TWENTY YEARS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REPUBLIC 
 
 1885-1905. 
 
 BY 
 
 HARRY THURSTON PECK, LL.D. 
 
 1 \ * 
 
 WITH FRONTISPIECE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 1906 
 
c-u^ 
 
 WA 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1905-1906, BY 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
 
 Published October, IQo6 
 
 Printed in America 
 
TO 
 THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 MY FATHER 
 
 259553 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 TWO YEARS OF PRESIDENT CLEVELAND 49 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MEMORIES OF THE PAST 97 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 127 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN HARRISON l66 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE ELECTION OF 1892 252 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PRESIDENT CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 306 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 STORM AND STRESS 35O 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 389 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE RISING IN THE WEST > . < 437 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE ELECTION OF 1896 ..-.., 465 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 PRESIDENT M KINLEY AND THE NEO-REPUBLICANISM . 518 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE WAR WITH SPAIN ............ 559 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF PRESIDENT M KINLEY . 603 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT = .... 666 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC ... 717 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 765 
 
 INDEX . , 773 
 
TWENTY YEARS OF THE 
 REPUBLIC 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 
 
 ON the fourth day of March, 1885, Grover Cleveland of 
 New York took the oath prescribed by the Constitution 
 and became, in doing so, the twenty-second President of 
 the United States. As he paused for a moment, after 
 pronouncing the solemn words, and looked out over the 
 multitude which filled the vast expanse before the Capi 
 tol, he must have felt, unimaginative though he was, a 
 thrill of irrepressible emotion. Three years before, his 
 name had been unknown beyond the limits of the provincial 
 city where he lived. Now, the tumultuous cheers that 
 drowned even the thunder of saluting cannon, acclaimed 
 him as the elected ruler of the mightiest republic upon 
 earth. He had accomplished the impossible. He had suc 
 ceeded where men of large experience and wide renown 
 had ignominiously failed. He had led to victory a political 
 party which seemed to have incurred the fate of perpetual 
 banishment from power. And, in achieving this, he, a coun 
 try lawyer with no especial knowledge of statecraft or of 
 national policies, had defeated the most brilliant, the 
 most resourceful, and the most passionately loved of all 
 American >arty leaders. 
 
2 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Washington had never before seen so great a concourse 
 assembled to witness the inauguration of a President. 
 More than half a million people had poured into the city 
 during the preceding week. They came from every State 
 and Territory of the Union, eager to share in celebrating 
 the return of the Democratic party, at last again tri 
 umphant. The military display was in itself a splendid 
 spectacle. Not since the great reviews which marked the 
 end of the Civil War had so many marching regiments 
 swung down the noble boulevard which leads from the 
 White House to the Capitol. Every arm of the regular 
 establishment was represented, cavalry, infantry, artil 
 lery, and engineers, with detachments of blue-jackets 
 and marines. A whole division of the National Guard 
 of Pennsylvania was in line. A body of Southern soldiers, 
 headed by General Fitzhugh Lee, and with the famous 
 Fifth Maryland in the van, was there. Contingents from 
 New York and Rhode Island in the East, and from Mis 
 souri in the West, marched close behind the regulars. 
 There was also a battalion of coloured troops, whose fine 
 appearance called forth hearty and prolonged applause. 
 The civic organisations were still more numerous; and 
 political clubs, with picturesque regalia and often in strik 
 ing costume, completed the long line which later passed in 
 review before the President to the music of a hundred mili 
 tary bands. The day was redolent of spring; and as the 
 stream of bayonets flashed in the sunshine and the flags un 
 furled their folds in the soft west wind, the sight was in 
 spiring in its animation and movement and vivid colour. 
 
 Yet the throng which lined the avenue was no less in 
 teresting in the variety of types which it exhibited. It 
 was a different gathering from that which Washington had 
 been wont to see at the inauguration of Republican presi- 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 3 
 
 dents. The men of the South were far more numerous, 
 and there were many present who had long been strangers 
 to the capital city. For them it was the dawning of a 
 new era ; and their mingled faith and triumph were almost 
 touching to behold. There were, besides, not a few gaunt 
 figures of an old-time quaintness, intense and half fanatical 
 partisans from remote localities, displaying with a sort of 
 pride the long white beards which, years before, they had 
 vowed never to shave until a Democratic president should 
 be inaugurated. A feeling of eager expectancy, of pleas 
 urable excitement and frank exultation swayed the entire 
 multitude; and even those who owed allegiance to the de 
 feated party could not wholly resist the spell. It was, for 
 the moment, an apotheosis of the Democracy. 
 
 When the new President entered the carriage which 
 was to convey him to his official home, few gave any 
 thought to a gentleman who had stood quietly beside him 
 throughout the simple ceremonial, and who presently took 
 friendly leave of him with a cordial clasp of the hand and 
 a word or two of congratulation and good will. It was 
 the familiar little scene that has been so frequently enacted 
 in our country when one who, for a few short years, has 
 been the ruler of a nation and the peer of monarchs, goes 
 back, at the stroke of the clock, into the obscurity of private 
 citizenship, unheeded and unheralded amid the strident 
 din that welcomes his successor. There is always some 
 thing half pathetic in this sudden transformation, yet it is 
 impressive too; for it symbolises American reverence 
 for law. Ex-President Arthur, though unnoticed at the 
 moment when he quietly slipped away from Washington, 
 carried with him into private life the respect and confidence 
 of all his countrymen, for he had governed well and wisely. 
 
4 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Yet no President had ever entered into office under cir 
 cumstances of such perplexity and personal embarrassment. 
 Mr. Arthur had been nominated for the Vice-Presidency 
 on the ticket with General Garfield, in the hasty, almost 
 reckless, fashion of our national conventions. He was 
 chosen not because he was thought to be peculiarly fitted 
 for the honour, but simply, as the politicians slang ex 
 presses it, to "placate" the Stalwart or Conkling* wing 
 of the Republican Party, which had fought bitterly to 
 secure the selection of General Grant, and which resented 
 fiercely the nomination of General Garfield. 
 
 At that time the country knew very little of Mr. Arthur, 
 and what it did know was not wholly favourable. He was 
 regarded as a typical New York politician, an active mem 
 ber of the so-called " Custom-House gang," which par 
 celled out the local Federal appointments and dickered for 
 the petty spoils of office. This estimate was not entirely 
 unjust. Mr. Arthur had been by no means too fastidious 
 in his political associations. He had kept some rather 
 dubious company while acting as the lieutenant of the ag 
 gressive Conkling, whose intimate friend he was. But 
 Mr. Arthur had another side of which the country was not 
 then aware. He was one who drew a very sharp line 
 between his public and his private life. Personally he was 
 a gentleman of cultivated tastes, a university graduate, fa 
 miliar with the usages of polite society, and having an easy 
 adaptability which made him equally at home in a lady s 
 drawing-room, in the fumoir of a club, or in the noisome 
 atmosphere of a riotous ward primary. Intellectually he 
 was well trained and disciplined. In the years preceding 
 the Civil War he had attained to eminence in the practice 
 of law. He conducted to a successful issue a case which 
 affected the validity of the Fugitive Slave Law, and he 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 5 
 
 secured a decision which is still a classic in American po 
 litico-legal history. 1 Nor was he without experience of 
 administrative responsibility. During the war he had at 
 different times been Inspector-General and Quartermaster- 
 General of the State of New York, and had won high 
 commendation for his efficiency in organising and equip 
 ping the six hundred thousand troops with which that State 
 met the requisitions of President Lincoln. .Later, he had 
 been Collector of the Port crfNgw-^frrf^under President 
 Grant. But when he became Vice- President in 1881, the 
 country at large knew him only as a local politician of 
 no very high repute. He sided with Senator Conkling 
 when that arrogant leader soon after declared open war 
 on President Garfield for refusing to let the New York 
 Senator dictate the Federal appointments in his State; 
 and Mr. Arthur was loyal to Conkling throughout the 
 bitter strife that followed. Then in the midst of it, the 
 President was shot down by a crazed fanatic, Charles 
 Guiteau, and lay for months fighting against death with 
 splendid courage. 
 
 1 This was the once famous Lemmon case. In 1852, a Virginian named 
 Jonathan Lemmon had brought eight slaves from Norfolk to New York in 
 tending to re-ship them thence to a Texan port. On petition, a writ of 
 habeas corpus was issued by the Superior Court of New York, requiring 
 the persons in charge of the slaves to bring them before the court. After 
 hearing argument, Mr. Justice Paine ordered the release of the slaves on 
 the ground that the Fugitive Slave Law did not apply to them, inasmuch as 
 they had been brought voluntarily by their owner to free soil and were 
 therefore not fugitives. This decision practically freed all slaves sent or 
 brought by their masters within the boundaries of a free State. An appeal 
 was taken from Justice Paine s decision at the instance of the Legislature 
 of Virginia. The New York Legislature authorised the Governor to ap 
 point counsel, and Mr. Arthur with Mr. W. M. Evarts conducted the case. 
 Justice Paine s decision w r as sustained by the Supreme Court and by the 
 Court of Appeals. See Smalley, Life of Chester A. Arthur, pp. 304-5, 
 (New York, 1880). 
 
6 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 With the first shock of grief and horror which stirred 
 the nation when Garfield fell, there was mingled a feeling 
 of deep resentment. It^was held that indirectly the Presi 
 dent was a victim of the Conkling faction, whose de 
 nunciations of him had worked upon the morbid mind of 
 his assassin. Some, in their excess of feeling, went further 
 still. Strange rumours flew about, and sinister accusations 
 were made in private talk. Men even cherished a, wild 
 belief that a conspiracy had planned the murder of the 
 President. In the first excited hours it was hinted that, 
 either with or without his knowledge, a plot had been 
 formed to place Mr. Arthur in the presidency, and in 
 this way to deliver the administration into " Stalwart " 
 hands. Few, even then, were willing to listen to so wild 
 a charge; yet the feeling against Mr. Arthur for a time 
 was very bitter. The newspapers, especially in the East 
 ern States, spoke of him in terms of rancour. They de 
 plored the possibility that " this pot-house politician," as 
 they called him, might take the place of Garfield, whom 
 popular sympathy had already idealised as a martyr. 
 Throughout these trying months, when the country hung 
 upon the daily bulletins from Elberon, Mr. Arthur made 
 no sign. Just what he suffered no man knew. But his digni 
 fied reserve was never broken; and when it was hinted that 
 he might act as President during the period of Mr. Gar- 
 field s incapacity, he repelled the suggestion with indignant 
 sternness. At last came the death of Garfield in Septem 
 ber, 1 88 1. Mr. Arthur assumed the office which thus 
 came to him under circumstances so distressing. Before 
 long the country learned to know the man as he really was. 
 From the very outset he was the President of no faction, 
 of no party, but of the entire people. Firm, wise, and 
 vigilant, his administration was one of the very best in all 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 7 
 
 our history. To his former political allies he showed no 
 undue favour. To his former enemies he manifested no 
 unfairness, but stood between them and the anger of Conk- 
 ling, whose vindictive spirit led him in consequence to 
 break off all relations with the President. Garfield s 
 appointees were retained in office. Even the request 
 of General Grant could not secure the displacement 
 of the Secretary of the Navy and the substitution of a 
 Stalwart. 
 
 Many of those whom Mr. Arthur thus protected repaid 
 his generosity with the blackest ingratitude. All through 
 his administration, they and other friends of Garfield car 
 ried on an underhanded warfare against him, a warfare of 
 pinpricks rather than of blows delivered in the open. 
 Calling themselves " the Garfield Avengers," they tried 
 in every way to belittle Mr. Arthur s public acts and even 
 to discredit his private life. In this manner, between the 
 frank reproaches of his former friends and the treacherous 
 enmity of his former foes, President Arthur s term of 
 office afforded him no very pleasurable experience. Yet, 
 at least, he never gave his ill-wishers the satisfaction of 
 seeing that he winced. He was not one who wore his 
 heart upon his sleeve, but he went on his way with an 
 outward serenity that did honour to his strength of char 
 acter. His political courage was shown in some very 
 striking acts. Although there is no doubt that he desired 
 a second term of office, he never flinched from what he 
 held to be his duty, however unpopular the discharge of 
 it might be. Thus, he vetoed the Chinese Exclusion Bill 
 of 1882 in the face of the unanimous and excited demands 
 of the Far Western States for its enactment into law. 
 In the same year he vetoed a foolishly extravagant River 
 and Harbour Bill appropriating some $19,000,000. 
 
8 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Again, although in former years he had himself been em 
 phatically a spoilsman, as President he advocated and 
 secured the passage in 1883 f an act reforming the Civil 
 Service, and establishing an effective Civil Service Com 
 mission. He did all that was possible to secure the prose 
 cution and conviction of those corrupt officials who had 
 systematically robbed the Government through the noto 
 rious " Star-Route " contracts in the postal service.. But 
 his most enduring claim to honourable remembrance is 
 found in his energetic efforts to build up an efficient navy 
 in place of the grotesque collection of antiquated hulks on 
 which the Grant administration had spent sums sufficient 
 to have given the United States a modern fighting fleet. 
 President Arthur was, in fact, the true creator of the new 
 American navy, of which the first vessels the Chicago, 
 the Atlanta, the Boston, and the Dolphin were laid down 
 while he was President. 
 
 Upon its personal and social side his presidency was one 
 to be long remembered. The honours of the White House 
 were done with a graceful dignity, such as had never yet 
 been known there. The President had lost his wife some 
 years before; but his sister, Mrs. McElroy, an accom 
 plished woman of great social charm, frequently presided 
 at official functions. The diplomatic dinners were rescued 
 from the smothered ridicule with which the foreign envoys 
 had always viewed them; and the pungent epigram of Mr. 
 Evarts, a propos of one of President Hayes s entertain 
 ments, suddenly lost its point. 2 As for the President him 
 self, he must be regarded as the only man of the world, 
 in the best sense of that term, who has ever occupied the 
 
 2 To maintain the state which he regarded as necessary to the dignity of 
 the presidential office, Mr. Arthur dipped deeply into his own private 
 fortune. 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 9 
 
 White House. Jefferson might, perhaps, have been cited 
 as another instance, were it not that, during his first term, 
 he cultivated an ostentatious boorishness such as would 
 have been impossible in a thoroughbred. President Ar 
 thur, however, was an ideal host both to his public and 
 his private guests. Of a fine presence, courteous, 
 witty, tactful, and possessing infinite savoir vivre, he was 
 a living refutation of the taunt which Europeans some 
 times level at us, to the effect that eminence in American 
 politics is unattainable by one who is a gentleman at heart. 
 Mr. Arthur kept the domestic side of his menage a thing 
 entirely apart from his official life. Coarse-minded, peep 
 ing correspondents, male and female, found scant material 
 here for vulgar paragraphs of kitchen gossip. There were 
 published no foolish, nauseating chronicles of the " daily 
 doings " of the White House. The President s children 
 were not photographed and paragraphed and made the 
 subject of a thousand flat and fatuous stories. Beyond the 
 veil of self-respecting privacy, which was drawn before 
 the President s personal affairs, few ever penetrated. The 
 only tale that reached the public was one that made even 
 the Paul Prys of the press ashamed of their own curiosity. 
 It became known that in one of the President s private 
 apartments there was hung the portrait of a woman, before 
 which every morning, by Mr. Arthur s personal order, 
 great masses of cut flowers were heaped. Here was a 
 rarely promising hint for the greedy journalist, eager 
 to give his next despatch from Washington a touch of 
 sauce piquante. With vast ingenuity and by bringing the 
 resources of the press to bear, the secret was ferreted out 
 at last, and the portrait was found to be that of the Presi 
 dent s dead wife. It was very characteristic of the man 
 who, to the world at large, was always the master of prac- 
 
io TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 tical affairs with just a suggestion of the viveur about him, 
 that he should in private have cherished this delicate senti 
 ment which did him so much honour. 
 
 Perhaps it was precisely President Arthur s dignity and 
 perfect taste that shut him out from the broader popular 
 ity which some other Presidents have enjoyed. Democ 
 racies prefer their idols to have feet of clay. Their ruler 
 must not be too far above those whom he rules, and he 
 must not show too markedly those finer traits which in 
 stinctively arouse the furtive suspicion and half dislike 
 of the ignorant and unenlightened. The many-headed 
 monster fawns only at the feet of those who flatter it by 
 imitation, or who unconsciously partake of its uncouth- 
 ness. The Orsons and Calibans of politics have an innate 
 antipathy to a gentleman. It is not likely that even so 
 great a man as Lincoln could have kept his powerful hold 
 upon the masses had he not possessed some qualities which 
 many of his truest friends deplored. His ultimate success 
 was due, no doubt, before all else, to his sagacity, his 
 perfect knowledge of human nature, and his infinite pa 
 tience; yet much of it must surely be ascribed to the awk 
 wardness of his appearance and the unconventionally of 
 his manners. The Hoosiers and Suckers of the still un 
 tutored West could not rightly understand the consum 
 mate statecraft of which he was a master his inborn 
 genius for the task of government; but when they heard 
 that he slapped his visitors upon the back and told in 
 decent stories and received the ministers of foreign powers 
 while sprawling in a wooden rocking chair, shoeless, and 
 with his huge feet covered with blue yarn socks then 
 they felt that he was one of themselves, not President Lin 
 coln, but "Good Old Abe." That which repelled a 
 Sumner or an Adams gripped and held fast the hearts 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY n 
 
 of the men of Sangamon. 3 But Mr. Arthur had not been 
 bred in such a school. His type was one that neither likes 
 nor courts the familiarity of a mob s approval. He had 
 no eccentricities, no traits that were either crude or whim 
 sical, no suggestion of self-consciousness or pose. He was 
 simply a dignified and courteous gentleman flos regum 
 Arthums, as one of his admirers quoted of him. And look 
 ing back upon his brave and honourable bearing under 
 the strain of incessant vexation and temptation, the Ameri 
 can people have reason to be proud because the roll of 
 their chief magistrates contains the name of Chester Alan 
 Arthur. 
 
 At the time when Mr. Cleveland was inaugurated there 
 had been no Democratic President for a full quarter of 
 a century. A whole generation had been born and had 
 grown to manhood and to womanhood without ever hav 
 ing lived under any but Republican rule. This long con 
 tinuance in power of a single party had led many citizens 
 to identify the interests of that party with the interests of 
 the nation. The Democrats had been so invariably beaten 
 at the polls as to make Republicans believe that the 
 defeated party had no decent reason for existence, and 
 that it was composed only of wilful obstructionists or of 
 persons destitute of patriotism. On the other hand, the 
 Republican party, identified as it was with success and 
 with so much creditable achievement, was held by them to 
 
 3 The story is told that when President Lincoln first met Senator Sumner, 
 he called out: "Why, Sumner, you must be nearly as tall as I am! 
 Come, back up, and let s measure ! " The effect of such a proposal upon 
 the glacial dignity of Sumner may be imagined. Browne, The Every-Day 
 Life of Abraham Lincoln, pp. 451-2 (New York, 1886). For the unfavour 
 able impression produced by Lincoln upon Adams, see Adams, Life of 
 Charles Francis Adams, p. 146 (Boston, 1900). 
 
12 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 monopolise all the political virtues of the American people. 
 To criticise its leaders or to attack its policies seemed to 
 many almost treasonable. To it were ascribed not only the 
 successful conduct of a great war, the extinction of slavery, 
 and the triumph of nationalism over the particularistic 
 spirit of secession, but also the maintenance of the coun 
 try s commercial credit and of its financial honour. Few 
 remembered that without the support of loyal Demo 
 crats at the North, the Government must have yielded 
 to the Confederacy. Few took the trouble to recall the 
 fact that of the great Union commanders, Sherman, Sheri 
 dan, McClellan and Meade were Democrats, while Grant 
 himself, though a resident of Lincoln s own State, had 
 never voted for a Republican until after the war ended. 
 Nor was it kept in mind that Stanton, the remarkable mili 
 tary administrator, and Chase, the great finance minister, 
 had been Democrats; that Lincoln s second nomination to 
 the presidency came to him not from the Republican 
 party, but from a Union Convention composed of Repub 
 licans and Democrats alike. These things had been long 
 forgotten. Partisan Republicans had come to look upon 
 the existence of the Democratic party as a rather sorry 
 joke, in the face of its long record of disaster t and defeat. 
 That it could ever return to power appeared to them not 
 only an improbable, but even a ludicrous, assumption. 
 
 Among the ablest of the Republican leaders, however, 
 a much saner view prevailed. These men were acutely 
 conscious of certain facts of which their followers were 
 ignorant. No political phenomenon, indeed, is more re 
 markable than the almost even balance between the two 
 great parties from 1860 down to 1884. The large ma 
 jorities which the Republican candidates had received in 
 the Electoral College were utterly misleading as an indi- 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 13 
 
 cation of the comparative strength of the two parties 
 throughout the country. A glance at the popular vote in 
 each presidential election revealed a very interesting state 
 of things, and showed that it was the distribution of the 
 voters, rather than their numbers, which had given to the 
 Republicans success. For example, in the election of 
 1860, as is well known, Mr. Lincoln, who had a clear 
 majority of 57 electoral votes, was only a minority candi 
 date in the popular vote; for had both wings of the 
 Democracy been united, the ballots which they cast would 
 have outnumbered those given to Mr. Lincoln by more 
 than a quarter of a million. In the election of 1864, which 
 took place at one of the most critical periods of the war, 
 Mr. Lincoln had an electoral majority over General Mc- 
 Clellan of 191 votes, and a popular majority of 407,000 
 votes ; but in this election the eleven Southern States, being 
 then outside the Union, took no part. At the election of 
 1868, out of a popular vote of nearly 6,000,000, General 
 Grant, then at the very climax of his fame, received a 
 popular majority of 305,000 votes, or almost one-quarter 
 less than had been cast for Lincoln, while three Southern 
 States were still unrepresented in the count. 
 
 In 1872, Grant s first administration had caused such 
 widespread discontent that the Liberal Republican schism 
 took place, headed by such well-known leaders as Sen 
 ator Sumner, Carl Schurz, Charles Francis Adams, Hor 
 ace Greeley, and Whitelaw Reid. Had the Demo 
 crats at this time made good use of the opportunity 
 afforded them, they might have gained a signal victory. 
 A candidate such as Charles Francis Adams, of high 
 character and proved ability, could probably have won. 
 But the nomination of Horace Greeley led to the lament 
 able fiasco which continued President Grant in office by 
 
14 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 a popular majority of 762,000 votes. This proved, how 
 ever, in the end to be a Pyrrhic victory. The very fulness 
 of their triumph removed all feeling of restraint from the 
 Republican leaders, and there followed four years of gov 
 ernment tainted by public scandal of every description. 
 The Secretary of War resigned to avoid impeachment for 
 bribery. The Navy Department was honeycombed with 
 jobbery. The revelations in connection with the t Whis 
 key Ring startled and disgusted honest men through 
 out the country. The President s own relatives and 
 intimate friends were proved to have traded on their 
 influence with him. 4 Mr. Colfax, the Republican Speaker 
 of the House and afterward Vice-President, several Sena 
 tors and a number of Representatives, were smirched by 
 their connection with the Credit Mobilier. Moreover, the 
 
 4 Senator Hoar of Massachusetts said, in speaking on the proposed im 
 peachment of Grant s Secretary of War, Belknap: "My own public life 
 has been a very brief and insignificant one, extending little beyond the 
 duration of a single term of senatorial office. But in this brief period, 
 I have seen five judges of a high court of the United States driven from 
 office by threats of impeachment for corruption or maladministration. I 
 have seen the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs in the House 
 rise in his place and demand the expulsion of four of his associates for 
 making sale of their official privilege of selecting the youths to be educated 
 at our great military school. When the greatest railroad of the world, 
 binding together the continent and uniting the two great seas which wash 
 our shores, was finished, I have seen our national triumph and exultation 
 turned to bitterness and shame by the unanimous reports of three com 
 mittees of Congress two of the House and one here, that every step of 
 that mighty enterprise had been taken in fraud. I have heard in the 
 highest places the shameless doctrine avowed, by men grown old in 
 public office, that the true way by which power should be gained in the 
 Republic is to bribe the people with the offices created for their service, and 
 the true end for which it should be used when gained is the promotion of 
 selfish ambition and the gratification of personal revenge. I have heard 
 that suspicion haunts the footsteps of the trusted companions of the 
 President." Speech of May 6, 1876. 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 15 
 
 use of Federal troops in sustaining the iniquities of " car 
 pet-bag " government in the South had become more and 
 more distasteful to the people of the North. The dis 
 satisfaction of the country over such a state of things was 
 shown at the election of 1876, when on the face of the 
 returns the Democratic candidate, Mr. Tilden, had a clear 
 majority of the electoral vote. This result was disputed, 
 and the Electoral Commission created by Congress can 
 vassed the returns in such a way as to give the Presidency 
 to Mr. Hayes by a majority of one vote, 185 to 184, 
 Mr. Tilden having a popular majority of 250,000 votes. 5 
 This election seemed to the more astute Republican leaders 
 like the handwriting on the wall, presaging an end of Re 
 publican supremacy. The administration of President 
 Hayes, however, considerably strengthened the party to 
 which he belonged. A man of very moderate ability, he 
 was, nevertheless, precisely the President that the country 
 needed at the time. Henry Ward Beecher once described 
 his administration as " a bread poultice "; and the descrip 
 tion, though not w r holly complimentary, was fairly just. 
 Party feuds were healed. Governmental scandals came to 
 an end. Federal troops were withdrawn from the South. 
 Under the able management of Secretary Sherman, the 
 Treasury resumed specie payments. 6 Hence, at the next 
 election that of 1880 the Republicans were again suc 
 cessful, and General Garfield had an electoral majority of 
 59 votes. Yet the record of the popular vote was ex 
 ceedingly significant. Nearly 9^,000,000 ballots had been 
 cast, and out of these 9,000,000 ballots Garfield s majority 
 over Hancock was only 8i5. 7 The numerical difference. 
 
 5 See pp. 116-117. 6 January i, 1879. 
 
 7 The figures are those given in Johnston, American Politics (New York, 
 1900). 
 
1 6 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 therefore, between the Republican and Democratic parties 
 at this time was equal only to the population of an in 
 significant village. So extraordinary close a division had 
 never before been known. It was obvious that Republican 
 success at the next election hung, as it were, by a very 
 slender thread. 
 
 It was while the political scales were in this state of 
 almost perfect equipoise that the Republican Convention 
 met in Chicago on June 3d, 1884, to nominate its candi 
 dates for President and Vice-President respectively. Presi 
 dent Arthur hoped for a nomination, and on the first ballot 
 he received 278 votes; but even at the outset he was out 
 stripped by James G. Elaine of Maine, who led with 334-^ 
 votes. This lead was steadily maintained in spite of the 
 opposition of many distinguished Republican leaders; and 
 on the fifth ballot Mr. Elaine received 541 votes, and was 
 declared the nominee amid a scene of tumultuous enthu 
 siasm. General John A. Logan of Illinois was nominated 
 for the Vice-Presidency. The Democratic Convention, 
 meeting in St. Louis on July 8th, took but two ballots. In 
 the first of these, Grover Cleveland of New York led with 
 392 votes as against 1 70, cast for Mr. Bayard of Delaware ; 
 and on the second ballot he secured the nomination by 683 
 votes to 145^ cast for Mr. Thomas A. Hendricks of Indi 
 ana. As soon as Mr. Cleveland had been nominated as the 
 Democratic candidate for the Presidency, Mr. Hendricks 
 was unanimously named for the office of Vice-President. 
 
 The nomination of Mr. Elaine produced an indescrib 
 able sensation throughout the length and breadth of the 
 United States. No American statesman had ever had 
 more ardent and intensely loyal friends than he, as none 
 had ever had more virulent and bitter enemies. The 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 17 
 
 former hailed his candidacy with intense enthusiasm; the 
 latter began at once moving heaven and earth to compass 
 his defeat. Mr. Elaine had already enjoyed a remarkable 
 career. Born in Pennsylvania of Scotch-Irish parentage, 
 he had been by turns a teacher and an editor, having taken 
 up in 1854 his residence in Maine. In 1858 he had entered 
 the State Legislature, where for two years he served as 
 Speaker. In 1862, lie was sent to Congress, and at once 
 made his mark by his readiness in debate, his quick grasp 
 upon political principles, and his exceptional fertility in 
 resource. He had the impetuosity of the Celt and the 
 clear reasoning brain of the Anglo-Saxon, besides that in 
 describable quality which, for want of a better name, is 
 known as magnetism. His personal charm was indeed re 
 markable, and it was to this as much as to his other gifts 
 that he owed the extraordinary devotion of his followers 
 and friends. Early in his political life he had been com 
 pared to Henry Clay, to whose career his own was to 
 exhibit a striking parallel. At first he was better known 
 to his associates in Congress than to the country as a 
 whole; but when, in 1869, he was elected Speaker of the" 
 House, he rose at once to the rank of a great party leader. 
 It was not, however, until 1876 that he reached the climax 
 of his parliamentary fame. Early in that year, owing to 
 the approach of the centenary of national independence, 
 it was felt that the time had come to hasten the growth of 
 the kindly feeling which already was slowly uniting the 
 sections of the country that had faced each other in the 
 Civil War. To further this object, Mr. Randall of 
 Pennsylvania, a distinguished Democrat, introduced in the 
 House of Representatives a bill to relieve all persons in 
 the United States from any disability imposed by the Four 
 teenth Amendment to the Constitution. Mr. Elaine was 
 
1 8 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 
 at once upon his feet to offer a substitute. It excepted from 
 
 this amnesty Jefferson Davis, " late President of the so- 
 called Confederate States." After some parliamentary 
 fencing, an exciting debate began. Mr. Elaine, fluent and 
 impassioned, set forth his reasons for excepting Mr. Davis 
 from the amnesty offered by the Randall bill. His words 
 were chosen with consummate art if it was his purpose to 
 stir again the embers of sectional strife into a blaze,and to 
 exasperate the Southern Democrats whom he confronted 
 on the floor. 
 
 " In my amendment I have excepted Jefferson Davis from am 
 nesty. I do not place his exclusion on the ground that Mr. Davis 
 was, as he has been commonly called, the head and front of the 
 Rebellion, because on that ground I do not think the exception 
 would be tenable. Mr. Davis was in that respect as guilty, no 
 more so, no less so, than thousands of others who have already 
 received the benefit and grace of amnesty. Probably he was far 
 less efficient as an enemy of the United States, probably he was far 
 more useful as a disturber of the councils of the Confederacy, than 
 many who have already received amnesty. It is not because of 
 any particular and special damage that he above others did to the 
 Union, or because he was personally or especially of consequence, 
 that I except him. But I except him on this ground : that he was 
 the author, knowingly, deliberately, guiltily, and wilfully, of the 
 gigantic murders and crimes at Andersonville." 
 
 Mr. Elaine then proceeded to describe in vivid language 
 the sufferings of the Union soldiers confined in the prison- 
 pen at Andersonville. He dwelt with all the power of a 
 consummate orator upon the horrors of that loathsome 
 place. He pictured the miseries of starvation and disease, 
 the insults and ingenious cruelty of the jailer Wirz; and 
 he stirred the indignation of his Northern hearers by paint- 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 19 
 
 ing the dreadful man-hunts in which savage bloodhounds 
 had been set upon the track of escaping prisoners. He 
 excepted from his condemnation the people of the South, 
 and directly charged the crimes of Andersonville upon 
 Jefferson Davis. 
 
 " The poor victim, Wirz, deserved his death for brutal treat 
 ment and the murder of many victims ; but it was a weak policy on 
 the part of our Government to allow Jefferson Davis to go at large 
 and hang Wirz. Wirz was nothing in the world but a mere sub 
 ordinate, and there was no special reason for singling him out for 
 death. I do not say he did not deserve it. He deserved no mercy ; 
 but his execution seemed like skipping over the president, super 
 intendent, and board of directors in the case of a great railroad 
 accident and hanging the brakeman of the rear car. 
 
 "It is often said that we shall lift Mr. Davis again into great 
 consequence by refusing him amnesty. This is not for me to con 
 sider. I only see before me, when his name is presented, a man 
 who, by a wave of his hand, by a nod of his head, could have put an 
 end to the atrocious cruelties at Andersonville. Some of us had 
 kinsmen there, most of us had friends there, all of us had country 
 men there. In the name of those kinsmen, friends, and country 
 men, I here protest, and shall with my vote protest, against calling 
 back and crowning with the honours of full American citizenship 
 the man who organised that murder." 
 
 Mr. Hill of Georgia replied to Mr. Elaine in a very 
 able, temperate, and (as one reads it over now) convincing 
 speech, so far as the complicity of Mr. Davis was con 
 cerned; but he and his associates from the South made the 
 serious tactical mistake of charging that Confederate 
 prisoners had been ill-treated in the North. This gave 
 Mr. Elaine another chance; and, amid a scene of inde 
 scribable excitement, he returned to the attack, as brilliant 
 and even more exasperating than before. The debate 
 
20 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 continued for several days, during which the House at 
 times became a bear-garden. But through all the tumult 
 Mr. Blaine was the one conspicuous figure. The whole 
 country was stirrechaslt had not been for many years. The 
 passions of the way revived and flamed up as fiercely as 
 in the early sixties . The name of " Blaine of Maine " 
 was in all men s mouths, and the North gloried in his vic 
 tory, which was the victory of a partisan, but which was, 
 nevertheless, magnificent. The feeling of his admirers was 
 well expressed a few weeks later by Colonel Robert In- 
 gersoll, 8 who with florid yet effective eloquence paid this 
 tribute to his leader: 
 
 " Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. 
 Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and 
 threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen forehead 
 of every traitor to his country." 
 
 From the moment of this spectacular exhibition, Mr. 
 Blaine was an inevitable candidate for the presidency. 
 But the fierce white light which beats upon a throne is no 
 more fierce than that which beats upon a presidential 
 aspirant. It was turned at once upon Mr. Blaine s whole 
 past career. Every incident and every act of his were now 
 subjected to minute investigation by his enemies and rivals. 
 It was not long before a cloud was cast upon his personal 
 integrity. Like a dank mist which rises at nightfall over 
 marshy ground, there rose a vague, impalpable belief that 
 in his public life he had not had a due regard for his own 
 honour. Beginning with mere hints and ending with 
 public accusations, a dozen stories grew until they filled 
 
 8 In nominating Mr. Blaine at the Republican National Convention in 
 Cincinnati, June 16, 1876. 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 21 
 
 the minds of everyone about him. It was said that Mr. 
 Elaine had pledged a number of worthless railroad bonds 
 to the Union Pacific Railway Company in return for a loan 
 of $64,000 which had never been repaid. It was also 
 charged that without consideration he had received bonds 
 of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad. Still another 
 rumour said that while Speaker of the House he had left 
 the chair and asked one of the members to make a point 
 of order which would be sustained by him, and which would 
 be favourable to a railway company in which Mr. Elaine 
 was interested. Among a very few it began to be whispered 
 confidentially that there existed letters written by Mr. 
 Elaine to a business associate, which, if found, would 
 prove that the ex-Speaker had had corrupt transactions 
 with the Northern Pacific Company. 
 
 These reports obtained so widespread a currency that 
 Mr. Elaine was forced to rise in his place and bring the 
 matter to the attention of the House. He read a letter 
 from the treasurer of the Union Pacific and from Colonel 
 Thomas A. Scott, the president of that railway, denying 
 the story of the worthless bonds. He read another letter 
 from Morton, Bliss and Company, who were alleged to 
 have cashed the draft for $64,000, mentioned in the story, 
 but who now declared that no such draft had been pre 
 sented to them. Mr. Elaine went on to say that he had 
 never owned the Little Rock and Fort Smith bonds which 
 he was said to have received without any consideration. 
 Apparently his name was cleared. He was, of course, 
 extremely anxious to avoid investigation at the hands of 
 Congress. The time for the National Republican Conven 
 tion was drawing near. Many States had already in 
 structed their delegates to support his candidacy. That 
 he should be the subject of an investigation for corrupt 
 
22 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 transactions while his name was before the Convention 
 would be fatal to his chances; and he desired above all 
 things to stave it off. Nevertheless, the House, which 
 was strongly Democratic, ordered its Judiciary Committee 
 to make such an investigation, though in the resolution 
 ordering it, Mr. Elaine was not specifically named. This 
 was on May 2d; and at the first sessions of the Committee 
 the evidence was corroborative of Mr. Elaine s assertions. 
 On May 3ist, however, a very curious incident occurred. 
 There was brought before the Committee a man named 
 James Mulligan. Mulligan had at one time been a clerk 
 for Mr. Jacob Stanwood (the brother of Mrs. Elaine), 
 and later a bookkeeper for Warren Fisher, Jr., a business 
 man of Boston, who had had close relations with the man 
 agement of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad. 
 While Mr. Mulligan was testifying, he chanced to mention 
 very quietly that he had in his possession certain letters 
 written by Mr. Elaine to Warren Fisher, Jr. At once it 
 was observed that Mr. Elaine grew pale and gave every 
 evidence of great excitement. A moment later, in a 
 whisper, he asked a friend on the Committee to move an 
 immediate adjournment. The gentleman in question did 
 so on the plea of illness, and the Committee_rose, to meet 
 again the following morning. When it so met it listened 
 to a most extraordinary story. 
 
 During the brief respite given by the adjournment of 
 the Committee, Mr. Elaine had flashed his mind over all 
 the possibilities of the situation. He knew that Mulligan 
 had letters, which, if made public by Mulligan himself, 
 would be interpreted by everyone in a sense extremely un 
 favourable to Mr. Elaine. He knew that these letters 
 would surely be asked for by the Committee so soon as it 
 should reconvene in the morning. To prevent this and to 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 23 
 
 gain time he must act at once. He therefore went to the 
 Riggs House, where Mulligan was staying, and met Mulli 
 gan, Fisher and one Atkins in a private room. There he 
 first asked to see the letters which Mulligan had with him. 
 When this request was refused, he pleaded with all the 
 earnestness of a man whose future was at stake, that the 
 letters might not be given to the Committee. Mulligan 
 declined to surrender them. He said that he had no wish 
 to injure Mr. Elaine, but that he must keep the letters 
 in order to protect himself in case his testimony were im 
 peached. Mr. Elaine asked to read the letters, promising 
 on his word of honour to return them after reading. 
 Mulligan then handed the letters to Mr. Elaine, who 
 read them very carefully, put them into his pocket and 
 carried them away with him. 
 
 Such was the story which Mulligan under oath told to 
 the Committee when it met on the following morning. 9 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Elaine had secured advice from eminent 
 
 9 Mulligan s story as told in his own words before the sub-committee 
 was as follows: "After my examination here yesterday, Mr. Elaine came 
 up to the hotel, the Riggs House, and there had a conference with Mr. 
 Atkins, Mr. Fisher, and myself. He wanted to see those letters that I had. 
 I declined to let him see them. He prayed, almost went on his knees 
 I would say on his knees and implored me to think of his six children 
 and his wife, that if the Committee should get hold of this communication, 
 it would sink him immediately and ruin him forever. I told him I 
 should not give them to him. He asked me if I would let him read them. 
 I said I would if he would promise me on the word of a gentleman that 
 he would return them to me. I did let him read them over. He read 
 them over once and called for them again and read them over again. 
 He still importuned me to give those papers up. I declined to do it. I 
 retired to my own room and he followed me up, and went over the same 
 history about his family and his children, and implored me to give them 
 up to him, and even contemplated suicide. He asked me again if I 
 wanted to see his children left in that state, and he then asked me again 
 if I would not let him look over these papers consecutively (I had them 
 
: 4 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 counsel (Senator Matthew H. Carpenter and Judge Jere 
 miah Black), to the effect that he was not bound to return 
 the letters. He therefore refused to do so at the request 
 of the Committee, and* the matter for the moment rested 
 there. The case, however, looked very black for Mr. 
 Blame, He had possession of the letters, to be sure, yet 
 his conduct was everywhere interpreted as giving evi 
 dence of guilt. Great excitement prevailed throughout 
 the country, and the friends of Mr. Blaine were every 
 where dismayed. It soon appeared, however, that what 
 he had done was only part of a well-conceived plan which 
 did credit to his resourcefulness and audacity. On June 
 ;th, Mr. Blaine rose in the House and claimed the floor 
 on a question of privilege. He at once proceeded to recite 
 the events which had led up to the incident just narrated, 
 and then, referring to Mulligan, he spoke as follows: 
 
 "This man had selected, out of correspondence running over 
 a great many years, letters which he thought would be peculiarly 
 damaging to me. He came here loaded with them. He came here 
 for a sensation. He came here primed. He came here on that 
 particular errand. I was advised of it, and I obtained those letters 
 under circumstances which have been notoriously scattered through 
 out the United States and are known to everybody. ... I 
 claim I have the entire right to those letters, not only by natural 
 right, but upon all the precedents and principles of la\v. as the 
 
 numbered). I told him I would, if he would return them to me. He 
 took the papers, read them all over, and among them I had a memorandum 
 that I had made by war of synopsis of the letters, and referring to the 
 number of tfce letters a synopsis containing the points of the letters. 1 
 had made that memorandum so as to be able to refer here when questioned. 
 He asked me to let him read the letters and I showed him this statement 
 too. After he had read them, he asked me what I wanted to do with those 
 papers; if I wanted to use them. I told him I never wanted to use the 
 papers, nor would I show them to the Committee unless called upon to 
 do so. . . . Blaine has got them, and would not give them up to me." 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 25 
 
 man who held those letters in possession held them wrongfully. 
 The Committee that attempted to take those letters from that man 
 for use against me proceeded wrongfully. They proceeded in all 
 boldness to a most defiant violation of the ordinary private and 
 personal rights which belong to every American citizen. 
 Then there went forth everywhere the idea and impression that 
 because I would not permit that man, or any man whom I could 
 prevent, from holding as a menace over my head my private cor 
 respondence, there must be something in it most deadly and 
 destructive to my reputation. . . . Now, Mr. Speaker, I say 
 that I have defied the power of the House to compel me to produce 
 those letters. I speak with all respect to this House. I know its 
 powers and I trust that I respect them. But I say this House has 
 no more power to order what shall be done or not done with my 
 private correspondence than it has with what I shall do in the 
 nurture and education of my children not a particle. The right 
 is as sacred in the one case as it is in the other. ... I am ready 
 for any extremity of contest or conflict in behalf of so sacred a 
 right." 
 
 Throughout this animated and even fiery justification 
 of his right, the crowded House had listened in breathless 
 silence, and with a tension of feeling which could almost 
 be felt. There was abundant sympathy with Mr. Elaine. 
 Even his adversaries were sorry for him. He seemed like 
 a man driven into a corner and fighting for his very life. 
 Yet the suppression of the letters looked only the more 
 utterly damning. But at this moment, after a brief pause, 
 Mr. Elaine dealt a master-stroke which he had planned 
 with consummate art, and which he now delivered with a 
 dramatic power that was thrilling. Raising his voice and 
 holding up a packet, he went on : 
 
 " And while I am so, I am not afraid to show the letters. Thank 
 God Almighty, I am not afraid to show them! There they are. 
 
26 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 There is the very original package. And, with some sense of 
 humiliation, with a mortification that I do not pretend to conceal, 
 with a sense of outrage which I think any man in my position 
 would feel, I invite the confidence of forty-four millions of my 
 countrymen while I read those letters from this desk." 
 
 The tension was broken. The whole assembly burst 
 out into frantic and prolonged applause. Then Mr. 
 Elaine read the letters, one by one, with comments and 
 explanations of his own. Having done so, he faced one 
 of the Democratic members of the Committee, Mr. Proctor 
 Knott, and in the course of a rapid dialogue brought out the 
 fact that Mr. Knott had received a cablegram from a Mr. 
 Caldwell, whose knowledge of the whole affair was very in 
 timate, and that Mr. Knott had apparently suppressed it. 
 The scene at the end of this exciting parliamentary duel 
 baffled all description. The House went mad; and for 
 fifteen minutes there reigned a pandemonium amid which 
 the Speaker was helpless in his efforts to restore even a 
 semblance of order. Mr. Elaine, for the moment, had 
 won a brilliant triumph. He had restored and strength 
 ened the faith of all his followers and had turned appar 
 ently inevitable disaster into victory. 
 
 He had not, however, laid the ghost of the railway 
 scandals. Reading over the so-called Mulligan letters in 
 cold type, a great number of Mr. Elaine s own party 
 associates found in them evidence, if not of actual corrup 
 tion, at least of so blunted a sense of official propriety as 
 to make Mr. Elaine no longer seem a fitting candidate 
 for the highest office in the land. From that time he had 
 to face not only the opposition of the Democratic party, 
 but the mistrust of thousands of Republicans, among whom 
 were men of the highest character and influence. 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 27 
 
 The Mulligan letters showed that Mr. Elaine, in the 
 years when they were written, had been suffering from 
 what he called " very pressing and painful " pecuniary 
 embarrassment. Writing to Mr. Fisher, he described him 
 self as " left helpless and hopeless," and as " crippled 
 and deranged in all my finances." A complicated series 
 of financial transactions stood revealed, and also a willing 
 ness on the part of Mr. Elaine to secure especial considera 
 tion on the ground of his influence as an officer of the 
 Government. The following letters are the two which 
 were afterwards most often quoted. The first was dated 
 June 29, 1869. 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. FISHER: Your offer to admit me to a par 
 ticipation in the new railway enterprise is in every respect as 
 generous as I could expect or desire. I thank you very sincerely 
 for it, and in this connection I wish to make a suggestion of a some 
 what selfish character. It is this: You spoke of Mr. Caldwell 
 disposing of a share of his interest to me. If he really designs to 
 do so, I wish he would make the proposition definite, so that I 
 could know just what to depend on. Perhaps if he waits till the 
 full development of the enterprise, he might grow reluctant to part 
 with the shares; and I do not by this mean any distrust of him. 
 
 " I do not feel that I shall prove a deadhead in the enterprise if 
 I once embark in it. I see various channels in which I know I can 
 be useful. 
 
 " Very hastily and sincerely your friend, 
 
 " J. G. ELAINE." 
 
 The second letter was marked " Confidential," and was 
 dated at Washington, April 16, 1876. 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. FISHER: You can do me a very great favour, 
 and I know it will give you pleasure to do so just as I would do 
 
28 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 for you under similar circumstances. Certain persons and papers 
 are trying to throw mud at me to injure my candidacy before the 
 Cincinnati Convention, and. you may observe they are trying it in 
 connection with the Little Rock and Fort Smith matter. 
 
 " I want you to send me a letter such as the inclosed draft. You 
 will receive this to-morrow (Monday) evening, and it will be a 
 favour I shall never forget if you will at once write me the letter 
 and mail it the same evening. 
 
 " The letter is strictly true, and is honourable to you and to me, 
 and will stop the mouths of slanderers at once. 
 
 " Regard this letter as strictly confidential. Do not show it to 
 any one. The draft is in the hands of my clerk, who is as trust 
 worthy as any man can be. If you can t get the letter written in 
 season for the 9 o clock mail to New York, please be sure to mail 
 it during the night so that it will start first mail Tuesday morning ; 
 but, if possible, I pray you to get it in the Q o clock mail Monday 
 evening. Kind regards to Mrs. Fisher. 
 
 " Sincerely, 
 
 "Burn this letter. " J. G. B." 
 
 A third letter, dated October 4, 1869, made it evident 
 that Mr. Elaine, while Speaker of the House, had sent his 
 page to General Logan, suggesting a point of order, which, 
 if made, would block a scheme unfriendly to a land grant 
 in which Mr. Elaine s financial associates were interested. 
 
 Such, in brief, is the history of the famous Mulligan 
 letters which sufficed to prevent Mr. Elaine s nomination 
 for the Presidency in 1876 and 1880, and which now, in 
 1884, from the outset of his candidacy, were printed and 
 scattered broadcast over the country by his political op 
 ponents. 10 
 
 10 In addition to the letters read by Mr. Elaine before the House, a num 
 ber of others were made public by Messrs. Fisher and Mulligan, who de 
 posited them with their lawyers in Boston. The authenticity of these 
 letters was not denied by Mr. Elaine. 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 29 
 
 The Democratic candidate against whom Mr. Elaine 
 had now to make his fight was a man of a wholly antitheti 
 cal type. Mr. Cleveland was in no respect a brilliant man. 
 The son of a clergyman, and early left to make his own 
 way in the world, he had, like his rival, been a teacher, 
 and had later taken up the practice of the law in Buffalo. 
 There he had held some minor public offices. In 1863 
 he was Assistant District Attorney for the county, and 
 from 1870 to 1873 ne na d served as Sheriff. He first 
 attracted attention outside of his own city when, in 1881, 
 he was elected Mayor of Buffalo by a combination of 
 Democrats and Independents. In this office he instituted 
 reforms and defeated various corrupt combinations, while 
 his liberal use of the veto power maintained a wise econ 
 omy. In 1882 he had received the Democratic nomina 
 tion for the governorship of New York, and had been 
 elected by the remarkable plurality of 192,000 votes. 11 
 
 Mr. Cleveland was a type of man such as had not be 
 fore come to the front as a presidential possibility. He 
 represented the practical, every-day, usual citizen of mod 
 erate means and no very marked ambitions a combina 
 tion of the business man and the unimportant professional 
 person, blunt, hardheaded, brusque, and unimaginative, 
 and with a readiness to take a hand in whatever might be 
 going on. His education was of the simplest, his general 
 
 11 The size of this plurality was mainly due to the abstention from the 
 polls of many discontented Republicans. At the Republican Convention 
 held in Saratoga, Judge Folger, then Secretary of the Treasury, was 
 nominated as Mr. Cleveland s opponent. It was felt that President Arthur 
 had practically dictated this nomination in order to strengthen his own 
 hold upon his party machinery in New York. Certain delegates were 
 charged with having used forged proxies. Finally, the friends of Mr. 
 A. B. Cornell, who was then Governor of the State, were indignant be 
 cause he had not been re-nominated. 
 
30 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 information presumably not very large; and his interest 
 in life was almost wholly bounded by the limits of his own 
 locality. As a practising lawyer he was well thought of; 
 yet his reputation had not gone much beyond the local cir 
 cuit. A bachelor, he had no need of a large income. His 
 spare time was spent with companions of his own tastes. 
 His ideal of recreation was satisfied by a quiet game of 
 pinochle in the back-room of a respectable beer-ga,rden ; 
 and perhaps this circumstance in itself is sufficient to give 
 a fair notion of his general environment. He was, in 
 deed, emphatically a man s man homo inter homines 
 careless of mere forms, blunt of speech, and somewhat 
 primitive in his tastes. But he had all the virile attri 
 butes of a Puritan ancestry. His will was inflexible. His 
 force of character was extraordinary. He hated shams, 
 believed that a thing was either right or wrong, and 
 when he had made up his mind to any course of action, 
 he carried it through without so much as a moment s 
 wavering. So great was the confidence which his char 
 acter inspired, that when a committee of the independ 
 ent voters of Buffalo called upon him for the purpose 
 of urging him to stand for the mayoralty, they asked him 
 for no written pledges, but accepted his simple statement 
 as an adequate guarantee. " Cleveland says that if elected 
 he will do so-and-so," they told the people. And the peo 
 ple elected him, because they knew his word to be in 
 violable. 
 
 As Governor, Mr. Cleveland entered upon a wider field 
 and one that must have seemed at first a place of limitless 
 exactions. But his lack of imagination stood him in good 
 stead. He bent his back to the burden and did each day s 
 work as it came. A stranger to large responsibilities, and 
 retaining much of the narrowness of the provincial busi- 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEiMOCRACY 31 
 
 ness man, he viewed all questions as equally important, 
 attending personally to all his correspondence, looking for 
 himself into every item and detail of executive business, 
 and giving hours of time each day to minutiae which the 
 merest clerk could have cared for with quite as much 
 efficiency. This, however, was only one manifestation of 
 the conscientiousness that showed itself far more com- 
 mendably in higher matters. The rough, blunt, independ 
 ence of the man made him indifferent to the insidious in 
 fluences that rise like a malarial mist about the possessor 
 of high political office. Subleties of suggestion were lost 
 on this brusque novice, and anything more pointed than 
 suggestion roused in him a cross-grained spirit that brooked 
 no guidance or control. He forged ahead in his own way 
 with a sort of bull-necked stubbornness, but with a power 
 and energy which smoother politicians were compelled to 
 recognise as very real. He cared nothing for popular 
 ity. He vetoed a bill requiring the street railways to re 
 duce their fares, thereby offending thousands. He fol 
 lowed it up by a veto of another bill which granted pub 
 lic money to sectarian schools; and in consequence he 
 estranged great masses of his Catholic supporters. He 
 defied the Tammany leaders in the Legislature, and made 
 still more powerful enemies. But when the people at large 
 had come to understand him, they admired his independ 
 ence and applauded this burly, obstinate, tactless, but 
 intensely earnest man. They were pleased when the pro 
 fessional politicians were trampled on; and even the labour 
 representatives, to whose dictation Mr. Cleveland had 
 sturdily refused to bow, at heart respected him for his 
 firmness and his honesty. In the end, his record as Gov 
 ernor of New York secured for him the nomination for the 
 Presidency. Against the brilliant, subtle and magnetic 
 
32 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Elaine was pitted the plodding, incorruptible, courageous 
 Cleveland. 
 
 
 The campaign opened immediately after the two can 
 didates had been nominated. Those Republicans who were 
 opposed to Mr. Elaine formed an organisation at a con 
 ference held in New York on July 22d, and prepared an 
 address which was issued on the 3Oth by the so-called Na 
 tional Committee of Republicans and Independents, of 
 which George William Curtis was the chairman, and 
 George Walton Green the secretary. At once the move 
 ment assumed formidable proportions, and it was seen 
 that thousands of Republicans were rallying to Cleveland, 
 not because they had given up their party, but because they 
 could not tolerate their party s candidate. Among them 
 were men who had been identified with the Republican 
 party from its earliest years Henry Ward Beecher, Wil 
 liam Everett, George Ticknor Curtis, Carl Schurz, and 
 James Freeman Clarke. These Independents received the 
 popular name of " Mugwumps," a word which, having 
 been first employed in a semi-political sense by the Indian 
 apolis Sentinel in 1872, gained its popular currency 
 through the New York Sun, which began using it on 
 March 23, 1884. These "Mugwumps," or political 
 purists, had been described by Mr. Elaine four years 
 earlier in a letter to General Garfield, in which he said: 
 "They are noisy but not numerous; pharisaical but not 
 practical; ambitious but not wise; pretentious but not 
 powerful." This sentence was extremely characteristic of 
 the man who wrote it. 
 
 Mr. Elaine was an old campaigner. He knew that his 
 record would be violently assailed. He felt, however, that 
 he had drawn all the enemy s fire in 1876 and 1880, and 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 33 
 
 that in consequence their ammunition had been practically 
 exhausted. He had no intention of conducting a defensive 
 battle. With all his natural aggressiveness, therefore, he 
 began to carry the war into the enemy s country. At first 
 he trusted to the old sectional issue which had won so 
 many elections for his party. The memories of the Civil 
 War were again invoked. The perils of the " Solid South " 
 and of " the South once more in the saddle " were pic 
 tured by a thousand party orators. But somehow or 
 other this issue had, in sporting parlance, gone stale. The 
 new generation which had grown up since theTwar cared 
 little for these things, and the older generation had 
 grown weary of them. Mr. Cleveland was sneered at 
 because he had not enlisted in the army but had sent a 
 substitute. To this it was answered that he was then the 
 sole support of a widowed mother, and that neither had 
 Mr. Elaine himself enlisted nor sent a substitute. A feel 
 ing of dismay affected the Republican managers when it 
 was discovered that the war issue was no longer powerful. 
 The tariff question was then taken up and hammered at 
 industriously. This had proved sufficient to pull Mr. Gar- 
 field through in 1880, and much was hoped from it by 
 Mr. Elaine. The Democratic platform, however, had 
 been very wisely drawn, and its tariff plank decidedly ap 
 pealed to the common sense of the American people. It 
 said: 
 
 " Knowing full well that legislation affecting the occupations 
 of the people should be cautious and conservative in method, not 
 in advance of public opinion but responsive to its demands, the 
 Democratic Party is pledged to revise the tariff in a spirit of fair 
 ness to all interests. But in making reductions in taxes, it is not 
 proposed to injure any domestic industries, but rather to promote 
 their healthy growth. . . . The necessary reduction in taxation 
 
34 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 can and must be effected without depriving American labour of 
 the ability to compete successfully with foreign labour, and with 
 out imposing lower rates of duty than will be ample to cover any 
 increased cost of production which may exist in consequence of the 
 higher rate of wages prevailing in this country. Sufficient revenue 
 to pay all the expenses of the Federal Government can be got 
 under our present system of taxation, from custom-house taxes on 
 fewer imported articles, bearing heaviest on articles of luxury, and 
 bearing lightest on articles of necessity." 
 
 In this there was no suggestion of the favourite Re 
 publican bogey of Free Trade. It was instead a lucid 
 definition of Protection as Protection had been understood 
 by Lincoln and by the Republican financiers of his admin 
 istration. Hence the tariff issue was another weapon which 
 bent and broke in the hands of those who tried to wield it. 
 
 Seeing the futility of their efforts to rekindle the war 
 spirit or to frighten the manufacturing interests, the Re 
 publican managers, in their desperation, descended to the 
 lower plane of personal abuse, justifying themselves by 
 citing the attacks which Democrats and Independents were 
 making upon Mr. Elaine. From that moment the contest 
 became shameful and indecent to an almost incredible 
 degree. No such campaign of slander had ever before 
 been waged. One is justified in thinking that no such 
 campaign will ever again be known in American political 
 history. To recall quite briefly some of its details may act 
 as a deterrent in the future. Mr. Cleveland was then a 
 bachelor, and so the Republican condottieri felt no such 
 scruples as they might have entertained toward one who 
 had a family to suffer. They thought him a fair target for 
 every missile. An episode in his past and one that had 
 been long since ended, was now revived, and made the 
 basis for a charge of repulsive and habitual immorality. 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 35 
 
 When the story was first published, its substance was tele 
 graphed to Mr. Cleveland, who immediately replied with 
 the characteristic message, " Tell the truth." But the 
 truth would not have been sufficient for the purposes of 
 his opponents, and therefore the incident referred to was 
 exaggerated and became the nucleus of a shameful struc 
 ture of foul invention and filthy innuendo. It was charged 
 that Mr. Cleveland had abducted a woman and imprisoned 
 her in an asylum in order to suppress her story, and that 
 he had kidnapped and secretly immured a child which 
 claimed him as its father. Mr. Cleveland had made him 
 self hated by the baser elements in Buffalo through his 
 fearlessness in suppressing vice while he was Mayor; and 
 now from every drinking-den and brothel there was sent 
 forth a swarm of vile and slanderous stories which the 
 partisans of Mr. Blaine greedily caught up and scattered 
 recklessly throughout the land. It was a debauch of slander, 
 and for a moment the Independents were staggered. But 
 a brief investigation showed that, with the exception of a 
 single incident, this prurient mass had oozed from the 
 lewd imagination of the stews. It all resolved itself into 
 the exaggeration of one episode in Mr. Cleveland s life, 
 which had occurred years before and which long since had 
 been atoned for by the rectitude of his after conduct. The 
 following paragraph from a letter written by the Rev. 
 Dr. Kinsley Twining, an eminent clergyman of Buffalo, 
 who was conversant with all the facts, sets forth with 
 sufficient clearness the truth which Mr. Cleveland desired 
 to have told. This letter was indorsed by the most promi 
 nent citizens of Buffalo, and it was printed and circulated 
 throughout the United States. 
 
 " The kernel of truth in the various charges against Mr. Cleve 
 land is this, that when he was younger than he is now, he was 
 
36 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 guilty of an illicit connection ; but the charge, as brought against 
 him, lacks the elements of truth in these substantial points: There 
 was no seduction, no adultery, no breach of promise, no obligation 
 of marriage; but there was at that time a culpable irregularity of 
 life, living as he was, a bachelor, for which it was proper and is 
 proper that he should suffer. After the primary offence, which is 
 not to be palliated in the circle for which I write, his conduct w T as 
 singularly honourable, showing no attempt to evade responsibility, 
 and doing all he could to meet the duties involved, of winch mar 
 riage was certainly not one. Everything here was eminently to 
 his credit under circumstances which would have seemed to many 
 men of the world to justify him in other conduct than that which 
 he accepted as his duty. There was no abduction, only proper 
 legal action under circumstances which demanded it." 
 
 It is now believed by many that Mr. Cleveland chival 
 rously took upon himself the blame of this transaction in 
 order to shield a personal friend who was himself the 
 wrongdoer, but who had a family which would have suf 
 fered had the facts been brought to light. This belief 
 suggested to the late Paul Leicester Ford a dramatic 
 chapter in his political novel The Honourable Peter Stir 
 ling, 12 of which many incidents are understood to have been 
 drawn from the life of Mr. Cleveland. Certain it is that 
 there was no truth in the other stories. They were re 
 peated on the stump with hideous unctuousness by an itin 
 erant preacher who had been hired to proclaim them; but 
 a move toward prosecuting him for slander brought him 
 instantly to his knees. The wretched creature ate his 
 words and grovelled and begged abjectly for forgiveness. 
 He denied having any authority for what he had said, and 
 confessed that he had simply repeated the loose stones 
 which he had picked up in the street. 
 
 The opinion of the independent voters was very well 
 
 12 New York, 1886. See chapter xxxiv. 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 37 
 
 expressed by the New York Evening Post. Taunted with 
 its enmity to Elaine, who had been accused only of official 
 dereliction, and with its support of one who had been 
 confessedly unchaste, the Post replied that while an iso 
 lated instance of unchastity might affect the social reputa 
 tion of a man, it had no relation whatever to his civic 
 virtues; whereas the charges against Mr. Elaine, if true, 
 disqualified him wholly for high office, since they were 
 such as undermine the foundation of all civic honour. 
 
 As the campaign proceeded, its tone became almost 
 frantic. Those who clung loyally to Mr. Elaine did so 
 with a passionate intensity that made them quite incapable 
 of reasoning. The attacks on Mr. Cleveland had filled 
 his followers with the bitterest resentment. It was known 
 that the scandalous stories about him had been published 
 with Mr. Elaine s consent, and that in fact Mr. Elaine had 
 sent the original copy of them to the Republican National 
 Committee. 13 Therefore when certain industrious and not 
 over-nice partisans unearthed a similar private scandal re 
 lating to Mr. Elaine, it was carried to Mr. Cleveland in 
 the confident expectation that he would sanction its use 
 in the campaign. To their surprise, he sternly forbade any 
 such action, and notified the managers of his canvass to 
 have nothing to do with it. This w r as early in the summer. 
 A newspaper owner in the West, who had no such scruples 
 as influenced Mr. Cleveland, resolved, on his own respon 
 sibility, to make the matter public. On August 8th, the 
 Indianapolis Sentinel printed the story with sensational 
 headlines. It asserted that the inscription on a headstone 
 in the cemetery at Augusta, Maine, showed that a child had 
 been born to Mr. and Mrs. Elaine within three months 
 
 13 The authority for this statement is a well known Republican, Col. A. 
 K. McClure. See McClure, Our Presidents, p. 312 (New York, 1905). 
 
3 8 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 after the date of their marriage. Upon this circumstance, 
 the Sentinel made a series of editorial comments such as it 
 is unnecessary to reprint, but which were insufferably frank 
 and brutally explicit. 
 
 Mr. Elaine was stung to the quick by this shocking re 
 flection upon his own honour and the virtue of his wife. 
 He at once telegraphed to an eminent legal firm in Indiana, 
 directing that a suit for criminal libel be brought at once 
 against the Sentinel. On September 6th, he wrote a per 
 sonal letter of explanation to Mr. William Walter Phelps, 
 who gave it to the press. The essential portions of this 
 letter may be quoted : 
 
 "At Georgetown, Ky., in the spring of 1848, when I was but 
 eighteen years of age, I first met the lady who for more than 
 thirty-four years has been my wife. Our acquaintance resulted, at 
 the end of six months, in an engagement, which, without the pros 
 pect of speedy marriage, we naturally sought to keep to ourselves. 
 Two years later, in the spring of 1850, when I was maturing plans 
 to leave my profession in Kentucky and establish myself elsewhere, 
 I was suddenly summoned to Pennsylvania by the death of my 
 father. It being very doubtful if I could return to Kentucky, I 
 was threatened with indefinite separation from her who possessed 
 my entire devotion. My one wish was to secure her to myself by 
 an indissoluble tie against every possible contingency in life; and 
 on the 3Oth day of June, 1850, just prior to my departure from 
 Kentucky, we were, in- the presence of chosen and trusted friends, 
 united by what I knew was, in my native State of Pennsylvania, a 
 perfectly legal form of marriage." 
 
 He then stated that this marriage subsequently appeared 
 to have been technically irregular, inasmuch as, through 
 ignorance of the Kentucky law, he had not secured the 
 proper form of license. Therefore, he had gone through 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 39 
 
 a second marriage ceremony in Pennsylvania on March 
 25, 1851, a date which had usually been accepted as that 
 of his marriage to Miss Stanwood. He concluded : 
 
 " At the mature age of fifty-four I do not defend the wisdom or 
 prudence of a secret marriage suggested by the ardour and the 
 inexperience of youth ; but its honour and its purity were inviolate, 
 as I believe, in the sight of God, and can not be made to appear 
 otherwise by the wicked devices of men. It brought to me a com 
 panionship which has been my chief happiness from boyhood s years 
 to this hour, and has crowned me with whatever of success I have 
 attained in life." 
 
 To the discredit of human nature, this perfectly frank 
 and truthful explanation had no effect upon many of Mr. 
 Elaine s enemies; and up to the day of the election, dis 
 gusting innuendoes regarding the affair continued to be 
 heard upon the stump. 14 
 
 14 After the election, Mr. Blaine withdrew his suit against the Sentinel, 
 publishing on December loth, a letter to his counsel which contained the 
 following passages: 
 
 " When I visited Indiana in October, I was repeatedly advised that six 
 Democrats could not be found in the State who in a political suit would 
 give a verdict against their leading party organ. I am perfectly able to 
 fight the Sentinel newspaper in the Indiana court, but I would stand no 
 chance whatever against the consolidated venom of the Democratic party 
 of the State. With these surroundings and with this prospect, it is idle for 
 
 me to go through the trouble and annoyance of a trial Except 
 
 from three members of the Democratic party of that State I have never 
 heard that a word of dissent or disapproval was spoken ; while the great 
 mass of the Democratic speakers repeated the libel from every stump in 
 Indiana with vituperative rancour, with gibes and ribald jest. 
 
 " As a candidate for the presidency I knew that I should encounter many 
 forms of calumny and personal defamation, but I confess that I did not ex 
 pect to be called upon to defend the name of a beloved and honoured wife, 
 who is a mother and a grandmother, nor did I expect that the grave of 
 my little child would be cruelly desecrated. 
 
 " Against such gross forms of wrong the law gives no adequate redress, 
 
40 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Political discussion, indeed, rapidly degenerated into 
 personal abuse. Even the cartoonists of the different par 
 ties showed none of the humour which is usually to be 
 found in the pictorial history of a campaign. Some of the 
 caricatures were frightful in their malignity. It was at 
 this time that Gillam drew his hideous pictures of Mr. 
 Elaine as the Tattooed Man, which produced so painful 
 an impression upon Mr. Elaine himself that his, friends 
 could with difficulty restrain him from instituting a crim 
 inal prosecution. On the other hand, the pages of Judge 
 showed an almost equally offensive representation of the 
 Democratic candidates. Many persons at that time had a 
 very poor opinion of Mr. Cleveland s intellectual abili 
 ties and regarded Mr. Hendricks as much the abler man. 
 Hence a cartoonist drew the Democratic ticket as a kan 
 garoo with an extremely small head, but with an enor 
 mous, leech-like tail. The head, of course, was Cleveland, 
 and the tail was Hendricks, whose face appeared upon it; 
 and this conception, varied in a hundred different ways 
 and published in crude colours, was worked out in a fash 
 ion that was most repulsive, as were also scores of other 
 coarse cartoons, which to-day would be suppressed by the 
 police. 
 
 Late in October it became evident that the vote of New 
 York would decide the result of the election; and both 
 parties concentrated upon that State their intensest ener 
 gies. Mr. Cleveland as Governor had, as already de 
 scribed, offended the labour vote, the Roman Catholics, 
 and Tammany Hall three immensely powerful elements. 
 Mr. Elaine, on the other hand, because of his Irish de- 
 
 and I know that in the end my most effective appeal against the un 
 speakable outrages which I resist must be to the noble manhood and the 
 noble womanhood of America." 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 41 
 
 scent, his Catholic mother, and his professed sympathies 
 with the cause of Ireland and the so-called Irish " pa 
 triots," was strong precisely where Cleveland was known 
 to be most vulnerable. Yet in New York Mr. Elaine 
 had made one venomous and implacable enemy. This 
 was Roscoe Conkling, with whom, so far back as 1866, 
 there had been established something like a personal feud. 
 The two men had always been temperamentally anti 
 pathetic. Conkling was overbearing, proud of his personal 
 appearance, and bore himself with a swagger which im 
 pressed the galleries of the House, but which was offensive 
 even to many of his own party associates. In 1866, in 
 the course of a debate, Elaine and Conkling came into 
 parliamentary collision, and the former was goaded into 
 a withering blaze of scorn. Turning upon Conkling, he 
 said in measured tones and with an air of indescribable 
 disdain: 
 
 " As to the gentleman s cruel sarcasm, I hope he will not be too 
 severe. The contempt of that large-minded gentleman is so wilt 
 ing, his haughty disdain, his grandiloquent swell, his majestic, 
 supereminent, overpowering, turkey-gobbler strut, has been so 
 crushing to ir^self and all the members of this House, that I know 
 it was an act of the greatest temerity for me to venture upon a 
 controversy with him." 
 
 Then, referring to a comparison which had been made of 
 Mr. Conkling to Henry Winter Davis, he went on : 
 
 The gentleman took it seriously, and it has given his strut 
 additional pomposity. The resemblance is great; it is striking. 
 Hyperion to a Satyr, Thersites to Hercules, mud to marble, dung 
 hill to diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining puppy to 
 a roaring lion ! " 
 
42 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 This shock to his vanity Conkling never forgave, the 
 less so as the cartoonists ever afterward depicted him as 
 a turkey-gobbler. From that day the two men were ene 
 mies for life. It was Conkling who aided in preventing 
 Elaine s nomination in 1876 and in 1880. It was Elaine 
 who, as Garfield s Secretary of State, urged the President 
 to defy the New York Senator and indirectly to secure his 
 retirement into private life. Now it was Conkling, s turn 
 again, and he meant to feed his resentment to the full. 
 His power in New York was great, and the Republican 
 managers could do nothing with him. A political friend 
 sought him out for the purpose of persuading him to make 
 at least one speech in defence of Mr. Elaine. Conkling, 
 who was sitting in his law office at the time of the inter 
 view, listened impassively to the earnest plea until the last 
 word had been spoken. Then he looked up with a sar 
 donic smile. 
 
 " Thank you," he said; " but you know I don t engage 
 in criminal practice." 
 
 Elaine, therefore, took the stump himself and went 
 about speaking to great crowds, and endeavouring to win 
 them by that eloquence and charm of manner which had 
 made him famous. He was, however, no longer the in 
 domitable political gladiator of past years. The strain of 
 the conflict had told on him severely. Though he let it be 
 known to few, he was acutely sensitive to the attacks that 
 were made upon him so unscrupulously and often so 
 brutally. He suffered even when he seemed externally 
 serene. Moreover, his fellow-candidate, General Logan, 
 was not at all the associate whom Mr. Elaine would per 
 sonally have chosen. Logan represented the opposing or 
 " Stalwart " faction of the Republican party, and was in 
 sympathy with Conkling and his friends. He was, besides 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 43 
 
 a coarse-grained, illiterate sort of person, the precise 
 antithesis of Mr. Elaine. Before the campaign had ended, 
 a very marked coolness came to exist between the two 
 men a circumstance that inspired the following bit of 
 doggerel, the syntax of which was supposed to represent 
 General Logan s style of English : 
 
 " We never speak as we pass by, 
 Me to Jim Blaine nor him to I." 
 
 Mr. Blaine had also well-nigh reached the point of 
 physical exhaustion. His health was already undermined. 
 His vitality was failing. As he was dragged about from 
 place to place, stared at by mobs, having always to appear 
 affable and interested while haunted by a premonition of 
 disaster, he almost experienced physical collapse. The 
 acuteness of his mind must likewise have been somewhat 
 dulled; for when, on October 29th, a few days before the 
 election, he received at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New 
 York City a number of clergymen, he failed to notice a 
 remark of one of them who made a brief address. This 
 clergyman was the Rev. Dr. Samuel D. Burchard, who 
 closed his speech with the following sentences: 
 
 " We expect to vote for you next Tuesday. We have a higher 
 expectation, which is that you will be the President of the United 
 States, and that you will do honour to your name, to the United 
 States, and to the high office you will occupy. We are Republicans, 
 and we do not propose to leave our party and identify ourselves 
 with the party of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion ! " 
 
 These last words, so blazingly indiscreet when publicly 
 addressed to a candidate who hoped to carry the pivotal 
 State of New York by the aid of Catholic voters, were 
 
44 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 heard by Mr. Elaine, but their significance was not in 
 stantly appreciated. As he afterwards told his friends in 
 private conversation, he was at the moment preoccupied 
 in thinking over the answer which he was to make. He 
 therefore took no notice of Dr. Burchard s peroration, 
 though it must have been personally offensive to him as the 
 son of a Catholic mother. He had, besides, himself just 
 returned from visiting his sister, who was the Mother 
 Superior of a convent in Indiana. Yet it was only after 
 the delegation had withdrawn that he fully realised the 
 serious blunder that he had made. He took immediate 
 steps to suppress the word " Romanism " in the reports 
 that were to appear in friendly newspapers. But it w r as 
 too late. The Horatian maxim, Folat irrevocable ver- 
 bum, was to find a striking illustration of its truth. In less 
 than twenty-four hours, every Democratic paper in the 
 country had spread before its readers the Burchard allitera 
 tion. Every Catholic voter in the State had read it upon 
 handbills, and had been told that Mr. Blaine had allowed 
 a slur upon his own mother s faith to pass unrebuked. 
 
 Still another political mistake was made by the Republi 
 can candidate on the evening of the same day. He attended 
 a dinner given in his honour at Delmonico s by a number 
 of prominent New York gentlemen. The list of guests 
 was a remarkably representative one, containing the names 
 of men prominent in every walk of life. But, unluckily 
 for Mr. Blaine, there were many present there who to the 
 popular imagination were associated only with great wealth 
 or with wealth used for oppression. Such, for example, 
 were Messrs. Jay Gould, H. H. Rogers of the Standard 
 Oil Company, Cyrus W. Field, Russell Sage, and H. D. 
 Armour, afterwards of the Beef Trust. As may be 
 imagined, Mr. Elaine s enemies were not slow in using this 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 45 
 
 so-called " Millionaires Dinner " as a proof that Mr. 
 Elaine was the chosen candidate of the rich, and there 
 fore devoid of sympathy with the poor and needy. Some 
 extracts from the New York World of the following day, 
 may be cited as typical, however absurd they may now 
 appear. 
 
 " Yesterday was Black Wednesday for Mr. James G. Elaine. 
 He will remember it with sorrow. . . . The Millionaires and 
 Monopolists banquet favourite candidates, but the People elect 
 Presidents, thank God! ... Is there a workingman now 
 who believes that James G. Elaine is sincere when he pretends to 
 be the friend of labour? If so, why does he receive the homage 
 of Gould, Cyrus Field, and the millionaire enemies of the work- 
 ingmen ? 
 
 " While Elaine and his millionaire admirers were feasting at 
 Delmonico s last night, thousands of children in this great city, 
 whose fathers labour twelve hours a day, went to bed hungry and 
 many of them supperless. It was a Black Wednesday for James 
 G. Elaine. . . . Mr. Elaine was at home in the midst of the 
 Monopolists and Millionaires last night. He loves them and they 
 admire him. But the people witnessed the shameless exhibition, 
 and they will not elect to the presidency the defender of Jay 
 Gould s schemes and the partner of Cyrus Field. 
 
 " From Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion at the Fifth Avenue 
 Hotel, Mr. Elaine proceeded to the merry banquet of the Million 
 aires at Delmonico s, where champagne frothed and brandy spar 
 kled in glasses that glittered like jewels. The clergymen would 
 have been proud of Mr. Elaine, no doubt, if they had seen him in 
 the midst of the mighty wine-bibbers. It was Mr. Elaine s Black 
 Wednesday. 
 
 " Beaten by the people, hopeless of an honest election, Elaine s 
 appeal at the banquet of the millionaires was for a corruption fund 
 large enough to buy up New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana, and 
 to defraud the people of their free choice for President. . . . 
 
46 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Every dollar subscribed at this late stage of the campaign, when 
 all legitimate expenses have ceased, was given solely to purchase 
 votes, to facilitate frauds, and to rob the people of a fair election. 
 Every subscriber is an enemy of the Republic." 
 
 Still, the result seemed doubtful. Tammany Hall had 
 not yet been won over. Its leader was John Kelly, a 
 rough and ready politician, but an honest man, according 
 to his lights. He had opposed Mr. Cleveland s nomina 
 tion, pronouncing him no Democrat, and declaring that if 
 elected he would prove a traitor to the party. Kelly held 
 in his control the vote of Tammany Hall; and, as a last 
 resort, Mr. Hendricks was summoned from Indiana to 
 exert his influence. He made the journey of a thousand 
 miles and conferred with Kelly until a late hour of the 
 night. Hendricks was a party man of the straitest type, 
 an old-time Democrat of the Middle West. He carried 
 his point, and Kelly promised that for Hendricks s sake 
 the Tammany vote should be cast for the party ticket. 
 
 Then came the day of the election on November 4th. 
 Early on the following morning it was known that Cleve 
 land had carried all the Southern States, besides New Jer 
 sey, Connecticut and Indiana. New York was still in 
 doubt, but it seemed to have gone Democratic. The New 
 York Sun, which had supported the farcical Greenback 
 candidacy of General B. F. Butler, and which was bitterly 
 opposed to Cleveland, conceded his election. The Tribune, 
 on the other hand, kept its flag still flying, and declared 
 that Blaine had won. It was evident that the result de 
 pended upon a few hundred votes in the outlying counties 
 of New York. A very ugly feeling was manifested among 
 the Democrats. They suspected that a plot was on foot 
 to cheat them of their rights and to repeat the discreditable 
 
THE RETURN OF THE DEMOCRACY 4 7 
 
 history of 1876. This suspicion was intensified when the 
 Republican National Committee issued the following bul 
 letin : 
 
 " There is no ground for doubt that the honest vote of this 
 State has been given to the Republican candidate ; and though the 
 defeated candidate for the presidency is at the head of the election 
 machinery in this State, the Democratic party, which has notori 
 ously been the party of frauds in elections for years, will not be 
 permitted to overthrow the will of the people." 
 
 \Mobs filled the streets in the vicinity of the newspaper 
 offices, watching intently every bulletin that was posted, 
 and from time to time breaking out into savage cheers or 
 groans. Violence was attempted in several cities, and 
 bodies of men marched up and down as they had done at 
 the outbreak of the Civil War. The excitement was most 
 intense in the city of New York, where it was believed that 
 Jay Gould, who controlled the Western Union Telegraph 
 Company, was leagued with the more unscrupulous of the, 
 Republican managers to tamper with the delayed returns./ 
 Gould was one of the most sinister figures that have ever 
 flitted, bat-like, across the vision of the American people. 
 Merciless, cold-blooded, secretive, apparently without one 
 redeeming trait, this man for many years had been the in 
 carnation of unscrupulous greed. A railway-wrecker, a 
 corrupter of the judiciary, a partner of the notorious Fisk, 
 the author of the dreadful panic of Black Friday in 1873, 
 when he drove hundreds of victims to ruin, to self-murder 
 or to shame, Jay Gould, even at the present day, typifies 
 so vividly all that is base and foul, as to cause even the 
 mention of his name to induce the shudderings of moral 
 nausea. No sooner was his repulsive personality associated 
 with the belief that the election returns were being altered, 
 
48 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 than popular indignation broke loose from all restraint. 
 An angry mob marched to the Western Union Building 
 with shouts of " Hang Jay Gould ! " Gould added to his 
 other despicable traits the quality of cowardice. Fearing 
 for his life, he besought police protection; and then from 
 some inner hiding place he despatched a telegram to Mr. 
 Cleveland, conceding his election and effusively congratu 
 lating him upon it. 15 
 
 On the evening of the i8th of November, the official 
 count was ended; and then the country knew that a plu 
 rality of 1149 votes in the State of New York had given 
 the presidency to Mr. Cleveland. On that same night, 
 Mr. Blaine appeared at the door of his house in Augusta, 
 Maine, and said to a sombre, sullen crowd which had 
 assembled there : " Friends and neighbours, the national 
 contest is over, and by the narrowest of margins we have 
 lost." 
 
 The election of Mr. Cleveland marks an epoch in our 
 national history, the importance of which can only now 
 be fully understood. It meant that, with the exception of 
 the negro question, the issues springing from the Civil 
 War had been definitely settled. It meant the beginning 
 of a true re-union of all States and sections. It meant that 
 the nation had turned its back upon the past, and was 
 about to move forward with confidence and courage to a 
 future of material prosperity, and to a greatness of which 
 no one at that time could form an adequate conception. 
 And it meant, although none then surmised it, that, as a 
 result of new conditions, there was ultimately to be effected 
 a momentous change in the whole social and political struc 
 ture of the American Republic. 
 
 ir > See Breen, Thirty Years of New York Politics, pp. 695-697 (New 
 York, 1899). 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 TWO YEARS OF PRESIDENT CLEVELAND 
 
 PRESIDENT CLEVELAND, from the very outset of his ad 
 ministration, was destined to confound the predictions of 
 his political adversaries. The misrepresentations concern 
 ing him with which the country had been flooded during 
 the campaign of 1884 had found lodgment in the minds 
 of millions. Now that he was actually in office, a shiver 
 of nervous apprehension ran through those Republicans 
 who honestly believed that a Democratic administration 
 meant ruin and disaster. They had been told that Mr. 
 Cleveland was a man of limited intelligence, of low tastes, 
 and of disreputable associations. Partisan newspapers had 
 prophesied that his Cabinet would be made up of bar 
 room politicians and old-time party hacks. It was said, 
 for instance, that John Kelly would be appointed Secre 
 tary of the Treasury in return for the support which Tam 
 many Hall had reluctantly given to Mr. Cleveland. Edi 
 torial writers let their imaginations run riot In suggesting 
 other like appointments as not only possible but probable. 
 At the North there were many who feared lest the results 
 of the Civil War should be undone and lest the govern 
 ment of the United States should be given into the hands 
 of " rebels." The negroes in the South were told that a 
 Democratic President might seek to re-enslave them. Not 
 a few timorous souls all over the country looked for im 
 mediate commercial panic and financial ruin. 
 
 In this respect, history was only repeating itself. Just 
 
 49 
 
50 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 as the Federalists in 1801 had raised the cry that Presi 
 dent Jefferson was an atheist, a satyr, a Jacobin, and an 
 enemy to law and to the rights of property, and just as 
 the Whigs, 1 in 1829 had thought to alarm the country by 
 describing President Jackson as a gambler, murderer, and 
 border ruffian, so Mr. Cleveland s accession to the presi 
 dency was declared to be the beginning of a political satur 
 nalia. His brief inaugural address, however, surprised 
 those persons who had thought of him as dull and as ca 
 pable of nothing more than platitude. Not only was it 
 dignified and wholly worthy of the occasion, but it con 
 tained more than one passage of grave and almost stately 
 eloquence. The following sentences embody a spirit which 
 will be found to have animated Mr. Cleveland s whole 
 career of public service. It expresses the ideal principle 
 of true democracy: 
 
 " But he who takes the oath to-day to preserve, protect, and 
 defend the Constitution of the United States only assumes the 
 solemn obligation which every patriotic citizen on the farm, in 
 the workshop, in the marts of trade, and everywhere should share 
 with him. The Constitution which prescribes his oath, my coun 
 trymen, is yours; the Government you have chosen him to admin 
 ister for a time is yours; the suffrage which executes the will of 
 freemen is yours; the laws and the entire scheme of our civil rule, 
 from the town-meeting to the State capitals and the national 
 capital, are yours. Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magis 
 trate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, 
 exercises a public trust. Nor is this all. Every citizen owes to the 
 country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants 
 and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness. 
 Thus is the people s will impressed upon the whole frame-work of 
 
 1 The name " Whig " had not, however, yet come into general use by 
 the party opposed to Jackson. 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 51 
 
 our civil polity municipal, State, and Federal; and this is the price 
 of our liberty and the inspiration of our faith in the Republic." 2 
 
 At the close of the inaugural ceremonies, President 
 Cleveland transmitted to the Senate the names of the men 
 whom he had chosen to constitute his Cabinet. For Secre 
 tary of State he had selected Senator Thomas Francis 
 Bayard of Delaware, a portly gentleman, who bore a 
 name justly famous in American political history, since for 
 five generations some member of the Bayard family had 
 represented the State of Delaware in the national Senate, 
 of which body Mr. Bayard himself had been temporary 
 president in 1881. The new Secretary of War was Mr. 
 William Crownlnshjeld Endicott of Massachusetts, a very 
 Brahmin oF the Brahmins, being a descendant of John 
 Endecott, who was one of the six gentlemen to whom the 
 first royal patent for the Massachusetts Bay territory had 
 been granted in 1628; and who was Colonial Governor in 
 1630 and 1664, and President of the United Colonies of 
 New England in 1658. Mr. Endicott was a Harvard 
 graduate, a lawyer of ability, and had served for ten years 
 as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. He 
 had taken an active part in political life and was an earnest 
 advocate of reform in the Civil Service. For Secretary of 
 the Navy, the President nominated Mr. William C. Whit 
 ney of New York. Mr. Whitney was sprung from old 
 New England stock. Educated at Yale and Harvard, he 
 had engaged in the practice of the law, and in 1871 had 
 done effective work in destroying the Tweed Ring. Mr. 
 Whitney was a man of wealth, an enthusiastic sportsman, 
 possessed of a winning personality, generous, popular, and 
 
 2 Quotations from presidential messages, inaugural addresses, and proc 
 lamations follow the text given in Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 
 officially compiled by J. D. Richardson, 10 vols. (Washington, 1900). 
 
52 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 widely known. He was also a most astute politician and 
 had conducted Mr. Cleveland s campaign in New York 
 with consummate skill. 
 
 Mr. Daniel Manning, of New York, received the 
 Treasury portfolio, although usage was against giving two 
 Cabinet offices to citizens of the same State. Mr. Man 
 ning had been better known as an active party manager 
 than as a financier. He had been Mr. Tilden s trusted 
 lieutenant, and had shown himself to be adroit and full 
 of resource. He was the head of an important bank in 
 Albany, and was soon to prove himself no less able 
 in dealing with large financial problems than he had 
 been fertile in political strategy. For Secretary of the 
 Interior, the President named Senator L. Q. C. Lamar of 
 Mississippi. Senator Lamar had drafted the ordinance 
 of secession at the Mississippi Convention of 1861, and 
 had served in the Confederate army for two years, and 
 as Judge Advocate for a few months. He had, however, 
 accepted the results of the war with frankness and sin 
 cerity, and was known to be as liberal-minded and patri 
 otic as he was liked and respected. 3 Senator Lamar had 
 the tastes of a scholar. He was fond of books and of philo 
 sophical researches, and was an admirable type of the 
 
 3 An instance of his political liberality is to be found in the address 
 made by Mr. Lamar in the Senate of the United States upon the occasion 
 of Senator Sumner s death in 1874. Sumner was still an object of general 
 detestation in the South, yet Senator Lamar had the courage to say of 
 him: 
 
 " It was my misfortune, perhaps my fault personally, never to have 
 known this eminent philanthropist and statesman. The impulse was 
 often strong upon me to go to him and offer him my hand, and my heart 
 with it, and to express to him my thanks for his kind and considerate 
 course toward the people with whom I am identified. If I did not yield 
 to that impulse, it was because the thought occurred that other days were 
 coming in which such a demonstration might be more opportune and less 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 53 
 
 cultivated Southern gentleman. The new Attorney-Gen 
 eral was Senator Augustus H. Garland of Arkansas, who 
 had opposed secession in 1861, though subsequently he 
 had been a member of the Confederate Congress, and 
 later, after the war ended, Governor of Arkansas. 
 President Cleveland chc^SS. for the office of Postmaster- 
 General, Colonel William F. Vilas of Wisconsin, a Union 
 soldier who had fought under Grant at Vicksburg. Dur 
 ing the campaign he had served as chairman of the Demo 
 cratic National Committee. 
 
 Altogether, the new Cabinet was one against which no 
 reasonable criticism could be brought. More than that, 
 it was a very remarkable body of administrators. For 
 personal distinction it had had few, if any, superiors in 
 the whole history of the Government. For ability it 
 had not been equalled since the days of President 
 Lincoln. Those deluded partisans who expected the new 
 President to surround himself with a group of hench 
 men, unknown or only too well known, were put to silence. 
 Those who had looked for a government of ex-Confeder 
 ates had naught to say. There was even some significance 
 in the fact that President Cleveland s first official act after 
 making his Cabinet nominations, was to sign the commis 
 sion of Ulysses S. Grant, restoring that illustrious but now 
 impoverished soldier to the retired list of the army with 
 the rank and pay of General. 
 
 Fortune soon gave the President a chance to show that 
 in dealing with the foreign relations of the United States 
 he could act with admirable energy and decision. Only a 
 
 liable to misconstruction. Suddenly and without premonition, a day has 
 come at last to which, for such a purpose, there is no to-morrow. My 
 regret is therefore intensified by the thought that I failed to speak to him 
 out of the fulness of my heart while there was yet time." 
 
54 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 few days after his inauguration, a revolt broke out upon 
 the Isthmus of Panama, headed by a local incendiary 
 named Pedro Prestan. Prestan raised a motley force, 
 proclaimed a revolutionary government, took the City of 
 Aspinwall (now Colon), levied contributions on the mer 
 chants, both native and foreign, and threatened to take 
 possession of the Isthmian railway. Growing bolder, he 
 seized an American steamship, the Colon, and imprisoned 
 her officers. The United States Consul, who protested, 
 was thrown into a dungeon (March 31). President 
 Cleveland took instant action. Five vessels of war were 
 ordered to the Isthmus. A strong body of marines, with 
 Catling guns and a battery of light artillery, were landed; 
 and the armed forces of the United States soon held the 
 whole line of the Panama railway. The Colon was taken 
 from Prestan under the guns of the cruiser Galena, and 
 his prisoners were rescued. The revolt collapsed. Co 
 lombian troops retook the city of Aspinwall, and Pres 
 tan himself was promptly hanged as a common malefactor. 
 Not long after the South American republic of Ecuador 
 received a needed lesson. The government of that coun 
 try had imprisoned one Julio Santos, an American citizen, 
 and had refused either to release him or to bring him to 
 trial. President Arthur s Secretary of State had again and 
 again protested, but in vain. President Cleveland took up 
 the case with a sharp decisiveness which gave the Ecuador 
 ians a shock. A man-of-war, the Iroquois, appeared at 
 Guayaquil. A peremptory demand was made; and Mr. 
 Santos was promptly set at liberty. 
 
 The country viewed with interest still another proof of 
 the administration s capacity for action. In 1882, Con 
 gress had passed the so-called Edmunds Anti-Polygamy 
 Bill, aimed against the plural marriages of Mormonism. 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 55 
 
 The enforcement of this law had greatly irritated the 
 leaders of the Mormon Church, who had always secretly 
 regarded Utah as outside the jurisdiction of the nation s 
 laws. Perhaps they now accepted the Republican estimate 
 of President Cleveland, and fancied that he would prove 
 to be a second Buchanan, nerveless and irresolute. At any 
 rate, the Mormons in Salt Lake City began to show a spirit 
 of insolence and insubordination. Armed companies of 
 them were formed and drilled by night. On the Fourth of 
 July, the national flag was half-masted in derision by a 
 Mormon officer. Threats were made that all Gentiles were 
 to be forcibly expelled from Salt Lake City in defiance of 
 the national Government. If such a coup had actually been 
 planned, it was speedily made impossible. By orders from 
 Washington, two batteries of United States artillery and a 
 regiment of infantry were stationed at Fort Douglas, 
 which dominated the city; and in the Military Depart 
 ment which included Utah, two thousand regular troops 
 were held in readiness for instant service. Whatever 
 plans for a Mormon outbreak had existed were crushed 
 before they reached a head. 
 
 All these circumstances attending the early days of Mr. 
 Cleveland s administration gave the country at large an 
 entirely new conception of the President and of his ca 
 pacity for government. Moderate Republicans recognised 
 the fact that he well deserved the full measure of their 
 respect. Partisans who hoped that he would justify the 
 unfavourable pictures which they had diligently painted, 
 were compelled to wait in sullen silence for some future 
 opportunity of censure. The governmental departments 
 were most efficiently conducted. 4 The country remained 
 
 4 The only serious attempt by the Opposition to discredit a member of 
 the Cabinet was directed against Attorney-General Garland in the matter 
 
56 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 as prosperous as ever. The awful panic which had heen 
 predicted proved to be only another fiction of the campaign 
 orators. Moreover, Republicans who had occasion to 
 make the new President s acquaintance came away w T ith 
 nothing but pleasant words for his easy, unaffected and 
 good-humoured ways. It was not many weeks, indeed, be 
 fore Mr. Elaine himself appeared at the White House, to 
 make a friendly call upon his late opponent. He was re 
 ceived with the greatest courtesy, and the two men chatted 
 pleasantly together in the President s library. One of the 
 unwritten laws of American public life permits a defeated 
 candidate for the presidency to ask a political favour of 
 his successful competitor, and Mr. Elaine desired to avail 
 himself of this gracious little privilege. He requested the 
 President not to remove from office Mr. Joseph H. Man- 
 ley, who was postmaster at Augusta, Mr. Elaine s home 
 city. Mr. Manley was an old friend and earnest supporter 
 of Mr. Elaine, and the President very cordially granted 
 the request, after which the interview terminated with 
 every evidence of personal good feeling. 5 Some time after, 
 a visiting delegation at the White House was found to 
 
 of the so-called Pan-Electric Scandal. Mr. Garland held stock in the Pan- 
 Electric Company which owned a patent of which the Bell telephone was 
 alleged to be an infringement. If this claim were sustained, the value of 
 the Pan-Electric stock would be very great. Mr. Garland permitted the 
 Solicitor-General to institute proceedings impugning the validity of the 
 Bell patent. The Republicans charged Mr. Garland with an attempt 
 to enrich himself by using the resources of his department for personal 
 ends; though the decision of the case rested, of course, with the court 
 and not with Mr. Garland or his Solicitor-General. A congressional 
 committee afterwards exonerated both these gentlemen. 
 
 5 President Cleveland showed another and more marked instance of 
 courtesy to Mr. Blaine. A Democrat who had been appointed postmaster 
 at Copiah, Mississippi, was found to have published a particularly offensive 
 personal attack upon Mr. Blaine. When the facts became known to Presi 
 dent Cleveland, he dismissed the man from office. 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 57 
 
 include among its members the redoubtable Dr. Burchard 
 himself; and a smothered cheer went up, with not a little 
 laughter, when the alliterative clergyman shook the Presi 
 dent s hand and expressed his pleasure at finding him in 
 such good health. Altogether, these days afforded as near 
 an approach to an era of good feeling as Mr. Cleveland 
 ever enjoyed throughout his years of public office. They 
 represented the lull in political warfare that always fol 
 lows an election in which passion has for the time ex 
 hausted itself and kindly feeling has resumed its normal 
 sway. Americans are proverbially the best-natured people 
 in the world; and in the case of a new President, they 
 always feel disposed to let him orient himself before the 
 din of party strife begins again. 
 
 Few Presidents have ever lived so completely under the 
 microscope as did Mr. Cleveland during his first two years 
 of office. That his countrymen should feel an intense cu 
 riosity regarding him was only natural. He had come so 
 suddenly into prominence that, at the time of the election, 
 he was scarcely known outside of his own State. To 
 millions of those who had voted for him he was only a 
 name and not a definite personality, as was Mr. Elaine, who 
 had been conspicuous in public life for more than twenty 
 years. Again, the very violence of the attacks that had 
 been made upon him excited a lively interest in his ways 
 and manners. Finally, he was a Democratic President, and 
 no Democratic President had been seen for a quarter of a 
 century. No wonder, then, that the Washington news 
 paper correspondents filled their letters with gossip about 
 his goings and comings, his appearance, his opinions, and 
 his daily acts. The slightest scrap of information regard 
 ing him was eagerly caught up and told and retold to in- 
 
58 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 terested listeners. In this universal curiosity, there was 
 almost no unfriendliness. It was the expression of a very 
 human wish to know just what manner of man it was who 
 had so suddenly and unexpectedly come into the very 
 highest office in the land. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland at this time was forty-seven years of 
 age and in the full vigour of life. Somewhat over the 
 middle height, he was powerful of frame, inclined to cor 
 pulency, and of a sanguineous temperament. Contrary to 
 the unfriendly descriptions that had been widely circu 
 lated, his head was large and w r as well set upon a sturdy 
 neck. A broad forehead projected slightly over a pair of 
 deep-set clear blue eyes. His nose and chin were both in 
 dicative of a strong will, as were the firm lines of his 
 mouth, which was partly covered by a drooping blond 
 moustache. His complexion was ruddy with health, his 
 broad shoulders were always vigorously squared, and he 
 looked like one whom no amount of hard, exacting work 
 could daunt. In his movements he was slow and almost 
 sluggish, but the alertness of his mind impressed all who 
 met him. His manner was one of perfect naturalness and 
 simplicity. Now and then, in talking, a humorous gleam 
 came into his eyes; and then one might expect some droll 
 though dry remark, made more effective by the quiet man 
 ner of its delivery. His voice was of a tenor quality, not 
 resonant or sonorous, yet one which had remarkable carry 
 ing power, so that in public speaking he could be clearly 
 heard at a considerable distance. Those who made their 
 first acquaintance with him at this time were almost always 
 pleased, and were perhaps surprised to find that they were 
 pleased. One of these visitors 6 who afterwards became a 
 strenuous opponent of the President s policies, wrote of 
 him: 
 
 6 Mr. Henry Watterson. 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 59 
 
 There is more to the President than even his friends are wont 
 to allow; and he gains rather than loses on acquaintance. He has 
 a deal of craft of the wiser and better sort, and needs only a little 
 more training to foot it with the shrewdest of the politicians whom 
 he affects to despise. He is a good listener and a good talker. 
 His most obvious characteristics are straightforwardness and sim 
 plicity, both in speech and bearing. He seems to be extraordinarily 
 frank. But to a close observer these appear to be outer aspects 
 merely. He is not a man of confidences or effusions, is uncom 
 monly self-possessed and self-contained, and emits on occasion a 
 tough, dry humour, ready, relevant and illustrative." 
 
 Mr. Cleveland had a colossal capacity for work. He 
 rose early and was at his desk by nine o clock. He gave 
 a close personal attention to details, wrote a good part of 
 his correspondence with his own hand, and never spared 
 himself in his endeavour to get at the bottom of every 
 subject which came before him. He took nothing for 
 granted, but delved into reports, documents and letters 
 until he satisfied himself that he had mastered the case, as 
 a lawyer masters a brief. The observer who has just been 
 quoted wrote: " He is a wondrous worker. He has the 
 poor man s love of work and trust in work. He wants to 
 earn his day s wages; and there are some things which a 
 President must do and ought to do which go against the 
 grain, because they seem frivolous, belonging rather to 
 play than to work." A keen but not unfriendly Republi 
 can critic 7 made some further interesting notes : 
 
 " Cleveland gets his power from his resoluteness. He is a self- 
 contained, honest man, with strong indignations. He hates a liar 
 and will not let down his attitude of self-respect to please some 
 body whom he does not like. His intellectual repulsions are de- 
 
 7 G. A. Townsend in the Cincinnati Enquirer, March 25, 1885. 
 
60 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 cided and irrevocable. The President gives more time to his office 
 than is due to it, and he exacts of the subordinates that they give at 
 least official hours to their tasks. Consequently, the Government 
 at present carries less time-killers and triflers than formerly. His 
 greatest happiness he probably derives from his own rough self- 
 assertion and from his luck in reaching high stations in politics 
 without much labour. . . . He comes of a fortunate stock. 
 The old blood of Connecticut is about the best blood for govern 
 ment uses that we possess. Cleveland s personal composition is this 
 old Connecticut basis somewhat flavoured by free living. He be 
 longs to that class of preachers sons who, for a period of time, fly 
 the track and violate their parents ethics, yet at bottom have a 
 certain ethical truth, and are slightly harsh with infractions and 
 infractors of rights. He observed that the Germans of Buffalo 
 were, on the whole, about the best citizens ; and he was happy sit 
 ting on a sanded floor with an old German landlady to refill his 
 glass. Something of Martin Luther, therefore, became involved 
 with the character of Jonathan Trumbull. . . . Nothing that 
 has come from him seems to show that he is an adept in society, or 
 art, or law, or literature. He is a pretty good writer as Presidents 
 go, and makes his points concisely and impressively. Of imagina 
 tion he seems to have none. But he is a good, stout, rough man- 
 of-all-work who puts the establishment in running order and is 
 as good as a watch-dog at the gate." 
 
 The domestic side of the White House was directed by 
 the President s sister, Miss Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, 
 whose personality interested the country almost as much 
 as did that of the President himself. Miss Cleveland was 
 then a lady of some thirty-nine years of age, who had been 
 a teacher and a public lecturer on literary and historical 
 subjects. She was a type of the intellectuelle, very care 
 fully educated, very widely read, and a good deal of a 
 personage in her way. She wore her hair cropped like a 
 man s and had a touch of masculine decision in her bearing. 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 61 
 
 During her stay at the White House, she published a vol 
 ume of criticism entitled George Eliot s Poetry and Other 
 Studies* that had a good deal of vogue, which it deserved 
 on its own merits, for it was written in a crisp, nervous 
 style and showed a good deal of intellectual acuteness. 9 
 Miss Cleveland did the social honours of the White House 
 in a very satisfactory way, though her own tastes and 
 ambitions were not social. She talked well, and very much 
 as she wrote. In fact, her conversation must have seemed 
 rather unusual to many of those who heard it, for it was 
 decidedly allusive and was interspersed with classical quo 
 tations that were probably Greek indeed to the politicians 
 who attended the President s receptions with their fami 
 lies. One can imagine with what feelings a group of typi 
 cal Congressmen s wives would hear Miss Cleveland casu 
 ally remark: "I wish that I could observe Washington 
 life in its political phase; but I suppose I am too near the 
 
 8 New York, 1886. 
 
 9 The book went through twelve editions within a year, and Miss 
 Cleveland was said to have received more than $25,000 in royalties. An 
 English reviewer in the London Times wrote of it as follows: 
 
 " Miss Cleveland is far from being a deep and subtle thinker, but her 
 sketches prove that she possesses the love of letters and history as well as 
 an average power of expressing her views thereon. If there is now and 
 then a feminine positiveness in her judgments we must condone it on the 
 ground of her enthusiasm. The essays furnish pleasant reading enough, 
 but scarcely anything more. Miss Cleveland is extremely fond of quota 
 tions from the poets, but that is no reason why, in a comparatively small 
 volume, a quotation from Longfellow should appear three times, with a 
 serious difference between two of the versions. The inaccuracy of one 
 passage quoted from Shakespeare is almost heartrending. The author 
 gives it as follows: All the world s a stage, and men and women are the 
 actors As though Shakespeare could have written the halting and un- 
 poetical phrase printed in italics! There are several fairly interesting 
 historical essays studies in the Middle Ages but Miss Cleveland s style 
 is not one which would be appreciated by everybody." 
 
62 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 centre to get an accurate perspective on that. Those who 
 live on Mount Athos do not see Mount Athos." 10 
 
 The first annoyance which the President was forced to 
 suffer came, not from his political opponents, but from his 
 own followers. The Democrats, no less than the Republi 
 cans, had found many of their expectations unfulfilled. 
 There were two reasons for this, with one of which the 
 President had nothing at all to do. Ever s mce the 
 disputed election of 1876, a sinister belief had taken a firm 
 hold upon the masses of the party. The desperation with 
 which, in the year just named, the Republicans had fought 
 to keep the presidency in their own hands had inspired a 
 suspicion that something more than the mere spoils of office 
 was at stake. Men then said that there were secrets which, 
 if known, w r ould show a frightful condition of affairs in 
 the great departments of the Government, and especially 
 in connection with the Treasury. It was whispered that 
 the Republican party stood ready to initiate even a civil 
 war rather than allow a Democratic President to be seated, 
 with the power of bringing to light a mass of infamous 
 transactions by which untold millions had been stolen. 
 One of the documents most widely circulated by the Dem 
 ocrats in the Elaine-Cleveland contest was a pamphlet 
 bearing on its cover in huge letters the words, " OPEN 
 THE BOOKS! " It charged that the financial records 
 of the Government had been falsified; that in the ledgers 
 of the Registrar of the United States and the Secretary of 
 the Treasury more than 2500 erasures and alterations 
 had been fraudulently made; and that the official reports 
 for two years alone (1870 and 1871) showed a discrep 
 ancy amounting to nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. 
 A list of alleged defalcations was appended affecting 
 
 10 Poore, Reminiscences of Sixty Years, ii. p. 502 (Philadelphia 1886). 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 63 
 
 specifically the Pension Office, the Navy Department, the 
 Post Office Department, and the Treasury. These charges 
 were in part supported by extracts from the testimony 
 taken by investigating committees of the House of Rep 
 resentatives in 1878, and by citations from official letters 
 and reports. Mr. Hendricks, on July 12, 1884, address 
 ing a large gathering in Indianapolis, had said with sig 
 nificant emphasis: "We want to have the books in the 
 government offices opened for examination." 
 
 Among the ignorant stories still more extraordinary 
 were rife. The Gar^dd-Hancock campaign of 1880 had 
 been marked by a lavish use of money on the part of the 
 Republicans, especially in Indiana. This money had, for 
 the most part, come from the employes of the government 
 departments, w r ho had practically been forced to contrib 
 ute through fear of dismissal. 11 But the rumour spread 
 that the great sums spent in the purchase of venal voters 
 had in reality come out of the United States Treasury. 
 There were men who declared that the government print 
 ing-presses had, in 1880, been run all night, printing off 
 sheets of treasury-notes of low denominations, and that 
 the paper money thus fraudulently and secretly made had 
 been turned over to the Republican campaign committee. 
 It is odd that so absurd a tale should have been told, and 
 still more strange that thousands should have implicitly 
 believed it. But the fact serves to indicate how thorr 
 oughly convinced were the masses of the Democratic party 
 that the new administration would at once unearth evi- 
 
 11 Mr. Garfield himself, while a candidate, had written a note to Mr. 
 J. C. Hubbell, who was chairman of the Republican National Committee, 
 in which he said, among other things: "Please tell me how the depart 
 ments generally are doing." This letter, which is known as the " My 
 Dear Hubbell letter," was published later by one Brady who was impli 
 cated in the Star Route postal frauds. 
 
64 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 dence of stupendous crimes committed during the long 
 Republican regime. 
 
 Of course, in this they were speedily undeceived. No 
 one who really understands the manner in which the Gov 
 ernment is conducted could ever credit such impossible 
 assertions. The party in power does not try to conceal its 
 public acts from the leaders of the Opposition; and 
 the committees of Congress, made up of memjbers of 
 both parties, are thoroughly informed of whatever hap 
 pens. Indeed, the old and experienced party leaders in 
 both House and Senate work harmoniously enough 
 together in matters of administrative detail. They battle 
 fiercely in view of the galleries; but in the committee-rooms 
 they arrange matters with an eye to the general needs of 
 the public service, and with the sensible purpose of seeing 
 the Government properly carried on. Whenever a zealous 
 but inexperienced young member tries to make a stir upon 
 his own account, and to attack those measures which have 
 been arranged by his seniors, he is quietly suppressed by 
 the chiefs of his own party, and the business of the Gov 
 ernment goes on unvexed. 
 
 And therefore, naturally enough, the so-called discrep 
 ancies in the Treasury reports were found to be due simply 
 to varying modes of book-keeping; the awful revela 
 tions that had been looked for were never made; and with 
 a single exception, there was no real ground for an attack 
 upon the manner in which the Republicans had discharged 
 their trust. Even the figures published by the Democrats 
 themselves showed that the public service had been stead 
 ily improving in honesty and efficiency for many years. 
 Thus, during the first term of President Grant (1869- 
 1 873), when the loose and careless methods of the Civil 
 War still partially prevailed, the Government had lost by 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 65 
 
 defalcations and in other irregular ways the sum of 
 $8,875,483. During his second term ( 1873-1877), how 
 ever, this loss showed a diminution of nearly 50 per cent., 
 being $4,547,247. Under President Hayes ( 1 877-1 88 1 ) 
 the amount had fallen to $1,775,996, and under Presidents 
 Garfield and Arthur (1881-1885), to $1,569,733. The 
 Democrats found nothing here to justify their dark sus 
 picions and provide them with weapons for party use. 
 
 One department alone had been disgracefully misman 
 aged, though of the fact the whole nation had long been 
 unpleasantly aware. This was the Navy Department. 
 Under President Grant, the Secretary of the Navy from 
 1869 to 1877, had been the notorious George M. Robe- 
 son of New Jersey, a man whose inefficiency and gross 
 neglect to use no harsher term had practically de 
 stroyed the fleets which at the close of the Civil War had 
 been the most formidable in the world. Robeson had 
 spent millions upon what he called "repairs" these re 
 pairs sometimes costing more than the original value of 
 the ships repaired, and even then serving only to perpetu 
 ate types of vessels which had become obsolete and worth 
 less in the face of naval progress in other countries. Sec 
 retary Whitney s first report summed the matter up with 
 terse impressiveness : 
 
 "The country has expended since July I, 1868 more than 
 three years subsequent to the close of the late Civil War over 
 $75,000,000 of money on the construction, repair, equipment, and 
 ordnance of vessels, which sum, with a very slight exception, has 
 been substantially thrown away; the exception being a few ships 
 now in process of construction. I do not overlook the sloops con 
 structed in 1874, an d costing $3,000,000 or $4,000,000, and to 
 avoid discussion they may be excepted also. The fact still remains 
 that for about seventy of the seventy-five millions of dollars which 
 
66 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 have been expended by the Department for the creation of a navy, 
 we have practically nothing to show. It is questionable whether 
 we have a single naval vessel finished and afloat at the present time 
 that could be trusted to encounter the ships of any important Power 
 a single vessel that has either the necessary armour for protection, 
 speed for escape, or weapons for defence." 
 
 This, however, was an old scandal and related more 
 especially to the days when Grant was President. JJnder 
 President Arthur, there had been instituted a better order 
 of things, and, consequently, political capital was not to be 
 found in the condition of the navy. 
 
 The really serious grievance which many Democrats 
 began to entertain arose from President Cleveland s posi 
 tion regarding the distribution of the public offices. At 
 the time of his inauguration there were 52,609 ordinary 
 postmasterships, 2379 so-called "presidential" post- 
 masterships, Hi collectorships of customs, 224 places 
 in the local land-offices, and 34 important diplomatic posts, 
 besides scores of consulships, appraiserships, Indian agen 
 cies, pension agencies, territorial governorships and judge- 
 ships, positions in the revenue service, surveyorships, and 
 superintendencies, many having attached to them a cer 
 tain amount of petty patronage. Almost every one of 
 these offices, some 110,000 in all, was occupied by a Re 
 publican. To secure them and to enjoy their emoluments 
 was the hope of thousands upon thousands of Democratic 
 party " workers," who now swarmed like locusts in the 
 streets of Washington and besieged the governmental bu 
 reaus and the portals of the White House. Even when a 
 Republican President had succeeded one of his own party, 
 an invasion of office-seekers had invariably followed. New 
 Congressmen always demanded changes in their districts; 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 67 
 
 members of the President s own faction always asked for 
 removals and new appointments; party rivals had always 
 to be propitiated. But if this had been true in the case of 
 an ordinary change of administration, it can be imagined 
 how enormous was the pressure for recognition now that 
 not only had the administration been changed, but that a 
 party which had been out of power for a quarter of a cen 
 tury had resumed control. President Cleveland, in fact, 
 was in the same position as that occupied by Mr. Lincoln 
 in 1 86 1, when a critical observer, after visiting Washing 
 ton, thus wrote home: "The nation is going to pieces; 
 States are seceding; utter ruin is at hand; and here is Lin 
 coln thinking of nothing except who shall be appointed 
 postmaster in some little town, or gauger in some little 
 port." 
 
 Every successive President had felt the annoyance of a 
 system such as this, and would have been infinitely relieved 
 could the burden of it have been lightened. A practical 
 remedy was the institution of such a reform in the appoint 
 ment system as would protect the President from inces 
 sant importunity. In 1867, a report had been made to 
 the House of Representatives 12 recommending that a 
 large class of appointments should be regarded as non- 
 political and hence to be made upon the basis of competi 
 tive examinations and with fixity of tenure conditioned 
 upon meritorious service. In 1871, Congress authorised 
 the President to appoint a Civil Service Commission and 
 to approve such rules as it might make for admission to 
 government employ. This measure had the support of 
 President Grant, who appointed the first Commission, of 
 which Mr. George William Curtis was Chairman. But 
 public sentiment, or at any rate party sentiment, was not 
 yet ripe for a reform like this. All the influential party 
 
 12 By Mr. Jenckes of Rhode Island. 
 
68 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 leaders on both sides despised it, and it was contemptuously 
 spoken of as snivel-service reform. " From 1872 to 
 1875, the ru l es made by the first Commission remained in 
 force; but President Grant could not withstand the pres 
 sure brought to bear upon him; and so, somewhat reluc 
 tantly, he suspended their operation. After the assassina 
 tion of President Garfield by a disappointed office-seeker 
 in 1882, both houses of Congress enacted a law, usually 
 known as the Pendleton Law, 13 which thoroughly satis 
 fied the civil service reformers. This empowered the Pres 
 ident to prescribe by executive order what classes of the 
 public service should come under the operation of the 
 merit system as framed by a new Civil Service Commis 
 sion. Under President Arthur, some 14,000 government 
 employes were brought within the so-called classified 
 service. 14 
 
 Mr. Cleveland was thoroughly in sympathy with the 
 principle of this reform. In his letter of acceptance, (Au 
 gust 19, 1884) he had said: 
 
 " The selection and retention of subordinates in government 
 employment should depend upon their ascertained fitness and the 
 value of their work, and they should be neither expected nor allowed 
 to do questionable party service." 
 
 This and other like declarations had done much to at 
 tract independent voters to Mr. Cleveland s side. After 
 his election and before his inauguration, a number of these 
 Independents addressed to him a letter asking his inten- 
 
 13 From Senator George H. Pendleton of Ohio, a Democrat, who in 
 troduced it in the Senate. 
 
 14 For an account of the movement for a reform of the Civil Service of 
 the United States, see the Reports of the American Civil Service Reform 
 Association. 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 69 
 
 tions with regard to Civil Service Reform. Replying to 
 them (December 20, 1884), Mr. Cleveland wrote some 
 very significant sentences, in which may be found an ex 
 planation of his subsequent course. They give evidence 
 that he had already formulated very carefully a definite 
 policy. After reiterating his former promise to uphold 
 the Civil Service Law, he went on to say: 
 
 " I regard myself pledged to this because my conception of true 
 Democratic faith and public duty requires that this and all other 
 statutes should be, in good faith and without evasion, enforced, and 
 because, in many utterances made prior to my election as President, 
 approved by the party to which I belong and which I have no dis 
 position to disclaim, I have in effect promised the people that this 
 should be done." 
 
 Another paragraph shows that he did not underrate 
 the difficulty of carrying out his pledge. 
 
 " I am not unmindful of the fact to which you refer, that many 
 of our citizens fear that the recent party change in the national 
 Executive may demonstrate that the abuses which have grown up 
 in the Civil Service are ineradicable. I know that they are deeply 
 rooted, and that the spoils system has been supposed to be intimately 
 related to success in the maintenance of party organisation; and I 
 am not sure that all those who profess to be the friends of this 
 reform will stand firmly among its advocates when they find it 
 obstructing their way to patronage and place." 
 
 A very important sentence, in the light of what after 
 wards happened, is the following: 
 
 There is a class of government positions which are not within 
 the letter of the civil service statute, but which are so disconnected 
 with the policy of an administration that the removal therefrom 
 
70 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 of present incumbents, in my opinion, should not be made during 
 the terms for which they were appointed, solely on partisan grounds, 
 and for the purpose of putting in their places those who are in 
 political accord with the appointing power ; but many men holding 
 such positions have forfeited all just claim to retention because 
 they have used their places for party purposes in disregard of their 
 duty to the people, and because, instead of being decent public 
 servants, they have proved themselves offensive partisans and un 
 scrupulous manipulators of local party management." 
 
 One sentence was obviously meant for Democratic 
 perusal : 
 
 " While Democrats may expect a proper consideration, selections 
 for office not embraced within the Civil Service rules will be based 
 upon sufficient inquiry as to fitness, rather than upon persistent 
 importunity or self-solicited recommendations on behalf of candi 
 dates for appointment." 
 
 One may add to these utterances a passage from a letter 
 of his (September n, 1885) to Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, a 
 conspicuous civil service reformer: 
 
 " A reasonable toleration for old prejudices, a graceful recogni 
 tion of every aid, a sensible utilisation of every instrumentality that 
 promises assistance, and a constant effort to demonstrate the advant 
 ages of the new order of things, are the means by which this 1 reform 
 movement will in the future be further advanced." 
 
 
 By putting all these statements together, President Cleve 
 land s policy in regard to appointments was clear enough 
 for any one to understand. In the first place, he did not 
 intend to reform the Civil Service over night, as some of 
 the Independent doctrinaires expected him to do. In the 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 71 
 
 second place, he did not intend to sweep all Republicans 
 out of office before the expiration of their terms and with 
 out regard to the merit of the service which they had ren 
 dered. What he did mean to do was gradually to extend 
 the operation of the Civil Service rules; and in the mean 
 time, in filling vacancies with Democrats, to exact from 
 them a reasonable standard of character and efficiency. 
 This was a very sensible and very practical programme. 
 It was certain, however, to subject him to a three-cornered 
 attack first, from the advanced reformers, who were im 
 patient of all delay; second, from the Democrats, who had 
 expected immediately to monopolise all the offices in the 
 President s gift; and third, from his Republican adver 
 saries, who w r ere bound to find fault with him, whatever 
 he might do. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland had a vigorous contempt for professional 
 office-seekers, 15 and he had no mind to be subjected to their 
 importunities. When approached by them he could make 
 himself extremely disagreeable. He had two separate and 
 distinct manners of showing his displeasure, either one of 
 which was quite effectual. At times he would become ab- 
 
 15 In 1885, while Governor, he had written to a young man a letter 
 which contained the following sentences: "I judge from what you write 
 that you now have a situation in a reputable business house. I can not 
 urge you too strongly to give up all idea of employment in a public office, 
 and to determine to win advancement and promotion where you are. 
 
 " There are no persons so forlorn and so much to be pitied as those who 
 have learned, in early life, to look to public positions for a livelihood. It 
 unfits a man or boy for any other business, and is apt to make a kind of 
 respectable vagrant of him. If you do well in other occupations, and thus 
 become valuable to the people, they will find you out when they want a 
 good man for public service. I never sought an office of any kind in my 
 life; and, if you live and follow my advice, I am certain that you will 
 thank me for it some day." Parker, Writings and Speeches of Grower 
 Cleveland, pp. 337, 338 (New York, 1892). 
 
72 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 solutely glacial. At other times his face would flush and 
 he would pound the table with his clenched fist and give 
 voice, with vigorous expletives, to an expression of his 
 inflexible purpose. Some of his visitors who came on politi 
 cal errands found him anything but tractable. A some 
 what rueful anecdote, ascribed to Mr. Henry Watterson, 16 
 may be cited as wholly characteristic of both men : 
 
 " We chatted and joked and laughed and were on terms of the 
 most agreeable comradeship. I don t know what the President 
 thought of me, but I marked him in my mental tablet as a splendid 
 companion and a very jolly good fellow. After an hour pleasantly 
 spent in the personal enjoyment of each other, and when the 
 laughter had subsided that followed a story by the President, I 
 thought it would be a good time to mention a little matter in 
 which I felt interested. As soon as I began the recital, I could see 
 the process of congelation ; and before I had half finished my story, 
 the President was a monumental icicle. I became so thoroughly 
 chilled that I broke off, took up my hat and said, Good-night, 
 Mr. President. That s the kind of a good fellow Cleveland is." 
 
 Mr. Joaquin Miller, the poet, also had a little interview 
 with the President, of which he subsequently published an 
 account in the Chicago Times : 
 
 Here is my first interview, which I dotted down a few minutes 
 after: " Mr. President, I I I want Captain Hoxie to be 
 returned to Washington so as to complete our water-works." 
 " Captain Hoxie," answered the President instantly, " is subject 
 to the orders of the Secretary of War " and he looked at me as 
 if to say, " And you know it." Yes, I knew I had come to the 
 wrong place and was boring the President and bothering for 
 nothing, much as I had the matter at heart. So I gave up that 
 subject and started on another equally important. " Mr. Presi 
 dent, one thing more. I hear you are going to remove Commis- 
 16 Philadelphia Ledger. 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 73 
 
 sioner Edmunds, the head of our Commissioners for Washington, 
 
 and I I " The President looked hard at me and said 
 
 promptly t "You have heard that! Well, I have not heard of it, 
 and as I shall have to hear of it before he is removed, you can rest 
 easy on that score for the present." By this time I felt that I 
 had not the slightest business with the President, and so fell in 
 with the band of shorn sheep that was passing on and out of the 
 corral by another door. 
 
 Naturally, the expectant Democrats could not all at 
 once believe that Mr. Cleveland really meant to carry out 
 his pledges. The cynical assumption that political prom 
 ises are made only to be broken, and that Jove laughs at 
 statesmen s vows no less good-naturedly than at those of 
 lovers, was firmly fixed in all their minds. Of course, the 
 President had a little fad in the matter of the Civil Service. 
 Of course, he really meant what he had said. But equally, 
 of course, he would give way and thus make things more 
 easy for himself. All other Presidents had done so. It 
 was merely a question of bringing enough pressure to bear 
 upon him. And so, thousands of place-hunters lingered in 
 Washington, wasting their time, and depleting their re 
 sources, while they waited for the necessary " pressure " 
 to be applied. But as the weeks slipped away, it gradually 
 dawned upon them that here was a President who could 
 not be coaxed or driven or coerced. His Cabinet officers 
 were beset by Congressmen and local leaders from all over 
 the country; but they were just as helpless as the rest. The 
 one great hope of the famished Democrats rested in Vice- 
 President Hendricks. He was a Western politician of 
 the older type a thorough partisan, narrow, intense, not 
 squeamish about reforms, but a firm believer in Marcy s 
 doctrine that in politics, as in war, the spoils belong of 
 
74 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 right to the victorious. Urged on by the almost frantic 
 appeals that were made to him each hour of the day, Mr. 
 Hendricks had a protracted interview with the President. 
 Just what took place between them no one knows; but Mr. 
 Hendricks came away with a long face; and the word was 
 quickly passed that even he had failed. 
 
 All this soon placed the President in a new light before 
 the country. It is rather remarkable that the lesson of his 
 firmness while Governor of New York had made no real 
 impression elsewhere. After his election to the Presi 
 dency and before he entered upon the duties of his office, 
 speculation had been rife as to who would control the 
 new administration. A writer whose identity was kept 
 secret, but who aspired to be a second Junius, had ad 
 dressed to the President-elect a series of very bitter letters 
 which were afterward collected and published in a 
 book. 17 
 
 These letters are very curious reading now; for they 
 show how little Mr. Cleveland s character was understood 
 at the time when they were written. They take it for 
 granted that the President will be" a pigmy among giants." 
 " It must move the heart of your most malevolent enemy 
 to note with what a beggarly stock in trade you will open 
 business in the White House." " You know that you have 
 nothing to expect after the term which will so soon begin. 
 You would like to float through its four years, softly and 
 easily." " You are well aware that in your political career, 
 you have been a pawn in the hands of stronger men." 
 This was only what many persons had thought; but Mr. 
 Cleveland had not been in office a week before his absolute 
 mastery began to be understood. After his first Cabinet 
 meeting had adjourned, a leading politician asked one of 
 the Secretaries : 
 
 17 Siva, A Man of Destiny (Chicago, 1885). 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 75 
 
 "Well, who is running things?" To which the reply 
 was made with a significant shrug: 
 
 " Where MacGregor sits, there is the head of the table. 
 You may be sure of that ! " 
 
 It was, in fact, the same in Washington as it had been 
 in Albany. There was no divided responsibility, no kitchen 
 cabinet. Whatever blame and whatever praise the ad 
 ministration might receive, the President was entitled to 
 them both. Mr. Watterson wrote of him : u We have 
 at this moment as personal a government as we had under 
 Grant." 
 
 That Mr. Cleveland had some of the defects of his 
 qualities began also to appear. It was not sufficient for 
 him to exercise the power which he possessed. He seemed 
 almost morbidly desirous of impressing upon every one the 
 fact that he alone was exercising it. Because it had been 
 said that he would be a puppet, he thought it necessary to 
 deal inconsiderately with those who were supposed to man 
 age him. In this there was at times a touch of quite un 
 necessary arrogance. Thus, because Vice-President Hen- 
 dricks had been credited with ability superior to the Presi 
 dent s, Mr. Cleveland was never cordial to him. Because 
 Secretary Manning was one of the men who had helped 
 to make Mr. Cleveland both Governor and President, he 
 found a personal enemy appointed postmaster in his 
 home city of Albany. Mr. Tilden, who might have had 
 the nomination in 1884 na cl he not declined it in ad 
 vance, wrote to the President and asked for the appoint 
 ment of Mr. Smith M. Weed as Collector for the Port 
 of New York. He was met with a flat refusal. Mr. 
 Cleveland s enemies called this sort of thing a jealousy of 
 greater men ; a fairer judgment would perhaps call it a jeal 
 ousy of his own independence. But in any case, it caused 
 
76 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 bad feeling and added to the dissatisfaction excited by his 
 failure to appoint more Democrats to office. Party dis 
 content became outspoken. Men recalled the saying of 
 John Kelly to Mr. Hendricks before the election : 
 " Cleveland is no Democrat. If elected, he will prove 
 a traitor to his party." Mr. Hendricks himself observed: 
 ; I had hoped that Mr. Cleveland would put the Demo 
 cratic party into power in fact as well as in name." Senator 
 Vance of North Carolina declared: "The President is 
 not of my school of Democracy. We differ as widely as 
 it is possible for two persons belonging to the same politi 
 cal party to differ." Senator Pugh of Alabama denounced 
 the President s course in terms both metaphorical and pro 
 fane. The newspapers, especially in the South and West, 
 began openly to attack the President. Some of them advo 
 cated reading him out of the party altogether. " Brand 
 President Cleveland traitor and kick him out of the 
 party! " cried an Alabama editor. The rage of the dis 
 appointed office-hunters even found expression in verse. 
 One hitherto mute, inglorious poet of the West got a wide 
 hearing through some lines whose sincerity of feeling was 
 more obvious than their elegance of diction: 
 
 " A Democrat fool who serves as a tool 
 
 The men of his party to beat, 
 
 Deserves to be thrashed and have his head mashed, 
 And kicked out into the street. 
 
 " Tis better to vote for some billy goat, 
 That butts for his corn and his hay, 
 Than to vote for a man that has not the sand 
 To stand by his party a day! " 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 77 
 
 Of course it was inevitable that the President should 
 have many offices to fill. The terms of thousands of Re 
 publican incumbents expired, and the places were given to 
 Democratic successors. Other Republicans were summar 
 ily removed, presumably because, in Mr. Cleveland s fa 
 mous phrases, they had shown themselves to be " offensive 
 partisans " and guilty of " pernicious activity " while hold 
 ing public office. Within a year, some 8000 fourth-class 
 postmasterships had been allotted to Democrats. Yet these 
 changes seemed infrequent and slow to the army of those 
 whom Mr. G. W. Curtis had styled " a hungry horde." 
 The President, perhaps, moved a little more cautiously 
 than he would otherwise have done had he not discovered 
 that in many instances his confidence had been abused. 
 Members of Congress, in whose judgment he had trusted, 
 induced him to appoint men who soon turned out to be ut 
 terly unfit. Some of them had most unsavoury records. 
 A few had even worn prison stripes. This was the sort 
 of thing which a President of Mr. Cleveland s temper 
 could not forgive, and he became suspicious of all persons 
 who urged the claims of friends. Toward those who had 
 deceived him, his attitude became brusque to a degree. 
 
