except the disgruntled vapor- ings of the class kept out. If civil service reform did nothing more than starve such men into the necessity of earning their bread by any kind of honest labor they were capable of, it helped the cause of patriotism immensely. With the disappearance of these parasites from public life interest in politics has so increased that in the two last Presidential elections nearly the whole suffrage of the country was polled, a thing never pos- sible to attain in the 4 old days' of the spoils system. The real fact is that in the spoils period it was difficult to interest the average citizen in the work of procuring a n 162 MARTIN B. MADDEN change of office-holders for the benefit of the 'outs,' and political activity was as a rule left to the 'grub hunters. Now that elections are held mainly for the promotion of principles, and cause little change in office-holding, they afford a real interest to citizens who love the government and have an increasing pride in the method of its con- duct, and inspire full voting." CHAPTER XVI. PASSES CIVIL SERVICE REFORM BILL— IGNORES INGRATITUDE- RESCUES LAW FROM DESTRUCTION. IN 1895 Mr. Madden was nominated for his fourth term in the Council, There was arrayed against him the strongest candidate his combined opponents could put into the field. This was a Reform candidate placed in opposition to Mr. Madden by the local branch of the Civic Federation for some reason that has never been explained. This organization was composed of a large number of the most influential citizens of the town, banded together for the purpose of securing Civil Service Reform. Of this the Alderman had been not only the most persistent advocate but the most influential. He had done more than all the other reformers together to create sentiment in the Board and among the citizens for the movement. It was mainly through his efforts that the Civil Service Ordinance presented to the Council by Alderman Mann on Dec. 3, 1894, had been brought for- ward. This ordinance, after being passed, was form- ulated into a legislative act establishing Civil Service Reform in Chicago, providing the statute should be sub- mitted to the voters of the city at a regular election and by them approved by a majority vote. The proposed law was at the time before the Legislature, with the Civic Federation as its sponsor. Efforts were being made to have it passed in time to have the voters act on J68 164 MARTIN B. MADDEN it in that spring's Mayoralty election. The measure was "held tip'* securely by interests opposed to its passage and others using it as a block to obtain consideration for bills. The Federation's open hostility to Madden in his own ward created suspicion and general misapprehension. It caused the fiercest and closest canvass ever made in the district. Three different house to house polls were taken. All parties became divided. A Democratic Madden club was organized to offset Republican defec- tion. It grew until it contained 500 members. It paraded the streets every fair evening with transparencies calling on the voters to rally to the support of Madden, "the best Alderman the city ever had." The excitement in the city over the election was equaled, though on a smaller scale, in Springfield over the Civil Service Bill. The Hon. Lyman J. Gage, pres- ent Secretary of the United States Treasury, was there in the interest of the bill, in company with the Hon. John H. Hamline, President of the Civic Federation, and a host of similar prominent reformers. Nearly all of these had lent the use of their names to the Reform Candidate running against Alderman Madden in his own ward. About March 15th, in the most exciting period of the city struggle, the officers of the Federation who were at Springfield realized that they could not secure the passage of the Reform Bill without party help. Alderman Madden was at the time Chairman of the City Central Republican Committee and acknowledged party leader in Chicago. The Civil Service Reformers at Springfield sent to him as party leader an urgent request to come to the capital and assist in getting the measure passed, stat- PUBLIC SERVANT 165 ihg that it was in the vSenate and lacked nine votes, which could not be obtained. This request was perhaps the most extraordinary ever made of a candidate running for office. The Federation was doing all in its power to retire Madden from public life and was pushing him hard in his home district by the use of a special candi- date put there by the organization to split the Republican vote. To now ask him, within a few days of election, to abandon the contest in its critical stage and leave it to the Federation's nominee and go to Springfield to assist the Society in the cause of Reform, looked to most of the Republican workers like a well conceived subter- fuge to assure Madden's complete overthrow. He took a different view. The request indicated to him that the Civil Service Bill must be in a desperate tangle at Springfield to induce his avowed enemies to solicit his help. Their request convinced him they were sincerely in favor of the proposed reform, else they would not seek assistance from an enemy in a cause both espoused. He concluded to go and telegraphed to that effect, asking merely that he be absolved from blame for obnoxious city legislation that might be rushed through the Council during his absence. It was suspected at the time that certain Aldermen were prepared to introduce and hurry through a couple of bad franchise measures they had in hand during the hurry of the closing days of the old Board's life. Gathering a number of the ablest city party managers together he went with them to Springfield. Grasping the situation at once, he and his friends set to work to obtain the nine votes needed to get the Civil Service Bill out of the deadlock and passed. It took two days and nights of the hardest kind of work. 166 MARTIN B. MADDEN On March tgth the Alderman turned over to the Civic Federation for the passage of its measure twelve new votes, and the Civil Service Law was enacted. In the history of. Reform legislation Madden is the only person who is recorded as having alone been able to put on statute books a Ci^il Service Reform Law. His work at the capital accomplished, Madden returned to Chicago, arriving in the morning. He at once went before the Republican Executive Committee of Cook County and suggested the adoption of a resolution, which he presented, calling on all the voters and political work- ers in the county to do their utmost to secure the adop- tion of the Civil Service Law in the election on April 2d. If the voters then by a majority approved the law it would become operative on the first of the following July; if they did not, the date of its operation would be indefinitely postponed. The fate of the law was entirely within the control of the Republican party in the city. The committee unanimously adopted the resolution. Then he had issued a proclamation urging every voter to use every legitimate influence' within his control to procure votes for the law, so that the tax-payers might realize its benefits as soon as possible. This was posted immediately all over the city and sent out in special mails to the electors. The whole machinery of the Republican party was put to work and strained to its last possible effort to destroy the whole spoils system in the municipality. This was the work that produced the result accomplished. Mr. Madden made no display; he had neither disposition nor time for that ; what he was after, as usual, was results. He then went back to his canvass, after a three days' PUBLIC SERVANT . 167 absence from it. As he had feared, two "boodle" ordi- nances had been put through the Board of Aldermen dur- ing his absence and the Civic Federation party in the Fourth Ward were industriously using the fact against him. They were arguing that he was really responsible for both measures and that his absence was a trick to allow them to be passed without himself going on record foi them. These same reformers both concealed and denied the fact that the Alderman had gone away in the interest of the very Reform movement they were man- ipulating against him. To the credit of the press of Chicago it must be said that when the news from the State capital was placed before its editors and they realized fully what had been done at Springfield, and were informed by their local reporters of what was being done in the city campaign, they lost no time in raising a row over the whole hypoc- risy that was being operated in the Fourth Ward against the real achiever of Civil Service Reform for the city. Several editors, whose papers had up to this time been bitterly fighting Madden, turned them entirely about into advocates of his election, some even demanding it in the name of good government. The campaign was in its last days and the revulsion had barely time to enlighten public sentiment. President Hamline took it upon him- self, in the name of the Civic Federation, to go into the Alderman's district and take the stump against the work of his own Society. He announced everywhere he obtained an audience: "To Mr. Madden belongs the credit of having secured for the City of Chicago the passage of the Civil Service Reform Law. Without the votes he got for the measure the bill could not have been passed. " 168 . MARTIN B. MADDEN Mr. Slason Thompson, editor of the Journal, led in this work. His paper had been one of the most intelli- gent and powerful agencies used in the campaign up to this time for the support of the Civic Federation's Alder- manic candidate in the Fourth Ward. He did not hesi- tate one moment in changing his attitude. He was dis- interested and sincere. On March 2 2d he came out in an editorial calling on all the voters in the Fourth Ward to rally to the support of Madden. t4 Speaking for myself/' said Mr. Thompson, "and the Journal, t think Alderman Madden is a public benefactor. In the first place/ the people of the State of Illinois and of the City of Chicago owe it to the Republican party that the Civil Service Law has been given to them for adoption. Had it not been for Alderman Madden we (speaking for the Civic Federation) could not have passed the bill and the reform might have been indefinitely delayed. I was at Springfield with the Citizens' Committee. We had only five of the ten Republican Senators from Cook County favorably inclined to us before Mr. Madden came. The country Senators would not come to our support so long as we lacked unanimity among those from our own county. Mr. Madden came to the capital and with his personal and political influence secured to us the five home votes we needed and which, until he worked on them, had been opposed to us. They gave us the local unanimity we had to have. It strengthened our favor- able men and welded the Cook County Senators together, and this solidity enabled us to obtain the other votes we needed from the country. I consider this the most important piece of work on the part of a public man that has been done in ten years either in Illinois or Chi ; PUBLIC SERVANT 169 cago. It stamps Mr. Madden as a public man of vast usefulness. He has been called a machine politician, but by his work for Civil Service Reform he has proven himself a citizen of the highest type. We advise the voters of the Fourth Ward to send him to the Council. It is not possible that his opponent in his whole life has performed for the public services as valuable as Mr. Madden has accomplished in two days." President Hamline, of the Civic Federation, made this public announcement: "The Civil Service Law is the most important enactment that has been added to the statutes of Illinois in many years. Alderman Madden enabled us to secure its passage. Without the aid he gave the law could not have been passed. He is a pub- lic-spirited citizen and a representative of the people to whom all true Chicagoans owe a debt of gratitude. He should have full credit for his work." The News, Independent, on March 2 2d, said: "The election of Mr. Madden is more necessary in the interest of reform and good municipal government than the elec- tion of any other nominee on this year's tickets." "His record, his leadership, are an example few could emulate. Since 1855 Chicago has had bright and bril- liant men as Chairmen of the Finance Committee, but not one other of them all has done as much as Mr. Madden," said another newspaper. City Comptroller Jones, Democrat, said for pub- lication: "As Chairman of the Finance Committee Mr. Madden is a bulwark of strength to the city government. His thorough and complete knowledge of the financial conditions of the city, its resources and necessities, is marvelous. Without a moment's 170 MARTIN B. MADDEN hesitation, he can, without reference to a book, give an accurate answer to any question about a financial fact relating to the city. As Chairman of the Finance Committee Mr. Madden is the right arm of the Mayor, an invaluable aid and assistant to the Comptroller." 44 He is the brainiest, most capable and most self-sac- rificing man that ever held the helm of the Republican ship of state in this city He stands without a peer, without a rival, the ablest Alderman of them all " announced the Dispatch, The Inter- Ocean said: 44 Mr. Madden has been engaged in a single service all his life. He is the head of the house in which he first labored in the humblest capacity. Thirty years of faithful duty is the highest possible proof of merit. His financial management of the city has challenged universal admiration. The rec- ord he has made in the Council is that of a leader of men, wise in counsel, courageous in action, and successful in all he undertakes to do. He never in all his life betrayed a friend or broke a promise. His name is a synonym in business circles for integrity and uprightness." Alderman Hepburn appeared before the public in an address in which he used the following statement: 44 I have sat in the Council now six years with Mr. Madden, and I desire to say this to the people of Chicago: Never in the history of the city has there been a man in that body who served either his ward or the whole city as faithfully as this man has done. He has done more in the past two years for the city than any Mayor has ever accomplished. He has stood up time and again in the two years just passed when Chicago was on the verge of bankruptcy and saved it from toppling over. He has PUBLIC SERVANT 171 stood at bay an administration that was plunging the city into ruinous debt, and it has been this one Alder- man's efforts, his determination, his will, his force and his power alone that have saved the town from utter bankruptcy, It has been well said of him that he was not more the representative of the Fourth Ward than of the entire population. He has introduced and passed more bills for the benefit of Chicago and its citizens than all the balance of us put together, and 1 know thoroughly what I am talking about, and the records of the Council will prove it.'* Madden's own explanation to his constituents was that when the choice was presented to him of remaining at home and attempting to fight the assured majority that would put on passage the two obnoxious ordinances, or of abandoning both that struggle and the one for his re-election and going to Springfield, he chose the trip, because he believed he would be able to obtain the votes Civil Service Reform needed to become an accomplished fact He had ascertained he could not prevent the pas- sage of the ordinances; all he could do was to make a record of opposition by staying at home and he had been convinced he could secure the passage of the law. The law would prove of more value to the city than any piece of legislation enacted since he had been in public life. It was a thousand times more necessary to all the tax- payers, those of the Fourth Ward included, than the elec- tion of any Alderman or any number of Aldermen. He was returned to the Council by a majority of 1,200. The election resulted in the popular adoption of the Civil Service Law by a large majority. It went into effect on July 1, 1895. The Mayor, according to its 172 MARTIN B. MADDEN terms, appointed three Commissioners to frame rules for the selection and discharge of employes in the city's civil service. At the outset these officials established an age limit, putting it at forty-five years. This barred from the public service every surviving soldier who had served in the Civil War. Nothing could have been done more perilous to the cause of the reform. The public of Chi- cago rose against the outrage. There was danger that the whole plan of having public servants examined for qualifications would be swept out of existence by the indignation of the people. Heroic measures had to be adopted at once to correct the blunder and save the law. Mr. Madden took the question up and arrayed the entire Council against the Commissioners , ruling. He chose for his ground the contention that constitutionally no power but that of the city legislature could determine who should hold office in the city, and that even that body had no right to fix an age limit. The Commissioners had no discretion whatever in the matter of prescribing eligibility. All they had the right to do was to ascertain and report upon the ability to fill office of those who applied for public positions under the classifications made by the Council. It alone could say what offices were to be filled and who should have them. The examiners could do no more than certify to the fitness of the appli- cants as shown at the public examinations and furnish lists to the appointing powers from which to select ascer- tained capables. The Commissioners themselves could neither appoint nor discharge; they could only make and carry out rules for preventing the appointment of incom- petent or the discharge of competent men. The only ability they had the power to certify to was purely that PUBLIC SERVANT 173 of being able to properly perform the duties of the posi- tions the applicants asked to be examined for. This ques- tion of ability was entirely one of fact, ascertainable by examination, and in no-wise one of age, except in the extreme cases of senility or immaturity. The prerog- ative of deciding how old or how young office-holders should be, as well as that of saying what classes of citi- zens should be eligible to office, belonged solely to the law-making power; the Commission being confined to the work of simply certifying to the fact that applicants belonged to the classes designated by law as those entitled to hold office. To limit the age for office-hold- ing to forty-five years was to establish a class. That was usurping a legislative power. It was an outrage as well. A case had never been known in which a man had proven himself incapable of performing public civic duty simply by being forty-five years old. For much public work men of that age were better qualified than men under it. The soldiers were all past it, and those of them not yet decrepit were especially fit and deserving. The rule of barring these men from public service in the city of Chicago almost approached insanity in its lack of sense and patriotism. It Should be instantly stabbed to death. For the purpose of ending the injustice and scandal at once, Mr. Madden introduced and proposed the immediate adoption of an ordinance declaring unequiv- ocally that in all matters respecting the classification of persons eligible to positions in the city service the Coun- cil alone had the power of decision; prohibiting the establishment of the proposed age limit, and confining the duties of the Civil Service Commission to the preven- tion of the appointment of incapable persons to office and 174 MARTIN B. MADDEN the protection from discharge of those deserving to remain in the service. The speech he made in support of his measure was one of the most eloquent ever heard in the city. It carried the Council without a dissenting voice, and the ordinance was adopted by a unanimous vote. This was extraordinary, as the Civil Service Law had many opponents in the Board, and the vote saved the law. If its enemies had successfully resisted the Madden ordinance and thus permitted the Commissioners to have their way, they might have made the law so odious as to have brought about repeal of its enactment. CHAPTER XVII. ASSURES CHICAGO S SUPREMACY IN MANUFACTURE — SAVES LAKE . FRONT— CREATES PARK THERE. AFTER Mr. Swift's election a movement was strongly organized to form the Republican party in the city on lines that might diminish Alderman Madden's ascend- ancy. This grew to such extent that it arrayed the Mayor and his official adherents in a somewhat hostile attitude even in the conduct of municipal affairs regu- lated by the Council. When the conflict reached the point where it began to threaten the impairment of Mr. Madden's usefulness as a public servant he called upon the Mayor and said; *'It is best that there should be a clear and unmistakable understanding between us. You are Mayor, and as such, represent in an official capacity the citizens of Chicago. You are also the acknowledged leader of the Republican party in this city. The major- ity of the citizens, by electing you to your office, have publicly declared that the policy of the party, as outlined in the platform upon which you stood as candidate, is the one they wish carried out during your term of office. As a member of the City Council I represent the major- ity that elected you, in the legislative work of the munic- ipality. As Chairman of the Finance Committee I repre- sent the citizens of the city in all questions respecting taxation and disbursement of the public moneys. As spokesman in the Council of the party that elected both 175 176 MARTIN B. MADDEN of us I represent its integrity in all matters consistent with the city's interests. Now, all this being so, I wish you to know that it is my intention, as it is my duty, to support you in every measure you may take both as Mayor and as party leader, so far as councilmanic action may be necessary or helpful to you in such measures. You may always in these matters call upon and demand my help, and you may rely upon it that I will readily give it, and give it cheerfully and with all the ability that I possess. I desire that you accept this avowal. It is made without any reservation. " Chicago's natural advantages should in time, Mr. Madden for years has argued, make it the most beautiful city in the world and the most pleasant to abide in. The territory is level and easily improved. The situation by the lakeside gives it two possessions unequaled for sani- tation and comfort. Lake Michigan, nearly 500 miles long, ninety miles wide, and over 400 feet deep, is fed by sub- terranean springs. The water is cold, pure and health- ful. All the corporation needs do is to pump it out and distribute it. The cost of doing this enables the popula- tion to have all they wish for use and waste for less than any other large community can obtain a needed supply. The lake is so large that it cannot be perceptibly raised in temperature. It modifies the summer heat so that the city is saved from torridity, and is cooler than any other place in the same latitude during the heated term. The winds are much of the time in June, July and August from the east, and as they cross the cooling water on their way to the town they bring energy and refreshment to its people at the time when other popu- lations cannot escape depression and lassitude. PUBLIC SERVANT 177 The city lies along the western shore of this remark- able sea for a length of twenty- five miles. This beach line affords an opportunity for civic pleasure and adorn* ment nowhere else possessed by any large city. For nature has decided, and the people of Chicago have arranged, that the immense shipping trade shall be car- ried on in the heart and back of the city, where even better facilities exist, and that the lake front shall for- ever be devoted to beauty and to pleasure. The lake front in the southern half of Chicago was for many years left'to raggedness and disuse because of a stubborn dispute all the time over the title to the sub- merged land. The Illinois Central Railroad had a right of way along about seven miles of the best water line and used it for trackage for its own cars and those of other lines entering the city. This use prevented pop- ular access to the water, and its resultant dirt, smoke, noise and rumble made the most desirable residence dis- trict on the South Side practically unavailable for home building. ^The question was taken into the courts, where the financial resources of the company kept it until the people got it to Washington. There at last the supreme deciding body in the country affirmed the city's conten- tion that it owned the submerged land. What to do with the vast estate now became the most important matter for consideration the people had had since they started to build the greatest city in the world. The Federal Government engineers had reported that the average depth of water for a distance of 1,250 feet out from the shore line and a distance of about seven miles north and south was too shallow for shipping with- out artificial interference and might, therefore, be appro- 12 178 MARTIN B. MADDEN priated by the v municipality as not being navigable and under government control. The drainage canal was being dredged at the city end and the millions of cubic yards of excavated matter would go a great ways towards making dry land of this water waste. The problem attracted universal attention, and great speculators from all over the world flocked to the work of offering solutions. In New York reports got out that 'Chicago was going to create $500, 000,000 worth of real estate and put it on the market to obtain a permanent municipal fund for making the city a cosmopolitan place. After much discussion and sifting of propositions, the more skillful politicians succeeded in impressing the public with the idea that the best thing to do with the new estate was to utilize it altogether for shipping pur- poses. Fill in the area, dredge great slips, construct immense wharves, build enormous elevators, put up vast docks and storehouses, and make Chicago the finest harbor in the world— that was the tempting vision held out. The revenue, the prestige, the business it would attract, would enrich the city beyond calculation and make it grow so great that every foot of land in it would become worth more than whole lots then brought. Mr. Madden had now been in the city legislature for five years, during three of which he had managed its finances. He had become thoroughly versed in the town's needs and advantages and was alive to its many opportunities. He had been watching the legal contest over the shore line question, and with much study and controversy had worked out a solution that aimed at the best permanent results. He took ground at the start that the lake front should never be given over to any PUBLIC SERVANT 179 other than public uses. All the people, he argued, had a common right of access to the water. To permit any- business to be built up along the submerged land that would make it either impossible or inconvenient for the people to exercise their right of access, would be both unfair and unwise. It would, so to speak, shove the city that much farther from the lake. It would be like put- ting the back yard in front of the house. Because of its climatic advantages, Chicago would gradually attract a large number of summer residents from the south, and in time, as it should be beautified, would become the metropolitan place of living of the well-to-do from the whole middle west. The chief educational center of the Union would eventually be there. . The principal natural beauty of the locality was the lake shore front. To destroy this by turning it over to the ugliness, the bustle, the turmoil and the uncleanliness of the shipping traffic, would be to chase away or keep from coming a popula- tion that would be of more advantage financially to the place than the profits of the wharves. His main argument, however, was that to concentrate the shipping on the lake front would forever rob the city of the advantage triat was bound sooner or later to make Chicago the greatest manufacturing place in the world, and therefore the richest town. After the drain- age canal was completed the Chicago River would be joined to it, making a forty-mile deep-waterway in the center and rear of the city. Not long after that the Calumet River, at the southern boundary, would be extended until it also joined the canal. That would add about fifteen miles to the internal waterway, making of the whole South Side a vast island, surrounded by rivers 180 MARTIN B. MADDEN entering the lake twenty miles apart. All the railroads coming into and leaving the city would in time find their ways in and out along the interior waterway. The result would be an advantage for manufacturing not equaled anywhere else. Factories located along the rivers and canal could receive their raw material direct from trains or boats without cartage, and could send away without cartage their finished products. This one saving of cartage would be such a valuable element in the cutting down of expenses and the increase of profits in the business of making and distributing goods, that it would gradually draw to Chicago all the principal lines of manufacturing carried on in the country. Iron ore could be brought in bulk from the northern mines and delivered from the ship to the furnace, and the fin- ished iron or steel could be delivered in bulk from the mill to the train or boat, without any hauling. The coal underlying most of Illinois, which produced heat in less time than any other coal, could be delivered in Chicago for factory or mill purposes to the factory or mill, with- out hauling, for less than a dollar a ton. There were enough sites along the canal and river frontages to accommodate more manufacturing than was now done in the United States, and every site could have railroad switches or water front, and most of them both. Trans- ferring the shipping to the lake front would retard the growth of the manufacturing business of the city by sub- jecting it to cartage. The raw material would have to be hauled from the docks across town to the factories, and the finished products hauled back to the ships. That cartage would be an element of cost that would prevent the investment in the city of millions of dollars which PUBLIC SERVANT 181 its absence on the interior waterways would invite. The hauling back and forth across town would so interfere with the local trade as to ruin most of it and hamper it all. It would also seriously interfere with travel and spoil whole districts devoted to residence. New York was now the chief manufacturing city on the continent. There was but one railroad entering it. Its depots were so situated that goods had to be carted to and from them. All the