 On one occasion, a prominent politician signed a request 
 for the appointment of a certain individual to a judgeship 
 in one of the Pacific States. The appointment was made 
 and the new judge was almost immediately seen to be 
 absolutely unfitted for the office. The politician wrote to 
 Mr. Cleveland explaining that he had signed the petition 
 " not for one moment believing the appointment was possi 
 ble." In answer to this frank confession the President 
 wrote the following letter, 18 which must have made its re 
 cipient writhe: 
 
 18 Parker, op. at. 
 
78 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 EXECUTIVE MANSION, 
 
 Washington, August I, 1885. 
 DEAR SIR: 
 
 I have read your letter with amazement and indignation. There 
 is one but one mitigation to the perfidy which your letter dis 
 closes, and that is found in the fact you confess your share in it. 
 The idea that this administration, pledged to give the people better 
 officers and engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the bad ejements 
 of both parties, should be betrayed by those who ought to be 
 worthy of implicit trust, is atrocious, and such treason to the people 
 and to the party ought to be punished by imprisonment. 
 
 Your confession comes too late to be of immediate use to the 
 public service, and I can only say that, while this is not the first 
 time I have been deceived and misled by lying and treacherous 
 representations, you are the first one that has so frankly owned 
 his grievous fault. If any comfort is to be extracted from this 
 assurance you are welcome to it. 
 
 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 A certain Senator on another occasion came to him to 
 complain about his policy regarding appointments. 
 
 " What do you want me to do? " asked the President, 
 interrupting him. 
 
 " Why, Mr. President, I should like to see you move 
 more expeditiously in advancing the principles of the 
 Democracy." 
 
 " Ah," said the President, with a flash of the eye, " I 
 suppose you mean that I should appoint two horse-thieves 
 a day* instead of one." 
 
 The extreme advocates of civil service reform, on the 
 other hand, complained because so many changes had been 
 made. One act of the Executive exasperated them beyond 
 all measure. This was the designation of Mr. Eugene 
 Higgins of Maryland to be Appointment Clerk in the 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 79 
 
 Treasury Department. Mr. Higgins was the bete noire 
 of all reformers. He was a protege of Senator Gorman, 
 and was known to be a spoilsman of the purest water. 
 The Maryland Civil Service Association at once protested 
 in vigorous terms against his appointment and asked for 
 his immediate removal. This protest was taken up by the 
 Independents all over the country, and Mr. Higgins was 
 denounced in terms of extravagant abuse. It was said that 
 this one act of Mr. Cleveland s had destroyed all confi 
 dence in his professions. He was declared to have broken 
 his pledges, to have betrayed the cause of civil service 
 reform, and to have gone over wholly to the enemy. Mr. 
 Higgins, however, was not removed, and the clamour of 
 the Mugwumps continued unabated. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Republicans had remained quiescent. 
 It amused them to see the new President so roundly be 
 rated by his own supporters. The Republican party lead 
 ers were biding their time, and were making a very care 
 ful study of the man whom they were presently to confront. 
 Looking over the situation, the shrewdest of them thought 
 it best to let things take their course. It seemed good 
 policy for them not to play an obstructive part when Con 
 gress should assemble. They decided that a resort to 
 promiscuous filibustering would prove in the end unpopu 
 lar with the country. They were confident, however, that 
 in time the President would make some serious mistake 
 of which they might take immediate advantage. When 
 Congress met in December, the watchword was passed 
 along the Republican ranks : u Just wait awhile and then 
 put Cleveland in a hole ! " 
 
 A fortnight or so before the opening of the session the 
 Vice-President, Mr. Hendricks, died at Indianapolis. 19 
 
 20 December 8th, 1885. 
 
80 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 As Congress was not sitting, and as, in consequence, there 
 was no President of the Senate, there existed no constitu 
 tional successor to the presidency should Mr. Cleveland 
 die during the interval before Congress met. Therefore, 
 he felt that he ought not to take the long journey neces 
 sary to attend the funeral at Indianapolis. Malicious per 
 sons saw in his absence on that occasion a confirmation of 
 his alleged unfriendliness toward the deceased Vic^-Presi- 
 dent; but the country in general commended his refusal to 
 run even the slightest risk of bringing about a condition 
 which would leave the Government without a head. 
 
 President Cleveland s first message to Congress 20 was 
 a long and carefully written document, which was received 
 with general approval, both in this country and abroad. 21 
 The recommendations which attracted most attention had 
 to do with ( i ) the development of the Navy, which in its 
 existing condition Mr. Cleveland characterised as merely 
 " a shabby ornament to the Government "; (2) a reform 
 of the land laws, which should prevent immense tracts of 
 territory from being acquired by single individuals or 
 great corporations; (3) a reduction of tariff duties upon 
 " the imported necessaries of life "; and (4) an extension 
 of the reform of the Civil Service. In making this last 
 
 19 November 25, 1885. 
 
 21 The London Standard (December 9th) said: "The message is 
 temperate and dignified and goes far to justify Mr. Cleveland s election." 
 The Daily News remarked : " President Cleveland s message seems to 
 place him in true succession to the greater men who have occupied the 
 Presidential chair, rather than to the late Democratic line. It is con 
 ceived in a most just and friendly spirit towards all foreign powers and 
 contains no word to tickle the ears of American Jingoes. The message 
 expresses a sentiment of international good will. It is equally wise and 
 prudent on all domestic topics." 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 81 
 
 recommendation, however, there were a few lines intended 
 as a rebuke to some of the President s over-zealous critics. 
 He wrote : 
 
 " Civil service reform does not . . . require that those who 
 in subordinate positions should fail in yielding their best service, 
 or who are incompetent, should be retained simply because they are 
 in place. The whining of a clerk discharged for indolence or in- 
 competency, who, though he gained his place by the worst possible 
 operations of the spoils system, suddenly discovers that he is entitled 
 to protection under the sanction of civil service reform, represents 
 an ideal no less absurd than the clamour of the applicant who 
 claims the vacant position as his compensation for the most ques 
 tionable party work." 
 
 But there was something else in the message which, 
 though it attracted little general attention at the time, 
 possessed, in view of what happened in succeeding years, 
 an extraordinary significance. More than five pages of 
 the message were devoted to the question of silver. By 
 the so-called Bland- Allison Law, enacted February 28, 
 1878, it had been provided that the coinage of the silver 
 dollar of 41 2 J grains should be resumed. This dollar 
 \vas made a legal tender for public and private debts, 
 and a provision directed its compulsory coinage at the rate 
 of not less than $2,000,000 or more than $4,000,000 per 
 month. The Bland-Allison Bill was passed by a Demo 
 cratic House and a Republican Senate. President Hayes 
 vetoed it, and it was at once passed over his veto by heavy 
 majorities. The message which Mr. Cleveland now sent 
 to Congress asked earnest attention to the working of this 
 law. He pointed out that silver had steadily fallen in in 
 trinsic value; that a so-called bimetallic conference with 
 European nations, for the purpose of establishing inter- 
 
82 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 nationally a common ratio between gold and silver had 
 failed; and that if the coinage of silver should be continued 
 under the Bland-Allison Act, the hoarding of gold would 
 presently begin. The following sentences from this por 
 tion of the message are well worth recalling: 
 
 The desire to utilise the silver product of the country should 
 not lead to a misuse or the perversion of this power. . . . Up 
 to the present time only about 50,000,000 of the silver dollars so 
 coined have actually found their way into circulation, leaving 
 more than 165,000,000 in the possession of the Government. . . . 
 Every month, two millions of gold in the public Treasury are 
 paid out for two millions or more of silver dollars to be added to 
 the idle mass already accumulated. If continued long enough, this 
 operation will result in the substitution of silver for all the gold 
 the Government owns applicable to its general purposes. . . . 
 The nearer the period approaches when it [the Government] will 
 be obliged to offer silver in payment of its obligations, the greater 
 inducement there will be to hoard gold against depreciation in the 
 value of silver, or for the purpose of speculating. This hoarding 
 of gold has already begun. When the time comes that gold has 
 been withdrawn from circulation, then will be apparent the dif 
 ference between the real value of the silver dollar and a dollar in 
 gold, and the two coins will part company. Gold . . . will 
 be at a premium over silver; banks which have substituted gold 
 for the deposits of their customers may pay them with silver 
 bought with such gold, thus making a handsome profit; rich 
 speculators will sell their hoarded gold to their neighbours who 
 need it to liquidate their foreign debts, at a ruinous premium over 
 silver, and the labouring men and women of the land, most 
 defenseless of all, will find that the dollar received for the wage 
 of their toil has sadly shrunk in its purchasing power." 
 
 Mr. Cleveland quoted the words uttered by Daniel 
 Webster in the Senate in 1834: 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 83 
 
 The very man of all others who has the deepest interest in a 
 sound currency and who suffers most by mischievous legislation in 
 money matters, is the man who earns his daily bread by his daily 
 toil." 
 
 He then proceeded to recommend that the compulsory 
 coinage of silver dollars directed by the Bland Act be 
 suspended. 
 
 These striking sentences received but scant attention at 
 the time. Far greater interest was felt in the possibility 
 of a conflict between the Democratic President and the 
 Republican Senate which now elected Senator John Sher 
 man to be its President pro tempore, and which had a Re 
 publican majority of 6. The House was Democratic by 
 a majority of 42. With this division of power, it was 
 obvious that no party measures pure and simple could 
 be enacted. The field, therefore, was left clear for 
 party skirmishing. It was not long before the Re 
 publican majority in the Senate made its first move 
 toward " putting Cleveland in a hole." As has already- 
 been explained, the President had removed or sus 
 pended a number of Republican officials, and had ap 
 pointed Democrats in their stead. In so doing, he had not 
 made public his reasons for removal or suspension, other 
 than in the general statement that this action was for the 
 good of the public service. The Republican Senators 
 sought now to bring him to an explicit and detailed ac 
 counting. Whether he refused or whether he acceded to 
 their wish, they hoped to have it appear that he had re 
 moved Republicans solely from partisan motives. In this 
 way his professed regard for civil service reform would 
 be discredited; his Independent supporters would be es- 
 
84 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 tranged; and the President himself would appear some 
 what in the light of a hypocrite. 
 
 The case of Mr. George M. Duskin was selected as a 
 suitable one upon which to make the fight. Mr. Duskin 
 had been United States District Attorney for the Southern 
 District of Alabama. On July lyth he had been sus 
 pended by Executive order and Mr. John D. Burnett had 
 been designated to perform the duties of the office in 
 Duskin s place. When Congress met, the President nomi 
 nated Mr. Burnett for appointment as Duskin s successor. 
 The Senate passed a resolution requiring the Attorney- 
 General to send to it all the papers relating to Mr. Dus 
 kin s suspension. The Attorney-General, by order of the 
 President, informed the Senate that it was not considered 
 that the public interests would be promoted by so trans 
 mitting these papers and other documents. Thereupon 
 the Judiciary Committee of the Senate passed a resolution 
 censuring the Attorney-General and, by inference, the 
 President. It was evidently intended to make a formal 
 demand upon the President himself for these papers. Sena 
 tors of the United States have an exalted opinion of their 
 own dignity. They are fond of calling the Chamber to 
 which they belong " the most august deliberative body in 
 the world." They claimed, moreover, in 1886, that inas 
 much as the assent of the Senate was required to confirm 
 the appointment of certain officers, these officers were not 
 subject to removal by the President without the Senate s 
 permission. This claim was based upon the so-called Ten 
 ure of Office Act, passed in 1867 during the conflict be 
 tween Congress and President Johnson. To be sure, the 
 more stringent features of the Act had been stricken out 
 in 1869, when General Grant assumed the Presidency. 
 Nevertheless, the Senate felt that, between its own over- 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 85 
 
 powering greatness and its somewhat tenuous legal right, it 
 could overawe a new and inexperienced President. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland, however, did not wait for the issue to 
 be fully joined between the Executive and the Senate. 
 Like a good general, he attacked boldly, before his oppo 
 nents had fully matured their plans. On March i, 1886, 
 he sent a message to the Senate in which he took high 
 ground. " It is by no means conceded," wrote he, " that 
 the Senate has the right in any case to review the act of 
 the Executive in removing or suspending a public officer." 
 Then he declared that the Attorney-General had acted 
 solely under Executive direction. He said that the papers 
 relating to the Duskin case were not public documents. 
 
 " I regard the papers and documents withheld and addressed to 
 me or intended for my use and action, purely unofficial and 
 private . . . and having reference to the performance of a duty 
 exclusively mine. ... If I desired to take them into my 
 custody I might do so with entire propriety, and if I saw fit to 
 destroy them no one could complain. 
 
 " The requests and demands which by the score have for nearly 
 three months been presented to the different Departments of the 
 Government, whatever may be their form, have but one complex 
 ion. They assume the right of the Senate to sit in judgment 
 upon the exercise of my exclusive discretion and executive func 
 tion, for which I am solely responsible to the people from whom I 
 have so lately received the sacred trust of office. My oath to 
 support and defend the Constitution, my duty to the people who 
 have chosen me to execute the powers of their great office and not 
 to relinquish them, and my duty to the Chief Magistracy, which I 
 must preserve unimpaired in all its dignity and vigour, compel me 
 to refuse compliance with these demands." 
 
 The message ended with the following haughty sen 
 tence : 
 
86 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 " Neither the discontent of party friends, nor the allurements 
 constantly offered of confirmations of appointees conditioned upon 
 the avowal that suspensions have been made on party grounds 
 alone, nor the threat proposed in the resolutions now before the 
 Senate that no confirmations will be made unless the demands of 
 that body be complied with, are sufficient to discourage or deter 
 me from following in the way which I am convinced leads to better 
 government for the people." 
 
 The boldness and vigour with which the President thus 
 asserted his prerogative, astounded the Republican Sena 
 tors. They found themselves in the very " hole " into 
 which they had gleefully expected to put Mr. Cleveland. 
 Just what to do they did not know. They had no means of 
 coercing the President of the United States; and his calm 
 indifference to the senatorial dignity was as unpleasant as 
 it was novel in their experience. They argued and de 
 bated; but finally, in a sheepish, shamefaced way, they 
 came to the conclusion that nothing whatsoever could be 
 done but swallow the medicine which the President had 
 administered. 22 
 
 One of their number, however, took an oratorical re 
 venge. This was Senator Ingalls of Kansas. Mr. Ingalls 
 was a very brilliant, fluent speaker, possessing a volumi 
 nous vocabulary of bitterness. A tall, thin, cynical-look 
 ing man, with a power of emitting words which scorched 
 like drops of vitriol, he never failed to command the at 
 tention of his colleagues and of the public. He let it be 
 known that he was about to scarify the Administration 
 with regard to its pretensions to reform. When he 
 arose in his place on March 28th, both the floor 
 
 22 See Cleveland, Presidential Problems, pp. 3-76 (New York, 1904). 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 87 
 
 of the Senate and the galleries were crowded. Speaking 
 slowly, in order that every shaft might surely find its 
 mark, he delivered an address which was a masterpiece of 
 studied malice. First of all, he spoke of the attitude of his 
 own party: 
 
 1 They believe and I believe that for the past quarter of a 
 century upon every vital issue before the American people, seces 
 sion, slavery, coercion, the public credit, honest elections, universal 
 freedom, and the protection of American labour, they have always 
 been right and that their opponents have always been wrong; and, 
 while they concede unreservedly patriotism and sincerity to their 
 adversaries, temporary repulse has not convinced them that they 
 were in error. There is neither defection nor dismay in their 
 columns. They are ready, they are impatient to renew the battle. 
 Animated by such impulses, it is not singular that they should feel 
 that no Republican can hold an appointive office under a Demo 
 cratic administration without either sacrificing his convictions or 
 forfeiting his self-respect. 
 
 " Accordingly, sir, when a little more than a year ago a Demo 
 cratic administration was inaugurated, those who were in public 
 station began with one consent to make excuse to retire to private 
 life. They did not stand upon the order of their going; they 
 trampled upon each other in a tumultuous and somewhat indecent 
 haste to get out of office. There was no craven cry for mercy; 
 no mercenary camp-follower fled for shelter to the bomb-proofs of 
 the Tenure of Office Act, no sutler crawled behind the fragile 
 breastworks of civil service reform for protection. They lost their 
 baggage, but they retained their colours, their arms, their ammuni 
 tion, and their camp equipage, and marched off the field with the 
 honours of war. If at the expiration of one year a few yet remain 
 in office, ran nantes in gurgite vasto, it is because the victors have 
 been unable to agree among themselves or been unable to discover 
 among their own number competent and qualified successors." 
 
88 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Speaking of the President, he said: 
 
 " Sir, I am not disposed to impugn the good faith, the patriotism, 
 the sincerity, the many unusual traits and faculties of the Presi 
 dent of the United States. He is the sphinx of American politics. 
 It is said that he is a fatalist; that he regards himself as the child 
 of fate the man of destiny, and that he places devout and implicit 
 reliance upon the guiding influence of his star. Certainly, 
 whether he be a very great man or a very small man, he is a very 
 extraordinary man. His career forbids any other conclusion." 
 
 Then he paid his respects to the advocates of reform. 
 In his sentences were concentrated the hatred and con 
 tempt which the vindictive partisan feels for all who exer 
 cise an independent judgment in politics : 
 
 " Mr. President, the neuter gender is not popular either in 
 nature or society. Male and female created He them. But there 
 is a third sex, if sex that can be called which sex has none, result 
 ing sometimes from a cruel caprice of nature, at others from acci 
 dent or malevolent design, possessing the vices of both and the 
 virtues of neither; effeminate without being masculine or feminine; 
 unable either to beget or to bear; possessing neither fecundity nor 
 virility; endowed with the contempt of men and the derision of 
 women, and doomed to sterility, isolation, and extinction. But 
 they have two recognised functions. They sing falsetto, and they 
 are usually selected as the guardians of the seraglios of Oriental 
 despots. Geology teaches us that in the process of being, upward 
 from the protoplasmic cell, through one form of existence to 
 another, there are intermediary and connecting stages, in which 
 the creature bears some resemblance to the state from which it has 
 emerged and some to the state to which he is proceeding. History 
 is stratified politics; every stratum is fossiliferous ; and I am in 
 clined to think that the political geologist of the future in his 
 antiquarian researches between the triassic series of 1880 and the 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 89 
 
 cretaceous series of 1888, as he inspects the Jurassic Democratic 
 strata of 1884, will find some curious illustrations of the doctrine 
 of political evolution. 
 
 " In the transition from the fish to the bird there is an anomal 
 ous animal, long since extinct, named by the geologist the ptero 
 dactyl, or winged reptile, a lizard with feathers upon its paws 
 and plumes upon its tail. A political system which illustrates in 
 its practical operations the appointment by the same administra 
 tion of Eugene Higgins and Dorman B. Eaton can properly be 
 regarded as in the transition epoch and characterised as the ptero 
 dactyl of politics. It is, like that animal, equally adapted to wad 
 dling and dabbling in the slime and mud of partisan politics, and 
 soaring aloft with discordant cries into the glittering and opalescent 
 empyrean of civil service reform. 23 
 
 A sufficient answer to the gibes of Mr. Ingalls was given 
 a few days later by the organisation of the new Civil 
 Service Commission which, aided by the President in every 
 way, now entered upon its work. A definite plan for pro 
 motion was perfected. Rigorous investigations were con 
 ducted, and these unearthed many violations of the law. 
 A Republican was appointed chief examiner. The bitter 
 discussion in the Senate had served to rivet public attention 
 upon this important question, and sentiment in favour 
 of the reform was strengthened and extended every day. 
 
 Much feeling was excited in the spring of 1886 by the 
 President s attitude toward private pension bills. That 
 the military pension system had been grossly abused was 
 perfectly well known to every one. Neither party, how 
 ever, possessed the courage to eradicate these abuses. The 
 Republicans had always officially posed as the friends of 
 the veteran. The Democrats knew that if they took un 
 favourable action upon pension bills they would be accused 
 
 23 Congressional Record, March 28, 1886. 
 
90 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 of disloyalty and of hatred to the soldiers of the Union. 
 The result was that disbursements for pensions had in 
 creased with startling rapidity. Thus, in 1866, the num 
 ber of pensioners was 126,722, and the amount paid to 
 them annually was $15,450,550. In 1875, there were 
 234,821 pensioners receiving annually $29,270,407. At 
 that time, General Garfield declared in the House of 
 Representatives that the expenditures for pensions had 
 reached their maximum and thereafter might be ex 
 pected to decrease. Congress, however, passed a so- 
 called Arrears of Pension Act, giving to each pensioner 
 " back-pay " from the time when his disability had been 
 first incurred. At once the expenditures were almost 
 doubled. In 1885, the pensioners numbered 345,125, and 
 the annual sum paid them was $65,171,937. The Pension 
 Bureau was administered in a spirit of extravagant liber 
 ality. Pensions were granted to individuals whose claims 
 were ludicrous and at times outrageous. Men who had 
 been dishonourably discharged were on the pension-list; 
 others who had met with injuries from accidents while 
 drunk were likewise favoured. Pensions had actually been 
 bestowed upon malingerers who had shot off their own 
 fingers in order to escape from service in the army. Yet 
 even the Pension Bureau had felt that somewhere it must 
 draw the line; and therefore many applications were re 
 jected. Unsuccessful claimants, therefore, got into the 
 habit of embodying their claims in private bills which 
 were sent to Congress for special action. These bills were 
 hastily rushed through both Houses without the slightest 
 reference to their merits. It is recorded that on a single 
 day the Senate once passed 500 private pension bills at 
 a sitting. President Cleveland made up his mind that 
 this sort of thing must stop. 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 91 
 
 He began to make a careful study of each private pen 
 sion bill that came before him, going into all the evidence 
 with the scrupulous care of a trained lawyer. It became 
 at once apparent that many claimants for pensions were 
 no better than swindlers; and therefore, on May 8th, he 
 sent to Congress the first of a series of veto messages a 
 series which was continued throughout that session. These 
 messages were brief, pungent, and often tinged with sar 
 casm, and when collected they made very interesting 
 reading as throwing light upon the fraudulent character 
 of many pension claims. * We are dealing," wrote Mr. 
 Cleveland, " with pensions, not with gratuities "; and even 
 had it been a question of gratuities, there was little reason 
 for favourable action upon many of the bills. Some of 
 the claimants were shown to have deserted from the army. 
 One had fallen while getting over a fence, but had abso 
 lutely no tract of any injury upon his person. Another 
 asked for a pension because he had hurt his ankle while 
 intending to enlist. Another based his application upon 
 the fact that, sixteen years after the conclusion of the war, 
 he had fallen from a ladder and fractured his skull. Still 
 another had broken his leg in a ditch while gathering 
 dandelions, long after the war. A widow asked for a 
 pension because her husband had died of heart disease 
 in 1 88 1 a circumstance which she ascribed to a wound 
 in the ankle received in 1863. Absurd as were these and 
 many other claims, the fact that the President rejected 
 them was made the basis of a charge of hostility to the 
 veterans of the Civil War. The merits of each case had 
 little weight with those opponents who cared nothing for 
 the truth, but who sought to bring discredit on the Presi 
 dent. As a matter of fact, many of his vetoes were in the 
 interest of the very persons whose claims he set aside. In 
 
92 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 several instances, widows of soldiers had carelessly sought 
 relief through a pension bill, when the granting of such 
 relief would have cut them off from a far more liberal 
 treatment through the regular channels of the Pension 
 Bureau. 24 The President, therefore, by his vigilance, not 
 only detected and exposed dishonesty, but he performed a 
 real service to many worthy persons. In all, he vetoed one 
 pension bill in every seven, or about one hundred in the 
 aggregate; and only one of these bills was ever passed 
 over the President s veto. 
 
 Early in 1886, the rumour went abroad that Mr. Cleve 
 land was about to end his bachelorhood. This rumour 
 naturally excited widespread interest and caused a tem 
 porary cessation of party strife. Only one President had 
 ever been married during his term of office, 25 and never had 
 the wedding of a President taken place in the White 
 House. Before long it became known that the report was 
 true, and that an engagement existed between Mr. Cleve 
 land and Miss Frances Folsom, the daughter of his former 
 law partner. At the time when the engagement was an 
 nounced, Miss Folsom was in Europe; but she presently 
 returned and became the object of an immense amount of 
 friendly curiosity. Mr. Cleveland had been her guardian 
 after her father s death and it was said that the two had 
 begun to take a sentimental interest in one another after 
 certain gossips had spread a premature and quite un 
 founded story of their betrothal. Miss Folsom at this 
 time was twenty-two years of age. She was a tall and 
 
 24 See, for instance, the veto messages of July 9, 1886; February 3, 1887; 
 February 21, 1887; and February 23, 1887. 
 
 25 President Tyler was married in New York toward the end of his 
 administration. 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 93 
 
 graceful girl, with manners that were at once dignified and 
 winning. Her cordiality was sincere, and she was always 
 tactful ; and from the day when she first became known to 
 the American people she remained deservedly a universal 
 favourite. Following the usage which prevails with rulers 
 of nations, the President was married in his official resi 
 dence rather than at the house of his bride. The wedding 
 took place on the evening of the second of June, in the 
 Blue Room, in the presence of a small but distinguished 
 company, including most of the members of the Cabinet. 
 The ceremony was carried out with perfect taste; and the 
 only incidents which suggested an official wedding were 
 the presidential salute of twenty-one guns fired from the 
 Arsenal, and a message of congratulation from the Queen 
 of Great Britain, which was received just as the President 
 and his bride were taking their departure. 
 
 They went by special train to a cottage which had been 
 placed at their disposal at Deer Park in the mountains of 
 Maryland. Public interest in the marriage was so great 
 that the press of the country went far beyond the limits 
 of what was permissible. On the following morning, the 
 President was astonished to find that a pavilion had been 
 reared directly opposite his cottage, and that a throng of 
 newspaper correspondents were collected there, provided 
 with field glasses, so as not to lose even the slightest detail 
 which a bold-eyed curiosity could discover. This annoy 
 ing espionage continued for several days, and fully justified 
 some biting sentences which were written with regard to 
 the editors who permitted such a breach of elemental 
 courtesy. 
 
 They have used the enormous power of the modern newspaper 
 to perpetrate and disseminate a colossal impertinence, and have 
 
94 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 done it, not as professional gossips and tattlers, but as the guides 
 and instructors of the public in conduct and morals. And they 
 have done it, not to a private citizen, but to the President of the 
 United States, thereby lifting their offence into the gaze of the 
 whole world, and doing their utmost to make American journalism 
 contemptible in the estimation of people of good breeding every 
 where." 2G 
 
 Congress adjourned on August 5, 1886. It had of 
 necessity enacted no measure regarding which there was 
 a difference of opinion between the two parties. A tariff 
 bill had been prepared by the Democrats of the House, 
 but no action had been taken upon it. On the other hand, 
 the question of the presidential succession had at last been 
 definitely settled by a law which named the Vice-President, 
 and the Secretaries of the Departments in the order of 
 their establishment, to succeed in the event of the disability 
 or death of those preceding them. Another bill, providing 
 for an increase of the navy, passed both Houses and 
 received the signature of the President. This Naval Ap 
 propriation Act was long afterwards pronounced " his 
 toric " by a Republican Secretary of the Navy. 27 It author 
 ised the building of a battleship, the Texas, an armoured 
 cruiser, the Maine, a protected cruiser, the Baltimore, a 
 dynamite cruiser, the Vesuvius, and a torpedo boat, the 
 Gushing. In this way, new and wholly modern types of 
 warships were introduced into the American Navy; and 
 of these vessels every one was destined to be remembered 
 in the nation s history. 
 
 President Cleveland had by this time become thoroughly 
 well known to all his countrymen. In some ways he had 
 
 26 New York Evening Post, June 4, 1886. 
 
 27 Long, The New American Navy, i., p. 41 (New York, 1904). 
 
TWO YEARS OF CLEVELAND 95 
 
 disappointed a section of his party. He had not alto 
 gether satisfied the expectations of the independent voters. 
 But he had made no serious mistakes, and he had given 
 to his followers a positive and definite policy to take the 
 place of a purely negative, critical attitude which for 
 twenty years had brought them nothing but disaster. Both 
 as a man and as a statesman his fame had grown. Few 
 doubted his sincerity of purpose, his integrity of character, 
 or his indomitable courage. 
 
 In November, 1886, Harvard University celebrated the 
 two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its foundation. 
 President Cleveland accepted an invitation to attend the 
 ceremonies as a guest of the University and of the Com 
 monwealth of Massachusetts. Accompanied by the Gov 
 ernor and escorted by a body of lancers, he proceeded to 
 Cambridge, where he was received at the Sanders Theatre 
 by President Eliot. 28 No such gathering had hitherto been 
 seen upon this Continent, representing, as it did, all that 
 w r as most distinguished in American art and literature, in 
 statesmanship, in science, and in learning. In the presence 
 of this brilliant assemblage, James Russell Lowell, the 
 greatest of American men of letters then living, delivered 
 an address which for its tone of rare distinction still re 
 mains a masterpiece, starred with felicitous allusions and 
 pregnant with suggestive thought. Toward the close he 
 spoke a few graceful words of welcome to the guests of the 
 University, and then, at the last, turning to the most illus 
 trious guest of all, he said: 
 
 There is also one other name of which it would be 
 indecorous not to make exception. You all know that I 
 can mean only the President of our Republic. His pres 
 ence is a signal honour to us all, and to us all I may say 
 a personal gratification. We have no politics here; but 
 
 28 November 8th. 
 
96 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the sons of Harvard all belong to the party which admires 
 courage, strength of purpose, and fidelity to duty, and 
 which respects, wherever he may be found, the 
 
 lustum et tenacem propositi virum, 
 
 who knows how to withstand the 
 
 
 Civium ardor prava iubentium. 
 
 He has left the helm of State to be with us here; and so 
 long as it is entrusted to his hands we are sure that, should 
 the storm come, he will say with Seneca s pilot, O Nep 
 tune, you may sink me if you will, you may save me if you 
 will, but whatever happen I shall keep my rudder 
 true! " 29 
 
 29 Winsor, Record of the Celebration of the 2$oth Anniversary of the 
 Founding of Harvard College (Boston, 1887). 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MEMORIES OF THE PAST 
 
 How rapidly old issues and old causes were fading into 
 political obscurity was impressed upon the mind of the 
 American people by the passing away, early in President 
 Cleveland s administration, of many men whose names 
 evoked innumerable memories, but whose careers already 
 had receded into history. In 1885, died George B. Mc- 
 Clellan and Ulysses S. Grant; in 1886, Chester Alan 
 Arthur, Winfield S. Hancock, Horatio Seymour, and 
 Samuel J. Tilden. Of these distinguished men, two 
 General Grant and Mr. Arthur had been Presidents of 
 the United States. Three General McClellan, General 
 Hancock, and Mr. Seymour had been unsuccessful can 
 didates for the Presidency. One Mr. Tilden will 
 probably remain unique in American history as having 
 been prevented by political intrigue from taking possession 
 of the chief magistracy to which his countrymen had called 
 him. 
 
 The names of General McClellan and General Grant 
 are linked indissolubly with the annals of the Civil War. 
 The history of the one not only supplements the history of 
 the other, but affords a striking contrast. It was McClel- 
 lan s fortune to begin the task which Grant completed. 
 McClellan rests to-day beneath the shadow of imputed 
 failure; Grant wears in history the laurels of supreme suc 
 cess. The final judgment of posterity is a judgment from 
 which appeal is hopeless; yet in this one thing it is seldom 
 wholly just. It takes no heed of circumstances or condi- 
 
 97 
 
98 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 tions. It makes no reservations. It exacts unqualified ac 
 ceptance. It stands, with a stolidity that is almost brutal, 
 upon the bed-rock foundation of bare results. 
 
 In 1 86 1, McClellan, then an ex-captain of Engineers, 
 came to Washington to assume command of the nation s 
 military forces in succession to the infirm and aged Scott. 
 A few successful skirmishes in West Virginia, which popu 
 lar inexperience magnified into mighty battles, had won 
 for him this swift promotion. H e found the capital in a 
 state of chaos. The rout at Bull Run had demoralised alike 
 the army and the Government. Raw levies from the 
 North were encamped about the city, ignorant of the very 
 rudiments of military training, and officered by no less 
 ignorant civilians tradesmen, lawyers, and politicians. 
 As an army, it was preposterous; as the raw material of 
 an army, there was no better in the world. But to con 
 vert this mob-like mass into a great fighting machine, to 
 give it discipline, coherence, confidence, endurance and en 
 thusiasm, was a problem to appall the genius of a Carnot. 
 Yet this McClellan did, and he did it most superbly. The 
 impatient North, smarting under defeat and fatuously ex 
 pecting from a single campaign the conquest of an entire 
 people of English stock, fretted at each moment of delay. 
 President Lincoln and the bullying lawyer whom he had 
 made his Secretary of War were little less unreasonable. 
 McClellan had the infinite misfortune to take command 
 when the nation was still childish in its hero-worship and as 
 yet unsobered by the stern realities of war. Men called the 
 new commanding general "the young Napoleon"; but 
 not Napoleon himself could have satisfied the expectations 
 of the Northern editors and war-mad orators. Moreover, 
 McClellan was charged with nursing political ambitions, 
 because of the foolish speeches of some of his party 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 99 
 
 friends. 1 He became an object of suspicion to members of 
 the Cabinet first to Stanton, then to Chase and a net 
 work of petty intrigue was woven around him to hamper 
 and exasperate him. The President believed in him, yet 
 never gave him a free hand in anything. A morbid fear 
 lest the Confederates should make a sudden dash on Wash 
 ington came over Lincoln from time to time, and still more 
 strongly over Stanton, and paralysed the operations in the 
 field. The command was divided between Halleck and 
 McClellan; and divided command naturally brought di 
 vided counsels. The army fought and fought heroically, 
 for it loved McClellan. No other general in that war 
 ever so completely won the devotion of his soldiers. An 
 intelligent private, who afterward published his recollec 
 tions, wrote: "Soldiers eyes would brighten when they 
 talked of him. Their hard, lean, browned faces would 
 soften and light up with affection when they spoke of 
 him." 2 Defeat or victory, it was all the same. He never 
 lost his hold upon the men who followed him. 
 
 That McClellan was an able soldier and that his cam 
 paigns were ably planned, is an assertion which rests upon 
 the highest military authority. General Lee, five years 
 after the war, when asked whom he regarded as the great 
 est of the Northern generals, answered emphatically, 
 " McClellan, by all odds." 3 Von Moltke in 1874, said 
 that McClellan was the one scientific general on the North 
 ern side, and that Grant s final campaign was worked out 
 successfully on the strategic lines which McClellan had laid 
 
 1 " My friends have injured me a thousand times more than my enemies," 
 McClellan is said to have remarked to a brother-officer. Richardson. 
 
 2 Wilkeson, Recollections of a Private Soldier, p. 192 (New York, 
 1887). Wilkeson afterwards held a lieutenant s commission in the army. 
 
 3 Lee, Recollections and Letters of General Lee, p. 166 (New York, 
 1904). 
 
ioo TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 down. In 1862, McClellan pushed the Union forces to 
 within four miles of Richmond. After the Seven Days 
 Battle, he was superseded by the boastful and incompetent 
 Pope, under whom the Army of the Potomac was shattered 
 at Manassas and driven in panic flight to Washington. 
 Called in this dire emergency to command once more, Mc 
 Clellan restored as if by magic the morale of the army, 
 which greeted his return with frantic cheers; and he soon 
 after led it to the bloody field of Antietam, where he won a 
 strategic victory over Lee. That he was presently sent 
 into retirement and that his name no more appears in 
 military annals, must be ascribed to several circumstances. 
 The country had not yet learned that the conquest of the 
 South was utterly impossible until it should have been 
 drained to the last drop of its resources in Bismarck s 
 ghastly but expressive phrase, salgne a blanc. Single vic 
 tories were expected to crush the Confederacy, though the 
 Confederacy was still in the early years of its existence, 
 amply supplied with men and with munitions, not intoler 
 ably pinched for money, and flushed with the brilliancy of 
 its initial victories. President Lincoln had not yet nerved 
 himself to the point of contemplating bloodshed with a 
 feeling that it was inevitable. Stanton and the Radicals 
 hated that general who, if successful, might prove to be a 
 dangerous political opponent. In consequence, McClellan 
 fought, as it were, with a rope about his neck. The de 
 lays, the repulses, the loss of life, the inconclusive battles 
 such as were afterwards so readily excused in Grant- 
 were held to be unpardonable in McClellan. His twenty 
 days successful siege of Yorktown seemed to Mr. Lin 
 coln a waste of time quite unendurable; whereas the 
 months which Grant devoted to the siege of Petersburg 
 brought on him no official criticism. McClellan s Pen- 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 101 
 
 insula campaign was rendered fruitless by the sudden 
 withdrawal of McDowell s force of forty thousand men 
 just at the psychological moment; while Grant s army was 
 never weakened by executive interference. The knowl 
 edge that his enemies in the Government were as active 
 against him as his enemies in the field, intensified in Mc- 
 Clellan a certain caution of which undoubtedly he al 
 ready had too much. He exaggerated both the numbers 
 and the equipment of the Confederates. After a battle 
 he could never quite understand that while his own troops 
 were shaken, the enemy s army must be shaken quite as 
 much. He seemed not to realise that what the foe could 
 do, his men could also do if urged. And so he balked at 
 obstacles of which Lee made small account; he waited for 
 supplies of food and clothing, while the Confederates 
 marched hungry and in rags; and therefore he failed to 
 follow up successes, when prompt action might possibly 
 have dealt a crushing blow. Judgment is given against 
 McClellan because of the sequel to the battle of Antietam. 
 Speaking of this, President Lincoln said to Mr. Albert D. 
 Richardson: 4 
 
 " I adhered to him [McClellan] after all my Cabinet advisers 
 lost faith in him. But do you want to know when I gave him up ? 
 It was after the battle of Antietam. The Blue Ridge was then 
 between our army and Lee s. We enjoyed the great advantage over 
 them which they usually had over us. We had the short line 
 and they the long one to the rebel capital. I directed McClellan 
 peremptorily to move on Richmond. It was eleven days before 
 he crossed his first man over the Potomac ; it was eleven days after 
 that before he crossed his last man. Thus, he was twenty-two 
 days in passing the river at a much easier and more practicable 
 
 4 Richardson, The Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape, p. 324 (Hart 
 ford, 1865). 
 
io2 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ford than that where Lee crossed his entire army between dark 
 one night and daylight the next morning. That was the last grain 
 of sand which broke the camel s back. I retired McClellan at once." 
 
 There is really no answer to be made to this. Yet it 
 must be noted that when precisely the same thing occurred 
 after Gettysburg, no official censure was passed on Meade, 
 who let Lee slip away, although the Southern army was 
 badly broken, and although the Potomac in the re*ar of 
 the Confederates was swollen by a flood and for a time 
 was practically unfordable. In that case, however, Lincoln 
 merely wrote to Meade a " fatherly letter," and even then 
 refrained from sending it. 5 McClellan, in fact, received 
 one kind of treatment, while Meade and Grant received 
 a very different one. 
 
 What confirmed and fixed the unfavourable opinion of 
 General McClellan which many Americans now entertain, 
 was the book which, after his death, was published under 
 the editorship of Mr. W. C. Prime. 6 McClellan had 
 left in manuscript, for the private reading of his children, 
 his own account of his military career. This was put into 
 the hands of Mr. Prime, together with all the letters which 
 McClellan while at the front had dashed off to his wife 
 from day to day. Mr. Prime most injudiciously gave to 
 the public not merely the manuscript, but also the private 
 letters. These letters were the confidences of a fond hus 
 band to an adoring wife, and they were never meant for 
 any eye but hers. They are the hasty and unpremeditated 
 expressions of a man labouring under immense responsi 
 bility, and with every nerve strained to the highest pitch, 
 
 5 Of Meade s mistake, Lincoln said to General Howard: "He expended 
 all the skill and toil and blood up to the ripe harvest and then let the 
 crop go to waste." See Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, vii. p. 278 
 (New York, 1890). 
 
 Q McClellan s Own Story, edited by W. C. Prime (New York, 1887). 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 103 
 
 and they reflect accurately the moment s mood. Read 
 fairly, seven-tenths of what they contain should be elimi 
 nated in passing judgment on the writer of them. The out 
 bursts of impatience, the unreserved freedom of criticism, 
 the blunt comments upon men and things, are of no more 
 real significance than the casual ejaculations and careless 
 words of any one who finds that it relieves his mind to 
 speak without restraint to a wholly sympathetic listener. 
 Knowing that she to whom he wrote would rejoice in the 
 honours that were paid him, he tells her many things of 
 which no man would ever speak, save to a loving woman, 
 and then for her delight and not for his. Yet all these 
 little confidences, these tokens of affectionate intimacy, 
 were set forth in cold type, and they have been made to 
 justify a condemnation of McClellan. Even so sensible and 
 fair-minded an historian as Mr. J. F. Rhodes speaks of 
 McClellan s " puerile vanity " ; while upon the public mind 
 there has been left a painful and quite false impression of 
 fretfulness, and pettiness, and egotism. All this is due to 
 the mistaken zeal of Mr. Prime, who in discharging the 
 duties of a literary executor dealt a cruel blow at the repu 
 tation of a gallant soldier. For with all his military de 
 fects and these he shared with many others whose fame 
 is now secure McClellan was a brave, unselfish lover of 
 his country, w r hich, in the hour of its black despair, he 
 served both faithfully and well. 
 
 Whenever a pure democracy undertakes a great and 
 bloody war, some of those who serve it are certain to be 
 sacrificed as the price of its education into an understand 
 ing of just what is needed for success. In the American 
 Civil War, it was McClellan who was sacrificed. By the 
 time when Grant was ordered from the West and pitted 
 against Lee, the North had fully learned the lesson over 
 
io 4 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 which it had so badly bungled for three melancholy years. 
 All the bluster had been knocked out of it. Even the 
 dullest minds perceived that a hostile army could not be 
 routed by flag-raisings and florid oratory. That very 
 Chinese mode of waging war was at an end, and men now 
 buckled down to grim realities. Sentimentalism had no 
 more place. Soldiers were now food for powder and they 
 were nothing else. Money was not to be saved and C9unted, 
 but must flow like water must be wasted even, rather 
 than withheld. Military amateurs to the rear, professional 
 soldiers to the front. Even law was silent amid the clash 
 of arms. Citizens in the North who criticised the Gov 
 ernment were seized by armed men and hurried into fort 
 resses. Newspaper offices were entered and their presses 
 stopped. The courts were open, but their writs no longer 
 ran. A telegram from Washington could send any man 
 to Fort Lafayette. A few lines scribbled by a general 
 officer served to annul an order of the Chief Justice of the 
 United States. Everything was forced to yield to the su 
 preme exigency of war. Democracy for a time gave way 
 to military despotism. And so when Grant was called to 
 Washington, he was invested with a power which none of 
 his predecessors had possessed. 7 There was no check upon 
 his authority in the field. He was freed from Stanton s 
 interference. Even the President forbore to meddle and 
 
 7 Stanton once demanded in his imperious manner, an explanation of 
 an order given by Grant. 
 
 " I think I rank you in this matter, Mr. Secretary," was the quiet answer. 
 
 "We shall have to see Mr. Lincoln about that," the Secretary replied. 
 
 " All right," said the Lieutenant-General. " Mr. Lincoln ranks us both." 
 
 They went to the White House. 
 
 "Won t you state your case, General Grant?" said Stanton. 
 
 Grant replied: " I have no case to state; I am satisfied as it is." 
 
 Mr. Stanton stated his case. Then Lincoln answered: 
 
 " You and I, Mr. Stanton, have been trying to boss this job, and we 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 105 
 
 direct. And the Treasury poured out three millions of 
 money every day to replace the regiments as fast as they 
 were slaughtered. Grant was a tactician as McClellan 
 was a strategist. As a soldier he resembled a lump of 
 clay in which are embedded grains of gold. His normal 
 mediocrity was at times lighted up by gleams of genius. 
 He had moments of stolidity so dense as to be almost dul- 
 ness; and again he would rise to heights of magnificent 
 efficiency. The moral-military qualities of courage, re 
 sponsibility, and self-confidence, he possessed in a rare de 
 gree; and these were reinforced by a strong good sense 
 which often served him as an admirable substitute for theo 
 retical knowledge. For his own technical deficiencies he 
 once made a sort of apologia in the following shrewd sen 
 tences : 
 
 " Some of our generals failed because they worked out every 
 thing by rule. They knew what Frederick did at one place, 
 and Napoleon at another. They were always thinking about what 
 Napoleon would do. Unfortunately for their plans, the rebels 
 would be thinking about something else. I don t underrate the 
 value of military knowledge, but if men make war in slavish 
 observance of rules, they will fail. No rules will apply to con 
 ditions of war so different as those which exist in Europe and in 
 America. Consequently, while our generals were working out 
 problems of an ideal character . . . practical facts were neg 
 lected. To that extent I consider remembrances of old cam 
 paigns a disadvantage." 
 
 Yet Grant s two signal triumphs Donelson and Vicks- 
 burg were won by a close adherence to the established 
 
 have not succeeded very well with it. We have sent across the mountains 
 for Mr. Grant, as Mrs. Grant calls him, to relieve us, and I think we had 
 better leave him alone to do as he pleases." Church, Ulysses S. Grant, 
 p. 249 (New York, 1897). 
 
106 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 rules of warfare. The operations about Donelson have 
 been compared with Napoleon s at Ulm; and at Vicksburg 
 his well-executed plan of crushing the enemy in detail was 
 essentially Napoleonic. It was, indeed, at Vicksburg that 
 Grant s military powers rose to a climax. Never again did 
 he show so admirable a combination of strategic and tacti 
 cal capacity, so much skilful planning and so much energy 
 of execution. He seems himself to have understood this, 
 for he said long after: " I don t think there is any one of 
 my campaigns with which I have not some fault to find, 
 and which, as I see it now, I could not have improved, ex 
 cept perhaps Vicksburg." Certainly he never again rose 
 to the same height. Perhaps the explanation is to be 
 found in the difference in military skill between his two 
 opponents, Pemberton and Lee. Placed at the head of 
 the Army of the Potomac, he fought the useless and bloody 
 battle of the Wilderness that name of horror from 
 which he was forced back with a loss of twenty thousand 
 men. At Spottsylvania he made three desperate frontal 
 attacks upon a strongly fortified position, with no result 
 except a lavish loss of life. Then came the crowning blun 
 der of Cold Harbour, where again the Confederate in- 
 trenchments were assaulted from the front and where 
 within an hour twelve thousand Union soldiers fell. It 
 was here that Grant, unmoved by the frightful loss of life, 
 ordered a third charge, and the army remained motionless, 
 refusing to obey. 8 Had McClellan or Hooker or Meade 
 been guilty of so terrible a failure, the whole nation would 
 have demanded his disgrace. Even Grant himself in after 
 years spoke of Cold Harbour with remorse. 9 In this one 
 campaign, which earned for him the title of " the Butcher," 
 
 8 Wilkeson, op. cit., p. 134. 
 
 9 Grant, Memoirs, ii. p. 276 (New York, 1886). 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 107 
 
 he lost more men than Lee had in his entire army. But 
 Lincoln said, as he had said after Shiloh : " I cannot spare 
 this man. He fights." Here lay, indeed, the secret of 
 Grant s ultimate success. He had grasped the one great 
 central fact that his true objective was not Richmond, but 
 Lee s army. To grapple with that army at any time or 
 any place and at whatever cost in soldiers lives, sums up 
 the plan to which Grant held inflexibly. Lee could no 
 longer be reinforced. His war-worn troops could with the 
 greatest difficulty be fed and furnished with munitions. 
 Back of Grant there was always an unlimited supply of 
 men, of money, and of all that money can procure. Hence, 
 in the end, Lee must succumb to the process of attrition 
 involved in constant fighting. There was no genius in this 
 plan. It bore the same relation to military science which 
 slogging bears to scientific boxing. But it was certain to 
 succeed when carried out by one who had alike the author 
 ity to pursue it and the iron nerve to look unmoved on 
 fields of slaughter. When Lee finally surrendered, there 
 was nothing but a fragment of his army left, half-starved 
 and ragged, and at the very limit of what flesh and blood 
 can bear. 
 
 The character of General Grant is usually held to be an 
 easy one to read, and yet its curious contrasts indicate a 
 singular complexity. There were in it elements of un 
 doubted greatness, though few men have lacked so utterly 
 the external marks of greatness. A keen observer, 10 who 
 saw him for the first time in 1864, described him as short, 
 round-shouldered, utterly devoid of presence, rough, and 
 with a rather scrubby look, one who neither marched nor 
 walked, but " pitched along as though his next step would 
 bring him on his nose." " He had a cigar in his mouth 
 
 10 R. H. Dana. See Adams, Life of R. H. Dana, ii. p. 277 (Boston, 1890). 
 
io8 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 and rather the look of a man who did, or once did, take 
 a little too much to drink." The only softening of this 
 description is found in the mention of a clear blue eye and 
 a look of resolution as of one who could not be trifled 
 with. General Horace Porter gives an almost pathetic 
 picture of Grant, in the midst of the Wilderness campaign, 
 clothed in a shabby, tarnished uniform, and whittling a 
 stick, with hands encased in brown thread gloves, through 
 the frayed finger-ends of which his nails protruded. 11 At 
 the surrender of Lee, the Confederate commander came 
 to the interview, as courtesy required, in complete uniform 
 and wearing at his side a jewelled sword. Grant came 
 clothed in the garb of a private soldier, spattered with 
 mud, swordless, and with no sign of rank save the stars 
 of a general stitched upon his faded blouse. He carried 
 this excessive simplicity into everything. Bred as a soldier, 
 he had no liking whatsoever for military pomp. When 
 he visited Berlin in 1877, the Emperor offered for his en 
 tertainment the spectacle of a military review, only to be 
 met by the remark: " A military review is a thing which 
 I hope never to see again." He could not even bear the 
 sound of martial music. 
 
 It was, indeed, no less as a civilian than as a soldier 
 that Grant secured the liking of his countrymen. In many 
 respects he exemplified the average American, and he 
 possessed in a high degree those homely virtues which the 
 average American admires and respects. He was a man 
 of singular purity, both in word and deed. No one ever 
 heard him use an oath; and the strongest ejaculation that 
 he is recorded as having uttered was the mysteriously bu 
 colic expletive, "I jings!" General Wilson tells an 
 anecdote that is very characteristic. One evening at din- 
 
 11 Porter, Campaigning with Grant, p. 65 (New York, 1900). 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 109 
 
 ner, an officer of high rank who was noted for his reper 
 toire of indecent stories, remarked, after glancing about 
 the table : 
 
 u I will tell a little anecdote, as I see there are no ladies 
 present." 
 
 " Ah," said Grant quietly, with an unmistakable intona 
 tion, " but there are gentlemen present." 12 
 
 His nature had a strong domestic side. When he was 
 in camp at City Point, Mrs. Grant would sometimes spend 
 a few days at headquarters; and to the amusement of the 
 immediate staff, she and the General would sit at dusk in 
 an obscure corner of his tent, " holding hands " like a pair 
 of rustic lovers, both of them greatly perturbed if some 
 heedless person inadvertently approached them. After 
 death and when his body was being prepared for burial, 
 there was found about Grant s neck a long tress of hair 
 which had been sent him by his young wife thirty-two 
 years before, when he was a captain assigned to duty in 
 the Far West. Under an undemonstrative exterior, he 
 felt for his children an equal warmth of strong affection. 
 During his presidency, his only daughter was married 
 in the White House to an English gentleman with 
 whom, of course, her home was to be made thereafter in 
 a distant land. Throughout the ceremonies, Grant was 
 gravely cordial, a courteous host to all the company; 
 but after the young couple had said farewell, the Presi 
 dent was discovered to be missing. After a time his wife 
 sent to recall him; and in his daughter s room, with his 
 face buried in his hands, this iron soldier, whom the hor 
 rors of the battle-field had never shaken, was found sob 
 bing like a child. 
 
 The contradictions in his character are difficult of ex 
 planation. Considerate, tender-hearted, and as merciful 
 
 12 Wilson, General Grant, p. 378 (New York, 1897). 
 
no TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 as Lincoln himself, he could yet order the sacrifice of 
 thousands and look upon their slaughter with a perfectly 
 impassive face. Shrewd and practical in military adminis 
 tration, he failed to make even a comfortable living in 
 civil life; and when the war broke out, he, at the age of 
 thirty-nine, was a debt-ridden clerk in a country u store," 
 with an annual salary of $800. Incorruptibly honest, he 
 was, nevertheless, surrounded throughout his presidency 
 by stock-jobbers, money-sharks, ringsters, and blacklegs of 
 every sort, whose baseness he could not be made to see, 
 so that he stood by them to the end with a loyalty which 
 was at once sublime and pitiful. His last years were 
 clouded by the shadow of disgrace which came upon him 
 from his business association with a common swindler, by 
 whom Grant himself was ruined, together with hundreds 
 of unfortunate persons who had been lured to beggary by 
 the misuse of an illustrious name. In any other man, such 
 trustfulness, such blindness to the truth, would have been 
 little less than imbecility. In Grant it was only one of 
 the many paradoxes in a character which in its depths 
 must always be inscrutable. When he died, his country 
 men, moved by the pathos of his end, forgot the sordid 
 drama of his presidency, and remembered only the days 
 of his true greatness, his courage and tenacity, and his 
 noble magnanimity to a conquered foe. Throughout the 
 future, when his name is spoken, it will inevitably recall the 
 picture of a silent man on horseback, unmoved, unflinching, 
 undismayed one whom the mists of time have already 
 blurred into a figure of heroic mould. 
 
 Horatio Seymour was the ablest, the sanest, and the 
 most wisely patriotic of all those Democratic statesmen 
 who, throughout the period of the Civil War, maintained 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST in 
 
 on constitutional grounds an opposition to the administra 
 tion of President Lincoln. The year 1862 was marked 
 by one of those widespread waves of depression and dis 
 content which from time to time swept over the people of 
 the North, and made the Union cause seem almost hope 
 less. From the armies in the field there came no cheering 
 news of victory. From Washington there was poured forth 
 an endless tale of mismanagement, of peculation, and of 
 jobbery, such as sickened the moral sense of the whole na 
 tion. The edict of Emancipation was for the moment un 
 popular with the country. The suspension of the habeas 
 corpus act, the frequent military arrests of private citizens, 
 and the seeming incapacity of Congress and the President, 
 drove thousands of patriotic citizens into the ranks of the 
 opposition. Hence, at the autumn elections, six States, 13 
 which two years before had voted solidly for Mr. Lincoln, 
 now left the Republican column and elected Democratic 
 Governors. Even the President s own State declared 
 against him. It was, however, the defection of New York 
 which caused Mr. Lincoln the most serious concern; for 
 this was the richest and most populous of all the States, 
 and Mr. Seymour, who now became its chief executive, 
 was a political opponent to be reckoned with. He had 
 been described by Republican speakers as hostile to the 
 cause of union, and as one who sympathised with treason. 
 That he should have been chosen Governor of New York 
 seemed a misfortune almost comparable with disaster in 
 the field. 
 
 But those who thus misrepresented Mr. Seymour had 
 little knowledge of his character and principles. Not Lin 
 coln himself was a purer patriot nor more devoted to the 
 cause of national unity. His public utterances were wholly 
 admirable. " At this moment," he had said in October, 
 
 13 New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. 
 
ii2 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 " the destinies, the honour, and the glory of our country 
 hang poised upon the conflict in the battle-field. . . . 
 We tender to the Government no conditional support." 
 He spoke of " this wicked and mighty rebellion," and 
 he called God to witness that " I would count my life as 
 nothing if I could save the nation s life." Of the President 
 he always spoke with courtesy, at a time when many others 
 styled him " the Illinois baboon." His opposition w^as not 
 personal at all, nor was it directed against the efficient 
 conduct of the war. What Mr. Seymour criticised, and 
 what thousands of Republicans also criticised, 14 was the 
 arbitrary conduct of Secretary Stanton, the waste and cor 
 ruption which honeycombed the administration of the 
 army, and the suspension by military order of those per 
 sonal rights which are guaranteed by the Constitution to 
 every American. But as Governor of New York, Mr. Sey 
 mour was as energetic in giving military support to the 
 President as had been his Republican predecessor. When 
 Lee invaded Pennsylvania in 1863, Seymour telegraphed 
 to Secretary Stanton: " I will spare no effort to send you 
 troops at once ; " and at the battle of Gettysburg there were 
 present nineteen New York regiments which had been hur 
 ried to the front by Seymour s orders. In two despatches, 
 Secretary Stanton, by the personal direction of the Presi 
 dent, telegraphed his thanks to Governor Seymour for his 
 " energy, activity, and patriotism." 15 When the draft riots 
 broke out in New York City just after Gettysburg, Gov- 
 
 14 Among them were Governor Curtin of Pennsylvania, ex-Justice B. 
 R. Curtis, formerly of the Supreme Court, and even Mr. (afterwards 
 Senator) John Sherman, who wrote to his brother of " the wanton and 
 unnecessary use of power to arrest without trial." The Sherman Letters, 
 p. 167 (New York, 1894). 
 
 15 Public Record of Horatio Seymour, p. 117 (New York, 1868) ; Official 
 Records of the War, vol. xxvii., part ii., p. 214. 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 113 
 
 ernor Seymour was hastily summoned. The greater part 
 of the town was already in the hands of a furious mob. 
 The police had been routed. Houses had been sacked and 
 burned, negroes had been hanged, beaten to death, and 
 even burned. The city was stripped of troops, and there 
 was no physical force at hand to quell disorder. Governor 
 Seymour addressed the rioters from the steps of the City 
 Hall, and endeavoured by persuasion and by promises 
 to stay the work of devastation. He began his speech 
 with the words, " My friends "; and for years his employ 
 ment of these words to a crowd of rioters was flung at him 
 as a bitter taunt. u Such," said his opponents, " are Gov 
 ernor Seymour s friends." But of course the words were 
 a mere form of speech. Had he addressed the rioters as 
 " Gentlemen " he would undoubtedly have been far less 
 criticised; yet the ruffians whom he fearlessly confronted 
 were no more his friends than they were gentlemen. A 
 sufficient answer to his enemies is to be found in the fact 
 that, within a year, the Republican Legislature of the State 
 passed resolutions highly commending Governor Seymour 
 for his action at that critical time. 
 
 There are some who hold that any opposition to the 
 national Government in a time of civil war is both unwise 
 and unpatriotic. A careful study of the years from 1862 
 until 1 864 will surely not sustain this view. An opposition 
 such as that of Seymour was in the highest degree salutary 
 and even necessary to the Union cause. For that cause had 
 been seriously compromised by those acts of the Adminis 
 tration which Mr. Seymour most urgently opposed. Noth 
 ing so estranged Mr. Lincoln s loyal following at the 
 North as did the series of military arrests in parts of the 
 country that were wholly peaceful and where the courts 
 were open. There is no evidence that the President him- 
 
ii4 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 self ever personally ordered any one of these arrests, and it 
 is known that he often disapproved of them. Yet, of course, 
 he was officially responsible for them, and they proved in 
 the end to be in the highest degree impolitic and useless. It 
 shocked the Anglo-Saxon respect for the orderly processes 
 of law to witness old men of seventy dragged from their 
 beds at midnight and hurried to prison by squads of sol 
 diers under circumstances of inexcusable brutality. The 
 arrest of children for the offense of selling newspapers of 
 which some military commander disapproved, was even 
 more obnoxious. In fact, had not Congress taken the mat 
 ter in hand and limited the exercise of this arbitrary power, 
 the violence which had already broken out in the Republi 
 can States of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Illinois would 
 have kindled at the North a back-fire so formidable as to 
 paralyse all military operations at the front. 
 
 Mr. Seymour s opposition, therefore, was justified both 
 in reason and from the standpoint of the national welfare. 
 It led the President and Congress to abstain from con 
 tinuing a course of conduct which would have imperilled 
 the cause of union. The task of one who acts in opposi 
 tion is inevitably a thankless task, since it is always certain 
 to be misunderstood and to be made the subject of the 
 crudest reproach. All the more honour then, to those 
 who, like Seymour, have the high moral courage to per 
 form that duty, as he has performed it, without expectation 
 of reward, and in a way that leaves after the lapse of years 
 no trace of bitterness behind. 10 
 
 16 President Lincoln s broadly tolerant mind could thoroughly appreciate 
 the attitude of Seymour. In 1863 he wrote to him a letter expressing the 
 hope that they might both become better acquainted and that their good 
 understanding might be directed to maintaining the nation s life and 
 its integrity. Letter of March 23, 1863, cited by Nicolay and Hay, 
 Abraham Lincoln, vii., p. 10 (New York, 1890). 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 115 
 
 Mr. Tilden was, in a sense, Governor Seymour s politi 
 cal successor. He is the supreme illustration in American 
 political history of sheer intellect unrelieved by any of those 
 human qualities which win men s love as well as their 
 respect. Born with a body so frail that he never knew a 
 day of perfect health, he had no boyhood; but, even as a 
 child, his mind was given wholly to the mastery of gov 
 ernment and politics. In his father s house he heard 
 political discussions between some of the most adroit and 
 wily party managers of that day. By the time when he 
 was fifteen years of age, he was as well informed in Ameri 
 can political history and in the manoeuvres of political 
 strife as any one of those whose revelations he had 
 listened to so eagerly. He studied law and soon rose to 
 high rank in that profession. With its pursuit he blended 
 political ambition; and both in law and politics he brought 
 to bear all the resources of a cold, calculating nature, un 
 moved by passion or by prejudice, able to bide its time, 
 to temporise, to dissemble, and to scheme, not merely for 
 the present, but for the distant future. He knew that 
 money was a power in political life, and he accumulated a 
 large fortune as a railroad lawyer, making political promi 
 nence also a source of gain, though, as a matter of far- 
 seeing wisdom, setting his face against political corruption. 
 At the time when Tweed and his vulgar bandits began 
 their sway in the city of New York, Tilden made no sign 
 of opposition. He even used this tawdry despot for his 
 own ends, until the moment came when he could strike 
 with deadly certainty; and then the Ring was smashed, and 
 its servile judges, Barnard, Cardoza, and McCunn, were 
 driven from the bench. Elected Governor of New York 
 in 1874, he ruled the State with such intelligent integrity 
 as to win for himself in 1876 the Democratic nomination 
 
n6 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 for the presidency. The nation at large, wearied by the 
 scandals and corruption of Grant s second term, saw in 
 Tilden the very leader demanded by the hour, a true re 
 former fit to cleanse and purify the departmental sewers 
 at Washington. In the election he received not only a 
 majority of the popular vote, but likewise a majority of 
 twenty votes in the Electoral College. To destroy this 
 majority it was necessary for his opponents to alter the 
 result in the States of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, 
 and Oregon. This was accomplished by the superb political 
 management of the Republicans, who received their cue 
 from Mr. Chandler s famous telegram: "Claim every 
 thing." Through the Electoral Commission, voting 
 always on strictly party lines 8 to 7 the four doubtful 
 States were given to Hayes, who was declared elected by 
 a majority of a single vote. The announcement was made 
 only two days before the new President was sworn in. 
 
 There can be little doubt that Mr. Tilden was right 
 fully elected. Such was apparently the view of President 
 Grant himself, if we may credit the statement of his in 
 timate friend, Mr. G. W. Childs. Every Democrat in 
 the country was convinced of it, and not a few Republi 
 cans. Had Mr. Tilden been a different sort of man, he 
 would, perhaps, have said the word to precipitate a civil 
 war. But he was not the one to seek his ends by force; 
 and so he accepted a result which he and all his friends 
 believed to be a triumph of injustice. It must be said, 
 however, that the Electoral Commission was not invented 
 as a partisan device, but as a means of securing an honest 
 decision. In Congress, the bill creating it was passed in 
 each House by a combination of Republicans and Demo 
 crats. Had the Democrats voted solidly against it, the 
 Commission could not have been established. It is not 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 117 
 
 unfair to say that the Commission was more truly a Demo 
 cratic than a Republican measure, for it was the Republi 
 cans who at first feared that it would give the presidency to 
 Tilden. Therefore Tilden s party was logically bound to 
 accept the final verdict, even though it believed that the 
 majority of the Commission had acted not as judges but 
 as partisans. 
 
 Mr. Tilden was never so highly honoured by his coun 
 trymen as in the hour of his defeat. Unfortunately for 
 him, the scandal of the so-called " cipher telegrams " 
 robbed him to a great degree of the respect and sympathy 
 which until then had been so freely given him. In Jan 
 uary, 1877, a number of telegrams relating to the election 
 of the previous year were delivered to a committee of 
 the House of Representatives, of which the chairman was 
 a Democrat. More than thirty thousand other telegrams 
 were furnished to a committee of the Senate, of which a 
 Republican was chairman. Mr. William H. Orton, the 
 president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, a 
 thick-and-thin Republican, had first allowed certain mem 
 bers of his own party to examine these despatches and to 
 abstract such ones as they required. Many of the tele 
 grams were written in cipher; and in a mysterious manner 
 they found their way to the office of the New York Trib 
 une, where some ingenious person worked out the key to 
 their decipherment. On October 8, 1878, that paper pub 
 lished the translation of a number of telegrams concerning 
 the disputed Florida election; and on the i6th of the same 
 month it gave the translation of another batch of tele 
 grams relating to the canvass in South Carolina. From 
 these it appeared that offers had been made in behalf of 
 the returning boards in Florida and South Carolina to 
 cast the electoral votes of those States for Mr. Tilden in 
 
nS TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 return for a large sum of money. It subsequently became 
 known that like offers had been made to Mr. A. S. Hewitt 
 by persons representing the Louisiana returning board. 
 Some of the cipher despatches had been addressed to Mr. 
 Tilden s residence in New York City, and had been de 
 livered to his nephew, Colonel Pelton. The Republicans 
 at once charged that Tilden had endeavoured to secure the 
 presidency by bribery, or at any rate, that he had been 
 in negotiation with scoundrels concerning such a plan. 
 
 Mr. Tilden wrote to the chairman of the congressional 
 sub-committee, then sitting in New York, and asked to be 
 heard as to the inquiry which it was making. He ap 
 peared before it on February 9, 1879, and was subjected 
 to a rigid examination by Mr. Thomas B. Reed, a Repub 
 lican member of the committee. Tilden was in a state 
 verging upon physical collapse. Partly paralysed, and 
 with limbs contracted, he dragged himself haltingly to his 
 seat, and gave his answers in a voice so feeble and so 
 hoarse as to be almost inaudible. As the probe was re 
 lentlessly applied, his pallid face became mottled with 
 excitement, his lips twitched, and his hands trembled, until 
 the sight of him was painful. 17 If one were to base a final 
 judgment upon the record of this examination, it could 
 scarcely be in Mr. Tilden s favour. He answered clearly 
 with regard to every circumstance which helped his case; 
 but at times he seemed afflicted with a most extraordinary 
 lapse of memory, and many of his answers were vague, 
 evasive and unsatisfactory. He seemed to avoid all cate 
 gorical replies. u I presume I did," " I do not remem 
 ber," " I guess not," " I may have done so," " I do not 
 believe so," " I think I did not, so far as I remember," 
 " I think not," " I may have seen it " this is the way In 
 
 17 New York Herald and Tribune for February 10, 1879. 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 119 
 
 which Mr. Tilden again and again made answer. The 
 effect of his examination upon public opinion was dis 
 tinctly bad. It lost him the sympathy of thousands of 
 Republicans; and, to some extent, it led his own followers 
 to qualify the confidence which they had had in him. He 
 seemed for the time no longer the stern reformer and high- 
 minded patriot, but rather the sly and foxy politician, 
 stooping at least to contemplate dishonour. That Mr. 
 Tilden was actually unaware of what was going on in 
 1877, and that he knew nothing at all of the telegrams 
 which were received in his own house by a near relative, 
 and in a matter of such vital interest to him, is very diffi 
 cult to believe. That he had any corrupt purpose, how 
 ever, is quite incredible. He may have hoped to lay a 
 trap for his opponents, or to secure evidence to discredit 
 the venal canvassers of the doubtful Southern States. This 
 is, at any rate, a reasonable theory. The facts undoubtedly 
 acquit him of anything more serious. These facts are very 
 convincingly summed up by Mr. Tilden s biographer, Mr. 
 Bigelow : Only one electoral vote was required to elect 
 Tilden. The votes of three States were in the market 
 and at a price which Tilden could easily have paid. Tilden 
 did not get that vote. Hayes needed all the votes of 
 three States. All were for sale. Hayes got them all and 
 was elected, and within six months after his inaugura 
 tion every person known to have been concerned in se 
 curing or in giving those votes, from the highest to the 
 lowest, received an office, or the offer of one, from Mr. 
 Hayes. 
 
 Tilden as a politician was a combination of Jefferson and 
 Van Buren. His hold upon his party was stronger than 
 that of any other leader since Jackson s time. An admirer 
 wrote of him : 
 
120 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 " His qualities were of the solid and reflective type that are 
 slowly recognised by the masses, but when once perceived, con 
 stitute the strongest claim upon public attention and yield to their 
 possessor the largest influence with his fellows. . . . The 
 secret of Mr. Tilden s success in life as a lawyer, a man of busi 
 ness, and a statesman, was the thorough way with which he did 
 everything that he attempted to do. He never took anything for 
 granted. He never went into court with a case until he had 
 searched every nook and cranny of the law. He never made an 
 investment until he had personally studied the last details of the 
 business. He never went into a political campaign without look 
 ing out after every individual voter. In the campaign of 1876, 
 he took everything into account up to the closing of the ballot 
 boxes, and he beat his opponents according to the rules of the 
 game. If the election laws of the whole country had been like 
 those of New York, he would have been President of the United 
 States." 
 
 As a man, he was one to be respected, but hardly to be 
 liked. His whole life was given up to his ambition. He 
 had a lust for power, and to this all else was sacrificed. 
 His feeble health contributed to isolate him from the 
 great mass of humanity. He was all intellect, and this 
 intellect was dominated always by the spirit of calculation. 
 Frugal, cautious, cold-blooded, he was absolutely destitute 
 of the emotions and the passions which are felt by normal 
 men. His friendships, such as they were, never led him 
 into any warmth of feeling. He treated his friends as 
 though at some time they might become his enemies. In 
 all the years of his life he never loved a woman. The 
 very nai ve biography of Mr. Tilden, written by his friend 
 and literary executor, says of him : Tilden never mar 
 ried, only because he never felt the need of a wife. . . 
 Women were, so far as he could see, so unimportant to 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 121 
 
 his success in any of the enterprises upon which his heart 
 was set, that marriage never became a subject of leading 
 interest." ls When he became widely known as a candidate 
 for the presidency, many foolish women addressed him in 
 letters of mawkish sentimentality, some of them perhaps 
 through a sort of hero-worship, and others for the reason 
 that he was very rich and still remained unmarried. It 
 was not a very amiable trait in Mr. Tilden that he care 
 fully preserved these letters and left them to his biographer 
 and literary executor, who in his turn saw fit to publish ex 
 tracts from them. Yet perhaps this circumstance affords 
 the most convincing of all evidence to show how far was 
 Mr. Tilden from entertaining any romantic or chivalrous 
 regard for women. 
 
 Just as, when a boy, he had had no part in sports and 
 games, " never whittled a stick, tossed a ball, climbed a 
 tree, ran a race, or pulled an oar," so in his maturer years 
 he had few pleasures such as render the mind elastic and 
 cultivate the taste. He knew little or nothing about art. 
 Music he never cared for. He read much, but solely be 
 cause he sought the power which knowledge gives. Phys 
 ical exertion was distasteful and he enjoyed massage be 
 cause it gave him exercise without exertion. Such was 
 Mr. Tilden less a man than a highly intelligent machine, 
 a machine which worked with absolute precision, but in 
 w r hich the only thing to be admired was the perfection of 
 its mechanism. 
 
 Winfield Scott Hancock was the knightliest figure in 
 all the hosts which the North sent forth to battle in the 
 days of the Civil War. Bred at West Point, he had 
 served under Scott during the Mexican. campaign, where 
 
 18 Bigelow, Life of Tilden, ii. p. 374 (New York, 1895). 
 
122 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 in the desperate assault on Molino del Rey, and in the 
 fierce fighting at Contreras and Cherubusco, he won 
 instant recognition for his intrepid courage. Hancock 
 was, indeed, born to the profession of war. He was 
 thoroughly a soldier to the very deepest recesses of his 
 nature. Unlike Grant, he loved the stir, and even the 
 outward pomp, of martial life. The drum-beat and the 
 bugle-call were music to his ears; the battle-smoke Was as 
 incense to his nostrils. When the cannon sounded their 
 tremendous diapason, when the field was swept by shell 
 and musketry, when ranks were shattered, and columns 
 were split into chaos, when the enemy pressed most fiercely 
 upon front and flank, and when mere holiday soldiers 
 became dazed and panic-stricken, then Hancock rose to 
 the full height of his splendid powers. The shock of 
 battle cleared his brain and gave to him a joyous confi 
 dence. 19 And he had the instinct of authority. He loved 
 command and he exercised it with the majesty and the 
 finality which are the essence of a great military leader s 
 influence. He was an inspiring, virile figure, fully six feet 
 in height, handsome, with the mien of a conqueror, gra 
 cious and highbred, and of a winning courtesy which he 
 exhibited no less to his foes than to his chosen comrades. 
 When the Civil War broke out, no serious tasks at first 
 were given him ; but ere long, in the indecisive fight at Wil- 
 liamsburg, 20 he had a chance to show his mettle. At the 
 head of a brigade which he had drilled into a splendid fight 
 ing force, he turned the tide of battle, defeated the two able 
 Confederate leaders, Hill and Early, and by a combination 
 
 19 " The stir, the clash, the collision, the fierce encounter, the intense 
 excitement of battle, suited his ardent, aggressive, martial temperament." 
 Walker, General Hancock, p. 21 (New York, 1895). 
 
 20 May sth, 1862. 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 123 
 
 of audacity and cool judgment, prevented a grave dis 
 aster to the Union arms. It was of this action that Mc- 
 Clellan telegraphed his famous comment: " Hancock was 
 superb." Promoted to the command of a division, he 
 was present on the field of Antietam. He fought like a 
 hero of chivalry at Fredericksburg, where Burnside s 
 blunder hurled a whole army against the flaming slopes 
 of Marye s Hill with death blazing out from every inch 
 of parapet. Finally, at the head of the Second Corps 
 that gallant host which in losing fifteen thousand men in 
 battle had never lost a colour or a gun 21 he rode into 
 the first day s clash at Gettysburg, having been set for 
 the moment by Meade over the head of seniors such 
 as Howard and Sickles. The selection was an ideal one; 
 and it showed Meade s skilful estimate of his generals. 
 Hancock found the troops shattered and demoralised by 
 the first impetuous onset of the Southern army. Broken 
 regiments, panic-stricken, were streaming to the rear amid 
 an inextricable tangle of horses, wagons, ambulances, and 
 artillery-trains. The Confederates already held Seminary 
 Ridge and the town of Gettysburg itself; while great 
 masses of their infantry could be descried, sweeping 
 ominously forward in what appeared to be an illimitable 
 host. To meet them there were in line only the broken 
 remnants of the brave First Corps, and a division of 
 Buford s cavalry. 
 
 It was at this critical moment that Hancock, hurrying 
 to the front, arrived and took command. Never was the 
 magic of martial genius more instantly perceptible. On 
 the instant a change, lightning-like, was wrought in that 
 grim scene of panic and despair. The rout was checked, 
 the broken regiments were reformed, the drifting guns 
 were swept up and massed in batteries, and so skilful a dis- 
 
 21 Walker, op. cit., p. 94. 
 
i2 4 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 position was made of the now heartened troops as to stay 
 for the time the Confederate advance. 22 Amid this scene 
 Hancock bestrode his horse, " cool, calm, self-possessed, 
 the master of himself and of his place." The captain 
 of a Maine battery 23 afterwards wrote: "I shall never 
 forget the inspiration of his commanding, controlling 
 presence, or the fresh courage he imparted, his whole 
 atmosphere strong and invigorating." It was Hancock 
 who, upon his own responsibility, altered the plan of 
 battle that had been arranged by Meade. He selected 
 the now historic Cemetery Ridge as the key to the Union 
 position, planted cannon on its crest, and strengthened the 
 force already stationed there. 
 
 It was upon the summit of this hill that Hancock 
 reached the climax of his fame. On the third and final 
 day of the great battle, the Confederate artillery began 
 the appalling cannonade which was the prelude to Pick- 
 ett s heroic charge. One hundred and fifteen guns hurled 
 in an appalling and infernal crash a cyclone of pro 
 jectiles against the Union lines which were soon to meet 
 the breaking of a human storm. It was a scene to terrify 
 the stoutest heart; and some of the regiments which lay 
 upon the ground amid the exploding shells, had never 
 been under fire before. Then in the midst of this roaring 
 hell, Hancock, sitting his great black charger, with the 
 corps flag borne beside him, and followed by his staff, 
 rode slowly up and down the lines, as calm and even 
 joyous as though upon a holiday parade. The sight was 
 indescribably thrilling; and the men who saw him not 
 
 22 " Though not a man besides Hancock and his staff had come upon the 
 field, Lee hesitated to attack positions, naturally strong, which appeared to 
 have been suddenly occupied by fresh troops. . . . That delay saved 
 the field of Gettysburg to the Union arms." Walker, op. cit., p. 113. 
 
 23 Captain E. N. Whittier. 
 
MEMORIES OF THE PAST 125 
 
 only held their ground, but forgot the storm of bursting 
 shells in their admiration for their leader. Later, when 
 Longstreet s fourteen brigades were hurled against the 
 Ridge, Hancock met them at the head of the defenders. 
 And then, at the very moment when the charging columns 
 wavered and recoiled, Hancock was stricken down. Yet 
 still he would not leave his place; and when a Vermont 
 regiment swung to the front, Hancock, with his blood 
 spurting in great jets from a ghastly wound, cried out to 
 the commander joyously: " Go in, Colonel, and give it 
 to them on the flank ! " When they bore him from the 
 field, it was amid a burst of tremendous cheering which 
 told that the crucial struggle of the war had been won 
 by the soldiers of the Union. In the following year, 
 though his wound was far from healed, he served with 
 the same intrepidity and efficiency under Grant, whose 
 praise he won in the Wilderness and amid the carnage at 
 the Salient. 
 
 Hancock s patriotism was as unalloyed as was his cour 
 age. When McClellan was summarily removed from the 
 command of the army after Antietam, many of his brother 
 officers were so indignant as to make remarks which verged 
 on open mutiny; but though Hancock loved McClellan, 
 he made but one reply: " We are serving our country and 
 not any man." When after the war, he was made Mili 
 tary Governor of a part of Louisiana and Texas he showed 
 himself to be no satrap, but one who felt profound respect 
 for civil law. He did all within his power to discourage 
 trial by military commission instead of before the courts. 
 He believed that the re-union of all sections of the country 
 would be most speedily effected by treating the intelligent 
 and patriotic men of the South in a spirit of confidence 
 and of generosity rather than of harshness and distrust. 
 
126 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Hancock was the only trained soldier of equal eminence 
 and achievement who, during the Civil War, never rose 
 above the rank of corps-commander. It was not his 
 fortune to direct the operations of an army in the field. 
 The chance which gave this opportunity to Burnside, 
 Pope, and Hooker, passed Hancock by. It may be that, 
 like them, he would have failed; yet what he actually did 
 accomplish makes the contrary seem probable. He is 
 perhaps the only officer of conspicuous rank of whom it 
 could be said, as Grant declared of him, that his name was 
 never mentioned in despatches as having committed a 
 single military error. 24 Whatever was given him to do, 
 he did with the precision and perfection of an accomplished 
 soldier. He was, perhaps, too purely martial a spirit to 
 be rightly appreciated in a peace-loving Republic such as 
 ours; since, with all its latent capacity for defense, our 
 nation, like the English nation, sets the victories of peace 
 above the victories of war. Yet it is to the honour of the 
 Republic that in its hour of need it could summon forth 
 to battle this soldier of heroic mould, a type belonging 
 to the high ideals of chivalry. 
 
 24 Grant, Memoirs, ii. p. 539 (New York, 1886). 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 
 
 THE year 1886 was marked by serious disturbances 
 arising from strikes and other labour movements, which 
 recalled the events of 1877, when the industries of the 
 country were paralysed, and when, at the great centres of 
 traffic in twelve States, conditions existed that seemed to 
 threaten civil war. In 1886, there was less violence, yet 
 the social unrest was so widespread as to be at once sig 
 nificant and ominous. From the shipyards in Maine to the 
 railways in Texas and the Far West, there was continual 
 disorder in nearly every branch of industry. In New 
 York City, the employes of the street-car lines began a 
 strike on February 3d, which was ended on the i8th by a 
 victory for the strikers. The disturbances, however, broke 
 out again on March 2d and continued intermittently until 
 September ist, when the managers of the roads once more 
 gave way. On one day, every line in New York and 
 Brooklyn was " tied up " completely. In June, the ele 
 vated railways had a similar, though much more brief, 
 experience. The mania for striking seemed to be in the 
 very air; and on April 2Oth, in Boston, even the children 
 in two of the public schools struck for a continuous session, 
 and adopted all the approved methods of the conventional 
 strike, stationing pickets, attacking such children as refused 
 to join them, and causing a small riot which had to be put 
 down by the police. 1 
 
 1 A nearly complete list of the strikes of this year will be found in 
 Appleton s Annual Cyclopedia for 1887. 
 
 127 
 
128 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 The storm centres of labour agitation were in St. Louis 
 and Chicago. In St. Louis a demand was made by the 
 employes of the Texas Pacific Railway for the reinstate 
 ment of a foreman who had been discharged. The receiver 
 refused the demand, and a strike took place which very 
 soon extended to the Missouri Pacific, and, in fact, to all 
 the roads constituting the Gould system. Traffic through 
 out the whole Southwest was practically suspended, and 
 before long the strike took on the form of riot and in 
 cendiarism. United States troops were sent to maintain 
 order, 2 but their numbers were insufficient, and the "rioters 
 cared nothing for the special deputies who had been sworn 
 in to keep the peace. A squad of these deputies fired upon 
 a crowd, killing or wounding a number of persons (April 
 7th). This act inflamed the mob, which armed itself, and 
 for a time was master of the city. The torch was applied 
 to railroad property, factories were closed, and great losses 
 were inflicted, not only upon the railways, but upon the 
 entire population. The leader in these depredations was a 
 Scotchman named Martin Irons, a typical specimen of 
 the ignorant fanatic, exactly the sort of man who comes 
 to the front whenever the populace is inflamed by passion 
 and bent on violence. Sly, ignorant, and half an animal, 
 he nevertheless was able to play upon the prejudices of his 
 fellows, and to stimulate their class-hatred so artfully as 
 to make them deaf to the counsels of their saner leaders. 
 For a time he had his way; yet in the end this strike col 
 lapsed after those who shared in it had forfeited hundreds 
 of thousands of dollars in wages, and after the railroads 
 had incurred an even heavier loss. 
 
 In Chicago, the men in the Pullman works began a 
 
 2 The Missouri Pacific was in the hands of a receiver appointed by one 
 of the Federal Courts. 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 129 
 
 strike in May; and before long nearly fifty thousand la 
 bourers were out. In a conflict with the police a number of 
 workingmen were shot. Chicago had for some time been 
 the headquarters of a small but very active group of 
 Anarchists, nearly all of whom were foreigners. The 
 strikers had no sympathy with Anarchists, nor any affilia 
 tion with them. Nevertheless, the Anarchists believed that 
 the proper moment had now come for them to strike a 
 blow, and they hoped thereby to win to their support new 
 followers from the ranks of the discontented. There were 
 published in Chicago two newspapers, one in English (the 
 Alarm) , conducted by a man named Parsons, and the other 
 in German (the Arbeiter Zeitung), conducted by one Au 
 gust Spies, both of them devoted to the anarchistic propa 
 ganda. About the time when the strike began, there ap 
 peared in the Alarm a most inflammatory article, of which 
 the following is a part: 
 
 " DYNAMITE ! Of all the good stuff this is the stuff. Stuff 
 several pounds of this sublime stuff into an inch pipe, plug up 
 both ends, insert a cap with a fuse attached, place this in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of a lot of rich loafers who live by the 
 sweat of other people s brows, and light the fuse. . . . The dear 
 stuff can be carried around in the pocket without danger; while it 
 is a formidable weapon against any force of militia, police or 
 detectives that may want to stifle the cry for justice that goes forth 
 from the plundered slaves." 
 
 On May 4th, a mass meeting of workingmen was held 
 in the Haymarket Square to protest against the acts of the 
 police. Late at night, after some rather tame addresses 
 had been delivered, an Anarchist leader, an Englishman 
 named Samuel Fielden, broke forth into a violent ha 
 rangue. He denounced all government in the most sav- 
 
130 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 age terms, yelling out, " The law is your enemy ! We are 
 rebels against it! " Word had been sent to police head 
 quarters; and while Fielden was in the midst of his wild 
 talk, a battalion of nearly two hundred policemen marched 
 into the Square. Their captain commanded the gathering 
 to disperse. Fielden replied, " We are peaceable." He 
 was, however, arrested. A moment later, a pistol was 
 fired, apparently as a signal, and at once a bomb was hurled 
 into the ranks of the police. It exploded with terrible 
 effect. Nearly fifty policemen were thrown to the ground, 
 and seven of them were so badly wounded that they died 
 soon after. With splendid discipline, the ranks were at 
 once closed up and a charge was made upon the mob which 
 scattered hastily in flight. Of the Anarchists arrested for 
 this outrage, seven were sentenced to death by Judge Gary. 
 Of these seven, four Engel, Spies, Parsons and Fischer 
 were hanged; one Lingg committed suicide; and two 
 Schwab and Fielden had their sentences commuted to im 
 prisonment for life. Eight years afterward, a Governor 
 of Illinois, Mr. John P. Altgeld, moved partly by the 
 appeals of sentimentalists, and partly by his own instinctive 
 sympathy with lawlessness, gave a free pardon to such An 
 archists as had been imprisoned. 
 
 In June, 1886, in New York, the disturbed conditions 
 were reflected in political agitation, though here, also, the 
 Anarchists showed their heads. They were, however, dealt 
 with before they could do mischief. One of their leaders, 
 named Johann Most, and three of his companions, were 
 imprisoned on the charge of Inciting to riot. Most was a 
 foul creature, at once murderous and cowardly. When 
 arrested, he was found hiding under the bed of his mis 
 tress, and was taken away whimpering in abject terror. 
 With him and with his kind, the workingmen of New York 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 131 
 
 had no affinity, but sought to redress their grievances at 
 the polls. In this year Mr. Henry George 3 was nominated 
 as the Labour candidate for the mayoralty of New York 
 City against Mr. A. S. Hewitt, the Democratic candidate, 
 and Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, the candidate of the Re 
 publicans. Although Mr. Hewitt was elected, it was only 
 by a plurality. He received some 90,000 votes against 
 68,000 votes given to Mr. George; while Mr. Roosevelt 
 stood at the bottom of the poll with a little more than 
 60,000 votes. 
 
 Wherever throughout the country the labour element 
 had shown its discontent, the name of the Knights of 
 Labour was, in one way or another, pretty certain to be 
 heard. This organisation was one whose origin and evolu 
 tion are of great significance in the social and economic 
 history of the L nited States. Prior to 1866, such or 
 ganisations of workingmen as existed were either societies 
 for general purposes, not necessarily connected with labour 
 questions, or else they were trade unions in the narrowest 
 sense, confining their membership to men and women en 
 gaged in particular and special industries. In 1866, how 
 ever, there was formed the National Labour Union, of 
 which the purpose was to promote the solidarity, not only 
 of skilled workmen, but of the masses in general, with a 
 view to the amelioration of their condition. This body, 
 unfortunately, almost from the first, fell into the hands of 
 politicians, and in 1870 it died a natural death. Its aims, 
 however, were adopted by a number of garment-cutters in 
 Philadelphia, in 1869, who at first formed a secret order 
 secrecy being adopted because of the hostility of employers 
 to labour organisations. This was the origin of the 
 Knights of Labour, who admitted to membership in their 
 
 3 See pp. 733-4- 
 
132 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 body all persons above the age of sixteen, except saloon 
 keepers, gamblers, bankers, and lawyers. In 1882, it 
 ceased to be a secret order; and thereafter it rapidly in 
 creased in membership until, in 1886, it was said to num 
 ber more than seven hundred thousand persons. The 
 principles which the order officially professed were dis 
 tinctly socialistic. It advocated equal rights for women, 
 the common ownership of land, and the acquisition by the 
 Government of public utilities, such as railroads, telegraphs 
 and telephones. It is here that we first find in the United 
 States a large and influential body of men pledged to the 
 support of what was in reality a system of State Socialism. 4 
 In order to understand the significance of this movement, 
 and to explain the rapid propagation of socialistic princi 
 ples, it is necessary to recall a few important facts relating 
 to American economic history of the preceding thirty 
 years. One effect of the Civil War had been the rapid 
 acquisition of great fortunes by individuals, and the growth 
 of powerful corporations. Conspicuous among the latter 
 were the railway companies. The period succeeding the 
 war had been a period of railway building. Between 1 860 
 and 1880, more than sixty thousand miles of railway had 
 been constructed and put into operation. They repre 
 sented an enormous amount of capital, and this capital 
 represented an enormous amount of influence, both politi 
 cal and social. How much the nation owed to its railway 
 system was very obvious. The easy distribution of its 
 products brought prosperity to every section. Population 
 was extended over new areas. Great cities sprang up in 
 the remotest prairies at the magic touch of the railway 
 builder. Moreover, in one sense, the unity of the Republic 
 
 4 See Ely, The Labour Movement in the United States (New York, 
 1886). 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 133 
 
 itself was the work of the railway, which proved to be a 
 great assimilator, annihilating distance, bringing one sec 
 tion into easy communication with another, and thereby 
 creating not only common interests, but a common under 
 standing. On the other hand, a moment s thought will 
 make it clear that railways were essentially monopolies, 
 and that their growth lodged in the hands of their owners 
 the right to tax at will the people from whom they had 
 received their charters, and whose interests they were sup 
 posed to serve. In 1870, when there were only 53,000 
 miles of railroad in the United States, the revenue col 
 lected by the railway companies from the public amounted 
 to $450,000,000, representing a transportation tax which 
 the owners of the roads imposed at their own discretion, 
 and without the intervention or consent of any other au 
 thority. At that time Mr. Charles Francis Adams wrote : 
 
 " Certain private individuals, responsible to no authority and 
 subject to no supervision, but looking solely to their own interests 
 or to those of their immediate constituency, yearly levy upon the 
 internal movement of the American people a tax . . . equal to 
 about one-half of the expenses of the United States Government 
 army, navy, civil-list, and interest, upon the national debt in 
 cluded." 5 
 
 Even if the individuals to whom this irresponsible power 
 was entrusted had been always wise, unselfish and public- 
 spirited, the unregulated right of taxation would have 
 been an anomaly in a free State. But as they were very 
 human, serving their own interests, and naturally seeking 
 their own enrichment, abuses, and very gross ones, were 
 inevitable. Still, no hostile sentiment would have been 
 
 5 Adams, The Railroad System, included in Chapters of Erie and Other 
 Essays, p. 361 (Boston, 1871). 
 
134 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 aroused against them had they levied their transportation 
 tax equitably upon all and without discrimination. That 
 they did not do so, and that in consequence they began, 
 about 1870, to create and foster other still more gigantic 
 combinations inimical to the public welfare, are facts which 
 serve to explain the prevalence throughout the country of 
 great social discontent, beginning in 1870 and growing 
 deeper and more intense with each succeeding year. An 
 instance the most striking of all instances of an abuse 
 of corporate power by the railways, is found in the history 
 of the Standard Oil Company. 
 
 In 1862, a partnership for the refining of petroleum 
 was formed between John D. Rockefeller, his brother Wil 
 liam Rockefeller, and an English mechanic named Samuel 
 Andrews. This partnership grew into a corporation 
 which, after 1870, became known to the country as the 
 Standard Oil Company. From 1860 to 1868, the oil- 
 wells in Pennsylvania and West Virginia had enriched the 
 people of several States and had added very largely to 
 the wealth of the entire country. By the year 1870, the 
 production of oil had increased to such an extent that the 
 United States exported to Europe not less than one hun 
 dred million gallons a year. A hundred new .wells were 
 drilled every month. The people of the oil region had in 
 ten years created a new industry at the cost of patience, 
 self-sacrifice and labour, supplemented by invention. New 
 cities and towns had sprung up, humming with life, and 
 full of hope and confidence in the future. Churches, 
 schools, libraries, banks, and all the machinery of pros 
 perity had been established, and these were supported by 
 the oil wells and refineries. Presently, in some mysterious 
 way, all this activity was checked. It was found that cer 
 tain shippers of oil were obtaining from the railroads rates 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 135 
 
 so low as to enable them, by underselling other oil pro 
 ducers, to drive their competitors out of business. These 
 favoured shippers turned out to be a body of thirteen 
 men, among whom- were the two Rockefellers, who were 
 thus gaining a complete monopoly of the oil business. 
 They were united in what was known as the South 
 Improvement Company; and with the South Improve 
 ment Company the oil-carrying railroads 7 made a secret 
 contract which provided ( i ) that the freight rates should 
 be doubled to all other shippers; (2) that the increase 
 collected from competing shippers should be turned over 
 to the South Improvement Company; (3) that any other 
 changes in the freight tariff necessary to crush out 
 competition should be made; and (4) that the rail 
 roads should inform the South Improvement Company 
 of all the details of its rival s business. The result, of 
 course, was the ruin of the oil producers. They were faced 
 with the alternative of selling out to the South Improve 
 ment Company at a merely nominal figure, or else of 
 giving up their business altogether. Some of them went 
 to the officials of the Erie and the New York Central 
 roads in order to expostulate. They were told, " You had 
 better sell out. There is no help for it." Many did sell 
 out to the oil monopolists at fifty cents on the dollar. One 
 refinery, which produced annually an average profit of 
 
 6 Before an investigating committee of the New York Senate (February 
 28, 1888), Mr. J. D. Rockefeller stated under oath that he had not been 
 a member of the South Improvement Company. On April soth of the 
 same year, he admitted (also under oath) to a Congressional committee 
 that he and his brother had had an interest in that company. Tarbell, 
 History of the Standard Oil Company, i., p. 138 (New York, 1904). 
 
 7 These were the Erie, the Pennsylvania, and the New York Central and 
 Hudson River. The contract was signed on behalf of the railroads, by- 
 Jay Gould, Thomas A. Scott, and William H. Vanderbilt. 
 
136 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 $40,000 and which represented an investment of $150,- 
 ooo, was abandoned to the monopoly for the sum of 
 $45,000. The owner (Mr. Robert Hanna) said: "I 
 would not have sold out if I could have got a fair show 
 with the railroads." s The blow fell alike upon producer 
 and refiner. Within two days after the secret contract 
 went into effect, the prosperity of the oil region was at an 
 end. 
 
 The entire business of the oil regions became paralysed. Oil 
 went down to a point seventy cents below the cost of production. 
 The boring of new wells is suspended ; existing wells are shut 
 down. The business in Cleveland has stopped almost altogether. 
 Thousands of men are thrown out of work." 9 
 
 The annals of this time show a black record of ruin, 
 despair and suicide. Naturally so great a wrong was 
 not accepted with meekness. The law was tested in a 
 great number of suits, some of them brought by individ 
 uals, and some of them technically in the name of the 
 State of Pennsylvania. Indictments against the Rocke 
 fellers for criminal conspiracy were found by a Grand 
 Jury, but with no result. The State officials seemed 
 strangely unwilling to push these cases. Officers of the 
 law became of a sudden wonderfully listless. Governor 
 Hoyt of Pennsylvania refused to issue an order for the 
 extradition of the Rockefellers. The highest court in 
 Pennsylvania interfered to stay proceedings in the lower 
 courts. The oil monopolists boasted with cool confidence 
 that the case against them would never come to trial. 
 Law having failed, a political agitation was begun, ac- 
 
 8 Report of the Hepburn Committee, New York Assembly (1879), p. 
 2525. 
 
 9 Titusville (Pennsylvania) Herald, March 20, 1872. 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 137 
 
 companied by outbreaks of disorder. Railway tracks 
 were torn up; oil-tanks were destroyed. Popular senti 
 ment justified an appeal to physical force against trickery 
 and fraud. This state of things led to the calling of a 
 Constitutional Convention in 1873. A very able lawyer, 
 Mr. Samuel C. T. Dodd, addressing this Convention, 
 used the following forcible language : 
 
 " In spite of the law we well know that almost every rail 
 road in this State is to-day in the habit of granting special privi 
 leges to individuals, to companies in which the directors of such 
 railroads are interested, to particular businesses, and to particular 
 localities. We well know that it is their habit to break down cer 
 tain localities, and to build up others, to break down certain men in 
 business and to build up others, to monopolise certain business 
 themselves by means of the numerous corporations which they 
 own and control, and all this in spite of the law, and in defiance of 
 the law. . . . 
 
 " The railroads took one of those charters which they got from 
 the Legislature, and by means of that they struck a deadly blow 
 ar one of the greatest interests of the State. Their scheme was 
 contrary to law; but before the legal remedy could have been 
 applied, the oil business would have lain prostrate at their feet, 
 had it not been prevented by an uprising of the people, by the 
 threatenings of a mob, if you please, by threatening to destroy 
 property, and by actually commencing to destroy the property of 
 the railroad companies; and had the companies not cancelled the 
 contract which Scott and Vanderbilt and others had entered into, 
 I venture to say there would not have been one mile of railroad 
 track left in the county of Venango the people had come to that 
 pitch of desperation. . . . Unless we can give the people a 
 remedy for this evil, they will sooner or later take the remedy into 
 their own hands." 10 
 
 10 Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania (1873), 
 iii., p. 522. 
 
138 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 As this subject will be more fully discussed hereafter, 
 it need not, for the present, be treated in detail. Suffice 
 it to say that the secret contract between the South Im 
 provement Company and the railways was ostensibly can 
 celled. Yet the freight discriminations continued just the 
 same. Furthermore, the example set by this one monop 
 oly was copied and improved upon by other corporations 
 in all parts of the country; and the railways lent their aid 
 unscrupulously to combinations of all kinds in restraint of 
 trade, and in discouragement of individual enterprise. In 
 1882, the same Mr. Dodd who had so bitterly denounced 
 both the oil monopoly and the railways, but who soon 
 after accepted a large salary as general counsel to the 
 Standard Oil Company, invented a form of trust agree 
 ment under which the Standard Oil Company was reor 
 ganised in such a way as to provide that the stockholders 
 of each of the companies composing it should assign their 
 stock to a few trustees, thus giving them a permanent and 
 irrevocable power of attorney. In return for the stock so 
 assigned, the trustees distributed trust certificates to the 
 stockholders of the separate companies. On these trust 
 certificates the profits were divided. 11 This trust agreement 
 was finally pronounced illegal by the courts; but for sev 
 eral years it was a favourite form of organisation with the 
 great corporations, so that in popular language the word 
 1 Trust " came to be applied to every combination of 
 capital which had a monopolistic tendency. 
 
 The long struggle between the Trusts and their less 
 powerful competitors brought out very clearly one great 
 central fact. The backbone of monopoly was to be found 
 
 11 The full text of the Standard Oil Trust Agreement is given in E. 
 von Halle, Trusts . . . in the United States, pp. 153-169 (New York, 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 139 
 
 in an abuse of the power which the railways of the coun 
 try were exercising so oppressively. Unless, in some way, 
 this power could be checked and regulated, the individual 
 citizen was at the mercy of a comparatively few men 
 whose command of money made them indifferent, because 
 superior, to the ordinary processes of law. Popular senti 
 ment then became so hostile to the railway interests as 
 almost to justify the violence which had been shown in the 
 strikes of 1886. It was during President Cleveland s first 
 administration that Congress made a vigorous attempt to 
 grapple with this subject. 
 
 The President s very long message of December 6, 
 1886, did not touch directly on the connection of the rail 
 roads with social discontent, though some passages spoke 
 of the relation of capital to labour and to the public inter 
 ests. The events of the preceding summer, however, 
 were fresh in the minds of all ; and, therefore, early in the 
 session, a bill was reported in both Houses, intended to 
 regulate and control the railways, under that clause of the 
 Constitution (Article i. 8, 3), which gives Congress the 
 right to regulate commerce among the several States of the 
 Union. 12 This was not the first time that such an attempt 
 had been made. Ten years earlier, a flood of petitions had 
 poured in upon Congress, together with copies of resolu 
 tions passed by public meetings, chambers of commerce, and 
 boards of trade. On May 16, 1876, Mr. Hopkins of Penn 
 sylvania had asked unanimous consent of the House to 
 introduce a resolution providing for a committee to investi 
 gate the charges against the railroads, and to report a bill 
 
 12 During the preceding session, the Senate had proposed a mild sort of 
 bill looking to the same end. The House framed a similar measure, 
 known as the Reagan Bill. Upon the basis of these two bills, a conference 
 committee drafted the document which was now reported. 
 
140 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 for the regulation of interstate commerce. Immediately, 
 Mr. Henry B. Payne of Ohio rose and made objection 
 an objection which he refused to withdraw at the request of 
 other members. Mr. Payne subsequently went to Mr. 
 Hopkins and explained that his objection was based upon 
 considerations of economy. A special committee would 
 be too great an expense, he said. He begged Mr. Hopkins 
 to re-introduce his resolution and ask that it be referred to 
 the Committee on Commerce. This was done. When the 
 Committee on Commerce met to consider it, a representa 
 tive of the Standard Oil Company (Mr. J. N. Camden) 
 took his seat beside the Chairman, whispering suggestions 
 in his ear and practically presiding. The treasurer of the 
 Standard Oil Company, Mr. O. H. Payne, and Mr. Cas- 
 satt, the vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, were 
 summoned to testify. Both of them refused to answer ques 
 tions. The Committee adjourned, ostensibly to consider 
 means for compelling these witnesses to answer. It never 
 again took up the subject; it never recalled the witnesses; 
 it never made any report. When Mr. Hopkins afterwards 
 asked to see the record of the testimony that had been 
 taken, he found that it had been stolen. 
 
 The bill which was now reported by a conference com 
 mittee, was much more stringent than either the Senate 
 bill or the Reagan substitute of the preceding session. It 
 provided for the appointment of a Commission of five 
 members, to whom authority was given to inspect the 
 books and other papers of all railways engaged in inter 
 state commerce, and to summon witnesses and compel them 
 to answer any questions relating to the railway manage 
 ment. It forbade discrimination in rates, and also the 
 " pooling " of freight revenues by competing railways, or 
 the division of such revenues between them. It forbade 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 141 
 
 also a greater charge for a " short haul " than for a " long 
 haul " over the same line and in the same direction. The 
 Commission might appeal to the United States courts to 
 enforce its mandates, either by injunction or by attach 
 ment, and the courts might impose a penalty of $500 for 
 each offence, and a fine of $500 per day during such time 
 as an offending railroad remained in contumacy. This 
 bill was opposed by railway attorneys, both outside and 
 inside of Congress. No one ventured frankly to defend 
 the past conduct of the railways; but a vast amount of 
 concern was expressed lest the proposed act might be un 
 constitutional. Congress, however, did not dare to reject 
 the measure. The problem of the Trusts had already be 
 come a leading political issue, so that both parties were 
 anxious to make a satisfactory record. A conference com 
 mittee reported the bill to the Senate on December I5th, 
 1886, and it was passed by a vote of 43 to 15, fourteen 
 Senators being absent or not voting. It was reported to 
 the House and was passed (January 21, 1887) by a vote 
 of 219 to 41, fifty-eight members being absent or not vot 
 ing. The Interstate Commerce Act became law on Feb 
 ruary 4th, on which day it was signed by President 
 Cleveland. 
 
 As will appear later, this law did not by any means at 
 tain the object sought by its framers. 13 It established, how 
 ever, an important precedent, and marked a long step for 
 ward in the direction of a complete national control of 
 railway management. The President appointed to mem 
 bership in the first Commission, Thomas M. Cooley, of 
 Michigan, a very eminent jurist, with William R. Morri 
 son of Illinois, August Schoonmaker of New York, Aldace 
 F. Wheeler of Vermont, and Walter A. Bragg of 
 Alabama. 
 
 " See pp. 184-5. 
 
142 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 This session of Congress was unusually fruitful in other 
 salutary legislation. Very important was the Electoral 
 Count Act, which definitely ended the possibility of such 
 a dispute as that which followed upon the Hayes-Tilden 
 contest of 1876-7. By the bill which now became law 
 (February 3, 1887), each State must, through its own 
 tribunals, determine the result of a disputed election. Only 
 when it fails to do so, does Congress have jurisdiction, and 
 even then no electoral vote shall be rejected except by the 
 concurrent vote of both Houses. In the case of a dis 
 agreement between the Senate and the House, " the votes 
 of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified 
 by the Executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall 
 be counted." A stringent Anti-Polygamy Act was also 
 passed, making polygamy a criminal offence. It became 
 law without the President s signature. Other non-parti 
 san measures which were passed provided for the with 
 drawal of the " trade-dollar " from circulation, for the 
 extension of the free delivery system of the Post Office 
 Department, for the reference of private claims to a Court 
 of Claims, and for the granting of land in severalty to 
 the Indians. Finally the Tenure of Office Act with which 
 the Senate had attempted, as already told, to hamper the 
 President s freedom in making removals from office, was 
 repealed. The repealing bill was introduced in the Sen 
 ate by a Republican, Mr. Hoar of Massachusetts. He 
 very shrewdly perceived that in the contest between the 
 Senate and President Cleveland, popular sympathy had 
 been with the President. " The people, both Republicans 
 and Democrats, expected that the political control of the 
 most important offices would be changed when a new 
 party came into power." 14 Senator Hoar s action irritated 
 many of his Republican colleagues, especially Senator John 
 
 14 Hoar, Autobiography, ii., p. 143 (New York, 1903). 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 143 
 
 Sherman, and only three of them voted with him; but 
 with the solid support of the Democratic Senators, the 
 repeal was carried, as it was also in the House; and thus 
 was blotted out a law which, as the President observed had 
 properly fallen into u innocuous desuetude." 15 
 
 During this session, Mr. Cleveland continued to veto 
 private pension bills, accompanying his vetoes, as before, 
 with caustic words. Had he done nothing more in this 
 direction, he would have continued to receive, from the 
 country at large more gratitude than criticism. But on 
 February n, 1887, he returned without his approval a 
 bill known as the Dependent Pension Bill, which granted 
 a pension of twelve dollars monthly to every honourably 
 discharged veteran of the war, who had served three 
 months and who was dependent upon his own labour or 
 upon others for his support. It gave a like relief to 
 the dependent parents of all deceased veterans. This 
 was, in effect, a general service pension, and the President 
 vetoed it, saying in his message, among other things : 
 
 " I cannot but remember that the soldiers of our Civil War, in 
 their pay and bounty, received such compensation for military 
 service as has never been received by soldiers before, since mankind 
 first went to war; that never before on behalf of any soldiery have 
 so many and such generous laws been passed to relieve against the 
 incidents of war . . . and that never before, in the history of 
 the country, has it been proposed to render government aid toward 
 the support of any of its soldiers, based alone upon a military ser 
 vice so recent and where age and circumstances appeared so little 
 to demand such aid." 
 
 The veto of the Dependent Pension Bill and the terms 
 which the President had employed in expressing his disap 
 proval, brought upon him the loudly-voiced enmity of the 
 
 15 Message of March i, 1886. 
 
144 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Grand Army of the Republic. This organisation, estab 
 lished in 1868, was composed of veterans of the Civil War, 
 and in 1887 it had a membership of more than four hun 
 dred thousand persons. Ostensibly non-political, it had 
 always taken a keen interest in pension legislation ; and the 
 fear of its influence had been very powerful, alike with 
 Congress and with the officials of the Pension Bureau; for, 
 directly and indirectly, the " veterans " were believed to 
 control not less than a million votes. The Grand Army 
 men were now unrestrained in their abuse of the President. 
 They called him an " enemy of veterans," and a friend of 
 the Confederacy; and they asserted that his action on the 
 pension bill had been taken to please his supporters, " the 
 rebel brigadiers." Their wrath was not allayed by the 
 comments which were published in the newspapers that de 
 fended Mr. Cleveland s veto. These journals pointed to 
 the long list of pension frauds in the past, the extravagance 
 of the Pension Bureau, and the tricks of the attorneys who 
 made a specialty of pushing shady pension claims. It did 
 not soothe the anger of the members of the Grand Army to 
 be characterised as " blood-suckers," " coffee-boilers," 
 u pension-leeches " and " bums." A very bitter feeling was 
 engendered and was still intense when President Cleveland 
 perpetrated a colossal blunder. There were stored in the 
 custody of the War Department a number of Union flags 
 captured by the Confederates during the Civil War and 
 afterward recaptured by the Northern troops, and also a 
 number of Confederate flags taken by the Union armies. 
 On April 3Oth, after Congress had adjourned, Adjutant- 
 General R. C. Drum addressed a letter to the Secretary 
 of War, suggesting that all these flags, Union and Con 
 federate alike, be returned to the respective States in which 
 the regiments bearing the flags had been organised. Sec- 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 145 
 
 retary Endicott submitted this letter to the President, and 
 it was approved by him (May 26th), whereupon the Ad 
 jutant-General drafted letters to the governors of the dif 
 ferent States, offering to return the flags in the name of 
 the President. 
 
 No sooner had this action become known than a cry of 
 indignation arose throughout the North and West. The 
 " Rebel Flag Order" as it was called, was denounced in 
 the most violent language and by men of every shade of 
 political belief. Naturally, the Union veterans were the 
 most deeply moved. Scores of Grand Army posts met 
 and passed indignant resolutions. General Sherman in a 
 letter said: " I know Drum. He has no sympathy with 
 the army which fought. He w r as a non-combatant. He 
 never captured a flag, and values it only at its commercial 
 value. He did not think of the blood and torture of bat 
 tle; nor can Endicott, the Secretary of War, or Mr. Cleve 
 land." 1G Others pointed out that the President had ex 
 ceeded his authority in approving such an order. These 
 flags, they said, were the property of the nation, and could 
 not be disposed of in any way except by the authority of 
 Congress. Looking into the matter more carefully, Mr. 
 Cleveland found that such was indeed the case; and so 
 he was obliged to take the humiliating step of publishing 
 an Executive Order (June i6th) admitting his mistake 
 and annulling the action of the Adjutant-General. 17 
 
 This did not end the affair, however. The President 
 had been invited by Mayor Francis of St. Louis, to be 
 
 10 The Sherman Letters, p. 375 (New York, 1896). 
 
 17 It is interesting to note that eighteen years later (in February, 1905), 
 a Republican Congress passed a bill identical in substance with President 
 Cleveland s order, and that this bill having been signed by a Republican 
 President, the " rebel flags " were returned. 
 
146 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 present at the annual " encampment" of the Grand Army 
 of the Republic, to be held in that city in July. He had 
 accepted the invitation; but after the issuance of the 
 " Rebel Flag Order " he began to receive threatening let 
 ters from all parts of the country. It was declared in them, 
 and it was generally believed, that should he attend he 
 would be publicly insulted. Facts seemed to bear out 
 these assertions. A number of Grand Army posts held 
 a meeting in the city of Wheeling, West Virginia. A 
 street parade was one of the features of this meeting, and 
 various banners had been suspended over the line of march. 
 One of them bore the words: " God Bless Our President, 
 Commander-in-Chief of Our Army and Navy." Nearly 
 all the posts halted when they reached this banner. Then, 
 refusing to pass beneath it, they folded and reversed their 
 flags, and marched around it through the gutters. Soon 
 afterwards, the President addressed a letter to Mayor 
 Francis (July 4th), revoking his acceptance of the invita 
 tion to St. Louis, and saying : 
 
 The threats of personal violence . . . which scores of mis 
 guided, unbalanced men, under the stimulation of excited feeling, 
 have made, are not considered. Rather than abandon my visit to 
 the West and disappoint your citizens, I might, if I alone were 
 concerned, submit to the insults to which, it is quite openly asserted, 
 I should be helplessly subjected if present at the encampment; but 
 I should bear with me there the people s highest office, the dignity 
 of which I must protect." 18 
 
 The President at this time further exposed himself to 
 a hot fire of criticism from his former supporters, the 
 Independents and Civil Service reformers. He him- 
 
 18 Parker, Writings and Speeches of Grower Cleveland, p. 398 (New 
 York, 1892). 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 147 
 
 self had not altered his mind as to the value of the merit 
 system; but in practice, the various departments had de 
 parted from his theory. There was a general relaxation 
 of principle all along the line. A reformed Civil Service 
 had become more and more unpopular among leading 
 Democrats. In the Senate, the leaders of the President s 
 party were openly hostile to him on this issue. Senator 
 Vance of North Carolina, Senator Pugh of Alabama, and 
 Senator Beck of Kentucky took the lead in this opposition 
 within the party. Few of the Democratic Senators liked 
 Mr. Cleveland personally. 19 Senator Vance even made an 
 effort to have the appropriation for the Civil Service 
 Commission discontinued. He failed in this; but the at 
 tempt seems to have nettled Mr. Cleveland and to have 
 called out in him a certain petulance which was one of the 
 noticeable traits of his character. Giving way to this 
 mood, he let things take their course for a while, with the 
 result that removals and appointments were made by his 
 subordinates from strictly partisan motives. The most 
 conspicuous instance of this was found in the Post Office 
 Department. Mr. Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois had 
 been made First Assistant Postmaster-General. He was 
 an old-school Democrat, a thorough believer in the spoils 
 system; and he now set to work unchecked to sweep Re 
 publicans out of office. In the political slang of the time, 
 " thousands of heads fell into the basket," and Democrats 
 all over the country wrote and uttered panegyrics on 
 " Adlai and his Axe." Had Mr. Cleveland allowed these 
 removals early in his term, he would at least have won the 
 gratitude of his own party leaders. Had he stood fast 
 by the principle of reform, he would have kept his hold 
 
 19 " The Democrats in the Senate disliked him very much and gave him 
 a feeble and half-hearted support." Hoar, Autobiography, ii., p. 145. 
 
i 4 8 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 upon the Independents. As it turned out, however, he had 
 yielded too late to propitiate the former, while the latter 
 were rabid in their denunciation of him. Mr. Stevenson 
 won all the party applause, while the President received all 
 the Mugwumps abuse. Mr. Hale of Maine laid before 
 the Senate a table showing the changes in office effected 
 during two years of the Cleveland administration. A part 
 of it may be quoted as illustrative: 
 
 Offices. Number. Changes. 
 
 Fourth-class Postmasters. 52,609 40,000 
 
 Presidential Postmasters. 2,379 2,000 
 
 Foreign Ministers 33 32 
 
 Secretaries of Legation 21 16 
 
 Collectors of Customs 1 1 1 100 
 
 Surveys of Customs 32 all 
 
 Naval Officers 6 all 
 
 Internal Revenue Collectors * . . 85 84 
 
 District Attorneys 70 65 
 
 Territorial Judges 30 22 
 
 Territorial Governors 8 all 
 
 Local Land Offices 224 190 
 
 Years afterward, in speaking of this time to a personal 
 friend, Mr. Cleveland said with much feeling: You 
 know the things in which I yielded; but no one save myself 
 can ever know the things which I resisted." 
 
 The President had the misfortune to alienate the sym 
 pathies of the press at large. He had always had a dis 
 like for the newspapers, possibly because of the manner 
 in which he had been attacked by them in 1884, and per 
 haps also because of the journalistic discourtesy which had 
 been shown him at the time of his marriage. This dislike 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 149 
 
 ihe took little pains to hide. The Washington corre- 
 
 jspondents, the elite of the profession, declared that he 
 
 I had snubbed them at public functions. On December 12, 
 
 1885, he wrote a letter to Mr. Joseph Keppler, the editor 
 
 of Puck, in which he said, among other things : 
 
 " I don t think there ever was a time when newspaper lying was 
 so general and so mean as at present ; and there never was a coun 
 try under the sun where it flourished as it does in this. The 
 falsehoods daily spread before the people in our newspapers, while 
 they are proofs of the mental ingenuity of those engaged in news 
 paper work, are insults to the American love of decency and fair 
 play of which we boast." 
 
 On July 25, 1886, he addressed another letter to Mr. 
 C. H. Jones, an editor in Jacksonville, Florida, in which 
 he said: 
 
 " I am surprised that newspaper talk should be so annoying to 
 you, who ought so well to understand the utter and complete reck 
 lessness and falsification in which they so generally indulge." 
 
 Again, in the speech which he made at the Harvard 
 banquet (November 8, 1886) he spoke of 
 
 " the silly, mean, and cowardly lies that every day are found in 
 the columns of certain newspapers, which violate every instinct of 
 American manliness, and in ghoulish glee desecrate every sacred 
 relation of private life." 
 
 The newspapers certainly did their best to justify these 
 strictures. Pretty nearly every public or private act of 
 President Cleveland was misrepresented and made to ap 
 pear in a light that was either unfavourable or ludicrous. 
 
150 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 When he went fishing on Memorial Day, this was inter 
 preted by the press as a studied insult to the memory of 
 the Union dead. When Secretary Manning lay ill of the 
 malady from which he soon after died, it was reported that 
 Mr. Cleveland never sent to inquire after his condition, but 
 rather ostentatiously went down the river to attend a din 
 ner given by a duck-shooting club. When the President 
 made a short journey to the Middle West, delivering occa 
 sional speeches on the way, the New York Sun at once 
 asserted that all of these speeches had been compiled, some 
 times word for word, from an encyclopaedia. The same 
 paper professed to believe that Miss Cleveland had written 
 her brother s messages to Congress, and that his famous 
 phrases, " offensive partisans," " pernicious activity," " in 
 nocuous desuetude," and " ghoulish glee," had been coined 
 by her. Reports were printed to the effect that the Presi 
 dent had quarrelled with his sister because she had pub 
 lished a book, and that she had left the White House be 
 cause she disapproved of his marriage. Three newspapers, 
 the New York Tribune, the Sun, and the Washington 
 Critic, took to inventing imaginary dialogues between the 
 President and the members of his household, including 
 his private secretary, Colonel Daniel S. Lament. These 
 dialogues were, for the most part, stupid and rather silly, 
 but they were widely copied by the press throughout the 
 country, and they annoyed the President far more than 
 might have been supposed. One of the earliest of them 
 shows fairly well a purpose to perpetuate the notion that 
 the President s tastes were rather primitive : 
 
 Servant (to Mr. Cleveland). "The cook wants to know, sir, 
 what you will have for dinner, sir? " 
 
 Mr. Cleveland. " Isn t Miss Cleveland in? " 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 151 
 
 Servant. " She dines out, sir." 
 
 Mr. Cleveland. " Oh, yes. I had forgotten that. Dinner let 
 me see. Rose dines out and Dan is at Old Point Comfort. Good 
 enough. We ll have pig s feet, fried onions and a bottle of Extra 
 Dry." 
 
 Another, published at the time of Congressional elec 
 tions, derived its point from the spoilsmen s assertion that 
 Mr. Cleveland was no Democrat. 
 
 " Daniel," remarked the President this morning, as he sat at his 
 desk with two or three political almanacs and several tables of last 
 year s figures spread out before him. 
 
 " Yes, sire," replied Daniel, who was pasting an editorial from 
 the New York Times into the Presidential scrap-book. 
 
 "The election is in progress to-day, I believe?" 
 
 " Yes, sire." 
 
 " I remember it because I have $500 on it, Daniel." 
 
 " Yes, sire." 
 
 "Do you think we shall win, Daniel?" 
 
 " We, sire?" inquired Daniel, upsetting the paste-pot on the 
 scrap-book. 
 
 " I said we, Daniel." 
 
 To whom do you refer by we, sire? " 
 
 " The Democratic party, of course, Daniel," said the President, 
 a little sharply. 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 And Daniel slapped the scrap-book shut and went out of the 
 room with a pernicious activity which surprised and shocked the 
 President. 
 
 Toward the close of 1887, both parties began to look 
 forward to the presidential contest of the following year. 
 In spite of all the uproar that had been raised over the 
 President s pension vetoes and over his partial failure as a 
 
152 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 reformer of the Civil Service, the Republicans felt that 
 they had no genuine issue upon which to make a strong 
 appeal to the country. The people, as a whole, seemed 
 very well satisfied with the President; and while they recog 
 nised his mistakes, they had come to admire his sturdy 
 independence. On the other hand, although the Demo 
 cratic leaders personally disliked him, because they found 
 him hard to manage and exceedingly plain spokerf, there 
 was really no other- candidate possible for the party. The 
 congressional elections of 1886 showed a slight falling 
 off in the Democratic vote; but the party still retained 
 control of the House, while the Senate was almost evenly 
 divided. If the President acted with discretion, so his 
 friends told him, and precipitated no new issue, he might 
 be fairly certain of a re-election. The Republicans were 
 secretly depressed. The theory of their invincibility had 
 been shattered in 1884, and they had no great confidence 
 in their immediate future. Mr. Elaine was in Europe. 
 His health was said to be very bad. The party lacked at 
 once a leader and an issue. If the Democrats raised no 
 new question, their prospect of success seemed good. But 
 the President would not take advice. He had made up 
 his mind that something must be done with regard to 
 the national finances. For the coming year, it was esti 
 mated that the surplus in the Treasury would be, in round 
 figures, $140,000,000. That so much money should be 
 withdrawn from general circulation and locked up in the 
 Treasury seemed to him certain to disturb business, to 
 diminish the circulating medium of the people, and at the 
 same time to offer a perpetual temptation to extravagance 
 in Congress. Inasmuch as this huge surplus, wholly un 
 necessary for the needs of the Government, was due to the 
 operation of the tariff, he made up his mind that the tariff 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 153 
 
 ought to be revised. In this he was only following good 
 Republican precedent. General Garfield, in a speech of 
 July 13, 1868, had declared that there must be " a rational 
 and considerate adjustment of the tariff." President Grant, 
 in his message to Congress in December, 1874, had said: 
 Those articles which enter into our manufactures and 
 are not produced at home should be entered free." A Re 
 publican Tariff Commission appointed by President Arthur 
 in 1 88 1 had, in its report, recommended "a substantial 
 reduction of existing duties." The Commission advised 
 such a reduction to the extent of an average of twenty per 
 cent. Finally, the Republican national platform of 1884 
 had specifically pledged the party " to correct the inequali 
 ties of the tariff and to reduce the surplus" 
 
 President Cleveland, therefore, prepared a message 
 which he purposed to transmit to Congress at the opening 
 of its session in December. Departing from an unbroken 
 line of precedent, he resolved to devote his entire message 
 to the single subject of tariff reform. His intimate friends 
 to whom he disclosed this purpose were aghast. They 
 thoroughly believed in the measure which he advocated, 
 but they told him that the time was inopportune. The 
 presidential election was at hand. The message would be 
 styled by the Republicans a free trade document. The 
 protected manufacturers would be alarmed. The people 
 would not understand. To send such a message at this 
 time would mean the loss of the election. Mr. Cleveland, 
 however, stood firm. He admitted that the election might 
 be lost, but he said that he had a duty to perform and 
 that it must be performed regardless of any personal con 
 sequences to himself. " It is more important to the country 
 that this message should be delivered to Congress and the 
 people than that I should be elected President." 20 The 
 
 20 A, K. McClure, Recollections, p. 129 (Salem, 1902). 
 
154 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 message would at least give to the party and the people 
 a living issue for the future, and one which would ulti 
 mately lead to victory. 
 
 Congress met on December 6th, and the message was 
 transmitted to it. After speaking of the condition of the 
 Treasury, the President went on to recommend a reduc 
 tion of the duties on raw materials, and especially upon 
 wool a recommendation which had been made by Presi 
 dent Grant in 1874. Toward the close of the message 
 occurred the following sentences: 
 
 " Our progress toward a wise conclusion will not be improved 
 by dwelling upon the theories of Protection and Free Trade. This 
 savours too much of bandying epithets. It is a condition which 
 confronts us, not a theory." 
 
 The reading of this message created an immense sensa 
 tion. The Republicans now felt that they had a fighting 
 chance. The Democrats, on the other hand, saw that their 
 one prospect of success lay in accepting the doctrine of 
 the President, in closing up their ranks, and in presenting 
 a united front. The party lines were very closely drawn. 
 The word was passed that Democrats who would not speak 
 and vote for tariff reform were no longer to be considered 
 members of the party. A tariff measure was introduced 
 in the House by Mr. Roger Q. Mills of Texas. It re 
 moved the duty upon raw wool and made other changes 
 intended to reduce the annual customs revenue by some 
 $50,000,000. The average reduction in the tariff contem 
 plated by this bill was seven per cent., or less by half 
 than the reduction proposed by the Republican Commis 
 sion of 1 88 1. The House of Representatives passed the 
 Mills Bill by a party vote. The Senate proposed, as a 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 155 
 
 substitute, a bill reducing the duty on sugar by one-half, 
 and repealing altogether the internal revenue tax upon 
 tobacco. Republicans intimated that they were willing to 
 abolish the internal revenue taxes entirely rather than 
 lower the customs duties. Debate waxed hot. The Re 
 publican proposal was jeered at by the Democrats. They 
 said that it meant free whiskey and free tobacco while their 
 own proposal simply meant free wool. The Republicans 
 retorted with the alarm-cry of " Free Trade and the de 
 struction of American industries ! " The battle for the 
 next presidency was already on. 
 
 There was a general feeling among the Republicans 
 that Mr. Elaine was entitled to receive the nomination. 
 No other candidate could make so strong an appeal to his 
 own party; and there was felt, besides, a great deal of sym 
 pathy with him because of his defeat in 1884. It was 
 believed that the old charges against him would no longer 
 affect the masses of his party. Mr. Elaine, however, on 
 January 25, 1888, addressed a letter from Florence, Italy, 
 to the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, 
 saying that because of " considerations entirely personal 
 to myself," his name would not be presented at the next 
 National Convention. Many were unwilling to accept this 
 as a final withdrawal; but a second letter, from Paris, to 
 Mr. Whitelaw Reid (May iyth), made it practically 
 certain that Mr. Elaine was out of the running. Putting 
 him aside, the names most often heard as of probable can 
 didates were those of Senator John Sherman of Ohio, for 
 whom a number of Southern States presently instructed 
 their delegates to vote; Mr. Walter Q. Gresham of Illi 
 nois; General Russell A. Alger of Michigan; and ex-Sena 
 tor Benjamin Harrison of Indiana. 
 
 The Democratic Convention met at St. Louis on June 
 
156 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 5, 1888, and nominated Mr. Cleveland by acclamation, 
 an honour not previously given to a Democratic candidate 
 since Jackson s time. As the nomination was uncontested, 
 the proceedings were unusually tame and lacking in inci 
 dent. For the Vice-Presidency, the nomination went to 
 Mr. Allen G. Thurman of Ohio. Judge Thurman was 
 an old-fashioned Democrat who had been a Senator, and 
 whose popularity in the West was reckoned upon to carry 
 the doubtful State of Indiana. It was thought possible, 
 too, that he might succeed in his own State of Ohio, which 
 had given Mr. Elaine a rather small majority at the last 
 election. Judge Thurman was a somewhat picturesque 
 figure in politics and was popularly styled the " Old 
 Roman " ; but he was now advanced in years, feeble in 
 health, and belonged wholly to the past. The average 
 voter knew little about him except that he was in the habit 
 of carrying and frequently brandishing a large red ban 
 danna a fact which gave point to a remark made by Sena 
 tor Riddleberger of Virginia soon after the Convention. 
 Some one asked the Senator what he thought of the nomi 
 nation for the Vice-Presidency. 
 
 " Think? " said he. " Why, I think that you ve simply 
 nominated a pocket-handkerchief." 
 
 The Republican Convention met in Chicago on June 
 1 9th. It was not until the third day and after seven ballots 
 that it chose its candidate. Senator Sherman led with a 
 vote of 249 out of 830. Gradually, however, his follow 
 ing fell away, while that of General Alger and of Mr. 
 Harrison increased. Mr. Sherman afterwards declared 
 that the Southern delegates who had been instructed for 
 him were brought over by the Alger interest. If so, Alger 
 did not profit by the bargain. After the third ballot Gen 
 eral Harrison s vote rapidly grew, until at last he obtained 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 157 
 
 a clear majority. Mr. Sherman charged that this was due 
 to a secret and corrupt arrangement made with a member 
 of the New York delegation (presumably Mr. Thomas C. 
 Platt) and that friends of Mr. Harrison had made pledges 
 on his behalf in order to secure the New York delegates. 21 
 For the Vice-Presidency, the Convention nominated Mr. 
 Levi P. Morton, a New York banker, who had served a 
 term in Congress and had been United States Minister 
 to France. 
 
 r** 
 
 [Mr. Harrison was descended from Governor Benjamin 
 Harrison of Virginia, a signer of the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence, and was the grandson of President William 
 Henry Harrison. By profession he was a lawyer, and he 
 had served in the Civil War under General Sherman. He 
 was an excellent public speaker, a man of unblemished 
 character, and a citizen of the State of Indiana, the vote of 
 which was thought to be necessary to Republican success. 
 
 The campaign was comparatively a quiet one. No bitter 
 personalities marred it. The contest turned mainly upon 
 the issue presented by Mr. Cleveland in his tariff message. 
 The Republican canvass was conducted with a feeling akin 
 to desperation. Speakers sought to alarm the manu 
 facturing interests by the cry of " British Free Trade," 
 and in this they were successful. Large sums of money 
 flowed into the campaign treasury and were spent like 
 water. It was in this campaign that the old-time torch 
 light processions were generally given up. Political clubs 
 were organised in their place, and did effective work. As 
 in the Harrison campaign of 1840, party songs were sung 
 to stimulate enthusiasm, and at all Republican meetings 
 this crude minstrelsy held an important place. There was 
 something almost fanatical in the spirit with which the 
 
 21 See Sherman, Recollections, ii., p. 1029 (Chicago, 1895). 
 
158 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Republicans strove for victory. They were not very hope 
 ful; yet all that unlimited money and careful organisation 
 could do for them was done. The people at large admired 
 the courage with which President Cleveland had raised an 
 issue of principle, even when it jeopardised his own politi 
 cal prospects. Early in October, it seemed quite certain that 
 in addition to the solid vote of the Southern States he could 
 count upon that of Connecticut and New Jerse y). The only 
 two States that were really doubtful and that were needed 
 to re-elect him, were Indiana and New York. Both parties 
 recognised this fact, and the supreme efforts of each were 
 concentrated upon these two States. As Mr. Harrison was 
 a citizen of Indiana, he was thought on the whole to have 
 the better chance; but the Republicans left nothing to mere 
 luck. They proceeded to pour great sums of money into 
 Indiana and to arrange quite openly a scheme for the pur 
 chase of voters on an elaborate scale. A letter, said to have 
 been written by Mr. W. W. Dudley, the treasurer of the 
 National Republican Committee, and unquestionably ema 
 nating from that Committee, was sent to the party leaders 
 in Indiana. It contained the following memorable 
 sentence : 
 
 " Divide the floaters into blocks of five and put a trusted man in 
 charge of these five, with the necessary funds, and make him re 
 sponsible that none get away, and that all vote our ticket." 
 
 In New York, which was President Cleveland s own 
 State, he might have looked for a majority had the political 
 conditions there not been peculiar. A large number of 
 Democrats who represented the Tilden wing of the party 
 were very hostile to Mr. Cleveland. They accused him 
 of gross ingratitude to Tilden. According to their story, 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 159 
 
 Mr. Cleveland s nomination in 1884 was due to Mr. Til- 
 den s favour. They asserted that in June, 1884, Daniel 
 Manning had gone to Mr. Tilden and had asked for his 
 aid, promising in return to give to Mr. Tilden "any as 
 surances he required in regard to the naming of Mr. Cleve 
 land s Cabinet, should he be elected. 22 After Mr. Cleve 
 land became President, he neglected to consult Mr. Til 
 den until every Cabinet place but one had been filled. 
 He then asked Mr. Tilden to advise him as to the ap 
 pointment of a Secretary of the Treasury. On Mr. Til- 
 den s recommendation, Mr. Manning was appointed. He 
 found himself, however, in an unfriendly atmosphere, as 
 his letters to Tilden show. He wrote (December 21, 
 
 " I am living in an atmosphere that is full of mischief, and where 
 the whirl is so great that one is inclined sometimes to doubt whether 
 he comprehends his associates or fully understands anything of what 
 he is about." 
 
 It is quite evident that Tilden had hoped, as Mr. 
 Bigelow expresses it, that the Cleveland administration 
 would be " a continuation of the Tilden dynasty," with Mr. 
 Tilden himself as the power behind the throne. One can 
 scarcely blame the President if he resented this assumption 
 of control, though he might, doubtless, have been more 
 tactful in declaring his independence. Practically, however, 
 he proscribed all of Mr. Tilden s friends; he ignored Mr. 
 Tilden s recommendations; and he made Mr. Manning 
 feel that he was regarded with unfriendliness because of 
 his relations with Tilden. Between the President and such 
 a man as Mr. Tilden, indeed, there could be in any case 
 little real sympathy. They had no more natural affinity 
 than has a mastiff with a fox; and the result of this tempera- 
 
 22 Bigelow, Tilden, ii., p. 280. 
 
160 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 mental antipathy was an unfortunate one for Mr, Cleve 
 land. When Secretary Manning finally left the Cabinet in 
 
 1886, his friends felt that he had been greatly injured; 23 
 and his death, which soon after followed, was even ascribed 
 to the harshness with which the President had treated 
 him. Consequently, in New York there were many Demo 
 crats who were not unwilling to punish the President by 
 helping to defeat him at the polls. Even so staunch a 
 Democrat as Mr. A. S. Hewitt, then Mayor of New 
 York, let his long friendship for Mr. Tilden estrange him 
 from the present leader of his party whom he had cordially 
 supported in 1884. I shall not make a speech nor spend 
 a dollar in the campaign," said he. " Cleveland is no 
 statesman and I don t believe in his re-election." 24 Tam 
 many Hall was also disaffected. Its leaders had never 
 
 23 An evidently inspired editorial in Leslie s Weekly of January 27, 
 
 1887, said: "In the party view, Mr. Manning was squeezed out because 
 he was not sufficiently a creation of the President s to be willing to supply 
 all the subserviency essential to obtain office without any of the ambition 
 for real power involved in the independent possession of its opportunities. 
 He was neither a partner, adviser, nor dividend-drawer, though he 
 supplied nearly all the brains and will-power, and no small share of the 
 capital required for the enterprise, the President contributing only his 
 reticence, his obscurity, his powers of absorption and his luck. Thus the 
 time had come when the President and his ladder must part. The ladder 
 is therefore shoved from under, and the President is up the tree. The 
 ladder politely says: Considered as a ladder, I think I will take a 
 rest! The President replies: Considered as a ladder, you have my 
 thanks. Rather than admit that you have been more or less than just a 
 convenient ladder, I will provide myself with another ladder by the first 
 of April, until which time please remain. Also permit me to express the 
 hope that in any new post to which you may be called, your merits as a 
 ladder for others will be as conspicuous as they have here been in my 
 behalf. So the President and Mr. Manning part on as good terms as the 
 gourmand who eats an orange parts with the rind which he throws 
 away." 
 
 24 Breen, Thirty Years of New York Politics, p. 714. 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 161 
 
 liked Mr. Cleveland, and they had come to like him even 
 less. As it happened, too, there now arose in New York 
 politics a personality which sought to profit by Democratic 
 dissension. 
 
 When Mr. Cleveland became President he had resigned 
 the governorship of New York. The Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor succeeded him. This was Mr. David Bennett Hill, a 
 sublimated type of the practical politician. Mr. Hill had 
 regarded Mr. Cleveland s efforts to reform the Civil Ser 
 vice as disloyal to the Democratic party. He posed as 
 being a partisan through and through, and was fond of 
 uttering in public addresses the emphatic declaration: " I 
 am a Democrat ! " significantly intimating that the Presi 
 dent was not. Mr. Hill was now a candidate for Gov 
 ernor, and he, or his friends for him, appear to have en 
 tered into an alliance with the Republicans under an ar 
 rangement by which Democratic votes were to be cast for 
 Mr. Harrison in exchange for Republican votes to be 
 given to Mr. Hill. The campaign in New York had, in 
 consequence, some peculiar features. Flags bearing the 
 words " Harrison and Hill " were displayed all over the 
 State; meetings were held and were addressed by speakers 
 who urged the election of Hill and said nothing about 
 Cleveland. On the whole, the Democratic prospects in 
 New York grew more and more unfavourable. 
 
 Toward the end of October, the Republicans prepared 
 and executed a genuine coup. Mr. Cleveland s tariff posi 
 tion had been described by the campaign orators as essen 
 tially pro-British. It was difficult, however, to represent 
 Mr. Cleveland as a partisan of England; for in dealing 
 with the Canadian fisheries question, he had urged Con 
 gress to pass measures which would have brought the 
 country within appreciable distance of a war with Great 
 
1 62 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Britain. Hence, the Republicans resorted to a trick to 
 place the President in a false light on this issue. On Sep 
 tember 4, 1888, a letter dated at Pomona, California, was 
 addressed to Sir Lionel Sackville-West, the British Min 
 ister at Washington. This letter, which was signed 
 " Charles F. Murchison," but which was actually written 
 by a man named Osgoodby, purported to come from an 
 Englishman, naturalised in the United States, and asked 
 Sir Lionel for information as to whether Mr. Cleveland s 
 policy toward Canada was sincere, and whether he was 
 not at heart a friend of England. The following sentences, 
 very artfully framed, deserve quotation : 
 
 " I am unable to understand for whom I shall cast my ballot, 
 when, but one month ago, I was sure that Mr. Cleveland was the 
 man. If Cleveland was pursuing a new policy toward Canada, 
 temporarily only and for the sake of obtaining popularity and the 
 continuation of his office for four years more, but intends to cease 
 his policy when his re-election in November is secured, and again 
 favour England s interest, then I should have no further doubt, 
 but go forward and vote for him. I know of no one better able 
 to direct me, sir, and most respectfully ask your advice in the 
 matter. . . . Mr. Harrison is a high tariff man, a believer 
 on the American side of all questions and undoubtedly an enemy 
 to British interests generally. ... As you . . . know 
 whether Mr. Cleveland s policy is temporary only and whether he 
 will, as soon as he secures another term of four years in the presi 
 dency, suspend it for one of friendship and free trade, I apply to you 
 privately and confidentially for information which shall in turn 
 be treated as entirely secret. Such information would put me at 
 rest myself, and if favourable to Mr. Cleveland, enable me, on my 
 own responsibility, to assure many of my countrymen that they 
 would do England a service by voting for Cleveland and against 
 the Republican system of tariff." 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 163 
 
 To this letter Sir Lionel Sackville-West was indiscreet 
 enough to make the following reply: 
 
 " SIR: I am in receipt of your letter of the 4th inst. and beg to say 
 that I fully appreciate the difficulty in which you find yourself in 
 casting your vote. You are probably aware that any political 
 party which openly favoured the mother country at the present 
 moment would lose popularity, and that the party in power is fully 
 aware of the fact. The party, however, is, I believe, still desirous 
 of maintaining friendly relations with Great Britain, and still 
 desirous of settling all questions with Canada which have been, 
 unfortunately, reopened since the restriction oi the treaty by the 
 Republican majority in the Senate and by the President s message 
 to which you allude. All allowances must, therefore, be made 
 for the political situation as regards the presidential election thus 
 created. It is, however, impossible to predict the course which 
 President Cleveland may pursue in the matter of retaliation should 
 he be elected; but there is every reason to believe that, while up 
 holding the position he has taken, he will manifest a spirit of con 
 ciliation in dealing with the question involved in his message. I 
 enclose an article from the New York Times of August 22d, and 
 remain yours faithfully, 
 
 " L. S. SACKVILLE-WEST." 
 
 The Republicans held back this correspondence until 
 October 24th, when they published it both in the news 
 papers and in millions of handbills. A shout went up 
 that Mr. Cleveland was now undoubtedly " the British 
 candidate." Sir Lionel s letter was interpreted as mean 
 ing that the President was especially friendly to British in 
 terests; that his apparently rigorous attitude toward 
 Canada was adopted solely for electioneering purposes; 
 and that in case of his re-election he would pursue a very 
 different policy. Mr. Blaine, who had now returned from 
 Europe in improved health, went about addressing great 
 
1 64 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 gatherings of Irish-American voters, and using everywhere 
 the Murchison letter as a text. President Cleveland at first 
 paid no attention to this matter, and was obviously disposed 
 to treat it with contemptuous silence; but his party mana 
 gers insisted that something should be done to neutralise 
 the effect of the letter. A telegram informed him that 
 " the Irish vote is slipping out of our hands because of 
 diplomatic shilly-shallying. See Lament at once.. Some 
 thing ought to be done to-day." The clamour increased, 
 and President Cleveland then showed the one and only 
 trace of weakness that can be detected throughout his whole 
 career. To gain votes he demanded that the British Gov 
 ernment recall its Minister. Lord Salisbury demurred. 
 Naturally enough he did not see why the diplomatic rela 
 tions of the two countries should be strained because of the 
 exigencies of an American political campaign. Thereupon 
 the President ordered that Sir Lionel s passports be given 
 him, and he left Washington soon after." 25 
 
 Had this action been taken so soon as the Murchison 
 letter was published, it might have saved some votes. 
 Had no action at all been taken, the President s dignity 
 and his reputation for political courage would not have 
 been impaired. As it was, he had obviously yielded to 
 expediency and, therefore, he gained nothing whatsoever. 
 At the election, Mr. Harrison won by a majority of sixty- 
 five electoral votes. He carried both Indiana and New 
 York, though in the latter State Mr. Hill was elected 
 Governor. 26 Cleveland carried the South and also New 
 
 25 The dismissal of Sir Lionel was naturally resented by Lord Salis 
 bury, who appointed no successor to him until after Mr. Cleveland s term 
 had ended. 
 
 26 Harrison had a majority in New York State of 12,096 votes; Hill had 
 a majority of 18,481 votes. 
 
THE REPUBLICAN RALLY 165 
 
 Jersey and Connecticut. The Republicans were success 
 ful in the congressional elections, having a majority of 
 ten in the next House. An analysis of the vote showed 
 that Mr. Cleveland had been defeated by a very narrow 
 margin. Even in Mr. Harrison s own State he had come 
 within 2000 votes of a majority, and had obviously lost 
 New York only through the treachery of his own party. 
 In the popular vote, as against Mr. Harrison, he had a ma 
 jority of over 100,000 ballots. The sentiment of the 
 country as a whole, therefore, still seemed to be on his 
 side. 
 
 But the victorious Republicans in their rejoicing took 
 small account of these considerations. They had won, 
 and they believed that their party had come back to stay. 
 They spoke of Mr. Cleveland as of one politically dead. 
 On the night before the inauguration of Mr. Harrison, 
 Washington was filled with civic and military organisa 
 tions which had come to celebrate the glorious victory. 
 Late in the evening, a motley crowd proceeded to the 
 grounds of the White House. The windows of the 
 executive mansion were darkened as though to symbolise 
 defeat. Then the crowd of revellers, composed of 
 " marching clubs," drunken militiamen, and hooligans of 
 the city, lifted up their voices and chanted in discordant 
 tones the ditty which had been most popular of all, in the 
 late campaign: 
 
 " Down in the cornfield 
 Hear that mournful sound ; 
 All the Democrats are weeping 
 Grover s in the cold, cold ground ! " 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN HARRISON 
 
 BENJAMIN HARRISON was inaugurated in the midst of a 
 violent rainstorm, which, continuing all through the day, 
 converted the streets of Washington into a muddy lake. 
 While the oath of office was being administered, Mr. 
 Cleveland good-naturedly held his umbrella over the 
 bared head of his successor; and when the new President 
 stepped forward to pronounce his inaugural address, the 
 torrential splashing of the rain made his words inaudible 
 to the sixty thousand men and women who were huddled 
 about the Capitol, drenched to the skin, and shivering in 
 the raw east wind. Superstitious persons spoke of " the 
 Harrison hoodoo," and recalled the fact that President 
 William Henry Harrison had died within a few weeks 
 after his inauguration, as the result of a chill contracted 
 on that day. There was much criticism of the ceremonial 
 arrangements, which had been unintelligently planned. 
 Members of the House of Representatives complained 
 bitterly of the insolence with which they were treated by 
 the employes of the Senate, and they even discussed the 
 subject afterwards in a heated debate upon the floor of the 
 House. The procession from the Senate Chamber to the 
 East Front of the Capitol was so badly managed that it 
 degenerated into an unseemly scramble. The customary 
 review, in which nearly forty thousand men defiled before 
 the President, was shorn of its impressiveness by the con 
 dition of the streets and the bedraggled appearance of the 
 paraders. Altogether, the inefficiency of man seemed to 
 
 1 66 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 167 
 
 combine with the disfavour of the elements to render this 
 day of Republican triumph inauspicious. 
 
 Mr. Harrison s very long address contained, in addi 
 tion to the usual rhetorical passages, several paragraphs 
 that were of interest as foreshadowing his future policy. 
 He spoke of the development of the new navy, and said 
 that " the construction of a sufficient number of modern 
 warships and of their necessary armament should progress 
 as rapidly as is consistent with care and perfection in plans 
 and workmanship." A general approval was given to the 
 protective theory of the tariff, but on this head he prob 
 ably thought it unnecessary to speak at length. There 
 were a few sentences relating to the Trusts. 
 
 The evil example of permitting individuals, corporations or 
 communities to nullify the laws because they cross some sel 
 fish . . . interest ... is full of danger, not only to the 
 nation at large, but much more to those who use this pernicious 
 expedient to escape their just obligations or to obtain an unjust 
 advantage over others. They will presently themselves be com 
 pelled to appeal to the law for protection ; and those who would use 
 the law as a defence must not deny that use of it to others. If 
 our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legal 
 limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of 
 the unlawful limitations of their rights or of violent interference 
 with their operations." 
 
 Regarding the matter of appointments to office, Mr. 
 Harrison was very frank. Though he pledged himself 
 to enforce " fully and without evasion " the Civil Service 
 law, he added, for the encouragement of good party men : 
 
 " Honourable party service will certainly not be esteemed by me 
 a disqualification for public office. . . . It is entirely credit 
 able to seek public office by proper methods and with proper 
 
1 68 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 motives ; and all applicants will be treated with consideration. Per 
 sistent importunity will not be the best support of an application 
 for office. ... I hope to do something to advance the reform 
 of the Civil Service. The ideal, or even my own ideal, I shall prob 
 ably not attain. Retrospect will be a safer basis of judgment than 
 promises." 
 
 The President established himself very quietly in the 
 White House. He was far from being the object of that 
 sort of public interest and curiosity which Mr. Cleveland 
 had experienced. This was due, of course, partly to the 
 fact that he was not, in politics, altogether a novus homo. 
 Though not particularly well known in the East, his pub 
 lic career had been a long and honourable one. As colonel 
 of an Indiana regiment in the Civil War, he had served 
 with conspicuous gallantry, heading a bayonet charge at 
 Resaca, and commanding a brigade at Kenesaw Moun 
 tain. Because of his share in the operations about Nash 
 ville in 1864, he had been breveted a brigadier-general of 
 volunteers " for ability and manifest energy." After the 
 war he practised law and was elected official reporter to 
 the Supreme Court of Indiana, publishing subsequently a 
 volume of judicial decisions. In 1876, he made his first 
 appearance in politics as the Republican candidate for 
 Governor, failing, however, to secure an election. In 
 1880, he was sent to the United States Senate, where he 
 served upon several important committees, and won some 
 reputation as a clear and forceful reasoner. With this 
 record, and because his personal character had not been an 
 issue in the presidential campaign, it was natural that he 
 should, as President, be made the subject of fewer " pen- 
 pictures " and anecdotes than his predecessor. But still 
 another reason was to be found in the fact that his person 
 ality was less remarkable. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 169 
 
 At the time of his inauguration he was in the fifty-sixth 
 year of his age. Almost abnormally short of stature, he 
 seemed, nevertheless, to be taller than he actually was, 
 owing to the length of his body and the dignity of his 
 manner. Sturdy of frame, he enjoyed vigorous health. 
 A greyish beard, cut nearly square, covered a goodly 
 portion of his face. His neck was so short as to give his 
 head the appearance of being set directly upon his shoul 
 ders, and he usually held his chin down and partly drawn 
 back upon his somewhat protuberant chest a circumstance 
 which led the irreverent to liken his appearance to that of 
 a pouter-pigeon. If, however, he was not particularly 
 impressive, his bearing was nevertheless the bearing of a 
 gentleman, and he was one with whom not even an inti 
 mate friend would have dreamed of taking liberties. 
 
 Mr. Harrison, unfortunately for himself, had two sep 
 arate and distinct manners. With the members of his own 
 household and a very few others he was genial, hearty 
 and spontaneously cordial. But to the rest of the world 
 he exhibited a wholly different and most unsympathetic 
 demeanour. His tone and manner were as cold as ice. 
 He lacked that most delightful of all personal gifts 
 responsiveness. To strangers, and even to political friends 
 who had to do with him, he appeared almost ungracious 
 in his aloofness and indifference. Those who talked with 
 him were met with a frigid look from two expressionless 
 steel-grey eyes; and their remarks were sometimes answered 
 in a few chill monosyllables devoid of the slightest note 
 of interest. The President had also some rather unpleas 
 ant little personal traits and habits which offended many of 
 his visitors; so that, on the whole, an unfavourable im 
 pression got abroad with regard to Mr. Harrison as an in 
 dividual. The whole matter was rather strikingly summed 
 
170 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 up by one who knew him well, in these two sentences: 
 " Harrison can make a speech to ten thousand men, and 
 every man of them will go away his friend. Let him meet 
 the same ten thousand men in private, and every one will 
 go away his enemy. * 
 
 President Harrison was a man of much intellectual 
 ability. He had the mind of a trained lawyer acute, 
 penetrating and analytical. Something of the casuistry of 
 the advocate at times appeared in what he wrote and said; 
 but in the main he was eminently fair. An uncompromis 
 ing adherent of his own party, he accepted its policy with 
 out question and defended it without reservation. 1 This he 
 could do the more readily in that his intellect, though 
 cultivated, lacked breadth, so that his views of public 
 questions were often narrow ones. He showed, indeed, 
 during the first year of his presidency a certain absorption 
 in minor interests, and a fondness for fussing over ques 
 tions relating to petty patronage and to all the minutiae of 
 politics. This tendency he afterwards largely overcame; 
 for in him, as in most American presidents, the pressure 
 of great responsibility gradually broadened and developed 
 his whole nature. His integrity was never questioned, 
 and this inherent honesty often made it hard for him to 
 endure the companionship of many whose good will it 
 was politic to conciliate. He felt, indeed, a strong per 
 sonal dislike for some of the most influential leaders of 
 his party; and though, in his official intercourse with them, 
 he tried hard to treat them with cordiality, he did it with 
 
 1 Senator Sherman wrote to him soon after the election : " The President 
 should touch elbows with Congress. He should have no policy distinct 
 from that of his party; and this is better represented in Congress than in 
 the Executive." Mr. Harrison lived up to this admonition all through his 
 term of office. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 171 
 
 so bad a grace that his actual sentiments became perfectly 
 well known. 
 
 As a public speaker, President Harrison attained to an 
 unusual degree of excellence in fact, more truly so than 
 any other President since Garfield. While in the Senate he 
 had always been listened to with interest; but at that time 
 he had not yet matured his powers. There were invaria 
 bly traces of formality and heaviness; and while he was 
 always dignified, he was seldom graceful. His phrase 
 ology sometimes suggested the lay exhorter, the Presby 
 terian elder, or the leader of a prayer-meeting. One of 
 his locutions was, " I lift up a prayer " an expression 
 which some of the newspapers caught up and rang the 
 changes on with malicious glee. After his nomination, 
 the party managers, who at first regarded him somewhat 
 in the light of a respectable figure-head, urged him to be 
 silent during the campaign. 2 But to this cautious advice 
 he paid no attention; and when delegations visited him at 
 his home, he made short, off-hand speeches which were so 
 neat and telling as to be regularly reported in the press, 
 and to furnish many effective texts to his followers. In all 
 he delivered ninety-four of these impromptu addresses, 
 and surprised even those who knew him, by his facility and 
 felicity. As President, he never made a flat or feeble 
 speech, nor one composed of platitudes. His oratory was 
 marked by ease and finish, and a certain geniality of tone 
 which by no means belonged to his ordinary conversation. 
 In 1891, he made a journey through the South, and often 
 addressed the throngs that greeted him. Here he was 
 surrounded by those who were politically his opponents, 
 and against whom he had fought at the time of the Civil 
 War. It was no easy matter to speak off-hand under con- 
 
 - McClure, Recollections, p. 140. 
 
172 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ditions such as these without saying something that would 
 give offense, or without descending to the most obvious 
 banality. Yet President Harrison never once did either; 
 but rose above all criticism in a series of little speeches that 
 were gems of occasional oratory graceful, winning, sug 
 gestive and tactful to a degree. 3 In the longer addresses 
 which he made while he was President, the same qualities 
 were noticeable; and sometimes there was revealed *a touch 
 of that higher eloquence which combines dignity and rea 
 son with sincere, unstudied feeling. 
 
 The new Cabinet, with two exceptions, was one of no 
 very marked distinction or ability. The exceptions were 
 Mr. Elaine and Mr. Tracy. President Harrison had been 
 more or less reluctant to give Mr. Elaine a place in his 
 official household. So brilliant, ardent and magnetic a 
 personality was not likely to lend itself to subordination. 
 The President felt that he might himself be overshadowed 
 by it. In fact, his attitude toward Mr. Elaine resembled 
 that of Mr. Cleveland toward Tilden. The President 
 wished to be master in his own house, and it did not please 
 him to hear Mr. Elaine spoken of continually as " the un 
 crowned king." Nevertheless, he had no choice. Prece 
 dent required that he should appoint to the chief Cabinet- 
 office the man who might have had the nomination had he 
 wished it, and who, it was said, had really given it to Mr. 
 Harrison. Mr. Elaine had sent a telegram to his friends 
 while the Chicago Convention was in session; and although 
 its contents were kept secret, the Elaine leaders had given 
 Mr. Harrison their support immediately after its receipt. 
 It was claimed that, in return, Mr. Harrison had promised 
 to make Elaine his premier. This was undoubtedly untrue, 
 
 3 These speeches were collected and published by Hedges, Through the 
 South and West with President Harrison (New York, 1892). 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 173 
 
 since such a pledge was quite unnecessary. The President 
 practically had no choice in the matter; and therefore, as it 
 appeared, with reluctance and somewhat sullenly, he 
 offered the portfolio of State to Mr. Elaine. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin F. Tracy of New York, who became 
 Secretary of the Navy, was an eminent lawyer, a veteran 
 of the Civil War. He had been United States District- 
 Attorney in New York, and for two years an Asso 
 ciate Justice of the highest court in that State. Surprise 
 was expressed that he should be chosen for the Navy De 
 partment rather than for the Attorney-Generalship. He 
 was, however, so intelligent an administrator as fully to 
 justify the President s selection of him; and during the 
 next four years he did admirable work in building up a 
 modern fleet. Mr. William Windom of Minnesota, the 
 Secretary of the Treasury, was a safe man of moderate 
 ability. He had been for a few months a member of 
 President Garfield s Cabinet, retiring at the accession of 
 Mr. Arthur, and entering the United States Senate for a 
 second time. The new Secretary of War was Mr. Redfield 
 Proctor of Vermont, a wealthy gentleman who had been 
 Governor of his own State. Mr. Harrison s Secretary of 
 the Interior was Mr. John W. Noble of Missouri, a vet 
 eran of the war and subsequently a practising lawyer. At 
 the time of his appointment he was little known outside 
 of his own State. The new Postmaster-General was Mr. 
 John Wanamaker of Pennsylvania, a rich business man. 
 To the Attorney-Generalship the President called his 
 former law partner, Mr. W. H. H. Miller of Indiana. 
 Congress had established a Department of Agriculture in 
 addition to the existing executive offices, and this post was 
 now filled by Mr. Jeremiah M. Rusk of Wisconsin, a State 
 of which Mr. Rusk had been Governor for seven years. 
 
174 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Mr. Rusk was a somewhat picturesque personage. He 
 had been in his early years a farmer; and his quaint and 
 often racy speech still smacked of the soil. He had served 
 all through the Civil War, and had displayed remarkable 
 gallantry at Atlanta and during Sherman s march to the 
 sea, where, like Mr. Harrison himself, he had been 
 breveted a brigadier-general. Next to Elaine, Mr. Rusk 
 was the most popular member of the Cabinet. He had a 
 bluff, hearty, unconventional manner; he administered the 
 new Department with great success; and his frank honesty 
 and quaint utterances endeared him to the masses, who 
 spoke of him with affectionate familiarity as " Uncle 
 Jerry." 
 
 The appointment of Mr. Wanamaker was one that 
 called forth a certain amount of criticism. Mr. Wana 
 maker was the proprietor of a large shop in Philadelphia, 
 and he was also conspicuous as a religious leader and a 
 promoter of Young Men s Christian Associations and Sun 
 day schools. But during the campaign of 1888, Mr. 
 Wanamaker had both himself contributed, and had col 
 lected from the rich protected manufacturers of Penn 
 sylvania, an immense campaign fund, which he turned over 
 to Senator Matthew S. Quay, whose political methods were 
 notoriously objectionable. Mr. Quay was then chairman 
 of the Republican Executive Committee, conducting the 
 campaign; and the cash provided by Mr. Wanamaker had 
 formed a part of the funds which, in Indiana, had in 
 fluenced the " floaters," and consolidated the " blocks of 
 five." The contrast between Mr. Wanamaker s piety and 
 the purposes for which his money had been given was a 
 little too glaring to pass unnoticed by his political oppo 
 nents; though there was no reason for holding Mr. Wana 
 maker accountable for the use made of the fund by others. 
 
PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 175 
 
 Nevertheless, under the circumstances, his appointment to 
 a Cabinet office distinctly savoured of a commercial trans 
 action. His acceptance of the post, therefore, was held to 
 indicate conditions which, as was said by one critic, " Presi 
 dent Harrison must know, and, knowing, must deplore 
 and feel ashamed of." ^ 
 
 " That Mr. Wanamaker will administer the office respectably 
 we have little doubt ; and that this will after a while be used as an 
 argument, even by clergymen and religious newspapers, in favour 
 of allowing Cabinet offices to be purchased by contributions to 
 campaign funds, we have just as little. Nearly all corruption 
 begins under some harmless guise. Votes are always bought for 
 the good of the cause ; decisions are always sold to the right "side ; 
 and we finally get to the comfortable conclusion that not only is 
 God w r ith the big battalions, but that He makes political de 
 bauchery one of His instruments for good." 4 
 
 Some adverse criticism also arose in certain quarters 
 from the fact that Mr. Wanamaker did not always appear 
 to keep his high political office distinct from the in 
 terests of his business. As head of the nation s postal system 
 he was the absolute chief of thousands of country post 
 masters. These men were kept reminded by circulars and 
 otherwise that the Postmaster-General was also a great 
 retail merchant. When the Pan-American Congress, com 
 posed of delegates from all the American Republics, was 
 in session, its members visited Philadelphia; and, as a 
 matter of courtesy to the Postmaster-General, they made 
 an inspection of his " emporium." Upon leaving, each of 
 these gentlemen was presented with a u souvenir volume," 
 ornately printed and containing a description in florid 
 rhetoric of the glories of the Wanamaker shop. Follow 
 ing the description was this request, with which, however, 
 Mr. Wanamaker, probably, had nothing to do: 
 
 4 The Nation, March 7, 1889. 
 
1 76 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 "DEAR SIR: Confident of our commanding position in the 
 mercantile world as leaders in retail commerce, and believing 
 that we have reached the highest point yet attained in our country 
 in the science of retail trading, we beg leave to ask your acceptance 
 of this souvenir of your visit to our place of business, in the hope 
 that it contains information sufficient to warrant its submission to 
 your Government as a portion of your report upon the honourable 
 
 Congress to which you are accredited" 
 
 
 
 Because of these and similar occurrences, the whole 
 country was amused when the New York Sun gave an 
 exhibition of its impish cleverness at the expense of Mr. 
 Wanamaker. Picking out day by day the flamboyant ad 
 vertisements of his wares which appeared over his signa 
 ture in the newspapers, it treated them with great gravity, 
 professing to believe that they had been personally com 
 posed by him as serious literary productions, and discussing 
 in terms of aesthetic criticism Mr. Wanamaker s Essays on 
 Ladies Underwear, his unrhymed Poems on Walking 
 Skirts, his Reflections on Flannels, and his philosophical 
 Musings upon Muffs. 5 
 
 But while the Postmaster-General contributed nothing to 
 the prestige of the Administration, the new Secretary of 
 State won laurels for himself and for his chief. The 
 State Department was a post admirably suited to the tastes 
 and intellectual qualities of Mr. Blaine. Like Disraeli, 
 whom in some respects he strikingly resembled, Blaine 
 loved administration on a large scale. He had long been 
 the most conspicuous figure in national politics, and it 
 gratified alike his ambition and his imagination to appear 
 in the still more spacious theatre of international affairs. 
 His friends shared his enthusiasm and spoke with proud 
 anticipation of the " spirited foreign policy " which was 
 presently to be carried out. Mr. Elaine s opponents, on 
 
 5 See, for instance, the Sun for March 15, 1889. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 177 
 
 the other hand, professed a feeling of disquietude. They 
 said that, with regard to the foreign relations of the United 
 States, safety rather than brilliancy was to be preferred 
 in the conduct of affairs. They prophesied that Mr. Elaine 
 restless, aggressive, and w T ith a love of dramatic effects 
 would involve the country in some dangerous complication; 
 and to justify this belief, they recalled what had occurred 
 in 1882, when for nine months Mr. Elaine had been Sec 
 retary of State in President Garfield s brief administra 
 tion, and until President Arthur relieved him. 
 
 The reminder of that time was an interesting one. Peru 
 and Chile were then at war with one another; and Secre 
 tary Elaine had used his influence to preserve the terri 
 torial integrity and the independence of Peru, both of 
 which were threatened by the triumphant Chileans. This 
 action had given great offence to Chile and it had been 
 severely criticised in the United States. It was Mr. 
 Elaine s misfortune to have excited a suspicion that his 
 motives were not disinterested. He had had some casual 
 interviews with an adventurer named Shipherd; and in the 
 course of the negotiations over the Chilean affair, he had 
 taken up certain claims against Peru, known as the Lan- 
 dreau and Cochet claims, in which Shipherd was pecuniarily 
 interested. Mr. Elaine wrote a despatch (August 4, 
 1882) to the American Minister in Peru, directing him to 
 notify both the Chilean and Peruvian governments that 
 no treaty of peace between the two countries must be made 
 until the Landreau claim should be settled. 6 This despatch 
 deeply angered Chile, as did the further activities of the 
 Secretary at that time. Many thought that had not Mr. 
 Arthur become President when he did, and had he not 
 taken the matter out of the hands of Mr. Elaine, war might 
 
 c Senate Exec. Documents, No. 79 (Forty-seventh Congress), p. 507. 
 
178 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 have occurred. The whole matter was investigated after 
 wards by the House of Representatives. Mr. Elaine ap 
 peared before a committee of the House, and his appear 
 ance led to an exciting scene. 7 A Democratic member, 
 Mr. Perry Belmont of New York, took a leading part 
 in examining Mr. Elaine; and he asked such searching 
 questions, and seemed so sceptical, that at last Mr. Elaine 
 was nettled. Mr. Belmont was a new member pf Con 
 gress and was, besides, a young and unknown man, while 
 Mr. Blaine was the most eminent of American states 
 men. He therefore tried to overawe his youthful cross- 
 examiner by assuming the grand manner. The phrasing 
 of a certain telegram was under discussion. Mr. Blaine 
 declared that the words had been garbled. Mr. Belmont 
 stuck to his own interpretation. " I am not in a police- 
 court to be badgered!" said Mr. Blaine; and he went 
 on to say that Mr. Belmont had intentionally altered the 
 despatch and was persisting in a falsehood. Belmont s 
 face grew white to the lips, and then flamed red with 
 anger. He looked Blaine straight in the eyes. Then 
 he said: 
 
 " I believe you are a bully and a coward ! " 
 
 It was these incidents the Shipherd connection, the 
 so-called " guano claim," and the strained relations with 
 Chile in 1882 which Mr. Elaine s opponents now 
 brought up again ; but most persons regarded them as an 
 cient history, and waited with interest to see to what the 
 new Secretary of State would first turn his hand. As a 
 matter of fact, at the very moment when President Harri 
 son was taking the oath of office, there existed in a far 
 quarter of the globe a condition of affairs so critical that 
 it might at any moment plunge the United States into a 
 
 7 See House Report, No. 1790 (Forty-seventh Congress). 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 179 
 
 war with the foremost military power of Europe. To 
 understand this situation one must recall the succession of 
 events which had made it possible. 
 
 Ever since the humiliation of France at the hands of 
 Germany in the war of 1870, the latter power had arro 
 gated to itself a sort of supremacy over other nations. 
 Allied with Austria and Italy, the German Empire set 
 no bounds to its pretensions. Russia was quiescent; Eng 
 land was isolated; France was prostrate. Prince Bismarck, 
 as he sat in his chancellery on the Wilhelm-Strasse, felt 
 that there indeed was the true omphalos of earthly power. 
 He had despoiled Denmark in 1864. He had humbled 
 Austria in 1866. He had crushed France in 1870. He 
 was now treated with almost servile deference by ambassa 
 dors and statesmen. A frown of his, an impatient speech, 
 or a curt despatch, was enough to send the shivers down 
 the back of every Foreign Minister in Europe. No won 
 der that he had grown arrogant, and that all official Ger 
 mans, taking their tone from him, cultivated a swaggering 
 insolence which paid no heed to others rights or feelings. 
 In the early eighties, the Chancellor was pushing his 
 scheme of planting German colonies in distant lands; and 
 any unconsidered trifles of territory which he chanced to 
 find unclaimed were promptly visited by German men-of- 
 war and recorded on the official map as being German 
 soil. This policy was quite openly directed against Eng 
 land as the great colonising power; but England was under 
 the spell of Germany s enormous self-assertiveness; so 
 that Downing Street seemed timidly anxious to avoid a 
 clash with the autocrat of the Wilhelm-Strasse. In course 
 of time, Prince Bismarck cast his acquisitive eye upon the 
 Samoan Islands. 
 
i8o TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 The Samoan Islands are twelve in number, lying in 
 the track of vessels which ply between the American sea 
 ports on the Pacific Coast, and Australia. They have, 
 therefore, a certain commercial importance, and to a naval 
 power a definite strategic value. Upon the principal island, 
 Upolu, where the chief town, Apia, is situated, a number 
 of Germans, Americans and English had settled. A Ham 
 burg trading firm was established there, besides a* thriv 
 ing American business house and a company of Scotch 
 merchants. In 1878, a treaty was made by which the 
 Samoan chief or " king " of that time gave to the United 
 States the use of the harbour of Pago-Pago for a naval 
 station. 
 
 As was natural, the small foreign community in Upolu, 
 isolated from the greater world outside and thus thrown in 
 upon itself, was rent by the small jealousies, intrigues and 
 bickerings which arise when petty interests clash in a petty 
 sphere. Race prejudice intensified the feeling, until Apia 
 fairly seethed with pent-up enmities. Gradually, however, 
 two distinct factions were formed, when the Americans 
 and English made common cause against the Germans, 
 who were the more numerous and who were also unpleas 
 antly aggressive. By the year 1884, it had become clear 
 that Germany intended by hook or by crook to get control 
 of the Islands, and in doing so to ignore the rights of the 
 English and American residents. The German consul, 
 one Herr Stiibel, began to manifest extreme activity. He 
 had all the morgue and frigid insolence of the true Prus 
 sian official, and moreover he had at his beck several Ger 
 man ships of war, which always appeared most opportunely 
 whenever Stiibel was carrying things with a particularly 
 high hand. The German residents assumed a most offen 
 sive bearing toward the other foreigners as well as toward 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 181 
 
 the natives. In April, 1886, Stiibel raised the German flag 
 over Apia and in a proclamation declared that only the 
 Government of Germany should thereafter rule over that 
 portion of the islands. The British consul hesitated to 
 act without instructions; but the American representative 
 hoisted the colours of the United States and proclaimed 
 an American protectorate. 8 This conflict of authority was 
 serious, and led Secretary Bayard to energetic action. A 
 conference at Washington between the representatives of 
 Germany, Great Britain and the United States, agreed 
 that the action of both consuls should be disavowed and 
 that the status quo ante should be preserved in Samoa 
 pending further negotiations. 
 
 Bismarck, however, had no intention of abandoning 
 his ultimate purpose, or even of abiding by his agreement. 
 A new consul, Herr Becker, was sent out from Berlin and 
 proved to be as obnoxious as his predecessor. He planned 
 a stroke that was delivered with prompt efficiency. The 
 native king, Malietoa, was favourable to the English and 
 Americans. Becker, seizing upon the pretext afforded by 
 a drunken brawl between the German sailors and a few 
 Samoans, declared war upon Malietoa, " by order of His 
 Majesty, the German Kaiser." Martial law was pro 
 claimed in Apia; German marines were landed; Malietoa 
 was seized and was deported in a German ship; while a 
 native named Tamasese, a creature of the Germans, was 
 set up in his place. From that moment events tended 
 rapidly toward a crisis. The American consul, Mr. Har 
 old M. Sewall of Maine, wrote vigorous despatches to 
 Washington and sent emphatic protests to Herr Becker, 
 who answered him with sneering incivility. The Samoans 
 refused to acknowledge the German puppet king and took 
 to the bush, where the English and Americans furnished 
 
 8 May 14, 1886. 
 
1 82 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 jthem with arms. But in Apia, a German judge was set 
 over the local courts, the captain of a German cruiser was 
 made Prime Minister, and the German flag again flew 
 over the soil which Germany had pledged itself to regard 
 as neutral territory. A writer of genius, Mr. Robert 
 Louis Stevenson, who was a resident of Samoa throughout 
 these troublous times, has left a minute account of the in 
 tolerable bearing of the Germans and of the inclignities 
 to which other foreigners were subjected by them. 9 Mr. 
 Sewell, single-handed, resisted their aggressions. The 
 British consul sympathised with him ; but the spell of Ger 
 many s predominance in Europe seemed to paralyse his 
 will. At last, to punish those Samoans who were in arms 
 against Tamasese, the German corvette Adler was ordered 
 to shell the native villages, and thus to inspire the people 
 with a wholesome dread of German power. 
 
 Just prior to this time, there had arrived in Samoan 
 waters the United States gunboat Adams, under the orders 
 of Commander Richard Leary. Commander Leary was 
 to his very finger-tips a first-class fighting man. His name, 
 as Stevenson remarked, was diagnostic. It told signifi 
 cantly of a strain of Celtic blood in the man who bore it. 
 Leary had, indeed, a true Irishman s nimbleness of wit, 
 an Irishman s love of trouble for its own sake, and even 
 more than an Irishman s pugnacity. When he had learned 
 just how things stood in Apia, and when he had noted the 
 bullying demeanour of the Germans, his blood grew hot. 
 Until now the notes of protest addressed to Becker had 
 been couched in formal phrases. From the moment when 
 Leary took a hand in the correspondence these notes be- 
 
 9 Stevenson, A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa 
 (London, 1891). See Callahan, American Relations in the Pacific (Balti 
 more, 1901). 
 
 v 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 183 
 
 came suddenly pungent with a malicious and most ingenious 
 wit which made the sacrosanct emissaries of His Imperial 
 and Royal German Majesty fairly gasp with indignation. 
 The diabolical cleverness with which Leary followed up 
 their every move was utterly infuriating, and no less so 
 was his supreme indifference to what they thought or 
 wanted. When the German warship fired rocket-signals at 
 night, Leary used to sit on his after-deck and send up 
 showers of miscellaneous rockets, which made the German 
 signalling quite unintelligible. He refused to recognise 
 their appointed king, and in a score of ways he covered 
 them with a ridicule which seemed likely to make them 
 ludicrous even in the natives eyes. Meanwhile, a German 
 night attack upon the Samoan " rebels " had been repulsed 
 and several Germans had been killed. Very eagerly, then, 
 did Herr Becker urge the captain of the Adler to bom 
 bard the " rebel " position at Apia. Surely the sound of 
 the Kanonendonner would bring the natives, and also the 
 insolent Yankees, to their senses. Captain Fritze of the 
 Adler therefore ordered up his ammunition and prepared 
 for the bombardment. 
 
 Leary s ship, the Adams, was a wooden vessel whose 
 heavy armament consisted of smooth-bores, only a few 
 of which had been converted into rifled guns. The Ger 
 man corvette was also wooden, but her guns were of the 
 latest pattern turned out by Krupp. Nevertheless, at short 
 range, this superiority would count for little; and the 
 Adams was commanded by a sailor who would rather 
 fight than eat. At the appointed hour, the Adler steamed 
 out with the German ensign flying at her peak. The 
 Adams followed close upon her heels, as if for purposes of 
 observation; but it was noticed that her deck was cleared 
 for action. Soon the Adler slowed down and swung into 
 
1 84 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 position, so as to bring her broadside guns to bear upon 
 the helpless village. Instantly volumes of black smoke 
 poured from the funnel of the Adams, the long roll of 
 her drums was heard as they beat to quarters, and the 
 American ship dashed in between the Adler and the shore, 
 where she, too, swung about, her guns at port and trained 
 directly on the Germans. Presently, Commander Leary 
 in full uniform and accompanied by his staff boar4ed the 
 Adler. His colloquy with the German captain was short 
 and sharp: "If you fire," said he, "you must fire 
 through the ship which I have the honour to command. 
 I shall not be answerable for the consequences ! " So say 
 ing, he took his leave and returned to his own vessel. 
 
 Captain Fritze could scarcely believe his ears. Such 
 audacity had never yet confronted him. He could not 
 fire on the village unless he fired through the Adams. He 
 knew that his first shot would be answered by an American 
 broadside, and that this would be the signal for a war 
 between his country and the American Republic. He 
 faltered, shrinking from so terrible a responsibility; and 
 then, his heart swelling with humiliation, he turned tail 
 and steamed sullenly away. That night there was joy 
 in Apia; and the Germans, lately boastful, went about 
 with shamefaced looks. 
 
 Soon afterwards, Leary set sail for Honolulu, whence 
 he might send despatches to his Government. In his ab 
 sence, the Germans tried to accomplish on land what they 
 had failed to do on water. It was known that the Sa- 
 moans had gathered in large numbers in the interior of the 
 island, and that they were in arms against the king whom 
 Germany had tried to force upon them. A dare-devil 
 American named Klein, a correspondent of the New York 
 World, was with them, and acted as a sort of military 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 185 
 
 leader. The Germans laid a plan to surprise them and to 
 seize their chiefs. On December 18, 1888, long before 
 daylight, a battalion of marines was disembarked from the 
 German cruiser and marched stealthily through the forest. 
 An hour later, the Samoans fell upon them and whirled 
 them back to the seashore with a loss of fifty men and 
 several officers. The fury of the Germans was unre 
 strained. Vice-Consul Blacklock telegraphed to Wash 
 ington soon after: 
 
 " Germans swear vengeance. Shelling and burning indiscrimi 
 nately, regardless of American property. Protest unheeded. 
 Natives exasperated. Foreigners lives and property in greatest 
 danger. Germans respect no neutral territory. Americans in 
 boats, flying. American flag seized in Apia harbour by armed 
 German boats, but released. Admiral with squadron necessary im 
 mediately." 
 
 Up to this time, the situation in Samoa had aroused but 
 little interest in the United States. Samoa was very far 
 away. Most Americans had never even heard of it. But 
 this stirring cablegram, followed as it was by detailed ac 
 counts of German aggression and of insults to the Ameri 
 can flag, 10 roused the people to a warlike mood. To this 
 mood President Cleveland s Government responded. The 
 warships Nipsic J1 and Vandalia were hurried off to Apia, 
 followed shortly by the Trenton, the flagship of Admiral 
 Kimberly, a fine old sea-dog of the fighting type. The 
 
 10 The German sailors had taken a flag from an American named Hamil 
 ton, and had trampled on it and torn it to shreds. Stevenson wrote: 
 " These rags of tattered bunting occasioned the display of a new senti 
 ment in the United States; and the Republic of the West, hitherto so 
 apathetic and unwieldy, leaped to its feet for the first time at the news of 
 this fresh insult." Op. cit., p. 527. 
 
 11 Klein took refuge on the Nipsic, whose commander flatly refused to 
 surrender him to the German naval officers. 
 
1 86 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 British Government at last took heart of grace and ordered 
 the cruiser Calliope to Samoa. The Germans were no less 
 active; and early in March there were anchored off Apia, 
 besides the vessels just enumerated, a German squadron 
 consisting of the Adler, the Eber, and the Olga, all with 
 their decks cleared and their crews ready for immediate 
 battle. A single rash act might provoke a mighty war. 
 
 Such was the situation when President Harrison took 
 office on March 4th. Four days later it was rumoured in 
 Germany that the Nipsic had fired on the Olga. On 
 March loth, a despatch from Kiel, which was supposed 
 to have come by way of Australia, reiterated the report, 
 and added that the American vessel had been sunk by a 
 torpedo from the Olga. A wave of excitement swept 
 over the whole country. In San Francisco, great crowds 
 filled the streets and massed themselves about the news 
 paper offices to await the posting of further bulletins. 
 The tone of the press was one of intense hostility to Ger 
 many. The Government at Washington began preparing 
 for any emergency that might arise. All the vessels of 
 the Pacific Squadron were notified to be in readiness. The 
 new steel cruiser, Philadelphia, was hastily equipped for 
 service. But the news, when it came, was very different 
 from that for which men waited. It told of a fearful bat 
 tle, not with human forces, but with the elements. A 
 fierce typhoon had struck the Samoan Islands on March 
 1 6th, and within a few hours, six of the warships that had 
 been anchored in the harbour of Apia were driven from 
 their moorings. The Eber was dashed against a coral reef 
 and sunk. The Adler was capsized. The Olga and the 
 Nipsic were hurled upon the sand; while the Trenton and 
 the Fandalia, shattered and dismantled, settled to their 
 gun-decks in the tremendous waves. The British ship, 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 187 
 
 Calliope, alone escaped. Her captain with high courage 
 staked the safety of his vessel upon the chance of reaching 
 the open sea. Crowding on every pound of steam until 
 her boilers were almost bursting, and with her machinery 
 red hot, the British cruiser fought her way out inch by 
 inch against the hurricane. As she passed the American 
 flagship, Admiral Kimberly led his sailors in three hearty 
 cheers, which were answered by the British seamen amid 
 the shrieking of the storm. When the typhoon subsided, 
 it was found that few lives had been lost; and Admiral 
 Kimberly, parading the band of the Trenton, took tempo 
 rary possession of Apia to the strains of the national 
 anthem. 12 
 
 The news of this disaster dispelled all thoughts of war 
 in Germany and in the United States. Prince Bismarck 
 proposed a conference at Berlin to deal with the Samoan 
 situation. He was confident that he could win by his 
 strenuous diplomacy what he had failed to gain by bluster 
 and a show of force. He felt perhaps that his personal 
 presence and the greatness of his fame would overawe the 
 untrained American commissioners, as it had invariably 
 overawed the skilled diplomatists of Europe. He had 
 dealt with Americans before. In 1883, a Minister of 
 the United States at Berlin, Mr. A. S. Sargent, had dis 
 pleased him by one of his despatches. Bismarck there 
 fore ordered the officials at the Foreign Office to speak only 
 German to Mr. Sargent whenever he called. As Mr. Sar 
 gent spoke nothing but English, he was placed in a very 
 humiliating position, and for a whole year was obliged 
 to transact all his official business through a secretary 
 
 12 See, in addition to the description of Stevenson, op. clt., the account 
 by an eye-witness, J. Lyon Woodruff, attached to the Trenton, in the Cosmo 
 politan Magazine for November, 1895. 
 
1 88 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 of legation. During Mr. Cleveland s administration, 
 Germans naturalised in the United States were expelled 
 from Germany with only twenty-four hours notice. Mr. 
 Bayard had tried to resent this breach of amity and of 
 treaty rights, but he had proved to be no match for Bis 
 marck. On the whole, then, the Chancellor felt quite 
 easy in his mind. 
 
 The conference began on April 29, 1889. The, United 
 States was represented by Mr. J. A. Kasson, Mr. William 
 Walter Phelps and Mr. G. H. Bates, Mr. Bates having 
 already visited Samoa and made himself familiar with the 
 conditions there. Prince Bismarck s object was to make 
 a treaty which should recognise the political predominance 
 of Germany in Samoa. After he had set forth his views, 
 the American commissioners opposed them absolutely. 
 They insisted that the United States, Great Britain and 
 Germany should share alike, and that the rights of each 
 should be recognised as equal. Bismarck was a great 
 actor. He could assume at will a tremendous indignation, 
 and work himself into a rage which his huge bulk of body 
 made really awe-inspiring. He now resorted to this de 
 vice, and frowned portentously as he growled out sen 
 tences that seemed full of menace. The Americans were 
 thoroughly impressed by his manner, and they cabled to 
 Secretary Blaine, informing him that the Chancellor was 
 very irritable. Mr. Blaine at once flashed back the terse 
 reply: " The extent of the Chancellor s irritability is not 
 the measure of American rights." 13 
 
 This message so stiffened the backbone of the American .3 
 commissioners that they held to their point with unyielding 
 pertinacity. Their British colleagues, heartened by their 
 
 "Hamilton (Dodge) Biography of James G. Blaine, p. 659 (Norwich, 
 1895). 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 189 
 
 example, united in supporting the American position. Bis 
 marck found that he could accomplish nothing, either by 
 threatenings or by cajolery; and at last the man of blood 
 and iron backed down squarely, and conceded every point. 
 Malietoa, whom the Germans had seized and exiled, was 
 restored as King of Samoa. A general act was signed 
 under which the three powers established a condominium 
 in the islands. 14 This was the first diplomatic reverse which 
 Bismarck had encountered in all his great career, and he 
 had met it at the hands of the United States. It was a 
 signal triumph for Mr. Blaine and for the nation. The 
 incident made a profound impression in Europe, and 
 most of all in England. The London Saturday Review, 
 an organ usually known for its hostility to everything 
 American, summed up the events in Samoa and then 
 added: " It has been left for the navyless American Re 
 public to give us a lead in the path of duty and of 
 honour." 
 
 Taken by itself, this Samoan affair was but a trifling 
 incident and might well be chronicled in a single para 
 graph. But in the light of subsequent events its ultimate 
 significance is seen to have been very great. First of all, 
 it revealed to the American people their need of a more 
 powerful navy; and Congress soon after provided the 
 sum of $25,000,000 for the building of new ships, a sum 
 which was presently augmented by a further appropriation 
 of $16,500,000. By the end of the year 1890, the United 
 States had under construction five battleships of the first 
 class, an armoured cruiser and an armoured ram, besides 
 ten steel cruisers and six vessels intended for coast defence. 
 Another and very far-reaching result was found in the 
 growth among official Germans of an intense animosity to 
 ward the United States, for having, at every move of the 
 
 14 This continued until 1898. 
 
190 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Samoan game, thwarted and humiliated Germany. This 
 feeling grew with the lapse of time; and nine years later, 
 in another island of the sea, it was destined once more to 
 drive the two nations to the very brink of war. 15 
 
 Even more impressive was the Samoan episode as the 
 revelation of a new temper in the people of the United 
 States. This has been well described by Mr. John Bassett 
 Moore in the following words : , 
 
 " The chief historical significance of the Samoan incident lies 
 less in the disposition ultimately made of the Islands, than in the 
 assertion by the United States, not merely of a willingness, but 
 even of a right, to take part in determining the fate of a remote 
 and semi-barbarous people, whose possessions lay far outside the 
 traditional sphere of American political interests. The tendency 
 thus exhibited, though to a certain extent novel, was by no means 
 inexplicable. The intense absorption of the people of the United 
 States in domestic affairs, which resulted from the Civil War and 
 the struggle over Reconstruction, had ceased. . . . The old 
 issues were no longer interesting. The national energy and sense 
 of power sought employment in other fields. The desire for a 
 vigorous foreign policy, though it jarred with tradition, had spread 
 and become popular." 16 
 
 Mr. Blaine was less successful in his attempt to estab 
 lish for the United States the claim that Bering Sea was 
 practically a mare clausum. The object of this claim was 
 to secure to American sealers the sole right to take seals 
 in Bering Sea. Seal catching was immensely profitable 
 and was engaged in by Russians, Canadians and Americans. 
 These sealers made their catches in so indiscriminate a 
 manner, killing alike the females and the males, as to make 
 
 15 See pp. 574-585. 
 
 16 The Cambridge Modern History, vii., p. 663 (New York, 1903). See 
 also Henderson, American Diplomatic Questions, p. 251 (New York, 1901). 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 191 
 
 it probable that before many years all seals would be ex 
 terminated. The Cleveland administration had tried to 
 establish American jurisdiction over Bering Sea and had 
 seized several British sealing vessels in the open waters. 
 These vessels were subsequently released; but the whole 
 question still remained unsettled when Mr. Blaine began 
 a correspondence with Lord Salisbury in support of the 
 American claim. In this correspondence it must be said 
 that the American Secretary did not appear to the best 
 advantage. The traditions of diplomacy require the tone 
 of all formal communications to be ceremonious and 
 courtly to the last degree. However burning the question 
 at issue may appear, the diplomatic duellists must every 
 where observe the most punctilious etiquette, and never 
 either in word or phrase overstep the limits of a stately 
 self-restraint. These traditions Lord Salisbury on his side 
 followed absolutely. His immensely able argument was 
 couched throughout in terms of the finest courtesy, sug 
 gesting in every line the urbanity and graceful deference 
 which mark the intercourse of high-bred gentlemen. Mr. 
 Elaine s despatches, on the contrary, however plausible, 
 were marked at times by a certain swagger, a tone of lurk 
 ing insolence and an offensive assumption that his oppo 
 nent s argument was one of conscious duplicity and false 
 hood. 17 This perhaps was due to the fact that in his heart 
 of hearts, Mr. Blaine was quite aware of the weakness of 
 his case. Certain it is that he accomplished nothing; and at 
 last he betook himself from diplomacy to methods based 
 on force. Instructions were issued to American revenue 
 
 17 " One who reads the Bering Sea correspondence must admit the 
 dialectic skill of Mr. Blaine, and yet feel on the whole that he was hurting 
 his cause by being, in the phrase of his critics, too smart. . . . This 
 was perhaps the most conspicuous instance of Elaine s failure in tact." 
 Stanwood, James G. Blaine, p. 361 (Boston, 1905). 
 
1 92 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 cutters to capture British sealing vessels even when found 
 in open waters. The British Minister at Washington at 
 once informed his Government, and immediately Lord 
 Salisbury despatched a vigorous protest (June 14, 1890), 
 which ended in the following very ominous words : 
 
 The un^kfsigned is ... instructed formally to protest 
 against such interference, and to declare that Her Britannic 
 Majesty s Government must hold the Government of the United 
 States responsible for the consequences that may ensue from acts 
 which are contrary to the established principles of international 
 law." 
 
 What this really meant was that if American cruisers 
 should molest British vessels in Bering Sea outside of the 
 three-mile limit, British ships of w r ar would forcibly resist 
 them. The gravity of the crisis was sufficiently apparent; 
 and Mr. Elaine, though he seems to have weighed the 
 question of war and peace, decided presently for peace. 
 In a very characteristic private note to the President 
 (March 6, 1891) he said: 
 
 " If we get up a war-cry and send naval vessels to Bering Sea it 
 will re-elect Lord Salisbury. England has always sustained an 
 administration with the prospect of war pending. Lord Salisbury 
 would dissolve Parliament instantly if we made a demonstration 
 of war. On the other side I am not sure or rather I am sure 
 that war would prove of no advantage to you. New York and 
 Massachusetts are steadily against war w r ith England unless the 
 last point of honour requires it. Again, I think you will bitterly 
 disappoint Lord Salisbury by keeping quiet. We should have all 
 the fuss and there would be no w r ar after all. Not a man in a 
 million believes we should ultimately have war." 18 
 
 The whole question was subsequently referred to arbi 
 tration. A mixed tribunal met in Paris in 1893 and de- 
 
 18 Hamilton, op. cit., p. 671. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 193 
 
 cided that the American case was defective, and it was 
 therefore lost upon every legal point involved. The final 
 decision held: " That the United States have no right to 
 protection of, or property in, the seals frequenting the 
 islands of the United States in the Bering Sea, when the 
 same are found outside the ordinary three-mile limit." 
 
 While Secretary Elaine was confronting Bismarck, 
 President Harrison was busying himself with the much 
 less noble task of parcelling out the offices. The significant 
 sentence in his inaugural, which declared that honourable 
 party service would not be a disqualification for appoint 
 ment, had been accepted by party " workers " as a special 
 invitation. These now descended upon the capital and 
 overwhelmed the President with their importunities. 
 Questions of petty patronage occupied his entire time, and 
 they seem, moreover, to have greatly interested him. His 
 activities for several months were those of an office-broker, 
 and the spectacle was not altogether edifying. He observed 
 the Civil Service law as it stood upon the books; and 
 within the range of the classified service no changes were 
 made from partisan motives. But elsewhere, what was 
 practically a clean sweep was carried out. It cannot be 
 said that that result strengthened Mr. Harrison even with 
 his own party; since for every office-seeker who was grati 
 fied by an appointment, at least three or four expectant ones 
 were disappointed, while the majority of the people viewed 
 this office-mongering with something like contempt. It 
 will be remembered that, according to Senator Sherman, 19 
 Mr. Harrison had received the Republican nomination, as 
 the result of a bargain with Mr. T. C. Platt of New York. 
 It was reported that to Mr. Platt had been promised the 
 Secretaryship of the Treasury. If such a bargain had 
 
 19 Sherman, Recollections, ii., p. 1029. 
 
i 9 4 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 actually been made, it was undoubtedly made without Mr. 
 Harrison s consent; for Platt was not appointed. Never 
 theless, to console him, he was allowed to have a large 
 share of Federal patronage; and the same concession was 
 made to Mr. Quay of Pennsylvania. President Harrison 
 likewise looked very carefully after the interests of his 
 own relatives. Offices were given by him to his father- 
 in-law, to his son s father-in-law, to his daughter s brother- 
 in-law, to his own brother, and to several of his son s 
 college chums. He also brought upon himself much criti 
 cism by bestowing important places on the editors of news 
 papers which had supported him in the late campaign. 
 Mr. Whitelaw Reid of the New York Tribune received 
 the mission to France. Mr. Thorndike Rice, who, as 
 editor of the North American Review, had published an 
 outrageously personal attack upon Mr. Bayard, was made 
 Minister to Russia. Mr. Enander, a Chicago editor, be 
 came Minister to Denmark. An Oshkosh editor received 
 the Peruvian mission, and an Indianapolis editor the Eng 
 lish consul-generalship. One J. S. Clarkson, editor of the 
 Iowa State Register, was allowed to distribute the fourth- 
 class postmasterships. The editor of the Utica Herald 
 became Assistant United States Treasurer at New York. 
 Mr. Robert P. Porter of the New York Press was ap 
 pointed head of the Census Bureau. Mr. Porter was an 
 Englishman by birth, a Free Trader who had with sus 
 picious suddenness become a convert to Protectionism. One 
 of these appointments fell through. It was that of Mr. 
 Murat Halstead of the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette to 
 be Minister to Germany. Mr. Halstead was rejected 
 by the Senate for an interesting reason. During the Cleve 
 land Administration the Ohio Legislature had elected as 
 United States Senator, Mr. Henry B. Payne, a warm 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 195 
 
 friend of the Standard Oil Company. 20 Subsequent in 
 vestigation showed that Mr. Payne s election had been due 
 to the most barefaced bribery. Another Ohio legislature 
 secured the necessary evidence of this fact and forwarded 
 it to Washington, accompanied by a resolution asking the 
 Senate to investigate the case of Mr. Payne with a view 
 to unseating him. Senatorial courtesy was held to demand 
 that Mr. Payne himself should welcome such an investi 
 gation and should ask for it, as an honourable man might 
 have been expected to do. But Mr. Payne held his tongue, 
 and though lashed by Senator Hoar with indignant sar 
 casm, he said no word. The Senate, therefore, declined 
 to investigate the matter. 21 Mr. Halstead in his news 
 paper had declared that this refusal was due to improper 
 influences; and the Senate now took its revenge by re 
 jecting the editor s nomination. 
 
 All these circumstances the attempt to subsidise the 
 press, the Wanamaker affair, the partisan removals and 
 appointments, the affiliation of the President with such 
 men as Platt and Quay, and the proofs of a petty nepo 
 tism excited throughout the country a feeling of disgust 
 which found expression in a most unexpected place. On 
 April 29th and the two following days, there was cele 
 brated in New York City the one hundredth anniversary of 
 the first inauguration of President Washington. The de 
 tails of the old-time ceremonies were carefully reproduced. 
 Like Washington, President Harrison was entertained by 
 the Governor of New Jersey, and then proceeded to Eliza- 
 bethport, whence he was conveyed by water to the foot 
 of Wall Street, landing at the very place where Washing- 
 
 20 See p. 140. 
 
 21 Cf. Lloyd, Wealth against Commonwealth, pp. 373-388 (New York, 
 1898). 
 
196 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ton had disembarked a hundred years before. A squadron 
 of warships thundered a salute as the President came 
 ashore. There were given two public receptions and, in 
 the evening, a gala ball. On the 3Oth, the President was 
 escorted, as Washington had been, to St. Paul s Church, 
 where, in the pew which Washington had occupied, he 
 listened to a religious service conducted by the Bishop of 
 New York, the Rt. Rev. H. C. Potter. When the Bishop 
 entered the pulpit in which Bishop Provoost had preached 
 before Washington, the presidential party settled them 
 selves down comfortably, expecting to hear a polished 
 historical address, lightened here and there by a few 
 graceful compliments to Washington s successor. It came 
 to them with something of a shock when the Bishop, far 
 from pronouncing a bland discourse, replete with pleasant 
 things, spoke out with something of the fire of an ancient 
 prophet. In words that burned, he contrasted the sim 
 plicity, integrity, and honour of George Washington and 
 of the nation s founders, with the vulgar display, the self- 
 seeking, and the shamelessness of men in high places at 
 the end of a hundred years. 
 
 " The growth of wealth, the prevalence of luxury, the massing 
 of large material forces, which by their very existence are a stand 
 ing menace to the freedom and integrity of the individual, the in 
 finite swagger of our American speech and manners, mistaking big 
 ness for greatness and sadly confounding gain and godliness all 
 this makes it impossible to reproduce to-day either the temper or 
 the conduct of our fathers." 
 
 And then the Bishop spoke two sentences which struck 
 home: 
 
 " The conception of the national government as a huge machine 
 existing mainly for the purpose of rewarding partisan service this 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 197 
 
 is a conception so alien to the character and conduct of Washing 
 ton and his associates that it seems grotesque even to speak of it. 
 It would be interesting to imagine the first President of the United 
 States confronted with some one who had ventured to approach 
 him upon the basis of what are now commonly known as practi 
 cal politics. " 22 
 
 This sermon caused a great sensation throughout the 
 country. Some said that the Bishop was guilty of bad 
 taste in choosing an occasion such as this for a rebuke so 
 pointed and so personal. Others said that the whole dis 
 course was on the very highest plane, and that the Bishop 
 had shown himself a true priest of God, speaking out 
 boldly the lesson which the hour and the place demanded, 
 and undeterred fromHiis duty by those considerations 
 which too often influence the time-serving and timid ecclesi 
 astic. Certain it is that his words were caught up and 
 repeated all over the land, and that they voiced the senti 
 ment of millions. 
 
 When Congress met on December 3d, the President s 
 message took up the question of the surplus in the Treas 
 ury. At the end of the Cleveland administration this 
 had amounted to very nearly $97,000,000; and, as 
 Mr. Harrison had pointed out, it was more likely in the 
 ordinary course of events to increase rather than to dimin 
 ish. He recommended, therefore, a revision of the tariff 
 and the removal of the internal tax upon tobacco. Con 
 gress, however, in both houses of which the Republicans 
 had a working majority, took a very cheerful view of the 
 surplus, holding, in the nai ve words of Colonel Frederick 
 Grant, that " a surplus is easier to handle than a deficit." 
 The Senators and Representatives felt that if the surplus 
 
 22 New York Herald; Sun; Evening Post, for May i, 1889. 
 
198 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 in the Treasury proved embarrassing, the easiest and sim 
 plest way to reduce that surplus was to spend it. Hence, 
 Congress promptly passed the Dependent Pension Bill 
 which President Cleveland had vetoed. At once the num 
 ber of pensioners rose from about 350,000 to nearly 550,- 
 ooo, and steadily increased until, ten years later, it had 
 reached 1,000,000; while the yearly payments grew from 
 $65,000,000 to $150,000,000, representing pretty nearly 
 half the entire annual budget of the United States. 23 Heavy 
 appropriations were made for the Navy and for an exposi 
 tion in Chicago to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary 
 of the discovery of America. Money was also poured out 
 lavishly for various public works; until this Congress in 
 its two sessions had made itself responsible for an ex 
 penditure which exceeded that of any other Congress by 
 $170,000,000. The total amount of money voted for 
 various purposes was roughly computed at $1,000,- 
 000,000. Hence, the Fifty-first Congress was generally 
 spoken of as " the Billion-Dollar Congress." When 
 this name was uttered in the presence of Mr. Speaker 
 Reed he remarked casually, " Yes, but this is a billion- 
 dollar country." 
 
 The saying was very characteristic of the man, who 
 now began to play a somewhat spectacular part in national 
 legislation. Mr. Thomas B. Reed was a native of Maine, 
 
 23 Mr. Harrison appointed to be head of the Pension Office, an ac 
 tive politician, James Tanner, commonly known as " Corporal " Tanner, 
 a favourite of the Grand Army of the Republic. Tanner began " re- 
 rating " the pensions illegally and bestowing " back-pay " at a lavish rate. 
 Wealthy men, among them United States Senator Manderson, were thus 
 made the recipients of large sums from the Treasury, simply by Tanner s 
 mandate. Called to account by Secretary Noble, Tanner replied insolently 
 that he was the Secretary s superior officer in the matter of pensions. The 
 President had finally to remove him, so great became the scandal of his 
 conduct. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 199 
 
 who had been a member of Congress for twenty-three 
 years. He was a very striking figure. Fully six feet in 
 height, of huge girth, and impressing the beholder with 
 a sense of great reserve power, he was both physically 
 and mentally a giant. A keen reasoner, alert, audacious, 
 and absolutely self-possessed, his party recognised in him a 
 leader who could neither be outwitted nor outfaced. His 
 speech was caustic, his wit keen; and he took delight In 
 destroying shams, sometimes even those shams in which his 
 associates pretended to believe. He had a nasal Yankee 
 drawl, and the eyes which peered out of his large round 
 face twinkled with an irrepressible humour. He was now 
 elected Speaker of the House, and he was counted upon by 
 the Republicans to force through some very controversial 
 legislation against a minority which was both large and 
 decidedly pugnacious. 
 
 The measure which threatened to meet with the bitter 
 est opposition was a Federal Elections Bill, intended to 
 give the Federal Government power to supervise Con 
 gressional elections, and if necessary to use military force 
 for the protection of every legal voter. This measure was 
 directed against the South, where the negro vote had prac 
 tically been suppressed. The fact was perfectly well 
 known. The South was unanimous against any interfer 
 ence which would once more tend to restore the negro to 
 political importance. Over the proposed bill, therefore, 
 the fight was certain to be acrimonious and protracted. 
 It was believed that the minority, by making use of filibus 
 tering tactics, by introducing dilatory motions and by de 
 manding the roll-call upon each of these, could wear out 
 the endurance of the majority and thus prevent the pas 
 sage of the bill. By refusing to vote, the Democrats 
 could, under the existing rules, prevent a quorum of the 
 
200 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 House unless practically all the Republican members 
 should be present. Speaker Reed and his party friends 
 decided to thwart such obstructions. They drew up 
 and adopted a set of rules empowering the Speaker to re 
 fuse to entertain motions obviously intended to delay the 
 business of the House, and also to " count a quorum " 
 meaning by this that the Speaker could direct the Clerk 
 of the House to record as " present and not voting " all 
 members who were actually there and who refused to 
 answer to their names at roll-call. 
 
 It required strong nerves and complete presence of mind 
 to enforce these rules to the letter; but Mr. Reed was fully 
 equal to the task. The sessions of the House soon resem 
 bled pandemonium. Member after member on the Demo 
 cratic side would rise and make a series of motions, 
 shouting out the words at the top of their lungs; but the 
 Speaker paid no more attention to them than if they had 
 been miles away. While he counted his quorums, mem 
 bers sought to escape from the hall, but found that the 
 doors were locked. 24 Then they raged up and down the 
 aisles, denouncing the Speaker in unmeasured language, 
 yelling, shrieking, and pounding their desks, while the 
 Republicans added to the din by cheering and whistling 
 with delight. Passion waxed so hot that even the corre 
 spondents in the press-gallery shared in it; and many of 
 them leaned over the railing, shaking their fists at the 
 Speaker, and pouring forth a torrent of profanity which 
 was quite inaudible amid the uproar. Through it all, 
 Mr. Reed sat tranquilly in his chair, serene as a summer 
 morning, unheeding the deluge of denunciation which 
 
 2i Mr. Kilgore of Texas, popularly known as " Buck " Kilgore, gained a 
 transient fame by kicking down the door and making his escape at one of 
 these sessions. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 201 
 
 descended on him, while he would say slowly in his most 
 exasperating drawl : 
 
 " When the ex-ci-table gen-tle-man from Tex-as has 
 come to or-der, the Chair will rule upon the point." 
 
 These tempestuous sessions continued day after day, 
 and under the guidance of " Czar Reed," as he was called, 
 the Federal Elections Bill ultimately passed the House. 
 In the Senate, however, it died a peaceful death; because 
 there existed in the upper House the right of unlimited 
 debate; and an alliance was formed between the Democrats 
 and a number of Republican Senators to prevent the pas 
 sage of the bill. There was, as a matter of fact, little real 
 desire in the North for its enactment into law. That the 
 negro vote was suppressed throughout the Southern States 
 was not denied; yet most fair-minded men had come to 
 feel that the enfranchisement of the negro had been a 
 political error; and no one liked to contemplate even a 
 partial return to the hideous scenes of the Reconstruction 
 Period, when ape-like blacks had leagued themselves with 
 the vilest whites in a repulsive and disgraceful political 
 orgy. 
 
 Under the Reed rules were passed the Dependent Pen 
 sion Bill, already mentioned, a bill for the admission of 
 Idaho and Wyoming as new States, and bills to repeal the 
 Bland-Allison Act and to substitute in its place the so- 
 called Sherman Silver Law. This last act provided that 
 thereafter the Government should purchase every month 
 4,500,000 ounces of silver, and issue against this bullion, 
 up to its full value, legal tender notes redeemable on de 
 mand in coin. As the genesis and the operation of this 
 new law will be discussed more fully in a subsequent chap 
 ter, 25 it may be passed over here without especial comment. 
 The most important legislation of the session was a tariff 
 
 25 See pp. 272-3. 
 
202 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 bill, framed by the Committee, on Ways and Means, of 
 which the chairman was Mr. William McKinley of Ohio. 
 The passage of this bill marked a new stage in the develop 
 ment of protective legislation in the United States. 
 
 Prior to the Civil War, the tariff system of the United 
 States had, as a whole, been primarily devised to produce 
 revenue, and only secondarily to protect domestic industries 
 against foreign competition. Thus, the acts of 1824, of 
 1828, and of 1832, which represent the high-water mark 
 of protective sentiment in ante-bellum days, were at the 
 most intended to give American manufacturers of iron, 
 cotton and woollen goods and a few other commodities, 
 some temporary assistance until they should have estab 
 lished themselves upon so firm a basis as to stand alone. 
 The protectionists of those days were of the old school, re 
 garding a high tariff on imported goods only as a means to 
 a definite end, and not as an end in itself. The " infant 
 industry argument " was the one which writers and speak 
 ers upon the subject most often used and which most 
 appealed to the popular intelligence. " Give us help 
 for a while, until our factories are built, our machinery 
 installed, our business organised, and our experience ac 
 quired, and then we can hold our own against the world." 
 This was quite in accordance with the independent, 
 individualistic spirit of the native American of the early 
 nineteenth century, who asked only for an opportunity 
 to make a fair start and who, after that, had a sturdy 
 confidence in the sufficiency of his own brain and his 
 own hands. By 1842, in fact, the country at large had 
 begun to experience a reaction from even so much of 
 protectionism as was embodied in the acts just men 
 tioned. To be sure, in 1 842, a new tariff bill, passed by the 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 203 
 
 Whigs, was professedly a protective measure; but its life 
 was short; and under President Polk the duties were scaled 
 down by the tariff of 1846 to a point where many of the 
 articles about which protectionist writers have the most 
 to say were subjected to an average duty of only thirty 
 per cent. These rates were lowered still further by the 
 act of 1857 a purely non-political measure and when 
 the Civil War broke out, the tariff system of the United 
 States represented an approximation to Free Trade in that 
 it was intended to produce revenue for the needs of the 
 Government and not especially to shelter or build up any 
 industries which without protection would be unprofitable. 
 Agitation on the subject of the tariff had at that time prac 
 tically ceased. Both political parties were satisfied to leave 
 things as they were. The country had been extraordinarily 
 prosperous. Manufactures flourished, and the " infant 
 industries " which had appeared to require assistance in 
 1832 were well past the period of infancy. When, there 
 fore, in 1860, with a view to the coming election, the Re 
 publicans introduced into Congress a new tariff bill with 
 a higher scale of duties, 26 they were rebuked by one of 
 the ablest of their own number, Mr. Sherman, who de 
 clared: 
 
 " When Mr. Stan ton says the manufacturers are urging and 
 pressing this bill, he says what he must certainly know is not cor 
 rect. The manufacturers have asked over and over again to be 
 let alone." 27 
 
 In fact, the instinctive dread of any change whatever, 
 which in after years led business men and producers gener- 
 
 26 The object was to benefit certain special interests in Pennsylvania and 
 in two or three other States, of which the electoral votes were indispensable 
 in the next election. 
 
 27 Congressional Globe, p. 1867 (1859-60). 
 
204 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ally to dread a lowering of the tariff, operated in 1860 
 to make them dread an increase .in the duties. 
 
 The Civil War, however, brought with it an insistent 
 and incessant demand for money to meet the drain upon 
 the Treasury. Every species of taxation that could be de 
 vised by the harassed Chase was legalised by Congress. 
 When at last the expenses of the Government had risen to 
 something like $3,000,000 a day, there came a climax to 
 the financial agony in the passing of measures of taxation, 
 direct and indirect, more sweeping than any modern people 
 had ever known. Incomes were taxed; the excise imposts 
 grew heavier and heavier; cheques, notes, drafts, wills, 
 deeds, mortgages, business agreements, insurance policies, 
 and almost every form of legal document, were valid only 
 after they had paid their tribute in the form of revenue 
 stamps. The barest necessities of life even medicines, 
 salt, and matches yielded great sums to the tax-gatherer. 
 Specific or ad valorem duties were heaped upon a vast 
 number of products and manufactures. Transportation by 
 rail or boat was taxed, and so was the business of the tele 
 graphs and of the express companies. A multitude of 
 ordinary callings had to pay heavy license fees. More 
 than this, not only were manufactures subjected to a gen 
 eral tax, but at each stage of production a separate tax 
 was levied on every article first while it existed only as 
 raw material and then again when it had been turned out 
 as a finished product. Nothing escaped the eye of the 
 inquisitor. Many persons ruefully recalled the pungent 
 words in which Sydney Smith had depicted the miseries of 
 tax-ridden England at the close of the Napoleonic wars. 28 
 
 28 " Taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers 
 the back, or is placed under the foot; taxes upon everything which it is 
 pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste; taxes upon warmth, light and 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 205 
 
 It was the manufacturers who suffered most; and in 
 order that they might not be absolutely ruined, some com 
 pensatory legislation was needed in their interest. " I shear 
 my sheep; I do not flay them," said the Emperor -Tiberius 
 on one occasion; and in the same spirit the financiers at 
 Washington sought to preserve the manufacturing indus 
 tries from extinction, so that they might continue to be 
 a source of revenue. " If we bleed manufacturers," said 
 Mr. Morrill of Vermont in 1862, " we must see to it that 
 the proper tonic is administered at the same time." The 
 " tonic " was administered in the shape of a high tariff 
 on imported manufactures. This largely shut out foreign 
 competition, and so gave to the American producers a 
 monopoly of the home market as a compensation for the 
 heavy burdens which they were bearing in time of war. 
 The measure was understood to be distinctly a war meas- , 
 ure. It was avowedly a temporary arrangement, a part 
 of the whole abnormal, exceptional legislation which Con- ! 
 
 locomotion ; taxes on everything on earth, and the waters under the 
 earth ; on everything that comes from abroad, or is grown at home ; taxes 
 on the raw material ; taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the 
 industry of man ; taxes on the sauce which pampers man s appetite, 
 and the drug that restores him to health; on the ermine which 
 decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal; on 
 the poor man s salt, and the rich man s spice; on the brass nails of the 
 coffin, and the ribands of the bride; at bed or board, couchant or levant, 
 we must pay. The schoolboy whips his taxed top ; the beardless youth 
 manages his taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road ; and the 
 dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid 7 per cent., into 
 a spoon that has paid 15 per cent., flings himself back upon his chintz 
 bed, which has paid 22 per cent, and expires in the arms of an apothecary 
 who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting 
 him to death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from 2 to 
 10 per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying 
 him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed 
 marble ; and he is then gathered to his fathers to be taxed no more." 
 Works of Sydney Smith, ii., p. 117 (London, 1848) 
 
206 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 gress enacted in order to meet an extraordinary crisis in 
 the struggle for national existence. Its advocates never 
 dreamed that it was to be perpetuated, any more than 
 the tax upon the telegraph, or the license to carry on an 
 ordinary business. 
 
 After the war had ended, nearly all these unprece 
 dented expedients for wringing money from the people 
 were speedily abandoned. The floating debt was funded. 
 Stability and order brought renewed prosperity; and when 
 the need of maintaining half a million men in arms ceased 
 to exist, Congress repealed tax after tax. At last every 
 one of the exceptional burdens from which the manufac 
 turers had suffered was removed. Logically, then, the 
 protective duties which had been imposed to enable them 
 to bear those burdens should also have been abolished. 
 This, however, was not done. Leading Republican states 
 men, even those who were protectionists, admitted that the 
 high duties were no longer necessary, and, therefore, that 
 they were no longer just. 29 Many attempts were made to 
 remove or modify them, as in the abortive measure of 
 1867, which had a majority in both houses of Congress, 
 but which failed to pass because, owing to a technicality 
 of parliamentary law, a two-thirds vote was needed to 
 bring it before the House as an amendment. 
 
 Gradually, the long delay in lowering the duties pro 
 duced a singular effect upon the public mind. The special 
 circumstances under which the duties had originally been 
 levied were forgotten. They ceased to be regarded as a 
 
 29 " It is a mistake of the friends of a sound tariff to insist on the ex 
 treme rates imposed during the war. . . . Whatever percentage of 
 duties was imposed on foreign goods to cover internal taxation on home 
 manufactures, should not now be claimed as the lawful prize of protection 
 when such taxes have been repealed." Speech by Senator Morrill, Con 
 gressional Globe, p. 3295 (1869-70). 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 207 
 
 war tax, but were rather viewed by many as an integral 
 and normal part of our financial system. Moreover, the 
 manufacturers, who were heaping up fortunes through the 
 continuance of the war tariff, exerted all the power which 
 great wealth afforded of creating a sentiment in their be 
 half. Liberal gifts to the campaign fund of the Republi 
 can party were rewarded by legislative favours. But the 
 tariff issue was not strictly a party one. There were high- 
 tariff Democrats as well as low-tariff Republicans. For 
 instance, Mr. Samuel J. Randall, who was long a Demo 
 cratic leader in the House and who twice served as Speaker, 
 was as thorough-going a protectionist as " Pig Iron Kelly " 
 himself; and in fact, in some of his canvasses for re-elec 
 tion, the Republicans in his district set up no candidate to 
 oppose him. Protection sentiment, in a word, was strong 
 in the States where protected manufactures flourished, and 
 weak in the agricultural States, which received nothing 
 from the tariff except an increase in the cost of living. 
 When General Hancock in 1880 said, "The tariff is a 
 local issue," the remark was received with a shout of de 
 rision; but in the sense in which he meant it, it was pro 
 foundly true. 
 
 In the course of time, the agricultural communities of 
 the West began to get an inkling of the truth, and to per 
 ceive how preposterous it was to protect industries which 
 had, without protection, successfully maintained themselves 
 against foreign competition before the war. Various popu 
 lar movements, such as the Farmers Alliance, Grangerism, 
 and the like, 30 made the Republican managers uneasy. Sev 
 eral revisions of the tariff were undertaken, ostensibly in the 
 direction of lower duties. The act of 1872 was one of these 
 attempts, but it was so artfully framed as, in fact, to leave 
 things very much as they had been before. In 1883, a gen- 
 
 30 See pp. 267-269. 
 
208 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 eral revision of duties actually raised many of them, as, for 
 example, those on woolen dress goods, iron ore, and steel. 
 Nevertheless, economic causes were at work which were 
 distinctly unfavourable to a perpetuation of high protec 
 tionism as a policy. Chief among these causes, as has been 
 seen, was the increasing surplus in the Treasury. Every 
 Republican President, from Grant to Arthur, had called 
 the attention of Congress to this, and had specifically 
 recommended lower rates of duty. It is likely that, had 
 the Republican party remained in power, these recom 
 mendations would have been ultimately carried out. It 
 was the election of Mr. Cleveland in 1884 an d his attitude 
 toward the tariff, which solidified the Republicans, not 
 merely in support of the old war-rates, but of an extension 
 of these rates to new classes of imported goods. 
 
 When Mr. Cleveland made a distinct issue of lowering 
 the tariff, his opponents from sheer necessity were driven 
 to take the other side. They ignored the whole history of 
 protection in the United States. They put aside the ut 
 terances of their own leaders in the past. In the end they 
 went even further than they had probably intended, until 
 at last they flatly declared that protection, so far from be 
 ing a temporary measure, was one to be perpetuated for its 
 own sake, and that duties, instead of being lowered, should 
 be made even higher than they had been under the actual 
 stress of war. The campaign of 1888 had practically been 
 fought out over this issue; and since the Republicans were 
 successful, they felt that the country had given them a 
 mandate to do whatever they saw fit. It was with this 
 conviction that the act of 1890, popularly known as the 
 McKinley Bill, was framed by the Republican members of 
 the House Committee and ultimately reported by the 
 chairman, Mr. McKinley. From this time dates the New 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 209 
 
 Protectionism, which proclaimed the doctrine that high 
 duties and high prices are a distinct advantage to the 
 country. Its framers intended to reduce the surplus in 
 the Treasury by enacting tariff schedules that were pro 
 hibitive. 
 
 The McKinley Bill was a very radical measure. It 
 raised the duties on a great number of articles, and it 
 removed from the free list a great many others. Unlike 
 the earlier acts, it laid imposts upon commodities which 
 are used in every household articles of clothing, carpets, 
 table linen, thread, tools, and also upon many kinds of 
 food. The effect of this was certain to be felt at once 
 throughout the entire country in the shape of a direct rise 
 in prices. Some of the Republicans themselves had an 
 uncomfortable feeling that the measure was eminently 
 unwise. Such was emphatically the view of Mr. Elaine, 
 himself an old-time protectionist and one who remained 
 unconverted to the doctrines of Mr. McKinley. Mr. 
 Elaine saw that the new tariff bill would not only prove 
 unpopular with the country, but that it would shut out 
 American trade from the most desirable foreign markets. 
 There is not a section or a line in the entire bill," he 
 wrote to Senator Frye, " that will open a market for 
 another bushel of wheat or another barrel of pork." 
 He even appeared before the committees of Congress to 
 urge upon them with all his influence a wiser policy. Mr. 
 Elaine was the shrewdest of politicians. He knew the 
 value of a taking catchword. What he wanted to secure 
 was the admission of foreign goods untaxed from such 
 countries as would admit American products of certain 
 classes free of duty. This was in reality a species of 
 free trade, but he artfully described it as " reciprocity " 
 a word which would not alarm the timid voter, who had 
 
210 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 been taught that free trade spelled ruin. Day after day, 
 the Secretary of State laboured with his party associates to 
 introduce the principle of reciprocity into the pending bill. 
 Every stage of its passage was watched by him with in 
 tense interest, and he wrote to Mr. McKinley many pointed 
 notes, of which the following is typical : 
 
 WASHINGTON, April 10, 1890. 
 
 DEAR MR. McKiNLEY: It is a great mistake to take hides from 
 the free list, where they have been for so many years. 
 
 It is a slap in the face to the South Americans, with w T hom we 
 are trying to enlarge our trade. It will benefit the farmer by add 
 ing five to eight per cent, to the price of his children s shoes. 
 
 It will yield a profit to the butcher only the last man that needs 
 it. The movement is injudicious from beginning to end in every 
 form and phase. 
 
 Pray stop it before it sees light. Such movements as this for 
 protection will protect the Republican Party into a speedy retire 
 ment. Very hastily, 
 
 JAMES G. ELAINE. 31 
 
 Mr. Elaine had small success with the members of the 
 House of Representatives. The McKinley following had 
 gone mad over high protective duties. They acted as 
 though, whatever they did, there would be no day of reck 
 oning. They placed duties upon the sheer necessities of 
 life. They sought artificially to stimulate the production 
 in this country of commodities, such as tin plate, that had 
 never before been produced in the United States. They 
 were not forgetful of the fact that the protected manu 
 facturers had furnished the great campaign fund which 
 had carried Indiana for Mr. Harrison. Remembering that 
 Mr. Cleveland, like his Republican predecessors, had 
 urged the remission of duties on raw materials, Mr. Mc 
 Kinley removed one such duty. This, however, was the 
 
 31 Hamilton, Life of Elaine, p. 683. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 211 
 
 duty on raw sugar, and its abolition meant millions of 
 profit to the great Sugar Trust, which was beginning to 
 be extremely powerful in Washington. The folly of such 
 a course was pointed out by Mr. Elaine, 32 who hammered 
 away by argument, exhortation and published letters, in 
 behalf of reciprocity. Before the Senate committee he 
 made a speech so energetic and so full of passion that the 
 reports of it in an imperfect form went all over the country. 
 In his vehemence, Mr. Elaine pounded the desk on which 
 lay a draft of the proposed bill, and in doing so he smashed 
 his tall hat under his descending fist. 33 This appealed to 
 the people s sense of the picturesque. " Elaine has smashed 
 his hat on the McKinley Bill," was the sentence that went 
 from mouth to mouth; and this trivial incident attracted 
 more attention to the measure than whole columns of 
 printed speeches. At last the Senate proved somewhat 
 more open to reason than the House had been, and an 
 element of reciprocity, in a negative form, was introduced 
 into the bill by a Senate amendment, rather ungraciously 
 worded, which authorised the President to impose duties 
 on certain free goods whenever the country from which 
 they came imposed duties that were " reciprocally unequal 
 and unreasonable " upon certain specified American ex 
 ports. 
 
 The McKinley Bill had been passed by the House of 
 Representatives in May. With the reciprocity amendment, 
 it passed the Senate in September; and it became law by 
 receiving the signature of the President on the first day of 
 
 3 - " Pass this bill, and in 1892 there will not be a man in all the party 
 so beggared as to accept your nomination for the presidency." Hamilton, 
 Life of Elaine, p. 685. 
 
 33 See Hamilton, Life of Elaine, p. 685. Mr. Elaine s latest biographer 
 tells the story in a different way. See Stanwood, J. G. Elaine, p. 331 (Bos 
 ton, 1905). 
 
212 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 October, iSQO. 34 Even before the measure had been 
 adopted, but when its passage had become a moral cer 
 tainty, a sharp advance in prices throughout the country 
 was acutely perceptible. Merchants were unwilling to 
 sell their goods at the old rates, when the cost of importa 
 tion was so soon to be increased. Those who did so made 
 a virtue of the fact by advertising that certain wares would 
 be sold at low figures for the next few weeks, but that after 
 a specified date the prices would be raised because of the 
 McKinley Bill. Although these announcements were only 
 business devices, they helped to imbue the public mind with 
 a belief that the new tariff act was certain to increase the 
 cost of living. Importers hastened to bring in enormous 
 quantities of goods, so as to take advantage of the more 
 favourable rates that still prevailed. Ocean liners sought 
 to break the record for speed in hurrying cargoes across 
 the Atlantic before the new act should take effect. The 
 Cunard steamer Etruria, reaching the port of New York 
 a few minutes before the hour set for the enforcement of 
 the McKinley Bill, saved by her speed something like a 
 million dollars for the owners of her cargo. 
 
 Everywhere the pinch of higher prices was quickly felt, 
 while no increase in wages was perceptible. For the first 
 time since the war, the nation received an object lesson as 
 to what high protection really meant. Hitherto the aver 
 age man, and especially the average woman, had turned 
 a deaf ear to tariff talk. What did they care whether steel 
 rails and iron ore cost more or less? They did not clothe 
 themselves in iron, nor did they dine and breakfast upon 
 steel rails. But now every household throughout the land 
 learned that the purchasing power of the family income 
 
 34 For an analysis of the McKinley Bill, see Taussig, The Tariff History 
 of the United States, pp. 251-283 (New York, 1899). 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 213 
 
 had been seriously reduced. The housewife who went to 
 market and suddenly discovered that she must pay much 
 more for supplies than she had ever paid before, began at 
 once to take a very personal interest in the cause of this 
 phenomenon. Butter, eggs, flour, dried apples, lard, pota 
 toes, bacon, corned beef and poultry leaped up in price 
 after a fashion which to persons of limited means was 
 most alarming. 35 It now cost more to clothe the family, 
 to carpet the rooms, to provide table linen, and to keep the 
 domestic utensils properly renewed. An outcry went up 
 from those who usually paid no attention to economic 
 questions. Party hacks tried hard to create enthusiasm for 
 " Bill McKinley and the McKinley Bill," but their efforts 
 were met with sullen silence or open denunciation. 
 
 The way in which the measure had been " jammed 
 through " the House of Representatives under the iron 
 rule of Speaker Reed was offensive to the American sense 
 of fairness. Mr. Reed, having got a taste of arbitrary 
 power, apparently became intoxicated by it. At first, the 
 country had applauded the nerve with which he dominated 
 the body over which he presided. So long as he used the 
 new rules only to prevent " filibustering," and to insure the 
 efficient despatch of public business, the sentiment of 
 the people was with him. When he said in his epigram 
 matic way, " This House is no longer a deliberative body," 
 the remark called forth an approving laugh. But in time, 
 what at first had been a wise autocracy became something 
 very like oppression. It was not permitted to members of 
 the minority to question the accuracy of the Speaker s 
 count. Representatives were recorded by him as present 
 when they were actually hundreds of miles away. Even 
 
 35 See the figures in a report by Senator Aldrich. Senate Report, 968, 
 pt. i. (1891). 
 
2i 4 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the privilege of an appeal from the ruling of the Chair 
 was no longer recognised. Mr. Reed carried his tyranny 
 so far that at last members of his own party were driven to 
 revolt. On one occasion, 36 the Speaker ordered parts of 
 the journal of the House to be omitted in the daily read 
 ing. Mr. Mills of Texas objected, and it came out that 
 the Speaker had been guilty of a misstatement and that the 
 parts of the journal which had been omitted contained a 
 record of proceedings which had never taken place. Even 
 then, the arrogant Reed refused to have the necessary cor 
 rection made. An appeal from his ruling was taken, and 
 enough Republicans united with the Democrats to override 
 the " Czar." 
 
 The Congressional elections of 1890 took place at the 
 very moment when public sentiment was most deeply 
 stirred against the record which the Republicans had made. 
 In less than two years the Treasury had been emptied, the 
 odious Force Bill had been introduced, a sort of tyranny 
 had been established in the popular Chamber, the cost of 
 living had been enormously increased, and no one had 
 received any benefit save the multi-millionaires of the pro 
 tected industries and the Sugar Trust. The election, there 
 fore, proved to be a veritable cataclysm. The Republican 
 majority in the House was swept away. When Congress 
 met in 1891, the Democratic Representatives numbered 
 235, and the Republicans only 88; while in the Senate the 
 Republican majority was reduced from 14 to 6. A sig 
 nificant fact was the strength which had been shown in the 
 West by a new party which now became known as the 
 " Populists," who elected nine representatives and two 
 senators. 37 In the South, out of 1 2 1 members, there were 
 only three Republicans. Even in New England, the Demo 
 crats secured a fair majority. In Ohio, Mr. McKinley 
 
 30 June 19, 1890. 37 See pp. 267, 273. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 215 
 
 was defeated at the polls, and retired for a time to pri 
 vate life. Mr. Elaine s prophecy of disaster had been 
 strikingly fulfilled. 38 
 
 In 1890, great popular interest was aroused by a move 
 ment to overthrow the Louisiana Lottery Company. The 
 story of this contest deserves to be repeated here, because 
 the issue presented was not unlike the issue involved in the 
 battle against the Trusts. It was a contest between great 
 wealth and selfish interest on the one hand and an en 
 lightened moral sentiment upon the other. Those who 
 feel a sense of hopelessness when they endeavour to fore 
 cast the final outcome of any struggle such as this, may 
 take courage from recalling the defeat of one of the 
 most ably planned conspiracies against the common welfare 
 which this country has ever witnessed. The Louisiana 
 Lottery had been chartered in 1868 by a "carpet-bag" 
 legislature at a time when political conditions in that State 
 were indescribably depraved. The promoters of the lot 
 tery were three in number John A. Morris, Z. E. Sim 
 mons and C. H. Murray men as unscrupulous and as 
 able as any who engineered the later Trusts. At that 
 time, although most States had by law forbidden the sale 
 of lottery tickets within their borders, these laws were 
 
 38 An explanation of this great defeat was given by Speaker Reed in 
 the following words: "In hundreds of cases the drummers were, in 
 tentionally or unintentionally, missionaries to preach Democratic doctrine. 
 They went all over the country with their stories of advances in prices 
 that were to be made next week or next month on account of the Mc- 
 Kinley Bill. But I am inclined to think that the most important factor 
 in the result of this election was the women of the country. It is the 
 women who do the shopping, who keep the run of prices, who have the 
 keenest scent for increased cost. They heard in every store the clerks 
 behind the counters explain how this article or that could not be sold 
 hereafter at the former price because of the McKinley Bill; they went 
 
216 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 practically disregarded. Several enterprises of the sort, 
 nearly all of foreign ownership, reaped a rich harvest by 
 the sale of tickets for their monthly drawings. Among 
 these were the Havana Lottery, the Royal Saxon Lottery, 
 the Hamburg Lottery, and later the Kentucky Lottery. 
 
 Morris and his associates, having secured their charter 
 in return for an annual payment of $40,000 to a^ charity 
 hospital, proceeded to organise their business in a very far- 
 sighted way, taking every precaution to fortify themselves 
 alike against the law and against popular prejudice. They 
 secured the services of General Early and General Beaure- 
 gard to superintend their monthly drawings. They ad 
 vertised extensively in leading newspapers throughout the 
 United States, paying for their advertisements several 
 times the ordinary rates. They even established newspa 
 pers of their own and maintained them, so that if neces 
 sity arose, the Lottery would have staunch defenders in the 
 press. In every great city of the Union the ablest lawyers 
 were employed as counsel for the Company, to watch for 
 and to avert every possible form of danger. In Louisiana, 
 Morris practically controlled the State. Many of the 
 judges were to all intents and purposes appointed by the 
 Lottery. Money was spent lavishly in charity, on behalf 
 of public enterprises, and in private gifts. Vast sugar- 
 works were even opened and operated by the lottery own 
 ers, who desired to pose as representative business men en 
 gaged in fostering one of the great industries of the State. 
 In 1877, when Louisiana was striving to shake off the last 
 vestige of the carpet-bag regime, the Lottery Company 
 gave the money needed to bribe those legislators whose 
 
 home and told their husbands and fathers, and their stories had a 
 tremendous effect at the ballot-box." Interview in the New York Sun, 
 November 15, 1890. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 217 
 
 votes were necessary to oust the carpet-bagger, Packard, 
 from the Governor s chair. Public sentiment in Louisiana, 
 therefore, was more than cordial to the Lottery. Its 
 charter was renewed in 1879; an d after that, it seemed 
 to be assured of a permanent lease of life. Its revenues 
 were very great. One-third of the entire mail-matter 
 which reached New Orleans was addressed to M. A. 
 Dauphin, the nominal head of the Company. It was 
 said that the postal notes and money orders which it cashed 
 amounted to no less than $30,000 a day. 
 
 In 1880, the attention of Mr. Alexander K. McClure, 
 editor of the Philadelphia Times, was attracted by the per 
 sistency with which the Louisiana Lottery sought to have 
 advertisements inserted in his newspaper. He was startled 
 also by the lavish offers of money made to secure such 
 advertising. An investigation showed him that although 
 the Pennsylvania law imposed a penalty for advertising 
 lotteries, not less than $50,000 a year was paid to the 
 newspapers of the State for the use of their columns. 
 Mr. McClure brought suit in the lower courts to test the 
 law, and it was found to be defective. He then framed a 
 more stringent bill; and after a vigorous canvass he 
 secured its enactment by the Pennsylvania Legislature in 
 1883. In the course of the discussion which went on in 
 the press, Mr. McClure s own paper spoke out with 
 frank severity of the Lottery managers. These persons, 
 angered by the loss of their Pennsylvania business and 
 wishing to make an example of the man who had opposed 
 them, noted down his name and waited until circumstances 
 should enable them to take revenge. 
 
 Two years later (in 1885), Mr. McClure visited the 
 New Orleans Exposition. The Lottery through its spies 
 had learned that he was coming, and at the very moment of 
 
218 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 his arrival he was served with a writ, sworn out by Dauphin 
 and claiming $100,000 damages for libelling the Lottery. 
 Mr. McClure was in a distinctly hostile community, where 
 the courts were in the hands of Lottery appointees. The 
 lawyers of the city were nearly all in the Lottery s pay; 
 and to defend the suit seemed to be an absolutely hope 
 less undertaking. Even one of Mr. McClure s personal 
 friends said to him: " We are all in it here, and I hardly 
 know how to advise you." So pleased was Dauphin over 
 his successful coup, that he telegraphed an account of it 
 to every city in the land, through the agency of the Asso 
 ciated Press. 39 
 
 This little burst of exultant insolence on the part of 
 Dauphin was perhaps not unnatural, but it cost the Lot 
 tery Company dear. It stirred to active indignation a 
 feeling which had lain dormant all over the country, and 
 even in Louisiana itself. Within a few hours after Dau 
 phin s news had been made public, a wealthy Philadelphian 
 telegraphed Mr. McClure that $50,000 had been placed 
 to his credit for use in his defence. The unbought press 
 in every State took up the case with vigour. In New Or 
 leans itself, a committee of lawyers, all strangers to Mr. 
 McClure, called upon him to say that the bar of that city 
 would defend the suit without cost. The Governor of the 
 State, though friendly to the Lottery, deplored its action 
 in this instance, and gave Mr. McClure the benefit of his 
 advice, sending to him as counsel a lawyer whose fidelity 
 and honour were above suspicion. The Lottery managers 
 refused to take warning from this display of enlightened 
 sentiment. They resolved to press the case at once to 
 trial. They felt themselves to be omnipotent. They re 
 garded the judges as their creatures. Even the marshal 
 who drew the names for the jury was in their pay. They 
 
 39 McClure, Recollections, pp. 173-183 (Salem, 1900). 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 219 
 
 had millions of money at their disposal. Why should they 
 not make a conspicuous example of this stranger from 
 the North? They laid their plans in such a way as to 
 prevent (so they thought) all chance of an appeal to the 
 Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. McClure s 
 counsel, however, devised a plea which baffled them. It 
 appeared that a suit instituted against Mr. McClure by 
 the Lottery in Pennsylvania was still before a United 
 States District Court on a question of appeal. The situa 
 tion was therefore anomalous in that the Company was 
 prosecuting Mr. McClure upon the same charge before 
 two Federal courts at one and the same time. These facts 
 were duly set forth, and a plea of justification was entered, 
 to which was appended a long series of questions which 
 Dauphin would be forced to answer should the case be 
 tried. These questions were most ingeniously framed, and 
 Dauphin could not answer them without giving informa 
 tion which would expose himself and his agents to criminal 
 prosecution in nearly every State and Territory of the 
 Union. This meant not merely fine and imprisonment for 
 the Lottery officials, but the absolute destruction of their 
 business. 
 
 So soon as Dauphin s lawyers perceived the gulf which 
 was yawning for their employers, they experienced a 
 genuine panic. When the case was called they actually 
 opposed a motion to have the appeal advanced upon the 
 docket. By this time many leading men in Washington 
 had become interested in the matter. Senator Edmunds 
 and Senator Hawley arranged that the trial, when it took 
 place, should be presided over by Mr. Justice Wood a 
 judge of unimpeachable integrity. The Attorney-General 
 of the United States appeared in the Supreme Court in 
 opposition to the Lottery Company. An agitation was 
 
220 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 begun in Congress which seemed full of menace to the lot 
 tery interests. Dauphin and his associates, therefore, 
 capitulated on their knees. One of their representatives 
 went to Mr. McClure and begged that the suit might 
 be discontinued, offering to pay all the expenses counsel 
 fees, the cost of depositions, printing, and the rest. Mr. 
 McClure consented; and within twenty- four hours the 
 Company had settled every bill, and had withdrawn Its suit. 
 But they had gone too far, and they had thereafter to deal 
 with the public resentment which they had evoked. Meas 
 ures were passed in Congress excluding lottery tickets from 
 the mails, and forbidding the transmission of newspapers 
 which contained lottery advertisements. The Anti-Lot 
 tery Bill of 1893 e ven forbade the delivery of registered 
 letters, or the payment of postal orders to the Company. 
 Driven from the mails, the Lottery sought to carry on 
 its business through the express companies; but as these 
 were engaged in interstate traffic, Congress again effec 
 tively interfered. At last in Louisiana the question of a 
 renewal of the Company s charter came before the people. 
 A campaign against it was carried on successfully in a 
 burst of moral indignation. The Company offered to pay 
 the State a million and a quarter of dollars every year, but 
 the bribe had no effect; and in 1893, this gigantic structure 
 of lawlessness and corruption was swept out of existence 
 forever. 
 
 Public wrath against the Lottery was only one phase of 
 a wider agitation. The Fifty-first Congress enacted two 
 very important legislative measures which reflected a 
 rapidly-growing hostility to Trusts in general, and to the 
 lawlessness of railway corporations. Senator Sherman of 
 Ohio, on December 4, 1889, introduced a bill which, with 
 a few amendments, was subsequently passed, and was ap- 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 221 
 
 proved by President Harrison on July 2, 1890. It is 
 usually spoken of as the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, though 
 its formal title was, " An act to protect trade and com 
 merce against unlawful restraints and monopolies"; and 
 both in its phraseology and in the intention of its framer 
 it was a very drastic measure. Its purpose as described by 
 Senator Sherman himself was 
 
 " to arm the Federal Courts within the limits of their constitu 
 tional power that they may co-operate with the State courts in 
 checking, curbing, and controlling the most dangerous combina 
 tions that now threaten the business, property, and trade of the 
 people of the United States. It aims only at unlawful combina 
 tions. It does not in the least affect combinations in aid of pro 
 duction where there is free and fair competition. It is the right of 
 every man to work, labour, and produce in any lawful vocation, and 
 to transport his products on equal terms and conditions and un 
 der like circumstances. This is industrial liberty and lies at the 
 foundation of the equality of all rights and privileges." 40 
 
 The immediate cause of the enactment of this law was 
 an investigation which had been conducted by a committee 
 of the Senate in 1888-1889. Sittings were held in Wash 
 ington, Chicago, and elsewhere; and in spite of the re 
 luctance of some witnesses and the absence of others, a 
 mass of testimony was taken which proved beyond ques 
 tion that many of the great corporations were crushing 
 out competition and destroying industry by means which 
 were in direct violation of the common law. Some very 
 peculiar facts were brought to light regarding the opera 
 tions of the Sugar Trust, the Standard Oil Company and 
 the great dressed-beef combination, of which Armour and 
 Company of Chicago were the head. But it was not this 
 investigation alone which made it impossible for Congress 
 
 40 Speech of March 21, 1890 (Senate). 
 
222 TWENTY YEARS. OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 to remain quiescent any longer. Similar inquiries had been 
 conducted by State legislatures, and testimony taken in 
 many civil and criminal cases in the State courts had been 
 made public. Moreover, thousands of business men had 
 felt the crushing weight of monopoly in the destruction 
 of their means of livelihood. Therefore, although certain 
 Senators professed to feel doubts about the constijtution- 
 ality of the bill, it was passed by a non-partisan vote in both 
 houses. 
 
 The essential provisions of this act applied to all con 
 tracts and combinations in the form of Trusts or otherwise, 
 and to conspiracies in restraint of either interstate or inter 
 national commerce. Such contracts or combinations were 
 made illegal, and persons participating in them were de 
 clared to be guilty of a misdemeanour, and subject 
 either to a fine not exceeding $5000, or to imprisonment 
 not exceeding one year, or to both these penalties, at the 
 discretion of the court. Furthermore, all goods shipped 
 in violation of the act were to be seized and forfeited by 
 proceedings instituted by the Attorney-General on behalf 
 of the United States. How far this act was to prove 
 effective as a weapon against monopolies will be considered 
 in another chapter. 41 It was in itself a strong measure and 
 did honour .to the statesman who framed it and ably ad 
 vocated it. 
 
 Another concession to the widespread sentiment regard 
 ing corporate abuses was an act aimed against those rail 
 roads which had practically defrauded the Government 
 and the nation in the matter of public lands. The gen 
 erosity of the national Government to the railways of the 
 West had been remarkable. The case of the Union Pa 
 cific Railway Company (after 1880 known as the Union 
 Pacific Railroad Company) is sufficiently illustrative to jus- 
 
 4i See pp. 383, 685. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 223 
 
 tify citation. This company had been incorporated in 1862. 
 It received from the Government a grant of five sections 
 of public land for each mile of rail; and two years later, 
 this grant was doubled. In all it received the enormous 
 total of 6,806,497 acres. 42 It is interesting to remember 
 that the contractors of the road, in order to augment the 
 land grants, built their road, not in a straight line across 
 the prairies, as would naturally have been the case, but in 
 an erratic zig-zag, with twists and turns, intended solely 
 to increase the length of line, and thus practically to cheat 
 the Government out of hundreds of thousands of acres. In 
 order to assist the railway still further the Secretary of the 
 Treasury w r as directed to turn over to it, as a loan, sixteen 
 currency bonds of the United States, each of the denomina 
 tion of $1000, for every mile of road constructed through 
 the plains, and forty-eight similar currency bonds for each 
 mile of road built through the region of the Rocky Moun 
 tains. The total issue of such bonds for the benefit of 
 the railway was $61,000,000. As though all this were 
 not enough, the company was allowed to issue first- 
 mortgage bonds equal in amount to the Government bonds 
 just mentioned. Thus the lien of the Government upon 
 the railway dropped to the position of a second mortgage. 
 The road was actually built by the notorious Credit 
 Mobilier, which took over all the resources of the original 
 company, both land and cash. Of course, the construc 
 tion of a railway uniting the Atlantic States with those 
 of the Pacific was a work of immense national importance. 
 On the other hand it became evident in after years that 
 the generosity of the Government had been ill requited. 
 Thus, under the directorship of Jay Gould, and later 
 of Mr. Charles F. Adams, the management diverted a 
 
 4 - See Sanborn, Congressional Grants of Land (Madison, 1899). 
 
224 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 good part of its earnings, above operating expenses and 
 fixed charges, to the building of branch lines, instead of 
 applying a percentage of the profits toward cancelling 
 the obligation to the Government, as provided in the act 
 of 1862. Indeed, the Government received but slight 
 consideration from any of these Western roads for whose 
 construction it had pledged its credit. 
 
 In the matter of the public lands, the railroads were 
 peculiarly unscrupulous. In President Cleveland s first 
 message to Congress, 43 attention was sharply called to 
 the whole subject by the declaration that these " princely 
 grants and subsidies " had been " diverted to private gains 
 and corrupt uses. Our great nation does not begrudge 
 its generosity, but it abhors peculation and fraud. A faith 
 ful application of the grants to the construction and per 
 fecting of their roads, [and] an honest discharge of their 
 obligations are all the public asks, and it will be con 
 tented with no less." But as time went on, it was plain 
 that the railroad magnates had no conception of public 
 duty, and thought simply of their own enrichment. One 
 of them, Mr. C. P. Huntington, who had wrung a great 
 fortune out of his manipulation of Pacific railways, was 
 told that if he did not fulfil his obligations, the Govern 
 ment might step in and take possession. " It s quite wel 
 come to," he cynically answered. " There s nothing left 
 but two streaks of rust and a right of way." In 1890, 
 however, this scandalous state of things came to an end. 
 The Western States were swept by a feeling of anger 
 against the railways, which in impudent disregard of 
 their own obligations, were holding vast tracts of fertile 
 land, and thus barring them against intending settlers 
 under the Homestead Law. An act of Congress which 
 the President approved on September 29th, ordered the 
 
 43 December 8, 1885. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 225 
 
 forfeiture of all such lands, of which more than a hundred 
 million acres were thus restored to public uses. 
 
 The last two years of Mr. Harrison s administration 
 were marked by great activity in the State Department. 
 This was due not so much to Mr. Elaine s fondness for " a 
 spirited foreign policy " as to circumstances over which he 
 had no initial control. In March, 1891, a band of Ital 
 ian criminals in New Orleans reached a climax of sporadic 
 lawlessness by murdering the chief of police. For a long 
 time they had been extorting money from citizens under 
 threat of death, and had committed other crimes with 
 practical impunity, because the local juries were either 
 afraid to convict them or else had been bribed to disagree 
 In rendering a verdict. Hennessy, the head of the police, 
 showed immense energy and acuteness in tracking down 
 the members of this band. They had him watched and 
 followed ; and late one evening he was shot almost to pieces 
 at a signal given by an Italian boy. Against nine Italians 
 strong evidence was gathered, and they were promptly 
 brought to trial. To the astonishment of the judge him 
 self, the jury acquitted six of the prisoners, and disagreed 
 in the case of the other three. On the following night a 
 mob, led by some of the most substantial citizens, broke 
 open the prison, seized the prisoners, and either hanged 
 or shot them all. Within a few hours the Italian Gov 
 ernment cabled a strong protest to Mr. Elaine. Italy s 
 Prime Minister, the Marquis di Rudini, demanded that 
 the lynchers should be immediately punished, and that an 
 indemnity should be immediately paid. Mr. Elaine an 
 swered temperately to the effect that the United States 
 Government had no local jurisdiction in Louisiana, but 
 that to Italian residents the State courts were open pre- 
 
226 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 cisely as to citizens. He did, however, strongly urge Gov 
 ernor Nicholls of Louisiana to set the legal machinery of 
 the State in motion, and he assured the Italian Premier 
 that the whole affair should receive most careful consider 
 ation. The Italian blood was up, however, and Baron 
 Fava, Italy s Minister at Washington, was directed to 
 press Mr. Blaine incessantly. Baron Fava intimated that 
 unless immediate action were taken he must withdraw 
 from Washington. To this hint he received from Mr. 
 Blaine a very sharp reply : 
 
 " I do not recognise the right of any Government to tell the 
 United States what it shall do. We have never received orders 
 from any foreign power and shall not begin now. It is a matter 
 of indifference what persons in Italy think of our institutions. I 
 cannot change them, still less violate them." 
 
 To this curt note, written much in the same spirit as 
 Webster s famous letter to the Chevalier Hiilsemann in 
 1850, the Italian Minister made no answer, but at once 
 left Washington and took passage for Italy. His action 
 caused great excitement, especially in New Orleans. Many 
 persons expected that Italy would deliver an ultimatum 
 which President Harrison s Government would certainly 
 reject and thus bring war within an appreciable distance. 
 Rumour said that an Italian squadron was being mobilised 
 and might soon appear off the mouth of the Mississippi 
 to menace New Orleans. The situation looked even 
 graver when the American Minister at Rome left Italy. 
 But those who were well informed felt no disquietude, in 
 view of the enormous disparity in fighting strength be 
 tween Italy and the United States. An English naval 
 officer, who was in New York at the time, made a joking 
 comment which contained a certain element of truth. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 227 
 
 You people," said he, " want more ships for your 
 navy. Just let those Italian fellows send over a fleet. 
 Then you take the fleet, and there you are ! " 
 
 As a matter of fact, the Italian Government thought 
 better of it before very long; and though many Ameri 
 cans were mobbed and otherwise insulted in Italy, and 
 though the Italian press breathed forth threatenings, ami 
 cable relations were soon restored. It turned out that 
 only three of the Italians who had been lynched were sub 
 jects of the King of Italy, the rest having been naturalised 
 in this country; and so, when Congress, purely as an act 
 of grace, voted the sum of $25,000 to be given to the rela 
 tives of the dead men, King Humbert accepted the award, 
 and diplomatic relations were resumed. 
 
 An embroilment between the United States and Chile, 
 which took place at this time, was a much more serious 
 affair. In January, 1891, a furious civil war broke out in 
 Chile. Of all the Spanish-American republics, Chile has 
 been the only one to conduct its foreign and domestic affairs 
 in such a way as to win the respect of other nations. Situ 
 ated in the temperate zone and ribbed with mountain 
 ranges, its climatic and geographic conditions seem to have 
 developed in its people certain characteristics for which one 
 looks in vain among the other South American States. The 
 government of Chile has been conspicuous for its intelli 
 gence, conservatism and integrity. Its finances have been 
 ably administered. Order has been maintained through the 
 strict enforcement of enlightened laws. Its political insti 
 tutions are modelled upon those of the United States, and 
 throughout the greater part of its history it has been free 
 from turbulence and mercenary insurrection. Its success 
 ful war with Bolivia and Peru in 1881 made it plain that 
 
228 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 henceforth Chile deserved respectful consideration as a 
 naval and military power. 
 
 A knowledge of these facts, however, has led the 
 Chilean people to cultivate a self-consciousness which does 
 not always show itself in the most attractive fashion. Edu 
 cated Chileans are apt to forget that, after all, their nation 
 is a very small one and that, from the nature of thmgs, it 
 cannot figure very conspicuously in the history of the world. 
 They are too fond of comparing it with the wretched little 
 republics which are its immediate neighbours; and they 
 forget that while Chile is an important State when con 
 trasted with Peru or Uruguay or Venezuela, it is only a 
 dwarf beside the United States or the giunt nations of 
 Europe. But the typical Chilean has a dream of his own, 
 and one which he has cherished for more than fifty years. 
 He believes that ultimately his country is destined to 
 assert an hegemony over all the Spanish-speaking peoples 
 of South America, and in the end to extend its influ 
 ence northward, until, at last, having absorbed even Mex 
 ico, Chile shall confront the mighty North American Re 
 public upon the borders of the Rio Grande. There are 
 not a few Chileans who even think that by the end, per 
 haps, of another century the United States may have to do 
 battle with its Southern rival for the mastery of the West 
 ern world. There is a touch of Spanish vanity in this 
 magnificent vision; yet, though to Americans it may seem 
 only ludicrous and fantastic, it appeals very strongly not 
 merely to the Chilean imagination but to the Chilean sense 
 of probability. Not unnaturally, therefore, the statesmen 
 of that small republic have always been extremely sensitive 
 concerning the claim of the United States to concern itself 
 with South American affairs; and they resent the assump 
 tion that the Monroe Doctrine has any application to their 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 229 
 
 country. It is necessary to remember these facts in order 
 to understand the drift of the events which are now to be 
 narrated. 
 
 In 1886, Chile elected as its President one of those ex 
 tremely able but unscrupulous men who appear from time 
 to time in South American nations, and among whom 
 Francia of Paraguay and Guzman Blanco of Venezuela 
 stand out in history as interesting types. This was Serior 
 Don Jose Manuel Balmaceda, whose rule up to the end of 
 1890 was marked by the most enlightened measures. He 
 belonged to the so-called Progressist Party, and as Presi 
 dent he did much to promote public education, to foster 
 internal improvements and generally to develop the re 
 sources of his country. His political opponents, however, 
 who headed a sort of oligarchy made up of leading mem 
 bers of the Chilean Congress, accused the President of 
 plotting to perpetuate his power by securing the election of 
 a tool oj: his as his successor. When he dissolved Con 
 gress, and raised revenue without the authority of law, 
 the Congressional party proclaimed a civil war 44 and 
 sought to overthrow Balmaceda by force of arms. 
 
 In this struggle the United States had no direct interest; 
 but various circumstances soon led to complications of a 
 very serious nature. It had been for thirty years the policy 
 of our Government to give no encouragement to revolts in 
 other countries. Mr. Blaine, therefore, by President Har 
 rison s direction, continued as before to recognise Balma 
 ceda as the lawful head of the Chilean Republic, and to 
 refuse to accord to the Congressionalists the belligerent 
 rights which they claimed. Balmaceda had been legally 
 elected President. He held possession of the capital of the 
 country. He controlled an army which was carrying on 
 operations in the field against the rebels. Therefore, 
 
 44 January 7, 1891. 
 
2 3 o TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 why should the United States sever its official relations 
 with him and suddenly recognise his enemies? 
 
 The case seemed plain enough; yet there were circum 
 stances which made the situation somewhat delicate. Ever 
 since the events of 1882, which have already been nar 
 rated, 45 Mr. Elaine had been viewed with a certain rancour 
 by Chileans of all classes. They regarded him as an inter- 
 meddler, or even worse, and honestly believed him to be 
 actuated by a feeling of hostility to Chilean interests. 
 Therefore, when he continued to recognise Balmaceda, the 
 Congressional party in Chile claimed that his action was 
 due to an unfriendly spirit; and before long they pro 
 fessed to see what they called his malign influence at work 
 against them. A good part of the Chilean navy had 
 joined the revolutionists. Some engagements took place 
 between these ships and the ships whose officers were 
 Balmacedists. A small American squadron under Rear- 
 Admiral Brown had been ordered to Chilean waters to 
 protect American interests, and the Congressionalists as 
 serted in very bitter language that officers from American 
 vessels had acted as spies; that they had reported to Bal 
 maceda the strength and also the movements of the rebel 
 ships; and that in various other ways the naval force 
 of the United States had violated the requirements of 
 strict neutrality. Admiral Brown indignantly denied this 
 charge, which was made in the most offensive manner. 
 There was, indeed, no evidence at all to justify it. Never 
 theless, it was generally believed by the Congressionalists, 
 who presently got possession of the entire seacoast and the 
 great fortified port of Valparaiso. Hatred of the United 
 States became nearly universal in Chile after an incident 
 which occurred in May. 
 
 Early in that month, a Chilean ship the Itata, chartered 
 
 45 See pp. 177-8. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 231 
 
 by the Congressional party, put in at the harbour of San 
 Diego, in California. It was reported to the Government 
 at Washington that the Itata was taking on a cargo of arms 
 and ammunition for the Chilean rebels, in defiance of the 
 neutrality laws. On May 6th, a United States marshal 
 took possession of the ship, forbidding it to leave the port. 
 On the following day, the Itata s commander cut her 
 cable, overpowered the United States officers, and put to 
 sea, carrying them away as prisoners. This high-handed 
 proceeding stirred the Washington Government to instant 
 action. The cruiser Charleston was despatched in swift 
 pursuit with orders to take the Itata, and to sink her if she 
 resisted. When the Chileans heard of this, the hotheads 
 among them sent their new steel cruiser, the Esmeralda, 
 to meet the Itata and to protect her against capture. The 
 Charleston and the Esmeralda were ships of equal size 
 and armament, and the result of a fight between them was 
 awaited with breathless expectancy. It was supposed 
 that the Itata would put in at the harbour of Acapulco 
 on the Mexican coast; and to this harbour the Charles 
 ton hastened. The Esmeralda did the same; and both 
 cruisers lay there with steam up, with decks cleared for 
 action, and with the crews ready at their guns. It was 
 an exciting moment, but no shot was fired; for the Itata 
 failed to appear, and made her way direct to her des 
 tination. By the time of her arrival there, the Con- 
 gressionalists had thought better of their defiance of the 
 United States; and on June 4th, they delivered up the 
 Itata to Rear-Admiral McCann, in command of the Amer 
 ican squadron at Iquique. 46 
 
 40 Suit was afterward brought in the United States District Court of 
 California by the owners to test the legality of the Government s action 
 in seizing the Itata at San Diego. On appeal the Supreme Court decided 
 in favour of the Government. 
 
232 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 The revolt in Chile proved to be successful. On Au 
 gust yth, Balmaceda s forces were routed by the Congres 
 sional army, which marched upon the capital, Santiago, 
 and entered it in triumph. Balmaceda took refuge in the 
 Argentine legation, where, on September iSth, he com 
 mitted suicide. A new government was proclaimed in 
 Chile under the presidency of Sefior Jorge Montt. ^Every- 
 where the revolutionists prevailed, and they were now 
 formally recognised by the United States. The most seri 
 ous part of the whole affair was, however, still to come. 
 
 Soon after becoming Secretary of State, Mr. Blaine had 
 secured the appointment, as Minister to Chile, of Mr. Pat 
 rick Egan. Mr. Egan was one of the group whom Mr. 
 Elaine s political opponents were accustomed derisively to 
 call " Blaine Irishmen." He had not long been natural 
 ised as an American citizen, having come to the United 
 States somewhat hastily in order to escape arrest and im 
 prisonment at the hands of the British authorities in Ire 
 land, who charged him with political offences in connection 
 with the Irish Land League. Critics of the Harrison 
 administration spoke of Mr. Egan as " an escaped jail 
 bird " and even insinuated that he had been connected with 
 the Phoenix Park murders in 1882. There was not a 
 shadow of truth in all this. Mr. Egan was a man of abil 
 ity and honour, who had simply made himself disliked by 
 the Castle set in Dublin at a time when the British Govern 
 ment was trying one of its periodical experiments in repres 
 sion. Nevertheless, his appointment to a diplomatic post 
 was properly open to criticism; and in Chile, especially, 
 where there were so many influential English residents, it 
 was a cause of social embarrassment. Mr. Egan, more 
 over, in carrying out his early instructions to recognise the 
 Balmaceda Government had perhaps erred through excess 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 233 
 
 of zeal ; so that he was peculiarly obnoxious to the Congres- 
 sionalists, who regarded him as a partisan of their enemy. 
 When Santiago fell and the troops of the revolution 
 entered that city, intoxicated with their victory, there were 
 enacted fearful scenes of lust and wholesale murder. 
 Many of the Balmacedists, fearing for their lives, took 
 refuge in the American legation, begging the protection 
 of the Minister. By the law of nations, the precincts of 
 an embassy or of a legation are regarded as being the soil 
 of that country whose flag flies over it; but whether the 
 immunity which such a place enjoys should be used to pro 
 tect citizens of the State to which the embassy is accredited, 
 is a disputed point. Mr. Egan, however, received the 
 Balmacedists among them the late Minister of Foreign 
 Affairs and the late Governor of Santiago, together with 
 members of their households. The new Chilean Foreign 
 Minister demanded the surrender of the fugitives. Mr. 
 Egan hoisted the American flag and declined to accede to 
 the demand. The Chileans were furious, yet they hesitated 
 to violate the sanctity of the legation. They tried other 
 means, however, hoping to annoy Mr. Egan into com 
 pliance. The neighbourhood of his residence swarmed 
 with spies. Drunken soldiers reeled by, yelling out vile 
 epithets and making boisterous threats. It was believed 
 by Mr. Egan that a plot existed to set fire to the legation 
 and thus drive out the fugitives. Meanwhile, the Chilean 
 State Department carried on a correspondence with the 
 American Minister with regard to the rights of the ques 
 tion from the standpoint of international law. Here Mr. 
 Egan neatly scored on his adversary in a series of very able 
 notes, in which he showed that in 1866, during a revolu 
 tion in Peru, the Chilean Government had directed its 
 Minister in that country to insist upon two principles, 
 
234 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the right of asylum and the right of safe conduct to a 
 neutral territory for persons taking shelter in a foreign 
 legation. In 1888, at the Congress of American Re 
 publics, Chile had again defended the same principles. Mr. 
 Egan, in fact, made out so good a case as to put an end to 
 the design of taking his guests from him by force, though 
 the right of safe conduct was still denied. , 
 
 All this controversy, following upon the charges against 
 Admiral Brown, and also the affair of the Itata, intensified 
 Chilean animosity toward the United States. The news 
 papers contained violent attacks upon Egan, Blaine, and 
 Americans in general. Every sort of slanderous story 
 was circulated and believed, and day by day popular feel 
 ing grew more and more inflamed. At this time the 
 United States cruiser Baltimore, commanded by Captain 
 W. S. Schley, was in the harbour of Valparaiso. On 
 October lyth, Captain Schley rather unwisely gave shore- 
 leave to nearly one hundred of his sailors. Within a few 
 hours after they had landed, they were surrounded by a 
 mob of over two thousand Chileans, who separated them 
 into small groups and then attacked them. The sailors 
 were unarmed, but defended themselves manfully until a 
 body of fifty policemen armed with carbines and bayonets 
 took part in the assault upon them. Two of the Ameri 
 cans were killed one of them being shot by a policeman 
 and eighteen were badly stabbed, cut, or bruised by 
 stones. The rest were dragged to prison through the 
 streets, some of them by the heels, amid the threats, curses, 
 and uproar of the mob. 
 