other railways terminating at New York had to deliver goods to the city by both ferriage and cartage and receive goods by wagon and water transportation. That ate up profits and piled up costs. Chicago alone of all large American cities had the natural monopoly of absolute freedom from all these local expenses. That monopoly would enable her rapidly to distance all competitors in the inevitable struggle for ascendancy in the manufacturing trade of the country. Nothing but absolute folly in throwing away, or refusing to exercise, her monopoly could pre- vent her from acquiring that preponderance in manufac- turing that would concentrate it along the interior water- ways of the city. Nature intended Chicago to be the center of factories and distribution of goods for the whole Union; the city of the vastest weekly pay roll in the world ; the home of the largest, best paid, most comfort- ably housed and happiest population on earth. Asia would soon wake up. Her half of the human race would go into trade and increase their consumption. Asia would be the western man's market, and would take all the food the yet untilled lands could yield for export. Oriental trade might, and probably would, vastly exceed European trade. It would people the west 1&2 MARTIN B. MADDEN more densely than the east was occupied. Chicago would grow with the west, would manufacture for it and finance for it. The city, already having 2,000,000 of people, was merely in its infancy. To abandon the river and move to the lake would be taking a step backward, would be retreating into the manufacturing class of New York ; would be commercial folly. With all his energy the Alderman set about the task of disseminating these arguments, and many more like them, to arrest and throw back the movement for lake front shipping. The moment he learned that the Supreme Court had fixed the title to the lake front in the city, he took steps to at once kill off the shipping transfer scheme. For this purpose he drew up an ordinance creating a park of the submerged lands accruing to the municipality. This called for the immediate filling up of the tract from Randolph Street south to Park Row, a distance of one mile, and from the railway tracks out 1,250 feet. The tracks were seven feet below the level of Michigan Avenue, the nearest thoroughfare parallel to the lake. They could be lowered four feet and the strip of land between them and the avenue raised inclinedly until it attained an elevation of four additional feet at the tracks. That would leave the railway bed fifteen feet below the new surface. The ground on the eastern side of the tracks could be raised to the same level along the railroad line and be joined to that on the western side by architectural bridges at each street crossing, leaving the roadbed down in a sort of lighted subway. Then the made land could be gently sloped to the water's edge. In this one park there would be PUBLIC SERVANT 183 about 200 acres. It would be the most valuable park of its size in existence and one of the most beautiful, and would lie abreast of the most crowded business portion of the city. Nothing in civilization would equal it in the way of municipal adornment, utility and advantage. In time it might have grouped upon it the magnificent buildings contemplated for libraries,, art galleries and public museums. The ordinance passed the Council at once and' imme- diately took the public fancy. Washington Porter pro- posed to continue the improvement from Park Row all the way south to Jackson Park, the site of the Columbian Exposition, a distance of about six miles, with a wide canal and parallel driveway the entire distance. The Porter plan was favorably received and accepted for future action. With the plan legalized there came the difficult labor of obtaining the co-operation of the Illinois Central Rail- road Company, the abutting property owners, and the various civic societies working for public improvements. There were many hitches, misunderstandings, back-sets by the commercially inclined, and legal obstacles. Public agitation was kept up and the obstacles were so speedily overcome that in a few months all interests were working in harmony with the Alderman, and the pro- ject was pushed through. The ordinance was submitted in June, 1894, and in the following November the agitation had resulted in the general adoption, without change, of the plan first out- lined by Mr. Madden. He had done his part of the work so carefully, even to the task of ascertaining what the railway corporation might be induced to do, that it was 184 MARTIN B. MADDEN found that he had anticipated and prepared for all the emergencies and was able to successfully meet them as they arose. Within two years that part of the improve- ment lying west of the railway was finished and turned over to the public, the retaining wall outside the 1,250 foot eastern line was completed and much of the filling in accomplished. The Lake Front Park is an accomplished fact for the preservation forever from all but public use of the mag- nificent water front of Chicago. When the whole park plan is completed it will do more than all other schemes combined to make the city the desirable place of residence nature intended it to be. It will revolutionize to advan- tage the dwelling districts, and make ideal for permanent homes and the best class of hotels the extreme eastern section. It will cause a gradual "congregation of the shipping, manufacturing, wholesale merchandising and railway business of the city along the internal water lines, the least desirable place of residence, and confine most of the trucking and heavy handling there, leaving the other parts of the town free from its necessary dis- turbances. The homes of the people and their shops, churches, schools and meeting places will be free from the annoyances and dangers of heavy traffic. The artistic, educational, literary and theatrical interests will be availably neighborly. The galleries, institutes, libraries, museums, and exhibition buildings will be grouped and arrayed together more conveniently and more impressively than similar structures can be in other places in the world. The lake front of Chicago will be the future pride of the west, and to visitors from all the countries will be the scene of a life travelers will pay , PUBLIC SERVANT 185 much money and come long distances to witness. No legislator ever performed for his public a better or more enduring service than was done when this land was secured for public use, and no public servant ever left a better monument. CHAPTER XVIII. SECURES GOVERNMENT HELP FOR CHICAGO TRADE— A CONVINCING ARGUMENT. DURING the navigation season of 1895 it became, apparent to all the commercial interests of the Middle West that the port facilities of Chicago, through neglect of the Federal authorities, were rapidly becom- ing inadequate for national needs. A great movement was organized to bring the subject to the active atten- tion of the Washington Government. This resulted in the winter of 1896 in the formation of a representative committee of influential citizens to go before Congress and solicit intervention. On this body the lake marine interests appointed representatives, as also did the Board of Trade, the coal dealers, the manufacturers, the com- mercial men and the corporation of Chicago. At the last moment, the Chairman of the Finance Committee of the city legislature was induced to go as the municipal- ity's spokesman. The National treasury, although it had expended con- siderable amounts in the improvement of the outer har- bor at the mouth of the Chicago River, had never allowed but $25,000 for any increase of navigation in the stream beyond the first or lowest bridge, that at Rush Street. The river being a navigable water, had since the earliest navigation laws been under Washington control. Chicago was willing to handle the whole question if the govern- 186 PUBLIC SERVANT 187 ment would relinquish its authority and turn the river over to the city's custody. This being out of the ques- tion, it was determined to ask for sufficient aid to enable the business of the town to be fairly accommodated on the waterway it could not regulate. Estimates of all immediate needs were carefully made up. They showed that the sum of $700,000 was requiredf at once. The committee went before the Committee on Rivers and Harbors and asked it to set that amount aside for the necessary improvement of the Chicago River in the annual appropriation bill then being prepared for submission to Congress. The addresses made were all unusually able. The Tribune, in its* dispatches describing the proceedings, without any reservation or disparagement whatever, unhesitatingly pronounced the argument made by Mr. Madden on behalf of the city the one that convinced Congress and led to action. He took ground at the very beginning of his speech that the question was wholly national and in no sense local. The appropriation requested was for the purpose of so increasing general transportation as to keep down and lower the prices of the necessities of life in the whole Middle West and of food in the entire country. Chicago had not only become the manufacturing and distributing center for upwards of half the population of the country, but it had developed into the main source of supply for all its people of their two principal items of food— meat and grain. The trade in animal products had so concentrated in Chicago that it was the country's market for most of the live stock raised for the American table, and the city's "abattoirs furnished meat even to foreign countries. The largest 188 MARTIN B. MADDEN aggregation of capital engaged in the furnishing of any single commodity of human consumption was that invested in the stock-yard business of Chicago. The city had also become the grain market for the whole civilized world. Its elevators had a storage capacity of 40,000,000 bushels at a time. Leaving all other considerations aside, the population of the entire country was directly inter- ested in having every means of transportation to and from Chicago both enlarged and cheapened, in order to favorably affect the prices of the two main articles of human food whose production and distribution in their final forms of consumption had by the operation of natural laws centered in the city. Formerly, he went on, when boats drew but little water they easily com- peted with success in the work of transportation and kept the rates down. When the railways substituted steel rails for iron and were enabled to run larger and heavier trains, the boats had only to increase their draught to remain in the race and cause further lessening of trans- portation charges on food products. So long as the boats could be lengthened and deepened, water transportation worked in the interest of all the people in lowering and keeping down freight rates, by preventing the railways from obtaining a monopoly of the carrying through their augmented power of handling by means of the enormous improvement in their power. The steam roads had now, however, passed the point in competition where the boats could longer retain their proper share of carriage, for the reason that rail power had gone beyond the tonnage possible any longer to the capacity of boats. The waters had remained stationary in depth and the boats had at last in their draught reached their limit, and could no PUBLIC SERVANT 189 longer by enlargement compete with the roads unless the navigable streams at harbors should be artificially deep- ened. Until this was done the carrying trade would gradually be monopolized by the railways and the prices of products would correspondingly be increased. At least they would not be lowered as they would have to be if the water transportation were maintained by enlarg- ing its facilities. Statistics demonstrated the truth of all his contention, Mr. Madden argued. When the capacity of the rail- roads through improvement in their carrying power got beyond the full competition of the boats because of their inability to further increase their holds, the former began to control the transportation to and from Chicago in a way unfavorable to its trade because injurious to the prices of products of general demand and universal human necessity. Anthracite coal, an eastern product, was too costly under rail transportation for general consumption in Illinois. By water transportation it had been delivered at prices that had found for it an annual market in Chi- cago of 1,475,237 tons in 1892. Then, the boats having been largely superseded by the cars in the coal carrying trade, prices began to rise and consumption to fall away. In 1893 the trade fell off about 50,000 tons; in 1894 the consumption had declined 198,000 tons, and in 1895 it was 206,665 tons l ess than it had been before the roads took the transportation of it away from the boats. Dur- ing these same three years the population of the city had increased nearly 500,000. The receipts of grain by water had from the same cause so fallen off that in 1895 the city got by boat but 190 MARTIN B. MADDEN 1,629,023 bushels, although in that same year it sent away no less than 82,300,214 bushels, in addition to 1,507,543 barrels of flour and 4,063,720 packages of mis- cellaneous freight. In 1895 but 2,000,000,000 feet of lumber came to Chicago by water, on which formerly nearly all that came was brought, while by rail there came 1 , 000, 000, 000, feet. The reason for the decline of the boat carrying and the increase of that of the cars was that the river along which most of both terminated and started was no longer deep enough to allow large water cargoes to be handled without lightering and other expensive aids. The cost of handling freight at the wharves had risen until it now amounted to twenty-five per cent, of the whole transpor- tation charges each way. If the river were sufficiently deepened this cost could be reduced until it would become merely nominal. The entire population of the United States had a vital interest in the deepening of the Chicago River and the maintenance of its competition with the railroads, as the river was the greatest factor in the country in the busi- ness regulation of the prices of meat and flour. The problem was in no sense a local one. It was not a Chicago question, nor an Illinois question. It was clearly a national one. The arrivals and departures of vessels at Chicago during the year 1895 aggregated 15,324, nearly as many as the combined arrivals at Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. This fact showed better than any other how closely interested all the people of the country were in the shipping busi- ness of the city. When in addition to the vast harbor activity of the city, there was added for contemplation PUBLIC SERVANT 191 the connection of the 80,000 miles of railway that had terminals along the river, there could be no doubt that the nation had a better reason for caring for this interior harbor than it possessed for the guardianship of any sim- ilar length of water frontage in its whole domain. The river had a dockage front of 214,296 feet, and the people of Chicago had themselves expended in dredg- ing this national waterway $979,000. The request now was that the Government take hold of this invaluable arm of commerce and put it into such modern shape as would enable it to do what nature had so evidently intended it to perform — regulate favorably for all the people of the country the cost of their meat and their bread, by making it easier and cheaper to concentrate the elements of that food in the place best fitted to pre- pare them for consumption, and easier and cheaper after- wards to distribute it thence to all who needed it. The effect of the speeches, and especially that deliv- ered by Mr. Madden, was so great that Chairman Hooker, of the Rivers and Harbors Committee of the House, at once declared that the Chicago proposition was entirely meritorious and would be acceded to. It had been arranged t6 have appearances before the War and other departments concerned in the question, but Mr. Hooker's assurance made further agitation unnecessary. The $700,000 appropriation asked for was granted. Then began the work of making the interior waterways of Chicago a harbor of the depth required for modern marine commerce. The improvement is still going on, and when completed, as it soon will be, it will give the city a twenty- six-foot depth of navigable water along a course, including the Drainage Canal, of nearly a hundred miles through the very middle of the whole city. CHAPTER XIX. FIRST REPUBLICAN MANAGER TO DECLARE FOR GOLD — UNDER- TAKES TO GET WORD IN PLATFORM. GOLD" was the most important word in the platform adopted by the Republican party at St. Louis in 1896. It was put there by the men who attended from Illinois. All except one of the forty-eight state delegates voted for it. But for the skillful and determined action of these men the Republican financial plank of that year would have been a "straddle." In that event, Mr. McKinley would not have had the support of the Sound Money men from the Democratic party, nor could he have obtained that marvelous and enthusiastic electioneering by the banking and commercial interests of the North which made the campaign so like a battle for the preservation of American honor and integrity. The Gold Democrats would have acted by themselves, and the great mass of Silver men in the Republican ranks would have probably gone over in a body to Mr. Bryan after his convention unequivocally declared for Silver, as they would not have had the deterring arguments the Democrats afforded when they became allies. When the word "Gold" was forced, as it was forced, into the Republican platform, the majority of the party managers were strongly averse to declaring for the yel- low metal. The attitude of the only candidate for the 192 PUBLIC SERVANT 193 Presidential nomination was in doubt. He had never made a public declaration for Gold, and had furnished many arguments that were being quoted for the cause of Silver. His managers at the time believed that the tariff question would be the main issue in the campaign, and did not think it necessary to inject the financial question into the argument. They correctly represented the sentiment of the Eastern States, and, from the point of view of their territory, took a wise and politic stand. Besides, at that time there was no apparent probability that Mr. Bryan would obtain absolute control of the Democratic organization seventeen days later, have him- self selected as its standard bearer, compel his party to declare unequivocally for Free Silver, and drive the Jeffersonians out of the fold. Few delegates, except those from the Middle West, knew who Mr. Bryan was, or had any suspicion that in the core of the country the Nebraskan was known to be the most dangerous man living to Republican prospects, and that his financial ideas were the political bread and meat of a constituency frenzied with zeal in their propagation. The country had grown so vast that ordinary men seemed unable longer to maintain comprehensive knowl- edge of all its conditions and to realize what interests might have predominant elements over those really local. Under all the circumstances, it is marvelous that the Illinois men were able to understand as correctly as they did the true conditions at the time, and it is no less extraordinary that they were able to carry their point. The history of the United States cannot be correctly written for future readers, that is, mankind, without just pages carefully devoted to the saving work performed by 13 194 MARTIN B. MADDEN the Illinois men in this critical period of the nation's formative growth. All through the story there will be manifest the insight, the correct judgment, the skill in argument, the persuasive power of speech, as well as the inspiring patriotism, tireless energy and moral force of character of one young man. His parents had trained him so that whatever was right to do had for him allurement to endeavor. They were made of patriotic mould, and in public life he could not help reasoning that what was best for the nation was best for the state, best for the county, best for the locality, and best for the individual. All through these six volcanic months he pushed straight through for the greatest good to the greatest number, just as he had done during the previous six years, whilst financing the most tumultuous municipal growth of modern times, as Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Council of the City of Chicago. The Silver movement, as it appeared in the political agitation of 1896, may correctly be said to have had its origin in Chicago. All the scattered elements of it that had previously existed were collected and focused by Harvey about two years before. He was singularly single-minded and sincere. His genius was prodigiously sympathetic to parallelism, to the impressions which Aristotle described as those of the sequence-consequence kind. To Harvey a sequence was always a consequence. When he saw an effect, his logic invariably perceived the cause of it in the thing that most immediately pre- ceded it. He would have convicted Joseph of the alleged theft of the silver cup simply because it was found in the young man's sack; and if a physician, he would have PUBLIC SERVANT 195 prescribed rhubarb for a patient who had swallowed tacks if he had subsequently eaten cheese. Harvey saw distress general in the country. Millions of workers were idle, tramps abounded, farmers could not get living prices for products. Money in actual circu- lation was scarce. It was, he thought, dear because it was scarce. Being dear, employers could not afford to pay former wages, and eaters could not afford to give so much of it for food; hence, farmers had to give more grain for a dollar and laborers more work. Why was money scarce? There was now only one standard money — gold. Formerly there had been two standard moneys — silver and gold. There was as much of one metal as of the other in the world. Therefore, when both metals were coined into standard money, there must have been twice as much money in circulation, and at that time farmers and laborers must have been able to obtain twice as much for their grain and labor. When was silver discarded as standard money? In 1873. Who were in power then? The Republicans. How much silver and gold then? $4,000,000,000 of each — $8,000,000,000 alto- gether. By confining the standard to gold, $4,000,000,000 of silver was dropped from use as money, and gold was given the monopoly of money work. Having twice as much now to do as formerly, there being a doubled demand for it, gold had multiplied in value, and the laborer now had to give correspondingly more work for a gold dollar, and the farmer more grain. Where formerly the one got a dollar a day, he must now work for fifty cents; and where the other got a hundred cents a bushel for his wheat, l\e now had to sell for half a dollar. ■ The act of 1873 was, therefore, a conspiracy against labor 196 MARTIN B. MADDEN and agriculture by the gold, or money, power, which was aiming to enslave the world by reducing the condi- tions of labor and agriculture to those of mere existence and consequent servitude. The Republican party was responsible for this and should be kept from power. The Democratic party would restore the standard value again to silver and would double the wages of labor and raise the price of wheat. Harvey devoted all his energy to the task of search- ing for sequences and then used all his sophistical skill in marshaling them into array. The result was the book, "Coin at School." This was beyond comparison the most effective campaign document ever circulated in the United States up to that time. The unrelated char- acter of its parallels was exceedingly difficult to discover by any but trained minds, and, when noticed, was of such a nature that it was almost impossible to clearly expose it in any terse and lucid way. "Coin" sold by the hundred thousand, and its philosophy was so captivating that scores of Republican newspapers through- out the West devoted their energies to circulating it either by continued quotations or open free distribution. Mine owners organized lyceums and defrayed the whole expense of keeping the ablest orators employed lecturing or debating on the topics of the book. So great was the effect that when the National parties began the work of electing delegates to the nominating conventions of 1896 it is fair to say the financial question was the liveliest that had ever agitated the West; and it cannot be denied that at this time practically all the people with Demo- cratic leanings in the region between Ohiq^and the Pacific were Free Silverites, and that a powerful minority of PUBLIC SERVANT 197 their Republican neighbors shared the same financial views with them. In some of the states both parties raced to get ahead of each other in proclaiming for Free Silver. In California al] the four parties in existence in that commonwealth, including the Republican, officially declared in their platforms for the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. The Republican delegates from Chicago were elected in February, 1896. Mr. Madden was at the time the party leader in the city. At the first conclave the finan- cial question came up, and he was asked for an expres- sion of his views. He promptly said he was in favor of having the party declare itself against th*e free and unlim- ited coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one, and of putting the word Gold in the financial plank. This was the first declaration of the kind that had been made in the West by any man prominent in the management of Republican political affairs. It created consternation among the majority of hearers. It seemed like a flight in the face of fate. Men asked Mr. Madden if he was going to insist on having the party commit hara-kiri. It was pointed out to him that all the legisla- tion respecting silver was Republican -legislation ; that the majority of the party were friends of silver; that the Opposition in the West were solidly and aggressively for it, and that to proclaim for gold would not only make it impossible for the Republican party to win the acces- sions it needed for victory from the opposite ranks, but would drive over to them half the voters it had; in fact, it would simply make it impossible to carry on a cam- paign with any hope at all. Mr. Madden to this said that the silver movement 198 MARTIN B. MADDEN was wrong and mischievous and ought to be defeated ; the country was on a gold basis and ought to be kept there; the gold basis was the only safe one for the nation's financial affairs; the Republican party was the only party that could keep the nation where it was; the silver sentiment was a delusion, and the voters could, by intelligent effort, be convinced of that; the gold standard was the best for all the people as well as for the Govern- ment; this could be proved to the voters by campaign work, and that the only way to do was to declare for Gold and then set to work to bring the electors to that standard. In his opinion, there could be no doubt of success if the Republicans were straightforward enough to declare their real convictions; but every doubt if they resorted to evasion or indirection. The meeting ended without harmony. It was man- ifest that there would be dissension in the state delega- tion over the wording of the financial plank. Able men predicted that it would be impossible to bring the mem- bers into accord on the subject, and even advised against attempts to procure it, lest bitterness, rupture and scan- dal might result. u While it was hoped that the majority of the state delegates might be gold men at heart, it was also feared that their districts would be so strongly for silver as to make it practically impossible for the repre- sentatives to declare for a gold plank. The whole state was entitled to forty-eight delegates, of which number Chicago's share was sixteen, including two delegates-at-large. When all the district delegates were elected a careful poll disclosed that but sixteen were personally in favor of a gold plank, and many of PUBLIC SERVANT 199 these doubted the expediency of mak:' lg any declaration on the subject. The general opinion was that the best thing to do would be to reaffirm the plank in the platform of 1892, pledging the party to maintain all kinds of United States money at par, and there let the matter rest. Mr Madden had studied the question profoundly, and the more he investigated the political conditions of the country the more firmly convinced he became that the time had come to establish the gold standard by law as it was established in fact, and that the Republican party could not win the election unless it openly committed itself to the task. He saw clearly that a declaration for Gold was the only thing that in 1896 would draw out the full business vote of the country, and that this would go to the party making the declaration. He also reasoned that if the Democrats declared for Silver, their party would divide and that the gold wing would help the Republicans establish the gold standard. These two gains would far more than offset any defection of Silver Republicans which a Democratic silver declaration might bring about. He knew that the old line Demo- crats were uncompromisingly for gold, while the Silver Republicans entertained for the white metal a sentiment only and that that was not so strong as their feeling for Protection. The Opposition would certainly declare for Free Trade and that would keep the great majority of the Republicans at home just as surely as the pronounce- ment on the other side for soft money would drive the evicted Jacksonians over for shelter. He undertook the task of securing unity among his colleagues in favor of his view. By the time the State 200 MARTIN B. MADDEN Convention met at Springfield in April to nominate a Gubernatorial tic 1 it, the fourteen Cook County district delegates were in favor of declaring for Gold. Proselyt- ing was zealously carried on at the State Convention, and when it adjourned thirty-six of the delegates to St. Louis favored a declaration for Sound Money. At the State Convention Mr. R. W. Patterson, man- ager of the Chicago Tribune, and Mr. William Penn Nixon, editor of the Inter-Ocean, were elected delegates- at-large to St. Louis. The Tribune had all along been the uncompromising foe of the Silver movement, while the Inter- Ocean had permitted the Silver Republicans to argue their cause in its columns. It was a master-stroke by Mr. Madden to get these gentlemen on the delega- tion. H. H. Kohlsaat, proprietor of the Chicago Even- ing Post 'and morning Times-Herald, and a close personal friend of Mr. McKinley and Mr. Hanna, became inter- ested in the Illinois movement, and gave it all the assist- ance in his power. CHAPTER XX. ILLINOIS FORCES "GOLD INTO