 The news of this affair naturally caused great indigna 
 tion in the United States and it led to a long and volumin 
 ous diplomatic correspondence, as well as to a sharp inter 
 change of notes between Captain Schley of the Baltimore 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 235 
 
 and the Intendente of Valparaiso. Of course, the sailors 
 who had^been dragged to prison were speedily released, 
 but the Chilean authorities were unwilling to admit that 
 the United States had a just grievance. An investigation 
 instituted by Captain Schley showed the facts concerning 
 the assault to have been those which have been here set 
 forth that the police of Valparaiso had taken part with 
 the mob in shooting and otherwise assaulting unarmed 
 bluejackets. The Chileans, on the other hand, asserted 
 that the Americans were drunk, and that they had pro 
 voked the attack by their outrageous conduct. The charge 
 of drunkenness was doubtless true, for sailors of whatever 
 nationality are not wont to ask for shore-leave from 
 motives w r hich would commend themselves to total ab 
 stinence societies. 47 But it was perfectly evident that the 
 attack had been made upon them because of hatred to the 
 uniform they wore, and that it was directed against them, 
 not as individuals, but as Americans. The conduct of the 
 police, moreover, showed an official animpsity which sur 
 passed even that of the rabble. Under the circumstances, 
 Secretary Elaine insisted upon a specific apology from the 
 
 47 Commander Evans afterwards summed the matter up with delicious 
 frankness in these words: "He [Captain Schley] was in the midst of a 
 correspondence with the Intendente, conducted in the most perfect Castilian, 
 to show, or prove, that his men were all perfectly sober when they were 
 assaulted on shore. I did not agree with him in this; for in the first 
 place I doubted the fact, and in the second, it was not an issue worth 
 discussing. His men were probably drunk on shore, properly drunk; 
 they went ashore, many of them, for the purpose of getting drunk, which 
 they did on Chilean rum paid for with good United States money. When 
 in this condition they were more entitled to protection than if they had 
 been sober. This was my view of it, at least, and the one I always held 
 about men whom I commanded. Instead of protecting them, the Chileans 
 foully murdered these men, and we believed with the connivance and 
 assistance of armed policemen. That was the issue not the question of 
 whether they were drunk or sober." 
 
236 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Chilean Government, and upon an indemnity to the 
 wounded men and to the families of those who had been 
 killed. The Chileans put the demand aside pending a 
 further investigation on their part. This investigation 
 was protracted interminably, and on November 25th Mr. 
 Elaine complained of the delay. The Chilean Minister 
 in Washington informed him that Spanish law wa " slow 
 in its processes, but exact in its conclusions " ; and with 
 this statement Mr. Elaine was for the time forced to be 
 content. 
 
 It was plain enough that the Chileans intended to post 
 pone any definite action and to let the affair drag along 
 until it should have been half forgotten. From time to 
 time, vague hints were made looking to arbitration, but 
 nothing definite was suggested. Meanwhile, the news 
 papers of Santiago and Valparaiso continued their abuse 
 of the " North Americans," and especially of Mr. Egan 
 and Mr. Elaine. It looked as though the final outcome 
 of the incident might be very grave. As a precautionary 
 measure, the United States Government put all its vessels 
 of war into commission. Rear-Admiral Walker with a 
 squadron was ordered to Brazil, and the vessels already 
 stationed off the Pacific Coast were held in readiness for ac 
 tive service. At this time, the opposition press in the 
 United States very intemperately accused Mr. Elaine of 
 seeking to stir up a war with Chile. Reviewing all the 
 evidence, it is impossible now to hold this belief. Mr. 
 Elaine s attitude was a firm one, yet it is certain that all 
 the while he was exerting his influence to hold back the 
 President. Mr. Harrison was, perhaps unconsciously, in 
 fluenced by the thought that a foreign war would almost 
 certainly re-elect him; but whatever his motives, he seemed 
 anxious to force matters to a point at which war would 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 237 
 
 become inevitable. Mr. Elaine, on the other hand, dis 
 played a commendable patience, and refrained from any 
 action which could be regarded as precipitate. 48 The 
 Baltimore was withdrawn from Valparaiso. The Boston, 
 which was cruising in Chilean waters, merely touched there 
 and then proceeded northward. During the critical days 
 of December, although the harbour of Valparaiso was 
 dotted with foreign ships of war, the United States was 
 represented only by the little gunboat Yorktown, under 
 the orders of Commander Robley D. Evans. 
 
 Commander Evans was a Virginian, who had adhered 
 to the Union throughout the Civil War, in which he had 
 fought with great gallantry, receiving several serious 
 wounds. He was popularly known to his comrades in the 
 navy as " Fighting Bob," a name which was always a 
 curious puzzle to the honest commander himself, for in his 
 own estimation he was one of the most peaceful of liv 
 ing men. He thought himself a miracle of patience and 
 forbearance, whereas in fact he was never truly happy 
 unless he could sniff the smell of gunpowder. He re 
 sembled that interesting hero of Conan Doyle s who vi 
 vaciously announced that he would slash to pieces any 
 man who dared describe him as pugnacious. The posi 
 tion of Commander Evans at Valparaiso was a very 
 trying one. Nearly the whole of the Chilean fleet 
 was distributed about him in the harbour. If he went 
 ashore, he was dogged by spies and scowled at by the 
 rabble. The foreign element, especially the Germans, 
 were still more unfriendly, if such a thing were possible. 
 Finally, the Government at Washington depended upon 
 him for frequent and detailed accounts of the state of 
 
 48 From this time probably dates the estrangement between the President 
 and Mr. Elaine, which was to have important consequences. See p. 286. 
 
238 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 public feeling, while Mr. Egan was continually sending 
 to him from Santiago messages of the most alarming 
 character. 
 
 Commander Evans, however, kept his head and carried 
 off the situation in admirable form. He treated the 
 Chilean officials with punctilious courtesy, while at the 
 same time resenting hotly any overt acts of enmity. The 
 Chilean torpedo-boats began to engage in what they called 
 practice drill. This drill consisted for the most part in 
 speeding their craft as near to the Yorktown as was pos 
 sible without touching it, often within a distance of a few 
 feet. The object of this was twofold. First of all it 
 was meant to show the American commander how utterly 
 he was at their mercy. In the second place, it was intended 
 as a little diversion at the expense of the Yorktown and 
 for the amusement of the German, French and English 
 naval officers whose ships were in the harbour. After a 
 few days of this sort of thing, Commander Evans sent for 
 the officer in charge of the torpedo drill, and protested 
 against his action as discourteous. 
 
 " I beg to inform you," said the Chilean, with a veiled 
 sneer, " that the water of this harbour belongs to my 
 government, and that I propose to use it in manoeuvering 
 the torpedo-boats under my command." 
 
 " Very good," returned Commander Evans. " But I 
 beg to inform you that the Yorktown is the property of 
 my government, and that if one of your boats so much 
 as scratches its paint I will blow her bottom out." 49 
 
 This put a speedy end to the Chilean torpedo drill. On 
 another occasion, a party of roughs amused themselves by 
 throwing stones at one of the small boats of the Yorktown 
 and daring the men in it to come ashore. Commander 
 Evans at once visited the Chilean cruiser Cochran, 
 
 49 Evans, A Sailor s Log, p. 297 (New York, 1901). 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 239 
 
 whose captain, Vial, was senior officer, not only of the 
 fleet, but of the city. Evans has described the interview 
 in these words, which suggest that his sobriquet of " Fight 
 ing Bob " was not wholly misapplied: 
 
 " I could hardly hold myself down while I told him of it; but 
 I did, and then read him the riot act. I demanded of him im 
 mediate and efficient protection by the police, and served notice on 
 him, then and there, that a repetition of the offence would be suffi 
 cient evidence that they could not control their people; and that 
 I should arm my boats and shoot any and every man who insulted 
 me or my men or my flag in any way. Vial was greatly shocked, 
 turned as white as a sheet my manner was not very mild, I fancy 
 swore and damned the discharged soldiers and said they were 
 doing all they could to involve the country in war with the United 
 States. . . . After a few moments Captain Vial hastened on 
 shore to jump on the police, assuring me that I should have an 
 ample apology to-morrow." 50 
 
 In the meantime, the situation of the refugees in the 
 American legation at Santiago was becoming a very serious 
 one. Crowded into a comparatively small house, unable 
 to leave its shelter, their lives threatened at every moment, 
 they were doubtful whether the protection accorded them 
 by the American Minister would prove effectual for very 
 long. The Chileans were now willing to let them slip 
 away secretly to the shore, but refused to grant them 
 formally a safe conduct. As the American Government 
 still refrained from pressing matters to an extremity, the 
 
 50 Evans, p. 287. An entertaining, though inaccurate, narrative of 
 events in Chile at this time may be found in Hervey, Dark Days in Chile 
 (London, 1892). See also Hancock, Short History of Chile, pp. 365-37* 
 (Chicago, 1896) ; and for the Chilean view of these occurrences, Matta, 
 Cuestiones Recientes con la Legacion y el Gobierno de los Estados Unidos 
 (Santiago, 1892). 
 
2 4 o TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 arrogance of the Chileans increased from day to day. 
 Most of them believed in all sincerity that their navy 
 was more than a match for that of the United States. 
 Their newspapers boasted that in case of war, San Fran 
 cisco would be laid in ashes and that the whole Pacific 
 Coast of the United States would be ravaged and laid 
 under contribution. This boast, although it seems pre 
 posterous now, was not wholly due to the sort of pride 
 which goes with Spanish blood. There was in Valparaiso 
 a very large German colony composed of merchants and 
 persons engaged in shipping. They, together with the 
 English, had largely monopolised the foreign trade of 
 Chile, thanks to the high protective tariff of the United 
 States. The Chileans, therefore, knew little about Amer 
 icans. They did not trade with them. They seldom saw 
 them; and they listened eagerly to the German talk about 
 the helplessness and general insignificance of the United 
 States. It came at last to be an article of faith that in the 
 event of war, the German Empire would come to the sup 
 port of Chile. 
 
 One finds it difficult to believe that any such delusion 
 possessed the government officials in Santiago. Yet, per 
 haps, one member of that Government may have enter 
 tained it; since otherwise it is very difficult to understand 
 his action. On December n, 1891, Seiior Don Manuel 
 Matta, formerly a journalist, but now the Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs, addressed a telegram to the Chilean Min 
 ister in Washington relating to a message on Chilean 
 affairs sent by President Harrison to Congress. In this 
 telegram, language was used which was insulting not only 
 to Mr. Egan, but to Secretary Tracy and even to President 
 Harrison. Seiior Matta spoke of the President s state 
 ments as "erroneous or deliberately incorrect" (deliber- 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 241 
 
 adamente inexactos). A note of Mr. Egan s was de 
 scribed as " aggressive in purpose and virulent in lan 
 guage." Matta s telegram ended with an allusion to what 
 he called " the intrigues which proceed from so low a 
 source, and the threats which come from a source so high." 
 This despatch was read by Matta to the Chilean Senate 
 and was telegraphed to all the Chilean legations in Europe, 
 thus publishing the insult to the world. 
 
 Mr. Egan at once sent a note to Serior Matta demand 
 ing to know whether the text of the telegram as given 
 in the newspapers was correct. Matta replied that it was, 
 intimating at the same time that it did not concern any 
 one save the Government of Chile and its officials. The 
 Chilean Minister at Washington thoroughly appreciated 
 the " blazing indiscretion " of which his chief had been 
 guilty, and he took the responsibility of suppressing the 
 offensive telegram so far as he could do so. It was, how 
 ever, cabled to the American press and was read by the 
 American people with intense indignation. Even Mr. 
 Elaine no longer sought to hold President Harrison in 
 check. Preparations for war were openly begun. The 
 navy yards at San Francisco and Brooklyn worked night 
 and day. A squadron of eight cruisers was assembled 
 in Pacific waters; blockading ships were ordered to be 
 bought; and an ultimatum was finally sent to the Chilean 
 Government containing three peremptory demands: first, 
 that the Matta telegram should be withdrawn, its lan 
 guage disowned, and an explicit apology offered for it; 
 second, that an indemnity should at once be paid for the 
 outrage upon American sailors; and third, that the ref 
 ugees in the American legation at Santiago should receive 
 a safe conduct to neutral territory. 
 
 For a moment the scales were evenly balanced between 
 
242 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 peace and war. Volunteers offered their services to the 
 War Department in Washington. The Chileans boggled 
 over the terms which Mr. Elaine had laid before them. 
 They talked of arbitration. They offered, while refusing 
 to withdraw the Matta telegram, to declare that it was 
 not meant to be offensive. The Chilean Minister argued 
 that it was a purely domestic communication and therefore 
 privileged. Mr. Elaine and the President, however, stood 
 firm, and on January 23d the Chilean Government exe 
 cuted a complete backdown. The terms in which its sub 
 mission was offered left nothing to be desired on the score 
 of completeness. Wrote Serior Pereira to Mr. Egan: 
 
 " The undersigned deplores that in that telegram there were em 
 ployed through an error of judgment the expressions which are 
 offensive in the judgment of your Government. ... In ful 
 filment of a high duty of courtesy and sincerity toward a friendly 
 nation . . . the Government of Chile absolutely withdraws 
 the said expressions . . . a declaration which is made with 
 out reservation in order that it may receive such publicity as your 
 Government may deem suitable." 
 
 The sum of $75,000 was paid from the Chilean Treas 
 ury to the injured sailors of the Baltimore; and the re 
 fugees in the American legation received a safe conduct 
 and left Chilean territory unmolested, under the protection 
 of the United States. 51 
 
 This was the second incident during the Harrison ad 
 ministration which showed that the American people were 
 no longer unconcerned with their foreign relations. As 
 in Samoa, so in Chile, a new spirit in American diplomacy 
 had been manifested in a striking manner, and had made 
 
 51 The whole diplomatic and naval correspondence was submitted to 
 Congress by President Harrison as an appendix to his message of January 
 26, 1892. It makes a volume of some 650 pages. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 243 
 
 it plain to all the world that the United States was becom 
 ing a force to be reckoned with in international affairs. 
 Mr. Elaine s enemies at home bitterly attacked his conduct 
 of these negotiations. The opposition press accused him 
 of jingoism, of duplicity, and of insincerity. So violent 
 was this opposition in the end, as to find expression in the 
 most unpatriotic sentiments. At the very moment when 
 peace and war were trembling in the balance, a semi-politi 
 cal association in New York, known as the Reform Club, 
 actually invited a Chilean emissary to address it, and lis 
 tened with applause to his venomous attacks upon the 
 President and Government of the United States. 52 Such 
 incidents as this, however, merely disgusted and repelled 
 all right-thinking people; and Mr. Elaine came out of the 
 Chilean imbroglio with his popularity greater even than 
 it had been before. 
 
 Not long after the Chilean affair had reached its climax, 
 events of much interest took place in a distant island of 
 the Pacific. The little kingdom of Hawaii had for forty 
 years been living under a constitutional monarchy which 
 continued the line of native kings. Its independence had 
 been guaranteed by France and England in 1843; an d 
 the United States, though not a party to this agreement, 
 had, nevertheless, on more than one occasion, used its 
 armed forces to repress disorder and maintain the reign 
 of law. The white population of the island comprised a 
 large number of persons of American ancestry, and these 
 acted in accord with the resident English, the two together 
 constituting an enlightened and highly prosperous com 
 munity. In 1 88 1, the Hawaiian king, Kalakaua I., who 
 had not before regarded himself as a particularly im- 
 
 52 One member, Mr. Ellery Anderson, honoured himself by rising at this 
 meeting and protesting, against it as unpatriotic. 
 
244 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 portant personage, made a tour of the world. Much to 
 his surprise and delight, he found his kingly dignity rec 
 ognised by some of the greatest sovereigns of Asia and 
 Europe, who treated him with every mark of respect as a 
 member of the royal caste. His flag was saluted by the 
 fleets of Japan, England, France and Germany; military 
 reviews were held in his honour; and he was welcomed to 
 palaces and feted as cordially as though he were a monarch 
 of much greater power and pretensions. 53 When he 
 returned, he brought with him not merely jewelled dec 
 orations from the Czar, the Austrian Kaiser, the Queen 
 of England, and the Pope, but brand-new crowns which 
 he had purchased in London for himself and for his con 
 sort, together with a field battery intended for a standing 
 army, which, in his imagination, already existed. His 
 foreign journey, in fact, had turned his head. On a small 
 scale he reproduced the follies and extravagances of the 
 Egyptian Khedive, Ismail, the greatest spendthrift of 
 modern times. Kalakaua began to imitate the monarchs 
 at whose courts he had been so lavishly entertained. In 
 his private life he gave himself up to the parasites and 
 panders who swarmed about him and suggested to him 
 new forms of wastefulness and new refinements of vice. 
 He instituted an Order with insignia and decorations; he 
 built himself a palace; he had himself crowned with splen 
 did ceremonial, though he had already been a king for 
 nine years. Already he saw himself at the head of a 
 great Polynesian empire; and in 1887 he tried to interfere 
 in the affairs of Samoa, with some dreamy notion of adding 
 its islands to his own small kingdom. 54 
 
 53 For an interesting and often amusing account of this tour, see Arm 
 strong, Round the World with King Kalakaua (New York, 1904). 
 
 54 The King fitted out a small expedition in 1887 and despatched it to 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 245 
 
 Worse than this, he tried to ignore or to evade 
 the constitution which had been established and ratified 
 by the Hawaiian people. The royal expenses were now 
 paid, by the personal order of the King, out of the public 
 funds, and without the knowledge or approval of his 
 Ministers. He tried to negotiate a foreign loan of $10,- 
 000,000 in order to maintain a standing army for the 
 enhancement of his royal prestige. He even lent an ear 
 to the native element, who urged him so to modify the con 
 stitution, as to exclude from the franchise the white resi 
 dents of Hawaii. These, however, uniting with the more 
 intelligent of the natives, not only resisted the attempt, 
 but compelled the King to keep more closely within his 
 constitutional limitations. 
 
 In 1891, worn out by worry and by unrestrained ex 
 cesses, Kalakaua died, and was succeeded by his sister, 
 Liliuokalani. The new Hawaiian Queen was a woman 
 of great force of character and of much personal charm. 
 Her bearing was truly regal. She presided over public 
 functions with marked dignity, while all who were received 
 by her in private audience came away charmed by her 
 grace and affability. She had been highly educated, and 
 spoke both French and English with perfect purity and 
 elegance. She was, however, as thoroughly imbued with 
 a sense of her royal prerogative as though she had been 
 an Elizabeth or a Maria Theresa. She was in England 
 when the Constitution of 1887 was established in Hawaii; 
 
 Samoa in the steamer Kalmiloa. Just what he expected the expedition to 
 accomplish is not very clear; but the drunken crew of the Kaimiloa ran 
 the ship aground, and the whole affair ended in an absurd fiasco. See 
 House Exec. Documents, 238, Fiftieth Congress, p. 39 seqq. (1888); and 
 President Cleveland s Message of April 2, 1888, with the appended docu 
 ments. Further details are given in Foster, American Diplomacy in the 
 Orient, pp. 373-374 (Boston, 1903). 
 
246 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 and when she learned that under its provisions the white 
 residents were to have an equal share of political power, 
 her indignation passed all bounds. Upon her accession to 
 the throne, she set herself to the task of abrogating that 
 instrument and of restoring the personal government 
 of the Kamehamehas. She had no sooner taken the 
 coronation oath than she declared to one of the Cabinet, 
 " My Ministry shall be responsible to me alone ! " She 
 dismissed the existing Cabinet and chose a Ministry of 
 her own selection, which was opposed by a majority in the 
 Hawaiian legislature. To provide the funds needed for 
 her campaign against constitutionalism, she leagued her 
 self with certain interests which sought a lottery franchise 
 and a law licensing the sale of opium. By a series 
 of intrigues which it would be tedious to detail, these 
 measures were legalised, and at once the Legislature was 
 dissolved. On January 14, 1893, the Queen had planned 
 to promulgate by royal decree a new Constitution, which 
 should supersede the old one. Her Ministry informed her 
 that such an act would be revolutionary. She demanded 
 their resignations, but they refused compliance, and issued 
 a proclamation (January I5th) setting forth these facts 
 and declaring the throne vacant. On the following day, a 
 mass meeting of the foreign residents and many of the 
 natives formally decided that in view of the Queen s ar 
 bitrary acts, stringent measures were needed " for the pres 
 ervation of the public credit and to avert the final ruin of a 
 financial condition already overstrained." 
 
 A Provisional Government, headed by Mr. Sanford B. 
 Dole, a Justice of the Supreme Court, was organised, with 
 an Advisory Council representing the best elements of the 
 community. This body, in view of the intense excitement 
 prevailing in Honolulu, called upon the United States 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 247 
 
 Minister, Mr. John L. Stevens of Maine, for assistance in 
 preserving order. The United States cruiser Boston was 
 lying in the harbour; and at the request of Mr. Stevens 
 a battalion of sailors and marines was landed by Cap 
 tain Wiltse and marched through the streets of the capital, 
 encamping before the Government Building. Mr. 
 Stevens on his own responsibility recognised the new Gov 
 ernment and officially proclaimed Hawaii to be under the 
 protection of the United States (February i, 1893). The 
 Queen, seeing that resistance was useless, made a formal 
 protest and then yielded, as she said, only " to the su 
 perior forces of the United States of America. " 
 
 The Provisional Government, doubtful of the effect of 
 these events upon public opinion in the United States, hur 
 riedly despatched a commission to lay their case before 
 President Harrison, and to ask for the annexation of 
 Hawaii to the United States. The President and Mr. J. 
 W. Foster, who had succeeded Mr. Elaine as Secretary of 
 State, strongly favoured this suggestion, which was, in 
 fact, not a new one, since as early as 1854 annexation had 
 been considered. A treaty was hurriedly negotiated be 
 tween the Commissioners and the Secretary of State; and 
 on February I5th a treaty of annexation was signed, pro 
 viding for the continuance in power of the Dole govern 
 ment, and the retention of the existing Hawaiian laws, 
 subject, however, to the exercise of supreme authority by 
 the United States, which was to appoint a commissioner 
 empowered to veto any or all acts of the local adminis 
 tration. It was further provided that the United States 
 should assume the Hawaiian debt, 55 that it should allow 
 the deposed Queen an annual grant of $20,000, and that it 
 should give to the Princess Kaiulani, who was next in line 
 of succession, the sum of $150,000 in return for a renuncia- 
 
 55 At this time a little over $2,000,000. 
 
248 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 tion of her rights. This treaty, after having been duly 
 signed, was immediately submitted by President Harrison 
 to the Senate for ratification, accompanied by a message in 
 which he said : 
 
 " The overthrow of the monarchy was not in any way promoted 
 by this Government, but had its origin in what seemed to have been 
 a reactionary and revolutionary policy on the part of Queen Liliuo- 
 kalani, which put in serious peril not only the large and preponde 
 rating interests of the United States in the Islands, but all foreign 
 interests, and indeed, the decent administration of civil affairs and 
 the peace of the Islands. . . . The restoration of Queen 
 Liliuokalani to her throne is undesirable, if not impossible ; and un 
 less actively supported by the United States, would be accompanied 
 by serious disaster and the disorganisation of all business interests. 
 The influence and interest of the United States in the Islands 
 must be increased and not diminished. 
 
 " It is essential that none of the great Powers shall secure 
 these Islands. Such a possession would not consist with our safety 
 and with the peace of the world. This view of the situation is so 
 apparent and conclusive that no protest has been heard from any 
 Government against proceedings looking to annexation. Every 
 foreign representative at Honolulu promptly acknowledged the 
 Provisional Government, and I think there is a general concurrence 
 in the opinion that the deposed Queen ought not to be restored." 5G 
 
 President Harrison s assertion that the United States 
 had had no part in the revolution in Hawaii was regarded 
 by the opposition as disingenuous. It was said that Mr. 
 Dole and his associates were simply conspirators, who had 
 acted in accordance with a preconceived plan, the details 
 of which had been fully communicated to the American 
 Government. The opportune presence of the Boston at 
 Honolulu was viewed as something more than a coinci 
 dence. The action of Mr. Stevens was denounced as 
 
 50 Message of February i5th, 1893. 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 249 
 
 treacherous to the Government to which he had been ac 
 credited. The whole affair was described as an outrage 
 upon a helpless people and as an attempt on the part of 
 Mr. Harrison and his advisers to seize territory in a dis 
 tant part of the world without any shadow of justification. 
 The white residents of Hawaii were styled " carpet-bag 
 gers," and their new Government a barefaced usurpation. 
 Many sneers were directed at these " sons of missionaries," 
 who, though aliens, had deprived the natives of their po 
 litical birthright. 
 
 Reviewing this affair in the light of all that is now 
 known, two facts stand out beyond the possibility of re 
 futation. In the first place, there can be no doubt that 
 Queen Liliuokalani had justly forfeited her throne. She 
 had violated the Constitution which she had solemnly 
 sworn to maintain, and was proceeding to action such as 
 would, in the case of an English sovereign, have led at 
 once to the forfeiture of the royal rights. Furthermore, 
 the sneers aimed at the " sons of missionaries " as aliens, 
 were thoroughly unwarranted. Mr. Dole, for instance, 
 and his immediate associates were not aliens at all. 
 Though of foreign ancestry, they had been born in Hawaii. 
 Their homes were there. All their interests were there. 
 They were the ones who had transformed the island 
 into a civilised and prosperous community. It was 
 they who maintained the system of public education, who 
 paid the greater part of the taxes, and who supported the 
 administration of the laws. If revolution is ever justifi 
 able and of this no Anglo-Saxon can feel any doubt 
 the revolution in Hawaii was surely so, as being the act of 
 men defending their political liberties and personal rights. 
 
 On the other hand, it may be regarded as absolutely cer 
 tain that the American Minister, Mr. Stevens, was not only 
 
250 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 well aware of what was going on, but that he had fully in 
 formed his Government, and that President Harrison and 
 his advisers sympathised with the annexation movement. 
 In February of 1892, Mr. Stevens had written to the State 
 Department a letter in which he said : 
 
 There are increasing indications that the annexation sentiment 
 is gaining among the business men." 
 
 On March 8th of the same year, he had asked Mr. 
 Elaine for special instructions, " in case the Government 
 here should be reorganised and overturned by an orderly 
 and peaceful revolutionary movement. I have informa 
 tion which I deem reliable that there is an organised 
 revolutionary party in the Islands. . . . These people 
 are very likely to overthrow the monarchy and establish a 
 republic with the ultimate view of annexation to the United 
 States." 
 
 On December 3Oth, Admiral Skerrett, who was" under 
 orders to take command of the Pacific Squadron, had called 
 at the Navy Department in Washington for final instruc 
 tions. He said to the Secretary : 
 
 " Mr. Tracy, I want to ask you about these Hawaiian 
 affairs. When I was out there twenty years ago, I had 
 frequent conversations with the then United States Minis 
 ter, Mr. Pierce, on the subject of the Islands. I was told 
 then that the United States Government did not wish to 
 annex the islands of Hawaii." 
 
 Mr. Tracy answered: 
 
 The wishes of the Government have changed. They 
 will be very glad to annex Hawaii. As a matter of course, 
 none but the ordinary legal means can be used to persuade 
 these people to come into the United States." 
 
THE PRESIDENCY OF HARRISON 251 
 
 " All right, sir," answered Admiral Skerrett, " I only 
 wanted to know how things were going on, as a cue to my 
 action." 57 
 
 Finally, Mr. Stevens, on the day when the American 
 marines were landed in Honolulu, had sent a despatch to 
 Washington saying, " The Hawaiian pear is now fully 
 ripe, and this is the golden hour for the United States to 
 pluck it." 
 
 From all these facts, it is quite obvious that the Ameri 
 can Government was fully aware of the impending revolu 
 tion and was in sympathy with it as a means of securing 
 the annexation of the Islands. Whether the revolution 
 would have succeeded had not marines been landed from 
 the Boston at the critical moment is a purely hypothetical 
 question. As to the morality of the whole proceeding, 
 opinions will always differ. At the time, the administra 
 tion received much harsh criticism, and though President 
 Harrison, in his message of February I5th, urged the 
 Senate to ratify the annexation treaty at once, definite ac 
 tion upon it was delayed. The sands of the Harrison ad 
 ministration were fast running out. Its hours were num 
 bered; and the Hawaiian question was soon to assume a 
 new form and to pass through many different phases be 
 fore it reached a final settlement. A few days more, and 
 another hand had laid a firm grasp upon the helm of 
 State. 
 
 57 Senate Report on Hawaii, p. 10 (1893). See President Cleveland s 
 message of December 18, 1893, with the appended documents. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE ELECTION OF 1892 
 
 AFTER witnessing President s Harrison s inauguration, 
 Mr. Cleveland had left Washington and presently ^became 
 a resident of New York City, where he resumed the 
 practice of law, as an associate of the firm of Bangs, 
 Stetson, Tracy and MacVeagh. In the eyes of the profes 
 sional politicians of both parties, his public career seemed 
 to have ended, and to have ended in utter failure. He 
 was regarded as one who had, by an accident of politics, 
 attained a transitory greatness to which he had proved to 
 be personally unequal. His dogged determination in 
 forcing an apparently unpopular issue, almost on the eve 
 of a presidential election and merely as a matter of convic 
 tion, had been quite incomprehensible at the time, and the 
 result appeared to justify the contempt which partisans 
 such as Senator Gorman and Governor Hill confidentially 
 expressed to their intimates. They felt that Mr. Cleve 
 land had now been eliminated from national politics. He 
 had settled down as an every-day lawyer in a great cos 
 mopolitan city, where the complexity of life and the clash 
 of material interests reduce even the most eminent of its 
 citizens to comparative obscurity. Mr. Henry Watter- 
 son rather complacently remarked at this time: " Cleve 
 land in New York reminds one of a stone thrown into a 
 river. There is a plunk, a splash, and then silence." 
 
 The ex-President accepted this verdict with philosophi 
 cal good humour. He had nothing to regret. He had 
 acted in accordance with his sense of right, and had done 
 
 252 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 253 
 
 what he believed to be the best both for his country and 
 for his party. As he said a little later, at a banquet given 
 in his honour: l " We know that we have not deceived 
 the people with false promises and pretences. And we 
 know that we have not corrupted and betrayed the poor 
 with the money of the rich." 
 
 By his savings and by judicious investments in real es 
 tate, Mr. Cleveland had already secured a modest com 
 petence. As a lawyer, his professional labours yielded 
 him a generous income. He practised little in the courts; 
 but important cases were often referred to him by the 
 sitting justices, while his unquestioned integrity and con 
 scientiousness led many prospective litigants to submit their 
 interests to his arbitration. There was one kind of legal 
 practice which he persistently refused to undertake. No 
 persuasion could induce him to accept retainers from the 
 great corporations. 2 Mr. Cleveland was convinced that 
 the moneyed interests had already become a menace to the 
 welfare of the nation; and with them he was unwilling to 
 associate himself in any fashion whatsoever. In the 
 message which he sent to Congress soon after his defeat 
 for re-election, he had pointed out the perils which he saw 
 in vast and irresponsible aggregations of wealth, whose 
 possessors felt themselves to be above the law. 
 
 " The fortunes realised by our manufacturers are no longer 
 solely the reward of sturdy industry and enlightened foresight, but 
 they result from the discriminating favour of the Government and 
 are largely built upon undue exactions from the masses of our 
 people. The gulf between employers and the employed is con 
 stantly widening, and classes are rapidly forming, one comprising 
 
 1 By the Democratic Club of New York, April 27, 1889 (Parker, p. 248). 
 
 2 Hensel and Parker, Life and Public Services of Grover Cleveland, pp. 
 319, 320 (Philadelphia, 1892). 
 
254 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the very rich and powerful, while in another are found the toiling 
 poor. 
 
 " As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we dis 
 cover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while 
 the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death be 
 neath an iron heel. Corporations, w T hich should be carefully re 
 strained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are 
 fast becoming the people s masters. 
 
 : The existing situation is injurious to the health of our entire 
 body-politic. It stifles in those for whose benefit it is permitted, 
 all patriotic love of country, and substitutes in its place selfish greed 
 and grasping avarice. Devotion to American citizenship for its 
 own sake and for what it should accomplish as a motive to our 
 nation s advancement and the happiness of all our people is displaced 
 by the assumption that the Government, instead of being the em 
 bodiment of equality, is but an instrumentality through which 
 especial and individual advantages are to be gained. 
 
 " Communism is a hateful thing and a menace to peace and or 
 ganised government; but the communism of combined wealth and 
 capital, the outgrowth of overweening cupidity and selfishness, 
 which insidiously undermine the justice and integrity of free in 
 stitutions, is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed 
 poverty and toil, which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, at 
 tacks with wild disorder the citadel of rule." 3 
 
 But although Mr. Cleveland was no longer an object 
 of interest to the politicians, there were many quiet indi 
 cations that the great mass of his countrymen had not 
 forgotten him. Invitations came to him continually from 
 professional, commercial, religious, educational, and civic 
 organisations, which sought the honour of his presence at 
 commemorative banquets and other public gatherings. 4 
 
 3 Message of December 3, 1888. 
 
 4 For instance, at the laying of the corner-stone of the New York Acad 
 emy of Medicine; at the banquet of the Hibernian Society of Philadelphia; 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 255 
 
 When his engagements permitted, he acceded to these re 
 quests; for, as he said on one occasion, he had no sympathy 
 with those good souls who " are greatly disturbed every 
 time an ex-President ventures to express an opinion on 
 any subject." Not infrequently he spoke at length to inter 
 ested listeners; and what he said was always sensible and 
 wise, and sometimes pregnant with suggestion. As a 
 public speaker, Mr. Cleveland was far from attaining 
 brilliancy. Even his warmest friends could scarcely claim 
 that he was an orator. His manner and his style alike 
 were heavy. He had a strong preference for polysyllabic 
 words, and for sentences so involved as to be Johnsonian 
 in their ponderosity. He had probably never heard the 
 dictum of the French stylist who said: L adjectif, c est 
 le phis grand ennemi du substantif; for almost every 
 noun was coupled with an adjective, and these adjectives 
 were frequently applied in pairs. Moreover, like many 
 another statesman, he often took refuge in the baldest 
 truisms, which were seldom freshened up by originality 
 of phrasing. Mr. Abram S. Hewitt once said of him, in 
 a tartly cryptic epigram, which may be interpreted as con 
 veying either praise or censure: " Cleveland is the great 
 est master of platitude since Washington." 
 
 It is likely, however, that Mr. Cleveland s oratorical 
 deficiencies were, on the whole, a distinct advantage to 
 him. The American people at that period still held to the 
 conservative tradition which viewed exceptional accom 
 plishments in public men, if not with suspicion, at least 
 with a certain amount of caution. Brilliancy might rouse 
 admiration, but it could not inspire confidence. In the 
 
 at the Cornell Alumni Society meeting; at the Thurman birthday banquet 
 in Columbus, Ohio; at the banquet of the New York Chamber of Com 
 merce; and before the Young Men s Democratic Association, Philadelphia. 
 
256 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 long run it was the safe man rather than the showy man 
 who secured the highest honours from the electorate. Clay 
 and Webster and Elaine had won the frantic applause of 
 millions ; yet they had all failed to achieve the one great 
 prize on which their hearts were set. No President had 
 ever been an orator of the first rank, save only Lincoln; 
 and Lincoln s great political addresses represented the ora 
 tory of reason rather than the oratory of emotion*. And 
 hence, in Mr. Cleveland s case, even when his utterances 
 were very tame and his sentences quite commonplace, they 
 appealed to the multitude as embodying sound morality, 
 conservative opinion, and what General Grant was fond of 
 calling " good horse sense." 
 
 Mr. Cleveland s lines, therefore, at this time were cast 
 in pleasant places. Successful in his profession, and 
 respected by those whose personal esteem was worth the 
 having, he enjoyed a period of tranquillity that must have 
 been most grateful after his stormy years of public office. 
 He spent his summers at a charming country-seat upon the 
 Massachusetts coast, to which he gave the name " Grey 
 Gables." There he entertained his intimate friends with 
 a genial, friendly hospitality; and there, as an angler, he 
 won a reputation which he was said to value quite as much 
 as any public honours that he had ever gained. It was an 
 ideal life for a retired statesman, a life that he would 
 gladly have continued to enjoy, unvexed by the strife and 
 din of party politics. But the fates had decreed it 
 otherwise. 
 
 The discussion of the McKinley Bill in 1890, and the 
 overwhelming Republican defeat in the congressional elec 
 tions which followed close upon the passage of that 
 measure, brought Mr. Cleveland once again into a promin 
 ence such as he was far from seeking. It was he who in 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 257 
 
 his bold message of 1887 had first raised the tariff issue. 
 It was he who had forced the Republicans to adopt a 
 policy which had ended in their utter rout. Though he 
 had, at the time, failed of re-election, he had, nevertheless, 
 inspired his party with aggressiveness and confidence. 
 Many Democrats now began to ask whether any one was 
 so well fitted as he to lead the party back again to power. 
 The campaign of education, begun in 1888, was commenc 
 ing to bear fruit. Looking forward to the coming 
 struggle for the presidency, popular feeling instinctively 
 went out to Mr. Cleveland as the logical candidate for 
 1892. Yet, although this sentiment was beginning to per 
 vade the rank and file of the Democracy, it was most dis 
 tasteful to the party managers. In a phrase of their own 
 choosing, they " had no use " for Mr. Cleveland, To them 
 he had always shown himself intractable, and they had 
 been pleased at what appeared to be his permanent elimina 
 tion from politics. It was not agreeable to think of him as 
 likely to become again a candidate. Therefore they took 
 no notice of the popular feeling in his favour, but endeav 
 oured to ignore him and to speak of him in public with 
 a studied indifference, as of one whose day was over and 
 who had become politically " a back number." Most of 
 the party organs refrained from mentioning him in con 
 nection with the presidency. Some of them endeavoured 
 to discredit him by a systematic press campaign of defama 
 tion. Conspicuous in this was the New York Sun, at that 
 time under the editorship of Mr. Charles A. Dana. 
 
 Charles Anderson Dana was undoubtedly the most re 
 markable figure that had yet arisen in the history of Ameri 
 can journalism. Born in 1819, and educated at Harvard, 
 he was a careful student and omnivorous reader, with a 
 memory so tenacious as to place at his command a vast 
 
2 5 8 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 array of facts, which his quick wit and literary skill en 
 abled him to use with singular effectiveness. As a very 
 young man he had joined the Fourierites for a time, in the 
 erratic though memorable experiment at Brook Farm. A 
 little later, he was engaged in miscellaneous writing for the 
 Boston newspapers. In 1847, he joined the staff of the 
 New York Tribune, in whose office he developed a pun 
 gent style, which was afterward to make him feared and 
 famous. Here, too, he came into contact with all the 
 most important public men of the ante-bellum period. A 
 violent dispute with Horace Greeley over the latter s un 
 fortunate " On to Richmond " editorial led to Dana s re 
 tirement from the Tribune in 1862 ; 5 and in the following 
 year he was made Assistant Secretary of War. In this 
 capacity he rendered highly important service to his chief, 
 Stanton, who sent him upon confidential missions to the 
 headquarters of the army, with instructions to report upon 
 the character and conduct of the leading generals. Dana s 
 knowledge of human nature, his grasp upon essentials, and 
 his power of going to the very heart of things, made his 
 reports invaluable both to the Secretary and to Mr. Lin 
 coln. It was due to Dana s favourable judgment that 
 General Grant was not relieved of his command in 1863, 
 but was upheld by the administration in the teeth of the 
 fiercest criticisms. In 1864, however, Dana left the War 
 Department and returned to journalism, editing for a 
 while the Chicago Republican. In this he failed com 
 pletely. Discouraged and uncertain of his future, he came 
 to New York, where he established himself, in 1868, as 
 editor of the New York Sun. 
 
 It was the year of Grant s first election to the presi- 
 
 5 An interesting account of the relations between Greeley and Dana is 
 given in Benton, Greeley on Lincoln (New York, 1893). 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 259 
 
 dency. Dana, remembering the service which he had 
 done the General, and having, besides, a real liking for 
 the man, wrote a life of Grant, which he intended to be a 
 sort of campaign biography; for it was highly eulogistic 
 and was written with an intimate knowledge of its sub 
 ject. Political usage and personal gratitude might have 
 suggested to the new President the bestowal of some 
 reward on one whose ability was so exceptional as Mr. 
 Dana s. Yet for some reason which has never been satis 
 factorily explained, Grant absolutely ignored the claim. 
 It was Dana s desire to be made Collector of the Port 
 of New York, but the office was given to another; and by 
 this act Grant made an enemy whose unrelenting hatred 
 pursued him to the grave. With an almost frantic eager 
 ness, Dana set about destroying every copy of the Life 
 upon which he could lay his hands; so that to-day the book 
 is practically unattainable outside of a few libraries. 
 Then, in the columns of the Sim, he waged upon Grant a 
 war of slander which for sheer malignity has never been 
 surpassed. Dana knew quite well that Grant was honest, 
 clean-living, patriotic and sincere ; 6 yet now, with a perver 
 sion of facts that was infernal in its ingenuity, he painted 
 him as a corrupt and brutal scoundrel, one who used his 
 office for his personal enrichment, a tyrant, a vulgar ruffian, 
 and a common drunkard. Every one connected with the 
 President, even his wife and family, came in for a share 
 of Dana s wrath or ridicule. At one time the editor was 
 indicted in the District of Columbia, and an attempt was 
 
 6 Dana had written in his life of Grant: "The unimpeachable and 
 enduring record of his acts bears testimony to the zeal, urbanity, patience 
 and ability with which he has executed his responsible trusts. ... He 
 possesses abilities and attainments that entitle him to a place among the 
 wise and prudent statesmen of the country." Dana, Life of Ulysses S. 
 Grant, pp. 422-424 (Springfield, 1868). 
 
260 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 made to have him removed to Washington for trial. 
 Over such a prospect, Dana was almost beside himself 
 with fear. His hysterical editorials made it plain that 
 had his case been actually tried in Washington he must 
 have gone to prison; but Judge Blatchford, sitting in New 
 York, refused the change of venue. In consequence, the 
 case was dropped, and Dana continued to lash the Presi 
 dent with even greater fury than before. After Grant s 
 retirement to private life, the attitude of the Sun re 
 mained the same. Even when the hero of the great war 
 was awaiting burial, and when all other criticism was 
 stilled in the presence of death, Dana launched a poisoned 
 shaft at those who loved Grant best. The Sun published 
 an account of an undertaker s bill which the General s 
 family had very properly refused to pay, but which Dana 
 himself had settled with an ostentatious show of hypo 
 critical benevolence that was absolutely devilish. 
 
 The change in Dana s attitude toward Grant in 1868 
 was, however, only a single aspect of a change which had 
 altered his entire nature. Until then he had been genial 
 and fair-minded, with a touch of something like idealism 
 in his view of things. He had associated with honour 
 able men, and his life had been a useful one. But as he 
 now looked back upon it, that life appeared to him a fail 
 ure. Uprightness, optimism, and a regard for others had 
 not " paid." Both in journalism and in public life he had 
 somehow missed success, and he was now in his fiftieth 
 year. And so he seems to have said to himself that hence 
 forth in his career as journalist he would take no heed of 
 right or wrong, but would gain a certain sort of fame and 
 a sure material reward by throwing overboard all prin 
 ciple. From that time he was thoroughly a cynic and a 
 pessimist. In his charming home at Roslyn and to a very 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 261 
 
 few intimate friends, he still showed himself to be a genial, 
 cultivated gentleman, interested in his books and flower- 
 gardens, and with a genuine enthusiasm for rare pottery, 
 of which he was a connoisseur. But as editor of the Sun, 
 he played consistently the part of devil s advocate. He 
 set himself to jeer at whatever was best and noblest, to 
 degrade and burlesque whatever decent men respected, to 
 defend or palliate the base, and to treat corruption as an 
 admirable joke. Thus, he supported Tammany in the 
 days of its worst offences. He was the apologist of 
 Tweed. He warmly commended the proposal to erect a 
 public monument to that notorious malefactor. On the 
 other hand, every attempt to improve political conditions 
 such as the reform of the civil service and the movement 
 for an honest ballot was greeted by Dana with an out 
 burst of derision. He used his newspaper also as a 
 weapon to avenge his personal dislikes; and whoever in 
 curred his enmity or roused his prejudice was pilloried in 
 the columns of the Sun. 
 
 Had Mr. Dana been a journalist of the usual type, his 
 hatreds and his expression of them would soon have ceased 
 to be of any interest, and would most probably have proved 
 the ruin of the Sun. But the man was a genius in his way. 
 His rhetoric was superb, and even those w r ho most disliked 
 him were reluctantly compelled to own the power of his 
 invective. He had an unerring instinct for touching his 
 victim on the raw; and his ingenuity in giving pain was 
 marvellous. Furthermore, there was something tricksy, 
 something impish, even, in his malevolence; so that, out 
 rageous though he was, his outrageousness had an indefin 
 able quality which raised it far above the level of vul 
 garity. To him might well have been applied the descrip 
 tion which Disraeli once gave of Lord Salisbury " a 
 
262 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 master of gibes and flouts and jeers." A careful student 
 of his editorial work once wrote of him : " He had a gift 
 for making men seem hateful or contemptible or ridic 
 ulous, and he used this talent most unsparingly. His 
 nicknames and epithets stuck like burrs to those at whom 
 he hurled them. Who cannot recall a score of these 
 appellations, 7 every one of which conveyed to the mind 
 the suggestion of something ludicrous?" Anci, quite 
 apart from its editorial page, the Sun was managed with 
 great ability. It was then, perhaps, the most readable 
 newspaper in the United States. Its news was collected 
 with the utmost accuracy. Its reporting was often done 
 with a skill and cleverness that gave it a distinctly literary 
 quality. Its editor was regarded with intense admiration 
 by journalists throughout the country, and he became the 
 founder of a journalistic cult. 
 
 Dana was ostensibly a Democratic partisan. His 
 friends asserted that at election time he always voted the 
 Republican ticket. If so, this was a characteristic exam 
 ple of his cynicism; for in his editorial columns every 
 thing Republican was anathema. Most probably he pre 
 ferred to be in opposition, because such a role gave fuller 
 scope to his peculiar gifts. Indeed, in 1880, when the 
 September elections seemed to indicate that the Demo 
 cratic candidate, General Hancock, was likely to be chosen 
 President in November, Dana deliberately wrote a double- 
 leaded editorial, in which he sneered at Hancock as " a 
 good man, weighing 250 pounds " a gibe which greatly 
 delighted the Republicans. The only note of sincerity in 
 Dana s writings was found in his support of Mr. Tilden, 
 
 7 E. g., " Seven Mule Barnum," " Pinkpank Wheeler," " Coffee-Pot 
 Wallace," " Fire-Alarm Foraker," " Sambo Bowles," " Aliunde Joe," 
 " His Fraudulency." 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 263 
 
 who was his personal friend. When Mr. Cleveland was 
 elected Governor of New York, Dana at first was favour 
 able to him, but presently he became inimical for reasons 
 that are variously given. Some say that as Mr. Tilden s 
 liking for Governor Cleveland cooled, Dana took his own 
 cue from Tilden. Others assert that Mr. Cleveland re 
 jected certain overtures that were made to him by Dana, 
 and declined to invite the editor to Albany in answer to 
 a hint. 8 However this may be, the Sun soon ranged itself 
 
 8 See the detailed statement in McClure, Our Presidents, pp. 312-315 
 (New York, 1905), of which the following quotation contains the essential 
 points: 
 
 " Dana had very earnestly supported Cleveland s nomination and elec 
 tion for Governor in 1882, and after the election he wrote a personal 
 letter to Cleveland asking the appointment of a friend to the position of 
 Adjutant-General. His chief purpose was to give a position on the staff 
 to his son, Paul Dana, who is now his successor in the editorial chair. 
 Cleveland received that letter as he received thousands of other letters 
 recommending appointments, instead of recognising the claim Mr. Dana 
 had upon him for the courtesy of an answer. Beecher had a candidate 
 for the same position, and Cleveland gave it to Beecher s man without any 
 explanation whatever to Dana, who felt that he had been discourteously 
 treated by Cleveland. Mr. Dana gave no open sign of disappointment ; 
 but some time after Cleveland s inauguration, when it became known that 
 Dana felt aggrieved at the Governor, some mutual friends intervened and 
 proposed to Cleveland that he should invite Dana to dine with some ac 
 quaintances at the Executive Mansion. To this Cleveland readily assented. 
 Dana was informed that Cleveland would tender such an invitation if 
 it would be accepted, and he promptly assented. Cleveland then be 
 came involved in the pressing duties of the Legislature and allowed the 
 session to close without extending the promised and expected invitation 
 to Dana. Mr. Cleveland told me that he was entirely to blame for neglect 
 in both instances, as Dana would doubtless have been satisfied if he had 
 courteously informed him of his conviction which required him to appoint 
 another for Adjutant-General; and he had no excuse to offer but that of 
 neglect for not inviting Dana to dinner. 
 
 " Dana naturally assumed that Cleveland had given him deliberate 
 affront, and Cleveland could make no satisfactory explanation. As Gov 
 ernor and as President he was first of all devoted to his official duties, 
 
264 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 among the anti-Cleveland journals; and in 1884, it sup 
 ported the Greenback nominee, General B. F. Butler. It 
 was exceedingly like Dana to advocate the election of this 
 brazen charlatan, who holds in history the bad eminence 
 of having been the only conspicuous Northern commander 
 in the Civil War against whom charges of personal cor 
 ruption were practically proven. 9 Throughout Mr. 
 Cleveland s Presidency, Dana maintained a sort t>f ma 
 levolent neutrality, giving many a satirical thrust at the 
 man whose reforming spirit was obnoxious to the presiding 
 genius of the Sun. On the day after Cleveland s defeat 
 in the election of 1888, Dana printed without comment an 
 entire column of quotations from medical and physiologi 
 cal works on the subject of obesity. Thereafter, the Sun 
 ignored the ex-President until once more he loomed up 
 as a possible candidate. Now, dipping his pen in vitriol, 
 Dana outdid himself in running the entire gamut of abuse, 
 from ridicule to excoriation. To him Mr. Cleveland be 
 came " the Perpetual Candidate," and later " the Stuffed 
 Prophet." Some of these editorials were masterpieces of 
 malignity, and as such they are almost worthy of perma 
 nent preservation. They served no end, however, save to 
 draw increased attention to his enemy s political avail 
 ability. It was Mr. Cleveland himself who, in the judg 
 ment of many persons, deliberately ruined his own 
 prospects by an utterance which he made at this time upon 
 
 which he discharged with rare fidelity, and he gave little time even to the 
 common courtesies which most Governors and Presidents would recognise 
 as justly belonging to their friends. Efforts were made to conciliate Dana, 
 but he never would discuss the question, and he sacrificed half the cir 
 culation of his paper in the campaign of 1884 in his battle against Cleve 
 land." 
 
 9 Official Records of the War, series iii., vol. ii., p. 173 ; Rhodes, History 
 of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, vol v., pp. 303-308, 
 312, 313 (New York, 1904). 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 265 
 
 a question which had been violently injected into national 
 politics. Before narrating the occurrence, it is necessary 
 to give a brief account of the growth of the silver move 
 ment in the Western States. 
 
 In the early years of its existence, the Republican party 
 had been dominated by one controlling purpose the 
 destruction of slavery. The issue which gave it birth was 
 distinctly a moral issue, and the enthusiasm which inspired 
 it was a moral enthusiasm. Its first declaration, made at 
 Jackson, Michigan, on July 6, 1854, declared that the 
 Republican party was " battling for the first principles of 
 Republican government and against the schemes of an 
 aristocracy." All Republicans were pledged in this dec 
 laration to " act cordially and faithfully in unison, post 
 poning and suspending all difference with regard to poli 
 tical economy or administrative policy." 10 The Republi 
 can party, therefore, was distinctly not a party of caste or 
 of class but preeminently a party of the people, devoted to 
 the cause of human freedom. In those days the power of 
 wealth and the pride of birth were equally arrayed against 
 it. The rich merchants and bankers of Boston, New 
 York, and Philadelphia viewed this new party as a menace 
 to political tranquillity and vested interests. They joined 
 hands gladly with the aristocratic planters of the South 
 in seeking to stamp out so strange and disquieting a fanati 
 cism. It was the most respectable citizens of Mass 
 achusetts who ostracised Charles Sumner, who broke up 
 anti-slavery meetings, who mobbed Garrison and threat 
 ened to lynch Whittier. The Republican leaders boasted 
 that their party was not one of wealth and privilege, but 
 of intelligence and moral worth. Clergymen, teachers, 
 writers and small professional men joined its ranks, which 
 
 10 Curtis, The Republican Party, i., p. i (New York, 1904). 
 
266 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 were still further recruited from the agricultural portions 
 of the country. The great strength of the Republican 
 party lay, not in the Eastern States, but in the young com 
 monwealths of the West in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Michi 
 gan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The first Republican 
 President was the very incarnation of democracy, so plain 
 in manner, so simple in life, and so ruggedly sincere, as to 
 seem to the fastidious denizens of the East a mere 
 barbarian. 
 
 It was, therefore, as a party of the people that Repub 
 licanism first won its way to political power. When the 
 Civil War ended, the great purpose of the primitive Re 
 publicans had been achieved. Slavery was abolished for 
 ever. The feudalism based upon it was annihilated. 
 Every inch of American territory had become free soil. 
 As we now look back upon that period, with a sense of true 
 political perspective, it is plain that the old Republican 
 party really died in the year 1866. The party which 
 afterwards continued to bear its name was altogether 
 different from that which had rallied around Fremont in 
 1856, and which had twice elected Lincoln. It was differ 
 ent in its aims and aspirations, different in the character of 
 its leaders, and different in the influences which shaped its 
 policy. Its years of almost irresponsible power had utterly 
 transformed it. Controlling the national finances, with an 
 overwhelming majority in Congress, and having in its gift 
 not merely office and opportunity, but every sort of legis 
 lative favour, it drew to itself the support of every 
 interest which ten years before had been arrayed against 
 it. It was now the party of the bankers, the manufac 
 turers, the lords of commerce, and all those active, restless, 
 scheming spirits who had learned that great fortunes were 
 to be made in other ways than by legitimate industry. The 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 267 
 
 true citadels of the Republican party were now the crowded 
 centres of the East, while the agricultural States received 
 but slight consideration. The continuance of the war 
 tariff, which enriched a comparatively few interests at the 
 expense of the entire population, was the most striking 
 factor in the development of this new Republicanism. 
 The farmer was compelled to pay tribute to the manufac 
 turer; and so the Republican party in this second phase of 
 its existence became a party of class, as truly as the Demo 
 cratic party had ever been in the days before the war. 
 
 The West was slow in recognising the significance of 
 this change; but as time went on, financial conditions 
 operated to cause serious distress. In the first place, the 
 gradual appreciation in the value of the paper dollar 
 pinched the debtor class severely. The farmer, for 
 example, who in 1863 had mortgaged his farm for five 
 thousand paper dollars, worth, perhaps, not more than 
 half that sum in gold, found that he must repay the loan 
 in dollars worth nearly twice as much, and therefore rep 
 resenting twice as much economy and diligence and 
 labour. The resumption of specie payments in 1879, 
 though a triumph of financial management, did, neverthe 
 less, inflict a serious hardship upon all men who had bor 
 rowed money at a time when the paper currency of the 
 United States was worth much less than its face value. 
 This hardship was of course inevitable; but it was none 
 the less a hardship, and it is not surprising that those who 
 suffered from it should have tried to seek a remedy. 
 Hence arose the so-called Greenback party, which as early 
 as 1876 nominated candidates for the presidency and vice- 
 presidency on a platform which demanded the repeal of 
 the act for resuming specie payments and which advocated 
 the issue of United States notes as the sole currency of 
 
268 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the nation. Upon this platform, Peter Cooper of New 
 York received in that year a popular vote of 81,000; while 
 in 1880, another "Greenback" candidate, James B. 
 Weaver of Iowa, polled a vote of over 300,000. 
 
 This movement, however, represented only one form of 
 popular discontent. There were other grievances more 
 irritating and apparently more easily remediable. One 
 was the manner in which the railways of the country had 
 monopolised the public lands, 11 barring great tracts to 
 settlers, while refusing to comply with the conditions under 
 which the grants of land had been bestowed. Another 
 grievance was the discrimination in railroad rates, by 
 which the small shipper was forced out of business by 
 powerful corporations. 12 Still another was the working of 
 the tariff laws, which had steadily discriminated against 
 the most widespread of all American industries agricul 
 ture while forcing it to bear the greater burden of taxa 
 tion. It came at last to be widely asserted and believed 
 that the Government of the United States was becoming a 
 creature of the corporations, that Congress was filled with 
 corporation agents u railway Senators " and Trust repre 
 sentatives and that even the judges on the bench were 
 often men whose antecedents as corporation lawyers dis 
 credited their judicial decisions. 
 
 All these and still other reasons for public discontent 
 first found expression in isolated political movements 
 throughout the West. Besides the " Greenback " or Na- 
 \ tional party, there arose the so-called Anti-Monopoly 
 party, which held its first convention at Chicago in 1884. 
 In 1888, two Labour parties appeared, each with a differ 
 ent set of grievances. The so-called Granger movement 
 was another evidence of the popular discontent. The 
 Grangers, or, as they were officially styled, the " Patrons 
 
 11 See p. 222. 12 See p. 221. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 269 
 
 of Husbandry," were an organisation of which the founder 
 was one O. H. Kelly, a clerk in the Bureau of Agriculture. 
 Their general aim was to unite for self-protection all who 
 were actually engaged in agricultural pursuits. By 1875, 
 the Grangers, who then numbered more than 1,500,000 
 men and women, had definitely formulated certain meas 
 ures which they hoped to have embodied in both State and 
 national legislation. Like the Knights of Labour, they 
 advocated woman s suffrage and the regulation of railway 
 rates. 
 
 This organisation afterwards grew into the Farmers 
 Alliance, just as the Knights of Labour grew into the 
 American Federation of Labour; and as both of them had 
 many aims in common, they effected a coalition in 1889, 
 when they agreed upon a common platform of principles, 
 demanding the abolition of national banks, an increased 
 issue of Government paper, and the Government owner 
 ship of all means of transportation and public intercourse. 
 
 By this time, the Western States were in a condition of 
 political ferment. As yet there was no general cohesion 
 or agreement between the different factions and parties. 
 They lacked a leader. They had not as yet developed any 
 political machinery. In the East, little notice was taken 
 of them. The newspapers treated them with easy ridicule 
 and described the intensely earnest men and women who 
 composed them as " cranks " and " calamity howlers." 
 Many of them were, indeed, unintelligent fanatics. Many 
 of their wrongs were fanciful. Many of their remedies 
 were quite impossible. Yet there did remain a very solid 
 substratum of reason for these various movements, and 
 the discontent was not without substantial justification. 
 The epithets so sneeringly applied to the rank and file of 
 the new parties recalled the no less sneering epithets that 
 
2 7 o TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 had been hurled at the Republicans in the days of their 
 anti-slavery crusade. They, too, had been described as 
 wild men and fanatics and enemies of public order. 
 
 It may be asked why the discontented did not flock to 
 the Democratic party and use it as an instrument for turn 
 ing out the Republicans, who were held to be primarily 
 responsible for existing conditions. The reason was that 
 both of the old parties were now almost equally distrusted. 
 Both were regarded as being under the control of the 
 " money power." During Mr. Cleveland s administra 
 tion, from 1885 to 1889, it had been made clear that the 
 Trusts were quite as influential in Democratic as in Repub 
 lican politics. Mr. H. B. Payne, for whom the Standard 
 Oil Company had bought the Ohio legislature, was osten 
 sibly a Democrat. It was charged also that Secretary 
 Whitney, Mr. Cleveland s closest adviser, was dominated 
 by the same sinister influence. Senator Hoar had asked, 
 " Is it [the Standard Oil Company] represented in the 
 Cabinet at this moment? " 13 and the question had rasped 
 the nerves of the entire nation. Therefore, these new 
 factions that were springing up in the West and in the 
 South felt that a clean sweep must be made, and that both 
 of the old parties must be driven out. Seceding Republi 
 cans in the West declared themselves to be reverting to the 
 earlier Republicanism of Lincoln, while in the South those 
 who had once been Democrats professed to be reviving 
 the Democracy of Jefferson. All of them " wished to get 
 back to simplicity, honesty, and economy in government; 
 to secure a fair field for all; to resist commercialism, to 
 oppose the money power and the general corruption and 
 cowardice of the old parties." 
 
 13 Congressional Record (September, 1886), pp. 8520-8604. Mr. Whit 
 ney in an open letter afterwards denied the implied accusation. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 271 
 
 " Party conventions and organisations were now mere machines 
 for winning elections and keeping control of the offices. They were 
 unscrupulous oligarchies, controlled by the rich. A few astute 
 and wealthy managers and magnates, called * business men, con 
 trolling the party managers as their henchmen, set things up in pri 
 vate conferences, while the masses were being fooled and manipu 
 lated like voting herds. Then the business magnates, who dictated 
 the nomination of the candidates and furnished the sinews of war 
 for the campaign, were, of course, to conduct the Government; 
 and, equally, of course, the laws were to be made and administered 
 in such a way as to take good care of these managers business in 
 terests. It was felt that if any President or Senator or Congress 
 man began to urge, honestly and effectively, that the great mine- 
 ow T ners, or railroads, or trust combinations, the moneyed forces 
 that controlled the money, land, and transportation of the people, 
 should be actually brought face to face with the enforcement of 
 just and equal laws, then some silent but powerful influence within 
 the parties would retire such public servants to private life." ]4 
 
 The storm-centre of this third-party agitation was the 
 State of Kansas. In September, the Farmers Alliance 
 and the Knights of Labour assembled in convention there 
 and nominated a full State ticket and also candidates for 
 Congress. In the October elections, this ticket was 
 elected, and out of the seven Congressmen allotted to 
 Kansas, the new party elected five, while the State Legis 
 lature sent to the Senate a country editor, Mr. William 
 Alfred PefTer, who had been a leader in the movement. 
 In the following year, a general fusion took place of the 
 different factions representing both the industrial and 
 agricultural interests, now uniting for the first time as a def 
 inite political party under the name of " People s Party," 
 or " Populists." Their first national convention was held 
 
 14 Woodburn, Political Parties and Party Problems in the United States, 
 pp. 114, 115 (New York, 1903). 
 
272 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 at Cincinnati, in May, 1891, and it drew up a platform 
 which demanded the free and unlimited coinage of silver; 
 the issue of paper money which should be loaned to the 
 people at not more than two per cent, per annum on 
 the security of non-perishable agricultural products; the 
 national ownership of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, 
 and steamship lines; a graduated income tax; and the 
 election of United States Senators by popular vote. 15 
 
 It was the financial part of this platform that was most 
 immediately important. The demand for the free coin 
 age of silver represented a general belief which had per 
 meated the minds of the Western people. They had 
 come to entertain what is known as the quantitative theory 
 of money, believing that an increased supply of money 
 would raise the prices of farm products. It was a matter 
 of indifference to them how this increase of money was to 
 be effected, whether by the issue of irredeemable " green 
 backs " or by the unlimited coinage of silver. They would 
 have preferred, if left to themselves, to substitute paper 
 money for a metallic currency of any sort. But here came 
 in another influence which for some time past had been at 
 work. The price of silver, as compared with that of gold, 
 had for a long while been steadily falling. In consequence, 
 the great mine-owners of Nevada, Colorado and other 
 Western States found the production of silver ceasing to be 
 profitable. They had, therefore, as early as 1877, secured 
 the passage of the Bland Silver Law, directing the Govern 
 ment to purchase silver bullion and to coin each month not 
 less than 2,000,000 or more than 4,000,000 silver 
 dollars. 16 In 1890, this act had been repealed, and in 
 
 15 Hopkins, Political Parties in the United States, pp. 187, 188 (New 
 York, 1900) ; see also Reynolds, National Platforms and Political History 
 (Chicago, 1898). 
 
 16 See pp. 81, 82, 272. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 273 
 
 place of it the so-called Sherman Silver Law had been 
 enacted, directing the Government to purchase every 
 month 4,500,000 ounces of sifver, and to issue against it 
 legal tender notes redeemable on demand in " coin " 
 either gold or silver, at the discretion of the Secretary of 
 the Treasury. 17 These two laws, although afterwards 
 attacked by the Republicans, involved a logical applica 
 tion of the doctrine of protection. Silver was an Ameri 
 can product; and the mine-owners, as representing an 
 American industry, demanded legislation which should 
 make their industry a profitable one. As the tariff could 
 not effect this, it was accomplished by forcing the Govern 
 ment to provide an artificial market for the product of the 
 silver mines. The Sherman Law was passed in the hope 
 of propitiating the adherents of silver in the West, but it 
 failed entirely of its object. It did not go far enough to 
 please the silver men, while it alarmed conservative finan 
 ciers. What the Populists now desired was to make the 
 coinage of silver an unlimited one, so as to render money 
 plentiful and " cheap," to drive gold out of circulation, 
 and thus to secure artificially a general increase in the 
 values of agricultural products. The silver propaganda 
 was received with great enthusiasm in the West. Meet 
 ings were held in thousands of country schoolhouses to hear 
 this new gospel of prosperity proclaimed by perfervid 
 orators. The movement threatened to demoralise both 
 of the old parties; for it was felt that the silver vote 
 would be able at the next election to turn the scale in fa 
 vour of whatsoever candidate should show himself to be 
 most truly " a friend o^ilver." 
 
 It was while this agitation was at its height that the 
 
 17 Under the Bland Act and the Sherman Act, the currency had been 
 expanded by some $450,000,000. 
 
274 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Reform Club in New York City 18 held a meeting to voice 
 the opposition of New York business men to the free coin 
 age of silver. An invitation to be present was sent to Mr. 
 Cleveland. When this fact became known, many of his 
 friends urged him to stay away and to keep to himself his 
 opinions on the silver question. They knew that he was 
 inflexibly opposed to an increased silver coinage. His 
 messages to Congress had shown this very plainly. But 
 they pointed out to him that by keeping silence he might 
 let it be supposed that he had changed his mind, or that at 
 least he was willing to approve a compromise. To offend 
 the silver men was, they said, to throw away his chances 
 for the presidency. He could not possibly receive a 
 nomination if it were known that he was not a " friend of 
 silver." The West would be solidly against him. It was 
 a time to temporise and to exercise a little diplomacy both 
 for his own sake and for the welfare of his party. Mr. 
 Cleveland listened to this talk without saying very much. 
 His engagements made it impossible for him to attend the 
 Reform Club meeting. But he wrote a letter to the 
 chairman, which on the following morning appeared in 
 every newspaper throughout the United States. In it he 
 said: 
 
 " It surely cannot be necessary for me to make a formal expres 
 sion of my agreement with those who believe that the greatest peril 
 would be invited by the adoption of the scheme for the unlimited 
 coinage of silver at our mints." 
 
 And in the last sentence of his letter he spoke of " the 
 dangerous and reckless experimeft of free, unlimited, and 
 independent silver coinage." 19 
 
 18 February n, 1891. 
 
 19 Parker, Writings and Speeches of Grower Cleveland, p. 374 (New 
 York, 1892). 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 275 
 
 These bold, uncompromising words created an immense 
 sensation. Mr. Cleveland s enemies read them with 
 exultation. Cleveland was out of the race at last ! He 
 had once more played the fool and made himself a 
 political impossibility out of sheer pig-headedness. At last 
 he was in reality " a dead one." So thought the cynical 
 Mr. Dana of the Sun, and so thought all the leading 
 Democrats who had been nourishing presidential ambitions 
 of their own. Admirers of the ex-President admired him 
 more than ever; yet they could not repress a feeling of 
 regret that he had spoken ut so freely and, as it seemed 
 to them, so unnecessarily. For they, too, viewed this Re 
 form Club letter as putting an end to the movement for 
 his re-election. Such was, in fact, Mr. Cleveland s own 
 belief; yet in his heart there lurked no shadow of regret. 
 An intimate friend who met him on the day after the 
 letter had been published, spoke to him ruefully about the 
 matter. Mr. Cleveland s only answer was to throw out 
 both his arms with the gesture of one who casts away a 
 heavy burden. 
 
 "OufI" said he. 
 
 And then, with a gleeful look at his friend s troubled 
 face, he went on to talk about his summer plans. 
 
 Yet neither his enemies, nor his friends, nor he himself, 
 had accurately gauged the effect of this act of defiant 
 frankness. Beyond the haunts of the scheming politicians 
 who manage caucuses and pack conventions, the pregnant 
 sentences of that letter were read with an electric thrill of 
 joyful recognition. Here at last was a Man one who 
 knew his own mind and was not afraid to speak it; one who 
 would not trim and shuffle to win votes; one who would 
 kick aside a nomination for the presidency rather than wear 
 a muzzle even for a moment. A shrewd English observer 
 
276 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 was once asked to explain the secret of Lord Palmerston s 
 unbounded popularity. " Why," said he " what the nation 
 likes in Palmerston is his you-be-damnedness ! " It was 
 something of the same quality in Mr. Cleveland that 
 caused the American people at this moment to let their 
 hearts go out to him; for the American people admire 
 ; courage in their public men in exact proportion to the in- 
 frequency with which they have a chance to see it. In 
 stantly, from having been merely a logical candidate for 
 the presidency, Mr. Cleveland became the inevitable can 
 didate. The stampede of Democrats to the ranks of the 
 Populists was checked at once. All through the West, 
 the party lines were closed up solidly once more; while in 
 the East, conservative men, Republicans and Democrats 
 alike, rejoiced over the growing influence of this dominant 
 personality. It was only among a small coterie of pro 
 fessional politicians that the new aspect of affairs pro 
 duced a feeling of anger and consternation. 
 
 Before the appearance of the Reform Club letter, there 
 had been several aspirants whose chances for the next 
 Democratic nomination were seriously considered. One 
 was Mr. Horace Boies of Iowa, an earnest, able leader 
 with convictions and a reputation for intelligence and 
 integrity. He had fought a hard fight on the tariff issue 
 ever since Mr. Cleveland s message of 1887 had brought 
 that question to the forefront; and in the campaign which 
 followed the passage of the McKinley Bill, he had wiped 
 out the vast Republican majority in Iowa and had been 
 elected Governor. He was a man of the people, in the 
 best sense of the term, representing new issues and new 
 blood; and he had always been consistently a Cleveland 
 Democrat. Mr. Isaac Pusey Gray of Indiana was an old- 
 school party leader, not conspicuous for his mental attain- 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 277 
 
 ments, but popular in his own State, of which he had been 
 Governor. It was thought that he could carry Indiana, 
 and he had the negative qualification of having made no 
 important enemies in the party. Still another receptive 
 candidate was Mr. Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, who 
 had been Assistant Postmaster-General in Mr. Cleveland s 
 administration. His partisanship while holding that 
 office 20 had highly commended him to the petty spoilsmen 
 of the Democracy, and they pictured to themselves, with 
 rare enthusiasm, the liberal fashion in which, if elected 
 President, he would deal out offices to faithful henchmen. 
 In the background, alertly watching every opportunity, 
 was Senator Arthur P. Gorman of Maryland. Senator 
 Gorman was one of the most astute and subtle of all the 
 Democratic leaders. Of Irish descent and humble origin, 
 he had, as a boy, been a page in the Senate Chamber. In 
 after years, with a truly Celtic genius for political intrigue, 
 he had made himself master of the party organisation in 
 his own State, and an important personage in the national 
 councils. Smooth, bland and insinuating, he resembled 
 both in appearance and in manner a typical Italian ecclesias 
 tic; and his adroitness and inscrutability fully carried out 
 the same resemblance. Mr. Gorman had kept on good 
 terms with Mr. Cleveland during the latter s presidency. 
 For his sake the administration had incurred the odium 
 of retaining Mr. Eugene Higgins in office 21 against the 
 protest of the Maryland civil service reformers, and had 
 given aid and comfort to Mr. Gorman in his local party 
 fights. Senator Gorman, however, was always at heart 
 absorbed in his own ambitions. He had many private 
 interests and personal associations not known to the world 
 at large; he spun webs of exceeding fineness that were in 
 visible even to his nearest friends; and, while he was all 
 
 20 See p. 147. 21 See pp. 78, 79. 
 
278 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 things to all men, oily of speech and propitiatory in man 
 ner, he nourished ambitions for which he would sacrifice 
 unsparingly whatsoever person interfered with them. 
 
 The effect of Mr. Cleveland s outspoken letter on the 
 silver question had been to eliminate these four would-be 
 rivals from immediate consideration. There still re 
 mained, however, one who was rightly regarded by the 
 Cleveland Democrats as a very formidable obstacle in the 
 way of their candidate s success. This was Mr. David B. 
 Hill, who had been chosen Democratic Governor of New 
 York in 1888, receiving for that office some 18,000 votes 
 more than were given to Mr. Cleveland at the same elec 
 tion. 22 Governor Hill now stood forth conspicuously as 
 the only person who could possibly wrest the next Demo 
 cratic nomination from Mr. Cleveland; and therefore 
 around him there rallied all who represented machine poli 
 tics, hatred of reform, and the worship of the great god 
 Expediency, together with such as entertained a personal 
 dislike for the only Democrat who had been inaugurated 
 President since 1857. 
 
 Mr. Hill was a lawyer who had attained to his promi 
 nent position by the most meticulous attention to the min 
 utiae of New York politics. His private life was as blame 
 less as his public record was vulnerable. He had no personal 
 vices even of the minor sort. He neither smoked nor 
 drank. To the society of women he was utterly indiffer 
 ent. He cared nothing for money, and earned a moderate 
 income by hard professional labour. His one joy in life 
 was found in political strategy and intrigue, to which his 
 heart and mind and soul were unstintedly and absolutely 
 given. Over great questions of public policy he wasted 
 no reflection. He seems to have had at this time no 
 serious convictions on such national issues as the tariff, 
 
 22 See pp. 161, 164, 165. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 279 
 
 finance, or foreign relations. It was the machinery of 
 politics that absorbed his whole attention the manipula 
 tion of primaries, the arrangement of " slates, " the elab 
 oration of " deals," the word-juggling of party platforms, 
 the carrying of elections. He knew the pettiest details 
 of New York State politics by heart. Nothing was minute 
 enough to escape his microscopic eye. He mistook, in 
 fact, political myopia for statesmanship, and the march of 
 great events bewildered him. But in his own sphere he 
 was unsurpassed as a wily, patient, and hitherto successful 
 plotter a consummate artist in intrigue. 
 
 During his two terms as Governor, Mr. Hill had de 
 voted all his powers to building up an organisation in New 
 York State which should have the efficiency of an absolutely 
 flawless machine, and he had succeeded to a marvellous 
 degree. Every local leader was a partisan of Mr. Hill, 
 taking orders from him alone, and executing them implic 
 itly. An alliance with Tammany Hall gave him the sup 
 port of that well-drilled and disciplined organisation. In 
 short, Mr. Hill was now absolute master of the New 
 York political engine, and this fact gave him an undoubted 
 claim upon the attention of the Democratic party through 
 out the nation. Mr. Hill s friends said with an air of 
 finality: " Hill carried New York State in 1888. Cleve 
 land lost it. You can t win without New York. Hill is 
 the man who can surely give you New York s thirty-six 
 electoral votes." 
 
 This boast, however, was heard by many Democrats 
 with the deepest anger and resentment. They said: 
 " Yes, Cleveland lost New York and Hill carried it. 
 But why? Because Hill sold out Cleveland, and made us 
 lose the presidency in order that he might gain the gov 
 ernorship. Do you think that we have forgotten this, and 
 
280 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 that we are going to give the highest honours of the party 
 to the man who openly betrayed it? " 
 
 But Mr. Hill cared little for mere talk. He set about 
 giving the party and the country an object lesson of his 
 grip upon New York. He remarked to a friend of his : 
 " Presidential nominations are not handed out on silver 
 salvers in these days !" In January, 1892, the Demo 
 cratic National Committee issued a call for the Convention 
 of the party, to be held in Chicago on June 2ist. Within 
 a few days (on January 25th) after this call had been 
 promulgated, the New York State Committee, at Mr. 
 Hill s dictation, summoned a State Convention to meet 
 in Albany on February 22d, for the purpose of choosing 
 New York s delegates to Chicago. The Democrats of 
 New York were startled. Never had a State Convention 
 been called so early four full months before the National 
 Convention. It was clear that Mr. Hill intended to steal 
 a march upon the Cleveland men, to pack the State Con 
 vention, and to secure for himself the delegates from New 
 York. A burst of indignation and of angry protest came 
 from every quarter against the attempt to force a snap 
 judgment from a " snap " convention. But the Hill ma 
 chine worked smoothly, and began at once to grind out 
 delegates to Albany. Democrats friendly to Mr. Cleve 
 land refused to take any part in the district caucuses; and 
 so a solid body of " Snappers," as they were called, poured 
 into Albany on the 22d, to do the bidding of their master. 
 The Convention met, organised, and finished its entire 
 business in two hours and a half. Only three speeches 
 were made, all carefully revised beforehand. Mr. Cleve 
 land s name was not so much as mentioned. A delegation 
 to Chicago was selected, pledged to Mr. Hill, who was 
 then summoned from the Delavan House, where, in 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 281 
 
 Tweed s old headquarters, he had been waiting for his fol 
 lowers to do their work. He spoke briefly and in a per 
 functory sort of way, and the gathering then adjourned. 
 The only spontaneous applause which had been heard 
 there on that day was given to Mr. Richard Croker, the 
 new head of Tammany Hall. 
 
 Once more, then, Mr. Cleveland was thought to be out 
 of the running. His own State had apparently declared 
 against him; and no candidate had ever received a nomina 
 tion for the presidency without the support of his 
 home delegation. Whether Mr. Hill should win or not, 
 he seemed to have it in his power to defeat his quiescent 
 rival, or, failing that, to give the nomination to any one 
 with whom he could make the best political bargain. The 
 Cleveland men in New York called a convention of their 
 own, alleging that the gathering at Albany had not been 
 truly representative. These " Anti-Snappers " chose a 
 Cleveland delegation for Chicago, though there was prac 
 tically no chance of its securing recognition there. 23 For 
 the moment, the star of Mr. Hill was undoubtedly in the 
 ascendant. 
 
 In the meantime, the Republicans, though outwardly 
 harmonious, were on the verge of serious dissension. 
 President Harrison s administration had, on the whole, 
 been satisfactory to the masses of his party; but the Presi 
 dent himself had not been able to inspire any marked 
 devotion to his own person. Every one admitted his 
 integrity, his good judgment, and his ability. He had 
 gained the respect even of his opponents. Nowhere, how 
 ever, was there the slightest enthusiasm for him or for his 
 
 23 See Breen, Thirty Years of New York Politics, pp. 717-719 ( New 
 York, 1899). 
 
282 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 administration. The feeling of the Republican managers 
 toward the President was not so tame a one as that of the 
 rank and file. It had, in fact, become one of positive and 
 intense dislike. Quite typical was the changed attitude of 
 two very conspicuous leaders, Mr. Thomas C. Platt of 
 New York and Senator Matthew Stanley Quay of Penn 
 sylvania. 
 
 Mr. Platt had, at the beginning of President Harrison s 
 term, expected to receive either a Cabinet office or some 
 other high appointment. It was he who, as head of 
 the Republican State organisation in 1888, had presum 
 ably arranged the bargain with the Hill Democrats, by 
 which Hill had been chosen Governor, while the electoral 
 votes of New York were cast for Harrison. Mr. Platt, 
 however, had been thwarted in his hope. He had received 
 no appointment to office; though a certain amount of 
 Federal patronage had been placed at his disposal. Mr. 
 Platt was a secretive, silent sort of person, and he accepted 
 what was given him. He was not, however, satisfied, 
 and he felt that he had been treated with ingratitude. 
 Furthermore, the President showed no great liking for his 
 company, nor did he receive Mr. Platt s advice with any 
 perceptible cordiality. Therefore, Mr. Platt, in his sub 
 terranean fashion, set himself to undermine President 
 Harrison with the party as a whole. 
 
 The case of Mr. Quay was somewhat different. In his 
 private life this man had many attractive qualities. He 
 was genial and sympathetic in manner and was always 
 doing little acts of spontaneous courtesy to those about him. 
 He had a scholar s tastes, and an Elzevir Horace was his 
 constant companion. But in his public career he was one 
 of the most depressing illustrations of triumphant base 
 ness in all American political history. He perpetuated 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 283 
 
 in Pennsylvania the corrupt traditions of Simon Cameron, 
 who had been forced to leave President Lincoln s first 
 Cabinet because he had used the War Department s funds 
 in private speculations. Quay was a man without hon 
 our, without principle, and without shame. He began his 
 political life by the betrayal of his friends for a money 
 bribe; and this first act of his career was typical of all the 
 rest. His audacity, however, and his skill in appealing 
 to the lowest motives of the men about him, had given 
 him almost absolute control of the Republican party in 
 Pennsylvania, his only rival being another able " boss," 
 one " Chris " Magee. Quay had at first secured a share 
 of President Harrison s favour, and was rather ostenta 
 tiously his supporter; but in 1890, something happened 
 which affected the President very deeply. In that year, 
 Mr. H. C. Lea, a very eminent and influential citizen of 
 Philadelphia, published certain charges against Senator 
 Quay, which, if true, made it clear that Quay s proper place 
 was not in the Senate of the United States, but in the peni 
 tentiary. Mr. Lea declared and his assertion was corrob 
 orated by a vast amount of testimony that Quay, while 
 Secretary of State for Pennsylvania, had misappropriated 
 the sum of $260,000, which he had lost in speculation; and 
 that while State Treasurer, he had used $400,000 of the 
 public funds in stock gambling, which amount was subse 
 quently replaced. These charges were repeated in the 
 House of Representatives by Mr. R. P. Kennedy of Ohio; 
 but by a party vote the Republican majority refused to let 
 Mr. Kennedy s speech appear upon the record. Quay, with 
 his wonted shamelessness, allowed the charges to go un 
 answered; and though they were published all over the 
 country, he remained silent with regard to them. The 
 immediate result was an overwhelming Democratic victory 
 
284 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 in Pennsylvania in that year and the election of Mr. Robert 
 E. Pattison as Governor. That Quay was guilty of com 
 mon theft was accepted as a fact, not merely by the people 
 at large, but by the President, whose sturdy honesty made 
 him shrink from all association with a felon, even though 
 that felon had escaped unwhipped of justice. Quay s 
 anger was extreme. In private he accused Mr. t^arrison 
 of profiting by his services and then repudiating him 
 " under fire." There were many other malcontents whom 
 Mr. Harrison had either knowingly or unknowingly 
 offended some by his cold, unsympathetic manner, others 
 by his refusal to appoint them to office. All these men 
 flocked to Platt and Quay as natural leaders, and plotted 
 with them to prevent the President s renomination. 
 
 It was plain enough that under ordinary circumstances 
 the party was bound to make Mr. Harrison its candidate 
 a second time. Not to do so would be to declare that his 
 administration had been a failure and thus to stultify Re 
 publican professions. But if for him there could be sub 
 stituted a still more eminent leader one of unquestioned 
 supremacy and of unchallenged claims then this action 
 would not necessarily put the party upon the defensive. 
 That Mr. Blaine was such a leader could not be disputed; 
 and so the Republican opponents of President Harrison 
 begged the great Secretary for permission to use his name. 
 Mr. Elaine s position was a very delicate one. He had 
 become almost as unfriendly to the President as had 
 Messrs. Quay and Platt, though for very different reasons. 
 His personal and official intercourse with Mr. Harrison 
 had grown more and more distasteful to him. The two 
 men were temperamentally antipathetic Blaine, ardent, 
 impulsive, abounding in original ideas, a man of imagina- 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 285 
 
 tion; Harrison cold, sluggish, matter-of-fact, inhospitable 
 to suggestion. From the beginning, the seeds of an es 
 trangement were sown by the refusal of the President to 
 appoint Mr. Elaine s son, Walker, to be Assistant Secre 
 tary of State. This refusal constituted " a personal, a 
 family grievance," 24 and other causes of a gradual aliena 
 tion were presently not wanting. During the Chilean 
 crisis, the divergent views of the two had strained their 
 relations nearly to the breaking point. At one of the 
 Cabinet meetings, Mr. Elaine s excited opposition to the 
 President s opinions became so violent as to induce an 
 attack of vertigo and an illness of several days. 
 
 Not from love of his chief therefore, did the Secretary 
 of State reject the advances of Quay and the anti-Harrison 
 leaders, but because of the fact that Mr. Harrison was, 
 indeed, his chief. Political etiquette, and even common 
 decency, forbade a member of the Cabinet to intrigue 
 against the President who had appointed him and of whom 
 he was the official adviser. But, urged the plotters, why 
 not resign the Cabinet office and announce frankly that you 
 are a candidate? Then another and an even stronger 
 reason became known. Mr. Elaine, in very truth, was 
 sick of party strife. For thirty years he had toiled and 
 fought. He had received high honours, even though he 
 had failed of his supreme ambition. But now he was 
 weary of it all the noise, the turmoil, the intrigues and 
 the lying, the seething mass of mean ambitions, the bold- 
 eyed greed, the insolence of vulgar curiosity, the steam of 
 sweating mobs and all for what? Mr. Elaine reviewed 
 it with the sense of true perspective which comes to men 
 with years, and in his very soul he loathed the thought of 
 dragging once again his weary limbs down into that reek 
 ing, roaring hell of all the evil passions. His strength 
 
 24 Stanwood, /. G. Elaine, p. 338 (Boston, 1906). 
 
286 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 was spent. Though still apparently in perfect health, 
 there was lurking somewhere in his system an obscure dis 
 order that was draining his vitality. His chosen biog 
 rapher tells us that he had become a hypochondriac, given 
 to morbid brooding over his condition, and to the use of 
 many drugs. Nothing, not even the presidency, seemed 
 any longer worth his while. And so he wrote an open 
 letter declaring that he would not, under any circumstances, 
 consent to be a candidate. Quay and the other plotters, 
 therefore, turned away from Mr. Elaine and shaped their 
 plans to give the nomination to ex-Speaker Reed, who had 
 also become estranged from President Harrison. 
 
 The weeks sped on. The Republican Convention at 
 Minneapolis had been summoned for the yth of June. On 
 June 4th three days before the Convention met the 
 country was amazed to learn that Mr. Elaine had writ 
 ten a curt note to the President, resigning the Secretary 
 ship of State, and asking that his resignation take effect at 
 once. 25 Intense excitement ran through the ranks of the 
 Republicans. What was the meaning of this sudden act? 
 Had Mr. Elaine s health really broken down? Had he 
 quarrelled with the President? It was felt that no matter 
 what the ultimate cause might be, the time chosen for the 
 resignation made it an act of obvious unfriendliness to Mr. 
 Harrison. Senator Quay sought to rouse the old-time 
 Elaine enthusiasm among the delegates. But the effort 
 was in vain. Some believed that their former hero s health 
 
 25 " To THE PRESIDENT: I respectfully beg leave to submit my resigna 
 tion of the office of Secretary of State of the United States, to which I was 
 appointed by you on March 5, 1889. 
 
 " The condition of public business in the Department of State justifies 
 me in requesting that my resignation be accepted immediately. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 " JAMES G. ELAINE." 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 287 
 
 was now completely shattered. Others resented the con 
 fusion and bewilderment caused by the letter of resigna 
 tion. " Mr. Elaine is playing fast-and-loose with us. He 
 will ruin himself by his duplicity," said Mr. Depew, until 
 then his devoted admirer. " The Plumed Knight now 
 carries a broken lance," said Mr. New of Indiana. The 
 anti-Harrison leaders came to the Convention with divided 
 counsels; the Harrison forces were compact and confident. 
 The former fought for delay in order to form new combina 
 tions; and for three days the sessions were devoted to the 
 platform and to trivial details. The Reed movement did 
 not appeal to very many, and the delegates from Mr. 
 Reed s own section failed to stand by him, greatly to the 
 disgust of several of his ardent friends. Mr. (then Gov 
 ernor) McKinley of Ohio had been made permanent presi 
 dent of the Convention, and the enthusiasm which his ap 
 pearance called forth led the opponents of Mr. Harrison 
 to " boom " the high-tariff advocate, though soon they 
 returned once more to Mr. Elaine. Finally, on June 9th, 
 in the midst of the flurry, a vote upon the admission of a 
 contesting delegation afforded a fair trial of the relative 
 strength of the two factions. The Elaine men controlled 
 423 delegates; the Harrison men, 463. Instantly there 
 was a break in the ranks of the opposition. It was plain 
 that Harrison must win. All the time-servers at once 
 flocked to him. On the following day, after the usual 
 speech-making, Mr. Harrison, who had been put in 
 nomination by Mr. Depew, was chosen on the first ballot 
 with 535 votes, or 82 more than were required. Mr. Elaine 
 received 182 votes and Governor McKinley precisely the 
 same number. On the following day, Mr. Whitelaw 
 Reid, the editor of the New York Tribune, was nominated 
 for the Vice-Presidency. 
 
288 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 When Mr. Elaine learned of what had happened, he 
 wrote an open letter urging his friends, with all the loyalty 
 of a veteran, to support the Minneapolis ticket. But Mrs. 
 Blaine remarked, in the presence of a large gathering, " I 
 am sick and tired of the whole thing! " It was, in truth, 
 upon Mrs. Blaine that the responsibility of this rather 
 pitiable denouement rested. No authorised explanation 
 of Mr. Blaine s sudden retirement from the Cabinet has 
 ever been put forth, yet it was perfectly well known to 
 many at the time that this step, so ill-advised and so con 
 trary to Mr. Blaine s own judgment, was taken because of 
 his wife s insistence. Mrs. Blaine was a very masterful, 
 high-spirited woman, unblessed with tact and far too prone 
 to interfere with her husband s political concerns. More 
 than once in his career this interference had caused him 
 great embarrassment, though matters had always been ar 
 ranged in such a way as to avoid anything like an overt 
 esclandre. But when Mr. Blaine entered President Har 
 rison s Cabinet, his political difficulties were heightened by 
 domestic complications. Almost at the outset a coolness 
 arose between the wife of the Secretary of State and the 
 wife of the President; and this coolness increased until it 
 became at last a positive antipathy. Mrs. Blaine was far 
 too conscious of the fact that her husband might have been 
 elected President in place of Mr. Harrison, had he chosen 
 to accept the nomination in 1888; and she let this con 
 sciousness be felt in many of the irritating little ways 
 which feminine ingenuity so easily devises. Mrs. Harri 
 son not unnaturally resented this, with a result that can be 
 imagined. When, therefore, Mr. Blaine was urged to 
 let his name be used in opposition to the President, Mrs. 
 Blaine became an active ally of the anti-Harrison politi 
 cians. For a long time she was unsuccessful. But age 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 289 
 
 and illness had sapped her husband s power of will and 
 had perhaps obscured his judgment; so that finally he 
 yielded to incessant domestic pressure and took the step 
 which resulted so disastrously. From that moment his 
 political career was ended. He retired to his home in 
 Maine, and, after a lingering illness, died early in the fol 
 lowing year. 26 
 
 There is something infinitely pathetic in a survey of Mr. 
 Elaine s remarkable career. With so many brilliant qual 
 ities, with such high ambitions and such splendid oppor 
 tunities, he never reached the goal upon which his gaze 
 had been continually fixed and toward which he had 
 struggled with such dauntless hope and energy. It is not 
 too much to say of him that for resourcefulness and for 
 that sort of imagination which enters into constructive 
 statesmanship, he had had no equal since the days of Jeffer 
 son. He possessed every gift that goes with supreme lead 
 ership, save only one. He lacked that higher moral sense 
 without which, in the last and crucial test, a statesman s 
 strength is turned to weakness. As was said of him at the 
 time, he reflected accurately the influences that were in the 
 ascendant throughout the Civil War, amid whose storm 
 and stress his political character had been moulded. The 
 ardent patriotism, the fiery courage, the intense devotion 
 to a cause which made that period memorable, were his. 
 But through all those years he had seen about him the play 
 of meaner motives, and the inevitable jobbery and corrup 
 tion which are the accompaniment of war; and long famil 
 iarity with these had blunted a naturally fine sense of 
 honour and had led him to set expediency sometimes in 
 the place of right. The most serious charges brought 
 against him were undoubtedly untrue; but he had so acted 
 as to justify them in the minds of millions of his country- 
 
 20 January 27, 1893. 
 
2 9 o TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 men, and he was forced to pay the penalty of his indiscre 
 tion. 
 
 Yet whatever were his faults, he was a very great 
 American; and when he bade farewell to public life, even 
 his political opponents thought of him with something 
 more than kindness. At a Democratic mass meeting held 
 at Chicago in the campaign which followed, a speaker 
 chanced to mention Mr. Elaine. At once the great audi 
 ence sprang to its feet and thundered forth its uncontroll 
 able applause. When it subsided, the speaker said : 
 " Elaine seems to have more friends here than he had at 
 Minneapolis! " and a voice replied amid a second tempest 
 of applause, " We are all his friends! " 
 
 The Democratic National Convention met at Chicago 
 on June 2ist, with Mr. William L. Wilson of West Vir 
 ginia as its permanent president. Events had taken an un 
 expected turn. Senator Hill s "snap convention" of the 
 preceding February had proved to be a political boom 
 erang. Its action, so far from coercing the Democrats 
 of other States, had inspired them with indignation toward 
 Mr. Hill and with enthusiasm for Mr. Cleveland. They 
 regarded the manoeuvre as a most unworthy trick. The 
 prominence of Tammany in the whole proceeding had 
 repelled them; for Tammany had always been mistrusted 
 by the Democracy at large, particularly in the West. 
 Therefore, a very strong drift had at once set in toward 
 Mr. Cleveland s candidacy. In the words of General 
 Bragg, uttered in 1884, men "loved him most of all for 
 the enemies that he had made." State after State had 
 instructed its delegates to vote for him, and it was already 
 plain that he would have a sure majority in the Conven 
 tion at Chicago. Democratic usage, however, required a 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 291 
 
 two-thirds vote to effect a nomination, and therefore Sen 
 ator Hill did not yet despair. He might not himself win, 
 but he felt that he could at least defeat his rival and give 
 the nomination to another candidate. Even Mr. Cleve 
 land s friends were still afraid to hope. Mr. Tracey of 
 New York met Colonel Morrison of Illinois in Washing 
 ton a day or two before the Convention had assembled. 
 
 " Morrison," said he, " we are going to nominate Cleve 
 land or die ! " 
 
 "Maybe," returned Morrison; "but are you certain 
 that you are not going to do both? " 
 
 When the Convention met, however, the tide for Cleve 
 land was running like a mill-race. His portraits were dis 
 played all over the city; his badges were on the breasts of 
 more than half the delegates; his name alone seemed to 
 be in the mouth of every one. A feeling of buoyant con 
 fidence inspired the great crowds which poured into Chi 
 cago. A sense of coming victory was in the air. The 
 Democracy was at last in fighting trim, and had fixed 
 upon a leader of whose invincibility no doubt was felt. 
 Ex-Secretary Whitney was in charge of Mr. Cleveland s 
 canvass. He had come to Chicago expecting to make an 
 up-hill fight, but he found himself at once the master of 
 the situation. " I can t keep the votes back," said he to 
 an intimate friend. "They tumble in at the windows as 
 well as at the doors." On June 2Oth, the day before the 
 Convention was opened, even the New York Sun grudg 
 ingly admitted that Cleveland s nomination was quite 
 probable. 
 
 The immense " wigwam " at Chicago, with its amphi 
 theatre roped off like a prize-ring, was packed to suffoca 
 tion. Mr. Wilson, whose voice was weak and whose pres 
 ence was unimpressive, could not control the delegates, who 
 
292 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 sang and cheered and had things wholly their own way. 
 In the committee which drafted the platform there was a 
 sharp struggle over its tariff plank. The conservatives 
 of the committee inserted a shifty and ambiguous declara 
 tion such as had been usual in other years; and being in 
 the majority, they had adopted it. No sooner had it been 
 read to the Convention, however, than it was greeted with 
 tempestuous derision. The delegates were in an aggres 
 sive mood. They would have no compromise, no evasion 
 of a dominant issue; and so by a great majority the plank 
 as reported was stricken out and a substitute adopted, 
 bolder than any declaration on the subject of the tariff 
 which a Democratic convention had ever ventured to put 
 forth. It began : 
 
 " We denounce Republican protection as a fraud, a robbery of the 
 great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few. 
 We declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic 
 party that the Federal Government has no constitutional power to 
 impose and collect tariff duties, except for the purposes of revenue 
 only; and we demand that the collection of such taxes shall be 
 limited to the necessities of the Government when honestly and 
 economically administered." 
 
 In vigorous phrase it went on to speak of the McKinley 
 tariff law as " the culminating atrocity of class legislation." 
 It pledged the party to give the people free raw materials 
 and cheaper manufactured goods. It declared that since 
 the McKinley tariff had gone into operation, wages had 
 been lowered in many trades, with resulting strikes and 
 general distress. It called attention to the fact that after 
 thirty years of high protection " the homes and farms of 
 the country have become burdened with a real estate mort 
 gage of over $2,500,000,000"; and it denounced "a 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 293 
 
 policy which fosters no industry so much as it does that 
 of the sheriff." 
 
 The Convention had now taken the bit between its 
 teeth and was beyond control. The Hill leaders fought 
 vainly to secure delay. The discussion of the platform 
 had lasted until nearly midnight, and an attempt was 
 made to adjourn the Convention until the following day. 
 The motion was shouted down amid indescribable uproar. 
 The delegates refused to adjourn before the candidates 
 were nominated. The customary nominating speeches 
 were then made. Mr. Cleveland s name was presented 
 by Governor Abbett of New Jersey, and the name of 
 SenatQr Hill by Mr. William C. De Witt of New York. 
 Other candidates were put in nomination, among them 
 Governor Boies of Iowa, Senator Gorman of Maryland, 
 and Mr. Stevenson of Illinois. It was now two o clock in 
 the morning, but the Convention showed no signs of weari 
 ness. The vote was certain to be taken before daybreak. 
 The friends of Mr. Hill therefore played their trump card 
 the threat that Mr. Cleveland could not possibly be 
 elected without the vote of his own State. To drive home 
 the assertion with all possible point and power, they had 
 reserved their ablest speaker until this moment. At 2.15 
 A. M. the bulky form of Mr. Bourke Cockran was seen 
 emerging from the mass of delegates and moving toward 
 the platform. Mr. Cockran was an Irishman by birth, 
 who had come to New York as a young man, and had been 
 admitted to the bar, achieving great success as a jury 
 lawyer. Fluent of speech, witty and adroit, he was a nat 
 ural rhetorician and could be either denunciatory or per 
 suasive, with great effect. In after years he received the 
 nickname of " the Mulligan Guard Demosthenes," be 
 cause his eloquence was almost always at the disposal of 
 
294 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Tammany Hall. Nevertheless, he was a superb stump 
 speaker, and even the Cleveland men became hushed and 
 silent to catch his opening words. 
 
 Mr. Cockran had some of the gifts of a very clever 
 actor. As he faced his audience he seemed languid, 
 heavy-eyed and utterly exhausted. A feeling of sympathy 
 won him the good will of the Convention before he spoke 
 a word. Then in a voice that was rich and resonant, he 
 uttered an earnest plea for harmony, making it appear 
 that harmony could be achieved only by dropping Mr. 
 Cleveland as a candidate. Here he spoke with per 
 fect tact, anxious to offend no prejudice. For the per 
 sonality of Mr. Cleveland he entertained, so he said, the 
 most profound respect. u I feel for him a personal friend 
 ship. I oppose him in this Convention solely because he 
 stands between the Democratic party and the light of vic 
 tory." He spoke of the great tidal wave of 1890, which 
 had overflowed the Force Bill and repudiated McKinley- 
 ism. He alluded to the service which Mr. Hill had 
 rendered in that fight, and to the importance of New York 
 as a factor in the election which was imminent. 
 
 " Pennsylvania boasts [he then went on] that she has never 
 made a threat in a Convention. I ask you what could Penn 
 sylvania threaten? Pennsylvania in November, with her thirty- 
 two electoral votes, will thrust the Democracy of New York into 
 the ditch dug for it here. I believe that Mr. Cleveland is a popu 
 lar man (applause) a most popular man (increased applause). 
 Let me now add that he is a man of most extraordinary popularity 
 on every day of the year except election day! (Uproar.) He 
 is popular in Republican States because his Democracy is not 
 offensive to Republicans. I oppose him in this Convention be 
 cause his candidacy imperils the success which now comes to us 
 with bright, alluring prospects. I appeal to you to pause now, 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 295 
 
 before this contemplated action is taken, before this invasion is 
 made complete. Build, gentlemen, build your hopes of success, 
 not upon the shifting sands of political professions. Build it upon 
 the solid rock of Democratic harmony, of Democratic unity and of 
 Democratic enthusiasm. Then the people in whom you have 
 trusted will repay your confidence with majorities so decisive that 
 Republican prospects throughout the Union will receive a com- 
 pleter check even than they have received in the State whose tri 
 umphant Democracy now asks you only for permission to win for 
 you a Democratic victory in November ! " 27 
 
 But Mr. Cockran s eloquence was unable to stem the 
 tide. In the early hours of the morning, the roll of the 
 Convention was called; and long before the last delegation 
 had responded, it was plain to every one that Mr. Cleve 
 land had secured not merely a bare majority, but more than 
 the two-thirds necessary to make him his party s candidate. 
 The record showed that 617 votes were cast for him 
 10 more than were required while Senator Hill re 
 ceived only 1 14, Governor Boies 103 and Senator Gorman 
 36. Amid a scene of tumultuous enthusiasm, with bands 
 blaring and banners waving, the galleries joined with the 
 excited partisans upon the floor in chanting a song 28 which 
 had struck the fancy of the public: 
 
 " Grover ! Grover ! 
 Four more years of Grover! 
 In he comes, 
 Out they go, 
 Then we ll be in clover!" 
 
 On the following day, to please the old-fashioned party 
 men, Mr. Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois was nominated 
 
 27 Chicago Tribune and New York Sun for June 23, 1892. 
 
 28 Parodied from " Babies," in the comic opera Wang. 
 
296 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 for the Vice-Presidency. Another candidate was said to 
 be more acceptable to Mr. Cleveland; but just before the 
 balloting began, a serious personal scandal regarding him 
 became known to the delegates and served to prevent his 
 nomination. 
 
 It was characteristic of Mr. Cleveland that on the night 
 when his political fate was hanging in the balance he 
 should have been chatting quietly in a friend s library, far 
 distant from the telegraph wires and quite out of reach 
 even of his own excited partisans. When the news was 
 brought to him the next morning he received it with the 
 same tranquillity that had marked his bearing ever since 
 his retirement from office. The same news was heard 
 in a very different spirit by Mr. Dana of the Sun. He 
 had pinned his faith on Hill up to the last moment, hoping 
 against hope. In his paper for June 22d, he had styled 
 Hill " that heroic and powerful statesman," " a faithful, 
 fearless and successful champion." Now that Mr. Cleve 
 land had been nominated, Dana was in a dreadful quan 
 dary. He hated Cleveland and everything for which 
 Cleveland stood; yet not to support the nominee of the 
 Democratic party would probably mean for himself and 
 for his paper financial ruin. Furthermore, there was no 
 other party open to him. And so he reversed himself in 
 a fashion so awkward and so insincere as to excite the 
 mirth of every one. Pretending that Republican success 
 would mean the enactment of a Force Bill, he came out 
 for Cleveland on June 24th, saying that the one supreme 
 issue was 
 
 " the question whether those Southern States which have inherited 
 a negro population surpassing the number of their white citizens, 
 shall, by Federal law and Federal military force, be subjected to 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 297 
 
 the political domination of the negroes, to negro Legislatures, 
 negro Governors, and negro Judges in their courts, or whether 
 they shall continue to be governed by white men as now. . . . 
 
 " Better vote for the liberty and the white government of the 
 Southern States, even if the candidate were the Devil himself, 
 rather than consent to the election of respectable Benjamin Harri 
 son with a Force Bill in his pocket! " 
 
 And so, throughout the ensuing campaign, Mr. Dana 
 devoted himself to writing vociferous leaders around his 
 watch-words, " No Force Bill! No Negro Domination! " 
 
 The Populists held their National Convention at 
 Omaha on July ?.d, and nominated for the presidency, 
 General James B. Weaver of Iowa 29 and for the vice- 
 presidency, Mr. James G. Field of Virginia. Their plat 
 form accused both of the older parties of subserviency to 
 the capitalists, declaring that " from the same prolific 
 womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great 
 classes of tramps and millionaires." It demanded, 
 among other things, the free and unlimited coinage of 
 silver and gold at the ratio of sixteen to one, a graduated 
 income tax, the establishment of postal savings-banks, and 
 the ownership by the government of railroads, telegraphs, 
 and telephones. 
 
 Few political campaigns in American history have been 
 conducted upon so high a plane as that which followed in 
 the summer and autumn of 1892. President Harrison 
 said, in a spirit that did him honour, " I desire this cam 
 paign to be one of Republicanism and not one of person 
 alities." A very dignified campaign it was. Even the 
 
 29 James Baird Weaver was a veteran of the Civil War who had helped 
 to organise the Greenback Party in 1876, and who had served three terms 
 in Congress. 
 
298 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 speakers upon the stump alluded to their opponents in 
 terms of personal respect. No scandals were unearthed, 
 and no sensational episodes occurred, like that of the 
 Murchison Letter. The main fight between the two 
 great parties was fought out upon the issue of tne tariff. 
 For the first time in its history the Republican party was 
 on the defensive. In 1884, it had been obliged to defend 
 the record of Mr. Elaine, but its own past was held to 
 be unassailable. Now the inequalities of the McKinley 
 tariff were vigorously attacked by every Democratic 
 speaker, and the explanation and defence of them taxed 
 "the ingenuity of the Republicans. Higher prices and 
 lower wages were, indeed, strong Democratic arguments. 
 President Harrison s own contribution to political discus 
 sion consisted of the sapient remark, " A cheap coat means 
 a cheap man under the coat " an epigram which was 
 about as convincing as Dr. Johnson s burlesque line : 
 
 " Who drives fat oxen must himself be fat." 
 
 By tacit consent, both Republicans and Democrats said 
 very little about the silver question?) The Populists, on 
 the other hand, preached the doctrine of free silver with 
 great vigour and enthusiasm. In some States of the West 
 and South, coalitions were made with the Populist party. 
 Thus, in Louisiana, the Republicans divided their electoral 
 ticket evenly with the Populists. In Oregon, one Popu 
 list elector was placed upon the Democratic ticket; and 
 in Minnesota both Democrats and Populists united upon 
 four electors. In five States Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, 
 North Dakota and Wyoming the Democrats nominated 
 no electoral ticket at all, but voted for the Populistic candi 
 dates. The object of this was not merely to defeat the 
 
v. 
 
 THE ELECTION OF 1892 299 
 
 Republicans at the polls. It was thought possible that 
 enough Populist electors might be elected to prevent any 
 party from having a clear majority in the Electoral Col 
 lege. In that event, the election would be thrown into 
 the House of Representatives, 30 voting by States, in which 
 case the Democrats would have a clear majority. 
 
 As the summer drew near its end, both parties were 
 hopeful, yet both believed that the result would be very 
 close. One feature of the election would be novel. For 
 the first time it was recognised that money could no more 
 be used in directly bribing voters. Of the forty-four States 
 of the Union, thirty-five had adopted some form of the 
 Australian ballot, thus enabling the voter to cast his vote 
 in secrecy. As was written at the time : 
 
 " No blocks of five can be marched to the polls on election 
 day with their ballots held in sight of the man who has bought 
 them till they are dropped into the ballot boxes. What the same 
 isolation will accomplish in great manufacturing centres is equally 
 obvious. . . . No working man need fear loss of employ 
 ment if he votes in accordance with his own beliefs and against 
 the * interests of his employer ; for his employer cannot see how he 
 votes. In the list of the thirty-five States which have the new 
 systems are to be found all the so-called doubtful States, and all 
 those States in the Northwest in which the tariff reform sentiment 
 has made such havoc with old-time Republican majorities. . . . 
 In the great cities of the land there is another gain from the new 
 system which is as important as that of the secret ballot. Trading 
 and deals will be practically impossible, because of the difficulties 
 which are thrown in the way. . . . Other agencies for secur 
 ing votes must be sought, and other managers than professional 
 corruptionists and traders must be put at the head of the party 
 organisations to conduct the campaign." 31 
 
 30 As provided by the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution. 
 
 31 The Nation, June 16, 1892 (pp. 442, 443)- 
 
300 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 (Something which occurred in Pennsylvania during this 
 year did much to endanger the prospects of Republican 
 success. In June, the Carnegie Steel Company at Home 
 stead, reduced the wages of its employes. A trade or 
 ganisation known as the Amalgamated Steel and Iron 
 Workers sought to intercede; but the Carnegie Company 
 refused to recognise it, and soon afterwards ordered a 
 shutdown, and closed its works, throwing thousands of 
 men out of employment. These men, a majority of 
 whom had served the Company long and faithfully, 
 were not strikers. 1 They were summarily deprived of 
 their employment, for the sole reason that they were 
 members of a union. The intention of the Company was 
 to reopen the mills with non-union men. Anticipating 
 trouble, the Carnegie managers, instead of appealing to 
 the authorities for legal protection, employed a force of 
 armed men to act as a garrison for the mills. This small 
 army was placed in armoured barges and brought to 
 Homestead by the river. As they neared their destina 
 tion, the men who had been locked out fired upon them 
 and were met by a counter-fire. A sort of battle took 
 place, lasting for nearly two days and involving the use of 
 cannon and of burning oil, with which the river was 
 flooded. Seven of the Carnegie " army " were killed and 
 a much larger number wounded. The loss of their assail 
 ants was even greater. In the end the men in the barges 
 surrendered and were badly treated by a mob; and finally 
 State troops were sent to Homestead and restored order 
 by the establishment of martial law. 
 
 In various ways this incident was unfortunate for the 
 Republicans. In the first place, here was a highly pro 
 tected industry cutting down the wages of its workmen 
 at the very time when Republican orators were proclaim- 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 301 
 
 ing the blessings of the McKinley Bill. In the second 
 place, the country beheld a very striking instance of the 
 lawlessness of corporations. These great steel magnates, 
 so said the Democrats, were acting precisely after the 
 fashion of feudal barons, maintaining private armies, dis 
 daining the proteccion of the law, and shooting down citi 
 zens without any legal warrant. The employment of 
 armed men by corporations had already attracted the atten 
 tion of Congress, and the bloody affair at Homestead 
 made the private militia system exceedingly unpopular. 
 Another cause of concern to the party in power was the 
 condition of the national treasury. The " Billion Dollar 
 Congress " had not only wiped out the surplus, but had 
 authorised expenses which it was practically impossible to 
 meet. For the six months ending December 31, 1891, 
 the Treasury had paid out $86,000,000 less than was 
 called for by the existing laws. This sum had not been 
 paid, for the excellent reason that the funds were lacking. 
 The customs revenue had fallen off; expenses had in 
 creased; and now the Government of the richest nation in 
 the world was in the position of a hard-up debtor, post 
 poning from day to day the payment of its bills, and living, 
 as it were, from hand to mouth. 
 
 On the whole, then, the Democratic chances seemed 
 very good. Only in one State, but that a most important 
 one, could danger be detected. This was in New York. 
 Mr. Hill and his followers had returned from the Na 
 tional Convention in a sullen mood. They had been 
 soundly beaten by the Cleveland element. Would they 
 take their revenge upon election day? This was a ques 
 tion which perplexed the Democratic managers, and most 
 of all, Mr. W. C. Whitney, who felt himself responsible 
 for the result in his own State. The most dangerous ele- 
 
302 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ment of opposition, as in 1884, was to be found in Tam 
 many Hall. John Kelly had died, and had been succeeded 
 by Mr. Richard Croker, who now wielded a power far 
 greater even than that of Kelly. Croker was an Irishman 
 by birth, who had been brought to the United States when 
 he was two years old. He had been a machinist and then 
 a fireman, and had gradually worked his way into local 
 politics, advancing from one position to another, until in 
 1886 he became the head of one of the most formidable 
 political organisations in the world. He was a man of 
 immense force of character, illiterate, but shrewd. In 
 many of his personal traits, as in his physical appearance, 
 he reminded one of General Grant having the same 
 taciturnity, the same grim doggedness of purpose, the 
 same iron strength of will. The vote of New York City 
 was in his gift, and he had been consistently opposed to 
 Mr. Cleveland. Nevertheless, it was known that Tam 
 many Hall was anxious not to be regarded as disloyal to 
 the party. 
 
 Years before, Croker had been accused of murder, 
 and among his counsel had been Mr. Whitney. For 
 him, ever since that time, Croker had entertained a 
 kindly feeling. Upon this feeling Mr. Whitney diplo 
 matically worked, until Croker agreed to meet his party s 
 candidate and come, if possible, to an understanding. He 
 not unnaturally supposed that Mr. Cleveland would give 
 promises in exchange for Croker s own promise to make 
 his men " vote straight." Mr. Cleveland, however, 
 showed no inclination for an interview with Croker. It 
 was only as a personal favour to Mr. Whitney that he at 
 last consented; and the three men, with a second Tam 
 many chief, dined together in a private room at Mr. Whit 
 ney s house. When the political conversation began, Mr. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 303 
 
 Cleveland took a line that was most unexpected. Instead of 
 suggesting conciliation and speaking smoothly, he squared 
 his shoulders and gave Croker such a talk as he had never 
 listened to before. He told him what he thought of 
 Tammany Hall, of Tammany politics, and of Tammany 
 men. As he towered above Croker, punctuating his re 
 marks with heavy blows of his fist upon the table, he 
 completely dominated the great " boss," who in reply could 
 merely iterate his hope that matters might be arranged 
 between them. In the end, Mr. Cleveland said that what 
 had happened in the past would not influence him in his 
 future actions; and w r ith this very meagre concession 
 Croker had to go away content. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland, in fact, meant to win the Presidency, 
 if he won it at all, without giving pledges to any human 
 being. Among the many interesting anecdotes then cur 
 rent regarding him, one of the most characteristic was 
 told by a distinguished man of letters who had long been 
 his intimate personal friend. There was a certain rich 
 contractor, a " Elaine Irishman," a liberal employer of 
 labour, who, because of his own ancestry, was thought to 
 have great influence with the Irish voters in New York. 
 Just at that time, the " Irish vote " in New York was 
 a very uncertain element in Democratic calculations. 
 Therefore, it occurred to the literary gentleman, who hap 
 pened to know the contractor very well, that he might 
 perhaps do his favorite candidate a good turn by bringing 
 the two men into personal relations. So it came to pass 
 that one evening they met in the poet s library, without 
 the least suspicion on their part that the interview had been 
 pre-arranged. After a few moments, their host made 
 some excuse for slipping out of the room. Returning at 
 the end of half an hour, he found Mr. Cleveland and the 
 
304 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 contractor chatting very amicably together. A little later, 
 the ex-President, having finished his call, departed. 
 
 " Well," said the host, " what do you think of him? " 
 
 The contractor s face fairly glowed. 
 
 "Ah, sure," said he, slipping into his native brogue, 
 " he s the greatest man I ever saw. He s a fine man a 
 
 grand man. He wouldn t promise to do wan d^ d 
 
 thing I asked him! " 
 
 And from that time until election day, no one worked 
 harder for Mr. Cleveland than the man who had failed 
 to extort a single promise from him. 
 
 The November election astonished Democrats, Repub 
 licans, and Populists alike. Mr. Cleveland swept the 
 country. Of course, the Southern States were solidly for 
 him; but in addition he carried all the " doubtful " States 
 Connecticut, Indiana, New Jersey, and New York 
 while to the amazement of the political prophets, Cali 
 fornia, Illinois, and Wisconsin gave him their electoral 
 votes. Michigan cast five of its nine votes for him, and 
 even Ohio, the home of Mr. McKinley, returned one 
 Democratic elector. In the Electoral College, Cleveland 
 and Stevenson had 277 votes against 145 for Harrison and 
 Reid. 32 Even had Mr. Cleveland lost New York, the 
 presidency would still have been his own. 
 
 A very startling result of the election was the enormous 
 strength displayed by the Populists throughout the West. 
 Not only did their candidate, General Weaver, poll more 
 than a million votes, but he actually carried four States- 
 Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, and Nevada receiving also 
 one electoral vote in Oregon and one in North Dakota. 
 For the first time since the birth of the Republican party, 
 
 32 Cleveland s majority over Harrison in the popular vote was 380,000. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1892 305 
 
 a third political organisation was represented among the 
 presidential electors. 33 It is true that the vote given to 
 the Populists was an exaggeration of their actual numbers, 
 because in all but one of the States which they carried, the 
 Democrats had made no nominations; but none the less, 
 the election figures were indicative of an immense popular 
 upheaval that was ominous for the future of the older 
 parties. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Cleveland had won an extraordinary 
 personal triumph. Disliked by all the politicians, nom 
 inated against the protest of his own State, and opposed 
 by the powerful corporate interests throughout the coun 
 try, he had, nevertheless, been carried into the presidency 
 by a great spontaneous movement of the people them 
 selves, who gave him their implicit confidence because they 
 felt that in him they had found a leader courageous 
 enough to defy coercion, and of moral fibre strong enough 
 to resist those other influences which are only the more 
 dangerous because insidious. He received the presidency 
 for the second time, bound by no pledge save that con 
 tained in the declaration of his party to govern honestly, 
 to reduce the tariff, and to curb the Trusts. 
 
 33 Weaver s strength in the Electoral College was 22. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 PRESIDENT CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 
 
 WHEN Mr. Cleveland, as President-elect, proceeded to the 
 Capitol to take the oath of office for the second time, it 
 seemed almost as though the earlier ceremony of 1889 
 were being faithfully repeated. Now as then, he was ac 
 companied by Mr. Harrison, and only the relations of the 
 two were changed. Then, Mr. Cleveland was a defeated 
 candidate giving place to his victorious successor. Now, 
 it was Mr. Harrison who was gracefully sustaining the 
 same role, and in his turn making way for an opponent. 
 In externals, however, the scene was essentially the same, 
 even to the aspect of the weather; for a storm of mingled 
 sleet and rain was raging, and Washington had awakened 
 on that raw March morning to find the streets all whitened 
 by a swirl of snow. 
 
 Amid a driving gale, and standing in what an observer 
 graphically described as " a blizzard-riddled wooden pen," 
 the new President, bareheaded, delivered without notes 
 of any kind, a brief inaugural address; and then for five 
 hours he reviewed the long procession which marched past 
 the presidential stand. Its most conspicuous feature was 
 the entire National Guard of Pennsylvania, headed by the 
 Democratic Governor of that State. For the first time 
 also in the history of inaugural parades, women partici 
 pated in the pageant. A cavalcade of them from Mary 
 land, superbly mounted, rode past the President, adding a 
 new element of the picturesque. More interesting, how 
 ever, in view of recent political events, w,as the presence 
 
 306 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 307 
 
 of three thousand Tammany men, of whom several hun 
 dred were arrayed in Indian garb, and with whom were 
 leaders such as Croker, Grady and others, who for nine 
 years had waged relentless war on Mr. Cleveland. As 
 suredly it was for him a day of genuine triumph when 
 even such consistent enemies as these had been brought to 
 heel. On the day following the inauguration, Senator 
 Hill called upon the President, and the two were closeted 
 for hours. Just what passed between them no one ever 
 learned; but it seems quite certain that Mr. Hill accepted 
 frankly the inevitable. From that day he never seriously 
 opposed the policy of his successful rival, and more than 
 once in the tempestuous times which followed, he did 
 staunch service in its defence. 
 
 And thus began the years of President Cleveland s 
 second term of office, which a philosophical writer has 
 truly characterised as " the most momentous period in a 
 time of peace in the history of the country, and the most 
 interesting, from a political point of view, in either war or 
 peace." 1 The fury of the elements, that raged throughout 
 the day of its inception symbolised, as it were, the storm 
 and stress which marked the years of its continuance, and 
 which reached a climax at its close. 
 
 The composition of the new Cabinet had become known 
 to the people before the nominations were laid before the 
 Senate. The Secretary of State was Mr. Walter Q. Gres- 
 ham of Illinois, lately a judge in one of the Federal courts. 
 Mr. Gresham had been a lifelong Republican until a few 
 months prior to President Cleveland s election. He had 
 even been regarded as a possible Republican candidate for 
 the Presidency. At the Republican National Convention 
 of 1888, he had received on the first ballot in votes, 
 standing second only to Senator Sherman, who led the 
 
 1 Stanwood, A History of the Presidency, p. 519 (Boston, 1898). 
 
308 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 poll until the combination in favour of Harrison was 
 effected. 2 Mr. Gresham had always been a conservative, 
 a " Lincoln Republican," wholly out of sympathy with the 
 later tendencies of his party; and when the tariff was made 
 a direct issue in 1892, he turned his back upon high pro 
 tection as a policy, and publicly announced his purpose of 
 voting for Mr. Cleveland. Mr. Gresham was, popular 
 with the labour element in the Middle West, and as a 
 judge had given from the bench decisions accompanied by 
 obiter dicta that greatly pleased the opponents of privilege. 
 He was a man of the Cleveland type, sternly honest, in 
 flexible of purpose, and vigorous in mind. In some 
 respects he fell short of the ideal requirements in a Secre 
 tary of State. His training had not sufficiently familiar 
 ised him with the minutiae of diplomatic relations. He 
 failed, perhaps, to appreciate the importance of these rela 
 tions as compared with concerns of domestic interest. 
 Moreover, on the personal side, he lacked something of 
 that regard for the fitness of things which ought to charac 
 terise one who has to do with the representatives of foreign 
 countries. It was Mr. Gresham s wont to receive am 
 bassadors and ministers men bred to the most punctilious 
 etiquette sitting in his shirt-sleeves at his desk, and chew 
 ing on the stump of a cigar; while he was overfond of 
 lounging about the corridors of Willard s Hotel and 
 mingling with the very motley mob which sprawled there 
 at all hours of the day and night. Naturally, Mr. Gres 
 ham s appointment was rather sharply criticised. Republi 
 cans regarded him as a renegade from their ranks, while 
 many Democrats thought it hard that the chief Cabinet 
 position should go to so very recent a convert to De 
 mocracy. 
 
 Mr. John G. Carlisle of Kentucky was made Secretary 
 
 2 See p. 156. 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 309 
 
 of the Treasury, and offered a brilliant contrast to his two 
 immediate predecessors. He was an experienced legisla 
 tor, who had been three times Speaker of the House arid 
 a member of seven different Congresses, in all of which he 
 had concerned himself with questions of theoretical and 
 practical finance. Mr. Carlisle was of a calm, reflective, 
 and judicial cast of mind, and he had to an exceptional de 
 gree the gift of lucid and convincing exposition. While 
 acting as Speaker, Mr. Carlisle once received an unusual 
 compliment from a political opponent. Mr. (afterwards 
 Senator) Hiscock of New York, said of Mr. Carlisle: 
 " He is one of the strongest of Democrats and I am one of 
 the strongest of Republicans; yet my imagination is not 
 strong enough to conceive of his making an unfair ruling 
 or doing an unfair thing against the party opposed to him 
 in this House." 3 
 
 The President appointed as Secretary of War, Colonel 
 Daniel S. Lamont of New York, who had been private 
 secretary to Mr. Cleveland while the latter was Governor 
 of New York, and also during his first administration as 
 President. It was essentially a personal appointment, 
 well justified both by Colonel Lament s devotion to Mr. 
 Cleveland and also by his ability, his sound judgment and 
 his admirable tact. Another personal appointment was 
 that of Mr. Wilson S. Bissell of New York, an old and 
 intimate friend, to be Postmaster-General. The new 
 Secretary of the Navy was Mr. Hilary A. Herbert of 
 Alabama the first ex-Confederate to be placed in charge 
 of one of the military departments of the Government. 
 Mr. Herbert was an accomplished gentleman and a skilful 
 administrator. He had served as chairman of the House 
 Committee on Naval Affairs in three Congresses and was 
 intimately familiar with the duties of his new office. 
 
 3 A. D. White, Autobiography, ii. p. 126 (New York, 1905). 
 
3 io TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Under him, the navy of the United States, which a few 
 years before had ranked as only twelfth among the navies 
 of the world, advanced to the fifth place, being surpassed 
 only by the armaments of Great Britain, France, Russia 
 and Germany. Mr. Hoke Smith of Georgia became Sec 
 retary of the Interior and Mr. Julius S. Morton of 
 Nebraska, Secretary of Agriculture. The Cabinet was 
 completed by the appointment to the Attorney-Generalship 
 of Mr. Richard Olney of Massachusetts, whose name was 
 destined to be honourably associated with some of the most 
 stirring events of President Cleveland s administration. 
 When he became Attorney-General he was almost unknown 
 outside of his native State. Educated at Brown and Har 
 vard, he was a successful lawyer who had mingled but little 
 in public life, beyond serving in the Massachusetts Legisla 
 ture. He had, however, a very forceful personality, com 
 bining the keenness and prompt decisiveness of a trained 
 reasoner with a certain aggressive quality which suggested, 
 under all the suave amenities of a polished gentleman, the 
 pugnacity, and also the tenacity, of a bulldog. 
 
 President Cleveland entered upon his duties under no 
 illusions as to the difficulty of the problems which con 
 fronted him. There was a seriousness, amounting almost 
 to solemnity, in some of the sentences of his inaugural ad 
 dress, which may have been regarded lightly by those 
 who then heard or read them, but which afterwards were 
 seen to have been full of meaning. Toward the close, 
 he said with something like the spirit of prophecy: 
 
 " Anxiety for the pledges which my party has made . . . 
 constrains me to remind those with whom I am to co-operate, that 
 we can succeed in doing the work which has been especially set 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 311 
 
 before us, only by the most sincere, harmonious, and disinterested 
 effort. Even if insuperable obstacles and opposition prevent the 
 consummation of our task, we shall hardly be excused ; and if fail 
 ure can be traced to our fault or neglect, we may be sure the 
 people will hold us to a swift and exacting accountability." 
 
 And then he added: 
 
 " I shall, to the best of my ability and within my sphere of duty, 
 preserve the Constitution by loyally protecting every grant of 
 Federal power it contains, by defending all its restraints when 
 attacked by impatience and restlessness, and by enforcing its limi 
 tations and reservations in favour of the States and the people. 
 
 " Fully impressed with the gravity of the duties that confront 
 me ... I should be appalled if it were my lot to bear un 
 aided the responsibilities which await me. I am, however, saved 
 from discouragement when I remember that I shall have the sup 
 port and the counsel and co-operation of wise and patriotic men, 
 who will stand at my side in Cabinet places or will represent the 
 people in their legislative halls." 
 
 In a letter to Mr. Justice Lamar, which was written at 
 this time, but of which the full text still remains unpub 
 lished, the President spoke of his own misgivings and of 
 his doubt as to whether his administration were not des 
 tined to disaster. It may, however, be questioned whether 
 even he had yet become aware how formidable were the 
 dangers which beset him. There were three elements 
 in the political situation so closely interrelated as to make 
 action in regard to any one of them involve an instant 
 complication with the other two. These three factors 
 were ( i ) the relation of the great moneyed interests to 
 national legislation; (2) the spread of Populism in the 
 West and South; and (3) the condition of the Govern 
 ment s finances. 
 
312 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 The rapid growth of great fortunes which accompanied 
 and succeeded the Civil War had long been a subject of 
 comment and, very properly, of pride among Americans 
 of every class. Never, perhaps, in the history of the 
 world was there witnessed a parallel to the extraordinary 
 outburst of energy and genius devoted to material suc 
 cess, which marked the years from 1864 to 1890. All 
 at once the untouched resources of the United States 
 seemed to be revealed to its inhabitants; and thousands 
 upon thousands of keen-witted, inventive, far-seeing men 
 had grasped the vast possibilities which the development 
 of these resources inherently contained. What had been 
 accomplished in the whole of the preceding century was 
 now surpassed by the railway builders, miners, traders, 
 promoters, manufacturers and financiers of this new era. 
 The United States was like a freshly opened gold field into 
 which prospectors flung themselves in a frantic rush for 
 wealth. And from one point of view the results were 
 admirable. Here were rich rewards for brain and muscle, 
 for courage and capacity. America, far more than ever, 
 was for a time a land of opportunity. Yet there was 
 another and a darker side, which more and more became 
 apparent as the years went by. This was seen first of all 
 in the growing tendency of many who had become ex 
 tremely rich to monopolise the sources of their wealth and 
 thereby to bar the door of opportunity to others; and 
 furthermore, in the effort, too often successful, to render 
 subservient or worthless the machinery of the law, to 
 which alone those who were wronged must look for swift 
 redress. The most signal instance of corporate power 
 was to be found in the railways. These companies, the 
 creatures of the State, deriving their charters from the 
 people, and often aided by generous public grants, went 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 313 
 
 far beyond the rights that were conceded to them. From 
 being simply common carriers, they began to get possession 
 of those natural products which are included among the 
 necessities of life. First in order, they secured the three 
 great coal fields in which 95 per cent, of the anthracite 
 coal of the United States is mined and they secured them, 
 not by legitimate purchase, but by forcing private owners 
 to sell at prices fixed by the railway managers. Those 
 who refused, found that the railways would no longer 
 furnish cars for the shipment of u private " coal, thereby 
 shutting off the individual miner from his market. When 
 the State of Pennsylvania in 1873 forbade, by a constitu 
 tional provision, its railways to engage in mining coal, the 
 prohibition was at once evaded. Railway officials formed 
 mining companies, of which the directors were the same 
 men as those who made up the railway directorates; and the 
 old abuses were continued, with the added zest of defying 
 the fundamental law. This arrangement even augmented 
 the extortion; for now the railways, acting as common 
 carriers, could charge exorbitant freight rates, thus jus 
 tifying the mine owners (i. e., the railway owners) in sell 
 ing the coal they shipped at whatsoever prices they pleased. 
 It was found by a Congressional committee in 1893 that 
 the railway charge for carrying coal was far greater than 
 the charge for carrying wheat or other similar freight; 
 and that while the means of transportation had been con 
 tinually improved and the cost of handling cheapened, the 
 railway rates were higher than they had been fifteen years 
 before. 4 
 
 What was true of coal was also true of timber, cop- 
 
 4 Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission, pp. 183 foil, and 242 
 foil. (1893.) See also House Report, 2278; Fifty-second Congress (2d 
 session) ; and Parsons, The Heart of the Railroad Problem (Boston, 1906). 
 
3 14 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 per, iron and other minerals. In the West, great tracts 
 of arable land were held by the railways and barred to 
 settlers; 5 while there, too, by an unfair discrimination in 
 freight charges, one locality was favoured at the expense 
 of another, just as one merchant or manufacturer might 
 be ruined because of the more favourable terms that were 
 secretly given to his competitors. Thus the Railways 
 were, in a sense, the masters of the State rather than its 
 servants, arbitrarily bestowing or withholding prosperity, 
 getting a firm grip on small communities, fixing at will the 
 cost of articles of prime necessity, choking competition, 
 and thus earning for the companies the great sums neces 
 sary to enable them to pay extravagant salaries and to 
 keep up dividends on " watered " stock. 6 
 
 But the railway owners offered merely the most conspicu 
 ous and worst, and not by any means the sole, example of a 
 gross abuse of power. They had bred a score of other 
 organised and equally rapacious corporations, of which 
 the Standard Oil Company 7 and the so-called Sugar Trust 
 were especially obnoxious to public sentiment and most 
 successful in their defiance of the processes of law. The 
 continuance of a high protective tariff had added to the 
 number of these monopolies; for while the tariff did not 
 invariably or necessarily create an actual monopoly, its 
 tendency was distinctly to limit competition; and in 1892, 
 Mr. John De Witt Warner, a careful student of politico- 
 economic questions, published a list of one hundred cor 
 porations of this sort which had, by one means or another, 
 
 e See pp. 223-5, 268. 
 
 6 " The excess over just and reasonable rates of transportation con 
 stitutes an available fund by which they [the railways] are enabled to 
 crush out the competition of independent coal-producers." Interstate 
 Commerce Commission Report, p. 4 (1893). 
 
 7 See pp. 134-136. 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 315 
 
 secured tariff legislation in their own favour. The tariff, 
 however, had nothing to do with the absorption by private 
 corporations of valuable franchises all over the country, 
 for which they paid little or nothing, while they usually 
 exploited them in a spirit of insolent rapacity. Gas com 
 panies, having a monopoly in many cities, used fraudulent 
 meters, supplied inferior gas and collected excessive rates 
 from the consumers, who were absolutely helpless and 
 without redress against what every one well knew to be 
 sheer robbery. It was the same with electric lighting. 
 The street railways were in the hands of another set of 
 owners, who treated the travelling public like mere cattle 
 crowding them into insufficient cars in defiance of either 
 comfort or decency, charging excessive fares for an in 
 adequate service, and caring nothing for remonstrance or 
 complaint. The telegraph was still another instance of 
 an almost complete monopoly; the telephone of another; 
 the business of the express companies of another. 
 
 The mere enumeration of these facts, however, is less 
 significant than another circumstance connected with them. 
 Every country has witnessed phenomena not unlike these. 
 Unscrupulous and able men are always ready to enrich 
 themselves and to wring great fortunes from the people. 
 In the United States, even at the time of its birth as a 
 nation, the records were smirched by the story of stock 
 jobbing, dishonest contracts, and the sale of influence and 
 by a vicious eagerness to exploit every public source of pri 
 vate gain. 8 Some decades later, the nation had a further 
 experience of the political power of wealth, at the time 
 when Nicholas Biddle and his associates of the United 
 States Bank waged a long war against the national admin- 
 
 8 See, for instance, McMaster, With the Fathers, pp. 71-86 (New York, 
 1896). 
 
316 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 istration, until they were routed by the fiery Jackson. 
 Later still, the period of the Civil War, which may be ex 
 tended to cover the years from 1860 to 1875, saw men 
 wielding the weapon of wealth with an unscrupulousness 
 that has never been surpassed. But in business and in 
 public life, this period is one to be recalled with shame by 
 every American. Senator Hoar, in a memorable speech, 
 once gave, as by a sudden glare of lightning, a glimpse of 
 those appalling years. 
 
 " My own public life," said he, " has been a very brief and 
 insignificant one, extending little beyond the duration of a single 
 term of senatorial office. But in that brief period I have seen 
 five judges of a high court of the United States driven from office 
 by threats of impeachment for corruption or maladministration. 
 I have seen the Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs 
 in the House rise in his place and demand the expulsion of four 
 of his associates for making sale of their official privilege of select 
 ing the youths to be educated at our great military school. When 
 the greatest railroad of the world, binding together the Continent 
 and uniting the two great seas which wash our shores, was finished, 
 I have seen our national triumph and exultation turned to bitter 
 ness and shame by the unanimous reports of three committees of 
 Congress two of the House and one here that every step of that 
 mighty enterprise had been taken in fraud. 
 
 " I have heard in the highest places the shameless doctrine 
 avowed by men grown old in public office, that the true way by 
 which power should be gained in the Republic is to bribe the people 
 with offices created for their service; and that the true end for 
 which it should be used when gained is the promotion of selfish 
 ambition and the gratification of personal revenge. I have heard 
 that suspicion haunts the footsteps of the trusted companions of the 
 President himself." 9 
 
 Speech on the impeachment of Secretary Belknap, May 6, 1876 
 (Senate). 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 317 
 
 Yet the things done in those years gave in their direct 
 results no reason for despair. Those who did them were 
 acting almost in isolation, and in most instances profess 
 edly outside the pale of honesty and decency. Fisk and 
 Gould and Huntington, Belknap, Babcock, Brady, the 
 chiefs of the Whiskey Ring, the plotters of Black Friday, 
 and the Star Route criminals, were by the very crudity of 
 their methods so conspicuously evil as hardly to be dan 
 gerous. 
 
 Like Tweed and his confederates, who belonged to 
 the same period, they were vulgar bandits, operating boldly 
 enough on the by-ways of politics and commerce, yet ready 
 to take flight when attacked by the law and by public indig 
 nation. But in 1892, great wealth had led to the develop 
 ment of a caste, of which the members were exceedingly 
 respectable, and of a very different stripe from those whom 
 they succeeded. Well-mannered, kindly gentlemen were 
 they, usually irreproachable in their private lives, generous 
 in their benefactions, and upholders of a conservative tradi 
 tion which they had themselves created. The protected 
 manufacturer rapidly enriched himself, not by defiance of 
 the law, but strictly in accordance with it. The railroad 
 magnate who gave rebates and " drawbacks," the organ 
 iser of a mighty trust, and the able captain of industry 
 who closed and barred the doors of opportunity to any 
 other than himself, were in their own estimation far from 
 being violators of the statutes. Every step they took was 
 taken under the advice of the most eminent lawyers of the 
 land. If what many of them did appeared to contravene 
 alike the letter and the spirit of explicit legislation, and if 
 they were often sued, indicted, or otherwise brought be 
 fore the courts, this gave them slight concern, for nothing 
 ever came of it. The law s delays were endless, its tech- 
 
3i8 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 nicalities most interestingly labyrinthine, and the judges 
 patient and extremely well-disposed. 
 
 The most striking feature of this new wealth was its 
 solidarity and the close relationship of interest among its 
 owners. There were no longer isolated millionaires, 
 fighting each for his own hand. The chief figure in an 
 oil company, for instance, would likewise be the principal 
 stockholder in a great electric light concern, having also a 
 subsidiary interest in a match trust, a candle monopoly, 
 and a dozen gas-works. Mr. H. D. Lloyd, whose zeal 
 sometimes led him to exaggerate the importance of his 
 deductions, but whose facts were based on irrefutable evi 
 dence, was well within the truth when he wrote in 1894: 
 
 " A small number of men are obtaining the power to forbid any 
 but themselves to supply the people with fire in nearly every form 
 known to modern life and industry, from matches to locomotives 
 and electricity. They control our hard coal and much of the soft, 
 and stoves, furnaces and steam and hot-water heaters; the gov 
 ernors on steam-boilers and the boilers; gas and gas fixtures; nat 
 ural gas and gas pipes ; electric lighting and all the appurtenances. 
 You cannot free yourselves by changing from electricity to gas, or 
 from gas of the city to gas of the fields. If you fly from kerosene 
 to candles, you are still under the ban." 10 
 
 Add to this the fact that the very same men, and others 
 like them, held directorships in " chains " of banks, in 
 railways, in insurance companies, and other fiduciary in 
 stitutions; that they owned a controlling interest in the 
 leading newspapers of the country which helped to mould 
 and control public opinion by colouring the news; 11 that 
 they were lavish contributors to the campaign funds of one 
 or both of the great political parties; that they helped 
 
 10 Lloyd, Wealth against Commonwealth, pp. 9, 10. 
 n See pp. 757-8- 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 319 
 
 their own proteges to seats in municipal councils, in State 
 legislatures and in Congress ; and that their influence was 
 benevolently exerted to promote their former legal advisers 
 to positions in the State and national judiciary and one 
 may form a faint conception of the enormous power which 
 they wielded. 12 
 
 It was primarily to check this power, and to bring it 
 under the more efficient control of law, that the People s 
 Party had been founded. In that party there were some 
 who were sufficiently clear-sighted to perceive that the crux 
 of the whole situation lay in the question as to who should 
 control and regulate the public means of transportation 
 and communication, with such other public utilities as heat 
 and light and water. In private hands this control was 
 certain always to be abused and made an instrument of 
 oppression, precisely as it had been in the past. The 
 Standard Oil Company and the coal monopoly had been 
 reared upon the secret agreement between the railways in 
 Pennsylvania. The Beef Trust had crushed competition, 
 largely by its grip upon the Western roads. The trans 
 continental railways had fraudulently acquired and held 
 great tracts of public lands. These and a multiplicity of 
 related facts were known to almost everyone, and there 
 fore here should have been found the point d appui of the 
 Populist campaign. But unfortunately for their cause, 
 the leaders and most of all, the masses of the new party 
 were led astray by another plan, which seemed at once 
 more tempting and more simple of execution. They did, 
 indeed, as we have already seen, insert in their various 
 platforms a demand for the government ownership of rail 
 ways, telegraphs and telephones; yet it was upon the silver 
 question that they elected to make the strongest fight. 
 
 12 See George, The Menace of Privilege (New York, 1905). 
 
320 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Perhaps they had vaguely in mind the military maxim of 
 a great French strategist : " Find out what it is that your 
 enemy most desires you not to do and then do it." To 
 the Populists, the whole body of merchants, bankers, and 
 business men in the Eastern States were collectively " the 
 enemy." No distinction was made between the Wall 
 Street gambler, the trust promoter and the note-shaver on 
 the one hand, and the conservative, fair-minded represen 
 tatives of legitimate commerce on the other. In Kansas 
 and Nebraska, these were all equally " the enemy " ; and 
 when it became apparent that their interests were violently 
 opposed to the free coinage of silver, that they dreaded 
 it and viewed it as a menace to prosperity, then the rank 
 and file of the new party felt a keen delight. Here was a 
 sharp-edged weapon ready to hand. Here was a sword 
 wherewith to slay the money-sharks, the Shylocks, the 
 Wall Street blood-suckers, and the Trusts. If free silver 
 was a bad thing for them, then surely it must be a good 
 thing for the honest farmer. 
 
 The free-silver leaders, of course, were not all actuated 
 by a purely emotional view of a strictly economic subject. 
 They called themselves bimetallists, and honestly believed 
 that it would be possible for the United States to maintain 
 a double standard, even though its mints should be opened 
 to the unlimited coinage of silver dollars at the old ratio 
 of 1 6 to i, which had long since ceased to be a true one. 13 
 They had read the works of theoretical bimetallists who 
 held that the use of both metals would be economically 
 desirable if adopted through a common agreement by the 
 great commercial nations of the earth. This is, indeed, 
 a question that still remains an open one, although purely 
 
 13 The intrinsic value of the standard silver dollar in July, 1892, was 
 eighty-eight cents. 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 321 
 
 academic. The important fact in 1893 was that, with the 
 exception of India and the United States, all the leading 
 nations of the world were either upon a definite gold basis 
 or were preparing to accept it. England, which, in fact, 
 though not by law, had made gold its standard since 1699, 
 adopted that standard legally in 1870 by the Coinage Act. 
 In 1871, Germany demonetised silver and became a " gold 
 country." The nations composing the so-called Latin 
 Union (France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and Greece) 
 did the same in 1877, and their example was shortly fol 
 lowed by Holland, Norway and Sweden; while Russia, 
 Austria and Japan signified their intention to adopt a 
 policy of gold monometallism at an early date. The prac 
 tical question at issue in the United States, therefore, was 
 not whether the double monetary standard might not be 
 feasible through an international agreement, but whether 
 one nation alone could successfully maintain it, in the face 
 of the use of a single standard by the rest of the civilised 
 world. The serious and more intelligent leaders of the 
 silver men Democrats, Republicans and Populists, 
 alike believed this to be possible. They caught eagerly 
 at stray passages in the writings of international bimet- 
 allists, and gave them an illogical application. Some very 
 conservative economists and statesmen were, in fact, theo 
 retically in favour of bimetallism as a principle among 
 them Mr. (afterwards Lord) Goschen and Mr. A. J. 
 Balfour in Great Britain; and in the United States, General 
 Francis A. Walker, Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Mr. S. 
 Dana Horton, and President E. B. Andrews of Brown 
 University. 14 The names of these and other authorities 
 
 14 See Walker, International Bimetallism (New York, 1896) ; Horton, 
 The Silver Pound (London, 1878) ; and Andrews, An Honest Dollar 
 (Hartford, 1884). 
 
322 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 were dragged into the argument, and made to support as 
 sertions and deductions such as would greatly have aston 
 ished the worthy gentlemen to whom they were ascribed. 
 
 But the great mass of the " friends of silver " did not 
 know or care anything about the niceties of financial doc 
 trine. They made up their own minds in a much more 
 direct and simple way. To them, " free silver " had a 
 most enticing sound, indicative of opulence and easy times. 
 They had a vague notion that if the amount of money in 
 the country should be increased per capita, each indi 
 vidual citizen would necessarily have more of it in his 
 pockets. Just how he was to get it except by working for 
 it precisely as he had done before, they did not attempt to 
 demonstrate; but they were certain that the free coinage 
 of silver would increase the number of dollars " per 
 capita " in the United States, and that any objection to 
 such a measure could come only from cruel capitalists in 
 the East, who wished to hold the Western farmers forever 
 in the bonds of debt. When assured that unlimited 
 silver coinage would drive gold out of circulation, they 
 replied that silver was good enough for them if they could 
 only get enough of it. When told that the United States 
 could not single-handed maintain a system at variance with 
 that of the great European nations, they answered that 
 this country was big enough to do anything it pleased 
 without asking for leave or license from the monarchies 
 of Europe. Such were the simple, primitive ideas which 
 influenced the minds of the silver men throughout the 
 West; but most potent of all was the belief that a vote 
 for silver was a direct blow struck at the hated Eastern 
 capitalist and creditor. 
 
 The third serious element in the political situation at the 
 time of President Cleveland s second inauguration was the 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 323 
 
 condition of the United States Treasury. When it had 
 been turned over to Mr. Harrison s financial secretary 
 four years before, it contained a net surplus of $97,- 
 000,000. This had all been spent, and it was now difficult 
 even to meet current expenses. Moreover, the financial 
 legislation of past years had begun to inspire foreign 
 holders of American securities with increasing apprehen 
 sion. When specie payments were resumed in 1879, the 
 Treasury had set apart in gold, a special fund, which was 
 never to be less than $100,000,000, for the redemption 
 of oustanding legal tender notes ("greenbacks"). Of 
 these greenbacks, there were in circulation $346,000,000 
 in 1892. There were also outstanding $147,000,000 of 
 u coin certificates," which had been issued in the purchase 
 of silver bullion under the Sherman Act of i89O. 15 These 
 by law were redeemable in u coin " i.e., in either gold or 
 silver, at the option of the Treasury; but President Harri 
 son s Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Windom, had very 
 unwisely ruled that the holder of the notes might exercise 
 his option. In other words, the " coin certificates," like 
 the greenbacks, were really payable in gold. Hence, there 
 were now outstanding government notes calling for $493,- 
 000,000 of gold, while the Treasury had little more than 
 one-fifth of that sum with which to redeem them. Yet 
 this was not the worst; for under the Sherman Act, which 
 still remained in force, the Government must buy each 
 month 4,500,000 ounces of silver, and issue against this 
 bullion still more paper money to be redeemed in gold. 
 
 The perplexities of the situation with which President 
 Cleveland was confronted were, therefore, plain enough 
 to be seen by any intelligent observer. He was pledged to 
 reduce the tariff in the interest of freer trade, and in this 
 
 15 See pp. 201, 273. 
 
3 2 4 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 he was certain to find himself in conflict with the whole 
 power of consolidated capital not the power of the pro 
 tected industries alone, but of all the allied forces of 
 monopoly; for these well knew that a radical reform of 
 the tariff would be only the first step toward a reform 
 of other and even worse abuses. It was also plain that he 
 must take measures to protect the Treasury and, keep it 
 solvent. But such measures would of necessity run counter 
 to the convictions of the silver men of every party, and 
 would convince the people of the West that Wall Street 
 was supreme in Washington. President Cleveland s task, 
 then, involved a bitter struggle with the capitalists on the 
 one side, while it must inevitably fan the flames of popular 
 suspicion on the other. The stoutest heart might well 
 have shrunk from such an undertaking. To carry it 
 through successfully demanded a high order of political 
 genius an exceptional gift for the management of men, 
 a perfect union of tact and firmness, and a broadly tolerant 
 understanding of human prejudice- and passion. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland was by no means possessed of this rare 
 political genius, though he did have some very fundamental 
 qualities of the governing man a robust intelligence, a 
 rigorous conscience and unlimited courage. With these 
 qualities he had also some of their usual defects. When 
 he understood a subject, he was a little intolerant of those 
 who failed to understand it, or who understood it in a dif 
 ferent way. When he was convinced that he was right, 
 he had no patience with those whom he conceived to be in 
 the wrong. Because he was himself absolutely fearless, 
 he scorned all such as shrank from following where he 
 led. He wished, in fact, not only to accomplish his own 
 ends, but to accomplish them in his own way; and coercion 
 was to him more natural than conciliation. In fact, just 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 325 
 
 as Stratford s motto was " Thorough," so Mr. Cleveland s 
 motto might have been " Downright." Whatever policy 
 he might adopt was sure to be a heavy-fisted one, and to 
 be carried out, if carried out at all, with no finesse, but by 
 dint of hard sledge-hammering blows. This temperament 
 was a fine one for an absolute ruler for that enlightened 
 despot whom Aristotle held to be the ideal governor of 
 men but it was dangerous in him who, in a Republic, 
 was obliged to carry out his plans through the unforced 
 co-operation of other and no less independent men. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland in many ways had changed in the eight 
 years which had elapsed since his first assumption of the 
 presidency. For one thing, he had ceased to be a pro 
 vincial and had risen to the full measure of the office which 
 he held. In 1885, those who noted his appearance on public 
 occasions of great dignity, as, for instance, at the funeral 
 ceremonies of General Grant, found in his external aspect, 
 his tilted hat, his " slouchy " bearing, his stolid face 
 something that recalled the country sheriff. Since that time, 
 a wide acquaintance with men of every type no less than the 
 pressure of high responsibility, had broadened and elevated 
 his whole cast of thought. If he was now, beneath a less un 
 gracious exterior, even more self-willed than ever, and more 
 bent on having his own way, this was only natural in view 
 of what had happened in the preceding years. He had 
 flouted all advice, he had done precisely as he pleased, and 
 yet the nation had set him once more in the seat of highest 
 honour. It is not surprising, then, if from the time of his 
 second inauguration, the President displayed what seemed 
 to many a certain arrogance of manner and of language, 
 with a disposition to enlarge the prerogatives of his high 
 office. The very phrasing of his official papers his proc 
 lamations and his messages to Congress is noteworthy 
 
326 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 for a haughtiness such as would have been far more appro 
 priate in the rescripts of an hereditary monarch. The 
 personal pronoun " I " occurs in these documents with an 
 unusual frequency; and such expressions as "I have 
 deemed it fitting," ; It is my purpose," " It affords me 
 signal pleasure," " I am decidedly of the opinion," and 
 " I am satisfied," appear and reappear so often as, to give 
 to the whole a strongly personal colouring. Very charac 
 teristic was an Executive Order issued by the President 
 on May 8th. He had set apart certain hours for receiv 
 ing such Senators and Representatives as desired inter 
 views with him. As is usually the case, these interviews 
 related largely to questions of patronage. The President 
 became so irritated in consequence, as to make public his 
 annoyance in a remarkable order, the effect of which, upon 
 both Senators and Representatives, may be easily con 
 ceived. It ran: 
 
 " The time which . . . was set apart for the reception of 
 Senators and Representatives has been almost entirely spent in 
 listening to applications for office, which have been bewildering in 
 volume, perplexing and exhausting in their iteration, and impos 
 sible of remembrance. 
 
 " A due regard for public duty . . . and an observance of 
 the limitations placed upon human endurance, oblige me to decline, 
 from and after this date, all personal interviews with those seek 
 ing appointments to office, except as I on my own motion may 
 especially invite them. . . . Applicants for office will only 
 prejudice their prospects by repeated importunity and by remain 
 ing in Washington to await results." 
 
 It was a number of incidents such as this that gave point 
 to a contemporary cartoon entitled "Cleveland s Map of 
 the United States," wherein the figure of the President was 
 so drawn as to coincide with the outlines of the country, 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 327 
 
 which was thus made, by implication, identical with him 
 self. Under the drawing were the words : 
 
 " My country, tis of Me, 
 Of Me I sing!" 
 
 One might well have sympathised with the President in 
 his annoyance over the importunities of office-seekers, and 
 the lack of consideration shown by the Senators and Rep 
 resentatives of his own party. But in view of the fact 
 that he was about to recommend legislation of the most 
 controversial character, and that only by the good will and 
 co-operation of the majority in Congress could it be car 
 ried through, this Executive Order was an extraordinary 
 example of political tactlessness. Far more important, 
 however, was a line of action adopted by President 
 Cleveland with regard to a pending international question. 
 By this, at the very outset of his administration, he 
 brought upon himself, both in and out of Congress, an 
 avalanche of political unpopularity and personal dislike. 
 
 At the Inauguration Ball, in Mrs. Cleveland s company, 
 a dark-skinned, graceful girl had attracted much attention. 
 This was the Princess Kaiulani, the heiress-apparent to 
 the Hawaiian throne in direct succession to Queen 
 Liliuokalani, of whom she was the niece. The Princess 
 was only eighteen years of age. She had been educated 
 in England, and was in that country at the time when the 
 Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown and the Queen 
 deposed. 16 On getting news of this, she had come at once 
 to the United States, accompanied by her guardian, Mr. 
 Theophilus Davies. It will be remembered that President 
 Harrison s last important act had been the submission to 
 
 16 See pp. 245-248. 
 
328 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the Senate of a treaty by which Hawaii was to be annexed 
 to the United States. This treaty had not yet been rati 
 fied; and it was with the purpose of opposing it that 
 the Princess Kaiulani had hastened to Washington. Her 
 advisers shrewdly counted on the chivalrous disposition 
 of the American people toward women. They believed 
 that a young and pretty girl pleading for the restoration 
 of her rights would make a strong appeal to popular senti 
 ment throughout the land. No sooner had Kaiulani 
 reached New York than she issued an " Appeal to the 
 American People," which was published in the newspapers 
 on March 2d. Whether she wrote it herself or whether 
 it was written for her, was a question much mooted at the 
 time. Whoever wrote it, the " appeal " was sweetly 
 pretty, with a touch of false sentiment about it and a 
 schoolgirl rhetoric that did not ring quite true; so that it 
 wholly failed of its effect, and was received with smiles by 
 nearly all who read it. In it the Princess said: 
 
 " Unbidden I stand upon your shores to-day, where I thought 
 so soon to receive a royal welcome on my way to my own king 
 dom. I come unattended, except by loving hearts that came with 
 me over the wintry seas. I hear that Commissioners from my 
 own land have been for many days asking this great nation to take 
 away my little vineyard. . . . 
 
 " To-day I, a poor, weak girl with not one of my people near 
 me, and with all these Hawaiian statesmen against me, have 
 strength to stand up for the rights of my people. Even now I can 
 hear a wail in my heart, and it gives me strength and courage, and 
 I am strong strong in the faith of God, strong in the strength 
 of seventy million people who in this free land will hear my cry 
 and will refuse to let their flag cover dishonour to mine ! " 
 
 Of Mrs. Cleveland, this island princess made an im- 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 329 
 
 portant convert to the cause she represented. Mrs. 
 Cleveland welcomed her very warmly to the White House, 
 and gave her a most womanly sympathy. Kaiulani was, 
 indeed, a very charming girl, and she made a favourable 
 impression upon the President and also upon the Secretary 
 of State, to whom she was presently introduced. Mr. 
 Gresham, during the years when he was a Republican, had 
 been a rival of Mr. Harrison, and this rivalry had in time 
 deepened into a personal dislike. No wonder that the 
 Harrison policy regarding Hawaii should be viewed by 
 him with extreme disfavour. Altogether, then, between 
 the President s natural caution, which led him to move 
 slowly in an affair begun with so much haste, and Mr. 
 Gresham s eagerness to undo the work of one whom he 
 disliked, no surprise was felt when, on March 9th, a 
 message of five lines was sent to the Senate, withdrawing 
 " for the purpose of re-examination " the treaty framed 
 by President Harrison and the Hawaiian Commissioners. 
 A few days later, Mr. Cleveland despatched to Hawaii, as 
 a Special Commissioner, Mr. James H. Blount of 
 Georgia, to investigate the circumstances under which the 
 change of government in the Islands had been effected. 
 
 Mr. Blount was an honest, but somewhat cross-grained 
 politician, who had been Chairman of the Committee on 
 Foreign Affairs in the House of Representatives; yet 
 one more unfamiliar with foreign affairs could scarcely 
 have been selected for this delicate mission. He had 
 never been out of the United States in his life; and 
 his knowledge of diplomatic usage was as limited as his 
 mastery of social forms. In keeping with the rather 
 primitive notions of Secretary Gresham in matters of cere 
 monial, Mr. Blount proceeded to Hawaii, not by a regular 
 mail steamer nor in a man-of-war, but on board a little 
 
330 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 revenue-cutter, the Richard Rush. He reached Honolulu 
 on March 29th. President Dole and the other members 
 of the Provisional Government had heard that a Com 
 mission, consisting of representatives of the judiciary, the 
 army, and the navy, had been sent to them; and suitable 
 preparations were made to receive such a Commission with 
 due dignity. An eye-witness has given a graphic account 
 of what actually happened. All the vessels in the harbour 
 displayed the American flag, and the American colours 
 were wreathed about the pillars and columns of the city 
 houses. At the pier a great multitude had assembled, 
 strewing the passage-way with roses. As the Rush hove in 
 sight, a Japanese cruiser, the Naniwa, fired a thunderous 
 salute, to which the little Rush responded " like the 
 yap of a terrier echoing the deep baying of a stag- 
 hound." 
 
 " And then then came an anti-climax that very closely ap 
 proached the ridiculous. Instead of the dignified, affable and 
 courteous body of officials that had been expected, there stepped 
 ashore a commonplace and rather sullen-looking man of sixty, 
 clad in ill-fitting clothes of blue homespun, and a Panama hat. 
 Public expectation had been roused to the highest pitch, and the 
 revulsion of feeling was instantaneous and painful." 1T 
 
 Mr. Blount delivered to President Dole a letter from 
 President Cleveland beginning: 
 
 " GREAT AND GOOD FRIEND: I have made choice of James H. 
 Blount, one of our distinguished citizens, as my Special Commis 
 sioner to visit the Hawaiian Islands and make report to me con 
 cerning the present status of affairs in that country. . . . His 
 authority is paramount." 
 
 17 Krout, Hawaii and a Revolution, p. 145 (New York, 1898). 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 331 
 
 Mr. Blount brought with him other letters from the 
 American President. One of them, addressed to Minis 
 ter Stevens, practically suspended that gentleman from the 
 exercise of his diplomatic functions and made him subor 
 dinate to Mr. Blount. A second letter directed Rear- 
 Admiral Skerrett, in command of the Pacific Squad 
 ron, to consult freely with Mr. Blount and " obey any 
 instructions you may receive from him regarding the 
 course to be pursued in the Islands by the force under your 
 command." Armed with these remarkable credentials, 
 Mr. Blount began in his own way to investigate the events 
 of the preceding February. On the day after his arrival, 
 he ordered the American flag to be lowered from the Gov 
 ernment Building in Honolulu, and directed the force of 
 marines which had been stationed there to break camp and 
 return to their ship, the Boston. This was done, and the 
 Provisional Government at once raised its own flag and 
 posted its own troops with a battery of rapid-fire guns to 
 quell any attempt to restore the Queen. 18 
 
 When the news of these events reached the United 
 States, a great deal of very bitter feeling was excited. The 
 American people were not strongly in favour of annexing 
 Hawaii. Apart from a few speculators in sugar, there 
 was no great interest in the matter. A desire for foreign 
 territory had not yet stirred the popular imagination. Had 
 Mr. Cleveland simply put the treaty in the fire and kept 
 his hands off Hawaii altogether, the whole affair would 
 have been speedily forgotten. But when the credentials 
 which he had given to Mr. Blount were fully known, they 
 were very generally disapproved, alike by Democrats and 
 by Republicans. The President had, apparently, delegated 
 the whole power of his great office to an individual " Com 
 missioner " a nondescript functionary unknown to the 
 
 18 April i, 1893. 
 
332 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Constitution who, had by a stroke of the presidential 
 pen been put over the head of a regularly appointed 
 Minister, and invested with the absolute command of an 
 important naval force. There is, indeed, no doubt that 
 Mr. Cleveland exceeded his constitutional rights, and that 
 Mr. Blount s " paramountcy " was unlawful. Before 
 long, a still more intense feeling was aroused by the report 
 that the President intended to restore Queen Liliuokalani 
 to her throne. 
 
 The rumour proved to be true. Mr. Blount s reports 
 and a study of the earlier despatches of Minister Stevens 
 convinced Mr. Cleveland that the Hawaiian monarchy 
 had been subverted by the active aid of Mr. Stevens, and 
 through " the intimidation caused by the presence of an 
 armed naval force of the United States." 19 Having as 
 sured himself of this, the President felt it his duty, as he 
 expressed it, " to undo the wrong . . . and to restore 
 the status existing at the time of our forcible interven 
 tion." 20 
 
 It was here that the President made a second blunder, 
 and, as it proved, a most humiliating one for him. He 
 forgot, in the first place, the wise tradition that in the 
 foreign policy of the United States there should be no 
 break, and that in essentials a change of administration 
 should cause no change in the attitude of the State Depart 
 ment toward other countries. 21 There was another and 
 more practical consideration. Whether or not the Provis 
 ional Government of Hawaii could have held its own 
 against the Queen s forces in the preceding January with- 
 
 19 See President Cleveland s message of December 4, 1893. 
 
 20 Ibid. 
 
 21 This principle had been especially upheld by Webster while Secre 
 tary of State. See Curtis, Life of Daniel Webster, ii., p. 534 (New York, 
 1870). 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 333 
 
 out the presence of American marines, there was no doubt 
 that it was now quite able to sustain itself. It had an 
 efficient force of some 1200 well-drilled troops nearly 
 all Americans and Englishmen it was supplied with 
 artillery, and it enjoyed the support of the responsible 
 residents of Hawaii. 22 Hence, to restore the Queen would 
 require something more than a curt request from President 
 Cleveland. 
 
 But with his innate obstinacy, the President resolved 
 to make the attempt, and the unpopularity of such a course 
 only strengthened his resolve. Recalling Mr. Blount, 
 whose churlish manners had made him thoroughly dis 
 liked, Mr. Cleveland appointed as Minister to Hawaii, 
 Mr. Albert S. Willis, of Kentucky, a gentleman of intel 
 ligence and judgment. Mr. Willis, however, was specifi 
 cally instructed to bring about the restoration of the 
 Queen; and a naval force was stationed at Honolulu to 
 give point to his instructions. On his arrival, the new 
 Minister sent to President Dole a formal request that he 
 " relinquish to the Queen her constitutional authority." 
 President Dole replied by a courteous but firm refusal. 
 Here was an impasse which could be broken through by 
 nothing short of armed force. Would the guns of Ameri 
 can ships of war be turned upon men of American blood 
 in order to re-enthrone a Polynesian queen who had broken 
 her coronation oath and had sought to govern irrespon 
 sibly? 
 
 Mr. Willis hesitated; yet he might, under his in 
 structions, have taken even this last step, had not the un 
 expected obstinacy of the Queen herself deterred him. 
 She was asked whether, if replaced upon the throne, she 
 
 22 For an account (unfavourable in tone) of Hawaii under the Provisional 
 Government and later, see Palmer, Again in Hawaii (Boston, 1895). 
 
334 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 would agree not to punish those who had deposed her. 23 
 This question she met with an indignant negative. Not 
 punish them? Most assuredly she would punish them! 
 The leaders Mr. Dole, Mr. Thurston and their associ 
 ates must be executed at once. She. would have their 
 heads, and their families must be banished. Here spoke 
 not merely the queen, who felt herself in all respects a 
 sovereign, and who had been deprived of power and 
 publicly humiliated. Something of the implacable hatred 
 of an insulted woman found voice in the sharp answer 
 which she made to Mr. Willis. For the annexationists in 
 the zeal of their self-justification had not been satisfied 
 merely to assail the public acts of Liliuokalani. They had 
 tried to smirch her private life as well; and Mr. Stevens 
 in his despatches to the State Department, repeating the 
 scabrous gossip of the foreign clubs in Honolulu, had de 
 clared the queen to be unchaste. Hence, the indignation 
 with which Liluokalani refused to promise any amnesty. 
 She would be queen without conditions, or she would not 
 be queen at all. One may well admire her high spirit and 
 her womanly indignation; but her persistence made further 
 effort on her behalf impossible. 
 
 Mr. Willis sent his report to President Cleveland, who 
 afterwards asked Congress to take action. Congress, 
 however, like the vast majority of the American people, 
 was most antagonistic to what the President had done in 
 the Hawaiian affair. Therefore it took no action at all; 
 and in due time the Republic of Hawaii had to be formally 
 recognized by the United States. Mr. Cleveland s inter 
 ference had not only failed to restore the Queen, but his 
 withdrawal of the annexation treaty had deprived her, 
 and also the pretty young Princess Kaiulani, of the liberal 
 
 23 President Cleveland had himself insisted upon this condition. 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 335 
 
 income which that instrument had guaranteed to them. 
 Furthermore, the President, at the very outset of his ad 
 ministration, had incurred a vast amount of odium, just 
 when he most needed the harmonious support of all who 
 had ever been his friends. 
 
 Already a serious crisis had arisen. The condition of 
 the Treasury, to which allusion has been made, soon 
 began to affect the prosperity of the country. Foreign 
 investors were steadily selling American securities, thus 
 causing a general decline in prices. This movement had 
 begun during the latter part of the Harrison administra 
 tion, but it was now perceptibly accelerated. Although the 
 business of the country was fairly good, although the crops 
 were bountiful and the general industries not idle, there 
 existed, nevertheless, something like a vague premonition 
 of disaster, a pervasive distrust to which no name was 
 given. The most obvious reason for this feeling seemed to 
 be a lurking doubt as to whether the Government could 
 continue to meet its obligations in paying gold upon de 
 mand for all its notes forced as it was by the Sherman 
 Law to purchase more than two tons of silver bullion every 
 month. Most Republicans insisted that the lack of confi 
 dence arose from a dread of the tariff changes to which the 
 party now in power was pledged. But whatever the cause, 
 commercial and financial activity languished. The 
 country exhibits all the symptoms of a patient suffering 
 from low fever," said a writer in the Nation; and this 
 very well describes the situation up to the end of June. 
 
 After the 26th of that month, however, this " low 
 fever " assumed the form of a delirium. The Govern 
 ment of India on that day suspended the free coinage of 
 silver at its mints. That such a measure was certain to 
 
336 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 be taken had been well known to students of finance; yet 
 the announcement at once precipitated a panic, the like 
 of which had not yet been seen in the United States. The 
 value of the silver dollar, which had long been falling, 
 dropped from 67 cents to less than 60 cents. Individuals 
 all over the country began collecting gold and hoarding 
 it, having lost their confidence in government notes. Banks 
 called in their loans and refused new discounts. In this 
 the lead was taken by those Canadian banking-houses 
 which, for the purpose of " moving the crops," were ac 
 customed to lend money to American customers in the 
 Northwestern cities, such as Milwaukee, Detroit, Minne 
 apolis and St. Paul. Business, therefore, came almost to 
 a standstill; and before long the weaker banks headed the 
 long list of failures and suspensions which occupied whole 
 columns in the daily press. 24 A " chain " of shaky banks, 
 nearly fifty in number, organised by one Zirnri Dwiggins 
 in the West, came down in a single crash. The gold 
 reserve in the Treasury for the first time fell below the 
 traditional minimum and sank to less than $97,000,000. 
 Many prophesied that the country would soon be forced 
 to a silver basis. 
 
 Four days after the demonetisation of silver in India, 
 President Cleveland issued a proclamation 25 summoning 
 an extra session of Congress to meet on August 7th. In 
 the proclamation he spoke of the distressing condition of 
 the country as " largely the result of a financial policy 
 which the executive branch of the Government finds em 
 bodied in unwise laws laws which must be executed until 
 repealed by Congress." This meant, of course, that the 
 
 24 The number of national banks that failed or suspended during the 
 year 1893 was 158. 
 
 25 June 30, 1893. 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 337 
 
 President intended to press for the repeal of the purchasing 
 clause of the Sherman Act. The proclamation had but 
 slight effect in calming public anxiety. It was known that 
 the number of silver men in both houses of Congress was 
 a very large one ; and many persons doubted whether these 
 would consent to the repeal of a measure so likely to bring 
 about the very situation which they earnestly desired. 
 Hence, all through July, the failures still continued, mines 
 were closed, factories shut down, and labourers were dis 
 charged. On August ist six days before Congress 
 met the savings banks put in force the clause which 
 requires sixty days notice from depositors desiring to draw 
 money. The effect of this was to create what came to 
 be known as a u currency famine." Until then the general 
 public had feared lest gold should not be paid upon de 
 mand; but now the belief spread rapidly that no money 
 of any kind would long remain in circulation. Hence, 
 whereas men had previously hoarded gold, there now 
 began a frantic rush to hoard silver, paper money in fact, 
 any kind of circulating medium. 
 
 Of course, this movement, if not checked, would have 
 led to a panic so tremendous as to cause a universal crash; 
 and therefore in New York, most of the banks that were 
 members of the Clearing House resorted to a strong and 
 quite unprecedented measure. They declined, as a rule, to 
 cash cheques drawn by their depositors, except for very 
 small amounts. Depositors were told that they had usually 
 made their deposits in the form of cheques, and that for 
 the present, therefore, they must themselves employ the 
 same medium of exchange. In other words, instead of 
 drawing money, they received certified cheques payable 
 through the Clearing House. If a depositor insisted upon 
 receiving cash, it was given him, but he was informed that 
 
338 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 he must at once withdraw his account. Large employers 
 of labour were provided with the money necessary for 
 them in making up their payrolls; and in other cases, 
 where good reasons could be shown for drawing cash, it 
 was paid out. But otherwise cheques were not directly 
 honoured. To sustain the weaker banks, the Clearing 
 House issued loan certificates. 
 
 This plan was put into effect on August 3d; and on the 
 following day, currency of every kind was at a premium 
 ranging from I to 2 per cent. The money-brokers, who 
 had foreseen the action of the banks, had for several 
 days been quietly accumulating a stock of cash; and they 
 now proceeded to cash certified cheques at the discount 
 mentioned. An enormous business of this sort was done. 
 A well-known brokerage firm near the head of Wall 
 Street bought currency at a premium of 1-2 of one per 
 cent., and sold it at a premium of 3 per cent. Great 
 bundles of paper money were stacked up behind the 
 counters, and all day long the exchange went on. In no 
 other way could cheques be readily converted into money. 
 Even those drawn by the Assistant Treasurer of the 
 United States at the Sub-Treasury in New York in pay 
 ment of pensions were not accepted at their face value. 
 On August 8th, the premium on currency rose to 3 per 
 cent.; while for the first time since January i, 1879, the 
 banks themselves paid a premium for gold. By August 
 i ith, the " currency famine " was at its height, and it was 
 estimated that at least $1,000,000 in cash was paid out 
 daily by the money-brokers to holders of certified cheques. 
 The country was swept from one end to the other for 
 coin and notes; and even from Canada there was sent to 
 New York a consignment of nearly a million dollars in 
 small bills and fractional silver. Oddly enough, silver 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 339 
 
 was now taken as readily as gold, while paper money was 
 preferred to either. On August 5th, a firm of money- 
 brokers advertised for silver dollars, offering a premium 
 of $7.50 per thousand. 26 Many persons bought and 
 hoarded Bank of England notes, or French and German 
 gold. 
 
 The special session of Congress opened on August 7th 
 in the midst of these unusual occurrences. For the first 
 time since 1853, when Pierce was President, the Demo- 
 ratic party was in control of the executive and legislative 
 branches of the Government Presidency, Senate and 
 House of Representatives. Under President Hayes, both 
 Senate and House had been Democratic for a short time; 
 during Mr. Cleveland s, first administration his party had 
 the Presidency and the House; but now it was in complete 
 possession, and was therefore undividedly responsible. In 
 the House, the Democrats had 219 members, the Republi 
 cans 124, and the Populists I2. 27 In the Senate, there were 
 44 Democrats, 36 Republicans, 5 Populists, and three 
 vacancies. The weakness of the Democrats lay in the 
 slenderness of their majority in the Senate, and in the fact 
 that on financial questions there existed a great divergence 
 of opinion among them in both houses. 
 
 The President s message was sent to Congress on 
 August 8th. It was a clear, concise and convincing state 
 ment of what he held to be the cause of " an alarming 
 and extraordinary business situation." This cause was, 
 according to him, primarily, the purchase provision of the 
 Sherman Act of July 14, 1890. Between July, 1890, and 
 July, 1893, he said, the gold coin and gold bullion in the 
 
 26 See the New York Herald and Times of that date. 
 
 27 One seat was vacant at this session. 
 
340 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Treasury had decreased more than $132,000,000, while 
 during the same period the silver coin and silver bullion 
 had increased more than $147, 000,000. 28 
 
 " Unless Government bonds are to be constantly issued and 
 sold to replenish our exhausted gold, only to be again exhausted, 
 . . . the operation of the silver purchase law now, in force 
 leads in the direction of the entire substitution of silver for the 
 gold in the Treasury, and this must be followed by the payment 
 of all government obligations in depreciated silver. At this stage 
 gold and silver must part company. . . . Given over to the 
 exclusive use of a currency greatly depreciated according to the 
 standard of the commercial world, we could no longer claim a 
 place among the nations of the first class." 
 
 The President therefore recommended the repeal of the 
 Sherman Act. 
 
 Mr. Wilson of West Virginia, who soon came to be 
 regarded as the administration s spokesman in the House, 
 introduced a bill carrying out this recommendation, and 
 the debate upon it began on August nth. At once it 
 became evident that the question was not to be decided by 
 a purely party vote. Other lines of cleavage rapidly 
 developed. A large group of the Democratic representa 
 tives were opposed to repeal, unless in place of the Sher- 
 
 28 In an authorised interview given to the press on June isth, Secretary 
 Carlisle had summed up the situation as follows: 
 
 " The records of the Treasury Department show that during the eleven 
 months beginning May 31, 1892, and ending May i, 1893, the coin 
 Treasury notes issued for the purchase of silver bullion under the act 
 of July 14, 1890, amounted to $49,961,184, and that during that same 
 period the amount of such notes paid in gold was $47,745,173. It thus 
 appears that all the silver bullion purchased during that time, except 
 $2,216,011 worth, was paid for in gold, while the bullion itself is stored 
 in the vaults of the Treasury and can neither be sold nor used for the 
 payment of any kind of obligation." 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 341 
 
 man Act there should be substituted a still more radical 
 measure intended to " do something for silver." A 
 majority of the Republicans stood with the President. 
 Consistency, in fact, if nothing else, would have made this 
 necessary; for Mr. Wilson s repealing bill was almost 
 identical in language with a like bill offered in the pre 
 ceding Congress by Mr. Sherman himself. 29 Yet there 
 were also a good many " silver Republicans" ; and these, 
 combining with the silver men among the Democrats, and 
 the entire body of Populists, made a formidable opposi 
 tion. This fact explains why the special session of Con 
 gress and the President s message did nothing immediately 
 to relieve the financial situation. It was on the day when 
 the debate began that the premium on currency reached 
 its highest figure. 
 
 The debate was very interesting. Mr. Wilson s argu 
 ment for repeal was weighty, and represented the position 
 of conservative expositors of finance. Mr. Reed of Maine, 
 the Republican leader, spoke at some length, and in a 
 blandly philosophic tone. He mentioned the existing 
 business depression, and seemed to give in his adhesion to 
 the cyclic theory of panics. Great panics, he remarked, 
 seem to occur at long intervals, but with a sort of cosmic 
 regularity. Who shall say just why they come? And 
 then between there are minor panics curious, interesting 
 phenomena of the business world. Nothing could have 
 been more beautifully detached than Mr. Reed s whole 
 tone and manner, though as he neared the end, he made 
 it clear that to his mind the advent of the Democratic 
 party to power had, in this particular instance, afforded 
 a very reasonable explanation of the genesis of panic. 
 Mr. Grosvenor of Ohio, had no philosophic doubts. In a 
 burst of declamatory eloquence, he charged the collapse 
 
 29 In the Senate, July 14, 1892. (Senate bill 3423-) 
 
342 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 of prosperity to a dread of Democratic domination and 
 the menace of free trade. He drew a picture of the 
 country after the election in November. 
 
 " One by one the furnaces went out. One by one the mines 
 closed up. One after another the factories shortened their time. 
 Why did they do this? Was it a mere senseless stampede? Was 
 it a Wall Street panic? Was it an unintelligent curtailment of 
 the business of the country? I say not. Where is there an intelli 
 gent man to-day, if he were a manufacturer, with the threat of 
 the Democratic party in power the menace of its possession, the 
 threat of its mere existence under that platform and confiding as 
 human nature does in the belief that a great political party will do 
 as it says a violent assumption, I admit, in the present instance 
 what one of you at the head of an industrial institution would 
 carry on your business ? " 
 
 The Republican leaders, however, while casting the 
 blame for the existing situation upon the President and 
 his party, gave their assent to the measure for repeal. 
 
 The allied silver men were led by Mr. Richard P. Bland 
 of Missouri, who had grown grey in the advocacy of a freer 
 use of the white metal. He was the author of the Bland- 
 Allison Act of iSyS, 30 and his activity in behalf of silver 
 had never ceased, so that he had won for himself the 
 popular nickname of " Silver Dick." In the debate now 
 in progress, he had answered Mr. Wilson on August I2th. 
 His arguments were those with which all men were fa 
 miliar; and while they were listened to with respect, they 
 were neither new in substance, nor especially forcible in the 
 form of their presentation. Four days later (August i6th) 
 the discussion was enlivened by the participation in it of a 
 remarkable figure who now for the first time drew to him 
 self the attention of men of every party throughout the 
 
 30 See pp. 81-82. 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 343 
 
 United States. This was Mr. William Jennings Bryan of 
 Nebraska. Mr. Bryan at this time was a young man of 
 thirty-three, the son of an eminent lawyer and judge, whose 
 profession he had followed. In 1890, he had accepted a 
 Democratic nomination for Congress, in a district where 
 no other Democrat was willing to stand, the contest be 
 ing considered hopeless. Without financial aid from the 
 State Committee of his party, Mr. Bryan had made a 
 spirited canvass, and had astounded everyone by con 
 verting a Republican majority of 3000 into a Democratic 
 majority of 7000. In 1892 he had been re-elected, and 
 he now appeared as the ablest of Mr. Bland s lieutenants 
 in opposing unconditional repeal. 
 
 The time allotted to each speaker had by agreement been 
 limited to one hour; but when Mr. Bryan s period expired, 
 he had so engaged the attention of the House that by 
 unanimous consent, his time was indefinitely extended, and 
 he continued speaking for nearly two hours longer, to the 
 admiration of all who heard him. This admiration was, 
 no doubt, partly due to Mr. Bryan s command of the 
 arts of the orator to his attractive presence, his pleasing 
 manner of delivery, and his clear, vibrant and beautifully 
 modulated voice yet, making all allowance for these 
 adventitious aids, the speech which he then delivered still 
 remains perhaps the most forcefully persuasive exposition 
 of the argument for silver that has ever been presented 
 before a deliberative body. Its rhetoric never obtruded 
 itself in the form of garish tropes or adjectival excess. It 
 was the subtler and more effective rhetoric which gives to 
 undisputed facts the exact colouring that the artist in 
 words desires to apply, and which insensibly leads the 
 listener to accept the facts and the deductions from those 
 facts, as of precisely equal value. 
 
344 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Mr, Bryan s argument, briefly summarized, was to the 
 effect, that there existed neither gold enough nor silver 
 enough for either to form the sole basis of the world s 
 metallic money; and that to discriminate against the use 
 of either was to contract the currency everywhere. To 
 demonetize silver was to augment artificially the value of 
 gold, and thus to lower the price of all commodities when 
 measured in gold, while increasing the burden of the 
 debtor class who must pay their debts in a kind of money 
 more valuable and hence more difficult to earn, than that 
 in which the debt had been originally contracted. He held 
 that the United States should make a free use of silver and 
 should allow free coinage of it at some ratio; and he de 
 clared the ratio of 16 to i, to be a just one. Retaining it, 
 the parity of the gold and silver dollars could still be 
 maintained. He quoted Lord Goschen s dictum: 
 
 " At present there is a vicious circle. States are afraid of em 
 ploying silver on account of the depreciation ; so the depreciation 
 continues because States refuse to employ it." 
 
 And he flung at the Republicans the following citation 
 from a speech of Mr. Blaine : 
 
 " The destruction of silver as money and establishing gold as 
 the sole unit of value must have a ruinous effect on all forms of 
 property except those investments which yield a fixed return in 
 money. These must be enormously enhanced in value and must 
 gain a disproportionate and unfair advantage over every other 
 species of property." 31 , 
 
 As against the proposal to repeal unconditionally the 
 Sherman Act, Mr. Bryan said: 
 
 " The main objection which we heard last spring was that the 
 Treasury [Sherman] notes were used to draw gold out of the 
 31 Speech in the House, February 7, 1878. 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 345 
 
 Treasury. . . . But the objection is hardly important enough 
 for consideration. While the Treasury notes have been used 
 to draw out gold, they need not have been used for this pur 
 pose; for we have $346,000,000 worth of greenbacks with which 
 gold can be drawn so long as the Government gives the option to 
 the holder. If all of the Treasury notes were destroyed, the green 
 backs are sufficient to draw out the $100,000,000 reserve three 
 times over, and then they can be reissued and used again. To 
 complain of the Treasury notes while the greenbacks remain, is 
 like finding fault because the gate is open when the whole fence is 
 down." 
 
 Mr. Bryan s effort won him the sincere applause of 
 party friends and foes alike; but it could not prevail 
 to defeat the administration s measure. The power of a 
 new President is very great, and perhaps the power of a 
 new Speaker is even greater. Mr. Charles F. Crisp of 
 Georgia, who had succeeded Mr. Reed, and now occupied 
 the Speaker s chair, was, or had been, an advocate of free 
 silver coinage; but he frankly accepted the policy of the 
 President, and did all he could to press the repeal bill to 
 a final vote. This was taken on August 28th, when Mr. 
 Wilson s measure passed the House by a vote of 239 to 
 108. Here was apparently a triumph for the Presi 
 dent; yet the triumph was not unalloyed. During the con 
 test, a proposal had been made to re-enact the old Bland- 
 Allison Law of 1878, and this proposal had been lost by 
 a vote in which the majority of Democratic representa 
 tives had opposed the policy of Mr. Cleveland, so that he 
 was sustained only by the aid of the Republicans. 
 
 The repealing bill now went to the Senate, where it 
 was introduced by Mr. Voorhees of Indiana with an 
 amendment which declared it to be the policy of the 
 United States to use both gold and silver as standard 
 
346 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 money, and to coin both gold and silver into money of 
 equal intrinsic and exchangeable value, such equality to be 
 secured through international agreement. The object of 
 this amendment was to win the votes of those who, like 
 Senator Lodge, were theoretical bimetallists, and also to 
 make it clear that the use of silver was not to be discon 
 tinued. But in the Senate, the passage of the hill was 
 stubbornly resisted; and both the Populists and the silver 
 advocates belonging to the older parties threatened to 
 " talk the bill to death." As the Senate rules provided 
 for no restriction of debate, and as each Senator might 
 talk as often and as long as he desired, this threat was a 
 most serious one. Prodigious feats of oratory were per 
 formed by the recalcitrant Senators. Mr. Allen of 
 Nebraska made what was doubtless the longest speech in 
 the history of legislative bodies, in talking for fourteen 
 hours without interruption, resting himself by sending 
 volumes of history or statistics or poetry to be read from 
 the desk as part of his address. Other Senators, especially 
 the Republicans, took a humorous view of the whole situ 
 ation. Senator Hale and Senator Chandler told fish 
 stories and exchanged jokes. Other Senators discoursed 
 upon current topics having not the slightest relevance to 
 the order of the day. In fact, the proceedings degener 
 ated into an undignified and most discreditable farce. 
 
 On September 25th, several influential Senators, repre 
 senting the administration, went privately to Vice- 
 President Stevenson, who presided over the Senate, and 
 urged him to break the deadlock. By refusing to recog 
 nize those Senators who should thereafter rise to speak 
 for purposes of pure obstruction, the debate might be 
 brought to a close and a vote taken. Such a course would 
 be contrary to all American precedents; it would be almost 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 347 
 
 revolutionary. Yet it was in accordance with the dictates 
 of common sense that a minority should not be allowed 
 permanently to prevent a majority from enacting legisla 
 tion, least of all in so serious a crisis and when every day s 
 delay was so ruinous to the business of the country. There 
 was recent English precedent for such action as they asked. 
 In the absence of a rule providing for a closure, the Speaker 
 of the House of Commons, Mr. Arthur Peel, after 
 an almost interminable period of obstruction on the part 
 of the Irish members, had refused to entertain dilatory 
 motions, and on his own responsibility had put the ques 
 tion to the House. 32 
 
 But Mr. Stevenson lacked the courage to carry out a 
 coup like this. He sat there day after day, quite help 
 less in his chair, often unable to preserve more than a mere 
 semblance of order and decorum. His were not the 
 audacity and the dominant vigour of a Reed. It may be, 
 too, that his secret sympathies were with the silver men, 
 as his subsequent political career would seem to show. At 
 any rate, he would not accept the suggestion made to him, 
 nor would he even promise to compel Senators to speak 
 to the question before them. He would do nothing what 
 soever; and so the administration Senators carried word 
 to the President that the affair seemed hopeless. 
 
 But the President knew well enough that, in the last 
 resort, he could force the repeal bill through the Senate. 
 Every President has influences at his command which, 
 if he be inclined to use them, make it possible for him to 
 impose his will upon a congressional majority of his own 
 party, and sometimes even upon a majority of the oppo- 
 
 32 February 2, 1881. See McCarthy, England under Gladstone, p. 126 
 (London, 1884) ; and Morley, Life of W. E. Gladstone, ill, pp. 52, 53 (New 
 York, 1903). 
 
348 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC: 
 
 sition. When President Johnson was at the very ebb oM: 
 his popularity in 1867, and when House and Seriate were 
 over-riding his vetoes and treating his recommendations 
 with contempt, he once said to a personal friend: " Even 
 now if I really wish anything very much indeed, I can get it 
 done." Mr. Cleveland was still new in office, and the vast 
 patronage at his disposal was still practically untouched. 
 He had rebuffed, by his order of May 8th, those Senators 
 who had importuned him on behalf of their constituents 
 and friends. Now, he had only to show himself a little 
 more complaisant, to listen a little more patiently, to say 
 " yes " instead of " no " and the thing would be done. 
 It would be merely a reversion to the invariable practice of 
 his predecessors from Lincoln 83 down to Harrison; yet 
 to one of Mr. Cleveland s temperament, and in view of 
 the higher tone of public opinion, such a course could be 
 justified only by the existence of a supreme emergency. 
 Such an emergency was undeniably at hand. The Govern 
 ment was threatened by the necessity of a partial repudi 
 ation of its debts, by the impairment of its credit, and by 
 the loss of its financial honour. Yet still the President 
 held his hand. 
 
 The majority at last tried to wear out the minority by 
 a plan to prevent adjournment until a vote upon the bill 
 should have been taken. One session lasted continuously 
 for three whole days and nights, 34 during which time 
 haggard and blear-eyed men talked and talked while 
 others slept with their heads upon their desks. But this 
 physical test proved as exhausting to one side as to the 
 
 33 For an interesting example of Lincoln s use of patronage to influence 
 legislation, see Dana, Recollections of the Civil War, p. 177 (New York, 
 1898). 
 
 * October nth-isth. 
 
CLEVELAND ONCE MORE 349 
 
 other; and the plan was given up. The Senate had now 
 been considering the bill for two long months, and the 
 end appeared no nearer than it had in August. Then at 
 last the President very quietly made a move so quietly 
 that few perceived it. But on October 29th, one of his 
 supporters came to him to express discouragement. There 
 was really no chance at all of anything being done. The 
 silver men would never yield or let a vote be taken. 
 
 " Why, Mr. President," said he, " there is Senator - , 
 whom I have just seen, and he says that this bill won t pass 
 till hell freezes over! " 
 
 The President looked up with just a half perceptible 
 gleam of interest. 
 
 "Did Senator - say that?" he asked. "Then 
 please say to Senator - , with my compliments, that hell 
 will freeze over in exactly twenty-four hours." 
 
 And on the following day, the filibustering mysteriously 
 ceased, and the Sherman Act was repealed by a vote of 
 48 to 37. But the measure so earnestly advocated by the 
 President had been adopted by the help of Republican 
 votes. 35 The House promptly concurred in the Voorhees 
 Amendment, and the bill was signed and became law on 
 November ist. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland had now been in office for only eight 
 months, and already his party was divided and unwilling 
 to be led. He had forced the passage of one measure 
 of immense importance; but in doing so he had made a 
 host of enemies, while he had depleted his available 
 sources of influence, both moral and material. And the 
 tariff fight was still to come. 
 
 35 Of the votes in the affirmative, 26 were cast by Republicans and 22 
 by Democrats; of those in the negative, 22 were cast by Democrats, n 
 by Republicans and 4 by Populists. Two Senators abstained from voting. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 STORM AND STRESS 
 
 APART from events of a political character, the most 
 memorable occurrence that took place during the* years 
 of Mr. Cleveland s second term was the Columbian 
 Exposition in Chicago, which was opened by the President 
 on May i, 1893, and was closed to the public on October 
 3 1 st. From several points of view, this magnificent 
 revelation of American capacity and versatility deserves 
 to be considered in any record which has to do with the 
 intellectual and aesthetic development of the United States. 
 Its inception, no less than its successful elaboration, must 
 remain one of the enduring civic glories of the city of 
 Chicago; and because of it, Chicago became known all 
 over the civilized world as the most vitally American, if 
 not the greatest, city of the Western Hemisphere. 
 
 The plan for a World s Fair, to commemorate the 
 quadricentenary of the first landing of Columbus, began 
 to take definite form in 1889. That the site of the Expo 
 sition should be in or near the city of New York was at 
 first regarded as a matter of course. A great many persons 
 in New York wished it, though New York, collectively, 
 did not wish it very much. There is never anything which 
 New York, collectively, wishes very much. Yet with a 
 sort of uninterested generosity, its wealthy citizens sub 
 scribed the sum of $5,000,000 to defray the cost of the 
 affair, and measures were taken to assure the opening of a 
 Columbian Exposition in October, 1892, the anniversary 
 month of America s discovery. But when Congress was 
 
 350 
 
STORM AND STRESS 351 
 
 asked to approve this plan and thus to give the celebration 
 a national character, it appeared that other cities than 
 New York had claims which they were anxious to submit. 
 St. Louis contended for the honour, though half-heartedly. 
 Many thought that Washington, as the nation s capital, 
 deserved the most consideration. But the people of 
 Chicago fairly hurled themselves into the contest. They 
 longed intensely for the opportunity to accomplish some 
 thing sufficiently stupendous to satisfy their own ambition, 
 their own love of bigness, their civic pride, and, most of all, 
 their vivid and spectacular but very genuine, patriotism. 
 They harped upon their city s nearness to the centre of 
 population. They claimed the Exposition not merely on 
 behalf of their own State, but of the entire West. They 
 pledged themselves to do anything and everything that 
 might be necessary to make it triumphantly successful. 
 They laughed with a large, amused contempt at New 
 York s pitiful five millions. Their own estimates, at the 
 very least, were twice that sum; and before long they spoke 
 of fifteen millions as barely adequate to realise their mag 
 nificent ideal. In the end they and their supporters fairly 
 carried Congress by storm, and the Exposition was given 
 to Chicago. Erelong it was declared, and as the event 
 showed, truly, that not less than $20,000,000 would have 
 to be expended. 1 The very hugeness of the sum, the colos 
 sal daring of the conception, which seemed to the con 
 servative East almost a frenzy, served only to exhilarate 
 the people of Chicago and nerve them to surpass all that 
 they had hitherto imagined. In New York, there was a 
 
 l In round figures, the management of the Exposition expended $20,- 
 000,000; the United States Government, $2,250,000; the separate States 
 and foreign governments, $12,000,000, making a total expenditure of 
 nearly $35,000,000. 
 
352 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 certain feeling of relief because the Exposition had gone 
 elsewhere. The enthusiasm of Chicago seemed to the 
 Manhattanese a bit of patavinity, an amusing exhibition 
 of provincialism. Chicago s promises were rated as mere 
 " wind." Of course, some kind of a huge raree-show 
 Would be given on the borders of Lake Michigan, but its 
 bigness would be equalled only by its crudity. 
 
 How superbly and with what overwhelming complete 
 ness, the metropolis of the West transformed this mocking 
 criticism into wondering admiration, the whole world came 
 to know, when on the lakeside, a rough, unkempt and 
 tangled stretch of plain and swamp became transmuted 
 into a shimmering dream of loveliness under the magic 
 touch of landscape gardener and architect and artist. No 
 felicity of language can bring before the eye that never 
 saw them those harmonies which consummate Art, brood 
 ing lovingly over Nature, evolved into that maze of 
 beauty. Not one of the twelve million human beings 2 
 who set foot within the Court of Honour, the crown 
 ing glory of the whole, could fail to be thrilled with a 
 new and poignant sense of what both Art and Nature 
 truly mean. The stately colonnades, the graceful arches, 
 the clustered sculptures, the gleaming domes, the endless 
 labyrinth of snowy columns, all diversified by greenery and 
 interlaced by long lagoons of quiet water here were 
 blended form and colour in a symmetrical and radiant 
 purity such as modern eyes, at least, had never looked upon 
 before. 
 
 It was the sheer beauty of its wonderful ensemble, 
 rather than the wealth of its exhibits, that made this Ex 
 position so remarkably significant in the history of such 
 
 2 This is a conservative estimate of the attendance, excluding duplicate 
 admissions. 
 
STORM AND STRESS 353 
 
 undertakings, and especially in its effect upon American 
 civilisation. So far as the display within its buildings was 
 concerned, this had been equalled several years before in 
 Paris, as it was afterwards surpassed in both Paris and 
 St. Louis. Upon that side, indeed, the American people 
 stood far less in need of education than was commonly 
 supposed. The importance of the Columbian Exposition 
 lay in the fact that it revealed to millions of Americans 
 whose lives were necessarily colourless and narrow, the 
 splendid possibilities of art, and the compelling power 
 of the beautiful. These possibilities and this power could 
 never have been forced upon their understanding in any 
 other way than by a demonstration so impressive as to 
 stultify denial. The far-reaching influence of the demon 
 stration was not one that could be measured by any formal 
 test. But a study of American conditions will certainly 
 reveal an accelerated appreciation of the graces of life 
 and a quickening of the aesthetic sense throughout the 
 whole decade which followed the creation of what Mr. 
 H. C. Bunner most felicitously designated as the White 
 City. 
 
 The year 1894 is one to be long remembered in Ameri 
 can history. In it those elements of dynamic discontent 
 which had long been gathering strength, half unperceived, 
 now loomed upon the political horizon with the black 
 and sullen menace of a swelling thunder-cloud, within 
 whose womb are pent the forces of destruction. For years, 
 by bargain and by compromise, the day of reckoning had 
 been postponed; but now both compromise and bargain 
 were impossible, and the nation had to face, however 
 fearfully, the issues which would no longer down. The 
 events of 1894 must of necessity be narrated in succession; 
 
354 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 yet the reader should remember that they took place 
 simultaneously, and that each of them had a very definite 
 relation to the others. 
 
 It had been expected by the President and his immediate 
 supporters that the repeal of the Sherman Act would at 
 once revive prosperity by restoring confidence to the busi 
 ness world. Such, however, proved not to be the case. 
 The premium on currency had, to be sure, disappeared as 
 early as September 6th, and the list of failures and sus 
 pensions was gradually curtailed. But there was no 
 general revival of commercial activity. If the country 
 had previously shown the symptoms of financial fever, 
 it now exhibited a condition of extreme debility. The 
 income of the Government was far from satisfactory; and 
 the Secretary of the Treasury, in his estimates for the 
 coming year, anticipated a deficit of $28,000,000, as 
 against a surplus of some $2,000,000 for the fiscal year 
 just ended. This unfavourable condition of affairs was 
 ascribed by the Democrats to the incubus of the McKinley 
 tariff legislation; while the Republicans continued to assert 
 that the business of the country was at a standstill because 
 of a general distrust of Democratic rule and a feeling of 
 uncertainty as to what action the party now in power might 
 take with reference to the tariff. It seemed, indeed, an 
 unpropitious time for entering upon a revision of the 
 revenue system. Many Democrats would have been glad 
 to wait. Yet in the face of their explicit party pledges, 
 delay would have convicted them of insincerity. They 
 had carried the election chiefly on the tariff issue; their 
 platform had said of the McKinley Law: ; We promise 
 its repeal as one of the beneficent results that will follow 
 the action of the people in intrusting power to the Demo 
 cratic party." Finally, some new tariff measure was neces- 
 
STORM AND STRESS 355 
 
 sary in order to secure additional revenue for the Treasury. 
 The schedules of the McKinley Act had, in part, been 
 framed for the purpose of reducing the revenue and pre 
 venting the accumulation of another huge surplus. This 
 they had accomplished only too successfully; and therefore 
 a revision was imperative as a matter of finance. 
 
 In the face of all this, it was impossible to take any 
 backward steps or to hesitate and seek refuge in delay. 
 Furthermore, the President, as always, was earnestly in 
 favour of an aggressive policy. His party had been 
 divided by the silver controversy; but on the tariff question 
 he felt sure of its support. Hence, when the regular ses 
 sion of Congress began on December 4th, the Presi 
 dent s message spoke with confidence and vigour of new 
 tariff legislation as " both an opportunity and a duty." 
 " After a hard struggle, tariff reform is directly be 
 fore us." 
 
 " After full discussion, our countrymen have spoken in favour 
 of this reform, and they have confided the work of its accomplish 
 ment to the hands of those who are solemnly pledged to it. 
 
 . . Nothing should intervene to distract our attention or 
 disturb our effort until this reform is accomplished by wise and 
 careful legislation." 
 
 The President outlined the sort of tariff measure that 
 seemed to him desirable. It should give to American 
 manufacturers free raw materials, thus enabling them to 
 produce as cheaply as the foreigner; and hence to enlarge 
 the market for American-made goods. In general, the 
 tariff charges should be reduced upon the necessaries of 
 life. Finally, the President announced that a measure 
 such as he had in mind had been already framed and 
 would be promptly submitted to the Congress. This 
 
356 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 measure was not to be unduly radical not providing as 
 yet for a tariff for revenue only. The country could not 
 in a moment cast aside every vestige of the protective 
 system. " We cannot close our eyes to the fact that con 
 ditions have grown up among us which in justice and 
 fairness call for discriminating care in the distribution 
 of ... duties and taxation." 
 
 On December I9th, Mr. Wilson, the chairman* of the 
 Committee on Ways and Means, reported to the House 
 the bill to which the President had made allusion in his 
 message. It was officially styled " An act to reduce tax 
 ation, to provide revenue for the Government, and for 
 other purposes " ; but popularly it was known as " the Wil 
 son Bill." The Republicans at once denounced it as free- 
 trade legislation; yet an analysis of its provisions as origi 
 nally reported showed plainly enough that while it was 
 distinctly a step in the direction of freer trade, it was on 
 the whole a very conservative measure. In the first place, it 
 removed entirely the duties on wool, on coal, on iron ore, 
 on lumber, and on sugar, both raw and refined. It made 
 rather moderate reductions in the duties on woollen goods, 
 cottons, linens, silks, pig iron, steel billets, steel rails, tin 
 plate, china, glassware, and earthenware. A number of 
 minor and miscellaneous articles received new schedules. 
 The most noticeable feature of the bill was its treatment of 
 raw materials as just described. Here lay the point of 
 departure from Republican tariff legislation, which in tax 
 ing raw materials had made American protectionism a 
 thing unlike the protectionism of other leading nations. 
 The Wilson Bill, in providing for the free entry of wool, 
 coal, iron ore, lumber and sugar, adopted a prin 
 ciple recognised by scientific economists, while it adhered 
 closely to the recommendations of President Cleveland s 
 
STORM AND STRESS 357 
 
 various messages and to the promise made in the Demo 
 cratic platform of 1892. 
 
 The remission of the duty on wool was the boldest 
 assertion of the new policy; for the duty on wool was 
 the one provision of the McKinley tariff that had been 
 of practical advantage to many American farmers. Its 
 repeal was bitterly opposed by the wool-growers of Ohio 
 and other States, whom Senator Sherman estimated at a 
 million souls, and the value of their annual product at 
 $i25,ooo,ooo. 3 Free iron ore was opposed by the inter 
 ests that had secured control of the Western ore beds, 
 but it was of distinct advantage to the Eastern manu 
 facturers. Free coal affected very few sections of the 
 country. In New England and on the Pacific Coast, con 
 sumers might get their supply of coal from the ad 
 jacent mines in Canada rather than from the more distant 
 coal-fields of Pennsylvania and West Virginia; but the 
 country at large must still use American and not imported 
 coal. The same thing was true with regard to lumber. 
 The question of the tariff on sugar, however, was some 
 what more complex. During the years preceding 1894, the 
 refining of sugar in the United States had gradually 
 become monopolised by the American Sugar Refining 
 Company, oftener spoken of as the Sugar Trust, of which 
 Mr. H. O. Havemeyer was the head. This corporation 
 was one of the most powerful of all those to which public 
 attention had been directed, and it was one of the most 
 unpopular. The interests of this corporation would be 
 served by admitting raw sugar free (thus giving the Trust 
 the benefit of cheap material), and by a tax upon refined 
 sugar which came from other countries. This was precisely 
 what the McKinley Act had done, enormously increasing 
 the profits of the Trust. The Wilson Bill, as reported 
 
 3 Sherman, Recollections, ii, p. 1203 (Chicago, 1895). 
 
358 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 to the House, provided for the admission of raw sugar 
 free, in accordance with the general theory as to raw 
 materials, but it also admitted refined sugar free, thereby 
 depriving the Sugar Trust of any special advantage, and 
 leaving it to stand upon its own legs. 
 
 So much for the distinctive features of the new tariff 
 measure in its original form. The rest of its schedules 
 were lower than those of the McKinley Act, but in the 
 main quite as high if not higher than those of the Tariff 
 Act of 1883, passed by a Republican Congress. In fact, 
 taken as a whole, the Wilson Bill, so far from being in 
 essence a free-trade measure, was one that would have 
 been regarded in the years before the Civil War as a piece 
 of rigorous protective legislation. It embodied, however, 
 as has been explained, the general principle of free raw 
 materials; while still it dealt considerately with the many 
 interests which had grown up under the shelter of the 
 thirty-two tariff acts which the Republicans had passed 
 between 1860 and 1890. 
 
 The Wilson Bill was very well received by the Demo 
 crats in the House and by the party as a whole. Little 
 change was made in the original draft during the five 
 weeks when it was under consideration by the Representa 
 tives. But many Democrats and some Republicans from 
 the South and West eagerly advocated the insertion in 
 the bill of a clause providing for a tax on incomes. This 
 would yield, it was said, a substantial revenue and wipe 
 out the anticipated deficit; and most of all, it would make 
 the possessors of large fortunes contribute to the Govern 
 ment a sum proportionate to their wealth. There was a 
 strong and very widespread feeling that many of the 
 richest persons in the country had so successfully 
 " dodged " their taxes, as to have secured a practical 
 
STORM AND STRESS 359 
 
 exemption from any taxation whatsoever. Secretary Car 
 lisle had suggested laying a tax upon certain classes of 
 corporations; but the House adopted instead a tax. of 2 
 per cent, upon all incomes of more than $4,000, the tax to 
 remain in force until January i, 1900. This clause was 
 adopted on January 24th by a vote of 204 to 140, and the 
 bill as a whole received the approval of the House on 
 February ist, by a vote of 182 to 106 61 members not 
 voting. When the result was announced by the Speaker, 
 it was received with a burst of Democratic cheering, and 
 Mr. Wilson was showered with congratulations by his 
 followers and friends. 
 
 But after the bill reached the Senate, affairs took a 
 decidedly different turn. The Democratic majority in the 
 upper house was a very small one, and its close cohesion 
 had already been destroyed, while there were many reasons 
 why a tariff measure such as the Wilson Bill should en 
 counter serious opposition there. These reasons may be 
 indicated briefly as springing, first, from personal opposi 
 tion to President Cleveland, and, second, from the fact 
 that the Senate, unlike the House, was controlled by 
 powerful financial interests, which were ably represented 
 on the floor. The personal animosity toward the Presi 
 dent, which did not at once find open expression, w r as in 
 part an inheritance from his first administration; 4 in part 
 a result of the masterful way in which he had forced the 
 repeal of the Sherman Act; and to a large degree, it repre 
 sented the traditional antagonism which most Senators 
 entertain toward every President who has not had con 
 gressional experience sufficient to make him understand 
 and properly respect the usages, the prerogatives and the 
 prejudices of the senatorial body. In various ways, 
 Senators of the United States feel themselves to be above 
 
 4 See pp. 75, 76- 
 
360 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the President. They are elected, not by a direct vote of 
 the people, but by the legislatures of the several States, 
 and therefore they are not directly influenced by the 
 popular will. Their term of office is longer than the 
 presidential term of office; and a Senator who is either a 
 man of real distinction or a master of political management 
 is certain to be elected for term after term; so that in very 
 many instances, a seat in the Senate is held by what is 
 practically a life tenure. Finally, the ramifications of so- 
 called " senatorial courtesy " traverse party lines and 
 create among the members of the Senate an esprit de 
 corps, which is often stronger than the dictates of party 
 loyalty. As to the interests other than political interests 
 which at times control the action of individual Senators, 
 these may be sufficiently divined from what has been set 
 forth in the preceding chapter. 5 Most Senators are 
 wealthy men, and their private and personal affiliations 
 are not unnaturally with those who represent the power of 
 wealth in public life. 
 
 It was something more than ominous that the Wilson 
 Tariff Bill after passing the House by a majority of 76, 
 and after having been referred by the Senate to its Finance 
 Committee, should have been held back by that committee 
 for almost two months. When reported (March 2Oth), 
 it had been so clipped and trimmed as to exhibit a very 
 curious metamorphosis. Yet in the open Senate the 
 measure fared still worse. As might have been expected, 
 the Republicans fell upon it tooth and nail; but acting in 
 entire harmony with them, were certain Democratic Sena 
 tors who seemed to have forgotten altogether the solemn 
 pledges which their National Convention of 1892 had 
 given to the country. Foremost among these were the 
 blandly inscrutable Senator Gorman of Maryland, and the 
 5 See pp. 317-319- 
 
STORM AND STRESS 361 
 
 newly elected Senator Brice of Ohio. The two appeared 
 upon the Democratic side of the Senate as the unavowed 
 yet most efficient agents of the protected interests, and 
 their object was plainly to modify and mutilate the Wilson 
 Bill in such a way as to deprive it of any real significance 
 and meaning. As its schedules were discussed, Messrs. 
 Brice and Gorman played upon the local interests of little 
 knots of Democratic Senators, so that amendment after 
 amendment was made, each one restoring a part of the 
 remitted duties. In all, the Senate made 634 changes in 
 the House measure, destroying entirely its original charac 
 ter. Coal, iron ore, lumber and sugar were removed from 
 the free list altogether, leaving wool and copper the only 
 raw materials to be let in untaxed. 
 
 The action of the Senate upon the sugar schedule led 
 to a most deplorable scandal. The House had put all 
 sugar both refined and raw upon the free list, thereby 
 giving governmental aid neither to the Sugar Trust nor to 
 the domestic producer. The two Senators from Louisiana, 
 however, having in mind their sugar-growing constituency, 
 insisted that raw sugar must be taxed. Without their 
 votes, the bill could probably not be carried at all, so close 
 was the division. Furthermore, other Senators believed 
 that such a duty was necessary as a revenue measure; 6 
 since the funds in the Treasury were low, and the receipts 
 from the income tax would not be available for many 
 months. Hence, the Senate imposed a duty upon raw 
 sugar of 40 per cent, ad valorem, equivalent to about one 
 cent a pound. But a duty on raw sugar without a counter 
 vailing duty on refined sugar would have been a serious 
 blow to the Sugar Trust. All the powerful influences at 
 
 President himself was favourable to this modification not as a 
 measure of protection, but for raising revenue. 
 
362 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the command of this corporation were immediately brought 
 to bear upon the Senate. Here was a direct issue between 
 one of the most notorious of Trusts on the one side, and 
 the purpose of crippling Trusts avowed by the Democracy 
 on the other. The Democratic platform had spoken of 
 " Trusts and combinations " as " a natural consequence 
 of the prohibitive taxes, which prevent . . . free 
 competition." Would Democratic Senators, in th e face 
 of this declaration, impose a prohibitive tax at the bidding 
 of a Trust whose monopoly controlled one of the necessi 
 ties of life? 
 
 The debate upon the subject soon waxed hot. While 
 it was in progress, ugly rumours began to fly abroad. The 
 certificates of the Sugar Trust fluctuated in value every 
 day, as the Senate seemed first favourable and then un 
 favourable to its interests. The story was at first 
 whispered, and then published all over the country, that 
 certain Senators were buying and selling sugar certifi 
 cates speculating, that is, in sugar on the basis of their 
 own official action. So great an outcry went up, and such 
 sweeping charges were made, that an investigation was 
 instituted by the Senate itself an investigation only half 
 heartedly pursued. Probably no Senator really wished to 
 smirch the reputation of a fellow-Senator. Yet if only 
 to pacify the public, something had to be done at once. 
 Senators were questioned by the special investigating com 
 mittee, but with slight result save in one striking instance. 
 Mr. Quay of Pennsylvania most characteristically ad 
 mitted that he had speculated in sugar, and that his 
 speculations had been guided by his official knowledge of 
 the Senate s action. With even greater effrontery, he 
 justified what he had done, adding as an afterthought, 
 that his financial interest in the affair had not in the least 
 
STORM AND STRESS 363 
 
 degree influenced his course on the floor of the Senate! 
 Other Senators were less impudent if not less culpable. 
 Definite knowledge could not be had; it must come, if at 
 all, from New York brokerage firms through which the 
 speculative Senators had sent their orders by telegraph. 
 There was some difficulty about getting this evidence; and 
 in the end nothing was accomplished save to leave a taint 
 upon the names of several Senators and to disgust the 
 country with the whole tariff controversy. 
 
 One very instructive feature of this investigation was 
 found in the testimony given to the committee by Mr. 
 Henry O. Havemeyer, the President of the Sugar Trust. 
 Mr. Havemeyer was asked about the relations of his Trust 
 to the great political parties, and their State campaign 
 funds. Did it contribute to the funds of both parties? 
 Yes," said Mr. Havemeyer with cheerful frankness, 
 " we always do that. In the State of New York, where 
 the Democratic majority is between 40,000 and 50,000, 
 we throw it [the Trust s contribution] their way. In the 
 State of Massachusetts, where the Republican party is 
 dominant, they probably have the call. Wherever there 
 is a dominant party, wherever the majority is very large, 
 that is the party that gets the contribution, because that 
 is the party which controls the local matters." The im 
 portance of this admission was obvious when one re 
 members that what Mr. Havemeyer vaguely alluded to 
 as " local matters," meant the election of Senators and 
 Representatives to. Congress, and of judges to the State 
 judiciary. Mr. Havemeyer further remarked that the 
 practice of dividing money between the two political 
 parties was the practice of " every corporation and firm 
 and Trust, or whatever you may call it." This illumining 
 discourse of Mr. Havemeyer s was, on the whole, the most 
 
364 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 valuable contribution to knowledge made by the Senate 
 committee when it finally reported. 7 
 
 But meanwhile, the Trust had its way. Refined sugar 
 was taxed one-eighth of a cent a pound, with an additional 
 duty of one-tenth of a cent on refined sugar imported from 
 countries giving an export bounty. This tax, minutely 
 insignificant though it may appear, was ample to continue 
 and confirm the Sugar Trust in its supremacy. The 
 fractional duty of one-eighth of a cent a pound meant to 
 the treasury of the Trust not less than $20,000,000 of 
 profit every year. 8 
 
 After months of wearisome delay, with frequent scenes 
 of disorder and indecorum, the Senate finally, on July 3d, 
 allowed the mutilated tariff bill to pass, by a scant majority 
 of five votes (39 to 34), with twelve Senators not vot 
 ing. During these proceedings, President Cleveland had 
 watched the course of the Senate with a very natural in 
 dignation. In his message of the preceding December 
 he had said: 
 
 " Success can only be obtained by means of unselfish counsel on 
 the part of friends of tariff reform, and as a result of their willing 
 ness to subordinate personal desires and ambitions to the general 
 good. The local interests affected by the proposed reform are so 
 numerous and so varied, that if all are insisted upon, the legisla 
 tion embodying the reform must inevitably fail." 
 
 As the event showed, there had been no " unselfish 
 counsel " in the Senate. " Personal desires and am 
 bitions " had not been subordinated. " Local interests " 
 had been most greedily insisted upon. It was now evident 
 that the legislation would " inevitably fail " so far as it 
 
 7 Senate Report No. 606, Fifty-third Congress (second session). 
 8 Mr. Havemeyer estimated it at a lower figure. 
 
STORM AND STRESS 365 
 
 professed to embody a reform, unless the Senate could be 
 induced to rescind some of its amendments. 
 
 The bill went back to the House for its concurrence. 
 Mr. Wilson, rising in his place on July 7th, urged that 
 as altered and amended, it be not passed. He spoke with 
 force and eloquence, and then took the unusual step of 
 reading to the House a personal letter addressed to him 
 by the President on July 2d, anticipating the action of 
 the Senate. It was an extraordinary letter, and the fact 
 of its being read was still more extraordinary; for thus the 
 Executive was made to criticise the action of one house 
 of Congress in a letter practically written to be read before 
 the other house. From a party point of view, a Demo 
 cratic President was arraigning Democratic Senators 
 before both Democratic and Republican Representatives. 
 The most significant sentences of the letter were the 
 following: 
 
 " My public life has been so closely related to the subject, I have 
 so longed for its accomplishment, and I have so often promised its 
 realisation to my fellow-countrymen . . . that I hope no ex 
 cuse is necessary for my earnest appeal to you that in this crisis 
 you strenuously insist upon party honesty and good faith, and a 
 sturdy adherence to Democratic principles. 
 
 " It is quite apparent that this question of free raw materials 
 does not admit of adjustment on any middle ground; since their 
 subjection to any rate of tariff, great or small, is alike a violation 
 of Democratic principles and Democratic good faith. . . . 
 
 " There is no excuse for mistaking or misapprehending the feel 
 ing and temper of the rank and file of the Democracy. They are 
 downcast under the assertion that their party fails in ability to 
 manage the Government, and they are apprehensive that efforts to 
 bring about tariff reform may fail ; but they are much more down 
 cast and apprehensive in their fear that Democratic principles may 
 be surrendered. 
 
366 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 " Every true Democrat knows that this bill in its present form 
 is not the consummation for which we have long looked. 
 Our abandonment of the cause or the principles upon which it 
 rests means party perfidy and party dishonour." 9 
 
 That President Cleveland should have permitted such 
 a letter to be read at such a time has seemed to many the 
 clearest possible evidence of his incompetence as a party 
 leader. It was most certainly a gage of defiance to the 
 Senate a body already inimical to him. It violated to 
 some extent the proprieties of executive courtesy toward 
 a branch of the national legislature. It was certain to 
 give the bitterest offence to Senators of his own party. 
 What, then, could the President hope to gain by what was, 
 on its face, a serious indiscretion? The answer to this 
 question is probably to be found in the remark of an 
 English student of Mr. Cleveland s political career. As 
 this observer wrote in 1896, Mr. Cleveland was possessed 
 of " an enduring faith in the common sense of the nation. 
 He had always acted on the rule that the people were 
 capable of understanding the truth, if it was clearly and 
 frankly put before them." 10 This does, beyond all doubt, 
 sufficiently explain why, as President, Mr. Cleveland so 
 often sent to Congress long messages advocating measures 
 which he knew very well would not be considered for a 
 moment by that body. His arguments were in reality 
 addressed, not to the Senators and Representatives, but 
 to the entire nation. And so his letter to Mr. Wilson, 
 by the very unusual circumstances under which it re 
 ceived publicity, was not by any means a peevish plaint, 
 uttered in a moment of irritation, but rather a well-con- 
 
 9 Congressional Record, xxvi., p. 7712 (July, 1894). 
 
 10 Whittle, President Cleveland, p. 179 (London, 1896). 
 
STORM AND STRESS 367 
 
 sidered disclaimer of responsibility for the action of the 
 Democratic Senators. It was an appeal from the poli 
 ticians to the people. 
 
 But the effect of it in the Senate was to seal irrevocably 
 the fate of the Wilson Bill as a measure of true reform. 
 Although the President had named no names in his 
 accusation of " party perfidy and dishonour," the shaft 
 had gone unerringly to its proper mark. Senator Gorman, 
 stung by those pungent words, brought the subject before 
 the Senate, with a show of virtuous indignation. Senator 
 Hill defended the President in a long speech (July 2Oth) ; 
 but Mr. Gorman having prepared himself for battle, went 
 into the whole question on its personal side (July 23d). 
 After some satirical remarks directed against Mr. Wilson 
 for having made public what he (Senator Gorman) as 
 sumed to be a private letter, he went on to say that Mr. 
 Cleveland s charges were wholly disingenuous. He as 
 serted that the President had been consulted with regard 
 to the Senate amendments, and had given them his 
 approval. In corroboration of this statement, Mr. Gor 
 man called upon two other Democratic Senators (Messrs. 
 Vest and Jones) to bear him out in what he had just said. 
 In short, he raised a question of veracity between the 
 President and himself. 
 
 Whatever view the Senate took of this personal con 
 troversy, its opposition to Mr. Cleveland s wishes now 
 became solidified and irrevocable. The House refused to 
 concur in the Senate s amendments, and the bill was sent 
 to a conference committee of both houses. In conference, 
 the Senate s representatives refused to yield a single point. 
 The House could take the bill precisely as it left the 
 Senate, or the bill could fail, leaving the McKinley tariff 
 still in force. In the end, the House was forced to accept 
 
368 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the amendments in their entirety, and to pass the bill which 
 Mr. Cleveland had stigmatised as involving perfidy and 
 dishonour. 11 
 
 The predicament of the President was a cruel one. He 
 could not put his signature to such a measure. He could 
 not veto it, and make the professions of his party utterly 
 ridiculous. And so he let it become a law without his 
 signature (August 28th), giving his reasons for so* doing 
 in a letter to Mr. Catchings of Mississippi. The Wilson 
 Act was, he said, in some of its provisions, better than the 
 existing tariff law. It effected an average reduction of 
 duties which left them less by eleven per cent, than those 
 of the McKinley tariff. It provided for the admission of 
 free wool. The tax on incomes would relieve the Treas 
 ury. But he then went on to speak of the sinister influ 
 ences which had marred the measure as a whole. The war 
 against those influences had only just begun. 
 
 " Tariff reform will not be settled until it is honestly and fairly 
 settled, in the interest and to the benefit of a patient and long- 
 suffering people. . . . 
 
 " I take my place with the rank and file of the Democratic 
 party . . . who refuse to accept the results embodied in this 
 bill as the close of the war ; who are not blinded to the fact that the 
 livery of Democratic tariff reform has been stolen and worn in 
 the service of Republican protection; and who have marked the 
 places where the deadly blight of treason has blasted the councils 
 of the brave in their hour of might. The trusts and combinations 
 the communism of pelf whose machinations have prevented us 
 from reaching the success we deserved, should not be forgotten nor 
 forgiven." 
 
 11 For a good account of the contest over the Wilson Bill (written 
 mainly from a Republican point of view), see Stanwood, American Tariff 
 Controversies in the Nineteenth Century, ii., pp. 296-559 (Boston, 1903)- 
 
STORM AND STRESS 369 
 
 Humiliating as this lamentable fiasco was to the section 
 of his party which had been steadily loyal to the President, 
 there still remained a no less disappointing sequel. Many 
 who felt chagrin over the defeat of genuine tariff reform, 
 had comforted themselves with the remembrance that, at 
 least, the section of the Wilson Bill establishing an income 
 tax had been saved. This section had, indeed, proved 
 to be the most popular of any in the bill, as the majorities 
 given it in both houses very clearly showed. Men recalled 
 the dictum of Secretary Fessenden, who in 1864 declared 
 that " the ability to pay increases in much more than 
 arithmetical proportion as the amount of income exceeds 
 the limits of reasonable necessity." To the Western 
 and Southern Democrats and also to the Populists, 
 an income tax seemed, perhaps, a thing of greater imme 
 diate importance than a revision of the tariff the more 
 so as it was bitterly opposed by Eastern capitalists. In 
 the Senate, Mr. Hill of New York had attacked it with 
 an energy and force most unusual in him. This income 
 tax, said Mr. Hill, is unconstitutional, because it is a direct 
 tax; and a direct tax, not based upon the population, can 
 be levied only by the several States and not by the 
 Federal Government. It is odious because it is a war- 
 tax and has never been imposed in time of peace. 12 It 
 exempts incomes of $4,000 and less, and therefore repre 
 sents class legislation, distinguishing between the rich and 
 
 12 The first income tax imposed in the United States was during the 
 Civil War. By the Act of August 5, 1861, a tax of 3 per cent, was 
 laid on all incomes over $800. The Act of 1862 laid a tax of 5 per cent, 
 on incomes ranging from $600 to $5,000; a tax of yi per cent, on incomes 
 from $5,000 to $10,000; and a tax of 10 per cent, on incomes over $10,000. 
 The Act of 1864 taxed incomes from $600 to $5,000 at the rate of 5 per 
 cent., and all incomes above $5,000, at the rate of 10 per cent. The tax on 
 incomes expired in 1872. 
 
370 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the poor. It is a purely sectional measure because this 
 tax will bear more severely upon the East than upon 
 the West. 13 Finally, its administration is necessarily 
 offensive, for it establishes that sort of inquisition into the 
 individual citizen s private affairs, which amounts practi 
 cally to espionage. 
 
 No sooner, however, had the Wilson Bill become a 
 law, than preparations were made by the Treasury to 
 collect the tax which Senator Hill had so energetically 
 denounced. The necessary blanks and other papers were 
 printed, and the collecting officers began their distribution. 
 Opposition to the measure was no less prompt. Several 
 test cases were prepared. 14 These cases presently reached 
 the Supreme Court, where they were argued at length, 
 and (to anticipate) a partial decision was rendered on 
 April 8, 1895. The Court pronounced that part of the 
 law unconstitutional which taxed values derived from land 
 and from State or municipal bonds. But a final decision 
 on the law as a whole was deferred, owing to the absence 
 of Mr. Justice Jackson, who was ill. A few weeks later, 
 however, Justice Jackson, having recovered, rendered his 
 opinion, so that the decision as finally handed down by a 
 full bench pronounced the income tax unconstitutional as 
 being a direct tax: 15 The Court was divided 5 to 4. 16 
 
 There were circumstances connected with this decision 
 
 13 In 1866, three-quarters of the entire income tax was paid by seven 
 States. 
 
 14 Moore vs. Miller; Hyde vs. The Continental Trust Company; and 
 Pollock <vs. The Farmers Loan and Trust Company. 
 
 15 Constitution of the United States, Section iv. 4. " No capitation or 
 other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census or enumera 
 tion hereinbefore directed to be taken." 
 
 10 The Court stood (May 20) as follows: In favour of the constitu 
 tionality of the tax: Justices Harlan, Brown, Jackson, White; against 
 it, Chief Justice Fuller, Justices Brewer, Field, Gray, Shiras. 
 
STORM AND STRESS 371 
 
 which caused deep feeling throughout the country. It had 
 been long since a case before the Supreme Court had at 
 tracted such general attention. A brilliant array of 
 counsel had submitted arguments, among them ex-Senator 
 Edmunds, Mr. James C. Carter, Mr. Joseph H. Choate, 
 and the Attorney-General himself. The final judgment, as 
 given on May 2oth, carried with it a reversal of an earlier 
 judgment handed down fifteen years before. In 1880, the 
 Supreme Court had decided 1T with no dissenting opinion 
 that an income-tax on rents is not a direct tax within the 
 meaning of the Constitution, but an excise tax, and hence 
 permitted to the general Government. That the Supreme 
 Court should reverse a decision which had stood for 
 fifteen years, was a very unusual occurrence. 18 That it 
 should reverse, by a majority of only one, a decision which 
 had been unanimously reached was still more remarkable. 
 Yet this was not all. On April 8th, Mr. Justice Shiras 
 had been favourable to the constitutionality of the law. 
 Had he not altered his view, the opinion of Mr. Justice 
 Jackson on May 2Oth would have made the Court stand 
 five to four in support of the income-tax. But Justice 
 Shiras in the interval had gone over to the other side, and 
 so the result already described was ultimately reached. In 
 expressing their dissent from the decision of the majority 
 of the Court, Justice Harlan and Justice White departed 
 wholly from the impassive and impersonal manner which 
 is usual in that high tribunal, and spoke in terms of marked 
 feeling. Mr. Justice Harlan, indeed, let it be plainly seen 
 that he believed the Court to have dealt a severe blow at 
 the stability and safety of American political institutions. 19 
 
 17 In the case of Springer vs. The United States. 
 
 18 See Baldwin, The American Judiciary, p. 106 (New York, 1905), 
 
 19 Mr. Justice Harlan said: 
 
 " In its practical operation this decision withdraws from national taxa- 
 
372 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 In this he struck a note which was echoed all over the 
 land, but most of all throughout the West and South. 
 Men said that the influences which had crippled tariff 
 reform in the Senate, had proved no less powerful in the 
 highest tribunal of the nation. Populism grew daily 
 stronger; while other events which were coincident with 
 those already told, stimulated the new movement and 
 enhanced its power. 
 
 The slow progress of the Wilson Bill, prolonging as it 
 did the feeling of uncertainty in the business world, had 
 
 tion not only all incomes derived from real estate, but the personal property 
 of the whole country invested personal property, bonds, stocks, invest 
 ments of all kinds and the income that may be derived from such property. 
 This results from the fact that under the decision of the Court, such incomes 
 can not be taxed otherwise than by apportionment among the States on the 
 basis simply of population. 
 
 " No such apportionment can possibly be made without doing monstrous, 
 wicked injustice to the many for the benefit of the favoured few in particu 
 lar States. Any attempt on the part of Congress to apportion taxation of 
 incomes among the States upon the basis of their population, would, and 
 properly ought to, arouse such indignation among the freemen of America 
 that it would never be repeated. No one should doubt this statement. 
 
 " When, therefore, this Court adjudges, as it does now adjudge, that 
 Congress can not impose a tax or duty upon incomes arising from rents 
 of real estate, or upon invested personal property, or upon incomes aris 
 ing from invested personal property, bonds, stocks, investments of all 
 kinds, except by apportioning the sum to be so raised among the States 
 according to population, it practically decides that, without an amendment 
 of the Constitution, such incomes can never be made to contribute to the 
 support of the national Government. 
 
 " By its present consideration of the Constitution, this Court, for 
 the first time in all its history, declares that our Government has been 
 so framed that in matters of taxation for its support and maintenance those 
 who have money derived from the renting of real estate or from the leasing 
 or using of tangible personal property, or who own invested personal prop 
 erty, have privileges that can not be accorded to those who have money 
 derived from the labour of their hands, or the exercise of their skill, or 
 the use of their brains." 
 
STORM AND STRESS 373 
 
 depressed all forms of industry. Thousands of men who 
 had been thrown out of work in the summer and autumn 
 of 1893 found themselves at the beginning of winter 
 wholly destitute. Some of them had left their homes 
 in the Eastern States and had gone to the Pacific Coast as 
 railway builders. They now turned their faces home 
 ward, intending to tramp the long distance, and to live 
 upon the charity of the intervening towns and cities. These 
 men were presently joined by others who were out of work, 
 and finally by swarms of professional vagabonds and 
 tramps. Through some curious psychological impulse, the 
 notion of a general crusade of squalor spread all through 
 the country; and from every quarter of the West and the 
 Southwest, bands of ragged, hungry, homeless men ap 
 peared, fierce of aspect, and terrifying to the people of the 
 hamlets and sparsely settled districts through which they 
 passed. Theft, rape, and sometimes murder marked the 
 trail of this new jacquerie, which had at first no conscious 
 purpose, as it had no leader. 
 
 Both purpose and leader were presently provided. 
 Three odd fanatics came to the front, and after a fashion 
 took command of the roving bands. These three Coxey, 
 Kelly, and Frye styling themselves " generals," led the 
 largest groups, which were now known as u antics of the 
 unemployed," and later as " Industrials " and " Cqmmon- 
 wealers." Coxey was the most conspicuous of the three. 
 He had a definite plan of action. He organised what he 
 styled the " Army of the Commonweal of Christ," and 
 with it he intended to march on Washington, to enter the 
 Capitol and to overawe Congress into passing a law 
 providing for the unemployed. His demand was that 
 $500,000,000 in irredeemable paper money should be 
 issued, and that this sum should be spent in improving 
 
374 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the public highways throughout the country. Such became 
 at last the declared purpose of all the Commonwealers ; 
 and so the three " armies " began their march to Wash 
 ington from different points, Coxey setting out from 
 Massillon, Ohio, on March 25th, Frye from Los Angeles, 
 California, early in April, and Kelly from San Francisco 
 on April 26th. 
 
 There was something grotesque and also something 
 very pitiful in the purpose of these poor men, many of 
 whom were honest and well-meaning, but who were driven 
 to desperation by poverty and cold and hunger. Yet 
 among them were also many criminals and vicious char 
 acters, so that again and again the Industrials came into 
 conflict with the police, and sometimes even with the 
 militia, which was called to arms in several States because 
 of them. The newspapers made much of " Coxey s army," 
 and naturally viewing its march on Washington as a huge 
 joke, began to humour the idea and to treat it with mock- 
 seriousness. Hence in Europe, where American humour, 
 if unlabelled, is seldom understood, the belief spread that 
 the United States had fallen into anarchy. The Republic 
 was to be overthrown by a great uprising of its own 
 citizens. The movement of Coxey s prowling tramps 
 upon Washington was gravely likened to the famous 
 march of the mob from Paris to Versailles. English 
 leader-writers waited solemnly for the crash of a wide 
 spread and terrible revolution. 
 
 Coxey and his followers straggled into Washington on 
 April 28th. By that time their numbers had been reduced 
 to about three hundred men. The mild spring weather 
 had led most of the "army " to roam off as individuals into 
 the pleasant country valleys, where they could bask in the 
 sunshine and live by begging. On the first of May, how- 
 
STORM AND STRESS 375 
 
 ever, Coxey marched his dwindling host into the grounds 
 of the Capitol, bearing aloft some improvised banners of 
 calico and paper muslin. But by this time public interest 
 in the Industrials had waned. The joke had ceased to 
 amuse. And, therefore, no particular notice was taken of 
 Coxey until he and some of his " lieutenants " marched 
 across the lawns, when the Capitol police at once arrested 
 them for walking on the grass. Such was the farcical end 
 of the Coxey crusade, which foreigners regarded as a 
 dreadful menace to the Republic, but which terminated In 
 a short jail sentence served for the violation of a local 
 ordinance by the would-be Robespierre. 
 
 While, however, this pilgrimage of the Common- 
 wfcalers was in itself of no importance, it did reveal a 
 state of restlessness in the industrial world. This was soon 
 to find expression in a tremendous struggle of organised 
 labour against organised capital a struggle of which the 
 outcome was at last determined by the unprecedented 
 action of Mr. Cleveland and his Attorney-General. It 
 involved questions, both administrative, judicial, and con 
 stitutional, of far-reaching consequence. 
 
 In 1886, the capitalists who controlled or owned the 
 twenty-four railways which then entered the city of 
 Chicago, had formed a voluntary association known as the 
 General Managers Association. 20 This body had for its 
 main purpose the effective and arbitrary control of all 
 persons employed by the railways represented in the 
 Association. Wages were cut down according to a general 
 agreement. Discharged workmen were " blacklisted," so 
 that they could not easily get new employment. With no 
 standing whatever in law, the Managers Association was 
 establishing a complete control of the independence and 
 
 20 It represented also some eighteen other railway corporations. 
 
376 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 even of the livelihood of thousands of railway employes. 21 
 To offset this combination of the owners, the men had 
 organised, in 1893, the American Railway Union. The 
 two bodies, antagonistic as they were in their special inter 
 ests, came into conflict early in 1894, over a question which 
 did not in its origin directly concern either of them. 
 
 The Pullman Palace Car Company was not a* railway 
 corporation, but was engaged in manufacturing cars which 
 it operated through written contracts with the railways. 
 It was a highly prosperous concern, and Mr. Pullman, its 
 President, had won much commendation from philan 
 thropic sociologists for having built the pretty little 
 village of Pullman, near Chicago, where employes of the 
 Company could at moderate rentals find houses that were 
 clean, well-lighted, and supplied with admirable sanitary 
 arrangements. Lakes, parks, and well-kept streets made 
 the place appear to be a poor man s paradise. On the 
 other hand, those who lived in Pullman saw another side. 
 Not many residents stayed there long. While they 
 stayed, they seemed to be under a singular constraint. If 
 they spoke of the Company, they did so in a half-whisper, 
 and with a furtive glance behind them, very much " as 
 a Russian might mention the Czar." 22 Every one felt 
 that he was spied upon, and that an incautious word might 
 lead to his discharge and get his name upon the " black 
 list." 
 
 In May, 1894, the Pullman Company dismissed a large 
 number of its workmen. The wages of such as were 
 retained were lowered by some twenty per cent. Many 
 were now employed for less than what was usually re- 
 
 21 The number of men directly and indirectly employed was estimated 
 in 1894 at more than 200,000. 
 
 22 Andrews, The United States in Our Own Time, p. 723 (New York, 
 1903)- 
 
STORM AND STRESS 377 
 
 garded as full time. A committee of employes waited 
 upon Mr. Pullman to ask that the old wages be restored. 
 Mr. Pullman refused this request, but promised that he 
 would not punish any member of the committee for having 
 presented the petition. This promise he apparently vio 
 lated; for on the very next day, three of the committee 
 were discharged. Mr. Pullman, in fact, evidently regarded 
 himself as a personage so sacrosanct as to make even a 
 respectful petition to him a serious offence. Indignant 
 at his action, five-sixths of his men went out on strike. 
 Mr. Pullman promptly discharged the other sixth, who 
 had remained faithful to his interests. 
 
 To justify the Pullman management, a general state 
 ment was given out on its behalf, that the close of the 
 Columbian Exposition and the existing business depression 
 had checked the demand for its cars; that it had been 
 employing men at an actual loss; that it could not afford 
 to continue them at work and at the old scale of wages. 
 In reply to this, the fact was pointed out that while the 
 wages of the men had been cut, the salaries of the officers 
 remained as large as ever; and that rents in the town of 
 Pullman had not been lowered. Moreover, the stock of 
 the company was selling above par; its dividends for the 
 preceding year on a capital of $36,000,000 had been 
 $2,520,000, while it had a surplus of undivided profits 
 amounting to $25,000,000. 
 
 About 4000 Pullman employes were members of the 
 American Railway Union. In June, a convention of the 
 Union was held in Chicago, and this body took up the 
 question of the Pullman strike, although the men on strike 
 were not railway employes at all. A committee of the 
 Union wished to confer with the Pullman management, 
 but were not allowed to dp so. The Civic Federation of 
 
378 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Chicago, with the approval and support of the mayors 
 of fifty cities, urged the Company to submit the matter to 
 arbitration. The Company answered: " We have nothing 
 to arbitrate." Then, on June 2d, the Railway Union, 
 finding no settlement possible, passed a resolution to the 
 effect that unless the Pullman Company should come to 
 an agreement with its men before June 26th, the members 
 of the Railway Union would refuse to " handle " Pullman 
 cars. The Company remained obdurate; and therefore, 
 on the 26th, the Union fulfilled its promise. From that 
 day, on all the roads running out of Chicago, no train 
 to which Pullman cars were attached could move. 
 
 The President of the Railway Union was Mr. Eugene 
 V. Debs. He had formerly been a locomotive engineer 
 and afterwards a grocer. Going into politics, he had 
 served a term in the Indiana legislature. He was a very 
 shrewd, long-headed strategist. He understood the 
 strength of his organisation. He was equally well aware 
 of the one weak point in all the great labour demonstrations 
 of the past. The 150,000 men whom he controlled could, 
 by acting together, completely paralyse the railway system 
 centering at Chicago. Local public sentiment was, on the 
 whole, favourable to the Pullman employes. That senti 
 ment would, however, be alienated if violence and general 
 disorder were to follow on the strike. It was vital that 
 the Railway Union should employ no lawless means. Mr. 
 Debs therefore issued an address on June 29th, in which 
 he said: 
 
 " The contest is now on between the railway corporations united 
 solidly on the one hand, and the labour forces on the other. 
 I appeal to the strikers everywhere to refrain from any act of vio 
 lence. A man who will destroy property or violate law is an 
 enemy and not a friend of the cause of labour." 
 
STORM AND STRESS 379 
 
 The order of Mr. Debs was implicitly obeyed by the 
 members of the Railway Union; and the peaceable strike 
 which was begun upon the 26th proved at once to be re 
 markably effective. Switchmen refused to attach Pullman 
 cars to any train. When they were discharged for this, 
 the rest of the train s crew left it in a body. By 
 the end of the fifth day after the strike began, all the 
 roads running out of Chicago were practically at a stand 
 still. The Railway Managers Association was facing 
 absolute defeat. Its resources in the way of men were 
 exhausted, and its trains could not be operated. Yet all 
 this had been accomplished by peaceable means. There 
 was no sign of violence or disorder. But the men who 
 made up the Managers Association were very able. 
 They had at their command unlimited money, and legal 
 advisers who could conceive daring plans. This struggle 
 against the power of the railways meant to them a struggle 
 for existence. Their chairman, therefore, issued a bold 
 statement, in which he said: 
 
 " We are supported in our stand by the railway managers all 
 over the United States. It is no time for weakness of policy. 
 . . . The fight must be won." 
 
 It must have been plain to the managers that if the 
 strike remained a peaceful one, the railways would be de 
 feated. If, however, violence and crime were associated 
 with it, public sympathy would no longer sustain the strik 
 ers, and the power of the law would be invoked against 
 them. Singularly enough, on June joth, just when this 
 situation became very plain, disorder suddenly broke out 
 in Chicago. The close of the World s Fair had left in that 
 city a large residuum of vagabonds and semi-criminals, who 
 had drifted thither during the Exposition, and who re- 
 
380 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 mained to swell the lawless population of the slums. As 
 is usual in times of widespread excitement, these men now 
 swarmed by thousands to the railway yards, intent upon 
 prospective plunder. It was widely asserted at the time, 
 that the Managers Association employed agents provoca 
 teurs to incite the disorderly elements to acts of violence. 
 Of this there is no convincing proof. That thi eves and 
 bullies and jail-birds should seize upon so rare an oppor 
 tunity for mischief was natural enough. But their sudden 
 appearance was certainly most opportune for the railway 
 managers and most fatal to the real interests of the 
 strikers. 
 
 On June 3Oth, a mail train was stopped in the suburbs 
 of Chicago. The engine was cut off and disabled by a 
 mob, ostensibly directed by strikers. At about the same 
 time, the mails were completely obstructed on parts of 
 the Southern Pacific System, the strike having extended 
 to the Pacific States. Mail trains having Pullman cars 
 attached were not allowed to run. This news brought the 
 United States Government into the field at once. Attorney- 
 General Olney issued vigorous instructions to the United 
 States district-attorneys all over the country; deputy 
 marshals were sworn in; and other precautionary measures 
 were taken. Writing to Mr. Edwin Walker, who acted 
 as special counsel for the Government in Chicago, Mr. 
 Olney made the novel suggestion that, instead of relying 
 upon warrants issued under criminal statutes against per 
 sons who had actually committed illegal acts, Mr. Walker 
 should apply to the Federal courts for injunctions forbid 
 ding the commission of such acts. 
 
 On July ist, the roads were still paralysed. Disorder 
 had still for the most part been sporadic. There was no 
 evidence that the local authorities were not fully compe- 
 
STORM AND STRESS 38 f 
 
 tent to deal with the situation so far as the unruly elements 
 were concerned. On the following day, however, on 
 motion of the United States District-Attorney, Judge 
 Woods issued a sweeping injunction forbidding the presi 
 dent of the Railway Union, Mr. Debs, and also its vice- 
 president, secretary and others, from interfering with 
 the transportation of the mails and from obstructing inter 
 state commerce. Mr. Walker also sent word to Washing 
 ton that in his judgment, United States troops would be 
 needed to enforce the order of the court. On that very day, 
 President Cleveland ordered General Miles to Chicago, 
 to assume personal command of the troops at Fort Sheri 
 dan. Mr. Walker seemed strangely insistent in his demand 
 for troops and for their immediate use. 23 Mr. Olney tele 
 graphed him (July 3d) : " I trust use of United States 
 troops will not be necessary." Mr. Walker reiterated his 
 demand, and with him were joined Judge Grosscup, the 
 District-Attorney, and the United States Marshal. The 
 strikers had, indeed, been deeply stirred by the injunction, 
 which forbade even an attempt to persuade railway em 
 ployes to strike. They felt that the Federal courts were 
 the mere tools of the railway managers, and were attempt 
 ing to deprive men of the right to leave their work. Per 
 haps because of their indignation at this new move, the 
 peaceful strike came to an end, and a regime of violence 
 began. Baggage-cars were wrecked and strewn along 
 the tracks, and a mail-train was ditched. The writ of 
 injunction was read to the mob by a marshal, but it was 
 received with jeers and curses. 
 
 That same afternoon, President Cleveland ordered 
 
 23 It is perhaps not without significance that Mr. Walker for many years 
 had been general solicitor for several railway companies; and that he 
 was then a partner in a mining and shipping company. 
 
382 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Colonel Crofton, in command at Fort Sheridan, to enter 
 Chicago with the entire garrison of infantry, artillery and 
 cavalry. This order was promptly carried out; and on 
 the following morning the troops were in camp upon the 
 lake front. Reinforcements were hurried to them, and 
 General Miles had presently at his disposal a force of 
 several thousand men. A brigade of State militia was 
 also ordered to the city by the Governor at the Mayor s 
 request. The story of the next few days is one of per 
 petual disorder, controlled, however, or greatly lessened 
 by the admirable work of the regular troops, whose cool 
 firmness had that indescribable effect which discipline 
 always exercises upon disorder. Yet there was much de 
 struction of railway property, both within the city and 
 near it; while the temper of the soldiers was often severely 
 tried. The spirit of the mob grew more and more danger 
 ous; and at last (on July yth) General Miles issued an 
 order to all officers in command of troops, directing them 
 to fire upon persons engaged in overt hostile acts. Mr. 
 Debs, whose prudence had begun to fail him, made an in 
 flammatory address, in which he said: 
 
 The first shot fired by regular troops at the mobs here will be 
 a signal for civil war. Bloodshed will surely follow." 
 
 Events moved quickly. On the following day, the 
 President issued a proclamation ordering all persons en 
 gaged in unlawful assemblages to disperse " on or before 
 twelve o clock noon of the ninth day of July instant." 
 Those who disregarded the warning were to be viewed 
 as public enemies. There will be no vacillation in the 
 decisive punishment of the guilty." On that same day, a 
 mob at Hammond, Indiana, some twenty miles distant 
 
STORM AND STRESS 383 
 
 from Chicago, set upon several non-strikers, killing one 
 and wounding four. Matters grew still more serious; and 
 a detachment of regular troops, commanded by Major 
 Hartz, was hurried to the Monon station. Under their 
 protection, several trains were moved. This infuriated 
 the mob, which, after exhausting every form of insult, 
 began to shower the soldiers with missiles. The troops re 
 mained unmoved, awaiting orders. Emboldened by this 
 apparent timidity, their assailants, who now numbered 
 fully three thousand, made a wild rush, intending to over 
 whelm the compact company in blue. Major Hartz gave 
 a sharp command, and the magazine rifles spirted fire 
 into the yelling mob, drilling it through and through with 
 bullets and strewing the ground with dead. 
 
 Coincidently with these events, Judge Grosscup de 
 livered a charge to a special Federal Grand Jury, which 
 at once found indictments against Debs and three of his 
 associates, the charge being one of conspiracy under the 
 Sherman Anti-Trust Law of 1890. On July loth, the 
 fouj men were arrested and gave bail in $10,000 each. 
 On July i yth, the same men were brought before Judge 
 Woods and were charged with contempt of court, in having 
 disobeyed the injunction of July 2d. They refused to give 
 bail upon this charge, and were sent to prison under guard. 
 
 This swift and stern action of the Federal Government 
 broke the backbone of the strike, as Mr. Debs himself 
 afterwards admitted. The movement, in which the 
 Knights of Labour had also taken part, had spread over 
 twenty-seven States and Territories and had affected the 
 operations of 125,000 miles of railway. But everywhere 
 it was dealt with in the same energetic manner whenever 
 it obstructed the service of the mails; and after the arrest 
 of Mr. Debs it died speedily away. On July 2Oth less 
 
384 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 than a month after the general strike began the United 
 States troops left Chicago, their presence being no longer 
 needed. 24 
 
 In the opinion of the Governor of Illinois, Mr. John P. 
 Altgeld, their presence there had never been required. Mr. 
 Altgeld was a Democrat of the Populistic type. In appear 
 ance, he resembled a typical German agitator fanatical 
 and intense. He had pardoned the Anarchists who were 
 sentenced to imprisonment at the time of the Haymarket 
 murders in i886. 25 Many persons regarded him as no 
 better than an Anarchist himself, yet this judgment was 
 too harsh. His sympathies were undoubtedly with the 
 strikers, and he felt, with some reason, that the presence 
 of Federal troops was essentially provocative. He read 
 over the Fourth Article of the Constitution, which pledges 
 the United States to guarantee to each State protection 
 against domestic violence " on application of the Legisla 
 ture or of the Executive." As Governor Altgeld inter 
 preted that section, it meant that United States troops may 
 be sent into a State only upon application of the Legj^la- 
 ture or of the Executive. He, therefore, immediately 
 after the arrival of the troops in Chicago, telegraphed the 
 President that they were not needed: 
 
 " Waiving all question of courtesy, I will say that the State of 
 Illinois is not only able to take care of itself, but it stands ready 
 to-day to furnish the Federal Government any assistance it may 
 need elsewhere. ... As Governor ... I protest . . . 
 and ask the immediate withdrawal of Federal troops from active 
 duty in the State." 
 
 But Governor Altgeld had missed the point involved 
 in the despatch of troops. These had not been sent to 
 
 2 * The strike, as a whole, ended on August $d. 25 See pp. 129, 130. 
 
STORM AND STRESS 385 
 
 protect the State of Illinois from " domestic violence," but 
 to guard the property of the United States, to prevent 
 obstruction of the United States mails, and to enforce the 
 judgments of the United States courts as against illegal , 
 combinations. Authority for this was found in the law/ 
 of April 20, 1 87 i. 2G The President answered Governor 
 Altgeld, explaining the matter very briefly; only to receive 
 another and very long despatch, arguing about the rela 
 tions of State and Federal authority, and still missing the 
 point as completely as before. To this second telegram, 
 Mr. Cleveland sent (July 6th) a short response which 
 ended the discussion : 
 
 " While I am still persuaded that I have neither transcended 
 my authority or duty in the emergency that confronts us, it seems 
 to me that in this hour of danger and public distress, discussion 
 may well give way to active efforts on the part of all in authority 
 to restore obedience to law and to protect life and property." 
 
 President Cleveland s course in sending troops to 
 Chicago against the protest of the State s executive, and 
 in using the army elsewhere to prevent obstruction of the 
 
 20 " In all cases where insurrection, domestic violence, ... or con 
 spiracies in any State shall so obstruct or hinder the execution of the laws 
 thereof and of the United States, ... or whenever any such insur 
 rection, violence, ... or conspiracy shall oppose or obstruct the laws 
 of the United States or the due execution thereof, ... it shall be 
 lawful for the President and it shall be his duty to take such measures 
 by the employment of ... the land or naval forces of the United 
 States ... as he may deem necessary for the suppression of such 
 insurrection." 
 
 The suppression of the so-called Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania, 
 in 1794, by President Washington was really a quasi-precedent for Mr. 
 Cleveland s action. The legal forms adopted in ordering the despatch of 
 troops at this time were followed by the officers of the Government in 
 1894 just a century later. Cf. Schouler, History of the United States, 
 i. pp. 275-280 (New York, 1898). 
 
3 86 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 mail-routes, was, on the whole, generally approved by 
 public opinion and by Congress. A great deal of the com 
 ment made upon it was, however, based upon a misap 
 prehension of the facts. Many persons then imagined, 
 and many still believe, that the President put a new and 
 bold construction upon his own powers, and that in con 
 sequence the functions of the Executive were by his action 
 substantially enlarged. Such, however, was not fhe case. 
 He was merely doing what he was empowered and even 
 required to do by statute a statute originally enacted 
 under President Grant, and aimed at the Ku Klux Klan. 
 Hence both the States Rights Democrats, like Governor 
 Altgeld, who condemned him, and the advocates of cen 
 tralisation, who applauded him, did so with insufficient 
 knowledge. If he deserved praise at all, it was not because 
 of a new precedent which he established, for he established 
 none; but for his rude courage in using, through a sense 
 of duty, his statutory powers in a way that was certain to 
 intensify the hatred of him which had by this time come to 
 be almost a religion in the Western States. 
 
 The serious constitutional question which the strike of 
 1894 brought into prominence concerned the judiciary 
 rather than the Executive. " Government by injunction " 
 was a phrase that now came into general use. The Inter 
 state Commerce Law of 1887, and the Sherman Anti- 
 Trust Law of 1890, had both been framed with a view 
 to checking the power of the corporations. Clever law 
 yers, however, had most ingeniously converted these two 
 acts into instruments to protect the railway corporations 
 against attack. If an engineer left his post, or if the 
 crew of a train deserted it, this was held to be a conspiracy 
 in restraint of commerce. A United States Circuit Court 
 had issued a " blanket " injunction against all the em- 
 
STORM AND STRESS 387 
 
 ployes of the Northern Pacific Road, forbidding them to 
 strike. As to Mr. Debs and his associates, they had been 
 enjoined from inciting men to strike. On December I4th, 
 they were brought before Judge Woods in Chicago, and 
 sentenced Debs to six months imprisonment and the 
 others to three months for contempt of court. This 
 extension of the enjoining power was contrary to the whole 
 spirit and practice of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence as hith 
 erto understood. By the new procedure, a judge defined 
 in advance the nature of an offence, and by injunction for 
 bade the commission of it by certain specified persons. If 
 they disobeyed the injunction, they were brought before 
 the judge and fined or imprisoned, not directly for the act 
 itself, but for contempt of court. In this way, the judge 
 became also the accuser, and the accused lost the right of a 
 jury trial. Many of the most conservative publicists in 
 the East were alarmed by this alarming stretch of the 
 judicial power. In the case of Mr. Debs, the principle at 
 issue was admirably summed up in these words : 
 
 " If Debs has been violating the law, let him be indicted, tried by 
 a jury, and punished. Let him not be made the victim of an un 
 tenable court order and deprived of his liberty entirely within the 
 discretion of a judge. . . . If the precedent now established 
 is to stand, there is no limit to the power which the judiciary may 
 establish over the citizen." 27 
 
 The action of Judge Woods in sentencing Debs was, 
 however, sustained by a unanimous decision of the 
 Supreme Court handed down on May 27, 1895, and he 
 served his term in prison. Yet it is to be noted that the 
 indictments for conspiracy found against him in legal form 
 
 27 Springfield Republican, quoted by Andrews op. cit. p. 342. 
 
\ 
 
 \ 
 
 388 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 by a Federal Grand Jury were afterwards dismissed. The 
 report of a Commission appointed by President Cleve 
 land 2S to investigate the origin of the great strike was 
 full of deep significance. This Commission found in the 
 Railway Managers Association an example of " the per 
 sistent and shrewdly devised plans of corporations to over 
 reach their limitations and to usurp indirectly powers and 
 rights not contemplated in their charters," It found 
 that neither the Railway Union, nor any general combi 
 nation of railway employes had been planned, until the 
 railway managers had set the example. In the judgment 
 of the Commission, the evils of intensive combination 
 must in the end be met by government control of such 
 corporations as have a public or quasi-public character. 
 The report was widely read, and its unquestioned facts 
 and dispassionate deductions impressed themselves upon 
 the minds of thousands. More and more was it becoming 
 evident that the proper form of resistance to the glacier- 
 like power of consolidated capital, was not through strikes 
 or other efforts of voluntary associations, which tended too 
 readily to promote disorder, but rather through the Fed 
 eral Government itself, using all its latent and immense 
 resources to protect its citizens impartially. 
 
 28 In July, 1894. The members of this Commission were Carroll D. 
 Wright of Massachusetts, John D. Kernan of New York and Nicholas E. 
 Worthington of Illinois. See the President s message of December 3, 
 1894. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 
 
 WHILE the Wilson Bill was dragging its slow way through 
 Congress, and while the fierce struggle against the rail 
 ways in the West was being fought out to the bitter end, 
 another highly controversial question had arisen to plague 
 the President and to widen still further the breach between 
 him and the majority of his party. Throughout the entire 
 four years of the second Cleveland administration, the 
 sensitive nerve of the Government lay in the condition of 
 the Treasury; and it throbbed painfully in response to 
 every event of ^serious import, whether this related to 
 domestic politics or to international affairs. Here, again, 
 the makeshifts and compromises of the past broke down 
 completely, and the President was forced to take upon 
 himself the whole burden of a responsibility which his 
 predecessors had managed to evade. The events now to 
 be narrated are those concerning which the sharpest dif 
 ferences of opinion existed at the time. They obscured 
 in the mind of the people all the other acts of the adminis 
 tration. They stirred millions of Americans to a pitch 
 of acrimonious frenzy for t which there are few parallels 
 in our history. And in the end they shivered and rent 
 the Democratic party until it cast aside its old traditions 
 and, while retaining its historic name, stood forth trans 
 formed into the champion of new causes and new political 
 ideals. 
 