ST. LOUIS PLATFORM—THE ARGU- MENT THAT WON. AT this time, what was evident to the Eastern people, who lived in the manufacturing section of the country, was the depression in manufacture. The mills were either idle or running on reduced time. It was in that region plain that the Wilson Bill, by reducing the tariff on goods made here as well as in Europe, had pre- sented the amount of the reduction to the foreign man- ufacturers, that they were using this bonus to undersell the Americans by the amount of it, and that this advan- tage had transferred employment from the United States to Europe, and was keeping its mills open and ours shut. It is no wonder, then, that the Eastern delegates went to St. Louis thoroughly convinced that there could be but one issue in the campaign — the restoration of Protec- tion. To them there was no money question to be dis- cussed. Money had had nothing to do, they argued, with the closing of the factories. It is noteworthy that no Eastern man during the campaign of that year, pro- duced any of the vote-making arguments on the money question — they all originated in the West, the majority in Illinois, and the most effective in Chicago. In the Middle West, on the other hand, agriculture is the principal occupation of the people, although in 1896 there was enough manufacturing carried on among them ?,01 202 MARTIN B. MADDEN to familiarize them with its advantages as a producer of home markets and with the main arguments in favor of protective tariffs. But they did not see with their own eyes the kind of idleness, want and general paralysis witnessed in the East. What they saw was the scarcity of money; the difficulty of getting any; their country overrun by tramps; unparalleled depression in prices for their products, and the difficulty of finding markets at any price. Their country was yet new, and most of its people were still mortgaged for their homesteads. For the solvent it was difficult to get money to pay the regu- larly recurring demands of interest, and thousands of the newly- started were bankrupt, with foreclosure staring at them, or entirely dispossessed. The vast majority of these nation builders were patriotic to the heart and attached to the party of Lincoln. They were looking forward with hope to St. Louis. They were praying that there the right remedy for the ills of their section would be decided on. To them that was the rehabilita- tion of silver by a restoration of its free and unlimited coinage at the old ratio of sixteen to one. This, they believed, would make money again plentiful, so that they could get fair enough prices for their products to save their homes and maintain themselves upon their feet. It was apparent that these people wanted silver legisla- tion and were indifferent to the tariff question; and it was equally plain that if they did not receive satisfactory assurance of it at St. Louis they might seek it at Chicago and join the party that gave it to them. When the Illinois delegation reached St. Louis the members from Cook County were practically united in favor of demanding a party declaration for Gold, and PUBLIC SERVANT 203 twenty-two of the country delegates were individually supporters of the movement to secure such a pronounce- ment. Nearly every one of the state and territorial delega- tions was accompanied by large bodies of citizens intensely interested in having the Convention do the best thing possible for curing the country of the awful ills afflicting it. It would be a moderate statement to say that 20 ooo American citizens, representing every inter- est and section in the whole country, each one intensely concerned in the outcome, went with the delegates to St. Louis to actively advise, assist and otherwise take part in the proceedings. When all had arrived and the differ- ent delegations had reported and quartered, there was a rush to a general mix-up and exchange of views for the purpose of arranging forces in the coming contest No one but an American who has seen the spectacle can form anything like a correct idea of the confused but overwhelming appearance of the power exhibited by one of these mix-ups. Forty-five states and seven territories on the ground with 2,000 picked mental gladiators, attended by 20,000 backers, every man the best his home can produce, about to engage in a battle for the safety of a country, for which each would cheerfully give all his blood, in a mingle for advice as how best to line-up — it is the superbest contest of brains the whole world can now afford. In that great crowd of all strong men, each picked at home as the fittest there, they only surmount to final control who possess ability indeed supreme. The Illinois delegates went in thirty-six for gold, came out forty-seven to one for it. When the whole mix-up was ended, it was found that the state's men had pulled m MARTIN B. MADDEN over to their proposed alignment so many other dele- gates that the commonwealth was perforce accorded the preparation of the financial plank. The Committee on Resolutions accepted it as the Illinois men made it, and such a party majority of votes was at last brought over that when the platform was finally read in the Conven- tion the declaration for the gold standard was applauded as by thunder. And what was the argument that prevailed? It was the one Madden and his Chicago colleagues had been spreading for five months; the same that started at Chicago in February with one delegate, then was used by fourteen, then, Springfield, had thirty-six missionaries, and reached St. Louis with forty-seven zealots, and there captured the whole Convention. This is the way it ran: The East wanted Protection ; its labor was idle, with- out market. The West wanted money, its crops not paying for the raising, the markets being too low. The East manufactured for the West and the West fed the East. When Eastern men were all employed at good wages, as they had been before the passage of the Wilson Bill in 1892, they spent the greater part of their income every week for food, for the cereals and the meat the West raised. With full employment American labor bought 94 per cent, of all the farmer had to sell. The rest of the world bought only 6 per cent. When American labor was idle, the foreign market did not buy any more than its usual 6 per cent, but the home market took less than the usual 94 per cent., leaving the difference on the farmer's hands. That lowered prices and made money PUBLIC SERVANT 205 in the West scarce by reducing the farmer's receipts for his crops. The idleness of American workingmen dur- ing the past four years had resulted in such food econ- omies that in flour alone they consumed 180,000,000 bushels of wheat less during the year just gone than they ate in the average twelve months before the Wilson Bill was passed. That bill had, therefore, cost the American farmer a market that formerly took every year 180,000,- 000 bushels of his wheat, to say nothing of the corre- sponding amount of his other products. No foreign mar- ket took so much as that market lost had taken. This 180,000,000 bushels of wheat was left unsold on the farm- er's hands. It reduced the price of all his wheat, cur- tailing his money receipts, and, unless fed to stock, was almost a dead loss. How came this loss? The Wilson Bill, being a free trade measure, reduced the protection on American manufactures below the safeguarding line. Every cent of the reduction was a bonus to the foreign manufacturer, given to induce him to come in and take our home market. He had used the gift to undersell our manufacturers by the whole amount of the bonus. That underselling had closed our factories, thrown our laborers out of work, made them poor, and rendered them unable to spend as much money for food as they formerly had spent and would again spend if they had work with which to get it. The amount of wages these men formerly paid out for food over and above the amount they now spent, was the sum the Wilson Bill had caused to be withdrawn from circulation, principally in the West and there almost entirely among the farmers. There was just as much money now in the country as there had been before the 206 MARTIN B. MADDEN passage of the Wilson Bill, but that act had locked it up from the wage earners of the country, and, as a conse- quence, from the farmers. There were at present over 4,000,000 men in the country entirely or partially without employment at wages, who had had steady work at high wages before 1892. Including themselves they supported on an average five human souls each. That made over 20,000,000 people. All these in 1891 had money to buy all the food they wanted every week. Few of them at the present time could buy more than the merest neces- sities of life. This condition was the real source of the hard times, of the scarcity of money in circulation, and of the depression in Western agriculture. The cause of it was the Wilson Bill. The remedy was the repeal of the act. That would restore the conditions existing up to 1892. The factories would be re-opened, the idle be re-employed, wages again be earned and spent every week, money again get into full circulation, the home consumption of food once more reach 94 per cent, of the domestic production, the farmer be relieved of the sur- plus that now weighed down his market, and he would get prices that would yield him a surplus of cash instead of a surplus of products. No uncommon intelligence is needed to realize how completely such an argument, duly amplified, cleared the situation and accomplished harmonious action. The question of standard was argued as one of policy justified by rightfulness. The country was on a gold basis. It had been placed there by the Democratic party in 1834 and simply left there by the Republicans in their legis- lation of 1873, when they declared for a resumption of specie payments to begin in 1879. At the time the PUBLIC SERVANT 207 amount of silver in a silver dollar was worth more than the amount of gold in a gold dollar. It would have been foolish, as well as futile, to then legislate for the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of sixteen to one, because silver was worth more than that ratio and would not have gone to the mint to be coined for less than its value. The laws passed afterwards, when silver, through overproduction, fell below gold in value at the ratio of sixteen to one, and continued to fall, and came to the mint, vastly increased the money in circula- tion by artificially maintaining silver money at the value of that in gold. To then legalize the free coinage of both metals at the ratio would have driven gold out of circula- tion, lessened the currency and compelled creditors to set- tle for less than was due them. The restricted coinage of silver increased the amount of it used as money by about sixty-six times as much as had been coined during the entire period of the eighty odd years of free coinage, and kept all the gold that came to the mint in circulation besides. By this system whatever profit there was in buying silver at the market value and coining it at gold value, fell to the Government or whole people back of the guaranty, and the Government always had gold with which to transact its business with the world, which was on a gojd basis. Under free and unlimited coinage of sil- ver at the ratio of sixteen to one gold would not go to the mint to be coined for less than its value and would retreat from circulation, diminishing it, and any person having silver, no matter what it cost, could compel the Government to coin it for him, stamping fifty cents worth of it a dollar worth ioo cents, and then make creditors take it at the stamped value, with no guaranty of any 208 MARTIN B. MADDEN value. To realize the enormotis criminality of this prop- osition one needed to Contemplate only the result to the millions of people in the country who had wages due or money out at interest, either in banks, insurance com- panies, building and loan associations, mortgages, notes, due bills, or accounts, the vast majority of our people being creditors, the banks, insurance companies, rail- road companies, etc., being the debtors. In the single state of New York at the time 1,700,000 depositors had $600,000,000 in the savings banks of that state, outnum- bering the electors in the commonwealth by 500,000. It was safe to calculate that if the Republican party declared for adhesion to the Gold Standard, and the Opposition should oppose it and advocate that of Silver, the discussions of the campaign would rally to the Republican ranks the labor, the business and the finan- cial interests of the country. Each of these desired the best money in the world. Gold was that, because it was invariable in value, everywhere receivable without dis- count, while silver was variable in worth, with a constant downward tendency. The laborer knew the difference just as well as the business man did, and he was even more particular about the quality of the money he received, as he was less able to afford risk. If the declaration honestly and manfully used the word Gold unequivocally, and the Opposition declared for Silver, the result would be that the old line Demo- crats would come over in a body to assist to keep the nation permanently on the basis whereon their party had originally placed it. Looking back, after five years' discussion of the money question, it may now be difficult to realize how original, PUBLIC SERVANT 209 powerful and far-seeing this argument, given here only in the most abbreviatd form without any of the brilliant and interesting illustrations that accompanied it, then was. Educated, prominent men there were at the Con- vention who admitted that before hearing the Illinois argument, they had not known what sixteen to one meant, or the difference between a gold or silver certificate and an ordinary national bank note, supposing them all to be Government bills. It was the action of the Illinois delegates at the Springfield Convention, where they instructed for McKin- ley, that decided his nomination at St. Louis by assuring to him the needed votes there ; and it was the work of the same delegates at St. Louis which made his election cer- tain by inducing the party to make the platform declara- tion that drew the majority of real Democrats in the country to his support 14 CHAPTER XXL COOK COUNTY REPUBLICANS MISREPRESENTED — MADDENS SACRI- FICE IN THEIR BEHALF— MARVELOUS PERSONAL VICTORY. AFTER the Cook County delegation was chosen to represent the Republican party at the nominating Convention to be held at St. Louis, it took action at its first assembly that has ever since been misunderstood and misrepresented. The false conception of what these men did was spread and denounced and came near dis- rupting the party in the state. The center of population had moved to a point in Indiana close to Chicago, and it was believed throughout the country that the action of Illinois would not only decide both Presidential nominations but determine the result of the election. It was largely owing to these considerations that both parties selected places near the center of population for holding their nominating con- venings, the Democratic at Chicago and the Republican at St. Louis. The contest for delegates was keen and thorough, each political organization doing all possible to have able and representative men selected. Cook County was especially fortunate in the character of the delegates both parties obtained. The selection of the Republican deputies was completed in February, 1896. They were all able and strong men, reliably reflecting the political opinions and wishes of their respective con- 210 PUBLIC SERVANT 211 stituencies. After they met and organized for work the question came up of aligning for the party nominee. An exchange of views revealed that the Republicans of the city, when the delegates were selected, had had no uni- fied sentiment as to the personality of the Presidential candidate, and had left the choice open to the judgment of the delegates. The revelation of this fact brought about discussion as to the best policy to adopt. These were strong men, and after a long argument, they con- cluded to not then commit the delegation to any nominee, and in all matters to act as a unit. A ballot to that effect pledged the members to adhere to the unit rule in casting the vote of Cook County. Mr. Madden, in the controversy preceding the adop- tion of the unit rule, proposed that the whole vote of the county be pledged to the nomination of Mr. McKinley. The delegates, he pointed out, had absolute discretion in the matter, and to exercise it in the way he proposed would produce two results: first, it would have a decisive effect on the nomination, and, by giving the county and state the prestige of having settled the question, would assure both proper recognition in public affairs in the event of Mr. McKinley's election. Secondly, it would help the city and state in popular esteem, as, in his opin- ion, taking the country as a whole, the great majority of Republicans desired the Ohio man's nomination. This was quite evident from all the indications of the popular desire freely manifested during the past few months, although it might not appear in the election of the nomi- ating delegates so far chosen. Many constituencies favoring Mr. McKinley's nomi- nation beyond that of any other man so far deemed avail- 212 MARTIN B. MADDEN able, had no doubt refrained from instructing their dele- gates for the reason that it was better to let them be free to take advantage of events that might occur under all the conditions possible during the many months before the final selection. No one who knew Chicago could doubt that the Republicans of several *of the districts were practically unanimous for McKinley, although they had preferred to elect their delegates uninstructed. It did not seem to him possible that any other candi- date would appear in the next five months possessing McKinley's availability. He had studied the whole situ- ation as thoroughly as he could, and all things Republi- can had an ever-increasing tendency towards the nomina- tion of the man who in the public mind most certainly assured the restoration of Protection. The financial question then agitating all the people of the West had only an indifferent and academic interest in the East. There the tariff question was the main topic of political controversy among the voters, among the people who made decisions at the polls. The great majority of men who earned their living in the Eastern States did it by work connected in some form with manufacturing. They were mostly idle or scantily employed and had been so for nearly four years. They knew why. Under the McKinley Bill they had had as much work as they could do at the best wages ever paid. Their idleness and pov- erty had come after the repeal of that bill, and, they knew, came as a result of that repeal. What these men and those depending on them for either support or business patronage wanted was a restoration of employ- ment. They knew the one way to get this was by re-establishing the protection of the McKinley Bill. They PUBLIC SERVANT 2i:i all knew McKinley as the Legislator for Laoor — the Protectionist. They all identified McKinley with Pro- tection. All possible human effort could not succeed in identifying any. other man in the Republican party with the cause of Protection in the minds of the working- men as he was identified. He alone could draw from the Democratic party the tens, of thousands of voters who were suffering from its free trade and longing for the days of the McKinley Bill. Without the aid of these Democratic votes the Republican party could not hope to carry the election. McKinley 's nomination would assure success in the East; no other could. That being so, Cook County, which could settle the question, should not hesi- tate to make the decision. Such action would start the campaign immediately in the East and have success so assured there by the time the Convention met and rati- fied the action of Chicago, that thereafter effort could be confined to the West. There would be an immense advantage in that. But the West did not care about the tariff question, it was replied; it wanted the money question settled; how was McKinley identified with that? To this Mr. Madden responded that the West was as much interested as the East was in the restoration of Protection. While this did not appear to be the case just then, it nevertheless was the fact. The tariff ques- tion would grow in importance in the West as the cam- paign went on and might before election be the deter- mining issue even with the farmers. They were, it was true, just then absorbed in the financial controversy, but they would gradually lose interest in it. They could be convinced that their best customers were the workers 214 MARTIN B. MADDEN of the East, and that the best way to restore prosperity to the farms was to restore employment to their penniless customers, through the tariff. The farmers would real- ize long before election that the money question had had nothing to do in causing the hard times, while the change in the tariff law had had everything to do in bringing them on ; that the money of the country was precisely the same as it had always been; there had been no change at all in that, but there had been a disastrous change in the tariff. McKinley was as good a friend of silver as any public man was, and it could be made plain that the Republican party would do whatever could be done for silver, if there was any help for it at all, and that the Populists could not be trusted, either at home or abroad, to help any cause they advocated. The main thing was that McKinley was the most desired, the most available and the most attractive candidate in the Republican party, the one possessing the most enduring qualities for a nominee. With Cook County's delegates pledged to him, his nomination would be assured. He would get the nomination anyhow, in all probability, as the people were for him; but Cook County had it in its power to assure it to him then, and there was so much advantage, general and local, to be gained by doing it that wisdom urged the doing of it. This reasoning was done some time before the Ohio movement for McKinley had established official head- quarters in Chicago. All the Cook County men were McKinley men. History shows this to be a fact, not- withstanding all opinion to the contrary. The misun- derstanding was caused by the very loyalty of the men to one another and the sincerity of their efforts on the PUBLIC SERVANT 215 party's behalf. They had agreed to act as a unit. There was not a man among them dishonorable enough to vio- late that compact, or even to try to. As time went on it became more and more evident that Illinois would decide the nomination. It likewise became manifest that the overwhelming sentiment of the party in the state was for McKinley. The Cook County men understood popular feeling as well as any politicians in the state; they were all experts at the work of reading public sentiment. But these men knew, what many novices did not, that Illinois had more than once been betrayed in National Conventions; had several times delivered the deciding votes, the votes that either alone made the result or that, pledged, induced enough additions to make it, and had subsequently not received even the smallest reward of virtue — recogni- tion. The Chicago men had been made wary by their experience of Eastern party managers. They had become conservative. They saw no reason why if the party in Illinois had the power of nominating or defeat- ing the nomination of a Presidential candidate, it should not before delivering the votes obtain absolute assurance that in the successful candidate's administration it would have the representation due it, and not have its service credited to outsiders. Hence, it appeared better to have it known that the Illinois Republican delegates would at St. Louis be for McKinley without doubt, but would not deliver the party's vote in advance by a pledge that would shear the state's representation of power in the Convention. It would be better to deliver at St. Louis than at Springfield. At St. Louis the delivery could be made to the Republican party of the United States; at 216 MARTIN B. MADDEN Springfield it could not. At the latter place there might be some question of who delivered ; at St. Louis there could not be. This was the position taken by the Cook County men. Many of them did not favor taking it, for fear it would be misunderstood and do the party harm. These pointed out that demagogues might inflame the people with sug- gestions that it was an attempt to deliver for a vulgar consideration. The fact that a man like Madden was in this delegation would be enough to overthrow any suspi- cion regarding the absolute integrity of the body's action under any ordinary circumstances; but circumstances were not ordinary, and the Republicans of the state were beginning to get excited. Mr. Madden did all in his power to induce the delegation to refrain from taking this attitude and to come out flat-footed for McKinley, but in vain. The majority were against him. As the delegates were not instructed and were free, they had a perfect right to do as they did. The whole question was purely a political one of expediency. The majority voted against pledging for any but a state candidate and the unit rule bound all the members of the delegation to abide by the decision of the majority. Some time after the delegation had decided its atti- tude, the Eastern managers of Mr. McKinley's campaign invited Mr. Madden to a conference. He attended. They requested a comprehensive opinion of the party sentiment in Illinois. He told them it was practically unanimous for their candidate, but not organized. They asked him to undertake the work of organization. He told them he could not do so because of his obligation to his fellow members of the Cook County delegation and PUBLIC SERVANT 217 then explained the situation in Chicago, with which the managers had been unacquainted. A long talk ensued. The Alderman made it plain that the Republicans of Illinois were for McKinley, that he would get the vote of its delegation at St. Louis, but that the Cook County members were united against pledging and under the unit rule agreed to he was bound to act with them and would do so. He saw clearly what he was offered and what he was refusing, but declined to act except with his delegation so long as it held to the unit rule, to which he had agreed. When asked if the decision of the Chicago men might not be changed — the managers wanted a cer- tainty before reaching St. Louis — Mr. Madden frankly replied that he hoped so, and would do all in his power to have it altered, as he had all along done ; but that until it was he would not be free to undertake the task of securing pledged delegates from the state for Mr. McKinley and would Work in perfect accord with his delegation. No one acquainted with him would have for a moment thought that Mr. Madden would do anything else than he here did. His position was clearly defined and there was left no doubt about it. However, it alarmed the McKinley managers with dread that their candidate's prospects in Illinois were unsafe. A campaign was at once set on foot to arouse the country districts to over- whelm the Chicago delegates with public sentiment. A furor resulted which produced the intensest struggle for instructions that ever stirred the Republicans of the state. It immensely increased the McKinley sentiment, but did not break the solidity of the Cook phalanx — it rather compacted that. The more it became manifest 218 MARTIN B. MADDEN that the country was a unit for McKinley's nomination, the more certain the majority of the Chicagoans grew that it would be a mistake to throw the party advantage away by pledging the vote ahead of delivery time. When the Springfield Convention met to decide on action at St. Louis the country delegates were in a fever of excitement lest the failure to pledge might endanger McKinley's chances at St. Louis by making it appear the party in the state of Illinois was not for him. They did not seem to know how solidly it was. Their uncertainty prevented them from organizing and as a mass unhesi- tatingly using the power they really had — it was suffi- cient to brush everything out of their way. ' The men from Chicago knew exactly how every delegate in the Convention would finally vote and were aware the other side had not sure knowledge on this point and x:ould not, therefore, act with decision. They were solid themselves and sure of the state. So they threw themselves alto- gether and at once into the work of controlling the pro- ceedings, and, amidst the greatest excitement, to which they were used, kept the meeting busy with unessential actions, winning on every vote until they had almost convinced the majority that it was the minority in that assemblage; and were actually on the point of complete victory when a tactical error disclosed their strength. Then in a single clash they went down and pledging triumphed. In a flash, however, it was seen that all were equally good McKinley men, differing only on the one point of how best to place the party where it rightly belonged in national affairs. The greatest individual victory obtained was on the PUBLIC SERVANT £19 motion made by Mr. Madden to place the name of William Penn Nixon, editor of the Chicago Inter-Ocean, on the list of delegates-at-large in the place of the majority's candidate, who was an undoubted Gold man. The majority of the delegates were Gold men, and Mr. Nixon was known to be a Silver Republican. Mr. Madden was the very champion of Gold. But he had gone down with the minority, and when he stood up to make his argument he had to face fearful odds — the apparent desire of a triumphant majority to punish him for compelling it to fight for its life and the apparent inconsistency of the attitude he was taking. He had uttered but a sentence when every one present desired to hear all he wished to say. Without the waste of a word, going at once to the marrow, he uttered such a speech as none but those- there that day ever heard in a State Convention. Its steady fire burned ugly opposition away; its manly breadth capti- vated the house; the clearness of the argument and the eloquence of the plea aroused such feelings of justice that the audience turned clear about and gave the orator, whom when he rose it threatened to crush, when he sat down a larger majority than it had cast for instructions. For the latter the Convention had cast 755 votes, a major- ity of 175 ; for the orator's motion the house gave 840 styes. When the life of this delegate is written the speech he delivered on that day will be read and placed alongside one delivered on a greater occasion by a Virginian named Patrick Henry. CHAPTER XXII. USES BLAINE'S RECIPROCITY ARGUMENT-— MAKES NOVEL APPLICA- TION—EFFECT ON SILVER MEN. 11 ANY of the arguments used by the Illinois delegates / T I upon those from other states were singularly Clevel- and statesmanlike. Some of them have never been sur- passed for real excellence. A number of the best have never been equaled in financial discussions. How wise was the platform declaration that the party would do all in its power to yet bring about an inter- national agreement in favor of the rehabilitation of Silver and its free and unlimited coinage at some fair ratio to be agreed upon, coupled with that other pro- nouncement in favor of a restoration of Protection and Blaine's Reciprocity Pol icy, is now plain to every observer. . The wisdom of taking such action was equally well seen then by the moving spirits in the Illinois delegation. Mr. Madden all along urged that although the Gold men had no faith at all that the nations would agree to again make silver standard money, still it was the duty of this Government to use every effort it could honorably make toward inducing them to do so while there was a possi- bility of obtaining their consent. He himself did not believe that this country alone could by any means in its power maintain the double standard, nor did he think it could be supported by the combined action of all the nations. Still, there was a large number of Americans 220 PUBLIC SERVANT 221 who thought otherwise, and they were entitled to just as much consideration as the citizens who agreed with him, so long as the opinion the latter held was not com- pletely demonstrated to be correct. While, therefore, any honest attempt to bring about the desired interna- tional agreement remained untried, the Government, he thought, was in duty bound to make it. The weapon of Reciprocity, he pointed out, had not yet been used. The friends of Silver were entitled to have it tried in their interest. If the Republicans won the election the old McKinley Law would be re-enacted, with such modifica- tions as the changed conditions called for, and it would contain the Blaine proposals. These were based on the sound principle that in business matters neither men nor nations will in all cases be fair toward one another vol- untarily, or unless induced or compelled to be. Mr. Blaine had seen, while acting as Secretary of State, that many American products were unfairly barred out of the markets of foreign nations whose people desired the goods. As a remedy, he conceived the law that empow- ered the President, by the quick and simple process of issuing a personal proclamation, to stop the sale in the United States of any product offered here from a country which unreasonably closed its doors to any branch of American trade. With this law in his hands it did not take Mr. Blaine very long to convince Germany that trichinae in American pork, and France that tuberculosis in American beef, were political diseases only, and unworthy of notice so long as these nations desired to sell sour wine and red water in the United States. The Reciprocity Law gave the American hog a ticket of gen- eral admission to Germany, and the American cow the 222 MARTIN B. MADDEN right of excursion to France. Now, silver was an American product, and the same Blaine process might similarly help it. The friends of the metal were entitled to at least an experiment. When Silver Republicans read the declaration they generally stayed where they were, feeling that, after all, if there was any hope for their metal it lay in Protection and remembering that the Free Trade of the other party had deprived Uncle Sam of the only weapon he had had with which he could in any wise help silver. The Democrats, who had taken away this instrument, would not restore it, but the Republicans would. When Mr. Bryan was nominated this feeling was intensified by the fact that he was an out-and-out Free Trader and the recol- lection that as a member of the Congressional Ways and Means Committee he had been prominently instrumental in the work of repealing the McKinley Law. The wide influence of the Illinois argument which procured in the St. Louis platform the promise respect- ing silver, may be appreciated by a consideration of some of its immediate effects. Senator E. O. Wolcott, of Colorado, the strongest prominent Silver man in the Republican party, at once decided to remain in the ranks. He represented in the Senate the principal soft money state. All his investments were in silver proper- ties and all his constituents were for the white metal. He took the ground that the success of Democracy, with Free Trade, would destroy the last hope of the Silver movement, while the election of the Republican ticket and the consequent restoration of Protection, would assure the cause the full operation of the only chance it had left. PUBLIC SERVANT 223 When Wolcott refused to bolt the action of the Con* vention and proclaimed adherence to the party on the platform adopted, "There," said Madden to his col- leagues, i4 is a splendid justification of Mr. McKinley's silence on the financial question while he was a candi- date for the nomination. His refusal to officially attempt to influence the proceedings here has increased the party's confidence that he will, irrespective of his per- sonal views, honestly endeavor to carry out its expressed wishes. He will uphold the Gold standard adopted and he will do all that yet remains to be done for Silver. Wol- cott knows this and his action foretells what the majority of the Silver Republicans will do. They will remain in the party with the Colorado senator. ' ' McKinley's subsequent action in appointing a com- mission to sound the European governments on the ques- tion of restoring silver to standard coinage, and Wol- cott's appointment and service as a member of that body, were demonstrations complete not only of the party's sincerity, but of the President's loyalty to its instruc- tions. At a critical juncture in the campaign, Mr. Hanna selected two especially qualified men to place the Chi- cago argument before the people of California, where the Bryanese propaganda were sweeping everything away from Republicanism. These gentlemen attended to their business, and toward the end of October a halt came in the Golden State. The people saw that with Bryan President and Free Trade continued and increased there was not as much likelihood for international action favorable to Silver as there would be with McKinley and Protection. The Californians wanted both Silver and 224 MARTIN B. MADDEN Protection, but Protection more than Silver. With Bryan they might get Silver, but not Protection; with McKinley they were as likely to get Silver, but, as they said, "dead sure to get Protection." So they "played for the double" and the state went Republican by about 2,700 majority. At one of the meetings in that state, when the Republican argument, then first put forth in that part of the country, was finished, 180 of the auditors went forward, pulled the Silver buttons from their lapels and threw them upon the stage. All along, while engaged in the wofk of creating opinion among the delegates, Mr. Madden had urged the dissemination of this argument as the one that would not only hold the Silver Republicans, but eventually make of them, as the campaign progressed, the most effective orators against the straight-out Silver movement. Time, that reveals everything in its own season, has shown that he was right and that for the country it was fortunate he and men like him were right so early. CHAPTER XXIII. BRYAN S NOMINATION A SURPRISE— FORCES CHANGE IN REPUBLI- CAN PLAN — THE EFFECT. WHEN the St. Louis Convention adjourned and the general exchange of views on the work done, which follows after such an assemblage, had taken place, two prevailing opinions were found to exist. One was that the platform afforded sufficient ground for the Gold Democrats to stand upon and that they might be expected to occupy it if their party fell under the control of the Populists at Chicago. The other was that the declaration of principles was unqualifiedly for Gold and tentatively only for Silver. * This left the Silver men as a body out of consideration, at least until it could be seen what the Democratic Convention at Chicago would do. The result was the most bitter struggle ever witnessed in American political affairs for control of a nominating Convention. The old liners from the East attended in their fullest strength. The Populists came like an ava- lanche from the Far and Middle West. The struggle in the hotels, streets and Coliseum lobbies was unprece- dented, and when finally transferred concrete to the Auditorium was Babel megaphoned. The East, with its trained Convention leaders, its speakers of well-earned world-wide repute, and its master-hands at effective floor management, for a long time held the struggle well in their grasp. But when Bryan at last arose and in sublime 16 225 226 MARTIN B. MADDEN elocution phrased the popular suffering, discontent and despair; in language that inflamed put the blame for it all upon Eastern management of public affairs, and then, with the diction of a crusader and the passion of justice aroused, lifted clearly into view the country's one sole hope — Western party dominance — the bursting flood of Populism forced the gates and the deluge came. When it had spent its passion there was left visible hardly a fragment of the wreck of the old Democratic party, and a Populist orator was in its name nominated for the Presidency of the United States. "That nomination, " exclaimed Madden, who was present when it was made, "is proof that the days of oratory are not passed, and that the printed word is not yet so effective as the spoken. Mr. Bryan came to the Convention on a newspaper correspondent's pass, and entered this hall as a contesting delegate, fighting for a seat. He leaves the Convention the Presidential nominee of the Democratic party. A single oration did it all. His address in type would hardly have won him a dele- gate: from his tongue it captured the Convention and brought him the Presidential nomination. Never before did oratory by a single effort accomplish anything com- parable to this achievement. It was done, too, in the most enlightened nation the world has yet had and among a people who are the greatest readers that have ever lived. The whole force of the Republican party, and the entire energy of the business, labor and property interests of the United States, will now have to be exerted to the fullest degree to overcome the effect of the oratory of one man. Contrast that use of. the tongue PUBLIC SERVANT 227 with any conceivable use of the pen. It will be a cam- paign of oratory." It was. The Republican party at one time during it, had more than 6,000 public speakers at work on the stump. After that the issue was quickly joined between Pop- ulism and Order, repudiation and wreckage and honor and patriotism. The Chicago Republicans made a canvass and found that hundreds of Democrats among the citi- zens and scores of the Convention attendants had renounced their party immediately after the platform was adopted. Their renunciation was open and irrevocable. Many of them unhesitatingly proclaimed their intention of supporting the Republican ticket. It was ascertained on closer inquiry that these, while naming Gold as the magnet, admitted that Protection was equally attractive, and, in many cases, more. The Cleveland management had opened their eyes to the viciousness of Free Trade. The press of the whole country reflected the general situ- ation the same as it appeared in Chicago. Great news- papers like the New York Sun, which took the lead, openly abandoned the Democratic party and -advised their readers to support McKinley. It did not take the Chicago Republican leaders long to decide upon a course. The main issue was to be the money question with Protection its running mate. Men like Madden saw that up to that time their calculations had proven correct — the St. Louis platform had divided the Democratic party and would attract the Gold wing. But the Democratic movement towards Republicanism was so manifestly an Eastern movement, so palpably what Bryan would point to as a "Wall Street Octopus" combination, that it endangered the chances of maintain- 228 MARTIN B. MADDEN ing, let alone increasing, the cordial relations between the real Silver Republicans and the McKinley party in the West. In fact, for a while the open attitude of the great money interests threatened to alienate these men and more than offset the hard money gain. In addition to this difficulty, it was found practically impossible to poll the Gold Democrats. Politically, the Republican workers had no acquaintance with them like that with members of their own creed. The Gold Dem- ocrats did not attend Republican meetings, join proces- sions, or place themselves where they could be counted. They succeeded through the press in spreading the con- viction that about. all of them would support the Repub- lican candidate, but so long as they would not be counted, the McKinley workers felt as if the gain was all on paper. On the other hand, these managers per- sonally knew the Silver Republicans and could count them when absentees, either as deserters or on the fence. The situation was one in which the gain seemed conjec- tural, while the loss was accurately figurable. It was not encouraging, and it remained so for a long time. For weeks it looked as if every farmer in the Middle West was for Silver and Bryan. What made the situation more perplexing was the condition of the campaign literature. Mr. Madden had been for six years Chairman of the City Central Repub- lican Committee. In that capacity, with his accustomed energy, he had traversed every district in the county and most of those in the state. He knew the situation thor- oughly, as well as the people of the commonwealth, and realized completely the nature of what was to be done. The Republican party's state headquarters had been PUBLIC SERVANT 229 kept open in Chicago for twelve months. In this time thousands of visitors from all parts of the West had called and thousands of letters arrived, all making enquiries on the money question. Such of these as were worthy of answer or capable of affording a sugges- tion had been preserved and annotated. Early in the spring political economists had been engaged to inspect this mass of interrogatories and prepare replies or answers. It was Mr. Madden's view that in this way campaign literature might be produced in the most effective way, as it would meet the actual conditions which the enquiries disclosed. A great deal of sound and valuable campaign literature was the result. There had been no expectation that such a man as Mr. Bryan would be the Democratic nominee, and nothing had been prepared that fully met {he condition his leadership pre- cipitated. Much of the literature had to be destroyed or left unused, and most of that used had to be revised. The work was rushed and the Illinois Committee was enabled to cover the whole ground with its own argu- ments, devised to exactly meet requirements, weeks before the National Committee opened its doors for work. The condition in the state was so similar to that in the whole surrounding country that after the National Com- mittee began the task of issuing free books, pamphlets and leaflets, the Campaign Committees of seventeen states continued to get their supply from Illinois and to pay for it, all pooling the expense, because most of the National body's productions had been prepared in the East, and did not at all supply what was needed in the West, while those furnished by the Illinois Committee did so com- pletely. The Chairman of the Illinois State Republican 230 MARTIN B. MADDEN Committee, Mr. Hitch, in a letter to the Republicans in New Jersey, and the Hon. John R. Tanner, the Repub- lican candidate for Governor of Illinois, in a communica- tion to the Chairman of the Pennsylvania State Republi- can Committee, both affirmed that the arguments framed and used by the Illinois managers had been so well adjusted to actual conditions that they had arrested the Free Silver tidal wave, turned it back, and secured the state, and most of its neighbors, in safety. Both letters were written early in August and both claimed that at that time Illinois would give at least 150,000 Republican majority. Mr. Hitch thought the figure might go much higher. CHAPTER XXIV. ON THE STUMP — MANY NEW ARGUMENTS — THEIR HISTORICAL VALUE. BESIDES all his other work, Mr. Madden stumped the state, making sixty set speeches and innumerable private and small talks. His great invention in argument, clearness in statement, and moral power in convincing and persuading changed votes wherever he spoke. The editors of the Republican literature, the members of the State Committee, the Chairmen of the local party organizations and electors everywhere throughout the state all testified that he furnished brains, arguments, motives, in every effort he made that year for the Republican cause. His premeditated statements were always new and vote-making. His rejoinders to inter- rogatories, his personal colloquys with friends or strang- ers, on trains, in hotels, everywhere he went, were replete with original information and logic. They con- vinced, were remembered, gave auditors pleasure in repetition, and became current. It is doubtful if any one man ever added so much stock to good argument in any political campaign in this country. It seems almost preposterous to claim that anyone could add a thing new to the arguments for Protection, a subject discussed by Hamilton, Greeley and Blaine. Yet Mr. Madden has said many effective things on the tariff never uttered or hinted at by either Blaine, Greeley or 231 232 MARTIN B. MADDEN Hamilton, and some of them are more original and con- vincing than anything either of the three ever said or wrote on the subject. After Sherman, McCleary, and other authorities, had apparently exhausted all the good arguments in favor of the Gold standard, and left to others the mere task of repetition, Mr. Madden entered the discussion and put into it keener ideas, better illus- trations, more lucid explanations and clearer history than had ever been used before, besides many entirely new arguments. His mental make-up, and the method he had used in educating himself, enabled him to easily and naturally lead in the work of that campaign scores of men who were decidedly his inferiors in everything but national reputations based on a mere fraction of his merit. Earn- ing his own living by day work at ten years of age and attending night school; laboring with his hands in youth and studying at evening colleges; graduating as the best engineer of his age in the city, and completing the study of law, while running a stone quarry employing scores of men; receiving private instruction from expert tutors for years while managing great business enter- prises; surrounding himself by careful readers of stand- ard literature and current publications during the time he was building up the vast business of the Western Stone Company; all his life attractive to educated and scholarly men because of his skillful queries and correct comment; business manager for great capital; Chairman of many Boards of Directors in the most rapidly growing com- mercial city in the world; bank director; trustee of estates; representative of trade organizations in National conclaves; special deputy to Congress on Federal ques- PUBLIC SERVANT 233 tions affecting the transportation interests of Chicago ; municipal correspondent of the corporation with the thousands of mayors in the United States to induce them to make a Mayors' Day at the Columbian Exposi- tion; Chairman of the Committee to entertain distin- guished foreigners attending the Fair; employer of 2,000 men; arbiter of labor disputes in the City of vStrikes; Finance Minister of Chicago during the five years of colossal annexation and assimilation, each year finding ways and means to raise upwards of $20,000,000, and then seeing that that vast amount was correctly spent: — how many statesmen has the country ever had who pos- sessed at forty- one years of age so valuable an education for public life as Martin B. Madden possessed during the campaign of 1896? With a voice so pleasing that men would stop to listen to it for its sound alone, a figure like that of a Greek athlete, a head splendidly set, carrying a clean white face with nearly perfect features, and a covering like a first frost; with an established reputation for unassailable morality, absolute truthfulness, unques- tionable accuracy of statement; and known to be beyond most men in perception, wit, faculty of expression, abundance of exact knowledge, humanity, and affection for the public welfare: — it is not wonderful that large audiences assembled to listen to him, newspapers sought and published his views as campaign documents, party managers accepted his solutions of difficulties, friends took his guidance, acquaintances spread his opinions and electors asked him how to vote. Madden's speech is better and "quicker" than John- son's was, and if he had a Boswell posterity would pos- sess a better mine of mental nuggets. His brain seems 234 MARTIN B. MADDEN an expression jewel factory. The gems come out com- pletely reduced and finished. He has put into circulation statements of public affairs that will live because of their unsurpassable compactness and completeness. His mental store is so inexhaustible that he doesn't tag its output, and it becomes common property. When asked what a Protective tariff was, he said it was the peddler's license collected at the Custom House. What a convincing argument there was in that. The peddler is not allowed to vend his wares in competition with the merchants of the town, who have similar things to sell and who by taxation maintain the walks, streets, lights, police, schools and courts of the place, unless he also pays taxes into the corporation's treasury. The sum he pays he does not add to the price of his wares. To sell them he must take the market price prevailing among the merchants against whom he is going to com- pete. He must sacrifice the sum of his license from the profits of his sales in that town and sell at a profit dimin- ished by that amount. The money he pays goes into the town treasury and diminishes by its amount the taxes paid by the citizens. The peddler pays the license and the customers get their taxes reduced ; not much if but one peddler come, but a great deal if many do. Surely, foreigners who sell competing articles in this country do the same kind of business the peddler does. They pay the license or tariff, subtract it from their profits, sell at the market at a profit diminished by the sum of the tariff, and reduce the taxation collected from the citizens by the amount the tariff puts into the Fed- eral treasury. When an orator paraphrased Lincoln's argument that PUBLIC SERVANT 235 if we bought a ton of iron from England, we had the iron and England had the money; but if we bought a ton of iron made in our own country we had both the iron and the money, Madden added: "Yes, and we can then borrow the money at home." He favored Reciprocity that reciprocated. If but one country furnished an article our people desired and could not produce, he would let that in free; but if two or more countries produced such things, he would let them in free from those countries only that would admit an equivalent amount of our products free. He opposed a tariff so high as to induce foreigners to move their plants here while the owners remained abroad, because that would create a drain similar to the foreign landlord drain on Ireland. He would not remove the tariff on manufactures no longer needing it. That would be like destroying the cradle after the first baby had learned to walk. Every penny you took off a tariff on competing products was, in his opinion, a penny bonus given to the foreign competitor. He would use it to undersell you. Underselling you by the amount of the reduction might be disastrous to you, but it would cost the foreigner nothing. No protective tariff had ever^been given in this country in the interest of capital ; it had always been levied to protect labor. It had generally been fixed at the supposed difference between the cost of labor here and in Europe. It had seldom been put so high as that difference, and as a result manufacturers here had been obliged to carry on business at a profit less than that of their. European rivals by an amount exceeding the tariff. In nearly every case the difference between the cost of the American labor engaged in the manufacture of a 236 MARTIN B. MADDEN thing and that of the foreign workmen employed in mak- ing the same thing exceeded the amount of the duty on that thing. This was easily demonstrated and showed that in all competing manufactures the American artisan got in his wages more than all the tariff. If this were made plain to all American worfeingmen they would all be Protectionists. In all cases where Protection, by increasing competition, reduced prices, the consumers got more benefits than the manufacturers could possibly retain. Steel rails, when England had a monopoly of their manufacture, cost as high in this country as $167 a ton. The ad-valorem duty of about $47 a ton, which enabled our manufacturers to compete, had resulted in competition and improvement in processes that had brought the price below $30 a ton. The difference of $137 per ton, upon the two or more million tons used in this country every year, had gone to the public in improved, railroad service, reduced fares and lessened freight charges. The sum total given to the public through the tariff on steel rails was so enormous as to make the profits still retained by the manufacturers look ridiculous in comparison. A protective tariff seldom, if ever, raised the cost of a competing article. As a rule it lowered it and improved the quality: first, by increasing the competition; second, by stimulating improvement in the methods of manufacture to reduce their cost as com- pensation for loss of price. The Harvey statement that the Act of 1873 had stopped the coinage of silver and by doubling the work of gold had made of the gold dollar a two-dollar dollar, was disproved by this ingenious retort from Mad- den; "Have you a silver dollar? If you have, look at PUBLIC SERVANT 237 the date upon it. You will find that that date is of some year since 1873, the time Harvey says we stopped coin- ing silver. Every person in this audience who has a sil- ver dollar has in his possession a proof that what the Silverites say is not true, that the coinage of silver was stopped by conspiracy in 1873, for every one of these dollars which you have, or can get, was coined in some year since 1873. I will give $5 apiece to any of you for every silver dollar you may bring to me that was coined before that year. These dollars in your possession are proofs that all the silver dollars now in circulation have been coined since the time the Silverites say we stopped coining silver, and you cannot produce a single silver dollar coined before that time, not one minted during what Harvey calls the period of free and unlimited coin- age. The fact is, that all the silver in circulation has been coined since 1873, and that during these twenty- three years, in which Harvey says silver coinage has been stopped, there have been put into circulation about 560,000,000 silver dollars against the 10,000,000 minted during the eighty-one years of free and unlimited coin- age before. 4 * Bryan says the gold dollar has doubled in value and is now a two-dollar dollar. Here are 100 pennies. We began coining gold and silver in 1792, 104 years ago. During every one of these 104 years these 100 pennies would buy all the gold there is in a gold dollar. At no time in all these years would the gold in a gold dollar pur- chase more than 100 pennies, nor would less pennies buy the gold. The 100 pennies will to-day buy a gold dollar. So, the gold dollar is a dollar dollar, and not a 200-cent dollar, as Bryan says, and it has not varied a penny in 238 MARTIN B. MADDEN value for 104 years. The unchangeable value of gold is the quality that makes it the best money for everybody, the laborer as well as the capitalist. Twenty-three years ago these 100 pennies would not buy the silver in a sil- ver dollar; it took 104 pennies at that time to buy that much silver. Since then so much silver has been found and mined that the metal has fallen in value because too plentiful. To-day the amount of silver in a dollar will not buy 104 cents, the amount it was worth in 1873. It will only bring 47 cents. So silver has fallen 53 per cent, in twenty-three years, while gold has not varied one per cent, in value in 104 years. That is why every civ- ilized nation has discarded silver as standard money ; it lacks all stability in value and is the worst money in the world for both the people who must work for wages and those who handle any kind of capital. " "What will you say," Madden was asked, "to the contention that silver was demonetized in 1873?" "That it was not. In that year we were still paying in paper promises. These had been at a discount because of the world's disbelief in our ability to redeem them in specie. When our ability to redeem approached par we decided to resume specie payments at a fixed date ahead. This decision constituted the Act of 1873, which set the date at 1879 and named gold as the kind of specie we would pay in. We had the right to elect either kind of specie — silver or gold. Both were American products, but the latter we had in greater abundance, and with us it was the cheaper. The amount of gold in a dollar was obtainable for less than the silver in a dollar. Besides, gold had become the standard money of the civilized world because of its invariability in value and its PUBLIC SERVANT 239 universal acceptability. The Act of 1873 had been before Congress for three years and had been fairly, fully and publicly discussed before it was passed. At that time it was probable that we could get to the mint all the gold we needed for resumption, and it was probable that we could not get enough silver. The legal ratio between the metals for coinage purposes was sixteen to one. That is, the law said that at the mint gold was worth sixteen times its weight in silver. The truth was that silver was worth more than a sixteenth of its weight in gold ; it was worth about one and a half fifteenths. The disparity between the commercial value of silver and the legal ratio had existed ever since the Democratic party had fixed the legal ratio at sixteen to one in 1834, and during all that time had practically kept the silver dollar out of general circulation and the country on a gold basis. During this period the owners of silver refused to have it coined into dollars for circulation because the law called for more bullion in the dollar than the dollar was worth. The amount of silver it took to make a dollar was during these forty- three years often worth 104 cents, and the only silver owners that would, as a rule, give 104 cents' worth of silver bullion to the mint for silver dollars worth 100 cents were the jewelers without smelt- ers who wanted their metal turned into sterling for plate and were willing to pay that premium to the Government for doing the smelting. Silver dollars obtained this way sometimes escaped the melting pot and got into circula- tion, but they were practically the only ones that did. During the eighty odd years of 'free and unlimited' coin- age of silver hardly 10,000,000 silver dollars were coined. The silver dollar had retreated from circulation 240 MARTIN B. MADDEN and could not be induced back unless we paid for it more than it was worth according to law. The gold dollar could be had for ioo cents. It was accepted for the work of redemption. It would have been unwise to do any- thing but what we did in 1873. W e did not then demon- etize the silver dollar. That was done in 1834. We simply exercised the option we had of resuming specie payments in gold dollars worth par or silver dollars worth a premium, and decided on the par dollars." 