 It has already been mentioned in these pages that the 
 Treasury s gold reserve of $100,000,000 was intended to 
 
 389 
 
390 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 protect an outstanding issue of notes which, by the end of 
 1893, amounted to nearly $500,000,000. This gold re 
 serve had proved adequate in the past, until the operation 
 of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 gradually 
 shook public confidence in the Treasury s ability to meet its 
 steadily increasing obligations. The repeal of this act 
 under pressure from President Cleveland, as already de 
 scribed, had, to be sure, absolved the Secretary from 
 buying two tons of silver every month and paying for it in 
 gold; yet in matters of finance, distrust when once aroused 
 dies hard. In t]R&e l of 1893, when the hoarding of gold 
 was at its height, the Treasury s gold redemption fund 
 had for the first time fallen below the hundred-million 
 mark, and the circumstance had sent a shiver through the 
 business world. Some had quickly seen in it an oppor 
 tunity for making money. For the true peril of the 
 Treasury, from the standpoint of conservative finance, lay 
 not so much in the discrepancy between its obligations and 
 its gold reserve, as in the fact that under existing laws, 
 no sooner was a government note presented at the 
 Treasury and redeemed in gold, than it must immediately 
 be re-issued, to become again a new obligation. The 
 situation was admirably and forcibly described to Con 
 gress by Mr. Cleveland in several of his later messages. 
 Thus, speaking of the gold reserve fund, he said : 
 
 " Even if the claims upon this fund were confined to the obliga 
 tions originally intended, 1 and if the redemption of these obliga 
 tions meant their cancellation, the fund would be very small. But 
 these obligations when received and redeemed in gold are not can 
 celled, but are reissued and may do duty many times by way of 
 drawing gold from the Treasury. Thus we have an endless chain 
 in operation, constantly depleting the Treasury s gold, and never 
 near a final rest." 2 
 
 1 I.e., "greenbacks." 2 Message of December 3, 1894. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 391 
 
 Referring to the statute of May, 1878, he remarked 
 with epigrammatic pungency: 
 
 " The Government was put in the anomalous situation of owing 
 to the holders of its notes debts payable in gold upon demand, 
 which could neither be retired by receiving such notes in dis 
 charge of obligations due the Government, nor cancelled by 
 actual payment in gold. It was forced to redeem without re 
 demption, and to pay without acquittance." 3 
 
 These two paragraphs indicate very well the view which 
 Mr. Cleveland and his supporters in the Eastern States 
 took of the financial situation. They held that the 
 Treasury was bound to redeem all its notes of every kind 
 in gold, at the discretion of the persons who presented 
 the notes for payment. The corollary to this theory was 
 that when the gold reserve in the Treasury had been un 
 duly lowered by the process, it became the duty of the 
 Secretary of the Treasury to sell bonds of the United 
 States in order to replenish the reserve 4 and thus make it 
 possible for the operation of the " endless chain " to con 
 tinue indefinitely. Of course, the issue of more bonds 
 meant an increase of the national debt; but as Mr. Cleve 
 land understood the case, there was no help for this until 
 Congress should enact new currency legislation, providing 
 for the retirement and cancellation of all notes when once 
 redeemed. 
 
 But most bimetallists and all the " friends of silver " 
 declared that such a policy was both unreasonable and 
 likely to prove ruinous. They pointed out the fact that of 
 all the government obligations, only the legal tender 
 
 3 Message of December 2, 1895. 
 
 4 Under the authority given by the Resumption Act of January 14, 1875. 
 
392 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Treasury notes (greenbacks) were specifically redeemable 
 in gold. The silver certificates issued under the Bland- 
 Allison Act of 1878 were on their face declared to be 
 redeemable in silver; while the notes issued for the pur 
 chase of silver bullion under the Sherman Act of 1890 
 were by the terms of that act redeemable in " coin," i. e., 
 in either gold or silver, at the option of the Treasury. 
 And as they were issued against the silver bullion pur 
 chased by them, why should they be redeemed in gold? 
 That the Treasury might pay out silver for them if it 
 chose, was not denied even by Secretary Carlisle himself. 
 On his appearing somewhat later before a committee of 
 the House, 5 Mr. Sibley of Pennsylvania asked him: 
 
 " What objection could there be to having the option of re 
 deeming either in silver or gold lie with the Treasury instead of 
 with the note-holder? " 
 
 To which Mr. Carlisle made the following reply: 
 
 " If that policy had been adopted at the beginning of resumption 
 the policy of reserving to the Government . . . the option of 
 redeeming in gold or silver all its paper presented I believe it 
 would have worked beneficially, and there would have been no 
 trouble growing out of it. But the Secretaries of the Treasury, 
 from the beginning of resumption, have pursued a policy of re 
 deeming in gold or silver at the option of the holder of the paper, 
 and if any Secretary had afterwards attempted to change that 
 policy and force silver upon a man who wanted gold, or gold upon 
 a man who wanted silver, and especially if he had made that at 
 tempt at such a critical period as we have had in the last two years, 
 my judgment is that it would have been very disastrous. There 
 is a vast difference between establishing a policy at the beginning 
 and reversing a policy after it has been long established, and 
 especially after the situation has been changed." 
 
 5 Testimony before the Committee on Appropriations, January 21, 1895. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 393 
 
 But the silver men would not admit the strength of this 
 position. If, argued they, Republican secretaries have 
 incorrectly interpreted the law, that is no reason why a 
 Democratic administration should not revert to its correct 
 and unquestioned meaning. Redeem the greenbacks in 
 gold, for such is the law; but redeem the silver certificates 
 and coin certificates in the silver in which the statute makes 
 them payable. Why, when the gold in the Treasury is 
 low, and while the vaults are bursting with silver 
 dollars, w r hy lay open the gold supply to be raided by 
 every speculator, and decline to make use of the ample 
 stock of silver? 
 
 The President, however, took his stand upon the 
 declaration of Congress which had been made a part of 
 the Sherman Act of 1890, to the effect that it was " the 
 established policy of the United States to maintain the two 
 metals at a parity with each other upon the present legal 
 ratio, or such ratio as may be provided by law." Mr. 
 Cleveland held that such a parity between gold and silver 
 could not be maintained if the Treasury made any dis 
 crimination whatsoever between the different kinds of 
 government paper. It must redeem them all alike green 
 backs, silver certificates, and coin notes in gold, or else 
 excite a suspicion of " the good faith and honest intentions 
 of the Government s professions, or create- a suspicion of 
 our country s solvency." G Hence, he made up his mind 
 that gold should be paid for every note presented, and 
 that he would make an unstinted use of the nation s bor 
 rowing power, rather than reverse the policy of his pred 
 ecessors. He would buy gold with bonds to any extent 
 that might be necessary. Such, too, had been the de 
 termination of President Harrison; and towards the close 
 
 G Cleveland, Presidential Problems, pp. 130, 131 (New York, 1904). 
 
394 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 of his administration he had been almost forced to take 
 such a step; for the drain upon the gold reserve had begun 
 even then. Orders, in fact, had been given to engrave the 
 plates for the printing of such bonds in February, 1893; 
 but the necessity had been staved off by Secretary Charles 
 Foster, who managed to get a temporary supply of gold 
 (about $8,000,000) from a group of New York bankers. 
 Thus the outgoing Republican administration was spared 
 the necessity of doing that to which President Cleveland 
 was soon forced by circumstances. 
 
 The gold reserve which in April, 1893, had fallen to 
 $97,000,000, continued steadily to diminish throughout 
 the year. The general hoarding of gold was one cause 
 of this; for persons who wished to hoard could draw gold 
 from the Treasury far more easily than from the banks. 7 
 Gold was also drawn out freely for export and in the way 
 of trade. On the other hand, the customs receipts, which 
 are, as a rule, made in gold, were now, for the most part, 
 paid in paper; so that there was no flow of gold back to 
 the Treasury to offset the drain. Hence, at the beginning 
 of the eventful year 1894, the Government s gold fund 
 had sunk to only $70,000,000, against which there was 
 outstanding nearly $500,000,000 of paper money all 
 of it, according to the Cleveland policy, redeemable upon 
 demand in gold. The discrepancy was a frightful one, 
 the more so in view of the general business depression, 
 the uncertainties of tariff legislation, and the lack of public 
 confidence. Hence, by direction of the President (January 
 1 7th), an issue of $50,000,000 in United States bonds 
 
 7 The banks had adopted a new form of deposit slip, indicating whether 
 the customer had deposited gold, silver or paper. Unless he had made 
 his deposits in gold he could not demand gold, if the bank chose not to 
 give it to him. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 395 
 
 was advertised for sale in exchange for gold. 8 Bidders 
 were required to offer a premium of not less than 17 per 
 cent. It was hoped by the President and the Secretary 
 that these bonds would be at once over-subscribed, and 
 that the mere announcement of their sale would check the 
 run upon the gold fund in the Treasury. But both these 
 hopes were disappointed. Bids came in so slowly that by 
 February ist, it seemed as though the sale would be a 
 total failure a result to be averted at any risk. To 
 announce that the United States could not borrow fifty 
 millions of dollars in the open market would have been 
 at once humiliating and disastrous. Yet such appeared 
 for a time to be the case; while the announcement of the 
 bond issue, so far from lessening the drain of Treasury 
 gold, actually hastened it. On January 3ist, the reserve 
 fund stood at only $66,000,000. 
 
 In this crisis, Secretary Carlisle hurried to New York, 
 and called together a number of leading financiers. He 
 pointed out to them that if the loan should fail, the shock to 
 the public credit would disastrously affect the interests 
 which they represented; that in this event the Treasury 
 must inevitably suspend gold payments, and the country s 
 finances be placed upon a silver basis. Moved by these 
 considerations, the Secretary s hearers promised to sup 
 port the loan; and within a week, the bonds had been 
 exchanged for sufficient gold to bring the Treasury s gold 
 balance up to more than $107,000,000. But the inci 
 dent had been a very trying one, a grievous disappoint 
 ment to the President, and very ominous for the future. 
 
 8 These bonds were redeemable after ten years ; they bore five per cent, 
 interest, and they were payable in " coin " the law of 1875 not per 
 mitting the issue of bonds specifically promising payment in gold. 
 
 9 The exact proceeds of the sale were $58,660,917.63. 
 
396 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 In fact, the relief proved to be only temporary. Some 
 of those who had subscribed for the bonds had drawn the 
 gold to pay for them from the Treasury itself, thus taking 
 out with one hand what they put back with the other. 
 Furthermore, it had now been made plain that the credit 
 of the United States was at the mercy of the great bankers 
 and other heads of financial institutions. They could at 
 will so bleed the Treasury of gold as to compel new bond 
 issues ; and by combining together, they could in the future 
 exact such terms from the Government as to assure them 
 selves an extraordinary profit. This lesson they resolved 
 to put into practice while the opportunity was still open. 
 Within a little more than two months after the reserve 
 had been reinforced by the purchased gold, it had again 
 fallen to $78,000,000. The Government tried every pos 
 sible means to check the drain, but to little purpose. In 
 November, the fund stood at only $61,000,000, and it 
 was known that preparations were being made by New 
 York bankers of foreign extraction to draw heavily upon 
 this scanty store, for shipment to foreign countries. On 
 the 1 4th of the month, the situation being most serious, 
 Secretary Carlisle called for bids in gold for a second 
 issue of $50,000,000 in bonds. This issue was taken up 
 by a syndicate of thirty-three banking-houses and finan 
 ciers, who managed to secure the entire allotment, by 
 bidding for " all or none." As the other bids did not 
 cover the whole amount, and as the acceptance of them 
 would have involved delay at a time when delay might 
 prove disastrous, the syndicate was successful. One of its 
 members, the president of the United States Trust Com 
 pany of New York, afterwards testified under oath that the 
 transaction was unprofitable to the subscribers an asser 
 tion which was received with a very general scepticism. 
 
\ 
 
 THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 397 
 
 This second bond issue, like the first, afforded only a 
 momentary relief. Wall Street had now thoroughly 
 learned the lesson, and began applying it with a vengeance. 
 In a single month (December, 1894), the sum of $32,- 
 000,000 in gold was taken from the Treasury. In the 
 following month (January, 1895) $45,000,000 more was 
 sucked out of the dwindling fund. Early in February, 
 there remained only $41,000,000 an alarmingly slender 
 store with which to secure the undiminished $500,000,000 
 of notes that were still in circulation. Thus, within two 
 months after the second bond sale, nearly $80,000,000 of 
 gold had vanished from the Treasury, and the reserve 
 fund touched the lowest point it had ever reached. In 
 this emergency, the President invited to a conference at 
 the White House Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, a very 
 eminent and sagacious financier. In a sort of apologia, 
 published eight years later, Mr. Cleveland wrote with a 
 touch of irony: 
 
 " It never occurred to any of us to consult . . . farmers, 
 doctors, lawyers, shoemakers, or even statesmen. We could not 
 escape the belief that the prospect of obtaining what we needed 
 might be somewhat improved by making application to those 
 whose business and surroundings qualified them to intelligently 
 respond." 10 
 
 Of course, what the President now wanted, in the light 
 of past experience, was not merely gold to replenish the 
 reserve, but some effective guarantee that the gold so 
 acquired would not be immediately drawn out again. Only 
 a very powerful financial combination could give this 
 guarantee; and such a combination was effected as a result 
 of the conference with Mr. Morgan. On February 8th, 
 in a special message, the President laid before Congress 
 
 10 Cleveland, Presidential Problems, pp. 147, 148. 
 
398 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the terms of an agreement entered into by Secretary 
 Carlisle on behalf of the Government, and by Messrs. 
 J. P. Morgan and Company and Messrs. August Belmont 
 and Company. The former banking-house was acting 
 also for Messrs. J. S. Morgan and Company of London; 
 the latter for Messrs. N. M. Rothschild and Sons of 
 London. By the terms of the agreement, the subscribing 
 bankers were to take up an issue of United States 4 per 
 cent, coin bonds to the amount of $62,315,400 at the 
 rate of 104!, to be paid for in gold, at least half of which 
 was to be brought from Europe. They were also, to the 
 extent of their ability, to " exert all financial influence and 
 make all legitimate efforts to protect the Treasury of the 
 United States against the withdrawal of gold, pending 
 the complete performance of this contract." On the other 
 hand, the Secretary of the Treasury agreed to give these 
 banking-houses the first option upon any further bonds 
 which might be issued before October i, 1895. 
 
 So far, the contract was one which it was within the 
 legal power of the Secretary to make without referring 
 the matter to Congress at all. But the second clause con 
 tained a special provision. If Congress would authorise 
 the payment of principal and interest to be made 
 specifically in gold instead of in " coin," then the syndicate 
 would accept 3 per cent, bonds in place of the proposed 
 bonds at 4 per cent. The difference would mean a saving 
 to the United States of some $16,000,000 in interest in 
 the course of the thirty years during which the bonds were 
 to run. The President, therefore, laid the contract before 
 Congress and asked for authority to issue 3 per cent, bonds 
 payable in gold. 
 
 Until now, Congress had had no opportunity to deal 
 directly with the President s policy regarding the bond 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 399 
 
 issues. In March of 1894, it had passed a bill for coining 
 the seignorage, or so much of the silver bullion in the 
 Treasury as represented the difference between its in 
 trinsic value and its value when coined into money. This 
 bill the President had promptly vetoed, on the ground 
 that its wording was ambiguous, and because in his judg 
 ment " sound finance does not commend a further infusion 
 of silver into our currency." 11 As a matter of fact, the 
 intrinsic value of the silver bullion purchased under the 
 Sherman Act had already decreased, so as to represent a 
 loss to the Treasury of more than $10,000,000. Hence, 
 Mr. A. S. Hewitt very neatly described the scheme to coin 
 the seignorage as a plan for " coining a vacuum." Again, 
 the President had urged upon Congress a bill for currency 
 reform, drawn by Secretary Carlisle. 12 The object of this 
 bill was " the absolute divorcement of the Government 
 from the business of banking," by giving greater facilities 
 to national and State banks. 13 But Congress was in no 
 mood to legislate in favour of banks of any kind; and the 
 House, by a test vote upon a subsidiary motion, made this 
 fact so clear that the bill was dropped. But now the whole 
 matter of the bond issues came directly before that body, 
 and a Democratic majority had to discuss the financial 
 policy of a Democratic President. A joint resolution 
 authorising the issue of 3 per cent, bonds payable 
 specifically in gold, was reported by the Committee 
 on Ways and Means. On February I4th, Mr. Bryan 
 of Nebraska spoke in opposition to the measure, and 
 
 11 Veto message of March 29, 1894. 
 
 12 See Message of December 3, 1894. 
 
 13 It repealed the laws providing for the deposit of United States bonds 
 as security for circulation, and permitted national banks to issue notes up 
 to 75 per cent, of their paid up capital. The prohibitory tax on the note 
 issues of State banks was, under certain conditions, to be abrogated. 
 
400 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 for the second time attracted widespread attention 
 by the force and piquancy of his style. He gave 
 voice, in fact, to the rising note of doubt, distrust, and 
 discontent which the course of the President had excited 
 throughout the Western States. At the same time, the 
 fairness and courtesy of his whole tone and manner could 
 give no personal offence even to Mr. Cleveland s partisans. 
 Speaking of the President, Mr. Bryan said: 
 
 The President of the United States is only a man. We en 
 trust the administration of Government to men, and when we do 
 so we know that they are liable to err. When men are in public 
 office we expect them to make mistakes even so exalted an official 
 as the President is liable to make mistakes. And if the President 
 does make a mistake, what should Congress do? Ought it blindly to 
 approve his mistake, or do we owe it to the people of the United 
 States and even to the President himself, to correct the mistake so 
 that it will not be made again? But some gentlemen say that the 
 Democratic party should stand by the President. What has he 
 done for the party since the last election to earn its gratitude? 
 . . . What gratitude should we feel? The gratitude which a 
 confiding ward feels toward his guardian without a bond, who has 
 squandered a rich estate. What gratitude should we feel? The 
 gratitude which a passenger feels toward the trainman who has 
 opened a switch and precipitated a wreck." 
 
 Then, coming to the Morgan-Belmont contract, he went 
 on to say: 
 
 "What is this contract? I am glad that it has been made 
 public. It is a contract made by the Executive of a great nation 
 with the representatives of foreign money-loaners. It is a contract 
 made with men who are desirous of changing the foreign policy 
 of this country. They recognise by their actions that the United 
 States has the right to pay coin obligations in either gold or silver, 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 401 
 
 and they come to us with the insolent proposition, We will give 
 you $16,000,000, paying a proportionate amount each year, if the 
 United States will change its financial policy to suit us. Never 
 before has such a bribe been offered to our people by a foreign 
 syndicate, and we ought so to act that such a bribe will never be 
 offered again. By this contract we not only negotiate with 
 foreigners for a change in our financial policy, but we give them an 
 option on future loans. . . . We cannot afford to put ourselves 
 in the hands of the Rothschilds, who hold mortgages on most of 
 the thrones of Europe. 
 
 " There is another objection to this contract. It provides for 
 the private sale of coin-bonds running thirty years at 104^, which 
 ought to be worth 119 in the open market, and which could have 
 been sold at public auction for 115 without the least effort. Why 
 this sacrifice of the credit of the United States? . . . What ex 
 cuse was there for selling a thirty-year bond for 104^? What 
 defence can be made for this gift of something like seven million 
 and a half dollars to the bond syndicate ? " 
 
 And finally he attacked with much force the funda 
 mental assumption of the President that all the obligations 
 of the Government must be paid in gold and in gold alone 
 if the note-holder and bond-holder demanded it. 
 
 " So long as the note-holder has the option, bonds may be issued 
 over and over again without avail. Gold will be withdrawn either 
 directly or indirectly for the purpose of buying bonds, and an 
 issue of bonds will be compelled again whenever bond buyers have 
 a surplus of money awaiting investment. . . . The only remedy 
 is the restoration of the bimetallic principle and the exercise of the 
 option to redeem greenbacks and Treasury notes in silver when 
 ever silver is more convenient, or whenever such a course is nec 
 essary to prevent a run upon the Treasury. . . . The Govern 
 ment is helpless so long as it refuses to exercise this option. . . . 
 I propose the only policy which will help the Government. I 
 
402 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 propose the only policy which will stop the leak in the Treasury. 
 I only ask that the Treasury Department shall be administered 
 on behalf of the American people and not on behalf of the Roths 
 childs and other foreign bankers." 
 
 Mr. Bryan s attack upon the joint resolution was not 
 the only cause of its defeat. Many Democrats who 
 believed that all bonds were and ought to be payable in 
 gold, disliked the terms of the Morgan-Belmont contract 
 as inequitable. The Republican members of the House 
 were, for the most part, glad to thrust the Democratic 
 administration still further down into the mire of popular 
 dislike. And, therefore, the measure was finally defeated 
 by a vote made up of all the Populists, of two-thirds of 
 the Republicans, and of more than half the Democrats. 14 
 The President s transactions with the bond syndicate were 
 thus condemned by the representatives of all three parties. 
 He carried out the original contract, however, and 
 delivered bonds to the amount of $62,315,500 in return 
 for gold, at the rate of 104!. When he did so, the gold 
 reserve had fallen to so low an ebb, that the Sub-Treasury 
 in New York was within twenty-four hours of suspending 
 gold payments altogether. 
 
 Then something happened which seemed to many to be 
 full of sinister meaning. No sooner had the syndicate se 
 cured the bonds which it had bought at 104^, than it 
 offered them for sale in the open market. Almost at once 
 their price rose to 1 1 8. Investors were eager to buy them at 
 this figure. And yet these were the bonds which had been 
 described as of uncertain value, because they were not 
 made specifically payable in gold! It is not surprising 
 
 14 Ayes: Democrats, 89; Republicans, 31=120. Noes: Democrats, 94; 
 Republicans, 63; Populists, 10=167. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 403 
 
 that the administration was widely and severely censured 
 for the whole transaction. In financial circles Mr. Cleve 
 land found defenders, who said that he was not responsible 
 for the vicious legislation of earlier years; that the press 
 ing necessities of the situation gave him no choice save to 
 get gold where he could, as quickly as he could, and on 
 the best terms possible; and that, in a word, he had done 
 the very best thing in his power. But there were many 
 loyal followers of the President who were deeply im 
 pressed with the belief that the whole affair had been very 
 badly managed. The United States, one of the richest 
 countries in the world, was apparently dependent upon a 
 little group of bankers for a loan of some $60,000,000, 
 and was forced to make those bankers a gift of nearly 
 $7,000,000 in return for the accommodation. Such usury 
 might be paid by a country like Turkey, but hardly by the 
 United States. Why, it was asked, did the President wait 
 until the gold in the Treasury was almost gone before 
 negotiating a new bond issue? Why were not the bonds 
 offered to the people at large for popular subscription? 
 If the bonds were sold in this way to small investors 
 throughout the country, self-interest would make the 
 people anxious to sustain the national credit; whereas, 
 these favours to foreign bankers created a strong senti 
 ment inimical to the very cause which Mr. Cleveland was 
 upholding. The New York World, which had con 
 sistently and ably supported the President until this time, 
 now attacked the syndicate transaction with unsparing 
 energy. It had opposed all exclusive issues of bonds to 
 bankers, who, after giving the Treasury a supply of gold 
 " would at once siphon it all out again." " In less than 
 a year," said the World^ " the Government has had 
 $117,000,000 from the banks, and has lost it all and 
 
 15 January 28, 1895. 
 
404 TWENTY YE^RS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 $8,000,000 more, through the financial thimble-rigging 
 of Wall Street." Its comment upon the completed syndi 
 cate transaction, or " bank-parlour negotiations," as it 
 called them, was made in these words, which very fairly 
 expressed the verdict of : a majority of Democrats even in 
 the East: 
 
 " It is an excellent arrangement for the bankers. It puts at 
 least $16,000,000 into their pockets. . . . For the nation it 
 means a scandalous surrender of credit and a shameful waste of 
 substance." 1G 
 
 Scientific bimetallists pointed to the transaction as an 
 object-lesson, and as a warning of the financial dangers 
 inherent in the adoption of the single gold standard. 
 Refuse to make any use of silver, said they, and see the 
 position in which you find yourself. The very credit and 
 financial stability of thej Government are at the mercy of 
 Wall Street money kings, who can bleed the gold reserve 
 and force new bond issues at their pleasure. But if the 
 Treasury were to make! only a very small part of each 
 payment in silver, it would thus serve notice upon the 
 speculators that they cannot go on raiding the reserve at 
 will; and it would induce exporters of gold to depend for 
 their supplies upon the banks. They cited the practice of 
 the Bank of France in support of their contentions. 
 
 Such were the opinions most often met with in the 
 East. But all through the West, astonishment, disgust 
 and rage spread like a prairie fire. Here was the President, 
 who had been chosen because he was the enemy of privi 
 lege, the champion of the people against consolidated 
 wealth, the man who had denounced monopoly and " the 
 communism of capital," here was that President lower 
 ing the credit of the nation at the behest of a syndicate of 
 
 1(i See the files of the World for February, 1895, 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 405 
 
 bankers, adding millions upon millions to the national debt, 
 and all for what? To prevent the free use of the silver 
 money with which the Treasury was overflowing, and 
 which, both by law and custom, was legal tender for all 
 debts. The Democrats of the West felt themselves to be 
 not only injured but betrayed; and in the violence of their 
 resentment, they even refused to credit Mr. Cleveland with 
 upright motives. Many believed that he had himself de 
 rived personal profit from his negotiations with the syndi 
 cate and the bankers with whom he had to do. They 
 pointed to his intimate friendship with a certain Mr. E. C. 
 Benedict, a promoter who had been interested in various 
 syndicates and in the Chicago Gas Trust; and they 
 interpreted this intimacy in a sinister light. From the 
 time of the third bond issue, Mr. Cleveland s following 
 in the West melted completely away; while Populism and 
 the cult of free silver were getting a tremendous grip upon 
 the masses. 
 
 In the country as a whole, the unpopularity of the 
 syndicate affair had not been needed to create a tremendous 
 revulsion against Democratic rule. This had already 
 found effective and spectacular expression at the Congres 
 sional elections of 1894. The Democratic Party had then 
 been in full possession of the Government for eighteen 
 months. During that time there had occurred a disastrous 
 panic, banks had failed or had suspended by the score, 
 business was at a standstill, and the national debt had been 
 increased by a hundred millions. Moreover, the President 
 had lost control of his own party. The pledge of tariff 
 reform had ended in the pitiful fiasco of the emasculated 
 Wilson Bill, which the President himself had been 
 ashamed to sign. The sugar scandals in the Senate, the 
 quarrels within the party, and the open breach between 
 
4 o6 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Mr. Cleveland and other Democratic leaders these 
 afforded a picture, almost unrelieved, of unwisdom, incom 
 petence and failure. The losses incurred during the great 
 strikes had exasperated the corporations. The President s 
 action in using troops to check disorder had made organ 
 ised labour hostile to him. Mr. Olney s resort to " gov 
 ernment by injunction " was equally obnoxious. Fmally, 
 the President s ill-advised Hawaiian policy added still 
 another charge to the general indictment which the Re 
 publicans drew against their divided and distracted 
 opponents. As for the people, they, as usual, judged things 
 in the large, not looking into the causes of what had hap 
 pened or apportioning the responsibility between the 
 present and the past. They saw only that a year and a 
 half of Democratic rule had been a year and a half of 
 disorder and distress. Hence, at the polls they showed 
 their displeasure in a tremendous political avalanche, 
 which blotted out the Democratic majority in the Senate 17 
 and almost annihilated that party in the House, where the 
 Republicans now had 248 members to 104 Democrats 
 the latter being almost wholly from the South. From the 
 Northern States scarcely a dozen Democrats were re 
 turned. The State elections showed a no less over 
 whelming reaction. Everywhere the Republicans were 
 jubilant, and looked forward to 1896 with eager confi 
 dence. " We can nominate a rag-baby or a yellow dog 
 and elect it," was a common boast of theirs. The Demo 
 crats were downcast and full of gloom. They charged 
 most of their misfortunes upon Mr. Cleveland, yet the 
 party had as yet produced no other leader at whose sum 
 mons it might once more rally on a new fighting line. 
 
 It is likely that the President in his heart of hearts 
 regarded with considerable equanimity the Republican 
 
 17 Republicans, 43; Democrats, 39; Populists, 6. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 407 
 
 resumption of control in Congress. Republicans would, of 
 course, oppose him as a matter of party policy; but the 
 open assaults of avowed enemies were much less vexatious 1 
 than the treachery and defection of those who should have 
 been his friends. Moreover, the really eminent Republi 
 can leaders were more favourably disposed toward the 
 President than they openly admitted. His financial 
 doctrines were very much the same as theirs; and they 
 respected the firm way in which he had stood by his con 
 victions. In fact, the more radical Democrats had come 
 to regard him as essentially a Republican. Mr. Bryan 
 had already said of the President in his speech of February 
 1 4th: 
 
 " He has attempted to inoculate it [the Democratic party] with 
 Republican virus, and blood poisoning has set in." 
 
 Hence, while the Republicans in the new Congress 
 which met on December 2, 1895, would do nothing to help 
 the President out of his various perplexities, they refrained 
 from a policy of pin-pricks, and sought merely to ac 
 cumulate some telling political capital for use in the 
 presidential contest of the coming year. For this purpose, 
 they continued what they had begun some time before, 
 a general criticism of the manner in which the foreign 
 relations of the Government had been conducted by Mr. 
 Cleveland. They wished to show that a Democratic 
 President was careless of the country s interests and 
 dignity abroad that he was just the person to truckle to 
 foreign powers and to think but little of the honour of 
 the flag. His entire course in relation to the Hawaiian 
 question had laid him open to easy censure; but there 
 were many other incidents upon which his Republican 
 
4 o8 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 critics also seized. Indeed, the foreign relations of the 
 United States during this administration would of them 
 selves have made the period a memorable one. The 
 momentous importance of our domestic problems was in 
 no way so strikingly exhibited as by the fact that they 
 wholly overshadowed a series of most dramatic events of 
 an international character. With one exception, however, 
 these last can be no more than outlined here. 
 
 In June, 1893, a treaty with Russia was ratified. Its 
 third article, relating to the extradition of criminals, was 
 widely denounced even by the Democratic press; for in 
 pledging the United States Government to deliver up to 
 Russia all murderers, or those who should be accessories 
 to murder, no exception was made in the case of purely 
 political assassinations. Later events lessened among 
 Americans this tenderness toward crimes of a political 
 character; but in 1893, tne ambiguity of the treaty was 
 widely condemned as showing the administration s 
 sympathy with monarchical institutions. Again, a pro 
 longed diplomatic correspondence with the French Gov 
 ernment led to much friction, and gave many persons an 
 opportunity to say that the President was indifferent to 
 the rights of American citizens abroad. The French, 
 having invaded and conquered Madagascar, had found 
 an American ex-consul, Mr. John L. Waller, in the en 
 joyment of certain valuable concessions formerly granted 
 him by the Queen whom France had just deposed. Mr. 
 Waller was accused of giving military information to the 
 natives; a French court-martial tried and convicted him, 
 and sentenced him to twenty years imprisonment. It ap 
 peared to many that the charge and the conviction were 
 arranged simply to deprive Mr. Waller of the concessions. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 409 
 
 which French exploiters coveted. Mr. Cleveland s critics 
 said that he had dealt with this matter in a spirit of in 
 difference, and at variance with the spirited traditions of 
 the State Department when in Republican hands. With 
 Germany, also, there existed causes of irritation. The 
 German Empire had partially excluded American food 
 products especially cattle and pork on the pretence 
 that they were diseased, and that the inspection at Ameri 
 can ports was so carelessly conducted as to be practically 
 worthless. The true motive was the protection of German 
 landowners and agrarians against American competition. 
 President Cleveland spoke in his messages to Congress of 
 these unfriendly and injurious acts as " vexatious," and 
 hinted at a policy of retaliation; yet this latter he depre 
 cated as " leading to consequences of the gravest 
 character." More rasping to American susceptibilities was 
 an incident w 7 hich arose from a clash between Nicaragua 
 and Great Britain. The Central American Republic had 
 expelled a British vice-consul named Hatch and several 
 other British subjects, and had subjected them to indigni 
 ties, for which the British Government demanded an 
 apology and the payment of $75,000 as a solatium. 
 Nicaragua returned a flat refusal; whereupon a British 
 man-of-war entered the Nicaraguan port of Corinto, 
 landed marines, hauled down tht Nicaraguan flag, and 
 took possession of the custom-house for the purpose of 
 collecting the revenues until the amount of the indemnity 
 should be secured. Although this occupation was declared 
 to be only temporary, and although Great Britain assured 
 the American Government that no infringement of Nica 
 ragua s sovereignty was contemplated, the incident pro 
 duced a painful impression throughout the United States. 
 " O for one day of Blaine! " was the cry which went up 
 
4 io TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 from the Republican editors, who declared, quite un 
 reasonably, that the Monroe Doctrine had been violated. 
 President Cleveland took no spectacular action in this 
 affair; but by putting some friendly pressure upon both 
 governments, he persuaded the Nicaraguan President to 
 promise payment of the $75,000, while he induced the 
 British Government to terminate the occupatiqn of 
 Corinto. Conservative persons felt that the whole matter 
 had been most admirably managed; but sensational news 
 papers continued to accuse the President of subserviency 
 to Great Britain and of deserving the comprehensive 
 epithet " un-American." Some even found fault because 
 he had not interfered to check the Turkish massacres in 
 Armenia ; although as no American citizens were among 
 the victims, it was hard to say just why the United States 
 should meddle in lands so distant, especially when great 
 Christian powers, such as England, which were by treaty 
 responsible, did not go beyond remonstrance. 
 
 One minor episode, however, was viewed with satis 
 faction by Americans without regard to party. In the 
 Republic of Brazil, the navy had revolted, and several of 
 the more southernly States had followed its example. The 
 insurgent leader was Admiral Mello, and it was perfectly 
 well understood that the ulterior object of the outbreak 
 was to restore the Empire and replace Dom Pedro or one 
 of his family upon the throne. This was made plain in a 
 proclamation issued by Mello s second in command, Vice- 
 Admiral da Gama, who in January, 1894, with a part of 
 the Brazilian fleet, was blockading the harbour and city of 
 Rio de Janeiro. The warships of many European powers 
 were also gathered in the harbour. Their commanders 
 were ostensibly neutral, yet secretly willing to aid the 
 rebels in their attempt to overthrow the young Republic. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 411 
 
 Here presently assembled an American squadron, under 
 the command of Rear-Admiral Benham, and consisting of 
 five cruisers. 18 For the first time since the close of the Civil 
 War, the United States was represented in a critical situ 
 ation by an efficient squadron of modern ships, armed with 
 modern guns, and with an equipment that was wholly 
 modern. The presence of this powerful group of vessels 
 under the American flag led the foreign commanders to 
 remain quiescent. They tacitly admitted the hegemony of 
 the United States in an affair affecting an American Re 
 public. What were the intentions of the Government at 
 Washington? These were soon to be made clear. The rebel 
 fleet had not received belligerent recognition, yet it 
 was blockading a great seaport. Would the blockade be 
 recognised? If so, the success of the revolt was almost 
 certain; for President Peixoto could not hold out against 
 an enemy that was able to bring Brazilian commerce to a 
 standstill. And Peixoto s downfall meant the downfall of 
 the Republic. 
 
 In the outer harbour of Rio de Janeiro were several 
 American merchant vessels. Their captains were anxious 
 to enter with their cargoes, but da Gama s ships of war 
 had threatened to fire upon them, and had turned them 
 back. On January 28th, one of the American skippers got 
 word from Admiral Benham to take his vessel, the barque 
 Amy, up to the wharves on the next day. He would be 
 amply protected. A brief note from Benham to da Gama 
 notified the Brazilian that the United States did not 
 recognise the blockade, and that American ships must be 
 permitted to come and go quite unmolested. Da Gama s 
 answer was to draw up his fleet in battle line. Admiral 
 
 18 These were the Neva York, the Charleston, the Newark, the Detroit 
 and the San Francisco. 
 
412 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Benham sent an officer to the commanders of the foreign 
 men-of-war, requesting them to drop down to the lower 
 harbour so as to be out of his own line of fire on the 
 following day. Meanwhile, all the American ships were 
 put into thorough fighting trim, the decks were cleared, 
 the ammunition hoists made ready, and each cruiser, be 
 ginning with the flagship New York, swung around, 
 broadside on, so as to confront the long line of their dark- 
 hulled antagonists. 
 
 At the time appointed, the Detroit steamed down along 
 side the little merchant ship, to escort her from her moor 
 ings to the inner port. As the two moved slowly past 
 the first Brazilian cruiser, it was a breathless moment. 
 The American gunners stood ready to pour a terrific 
 broadside into da Gama s fleet. Suddenly from one of 
 the Brazilian ships a musket-shot was fired at the Amy. 
 In reply a gun boomed on the Detroit, and a solid shot 
 screamed angrily along da Gama s line, burying itself in 
 the hull of the Brazilian Trajano. But no other shot was 
 heard that day. The Brazilian guns were silent. Da 
 Gama s courage had oozed away; the blockade was 
 broken; the revolt was doomed to failure; and the Re 
 public of Brazil was made perpetually safe from foreign 
 interference. 
 
 But the most striking chapter in the record of Ameri 
 can diplomatic relations under President Cleveland is one 
 that marks a distinct epoch in our history. Even before 
 the end of the next decade, its consequences were seen logi 
 cally to involve a wholly new and very startling develop 
 ment of American policy on the Western Hemisphere. 
 In the President s first annual message to Congress, 19 the 
 following sentence had found a place: 
 
 19 December 4, 1893. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 413 
 
 The boundary dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana 
 is yet unadjusted. A restoration of diplomatic intercourse between 
 that Republic and Great Britain, and a reference of the question 
 to impartial arbitration, would be a most gratifying consum 
 mation." 
 
 A year later, his second annual message 20 contained a 
 much longer paragraph upon the same subject, again ex 
 pressing the hope that the question at issue might be 
 settled by reference to arbitration " a resort which Great 
 Britain so conspicuously favours in principle, and respects 
 in practice, and which is earnestly sought by her weaker 
 adversary." 
 
 Probably not one American in a million took any notice 
 of these sentences at the time when they were given to the 
 public. Certainly no human being could have guessed 
 that the controversy to which they made allusion held 
 within it mighty potentialities of mischief. The very 
 few persons who knew anything about the subject were 
 aware that for more than half a century there had existed 
 a dispute between Venezuela and Great Britain over the 
 boundary line between the domains of the former 
 and the colony of British Guiana. Certain sections of 
 territory were claimed by both countries. Venezuela s title 
 rested upon the alleged explorations and discoveries of 
 early Spanish adventurers, while that of Great Britain was 
 inherited from the Dutch, who had ceded the colony to the 
 English in 1810, without, however, defining its boundary. 
 The whole question of delimitation was so vague as very 
 naturally to give rise to the dispute which began as early 
 as 1841, when the Venezuelan Government protested 
 against the hoisting of the British flag upon what it re 
 garded as Venezuelan soil. A request was also made for 
 
 20 December 3, 1894. 
 
4H TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the drafting of a treaty which should describe and fix a 
 definite boundary line. From this time a long and desul 
 tory diplomatic correspondence was carried on at intervals, 
 sometimes with scant courtesy on the part of the British 
 Foreign Ministers, who often left the Venezuelan notes 
 unanswered, or in answering, gave no definite promise of 
 satisfaction. Meanwhile, the English had themselves 
 caused a survey to be made by Mr. (later Sir) Robert 
 Schomburgk, who established what Lord Aberdeen called 
 " boundary posts " as a " preliminary measure." Great 
 Britain, however, disclaimed any intentions of encroaching 
 upon the disputed territory, and regarded the whole sub 
 ject as still open to negotiation. 
 
 Here the matter had rested for many years, when, in 
 1876, it was once more revived, and Venezuela appealed 
 to the United States Government to interest itself in any 
 further steps that might be taken, and to concern itself 
 " in having due justice done to Venezuela." But some 
 thing of much importance had occurred. On the territory 
 in dispute, rich gold deposits had been discovered. It was 
 no longer a question of getting possession of a tropical 
 wilderness, but of securing a great mining field, stored 
 with immense and still undeveloped riches. Thenceforth, 
 English unwillingness to arrange a boundary treaty per 
 ceptibly increased. The Venezuelan Minister in London 
 pressed for some definite solution of the pending contro 
 versy. Lord Derby, and later Lord Salisbury, delayed giv 
 ing any answer for two whole years. Meanwhile, British 
 settlers, miners and others, were entering the territory and 
 were establishing their homes within its bounds. In 1880, 
 after delaying eight months before answering another Vene 
 zuelan note, Lord Salisbury suddenly put forward, as em 
 bodying his contention, a claim to lands which, even by all 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 415 
 
 prior British surveys, were Venezuela s. He also men 
 tioned the fact that some 40,000 British settlers were now 
 within the province claimed by Venezuela, intimating that 
 this made it impossible for Great Britain to give it up. 
 In other words, because the long delay in adjusting the 
 boundary a delay for which Great Britain was largely 
 responsible had led Englishmen to enter lands that were 
 known to be in dispute, therefore the title to those lands 
 must be vested in Great Britain. From this time, Vene 
 zuela argued, protested, and appealed in vain. The 
 British Foreign Ministers held back their answers as 
 before. They would agree to nothing. At last (February 
 20, 1887) diplomatic relations between the two countries 
 were broken off. Great Britain had refused to submit the 
 question to arbitration, and Venezuela withdrew her 
 Minister from London, publishing a protest u before all 
 civilised nations, against the acts of spoliation which the 
 Government of Great Britain has committed." 
 
 During the last fourteen years of this controversy, the 
 Government of the United States had endeavoured, in a 
 spirit of amity, to bring about some equitable adjustment. 
 Under President Arthur s administration, the American 
 Minister to England Mr. James Russell Lowell had 
 informed Lord Granville that the United States was " not 
 without concern as to whatever may affect the interest of 
 a sister Republic of the American Continent." During 
 Mr. Cleveland s first presidency, the matter had been 
 pressed with much more urgency. At last, in 1886, the 
 American Minister, Mr. Phelps, was directed to offer the 
 good offices of the United States in settling the difficulty 
 and to propose its arbitration, if acceptable. 21 To this 
 offer and suggestion, Lord Salisbury somewhat curtly re 
 plied that arbitration was at that time impossible. Under 
 
 21 Despatch of December 20, 1886. 
 
416 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 President Harrison, Secretary Elaine had continued the 
 policy of his predecessors, and had again pressed upon 
 Lord Salisbury some action which would be a preliminary 
 step to arbitration, and to the termination of a weari 
 some dispute. 22 Lord Salisbury made to this suggestion 
 a wholly non-committal answer, postponing any decision 
 upon the subject. Other communications passeji, but 
 to them all no definite or satisfactory reply was given. 
 The tone of the British Foreign Office was one of civil 
 indifference, with just a suggestion of boredom and an 
 intimation that while the United States might be listened 
 to out of courtesy, that country was regarded as thrusting 
 itself into an affair with which it had no concern. 
 
 Such was the situation when President Cleveland took 
 office for the second time. A weak South American Re 
 public had been trying for fifty years to secure from Great 
 Britain a determination of its boundary. The question at 
 issue was purely geographical and historical one to 
 be settled properly by a commission of impartial ex 
 perts. Venezuela was willing to abide by the decision of 
 such a board of arbitrators. On the other hand, Great 
 Britain had practically refused to submit her claims to any 
 arbitration, and had at the same time suggested no other 
 way of ending the dispute. In July, 1894, Secretary 
 Gresham sent a despatch 23 to Mr. Bayard (then Am 
 bassador to England), which contained some very per 
 tinent and pungent sentences. Mentioning the fact that 
 the British Foreign Office had, since 1881, turned a deaf 
 ear to all offers of arbitration, Mr. Gresham went on 
 to say : 
 
 " In the meantime, successive advances of British settlers in the 
 region admittedly in dispute, were followed by similar advances 
 22 Despatch of May i, 1890. -"July 13, 1894. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 417 
 
 of British colonial administration, contesting and supplanting Vene 
 zuelan claims to exercise authority therein. . . . Toward the 
 end of 1887, the British territorial claim, which had, as it would 
 seem, been silently increased by some 23,000 square miles between 
 1885 and 1886, took another comprehensive sweep westward." 
 
 This " comprehensive sweep " was taken in order to 
 include the district in which the gold mines had been lately 
 found. Mr. Gresham s despatch ended with a strong 
 statement of the President s desire to see the respective 
 rights of the two countries settled by arbitration. By this 
 time, general attention in the United States had been drawn 
 to the question, even outside of diplomatic circles; and 
 after President Cleveland had made a direct allusion to it 
 in his message of December 3, 1894, Congress passed a 
 joint resolution (February 3, 1895) urging "that Great 
 Britain and Venezuela refer their dispute as to boundaries, 
 to friendly arbitration." On the following day, Lord 
 Salisbury sent a despatch to the British Ambassador in 
 Washington, containing the assertion that " although Her 
 Majesty s Government were ready to go to arbitration as 
 to a certain portion of the territory, . . . they could 
 not consent to any departure from the Schomburgk line." 
 
 Now when it is remembered that the Schomburgk line 
 was originally drawn only as a tentative one; that at the 
 time when it was drawn the British Foreign Minister, Lord 
 Aberdeen, had disclaimed its permanency; and that he had 
 specifically called it " a preliminary measure to discussion," 
 a mere ex parte survey, in fact one can measure the 
 assurance of Lord Salisbury in declaring that the absolute 
 acceptance of this line must be an indispensable pre 
 liminary to any negotiation whatsoever. " First give me 
 everything I want, and then I will arbitrate as to the 
 
4 i 8 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 things which I care nothing about." Thus might Lord 
 Salisbury s position be not unfairly summarised. At this 
 point, President Cleveland and his new Secretary of State, 
 Mr. Olney, felt their patience breaking down. Hitherto, 
 the attitude of the United States had been entirely disinter 
 ested. The American State Department had given Vene 
 zuela a helping hand, out of compassion for a wqak and 
 struggling Republic; but as to the merits of the contro 
 versy no opinion had been held. It was for a court of 
 arbitration to pass upon the facts. But now Great 
 Britain refused a genuine arbitration. Its Government 
 coolly asserted that a large and immensely valuable ex 
 panse of territory was British soil, although for fifty years 
 the title had been admittedly uncertain. " It is ours now, 
 because our people have settled there. We shall hold it 
 by force, if necessary, and we refuse to allow our claim to 
 be examined and adjudicated." 
 
 This, in the view of President Cleveland and his Secre 
 tary of State, was to traverse directly the doctrine of Mon 
 roe. As to whether their view was historically correct, there 
 has been an immense amount of discussion. Mr. Cleve 
 land summed up his contention in a sentence written long 
 afterward: 
 
 " We had seen her [Great Britain s] pretensions in the dis 
 puted regions widen and extend in such manner and upon such 
 pretexts as seemed to constitute an actual or threatened violation 
 of a doctrine which our nation long ago established, declaring that 
 the American continents are not to be considered subjects for 
 future colonisation by any European power." 24 
 
 As the President understood the Venezuelan case, Great 
 Britain by arbitrary assertion of sovereignty over territory 
 
 24 Cleveland, Presidential Problems, p. 254. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 419 
 
 to which an American Republic had a prlma facie claim, 
 was extending her system over American soil, and colonis 
 ing new portions of the American continent. At once, 
 Secretary Olney, at the direction of the President, began 
 the draft of a long and most elaborately reasoned argu 
 ment, tracing the history of the Monroe Doctrine, assert 
 ing its direct application to the Venezuelan question, de 
 claring the deep concern which the United States felt in 
 the issue as it had now shaped itself, and concluding with 
 a strong request that Great Britain submit the whole case 
 to arbitration not as before, out of regard to Venezuela s 
 interests alone, but because the dispute now touched the 
 rights, the honour and the dignity of the United States. 
 The language of this despatch 25 was very firm. There 
 was in its tone that which ought to have warned Lord 
 Salisbury of the stern purpose back of it. Mr. Olney 
 wrote that " the United States may and should intervene 
 in a controversy ..primarily concerning only Great Britain 
 and Venezuela." The United States is " to decide how 
 far it is bound to see that the integrity of Venezuela is 
 not impaired by the pretensions of its powerful antag 
 onist." The United States is " entitled to resent and 
 resist any sequestration of Venezuelan soil by Great 
 Britain." 
 
 These were not the smooth words of European diplo 
 macy. They smacked of gunpowder. Indeed, had they 
 emanated from the chancellery of a great European 
 power, Lord Salisbury would most certainly have recog 
 nised their gravity. But British Foreign Ministers had 
 been taught to believe (and with some reason) that Ameri 
 can state despatches are not to be judged by the standards 
 of Old World diplomacy that a certain rhetorical vehem- 
 
 25 Despatch of July 20, 1895. 
 
420 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ence in them is to be expected and allowed. 20 In the second 
 place, Lord Salisbury, like all European statesmen, made 
 the fatal error of imagining that the Monroe Doctrine 
 is a mere panache of American diplomacy something to 
 flutter in a popular harangue or a newspaper article or a 
 presidential message; in fact, a meaningless though effect 
 ive catchword, good always for a round of unintelligent 
 applause. He did not know that, next to the passionate 
 devotion which the American people give to their ideal of 
 national unity, there is no political sentiment so deep- 
 rooted and so intense among them as that which centres 
 in the doctrine first explicitly enunciated by President 
 Monroe. Foreigners may ignore this feeling. They may 
 speak of it as a superstition, and of the object of it as a 
 fetish. Some denationalised Americans may even sneer 
 at it. But that the great masses of the people cling to it 
 with an ever-strengthening tenacity cannot be denied by 
 any one who knows them well. The sagacious student of 
 political psychology may, indeed, find in this phenomenon 
 evidence of that popular instinct which is often more pro 
 foundly wise than the reasoned arguments of statesmen. 
 The extraordinary hold which the Monroe Doctrine has 
 always exercised upon the imagination of Americans may 
 well be due to a vague and still unformulated stirring of 
 the national consciousness which discerns, however dimly, 
 a future wherein the whole of the Western Hemisphere 
 
 26 Mr. Cleveland s English biographer expresses the then current 
 European view in the following words: "Were it possible to conceive a 
 despatch of this character sent by one European power to another, there 
 can be little doubt that the result would have been the transmission of his 
 passports to the Ambassador who presented it. The foreign despatches of 
 an American Secretary of State have only an occasional international 
 significance. They are generally compiled with a view to home con 
 sumption." Whittle, President Cleveland, p. 212 (London, 1896). 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 421 
 
 shall be held under the flag of the United States. If this 
 be so, then no wonder that a principle first enunciated 
 under special circumstances should have been expanded 
 and perpetuated to bar all influences which might prevent 
 that splendid dream from coming true. 
 
 But to Lord Salisbury, the Monroe Doctrine was 
 merely an old-time bit of diplomatic rubbish, of which a 
 few paragraphs from his pen could readily dispose. And 
 he made a third blunder in the estimate which he had 
 formed of President Cleveland and Mr. Olney. He evi 
 dently thought that, like certain of their predecessors, they 
 were now engaged in the periodical performance popularly 
 known as " twisting the lion s tail." Lord Salisbury re 
 membered Mr. Cleveland s dismissal of Sir Lionel Sack- 
 ville-West because of the exigencies of a political cam 
 paign. No doubt, he felt that Secretary Olney s stand in 
 the Venezuelan matter was taken to offset the administra 
 tion s general unpopularity, and to win a little cheap 
 applause. The British Premier had not forgotten his cor 
 respondence with Secretary Blaine over the Bering Sea 
 fisheries. In that correspondence, Mr. Blaine had used 
 undiplomatic language and had beaten the big drum; but 
 at the critical moment he had yielded rather than take the 
 responsibility of an open rupture with Great Britain. 27 
 These Americans are all alike, the noble Marquis doubt 
 less told himself; treat them firmly and they will not 
 go beyond " tall talk." Little did he know the two men 
 with whom he now had to do Americans of the older 
 stock, of New England ancestry, as dogged and as stiff- 
 necked as any of their race who had remained in Britain. 
 
 Lord Salisbury, then, wholly failed to recognise the 
 seriousness of the issue which confronted him. He took 
 his time about composing a reply to Mr. Olney s note; 
 
 27 See pp. 191, 192. 
 
422 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 and, indeed, when Congress met on December 2d, no 
 answer had yet come from him. In the President s mes 
 sage of that date, this fact was noted; and the promise 
 was made that the British note should be submitted to 
 Congress when received. When it did come, Lord Salis 
 bury s communication was in the form of two separate 
 despatches addressed to the British Ambassador in Wash 
 ington, but meant to be submitted to the American State 
 Department. The first note dealt with the relation of the 
 Monroe Doctrine to the Venezuelan question and also the 
 matter of arbitration; the second discussed the whole 
 previous history of the boundary dispute. 
 
 The tone of both these notes was intensely, if unin 
 tentionally, irritating. Something of conscious patronage 
 was there, the air of an intellectual superior trying to 
 make a simple matter plain to an inferior understanding. 
 There was also subtly suggested the attitude of the great 
 nobleman listening with patient condescension to the de 
 mands of some intrusive, persistent person whom it would 
 be undignified to treat uncivilly. It was, in short, the pose 
 of Sir Leicester Dedlock submitting to an interview with 
 Mr. Rouncewell, the ironmaster. Lord Salisbury gra 
 ciously explained that the Monroe Doctrine was a highly 
 respectable principle originally enunciated by a " dis 
 tinguished statesman "; but that it long ago became obso 
 lete. It bore " no relation to the state of things in which 
 we live at the present day." Furthermore, even if it did, 
 Her Majesty s Government could not accept it as sound 
 and valid, for it had no place in the law of nations. 
 
 " No statesman however eminent, and no nation however power 
 ful, are competent to insert into the code of international law a 
 novel principle which was never recognised before, and which has 
 not since been accepted by the Government of any other country." 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 423 
 
 Again, his lordship was not prepared to admit that the 
 United States had any concern whatever in disputes which 
 might arise between the States having possessions in the 
 Western Hemisphere. Still less could he accept the doc 
 trine that the United States possessed the right to demand 
 the arbitration of such disputes. In other words, the sum 
 and substance of this note might be expressed as " Mind 
 your own business and we will mind ours." Regarding 
 arbitration itself, as a mode of settling international dif 
 ferences, Lord Salisbury read Mr. Olney a little lesson, 
 a sort of political essay on the subject, ending in another 
 very obvious snub. Arbitration, said his lordship, is not 
 free from defects. It is hard to find an impartial arbi 
 trator. It is not always easy to enforce the award when 
 made. In short, whether or not to arbitrate in a given 
 case is " generally a delicate and difficult question. " 
 " Only the two parties to the controversy can decide this 
 question." 
 
 The claim of a third nation ... to impose this particular 
 procedure on either of the two others cannot be reasonably justified, 
 and has no foundation in the law of nations." 
 
 Finally, Great Britain had at times offered to arbitrate 
 her claims to a part of the territory in dispute; but she 
 absolutely refused to submit to arbitration the status of 
 lands on which British subjects had for years been settled. 
 
 Some years after, an intimate friend of Mr. Cleveland s 
 was asked how the President felt when he read these two 
 despatches. " Felt?" was the reply, conveyed in an ex 
 pressive Americanism; " why he felt mad clear through! " 
 On December I7th, he sent to Congress a message accom 
 panied by the entire correspondence. It had become 
 
4 2 4 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 generally known in Washington that something out of the 
 ordinary was impending; but no one was prepared for so 
 stirring and uncompromising a missive. As the reading 
 of it proceeded, a dead silence settled upon the House, 
 and every ear was strained to catch the slightest word. 
 
 The message began by a brief recapitulation of the 
 facts; the nature of the controversy between Venezuela 
 and Great Britain; the direct interest of the United States 
 in resisting unproved claims of any European power to 
 American territory; the request of the United States that 
 Great Britain submit its alleged rights to a court of arbi 
 tration; and the absolute refusal of Great Britain to do 
 so, or even to admit that the United States had any just 
 concern in the affair at all. Having thus summed up the 
 facts, the President declared the duty of the United States 
 to be a very plain one. Since Great Britain refuses to 
 allow the true boundary to be determined by disinterested 
 arbitration, this Government must for itself ascertain that 
 boundary through a commission. When the commission 
 shall report that certain territory belongs of right to Vene 
 zuela, " it will be the duty of the United States to resist 
 by every means in its power, as a wilful aggression upon its 
 rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain " 
 of such territory. And then occurred these ominously 
 weighty words : 
 
 " In making these recommendations, I am fully alive to the 
 responsibility incurred, and keenly realise all the consequences that 
 may follow." 
 
 The reading of this message was received in each of the 
 two Houses with a tumult of wild applause from Republi 
 cans and Democrats alike. The former, if anything, were 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 425 
 
 the more enthusiastic. They had long taunted the Presi 
 dent with what they called his subserviency to England 
 and to English interests ; and so they dared not now appear 
 less strenuous than he in behalf of a warlike policy. Yet 
 it is unnecessary to ascribe their attitude at the moment 
 to motives such as this. A vigorous defence of the Mon 
 roe Doctrine appeals to all Americans; and in any sudden 
 crisis that pits the United States against a foreign power, 
 party divisions vanish. Therefore, at once, Mr. Hitt of 
 Illinois, the Republican leader of the House, introduced a 
 bill appropriating $100,000 for the expense of such a 
 commission as the President had suggested. This bill was 
 passed in the House without delay; and though in the 
 Senate, Mr. Sherman of Ohio suggested that it be referred 
 to a committee, it became a law within three days. 28 
 Not a single vote in either House was cast against it. Re 
 publicans vied with Democrats in praising the boldness 
 and patriotism of the President. From all over the country 
 came messages of congratulation and approval. The most 
 partisan of Republican newspapers, such as the New York 
 Tribune, eulogised the President s action. Governor Mc- 
 Kinley of Ohio telegraphed of the message : " It is Ameri 
 can in letter and spirit; and, in a calm, dispassionate 
 manner, upholds the honour of the nation and ensures its 
 security." 
 
 When a brief summary of the message was cabled to 
 London on the afternoon of the 17th, the British public 
 refused to take the matter seriously. They had not heard 
 a word of this Venezuelan dispute. What on earth did it 
 all mean ? What was it all about ? Men rubbed their eyes 
 and puzzled over the cabled news with utter amazement 
 
 28 It was introduced in the Senate by Mr. Chandler (Republican) of 
 New Hampshire. 
 
426 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 and incredulity. Surely this was only some bit of Ameri 
 can nonsense a political dodge a touch of sorry bun 
 combe. On the following morning, certain members of the 
 London Stock Exchange sent a cablegram to the New 
 York Exchange to express their notion that the affair was 
 wholly humorous. The allusion in it was to the yacht 
 races for the American cup. The cablegram read:* 
 
 " When our warships enter New York harbour, we hope that 
 your excursion boats will not interfere with them." 
 
 Perhaps there was conveyed in this (besides the obvious 
 jest) a hint that the American defences were practically 
 limited to excursion-boats. The New York brokers were 
 prompt with their reply. They cabled : 
 
 " For your sake it is to be hoped that your warships are better 
 than your yachts." 
 
 But by this time the full text of the President s message 
 had been published in England, and something like a 
 panic followed. It was impossible to doubt the gravity 
 of the situation after reading those grimly measured 
 sentences. In them there was no touch of bluster, no sug 
 gestion of anything like jingoism. An unfaltering sense of 
 duty, a profound conviction of right, and the note of an in 
 flexible purpose these were what men found in the words 
 which an English writer described as being " full of stateli- 
 ness and force." When the true meaning of the message 
 dawned upon the British people, a wave of consternation 
 swept over the country. Not because England shrank 
 from war as war, but because the very thought of war 
 with their own kindred affected Englishmen with a moral 
 horror. " War with America is unthinkable ! " was said 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 427 
 
 again and again. Clergymen spoke from their pulpits of 
 the criminality of such a thing. The newspapers declared 
 it to be quite impossible. 29 The man in the street, puzzled 
 and confused, experienced a feeling of bewilderment. 
 Then a most unprecedented incident occurred. On New 
 Year s Day, 354 members of the House of Commons 
 signed and sent to the President and to Congress a 
 memorial asking that in the future all questions at issue 
 between Great Britain and the United States be referred 
 to arbitration. There was an amusing lack of logic shown 
 in sending this memorial to the President and Congress, 
 inasmuch as both had striven earnestly to have the Vene 
 zuelan question arbitrated. That it might better have 
 been addressed to Lord Salisbury was fairly obvious. Yet 
 the meaning of it was clear enough. It was indirectly a 
 disclaimer of the Premier s action, and also an appeal for 
 peace. In like manner an address was prepared and 
 largely signed by British authors to their American 
 brothers of the pen, deprecating the thought of war, and 
 asking their influence in behalf of international good will. 
 Of course, not all Englishmen were anxious for an 
 amicable settlement of the dispute. The jingo and the 
 fire-eater were here and there in evidence. When the 
 British authors were preparing their address, Mr. Morley 
 Roberts wrote and published a very characteristic letter 
 in which he voiced the secret thoughts of many Tories. 
 Said he: 
 
 " No Englishman with imperial instincts can look with any 
 thing but contempt on the Monroe Doctrine. The English, and 
 not the inhabitants of the United States, are the greatest power 
 in the two Americas ; and no dog of a Republic can open its mouth 
 to bark without our good leave. . . . Those who sign this 
 
 29 See Kraut, A Looker-on in London, pp. 184-195 (New York, 1899). 
 
428 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 precious paper go on to say that we are proud of the United States. 
 Sir, we might be proud of them, but to say that we are proud of 
 them is to speak most disingeniously. Who can be proud of a 
 politically corrupt and financially rotten country, with no more 
 than a poor minority vainly striving after health ? " 
 
 And the Saturday Review, while declaring over and 
 over again (as though to keep its courage up) that, of 
 course, there would be no war, professed to think that if 
 war came, the humiliation of the United States would be 
 instantaneous and bitter. Discussing the military re 
 sources of the two nations, it declared: " America is now 
 at a greater disadvantage, compared with Great Britain, 
 than it was in i8i2. 30 
 
 As a purely academic question, it may be permitted to 
 hazard a conjecture as to the probable course and issue 
 of such a war as then seemed for a moment possible. 
 President Cleveland s message, with its implied threat, 
 has been often spoken of as a colossal " bluff "; and both 
 then and afterwards men said that the United States must 
 have yielded had the verge of war been actually reached. 
 It is true that the national military establishment in 1896 
 was wretchedly inadequate for any war whatever, and 
 most of all for war with the greatest naval power in the 
 world. For a number of years, the creation of a system 
 of modern coast-defences had been slowly going on; but 
 as yet nothing had been completed. There existed only 
 the nucleus of works which it would still take years to 
 finish. When the President sent his bold message to Con 
 gress, there had been actually mounted only one high- 
 powered modern gun of really formidable calibre. So far 
 as permanent defences and scientific fortifications were con 
 cerned, every city on the entire American seaboard was 
 
 * Saturday Review, December 28, 1895. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 429 
 
 practically unprotected against the attack of a powerful 
 fleet. Portland, Boston, New York, Baltimore, Charles 
 ton and Savannah in the East, and San Francisco in the 
 West, together with a score of smaller cities, invited cap 
 ture by their weakness and their wealth. Many an 
 English naval captain and many an English soldier must 
 have thought longingly of this enormous mass of riches, 
 echoing, perhaps, old Bliicher s greedy exclamation, " Was 
 fur Plunder ! " 31 Nor as yet had the new American navy 
 reached a growth sufficient to make it a factor in the prob 
 lem of defence. Not a single first-class battleship had been 
 completed, and the cruisers alone were neither numerous 
 enough nor powerful enough to meet the armoured 
 squadrons of Britain. 32 These facts must have been care- 
 
 31 See a characteristic chapter in Kipling s American Notes (New York, 
 1891) on the American coast defences. 
 
 " Try to believe an irresponsible writer when he assures you that China s 
 fleet to-day, if properly manned, could waft the entire American navy out of 
 the water and into the blue. The big, fat Republic that is afraid of noth 
 ing, because nothing up to the present date has happened to make her 
 afraid, is as unprotected as a jelly-fish. . . . From five miles out at sea 
 a ship of the power of H. M. S. Colling<wood would wipe out any or every 
 town from San Francisco to Long Branch; and three first-class ironclads 
 would account for New York, Bartholdi s Statue and all. 
 
 " They could not, with an ordinary water patrol, despatch one regiment 
 of men six miles across the seas. There would be about five million 
 excessively angry, armed men pent up within American limits. These 
 men would require ships to get themselves afloat. The country has no 
 such ships; and until the ships were built, New York need not be allowed 
 a single wheeled carriage within her limits. 
 
 " Behold now the glorious condition of this Republic which has no fear. 
 There is ransom and loot past the counting of man on her seaboard 
 alone plunder that would enrich a nation and she has neither a navy 
 nor half a dozen first-class forts to guard the whole." 
 
 32 The effective navy of the United States in 1896 consisted of 2 second 
 class battleships, 12 cruisers, 9 gunboats, 6 double-turreted monitors, i 
 armored ram, and i torpedo boat. There were also 6 iron vessels of an 
 obsolete type still in commission. 
 
430 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 fully conned over in the British War Office during the last 
 days of 1895. Perhaps there was a moment when those 
 whose touch could turn the scale may have been tempted 
 to let it incline to war, feeling, as an Englishman after 
 wards expressed it, that " we are likely to suffer in our 
 self-respect, our sense of personal security, and in our 
 pockets, until we have succeeded in convincing some nation 
 of the first class that ... we are ready for war." 33 
 
 On the other hand, there were some considerations to 
 offset the disparity of immediate resources. There can 
 be no doubt that in the first months of such a war, the 
 American seaboard would have suffered most severely. 
 Some, at least, of the cities mentioned would have been 
 laid under heavy contribution, and some would possibly 
 have been shelled or burned. Yet the military experience 
 of later years has shown that even improvised or hastily 
 constructed means of defence may suffice to hold a fleet 
 in check, and even to destroy a part of it. The torpedo, 
 the floating mine, and all the other deadly implements of 
 naval warfare would have been developed and used with 
 terrible effect by a people so ingenious, so inventive, and 
 so daring as the Americans; and these devices, supported 
 by the heavily armoured, double-turreted monitors ( Ter 
 ror, Puritan, Amphitrite, Miantonomoh, Monadnock and 
 Monterey) would probably have saved New York, and no 
 doubt other cities; for the fortune of war does not usually 
 give all the successes to one side. 
 
 But, granting that the British fleet might have dealt ruin 
 and devastation to the entire Atlantic seaboard, this would 
 have been only the beginning of the war. The vast in 
 terior of the country would have still remained untouched, 
 its resolution unimpaired, its resources unexhausted. 
 Meanwhile, the whole of Canada would have been over- 
 
 33 Whittle, op fit., pp. 227, 228. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 431 
 
 run by American armies. It has been many times asserted 
 and as many times denied, that in the event of hostilities, 
 the British troops in Canada, heavily re-enforced, were to 
 have commenced a campaign which Sir Redvers Buller 
 had been chosen to direct. The subsequent career of this 
 officer and his proved weakness and incompetence in South 
 Africa give one a criterion by which to judge what he 
 would have done against enemies a hundred-fold more 
 numerous than the Boers, and ten thousand-fold more able 
 to sustain a long and wasting war. Indeed, ere a single 
 troopship could have sailed from England, an army of half 
 a million men would have swarmed across the Canadian 
 frontier. The permanent conquest of all British America, 
 with the flourishing cities of Victoria, Vancouver, Winnipeg, 
 Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, St. Johns and Halifax, would 
 have been a more than adequate compensation for the 
 hasty plundering of a few American seaports. Moreover, 
 the loss to Great Britain would have been tremendously 
 augmented by the destruction of her commerce with the 
 United States, by the paralysis of her shipping trade, 
 which carried so large a share of American products, by 
 the cutting off of her abundant food supplies, and, per 
 haps, by the confiscation of the hundreds of millions of 
 British capital invested in American enterprises. Again, 
 as the war went on, the American navy would have swiftly 
 gained the power of taking the offensive. In navy yards 
 inaccessible to attack, the battleships and formidable 
 cruisers and torpedo-boats already half completed would 
 have been finished and new ones rapidly laid down, until 
 at last a mighty fleet would have issued to give battle on 
 the open seas; while swarms of commerce destroyers would 
 have swept the ocean clean of British merchantmen. 
 Already, in 1895, at tne opening of the German ship- 
 
432 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 canal at Kiel, two of the new American cruisers, the New 
 York and the Columbia, had won the instant notice of 
 foreign naval experts. The Columbia, in particular, 
 both for the strength of her armament and her extraordi 
 nary speed, was an object of curiosity and of some dis 
 quietude. Her speed became apparent on her return 
 voyage, when she made the passage from Southampton to 
 New York under natural draught and in heavy weather, in 
 six days and twenty-three hours, distancing the English- 
 built liner St. Louis and the German-built liner /fugusta 
 Victoria. A score of cruisers such as the Columbia, able 
 to escape from the more sluggish battleships and fitted to 
 destroy all smaller craft, would have put an end to ocean 
 trade in British bottoms and would thus have ruined the 
 great shipping interests of Glasgow, Liverpool, and 
 London. 
 
 But there still remained another element which must 
 have been seriously pondered by the British Cabinet. Lord 
 Salisbury at the time may well have repeated Bismarck s 
 saying after Sadowa, in 1866 " We are not living alone 
 in Europe." Involved in a gigantic war with the United 
 States, how would imperial Britain have safeguarded her 
 prestige in other quarters of the globe? Germany stood 
 ready to grasp eagerly at the sceptre of commercial 
 supremacy. France would have extended her African pos 
 sessions without the humiliation of a Fashoda. Russian 
 armies could have occupied Constantinople or pushed back 
 the frontiers of India. The Boers might have secured 
 their independence without a blow, or, by setting forward 
 the time for their great struggle, have won it gloriously. 
 Indeed, had England and the United States engaged in 
 war, they would have taken quite unequal risks. Upon 
 the latter nation, the contest must have inflicted vast 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 433 
 
 material losses. Its prosperity would have been crippled 
 and its expansion checked for many a year; yet in the end, 
 the Republic would have emerged with no impairment of 
 its power or prestige. But to Great Britain, which had 
 so many hostages to give to fortune, defeat would have 
 spelled instant ruin; while even victory (if we concede 
 that victory was possible) must have been purchased at a 
 price of which no Englishman could think without a 
 shudder. 
 
 Fortunately, so appalling a catastrophe was averted, 
 never, perhaps, again to be so imminent. In the end, 
 public opinion in Great Britain came to recognise that no 
 strip of South American territory, even were it piled knee- 
 deep with gold, was worth a war between the two great 
 English-speaking peoples. The blame of the whole un 
 fortunate imbroglio was very justly laid upon Lord Salis 
 bury, for allowing what was in itself an unimportant ques 
 tion to drift into the magnitude of a casus belli. Yet the 
 impasse still continued. However great the blunder which 
 he had committed, the British Premier could scarcely cry 
 " Peccavi " and ask the American President to forgive 
 him. It was then that the way to peace was made smooth 
 by the American Commission which Mr. Cleveland had 
 promptly appointed on January ist. This body, through 
 Secretary Olney, asked the governments of Great Britain 
 and Venezuela for such documentary evidence as would 
 aid it in its investigation. In each case a most courteous 
 assent was given. A month later, 34 Ambassador Bayard, 
 in view of the public demonstrations in both England 
 and the United States, proposed to Lord Salisbury 
 that the Venezuelan question be discussed at Washington, 
 with a view to ultimate arbitration. This was a decided 
 proffer of the olive-branch, and Lord Salisbury responded 
 
 34 February 27, 1896. 
 
 < 
 
434 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 five days later in a note in which he cordially agreed to 
 Mr. Bayard s suggestion, and concluded with this sig 
 nificant sentence: 
 
 " I have empowered Sir Julian Pauncefote to discuss the question 
 either with the representative of Venezuela or with the Govern 
 ment of the United States acting as the friend of Venezuela" 
 
 This little sentence conceded the whole question at issue. 
 It recognised the United States as entitled to interfere on 
 behalf of an American Republic as against a European 
 power, and it tacitly withdrew the prior British declara 
 tion that such interference had no warrant in the law of 
 nations. In other words, Great Britain accepted President 
 Cleveland s new interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine 
 as a principle to be recognised thereafter in Anglo-Ameri 
 can relations. Soon after, Lord Salisbury, not to be gra 
 cious by halves, withdrew his insistence upon the Schom- 
 burgk line, and agreed to submit the whole question to 
 arbitration. A formal treaty to that effect was signed in 
 Washington on February 2, i897. 35 
 
 It would be difficult to exaggerate the profound im 
 pression which the Venezuelan affair produced upon the 
 statesmen of Continental Europe, an impression that 
 was reflected in the press and in many monographs and 
 special publications. The prestige of the United States 
 was enhanced immensely, a fact of which Americans 
 abroad were made aware in many ways. Their country 
 
 35 It provided for a reference of the whole dispute to a tribunal which 
 met in Paris in June, 1899. This was composed of two American and two 
 English judges and -was presided over by Professor Maartens, the Russian 
 authority on international law. The decision finally rendered on October 
 3d of the same year represented a compromise, and this was, on the whole, 
 favourable to Great Britain. 
 
THE BOND SALES AND VENEZUELA 435 
 
 was now spoken of in a tone of grave respect that was 
 altogether new. A thoughtful observer who had carefully 
 studied the drift of European opinion, wrote that _~ 
 
 " The best informed French and German journalists, though 
 they acknowledge the equity and prudence of the compromise which 
 has been reached, think it necessary to point out that it involves 
 possibilities of considerable gravity, not merely to England and 
 the United States, but also to the civilised world in general." 36 
 
 And he cited the very able Kolnische Zeitung as saying 
 
 " A precedent has been established by the joint action of the two 
 Anglo-Saxon powers, the effects of which are likely to be felt long 
 after the British Guiana boundary question has been forgotten." 
 
 But the most explicit statement of just what Lord Salis 
 bury s concession meant, was made by the London Times 
 in these pregnant sentences : 
 
 11 From the point of view of the United States the arrangement 
 is a concession by Great Britain of the most far-reaching kind. It 
 admits a principle that in respect of South American republics the 
 United States may not only intervene in disputes, but may entirely 
 supersede the original disputant and assume exclusive control of 
 the negotiations. Great Britain cannot, of course, bind any other 
 nation by her action, but she has set up a precedent which may in 
 the future be quoted with great effect against herself, and she 
 has greatly strengthened the hands of the United States Govern 
 ment in any dispute that may arise in the future between a South 
 American Republic and a European power, in which the United 
 States may desire to intervene." 3T 
 
 In the United States, many and various were the 
 opinions then expressed regarding President Cleveland s 
 
 36 Nineteenth Century, December, 1896. 
 
 37 London Times, November 14, 1896. 
 
 / \ 
 
436 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 bold and somewhat startling course. Of the unfavourable 
 criticisms uttered at the time, it will be necessary to speak 
 hereafter. But perhaps the matured judgments of two 
 able men who were not of Mr. Cleveland s party may be 
 cited as embodying the final verdict of his countrymen. 
 Dr. Edward Stanwood, a close student of American politi 
 cal history and long an intimate friend of Mr. Blaine, 
 summed up very briefly the outcome of the Venezuelan 
 episode as " the most signal victory of American diplomacy 
 in modern times." 38 And Mr. John W. Foster, an ex 
 perienced and sagacious diplomat, who succeeded Mr. 
 Blaine as Secretary of State in President Harrison s Cabi 
 net, gave his deliberate opinion in these words : " I re 
 gard the President s action as a consistent, judicious and 
 necessary application of the true intent and spirit of the 
 [Monroe] Doctrine." 39 
 
 But whatever opinion may be held regarding the wis 
 dom of President Cleveland s action, or the accuracy with 
 which he then defined a fundamental doctrine of American 
 policy, one impressive fact cannot be questioned. The 
 interpretation which he gave was instantly accepted by 
 his countrymen and has been confirmed and extended by his 
 successors. In less than a decade, indeed, its far-reaching 
 significance was to receive a practical demonstration. Had 
 nothing else occurred to make his administration memor 
 able, this Venezuelan incident would have sufficed; since 
 through it President Cleveland left an ineffaceable mark 
 upon the history, not of the United States alone, but of 
 the whole Western Hemisphere and of the world. 
 
 38 Stanwood, A History of the Presidency, p. 520 (Boston, 1898). 
 
 39 Foster, A Century of American Diplomacy, p. 473 (New York, 1900). 
 See also a similar expression of opinion by another eminent Republican, 
 Mr. Andrew D. White, in his Autobiography, ii. pp. 381 (New York, 1905). 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE RISING IN THE WEST 
 
 THE universal chorus of applause which in the United 
 States greeted President Cleveland s Venezuela message, 
 continued for precisely three days. At the end of that 
 brief period, discordant notes were heard, so harsh and so 
 insistent as to put an end to what had seemed to be a per 
 fect political harmony. It was, indeed, Mr. Cleveland s 
 fate never to taste in public office the sweets of popularity 
 for any length of time; and he was now to enter upon the 
 most trying year of all. The praise which he had lately 
 won alarmed the Republican leaders. They had perforce 
 commended the bold front which he had shown to Eng 
 land; yet this sudden popularity seemed likely to upset 
 their plans. Was the President thinking of a third term? 
 Mr. Chauncey M. Depew in a published interview sug 
 gested this hypothesis, and it created something like a panic 
 among the gentlemen who were asserting that they could 
 elect even a yellow dog in 1896. Therefore, almost imme 
 diately, the Republican press began to qualify its praise of 
 Mr. Cleveland and to forget its enthusiasm of a day or 
 two before. The New York Sun, which once again had 
 drifted into the anti-Cleveland ranks, disclosed a new line 
 of criticism in an editorial remark: 
 
 " If the eccentric statesman and instinctive antagonist of the more 
 vital American sentiments, who now occupies the White House, 
 had dealt with the Venezuelan affair from the beginning in the 
 
 437 
 
438 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 creditable spirit shown in his message, it is a question whether the 
 situation would not now be satisfactory and without danger of 
 
 war. 
 
 The Sun s lead was quickly followed by the Tribune, 
 which had at first spoken of the President s u straightfor 
 ward, manly words," but which now called his diplpmacy 
 that of a " self-opinionated tyro." 
 
 But it was not the political, so much as the financial 
 aspect of the situation that raised a storm of disapproval, 
 and this, curiously enough, in those quarters where the 
 President had hitherto found strong support, as well as in 
 a section where he was already hated. The possibility of a 
 war with England had frightened Wall Street. On the 
 day after the message, stocks dropped several points, and 
 the market was decidedly weaker at the close. On the 
 1 9th, when the full gravity of the situation had become 
 known, there was something very like a panic. The sound 
 est securities declined in value. It was said that European 
 holders of American stocks and bonds were preparing to 
 sell them in large blocks. According to an estimate gen 
 erally accepted at the time, the depreciation in values, con 
 sequent upon the prospect of war, amounted to at least 
 $400,000,000. It was then that Wall Street turned on 
 Mr. Cleveland. Hitherto, the bankers and brokers and 
 other financiers had lauded him for having, as they said, 
 preserved the national credit and saved the country from 
 repudiation. But now that stocks were down, these same 
 men cursed his very name. Whether his policy was brave 
 and honourable or the reverse, was nothing to them. 
 " Margins " had been wiped out, money had been lost. 
 That was all they cared about. And so it came to pass 
 that the President was wounded in the house of his friends. 
 
 1 New York Sun, December 18, 1905. 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 439 
 
 It was then that he lost for a while the support of one who 
 had been among the most devoted, the most consistent, and 
 the most able of all his advocates in the press, Mr. 
 Edwin Lawrence Godkin, the editor of the New York 
 Evening Post. 
 
 Mr. Godkin at that time divided with Mr. Dana the 
 honour of pre-eminence in American journalism. No two 
 men could have been more utterly unlike in temperament- 
 in training, or in character. Mr. Godkin was an Anglo- 
 Irishman by birth, and as a young man he had been the 
 correspondent of the London Daily News during the Cri 
 mean War. In the East he had made the acquaintance of 
 men of great distinction in many fields of effort, from 
 whom, no less than from his reading, he acquired an 
 invaluable fund of knowledge relating to politics, diplo 
 macy, economics, history, and, incidentally, human nature. 
 During the American Civil War he acted in the dual capac 
 ity of correspondent for the Daily News and for the New 
 York Times, thus establishing a definite connection with 
 American journalism. In 1865 he was made editor of the 
 Nation, and in 1881 he became one of the two editors of 
 the Evening Post, his colleague being Mr. Horace White. 
 
 Mr. Godkin s comprehensive knowledge of the great 
 world, his cosmopolitanism, and his personal associations 
 gave him a distinct advantage over those American editors 
 who became famous in spite of their early disadvantages. 
 Such men as Weed and Raymond and Greeley were pos 
 sessed of natural force, but they lacked breadth of view 
 and liberality of thought. They were infinitely keen at 
 detecting the drift of each cross-current of popular opin 
 ion; but they were deficient in the qualities which would 
 have enabled them to guide that drift and to mould and 
 shape opinion for wise and worthy ends. Mr. Godkin s 
 
440 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 editorial ideals were entirely at variance with those of 
 every other great American editor. He did not set him 
 self directly to appeal to the masses of his adopted country 
 men. He never wrote down to the intellectual level of the 
 man in the street. His appeal was rather to men of intelli 
 gence and cultivation men who were really representative 
 of the best elements in American life professional men, 
 scholars, authors, lawyers, clergymen, great merchants, 
 experts in their own subjects and for these he wrote in a 
 style that was wonderfully effective. His leading articles 
 presupposed in their readers not merely natural intelli 
 gence, but education. They were full of allusions of the 
 kind that are heard in the familiar intercourse of men of 
 culture. Yet nothing could have been further removed 
 from pedantry or pose. The manner was ease and simplic 
 ity itself. The sentences were short and to the point; the 
 phrasing was crisp and neat and oftentimes colloquial. 
 The whole tone was that of an accomplished gentleman 
 conversing with a set of intimates at his club. And Mr. 
 Godkin had also a delightful wit at his command, an 
 appreciation of the comic which made his persiflage deli 
 cious and which also tipped his delicate irony with destruc- 
 tiveness. 2 This last quality his irony was a weapon 
 that he used with consummate skill. Its touch was light; 
 yet it could make the apparently invulnerable argument of 
 an adversary shrivel like a leaf. Anything more intensely 
 exasperating than some of his ironic strokes cannot well 
 be imagined; and he was the only one of Dana s editorial 
 contemporaries who could rouse that seasoned veteran to 
 serious wrath. 
 
 Mr. Godkin, unlike Dana, had a high regard for prin- 
 
 2 Some of the best of Mr. Godkin s editorial essays were collected by him 
 and published in a book Reflections and Comments (New York, 1896). 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 441 
 
 ciple; and his championship of any cause was as conscien 
 tious as it was courageous. Many, indeed, were the causes 
 for which he seemed at times to fight almost alone, yet of 
 which at last he lived to see the triumph. To that triumph 
 his steady hammering, in season and out of season, very 
 powerfully contributed. It is not too much to say that 
 nearly all the most important questions of American politi 
 cal history from 1881 to 1896 got their first public hearing 
 largely through the influence of Mr. Godkin. They were, 
 of course, bound to arise and to clamour for solution; but 
 it was Mr. Godkin s clear prevision which perceived their 
 imminence, as it was his vigorous pen that won for them 
 attention. The reform of the civil service, the introduc 
 tion of the Australian ballot, the enactment of rigorous 
 election laws, the revision of the tariff, the divorce of 
 municipal government from partisan politics, and the estab 
 lishment of a stable monetary system all these issues were! 
 fairly forced upon the public mind through Mr. Godkin s! 
 influence. 
 
 And as the whole spirit of his work was different from 
 Dana s, so was his reward a different one. Dana must still 
 perhaps remain in popular remembrance the greatest of 
 all American editors. He was read by more people, his 
 personality was the best known, he amused and entertained 
 and furnished an infinite number of " quotable bits " and 
 passages for comment. But he exercised no lasting influ 
 ence, for he was utterly devoid of any real beliefs. His 
 admirations were sham admirations. His enthusiasms 
 were sham enthusiasms. He was sincere only in his 
 hatreds; and the spectacle of an old man shrieking forth 
 an expression of his hatreds was in the end more repellent 
 than edifying. Mr. Godkin, on the other hand, was 
 never very widely known, Yet through his selected clien- 
 
442 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 tele of readers he exercised a power of persuasion beyond 
 that of any other publicist in the United States. Each of 
 those whom he convinced became a propagandist and an 
 intellectual leavener of the community where he lived. 
 And so, if Mr. Godkin himself was never famous with the 
 sort of fame that Greeley and that Dana won, it may be 
 said of him, as Mr. W. D. Howells once most aptlywrote 
 of a greater man than Mr. Godkin : " What he had taught 
 had become part of the life of his generation, and was thus 
 far alienated from any consciousness of him in those whose 
 conduct he had largely shaped." 
 
 As might have been expected, a personality so marked 
 as that of Mr. Godkin, possessed the defects inseparable 
 from its qualities. In declaring his opinions, he was wont 
 to adopt the tone and manner of the superior person, and 
 to assume an air of absolute infallibility such as few are 
 quite prepared to recognise as attainable in this imperfect 
 world. A lack of fairness was another mental character 
 istic of the man. Editorially he would seldom or never 
 admit that he had erred, even when the proof of error was 
 incontestable. Again, his censure was at times so bitter 
 and so unsparing as to create a certain sympathy with those 
 who suffered from it. Indeed, among his victims were 
 many who had once been Mr. Godkin s friends and fellow- 
 workers, but who had had the reprehensible temerity to 
 differ with him as to public questions. On such as these he 
 always poured the choicest vials of his wrath, and showed 
 himself intolerant beyond belief. They had, in his eyes, 
 committed the unpardonable sin. Having once seen the 
 light of the pure Godkinian revelation, they had sinned 
 against it. Hence it was that the most persistent readers 
 of the Evening Post were the very men who spoke of it 
 with gibes. They read it and were influenced by it, yet at 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 443 
 
 the same time they felt themselves continually irritated by 
 its tone. One of these gentlemen a very eminent New 
 Yorker who had sometimes felt the touch of Mr. Godkin s 
 chastening rod is said to have spoken of the Post as 
 " that pessimistic, malignant and malevolent sheet which 
 no good citizen ever goes to bed without reading ! " And 
 to the same gentleman was ascribed another and very 
 widely quoted epigram, uttered in answer to a friend who 
 was deploring the general demoralisation of New York. 
 " But what can you expect," broke in his hearer, " of a 
 city with two such leading newspapers the Sun in the 
 morning making vice attractive, and the Post in the even 
 ing making virtue odious ! " 
 
 Perhaps the most marked of Mr. Godkin s mental attri 
 butes was his inability to appreciate the power of sentiment 
 and the force of human passion. For these things, like 
 one of his favourite philosophers, J. S. Mill, he seemed 
 unable to make any allowance whatsoever; but he took a 
 cold-blooded, commercial view of almost every public ques 
 tion. Had he remained in England, he would have been a 
 Little Englander of the straitest sect, improving even upon 
 Mill and Cobden and the prophets of the Manchester 
 School. As an American editor he applied the same stand 
 ards to American affairs. In his eyes, no war could be 
 justifiable, because it cost money. No threat of war was 
 ever to be made, because it depreciated the value of stocks 
 and bonds. National honour was a thing to be written of 
 in derisive quotation marks, and to be regarded as a word 
 belonging only to the vocabulary of the political swash 
 buckler. 
 
 With such beliefs it may be readily conceived that Mr. 
 Godkin read the President s Venezuela message with a 
 mixture of horror and disgust horror because it might 
 
444 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 mean actual fighting, and disgust because it seemed to 
 evince so much ingratitude to Mr. Godkin. Ever since 
 the name of Cleveland had been heard in national politics, 
 the Evening Post had been his thick and thin supporter. 
 It had defended him against the scandal-mongers in 1884; 
 it had praised the achievements of his first administration; 
 it had urged persistently his second candidacy; * it had 
 made his financial policy its own. And now he had dared 
 to break away from all the Cobdenite-Godkinian tradi 
 tions and to show himself as pugnacious in an international 
 dispute as though he had been a Cass, a Marcy, or a 
 Elaine! Small wonder, then, that the Evening Post 
 declared, as soon as the message had reached its office, that 
 " the President s fulmination has no moral support what 
 ever." On the 1 9th, it pronounced his action " criminally 
 rash and insensate." 
 
 " The national finances, already in a perilous condition, will be 
 shaken as they have not been since the Civil War. Mr. Cleve 
 land has frustrated his own wise attempts to adjust them on a 
 sound basis." 
 
 " The President s message is a standing and very insulting 
 threat to a first-class power." 
 
 The Post quoted against the President his own dictum, 
 that " patriotism is no substitute for a sound currency." 
 It spoke of his "Jingo insanity"; it declared his policy 
 to be marked by " insolence, abusiveness and brutality." 
 Every one who favoured it came in for a share of Mr. 
 Godkin s wrath; and he even accused a well-known admin 
 istration Senator of appearing at a public banquet in a state 
 of intoxication, and of delivering a speech which was " hic 
 coughed out to a deriding, hooting and insulting audience," 
 though what this had to do with the Venezuelan ques- 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 445 
 
 tion it would have been hard for even Mr. Godkin to 
 explain. The Evening Post s especial following took up 
 the same parable. Clergymen preached against the right 
 eousness of war. Some college professors gave their 
 verdict to the effect that the President s view of the 
 Monroe Doctrine was all wrong. 3 A convocation of Bap 
 tist missionaries passed resolutions declaring that the 
 United States might better go to war with Turkey on 
 behalf of the Armenians than with Great Britain on behalf 
 of the Venezuelans. There was, in fact, in the United 
 States, something of the same divergence of opinion as 
 existed in Great Britain. But the country as a whole soon 
 ceased to think of this particular issue, because of the 
 immediate revival of an older one. 
 
 The uneasiness of Wall Street was speedily reflected in 
 a new drain upon the gold fund in the Treasury. The 
 Morgan-Belmont syndicate had carried out its promise; 
 and for nine months the reserve had been efficiently pro 
 tected. But in November there was felt a slow but steady 
 outflow, which brought the fund to less than $80,000,- 
 ooo; and in December the hoarding of gold once more 
 began. The menace of war led bankers to ship gold to 
 Europe. Only three days after his Venezuela message, 
 and on the eve of the usual adjournment for the Christmas 
 holidays, the President sent a brief communication to Con 
 gress urging it to take some action for the betterment of 
 financial conditions. As this advice was utterly ignored, 
 Secretary Carlisle was directed to issue (January 6, 1896) 
 a circular asking for subscriptions to a new loan of $100,- 
 ooo, ooo. 4 This was the fourth and last of the bond issues 
 
 3 See, for example, in the Political Science Quarterly for March, 1896, 
 papers by Professor J. W. Burgess and Professor J. B. Moore. 
 
 4 Four-per-cent. coin bonds to run for thirty years. 
 
446 TWENTY YEARS. OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 made by Mr. Cleveland in order to protect the gold 
 reserve, as it was also the largest. Unlike the two preced 
 ing ones, this loan was offered for popular subscription. 
 Bonds of a denomination as low as fifty dollars were 
 engraved, so that the most modest investor might have an 
 opportunity to bid; and an entire month was to elapse 
 before the sealed proposals were opened. In deciding to 
 offer the loan in this public way rather than once more to 
 make a bargain with a syndicate, the President was 
 undoubtedly influenced by the scathing criticism which had 
 been visited upon him. He would never admit this, either 
 then or afterwards; yet one cannot well think otherwise. 
 Moreover, Congress had taken the matter up with serious 
 intention. A House bill provided that no bond sales 
 should be made thereafter save by popular subscription. 
 Senator Elkins had offered a resolution declaring that 
 bonds should not be sold at all by private contract. On 
 the whole, the President must have felt the sting of an 
 almost universal censure. Therefore, he now arranged a 
 loan before the Treasury was actually in distress, 5 and he 
 went directly to the people rather than to Wall Street. As 
 it turned out, there were 4635 bidders for the bonds, and 
 the loan was oversubscribed by $400,000,000. It was a 
 triumph for the advocates of the open sales. To be sure, 
 of the bids received, only 828 were accepted; and in the 
 allotment of the bonds, Messrs. J. P. Morgan and Com 
 pany, who had offered to take the entire issue, received 
 some $62,000,000, while the other bidders received $38,- 
 000,000. But it is to be noted that the lowest bid which 
 the Treasury now considered was at the rate of 1 10 T /io as 
 against the 104^ paid by the Morgan-Belmont syndicate 
 
 5 On the day when the circular calling for bids was issued, the gold 
 reserve stood at $61,251,000. 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 447 
 
 in the preceding February. This fact alone would seem 
 to be a sufficient condemnation of the syndicate transaction, 
 though Mr. Cleveland never would admit the justice of 
 this criticism. 6 
 
 Reviewing the whole series of bond issues after the 
 lapse of many years, and regarding all the circumstances 
 connected with them, there appears not to be the slightest 
 reason for impugning the good faith, the integrity, or the 
 patriotism of President Cleveland. All through those 
 trying times, he acted as he believed the highest interests 
 of his country bade him act. But in the matter of the 
 bond-contract with the Morgan-Belmont syndicate, there 
 can be little doubt that he was guilty of a serious mistake 
 not in the arrangement which necessity drove him into 
 making, but because he delayed so long as to create the 
 unfortunate necessity. That he learned the lesson of his 
 error was shown by his management of the fourth and last 
 bond issue. During his final year of office, the Treasury 
 suffered no more from speculative raids upon it. Wall 
 Street had found that the siphon-process could be no longer 
 made a source of private gain. 
 
 But the fact that the President had again sold bonds to 
 keep the gold reserve intact fanned the already fierce 
 resentment of the silver party into a more furious flame. 
 The Western silver men cared nothing for the effect of 
 the Venezuela message upon Wall Street. If it caused a 
 panic there, so much the better. If stock gamblers had 
 been ruined by it, well and good. If securities had dropped 
 four hundred millions in value, this was a cause for grim 
 rejoicing. The prospect of a war with England was very 
 popular all through the West, not upon patriotic grounds 
 alone, but as likely to bring an era of easy money and good 
 times. A writer in the Oregonian, published in Portland, 
 
 6 See Cleveland, Presidential Problems f pp. 162-169. 
 
448 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Oregon, undoubtedly expressed a widely prevalent feeling 
 when he declared that the people of his State and many 
 other Americans wished a war because 
 
 " they all know that the w r ealth of the world has got into the 
 hands of a few, and that there is no relief for the masses. Busi 
 ness is at a standstill and will remain so until something happens. 
 . . . We are at the mercy of England, as far as our finances go, 
 and this [war] is our only way out." 
 
 Such was the prevailing sentiment in the Western States, 
 so far as the Venezuelan incident was immediately con 
 cerned. But the new gold loan, with its great addition to 
 the public debt, made for the sole purpose of " insulting 
 silver," was the last straw upon the back of the far from 
 patient Populists. By this time, men had formed the habit 
 of speaking of gold and silver as though the two metals 
 were possessed of human attributes. They were not only 
 animified, but personified; and both vices and virtues were 
 ascribed to them. A thousand hoarse-throated orators 
 depicted the infamy of gold and the rectitude of silver. 
 Gold was the coward metal which basely sneaked out of 
 the country when times were troublous. It was the accom 
 plice of money-sharks and usurers, the enemy of labour; 
 the traitorous propagator of poverty and want. Silver, on 
 the other hand, was brave and honourable, too noble to 
 desert the people in their hour of need. It was the debt 
 or s ally, the benefactor of the poor. To it were addressed 
 words of as passionate adoration as ever lover lavished 
 upon mistress, or devotee upon divinity. In truth, at this 
 period, a large portion of the American people was touched 
 by something very like emotional madness over one of the 
 most prosaic questions of pure economics. The tide of 
 Populism which had begun to rise in 1889, which had 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 449 
 
 swollen to a flood in 1890, and which in 1892 had tempo 
 rarily been diverted into Democratic channels, was now 
 roaring through the West with a fury that swept every 
 thing before it. In all the silver-producing States it 
 seemed to be wrecking the older parties; while in Kan 
 sas and Nebraska, men, women and even children turned 
 away from the ordinary vocations of life, and gave them 
 selves up body and soul to the politics of unrestrained 
 emotion. The fact that women had the ballot in these 
 States may account in part for the extraordinary scenes 
 that were enacted there. Certain it is that during the year 
 1896, entire communities seemed to be afflicted with a 
 strange obsession, resembling the hysteria which swept 
 over Europe at the time of the First Crusade. This com 
 parison did, in fact, suggest itself to a very keen though 
 unsympathetic observer, who has left a vivid picture of 
 the time : 
 
 " It was a fanaticism like the Crusades. Indeed, the delusion 
 that was working on the people took the form of religious frenzy. 
 Sacred hymns were torn from their pious tunes to give place to 
 words which deified the cause and made gold and all its symbols, 
 capital, wealth, plutocracy diabolical. At night, from ten thou 
 sand little white schoolhouse windows, lights twinkled back vain 
 hope to the stars. For the thousands who assembled under the 
 schoolhouse lamps believed that when their Legislature met and 
 their Governor was elected, the millennium would come by proc 
 lamation. They sang their barbaric songs in unrhythmic jargon, 
 w r ith something of the same mad faith that inspired the martyrs 
 going to the stake. Far into the night the voices rose, women s 
 voices, children s voices, the voices of old men, of youths and of 
 maidens rose on the ebbing prairie breezes, as the crusaders of the 
 revolution rode home, praising the people s will as though it were 
 God s will and cursing wealth for its inequity. It was a* season 
 
450 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 of shibboleths and fetishes and slogans. Reason slept; and the 
 passions jealousy, covetousness, hatred ran amuck, and whoever 
 would check them was crucified in public contumely." 7 
 
 These people honestly believed that their happiness and 
 prosperity were being sacrificed unpityingly to the greed 
 and money-lust of the rich men in the East; that the Presi 
 dent of the United States was the pliant tool of a plutoc 
 racy without bowels of compassion; and that in obedience 
 to his masters he was barring out the blessings of free 
 silver, which meant independence and wealth and ease to 
 every toiler in the land. No w r onder that for a time there 
 was madness in the very air. 
 
 As is the case in all great popular convulsions, the 
 human scum and driftwood first came hurtling to the sur 
 face. There was a wild cry for a leader; and in response 
 a thousand leaders, self-appointed, leaped into sudden 
 though ephemeral prominence. Strange figures these; 
 for the widespread distrust and hatred of all professional 
 politicians became at last a hatred and distrust of every 
 man who possessed the ability and training which make 
 leadership effective. And so there came forth from the 
 obscurity of incompetence and failure a crop of dema 
 gogues in whom were fearfully combined the irrational 
 and the grotesque. Itinerant preachers, broken-down 
 country editors, farmers who had failed to make a living 
 on their farms, eccentrics whose peculiarities at any 
 other time would have classed them with the insane, and 
 leather-lunged fanatics with a gift for raving hour after 
 hour, these were the guides and prophets who for a while 
 exercised an absolute control over one of the most intelli 
 gent and most purely American communities. A leading 
 
 7 White, Stratagems and Spoils, pp. 207-208 (New York. 1901). 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 451 
 
 article which appeared in a Western newspaper at about 
 this time was widely quoted all over the United States, 
 because of its pungent diagnosis of conditions in the State 
 of Kansas. One paragraph may be quoted here, since its 
 nervous, slangy phrases are like flashlights in their brief 
 intensity. 
 
 "What s the matter with Kansas? 
 
 " We all know ; yet here we are at it again. We have an old 
 moss-back Jacksonian who snorts and howls because there is a 
 bath-tub in the State House. We are running that old jay for 
 Governor. We have another shabby, wild-eyed, rattle-brained 
 fanatic who has said openly in a dozen speeches that the rights 
 of the user are paramount to the rights of the owner. We are 
 running him for Chief Justice, so that capital will come tumbling 
 over itself to get into the State. We have raked the ash-heap 
 of failure in the State and found an old human hoop-skirt who 
 has failed as a business man, who has failed as an editor, who 
 has failed as a preacher, and we are going to run him for Con- 
 gressman-at-large. He will help the looks of the Kansas delega 
 tion at Washington. Then we have discovered a kid without 
 a law practice and have decided to run him for Attorney-General. 
 Then for fear some hint that the State had become respectable 
 might percolate through the civilised portions of the nation, we 
 have decided to send three or four harpies out lecturing, telling 
 the people that Kansas is raising hell and letting the corn go to 
 weeds." 8 
 
 Some of the early protagonists of Populism and of the 
 silver school of Democracy won a temporary notoriety 
 beyond the limits of their respective States. A very few 
 were destined to play a part in national politics. Among 
 the former were Governor Pennoyer of Oregon and Gov 
 ernor Waite of Colorado, who may be ci ted as types of 
 
 8 Emporia Gazette, August 15, 1896. 
 
452 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the erratic leaders in the new movement. Pennoyer had 
 been elected as a Democrat in the reaction following upon 
 the passage of the McKinley Bill. He first became known 
 by his boorishness in refusing to meet President Harrison 
 on the borders of Oregon at the time of the President s 
 journey through the West. During the Coxey demonstra 
 tion, a part of Kelly s " army " came into conflict with the 
 officers of the law, and Governor Pennoyer was besought 
 to send military assistance to the latter. To this appeal he 
 replied by telegram: 
 
 " Let them fight it out. I don t care a whoop which side wins." 
 
 Governor Waite.of Colorado gained demagogic hon 
 ours by the violence of his public speeches, in one of which 
 he spoke of the impending war between the capitalists and 
 the down-trodden people. " I am prepared," said he, " to 
 ride in blood up to my bridles ! " As Mr. Waite had never 
 been noted as a fighting man, this sanguinary intimation 
 served rather to amuse than to alarm; but it won for the 
 Governor the sobriquet of : Bloody Bridles Waite." 
 Another erratic though much cleverer personage was 
 Jerry " Simpson (so he wrote his name) , a convert from 
 Republicanism, whom the Kansas Populists had sent to 
 Congress. In Washington, and at last all over the coun 
 try, he became known as " Sockless Jerry," from a popular 
 legend to the effect that he cultivated simplicity by wearing 
 nothing besides shoes upon his feet. Among the women 
 who shared with men the prestige of political leadership, 
 the most interesting figure was Mrs. Mary Elizabeth 
 Lease, who may be styled the Anna Dickinson of Popu 
 lism, for she had all the vehemence and much of the wild 
 eloquence of the once famous abolitionist. Mrs. Lease 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 453 
 
 was a native of Pennsylvania, who, in 1885, was admitted 
 to practice at the Kansas bar. She was drawn into the 
 Union Labour movement, became a member of the Farm 
 ers Alliance, discovered a gift for extemporaneous speak 
 ing, and in 1890 was one of the most important political 
 leaders in the State. She headed the forces that were 
 opposed to the re-election of Senator Ingalls; and the 
 " whirlwind " campaign which she conducted against him 
 was a notable event of the year 1890. The vitriolic ora 
 tory of Ingalls was fairly outdone by the amazing vocabu 
 lary of vituperation which Mrs. Lease had at her com 
 mand and which she poured forth with a fury and an 
 intensity of passion that thrilled her listeners and fired 
 them with her own emotions. This Kansan Pythoness 
 defeated Ingalls, and in 1893 ca me measurably near se 
 curing for herself a seat in the Senate of the United States. 
 To her was ascribed the admonition already referred to 
 " Kansas had better stop raising corn and begin raising 
 hell ! " 
 
 The doctrine of free silver had not only its prophets 
 and its orators, but also its literary propagandists. The 
 history of political pamphleteering contains few more 
 curious incidents than the vogue enjoyed by one of the 
 pro-silver tracts, which in 1895 became to the West what 
 the Drapier Letters of Dean Swift were to the Irish people 
 in 1724. A young man named William Howard Harvey, 
 a native of West Virginia, began the publication in 1893 
 of an illustrated paper called Coin, devoted to the cause 
 of free silver coinage. Mr. Harvey was fairly educated 
 and had dipped into a large number of treatises on bimetal 
 lism, from which he had gleaned a variety of arguments in 
 support of the silver party s chief tenet. At last he wrote 
 and published a little volume with the title Coin s Financial 
 
454 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 School, presenting his arguments partly in the form of a 
 dialogue, 9 accompanied by some explanatory narrative. 
 The book opened with a brief account of the existing finan 
 cial stringency and of the business depression noticeable 
 throughout the country. It then went on to tell how 
 
 " Coin, a young financier in Chicago, established a school of 
 finance to instruct the youths of the nation. . . . The school 
 opened on the yth day of May, 1894. One of the largest halls 
 in the Art Institute was comfortably filled. . . . Coin stepped 
 out on the platform, looking like the smooth little financier he is." 
 
 Coin s lectures and demonstrations were supposed to 
 have been continued for six days. On the first day, there 
 were present a number of well-known young men, sons of 
 Chicago editors and other leading citizens. On subsequent 
 days, the audience increased, and finally included United 
 States senators, university professors, bank presidents, and 
 economic experts, all of whom were specifically named, 
 and most of whom interrupted Coin s lucid exposition and 
 endeavoured to refute his arguments. Of course Coin 
 easily disposed of them, silencing them by apt illustrations, 
 pertinent facts, or pointed wit. On the last day of his 
 lectures, he had convinced the majority of his hearers and 
 had become a popular idol; so that the book ends with an 
 account of a brilliant reception given him at the Palmer 
 House by a large and distinguished company. 
 
 This veracious chronicle, with its interspersed dialogue 
 and easy repartee, was cheaply printed, while its text was 
 illustrated by a series of rude wood-cuts appealing partly 
 to popular prejudice and partly to the almost universal 
 love of false analogy. " Analogy," says Charles Reade 
 somewhere, " is not argument which is the reason why 
 so many persons use it as such." Both the text and the 
 
 9 Harvey, Coin s Financial School (Chicago, 1894). 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 455 
 
 wood-cuts in Coin s Financial School admirably exem 
 plified the truth of this remark. One of his hearers asks 
 Coin whether the Government by putting its stamp on 
 silver could make fifty-three cents worth of that metal 
 equal to a dollar in gold. 
 
 " Certainly," says Coin, in substance. ;< If the Govern 
 ment were to buy 100,000 horses, wouldn t the price of 
 horses go up? " 
 
 And to persuade the reader that a double metallic stand 
 ard is preferable to a single standard, a picture is given of 
 a one-legged man, moving painfully along on crutches. 
 Two legs are better than one; hence two metals are better 
 than one. Another cut illustrates Jevons s famous meta 
 phor of the two reservoirs connected by a pipe. In fact, 
 the creator of Coin had got together every sort of argu 
 ment, ranging from scientific induction to the most obvious 
 fallacy and the cheapest claptrap, all tending to show that 
 national prosperity could never return until the Govern 
 ment mints were reopened to the free coinage of silver at 
 the old ratio of 16 to i. 
 
 The success of this little book was extraordinary. Hun 
 dreds of thousands, if not millions, of copies were sold and 
 circulated. It was the Silver Party s Bible, and every 
 word in it was accepted as literally true. The farmer 
 studied it by his fireside. The shopman in the intervals 
 between serving customers took hasty glances at it. It 
 was read aloud at country gatherings. Its arguments were 
 cited as unanswerable. Those who studied it were able 
 to chatter volubly about " primary money," " medium of 
 exchange," " circulation per capita," and other topics 
 which they came to imagine that they understood. Most 
 of its readers believed that Coin was a real person, that 
 everything narrated in the book had taken place precisely 
 
456 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 as narrated there, and that the distinguished senators, 
 economists and publicists had actually been silenced and 
 put to confusion by the " smooth little financier." So wide 
 spread an influence did the book exert that even serious 
 periodicals, like the Nation, felt it worth while to expose 
 the inaccuracy of Coin s " facts " and the fallacy of his 
 deductions. 
 
 Not without significance were such of Coin s wood-cuts 
 as appealed to prejudice and passion. No doubt to thou 
 sands these were as effective as the arguments. Silver was 
 depicted as a beautiful woman whose head was stricken off 
 by the malignant Senator Sherman. The Assassination 
 of Silver " was the legend under another wood-cut. In 
 another, the nation is represented as a cow, which the 
 farmers are busily engaged in feeding, while a fat capital 
 ist comfortably milks it. In still another, Mr. Sherman 
 and President Cleveland are shown in the guise of bur 
 glars, secretly digging out the foundation (silver) of a 
 well-built house. For whoever else was now held up to 
 odium, the President was certain to be made a sharer in it. 
 The ties which had bound him to a majority of his party 
 were practically sundered. In Congress he had few sup 
 porters and many bitter enemies. There were senators 
 who personally hated him so much that they opposed and 
 hampered legislation which they themselves approved, if 
 only they believed that he was favourable to it. In the 
 House, now that the Democrats were in a small minority 
 and were not steadied by responsibility, many cast off all 
 pretence of decorum, and ceased to speak of Mr. Cleve 
 land with ordinary respect. A group of these refractory 
 Democrats won for themselves the nickname of " The 
 Wild Horses," because they could not be kept within the 
 party traces. Chief among them were Mr. Sibley of 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 457 
 
 Pennsylvania, Mr. Johnson of Ohio, and Mr. Bland of 
 Missouri. Mr. Sibley had, in fact, never pretended to 
 follow the avowed policy of his own party. He had voted 
 against a revision of the tariff; he had opposed the admin 
 istration s financial measures; and he was in general more 
 hostile to the President than was the bitterest Republican. 
 On January 8, 1896, he made in the House a coarse and 
 violent speech which was remarkable as being the utterance 
 of a Democrat regarding his party s chief. In it he 
 accused the President of giving offices in return for votes. 
 He repudiated all party responsibility for the administra 
 tion s policy. He wound up by declaring that what the 
 country needed was a Government which was " something 
 more than a combination of brains, belly, and brass." 
 
 The administration, moreover, could no longer count 
 upon the solid support of the Southern members of Con 
 gress, who had long been a bulwark of conservatism and 
 party loyalty. In many of the Southern States the Demo 
 cratic party had suffered a transformation. Hastened by 
 the influence of Populism, the change had, nevertheless, 
 been different in character from that which was effected 
 in the West. It took the form of a revolt of the 
 so-called " poor whites," or non-slaveholding persons, 
 against the aristocratic leaders who had for generations 
 been supreme. The Civil War had not at once broken the 
 power of that semi-feudal system which had flourished in 
 the time of slavery and which produced and perpetuated 
 an oligarchic governing class. But now the masses began 
 to demand control. 10 They set up leaders of their own; 
 and gradually the older type of Southern statesman gave 
 way to a far less admirable substitute. The most striking 
 exemplification of the new order at the South was found in 
 
 10 See Murphy, The Present South, pp. 3-27 (New York, 1904). 
 
458 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the person of Benjamin Ryan Tillman of South Carolina. 
 Tillman did not, strictly speaking, belong to the class of 
 " poor whites." He was a man of some position and edu 
 cation. But he was not of the governing caste, and he 
 placed himself at the head of the " poor whites " in a 
 political movement which resulted in the partial elimina 
 tion of the governing caste from a position of local and 
 national importance. Tillman was a very extraordinary 
 figure, both as a man and as a politician. His personality 
 was more than forceful. Lurking in his nature, and easy 
 to be roused, was something of the savage, something even 
 which suggested the ferocity of the wild beast. When 
 stirred/ he was violent almost beyond belief. He put abso 
 lutely no restraint upon his tongue, but hurled abuse at all 
 who differed from him, denouncing them as " hell 
 hounds," " traitors," and " foul-mouthed liars." He had 
 lost one eye, and this mutilation gave to his face a pecu 
 liarly truculent aspect even in repose an aspect which 
 became indescribably sinister and terrifying when the man 
 was convulsed by one of his furious outbursts of passion. 
 In 1890, by the aid of the Farmers Alliance, he was 
 elected Governor of South Carolina, wresting the control 
 of the State from that gallant soldier and gentleman, 
 Wade Hampton. As Governor, Mr. Tillman established 
 the so-called State dispensary system, a semi-Socialistic 
 plan, under which the manufacture and distribution of 
 intoxicating liquors were monopolised by the State. 11 Till- 
 man s supremacy was not easily or peacefully acquired. 
 He had to face the opposition of an extremely influential 
 section of society. In the cities his name was execrated. 
 Attempts were made to disperse the meetings of his follow- 
 
 11 See a detailed account in the Review of Reviews, ix., p. 523 foil., and 
 x., p. 669 foil. 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 459 
 
 ers. He was vilified in every possible fashion. Riots 
 broke out in several towns. His life was often threatened. 
 Yet in spite of everything, by his fearlessness, his energy, 
 and his strong appeal to the passions and prejudices of the 
 ignorant, he became the political master of South Carolina 
 and was for many years a conspicuous figure in national 
 affairs. In 1892 he was again elected Governor, and in 
 1895 a Senator of the United States. 
 
 It was during his canvass for the latter office that he 
 blazed out into relentless antagonism to President Cleve 
 land, whom he attacked in speeches, the very outrageous- 
 ness of which won him a wide hearing. " Send me to 
 Washington," he would yell to the frantic mobs that 
 cheered him, " and I 11 stick my pitchfork into his old 
 ribs! " Even when speaking in his official capacity at the 
 Atlanta Exposition, and before a dignified assemblage, he 
 could not refrain from coarse and insulting language: 
 
 " There are some so infatuated that they think that all the 
 financial wisdom of the country is monopolised by the East; 
 and they say * Me, too, every time Cleveland grunts. I should 
 not have said anything about the President, as I expect to get a 
 better chance at him with my pitchfork in Washington; but it 
 did my heart good to hear the Governor of Georgia say that 
 the two crank reformers from South Carolina had evoked more 
 applause than the President of the United States." 12 
 
 It was not, however, merely the Tillmans and Sibleys, 
 nor even the Germans and Brices in Congress, who were 
 ranged in opposition to Mr. Cleveland. During the last 
 year of his administration he seemed to live under a cloud 
 
 12 Report in New York Sun, November 29, 1895. This and other 
 speeches like them won for their author the nickname of " Pitchfork 
 Tillman." 
 
460 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 of obloquy, blacker and more nearly unrelieved than that 
 which any other elected President had ever known. The 
 Republicans were never weary of pointing out what they 
 described as the disastrous failure of his policies. A 
 majority of his own party believed him not only to have 
 wrecked it, but to have betrayed it. The free-silver men 
 held him responsible for the financial depression. ,The 
 capitalists called him rash and utterly unsafe because of 
 his Venezuela message. The labour element detested 
 him for breaking the great Chicago strike by the use of 
 troops. Only here and there was a voice raised in his 
 defence, and the defence was nearly always worded like a 
 half apology, ascribing to him only what was called " suc 
 cess in defeat." One would have said, in view of all this 
 bitter opposition and unrestrained contumely, that Mr. 
 Cleveland was destined to live in history only as that Presi 
 dent who, beginning with the most splendid opportunities, 
 had most completely wrecked and ruined his own hope of 
 an honourable fame. 
 
 Two very diverse opinions regarding President Cleve 
 land s public career have been held by students of Ameri 
 can politics. According to his eulogists, he was in no 
 respect to blame for the partial failure of his policies. It 
 is said that the whole responsibility of this failure must ulti 
 mately rest upon the Congress which deliberately thwarted 
 and rejected his wise counsels. In the face of such corrup 
 tion, incompetence, ignorance, and malice as were said to 
 exist in both houses of the national legislature, how could 
 any President have done more than Mr. Cleveland did? 
 In the very opposition which he encountered, many find 
 but one more tribute to his political purity and uncompro 
 mising integrity of character. On the other hand, his 
 critics have asserted that the very terms in which he 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 461 
 
 is most often praised constitute an impeachment of his 
 statesmanship. A great party leader, they say, must do 
 his work with such instruments as he has at hand. A 
 statesman who is worthy of the name will master difficul 
 ties, overcome obstacles, adapt his methods to his instru 
 ments, prevail by management, by tact, and by judicious 
 compromise, until in the end he attains a lasting and com 
 plete success. He will make no unnecessary enemies. He 
 will allow for prejudice, for human frailty of every kind, 
 and he will not expect the walls of Jericho to fall at a 
 single blast of his trumpet. The example of Lincoln is 
 often cited as embodying the true art of statecraft; and 
 his patience and genial wisdom are contrasted with Mr. 
 Cleveland s blunt and robust tactlessness. Success, it is 
 said, is the measure of a statesman s fame; and Mr. Cleve 
 land did not achieve success. 
 
 It is probable that the truth is to be found somewhere 
 between these two opposing views. The manner in which 
 President Cleveland forced the repeal of the Sherman Act 
 did undoubtedly so far alienate a powerful faction in the 
 Senate as to make that body permanently hostile to him 
 for the rest of his term of office. He treated senators of 
 the United States precisely as he had, when Governor of 
 New York, treated the petty politicans at Albany. He 
 gave orders where a more tactful politician would have 
 made requests. He displayed arrogance instead of con 
 ciliation. He cracked the whip and shouted, instead of 
 using the milder influences of persuasion. Those who 
 received the patronage which he dispensed were secretly 
 as hostile to him as those who angrily refused it, and far , 
 more humiliated. To say " No " gracefully is a difficult 
 accomplishment; but even Mr. Cleveland s " Yes " was 
 often irritating. And so, had he possessed Lincoln s toler- 
 
462 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ance and worldly wisdom, he might, like Lincoln, have 
 avoided personal hostility. But the conditions of the time 
 were so unusual that he must still have met with political 
 opposition within his own party even as Lincoln did. For 
 in 1864, Lincoln was of all men the least commended by 
 the Republicans in Congress. On one occasion an editor 
 visiting Washington, asked Thaddeus Stevens to ijitro- 
 duce him to some members of Congress who were 
 favourable to Lincoln s re-election. Stevens led him to 
 the desk of Mr. Arnold of Illinois. " There," said he, " is 
 the only Lincoln member of Congress that I know ! " 
 Stevens regarded Lincoln as incompetent and weak. 
 Henry Wilson (afterwards Vice- President) spoke of him 
 as politically a failure. Greeley had a low opinion of his 
 ability. His personal friends, such as Washburn, Ray 
 mond, and Thurlow Weed, believed his re-election an 
 impossibility. Even Lincoln himself at one time doubted 
 it. 13 And, therefore, the example of Lincoln is not con 
 vincing when cited as embodying a rebuke to Mr. Cleve 
 land. For what would it have profited the latter to retain 
 the personal good will of senators and representatives, if 
 they were still politically hostile to him, driven on by forces 
 of disorder and disunion too strong for them to master? 
 In 1864, it was not Lincoln s tact and statesmanship that 
 brought him a final triumph; but rather the brilliant vic 
 tories won in the field by Sherman, Sheridan, and Grant. 
 
 And the mention of Mr. Lincoln brings to mind another 
 circumstance which makes any parallel between him and 
 Mr. Cleveland most unfair to the Democratic President. 
 
 13 See Arnold, Lincoln, p. 385 (Chicago, 1885); Riddle, Recollections 
 of War Times, p. 267 (New York, 1895) ; Nicolay and Hay, Abraham 
 Lincoln: A History, ix., p. 250 (New York, 1890) ; and the contemporary 
 evidence cited by Rhodes, History of the United States from the Com 
 promise of 1850, iv., ch. 23 (New York, 1902). 
 
THE RISING IN THE WEST 463 
 
 Lincoln embodied, to the mind of the people, two great 
 issues that were really only one the preservation of the 
 American Union and the abolition of slavery. At the root 
 of both there lay a moral principle, and both appealed with 
 overwhelming force to sentiment. They were so plain, so 
 vividly defined, that no sophistry could obscure them, no 
 shrewd debater reason them away. And so, back of the 
 supercilious politicians at the Capitol were the masses of 
 the people, their eyes fixed with pathetic faith and loyalty 
 upon that tall, gaunt, stooping, homely man, who to their 
 minds meant everything that makes a cause worth 
 dying for. 
 
 But to President Cleveland it was given to deal with 
 issues that made no such simple and direct appeal. The 
 questions that were his to solve were economic questions, 
 replete with technicalities which only a comparatively few 
 could rightly understand, and as to which even these com 
 paratively few were not agreed. Catchwords and clever 
 phrases and garbled facts, when rolled forth glibly by a 
 smooth-tongued speaker, sufficed to make the worse 
 appear the better reason, and confuse the wits of half the 
 nation. Hence the task which Cleveland took upon him 
 self was harder in its way than Lincoln s, and one which in 
 its very nature could have been completed only after the 
 weariness of many years andthe bitterness of many failures. 
 So far as his own hand could perform what he attempted, 
 he was splendidly successful. He was like a giant facing a 
 terrific tempest. If he could not advance, he would, at 
 least, not yield nor take a backward step. His old-time 
 foes assailed him without ceasing, and his one-time friends 
 betrayed him. He encountered such malignity of hatred 
 as would have terrified and sickened a weaker soul than 
 his. There are signs that within his heart even he often 
 
464 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 winced at the cruel falsehoods which assailed him. Yet 
 none the less, he stood unmoved and magnificently 
 unafraid a superbly virile figure, holding fast to what 
 he felt to be the right, and looking all opponents squarely 
 in the eye. In the end, he came to know that it was his, 
 not to achieve what he had hoped, but to save that which 
 had been entrusted to him; and he did it bravely, grimly, 
 powerfully. Opinions may differ as to his conception of 
 his duty; but the memory of his devotion to high prin 
 ciple, his strength of will and his dauntless courage 
 must remain to all Americans a source of patriotic pride 
 and an enduring inspiration. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE ELECTION OF 1896 
 
 As the time for holding the national conventions drew 
 near, both the Republican and the Democratic parties 
 were in a state of feverish anxiety. The free-silver agi 
 tation had divided both; and no one could with con 
 fidence predict the effect of this division upon either of 
 them. Yet the Republicans were seemingly in a far better 
 position than the Democrats. The latter, now that Presi 
 dent Cleveland s guidance had been practically repudiated, 
 were without any leadership whatever. There had 
 as yet arisen no strong, dominant personality such as 
 could compel obedience to his will. The Pennoyers and 
 Waites and Tillmans had often a numerous local follow 
 ing; but they were not of the stuff which goes into the 
 making of national leaders. On the other hand, whatever 
 differences of opinion might divide the Republicans on 
 questions of policy, there was among them no lack of ex 
 perienced and able party chiefs to arouse strong popular 
 enthusiasm. Of these, the two who received the most 
 earnest support as candidates for the Presidential nomina 
 tion were Mr. Thomas B. Reed of Maine and Mr. 
 William McKinley of Ohio. 
 
 Mr. Reed s energetic and almost revolutionary course 
 as Speaker of the House 1 had made him a very conspicu 
 ous and striking figure. His forceful personality, his in 
 tellectual acumen, his iron will, and his effectiveness as a 
 debater gave him a definite title to the highest political 
 preferment. He was known to be fairly conservative in 
 
 i See pp. 199-201. 
 
 465 
 
466 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 his financial views, and he was, therefore, acceptable to 
 the Republicans of New England and the Middle States. 
 But this very fact militated against his candidacy with the 
 party as a whole, and especially with the party managers. 
 In view of the intense sectional feeling which was then 
 influencing the West, the nomination of a New England 
 candidate seemed to many to be politically inexpedient. 
 Furthermore, precisely in proportion to the definiteness of 
 Mr. Reed s financial views was his availability as a har- 
 moniser generally questioned. What was sought by the 
 shrewdest politicians in the party was a candidate who 
 should come from a Western State, who was identified 
 with some other issue than the money question, whose 
 record would neither alarm the gold men nor exasperate 
 the u friends of silver," and who was personally liked by 
 representatives of every faction. Such an individual was 
 Mr. McKinley, who seemed to be an almost ideal leader 
 from the standpoint of u availability." In his behalf, 
 moreover, there were enlisted forces, the extent and power 
 of which were not generally recognised in the early months 
 of 1896, but which were soon to prove quite irresistible. 
 
 Mr. McKinley was a kindly personage of winning man 
 ners and unblemished character. He had served in the 
 army during the Civil War; and had afterwards acquired a 
 wide experience of practical politics and of politicians, as 
 a member of Congress. During that time he had been a 
 strong protectionist; and the high tariff act which bore his 
 name and which became law in 1890, had made him 
 known all over the civilised world. This measure had, in 
 fact, led to his own defeat for re-election to the House in 
 the same year, and had caused the Republican disaster of 
 i89o; 2 yet in view of Democratic incompetence and the 
 failure of President Cleveland s tariff policy, there had 
 
 2 See pp. 214-215. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 467 
 
 now come about a strong reaction, which was favourable 
 to high protective duties. But it was Mr. McKinley s 
 past and present attitude toward the financial question 
 which made him seem especially well fitted to succeed in 
 1896. In the early part of his congressional career, he 
 had been emphatically numbered among the " friends of 
 silver." He had voted for the Bland-Allison Bill on its 
 first passage through the House, and he had again voted 
 to enact that measure in disregard of the veto of President 
 Hayes. Later, in many public speeches, he had defended 
 the freer use of silver. At the same time, his utterances 
 were far from radical, and he had recently appeared rather 
 to advocate bimetallism through an international agree 
 ment, than to approve the policy of letting the United 
 States attempt the dangerous experiment alone. 3 There 
 fore Mr. McKinley, while not antagonising the silver wing 
 of his own party, was regarded as " a safe man " by the 
 gold monometallists. His own desire, if nominated, was to 
 relegate the financial question to an inconspicuous place in 
 ihe campaign, and to fight the battle once more upon the 
 issue of the tariff. 
 
 3 In a speech delivered at Niles, Ohio, on August 22, 1891, during his 
 canvass for the governorship, Mr. McKinley had said: 
 
 " I do not want gold at a premium. I do not want silver at a dis 
 count. I want both metals side by side, equal in purchasing power and 
 in legal-tender quality, equal in power tb performing the functions of 
 money with which to do business and to move the commerce of the 
 United States. To tell me that the free and unlimited coinage of the 
 silver of the world, in the absence of co-operation on the part of other 
 commercial nations, will not bring gold to a premium, is to deny all 
 history and the weight of all financial experience. The very instant that 
 you have opened up our mints to the silver of the world, independent of 
 international action, that very instant, or in a brief time at best, you have 
 sent gold to a premium, you have put it in great measure into disuse, and 
 we are remitted to the single standard, that of silver alone. We have 
 deprived ourselves of the use of both metals." 
 
468 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 During four of the years of his absence from Congress, 
 Mr. McKinley had been Governor of Ohio, to which 
 office he was elected in 1891. As Governor, he had in 
 some respects exposed himself to serious criticism. In 
 the second year of his term, he had become deeply involved 
 in debt, through endorsing the notes of a personal and 
 political friend. Owing sums which amounted m the 
 aggregate to more than $100,000, and having only the 
 modest salary of his office with which to meet the obliga 
 tion, his position was one of great embarrassment. In 
 these straits, he accepted gifts and loans from several 
 wealthy friends, whose names are variously given, but 
 who rescued the Governor from bankruptcy and secured 
 his lasting friendship. A little later, men began to censure 
 Governor McKinley for his very marked unwillingness to 
 favour any legislative action that interfered with the great 
 corporate interests in the towns and cities. The State of 
 Ohio was in financial difficulties from insufficiency of rev 
 enue. That the street railways had never paid an adequate 
 tax upon their earnings was a notorious fact. Yet all 
 legislative attempts to make them yield a reasonable sum 
 to the State s exchequer were viewed so coldly by the 
 Governor as to prevent their passage. On the other hand, 
 a bill to extend the franchises of these companies from 
 twenty-five to ninety-nine years received his countenance; 
 and the persons engaged in the promotion of the measure 
 were permitted to use Governor McKinley s executive 
 offices as their headquarters. Special favours were 
 granted to railway corporations, one of which secured 
 from the State a piece of public property for a sum 
 amounting only to one-half of the official valuation. Very 
 grave scandals were exposed in connection with the penal 
 and charitable institutions of Ohio. Governor McKin- 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 469 
 
 ley s opponents cited these and other circumstances of a 
 like character as the basis for a charge of neglect of duty, 
 if not of actual collusion with persons whose interests 
 were in serious conflict with the interests of the State. 
 The financial favours which he had received from wealthy 
 men were significantly mentioned in connection with his 
 alleged unwillingness to interfere with these same men 
 and their friends, as corporation officers. 4 
 
 The implications involved in the recital of these facts, 
 so far as they concerned Mr. McKinley, were, in the 
 main, unjust. The Governor of Ohio has no veto power, 
 and therefore can exercise no direct control over proposed 
 legislation. Many of the abuses brought to light during 
 the years from 1891 to 1895 were of earlier origin and 
 were in no way directly connected with the functions of 
 the State Executive. Moreover, Governor McKinley s 
 personal character was known to be above reproach. At 
 the same time, his official attitude was undoubtedly 
 marked by a certain passivity with regard to the occur 
 rences already mentioned, and it afforded at least a nega 
 tive support to the measures upon which hostile criticism 
 was so freely lavished. Mr. McKinley entertained a re 
 spect amounting almost to reverence for the opinions of 
 a majority. His political course was always directed by 
 an anxious desire to be in harmony with the leaders of his 
 party. He was not at all the type of statesman who is to 
 be found at the head of a forlorn hope. He shaped his 
 conduct, and to a great extent his opinions, by what he 
 thought to be the wishes and the welfare of his immediate 
 supporters. Being under great personal obligations to a 
 
 4 A detailed summary of the attacks then current upon Mr. McKinley 
 can be found in a pamphlet entitled " McKinley s Record," published 
 at the office of the Evening Post (New York, 1896), 
 
470 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 number of men who were rapidly acquiring political 
 power in his State, a sense of gratitude no less than a 
 shrewd perception of expediency led him to accept their 
 aid and to find in them his closest friends and chosen 
 monitors. Among them was a comparatively recent figure 
 in the field of politics, whose fame, such as it was, still 
 remained wholly local, though within a few months it was 
 to be almost as widely trumpeted as Governor McKin- 
 ley s own. The personality and character of this man 
 deserve a somewhat careful study. He is rightly to be 
 regarded less as an individual than as a very accurate ex 
 emplification of new and powerful forces which for many 
 years had been acquiring strength, but which now for the 
 first time emerged from a half-obscurity, and revealed 
 themselves to the nation as laying claim to an almost 
 despotic dominance. 
 
 Marcus Alonzo Hanna, or Mark Hanna, as men 
 usually spoke of him, was a native of Ohio, the son of a 
 prosperous wholesale grocer. From his father he in 
 herited keen business instincts and a guiding motive which 
 some have called ambition and others greed. His early 
 training successfully directed all his exceptional energies 
 towards one definite end to get and to keep. He was 
 soon known as a bold and active trader, who fought his 
 commercial rivals without giving or asking quarter, and 
 without caring whether the means he used were fair or 
 foul so long as he came forth a winner in the strug 
 gle. His activities were multifarious, his energy inex 
 haustible. He dealt in coal and oil and iron and stone, he 
 chartered ships, he manufactured stoves, he bought min 
 ing shares and he established banks. He even added a 
 newspaper and a theatre to his possessions. There was, 
 in short, no conceivable enterprise or speculation upon 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 471 
 
 which Hanna would refuse to enter, if only he saw in it 
 the prospect of sufficient gain. Business with him was 
 warfare, and it was warfare a entrance. In his com 
 mercial strife he presented an analogue, not to the duellist 
 nor even to the champion of the prize-ring, both of whom 
 are governed by a rigorous code, but rather to the savage 
 rough-and-tumble fighter who bites and gouges when body 
 blows are found to be of no avail. Moral considerations 
 did not enter into his scheme of life. He was a pure ma 
 terialist, respecting nothing but superior force, and his sole 
 gospel was the gospel of success. Having no purely intel 
 lectual diversions, he long regarded the fierce pursuit of 
 money as both an occupation and a thrilling game. Only 
 by chance did he discover that there was an even keener 
 pleasure to be found in a still greater game, whereof the 
 winner might lay his grasp upon political power. This 
 knowledge came to Mr. Hanna after he had tried to add a 
 system of street railways to his already complicated inter 
 ests, and had found that the grant of franchises depended 
 upon the favour of the politicians. And so Mr. Hanna, 
 purely in the way of business, acquired aldermen and local 
 legislatures, just as he had previously secured clerks and 
 managers and agents for his other enterprises. He felt 
 no scruples as to the means which he employed. Here, 
 again, his one criterion was success. He was at least no 
 hypocrite. He professed no creed save that which he was 
 daily practising. He was often brutal, but he was wholly 
 frank in his brutality. A striking instance of this frank 
 ness is afforded in a letter which he wrote in 1890. In 
 that year, the Attorney-General of Ohio, Mr. David K. 
 Watson, had brought suit against the Standard Oil Com 
 pany for the dissolution of its trust agreement. 5 Hanna 
 had relations with the Rockefellers which induced him to 
 
 5 See p. 138. 
 
472 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 interfere with the progress of the suit. Accordingly he 
 wrote to the Attorney-General a personal note, in which 
 occurred this memorable sentence: 
 
 " You have been in politics long enough to know that no man 
 in public life owes the public anything." 6 
 
 
 
 Such was the cynical view which Mr. Hanna always 
 took of politics, both national and local; and in practice 
 he lived up to the full measure of its implications. He 
 got control of the political machine in the city of Cleve 
 land. A majority of the councilmen were his agents. 
 The mayor was his creature. The other officials of the 
 city were obedient to him and to his friends. It was not 
 long before the legislature of the State had felt the power 
 of the peculiar influences which Hanna exercised; and in 
 1891, it was Hanna more than any other individual, who, 
 having espoused the cause of Mr. McKinley in the hour 
 of his congressional defeat, had made him Governor of 
 Ohio. 
 
 But here one must in fairness take into consideration 
 the more personal side of this interesting character, since 
 otherwise the man as a whole will not be rightly under 
 stood. Hanna, though utterly devoid of even the most 
 rudimentary morality where " business " was concerned, 
 had still a nature that was able to attract and win the 
 liking of his associates. He was intensely human, though 
 his humanity was that of the primeval man. Big and 
 strong and coarse, he had the primitive instincts devel 
 oped almost in excess. He was frankly appetitive, 
 
 6 Tarbell, History of the Standard Oil Company, ii. pp. 142-148 (New 
 York, 1904). For the use subsequently made of this letter by Mr. Hanna s 
 political opponents, see the New York World for August n, 1897, and 
 succeeding issues. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 473 
 
 robustly esurient a mass of mighty longings and uncon 
 cealed desires. It was said of him that every want of his 
 became at once a lust, to be sated greedily and in the very 
 moment of its birth. Not all the lusts of the flesh, how 
 ever, mastered him. In his family relations and as a hus 
 band and a father, his life was irreproachable; yet in the 
 wider sense of the word, one may apply to him the 
 striking phrase of a recent English novelist, and say that 
 he was as sensual as a mutton chop. He lusted after 
 wealth and got it. He lusted after power and he got that 
 also. And all through his life, his minor appetites were 
 forever making themselves felt and seen. But he was so 
 wholly natural with regard to them, his desires were so 
 openly avowed and his enjoyment in their gratification 
 was so hearty and spontaneous, as to induce in those 
 who knew him a genuine cordiality. The simplicity and 
 even homeliness of his tastes, while they often amused, 
 were on the whole attractive. When he was at the height 
 of his career, and had at his command every luxury that 
 wealth could give, he used to boast of but one thing, and 
 that was of a superior kind of corned-beef hash, of which 
 he said his cook alone possessed the recipe; and whenever 
 he wished to pay the highest possible compliment to a 
 friend, he sent him an invitation to a breakfast at which 
 this corned-beef hash was served. Such things as this 
 tickled the fancy of his associates; and most men found 
 it hard to think much ill of one who could talk with boyish 
 glee of a treat so innocently plebeian. His younger 
 acquaintances used to speak of him as " Uncle Mark " ; 
 and this familiar title affords a clue to the sort of affec 
 tionate familiarity which he inspired. Hanna was, in 
 fact, of the earth, earthy; but there was something of the 
 wholesomeness of the earth about him, and a stock of 
 
474 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 manliness as well. He spoke out the thing he really 
 thought. If he was displeased, he grunted and swore. 
 But he could be generous, and he was afraid of no man. 
 Mr. Lincoln Steffens tells the story of how Hanna once 
 undertook to make a political speech to a crowd of Welsh 
 men who had no mind to listen to him. Every sentence 
 that he spoke was interrupted by their jeers, until Hanna s 
 blood grew hot. 
 
 * There s a lot of American in me," he shouted. 
 There s some Scotch. Somewheres way back there s 
 Irish blood. But by G , there s no Welsh! If there 
 was, I d go down there and lick the whole lot of you ! " 
 
 This, says Mr. Steffens, won the Welshmen ; and they 
 cheered Mark Hanna and listened to him willingly while 
 he finished what he had to say. 7 
 
 One of the most marked of Hanna s attractively human 
 qualities was the warmth of his personal friendships. 
 When he hated, he hated with all the strength of his 
 masculinity; but he also set no bounds to the ardour of 
 his likings. This coarse-fibred man had something of the 
 gentleness of a woman where friendship was concerned, 
 and also something of the unrestraint of a child. When 
 his confidence had been fully won, his cynicism and the 
 hardness of his character seemed to disappear. Singu 
 larly lacking in complexity, his emotions in private life 
 were as little controlled as were his appetites in public 
 matters. At the success of a friend, he would caper 
 clumsily. Over the bereavement of a friend, he would 
 blubber like a schoolboy. He had no reverence for any 
 one; but he did possess an unusual capacity for affection, 
 and there can be no doubt that for Mr. McKinley his 
 
 7 See a paper by Mr. Steffens entitled "Ohio: a Tale of Two Cities," 
 in McClure s Magazine for July, 1905. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 475 
 
 affection was sincere and that it did him honour. Be 
 tween the two there existed what it is no exaggeration to 
 call a genuine fondness. Psychologically this is to be 
 explained as based upon the attraction of opposites, for 
 no two men could have been more unlike. Curiously con 
 trasted, indeed, were McKinley s suavity and Hanna s 
 bluntness, McKinley s caution and Hanna s courage, Mc 
 Kinley s vacillation and Hanna s almost insolent tenacity 
 of purpose. McKinley respected all of life s conven 
 tions. Hanna hooted at them. McKinley believed that the 
 will of the majority was the will of God. Hanna was sure 
 that majorities could be manufactured, and that their will 
 was only the reflection of the far stronger will of the few 
 able men w r ho played upon the motives of human passion 
 and self-interest. It is probable that McKinley never 
 really understood Mark Hanna; but there can be no ques 
 tion that Hanna rightly understood McKinley, and that 
 he admired in him those qualities of which he was him 
 self completely destitute. At the close of the St. Louis 
 Convention, speaking to a newspaper correspondent, 
 Hanna burst out with the enthusiastic exclamation, " I 
 love McKinley ! He is the best man I ever knew." 8 We 
 may be sure that these words and the feeling back of them 
 were entirely sincere. 
 
 The close and intimate friendship between the two men 
 had most important political results. Their personal lik 
 ing for each other was strengthened by the consonance of 
 their ambitions. Mr. McKinley desired to be President 
 of the United States; Mr. Hanna had set his heart upon 
 becoming one of the two Senators from Ohio. In fighting 
 the battle for his friend, Hanna was opening up a path to 
 the fulfilment of his own long-cherished hope. So suc 
 cessful had he shown himself in making Mr. McKinley 
 
 8 Report in New York Tribune, June 21, 1896. 
 
476 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 twice Governor, so keenly practical had been his manage 
 ment of men and of affairs, so vast were the resources 
 which he had at his command, and so undoubted was his 
 loyalty, that to him Mr. McKinley s political fortunes 
 were unreservedly entrusted in this crucial year of 1896. 
 Whatever the chief Republican aspirant for the Presi 
 dency did or said or wrote, was done or said or Written 
 only after the approval of Mark Hanna had been given 
 to it. Few knew this at the time; but it began to be under 
 stood as the months wore on, though even then, and for a 
 long while afterwards, the full significance of the fact 
 was only half appreciated. What it really meant was that 
 behind the candidacy of a very amiable, dignified, and 
 upright gentleman there was advancing into a place of 
 almost unlimited power and opportunity a dominant in 
 fluence which was seriously to modify the character of 
 American public life. Here, in fact, one sees the initial 
 appearance of what came to be known as " the business 
 man " in the highest sphere of national politics. For it- 
 was as a " business man " that Hanna always described 
 himself. Politics with him were an adjunct to his " busi 
 ness"; and the esoteric interests of "business" such as 
 his were for a while to direct the course of American his 
 tory. Before this time, in the United States as in all other 
 nations of the first rank, men of wealth had often gained 
 political power, and it was frequently their wealth which 
 had enabled them to do so. But in general, and with 
 most of them, wealth was the means, and political office 
 was the end. Again, as has been already shown in the 
 course of this narrative, wealth has been often wrongly 
 and unscrupulously used for the furtherance of political 
 ambition. But in 1 896 a novel phenomenon was exhibited, 
 the result of many causes, all of which, however, had 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 477 
 
 tended towards one result. Now for the first time, a party, 
 if such it can be called, had arisen which was not devoted 
 to any definite political principles at all, but rather to the 
 furtherance of private interests that were commercial and 
 financial. This party, though not recognised as a party, 
 was neither Democratic nor Republican, but was the party 
 of wealth consolidated, highly organised, directed by 
 men of rare ability, and using political power no longer 
 as an end, but as a means, its real object being the pri 
 vate advantage of moneyed men, the safe-guarding of 
 corporations from legal interference and control, and 
 the exploitation of official influence for the benefit of indi 
 viduals who were unknown to public life. All this was 
 implied in the mention of u the business man in politics." 
 The business man in politics was the capitalist who needed 
 political favours or protection in his "business"; and 
 whether he were nominally a Republican or a Democrat, 
 his allegiance to either party counted as nothing when 
 compared with the sympathetic solidarity of interest 
 which bound him to all other men of the same class. The 
 representatives of wealth manufacturers, bankers, mine- 
 owners, railway managers, and heads of great financial 
 institutions in general had by this time come to consti 
 tute what was in reality another party which did not, 
 indeed, appear to be such, which had no name, and 
 which did not hold conventions and openly nominate can 
 didates of its own, but which loomed large behind the 
 two older parties, endeavouring to play off one against 
 the other, and to use indifferently the machinery of each 
 for the esoteric welfare of consolidated wealth. The 
 most far-sighted of the men who gave, as it were, the 
 mot d ordre to this formidable association, had perceived 
 with dread a growing tendency among the American peo- 
 
4?8 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 pie to expect from the Federal Government, rather than 
 from the States, that redress for many a wrong, which 
 only far-reaching centralised power could give. The par 
 ticularism of earlier years was disappearing. The old- 
 time doctrine of States Rights was fast losing its hold 
 upon the American people. Republican rule and the 
 arguments of the Protectionists had gradually fostered a 
 belief that if the Government at Washington was to be 
 the source of prosperity, so must it also be the fountain- 
 head of justice. Many events of the preceding decade 
 had stimulated and enhanced the intensity of this feeling, 
 but perhaps the most significant of all was the passage of 
 the Interstate Commerce Act, the debates over which had 
 revealed the immense powers conferred by the clause in the 
 Constitution permitting the Government to regulate com 
 merce between the States. The particular Act in question 
 had as yet imposed no serious check upon the operations 
 of the various Trusts; but the principle which it had estab 
 lished was pregnant with possibilities of disaster to those 
 corporations which had successfully defied the common 
 law and had found it easy to control the legislative action 
 of individual States. A shiver must have passed through 
 many a directorate when Congress actually set upon the 
 statute-books even an imperfect law invoking so great a 
 power against the lawlessness of wealth. President 
 Cleveland s vigorous assault upon the overprotection of 
 special industries must likewise have made a deep im 
 pression. That one attack had practically failed; yet 
 another might succeed. On the whole, the temper of the 
 times and a steady drift towards something like State 
 Socialism were becoming plain to many, and to none more 
 so than to those persons who now came to the surface of 
 affairs, bearing the euphemistic name of " business men 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 479 
 
 in politics." It was because Mr. Hanna was a perfect 
 type of the class which has been here described, that his 
 personality and his character assume so much importance. 
 It was an unerring instinct which led the cartoonists and 
 caricaturists in the press to draw his likeness and let it 
 symbolise predaceous capital. And just as Mr. Hanna 
 had formerly got control of the city government of Cleve 
 land in order to secure franchises for his street-railways, 
 so now both he and his associates began a vigorous cam 
 paign for the control of the national administration, 
 because it, too, had become essential to the future safety 
 of their " business." The very audacity of their scheme 
 almost excites one s admiration; nor did it necessarily 
 imply the presence of corruption in its grosser forms. 
 Theirs was a far more scientific game, as it was also a far 
 bolder one, than that of the old-time purchasers of legis 
 lation. Those who played it kept, for the most part, 
 within the letter of the law. The persons with whom 
 they had to do were no longer the cheaply venal creatures 
 to whom money bribes could be safely offered. Men of 
 reputation and honour must be influenced and used 
 through what were apparently legitimate rewards. But 
 the effect upon American life, both public and private, of 
 the entrance of this new caste or party was deplorable, in 
 that it meant the enervation of civic morality and the 
 exaltation of social ideals that were debasing. 
 
 During the early months of 1896, Mr. Hanna as the 
 chief McKinley manager, undertook a very difficult role. 
 The Republicans in the Eastern States were almost solidly 
 in favour of maintaining the gold standard and of estab 
 lishing it by law. In most of the Western States, on the 
 other hand, the party was honeycombed by what was 
 
4 8o TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 styled the " silver heresy." The money question was 
 forcing its way insistently to the front and demanding a 
 solution. Neither element of the party must be repelled. 
 A majority of the delegates from both sections of the 
 country must cast their votes for Mr. McKinley in order 
 to secure his nomination and make his election possible. 
 Mr. Hanna s management was masterly, and revealed a 
 rare genius for political strategy. Above and beyond his 
 already well-known shrewdness, courage and resourceful 
 ness, he now exhibited a rare discretion and a diplomatic 
 taciturnity, which few had ever thought this rough impul 
 sive person to possess. The story of how Mr. Hanna 
 brought about the nomination of McKinley has never yet 
 been fully told. His course, at the time, was utterly mis 
 understood. A reading of the contemporary newspapers 
 will serve to show that even the surface facts were ludi 
 crously misrepresented. The narrative that is now to be 
 set forth is that which Mr. Hanna himself was afterwards 
 wont to tell in private conversation; and it is in complete 
 accord with all the circumstances which are matters of 
 both personal and public record. 
 
 Mr. Hanna was himself a thorough believer in the gold 
 standard. Furthermore, he intended that the Republi 
 can Convention should make an unequivocal declara 
 tion in favour of such a standard. But for the time he 
 kept his purpose to himself and bent his energies to the 
 single task of securing delegates favourable to McKin 
 ley. The Western States were his chief concern. New 
 England was practically a negligible quantity and was in 
 any case committed to the support of Mr. Speaker 
 Reed. The greatest of the Middle States, New York 
 and Pennsylvania, had candidates of their own, who stood 
 no chance of nomination, but whose appearance in the 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 481 
 
 field would at the outset neutralise the influence of those 
 States in the Convention. The West and the South were, 
 therefore, the object of Mr. Hanna s immediate solici 
 tude. Both sections had a leaning towards the doctrine 
 of free silver; and, hence, Mr. McKinley must be repre 
 sented for a while as a genuine " friend of silver." Yet 
 this point must not be too strongly pressed, and the cur 
 rency question must be treated as one of subsidiary inter 
 est and importance. Such is a brief outline of the 
 situation as it appeared to Mr. Hanna; and his able cam 
 paign was conducted in accordance with its exigencies. 
 As early as January of 1896, the Republican newspapers 
 throughout the country began to display a remarkable 
 enthusiasm for Mr. McKinley s nomination, not, how 
 ever, because of his past or present attitude towards the 
 money question, but because he was the exponent of high 
 tariff duties and easy times. The lean years of the Cleve 
 land administration were explained as wholly due to the 
 repeal of the McKinley Act of 1890. Voters have short 
 memories, and they had long since forgotten that the 
 Treasury deficits, the lowered wages, and the shutting 
 down of mills and factories had begun during Mr. Har 
 rison s presidency. All that they were permitted to 
 remember was the fact that at least 3,000,000 men were 
 now out of work, and that a Democratic President had 
 been in office for three years. The days of Harrison were 
 lauded as an era of abundance; and the election of Mc 
 Kinley on the tariff issue was declared to be the only way 
 of bringing back that glorious period. The old cry of 
 "Bill McKinley and the McKinley Bill!" was supple 
 mented by the new and taking catchword, " McKinley 
 and the Full Dinner-Pail ! " Someone described the Ohio 
 statesman as " the advance agent of prosperity," and this 
 
482 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 phrase went from mouth to mouth and was caught up by 
 the newspapers. Never was a press campaign more skil 
 fully conducted. It seemed to reflect in the great Repub 
 lican strongholds a spontaneous demand for the nomina 
 tion of Mr. McKinley. Yet the silver question would not 
 down, but everywhere distracted men s attention from the 
 tariff cry. The gold men in the East and the silver men 
 in the West were equally clamorous to know just where 
 the " advance agent of prosperity " himself stood. When 
 the Ohio State Convention met on March nth, its pro 
 nouncement on the financial issue was eagerly awaited; 
 for surely Mr. McKinley s own State might be expected 
 to give the watchword to his party throughout the land. 
 But Mr. Hanna was too shrewd to show his hand just 
 yet; and so the Convention adopted that sort of Delphic 
 utterance which the vocabulary of American politics ex- 
 / pressively denominates a u straddle." The State plat 
 form said: "We contend for honest money; for a cur 
 rency of gold, silver, and paper . . . that shall be 
 as sound as the Government and as untarnished as its 
 honour." To that end, the Ohio Republicans favoured 
 " bimetallism." and demanded the use of u both gold and 
 silver as standard money." 
 
 Of course, this declaration under all its sounding 
 phrases was ambiguous to a degree. Everybody Demo 
 crats, Republicans and Populists desired " honest 
 money"; they were all agreed that "gold, silver and 
 paper " ought to constitute the currency of the United 
 States. But as to what was " honest money," and as to 
 what were to be the relative values of the " gold, silver 
 and paper," opinions were everywhere as widely diver 
 gent as those of President Cleveland and " Coin " Har 
 vey. The effect of this Ohio declaration was, on the 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 483 
 
 whole, however, just what Mr. Hanna had intended. It 
 left things in the West precisely where they were and 
 enabled the McKinley agents to explain their candidate s 
 opinions in whatever way was most likely to please their 
 auditors in each section. As for Mr. McKinley himself, 
 he remained at his home in Canton, refusing with much 
 dignity to be interviewed, but making from time to time 
 a brief address on the subject of the tariff. In New Eng 
 land, and above all in New York, his reticence excited 
 both alarm and indignation. Was Mr. McKinley still a 
 silver man at heart as he had been in 1878, when he voted 
 for the Bland-Allison Bill, and as he had seemed to be 
 when later he reproached President Cleveland for having 
 "struck down silver"? Many and vehement were the 
 demands that he come out frankly and say just what he 
 thought about the most vital issue of the day. Mr. 
 Hanna and his associates treated this demand as though 
 it were impertinent and almost insulting. Mr. Gros- 
 venor of Ohio said with a show of solemn indignation : 
 
 " No man s friends have a right to call upon him to foreshadow 
 the party s platform. . . . Major McKinley will respond to 
 the platform, but he will not dictate what the platform shall be." 9 
 
 Perhaps through the minds of some of the anxious 
 Republicans who read these words, there may have flitted 
 a recollection of Mr. Cleveland s blunt letter to the Re 
 form Club in i892, 10 when he spoke out just what he 
 thought, even though he felt that in doing so he was for 
 feiting the presidency. Their fears, at any rate, led them 
 to work hard for delegations favourable to the gold 
 
 9 Interview in the New York Times, May 18, 1896. 
 
 10 See pp. 274-276. 
 
484 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 standard. Early in June, it was evident that Mr. Hanna 
 had in all probability secured a majority in support of 
 McKinley s nomination, while it was also probable that 
 the silver men would be outvoted. Twenty-two Repub 
 lican State conventions had, in fact, pronounced openly 
 against the free coinage of silver. Yet it still seemed 
 possible that the National Convention in St. Louis would 
 repeat the Ohio " straddle," and thus continue the tradi 
 tional policy of evasion and equivocation. 
 
 The Convention met on June i6th, with little show of 
 genuine enthusiasm among the delegates. 11 Even before 
 the formal opening, the money question had dwarfed all 
 other topics of discussion. There were rumours of dis 
 sension and threats of actual bolting. Senator Platt of 
 New York openly atacked Mr. McKinley for his secre- 
 tiveness and u duplicity," and spoke of withdrawing from 
 the Convention if it failed to make a specific declaration 
 for the gold standard. The New York delegation, of 
 which Mr. Platt was chairman, passed resolutions con 
 demning the free coinage of silver. On the other hand, 
 Senator Henry M. Teller, who headed the Colorado 
 delegation, made it plain that if a gold " plank " w r ere 
 adopted, he and his followers would secede. The dele 
 gations from the other Western mining States were equally 
 emphatic. Mr. Hanna had secured most of the Southern 
 delegates for his candidate, but some were still in doubt. 
 One of the Texan delegates received by every mail post 
 cards on which large and vivid characters in red admon 
 ished him : " If you vote for McKinley you need not 
 come back to Dallas ! " 12 The New England representa 
 tives still warmly urged the claims of Mr. Reed, whose 
 
 11 New York Tribune, June 16 and 17, 1896. 
 
 12 Id., June 16, 1896. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 485 
 
 foremost champion was Senator Lodge of Massachu 
 setts. The New York delegates were favourable to the 
 candidacy of Mr. Levi P. Morton, who had been Vice- 
 president during the Harrison administration. Mr. Quay 
 of Pennsylvania showed how completely he was master 
 of his own State by the fact that the Pennsylvania dele 
 gates were pledged to give him at least a complimentary 
 vote. The Iowa delegation had been directed to put 
 Senator Allison in nomination. Thus, when the first ses 
 sion of the Convention began, under the temporary chair 
 manship of Mr. Charles W. Fairbanks of Indiana, all 
 was confusion, and rumours of every sort were rife. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Hanna was solidifying the strength 
 of the McKinley forces and hourly adding to their num 
 bers. In his pocket he had a draft of the " money 
 plank " which he meant to have the Convention finally 
 adopt, and it was explicitly and unequivocally in favour 
 of the gold standard. He had shown it to Mr. McKin 
 ley, who had approved it and who had himself prepared 
 the draft of a tariff plank. But not even yet was Mr. 
 Hanna ready to declare himself. He meant to manoeuvre 
 in such a way as to make his final move appear to be a 
 concession, in return for which he could ask a substantial 
 equivalent. In other words, he was to receive a reward 
 for doing the very thing that he had all along intended 
 to accomplish. The Committee on Resolutions found it 
 difficult to reach an agreement as to the financial declara 
 tion to be made. Senator Teller, who was a member of 
 that Committee, held out for a free silver plank, and his 
 colleagues were slow to antagonise him. Mr. Hanna let 
 them discuss the question for nearly two days, during 
 which time the business of the Convention was at a stand 
 still, the members listening to speechmaking, to the argu- 
 
4 86 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ments of woman suffragists, and to patriotic music. On 
 the first day, the session lasted for little more than an 
 hour. The wildest stories were circulated regarding the 
 coming action of the Platform Committee. This delay 
 and the resulting rumours seriously alarmed the advo 
 cates of gold. They feared lest in the end some sort of 
 compromise might be made. Finally, several of ths most 
 influential of their number decided to take the bull by 
 the horns. They went to Mr. Hanna s rooms in the 
 hotel where he was staying, and delivered a sort of ulti 
 matum. They demanded that he accept a gold-standard 
 plank for the platform, or else they would carry the fight 
 to the floor of the Convention and thus precipitate an 
 open conflict between themselves and the supporters of 
 Mr. McKinley. They gave Mr. Hanna just one hour 
 in which to accede to their demand. 13 That wily leader 
 must have smiled grimly as they left him to reflect upon 
 the threat which they had made. They had quite uncon 
 sciously played his game, and victory was now assured. 
 Needless to say, in less than the prescribed hour Mr. 
 Hanna announced himself to be a gold man; and the 
 plank which he had brought with him to St. Louis was 
 incorporated in the platform to be reported. Apparently 
 he had yielded under strong compulsion ; and the gentle 
 men who had seemingly forced their will upon him now 
 thought of him with that kindliness which generous vic 
 tors feel towards a vanquished foe. 14 
 
 13 McClure, Our Presidents, p. 366 (New York, 1905). Colonel Mc- 
 Clure tells this as of his own personal knowledge. 
 
 14 The credit of having forced the gold plank upon the Convention 
 has been claimed by many persons especially by Senator Platt, by 
 Senator Lodge of Massachusetts and by Mr. Edward Lauterbach of New 
 York; but there is no reason for thinking that Mr. Hanna s own state 
 ment regarding the matter is inaccurate. What influences may have 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 487 
 
 And so it came to pass that on June i8th the platform 
 was read to the Convention by Senator Foraker. It de 
 scribed the Cleveland administration as responsible for 
 " a record of unparalleled incapacity, dishonour, and dis 
 aster." It renewed Republican allegiance to u the policy 
 of protection as the bulwark of American industrial in 
 dependence and the foundation of American development 
 and prosperity." " Protection and Reciprocity are twin 
 measures of Republican policy and go hand in hand. 
 Democratic rule has recklessly struck down both, and both 
 must be re-established." It declared for a " firm, vig 
 orous and dignified" foreign policy; for American con 
 trol of the Hawaiian Islands; for the purchase of the 
 Danish West Indies; and for the construction, operation 
 and ownership of the Nicaraguan canal by the United 
 States. The Monroe Doctrine was reaffirmed, and 
 American intervention in Cuba was mentioned with ap 
 proval. " We favour the continued enlargement of the 
 navy, and a complete system of harbour and sea-coast 
 defences." 
 
 Amid breathless silence, the part of the platform relat 
 ing to the money question was read out: 
 
 operated upon Mr. Hanna himself earlier in the year, it is difficult to say. 
 There exists a strong belief that he decided in favour of an explicit 
 declaration for gold because of the insistence of Mr. H. H. Kohlsaat, the 
 editor and publisher of the Chicago Record-Herald (then the Times- 
 Herald]. Mr. Kohlsaat had long been an intimate friend of Mr. Mc- 
 Kinley and Mr. Hanna, and it is certain that he very strongly urged 
 the insertion of the gold plank in the St. Louis platform. There is no 
 good reason for thinking that Messrs. Platt and Lodge played any 
 important part in the episode. Mr. Hanna speaking of them, soon after 
 the Convention, said : " I do not desire to detract from the efforts made 
 by these gentlemen for the cause of sound money, but I do wish to state 
 most emphatically that the plank defining the party s position was advo 
 cated by Western men, drawn up by Western men, and approved by me 
 before any man from the East reached St. Louis." 
 
488 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 " The Republican Party is unreservedly for sound money. . . . 
 We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to debase 
 our currency or impair the credit of our country. We are there 
 fore opposed to the free coinage of silver, except by international 
 agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world, 
 which we pledge ourselves to promote; and until such agreement 
 can be obtained, the existing gold standard must be preserved. 
 All our silver and paper money must be maintained at parit^ with 
 gold ; and we favour all measures designed to maintain inviolably 
 the obligations of the United States, and all our money, whether 
 coin or paper, at the present standard, the standard of the most 
 enlightened nations of the earth." 
 
 No sooner had the platform been reported to the Con 
 vention, than Senator Teller of Colorado rose and offered 
 a substitute for its gold-standard declaration. Mr. Tel 
 ler s substitute was one which he had tried in vain to 
 induce the Committee to adopt. It declared that " the 
 Republican Party favours the use of both gold and silver 
 as equal standard money " ; and it pledged the party to 
 secure u the free, unrestricted and independent coinage 
 of gold and silver " in the mints of the United States " at 
 a ratio of 16 parts of silver to i of gold." 
 
 This embodied the extreme demand of the free-silver 
 men and it was certain to be rejected. Many delegates 
 might have favoured the device of a " straddle," as a 
 measure of expediency; but Senator Teller had forced the 
 monetary issue in a way which admitted of no compro 
 mise. In support of his substitute he spoke with intense 
 feeling, his voice often faltering, and tears of unaffected 
 emotion in his eyes. For him it was a solemn moment. 
 He had been a Republican all his life, and to part with his 
 old associates was unspeakably bitter. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 489 
 
 " When the Republican Party was organised, I was there. It 
 has never had a national candidate since it was organised that my 
 voice has not been raised in his support. It has never had a great 
 principle enunciated in its platform that has not had my approba 
 tion until now. With its distinguished leaders I have been in 
 close communion and close friendship. I have shared in its 
 honours and in its few defeats and disasters. Do you think that 
 we can sever our connection with a party like this unless it be a 
 matter of duty a duty, not to our respective States only, but a 
 duty to all the people of this great land ? " 
 
 The Convention respected Mr. Teller s emotion and 
 listened to his address in sympathetic silence. But when 
 the roll was called, his substitute was rejected by a vote 
 of 818 to 105, and the platform as reported from the 
 Committee was adopted by a vote of 812 to no. Those 
 delegates who were in full accord with Mr. Teller then 
 rose and left the convention hall. They were only thirty- 
 four in number, yet among them were four Senators of 
 the United States and two members of the House of 
 Representatives. 15 The Convention then proceeded to 
 the nomination of a candidate for the presidency. The 
 nominating speeches were beneath the level even of con 
 vention oratory, and neither Senator Foraker s oration in 
 behalf of Mr. McKinley, nor Senator Lodge s in support 
 of Mr. Reed, nor Mr. Depew s for Mr. Morton, showed 
 any great rhetorical ability. .The result was already 
 known to all, even before the delegates had been polled. 
 Mr. Reed s following melted away, even the delegates 
 from his own State wavering. 
 
 15 The four senators were Messrs. Teller (Colorado), Dubois (Idaho), 
 Cannon (Utah), and Pettigrew (South Dakota). The States represented 
 in the secession were Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Montana and South 
 Dakota. 
 
490 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 u Joe, God Almighty hates a quitter!" roared Mr. 
 Fessenden of Connecticut to Mr. Manley of Maine. 
 But expostulation was useless. A test of Mr. McKin- 
 ley s strength as against the united opposition had pre 
 viously been made upon a question of sustaining the 
 Committee on Credentials, and the vote showed the 
 Ohio candidate to have a large majority (545 to (359.) 
 This was vastly increased when the Convention voted 
 directly on the nomination. Mr. McKinley received 66 1 
 votes; Mr. Reed, 84; Senator Quay, 61; Mr. Mor 
 ton, 58; and Senator Allison, 35. The choice of Mr. 
 McKinley was then made unanimous amid the first 
 genuine enthusiasm that had been shown. The cheering 
 was vociferous and prolonged; and it reached a climax 
 when a delegate raised upon the point of a flagstaff 
 a cocked hat such as one associates with the portraits 
 of Napoleon. It was a harmless whim on the part of 
 Mr. McKinley to fancy that he bore a certain physical 
 resemblance to the victor of Marengo; and a knowledge 
 of this fact lent vigour to the cheering which greeted the 
 Napoleonic emblem. Unsympathetic Democrats noted that 
 the nomination had been made on June i8th, the date of 
 the battle of Waterloo; and they professed to see in the co 
 incidence an omen of disaster to the Republican Napoleon. 
 
 For the vice-presidency, the Convention nominated on 
 the first ballot Mr. Garret A. Hobart, a wealthy lawyer 
 and man of affairs, whose home was in New Jersey. 
 
 Mr. McKinley s nomination was well received by Re 
 publicans throughout the country; and the Convention s 
 explicit utterance in favour of -the gold standard satisfied 
 those capitalists and business men who had previously op 
 posed him as a trimmer. But his selection on a gold 
 platform had also the effect of consolidating the advo- 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 491 
 
 cates of silver and of making the election turn inevitably 
 upon the financial question. Even before this, the Demo- 
 crate party in the West and South had become practically 
 a free-silver party. The conventions of thirty States had 
 passed resolutions approving the free coinage of silver 
 at a ratio of 16 to i. Only ten States had declared for 
 the maintenance of the gold standard. The convention 
 of one State alone (Florida) had ignored the money issue 
 altogether. It was so plain that the approaching Na 
 tional Convention of the Democratic Party would be con 
 trolled by the free-silver men, that many conservative 
 Democrats (or " Cleveland Democrats," as they were 
 called) were at first inclined to take no part in the Con 
 vention s counsels, but to break openly with their party in 
 advance of its assemblage. From this course, however, 
 they were dissuaded by President Cleveland himself, who, 
 on June i6th, caused a letter to be published which may 
 be considered his last official utterance as the head of 
 the Democratic party. In it his faith in the ultimate good 
 sense of the people was still apparent. His tone was still 
 both confident and courageous. A National Convention, 
 wrote he, is a gathering for conference and reflection. No 
 Democrat should refuse to take part in it from sheer 
 faint-heartedness or with the belief that its conclusions 
 are predetermined. On the contrary, every one should 
 do all within his power to guide its deliberations to wise 
 and salutary ends. " A cause worth fighting for is worth 
 fighting for to the end." 
 
 This spirited summons rallied the conservative leaders 
 of the party; and when the Convention met at Chicago, 
 on July yth, both factions were fully represented there. 
 But as soon as the delegates began to arrive, it was plain 
 that only a miracle of management could stem the tide 
 
492 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 that had set in for free silver. As Mr. Richard P. Bland 
 expressed it in a published interview, the Democracy of 
 the West were convinced that " the gold standard meant 
 bankruptcy," and that the Convention would declare for 
 the " free coinage of silver at 16 to i and d n the conse 
 quences! " 16 A correspondent of the New York World, 
 which was the organ of the Cleveland Democrats^ de 
 scribed the situation in Chicago very accurately in these 
 words: The Silverites will be invincible if united and 
 harmonious; but they have neither machine nor boss. 
 The opportunity is here; the man is lacking." 
 
 Such was, indeed, the case. There were present men 
 who in former years had exercised almost dictatorial 
 power in Democratic conventions; but they were now 
 swept aside unheeded, or made to feel that they were dis 
 trusted and disliked. Senator Hill, Mr. Whitney and 
 ex-Governor Flower of New York were there, and so 
 were ex-Governor W. E. Russell of Massachusetts and 
 General Bragg of Wisconsin; yet they were lost in the 
 swirling mob that marched and shouted and sang, with 
 out leadership or any definite purpose save a desire to 
 " smash things " and to shake off the domination of the 
 East. Fanatics like Altgeld and Tillman rode the crest 
 of this human deluge, and their wild talk harmonised 
 with the reckless mood of those who listened to them 
 eagerly. One finds it interesting to speculate upon the 
 feelings with which Senator Gorman of Maryland must 
 have watched the strange scenes that were taking place 
 on the eve of this Convention of his party. At the Con 
 vention of 1892, he had been an honoured leader. The 
 cause for which he then contended had triumphed at the 
 polls. A Democratic President and a Democratic Con 
 gress had sought to keep their pledges to the nation by 
 
 16 Interview in New York World, July i, 1896. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 493 
 
 wise and moderate counsels, by the remission of unjust 
 taxation, and by shaking off the grasp of the money 
 power. But Mr. Gorman and those who acted with him 
 had turned that great victory to naught. They had 
 humiliated their chosen leader, and made the professions 
 of their party seem dishonest and ridiculous. Yet in 
 doing this, they had sown the wind, and they were now 
 blasted by the whirlwind of political retribution. Who 
 in all this vociferous multitude cared for what Mr. Gor 
 man and his associates wished or thought? The most 
 uncouth delegate from a mining camp was here of more 
 importance than the smooth Senator from Maryland, who, 
 having by his machinations sapped the strength of the con 
 servative Democracy, had thus unbarred the flood-gates of 
 a furious torrent which was already far beyond control. 
 
 How completely the great majority of the delegates 
 had cast away their old allegiances was made evident 
 when the Convention first assembled on July yth, in a vast 
 structure, styled the Coliseum, under whose spreading 
 roof of glass and iron fifteen thousand human beings were 
 crowded together in the heat of a summer sun. The Na 
 tional Committee was still controlled by the conservative 
 element of the party; and this Committee now presented 
 to the Convention the name of Senator Hill of New York 
 as its selection for the temporary chairmanship. Both 
 usage and etiquette required that their choice should be 
 ratified by the delegates as a matter of ordinary courtesy. 
 But not even for a temporary office would the majority 
 accept an Eastern man who was also an opponent of free 
 silver. A debate, remarkable for its bitterness, at once 
 began; and in opposition to Mr. Hill, Senator John W. 
 Daniel of Virginia, an ardent silver advocate, was put 
 in nomination, and was elected to the temporary chair- 
 
494 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 manship by the decisive vote of 556 to 349. A pre 
 liminary test of strength had now been made; and from 
 this moment the silver men were exultantly aware of their 
 supremacy. An eye-witness of the scene thus noted its 
 significance : The sceptre of political power has passed 
 from the strong, certain hands of the East to the feverish, 
 headstrong mob of the West and South." n During the 
 debate, a delegate had casually spoken the name of Presi 
 dent Cleveland. Many of the spectators at once rose to 
 their feet and cheered; but it was an ominous circumstance 
 that not a single delegate joined in the cheering, even 
 those from New York remaining silent in their places. 
 Mr. Altgeld, on the other hand, was greeted with yells of 
 unrestrained delight. 
 
 Having won this victory, and having listened to an 
 address by Senator Daniel, the Convention adjourned 
 until the following day. When it reassembled on the 
 morning of July 8th, it was plain that the silver faction 
 meant to use its power to the full. By a sweeping major 
 ity, the representation of each Territory was augmented 
 from two members to six. The delegation from Ne 
 braska, which was pledged to support the gold standard, 
 was unseated, and a contesting delegation of silver men, 
 with Mr. William J. Bryan at its head, was admitted to 
 the Convention. Four gold delegates from Michigan 
 were rejected, and four silver delegates were substituted 
 in their place, thus giving to the silver faction, under the 
 unit rule, the solid vote of Michigan. Having effected 
 these changes, all of which greatly increased the strength 
 of the majority, Senator S. M. White of California was 
 made permanent President of the Convention. 
 
 On July 9th, the Committee on Resolutions reported a 
 platform devoted almost wholly to the money question, 
 
 17 New York World, July 8, 1896. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 495 
 
 which was declared to be " paramount to all others at this 
 time." The platform, after denouncing the demonetisa 
 tion of silver as being the cause of the prevalent financial 
 distress, went on to say: 
 
 " We are unalterably opposed to monometallism, which has 
 locked fast the prosperity of an industrial people in the paralysis 
 of hard times. Gold monometallism is a British policy, and its 
 adoption has brought other nations into financial servitude to 
 London. . . . We demand the free and unlimited coinage of 
 both silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to i without 
 waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation. We demand 
 that the standard silver dollar shall be a full legal tender, equally 
 with gold, fpr all debts, public and private; and we favour such 
 legislation as will prevent for the future the demonetisation of 
 any kind of legal-tender money by private contract." 
 
 The resolutions were made to condemn " the issuing 
 of interest-bearing bonds of the United States in time of 
 peace and . . . the trafficking with banking syndi 
 cates "; and to denounce " arbitrary interference by Fed 
 eral authorities in local affairs," and especially " govern 
 ment by injunction," which was described as " a new and 
 highly dangerous form of oppression, by which Federal 
 judges become at once legislators, judges and execu 
 tioners." " Life tenure in the public service " was also 
 disapproved in favour of appointments for fixed terms of 
 office. The Monroe Doctrine was reaffirmed; sympathy 
 was expressed for the people of Cuba in their struggle 
 for independence; and an enlargement of the powers of 
 the Interstate Commerce Commission was demanded, to 
 gether with such " control of railroads as will protect 
 the people from robbery and oppression." 
 
 It will be noted that, contrary to all usage/ the plat- 
 
496 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 form as reported by the majority contained no word of 
 approbation for President Cleveland. More than that, 
 it condemned every important policy with which he had 
 been identified. It was, indeed, precisely what those who 
 wrote it meant that it should be & repudiation of him 
 and of his administration. A minority of the Committee, 
 however, presented a protest to the Convention signed 
 by sixteen members representing sixteen different States. 18 
 These gentlemen pronounced some of the declarations in 
 the platform, as reported by the majority of the Com 
 mittee, to be " wholly unnecessary." Others were called 
 " ill-considered and ambiguously phrased," while still 
 others^were u extreme and revolutionary." The minority, 
 therefore, offered in place of the free silver declaration, 
 a substitute to the effect that any attempt on the part of 
 the United States alone to establish free silver coinage 
 would both imperil the national finances and retard or pre 
 vent the success of international bimetallism. u It would 
 place this country at once upon a silver basis, impair con 
 tracts, disturb business, diminish the purchasing power 
 of the wages of labour, and inflict irreparable evil upon 
 our nation s commerce and industry." Finally, the mi 
 nority offered the following resolution as an amendment 
 to the majority s report: 
 
 " We commend the honesty, economy, courage and fidelity of 
 the present Democratic national administration." 
 
 Both reports were now before the Convention, and the 
 climax of the struggle had been reached. At once Senator 
 Tillman leaped upon the platform. To him the minority 
 
 18 Among the signers of the protest were Senator Hill of New York, 
 Mr. Vilas of Wisconsin, Mr. Gray of Delaware, and Messrs. Lynde Har 
 rison, C. V. Holman, John E. Russell, John Prentiss Poe, William R. 
 Steele, Robert E. Wright and Charles D. Rogers. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 497 
 
 report, with its praise of President Cleveland, was like a 
 red rag to a bull. He fronted the multitude, dark and 
 savage-featured, his face flushed, his hair unkempt, " the 
 incarnation of the mob, vengeful and defiant." There 
 was a strange gleam in his one eye./ xWhen he began to 
 speak, his fury rose to a fierce crescendo. He paced the 
 platform like a madman, clenching his fists, hissing out 
 his words, tossing his hands high above his head, and 
 snapping his jaws together. 19 So completely had passion 
 mastered him, that much of what he said was unintelli 
 gible; but those who heard him gathered that he was 
 denouncing Mr. Cleveland as " a tool of Wall Street," 
 a tyrant, and one who richly deserved to be impeached 
 and driven from his high office. Oddly enough, the 
 vehemence of Mr. Tillman defeated its own object. In 
 tense as was the feeling of the multitude to which he 
 spoke, such raving did not touch its sympathies. Though 
 applause was given to him by many, in his violence he had 
 overshot the mark. Senator Hill, who spoke in behalf 
 of the minority report, failed in another way to meet 
 the mood of the vast audience. His face was ashen white 
 and his manner glacial. Mr. Hill entirely lacked the 
 oratorical temperament. Wholly unimpassioned at all 
 times, the emotion of those about him seemed to make 
 him colder and still more unbending. " I am a Demo 
 crat," he began, " but I am not a revolutionist." Then 
 he proceeded with a discourse that was wholly argumenta 
 tive, an appeal to reason, which, if pronounced before a 
 purely deliberative body, might well have carried convic 
 tion in its words. It was, however, no deliberative body 
 that he now addressed, but a surging mass of men frantic 
 with excitement, upon whom mere argument was thrown 
 away. He^might as well have spoken to a cyclone; and 
 
 ^ 19 Report in New York World, July 10, 1896. 
 
498 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 when he took his seat, he knew that he had failed. Mr. 
 Vilas of Wisconsin and Mr. Russell of Massachusetts, 
 who followed and supported Mr. Hill, were no less in 
 effectual. Weakness of voice, an evident consciousness of 
 coming defeat, and an unpopular cause, all combined to 
 make their efforts unavailing. 
 
 Until now there had spoken no man to whom ,that 
 riotous assembly would listen with respect. But at this 
 moment there appeared upon the platform Mr. William 
 Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, who came forward to reply 
 to the three preceding speakers. As he confronted the 
 twenty thousand yelling, cursing, shouting men before 
 him, they felt at once that indescribable, magnetic thrill 
 which beasts and men alike experience in the presence of 
 a master. Serene and self-possessed, and with a smile 
 upon his lips, he faced the roaring multitude with a splen 
 did consciousness of power. Before a single word had 
 been uttered by him, the pandemonium sank to an inar 
 ticulate murmur, and when he began to speak, even this 
 was hushed to the profoundest silence. A mellow, pene 
 trating voice that reached, apparently without the slight 
 est effort, to the farthermost recesses of that enormous 
 hall, gave utterance to a brief exordium : 
 
 " MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION : 
 I should be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the 
 distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened, if this were 
 a mere measuring of abilities; but this is not a contest between 
 persons. The humblest citizen in the land, when clad in the 
 armour of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of 
 error. I come to speak to you in defence of a cause as holy as 
 the cause of liberty the cause of humanity." 
 
 Mr. Bryan had in these three sentences already won 
 his auditors. The repose and graceful dignity of his man- 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 499 
 
 ner, the courteous reference to his opponents, and the 
 perfect clearness and simplicity of his language, riveted 
 the attention of every man and woman in the Convention 
 hall. As he continued, it was with increasing earnestness 
 and power. He spoke briefly of the issue which was there 
 to be determined. He held it to be an issue based upon a 
 vital principle, the right of the majority to rule and to 
 have its firm convictions embodied in the declaration of 
 the party. 
 
 " It is not a question of persons ; it is a question of principle ; 
 and it is not with gladness that we find ourselves brought into 
 conflict with those who are now arrayed upon the other side. 
 . When you [turning to the gold delegates] come before 
 us and tell us that we are about to disturb your business inter 
 ests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by 
 your cour e. 
 
 " We say to you that you have made the definition of a busi 
 ness man too limited in its application. The man who is 
 employed for wages is as much a business man as his em 
 ployer. The attorney in a country town is as much a business 
 man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis. The 
 merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a business man as the 
 merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the 
 morning and toils all day who begins in the spring and toils 
 all summer and who, by the application of brain and muscle 
 to the natural resources of the country, creates wealth, is as much 
 a business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade 
 and bets upon the price of grain. The miners who go down 
 a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon 
 the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places the precious 
 metals to be poured into the channels of trade, are as much busi 
 ness men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, 
 corner the money of the world. We come to speak for this 
 broader class of business men." 
 
500 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Mr. Bryan s delivery of this passage was remarkable 
 for its effectiveness. ( He spoke with the utmost delibera 
 tion, so that every word was driven home to each hearer s 
 consciousness, \nd yet with an ever-increasing force which 
 found fit expression in the wonderful harmony and power 
 of his voice. His sentences rang out, now with an accent 
 of superb disdain, and now with the stirring challenge of 
 a bugle call. 
 
 "We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of 
 conquest; we are fighting in the defence of our homes, our fam 
 ilies, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have 
 been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been 
 disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our 
 calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we 
 petition no more. We defy them ! " 
 
 As Mr. Bryan pronounced these spirited words, the great 
 hall seemed to rock and sway with the fierce energy of 
 the shout that ascended from twenty thousand throats. 
 When he flung out the sentence "We defy them! " the 
 leaderless Democracy of the West was leaderless no more. 
 In that very moment, and in that burst of wild applause, 
 it was acclaiming its new chief. 
 
 11 You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favour 
 of the gold standard. We reply that the great cities rest upon 
 our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave 
 our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; 
 but destroy our farms, and the grass will grow in the streets of 
 every city in the country. . . 
 
 "We go forth confident that we shall win. Why? Because 
 upon the paramount issue of this campaign there is not a spot of 
 ground upon which the enemy will dare to challenge battle. If 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 501 
 
 they tell us that the gold standard is a good thing, we shall 
 point to their platform and tell them that their platform pledges 
 the party to get rid of the gold standard and to substitute bimetal 
 lism. If the gold standard is a good thing, why try to get rid 
 of it? I call your attention to the fact that some of the very 
 people who are in this Convention to-day and who tell us that 
 we ought to declare in favour of international bimetallism- 
 thereby declaring that the gold standard is wrong and that the 
 principle of bimetallism is better these very people four months 
 ago were open and avowed advocates of the gold standard, and 
 were then telling us that we could not legislate two metals 
 together, even with the aid of all the world. If the gold standard 
 is a good thing, we ought to declare in favour of its retention 
 and not in favour of abandoning it : and if the gold standard 
 is a bad thing, why should we wait until other nations are willing 
 to help us let go? Here is the line of battle, and we care not 
 upon which issue they force the fight. We are prepared to meet 
 them on either issue or on both. 
 
 " It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors when but 
 three millions in number had the courage to declare their political 
 independence of every other nation. Shall we, their descendants, 
 when we have grown to seventy millions, declare that we are less 
 independent than our forefathers? No, my friends, that will 
 never be the verdict of our people. Therefore, we care not upon 
 what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good, 
 but that we cannot have it until other nations help us, we reply 
 that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we 
 will restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism 
 because the United States has it. If they dare to come out into 
 the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will 
 fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing 
 masses of this nation and the world, the labouring interests, and the 
 toilers everywhere, we will ans\ver their demand for a gold standard 
 by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of 
 labour this crown of thorns you shall not crucify mankind upon 
 a cross of gold ! " 
 
502 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 The scene enacted in the Convention, as Mr. Bryan 
 finished speaking, was indescribable. Throughout the lat 
 ter part of his address, a crash of applause had followed 
 every sentence; but now the tumult was like that of a 
 great sea thundering against the dykes. Twenty thou 
 sand men and women went mad with an irresistible en 
 thusiasm. This orator had met their mood to the very 
 full. He had found magic words for the feeling which 
 they had been unable to express. And so he had played 
 at will upon their very heart-strings, until the full tide of 
 their emotion was let loose in one tempestuous roar of 
 passion, which seemed to have no end. When order was 
 partially restored, the ^jdbstitute resolutions offered by 
 Senator Hill were rejected with cries of derision, as were 
 two other amendments afterwards proposed by him; and 
 then the free-silver platform was adopted by a vote of 
 628 to 301. Having taken this action, the delegates, ex 
 hausted by the day s exciting scenes, adjourned until the 
 following afternoon. 
 
 Over night, the question of the candidate to be nomi 
 nated was earnestly discussed. It was evident that Mr. 
 Bryan had suddenly leaped into a prominence which made 
 him a formidable competitor for the highest honours. 
 Before his address, no one had thought of him as a presi 
 dential candidate. Mr. Bland of Missouri, w r ho was 
 popularly styled " the Father of Free Silver," possessed 
 the largest following. But now there were many who 
 believed that their true leader had been revealed to them 
 in Mr. Bryan. Mr. Bland was able and experienced; but 
 he lacked the fire and the genius for command which 
 the young Nebraskan had so strikingly exhibited. Hence, 
 when the Convention reassembled, and proceeded to the 
 selection of a candidate, although the first ballot showed 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 503 
 
 Mr. Bland to have received 235 votes, Mr. Bryan came 
 next with 119, the number necessary to a choice being 
 502. Thirteen other gentlemen 20 received scattering 
 votes. On the second and third ballots, both Mr. Eland s 
 and Mr. Bryan s following was increased; but on the 
 fourth, Mr. Bryan led with 280 to 241 for Mr. Bland. 
 When the roll was called for the fifth time, Mr. Bryan 
 lacked only 12 votes of a nomination, and at once 78 dele 
 gates changed their votes from other candidates to him, 
 thereby making him the choice of the Convention.) Sub 
 sequently, Mr. Arthur Sewall, a wealthy ship-builder of 
 Maine, was nominated for the Vice-Presidency. 21 
 
 The action of the Chicago Convention was received in 
 the West with immense enthusiasm, in the South with 
 doubtful approbation, and in the East with anger and dis 
 may. Over the offices of some Democratic newspapers, 
 flags were hoisted at half-mast. Many journals expressed 
 strong disapproval. 22 Not a few openly avowed their pur 
 pose of supporting the Republican candidates. The West 
 ern silver men were described by these papers as being 
 
 20 Among them were Senators H*ll, Turpie, Tillmaji and Teller; Mr. 
 Boies of Iowa, Mr. 5Lu**ell of Massachusetts, Vice-President Stevenson, 
 Mr. Blackburn of Kentucky and Mr. Pennoyer of Oregon. Of the gold 
 delegates, 178 refused to take part in this ballot; and 162 abstained from 
 voting further. 
 
 21 Five ballots were taken before Mr. Sewall was chosen, his chief 
 competitors being Mr. J. C. Sibley, Mr. J. R. McLean (Ohio), Mr. G. 
 F. Williams (Massachusetts) and Mr. Bland. More than 250 gold 
 delegates refused to take part in the balloting for a vice-presidential 
 candidate. 
 
 22 The following comments in the New York World of July nth are 
 sufficiently characteristic of conservative Democratic sentiment at the time: 
 
 " Lunacy having dictated the platform, it was perhaps natural that 
 hysteria should evolve the candidate. . . . There is no doubt as 
 to the result of the election, except as to the size of McKinley s popular 
 and electoral majority." 
 
504 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 really Populists who had stolen the name of Democrats. 
 The gold delegates, returning from the scene of their de 
 feat, set themselves to stimulate this feeling, where they 
 did not take refuge in significant silence. " Are you still a 
 Democrat? " an intimate friend asked of Senator Hill. 
 " Yes," replied the Senator; " I am a Democrat still;" add 
 ing after a significant pause " very still." Naturally* the 
 Republicans rejoiced at these evidences of Democratic dis 
 sension. It appeared fof a few days as though a victory 
 over Mr. Bryan might be won almost without a strug 
 gle. But very soon this view was seen to be erroneous, 
 and Mr. McKinley s managers perceived with genuine 
 alarm that the contest was to be one of the fiercest ever 
 fought in American political history. For though in New 
 England and New York, Mr. Bryan was certain to lose 
 many votes, this loss would be offset by the thousands of 
 ballots which would be cast for him by the " Silver Repub 
 licans " and by the Populists in the Western States. On 
 July 22d, these two parties held conventions in St. Louis, 
 and each of them nominated Mr. Bryan for the Presi 
 dency, though the Populist Convention substituted the 
 name of Mr. Thomas E. Watson of Georgia for that 
 of Mr. Sewall as its candidate for the Vice-Presidency. 23 
 Already a section of the Prohibition Party, known as the 
 " broad gaugers," had adopted a platform favouring the 
 free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to i. It was plain, 
 therefore, that Mr. Bryan would receive a very heavy 
 vote from sources outside the pale of the regular De 
 mocracy. ^Moreover, as time went on, many conservative 
 Democrats who had earnestly opposed the silver move 
 ment were still so far affected by their sentiment of party 
 
 23 Those Populists who opposed a direct alliance with the Demo 
 cratic Party were styled " Middle-of-the-road men." 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 505 
 
 loyalty as to prefer any Democratic candidate to a Re 
 publican. It was for the purpose of drawing the votes 
 of these men away from Mr. Bryan that the gold Demo 
 crats summoned a convention which met at Indianapolis 24 
 on September 2d, and, adopting the name of " National 
 Democratic Party, " % tiominated for the Presidency Gen 
 eral John M. Palmar of Illinois, and for the Vice-Presi 
 dency General Simon B. Buckner of Kentucky. This 
 Convention, to which forty-one States and three Terri 
 tories sent delegates, adopted a platform condemning 
 " the Populist Conventions of Chicago and St. Louis," 
 urging the maintenance of the gold standard, and highly 
 commending " the fidelity, patriotism, and courage " of 
 President Cleveland in fulfilling " his great public trust," 
 in maintaining " civil order and the enforcement of the 
 laws," and in upholding " the credit and honour of the 
 nation." 25 
 
 The Democratic nominations were no sooner made 
 than the whole country perceived the supreme issue of 
 the campaign to be the silver question. Even Mr. Mc- 
 Kinley ceased to discourse upon the tariff, and addressed 
 his visiting delegations on the one subject of the cur 
 rency. The Republicans took up the cry of " sound 
 money," and made that the party slogan. Active can 
 vassing began at an unprecedentedly early date. There 
 was no interval of rest and apathy. Mr. Bryan himself 
 forced the fighting, and made the first aggressive move by 
 journeying in August to New York City in order that he 
 might receive the formal notice of his nomination in the 
 Madison Square Garden. As he expressed it, in a phrase 
 
 24 Ex-Governor Roswell P. Flower of New York was temporary chair 
 man of the Convention, and Senator Cafrery of Louisiana its permanent 
 president. 
 
 - See Hopkins, Political Parties in the United States (New York, 1900). 
 
506 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 that was much criticised at the time, he wished first to 
 present his cause " in the heart of what now seems to be 
 the enemy s country." 26 His intention created a genuine 
 panic among the Republicans. Although /in their public 
 prints they had sneered at Mr. Bryan s oratorical powers, 
 although they had derisively dubbed him " the Boy 
 Orator of the Platte," and although they had absurdly 
 described the famous peroration of his convention speech 
 as u blasphemous," they were secretly afraid lest his elo 
 quence should produce the same effect in New York as it 
 had in Chicago. But Mr. Bryan himself knew better. 
 He was wise enough to understand that the conditions in 
 Chicago cou-ld not possibly be reproduced in New York. 
 He was aware that public expectation had been worked 
 up to so extravagant a pitch that were he Demosthenes 
 and Cicero in one, he must inevitably fail to satisfy it. 
 He therefore very sensibly declined to attempt what 
 would have been impossible in other words, he refused to 
 compete against himself. When he appeared before the 
 immense audience in New York, he read a very carefully 
 prepared address, well reasoned, temperate, and per 
 suasive, but with no attempt at eloquence* whatever. His 
 opponents at once set up a howl of derision, and even 
 many of his own supporters were for the moment much 
 chagrined. Nevertheless, he had acted wisely, and he had 
 followed an excellent precedent; for Mr. Lincoln, when 
 he first came to New York after receiving the Republican 
 nomination in 1860, had also read his speech and had 
 declined to trust to his gift of improvising. But the 
 circumstances of the meeting at the Madison Square Gar 
 den were undoubtedly unfortunate for Mr. Bryan. The 
 
 26 Speech at Lincoln, Nebraska, August 8th. See Bryan, The First 
 Battle, p. 300 (Chicago, 1897). 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 507 
 
 night was one of intense midsummer heat. The swelter 
 ing audience was kept waiting in extreme discomfort. 
 The notification speech of Governor W. J. Stone of Mis 
 souri was inexcusably long, while Mr. Bryan himself 
 spoke for nearly two whole hours. A feeling of relief 
 was experienced by the Republicans when they found that 
 their formidable adversary had at least performed no 
 miracle of eloquence in " the enemy s country." 
 
 But Mr. Bryan gave them no cause to relax their efforts 
 to defeat him. With astonishing energy, he planned and 
 carried out four long journeys through the country, 
 speaking at every place of importance in the doubtful 
 States. On a single one of these progresses, he travelled 
 more than twelve thousand miles, and was everywhere 
 received by enormous gatherings and with intense en 
 thusiasm. The funds for his campaign were slender. 
 All the financial interests of the country were arrayed 
 against him. His managers had no great sums to lavish 
 in subsidising newspapers, in circulating documents, in 
 hiring bands, and in decorating whole cities with political 
 banners. Mr. Bryan, in fact, fought single-handed 
 against the party of wealth; yet though almost alone, he 
 made his foes strain every nerve to compass his defeat. 
 It was estimated 27 that not less than 5,000,000 persons 
 heard him speak, and among them there were few who 
 showed him anything that savoured of discourtesy. Al 
 most the only exception was found in an incident at New 
 Haven, where the students of Yale University interrupted 
 his address with yells for McKinley and jeers for Mr. 
 Bryan and his cause. But this was an exceptional incident 
 and one which only the New York Sun had the hardihood 
 to defend. It would, indeed, have been very difficult for 
 
 27 By Mr. R. F. Rose of the Associated Press. See Bryan, op. at., p. 618. 
 
508 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 any fair-minded person, after hearing Mr. Bryan, to feel 
 aught but a sincere personal respect for him. (The tone of 
 all his speeches was most admirable. He dealt with prin 
 ciples alone and not with persons.] Although showered 
 with abuse by the Republican and Gold Democratic news 
 papers, he never condescended to reply in kind; and for 
 his chief political adversary he had only words of cour 
 teous consideration. Speaking in the town of Canton, 
 Mr. McKinley s home, he said and the sentences were 
 very characteristic of his manliness: 
 
 I am glad to meet the people of this city, the home of my dis 
 tinguished opponent, and I am also glad in their presence to testify 
 to his high character and great personal worth. I shall be satisfied 
 if, as an individual, I may be able to stand beside him in public 
 esteem. ... I tell my neighbours at home that I shall bear 
 them no ill-will if they believe that my opponent should be 
 elected; and I have so high an opinion of my opponent that I 
 know he will say to his townsmen here that every one should be 
 free to make his ballot represent a freeman s will, although it 
 may result in keeping your distinguished citizen among you as a 
 neighbour still." 
 
 Very different from this was the treatment accorded 
 Mr. Bryan by his adversaries. They could find nothing 
 in his private life to censure; but they circulated absurd 
 and absolutely baseless stories, besides misrepresenting the 
 whole tenor of his political teaching. They professed to 
 believe that he had once been a strolling actor; they de 
 nounced him as an anarchist and an enemy of public order. 
 Some phrases in the Democratic platform relating to the 
 income tax decision were so garbled as to make it appear 
 that Mr. Bryan desired to abolish or discredit the Supreme 
 Court. Thousands of men, women and children were led 
 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 509 
 
 to think of him as the incarnation of riot, revolution 
 and ruin. Some of the bitterest of the attacks upon him 
 were made by the organs of the gold-standard Democracy. 
 Thus, after Mr. Bryan had delivered an address in Louis 
 ville, the Courier- Journal of that city, edited by Mr. 
 Henry Watterson, said of him : 
 
 " Mr. William J. Bryan has come to Kentucky, and Kentuck- 
 ians have taken his measure. He is a boy orator. He is a dis 
 honest dodger. He is a daring adventurer. He is a political 
 faker. He is not of the material of which the people of the United 
 States have ever made a President, nor is he even of the material 
 of which any party has ever before made a candidate." 
 
 Popular preachers harangued their congregations on the 
 despicable character and evil purposes of Mr. Bryan. In 
 Brooklyn, the Rev. Cortland Myers, in a sermon, said of 
 the Chicago platform: "That platform was made in 
 hell! " 2S The Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst in New York 
 spoke of the silver movement as inimical to credit, and as 
 an attempt, u deliberate and hot-blooded, to destroy what 
 little of it still remains. I dare, in God s pulpit, to brand 
 such attempts as accursed and treasonable ! " 29 Mr. 
 Thomas Dixon, Jr., cried aloud to a New York congrega 
 tion that Mr. Bryan was " a mouthing, slobbering dema 
 gogue whose patriotism is all in his jaw-bone! " 30 From 
 these citations it will be seen that the violence of language 
 which in the Populist orators had so amused the people of 
 the East, was now fully matched by the ranting of the gold 
 men. Even some of the Catholic clergy were induced to 
 speak in opposition to Mr. Bryan s cause, though of course 
 
 28 September 13, 1896. Report in Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 29 September 27, 1896. Report in New York Tribune. 
 80 October 4, 1896. Report in New York World. 
 
510 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 they did* so in terms of moderation and decorum. Gov 
 ernor Culberson of Texas had written to Prince Bismarck 
 a letter asking for an expression of opinion as to the merits 
 of bimetallism as against gold monometallism. The ex- 
 Chancellor replied from Friedrichsruhe, under date of 
 August 24, 1896, to the effect that he had always per 
 sonally had a preference for bimetallism, " without Consid 
 ering myself infallible over against experts on the subject." 
 He added: 
 
 " The United States are commercially freer in their movements 
 than any single one of the European nations; and if North Amer 
 ica should find it compatible with its interests to take an inde 
 pendent step in the direction of bimetallism, I do believe it would 
 have an appreciable influence upon the establishment of an inter 
 national agreement and the co-operation of the European States." 
 
 The silver orators made much of Bismarck s letter, and 
 Archbishop Ireland of St. Paul took occasion to refer to 
 it in a statement which he made in answer to a request from 
 a number of prominent merchants and bankers. The 
 Archbishop wrote: 
 
 " Herr von Bismarck counselled the United States to go ahead 
 and make the experiment all alone. Yes, and some Americans 
 quote his advice as an authority. The sly old fox would, indeed, 
 be pleased to see America make the experiment and go to the 
 bottom of the sea." 31 
 
 ft was not, however, upon newspaper discussion, or 
 platform oratory, or the influence of the clergy that the 
 Republican managers placed their main reliance. The 
 whole vast machinery of commerce, of business and of 
 
 31 Letter of October 2, 1896. See the leading journals of that date. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 511 
 
 finance was set in motion to create a general impression 
 that Mr. Bryan s success would mean disaster to every sec 
 tion of the American people. As the month of November 
 drew near, capitalists resorted to the very effective device 
 bf giving large orders to manufacturers, on condition that 
 these orders should be executed only in case of Mr. Mc- 
 Kinley s election. In this way notice was served upon the 
 artisans that if they voted for Mr. Bryan they would be 
 voting to deprive themselves of work. Agents of some of 
 the great insurance companies of New York and New Eng 
 land, which held mortgages upon Western farms, intimated 
 to the mortgageors that, if Mr. McKinley were elected, 
 the mortgages would be extended for five years at a 
 low rate of interest. At the end of the week preceding the 
 election, many employers of labour, in paying off their 
 workmen, gave them notice that they could not return to 
 work in the event of Mr. Bryan s success/ 82 The city banks 
 brought to bear upon their country correspondents such 
 powerful pressure as they could readily exercise ; and these 
 correspondents transmitted that pressure to their depos 
 itors. In fact, the myriad influences which Mr. Hanna 
 understood so well were all directed with astonishing effect 
 iveness to the single end of defeating Mr. Bryan at any 
 cost. These means were doubtless more certain in their 
 operation than the mere use of money; yet money, too, was 
 spent with a profusion hitherto unknown even in American 
 political campaigns. A member of the Republican Com 
 mittee subsequently admitted that the campaign expenses 
 of his party in 1896 amounted to not less than $25,000 a 
 day from August ist until the eve of the election. This 
 
 32 See, for example, the news columns of the Wilmington (Delaware) 
 News for November 3, 1896; and a letter published by an acute observer 
 of American conditions, in the St. Jam-" Gazette (London), November 
 6, 1896. 
 
5i2 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 money came from capitalists and business men in general, 
 and even from fiduciary institutions. 33 
 
 Yet the result of an election so bitterly contested as was 
 that of 1896 can scarcely have been decided by the use of 
 money or by influences more insidious and no> less discredi 
 table. How did the cause for which Mr. Bryan so brilli 
 antly contended commend itself to the sober judgment of 
 intelligent Amercians? In what way did the majority of 
 these men sum up their verdict at the close of the cam 
 paign? Let us review the main contentions of the silver 
 party and then endeavour to point out alike their weakness 
 and their strength. Until 1873, either gold or silver 
 bullion might be taken by any one to the mints of the United 
 States to be coined into standard dollars at a ratio of 16 to 
 i (exactly 15.988 to i). By 1873, however, the immense 
 production of silver had cheapened the market value of 
 that metal, so that the old ratio of coinage was no longer 
 an exact one. The price of silver was continually falling 
 and fluctuating; and hence, as early as 1870, President 
 Grant s Secretary of the Treasury had drafted a bill to 
 demonetise the silver dollar and to establish the single 
 gold standard for the United States. This bill was passed 
 by the Senate in 1871 ; and two years later, in 1873, it was 
 passed by both Houses and became law. It had been be 
 fore Congress for nearly three years, and it had met with 
 scarcely any opposition. Presently, the world s annual 
 
 S3 Some light was thrown upon the sources of this fund when, in October 
 1905, the investigations of a committee of the New York Legislature 
 brought out the fact that Mr. John A. McCall, President of the New York 
 Life Insurance Company, had, in 1896, ordered the sum of $50,000 paid to 
 the Republican National Committee, and this without the knowledge or 
 consent of his board of directors or of his financial committee. The 
 Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York contributed, in the same 
 secret way, the sum of $15,000. 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 513 
 
 production of gold diminished, so that the value of the 
 gold dollar appreciated, as the supply of that metal 
 shrank in proportion to the growth of the population, 
 thus causing what some described as a " contraction of 
 the circulating medium." This brought several results 
 to pass. Prices, being measured in terms of gold, con 
 tinually fell, while debts contracted under the other sys 
 tem were now payable in dollars of a greater intrinsic 
 value than before. Presently it began to be asserted 
 that the Act of 1873 had been passed by a conspiracy of 
 the capitalists, who had smuggled it through Congress by 
 craft and stealth. It was spoken of as " the crime of 
 1873," an d was cited as an example of the wickedness of 
 the financiers. Of course, the facts as just given show 
 that the charge was false. In one of the later debates in 
 the Senate, Mr. Stewart of Nevada, after violently de 
 nouncing the "crime of 1873," was put to confusion by 
 Senator Sherman, who showed by the record that Mr. 
 Stewart had himself spoken and voted for the " crime." 
 In truth, all the Senators from California, Oregon and 
 Nevada had supported the demonetising Act. Neverthe 
 less, it had unquestionably worked a hardship to the debtor 
 class throughout the country, just as did the resumption of 
 specie payments in i879. 34 Yet this hardship was in 
 reality due to natural causes, and chiefly to a decrease in 
 the world s gold supply. What Mr. Bryan proposed to 
 do, was to expand the currency by opening the mints once 
 more to free silver coinage at the old ratio. He believed 
 that this would increase the volume of money in circula 
 tion, raise prices, and perform an act of simple justice to 
 the debtor class. That is, he believed that an act of legis 
 lation could at once effectually correct an inequitable con 
 dition which was the result of purely natural causesU That 
 
 s * See p. 15. 
 
5 i4 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 he was perfectly right in his diagnosis of the financial 
 situation few will now deny. But that his proposed 
 remedy was perilous in the extreme remains the opinion 
 of the ablest students of financial problems. The dangers 
 which it seemed to threaten finally rallied to the support of 
 Mr. McKinley that mass of thoughtful citizens who in 
 effect always hold the balance of political power. Mr. 
 Bryan s definition of a debtor class was, indeed, too limited 
 to be convincing. His thought was mainly of the farmers 
 of the West who had mortgaged their lands to Eastern 
 creditors. But the true debtor class was a much larger 
 one than this. To it in reality belonged every person who 
 had deposited his savings in a bank, or who had taken out 
 a policy of life insurance, or who had made any small in 
 vestment as a provision against illness or old age. These 
 persons dreaded the possibility of receiving in place of 
 their hard-earned money some form of depreciated cur 
 rency^ and they did not draw any fine distinctions between 
 the" so-called "fiat paper money" of the old Greenback 
 Party and the fiat silver money of the new Democracy. 
 And so, in the end, the prudence, or caution, or timidity 
 of this large class turned the scale against the party of free 
 silver. 35 
 
 The excitement which marked this whole extraordinary 
 contest increased in its intensity until the very end. An 
 imposing demonstration in New York City signalised the 
 close of the campaign on the Saturday before election day^ 
 More than 150,000 voters marched up Broadway, under 
 a forest of flags and vivid decorations which covered 
 nearly every building on that famous thoroughfare. Thou- 
 
 35 For a brief criticism of both the gold and the silver arguments from 
 the standpoint of one who accepted neither as convincing, see Fonda, 
 Honest Money, ch. viii. (New York, 1895). 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 515 
 
 sands of them were men who had never, perhaps, taken 
 part in a political parade before. Lawyers, merchants, 
 clergymen, bankers, university professors, authors all 
 marched shoulder to shoulder, cheering lustily for " sound 
 money " and incidentally for the Republican candidates. 
 The demonstration had no great political significance, for 
 New York was known to be safely Republican; yet the 
 outpouring was one of the most picturesque as well as one 
 of the most impressive incidents in a contest that was full 
 of life and colour. 
 
 The election was unexpectedly decisive. Before mid 
 night on November 3d, it was known that Mr. Bryan had 
 been defeated and that he would receive in the Electoral 
 College only 176 votes to 271 for Mr. McKinley. He 
 had carried all the Southern States except West Virginia; 
 and had also received the votes of Colorado, Idaho, Kan 
 sas, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, 
 Washington, and Wyoming, while California and Ken 
 tucky had each given him one electoral vote. But the 
 solid opposition of the East, the Northwest and the Middle 
 West had overborne his loyal following in the more thinly 
 settled mining and agricultural States. 30 Yet Mr. Bryan 
 had given the Republican party a shock of extreme 
 severity. The extent of its fright may be measured by 
 the ferocity with which its newspaper organs referred to 
 Mr. Bryan even after the election. The following pas 
 sage from the New York Tribune is sufficiently illustrative 
 to deserve citation: 
 
 36 In the popular vote, Mr. McKinley received 7,111,607 votes, and 
 Mr. Bryan, 6,509,052 a majority for Mr. McKinley of 602,555. General 
 Palmer, the candidate of the Gold Democrats, received 134,645 votes. 
 
516 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 :c The thing was conceived in iniquity and was brought forth in 
 sin. It had its origin in a malicious conspiracy against the honour 
 and integrity of the nation. It gained such monstrous growth as 
 it enjoyed from an assiduous culture of the basest passions of the 
 least worthy members of the community. It has been defeated 
 and destroyed because right is right and God is God. Its nominal 
 head was worthy of the cause. Nominal, because the wretched, 
 rattle-pated boy, posing in vapid vanity and mouthing resounding 
 rottenness, was not the real leader of that league of hell. He was 
 only a puppet in the blood-imbued hands of Altgeld, the anarchist, 
 and Debs, the revolutionist, and other desperadoes of that stripe. 
 But he was a willing puppet, Bryan was, willing and eager. 
 Not one of his masters was more apt than he at lies and forgeries 
 and blasphemies and all the nameless iniquities of that campaign 
 against the Ten Commandments. He goes down with the cause, 
 and must abide with it in the history of infamy. He had less 
 provocation than Benedict Arnold, less intellectual force than 
 Aaron Burr, less manliness and courage than Jefferson Davis. 
 He was the rival of them all in deliberate wickedness, and treason 
 to the Republic. His name belongs w T ith theirs, neither the most 
 brilliant nor the most hateful in the list. Good riddance to it all, 
 to conspiracy and conspirators, and to the foul menace of re 
 pudiation and anarchy against the honour and life of the Re 
 public." 
 
 Mr. Bryan himself set an example of dignity and gen 
 erous feeling which his newspaper assailants might well 
 have tried to emulate. No sooner was the result of the 
 election a certainty than he telegraphed to his successful 
 rival a message of cordial congratulation, to which Mr. 
 McKinley at once replied in terms of equal courtesy and 
 personal good will. 
 
 Thus terminated the most eventful political struggle 
 which the people of the United States had witnessed since 
 
THE ELECTION OF 1896 517 
 
 that which ended in the first election of Abraham Lincoln. 
 Looking back upon it with a true perception of its signifi 
 cance, one finds in it the temporary failure of a noble 
 cause through a faulty adaptation of means to end. For 
 the underlying issue was not that of the money question 
 at all. The money question served only to obscure 
 the vital question and to postpone its ultimate decision. 
 The people of the West, and indeed the people of 
 the whole country, were suffering from the innumerable 
 abuses which the lawlessness of corporate wealth had 
 brought upon them. Unwisely they sought a remedy 
 through an attempt to establish an unsound economic prin 
 ciple. The result was their defeat, and for a time the 
 defeat of the cause for which they were contending. The 
 way to deliverance was not to be opened to them through 
 the door of the national finances. Mr. Bryan resembled 
 a champion who rushes forth to meet a powerful antagon 
 ist, and who has armed himself with a sword of which the 
 blade is flawed. At the very crisis of the combat, his 
 weapon was shattered in his grasp, and the victory was 
 given to his adversary. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 PRESIDENT M KINLEY AND THE NEO-REPUBLICANISM 
 
 
 
 THERE was something symbolically significant in the pa 
 geant which accompanied the inauguration of President 
 McKinley. Such displays in other years had exhibited the 
 haphazard easy-going lack of management with which 
 Americans are wont to improvise their public ceremonials. 
 But on the fourth of March, 1897, tne scene in Wash 
 ington was one that might have fitly graced a European 
 capital. Every detail had been studied carefully before 
 hand, and was carried out with absolute precision. The 
 great avenues were well policed. The crowds were effi 
 ciently controlled. There were no delays, no moments of 
 embarrassment, no awkward pauses. The military review 
 was especially effective. Instead of masses of raw militia 
 men, marching often awkwardly and producing a bizarre 
 effect by the diversity of their motley uniforms, there now 
 defiled before the President, column after column of reg 
 ular troops, whose perfect discipline and training made 
 the sight of them a splendid spectacle. The finest cavalry 
 regiments in the service had been drawn upon to render 
 this inaugural review exceptionally brilliant; while the 
 artillery and infantry were not inferior in the precision of 
 their evolutions. The civic part of the parade was sub 
 ordinated to the military; but even the " marching clubs " 
 swung by the presidential stand with something of the 
 elan of veteran troops. The Republican party was com 
 ing back to power as the party of organisation, of dis 
 cipline, of unquestioning obedience to leadership; and the 
 
 518 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 519 
 
 spirit of this new regime was easily perceptible, even in 
 the ceremony which marked the day of its beginning. 
 
 Mr. Cleveland remained at the side of his successor 
 until the formalities were all concluded. He had spent 
 the last few hours of his presidency in a most character 
 istic fashion, examining and signing bills; and the marks 
 of ink upon his ungloved hands bore witness to his dili 
 gence. His face was ruddy, and he chatted^ and laughed 
 with Mr. McKinley as the two were driven slowly to 
 the Capitol. At last, the burden was lifted from his 
 shoulders, and he could again enjoy the tranquil life of a 
 private citizen. Though the reins of power were passing 
 from his hands to those of a political opponent, he proba 
 bly felt no regret. It was his financial policy which the 
 Republicans, after bitterly assailing, had been forced to 
 make their own. The great battle of the preceding year 
 had been fought over this one question. And so the vic 
 tory which Mr. McKinley had gained was, in a very real 
 sense, a victory for Mr. Cleveland. 
 
 President McKinley s inaugural address contained, 
 as might have been expected, an earnest commendation of 
 high protective duties. In it he also expressed a strong 
 desire for peace with foreign nations. He recalled his 
 own consistent attitude as a defender of the reformed 
 civil service; and he intimated that the currency system of 
 the United States should be placed upon a definite and 
 satisfactory basis. There was nothing very noteworthy 
 in his remarks. They were received by the press with a 
 general, if somewhat perfunctory, approval. Perhaps 
 the comment of an English writer best expressed what 
 most persons really thought. " It is a mild and not un- 
 pleasing effusion. The tone is a little smug and goody- 
 goody, but kindly." 1 In truth, the country had for a. 
 
 1 London Standard, March 5, 1897. 
 
520 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 time grown weary of political strife, and was disposed 
 to give to the new administration a free hand. 
 
 The President showed his conservative cast of mind by 
 appointing a Cabinet of rather elderly men, only one of 
 them being less than sixty years of age. The oldest of 
 them all, Mr. John Sherman, lately Senator from Ohio, 
 was also the most distinguished in the length and value of 
 his public service. He now became Secretary of State, 
 though under circumstances which made the appointment 
 by no means a source of unmixed pleasure to his friends. 
 Mr. Sherman had long been one of the foremost leaders 
 of the Republican Party. As a member of the lower 
 House, before the Civil War, he had ably advocated the 
 free-soil cause ; and as Senator during President Lincoln s 
 administration he had upheld the hands of the great 
 Liberator. As Secretary of the Treasury under Presi 
 dent Hayes, he had brought about the resumption of specie 
 payments in so masterly a manner as not to cause the slight 
 est ripple on the financial waters. Twice in 1880 and 
 again in 1888 he seemed likely to be his party s chosen 
 candidate for the presidency. Ten years afterwards 
 his name was permanently associated with two highly 
 important measures the Silver Purchase Act of 1890 
 and the so-called Anti-Trust Law of the same year. 2 
 He was now an old man of seventy-four, and had richly 
 earned the right to finish his remaining years in the digni 
 fied and useful place which he had long held in the Senate. 
 But, unhappily for Mr. Sherman, his own desires clashed 
 with the strong-willed purpose of Mark Hanna. That 
 appetitive person now demanded his reward. He had 
 gained the presidency for Mr. McKinley, and in return 
 he wished to be a Senator of the United States. He was 
 not a man to be put off, and therefore Mr. Sherman was 
 
 2 See pp. 220-222. 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 521 
 
 sacrificed to Hanna s urgency. The open humiliation of 
 so conspicuous a stateman would have been too much for 
 even Hanna to attempt ; but the desired end was reached by 
 indirection, and Senator Sherman experienced the sort of 
 honorific elimination which an English party leader once 
 described as being " kicked upstairs." Mr. McKinley 
 offered to make Mr. Sherman his Secretary of State, and 
 the aged Senator knew that he must accept. He felt no 
 especial interest in diplomacy. Querulous and feeble and 
 already verging upon senility, he shrank from taking up 
 new duties for which he felt himself no longer fitted. Yet 
 he was well aware that he had no choice. He must make 
 way for Mr. Hanna; and hence he resigned the post of 
 Senator to become the nominal chief of the new Cabinet 
 a pathetic figure, destined very soon to pass away en 
 tirely from public life. 
 
 The other Ministers were men of good executive abil 
 ity, although of no especial prominence. In recognition 
 of the aid given to Mr. McKinley by the Gold Demo 
 crats, one of their number, Mr. Lyman J. Gage, a Chi 
 cago banker, was made Secretary of the Treasury. 3 The 
 war portfolio went to General Russell A. Alger of Mich 
 igan, a veteran of the Civil War, who had subsequently 
 become known as an adroit politician and successful man 
 of business. President McKinley s Secretary of the 
 Navy was Mr. John D. Long of Massachusetts, a gentle 
 man of scholarly tastes, who had had, however, no slight 
 experience in public life, and who was soon to show him 
 self to be an unusually capable administrator. The rest 
 of the Cabinet, as originally constituted, may be dis 
 missed with a mere mention. The Attorney-General was 
 
 3 In 1892 President Cleveland had offered the Treasury portfolio to Mr. 
 Gage, who declined it. 
 
522 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Mr. Joseph McKenna of California; the Postmaster- 
 General was Mr. James A. Gary of Maryland; the Sec 
 retary of the Interior was Mr. Cornelius N. Bliss of New 
 York; and the Secretary of Agriculture was Mr. James 
 Wilson of Iowa. 
 
 President McKinley s first important official act was 
 the issuance of a proclamation convening Congress in 
 special session on March i5th, for the purpose of pro 
 viding additional revenue for the Government, and to 
 revise the tariff. Although the tariff question had been 
 entirely subordinated in the late campaign, and although 
 Mr. McKinley had secured his great majorities wholly as 
 a defender of the gold standard, it was plain that for the 
 present he intended to ignore the money issue, and to use 
 his power to restore the high protective duties of 1890. 
 The Democratic opposition criticised this purpose, assert 
 ing that it involved an element of duplicity. It was de 
 clared that Mr. McKinley could not have been elected 
 merely as a protectionist; yet his first concern was now a 
 reversion to the very policy which the country had con 
 demned in 1892. This criticism was unfair. The Presi 
 dent fully intended to secure salutary legislation for the 
 reform of the currency; but the time was not yet aus 
 picious for such legislation. Although the Republican 
 party had more than a working majority in both Houses 
 of Congress, 4 there were still so many Republican Sen 
 ators favourable to the cause of free silver as to prevent 
 concerted and successful action toward legalising the gold 
 standard. The President knew that the defeat of Mr. 
 
 4 In the Senate there were 46 Republicans, 34 Democrats, 5 Populists, 2 
 li Silver Republicans " and 3 Independents. In the House there were 206 
 Republicans, 134 Democrats and 16 Populists. 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 523 
 
 Bryan had put an end to all anxiety in the world of fi 
 nance; and so, naturally enough, he turned to the re 
 vision of the tariff a policy with which his name had 
 been so long associated. But when he argued that a new 
 tariff act was necessary to augment the revenues of the 
 Government, he was on more debatable ground. The 
 Wilson Act of 1894, though in many respects imperfect 
 from the point of view of the tariff reformer, was not 
 justly chargeable with the falling off in revenue during 
 President Cleveland s term of office. In fact, had not 
 President Harrison s Secretary of the Treasury forced a 
 balance, 5 the year 1892-93 would have shown a deficiency 
 of nearly $48,000,000 for that period. Furthermore, 
 the heaviest deficit under President Cleveland s adminis 
 tration ($69,000,000 in 1893-94), occurred while the 
 McKinley Act was still in force and before the Wilson 
 Act had become operative. Indeed, each succeeding year 
 witnessed an improvement in the Treasury balances; and 
 in the very month when Mr. McKinley called Congress to 
 gether to restore the high protective tariff, the Treasury 
 report showed an actual surplus of nearly $9,000,000, 
 the customs receipts for that month having been exceeded 
 only twice in a period of more than forty years. It was 
 plain enough, then, that the Wilson Act was in no wise 
 responsible for the temporary loss of revenue from 1893 
 to 1895; and that if left alone it would now provide an 
 ample income for the ordinary needs of the Government. 
 But in reality the question was not one of revenue at 
 all. The old protected industries were clamouring for the 
 
 5 In 1893, Secretary Charles Foster, in his report, included among the 
 Treasury s assets the bank-note redemption fund of $54,000,000, which 
 had always been regarded by other Secretaries as a trust fund. In this 
 way he converted an actual deficit into a nominal surplus. 
 
524 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 full favours which they had formerly enjoyed. Not 
 from altruistic motives had the manufacturing interests 
 contributed heavily to the funds of the Republican 
 party in the late campaign. Their gifts had, on the 
 contrary, been a strictly business investment ; and the time 
 had now come for them to receive full payment of their 
 claims. When Congress met in extra session, a rerhark- 
 able and quite unprecedented condition of affairs was at 
 once made known. It showed more clearly than ever the 
 wonderful compactness and machine-like efficiency of the 
 Republican organisation since that party had passed under 
 the control of " business men in politics." The elections 
 of the preceding November had determined the composi 
 tion of the new Congress; and so the leaders of the Re 
 publican majority, after conferring together, agreed upon 
 a plan of action which took slight heed of precedent or of 
 constitutional forms. It was planned that Mr. Reed 
 should be re-elected Speaker of the House; and Mr. Reed 
 in his turn indicated the Republican representatives whom 
 he would appoint to membership in the Committee of 
 Ways and Means. These gentlemen, therefore, in ad 
 vance of their actual appointment and before the new 
 Congress was convened, had already framed a tariff bill. 
 As soon as the extra session of March I5th began, the 
 programme was carried out to the letter. Mr. Reed again 
 became Speaker. He appointed the Committee precisely 
 as he had agreed to do; and its chairman, Mr. Nelson 
 Dingley, Jr., of Maine, at once reported to the House 
 the bill which he and his Republican associates had pre 
 pared. Never did a controversial party measure so 
 quickly pass the lower Chamber. Although the Dingley 
 Bill, as it was called, filled one hundred and sixty-three 
 printed pages, only twenty-two pages of it were con- 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 525 
 
 sidered and discussed upon the floor of the House. Mr. 
 Reed s rigorous rulings made short work of the dis 
 heartened opposition; and in less than two weeks the bill 
 was transmitted to the Senate, 6 where it was referred to 
 the Committee on Finance. 
 
 In the Senate, its schedules were carefully examined 
 and amended. 7 The bill, as reported by the Finance 
 Committee, was by no means so very radical a measure 
 as might have been expected. Though it was essentially 
 protectionist in its general character, it contained some 
 duties that were intended solely to produce revenue; and 
 in many items the purely protective duties had been ap 
 preciably lowered. But in the open Senate a different 
 tendency was seen. Here was, in part, a repetition of the 
 history of the Wilson Bill. 8 Now, as in 1894, there was 
 an attempt on the part of disinterested Senators to make 
 the measure a rational one from an economic and financial 
 standpoint. But now, as in 1894, a number of Senators, 
 who represented the great corporations and the manu 
 facturers, interposed on behalf of their friends and bene 
 factors. For more than two months the schedules were 
 discussed item by item, and when the bill passed the 
 Senate (July yth) it contained 870 amendments. Like 
 the Wilson Bill, it was then sent to a conference com 
 mittee of both Houses. There, however, its fate was 
 very different from that of its Democratic predecessor. 
 Republican organisation and party discipline were far too 
 good to permit an open rupture between the conflicting 
 interests. The influence of President McKinley and the 
 
 6 March 31, 1897. 
 
 7 The Committee on Finance held the bill until May 8th, before 
 reporting it. 
 
 8 See pp. 355-368. 
 
526 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 firmness of Speaker Reed compelled an agreement; so 
 that on July 24th, all details having been adjusted, the 
 Dingley Bill passed both Houses of Congress and became 
 a law. 
 
 On the whole, it resembled the McKinley Act of 1890, 
 though the average rate of duty on imports was slightly 
 lowered. Some features, however, deserve attention. 
 The Wilson Act had remitted the duties upon wool; the 
 Dingley Act not only restored them, but even made them 
 higher, in spite of the fact that the increase was earnestly 
 opposed by manufacturers of woollen goods. The Secre 
 tary of the Wool Manufacturers Association had said to 
 the Committee of the House: 
 
 " Never until he had experience under free wool did the manu 
 facturer realise the full extent of the disadvantages he suffers by 
 reason of the wool duty " 9 
 
 The reason why the tax on wool was restored in spite 
 of so strong a protest is curiously illuminating as an ex 
 ample of the complexities of tariff-framing. Free wool 
 had so stimulated the manufacture of woollen goods as 
 to create an exceptional demand for the raw material. 
 This demand had led ranch-owners in the far Western 
 States to raise sheep instead of cattle, and it was found 
 that they could produce wool cheaper than could the Ohio 
 farmers. The latter, therefore, demanded a high tariff 
 upon wool so as to limit the American manufacture of 
 woollen goods and thus to keep down the demand for 
 wool to the amount which they could themselves supply. 10 
 In other words, the heavy duty upon wool imposed by the 
 
 9 Bulletin of the Wool Manufacturers for March, 1897, P- 8 4 (quoted 
 by Taussig, Tariff History, p. 329). 
 
 10 Bulletin of the Wool Manufacturers for June, 1897, p. 133. 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 527 
 
 Dingley Act was not intended to protect Americans 
 against foreign competitors, but to favour one set of 
 Americans, who lived in a Republican State, against an 
 other set of their own countrymen. The wool duty, there 
 fore, both hampered the woollen manufacturers of the 
 United States and at the same time actually killed the new 
 wool-growing industry west of the Mississippi River. 
 This fact was pointed out as an ideal illustration of the 
 essential selfishness and economic folly of protective legis 
 lation. It certainly emphasised the truth of General Han 
 cock s declaration in 1880 that " the tariff is a local issue." 
 The duties on silks and linens were also considerably 
 augmented; those on cottons were somewhat lower than 
 in the McKinley Act. On most metals the rates of the 
 Wilson Act were not greatly altered, while copper was 
 even retained upon the free list. But on manufactured 
 articles of iron and steel, the McKinley rates were prac 
 tically restored. Of more interest were the sugar sched 
 ules, over which in 1894 the action of the Senate had 
 created so much scandal, because of the favour shown to 
 the Sugar Trust. 11 While the Dingley Bill was under 
 consideration, the " sugar Senators " had in committee 
 sought to secure new advantages for the Trust, and had 
 reported " an entirely new scheme of sugar duties, partly 
 specific and partly ad valorem, complicated in its effects 
 and difficult to explain, except as a means of making con 
 cessions under disguise to the refiners." 12 This compli 
 cated scheme was rejected by the Senate itself, which, 
 however, amended the House schedule in such a way as 
 to increase the " differential " to the advantage of the 
 "Trust. But upon this point the House stood firm. It 
 would take away none of the privileges which the Trust 
 
 11 See pp. 361-364. 12 Taussig, op. at., p. 351. 
 
528 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 already enjoyed; but it would not augment them. In the 
 end, the Senate was obliged to yield, thus leaving the 
 existing situation substantially unchanged. 
 
 One other feature of the Dingley Bill was not without 
 significance. As originally reported, it imposed a tax of 
 25 per cent, upon books and scientific instruments im 
 ported for the use of schools, colleges and other institu 
 tions of learning, and it also levied an import duty of 20 
 per cent, on foreign works of art. This called out some 
 very sharp criticism. Wrote one critic : 
 
 " The Dingley tax on books and instruments for libraries and 
 colleges, along with the renewed tax on art, shows the country 
 how much the Republican party really cares for the intelligence 
 of the nation to which it so earnestly appealed in the last cam 
 paign. It was never tired of boasting of the way the educated 
 men of the land had rallied to its support, irrespective of former 
 party preferences. . . . By making it difficult for us to take 
 advantage of the discoveries and improvements of the leaders of 
 thought and investigation in other lands, we simply condemn 
 ourselves to be losers in the race. Taxing knowledge of this kind 
 is both a mark and a cause of barbarism. Free art, of course, had 
 to go. Paintings in oil and water-colours, admitted free by the 
 Wilson Bill, have made it dangerously easy for our artists and 
 the visitors to our public galleries to become familiar with foreign 
 masterpieces. What has protection to do with education or art? 
 Nothing, except to cripple them in every way." 13 
 
 So much opposition was aroused by these clauses in the 
 Dingley Bill as to lead to their modification. The duty 
 on books and instruments was stricken out. The tax on 
 works of art, however, still remained, in spite of the 
 fact that nearly all American artists were opposed to it, 
 and that no one, outside of Congress, had any interest in 
 its retention. Taken as a whole, the Dingley Act made 
 
 13 The Nation, March 25, 1897. 
 
iVrKINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 529 
 
 it plain that the extreme protectionists were still in con 
 trol of the Republican Party, and that they had in no 
 wise been affected by the experience of the past. This 
 act, indeed, in several of its provisions carried the pro 
 tective principle further than it had ever been extended. 
 The anomaly was presented of gigantic industries, which 
 were actually underselling foreign competitors in foreign 
 markets, yet which were at the same time demanding from 
 Congress a duty to protect them against competition in 
 the United States. Such a duty enabled them to compel 
 Americans to pay more for certain American goods than 
 the foreigner paid for precisely the same articles. This 
 was the reductio ad absurdum of the Neo-Republican doc 
 trine which had been rapidly developed since 1883. The 
 " business man in politics," of whom Senator Hanna was 
 a type, was not, however, disturbed by this economic mon 
 strosity in its practical results. He knew that his own 
 class reaped immense benefits from it, and perhaps he 
 entertained a pious hope that it might in some way inci 
 dentally benefit the people as a whole. But his first 
 thought was for himself alone, since this was " business "; 
 and it gave him no concern if the tariff system of his time 
 embodied, a concrete defiance of all the principles which 
 the early Republican protectionists Lincoln, Morrill, 
 Chase, Fessenden and Stevens had avowed. 14 
 
 If the people of the United States felt but a languid 
 Interest in an economic measure so important as the tariff 
 act of 1897, the fact is easily explained. For ten years, 
 American politics had turned almost exclusively upon 
 
 14 ^See Taussig, op. cit., pp. 258-360: and for a discussion of the Ding- 
 ley Act, mainly from a Republican standpoint, Stanwood, American Tariff 
 Controversies in the Nineteenth Century, 55., pp. 360-394 (Boston, 1903)0 
 
530 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 questions of finance; and the culminating struggle of 1896 
 had left the great body of citizens wearied to the point of 
 exhaustion. Nations, like individuals, are capable of 
 being bored; and just as the salutary but uninteresting 
 domestic reforms of Gladstone finally made Englishmen 
 out of sheer ennui turn to the brilliantly spectacular for 
 eign policy of Disraeli, so after a decade of controversy 
 over bimetallism and free silver and tariff schedules, most 
 Americans were eager for some less prosaic theme of 
 public interest. The economic era had itself represented 
 a reaction from the long agonies of the Civil War; and 
 now the swing of the pendulum found a younger genera 
 tion impatient of the commonplace, and avidly alert for 
 a new and stimulating national issue. There has been 
 noted in the course of the present narrative, a growing 
 tendency on the part of the United States to concern it 
 self with its international relations. The intervention in 
 Samoa against the aggression of the Germans was the 
 first evidence of this new drift. The Chilean imbroglio 
 was another; the Venezuelan incident was still another. 15 
 Not without significance, also, was the fact that in the 
 American diplomatic service, the rank of Ambassador 
 had been created by act of Congress in 1893* and that 
 this rank had been conferred upon the Ministers Pleni 
 potentiary to Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia 
 and Italy. The Republican Convention of 1896 had, as 
 already recorded in these pages, urged an increase of the 
 navy, the annexation of Hawaii, and the purchase from 
 Denmark of her West Indian possessions. All these cir 
 cumstances served to show very plainly that the national 
 activities would not long be confined to matters of purely 
 domestic interest, but that the United States, grown Con 
 scious of its strength, was already stirred by an imperial 
 
 15 See pp. 180-189, 229-242, 412-436. 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 531 
 
 ambition and the spirit of adventure. As it happened, a 
 situation existed at its very gates, which quickened this 
 new restlessness into an aggressive mood. 
 
 In February, 1895, the native inhabitants of Cuba, 
 driven to desperation by the long misrule of their Spanish 
 masters, rose in a revolt which gradually reduced the 
 island to a condition resembling one of anarchy. Unable 
 to defeat the disciplined troops of Spain in open battle, 
 the rebels resorted to a guerrilla warfare cutting off 
 small detachments, burning plantations, raiding villages, 
 and endeavouring by incessant activity to sap the energy 
 and exhaust the resources of their opponents. A Cuban 
 Republic had been proclaimed; but it had no capital and 
 had organised no government. It had not even an army, 
 in the proper sense of the word; and its prowling bands 
 of ill-armed peasants appeared and disappeared like 
 phantoms. Nevertheless, although Spain had sent out to 
 Cuba no less than 200,000 troops, the insurgents, under 
 the leadership of Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo, 
 fairly held their own, until by the end of 1896 they 
 " roamed at will over three-fourths of the inland coun 
 try." 16 The colours of Spain still floated above the cities, 
 but the insurrectos were practically masters of the interior. 
 Meanwhile, Cuba, one of the richest and most fertile 
 islands in the world, was being swiftly ruined. The 
 furious devastation of property continued. Plantations 
 and villages were laid waste, while it seemed as though 
 any definite end to the destructive process might be de 
 ferred for years. The revolution in Cuba passed through 
 two distinct stages. In 1895, the Spanish Governor-Gen 
 eral was Martinez Campos, a high-souled, chivalrous 
 soldier, who waged war in accordance with the usages of 
 high civilisation. His ill success, however, led the Span- 
 
 16 Message of President Cleveland, December 7, 1896. 
 
532 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ish Government to replace him by General Valeriano 
 Weyler, a harshly tyrannical commander of the type of 
 the infamous Baron Haynau. Weyler was directed to 
 crush the insurrection at any cost; and on October 21, 
 1896, he issued an order which put into effect his so-called 
 policy of " reconcentration." From this moment the war 
 ceased to be merely a war of repression and became a war 
 of extermination. As the great body of the Cuban peas 
 antry sympathised with the rebellion and gave aid and 
 comfort to the rebels, Weyler s order directed that these 
 people be driven in herds to the vicinity of the fortified 
 towns. There they were penned in like cattle, and were 
 compelled to subsist under conditions which no cattle could 
 have endured. Deprived of their homes and with little 
 clothing, they lay upon the earth, with foul air, foul water, 
 and foul food, until, emaciated and diseased, they died 
 like flies. In all, there were some 400,000 of these recon- 
 centrados, and their condition excited at once the pity and 
 the indignation of the world. 
 
 When the war in Cuba first broke out, American sym 
 pathy was very naturally extended to the insurgents. A 
 little later it was seen that American interests were directly 
 involved. As President Cleveland said to Congress in his 
 last annual message : 17 
 
 " It [Cuba] lies so near to us as to be hardly separated from our 
 territory. Our actual pecuniary interest in it is second only to that 
 of the people and Government of Spain. It is reasonably estimated 
 that at least from $30,000,000 to $50,000,000 of American capital 
 are invested in plantations and in railroad, mining and other busi 
 ness enterprises on the island. The volume of trade between the 
 United States and Cuba, which in 1889 amounted to about $64,- 
 000,000, rose in 1893 to about $103,000,000, and in 1894 (the 
 year before the present insurrection broke out) amounted to nearly 
 17 December 7, 1896. 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 533 
 
 $96,000,000. Besides this large pecuniary stake in the fortunes of 
 Cuba, the United States finds itself inextricably involved in the 
 present contest in other ways both vexatious and costly." 
 
 The last sentence here quoted refers to the fact that 
 many American citizens resident in Cuba had been arrested 
 and ill-treated by Spanish officials on the charge of aiding 
 the Cuban rebels, and that these arrests had led to inces 
 sant friction between the Government of the United States 
 and that of Spain. In 1895, a Spanish ship had even fired 
 upon an American passenger steamer, the Allianqa, when 
 the latter was beyond the three-mile limit. Furthermore, 
 in the exercise of its neutrality, the United States was com 
 pelled to guard its long line of sea-coast against filibuster 
 ing expeditions and to endure the recriminations directed 
 against it by the Spanish press and people. Nevertheless, 
 for the space of a year and a half, Mr. Cleveland, fol 
 lowing the example of President Grant during the so- 
 called Ten Years War, 18 had studiously abstained from 
 interference with Spanish operations in the island. While 
 offering, from time to time, his friendly mediation to secure 
 a cessation of hostilities, he had respected the rights of 
 Spain, and had so strictly enforced the statutes against 
 filibustering expeditions as to make himself exceedingly 
 unpopular among American sympathisers with Cuba. 
 Finally, however, after Weyler s* reconcentration order had 
 been issued, and after it was fairly evident that Spain could 
 not repress the revolution, President Cleveland, in his 
 annual message of December 7, 1896, showed plainly that 
 
 18 This war was waged in* Cuba from 1868 to 1878, and was terminated 
 by the promise of Spain (in the Treaty of Zanjon) to grant autonomy to 
 Cuba. The promise had not been kept. See the section, " A Century of 
 Cuban Diplomacy," in Hart, The Foundation of American Foreign Rela 
 tions (New York, 1901). 
 
534 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the Government of the United States would not much 
 longer maintain a passive attitude. Recapitulating the 
 facts with regard to Cuba, he wrote some sentences of 
 ominous import. He said: 
 
 " Neither has Spain made good her authority, nor have the 
 insurgents made good their title to be regarded as an independent 
 State. Except in towns, the whole island is given over to 
 anarchy. ... It cannot be reasonably assumed that the hitherto 
 expectant attitude of the United States will be indefinitely main 
 tained. . . . When the inability of Spain to deal successfully 
 with the insurrection has become manifest ... a situation will 
 be presented in which our obligations to the sovereignty of Spain 
 will be superseded by higher obligations which W T C can hardly hesi 
 tate to recognise and to discharge. . . . The United States is 
 not a nation to which peace is a necessity." 
 
 Apart from the natural sympathy with which Amer 
 icans regarded any struggle for political independence, and 
 apart also from any commercial interests which were 
 threatened by the Cuban insurrection, there was still an 
 other reason for American resentment against Spain. 
 Thousands of citizens recalled a grievous outrage against 
 the dignity of the United States for which Spain had been 
 responsible in the past and which had never been avenged. 
 This was the notable affair of the Virginius. On October 
 31, 1873, during the former revolution in Cuba, an Amer 
 ican merchant vessel, the Virginius, was forcibly captured 
 on the high seas by the Spanish gunboat Tornado. The 
 American flag was hauled down and trampled upon, with 
 every possible sign of derision, and the Virginius itself, 
 with its captain, passengers, and crew, of whom nine were 
 American citizens, were taken to the port of Santiago de 
 Cuba. Captain Fry and the ship s company were cast 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REP.UBLICANISM 535 
 
 into prison, and by order of the Spanish Governor, Gen 
 eral Burriel, were tried by drum-head court martial. Fifty- 
 three of the fifty-nine were condemned and shot, and the 
 survivors also were sentenced to be executed. At this 
 moment, however, there steamed into the harbour of San 
 tiago the British man-of-war Niobe, commanded by Cap 
 tain (afterwards Sir) Lambton Lorraine. When he 
 learned of what had been done and of what was then im 
 pending, he wasted no time in official correspondence. 
 Swinging his ship about, broadside on, he sent a curt note 
 to General Burriel intimating that unless the order of exe 
 cution were suspended, the Niobe s guns would at once 
 open fire upon the city. 19 General Burriel revoked his 
 order immediately; but, none the less, fifty-three unarmed 
 persons had been taken from under the protection of the 
 American flag and had been shot to death. Indignation in 
 the United States was extreme. President Grant took 
 measures to place the navy upon a war footing and caused 
 a strong protest to be made to the Spanish Minister, who 
 with true Castilian haughtiness refused to receive it. On 
 the following day (November 4th), the American Min 
 ister at Madrid (General Sickles) was notified by cable: 
 14 In case of refusal of satisfactory reparation within 
 twelve days from this date, you will at the expiration of 
 that time close your legation and leave Madrid." Spain 
 still gave no satisfactory reply; and, therefore, on No 
 vember 1 5th, Secretary Fish again cabled: "If Spain 
 cannot redress these outrages, the United States will." 
 Nevertheless, when the twelve days expired, Spain had 
 not yielded, nor did General Sickles leave Madrid. As a 
 
 19 This spirited act received the full approval of the British Government 
 Sir Lambton Lorraine was afterwards entertained, and presented with a 
 service of plate by the people of the city of New York. 
 
536 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 matter of fact, the United States was in a most humiliat 
 ing position. Its navy, under the corrupt administration 
 of Secretary Robeson, had so degenerated that it did not 
 possess a single fighting ship which could have met success 
 fully the Spanish armoured cruisers with their modern 
 guns. Even the antiquated hulks still in commission were 
 scattered and ill-equipped, and time was necessary to 
 collect them. The Spaniards knew this very well and 
 sneered at all American protests. Finally, however (No 
 vember 25th), President Grant resolved on war, if war 
 were necessary. Whatever losses the United States might 
 at first sustain, in the end there could be no doubt of the 
 result. Hence, another cablegram was sent to General 
 Sickles at Madrid: "If no accommodation is reached 
 by the close of to-morrow, leave." When the morrow 
 came, Spain proposed a sort of compromise. She would 
 surrender the Firginius and would proceed against her 
 own officials, if it should be found that they had violated 
 the treaty rights of the United States. She would not, 
 however, in surrendering the Firginius, salute the flag of 
 the United States nor offer any compensation for the men 
 who had been done to death. This compromise was ac 
 cepted by the American Government, 20 partly because a 
 war was then most undesirable, and partly because there 
 was some serious doubt as to the regularity of the papers 
 which the Firginius carried. It is now, indeed, quite cer 
 tain that the Firginius was engaged in an unlawful errand 
 and was conveying both men and ammunition to the 
 Cuban rebels. Yet this circumstance did not justify her 
 capture on the high seas or the execution of her crew and 
 passengers by the sentence of a court-martial. When 
 
 20 See President Grant s annual Message of December i, 1873, and his 
 special Message of January 5, 1874. 
 
 V 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 537 
 
 the Spaniards came to surrender the ship to American 
 naval officers, they did so in a fashion that was full of 
 insult. The surrender took place, not in the harbour of 
 Santiago, but in the secluded and lonely port of Bahia 
 Honda, where few could witness it; while before the de 
 livery of the Virgimus, the interior of the ship had been 
 knocked to pieces, and its decks smeared with excrement 
 and other filth. 
 
 This mortifying incident had not been forgotten by 
 the American people; and the memory of it gave 
 poignancy to the anger with which they viewed the bar 
 barities of Weyler. In 1896, both the Democratic and 
 the Republican platforms had expressed sympathy with 
 the Cuban people; and the Republican declaration had 
 even hinted at actual intervention by the United States. 
 Such was the situation when President McKinley took 
 office, and before long that situation became acute. 
 
 The continuance of General Weyler s cruelties swelled 
 from week to week the rising tide of American anger, 
 which was also increased by many special incidents. The 
 frequent arrest of American citizens in Cuba, the ill- 
 treatment often accorded to them, and the insults directed 
 against American consular officers in the island, all of 
 which received a sensational publicity in the press, 
 aroused public sentiment in the United States to a pitch 
 of dangerous irritation. A definite desire for intervention 
 in Cuba became more manifest. In Congress a majority 
 of both Houses were willing to recognise the Cuban 
 rebels as belligerents. Even under President Cleveland 
 it had been proposed to grant this recognition by joint 
 resolution. Secretary Olney, however, had bluntly de 
 clared that even should such a joint resolution be adopted 
 by Congress, the President would entirely ignore it. In 
 
538 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 truth, the Cubans had not yet gained the status of bel 
 ligerency; and this was President McKinley s opinion, as 
 set forth in his first annual message (December 6, 1897). 
 Nevertheless, events were drifting dangerously toward a 
 definite crisis. The Spanish Government was still un 
 willing to consider even friendly mediation on the part 
 of the United States. The Spanish people believed that 
 Americans were secretly aiding the Cuban rebels; and 
 this, in fact, was true, although President McKinley, like 
 President Cleveland, honestly endeavoured to prevent it. 
 He felt obliged, however, to make, in September, 1897, 
 a peremptory demand for the release or speedy trial of all 
 American citizens under arrest. He had previously 21 
 asked Congress to appropriate the sum of $50,000 for 
 the benefit of indigent Americans in Cuba, and this help 
 had been promptly given. All recognised that the situa 
 tion was becoming unendurable. On September 18, 1897, 
 General Stewart L. Woodford, the new American Min 
 ister to Spain, once more tendered to the Spanish Govern 
 ment the friendly offices of the United States. In doing 
 so he wrote a sentence of which the language, although 
 guarded, was full of meaning. 22 
 
 A new ministry had been formed in Madrid under the 
 premiership of the Liberal leader, Serior Sagasta. He 
 replied to General Woodford s note by announcing that 
 Spain would grant to the Cubans the right of self-gov 
 ernment under Spanish sovereignty. General Weyler 
 was recalled and General Blanco was appointed in his 
 place. The reconcentration order was modified, and for 
 
 21 May 17, 1897. 
 
 22 " I cannot disguise the gravity of the situation, nor conceal the con 
 viction of the President that should his present effort be fruitless, his duty 
 to his countrymen will necessitate an early decision as to the course of 
 action which the time and the transcendent emergency may demand." 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 539 
 
 a time it seemed as though the crisis had passed. Such, 
 however, was not the case. The Cubans, remembering 
 the promises which Spain had broken in 1878, refused to 
 lay down their arms. The reconcentrados experienced 
 ijo real relief. Finally, the Spanish loyalists in the island 
 bitterly resented even a nominal grant of self-govern 
 ment to the Cubans. Mobs in Havana threatened the 
 authorities, and marched through the streets cheering for 
 Weyler and cursing President McKinley and the United 
 States. 
 
 So formidable were these outbreaks that the Amer 
 ican Consul-General, Fitzhugh Lee, appealed to his 
 Government to send a naval force to Cuban waters. The 
 same request had been often made before, but now at last 
 it was heeded. In January, 1898, orders were issued in 
 Washington for the North Atlantic squadron to rendez 
 vous at the Dry Tortugas, within six hours steaming dis 
 tance of Cuba; and on the 25th of the same month, the 
 second-class battleship Maine was ordered to Havana. 23 
 The despatch of the Maine was officially declared to be 
 a friendly act. The Spanish Government was notified; 
 and it consented, somewhat reluctantly, to the presence of 
 the American warship. Senor Sagasta, in a courteous 
 note, informed the American Government that Spain 
 would reciprocate by sending the Spanish armoured 
 cruiser Fizcaya to visit the harbour of New York. The 
 Maine was received with punctilious attention by the 
 Spanish authorities in Havana. She was conducted to her 
 anchorage by a Spanish officer, and her commander, Cap 
 tain Charles D. Sigsbee, became the official guest of the 
 Spanish Governor-General. The people and the press of 
 
 23 The cruiser Montgomery was at the same time ordered to touch at 
 the Cuban ports of Santiago and Matanzas. 
 
540 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Havana were, however, far less amiable. 24 Meanwhile 
 a powerful squadron of battleships and cruisers was gath 
 ering at Key West, under the command of Captain Wil 
 liam T. Sampson, who kept himself in communicatior 
 with the commander of the Maine by means of the tor 
 pedo-boat Gushing. 
 
 This was the situation at the beginning of February 
 1898, when an incident occurred to strain still further the 
 relations between the United States and Spain. The 
 Spanish Minister at Washington, Serior Dupuy de Lome 
 had written a private letter to a friend of his in Havana, 
 one Senor Canalejas. This letter fell into the hands oi 
 a Cuban sympathiser, who gave it to the American press 
 and it was published in translation on February 9th. The 
 letter spoke cynically of Spain s grant of self-governmenl 
 to Cuba. It suggested bad faith in Spain s dealings with 
 the American Government, and it contained one passage 
 which was grossly disrespectful to the American Presi 
 dent. Senor de Lome wrote of Mr. McKinley s message : 
 
 " Besides the natural and inevitable coarseness with which it 
 repeated all that press and public opinion in Spain have said oi 
 Weyler, it shows once more that McKinley is weak and a caterei 
 to the rabble, and, moreover, a cheap politician (debil y popula- 
 chero y ademas tin politicastro} who wishes to leave a door open 
 to himself and to stand well with the jingoes of his party." 
 
 The publication of this letter led to de Lome s imme- 
 
 24 On one occasion, Captain Sigsbee, while ashore, had a small printed 
 sheet thrust into his hand. It contained, among others, the following 
 paragraph: 
 
 " These Yankee pigs who meddle with our affairs, humiliate us in the 
 last degree ; and as an even greater provocation, send us a man-of-war 
 of their rotten squadron, after insulting us in their newspapers with arti 
 cles sent from our own home." 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 541 
 
 diate resignation, though the Spanish Government dis 
 claimed all sympathy with its sentiments. Popular 
 excitement, both in the United States and in Spain, in 
 creased daily. Spain protested against the presence of the 
 American squadron at Key West, and against the action 
 of the Red Cross Society in collecting subscriptions for 
 the relief of the reconcentrados. In the United States, 
 a section of the press published the most inflammatory 
 appeals in behalf of Cuba. In the Senate, the question 
 of intervention was debated from day to day; and many 
 influential leaders of both Houses urged aggressive action 
 upon President McKinley. The President, however, 
 showed great firmness and self-control. A member of his 
 Cabinet afterwards wrote: 
 
 " During the consideration of the notes exchanged, I was often 
 struck by the concern manifested by President McKinley and his 
 advisers of the Cabinet to be considerate of the susceptibilities of 
 the Spanish people, and at the same time to attain the one object 
 in view the permanent pacification of Cuba." 25 
 
 Then occurred an event of momentous and far-reach 
 ing consequences. At a little before ten o clock on the 
 evening of February i5th, the battleship Maine, as she 
 lay at anchorage in the harbour of Havana, was blown 
 up by an explosion which wrecked the ship, with a loss 
 of two officers and two hundred and sixty-four enlisted 
 men. The news of this appalling catastrophe reached 
 Washington soon after midnight, in the form of a tele 
 gram from Captain Sigsbee, in command of the Maine. 
 After briefly narrating the loss of his ship, he added the 
 words: " Public opinion should be suspended until further 
 
 25 Long, The New American Navy, i., p. 133 (New York, 1903). 
 
542 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 report." A thrill of horror and indignation, unparalleled 
 since the firing upon Sumter, swept over the American 
 people. Nevertheless, there was no violent demand for 
 vengeance. The gravity of the situation gave steadiness 
 and poise to public opinion. The nation displayed a uni 
 versal willingness to suspend judgment until a full and 
 rigorous inquiry should be made. The tone of the press 
 throughout the country was admirable, and is well exem 
 plified in an editorial which appeared in the Philadelphia 
 Press on February i8th: 
 
 " With the continued tension of feeling and the uncertainty 
 respecting the catastrophe to the Maine, there rests unabated the 
 continued duty to sobriety and reserve of judgment. This is due 
 to truth, to reason and to ultimate justice." 26 
 
 Mr. Henry Watterson wrote in the Louisville Courier- 
 Journal: 
 
 11 We are the people of common sense as well as of high spirit. 
 Hence we have never yet gone into a war that was not justified. 
 Hence, too, we await some definite reports as to the disaster 
 which befell the Maine before asserting any other sentiment than 
 horror at the calamity and grief for its victims." 
 
 And the Kansas City Star well said that the United 
 States was not seeking war, but was endeavouring to 
 ascertain whether an act of war had already been com 
 mitted against it. " A great nation can afford to take 
 time to be perfectly just." 
 
 Telegrams of sympathy from the governments of for 
 eign countries poured in upon the President. The Spanish 
 
 26 See also the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the 
 Providence Journal, the Washington Post, and the Memphis Commercial 
 Appeal of the same date. 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 543 
 
 Prime Minister spoke words of profound sympathy and 
 sorrow, as did also Governor-General Blanco in Havana; 
 while the high-minded and womanly Queen Regent of 
 Spain cabled an expression of her personal feeling of 
 horror and regret. The honour of Spain as a civilised 
 power was indeed at stake. That so terrible an event 
 should have happened in a time of peace to the warship 
 of a friendly nation while its commander was a guest of 
 Spain, jeopardised her place in the family of nations. 
 There w r ere many, however, who believed that the dis 
 aster to the American battleship had been an accident, 
 due either to the carelessness of the officers and crew or 
 to the spontaneous combustion of high explosives stored 
 within her hull. This view was tentatively held by not a 
 few Americans, while it was almost universally adopted 
 in such European nations as sympathised with Spain in 
 her controversy with the United States. 
 
 President McKinley immediately ordered a naval 
 court of inquiry to investigate the cause of the disaster. 
 This court was composed of officers whose high profes 
 sional standing was unquestioned, its president being 
 Captain W. T. Sampson, who had served as chief of the 
 Bureau of Ordnance. After a very careful examination 
 of the circumstances, based in part upon the work of 
 divers who examined the wreckage underneath the water, 
 the court of inquiry made its report to the Secretary of 
 the Navy on March 2ist. The report showed conclu 
 sively that the Maine had been destroyed from without, 
 apparently by a submarine mine. This was made evident 
 by the circumstance that the plates of the ship had been 
 blown inward and its keel driven upward through its deck 
 the reverse of what would have happened had the ex 
 plosion been an internal one. The court confined itself to 
 
544 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 a detailed statement of the facts and of its own conclu 
 sions. It did not attempt to fix the responsibility. Sub 
 sequently a Spanish court of inquiry made an independent 
 examination, and reported that the explosion had been 
 an internal one; but it gave no facts such as would amount 
 to a justification of this opinion. 
 
 It was now obvious to those in power that waf could 
 not be long averted. The temper of the people both in 
 the United States and in. Spain became distinctly bel 
 ligerent. The Spanish press teemed with insults directed 
 against the " Yankee pigs." One influential journal, El 
 Globo of Madrid, remarked: 
 
 " As a matter of fact, the United States is at present very much 
 like an immense Maine floating between the Atlantic and the 
 Pacific; and some of her crew have evidently lost their heads. 
 . . . President McKinley, the commander, does his best to 
 restore order among his undisciplined crew. The real Maine 
 was lost in consequence of the slipshod manner in which the 
 enormous quantities of explosives were stored, and to the undue 
 haste which caused these war preparations to be made on board 
 a vessel manned by an ill-disciplined crew. The ruin of the 
 United States will also probably be caused by an explosion. In 
 this case, however, it will really be external. 
 
 In the United States a no less bitter feeling now pre 
 vailed. Meetings were held in the great cities to urge a 
 declaration of war and the recognition of the Cuban 
 Republic. The tone of the press became more and more 
 warlike. Spanish flags were burned by great crowds 
 which cheered for Free Cuba, and reproached the Gov 
 ernment for its apparent inactivity. President McKinley, 
 however, and his advisers were far from deserving this 
 reproach. They knew that war was unavoidable, yet 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 545 
 
 they were desirous of gaining time for preparation. The 
 navy-yards and arsenals worked night and day. Mes 
 sages, speeding under the sea, directed the rapid con 
 centration of ships of war at important strategic points. 
 Unfinished vessels were hastily completed. Repairs were 
 made with all possible expedition. A naval officer was 
 sent to Europe to purchase men-of-war from foreign 
 nations. An immense number of torpedoes and subma 
 rine mines were bought or manufactured for the defense 
 of American harbours. Guns were mounted on the sea- 
 coast fortifications. On March 8th, Congress unani 
 mously voted an appropriation of $50,000,000 to be 
 placed at the disposal of the President " as an emergency 
 fund for national defence." Spain responded to this 
 measure by securing a loan of 200,000,000 pesetas ($40,- 
 000,000) from the Bank of Spain. On April ist, Con 
 gress appropriated for the navy a further sum of 
 $39,000,000. Negotiations still continued between 
 Spain and the United States with regard to the Cuban 
 situation, but with no satisfactory results. The recall of 
 General Fitzhugh Lee from Cuba was demanded by the 
 Spanish Government and was refused by the United 
 States. Spain proposed to submit to arbitration its al 
 leged responsibility for the destruction of the Maine; but 
 this offer was declined. The issue between the two 
 countries had now passed far beyond that isolated subject 
 of dispute. 
 
 Meanwhile, the attitude of certain foreign Powers to 
 the controversy had assumed a serious importance. Three 
 European nations of the first rank were anxious either 
 to prevent the outbreak of a war or, if it were possible, 
 directly to intervene on behalf of Spain. These three 
 
546 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 nations were Austria, France and Germany. The mo 
 tives animating their governments were quite diverse. 
 The Austrian Emperor had a dynastic interest in the wel 
 fare of the Spanish kingdom; for the Queen Regent of 
 that country was a Hapsburg, the daughter of the Aus 
 trian Archduke Karl Ferdinand, and personally admired 
 and loved by the aged Kaiser. The interest of France in 
 the dispute was a financial one. French citizens had in 
 vested large sums of money in Spanish bonds, while 
 French bankers had financed a great number of Spanish 
 commercial enterprises. A war between Spain and the 
 United States must necessarily depreciate the value of 
 these investments; and, therefore, France was eager to 
 give the strongest possible support to its Iberian neigh 
 bour. 
 
 The case of Germany was different from that either of 
 Austria or France. There was no ill-will between the 
 American people and the people of the German Empire. 
 They were friends, as they had always been. But the 
 official class in Germany disliked all that was American 
 the easy-going ways, the democratic manners, and, above 
 all, the material success of the American Republic. The 
 German military caste had been humiliated by the stub 
 born resistance offered to German ambition in Samoa, 
 and by the subsequent defeat of Bismarck in his negotia 
 tions with American commissioners at Berlin. The Ger 
 man Kaiser, with his colonial ambitions, had long been 
 vexed to find that the sturdiest of his subjects refused to go 
 on any terms to Kamerun or to New Guinea ; while every 
 ship that sailed from German ports to the United States 
 bore hundreds away to that Republic whose strength they 
 made still stronger and whose loyal sons their sons be 
 came. Hence, to the German Junker, to the arrogant 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 547 
 
 representatives of militarism, and to the monarch who 
 believed in the divine origin of his own power, America 
 seemed a land that existed only to unsettle the minds of 
 the lowly and to mock by its prosperity and contentment 
 the basic principles of autocratic rule. For many years, 
 therefore, the official German feeling towards the United 
 States had been one of smouldering dislike. Moreover, 
 the General Staff at Berlin entertained the lowest possible 
 opinion of American military power. The mighty con 
 test which was waged on American soil during the four 
 years of civil war made no impression upon the German 
 experts. It was a German chief-of-staff of whom a visitor 
 once inquired: "Have you given much attention to the 
 battles of the American war? " And he replied, with an 
 icy stare : " I have no time to waste in studying the 
 struggles of two armed mobs." So spoke the Prussian 
 military expert, and so thought all the disciples of von 
 Moltke. Americans were highly prosperous. They were 
 good at trading and at slaughtering hogs; but they de 
 served serious notice only when they made themselves 
 offensive to the Hochwohlgeboren. 
 
 In 1898, a new motive swayed the restless mind of 
 William II. He was now carrying out with vigour his 
 favourite project of a great colonial empire and of a navy 
 able to defend it. 27 His attempts at colonisation in Africa 
 had not met with much success. His subjects could not be 
 induced to go out as settlers to lands so utterly unlike the 
 land in which they had been born. In the Brazilian prov 
 ince of Rio Grande do Sul, however, many Germans had 
 found homes and had formed the nucleus of what might 
 with careful nursing become a German State. Brazil 
 
 27 See von Schierbrand, The Kaiser s Speeches, pp. 179-197 (New York, 
 1903) ; Anon., German Ambitions, pp. 34-51 (London, 1903). 
 