44 I'm for Bryan," said an Irish Republican, 44 because when he's in I'll get sixteen for one." "That's not as much as you're getting now, Pat," retorted Mr. Madden. "Oh, it's sixteen times more." "No, it isn't, Patrick, You now get thirty-two for one. Bryan's sixteen for one is only half of your thirty- two for one." 44 How do you argue that, riow?" 44 It is the gold and silver ratio question. If you work, and get, we'll say, an ounce of gold, you can take that ounce of gold and sell it anywhere in the world for thirty -two ounces of silver, because everywhere gold is worth thirty-two times its weight in silver. That is what is meant by thirty-two to one. Now, if Bryan should be elected he'll be for only sixteen to one. His scheme is to make gold worth only sixteen times its weight in silver instead of thirty-two times as it is now. So, Patrick, if Bryan wins you will only get sixteen ounces of silver for your ounce of gold instead of the thirty-two you can get now. You will then get only half as much as you can get now." PUBLIC SERVANT 241 "That looks like a bunco game, Mr. Madden, on me. I'll not be for it." The cleverest rejoinder made in the whole campaign to one of Bryan's sophistries was the following: "You ask me to vote for Bryan because if he be elected he will establish the ratio of sixteen to one as the ratio of value between gold and silver. The ratio is at present thirty-' two to one. I can now take my gold anywhere and get for it thirty-two times its weight in silver. Under Bryan's plan 1 would get only sixteen ounces of silver for my ounce of gold. That is but half of what I can now get. How would I gain by Bryan's election? It seems to me I would lose exactly half the present value of my gold. You say that if Bryan be elected his policy will increase the value of silver until sixteen ounces of it will be worth as much as thirty-two are now. I am at thirty- two now. If I go to sixteen, as Bryan wishes, what guarantee have I that he will be able to bring me back to thirty-two. Even if he can do what he says and double the value of silver, it would be better for me to remain where I am, for that would make my thirty-two ounces worth sixty-four, whereas if I went to sixteen I would only be back to thirty- two, where I started." This juggle never failed during the campaign to dislodge any Bryanite who had to encounter it, and it usually con- vinced an audience that the sixteen to one argument was evidence of brain ailment. When the non-committal attitude of Mr. McKinley on the question of the money standard was pointed out to Mr. Madden at St. Louis before the Convention assembled, he replied: "Mr. McKinley's genius lies 16 242 MARTIN B. MADDEtf in the representativeness of his character. In this he surpasses any man who has been named for the Presi- dency in the past forty years. He has personal views of great value on all public questions, but he is too honest, so long as the public regard him as a national represent- ative of Republican sentiment, to put his views forward until they are the views of his party. Absolute political integrity demands just such conduct on the part of rep- resentative party men. Party sentiment is the composite result of the pooling of the views of all its members. When a man is chosen either by election or selection to represent the views of his party and he assents to the task, he is in honor bound to refrain from making public political statements at variance with the expressed atti- tude of his party. The Republican party has not yet declared for either gold or silver. When it does declare its position, you will find that Mr. McKinley will have enough to say.; and you will also find that all he shall say will correctly reflect the sentiment of his party. So long as he remains a public representative of the Repub- lican party, he will represent it with strict accuracy; he will not try to lead it or to push it. If he be elected President by the American people, he will correctly ascertain their wishes, and then carry them out. In neither case will he attempt individuality. He will be exclusively representative. He is too honest to accept any representative position for the purpose of exploiting either his personal views or his personal ambitions, or doing anything else than carrying out the known wishes of those who trust him in a representative way." CHAPTER XXV. URGED TO ACCEPT SENATORSHIP FROM ILLINOIS — REASONS THERE- FOR—NECESSARY VOTES SECURED. THE national election in 1896 made Illinois Republi- can by over 150,000 majority. The Legislature elected that fall assured the choice in January, 1897, of a Republican to represent the state in the United States Senate in the place of the Hon. John M. Palmer, Dem- ocrat, whose term expired on the 4th of March following. The party organization was thorough and retained its headquarters in Chicago, where it had performed won- derful work in the McKinley campaign. The leaders started out to obtain the best possible candidate to act as colleague to Senator Shelby M. Cullom. After a critical survey of the situation they asked Mr. Madden to permit his name to go before the Legislature for the place. He had accomplished so much creditable work at the St. Louis Convention and on the stump during the canvass, that there was a general expression among party men in all parts of the state in favor of his candidacy. He was sent for and invited to a conference, where the organiza- tion's desire was made known to him. He hesitated a long time. He was weary from overwork in the City Council and had large financial interests intrusted to his care. One of these, the Western Stone Company, of which he was President, had, through its Board of Directors, requested him to abandon public life and devote his 243 244 MARTIN B. MADDEN efforts to the further development of the stone trade. This concern was paying him a large salary, one of the largest received by any Western business manager, and was entitled to first consideration. To accept the party's proposition involved the abandonment of this and other incomes, amounting to many tens of thousands of dollars a year — a great sacrifice for a man not yet forty-two years old. He asked if some other equally suitable can- didate could not be found whose acceptance would not be at such a great personal loss as he was asked to incur. To this the managers replied that the Republican organ- ization desired to send to the assistance of President McKinley in the terrible ordeal he was about to go through the most efficient man the state could yield through the party. The new Senator, it was pointed out,' should be young and able to withstand great labor. He should be experienced and capable in legislative and committee work; able in speech and with the pen; pos- sess talent for stating with power and effect the argu- ments the Republicans of Illinois believed should influ- ence impending congressional action; be thoroughly acquainted with the people of Illinois and of Chicago, and with their views on the public questions pressing for settlement; entirely reliable as an exponent of the wishes of the people of the state; able financially to go as the commonwealth's representative at Washington, and known to all the people as a public servant tested and found competent and trustworthy. The state and county and city committees had gone all over the subject and decided upon him, and the request to seek the nomina- tion was put to him as a matter of public duty. Still hesitating, Mr. Madden asked if he was the PUBLIC SERVANT . 245 first choice of the organization. He was assured he was. Then he asked if there was any other choice. There was not, he was answered. "One other question," he persisted; "is there a sec- ond choice?" "Why do you ask that?" the spokesman for the party managers rejoined. "Because," the Alderman said, "a second choice may be a first choice under cover." Assurance was given to him that there was no second choice, nor any other choice but himself — he was the sole choice, and he was urged to accept the task of seeking the election as a matter of duty. He consented. His canvass of Cook County showed him that the assur- ances given to him by the managers were sound — all the twenty-one members of the county in the Legislature readily pledged their votes to him. A tour of the state was then made. It resulted in securing the pledged votes of fifty-one more members of the Legislature. Mr. Madden now had seventy-two votes. It required sixty- three only to get the party caucus nomination and as a result the election. Matters remained in this shape until the Legislature met. When it convened the Alderman went to Spring- field and found the seventy-two votes awaiting him and ready to be cast for him as soon as the task of electing, the United States Senator should be reached. The work he had done in making the canvass for these votes was very difficult and wearisome. It was accom- plished with so little fuss and its result was so complete that it should not excite wonder if there were men who 246 . MARTIN B. MADDEN imagined they could also have performed it, or could even undo it in their own interest. It was not long before tale-bearers began to carry suspicions to Mr. Madden. The purport of most of these was that some of the party managers were so pleased at the practical unanimity among the Republican members of the Legislature that they saw a lessening of the necessity for the making of such a sacrifice as going to Washington would entail on the President of the Western Stone Company; and that the financial interests in Mr. Madden's care could not afford to lose his services at the time. To all this gossip the Alderman turned a deaf ear. "Have you no suspicions?" he was asked by a friend. "None whatever," was the response; "they are unhealthy and I am immune from them." Before the day of the balloting some of the managers requested the Alderman to attend a conference. At this he was told that an investigation of the pledge list showed that he had lost voters enough to endanger his chances. Demanding to know how many had proved recalcitrant, he was informed twelve had, and their names were furnished. He went out and reinstated his list. More than once he did similar reinstatement work. The senatorship was a great prize and many powerful men were straining after it. Madden expected this. The office was not his. It belonged to the people of Illinois, who were about to bestow it through the Republican party. It would go to the man who could induce the party to give it to him. At length the managers informed the Alderman that it had been decided after much controversy on the ground that a new candidate was desirable for party PUBLIC SERVANT 247 expediency — to adjust differences that otherwise might prove disruptive — and he was asked to release the votes pledged to him. When the matter was put to him in that way he did not haggle ; he yielded as a matter of course. The release at once scattered the Cook County mem- bers. The result was a scramble. It became impossible for the managers to reconcentrate the votes necessary to elect. The Cook County members would unite for any other candidate the managers should designate, but the country members under no circumstances would. The majority of the seventy-two were, however, in favor of a Chicago candidate, the country having a representative in Mr. Cullom, whose home was in Springfield. The disorder continued, Mr. Madden having practi- cally retired as a candidate. The Chicago delegation, having gone away from him, with his permission, remained pledged to their second choice. He was unable to induce his followers from the country to go in a body to any other candidate, although they all favored the election of a Chicago man. A majority of them were willing to vote for Mr. William E. Mason, but for no other Cook County man, except Mr. Madden. As Mason could be elected with these votes, and no other candidate could get them or be elected without them, they were permitted to go to him, and he was elected. It is well known that Mr. Madden has made it a rule never to indulge in any kind of gossip; never to reply to criticism upon his personal conduct; and never to impugn the motives of an acquaintance, especially a friend. He has always seemed to regard his failure to be elected Senator in 1897 with indifference. But he discusses it 248 MARTIN B. MADDEN with complete frankness. He says that the gentlemen who induced him to become a candidate were all friends, and are still. When they secured his consent to be a candidate he was absolutely their only choice. He never ceased to be their personal choice. Even when they asked him to step aside for another candidate they would have pre- ferred him as Senator. What they then attempted was tried for the party's welfare, and as an expedient thought necessary. The tactics might have been a mis- take; it was no more, even if that. His friends, he claims, were acting for the best interests of the party, as he was, and he spurns all suggestion that there was any lack of either good faith or loyalty on their part towards him in any part of the proceeding. The Republicans of the state were keenly disappointed over the retirement of Mr. Madden. He was looked upon as an ideal man to represent Illinois in the United States Senate in the period of American commercial development then felt to be imminent and which has since come. It was taken for granted that he would from the first rank as one of the greatest committeemen and staters of public questions ever sent to the Senate. But there could be no criticism of his attitude: "I am for the man the people of Illinois want, whether that be myself or some other. I stood for the place only while I had official assurance that I was the candidate the peo- ple desired ; I retired the moment I was made aware the people wished somebody else. " CHAPTER XXVI. GOES TO PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION— REPRESENTS ILLINOIS ON PLATFORM COMMITTEE. ONE of the most remarkable instances in American political history of the influence of a single state delegation on the conduct of a national party, occurred through the action of the Illinois men who represented their state in the Republican Convention at Philadelphia in June, i^oo. Although the act was of world-wide importance, although it conserved the friendship of one of the great nations for this country and saved the dom- inant party from committing a political blunder as well as an international offense, it was done so quietly and effectively as to escape the observation of all but the very few who of necessity were cognizant of the sanc- tuary proceedings. Illinois had been the battleground of the campaign of 1896. Everyone well informed respecting public affairs realized that the state would again be the chief theater of the struggle in 1900. She is the heart of the great Middle West, and her pulsations affect decisively the political health and activity of all those great sur- rounding commonwealths, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. The Illinois men went to Philadelphia with full intelli- gence of the popular feeling of this immense region on 249 250 MARTIN B. MADDEN all living public questions, and determined on having this feeling secure adequate influence in the policy of the Republican party. When the delegates from all the states and territories had arrived and exchanged views preparatory to conven- ing for official work, it was found that, outside of the Middle West, there existed a dangerous sureness of vic- tory and a corresponding indisposition to work out any detailed and comprehensive plan of campaign. The drift was towards a cut-and-dried programme. In fact, most of the delegates seemed disposed to treat the Con- vention as a sort of re-union, and to expect to simply ratify, without investigation or criticism, any policy pre- sented by those in official charge of the proceedings. The situation was dangerous politically, for no matter how careful and conscientious the members of an Admin- istration may be, it is simply impossible for them alone to draft a statement of a policy for national party action which will be as comprehensive and popular as a plat- form that is the outcome of the exchanged thought of the delegates representing every part of the country and all its needs and aspirations. The most serious peril that threatened the party in power, however, was the uncertain attitude of the old line Democrats. Any just analysis of the vote cast in 1896 showed that Mr. McKinley's election was mainly, if not wholly, due to the support of the Jeffersonians and Jacksonians. These patriotic men were unwavering believers in the principle of the Gold Standard, in the policy of expansion, and in the duty of upholding the integrity of the Federal Courts. Their faith was a mat- ter of fiber in their mental make-up: a matter of political PUBLIC SERVANT 251 heredity developed through several generations. They claimed, and rightly, that Jefferson made it possible for the country to grow with its requirements when he intro- duced the policy of Expansion into American affairs by the Louisiana Purchase; that Jackson had put the Republic on the gold basis; and that the Federal Judi- ciary was the very child of Democracy and the apple of its eye. When the crowd without political ancestry obtained control of the party organization at Chicago, in 1896, nominated Mr. Bryan as a Democrat, and proclaimed the platform attacking all their cherished political prin- ciples, these Jefferson and Jackson men abandoned the organization in a body. They would have formed a great third party but for their conviction that it was their duty to stamp Populism out of political affairs by the most available means at hand. When they realized that the Republicans were sincerely advocating real Demo- cratic principles, especially those of Sound Money, Expansion and Conservation of the powers of the Federal Courts, they gradually, but without effort at recognition, went over to the Republican ranks and gave them the numerical strength needed for victory. It cannot be denied, however, that in 1900 the Dem- ocrats had not been satisfied entirely with Republican management. The conviction had grown among them that it would be better to reorganize the old party. A powerful general movement towards this had com- menced. It had been materially helped by the Corbin- Miles affair, in which, the Democrats believed, the man- agement of the Spanish War had been taken away from the competent commanding general and placed in the hands of a bureau chief as an act of personal favoritism; 252 MARTIN B. MADDEN by the Alger matter, by the Porto Rican tariff tangle, the management in Cuba, the protracted fighting in the Philippines, and the continually recurring controversy over the Sampson-Schley dispute. A conviction had spread that the Republicans, instead of appreciating the value of Democratic aid, were averse to permitting any Democrat to obtain a career or achieve popular distinction. It is now apparent that if the Democrats had got together again and put up an old line man of character and ability at Kansas City, the result of the election in 1900 might have been different. It seems now as if the Republican party could not have successfully withstood the defection. This, at least, was the prevailing belief among the Democrats throughout the South, East and Middle West. How strong this belief was, and what a powerful inspiration it afforded, was shown when at Kansas City it appeared for a while possible to nominate David B. Hill instead of Bryan. The Convention simply went wild with delirious hope; the cheers for the New Yorker at one of his appearances lasted in full volume for fifteen minutes. ; If that nomination had gone to Hill, the Republicans would not have been able to use any of the arguments which made" them so strong before the people in the following campaign. The Democrats would have had the arguments, and the Republicans would have been on the defensive from start to finish, with master hands keeping them explaining. Many students of public affairs contend that if Tam- many Hall had supported Hill at Kansas City he would have been nominated. Mr. Croker, while entertaining in London a friend of the writer, a short time before the Kansas City Convention, freely discussed the political PUBLIC SERVANT 253 prospects. He seemed to entertain the belief then that his party could win in the fall of 1900 if it could nomi- nate a Democrat "and at the same time make the plat- form Democratic. " Otherwise, he preferred to have the Republicans retain the management of the Government, rather than have the Populists get it. He was asked what his policy would be in case he found at Kansas City that it would not be possible to secure a Democratic plat- form. His reply indicated that in that event Tammany would prevent the nomination and sacrifice of a real Democrat, and welcome a defeat so disastrous that it would result in the total elimination of Mr. Bryan from Democratic politics. He added: M The best thing then would be to let them make a platform as bad as possible; the worse the better." The Illinois men had thoroughly informed themselves about the trend of affairs in the Democratic party and were amazed at the lack of knowledge respecting it among many of the Eastern, Southern and Western dele- gates. They set themselves to the task of arousing their colleagues to proper appreciation of the real condition and to the work of correcting it so far as lay in their power. With characteristic energy they quickly formed a sort of "steering committee." This was composed of such men as Mr. Cannon, member from the Dansville district and Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, Congressman Reeves, of La Salle, and men like th£se, who had been especially active in all the congressional detail work appertaining to the conduct of the Spanish War, and knew the needs of the Middle West. These gentlemen, as Mr. Cannon expressed it, "went on a cate- chising expedition," for the purpose of finding a dele- 254 MARTIN B. MADDEN gate "well-up" on the questions of the day, especially on those respecting the Inter-Oceanic Canal, Labor, and Currency, to act for the Middle West on the Committee on Resolutions. The inquisitors put many a strong man through what the Appropriations Chairman described as a "course of sprouts. " Finally, they applied the cate- chism to Mr. Madden, who was one of the Chicago dele- gates. "He is our man," said Cannon, "he knows more than any other man we've met about the whole situation. Where he ever learned it all, I can't even guess. But he has the knowledge. What's more, he possesses the faculty of irresistible statement. What's even better yet, he has the energy and force of character to accomplish. He knows things; can get at things; can do things. He is our man." The result was that Mr. Madden was unanimously deputed by the Illinois delegates to represent their state in the Committee on Resolutions. He accepted the task, realizing fully what he was expected to do. At the very first session of the committee it was ascertained that the party managers, having failed to induce any specialized action on the part of any of the leading delegates, had prepared a programme and had done the best in their power. But, as good as was their work, it was not of the representative and comprehensive character which the Illinois delegate thought the situa- tion demanded. It took but a few words to impress this upon all the members of the committee, and they went to work and framed a fresh platform covering the whole ground anew, each member phrasing the part his espe- cial ability qualified him the best to indite. The result was what is by many conceded to be the best platform ever enunciated by the Republican party, CHAPTER XXVII. WRITING THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM FOR I9OO— INSERTS THE WORD ISTHMIAN — SECURES FAIR PLAY FOR FRANCE. THE Inter-Oceanic Canal question was the one the Mid- dle West was most interested in. If matters had been allowed to drift as they were going at first, the party would have been committed in its declaration of prin- ciples to a specific route, as a rich company of Americans interested in that route had been skillfully exploiting it. Mr. Madden had all along been opposed to this as a National policy, and he had done all in his power, while engaged in the work of forming public opinion, to pre- vent it. His argument was substantially as follows: He was in favor of the better route of the two.. If other routes should be discovered he would be in favor of the best. The main thing was to get a canal across the Isthmus. It would expedite American international trade, keep down transportation charges across the coun- try, and give us the use of our entire navy for the pro- tection of either of our coasts. Hitherto, our navy had been considered mainly an Eastern defense. Now that the Chinese territorial and trade questions were being pressed upon the world, our Pacific coast was becoming equal in importance to our Atlantic in the matters of use and necessity of defense. The canal problem had ceased to be solely one of trade — of shortening distance to and 255 256 MARTIN B. MADDEN from markets, and regulating and lessening transporta- tion charges. It was now chiefly a question of national boundary. The Nicaragua line might be the best. The Amer- ican syndicate exploiting it insisted it was. We natur- ally hoped our men were right. A commission was now on the ground examining into that phase of the question. The science of French engineering, on the other hand, had decided that the Panama route was better. The French route was shorter, and, with ample means, might afford a waterway without locks, and wholly on tide level. This, the Nicaragua could not do. The latter, besides, was said to be subject to volcanic tipheavals. These occurred sometimes in Lake Nicaragua. They would be a menace to the channel, and might make it impassable to our ships during a foreign war, rendering the whole canal useless in a crisis. He did not say he took stock in these or any other arguments against the Nicaragua route. He simply stated them as they were made. If the Republican party should be tied to the project of the Nicaragua route and then should elect its ticket, and in carrying out the party's pledge the second Administration of Mr. McKinley should construct the canal across Nicaragua, what would the country say if events should prove the instability of the route? Especially if France should have gone on and finished the Panama Canal? No one could doubt that the French would build the Panama Canal if we did not. They would do so even if we should construct a waterway across Nicaragua. They would do this because they were committed to the task, had faith in the route as the best and had invested a PUBLIC SERVANT 257 couple of hundred millions in the work. They were cer- tain that if both canals should be completed, the Panama would be more used by the world than the Nicaragua, because shorter, cheaper and safer. If we committed ourselves to the Nicaragua, the French would not retreat from the Panama. Our action would then simply bring about the construction of two canals, as the Panama would unquestionably be built. In that event, the Isthmus of Panama would always be a theater of international rivalry, misunderstanding and complication. With two Isthmian canals in operation, the United States would possess no advantage not possessed by our rivals and even by our enemies. With but one canal, our proper dominance on this continent would remain unim- paired and tmimperiled. France simply insisted that a canal be built across the Isthmus along the best way, which she claimed was the Panama route. She would rather have the United States build it than have any other power do it, even herself. She stood ready to yield her place and all her rights in the Panama Canal enterprise to the United States. Her position was friendly and above suspicion. It would not do to say that this was "not business, it is sentiment." The French were both "business" and "sentimental."' They were lovable because they were sentimental. Lafayette was sentimental in our Revolu- tion; so were all his countrymen. There was no "busi- ness" at all in what they then did for us; it was all "sen- timent." The most that could be justly urged against France's proposition was that she might be mistaken about the 17 258 MARTIN B. MADDEN Panama being the best route. But suppose, after we had built the Nicaragua Canal and France had completed the Panama, we should find that we had made a mistake and that France was right! The error would then be irremediable. France was our friend. She had always been. She had been as good a friend when we were in need of sol- diers and sailors as she had been in our most envied - prosperity. It would not be fair to our friend, France, to decide against her proposition before we got through with our investigation of all the possible routes for a canal across the Isthmus. To decide in favor of .any one route against the French before we had completely investigated all the routes, would be to affront a friendly people without any reason at all, and be doing a very foolish thing anyway. It was contended by some of the best engineers in the world that the only advantage the Nicaragua route had over the Panama route lay in the matter of expense ; that is, that we could build a canal by Lake Nicaragua for less money than it would cost us to buy out the French claim and finish the Panama ditch. The conten- tion was not at all reasonable, because the French had not yet made to us their last offer. Any suggestion of haggling on our part with France would be painful to most Americans. They would resent it as ungracious and insist on having France treated as a welcome negotiator, at the very least. She was so anxious to have what she deemed the best route used that it was more than probable that if Jionest investigation should show that the Panama route was as good as that of Nicaragua in all matters but that of PUBLIC SERVANT 259 expense, she would offer to sell out to us at any loss tfrat might induce us to take and complete her undertaking. He was not arguing for the French route, nor for the Nicaragua route. He was simply for a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by the best route across the Isthmus. Which was the best route had not yet been ascertained. Until it was ascertained he objected to having the Republican party committed to any route. He wished and urged to have the party pledged irre- vocably to the work of constructing a canal across the Isthmus by the best route that could be found. Until it could be decided which was the best route, and until the route offered to us by our friends, the French, was decided not the best, he protested against having the Republican party committed to the injustice of barring the French proffer from the negotiations. He recommended that the plank on the canal question should simply pledge the party, in the event of success in the coming election, to build an Isthmian canal, leav- ing the question of route entirely open, to be settled as the facts to be yet developed warranted. The Committee on Resolutions requested Mr. Mad- den to prepare a plank on the canal question. While he was doing this, other members composed planks on the same subject. When they were finished and handed in, on the motion of Senators Foraker and Cushman Davis, the plank prepared by the Illinois man was unanimously adopted and it was ordered inserted in the platform as the official expression of the attitude of the Republican party on the question. The plank is as follows: 4fc We favor the Construction, Ownership and Protec- 260 MARTIN B. MADDEN tion of an Istnmian Canal by the Government of tne United States. New markets are necessary for the increasing surplus of our farm products. Every effort should be made to open and obtain new markets, espe- cially in the Orient, and the Administration is warmly to be commended for its successful effort to commit all trading and colonizing nations to the policy of the Open Door in China." When the text of the platform was given to the press, a rough storm was raised over the word " Isth- mian* * in the Canal plank. The great majority of the newspapers had committed themselves to the Nica- raguan route so unreservedly as to seem astounded at the mention of the possibility of any other. It was not long before some papers attempted to "get away from their mistake" by raising the cries of "fraud*' and "bribery." These cries soon became general and concerted, and at last were directed unmistakably at ex-Congressman Lemuel Quigg, of New York. He had acted as Secretary of the Committee on Resolutions, and it had been his business to take the resolutions as they were passed, arrange them in their proper order, and attend to the printing of them. Soon the story was whispered about that opponents of the Nicaragua line had paid Quigg a large sum of money for the insertion of the word "Isth- mian" instead of the word "Nicaraguan" in the Canal plank after the platform had been reported by the Com- mittee on Resolutions to the Convention of delegates as a whole and had been by the Convention read, approved and ordered published, and when correction was impos- sible. This detailed story was readily believed and was hav- PUBLIC SERVANT 261 ingf a bad effect. It was telegraphed all over the country. When it reached Kansas City, where the Pop- ulists were assembling to nominate Mr. Bryan as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, it had such a virtuous effect on their political rectitude that they ran the party they had got control of straight into the grasp of the Eastern syndicate, ' k by fixing their Canal plank unalterably for the Nicaragua route. In Washington, New York and Philadelphia political excitement over the Quigg story was in no wise allayed by all the denials made by members of the Committee on Resolutions. The Opposition party papers realized that if the scandal was well founded it was a thing to be 44 worked for all it was worth," and their correspondents covering the Convention were instructed to keep at the probe and exposure. W. E. Curtis at length agreed to accommodate a syndicate of these writers by using his personal acquaintance with various members of the com- mittee to ascertain the real truth. "There is one man on the committee," said Curtis, "whose word, one way or the other, will settle the thing forever. He is never in any 'deal,-' never in the dark, never in any kind of 4 mix-up,' and is always fixed to tell a newspaperman the exact truth. I'll go to him. " He went, and, put- ting the Committeeman on his honor and stating the case, said, 44 Is the story true?" 44 There is not a word of truth in it," was the reply. 44 1 myself wrote the Canal plank. I put the word 'Isth- mian' in it. The plank as published is exactly as I wrote it, word for word, comma for comma, period for period." 44 There is nothing in it, gentlemen," answered Curtis, to the expectant and excited group of reporters awaiting 262 MARTIN B. MADDEN him. "M. B. Madden says he wrote the plank, 'Isth- mian' and all, and that the committee and the Convention adopted it exactly as it is published. That settles it. There is no more to say. " Less enlightened journalists elsewhere, however, kept the scandal up. When the delegates had all gone home a prominent Republican newspaper in Chicago revived the story with large headlines* in a first column article. In this Quigg was circumstantially accused of having accepted $5,000 in cash for erasing the word "Nicara- gua. " Mr. Madden was home at the time, and 'phoned the editor the truth and some light on the whole subject. The reparation Mr. Quigg received was a sub- sequent editorial in which it was argued that "even if the gentleman did receive $5,000 for putting the word 'Isth- mian' in the Canal plank, he has performed a very meri- torious service for the country ; and for an exceedingly trivial sum has kept the Republican party out of a very deep and a very dangerous hole." Statesmen are fond of pointing out the influence of single words in determining the popular vote in our Republic. The accidental, or the calculated, use of the words "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" by the Rev. Dr. Burchard, while describing the Democratic opposi- tion to Mr. Blaine, during an address of welcome to him at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York, defeated for the Presidency the greatest Protectionist this country ever had and elected the greatest Free Trader. The insertion of the word "Gold" in the financial plank of the St. Louis platform in 1896 probably drew more .votes away from the Democratic party to the organization which by the use of that word dared show its real convic- PUBLIC SERVANT 263 tions than all the other efforts in that campaign com- bined. It was not easy to obtain the substitution of the word "Isthmian" for that of "Nicaraguan" in the Canal plank of the Philadelphia platform, and it was difficult to get the word "Gold" adopted at St. Louis. The plat- form use of the former word has had a great effect on public affairs; as had the platform use of the latter, although in a different way. It is an extraordinary fact that both the words "Gold" and "Isthmian" were got into the Republican platforms by Illinois men, and that in the case of each word the same man was conspicuous in the task of alter- ation. When consideration is given to the great change in public sentiment on the Inter-Oceanic Canal question during the few months elapsed since the Philadelphia Convention, the adoption of the word "Isthmian" there reveals political insight almost approaching prophecy. The United States, as matters now look, may take France's place on the Isthmus, and thus vastly augment the amity between the two Republics, instead of becom- ing a losing rival and sacrificing one of the two most valuable friendships this nation has ever had among the powers of the world. Many of the chief managers of the Republican party have said to the writer that they "never could be thank- ful enough for the salvation effected by that little word 'Isthmian. ' " The Illinois delegate who secured this "salvation, " when asked how he enjoyed the reward of his virtue, mod- estly turned the subject aside by replying: "Illinois desired the word in the platform. I was the representa- 264 MARTIN B. MADDEN tive of the state delegated to procure the adoption of the word. I simply did what I was entrusted to do. What is the representative of a state to do but try to carry out the known wishes of his state? He cannot properly do anything else." CHAPTER XXVIII. SAVES THE REPUBLICAN PARTY FROM COMMITTING A BLUNDER— A WITTY SPEECH. THE attendance at the Philadelphia Convention was greater than that at any of the previous assem- blages of the Republican party. When it became gener- ally known that the Committee on Resolutions had settled down to the work of framing a declaration of principles it was at once beset with delegations representing every conceivable sort of interest, pleading for hearings. Most of these bodies were sent by commercial organizations to secure declarations favoring modifications in the Spanish War taxes affecting their commodities. All of them were well equipped with arguments to show that if the taxes were not removed or reduced, business would be pros- trated and the responsible party swept from power. The richest and most powerful organization of this kind that was able to compel a hearing was the United States Brewers' Association. This represented practi- cally all the beer making establishments in the United States, employing several hundred thousand voters and possessing several hundred million dollars in capital; besides the allied interests, such as those of barley rais- ing, hop culture, corn and rice growing, barrel making, retail selling, etc. The Association had held a general congress in Philadelphia in the April preceding the Con- vention, had had several committees before Congress, 265 266 MARTIN B. MADDEN and at the Treasury and Internal Revenue Departments, and had had its case powerfully presented in a full- page article in Postmaster-General Smith's paper, the Philadelphia Press, about the time the delegates began to arrive to attend the Convention. The brewers made a most powerful argument. The beer industry during the Civil War had submitted cheer- fully to the imposition of a tax of one dollar a barrel. When nearly all the other Civil War taxes were removed, the beer tax was left untouched and it still was collected. The brewers had not only always cheerfully paid it, but had so assisted the Government by various ingenious devices for collection as to practically make impossible any frauds on the beer revenue. When taxes were assessed for the expenses of the war against Spain, an additional dollar per barrel was laid on beer, while two-thirds of the articles that had yielded war revenue during the Rebellion were left untaxed. The profit to the manufac- turer on a barrel of beer was only eight) 7 cents. The new tax compelled the brewers to make beer for noth- ing, and besides pay the Government twenty cents a barrel for the privilege of doing business, unless .they found a way to induce the retailers to be satisfied with less in each barrel, and the consumers with less in each glass. The brewers were patriotic and had consented to the tax to help the Government out in its difficulty with Spain. The Government had assured them that the additional tax was for war purposes only and would not be collected after the extra financial demands caused by the war should cease. The war against Spain had been ended now eighteen months, and the tax was still col- lected. It was unfair to the beer industry, which was PUBLIC SERVANT 267 being crippled by the excessive burden. It had already paid $7 1,000,000 of the war expenditures and was entitled to relief. Notwithstanding the great prosperity attend- ing every other business in the country there was general impending bankruptcy in that of brewing beer because , of the long continuance of the excessive war revenue tax, and during the preceding year the output had fallen off more than one million barrels. The argument was cogent and was well received, and the brewers received assurance that the Republican party would protect their interest by a fair reduction of taxation as soon as the expenses occasioned by the war should warrant it. Then a movement was started by some ill-advised persons to have the Brewers' Association attempt to compel the Resolutions Committee to insert in the plat- form a special plank in favor of cheaper beer. Strange as it may seem, this movement became absolutely power- ful and was advocated by some of the most prominent men in the country. The crisis in this crusade came one day when a celebrated advocate, arguing in favor of the party declaring officially for cheaper beer, pushed his thunder into the region of threat. He said beer was the liquid bread of millions of Americans. Other millions of people in this country earned their living in raising or producing the materials that went into the composition of beer. There were other millions still that made their liv- ing by selling beer by the glass, to say nothing of the millions who drank it to quench thirst. The continu- ance of the tax was an oppression of all these people, and they would punish at the polls the party responsible for it. Beer drinking promoted temperance, as the 268 MARTIN B. MADDEN people who consumed it let intoxicating drinks alone. The continuance of the extra tax was hurting the cause of temperance, as was shown by the fact that in the year just past, because of the tax, the people of the country had drunk one million barrels less than they had used during the year before. Gladstone had been thrown out of power in 1885 because to get money to pay the expenses of the Egyptian War he had raised the tax on beer a few pence per barrel. The present government in Great Britain, with a far more expensive war on their hands than ours with Spain, did not dare to increase the beer tax more than a few pennies on the barrel. The present Administration had increased the tax on beer one dollar per barrel. That tax was retained eighteen months after the Spaniards had ceased to fight. It was making the liquid bread of the American people dearer; it was making the poor man's beverage more costly; it was hurting the cause of temperance. If the party in power did not in its platform declare for cheaper beer and the abolition of the extra dollar a barrel, the $650,000,000 invested in the brewing trade in the United States, the 900,000 men employed in the breweries, and the entire German vote in the forty-five states would be thrown against the Republican party in the coming election, and it would be cast out of power as the people's enemy. The delegate from Illinois could stand this no longer. He was entertained, he said, by the argument that the more beer people drank the more temperate they became, and he was grieved to learn that the 250,000 soldiers who had gone to the war used when home four barrels of beer each every twelve months, their absence diminishing the total consumption one million barrels a PUBLIC SERVANT 269 year. Nevertheless, the logic did not convince him that to remedy the situation the Republican party should take the proposed beer stand on its platform. The party would reduce all the war taxes, including that on beer, as soon as it could, and as much as it could. He had no misgivings about the German vote ; the party would no doubt be able to give this vote sufficient reasons for continued adherence. There was one important question he would like to ask the orator: was he in favor of a secret alliance between the United States and England? Having Irish blood in his veins, the speaker replied, hotly: "No, sir; anything else but that." "Would any of the gentlemen in your party be in favor of such an alliance?" "No; they are all Germans." "Would you or they favor committing the Republican party in the coming campaign to a secret alliance with England?"" "No; such a thing would drive the Republican party out of existence." "How would it do that?" "Why, it would stir every Irishman and every Ger- man in the United States to come out and vote against the party on next election day." "Why do you include the Germans?" "Because to a man they are opposed to any secret alliance .between this country and England. On that question they are as bitter as the Irish against Eng- land." "Well, then, that being so, why are you here urging tjiis committee to affirm in its platform that the Repub-- 270 MARTIN B. MADDEN lican party is committed to a secret alliance between the White House and the Palace of St. James?" 4 'Great heavens! We're not here for that — we are trying to get the party to officially declare for cheap beer, for an abolition of the extra dollar a barrel tax, for " 44 Just vSo; you are trying to get this committee to affirm before the world that there is a sort of secret alli- ance between the American Government, as it is carried on by the ' Republican party, and England. You are aware that our political enemies are cultivating a suspi- cion that such an alliance exists. You know that this suspicion, which has no just foundation, is injurious to the Republican party. And yet you come here and ask us to increase the injury by making an official declaration which will be everywhere construed as an affirmation that the suspicion is well founded. 44 The English, according to your own argument, are now paying the greater part of the Spanish War taxes. You ask the Republican party to commit itself to the abolition of those taxes the English are paying so that the world may believe there is an alliance which compels us to give the Britons an advantage over other tax-payers in American trade in return for their neutrality during the war. You know that to select the beer tax for spe- cial reduction would be to reduce the revenue English- men are now paying toward the support of this Govern ment, for nearly all the breweries are at present con- trolled by syndicates owned by Englishmen. I am amazed. ' ' The orator had been unable during this series of retorts to understand the gleam in Madden's eyes, but PUBLIC SERVANT 271 the end of the speech struck him like a thunderbolt. He had been swelling up with speechless indignation, but now he suddenly collapsed, taking relief in the one word, "Gawd!" and vanished, never to return. That ended the argument for beer. It is fairly claimed by Mr. Madden's intimates that he is a master artist in the use of short speech. Whether he can be cleverer in lucid brevity than he is in cogent dalliance with persons slow to perceive may be justly questioned. Whatever surpassed the above specimen of "long lining?" CHAPTER XXIX. PLANS THE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN FOR T90O— NEW SILVER EXPANSION ARGUMENT. WHEN the Illinois delegates to the Philadelphia Con- vention reached home they were received with enthusiasm and complimented upon the manner in which they had kept the state to the fore in the national pro- gramme. Mr. Madden's work in the Committee on Res- olutions, especially that in which he had secured recog- nition of labor, neutrality as to the canal route, and the declaration favoring the establishment of small national banks to afford increased circulation of money in the agricultural regions of the West, was applauded as the chief accomplishment in the platform. He was at once singled out to indicate the line of campaign management best to pursue. He promptly advocated the discussion of three issues: Expansion, Sound Money and Protective Tariff. It was suggested that it might be difficult to urge anything new on either the money or tariff questions. On the con- trary, he answered, both issues had entirely new features and were more important than ever. The tremendous revival of prosperity which had followed McKinley's election, owing to the restoration of confidence that American money would be gold and that American investments in all lines of business would be amply pro- tected from unfair foreign competition, had established 272 PUBLIC SERVANT 273 beyond further dispute that Protection as a national pol- icy was the best. In less than four years it had not only set every idle man in the country to work at high wages and enabled them to furnish a market and pay higher prices for the farm products of the West, but had placed the United States at the very head of the list of exporting nations, turning the balance of trade in our favor, and making of us a lending instead of a borrowing people. We had now, however, to meet a new difficulty, and one more serious than any we had yet encountered. That was the coming Chinese competition. China was prepar- ing to modernize and go into trade as a competitor against Christendom for the manufacturing trade of the world. The competition of Europe, which Protection had enabled us to meet and overcome, was insignificant when compared to the possibilities of the threatened rivalry of China. The conditions in the Celestial Empire were ideal for the change: inexhaustible quantities of raw material, a homogeneous population of skilled laborers of great intelligence, industry and frugality, and a gen- eral conviction that it would pay them, numbering nearly half the human race, to quit farming an over-cultivated land and buy their food with money obtained by manufac- turing. Until we knew just what we were to encounter from Oriental competition, it would be wise to cherish our Protective policy and to yield nothing of it except on the lines of reciprocity, where that might help the exten- sion of our trade in Europe. Bryan's nomination was certain. That would compel another discussion of the money question. In this the Republicans would have all the advantage. Bryan could offer nothing new, and most of what he had already 18 274 MARTIN B. MADDEN said was contradicted by the events of the past four years. Prices of agricultural products had risen without the aid of free coinage of silver, which he had claimed was necessary to any enhancement of values; idleness had disappeared, in the face of his contention that it would increase unless free coinage was restored ; and the cir- culation of money had been vastly enlarged while the price of it had fallen, contrary to the Populist's argument that interest would rise to the enslaving point and circu- lation decrease to that of bankruptcy if the Gold Standard was adopted. While Bryan would be reduced to dealing in discred- ited "chestnuts," as his own tired followers were call- ing his platitudes, the management of the Republican party had developed a situation that made probable a real solution of the silver problem. It was extraordinary, too, that whilst the party in power had committed itself to conditions which made the solution possible, Bryan had pledged himself to a policy exactly calculated to deprive silver of the best chance it had of regaining full rehabilitation in value. The modernizing of China depended upon the maintenance of the integrity of the empire. Our acquisition of the Philippines had made of us an Oriental power. We were now a neighbor of China, owning "adjoining lots." Our main interest in the country was that of trade, that of the open door. No power as far away as Europe would think of closing any Celestial door to us so long as we remained in the Philippines. Our stay there meant the preservation of the integrity of China, and, therefore, its modernization. The Republican party had resolved to remain. The resolution had been taken for purely patriotic PUBLIC SERVANT 275 reasons and was subject to overthrow by a popular vote. If the American people had been warned by any reput- able statesman that war with Spain would result in occupation of the Philippines, that undesired result would unquestionably have prevented declaration of war. The war was waged for high-minded and entirely disinter- ested purposes, in none of which did the Oriental ques- tion in any shape even suggest itself. When the fortune of war compelled the Union to go to Manila, it trans- pired there, though unthought of before, that to leave might be disastrous. The flag was carried there because it had to go. When there it became necessary to raise it, and then no good reason could be found by those who put it up for taking it down. When China modernized, Mr. Madden went on, she would require a vast amount of money, more than all the rest of the world together. Her people practically dealt in cash with one another. They had reduced the art of living on the least possible to such a low standard that for the ordinary purchases of everyday life they used coins of so small a denomination that an American silver dollar would in some parts of the country bring 2,500 of them. The number of these little coins given in the exchange represented exactly the number of parts into which the people could clip the metallic dollar acceptable as standard money in exchange. Gold was not suffi- ciently divisible for general use as standard money in a country like that. Silver was. Hence, silver was the standard money now in u^e by the Chinese and probably always would be. Wages would no doubt rise in that country after its modernization, but it was hardly pos- sible they ever would get sufficiently high to permit the 276 MARTIN B. MADDEN general use of gold as standard money. Silver would, therefore, remain the common standard coin of the Chinese. When their nation should be modernized thor- oughly the increased demand for standard money in that country would be so enormous that it would trouble the world to yield enough precious metal to meet it, and that natural demand would open every silver mine capable of yielding an ounce and raise the value of silver perhaps even above the price of '73. The retention of the Philippines, then, would solve the Silver question, solve it forever, and solve it for the American producer in a more satisfactory way than any before proposed. But Bryan, who neither understood the Silver question nor the question of locating the Amer- ican flag, was opposed to the retention of the Philippines. He was committed to their abandonment in case he got to the White House as Presidential occupant. The Sil- ver men of the country, Mr. Madden thought, would see to it that the greatest living enemy of American silver would retain his residence in Nebraska, where he would be unable to interfere with the integrity of China and our market there for the white metal. Expansion, Mr. Madden contended, would be the most interesting theme in the campaign. § It was a Dem- ocratic policy and would be inspiring to those Democrats who had helped the Republicans elect McKinley to his first term. It would induce them to support him again. Their conduct in 1896 had been especially high-minded and patriotic. Their party was older than the Republi- can, had more traditions, had put more laws on the statute books, had produced a larger number of public men. It had conducted the affairs of the Republic for a PUBLIC SERVANT 277 longer time and had inspired a noble loyalty exceedingly difficult to break away from. Yet these men, from pure principle and love of the country's honor and good name, had torn themselves away from old political affiliations and given the Republican candidate a sufficient suffrage to defeat their own nominee. This magnificent mani- festation of patriotism had startled the world by exhibit- ing the enduring character of American institutions and had inspired McKinley's administration with breadth and statesmanship. These loyal Democrats were proud of their work in 1896 and anxious to repeat it, for they had the satisfactory reward of seeing a Republican administration carrying out Democratic policies for the country's development. Thousands of Democrats who had abandoned their party in 1896 but had refrained from voting, would now support McKinley because he "was a better Democrat than Bryan." The argument for Expansion, as presented by the Republicans, Mr. Madden pointed out, had so many extraordinary phases of patriotic as well as material interest for the country as a whole, and for particular localities, especially for Illinois and Chicago, that Bryan's opposition to it looked like an act of Providence devised to arouse the American people to array themselves solidly before the world on a question of international justice, for future effect on mankind. This attitude would produce the largest majority in favor of Expansion ever given in the country for any national policy. A consideration of some of the conditions that com- pelled the Americans to remain in the Philippines after they went there on a simple naval expedition would make this manifest. Dewey had been ordered to overtake and 278 MARTIN B. MADDEN destroy the Spanish fleet in the Pacific. Ascertaining that it was at Manila he went there to carry out the order. After he had "overtaken and destroyed," the Spaniards practically surrendered to him the Archipelago. Then some foreign fleets appeared. It was at first sus- pected they had followed our ships for unfriendly pur- poses. ; When this suspicion was found unjust, their presence still remained unexplained until our Government learned what had been going on in China. The Govern- ment of that country some time before had discovered, in an effort to take a census of its population, that it had reached a point in numbers where it exceeded the ability of the land longer to feed it. Then began the effort to find a solution of the awful national trouble. The one Li Hung Chang had determined to try was to modernize the country, put it to work utilizing its vast natural min- eral resources in manufacture, and buy its food instead of longer attempting to obtain it from the exhausted ground. What made the change more imperative was the additional discovery that the rice of the country, the main food of the immense population, had begun to rapidly deteriorate in nutriment as a result of the long continued in-breeding of centuries. The Chinese states- men carrying on the paternal government of the coun- try, after exhaustive study, had concluded to effect the substitution of flour, and had surveyed the wheat lands of the whole world, seeking a source of supply. They had concluded that the lands of the United States, if all brought into cultivation, would about produce sufficient wheat for China's impending wants. These hard-headed pagans never thought of calculating upon any other plan of bringing about the substitution of flour for rice among PUBLIC SERVANT 279 their famishing countrymen than the natural one of the law of supply and demand. They knew that once China's policy was decided upon and made known to the world, lands capable of producing wheat would be brought into cultivation just as rapidly as the demand for thefr product called for it. The rice would not at once disappear. If it should the Chinese race would dis- appear from the earth, as the world could not produce in a season the additional 2,800,000,000 bushels of wheat it would take to keep the people of China alive. How- ever rapidly the rice might fail, so long as it did not fail altogether in a few seasons, flour would be produced sufficiently to take its place, even if that result had to be obtained by public opinion forcing the American Govern- ment to use its rich treasury to quickly water the rich volcanic soil in the West. China was unobtrusive and did not take the world much into confidence. But many other nations main- tained agents in friendly territory, and their business was to keep their home governments apprised of what was going on. By such means various powers had learned of the arranging revolution in China, a thing that was bound to upset the whole world, dislodge all established calculations and make of that territory that furnished the Chinese their new food the richest land Christendom had ever imagined. Then there was a scurrying to get shares in the new deal. As if by concert certain powers appeared on Chinese territory and there were rumors of a division, of the taking of ports for the control of trade, of spheres of influence, and of many other similar things. The United States was not in the thing at all, didn't seem even to know what was going on or what the fuss in 280 MARTIN B. MADDEN China was about. When it was agreed what part of Kwang-Su's empire each Christian country was to take, the trespassers thought it necessary to secure bases of operation near by. The Chinese might resist, other nations might interfere with the plan of dismemberment and occupation. Japan had secured Formosa and Eng- land had Hong-Kong. No available base was left but the Philippine Archipelago. That belonged to Spain. Rumors began to obtain currency that negotiations had been opened with Spain for the purchase of the Philip- pines by one or more of the powers mixed up in the con- templated spoliation of China. Just at this critical time Dewey arrived upon the scene. When he found that the fleets hovering about him meant no harm to him, a search was made for the reason of their presence. It gradually leaked out that the powers thought America didn't want the islands. Nor did it. The powers also believed Dewey would abandon them and then they would be left to appropriation, Spain having deserted them. It was not strange that the Administra- tion at Washington took it into its head to inquire into the whole matter to find out just why these powers were so anxious to obtain islands that had no apparent value to us. Such an inquiry did not have to be pushed far before it brought its followers right into the heart of the whole Chinese question, the largest one in the world. Now then, when the inquirers saw that if China were let alone and permitted to work out her own destiny, the result would be a greater trade upon the Pacific than the Atlantic ever saw; large cities on our western coast, centers for a denser population there than now inhabited the eastern shore; every acre of tillable land in the vast PUBLIC SERVANT 281 region between the Mississippi and Puget Sound farmed to raise food for China: millions of dollars invested in transcontinental railroads for every thousand then — what would they suggest, what would they advise? Espe- cially, when it was plain that if China were torn apart, our West would remain in slow development? To let the Philippines go meant the latter. To hold them meant the former. It seemed to be a case of special interfer- ence by Providence. His yellow children in China were hungry and had obeyed the Divine law of increase until they now had not enough land to yield them food. His white children in America had land to spare for that. The President was a Christian and naturally inclined to say: Providence desired the Americans to feed the Chinese. Therefore He had prevented the would-be-dismemberers of that empire from obtaining the base needed to carry out their design and had led us into the possession of it. With that feeling in his heart, what was the President's duty? Well, he ordered the American flag raised over the Philippines and commanded that it be kept there until his countrymen should pass upon the whole ques- tion 6*f retention or rejection by popular vote. The flag was still up and so would remain if the majority favored having the United States feed China and the West hav- ing its opportunity for symmetrical development with the rest of the land. It would come down, the powers have the islands donated to them as a base for China's dismemberment, and America remain half desert if Bryan won. Mr. Madden had no doubt about what the West would do on such a proposition, nor any misgiving at all about the attitude Illinois would take. CHAPTER XXX. MAKES THE BEST PUBLIC STATEMENT ON TRUSTS — PROPOSES THE BEST SOLUTION. IV IO public question has arisen in American affairs dur- I i ing the past ten years that has aroused so much discussion as that of Trusts. It has been a porcupiny subject to most of our public men, the majority of whom lead professional lives and possess as a rule theoretical knowledge only of trade questions. If our legislatures had been composed more largely of experienced business men the trust question would long ago have received courageous and intelligent treatment, and perhaps now be settled satisfactorily, at least so far as such a question can be settled by law. During the Presidential campaign of 1900 the people in many states, and those of Illinois especially, irrespec- tive of party, gave many evidences of a wish to have the question of trusts discussed on the stump. WUh one exception, no public speaker on either side undertook to make the desired exposition. Mr. Bethea, the United States District Attorney in Illinois, who had given the subject -much study, urged every prominent orator who filled an engagement in his territory during that cam- paign to devote some time in his speech to the trust problem. Not one of them complied until Mr. Madden was advertised to make an address. He was a large employer of labor and the President and Manager of one 282 PUBLIC SERVANT 283 of the greatest business combinations in the state, an enterprise which at that time was operating no less than twelve consolidated companies. It was thought that he knew all about trusts and could thoroughly explain their composition and methods, as well as indicate their dan- gerous or beneficial tendencies. He did not hesitate at all in accepting Mr. Bethea's invitation and agreed to devote his whole speech to the subject. This agreement was extensively advertised and brought in a large audi- ence of interested and critical people. Mr. Madden kept his word, stated the whole question clearly and com- pletely, and gave, what had not yet been done and what has not been done by any other public man, a rational, fair and effective solution of the whole trust trouble. Pn the beginning, Mr. Madden pointed out the con- stitutional limits of legal interference with the free em- ployment of capital. If a man, or a number of men, put any amount of money into a private business requiring and getting no public favors, they could not be restrained from letting their profits be added to their capital, nor from increasing it personally in any other honest way, no matter how large it oecame. It was only where capital operated in a corporate way, under some charter, or franchise, or public permission, that the law could be invoked to interfere. Then the interference would have to be confined to preventing the use of the capital for any other purpose than that plainly or impliedly expressed in the grant of incorporation. In all such cases the remedy was either by revocation of the act permitting the incorporation or by other corrective local legislation or litigation. No political remedy could be applied. Where the legal redress, which usually was ample, was 284 MAkTIN B. MADDEN not correctively used, the fault lay in either the apathy, the ignorance or the infidelity of the legislative or law officers of the injured locality. The people living there could by suffrage eject them from office and substitute other officials to properly restrain or destroy the offend- ing corporations. The speaker was of the opinion, however, that it was not these ' "reachable" corporations the people were alarmed about, but that the public concern was princi- pally, if not altogether, regarding the tendency toward those vast combinations of capital which operated all over the country with a view toward monopolizing the handling of things of universal use and the control of the labor necessary to both produce them and distribute them after they were made. It was feared corporate control of production and distribution might enslave labor as well as rob the public of its independence. To that phase of the problem he would devote his remarks and apply the remedy he was ready to propose. It had not become a purely party problem because no alignment was possible on it that would include all the Democrats on one side and all the Republicans on the other by either personal or political bias or interest. The trust stocks were held indiscriminately by members of both parties, and had been, and were still, purchased solely as business and financial investments for the pur- pose of making money. They afforded about the most inviting field for the risk of large capital in this country, and the prospects were that they would continue to be so attractive for the many years the United States had before them the assured development of their enormous natural advantages. These were yet in the initial stages PUBLIC SERVANT 285 of utilization and sufficient altogether to put the country in mastery, of the trade of the present civilized world and maintain it in that supremacy for a long period, if not for all time. As the world stood, the territory of the American Union was the only large region that could supply its own people with all necessary food and man- ufactures and have surpluses of both to sell. All other countries had to buy either food or manufactures; this alone needed not to buy either, and could sell both. After supplying its own needs, it could furnish all of Europe with manufactured goods; after feeding its own people, it could assure the people of Europe all the food they wanted, for less than they could raise it themselves. In one year after the political economists had concluded that the world had reached the limit of wheat produc- tion, the United States had increased their yield nearly 300,000,000 bushels; and did so without bringing into cul- tivation more than a mere fraction of their irrigable lands. The immense increase of American trusts recently noticed with alarm had followed and been stimulated by the growth of the nation's foreign trade and had been the principal instrumentality in its development, either in the work of transporting agricultural products by land and water or the handling of our iron and steel output. It would, therefore, be found impossible to interfere, wisely or unwisely, in the growth or management of trusts without affecting favorably or injuriously the growth and development of our foreign trade. On the other hand, however, because of this very general oper- ation of trust capital and of the national character of its influence for good or evil, the question of regulation 286 MARTIN B. MADDEN became easier, as it placed that within Federal supervision and subject to popular vote. So long as a trust operated within a . single state, Washington could not very well interfere; but when its work became general in effect upon national industry or interest, the voters could reach it and the Government would be forced to regulate its management. The tendency was towards general oper- ation, and Federal regulation was becoming imminent. This could not very well be partisan, because trust evils were not of party production. The factors that would control the settlement were two — the interest of labor and the welfare of the consumer. The workingmen of the country were especially intel- ligent on all public matters affecting their own welfare. What they most desired was steady employment at fair wages. They knew that reduction in the mechanical cost of production increased employment by enlarging demand for the things made, and perceived plainly that aggregations of capital effected this more than any other instrumentality. The smaller employer often closed his factory when improved machinery was beyond his means. That brought idleness to his men. The richer employer, who could afford to substitute the improved methods, kept on and continued paying wages. The larger the capital the employer had the less danger there was of stoppage of work, and the better the prospect of increased wages through augmented consumption. Even where the question was not one of employing better methods, large capital was more likely to keep a mill running than small capital would be, because less disposed to hazard the loss in the plant entailed by disuse. A combination, no mat- ter under what name, operating many mills in different PUBLIC SERVANT 287 localities, was more apt to keep them all running all the time than individual ownership would be, and less prone to lessen employment in dull times. In fact, the combi- nation, through its ability to reduce managerial ex- penses, would not require as great .profits in the aggre- gate to meet dividends as would several different compa- nies doing the same amount of work; and could run with profit even in conditions that would be losing to the com- panies. Several organizations owning separately several lines of railway that, connected, would form a continuous road, could not give as good through service for the same price as could one corporation operating the same routes as one, nor could they afford employment for as many hands or keep the same number as steadily engaged, because less able to reduce rates and so attract business. The laboring men of the country understood all this better than the general public. In manufacturing, the ability of the country was now two-fifths greater than its consumption. With all the factories running, the United States would now produce exactly forty per cent, more than it could consume at home. If American manufacturing were limited to the home market, therefore, it would have to curtail employ- ment forty per cent; throw 400 men out of work of every 1,000 now employed. The only present possible method of keeping all the men at work was to find foreign markets for two-fifths of our manufactures. The labor- ing men of the country had a vital interest in the reten- tion and expansion of our foreign trade They knew that it could be both held and increased by great aggrega- tions of capital only. To sell in the Old World was an entirely different thing from selling at home. There 288 MARTIN B. MADDEN payments were much slower, and capital must be able to wait for its pay. Vast amounts of goods must be kept always in great storehouses awaiting orders and armies of agents maintained to seek outlets for the storage. Small companies could not do this, nor could any combination of small concerns do it as well as the vast aggregations of capital now engaged in it They alone could afford the two enormous risks involved — that of money tied up in goods not moving, and of selling either without profit or at a loss. It was no doubt true that American goods were often sold abroad for less than at home. The man- ufacturers had no leaning towards trade of that kind, but were often compelled to get rid of surplus stock at a loss in that way. In some cases they could afford to sell their surpluses abroad without profit, being ahead on the home trade ; in others it might be wise for them to sell at a loss, even to great diminution of their domestic divi- dends. So long as they made surpluses and found markets for them, they kept their factories open and their men employed. This was the main fact to the American workingman. It would be difficult to induce him to antagonize the formation of the gigantic combina- tions of capital that alone made the sales abroad possible. Calling them trusts, the laboring man would say, did not make the result to him any less beneficial. The consumer, though, might naturally take a differ- ent view of the matter. What he wanted was cheap goods. He would resent paying more than the for- eigner, no matter what argument should be brought forward. It would be hard to convince him that a trust was philanthropic and took the risk of finding for- eign markets merely for the purpose of continuing its men PUBLIC SERVANT 289 in employment. He would not even believe in the rea- soning that trusts would rather meet the loss risked in foreign markets than that involved in stopping work, with its consequent deterioration in plant, difficulty in resuming, and impossibility of at once taking good orders that might suddenly develop. He would, of course, be glad to have anything done that would assure constant work and good wages to domestic workingmen, as the whole body of them spent most of what they earned immediately after receiving it, and that put money into circulation and made times good. Nevertheless, the consumer would object to having that done at his expense, as it would seem to be so long as he could not understand entirely why he paid more for what he had to buy than foreigners three thousand miles away did for the same things turned out of the same shops. He would see in the whole business a sort of natural partnership between labor and capital, the one interested in the other, and both interested in high prices at home. What would most affect his opposition to trusts would be the vast amount of visible water in their stocks. Upon this interest would have to be obtained by the managers. They would get it by keeping up prices. " Before the formation of trusts he could see that prices were, as a rule, rather fairly based on the cost of pro- duction. He then had no sound reason against paying them. But when the cost of production had palpably been reduced by consolidation of plants, elimination of management expenses, and discounts on immense pur- chases of raw material, he expected the whole benefit himself. Instead of getting it he saw it retained in dividends. The percentage of earnings on the shares 19 290 MARTIN B. MADDEN was not increased, but their number was. The plants absorbed had not grown in value with the increase in shares. The additional stocks represented no more worth in the properties absorbed, but were devised to keep him from receiving any part of the lessened cost in production. They were water. If watering stock were not a part of the production of trusts, the consumer would be benefited by their formation as well as the capitalists and laborers. It would be of no use to argue with the consumer that when a price had been established and accepted by the people, and was ungrudgingly paid, simply because the thing carrying it was worth it, and a genius came along and devised a method of producing that thing in a cheaper way, the genius was entitled to the sum of his saving, as a reward for that exercise of his talent. If you should instance the highest form of this kind of work — patents — the consumer would respond that the public had a good deal to do with furnishing genius the field necessary for the operation of its talent. He would tell you that inventors were limited to a seventeen years' monopoly, after which the public acquired the whole * value of the. invention, and that even during the term of the monopoly the public had the right, and always used it, of breaking down the inventor's monopoly if he didn't reduce prices, by stimulating other inventors to do it. As his strongest argument against the formation of trusts, the consumer would then tell you that they really never would be formed but for the opportunity they afforded of selling water at high prices. That was the one inducement that drew men of commercial talent into the work of organizing them. The promoters of trusts PUBLIC SERVANT 291 ascertained how much each of the companies to be absorbed was worth at the market; they added all these sums and then arranged for that total of money with which to buy. They then accurately calculated the sav- ing that could be made upon the whole output of these establishments when conducted under one management. They capitalized the amount of the ascertained saving and added this to the sum needed to purchase, and to that aggregate usually put something on account of monopoly. They stocked a corporation for the whole amount, bought the companies out at the arranged prices, sold them to the corporation for the sum of its capital, taking their pay in either cash or new shares. They made the difference between what they bought at and what they sold at without putting anything into the new company but manipulation and water. These promoters seldom had any intention of identifying themselves with the conduct of the business in its new form. As a rule, their sole aim was to make a market for watered stock and then part with it. The opportunities for such spec- ulations were numerous in a rapidly growing country like this, and were the principal, if not the only, cause of the formation of trusts. You would not be able to make any effective reply to the consumer's argument. The question was now reduced to this: what was the best way to prevent the known evils of the trust and at the same time conserve its advantages, without discour- aging the consolidation of capital? If the main inducement to unnecessary promotion were eliminated it would not discourage beneficial combi- nation of capital; in fact, it might encourage it byremov- 292 MARTIN B. MADDEN ing the necessity of paying dividends on anything but actual investment. Capital would then move naturally into advantageous consolidations. The watering of trust stocks made impossible, prices would fall as they should under trust consolidation and management. The consumer would be satisfied with his share of the result, w*hile capital and labor would be as well off in their prospects as before. The best thing to do, Mr. Madden concluded, was to apply the national bank method of supervision to all trusts or other corporations formed to make or handle articles of general necessity or interest, and have the states adopt a similar method of overseeing those whose business was local. He then described the Federal supervision of the banks : how it refused to permit organization until the Govern- ment saw, counted and was satisfied with the capital put up ; how it prevented the issuing of more shares than were paid for in actual value; how it exercised constant watch over the way the banks did business; how it protected the stockholders, the customers, the depositors and the public by frequent inspection of the books and compulsory publicity of the actual condition of the business, ascer- tained by responsible and reliable sworn examination; how the whole Government action prevented speculative promotion and all watering processes, without in any wise interfering with perfect liberty of all honorable action in the way of transacting sound business. It was made plain that while the Government control of the formation of national banks, and its frequent examina- tion of their books, and its periodical enforcement of publication of their actual condition, prevented speculat- PUBLIC SERVANT 293 ive promotion of banks, watering their stocks, and all collusive attempts at controlling either the price of money or its free use, the supervision did not restrict the growth of any proper banking enterprise, but on the contrary encouraged it, while reducing cost to the users of money. Mr. Bethea, and all the auditors agreed with him, declared that Mr. Madden's proposed application of the Federal banking methods to the business of corporations handling things of general necessity and use, would not only solve the trust problem, but would establish the same concord between the large manufacturers and the consumers as now existed between the users of money and the banks that furnished it. In addition, it would vastly increase American production in the same way the banks had assisted in the immense increase and circulation of money. CHAPTER XXXI. PROPOSES AN EFFECTIVE METHOD OF ACCOMPLISHING ANNEXA- TION OF CANADA. SPEAKING on the Canadian question during the cam- paign of 1900, Mr. Madden used the following inter- esting argument: "Every time I look across the St. Lawrence River upon Canada, I am sorry to see that country remaining foreign soil. It should be a part of this Union. The manifest destiny of all North America is to be in the United States. Canada should be in now, and would be but for the tariff policy of the Democratic party, which favors low duties or none at all. Give the Dominion free trade with our country and she will never annex so long as she has it. Give her low duties and she will remain foreign. Put a high tariff against her and she will have to join us for self-protection. Canada cannot live alone without easy access to our market. The easiest entry would be that of free trade. With it she would be foolish to join us and would remain aloof. With a low tariff against her, she could get in all she wanted to for the purposes of trade, and would not come to stay and be governed. But if the customs were made high along our northern border, Canada would plead for the aboli- tion of the boundary. "What we Americans pay for the freedom of the market in these states and territories is taxes, military 294 PUBLIC SERVANT 295 service and the cost of defending the country when it is assailed. When the tariff is low Canada gets this market for less than American citizens pay for it, because the duties she pays are not as much as the taxes we pay, and then we contribute besides military service, which she escapes, as well as she does the other responsibilities that fall on us. With free trade Canada would have our mar- ket for nothing and would take out of the country a great deal of money that left here would make it easier for us to meet the price we always have to pay for that same market. But make the tariff high, so high that it would be cheaper for Canada to come in and pay the price we do than pay the tariff for the market, and she would come in in a hurry, for then it would be foolish to stay out. "The Democratic policy of low tariff is unpatriotic, because it gives the foreigner the American market for less than the American citizen has to pay for it. The Republican policy of Protection, on the other hand, is patriotic, because its aim is to compel the foreigner to contribute towards the support of our Government a sum as nearly as possible equivalent to that the citizen pays for the use of this market. 44 So long as there is any probability that the Demo- cratic party, especially as led by Bryan, who is a Free Trader, may possess the management of American affairs, just that long will Canada hold out. If there could be established a certainty that the Republican party would remain in Washington for an indefinitely long time, an annexation movement would start among the Canadians right away. "The Democratic leaning towards free trade, that 296 MARTIN B. MADDEN unpatriotic policy which pays Canada to remain British territory, incommodes this nation in many ways. For instance: it retards the construction of an inter-oceanic canal by depriving England of an incentive towards helping us in the project instead of placing obstacles in our way. The railway across Canada along our northern boundary is a subsidized road. It is an arm of the Brit- ish military service. When first constructed its chief value to Great Britain lay in the fact that it would enable her to move an army to a part of Asia with greater speed and at less expense than it could be done by any other route. Why did Britain desire to be thus equipped? To get at Russia to circumvent the Bear in his plans in the Orient. Now, Russia is our friend, and once did us the great service of preventing the dismemberment of this Republic. She placed her fleet where it could do us the most good at that critical juncture in our affairs. The Bear did us another good turn. When we were endeavoring to preserve the entire Pacific coast as Amer- ican territory, in the days of the * 54-49, or fight' excite- ment, he growled for us. He again helped us, and our Monroe Doctrine ambition, by ceding Alaska for a bag- atelle, as a sort of notice to the world that the Czar, who was a nearer neighbor than any other European power, thought America ought to be for the Americans. The Czar must have often puzzled himself with the query: 'Why do my friends, the Yankees, permit my enemy to come at me across American territory which they can annex for nothing any time they choose by simply rais- ing their tariff?' He must have thought, our Protector, the Czar must, that our tariff policy was specially arranged to be unfriendly to him, as well as unpatriotic PUBLIC SERVANT 297 and foolish. When I think of this it puzzles me, as well as it must Russia, that any Irishman should ever vote with the Democratic party in this country so long as that party favors free trade. 44 If Canada should join the Union, England would coax us to build the Isthmian Canal. She would like to have it built anyhow. It is a better way, shorter, quicker, cheaper than any other from Europe to Eastern Asia. Great Britain is not now concerned any more to get across America to prevent the Bear from getting out of Russia. He is out. While England has been fooling with the Boers in South Africa, the Bear has got a highway to the Pacific through China. It is all he wants. He owns it and is immovably in possession. So, England would like to see the canal built on general principles. But she likes to bargain. So long as she has the Canadian route she will continue to dicker. In her soul she would cheerfully give Canada and all its belongings to have us dig the canal. That would enable her to get from ocean to ocean with less expense than the Dominion entails. But she does not like to admit this, and does like to say, Til help you in this canal business, for a consideration; you see, I don't need the canal, I have the road across Canada/ But if. we had Canada we'd have the canal, and we'd 4 have' England. 44 The Democratic policy of free trade keeps Canada out of the Union and retards the construction of the canal. 4 'Chicago is going to be the greatest city in America. It will have a waterway to Europe by the St. Lawrence River. It cannot get this route in proper order for the immense trade it is going to carry on direct with Europe 298 MARTIN B. MADDEN without trans-shipment until the St. Lawrence is under United States control. As that control is needed for Chicago's purpose, Chicago will endeavor to procure it. The easiest way will be to bring about annexation. As that can be best accomplished through a sufficiently pro- tective tariff, it stands to reason that Chicago will find a way to make the Democratic unpatriotic policy of free trade, which pays Canada to remain a foreign country, so odious and so unpopular that Canada will find it to her interest to come into the United States, where she belongs, and get the American market by the best pos- sible method, paying the same taxes for it that we pay. "The Protective policy is so essentially American, it is so beneficial in every way, and it is so patriotic, as this application of it shows, that one would think the opposite policy too hateful for any man living in this country to espouse." CHAPTER XXXII. OPPOSES FREE CHINESE IMMIGRATION — SOME NEW AND CONVINC- ING ARGUMENTS. THE organization started in this country five years ago by Wong Chin Foo, under the name of the 44 Chinese Equal Rights League," is, according to reports from Washington, to be placed under the active super- vision of the Chinese Embassy. Wong Chin Foo died in Shanghai recently, while on a visit to his family, and the League has since his death been rather inactive. Wong had his American headquarters in Chicago, and the proclaimed object of his organization was to secure the right of suffrage, now denied, to Chinamen of Oriental birth permanently residing in this country. Under its new management the League will broaden its scope and work with all its strength to create public opinion in favor of doing away with the policy of exclu- sion, which at present prevents Chinese labor from com- ing into the United States. The Exclusion Act expires within the next year, and the League hopes to be able to prevent a renewal of the law. This Chinese society is rich and powerful, having its membership skill- fully spread all over the country and into Hawaii and the Philippines. Under the direction of the astute Wu Ting Fang it would prove to be a most potent factor in educating the American mind towards the Chinaman's side of the question. One of the arguments already put 299 300 MARTIN B. MADDEN out by the League is that a continuance of the policy of exclusion will result in such prejudice in China as to imperil our chances of obtaining a fair share of the com- ing vast trade of that empire. The Manufacturers' Association of Illinois represents firms employing 300,000 mechanics and laborers within the state. Its Board of Directors has headquarters in Chicago, and is about as alert a body as there is to-day in this country in the task of studying international trade conditions. The men composing this directory have thoroughly perceived the reasons underlying the colossal railroad combinations seeking Pacific outlets for American productions; they understand the possibilities of Oriental trade in their bearing on the future of Chi- cago and Illinois, and are as well informed and as well qualified to speak with knowledge and authority upon the commercial phase of the Chinese question as any business men in the United States. For the purpose of ascertaining the opinion of Illi- nois manufacturers respecting the new aspect which the Chinese question is assuming in the country, a reporter was sent to interview Mr. Madden, who, besides being President of the Manufacturers' Association, is Presi- dent and General Manager of the Western Stone Com- pany, which employs 2,000 men. Being asked if he favored the extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Mr. Madden replied: "The act, as I understand it, prohibits the admission to the United States of Chinese laborers, but permits the entry of merchants, students, travelers, and other per- sons who come from China to this country for purposes other than that of making a living by manual work. It PUBLIC SERVANT 301 is about to expire, and the query is as to its renewal. China has not asked our Government to take action in the matter, and the question is not at issue yet." But public opinion is being formed respecting the question, and it is desired to know your position upon it. Are you in favor of continuing the exclusion of Chinese labor from the United States? 44 As the matter now stands, I am in favor of continu- ing the exclusion. China does not freely admit foreign- ers to her territory. For the purposes of trade, Chris- tians are permitted free access to certain prescribed zones in a number of what are called treaty ports. In these zones Christians are freely allowed to go and come. But no Christian, unless he be a missionary, may go, without special permission and arrangement, anywhere else in the empire — not even ambassadors. Only mis- sionaries may go outside the treaty port zones. The missionaries have this privilege through a special clause in the Treaty of Pekin, signed after the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion. The rebellion was put down by Christian aid, and the Chinese have always maintained that the clause permitting missionaries free access to the empire was got into the treaty by unfair means. On this account the Celestials have always looked upon our missionaries as intruders in fact, and have resented their presence by all the kinds of persecution the natives have dared to use. Curzon, in 'Problems of the Far East/ gives the history of the alleged secret tampering with the treaty which makes a privileged class of the missionaries. As China does not permit the unrestricted immigration of Americans into China, why should we allow China- men to freely come into the United States? It would 302 MARTIN B. MADDEN not be even good foolishness to throw our doors open to them as long as they bar their doors to us. " But it is believed that China is about to modernize and open her empire to the world. If she does and per- mits free access to our people, would you be in favor of giving her people the right of unrestricted immigration into this country? 44 No, I would not even then, and for this reason: Good authorities, like Miss Leiter's husband, the present Viceroy of India, put the present population of China at 600,000,000. When I was a boy the geographies said China had 400,000,000 people. We have 76,000,000 people in the United States. According to Curzon, then, China has about eight times as many people as the United States have, and even the school books of thirty years ago gave her more than five times as many as we now have. Why should the United States permit 600,000,000 Chinamen to have free access to this coun- try for the privilege of entry to China for only 76,000,000 Americans? Why give eight for one — eight entries for one entry? The question of immigration from China is entirely different from any other immigra- tion question. The labor of the United States must now withstand the competition of all the labor that comes here from every one of the countries in the world between which and the United States there is at present free immigration. The task is hard enough. To make it still harder by subjecting American labor to a possible ava- lanche of competition from China — an avalanche that unscrupulous American contractors at any time might precipitate — would be a blundering crime. The very foolishness of proposing to allow Chinese labor free PUBLIC SERVANT 303 admission to the United States to compete with strug- gling labor here while China will not allow even an Ameri- can Ambassador free admission into that empire, is a thing that must appeal to the Celestial as evidence of the infe- riority of the Western mind in business matters. 1 " Will not the Chinese government resent continued exclusion, and will not this resentment hurt American trade in China? "Not at all. The Chinese government has never entertained any feeling of resentment towards this country because of our exclusion of Chinese labor. If we had put up the bars against all classes of Chinese people, Pekin would not have demurred. China herself set the example of exclusion, and, still believing it good, cannot object to other nations following it. China has been irritated at our attempts to keep out the classes we agreed to let in. Our immigration agents, in their zeal to protect American labor against Chinese immigration, have often detained students, travelers and merchants from China, who have had the right under the law to come in. This has been done generally because of sus- picion that the prisoners were really laborers attempting under disguise to evade the law. Naturally, the Pekin government would be irritated at attempts to keep out of the United States any Chinaman we had agreed to let in, even though willing, in the first place, to have all its subjects barred out as it bars all foreigners out. China's irritation has never been because of our exclu- sion policy itself, but solely because of breach of contract in the method of carrying out the exclusion act to which she consented. 44 In my opinion China never cared a cash whether we 304 MARTJN B. MADDEN let her people in or not, and I don't think she cares now. If ever China opens her empire to free immigration, then she may-bring the question up. She cannot well do it before that time. When the question comes up, if it ever arises, China will only ask that a limited number of her people be allowed to enter those countries from which she will permit unrestricted immigration. The size of her population will preclude her from making any other demand, and her interest will be to keep her labor- ers at home and to obtain immigration rights for her mercantile classes. I say this because I believe that China is soon to become the greatest food buyer in the world, and, so far as the number of employed goes, the greatest man- ufacturing country. Her condition now is like what Eng- land's was when England found her population exceed- ing the ability of her land to feed. She abandoned agri- culture as a pursuit and went into manufacture. Since doing that England has become the richest and the most powerful nation in the Old World. China's population is now greater than her exhausted land can feed. Her only hope lies in following the example of England. Her statesmen know this, and they have brought the present Emperor to fully realize it. The events of the recent war have rendered Kwang-Su independent of the Dowager Empress. He will be firm on the throne on his return to Pekin. He will quickly modernize China after the example of his friend, the Mikado of Japan. Then China will become a manufacturing nation and buy its food. The Chinaman will never buy anything he can make for himself. He will compete against the whole present civilized world in manufactures, having all the necessary raw material in great abundance. But he can- PUBLIC SERVANT 305 not raise his food. He will have to buy that. Chinese statesmen calculate that in following" the example of England China will become as much more powerful and as much richer than England as she outnumbers England in population. That is a reasonable calculation. To us it means that China will buy from us many times as much food as England does. Good economists figure that the trade in food to China alone will in the near future equal in value our entire present foreign trade to Europe. That means that every acre of land between Chicago and the Pacific coast capable of yielding a cereal will be coaxed into cultivation; that capital will find one of its most profitable employments in furnishing irriga- tion to the West; that the densest and most prosperous population in the United States will be the agricultural population west of the Alleghanies, and that Chicago, the manufacturing and financial metropolis of this region, will be the largest and the richest city in this country. Then you don't believe, Mr. Madden, that our exclu- sion policy will injure our chances in Chinese trade? 4 'In my opinion our exclusion policy will cut no figure at all in our efforts to obtain trade in China. China never cared, and does not now care, whether we let her laborers come here or keep them out. Nor do the Chi- nese people themselves care. China never lifted a finger to encourage Chinese emigration to the United States. Practically no Chinese have ever sought to leave China to settle elsewhere. Practically no Chinamen have ever come here to live from any of the eighteen provinces of the empire except the coolies of Canton. Most of these were coaxed over by the builders of the Pacific railroads because of the scarcity of laborers in the Far West, and 20 306 MARTIN B. MADDEN were left to shift for themselves when the roads were finished. Most of these coolies have always desired to get back home. Such of them as have been able to go have gone. The present census shows that there are 17,000 less Chinamen here now than there were ten years ago, when we had a few more than 100,000 in the coun- try. The facts show that the Cantonese Chinamen are leaving the country gradually, and that there has been no desire on the part of Chinamen in any of the other seventeen provinces of China to come here at all. Our laws permit merchants ' and students from China to enter this country. The total number of these at home must be about 80,000,000. They have now the right to swamp this country. But they do not do it, because of the strong hereditary disposition of the Chinaman to remain at home and of the filial arrangements which make it almost impossible for him to expatriate himself. There is a treaty between Mexico and China permitting unrestricted immigration between the two countries. Diaz made it to encourage Chinese labor to come to the Republic, so that capital might be induced to go into the country and develop it, as he believed it would do if it could get good laborers, as the Chinese are, the peons being of little value. So few Chinamen from China have responded that Mr. George Pippey, of San Francisco, to save some properties bought under the stimulus of Diaz's treaty, has recently been scouring the Pacific coast to get 5,000 celestials to go to Mexico under very high wages to dig from the earth the precious metals the native Mex- ican is too indolent or inefficient to extract. It is diffi- cult to produce an exodus from China, and the facts show there is no present danger of one. PUBLIC SERVANT 307 "From all this it would appear that there is nothing at all in the talk about the problem of Chinese immigra- tion. There is no such problem. The Chinese don't care enough about coming here to afford material for a problem. Hence, there is no prejudice to encounter in our efforts to secure trade in China. The Chinaman will buy our food because he wants it and we have it to sell. That is the reason the Englishman buys it. He buys it in spite of our tariffs against everything he has to sell us, in spite of two wars against him and a num- ber of jolting bluffs, and does it without even the retalia- tion of duties. There is no sentiment in trade, despite all that free traders assert. If there were, sentiment would all be on our side in China. The Chinese have seen us present with an army in their country and they all like us because they have seen for themselves that the Americans are the fairest, the justest and the most Confucian people in all the Christian world." CHAPTER XXXIII. STUDY OF A PERFECT PUBLIC SERVANT — ESSENTIAL QUALITIES HE MUST POSSESS. THE boy got to the head of every class he entered, either in study or at work. The youth did the same. So did the man. The lad began as a water car- rier and rose to be time-keeper. The youth started ,as draughtsman and was superintendent before he attained his majority. The man commenced as overseer and went steadily to the Presidency. In every company he served his progress was the same : he got to the top. He did* it in the first, the Enterprise; in the second, the Consolidated; in the third, the Joliet and Crescent, and in the last, the Western Stone. In political life he joined his party organization as district member and became Chairman of the City Cen- tral Committee. Entering the city legislature so "green" that his party in that body did not know what use to make of him, in three years he was leader in the Council and the best presiding officer it ever had. Commencing as city serv- ant with his first sight of a law-making body in session, in four years he was the town's Finance Minister, its principal law-maker and the greatest constructive genius in the work of city building the municipality ever had. Going into state politics as a district delegate to a National Convention, he began with one vote, his own, 308 PUBLIC SERVANT 309 the work of committing a Presidential nominee to the declaration of a principle essential to success, and con- cluded the task with his state's whole delegation demand- ing the declaration and able to enforce it. Chosen by his state's representatives at the Philadelphia Conven- tion to see that the party in power assembled there prop- erly voiced in its promised policy the wishes of Illinois and the West in having the cause of Labor recognized, in having agriculture relieved from Eastern financial dom- inance by the establishment of small national banks with local circulation, and in having the inter-oceanic canal free to take the best route, he succeeded in having the platform remodeled to conform to the whole purpose of his mission. V T hat enabled the boy, the youth, the man, the public servant, to accomplish these things — to succeed in every essay? There can be no doubt that the overthrow of the all-night ordinance, the defeat of the retention of illegal police, the forcing of the salvation of the Lake Front, the passage of the Civil Service Reform Law, and the adoption of the word Isthmian at Philadelphia, were all the work of one man, Madden, alone and against odds that would have dismayed any other. Nor can there be any doubt that a very large part of the work that has made Chicago what it is among cities; that has given Illinois the place of decisive power it holds in the Repub- lican organization; and that has endeared the party in power to the people of the West, was also performed by him. What is the secret of such a man's power? Is it brains? Many brainy men have no influence among their fellow-men. Is it success? Some of the most successful 310 MARTIN B. MADDEN people in the world are hated. Perhaps it lies in his genius for management? Several of the best business managers in the Union are always under bond. No: it is morality. The man is moral. Every person engaged in business in and about Chicago knows that Martin B. Madden is a moral man. His morality is not labeled. It is not professed. It is never thrust on any one. It does not preach, nor assert, nor lecture, nor obtrude. It never says * 4 1. " It has no personal pronoun. It simply exists. But its existence is so palpable, so certain, so definite, so unswervable, that people know the man can neither be induced to do wrong nor dissuaded by any influence from doing right. And then he has the perception, the insight, the knowledge, the wisdom to see the right at once. He does not have to have it pointed out to him, nor to be led up to it, nor to go through any sort of mental exercise or clarification to see it. When he looks at all at any subject the thing he first sees is the right in it. And that is the main thing. The oldest thought in civilization is that the real prog- ress of man is moral. It is held that there is latent in the race a sixth sense, the full possession of which will enable man to think and see and do wonderfully com- pared to what he now can. Human .progress is inevitably towards this superiority. It is away from grossness and towards decarnalization. Every once in a while a good man so purifies himself as to unclog his mind entirely. His mental sight being clear, he says and sees better than his fellows. In all ages it has been such men who have led. Their number is steadily increasing and the race goes faster towards morality. It is chat far now that gross men, with unclean minds, are not sufficiently PUBLIC SERVANT 311 moral to have influence like such men had in coarser times. In both public and commercial life the demand for virtue would now bar from success many men who not long ago satisfied the public eye. It is beginning to be realized that a really good man is more apt to be sufficiently able than that a merely able man is likely to be sufficiently good. The public has more confidence in virtue than in ability. Mere ability is often dangerous: virtue never is. In any crisis the American people, the most advanced in the world, will be sure to show that what they love most in the President and Vice-President of the United States now in office is not their ability, however that may develop, but the morality so marked in both men. That will be found to be the quality in which reposes the confidence of the greatest people in the world. The able man may be right part of the time : may be correct most of the time. The good man is sure to be right all the time. He cannot be anything else, while the other man can be, and is all the time liable to be. A line of any given length encloses the greatest area possible for it to surround when it is perfectly circular. If a man's mental line be equally distant at all points from his moral center it will enclose for him the great- est ability he is capable of. If the line be a large one he will be a great man. He will have the greatest possible average of qualities. If a man with equal length of line have his mental circumference drawn out at the end of any particular radius, it will be at the expense of some other radii, which will be that much shorter. Such a man v/ill be conspicuous on his long line and deficient on several other lines. The greater the special develop- 312 MARTIN B. MADDEN merit on any line the shorter will be his average on the other lines. His conspicuousness may be at the expense of all his other lines; it must be at that of several of them. The conspicuous man is apt to attract notice in ordinary times by his special talent, or development, which will engage attention and distract observation from his shortcomings. The round man will not attract so much attention in ordinary times, because he will average like many and not project. In a great emer- gency the conspicuous man will fail, because his shortage will prevent him from averaging sufficiently. In such an emergency the round man will do better, because what he will say or do will be what the majority desire said or done. The round man is the great man: the conspicuous man is the defective man. In ordinary life neither Washington, Lincoln, nor Grant attracted con- spicuous attention; they were round men, and did not protrude at any special mental point. In the great emergencies they were called upon to fill each completely met expectations because his roundness enabled him to do and say upon all occasions what the majority wanted done and said. It can be seen now what a calamity it would have been if a conspicuous man had been called upon to take the place either of these round men so com- pletely filled. The average man is round. The majority are round. The demand in commercial and public life is for round men, for men who will fill the places assigned to them and leave no gaps or shortages. The greatest of all shortages is that on moral lines. Men defective there are at this day of moral progress the greatest of misfits in public or business life. PUBLIC SERVANT 313 The wheel that is perfectly round, with all its spokes of equal length, does its work best. It attracts the least attention in ordinary circumstances, but lasts the longest and goes the farthest. The 'wheel whose spokes are of uneven length and whose tire is projected at any point, will attract much attention and make more noise, but it will not go as far, as fast, or as long. Martin B. Madden is a round man with a large mental circumference. How did he qualify himself to make his morality so effective? From his mother he acquired his decided taste for sound literature and his aptitude for choice expression. It was his mother also who gave direction to the course of studies he has pursued all his life. Her father had illustrated in his own person the value of special educa- tion in any line of thought. The son early realized that the quickest way to obtain complete and reliable informa- tion on any subject was to get it from recognized author- ities who spent all their time in gathering it. He formed the habit of keeping himself constantly educated by hir- ing special instructors to investigate subjects he desired to be versed in and give him the results in readings, writings, lectures and answers to interrogatories. He has kept this up, and it accounts for his surprising mas- tery of a vast range of knowledge. As he became absorbed in business affairs and had his time occupied by them, his liberality increased in the payments he would make for special information to those competent to furnish it. In this way he has always been a student. His system exemplifies the truth that tutored men often possess more valuable education than regular graduates, because they are taught skillfully and thoroughly what 314 MARTIN B. MADDEN they find they need to know and are interested in learn- ing. Usually, the tutored seek valuable and useful knowledge only, rejecting all that is valueless and use- less, which forms so large a part of the education im- parted to those who must take what is offered to them in a regular course, prescribed on general lines. Mrs. Madden was extremely practical. From her the son undoubtedly inherited the sturdiness of his character ; the disposition to depend upon himself; to ask no favors; to expect nothing except what his own exertions could bring; to live within his means; to save money; to always have funds on hand for emergencies; to live mod- erately and with regularity; to care for his health; to earn his pay; to make his services profitable to those who employed him; to do everything in his power to accom- plish any task he was entrusted with, and " while working for others, never to sell goods on his own account, or for any other house than the one of his employer." It was these principles, and especially the latter, that made him so valuable and efficient in the many representative posi- tions he has been deputed to fill in his busy career. It is almost impossible to get into public life men who will under all circumstances act solely in a representative way for their constituents and refrain from using office for other purposes than those they are elected to fill it for. Martin Barnaby Madden never represented Mad- den, or Madden's views, or Madden's friends, in any of the public offices he has filled; he represented those only who sent him to act for them. In speech he has always been singularly happy. All his life he has been accustomed to working for men his superiors in age and means. This has given to him the PUBLIC SERVANT 315 habit of making statements without waste and straight to the point. It has accustomed him to lucidity in style — to clear and terse diction. In the ability to make cogent statements on any question it is doubtful if he has a superior living. The business men of many of the principal boards of directors in Chicago believe he sur- passes in the stating faculty any man ever heard in the city. The method of doing business in the United States has evolved a class of men who are no doubt the cleverest adepts in real oratory in the world. If results prove the value of talk, then the men who have survived in the competition of obtaining cash orders for every argument they make, must be the greatest masters of telling speech. We would say to students of oratory, if you wish to study the best models of effective talk, if you desire to learn how to speak for actual results, study the style of the men who must make each argument produce money, and who succeed in doing it every time they try — study the oratory of the American Drummer. His style is the best of all styles for effective speech. Think of a man who can sell enough stone to pay large divi- dends on $2,500,000 of capital every year. For more than thirty years he has been able to sell every year more stone than any other man in the country. When there are added to such a talent for speech a long experience in making important and responsible addresses before pow- erful boards of directors; a complete training in the method of discussion which calls for convincing statement without the appearance of argument, and requires the realizing character of inviting and persuasive language without waste; and a character for probity beyond ques- 316 MARTIN B. MADDEN tion, as well as a sound developed morality, there result all the elements needed to make the truly great orator. At the worst, there are latent in every man the feel- ings of justice and of right. These have probably never been entirely vitiated or crushed out in any human being. They remain in some form even after all other correct feelings have been eliminated. They may be so weak, so ver3 r dormant, as to be nearly impossible to reach. But they can be reached. The true orator can get at them, revive them, stir them up again to life and make factors of them. Surely, something like this was done by Madden in at least one case in the Board of Aldermen during his career in that body. And there can hardly be a doubt that he again performed the real orator's work when he went to Springfield in the latter part of March, 1895, and obtained the votes needed to secure the passage of the Civil Ser- vice Reform Bill. The right thing said by the wrong man any time seldom carries much weight. The right thing said by the right man always does. The right thing said by the right man at the right time never fails to decide. The right man is rare. The right man able to say the right thing is rarer; the right man possessing the ability to say the right thing at the right time is the rarest man among human kind. He is the real orator. And such is Martin Barnaby Madden, Public Servant. FINIS. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. a #^ 0& * REC'D LD JAN 5-70-lPM LD 21A-45m-9,'67 ii„i™f^!J™*L„.-. ( H5067S10 ) 476B Umvenuyof Cahforni. M205200 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY ill 1111 III III till !li i llllllllllllll I I I I I I ! I ll I i 1 lii 1 Hill! tl II I 1 II Ii Ifillr IHHllI llslllll HP Pi PI PI ill!! lillil fflBmm \\w 1 II imiiii! i Rfettitiiiiiiiiirii Hill: ■ I 111 I! I i i mm in ItlllHUUJ HI sii lit lillil iinilinLn'.,.,., l I iPiil H I i i i i 1 P P I i 1 I iHi i il h fflfflflffl i|i!!l liilill lillil i ii i pi i| 111 I | i ! PPi I 11111 '■I I ,i I IHH I | pllillli ill IPiil I 1 i ii in i