548 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 was weak. What, then, stood in the way of finding in 
 South America an outlet for German emigration, in a 
 country over which the flag of imperial Germany might 
 be ultimately raised? Nothing, save the fixed purpose of 
 the United States that no part of the American Continent 
 should be regarded as subject to future colonisation by 
 any European power. But how far, so queriad the 
 Kaiser, was a nation of traders and money-grubbers able 
 to maintain this doctrine in the face of a great military 
 State like Germany? Of how much importance was the 
 new American navy? What fighting power was there 
 in the sort of " armed mob " which Americans were sat 
 isfied to call an army? These questions doubtless flitted 
 through the Kaiser s mind at the moment when war 
 seemed to be impending between the United States and 
 Spain. Here was a rare opportunity for testing the 
 American capacity for war against the fleets and armies 
 of a European nation. The theoretical soldiers at Berlin 
 knew that Spain had two hundred thousand regular 
 troops in Cuba. They knew, also, that Spain possessed on 
 paper a navy not much inferior to that of the United 
 States. They argued, therefore, that the war must be a 
 fairly long one, and that if the Americans invaded Cuba 
 with their motley forces, equipped with small arms that 
 were obsolete, and unprovided with siege artillery, they 
 must inevitably be defeated by the Spanish regulars. As 
 to the navy, the Germans were not so sure; but at least 
 they thought that the contest on the sea would be fairly 
 even. Hence the Kaiser looked for a prolonged struggle, 
 with the odds somewhat in favour of Spain, at least at 
 the beginning of the war. In order that these odds might 
 be quite overwhelming, the officials in the Wilhelmsstrasse 
 conceived the plan of a diplomatic demonstration by the 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 549 
 
 chief Continental Powers, which should hint at interven 
 tion on behalf of Spain. This scheme to embarrass the 
 American Government appears to have found a ready 
 acceptance at the French Foreign Office and undoubtedly 
 at Vienna. Its consummation must, however, be carried 
 out in Washington. 
 
 There remained one factor in the situation with which 
 these three pro-Spanish Powers had still to reckon. This 
 was the attitude of Great Britain, as to which nothing 
 as yet was known, but which was of the very last im 
 portance. If that nation, with its mighty fleet, should 
 give even a passive support to the scheme of intervention, 
 then the United States might well be forced to halt and to 
 recede from aggressive action. Lord Salisbury had sent 
 explicit instructions to Sir Julian Pauncefote in Wash 
 ington; but the purport of these instructions was un 
 known. On April 6th, Sir Julian, as Dean of the 
 Diplomatic Corps, received at the British Embassy the 
 representatives of France, Austria, Germany and Italy. 
 Just what took place at this gathering is not definitely 
 known. It is practically certain, however, that the Con 
 tinental diplomats suggested that a joint note be ad 
 dressed to President McKinley, couched in such terms as 
 to imply a cordial understanding between the signers of 
 the note on behalf of their respective governments. It 
 was intended so to word this letter as to make it in effect 
 a protest against the attitude of the United States, and an 
 intimation that the five great Powers would not view with 
 indifference an attack upon the sovereignty of Spain in 
 Cuba. To the consternation of the plotters, the British 
 Ambassador gave a flat refusal. Great Britain would 
 not, by word or deed, do anything to mar the very cordial 
 relations which now existed between her and the United 
 
550 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 States. Back of this plain assertion there lurked some 
 thing even more significant a veiled intention on the 
 part of her Majesty s Government to secure to the United 
 States an entirely free hand. When these words had been 
 spoken, intervention became at once impossible, and it 
 was hastily agreed that the joint note should contain only 
 a friendly and humane expression of a general desire for 
 peace. Such a note was then prepared, and was read to 
 the President on April yth by Sir Julian Pauncefote, who 
 was accompanied to the White House by Dr. von Holle- 
 ben, the German Ambassador, M. Jules Cambon, the 
 French Ambassador, Baron von Hengelmuller, the Min 
 ister of Austria-Hungary, and the Charges d Affaires of 
 Italy and Russia. The text of the note communicated to 
 the President was as follows: 
 
 " The undersigned, representatives of Germany, Austria- 
 Hungary, France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia, duly author 
 ised in that behalf, address in the name of their respective 
 governments a pressing appeal to the feelings of humanity and 
 moderation of the President and of the American people, in their 
 existing difficulties with Spain. They earnestly hope that further 
 negotiations will lead to an agreement, which, while securing the 
 maintenance of peace, will afford all necessary guarantees for the 
 re-establishment of order in Cuba. The Powers do not doubt 
 that the humanitarian and purely disinterested character of this 
 representation will be fully recognised and appreciated by the 
 American nation." 
 
 To the reading of this note, President McKinley made 
 the following reply: 
 
 " The Government of the United States recognises the good 
 will which has prompted the friendly communication of the repre 
 sentatives of Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 551 
 
 Italy and Russia, as set forth in the address of your Excellencies, 
 and shares the hope therein expressed that the outcome of the 
 situation in Cuba may be the maintenance of peace between the 
 United States and Spain by affording the necessary guarantees for 
 the re-establishment of order in the island, so terminating the 
 chronic condition of disturbance there which so deeply injures the 
 interests and menaces the tranquillity of the American nation by 
 the character and consequences of the struggle thus kept up at 
 our doors, besides shocking its sentiments of humanity. 
 
 ;< The Government of the United States appreciates the hu 
 manitarian and disinterested character of the communication now 
 made on behalf of the Powers named ; and, for its part, is confi 
 dent that equal appreciation will be shown for its own earnest and 
 unselfish endeavours to fulfil a duty to humanity by ending a situa 
 tion, the indefinite prolongation of which has become insuffer 
 able." 
 
 The note and the reply were rather neatly summarised 
 by an editorial writer as follows: 
 
 " Said the six Ambassadors: We hope for humanity s sake you 
 will not go to war. Said Mr. McKinley in reply: We hope if 
 we do go to war, you will understand that it is for humanity s 
 sake. And the incident was closed." ~ 8 
 
 The failure of this diplomatic plot lent venom to the 
 comments which Continental journals published with re 
 gard to Spanish-American affairs. The Paris Temps 
 predicted that a war would have " grave international 
 consequences " to the United States and might even " pro 
 duce a revolution and lead to the development of 
 
 28 The New York World, April 8, 1898. Some interesting facts regard 
 ing the inner history of this episode, are given by the well-known English 
 publicist, Mr. A. Maurice Low in a paper entitled " An Unwritten Chapter 
 of Diplomatic History," published in McC lure s Magazine for July, 1900. 
 
552 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Caesarism, an evil which gnaws the vitals of every de 
 mocracy." The Journal des Debats spoke of American 
 intervention in Cuba as " an act of international piracy, 
 without a shadow of justice about it." The Libre Parole 
 in a vituperative article made clear the fact that Great 
 Britain s attitude was thoroughly well understood upon 
 the Continent. It said: 
 
 " Great Britain is the hypocritical partner of the United States. 
 Their alliance against Spain is a disgrace ; but it is just as well to 
 have them work together now, since together they w r ill have to 
 render an account to international justice. The time is coming 
 when Europe will no longer tolerate such miscreants and assassins 
 as John Bull and Brother Jonathan." 
 
 In Austria the comments of the press were equally un 
 favourable. The Fremdenblatt of Vienna declared that 
 a war with Spain would be " criminal," and asserted that 
 only an infinitesimal minority of the Cubans favoured 
 annexation to the United States. But it was in Germany 
 that anti-Americanism took on its most offensive form. 
 Thus the Berlin Echo remarked: 
 
 " A great deal of noise is made about the $50,000,000 voted 
 for warlike preparations; but this means very little, since the 
 armament of the United States was at zero. Moreover, one can 
 not tell how much of this money will stick in dirty hands. In 
 short, European opinion generally supports the view that the 
 American people yell loudest for war and are least prepared, while 
 the Spaniards are more anxious for peace, but are better armed." 
 
 Prince Bismarck s organ, the Hamburger Nachrichten, 
 compared the behaviour of the Americans to that of an 
 incendiary " who pretends to help extinguish the flames in 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 553 
 
 order to hide his own guilt." " This notoriously dis 
 reputable Republic has the assurance to pose as a censor 
 of the morals of European monarchies." Die Nation of 
 Berlin said that if war came, it would be due to " the 
 low politicians of democracy." General Bronsart von 
 Schellendorf, formerly Prussian Minister of War, was 
 quoted as saying that in German military circles the fight 
 ing capacity of the American army was not rated highly, 
 and that the American navy was not sufficiently powerful 
 to destroy the Spanish fleet. A widely read Dutch paper, 
 the fJienws van den Dag of Amsterdam, which drew its 
 inspiration from Paris and Berlin, was particularly bitter. 
 Spain, it said, has proved itself a nation of men capable 
 of any sacrifice in behalf of their national honour. 
 
 " The corruption of the Spanish officials will have to become a 
 great deal worse before it can rival in rottenness the administra 
 tion of Tammany-ridden New York or of Porkopolis. . . . 
 The meanest thing of all is that the Americans try to avoid the 
 responsibility of declaring war, and seek to insult Spain so grossly 
 that the proud Spaniard loses patience. But there is danger for 
 the rich pork-butchers of Chicago and the corrupt debauchees of 
 New York, who speculate a la baisse in war." 
 
 The Continental press teemed with the grossest carica 
 tures, in which Americans were drawn as swine. It was 
 declared again and again that the navy of the United 
 States was utterly devoid of discipline and training and 
 that the army would be put to flight by the Spanish regu 
 lars. In England both press and people were heartily 
 in sympathy with the United States. Only one conspicu 
 ous exception was found, and this was in the Saturday 
 Review of London, which maintained to the full its old 
 traditions of hostility to everything American. It de- 
 
554 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 scribed the United States as " socially sordid to the last 
 degree," and as having " contributed nothing to the self- 
 respect of humanity. On the contrary, it has shown all 
 the world to what a depth of public depravity civilisation 
 is capable of descending." Of President McKinley it 
 said: " Mr. Pecksniff rebuking vanity and selfishness 
 never struck a more beautiful attitude. America t is not 
 ready for war; the authorities at Washington know how 
 much all this pot-valiant bragging is worth." Then it 
 proceeded to forecast the result of a war between the 
 United States and Spain. It described the American sea 
 men as " the sweeping of the quays of New York and 
 New Orleans men who deserted their own ships, at 
 tracted by the high pay and easy life of the American 
 marine, to whom in most cases fighting is the last thing 
 thought of. ... The Spaniards, on the other 
 hand, are still capable of sublime heroism and daring on 
 the high seas, and it is not at all clear that Chile and Peru 
 and Mexico may not . . . discover that they, too, 
 have a moral sense which is capable of being outraged by 
 oppression and injustice." 29 
 
 As the weeks went by, American preparation took on 
 the aspect of completeness. The naval militia was mo 
 bilised. Swift ocean steamers were chartered and 
 equipped with modern guns. Two protected cruisers, a 
 gunboat and two torpedo boats were bought in England. 30 
 Of the regular naval force, a strong fleet had now as 
 sembled at Key West under Captain Sampson; a flying 
 
 29 Saturday Review, April 23, 1898. 
 
 30 In all, more than one hundred merchantmen and swift steamers were 
 purchased and transformed into auxiliary cruisers, gunboats and colliers. 
 Upon these transformed vessels more than five hundred guns were 
 mounted. 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 555 
 
 squadron under Commodore Schley lay at anchor in 
 Hampton Roads; while a patrol squadron under Com 
 modore Howell cruised in the vicinity of the northern 
 sea-coast cities. In Asiatic waters, Commodore George 
 Dewey collected at Hong Kong the ships under his com 
 mand; and to him were despatched large quantities of 
 ammunition on the cruiser Baltimore. More than fifteen 
 hundred torpedoes and mines were placed in the principal 
 harbours of American sea-coast cities. 31 The Spanish War 
 Office also displayed activity. A Spanish squadron was 
 ordered to St. Vincent, and rumour said that another 
 naval force was assembling at the Cape Verde Islands. 
 The moment for decisive action had arrived. On April 
 nth, the President sent to Congress a special message in 
 which, after a recapitulation of recent events, he asked 
 that he be empowered 
 
 " to take measures to secure a full and final termination of hos 
 tilities between the Government of Spain and the people of 
 Cuba . . . and to use the military and naval forces of the 
 United States as may be necessary for these purposes. ... In 
 the name of humanity, in the name of civilisation, in behalf of 
 endangered American interests, which give us the right and the 
 duty to speak and to act, the war in Cuba must stop. 
 
 The issue is now with the Congress. It is a solemn responsi 
 bility. I have exhausted every effort to relieve the intolerable 
 condition of affairs which is at our doors. Prepared to execute 
 every obligation imposed upon me by the Constitution and the 
 law, I await your action." 
 
 To this message, Congress responded on the iQth, 32 by 
 
 31 See Long, op. dt., i., p. 125-164; Alger, The Spanish-American War, 
 pp. 15-28 (New York, 1901). 
 
 32 The delay was due to a difference of opinion between the Senate and 
 the House as to the wording of the joint resolution. 
 
556 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 adopting a joint resolution declaring that the people of 
 Cuba were, and of right ought to be, free and independ 
 ent; authorising the President to demand that Spain re 
 linquish her sovereignty over Cuba and withdraw her 
 forces from that island; directing him to employ the army 
 and navy to enforce this demand; and finally asserting on 
 the part of the United States a determination to leave the 
 government and control of Cuba to its people. 
 
 Pursuant to this mandate, the President caused to be 
 cabled to General Woodford, the American Minister to 
 Spain, the text of an ultimatum. But already the Spanish 
 Minister in Washington had demanded and received his 
 passports, and had departed for Canada. Before Gen 
 eral Woodford in Madrid could communicate with the 
 Foreign Office, he received a note from the Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs, informing him that diplomatic relations 
 between the United States and Spain had already termi 
 nated. General Woodford thereupon left Madrid. Un 
 der very trying circumstances, he had borne himself with 
 great dignity and circumspection. For a long while, he 
 and his family had been subjected in Madrid to some 
 thing like a social ostracism; yet he had made no sign, 
 and had compelled the personal respect, both of the dip 
 lomatic corps and even of the Spanish officers of state. 
 
 Events marched fast. The Queen Regent of Spain, 
 attended by her son, the King then a boy of twelve years 
 addressed the assembled Cortes in a speech 33 animated 
 by a noble yet pathetic courage; and the people of her 
 capital greeted her with frenzied cheers as she made 
 eloquent appeal to their devotion. On the following day, 
 Captain Sampson, now raised to the rank of acting Rear- 
 
 33 Translation in Wilcox, A Short History of the War with Spain, pp. 87, 
 88 (New York, 
 
M KINLEY AND NEO-REPUBLICANISM 557 
 
 Admiral, was directed to blockade the coast of Cuba. 
 The President, almost simultaneously, called by proclama 
 tion for 125,000 volunteers. Already detachments of 
 regular troops were moving southward. Erelong they 
 began to pitch their tents in Key West. On April 25th, 
 Congress, by a unanimous vote of both Houses, made a 
 formal declaration of war. 
 
 It was with a feeling of relief that Americans received 
 the tidings of this momentous step. At last the long ex 
 pected hour had come. . The nation entered upon the 
 struggle a cceur leger. Curiously enough, there was ex 
 pressed no hatred of the Spanish people. The war ap 
 peared to the multitude in the light of a romantic episode, 
 a picturesque adventure. In the cities, at the theatres 
 and restaurants, orchestras played patriotic airs, inter 
 mingling " The Star Spangled Banner " with the strains 
 of " Dixie." Men and women leaped to their feet and 
 sang the words. An air of buoyant gaiety pervaded every 
 gathering. Once more the nation was truly and insep 
 arably one, and patriotism was not merely dominant, it 
 was the fashion. 
 
 Far more remarkable was the manner in which the 
 news was greeted in Great Britain. Within six hours 
 after the cable had told the story, all London burst 
 out into the rainbow hues of the American national 
 colours. Thousands of American flags floated from 
 shops, hotels and private houses; while streamers of red, 
 white and blue effected a brilliant contrast with the smoky 
 walls of the metropolis. A great multitude of people as 
 sembled before the American Embassy, cheering heartily 
 for the United States. No such demonstration in behalf 
 of another country had ever before been witnessed in the 
 British capital. It banished from the hearts of all Ameri- 
 
558 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 cans who witnessed it the memory of other days, when the 
 ties of blood and language had been nearly sundered. 
 
 But history was already making. From Washington, 
 on the preceding day, a brief despatch had flashed around 
 the world to Commodore Dewey at Hong Kong : 
 
 " War has commenced between the United States and Spain. 
 Proceed at once to the Philippine Islands. Commence operations 
 at once, particularly against Spanish fleet. You must capture 
 vessels or destroy. Use utmost endeavours." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE WAR WITH SPAIN 
 
 COMMODORE DEWEY, on the Asiatic station, had his 
 squadron well in hand. The vessels which composed it 
 were not reckoned among the most powerful ships of the 
 new navy, but they were in a state of high efficiency, and 
 in their class they were as good as any in the world. 
 Lying at Hong Kong was the flagship Olympia, a pro 
 tected cruiser of 5800 tons and carrying a fine armament 
 of modern guns. With her were the Baltimore, a pro 
 tected cruiser of 4600 tons, and the Raleigh, a protected 
 cruiser of 3217 tons. At Mirs Bay, on the Chinese 
 coast, thirty miles distant from Hong Kong, were the 
 protected cruiser Boston, of 3000 tons, the gunboats Con 
 cord and Petrel, and the armed revenue-cutter McCul- 
 loch, together with a collier and a supply-ship. 1 Every 
 one of these vessels had received the last touch necessary 
 to the perfection of preparedness. The complicated ma 
 chinery had been overhauled under the keen eyes of the 
 Commodore himself; the ammunition-hoists had been 
 tested. All the bunkers were filled with coal, and the 
 magazines were stored to their full capacity. Finally, 
 the crews were superbly disciplined, devoted to their offi 
 cers, and eager for any duty, however hazardous, that 
 it might be theirs to undertake. As the vessels lay at 
 anchor with steam up, they resembled a group of per 
 fectly trained athletes, impatient for the summons to 
 
 collier was the Nanshan; the supply ship was the Zafiro. 
 559 
 
560 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 glorious action. They had been stripped of every inch of 
 superfluous woodwork; and their hulls, no longer snowy 
 white, were painted a sullen slate-colour, which trans 
 formed their graceful jauntiness into a suggestion of 
 something grim and terrible. 
 
 Commodore Dewey had assumed command on Janu 
 ary 3d; and during the months that followed, he had not 
 merely shown himself to be a naval chief of rare ability, 
 but he had indirectly served his country in other and less 
 obvious ways. Here were illustrated once more the force 
 and value of personality in the conduct of great affairs. 
 Dewey was by birth a Vermonter, of the very best New 
 England stock, and had superimposed upon the sturdy 
 qualities of his ancestry all the tactfulness, the courtesy 
 of bearing, and the clear sanity of judgment which mark 
 the man who has had long experience of the great world. 
 He was now in his sixtieth year, alert and vigorous, and 
 combining the energy of youth with the sagacity of age. 
 Professionally, his career had well fitted him for great 
 responsibility. In the Civil War he had served under 
 Farragut in some of the hottest fights of that fierce strug 
 gle. Later he had been chief of the Naval Bureau of 
 Equipment and a member of the Board of Inspection 
 and Survey. Altogether he was at one and the same time 
 a cultivated gentleman, a scientific expert in naval affairs, 
 and a sailor who in battle would be inspired by the ex 
 ample of the great captain with whom he had once faced 
 the flaming forts and batteries on the lower Mississippi. 
 
 Hong Kong is one of the most intensely British of all 
 the British dependencies in the East. It is strongly gar 
 risoned, and is an important naval station. In 1898, the 
 goodwill of its people, and especially of its official so 
 ciety, was of immense importance to any combatant whose 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 561 
 
 field of action lay in Asiatic waters. Spanish agents 
 swarmed there, and in a thousand subtle ways endeav 
 oured to win British sympathy for their cause and to 
 create a feeling of antipathy towards the United States, 
 by appealing to an underlying strain of dislike and jeal 
 ousy which they imagined to exist in Englishmen. That 
 they failed utterly and hopelessly must be ascribed, in 
 part at least, to the impression which Commodore Dewey 
 and his staff created during their stay at Hong Kong 
 from January until the end of April. The Anglo-Saxon 
 type of sailor is the same in both of the great English- 
 speaking nations; and from the acting Governor down to 
 the youngest middy on shore-leave, every Briton recog 
 nised in the chiefs of the American squadron, blood- 
 brothers who fulfilled even the exacting standard which 
 Englishmen apply to those who claim to be officers and 
 gentlemen. What service was rendered to the American 
 cause by the character and personality of the American 
 commander at Hong Kong will presently appear. 
 
 The despatch of April 24th from Washington 
 reached Commodore Dewey in the nick of time. An 
 hour or two before, Great Britain s proclamation of neu 
 trality had been issued, and he must depart at once. The 
 despatch therefore relieved him of all doubt and made 
 his course of action plain. There was no delay. Signals 
 fluttered from the flagship, and soon the Olympia, fol 
 lowed closely by the Raleigh and the Baltimore, steamed 
 out to sea to the music of the national anthem. As the 
 cruisers swung into the channel, thousands of British 
 soldiers, sailors, and civilians swarmed down to the shore, 
 cheering lustily for Dewey and wishing him godspeed. 
 " Good luck to you! Smash the Dons! " was the shout 
 that reached him as a final parting. 
 
562 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 At Mirs Bay he picked up the other vessels of his 
 squadron, and on April 27th, headed for the island of 
 Luzon. As soon as the open sea was reached, the crew 
 of each ship was mustered upon deck. 2 Then was read 
 to them a proclamation issued on the 23rd by the Span 
 ish General, Basilio Augustin, Military Governor t of the 
 Philippines. This proclamation is a curiosity in the liter 
 ature of war. It began : 
 
 "Spaniards! Between Spain and the United States of North 
 America hostilities have broken out. 
 
 " The North American people, constituted of all the social 
 excrescences, have exhausted our patience, and provoked war by 
 their perfidious machinations. . . . The struggle will be short and 
 decisive. The God of victories will give us one as brilliant and 
 complete as the righteousness and justice of our cause demand. 
 Spain . . . will emerge triumphantly from this new test, humil 
 iating and blasting the adventurers from those States which, with 
 out cohesion and without a history, offer to humanity only in 
 famous traditions and the ungrateful spectacle of a Congress in 
 which appear united insolence and defamation, cowardice and 
 cynicism. 
 
 " A squadron manned by foreigners, possessing neither instruc 
 tion nor discipline, is preparing to come to this archipelago with 
 the ruffianly intention of robbing us of all that means life, honour, 
 and liberty." 
 
 The proclamation went on to say that the Americans 
 were endeavouring to substitute Protestantism for the 
 Catholic faith, to plunder and despoil, and to kidnap 
 such of the inhabitants of the islands as were needed 
 to man ships or to labour in the fields. General Au 
 gustin surpassed himself in the concluding sentences: 
 
 2 Long, The New American Navy, i. p. 183 (New York, 1903). 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 563 
 
 " Vain designs ! Ridiculous boastings ! Your indomitable 
 bravery will suffice to frustrate the attempt to carry them into 
 realisation. . . . The aggressors shall not profane the tombs of 
 your fathers; they shall not gratify their lustful passions at the 
 cost of our wives and daughters honour, or appropriate the prop 
 erty your industry has accumulated as a provision for your old 
 age. 
 
 "Filipinos! Prepare for the struggle; and, united under the 
 glorious Spanish flag, which is ever covered with laurels, let us 
 fight with the belief that victory will crown our efforts; and to 
 the calls of our enemies let us oppose, with the decision of the 
 Christian and the patriot, the cry of Viva Espana! " 3 
 
 After this proclamation had been read to the crews by 
 the division officers, the announcement was briefly made: 
 " The squadron is bound for Manila. Our orders are 
 to capture or destroy the Spanish fleet." Cheer after 
 cheer rang out with a deep note of martial exultation; 
 and when the ships bands struck up the national anthem, 
 " the chorus spread from forecastle to cabin with an en 
 thusiasm that carried the hearts of all on board." 4 
 
 For a long while, both the naval and consular author 
 ities of the United States had been trying to acquire au 
 thentic information as to the Spanish land and naval 
 forces in the Philippines. So far back as the end of Presi 
 dent Cleveland s administration, this secret inquiry began. 
 Commodore Dewey had learned much, yet much was still 
 uncertain. He knew that in the vicinity of Manila lay a 
 Spanish fleet commanded by Admiral Montojo. He 
 also knew just what vessels composed this fleet; but he 
 
 3 Long, op. cit. i. pp. 183-185; Wilcox, Short History of the War with 
 Spain, pp. 103, 104 (New York, 1898) ; see also the letter from a corre 
 spondent of the New York Herald of June 19, 1898. 
 
 4 Correspondence of the New York Herald, June 19, 1898. 
 
564 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 had been unable to gain any trustworthy information as 
 to their armament and general condition. Nor was he 
 certain as to the place where the Spanish Admiral in 
 tended to give battle. From the mass of conflicting re 
 ports, it seemed likely that Montojo s command was now 
 stationed in Subig Bay, to the northwest of Manila, where 
 the Spaniards had some time before begun to equip 
 a naval station. Commodore Dewey had endeavoured to 
 learn the exact nature of the land fortifications around 
 Manila. In 1897, tne Y na d consisted of batteries at the 
 entrance of the bay, a formidable earthwork at Sangley 
 Point, and stone redoubts and walls near the city itself. 
 These works mounted many obsolete cannon, but they 
 also had in battery a number of Armstrong breech-loading 
 rifles, and several Palliser muzzle-loaders, with an unknown 
 number of Ordonnez and Hontoria rifled guns of mod 
 ern make. How much had been done to strengthen the 
 defences in the preceding six months, Commodore Dewey 
 was unable to discover. Spanish agents in Hong Kong 
 spread reports of formidable additions to the artillery, 
 and spoke of mines as having been laid at the entrance 
 of the harbour. 
 
 In after years it became the fashion to speak lightly 
 of the danger attending the enterprise in which amid 
 those distant seas, the American squadron was engaged. 
 But it must be remembered that when Dewey moved out 
 of Mirs Bay he was facing perils the extent of which 
 was totally unknown. The Spanish fleet was numerically 
 much superior, and it had the support of batteries on land, 
 equipped with powerful cannon. If the American ships 
 should fail to destroy their adversaries, they would them 
 selves be in a perilous position. All foreign ports were 
 closed to them; and the nearest American harbour was 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 565 
 
 eight thousand miles away. Hence, they must either 
 win a decisive victory or else retire to some Chinese or 
 British station, there to remain interned until the con 
 clusion of the war. It was, then, no holiday excursion 
 for the Commodore and his captains, but a warlike ven 
 ture containing so many elements of the unknown as to 
 justify the utmost vigilance and the most serious con 
 cern. In the United States, public expectation was keyed 
 to a high pitch when the cable reported that Dewey was 
 proceeding to the Philippines. What might befall him 
 there no one could venture to predict. 
 
 These thoughts may have flitted through the mind of 
 the American commander as he steamed across the China 
 Sea towards the island of Luzon; but he was essentially 
 a man of action, and his energies and reflections were 
 given first of all to the task immediately in hand. At 
 daybreak on April 3Oth, low-lying hills clothed with 
 tropical verdure were sighted by the lookouts; and soon 
 the squadron approached the entrance of Subig Bay, 
 where Dewey believed the Spanish Admiral to be await 
 ing him. But the Boston and the Concord searched that 
 port in vain. Montojo had reached Subig on the 24th, 
 but finding the land defences incomplete, he had hastened 
 back to Manila exactly one day before the Americans 
 arrived. Calling in his scouts, Commodore Dewey sum 
 moned his captains to the flagship for a council of war. 
 It was quickly decided to run the batteries at Manila 
 and to strike the Spanish fleet under the very guns of the 
 protecting forts. As the squadron turned its prows to 
 wards the scene of the impending battle, the last touch 
 was given to the work of preparation. Chain-cables were 
 coiled about the ammunition hoists, splinter-nets were 
 stretched along the front of the wooden bulkheads, and 
 
566 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 even the mess-tables, chests and chairs were flung into the 
 sea. 5 
 
 It was Commodore Dewey s purpose to force an en 
 trance to Manila Bay by night. Of the two channels 
 which lead to it, he chose the larger (Boca Grande) . He 
 reached its mouth at ten o clock in the darkness of a trop 
 ical evening. Clouds obscured the light of a, young 
 moon, and only now and then to the eyes of the watchful 
 navigators did the land loom dimly into view. On each 
 side lay the Spanish batteries. Ahead was a huge grey 
 rock, El Fraile, where, unknown to the Americans, were 
 mounted guns of formidable calibre. Beneath the black 
 waters were mines which the closing of an electric cir 
 cuit would explode with frightful power. But Dewey s 
 purpose was unalterable. With the batteries, if neces 
 sary, his guns would reckon; while as to the mines, he 
 may have recalled the vigorous order of his old com 
 mander, Farragut, at Mobile Bay: " Damn the tor 
 pedoes! Full steam ahead! " 
 
 No bugle sounded as the men were sent to their re 
 spective stations, but whispered orders passed from mouth 
 to mouth. In complete darkness, save for a single white 
 light at the stern, the vessels fell into line and passed 
 slowly up the channel, the Olympia leading, and after 
 her, in order, the Baltimore, the Raleigh, the Petrel, the 
 Concord, the Boston, the McCulloch and the colliers. As 
 they approached the giant rock, El Fraile, a Spanish sen 
 try sighted the gleaming stern-light of the Olympia. Sig 
 nals flashed amid the darkness; a rocket hissed upwards 
 and burst high overhead. Then from the battery on the 
 south shore, a long stream of fire shot out, followed J y 
 the crash of cannon. El Fraile of a sudden was circled 
 by flames, as its guns joined in the deadly chorus. Then 
 
 Correspondence of the New York Herald, June 19, 1898. 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 567 
 
 thundered in reply an American broadside. The Raleigh, 
 Concord, Boston, and McCulloch hurled a tempest of 
 projectiles at the forts on shore,, One six-inch shell from 
 the Concord exploded in the midst of the Restinga bat 
 tery, silencing it in less than three minutes after it had 
 gone into action. Two mines burst with a terrific roar 
 ahead of the Olympia; but she received no harm, and 
 soon the squadron, uninjured and once more silent, 
 had passed on into the broad waters of Manila Bay. 
 
 The city lay twenty miles ahead. From the American 
 squadron its clustered lights could be seen twinkling in 
 the distance. With speed reduced to four knots, the in 
 vaders moved slowly up the bay; and at a little before five 
 o clock, the dawn of a tropical morning revealed a long 
 grey line of Spanish ships, made more conspicuous by 
 their contrast with the snow-white walls of the arsenal 
 at Cavite before which they were lying. 
 
 Admiral Montojo had been kept informed of Dewey s 
 movements since the latter left Mirs Bay on April 2yth. 
 He knew that the Americans had entered Subig harbour, 
 and that they had then headed their ships in the direction 
 of Manila. But, as he viewed the situation, Manila and 
 his own fleet were safe from immediate attack. The 
 " unwarlike and undisciplined Yankees " would not dare 
 to attempt the passage through the Boca Grande and re 
 ceive the fire of its forts. They would doubtless block 
 ade the entrance, and try to pick off a few Spanish mer 
 chant vessels, as affording a safe and easy conquest. 
 Therefore Admiral Montojo s officers and men had 
 leave freely granted them, and many of them were in bed 
 fin shore when the distant booming of cannon came faintly 
 up the bay in the midnight stillness. A few minutes 
 later, and word reached the Admiral that not only had the 
 
568 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 audacious American Commodore entered the channel, but 
 that he had safely passed the forts and was even now mov 
 ing up the bay to grapple with the Spanish fleet. Then 
 there was wild excitement in Manila, bugles sounding, 
 drums beating, and a hasty muster of all who were ashore. 
 
 Admiral Montojo s entire command consisted of a 
 score of vessels, including two swift liners 6 which had 
 been converted into auxiliary cruisers. But of this num 
 ber, several were only " mosquito gunboats," 7 while 
 others were not in condition for service. 8 To meet the 
 American squadron there were drawn up in a long, cres 
 cent-shaped line of battle seven ships of war the Relna 
 Cristina (flagship), Don Antonio de Ulloa, Don Juan 
 de Austria, Isla de Cuba, Ida de Luzon, Cano, and Mar 
 ques del Dnero. Of these ships, the Reina Cristina was 
 the most powerful, being of 3500 tons displacement and 
 carrying a battery of 6-inch and 2-inch modern guns, 
 with a secondary battery of rapid-firing three-pounders. 
 The other Spanish vessels were smaller than the flagship, 
 ranging from 3000 to 500 tons, but with excellent guns. 
 There were also four torpedo-boats, two of which took 
 part in the action. In tonnage and in armament, this 
 fleet was decidedly inferior to the American squadron; 
 yet it was supported by land batteries at Cavite, and at 
 Sangley Point, and by the guns mounted at the naval 
 arsenal behind it. From the point of view of the mili 
 tary theorist, the odds were, on the whole, decidedly in 
 favour of the Spaniards. 
 
 At a few minutes after five there fluttered from the 
 
 6 The Isla de Mindanao and the Manila. 
 
 7 Some of the mosquito fleet were on duty in other parti, of the 
 Philippines. 
 
 8 The Velasco, Lezo, and Argos. 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 569 
 
 signal-mast of the Olympia the order, " Prepare for 
 general action " ; and a moment later, on all of the Amer- 
 can ships the Stars and Stripes were broken out. At once 
 the gaudy colours of Spain flew from the opposing line, 
 and the guns of the shore-batteries blazed, followed 
 shortly by a broadside from the Spanish fleet. Commo 
 dore Dewey and his flag-officer, Captain Gridley, stood 
 on the bridge of the Olympia, tranquilly observing the 
 shell-fire of the enemy which lashed the waters about 
 them into yellow foam. Presently the Commodore, turn 
 ing quietly to his companion, remarked in a casual tone: 
 " You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." An eight- 
 inch forward gun roared from the Olympiads turret, and 
 soon every American ship had found the range and was 
 smothering its doomed antagonists with projectiles. Five 
 times did Dewey pass slowly up and down the Spanish 
 line, lessening the distance at each turn. The Spanish 
 gunners could not stand the terrific storm of steel that 
 burst about them. Their shots flew wild, for they fired 
 without aim. At half-past seven, Commodore Dewey, 
 having been erroneously informed that his supply of five- 
 inch shells was running low, drew off his ships to take 
 account of his remaining ammunition. During this in 
 terval, the men at the guns were served with breakfast. 
 Misunderstanding the manoeuvre, the Spanish Governor 
 cabled to Madrid a message announcing that the Ameri 
 cans had been repelled with heavy loss. 
 
 When the order to withdraw was given, Dewey did 
 not know how badly his fire had damaged his opponents. 
 But observation soon revealed the fact that the Spanish 
 squadron had been practically wiped out of existence. 
 The Reina Cristina was heeled over so that her bulwarks 
 were awash. The Castilla was on fire. Two torpedo- 
 
570 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 boats had been sunk. Of the other vessels, only one, the 
 Don Antonio de Ulloa, was fit to continue fighting; and 
 presently when its captain, disobeying Montojo s orders, 
 sallied out to renew the battle, the gallant little gunboat 
 was smashed and sunk by the concentrated fire of three 
 American cruisers. The Spaniards were not only beaten 
 they were annihilated; and only the shore-batteries re 
 mained. Commodore Dewey sent a brief message to the 
 Governor-General that unless the shore fire from Manila 
 ceased at once, the city would be shelled. The threat was 
 effective ; and the squadron steamed back to Cavite, where 
 after a brief and brilliant action, the forts and earth 
 works were knocked to pieces and the gunners driven out 
 by a hail of bursting shells. It was now high noon, and 
 the battle of Manila had been fought and won. 9 In 
 the space of seven hours the United States had conquered 
 a footing in the Orient. 
 
 Commodore Dewey now sent a message to the Gov 
 ernor-General asking that the cable be neutralised, and that 
 both Spaniards and Americans be allowed to use it. Gen 
 eral Augustin refused; whereupon Dewey ordered it to be 
 fished up and cut, thereby severing the Philippines from 
 telegraphic communication with the world. The Zafiro 
 hastened to Hong Kong and thence cabled the following 
 historic despatch to Washington: 
 
 " Manila, May I. Squadron arrived at Manila at daybreak 
 this morning. Immediately engaged the enemy and destroyed the 
 
 9 See Long, op. cit. i. pp. 165-200; Wilcox, op. cit. pp. 102-117; Barrett, 
 Admiral George Dewey, pp. 74-86 (New York, 1899) ; correspondence of 
 the New York Herald for June 19, 1898; and especially the detailed report 
 of Admiral Dewey to the Navy Department under date of May 3, 1898. 
 The Spanish account of the battle is given in the official report by Admiral 
 Montojo (translation in Barrett, op. cit. Appendix, pp. 265-274). 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 571 
 
 following vessels: Reina Cristina, Castillo., Don dntonio de Ulloa, 
 Isla de Luzon, Isla de Cuba, General Lezo, Marques del Duero, 
 Cano, Velasco, Isla de Mindanao, a transport and a water-battery, 
 at Cavite. The squadron is uninjured and only a few men are 
 slightly wounded. Only means of telegraphing is to American 
 Consul at Hong Kong. I shall communicate with him. 
 
 " DEWEY." 
 
 And a second despatch added (May 4th) : 
 
 " I have taken possession of naval station at Cavite. . . . Have 
 destroyed the fortifications at bay entrance, paroling the garrison, 
 I control bay completely and can take city at any time." 
 
 The first of these despatches reached Washington on 
 May yth and was at once made public. Popular enthu 
 siasm was unbounded. So swift and so complete a victory 
 thrilled the entire nation. A decisive naval battle in far- 
 distant waters appealed to the imagination of Americans 
 as possessing an element of the romantic. Commodore 
 Dewey s portrait was everywhere displayed. Within a 
 few hours he had become a popular hero. President 
 McKinley at once advanced him to the rank of acting 
 Rear-Admiral, and cabled him the thanks of Congress 
 and his countrymen. The war was now more popular 
 than ever, and both President and people felt that this 
 great success on sea must be followed up by operations on 
 land. Dewey s second telegram had declared that he 
 could take the city at any time ; but it was obvious that he 
 had not men enough to hold it 10 should Spain despatch 
 an expedition to the Philippines. Hence General T. M. 
 Anderson was designated to command the first of several 
 relief expeditions; and he set sail from San Francisco on 
 
 10 The number of men in Dewey s squadron on May ist was 1780. 
 
572 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 May 24th, with a body of 2500 troops, carried by three 
 transports and escorted by the cruiser Charleston. 11 
 
 The news of the battle of Manila Bay was heard with 
 very diverse emotions in the various countries of Europe. 
 Before the cable was cut by Dewey, Governor-General 
 Augustin had telegraphed to Madrid the tidings of dis 
 aster, declaring, however, that the Americans had suffered 
 heavy losses. Even his euphemistic language, however, 
 could not conceal the essential facts. It was plain that the 
 American squadron had won a brilliant victory. In Lon 
 don another great demonstration took place in favour of 
 the United States. The last vestige of doubt as to Amer 
 ican prowess was swept away; and such pro-Spanish 
 journals as the Globe and Morning Post took refuge in a 
 sulky acquiescence. The other London dailies reflected 
 the popular admiration for the United States. A leading 
 article in the Times (May 9th) declared: 
 
 " The destruction of the Spanish fleet was as complete as any 
 achievement in naval annals. Dewey showed himself worthy alike 
 of the finest traditions of the United States navy and of his kin 
 ship with the race that produced Nelson." 
 
 Said the Daily News of the same date: 
 
 " Dewey s despatches, in their conciseness and modesty, are in 
 accordance with the best naval traditions. The battle establishes 
 a record among contests of the kind ; for one of the combatants 
 destroyed the whole fleet of the other without himself suffering 
 any loss whatever. ... It is especially worth noting that the 
 discipline on the American ships is reported to have been perfect; 
 for many Spanish authorities and some independent critics thought 
 
 11 Even before the official news of the battle had reached Washington, 
 it had been decided (May 4th) to despatch a military expedition to the 
 Philippines. 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 573 
 
 that this might be a weak point on the American side. The excel 
 lence of the American tactics and the superiority of marksmanship 
 are certain to be a prominent feature of this war." 
 
 But it was not only from the British press that expres 
 sions of friendship came. On May I3th, the Rt. Hon. 
 Joseph Chamberlain, speaking to an immense audience 
 in Birmingham, declared amid prolonged cheering that 
 " though war be terrible, it would be cheaply purchased, 
 if, in a great and noble cause, the Stars and Stripes and 
 the Union Jack should wave together over an Anglo- 
 Saxon alliance." And even more significant were some 
 sentences uttered by the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, 
 at the annual meeting of the Primrose League. Refer 
 ring to Spain and China, he said: " Those States are be 
 coming weaker, and the strong States stronger " ; and he 
 drew a contrast between " living nations " and " dying 
 States." So frank a declaration from a responsible states 
 man had a meaning of its own; and ere long the impor 
 tance of Great Britain s attitude was to become apparent 
 to the world. 
 
 In Spain, Governor-General Augustin s illusive de 
 spatch of the morning of May ist set Madrid ablaze with 
 joy. Houses were decorated and flags flew. For a few 
 hours Spanish pride was gratified to the full. Then came 
 the crushing truth, and with it a feeling of anger and 
 despair. The press cried out for revenge; but even the 
 Government organ could find few words of hope. It 
 said: 
 
 " Yesterday was a sad but glorious day for Spain. Let the 
 people be calm, and allow nothing to shake their confidence in the 
 future triumph of Spain." 12 
 
 12 El Liberal (Madrid), May 2, 1898. 
 
574 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 But the depression in Madrid was more than matched 
 by the chagrin and deep resentment excited in Paris and 
 Berlin. The French had welcomed the despatch of Au- 
 gustin with glee. The Parisian press had been predicting 
 a Spanish triumph, and the people believed for a time 
 that such a triumph had occurred. Even Augustin s later 
 report was received with incredulity. Spanish agents still 
 asserted that Montojo had led Dewey into a trap. But 
 conviction could not be long withheld. On May 3d the 
 Temps editorially remarked: 
 
 " The United States put into the balance so crushing a superi 
 ority of resources and of force as to leave no doubt of the result. 
 As soon as Castilian honour has received the satisfaction which it 
 requires, will not the moment come for Europe to speak its word ? " 
 
 The notion that Europe or some European power 
 should interfere in the progress of events at Manila was 
 one that found warm support in official Germany. The 
 press of Berlin had on May 2nd received from Spanish 
 sources the news of Dewey s victory, but it was either 
 suppressed or published with expressions of doubt as to its 
 being exaggerated or false. A little later the Kolnische 
 Folkszeitung remarked editorially: 
 
 "We do not favour intervention in this war, but we are of the 
 opinion that the European Powers ought to exert strong diplo 
 matic pressure at the first opportunity in order to shorten the 
 struggle. The Yankees are already swollen with pride. If they 
 win another decisive victory, scarcely any European nation will be 
 able to associate with them diplomatically. In view of the un 
 friendly sentiments entertained in the United States towards Ger 
 many, and the many economic disputes between the two countries, 
 it is very possible that Germany may be made the next victim of 
 American impudence." 13 
 
 13 Kolnische Volkszeitung, May 7, 1898. 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 575 
 
 Actual intervention was, however, hardly contem 
 plated by the German Foreign Office. The Kaiser, whose 
 unfavourable opinion of the United States was not a 
 spontaneous impression of his own, but had been inher 
 ited by him as one of the Junker traditions, openly ex 
 pressed admiration of American prowess at Manila. 
 When the news reached him he is reported to have ex 
 claimed: 
 
 " There is evidently something besides l smartness 
 and commercialism in the Yankee blood! Those fellows 
 at Cavite fought like veterans ! " 14 
 
 Nor were his most reckless advisers ready to suggest 
 a course of action that would certainly plunge Germany 
 into a transatlantic war. Yet there were reasons why, with 
 out a resort to arms, German policy demanded that the 
 attitude of the Empire toward the United States, es 
 pecially in the East, should be one of unfriendliness if 
 not of actual menace. In the preceding year, Germany 
 had coerced China into giving up rhe port of Kiau-Chau 
 with some adjacent territory in the northerly province of 
 Shan-Tung. This was intended to be the starting-point 
 for a vast extension of German influence, both commer 
 cial and military. It marked another step in the Kaiser s 
 colonial policy, which was to end by making Germany 
 the rival of Great Britain in the Orient. If the Philip 
 pines were to fall from Spain s enervated hand, they 
 would be a rich prize for the Power that might be ready 
 and waiting to receive them. Why should not this Power 
 be Germany? The Americans, in their new-born am 
 bition, would possibly consider the retention of the Isl 
 ands. If so, they must be made to drop the project. In 
 plain language, they must be bullied out of it. Germany 
 must display so marked a show of force, and must carry 
 
 14 Cable despatch to New York Tribune, May 8, 1898. 
 
576 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 things off with so high a hand, as to make the Yankees 
 glad to abandon the Philippines so soon as the first fight 
 ing should be over. The scheme was essentially Bis- 
 marckian in its arrogance. Its execution was begun with 
 Bismarckian promptness. 
 
 On May ijth, Admiral Dewey, in a despatch to the 
 Navy Department, mentioned the fact that certain for 
 eign warships had arrived in Manila Bay and were ob 
 serving his operations. These vessels consisted of a Brit 
 ish gunboat, a small Japanese cruiser, a French cruiser 
 (the Brulx} , and two German vessels. Presently the 
 German contingent was rapidly augmented until it 
 reached the proportions of a squadron. On June I3th 
 there were four German ships of war " observing opera 
 tions." On June 23d there were five of them. 15 These 
 were the newly built, first-class steel cruiser Kaiserin Au 
 gusta, the battleship Kaiser, the swift second-class cruisers 
 Irene and Prinzess Wilhelm, and the gunboat Kormoran. 
 It was announced that another battleship, the Deutsch- 
 land, and the cruiser Gefion were soon to join the squad 
 ron, 16 thus concentrating at Manila the entire naval force 
 maintained by Germany in Asiatic waters. In tonnage, 
 in guns, and in armour this squadron outclassed the ships 
 which Admiral Dewey had at his disposal, and its mere 
 presence involved at once a problem and a menace. No 
 such number of- vessels was necessary, since in Manila 
 Germany had no obvious interests to protect; and hence, 
 upon any pacific hypothesis this naval display was quite 
 inexplicable. 
 
 There were peculiar reasons why Admiral Dewey and 
 
 15 Despatch of Admiral Dewey from Cavite, June 23, 1898. 
 
 16 Cable despatch to New York Herald (June 28) from Manila (dated 
 June 23, 1898). 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 577 
 
 his command should view the presence of the Germans 
 with distrust and even positive displeasure. Before the 
 declaration of war between the United States and Spain, 
 but while hostilities seemed more than probable, Prince 
 Henry of Prussia had arrived at Hong Kong in command 
 of several German ships of war. Prince Henry had been 
 despatched to the Far East by his brother the Kaiser, 
 who in taking leave of him had announced in a highly 
 rhetorical speech that this expedition was sent out for 
 the purpose of displaying Germany s " mailed hand " in 
 the Orient. Prince Henry arrived at Hong Kong in the 
 month of March. His officers were not at all reticent in 
 publicly expressing their sympathy with Spain; and the 
 Prince himself committed a breach of etiquette which 
 seemed to show distinct unfriendliness to the United 
 States. He gave a banquet to the officers of the foreign 
 warships then at Hong Kong, among them being Com 
 modore Dewey and several members of his staff. In the 
 course of the banquet, the Prince proposed a series of 
 toasts to the great Powers, naming them in alphabetical 
 order, according to the French form. Thus, first of all, 
 he raised his glass to Germany (Allemagne}, then to 
 England (Angleterre] , although that nation should have 
 been toasted as Great Britain (Grande-Bretagne} , and 
 then to Spain (Espagne) . Then should have come a 
 toast to the United States (Etats-Unis) , but the name 
 was omitted by Prince Henry, who next drank to France. 
 At this open affront to his country, Commodore Dewey 
 made a sign to his officers, and with him they at once left 
 the banquet-hall, quietly, but without ceremony. The 
 affair caused a marked sensation; and naval sentiment at 
 Hong Kong, even among foreigners, censured the dis 
 courtesy of Prince Henry. Therefore, on the following 
 
578 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 day, one of his staff was sent to make a roundabout ver 
 bal apology to the American Commodore. Dewey, how 
 ever, refused to receive it in that form. The slight, he 
 said, was not personal to himself, but had been offered 
 the country which he had the honour to serve. It had 
 come from the Prince, and publicly. Hence, the apol 
 ogy must also come from him, either in person or* in writ 
 ing. Prince Henry thereupon did call upon Commodore 
 Dewey and made a formal apology, saying that he had 
 forgotten to keep to the French order of names and had 
 carelessly thought of the United States in the German 
 form (Feremigte-Staaten) , 17 
 
 When the Kaiserin Augusta reached Manila early in 
 June, she brought with her Vice-Admiral von Diederich, 
 who was in command of the German naval force in Asi 
 atic waters. This officer was thoroughly imbued with a 
 dislike for everything American, and his personal preju 
 dice seems to have led him to go further than even his 
 instructions warranted. Not merely were his official acts 
 of an unfriendly and at times threatening character, but 
 he exhibited a certain boorishness and gratuitous incivility 
 which could not have been justified in an open enemy. 
 By the usages of international law, a blockaded port is 
 under control of the blockading force, and the officer in 
 command of such a force is entitled to make and to main 
 tain regulations governing all vessels which may enter 
 the waters dominated by his guns. Admiral Dewey, 
 knowing that there were Spanish gunboats in other parts 
 of the Philippines, very properly required that no ships 
 should enter the harbour of Manila after nightfall, 
 
 17 See an interview with Mr. Charles N. Post, in the New York Herald 
 of June 2, 1898. The account in the text differs slightly from that of 
 Mr. Post, but is given on what is believed to be excellent authority. 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 579 
 
 guarding in this way against possible attack upon his own 
 squadron by torpedo-boats and other hostile craft. The 
 German Vice-Admiral chose to consider such a regula 
 tion unwarranted. His own ships, therefore, moved about 
 from point to point without notice to Admiral Dewey, 
 and they did so in the night as well as in the daytime. 
 When this occurred within the harbour, the American 
 ships directed their searchlights full upon the German 
 vessels, thus keeping them always under a brilliant glare. 
 But on several occasions German cruisers after leaving 
 the harbour, entered it by night in defiance of the Ameri 
 can Admiral s orders. After this had happened twice, 
 Admiral Dewey desisted from further verbal protest and 
 decided upon vigorous action. Presently a German ship 
 came stealing in under cover of the darkness. As she 
 neared the inner waters, a shell was fired directly across 
 her bow, and the blaze of a searchlight revealed the 
 Baltimore with decks cleared, and her crew at the guns 
 ready to follow up the monitory shell with a full broad 
 side. Admiral von Diederich was furious, but thereafter 
 this particular regulation was not broken. 
 
 Another like incident, however, was still more serious 
 in its possible results. One evening, in the dusk, a strange 
 launch was descried making its way silently towards the 
 Olympia, Though twice hailed, it made no answer. Both 
 Admiral Dewey and his flag captain were on the Olym 
 piad deck. Through the darkness they saw the launch 
 still steaming rapidly in the direction of the flagship. 
 The Admiral at once ordered a shot to be fired in warn 
 ing; and when even then the launch continued on its way, 
 a gunner was directed to " fire again and fire to hit." A 
 cannon roared, and a solid shot struck within three feet 
 of the launch, drenching it with water. Immediately the 
 
58o TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 intruder stopped and displayed the German colours. An 
 American launch darted out from the side of the Olym- 
 pia and overhauled the stranger, which was found to be 
 in command of a staff officer of the German Admiral. 
 This person was taken aboard the Olympia ashen white 
 with fear and anger. He was ordered into the presence 
 of Admiral Dewey, who said to him with ill-concealed 
 indignation : 
 
 " Do you know what you have done? Do you know 
 that such a rash act on your part is against all the rules 
 of war and might have brought serious trouble to your 
 country and mine? It would have been easy for a Span 
 ish boat to hoist a German flag and sink the Olympia if 
 we failed to stop it. There is no excuse for such careless 
 ness ! Present my compliments to your Admiral and ask 
 him to direct his officers to be more careful in the 
 future." 18 
 
 In many other ways the Germans attitude was vexa 
 tious and annoying. They held constant communication 
 with the Spaniards on shore. They had an irritating habit 
 of following the American vessels about the harbour. 
 Again and again they violated the minor requirements 
 of the blockade. In every possible fashion they made 
 evident an unfriendly spirit, and at times it seemed as 
 though they were eagerly awaiting an opportunity for 
 actual hostilities. Admiral Dewey kept his temper won 
 derfully well, and though his ships were inferior to those 
 of von Diederich, he took as firm a tone as though he 
 were backed by a great fleet. Yet he and all his com 
 mand longed for the reinforcements which he knew were 
 coming, and especially for the great monitor, Monterey, 
 whose heavy armour and twelve-inch guns made her more 
 than a match for the most powerful of the German ships. 
 
 18 Barrett, op. cit., pp. 110-112. 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 581 
 
 The Kaiser and the Deutschland the two German battle 
 ships were, in fact, not very formidable vessels in their 
 own class. They had been launched nearly twenty-five 
 years before, and one of the new American battleships 
 could have blown them out of the water in five minutes. 
 Yet they carried modern ten-inch guns, and Dewey s un- 
 armoured cruisers were no fit antagonists for them. 
 
 In estimating the conduct of the Germans through 
 out this trying period, it must in fairness be remem 
 bered that the German navy was a new creation. It 
 lacked those traditions which are a part of the training 
 of the naval officers of other leading Powers. Von Die- 
 derich knew nothing either of international law or of naval 
 etiquette. In maritime language he had no " sea man 
 ners." In this respect his conduct was in sharp contrast to 
 that of the French naval officers at Manila. They were 
 pro-Spanish in their sympathies. Yet their official attitude 
 was absolutely correct. But von Diederich was, from 
 the point of view of British and American sailors, a 
 parvenu of the sea, and this is why he played his un 
 pleasant part with unnecessary offensiveness. He simply 
 knew no better. His ignorance, in fact, was so com 
 plete as to make one doubt whether he even recognised 
 the neat rebukes which were administered to him by 
 an English officer whose name will always be associated 
 with the long American blockade of Manila. This was 
 Captain (afterwards Sir) Edward Chichester, of Her 
 Majesty s navy, to whom Americans owe a lasting 
 debt of gratitude. When the German squadron at Ma 
 nila began to assume formidable proportions, there had 
 appeared upon the scene three British warships under the 
 command of Captain Chichester, whose flag flew from 
 the belted cruiser Immortalite. His vessels steamed well 
 
582 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 in toward the city and took their station not far from 
 where the American squadron lay. Captain Chichester 
 was a fine type of the English gentleman and sailor. Off 
 duty he was a jovial comrade; on his quarter-deck he 
 was a genuine son of battle. He greeted Admiral Dewey 
 as an old friend, and the two maintained an intercourse 
 which, both officially and personally, was one of cordial 
 intimacy. After Dewey had put an end to the German 
 violation of the blockading orders, von Diederich wrote to 
 Captain Chichester asking him to join in a formal pro 
 test. Presently von Diederich had himself conveyed to 
 the Immortalite. Captain Chichester received him in his 
 cabin, where von Diederich found the Englishman por 
 ing over a number of volumes on international law. Von 
 Diederich verbally repeated his request of the day 
 before. 
 
 " Ah," said Captain Chichester, shaking his head with 
 seeming grief, " I don t see how I can join you in your 
 protest. I ve been looking up all the authorities, and I 
 find that this American Admiral is so deadly right in 
 everything he does that if we make a protest we shall 
 only show that we know nothing at all about interna 
 tional law." 19 
 
 On another occasion, when von Diederich called, he 
 saw displayed upon the British Captain s writing table 
 a large red book. In course of the conversation he 
 chanced to inquire what the book might be. 
 
 That," said Captain Chichester, " is a book on naval 
 etiquette." 
 
 " Indeed," remarked the Gerrnan. " I wasn t aware 
 that such a book existed." 
 
 " Ah," cried Captain Chichester, with suspicious eager 
 ness, " let me present you with it. You really ought to 
 
 19 Long, op. at. ii. pp. 112-113. 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 583 
 
 read it. I m sure you must need it awfully. You will 
 learn an immense deal from it." 
 
 It was probably the attitude of the British comman 
 der which kept von Diederich from actually going to the 
 point at which shots must have been exchanged between 
 the American and German ships. Nevertheless, more 
 than once the situation became so strained as to be almost 
 unendurable. On June 3Oth, however, the first American 
 relief expedition reached Manila, with the 2500 troops 
 who had sailed from San Francisco on May 25th, con 
 voyed by the cruiser Charleston. It was a small force, 
 yet its arrival was most welcome. It added another 
 cruiser to Dewey s squadron, and it enabled General 
 Anderson, who came with it, to man the captured Span 
 ish forts. It brought also a detachment of heavy artil 
 lery. Its arrival, however, gave the Germans an oppor 
 tunity once more to exhibit an insolence which was not 
 only exasperating, but extremely stupid, in that it accom 
 plished nothing. When the Charleston and the three 
 transports entered Manila Bay, the Kaiserin Augusta 
 got up steam and followed close behind them, dogging 
 their heels after a fashion that could be explained only as 
 an attempt to be gratuitously offensive. 20 This same in 
 tention was shown in a graver form when Admiral 
 Dewey learned that a German cruiser had landed a supply 
 of provisions for the Spanish in Manila. This was not 
 only a breach of the blockade, but a breach of neutrality 
 as well, amounting practically to an act of war. Dewey s 
 patience now broke down completely. That the Germans 
 should be actually furnishing the Spaniards with supplies 
 was something not to be condoned or overlooked. Calling 
 his flag-lieutenant, he directed him in level tones to present 
 the Admiral s compliments to von Diederich and inform 
 
 20 Lodge, The War with Spain, p. 205 (New York, 1899). 
 
584 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 him " of this extraordinary disregard of the usual courte 
 sies of naval intercourse," which was also a gross breach 
 of neutrality. Then, changing his tone to one of sharp 
 command, he said: 
 
 " And say to Admiral von Diederich that if he wants 
 a fight, he can have it now! " 21 
 
 Admiral von Diederich quickly betook himself to the 
 British flagship and descended into Captain Chichester s 
 cabin. With a flustered air he asked: 
 
 " Have you instructions as to your action in case of 
 actual hostilities between myself and the American 
 squadron? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Captain Chichester, " I have." 
 
 " May I ask then," continued the German, " to be in 
 formed as to the nature of those instructions?" 
 
 There are only two persons here," said the British 
 Captain, " who know what my instructions are. One 
 of those persons is myself, and the other is Admiral 
 Dewey." 
 
 The German retired, pondering this answer; and pres 
 ently he disavowed the action of his subordinates in pro 
 visioning the Spaniards, declaring that they had acted 
 without his authority. 
 
 Another episode must be narrated, and this is one 
 which has received the most general attention, though in 
 reality it was no more significant than many others. A body 
 of Philippine insurgents were threatening the Spanish 
 naval post at Isla Grande in Subig Bay. They could 
 readily have captured it, had not the German cruiser 
 Irene appeared and threatened to open fire upon them 
 if they advanced. When news of this was brought to 
 
 21 J. L. Stickney, quoted by Long, op. cit. ii., pp. 111-112; and Lodge, 
 op. cit., p. 196. 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 585 
 
 Admiral Dewey, he hastily despatched the Raleigh and 
 the Concord, with instructions to see that Isla Grande 
 was taken at any cost. It was thought that the Irene 
 would offer forcible resistance. Hence, the two Amer 
 ican cruisers, as they steamed towards the entrance of 
 Subig Bay, were stripped for battle. No sooner, how 
 ever, were they sighted by the commander of the Irene, 
 than he cut his cable, crowded on all steam, and rapidly 
 departed, leaving Isla Grande an easy conquest to the 
 Americans and Filipinos. 
 
 Captain Chichester s goodwill was only a reflection of 
 the goodwill of the great nation that he served. Offi 
 cially, Great Britain maintained a correct attitude of neu 
 trality between the United States and Spain. Yet neutral 
 ity may be of many kinds, and Great Britain s neutrality 
 was, to express it mildly, benevolent to American inter 
 ests. A score of anecdotes might be narrated to em 
 phasise this assertion, but one may serve as typical of all the 
 rest. 
 
 Towards the end of May, the supply of fresh provi 
 sions on the American squadron was quite exhausted. In 
 the tropical climate of the Philippines this was a very 
 serious consideration. Both officers and men were in sore 
 need of fruit and vegetables and fresh meat. Without 
 them, disease was certain to occur. Yet no available 
 sources of supply existed on that side of the Pacific Ocean. 
 The strict laws of neutrality forbade the provisioning 
 of a belligerent in any neutral port. The American de 
 spatch boat, Zafiro, plied back and forth between Manila 
 and Hong Kong. More than once its captain had en 
 deavoured to purchase in the latter place a few supplies, 
 but the port officials had intervened to forbid it. The 
 British Governor of Hong Kong was General Wilson 
 
586 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Black, a fine old soldier with a sense of humour. To 
 him went Mr. John Barrett, at one time American Min 
 ister to Siam. 
 
 u General," said Mr. Barrett, " the Zafiro is in port for 
 a short stay under the neutrality rules. Before return 
 ing to Manila the Captain would like to puchase a few 
 delicacies for the Admiral and his staff. Have you any 
 objection? " 
 
 The shrewd old Governor looked intently at Mr. Bar 
 rett and smiled a long, slow smile. 
 
 "Delicacies for the Admiral?" he repeated. u Why, 
 certainly I have no objection. Just a few delicacies, of 
 course, for his staff. That is all right. I will give in 
 structions for them to be passed but, of course, only 
 delicacies." 
 
 An hour later, a small fleet of junks was towed out to 
 the Zafiro. As they moved along, a Spanish consular 
 agent rushed up to a British officer crying out: 
 
 " Stop those boats ! They are taking off supplies for 
 the American fleet at Manila ! I protest ! " 
 
 The officer, a gigantic Irishman, looked benignly down 
 upon the Spaniard, and said with an indescribable drawl : 
 
 " Please don t be disturbed. These boats are only 
 taking off a few delicacies for the American Admiral." 
 
 It may be added that Admiral Dewey thereafter never 
 suffered from any lack of delicacies; and if he and his 
 staff alone enjoyed these accessories to their ordinary 
 fare, they must have personally consumed several hun 
 dred tons of excellent provisions. 22 And the humour of 
 General Wilson Black was matched by that of Admiral 
 Dewey himself, who sent with his compliments some of 
 the choicest of these " delicacies " to the doughty Admiral 
 von Diederich. 
 
 22 Barrett, op. clt., pp. 67-69. 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 587 
 
 Mention has been made of an insurrection among the 
 native Filipinos against the Spanish Government. The 
 movement was one which, although for a time it was of 
 service to the United States, soon added to the perplexities 
 of Admiral Dewey, and finally developed into a serious 
 problem for the American Government. Spanish misrule 
 in the Philippine Islands had been almost as harsh as in 
 Cuba ; and two years before the war between the United 
 States and Spain, it had led to a brief revolt (August, 
 1896). 
 
 The leader of this outbreak was a young native 
 named Emilio Aguinaldo. Aguinaldo was of mixed blood. 
 He had been educated at a Dominican college in Manila 
 and was exceptionally intelligent and energetic. His per 
 sonal qualities made him a chosen leader of his own people, 
 over whom he exercised a peculiar influence. In after 
 years, some of his eulogists in the United States were 
 wont to liken him to Washington or, at the very least, 
 to Bolivar, though the extravagance of the comparison 
 passed the limits of the ludicrous. Aguinaldo was at 
 bottom a shifty Oriental, with all an Oriental s vanity 
 and with the treachery inherent in his Malay blood. The 
 brief revolt which he headed in 1896 had been brought 
 to an end when the Spanish Government bribed Aguinaldo 
 and his chief associates to leave the Islands and retire 
 to Hong Kong. The bribe-money paid them amounted 
 to $400,000, and this sum was in Aguinaldo s possession 
 when Admiral Dewey won the battle of Manila Bay. 
 The keen-witted Filipino, seeing his opportunity, now 
 sought to return to the Philippines, that he might or 
 ganise a new rebellion and put an end to Spanish domina 
 tion. The American Consul-General at Hong Kong, Mr. 
 Wildman, regarded Aguinaldo s scheme with favour. At 
 
588 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Mr. Wildman s request, Admiral Dewey transported 
 Aguinaldo to Manila, and there the natives flocked around 
 his standard until he had under his command a force 
 large enough to surround the city by land and to keep 
 the Spanish troops within the line of their entrenchments. 
 On June 2Oth, the Filipino insurgents formally declared 
 the independence of the Islands and chose Aguinaldo as 
 their President. 
 
 Admiral Dewey was wise enough to withhold any offi 
 cial recognition of the Filipino Republic. So far as the 
 military action of the insurgents helped the American 
 cause, the Admiral and General Anderson cooperated 
 with them; but no promises of future recognition were 
 ever made. Aguinaldo finally came to view the Ameri 
 cans with suspicion and dislike; and so far as he dared, 
 he showed them something like hostility. Meanwhile a 
 second relief expedition commanded by General F. V. 
 Greene and numbering some 3500 men had reached 
 Manila on July lyth. On the 3Oth, came the third ex 
 pedition with 4600 men, and bringing General Wesley 
 Merritt, who had been made Military Governor of the 
 new Department of the Pacific. On August 4th, from 
 the lookouts on the walls of Cavite was heard the cry: 
 "Here comes the Monterey!" and soon afterwards the 
 huge floating fortress, lying low in the water and with her 
 gigantic guns frowning from her turrets, moved slowly 
 into the smooth waters of Manila Bay. 23 The long weeks 
 of suspense and of hourly anxiety had now ended for the 
 American Admiral. Ashore there were assembled 10,000 
 fighting men under his country s flag, supplied with artil 
 lery and munitions. Afloat, his squadron was more than 
 a match for the vessels of von Diederich. It remained, 
 however, for the Germans to give a final exhibition of 
 
 23 Lodge, op. cit., pp. 213-214. 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 589 
 
 their stupid insolence, which, like all the others, ended only 
 in their absolute humiliation. 
 
 On August 7th, Admiral Dewey and General Merritt 
 sent word to the Spanish Governor-General that an attack 
 would be made upon Manila. The boastful Augustin at 
 once slipped away from the city. He was taken on board 
 a German launch and carried to the Kaiserin Augusta. 
 His second in command was unwilling to surrender 
 Manila without fighting, though it was well understood 
 that the Spaniards would resist simply as a matter of 
 honour. On August I3th, General Merritt s troops began 
 to move upon the city, while Dewey s squadron at Cavite 
 got under way to shell the batteries. As they passed out 
 from their anchorage, the band on the Immortalite struck 
 up, " See, the Conquering Hero Comes " ; and when the 
 battle-flags were broken out on Dewey s cruisers, there 
 came from the English flagship the thrilling strains of 
 The Star-Spangled Banner." Then occurred a curious 
 incident of which only a conjectural explanation can be 
 given. The German squadron weighed anchor and 
 steamed after the Americans, so close behind them as to 
 make its purpose seem a hostile one. Some have held that 
 this was merely a final insult from a now impotent foe. 
 Others believe that it was the design of the Germans to 
 fire upon the American ships from the rear so soon as the 
 Spanish batteries should open on them with a frontal fire. 
 Whatever may have been their purpose, it was defeated. 
 Near Manila, the British men-of-war steamed swiftly in 
 between the Germans and the Americans and then stopped. 
 The hint was one that could not be mistaken, and the Ger 
 man Admiral drew off. 24 A day or two afterwards, three 
 
 24 Long, op. cit. ii. p. 112. The story has been told to the author in a 
 slightly different fashion by an officer attached to the Monterey. 
 
590 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 of the German vessels departed in the night and they were 
 seen no more. Meanwhile the Olympia and her sister ships 
 opened fire upon the forts with shell and rapid-fire projec 
 tiles; while on land the American infantry advanced upon 
 the Spanish lines, sweeping their defenders backward, until 
 at last a flag of truce appeared and the city was surrendered 
 with its garrison of 13,000 troops and more than 20,000 
 stand of arms. An Oregon regiment marched into the 
 great Plaza, where Admiral Dewey s flag-lieutenant hauled 
 down the Spanish standard and hoisted in its place the 
 colours of the United States, while a national salute 
 thundered from the guns of the Olympia. Spanish rule in 
 the Orient was at an end forever. 25 
 
 We must now turn to the naval and military operations 
 in the vicinity of the United States. President McKinley s 
 proclamation of April 23d, calling for 125,000 volun 
 teers, was followed by a second call on May 25th for 
 75,000 more. The response to both these calls was 
 satisfactory. Before the end of May, more than 120,000 
 recruits had been mustered in. They came from all sec 
 tions of the country, South as well as North, and they were 
 admirable raw material for a fighting army. Yet as a 
 whole, they were untrained and undisciplined, and time was 
 required to convert them into soldiers effective for work 
 in the field. For a while, reliance must be placed mainly 
 upon the regular army, the available regiments of which 
 were massed at Tampa in Florida, while the volunteers 
 were distributed among three camps one at Chicka- 
 mauga Park, one near Washington (Camp Alger), and 
 
 25 See Lodge, op. tit. pp. 214-220; Alger, op. at. pp. 332-342; Wilcox, 
 The Santiago Campaign, pp. 82-86 (Boston, 1898), and Morris, The War 
 with Spain (Philadelphia, 1900). 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 591 
 
 one at Hempstead (Camp Black) on Long Island. As 
 the work of mobilisation and equipment proceeded, it be 
 came obvious that the system long established in the War 
 Department was inadequate; and it did, in fact, break 
 down completely under the strain imposed upon it by the 
 exigencies of the time. This fact is not to be ascribed to 
 Secretary Alger, whose efforts to cope with the situation 
 were heroic. The fault lay rather with the parsimony of 
 Congress during the preceding decade, and with the dry 
 rot which was the result of thirty years of peace. But at 
 the moment confusion reigned supreme; and ere long it 
 was to endanger the success of a brief yet brilliant cam 
 paign in the field. 
 
 The financial demands of the war were pressing, and 
 were met by Congress with commendable promptness. 
 The month of May showed a treasury deficit of nearly 
 $19,000,000. Hence, in June, Secretary Gage was 
 authorised to issue bonds to the amount of $200,000,000, 
 and a revenue act was. passed which became operative on 
 July ist, extending the system of internal taxation by an 
 increased excise on beer and tobacco, and by a reversion to 
 the scheme adopted during the Civil War of requiring 
 cheques, drafts, telegraphic messages, railway tickets, and 
 many legal and commercial documents to be stamped. 
 
 Meanwhile, Admiral Sampson was blockading the west 
 ern coast of Cuba. He bombarded, the Spanish works at 
 Matanzas with some effect, but his fleet was kept care 
 fully in hand and out of range of the shore-batteries, since 
 the approach by sea of a formidable enemy was momen 
 tarily expected. This enemy was the Spanish Admiral, 
 Pascuale de Cervera, who, on April 29th, had departed 
 from the Cape Verde Islands, heading westward. Under 
 his orders were four armoured cruisers the Almirante 
 
592 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Oquendo, the Flzcaya, the Cristobal Colon, and the Maria 
 Teresa and three destroyers, the Terror, Furor, and 
 Pluton. All these vessels were of the most modern type, 
 and the main batteries of the cruisers were very formida 
 ble. The destination of Admiral Cervera remained a mys 
 tery for some three weeks. He was steaming westward, 
 but where he meant to strike no one could tell. An incip 
 ient panic spread among the inhabitants of the Atlantic 
 seaboard. Cities and towns from Portland to Savannah 
 appealed to Washington for special protection. It was 
 the beginning of the summer season, and thousands of 
 persons who usually spend the months of summer near 
 the ocean hesitated to expose their families to the 
 perils of a Spanish raid. The rents of cottages were tem 
 porarily lowered. The business of hotels in many water 
 ing-places languished. At any moment, Cervera s sable 
 ships might be descried, ready, like the old-time bucca 
 neers of the Spanish Main, to burn and plunder. In Wash 
 ington, however, the experts knew how idle were these 
 fears. Cervera must of necessity direct his course to some 
 Spanish port in order to renew his supply of coal, ex 
 hausted by a long sea-voyage. Four points were noted, 
 one of which would probably be his objective San Juan, 
 in Puerto Rico, or else Havana, Cienfuegos, or Santiago, 
 in Cuba. Two American fleets were therefore set in mo 
 tion to intercept the Spaniards or to discover the port to 
 which they had actually repaired. 
 
 Cervera first appeared off the French island of Martin 
 ique (May nth). The people of this place were so 
 Spanish in their sympathies as to hold back the news of 
 his arrival until after he had sailed away. He next 
 touched at the Dutch port of Curagao (May I4th), and 
 then made his way uncertainly to Cuban waters. He 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 593 
 
 could not reach Havana without a fight with the Ameri 
 can blockading ships; Cienfuegos was not strongly for 
 tified; and so he entered the well-protected harbour of 
 Santiago with all his ships save the destroyer Terror, 
 which he had left behind him at San Juan. Rumours of 
 his presence in Santiago reached Washington on May 
 1 9th, and Commodore Schley was ordered to verify the 
 fact and to blockade the port. With what appeared to be 
 a grievous lack of energy and prompt decision, Schley 
 carried out his orders in a hesitating fashion, and thus 
 might easily have given Cervera a chance to coal his ships 
 and once more put to sea. Nor was Admiral Samp 
 son s order to blockade Santiago obeyed immediately by 
 Schley. 26 But on June ist, Sampson with his fleet of battle 
 ships and cruisers arrived, and from that moment the 
 escape of Cervera without fighting was impossible. On 
 June 3rd, before daylight, a young naval constructor, 
 Lieutenant Richmond Pearson Hobson, with seven volun 
 teers, undertook to sink the collier Merrimac in the nar 
 rowest part of the channel, thereby blocking it against the 
 exit of Cervera s ships. The attempt was made under a 
 terrific fire of the Spanish batteries, and the Merrimac 
 was sunk, though unfortunately not where Hobson had 
 intended. His exploit was superb in its cool daring; 
 yet had it proved successful, it would have served merely 
 to add Cervera s heavy guns and disciplined seamen to 
 the forces which were massed in Santiago against an 
 American attack by land. 
 
 Such an attack had already been devised. On June 
 
 20 For a statement of the case against Commodore Schley, see Long, op. 
 cit. i. pp. 254-283; ii. pp. 189-194; and for Schley s own defense, Schley, 
 Forty-five Years Under the Flag, pp. 263-272, and 408-418 (New York, 
 1904). 
 
594 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 1 6th, a long line of thirty-five transports, convoyed by a 
 battleship and a dozen other men-of-war, steamed out of 
 Key West, bound for the eastern coast of Cuba. They 
 carried an army corps of about 16,000 men, under the 
 command of Major-General W. R. Shafter. The object 
 of the expedition was the reduction of Santiago by land 
 in cooperation with the naval forces under Admiral Samp 
 son. Precisely why General Shafter was chosen for this 
 important task it is not easy to explain. His previous 
 military service had not been conspicuously brilliant. 
 Originally a farmer, he had enlisted as a volunteer during 
 the Civil War and had ultimately reached the rank of 
 brigadier-general. In 1898 he was physically unfitted for 
 an arduous campaign in a semi-tropical country. Exces 
 sively corpulent, he was afflicted by the gout so that he 
 could seldom mount a horse, nor could he even follow 
 closely the movements of the force over which he exer 
 cised command. The troops assigned to him, however, 
 were the flower of the regular army, perfect in discipline 
 and well seasoned by service on the Western plains. 
 Three volunteer regiments also formed a part of this 
 expedition the Second Massachusetts, the Seventy-first 
 New York, and the First Volunteer Cavalry, popularly 
 known as the Rough Riders. 
 
 Disembarking at Daiquiri and Siboney, near Santiago, 27 
 Shafter s command immediately advanced upon the Span 
 ish entrenchments. The country was by nature almost 
 impenetrable because of the dense undergrowth of vines 
 and shrubs, while the humid heat was very trying to the 
 Northern soldiers. General Joseph Wheeler with a de 
 tachment of cavalry drove back a Spanish column after a 
 fierce fight at Las Guasimas (June 24th). On July ist, 
 practically the entire American army moved upon the 
 
 -~ June 23d. 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 595 
 
 complicated outer line of defences that circled Santiago. 
 Three general actions were fought almost simultaneously, 
 at El Caney, at San Juan, and at Aguadores. In the first 
 two the Americans were brilliantly successful. The third 
 resulted in a failure, though an unimportant one. At El 
 Caney and at San Juan, the works were stormed in a 
 series of impetuous rushes; and though the Spanish troops 
 fought gallantly, they were swept away by the irresistible 
 elan of the American attack. The American soldiers felt 
 no hatred for their enemies. It would be unfair to say 
 that they entertained a contempt for them. Their feel 
 ing resembled an amused tolerance which, even in the 
 shock of battle, made them refuse to take the Spaniards 
 seriously. In the army s vernacular, Spaniards were 
 " dagoes "; and few soldiers felt any hesitation about at 
 tacking " dagoes " under all circumstances and without 
 reference to odds. Hence it was that the Spanish fortified 
 positions, protected by a tangle of barbed wire, by almost 
 impenetrable jungle, and situated on high ground, were 
 carried through frontal attacks made by troops without 
 artillery support and in the face of a galling fire from 
 small arms superior to their own. To the Spaniards this 
 sort of fighting seemed to violate the accepted rules of 
 war. One Spanish infantryman subsequently gave his im 
 pressions in language that was most naive. 
 
 4 We saw the Americans running towards us," he said; 
 " and we rose and fired at them; but instead of retreating, 
 they actually ran towards us all the faster ! " 
 
 There was, in fact, a saying among the American 
 troops: "We will take these Spaniards with our bare 
 hands "; and in the battles of July ist, the boast was al 
 most literally carried out. 
 
 The entire credit of the victories at Santiago is due to 
 
596 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the soldiers of the regular army. The war with Spain is 
 the only war waged by the United States that was fought 
 out by regulars and not by volunteers. Of the three vol 
 unteer regiments in General Shafter s army, the Second 
 Massachusetts was withdrawn from the firing line because 
 the smoke from its black powder gave the enemy the 
 range. The Seventy-first New York became demoralised 
 through the inefficiency of some of its officers, and took no 
 serious part in the operations of the day. 28 The third 
 volunteer regiment, the Rough Riders, fought bravely 
 and did admirable work. 29 It numbered, however, only 
 five hundred men in an army of fifteen thousand, and had 
 it been absent the result would have been the same. The 
 truth is that of necessity the volunteers could not compare 
 with the disciplined and seasoned troops of the regular 
 army. They lacked steadiness and self-control, and their 
 shooting was often wild. Many of them were individ 
 ually good marksmen, but not with the service rifle; 
 while many others of them had never practised marks 
 manship at all. 30 
 
 It is a subject for regret that the administration and 
 commissariat of so fine an army should have been so utterly 
 unworthy of its achievements. Supplies were insufficient. 
 The food provided was not merely unwholesome but 
 nauseating. There was a lack of transport waggons. The 
 clothing of the men was unsuited to the climate. Smoke 
 less powder was scarce, and the old-fashioned Springfield 
 rifles of the volunteers were almost useless as against the 
 
 28 See the report of General J. F. Kent (July 7, 1898) ; and the account 
 by Captain Marcotte, in the Army and Navy Journal, of September 17, 
 1898. 
 
 29 See Roosevelt, The Rough Riders (New York, 1899). 
 
 :!0 See the opinion of General Joseph Wheeler as given in his book, 
 The Santiago Campaign, pp. 82-86 (Boston, 1898), 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 597 
 
 long-range Mausers with which the Spanish troops were 
 armed. Although the purpose of the Americans was to 
 take a fortified city, no siege artillery had been provided; 
 and in the fight at El Caney, only four small field-pieces 
 were present to support the American attack. After the 
 battle of July ist, there set in a reaction of feeling which 
 threatened to impair both the morale and the physical fit 
 ness of the army. The trenches were full of water from 
 the tropical rains; malarial fever began to spread among 
 the troops, and there were reported some cases of the 
 dreaded vomito. The army at no one time had rations 
 sufficient for more than twenty-four hours, while medicine 
 and surgical attendance were shockingly inadequate to its 
 needs. 31 Two days later (July 3d), General Shafter, far 
 in the rear of the army, sweltering in the heat and tortured 
 by gout, felt the effect of these depressing conditions so 
 strongly that he telegraphed his belief that Santiago could 
 not be taken with his present force. Nevertheless, he sent 
 to the Spanish General a demand for the surrender of the 
 place, to which a curt refusal was returned. 32 
 
 On that same day, however, and even while Shafter was 
 telegraphing in terms of marked despondency, the coup de 
 grace was given to the Spanish cause. At nine in the 
 morning, Admiral Cervera s six ships emerged from the 
 harbour entrance, and under a full head of steam sought 
 to break through the blockading fleet. In a running fight 
 of four hours every one of his vessels was destroyed by the 
 terrific fire of the American battleships and cruisers, 
 which in their turn suffered scarcely any loss. The Span 
 ish Admiral and more than 1700 of his officers and men 
 
 31 See Bigelow, Reminiscences of the Santiago Campaign, pp. 138-146 
 (New York, 1899). 
 "- Wilcox, op. cit. p. 191. 
 
598 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 were captured. The victory was as complete as that of 
 Dewey at Manila. It was less glorious, because at 
 Santiago the odds were overwhelmingly against the Span 
 iards. They were outnumbered three to one, and it was a 
 fight of cruisers against battleships. By an unhappy 
 
 , chance, Admiral Sampson, whose far-seeing sagacity had 
 
 j planned the battle just as it was actually fought, took no 
 part in it. On board the New York, he had gone to 
 Siboney to confer with General Shafter, and he returned 
 
 I in time to fire only a few long distance shots and to be a 
 mark for the Spanish batteries on the shore. 
 
 From this moment the fall of Santiago was assured. 
 General Toral, in command of the city, delayed surrender 
 ing it, with true Spanish procrastination making demands 
 and asking concessions which the Americans refused. 
 Finally Admiral Sampson moved some of his larger ships 
 
 ! within range and began dropping shells with mathematical 
 precision into the centre of the town. This proved to be 
 an effective argument; and on July iyth a formal sur 
 render was made to General Shafter. At high noon on 
 the same day a detachment of American cavalry, infantry, 
 and artillery entered the city and hoisted the national flag 
 over the municipal buildings. More than 10,000 Spanish 
 soldiers were given up as prisoners, and after a brief de 
 tention were sent to Spain. An unusual incident marked 
 their departure. They published an address "To the 
 Soldiers of the American Army " in which they said: 
 
 " We should not be fulfilling our duty as men in whose breasts 
 there exist both gratitude and courtesy, should we embark for our 
 beloved Spain without sending you our most cordial and sincere 
 good wishes and farewell. . . . You fought us as men, face to 
 face, and with great courage. . . . You have complied exactly 
 with all the laws and usages of war as recognised by the armies of 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 599 
 
 the most civilised nations of the world; you have given an hon 
 ourable burial to our dead; you have treated our wounded with 
 great humanity ; and lastly, to us whose condition was terrible, you 
 have given freely of food, of your stock of medicines, and you have 
 honoured us with distinction and courtesy. With this high senti 
 ment of appreciation from all of us, it remains to us only to utter 
 our farewell; and with the greatest sincerity, we wish you all 
 happiness and health in this land which will no more belong to our 
 dear Spain." 33 
 
 The downfall of Santiago gave to the Americans con 
 trol of the whole eastern end of Cuba. Yet this of itself 
 did not necessarily involve the termination of hostilities. 
 Havana was still untaken. It was garrisoned by a very 
 strong force and was protected by powerful fortresses. 
 Its people were intensely loyal to the Spanish cause and 
 were eager for the Americans to make an attack upon the 
 place. Reverses elsewhere had no effect upon the Havan- 
 ese. Women s garments were suspended in conspicuous 
 places throughout the town, bearing placards inscribed: 
 To be worn by those who are willing to surrender." The 
 war, however, was ended through considerations which 
 had nothing to do with the condition of affairs in Cuba. 
 One powerful factor in bringing Spain to terms was found 
 in action taken by the Navy Department in Washington. 
 Early in June, Spain had got together at Cadiz a second 
 squadron commanded by Admiral Camara. It consisted 
 of the battleship Pelayo, an armoured cruiser, six con 
 verted cruisers, and four destroyers, with a number of 
 auxiliary vessels. 34 On June i8th a report reached Wash- 
 
 33 Alger, op. cit. pp. 280-281. 
 
 84 Rumors that this force was to make a dash upon the American coast 
 caused a panic in the United States. See the New York World for June 
 i4th, i8th, and i9th; and the New York Herald for June i4th and 
 23d, 1898. 
 
6oo TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ington that Admiral Camara was under orders to proceed 
 to the Philippines by way of the Suez Canal, and to fall 
 upon Admiral Dewey s squadron ere it could be rein 
 forced. For a moment the news aroused a feeling of 
 anxiety. The Pelayo was supposed to be a very formida 
 ble vessel; and, on paper at least, the cruisers assigned to 
 accompany it were more than equal to those which Dewey 
 had at his disposal. Many were the plans suggested to 
 check this threatening expedition. Mr. William Randolph 
 Hearst, the wealthy proprietor of a newspaper in New 
 York, cabled an order directing one of his agents in 
 London to purchase a merchant vessel, load it with coal, 
 and proceed to the Suez Canal with the purpose of there 
 sinking the ship so as to block the canal against Camara s 
 squadron. 35 But meanwhile an effective counterstroke had 
 been planned in Washington. On June 27th, Commodore 
 J. C. Watson was put in command of a squadron consist 
 ing of the battleships Iowa and Oregon and four cruisers; 
 and the announcement was officially made that this squad 
 ron was to sail immediately for the coast of Spain. 
 
 The manoeuvre worked effectively. It was perfectly 
 well known in Madrid that the great Spanish seaport cities, 
 such as Barcelona and Cadiz, were practically defenceless. 
 Their old-fashioned fortifications would have crumbled 
 like chalk before the huge guns of Watson s battleships. 
 To send Camara away would be simply to invite attack. 
 Nevertheless, Camara began his voyage, passing through 
 the Suez Canal on July 2nd. The Anglo-Egyptian Gov 
 ernment forbade him to take on coal at Port Said. 
 He lingered for a while; but presently, after he had 
 received the news of Cervera s defeat at Santiago, he 
 turned the prows of his vessels homeward. All that he 
 
 S5 See the account in Creelman, The Great Highway (New York, 1902). 
 
THE WAR WITH SPAIN 60 1 
 
 had accomplished was to enrich the treasury of the Canal 
 by the sum of $280,000, which he was compelled to pay 
 in tolls. The menace of Watson s squadron had accom 
 plished, however, even more than at first sight was 
 apparent. Those European Powers which had been un 
 friendly to the United States were aghast at the thought 
 of American ships of war carrying on hostile operations in 
 European waters. The immense energy and the naval 
 prowess of the United States inspired nervous apprehen 
 sion in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. Hence, strong pressure 
 was brought to bear upon the Spanish Government to end 
 a war in which no hope for Spain could be discerned. 
 This pressure was supplemented by an appeal from Spain s 
 commercial interests and by the condition of the Spanish 
 Treasury. Spanish securities since the beginning of the 
 war, had fallen in value from a little more than 60 to a 
 little less than 30. Spanish commerce was at a standstill. 
 The Atlantic seaports dreaded an American invasion. 
 Hence, on July 26th, the French Ambassador at Washing 
 ton, M. Jules Cambon, on behalf of the Spanish Govern 
 ment, opened negotiations for peace. Through M. Cambon, 
 President McKinley announced the terms on which the 
 United States would consent to suspend hostilities. On 
 August 1 2th, a protocol was signed at Washington as a 
 preliminary to a treaty of peace to be afterwards nego 
 tiated. The war was practically at an end. 
 
 The news was at once telegraphed to the American 
 commanders in different parts of the world. It reached 
 Puerto Rico just in time to end a campaign which had only 
 then begun. A force of 3500 American troops under 
 Major-General Miles had been landed in that island, and 
 had advanced upon the capital. Only slight resistance 
 was made by the Spaniards, while the inhabitants of the 
 
602 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 various towns and villages welcomed the invaders with 
 triumphal arches and by strewing flowers in their 
 path. This nineteen days campaigning was therefore the 
 source of considerable raillery in the United States, where 
 it was described as " a military picnic." When, however, 
 the news of the signing of the protocol arrived, the Amer 
 ican troops were in line of battle and a really serious en 
 gagement was impending. It was not fought out because 
 of telegraphic orders from Washington and from Madrid. 
 To all intents and purposes the war was over. It had 
 lasted less than four months, yet in that time the power of 
 Spain had been completely humbled. Her possessions in 
 Asia and in the Western Indies lay at the mercy of the 
 United States, which, by reason of this fact, now ceased to 
 be reckoned merely as a North American Republic and 
 assumed its rightful place as a great world power. 36 
 
 36 No complete history of the war with Spain has yet been written. 
 In addition to the works already cited in the present chapter, reference 
 may be made to the following narratives, written by those who were 
 either participants in the events described, or else eye-witnesses: Sigsbee, 
 "The Personal Narrative of the Maine" (Century, December, 1898); 
 McCutcheon, "The Surrender of Manila" (Century Magazine, April, 
 1899); Spears, "The Chase of Cervera " (Scribner s, August, 1898); 
 Lee, "The Regulars at El Caney " (Scribner s, October, 1898); Chad- 
 wick, "The Navy in the War" (Scribner s, November, 1898); Hobson, 
 "The Sinking of the Merrimac" (Century, December, 1898, and January, 
 1899); Kelly, "An American in Madrid during the War" (Century, 
 January, 1899); Shafter, "The Capture of Santiago" (Century, February, 
 1899); Cook, "The Brooklyn at Santiago" (Century, May, 1899); 
 Staunton, "The Naval Campaign of 1898" (Harper s, January, 1899); 
 Eberle, "The Oregon s Great Voyage" (Century, October, 1899); also 
 Wilson, "The Naval Lessons of the War" (Harper s, January, 1899); 
 Russell, "Incidents of the Cuban Blockade" (Century, September, 1898). 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF PRESIDENT M KINLEY 
 
 PEACE negotiations between the United States and Spain 
 were conducted and concluded in Paris by representatives 
 of the two nations. 1 From October ist until early in De 
 cember, the sessions continued, at first harmoniously, but 
 later with so great a divergence of opinion as to threaten 
 an end of all discussion, and a renewal of the war. 2 The 
 abandonment of Cuba and Puerto Rico was, of course, ex 
 pected, and was granted by the Spanish envoys, as was also 
 the cession to the United States of the island of Guam, one 
 of the Ladrones group, over which the American flag had 
 been raised by the Charleston on its voyage to Manila. 3 
 But there were two questions over which the controversy 
 was long and bitter. Spain wished the United States, in 
 taking Cuba, to assume the whole or part of the Cuban 
 debt. The American plenipotentiaries absolutely refused 
 to agree to any such arrangement. This debt had been 
 incurred by Spain in her efforts to crush the Cubans in their 
 
 1 The American plenipotentiaries were Judge William R. Day, Senator 
 Cushman K. Davis, Senator William P. Frye, Senator George Gray and 
 Mr. Whitelaw Reid. The head of the Spanish envoys was Sefior Don 
 Eugenio Montero Rios, President of the Spanish Senate. 
 
 - Senator Frye cabled to Assistant Secretary of State Adee: "It seems 
 to me that the most undesirable happening would be our return without a 
 treaty of peace. Yet that is probable in my opinion." (November 2, 1898.) 
 
 3 When the Charleston entered the harbour of Guam on June 21 st, 
 and began shelling the Spanish fort, the local officials had not yet heard 
 of the declaration of war, but supposed the guns to be fired as a salute. 
 See Davis, Our Conquests in the Pacific, pp. 44-87 (New York, 1899). 
 
 603 
 
6o 4 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 revolt against oppression, a revolt which Americans had 
 justified and applauded, and which had at last compelled 
 the United States to intervene in Cuba. Spain must, there 
 fore, still bear the burden which her own unwisdom had 
 imposed upon her; and to this her envoys in the end 
 reluctantly agreed. 
 
 But the crucial question was that which related to the 
 Philippines. Were these islands to be handed back to 
 Spain in their integrity? Would the United States retain, 
 perhaps, a single island as a naval station? Or, finally, 
 would the whole archipelago pass into the possession of 
 that Western Power whose flag already floated proudly 
 over the captured city of Manila where lay its victorious 
 ships of war, and about which was encamped its tri 
 umphant soldiery? Spain s representatives at Paris were 
 intensely earnest in their plea that the Islands should 
 be restored to the sovereignty of their King. The war, 
 they urged, was begun because of Cuba. The surrender 
 of Cuba ought therefore logically to satisfy the demands 
 of the United States. Hostilities in the Philippines had 
 been merely an incident of the war; and to exact from 
 Spain the surrender of even a portion of the archipelago 
 would be unreasonable and oppressive. Such was the 
 Spanish view. In the United States, public opinion exhib 
 ited a gradual and very interesting change which was re 
 flected in the policy of the Government and therefore in 
 the attitude of the American negotiators at Paris. Dur 
 ing the period of actual warfare, there had been no general 
 wish to acquire Asiatic territory. Such a thing was op 
 posed to all the national traditions and to the national 
 habits of thought. Few persons knew or cared anything 
 about those distant islands. But when the question was pre 
 sented sharply to the popular intelligence, it crystallised 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 605 
 
 itself into the problem of accepting one of several definite 
 lines of policy. If the American forces were to be with 
 drawn, this action would not in reality restore the status 
 quo ante. It would not re-establish Spain s authority. 
 That authority had been irretrievably lost. The destruc 
 tion of Spanish prestige and the weakening of Spain s re 
 sources by the war, had given to the Filipino insurrection 
 such an impetus as made it clear that Spain could never 
 reconquer even the precarious hold upon the Islands which 
 she had possessed before the battle of Manila. Her en 
 voys at Paris tacitly admitted this when they asked the 
 United States not only to recognise Spain s sovereignty but 
 to restore it by the use of military force. 4 Hence, the mere 
 withdrawal of the American army from Manila would 
 lead only to a bloody and protracted civil war, of which the 
 outcome would doubtless be the cession of the Philippines 
 by Spain to one of the great Powers 5 perhaps and very 
 probably to Germany. With what favour the American 
 people would view such an issue of the affair, it is unneces 
 sary to explain. The insolence of von Diederich at Ma 
 nila was only just becoming known in the United States; 
 and the popular resentment which it excited forbade any 
 line of action from which Germany might reap advantage. 
 To take a single island and restore the rest to Spain, 6 was 
 open to the same objection, still more forcibly presented; 
 
 4 Despatch of October i, 1898, from Judge Day in Paris to President 
 McKinley. 
 
 5 Early in November, rumours were current in Europe to the effect that 
 Spain was to sell the Philippines to France. Spanish securities rose in the 
 market on the strength of this report. As a matter of fact, soon after the 
 negotiations in Paris had ended, Spain did sell to Germany the three 
 Pacific groups the Carolines, the Pelews, and the Ladrones, except Guam. 
 
 This had at one time been considered, and President McKinley had 
 directed Admiral Dewey to select one of the islands for permanent occupa 
 tion. The Admiral chose the island of Luzon. 
 
606 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 for then there would be created a far distant American 
 possession, partly surrounded and continuously menaced 
 by a hostile neighbour. 
 
 But why not give the Islands over to Aguinaldo and let 
 him rule them as a Philippine Republic? This course 
 would have exactly paralleled what the United States pro 
 posed to do in Cuba. If Cuba were for the Cubans, why 
 not the Philippines for the Filipinos? Such a solution 
 was not regarded as necessarily impossible; but President 
 McKinley and his advisers were not yet convinced that 
 Aguinaldo could be trusted to maintain a form of govern 
 ment under which the lives and property of foreigners 
 would be properly safeguarded. Too little was known of 
 the Filipinos to warrant the unqualified committal to them 
 of so great a trust. Aguinaldo himself had already im 
 pressed the Americans at Manila most unfavourably. He 
 had drawn his followers off into separate cantonments, and 
 was maintaining an attitude of sullen unfriendliness to 
 ward the American commanders. His followers made no 
 secret of their intention to kill every Spaniard whom they 
 should capture. It would, indeed, be taking a serious 
 responsibility to surrender the control of civilised towns 
 and cities to men of mixed breeds, whom Admiral Dewey 
 characterised as " passionate semi-savages." 
 
 Hence, as the weeks wore on, the duty of the President 
 became every day more clear to him. The ultimate dis 
 posal of the Philippines was still an open question; but the 
 determination of that question must lie with the United 
 States, and must be reached in accordance with the dictates 
 both of political wisdom and of humanity. The demand 
 was therefore made that Spain cede the Islands unreserv 
 edly to the United States, which would in turn and by way 
 of a solatium, pay into the Spanish Treasury a sum of 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 607 
 
 money to be afterwards agreed upon. The Spanish en 
 voys in Paris were moved to strong emotion by this de 
 mand. 7 With passionate Castilian eloquence they argued 
 against the right of the United States to ask this of them. 
 With their plea, all Europe sympathised. Here was seen 
 the passing of an old and gallant nation, a kingdom which 
 had once ruled half the world, and whose chivalry had 
 been the pride of Christendom, but which was now suing 
 hopelessly for grace at the hands of a raw republic of the 
 New World. Even Americans could feel the pathos of 
 that moment. Yet Spain had no choice except submission. 
 She could not continue fighting even if she would. Her 
 treasury was bankrupt, her armies beaten, her ships de 
 stroyed. Not o,ie of the European Powers that wished 
 her well dared go beyond mere words to show its friend 
 ship. And so with unspeakable bitterness of heart, but 
 with that grave dignity which the Spaniard has inherited 
 from the Moor, the envoys of Queen Cristina accepted the 
 inevitable. On December loth, the Treaty of Paris was 
 signed, and the United States became the possessor of 
 Cuba, of Puerto Rico, of Guam, and of the Philippine 
 Islands. In return for the cession of the Philippines, 
 Spain was to receive the sum of $2O,ooo,ooo. 8 
 
 The islands conquered from Spain were not the only new 
 possessions acquired by the United States at this time. 
 After the battle of Manila Bay, the little Republic of 
 Hawaii had openly violated international law in order to 
 show its friendliness to the American cause. American 
 
 7 See the long cable despatch to the Secretary of State from Mr. John 
 Bassett Moore dated at Paris, November i8th, 1898, and summarising the 
 Spanish argument. 
 
 8 The payment of this sum made the cost to the United States of the 
 war with Spain aggregate about $300,000,000. The actual expenditures 
 of Spain were estimated at a somewhat larger amount. 
 
6o8 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ships of war were allowed to take on coal at Honolulu and, 
 in fact, to make of that port a naval base. The new im 
 portance of Hawaii from a strategic point of view became 
 so obvious that a strong sentiment for annexation was 
 created in the United States. The Hawaiian Congress 
 invited a union of the two countries, and this was actually 
 effected, on President McKinley s recommendation, by 
 joint resolution of both Houses. 9 A later act of Congress 
 (April 30, 1900), made Hawaii a fully organised Terri 
 tory and declared its citizens to be citizens of the United 
 States. To the new Territory were extended the general 
 provisions of the Constitution and laws of the United 
 States. The first Governor of Hawaii was Mr. S. B, 
 Dole, who had been President ever since the overthrow of 
 Queen Liliuokalani in i892. 10 
 
 The American people regarded the immense expansion 
 of their national responsibilities resulting from the Spanish 
 war with a certain proud self-confidence that was charac 
 teristic of their robust optimism. While many may have 
 shared the feeling of President McKinley that these new 
 obligations were to be assumed as a solemn duty which cir 
 cumstances and considerations of humanity had forced 
 upon the United States, it is likely that Americans as a 
 whole took a much less philosophic view. The brilliancy 
 of their achievements in the war had quickened their imag 
 inations, and greatly broadened out their aspirations and 
 ambitions. To rule distant lands, to hold colonies and de 
 pendencies, to have their country figure largely on the vast 
 
 9 The joint resolutions, known as the Newlands Resolutions, passed the 
 House (June isth) by a vote of 209 to 91, and the Senate (July 6th), 
 by a vote of 42 to 21. 
 
 10 See Willoughby, Territories and Dependencies of the United States, 
 pp. 60-70 (New York, 1905). 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 609 
 
 stage of international affairs, appealed to their national 
 love of bigness. When foreign writers and some native 
 pessimists declared the United States incompetent to ad 
 minister distant possessions, 11 this only piqued the pride of 
 most Americans, and made them eager to accept the chal-^ 
 lenge. It was really the instinct for national growth, the 
 ambition for new achievement, which now, like a flame, 
 was fanned by the spirit of successful conquest. Nor was 
 the phenomenon a new one. It was as old as the American 
 colonies themselves. As the sturdy pioneers had hewn 
 their way through the forests, and subdued the Indians; 
 as their descendants had crossed the mountains and then 
 traversed the great Western plains; as they had secured 
 the Louisiana Territory from France, and wrested an em 
 pire on the Pacific from Mexico, so now in an even more 
 magnificent westward swe^p, they passed beyond the limits 
 of the encircling ocean, and set their standard in the islands 
 of the sea. It was inevitable, because it was in the blood 
 of the race. Mr. Seward, many years before, had ex 
 pressed a vital truth and uttered a boldly pregnant sentence 
 when he said: "Popular passion for territorial ag 
 grandisement is irresistible. Prudence, justice, cowardice, 
 may check it for a season; but it will gain strength by its 
 subjugation. It behooves us to qualify ourselves for our 
 mission. We must dare our destiny." 12 
 
 And a foreign political philosopher, von Hoist, had 
 observed with equal truth: 
 
 " It is as easy to bid a ball that has flown from the 
 mouth of a gun to stop in its flight and return on its 
 
 11 Even the London Spectator, though friendly to the United States, re 
 marked after the battle of Manila Bay, in speaking of the Philippines, 
 " Of course, the Americans can not keep them." 
 
 12 Seward, Works, edited by G. E. Baker, iii. p. 409 (New York, 1890). 
 
^ipj TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 path, as to terminate a successful war of conquest by a vol 
 untary surrender of all conquests, because it has been 
 found that the spoil will be a source of dissension at 
 home." 13 
 
 I That the questions raised by the war would cause dis- 
 sension was of course to be expected. While hostilities 
 were actually in progress, factional strife had been hushed. 
 Both Republicans and Democrats had strongly favoured 
 intervention in Cuba, and the initial war measures had 
 received the unanimous approval of Congress. 14 Mr. 
 Bryan himself had accepted the colonelcy of a Nebraska 
 regiment, which remained under arms until peace was 
 thoroughly assured. But no sooner had the Treaty of 
 Paris been laid before the Senate for ratification (January 
 4, 1899), than the lines of cleavage between the two great 
 parties became again apparent.f The Democratic leader, 
 Senator Gorman, opposed the treaty because, as he said, it 
 practically annexed the Philippines to the United States. 
 In this opposition he was followed by nearly all his party 
 associates, and by two eminent Republican Senators, Mr. 
 Hoar of Massachusetts and Mr. Hale of Maine. The 
 Philippine clauses of the treaty were highly obnoxious to a 
 small but very active body of citizens in New England who 
 became known as " Anti-Imperialists/ or in contempo 
 raneous political slang, as " Antis." An association calling 
 itself the Anti-Imperialist League was formed in Boston, 
 and began an active propaganda directed against the 
 establishment of a colonial system by the United States. 
 The Anti-Imperialists urged that to acquire foreign posses 
 sions by conquest and to hold them by force in the position 
 
 13 Von Hoist, Constitutional History of the United States, iii. p. 304 
 (Chicago, 1876-92). 
 
 14 See pp. 556-7- 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 6n 
 
 of colonial dependencies was unconstitutional, a departure 
 from the traditions of the American government, and in 
 itself criminal and unjust. 15 Senator Hoar would have 
 had the President yield the control of the Islands to the 
 rule of Aguinaldo which, he declared, represented the will 
 of the Filipinos. Many of the old-time abolitionists took 
 the same view, and said that any other course would be 
 oppressive and tyrannical. 
 
 But President McKinley, pending a final disposition of 
 the question, had by proclamation on January 5, 1899, 
 ordered General E. S. Otis, to extend the military rule of 
 the United States over the whole of the Philippine Islands. 
 The American army in the Far East was steadily aug 
 mented until it numbered nearly 50,000 men, and the War 
 Department planned a still further increase. This action 
 moved the Anti-Imperialists to bitter denunciation of the 
 President as a military despot who was bent upon crushing 
 out the liberties of a free people. Americans then became 
 divided into " Expansionists " (called by their adversaries 
 " Imperialists "),apd "Anti-Expansionists" or "Anti- 
 Imperialists. 1 For a time it seemed as though the Treaty 
 of Paris might be rejected by the Senate; for while the 
 Republicans had a bare majority, a two-thirds vote was 
 necessary for the ratification of the treaty. The discus 
 sion was prolonged and often animated. When the day 
 arrived for the final vote (February 6th), the result still 
 seemed more than doubtful. Sixty votes were needed for 
 ratification, and only 58 were surely pledged. Three 
 o clock was the hour that had been set; and at half-past 
 two, the Administration still lacked one vote. This was 
 finally secured only after the hour of three had struck and 
 
 15 See a long and very ably written letter in the Nation for February 
 2, 1899, pp. 87-88. 
 
612 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 while the roll was actually being called. The Expan 
 sionists had won. 16 
 
 The result was due in part to the attitude of Mr. Bryan, 
 who had used his personal influence in urging the accept 
 ance of the treaty. Mr. Bryan very wisely held that 
 peace with Spain should be formally and speedily assured; 
 and that the United States might fitly assume the tem 
 porary control of the Philippines. But he agreed with the 
 Anti-Imperialists in believing that the Islands should ulti 
 mately be independent, after the United States, as a guard 
 ian Power, should have effected the creation in them of a 
 stable government. It was, however, Aguinaldo himself 
 who worked most effectively against an immediate recogni 
 tion of Filipino independence. His oriental vanity had al 
 ready obscured his natural intelligence. He styled himself 
 " Dictator of the Philippines," and assumed the airs of an 
 Eastern potentate, decorating his person with various 
 insignia of rank, and decreeing to himself with childish 
 delight a golden whistle as a badge of supreme authority. 
 All this was unimportant though characteristic. But on 
 January 2Oth, the body which styled itself the Congress of 
 the Filipino Republic, then in session at Malolos, Aguin- 
 aldo s " capital," authorised him at his discretion to make 
 war upon the American forces in the island of Luzon. On 
 February 4th two days before the Senate voted on the 
 Treaty of Paris Aguinaldo s armed levies tried to 
 " rush " the American lines under cover of darkness. The 
 Filipinos were hurled back with heavy loss; yet they re 
 turned again and again to the attack, fighting steadily until 
 
 16 Lodge, op. cit. p. 232. The final division was as follows: For the 
 treaty: Republicans, 42; Democrats, 10; Populists, 3; Silver Senators, 2. 
 Against the treaty: Republicans, 2; Democrats, 24; Populists, 2; Silver Sen 
 ators, i. These figures do not take account of Senators who were paired. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 613 
 
 daybreak. By that time, General Otis had the situation 
 well in hand, and ordered an advance which drove the 
 Filipinos from the immediate vicinity of Manila. The 
 news of this encounter very naturally hardened the hearts 
 of the American people against abandoning the Philip 
 pines to a declared enemy; and the ratification of the treaty 
 was undoubtedly helped by Aguinaldo s wanton act of 
 violence. Only the extreme among the Anti-Imperi 
 alists applauded him as a hero and a patriot. Soon after 
 wards, the Filipino Congress ordered the assassination of 
 all foreigners residing in Manila; and an effort was made 
 to burn the city. Both attempts were thwarted by the 
 vigilance of the American commanders; though, with a 
 certain poetic justice, the plot to burn Manila did result in 
 wiping out the purely Filipino section of that city. From 
 this time there was waged a desultory and protracted war 
 fare, an account of which does not lie within the scope of the 
 present narrative. Suffice it to say that the Filipinos, after 
 successive and severe defeats in open battle, betook them 
 selves to a species of jungle-fighting marked by treachery 
 and at times by savage acts which often drove the Amer 
 ican soldiers into harsh reprisals. The reports of these 
 regrettable occurrences were eagerly caught up in the 
 United States and were grossly exaggerated by the oppo 
 nents of " imperialism." A commission appointed by the 
 President in January, i899, 17 to investigate conditions in 
 the Philippines, made a report in November of the same 
 year. 18 In essence it justified the course of the Adminis 
 tration, and made it plain that Aguinaldo s following rep- 
 
 17 Its members were Dr. J. G. Schurman, Admiral Dewey, Professor 
 Dean C. Worcester, Mr. Charles Denby, and General Otis. 
 
 18 The final report was rendered in December, 1900. It is contained in 
 four large volumes (Washington, 1900). 
 
6 1 4 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 resented only a comparatively small part of the hetero 
 geneous population of the Philippines. 
 
 It was the report of this Commission no less than the 
 violence of Aguinaldo s soldiery which convinced Presi 
 dent McKinley that the United States must, for some time 
 at least, assume the full responsibility of governing the 
 Philippines. The very first necessity was the restoration 
 of order by military force. In his message of December 
 5, 1898, the President had asked Congress to increase the 
 regular army to 100,000 men. His request was met by 
 an increase of the regular establishment to 65,000 men, 19 
 with permission to enlist 35,000 volunteers for service 
 until July ist, i9Oi. 20 The army in the Philippines was 
 thereupon augmented to more than 60,000 troops, and all 
 local authority was vested ultimately in the President, who 
 exercised it through his military commanders. This, on 
 the face of it, seemed to many the rankest kind of " im 
 perialism," and Mr. McKinley was denounced unsparingly 
 as a despot who ruled t>ver conquered millions, through 
 satraps and by the terror of his bayonets. Yet nothing 
 could have been further from the truth. President Mc- 
 Kinley s own cast of mind and the character of his whole 
 public life inclined him in all things to take the civilian s 
 point of view; and it was really by an ingenious interpreta 
 tion of his military prerogatives that he ultimately worked 
 out a scheme for the non-military administration of the 
 Philippines. Through his constitutional powers as Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, he was for the present governing the con 
 quered Islands by martial law. Technically his powers 
 were military powers, and thus they merged in one person 
 
 19 At the outbreak of the war with Spain, the regular army had num 
 bered only 28,000 men. 
 
 20 Act of March 2, 1899. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 615 
 
 executive, judicial, and legislative functions. The Presi 
 dent s purpose, however, as ultimately set forth in a re 
 markable message to Congress, 21 provided for a separation 
 of these functions and for their exercise by different indi 
 viduals. " As it is well settled that the military power of 
 the President may be exercised through civil agents 
 . . . it was determined that the part of the military 
 power which was legislative in its character should be exer 
 cised by civil agents proceeding in accordance with legisla 
 tive forms; while the judicial power should be exercised 
 by particular establishments and regulated by the enact 
 ments of legislative authority." 22 Under this plan the 
 way was prepared for a gradual change from military to 
 civil methods of administration. 23 The first definite step 
 toward this end was the appointment of a second Commis 
 sion (April 7, 1900) of five gentlemen headed by Judge 
 W. H. Taft of Ohio, who were directed to develop in 
 the Philippines a system which should give to the people 
 of the Islands the largest measure of self-government 
 which they were fitted to exercise. It may be said here by 
 way of anticipation, that on July 4, 1901, civil govern 
 ment took in part the place of military rule, Judge Taft 
 becoming Civil Governor, with a Council and a Supreme 
 Court in which native Filipinos were represented. Just 
 one year from that date (July 4, 1902) the President by 
 proclamation declared the Islands pacified and subject 
 thereafter to the civil authorities alone. To subdue the 
 insurrection had cost the United States nearly $170,- 
 000,000. 
 
 21 Annual message of December 3, 1900. 
 
 22 Annual report of the Secretary of War, 1901. 
 
 23 Willoughby, op. cit., pp. 171-223. See Atkinson, The Philippine 
 Islands (New York, 1905). 
 
6i6 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 The cession of Puerto Rico to the United States under 
 the Treaty of Paris raised some interesting constitutional 
 questions. For a few months following the close of the 
 war, military government continued in that island. But 
 in his annual message of December 3, 1899, President Mc- 
 Kinley recommended the establishment of civil rule. What, 
 however, was the legal status of Puerto Rico? Was it 
 an integral part of the United States? If so, then the 
 Constitution and laws of the United States must already 
 be in force there, and the inhabitants of Puerto Rico must 
 be already citizens of the United States. This point was 
 brought out sharply in a debate over the question of 
 applying the Dingley Tariff Act to imports into the United 
 States from Puerto Rico. The President himself de 
 clared: "Our plain duty is to abolish all customs-tariffs 
 between the United States and Puerto Rico." But the rep 
 resentatives of the protected interests in Congress took 
 alarm at this sentence. Especially did the agents of the 
 Sugar Trust dislike it, since their masters dreaded com 
 petition from the Puerto Rican sugar-growers. Congress 
 debated the question at great length while considering the 
 so-called Foraker Bill, providing a system of civil govern 
 ment for Puerto Rico. The Democrats crystallised their 
 view in the much-quoted words : The Constitution 
 follows the flag." But they and the few Republicans who 
 agreed with them were outvoted; and the Foraker Bill, 
 as enacted, treated Puerto Rico as being neither a State 
 nor a Territory, but a u possession " of the United States 
 acquired by the treaty-making power, and one which could 
 be incorporated into the United States only by act of Con 
 gress. 24 Hence, for the time being, a tariff was laid upon 
 
 24 This theory was sustained by a decision of the Supreme Court rendered 
 in the case of Dooley vs. the United States. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 617 
 
 goods imported from Puerto Rico, Thus the President 
 was overruled; and the country witnessed the anomalous 
 spectacle of the supreme champion of protectionism plead 
 ing for free trade and being flouted by his own party, 
 which was in this case plus royaliste que le rol. The 
 Foraker Act, 25 in its final form gave to Puerto Rico an 
 appointive Governor, an Executive Council composed half 
 of Americans and half of Puerto Ricans, but chosen by the 
 President, and finally a House of Delegates elected by the 
 people of the Island. 26 
 
 The relations of the United States with Cuba were, of 
 course, different in essence from those with the other 
 territories ceded by Spain. In the resolutions of Congress 
 (April 19, 1898) which had declared that the people of 
 Cuba were " and of right ought to be free and independ 
 ent," the following explicit assertion had been made: 
 
 " The United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention 
 to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said Island, ex 
 cept for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination when 
 that is accomplished to leave the government and control of the 
 Island to its people." 2T 
 
 In the face of this unqualified and spontaneous pledge, 
 it was clear that the United States was bound by every 
 possible obligation of honour to give over to the Cuban 
 people the full and free control of their own political des 
 tinies. Nevertheless, there were not a few Americans 
 who made light of this solemn promise. The nation had 
 
 25 The Foraker Act became law on April 12, 1900. 
 
 - G For a detailed account of the system of general and local government 
 in Puerto Rico, see Willoughby, op. dt., pp. 79 I 7O. 
 
 27 This resolution was known as the Teller Resolution, from Senator 
 Teller of Colorado. 
 
618 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 experienced, in fact, a certain revulsion of feeling as to 
 the Cubans, who not long before had been extravagantly 
 lauded as patriots and heroes. Close contact with them 
 during the war had not tended to perpetuate this admira 
 tion and respect. American soldiers in Cuba found the 
 ragged levies of Garcia and Gomez to be worthless as 
 allies in the field, and not altogether agreeable as near 
 companions. The one military operation entrusted to 
 them, they had failed utterly to accomplish. 28 For the 
 rest they seemed to the hardy, vigorous fighters of the 
 North more like a swarm of enervated mendicants than a 
 host of heroes struggling to be free. They accepted as a 
 matter of course all that was given them. They flocked 
 into the camps when rations were served out, and they 
 were conspicuously absent when the rifle-balls were sing 
 ing. Hence, there was little enthusiasm in the United 
 States in response to the cry of u Cuba for the Cubans." 
 Many newspapers advocated the annexation of Cuba to 
 the United States. They spoke of the resolutions of Con 
 gress as a mere sentimental outburst devoid of any binding 
 force. They asserted and with some truth thaMhose who 
 represented the moneyed interests in Cuba, and the foreign 
 residents as well, would much prefer American to Cuban 
 government. 
 
 Fortunately, however, President McKinley took no heed 
 of such sophistical arguments as these. For weal or for 
 woe the honour of the nation had been plighted; and Cuba 
 must be left to the enjoyment of political independence. 
 Hence, it was decided temporarily to occupy the Island 
 until certain reforms could be effected, and after that to 
 
 28 This was at Santiago, where Garcia was charged to prevent a reliev 
 ing force under General Pando from uniting with the Spaniards in that 
 city. 
 
THE LAST YEARS op 
 
 permit the formation of a Cuban re t 
 R. Brooke was appointed Military C 
 the close of the war until the end 
 succeeded by General Leonarr 
 American occupation, 29 remark 
 made in the Cuban legal syste- 
 municipalities, in its sanitatio 
 education. On November 
 vention assembled in Hav; 
 upon the model of the U 
 American Congress, ho\ 
 the independence of Cr 
 definite guarantees fo* 
 terests. 
 
 An amendment t< 
 
 offered by Senator I 
 
 the Cubans embody 
 
 pledges: (i) that 
 
 trol any part of Cub 
 
 ernment incur no de 
 
 that the United F 
 
 stations in Cuba 
 
 necessary, the 
 
 Amendment, 
 
 feeling amo 
 
 it as ungen 
 
 ever, susta 
 
 sacrifices 
 
 dema r 
 
 we 
 
OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 / after a long debate, the Cuban 
 
 he terms of the Platt Amendment 
 
 * the Constitution which was finally 
 
 \ 
 
 burst of exultation over the 
 
 <? seen in the magnificent recep- 
 
 upon his return to the United 
 
 99, the Admiral in his now 
 
 nd escorted by three battle- 
 
 *ar, arrived in New York 
 
 r en Washington himself, 
 
 a welcome. For more 
 
 e object of a nation s 
 
 was the most thrilling 
 
 ic tact, his calm good 
 
 bable bearing in the 
 
 ! or him the admira- 
 
 hose who had little 
 
 so, on September 
 
 warm autumn sun- 
 
 7 of New York, a 
 
 h. The metrop- 
 
 nerb triumphal 
 
 1 been erected 
 
 More than 
 
 of march, 
 
 scorted by 
 
 nous out- 
 
 mging 
 
 the 
 
 f 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 621 
 
 coloured fires, while every vessel in the harbour was strung 
 with lights. It was the apotheosis of American valour. 80 
 
 This pageant was only the first of many others in which 
 the Admiral was the central figure. Every great city in 
 the land sent delegations to him begging him to become 
 the people s guest. Congress revived for him the office 
 of Admiral, which had heretofore been held only by Farra- 
 gut and Porter. It was provided also that he need not 
 retire when he reached the age prescribed by law for such 
 retirement, and that even after doing so of his own voli 
 tion, his emoluments should not be diminished. 
 
 Admiral Dewey was far more fortunate than many of 
 the other officers who served their country with distinction 
 in the war. When the fighting had actually ceased, some 
 thing like a reaction of feeling swept over the entire coun 
 try. After all, when compared with many other conflicts, 
 the war with Spain, from a military point of view, had not 
 been a very great one. That the United States with its 
 enormous w T ealth, its teeming population, and its vigorous 
 youth should defeat a decrepit and almost bankrupt king 
 dom was not a matter for excessive wonderment and 
 exultation. Individual exploits, such as that of Dewey, de 
 served the full measure of admiration which they received. 
 But for the rest, popular enthusiasm had gone too far, 
 and a reaction was inevitable. This was strengthened by 
 some unpleasant incidents and revelations which followed 
 hard upon the fighting. The record of the War Depart 
 ment was one which filled Americans with chagrin and 
 something like disgust. A commission appointed by the 
 President in December, 1898, brought out many facts that 
 were most discreditable, and that led to personal contro- 
 
 30 See the New York Sun, Times, Tribune, and Herald, for September 
 30 and October i, 1899. 
 
622 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 versies between various officers of high rank. Major- 
 General Miles charged that much of the food furnished to 
 the troops in Cuba was not only unpalatable but unwhole 
 some. Large quantities of refrigerated beef purchased 
 from the Beef Trust had been despatched to Cuba; and 
 
 this beef was said to have been treated with chemicals 
 
 
 
 which made it nauseous and even poisonous. General 
 Miles, using a phrase current in the army, described it as 
 " embalmed beef." For this he was attacked in terms 
 of foul vituperation by the Commissary-General, Charles 
 P. Egan, who wrote a letter to General Miles 31 couched 
 in such language as to prevent its publication. Egan 
 was court-martialed and sentenced to dismissal from the 
 service; 32 but the investigating committee also censured 
 General Miles. Its final report was what is popularly 
 known as a "whitewashing report"; but the country 
 formed its own opinion of the discreditable facts made 
 public during the investigation, and many sneers were 
 heard in foreign countries over the alleged corruption and 
 inefficiency of the American War Department. Thus, 
 the London Saturday Review remarked editorially: 
 
 There is a figure of the American eagle over the War Office 
 in Washington. With slight alteration it might be made into a 
 reminiscence of the war. It would not take much to change it 
 from the figure of an eagle into that of a vampire, unpelican-like, 
 feeding on its own children, who, under a strange delusion, and not 
 realising the nature of their Frankenstein mother, are content to 
 sweat and groan under the most heartlessly tyrannical government 
 on earth the tyranny of democracy." 33 
 
 31 New York World, December 25 and 26, 1898. 
 
 32 President McKinley commuted this sentence to one of six years sus 
 pension from duty. 
 
 ^Saturday Review, October 31, 1898. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 623 
 
 And the St. James s Gazette of London observed: 
 
 " Before the Americans make up their minds definitely to extend 
 the empire of the United States, it may be as well for them to 
 realise how they have managed an army in their own country and 
 the adjacent islands during the late crisis. . . . After the 
 glamour of victory has passed, the scandals in their War Depart 
 ment have proved a very unpleasant reverse to patriotic citizens; 
 and the worst of it is that the Congressmen, who ought to make a 
 strict inquiry, form themselves a large part of the scandal they 
 naturally shrink from investigating." 
 
 Even more unfortunate was a bitter controversy between 
 the friends of Rear-Admiral Sampson and those of Rear- 
 Admiral Schley in which it may be said, to the honour of 
 both these officers, that neither took any active part. 34 . At 
 the beginning of the war, the former had been promoted 
 to the chief command of the fleet in Cuban waters al 
 though previously he had been of rank inferior to Schley. 
 This promotion was in accordance with the prevailing sen 
 timent of naval experts. Admiral Sampson represented 
 the type of naval officer who is above all else strictly and 
 most commendably professional. Cold in temperament, 
 clear-headed, dispassionate and self-controlled, he had 
 many of the traits that were to be found in Moltke, and 
 that contributed so largely to that soldier s phenomenal 
 success. His one thought was to perform with absolute 
 efficiency the tasks assigned him, and in so doing to spare 
 no pains and to leave no details unnoticed or unprovided 
 for. He had a high degree of scientific knowledge, and he 
 
 34 Admiral Schley generously wrote of Admiral Sampson : " Victory 
 was secured by the force under the command of the Commander-in-Chief 
 of the North Atlantic Squadron, and to him the honour is due." (Despatch 
 of July 10, 1898.) See also a despatch from Sampson of the same date re 
 garding Schley. 
 
624 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 represented what was best in the traditions of the old navy 
 and in the aspirations of the new. He cared nothing for 
 popular applause and never suffered any thought of it to 
 influence his actions. Those who did not know him well, 
 criticised him as too reserved, too austere, and, in fact, as 
 too professional. His tactlessness, indeed, was at times 
 almost repellent. When upon his tardy arrival at the 
 battle of Santiago, Commodore Schley signalled him a 
 message of enthusiastic congratulation, Sampson made the 
 coldly curt reply: ; Report your casualties." But in the 
 navy he was regarded with profound respect, and his pro 
 motion was marvellously justified by the event. The 
 smashing of Cervera s fleet was just as much his work as 
 though his own hand had fired every gun upon that mem 
 orable day of victory. 
 
 Rear-Admiral Schley was a very different type of man. 
 He was, first of all, a man of impulse, of eager action in 
 fact, more typically French than Anglo-Saxon. He was 
 far more easy-going than Admiral Sampson, less intel 
 lectual, less steady, less sure of himself in any sudden emer 
 gency, as was shown by his hesitating and dilatory course 
 when ordered to blockade Cervera in Santiago. Admiral 
 Schley kept an eye upon the public and he loved the 
 approval of the public. Applause was very sweet to him, 
 and he knew something of the ways and arts of the politi 
 cian. His impulsiveness, his urbanity, and his lack of 
 reserve made him liked by many w r hose standards of judg 
 ment were personal and not professional. To these he 
 seemed delightfully human, while Admiral Sampson was 
 possibly regarded as a naval martinet. After the war, his 
 friends very unwisely ascribed to him the chief honours of 
 the victory at Santiago, declaring that he was actually in 
 command, while Admiral Sampson had arrived only at 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 625 
 
 the conclusion of the fight. This nettled the latter s 
 friends, and they retorted by pointing to Schley s disobedi 
 ence of orders, by criticising his manoeuvres in the battle, 
 and at last, by accusing him in naval phrase, of being " gun- 
 shy." Accusation was met with counter accusation, until 
 at last Admiral Schley very properly demanded a naval 
 court of inquiry, which was granted. The court was com 
 posed of Admirals Dewey, Ramsay, and Benham; and 
 after a patient consideration of all the facts, it rendered a 
 report to the effect that Admiral Sampson had been really 
 in command of the fleet at the battle of Santiago, and at 
 the same time that there was no ground for any aspersions 
 on the courage and coolness of Admiral Schley while under 
 fire. The Court declined to consider Admiral Schley s 
 alleged disobedience of orders prior to the blockade of 
 Santiago, holding that whatever his conduct may have been 
 at that time, it had been condoned by the Navy Depart 
 ment in failing to relieve him of his command, and by Con 
 gress in advancing him to the rank of Rear-Admiral. 
 The findings of the Court were approved by President 
 McKinley, and the unpleasant controversy gradually came 
 to an end even in the press. A striking tribute was paid 
 to Admiral Sampson by his fellow officers on his retiring 
 from command. The scene has been described by a well- 
 known man of letters in these words : 
 
 " When the time arrived for Admiral Sampson to surrender the 
 command of the fleet he had brought back to Hampton Roads, he 
 came on deck to meet there only those officers whose prescribed 
 duty required them to take part in the farewell ceremonies as set 
 forth in the regulations. But when he went over the side of the 
 flagship he found that the boat which was to bear him ashore was 
 manned by the rest of the officers, ready to row him themselves and 
 eager to render this last personal service; and then from every 
 
626 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 other ship of the fleet there put out a boat also manned by officers, 
 to escort for the last time the commander whom they loved and 
 honoured." 35 
 
 Few of those who became conspicuous by their achieve 
 ments in the war escaped some measure of detraction or 
 neglect. General Shafter s name was soon forgotten. 
 Other generals of the regular army who, in spite of the 
 blunders of the Department, fought so brilliantly in Cuba 
 and the Philippines, received only a grudging recognition 
 from the nation as a whole. Lieutenant Hobson whose 
 gallant exploits on the Merrimac made him for the 
 moment a popular idol, became afterwards the target of 
 almost universal ridicule. Some foolish girl, among a 
 throng of those who welcomed him on his return, threw 
 her arms around him and kissed him; and other women 
 still more foolish, tried from time to time to follow her 
 example, until the comic papers turned the whole thing 
 into a cheap joke and coined the verb " to hobsonize," 
 that is, to kiss a man against his will. One exception to the 
 list of those who were neglected or even vilified was found 
 in the person of Mr. Theodore Roosevelt of New York. 
 Mr. Roosevelt at the opening of the war was Assistant 
 Secretary of the Navy. His active, forceful, and impul 
 sive nature, coupled with an intense enthusiasm, had done 
 much to stimulate the activities of the Department in 
 which he served. When war was formally declared, Mr. 
 Roosevelt raised the regiment known as the Rough Riders 
 (the First Volunteer United States Cavalry) and went to 
 Cuba as its Lieutenant-Colonel, the Colonel being Dr. 
 Leonard Wood, until that time an army surgeon. Colonel 
 
 35 Brander Matthews in the Columbia. University Quarterly for March, 
 1906, p. no. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 627 
 
 Roosevelt s personality was such as readily attracted the 
 attention of newspaper writers in search of the picturesque. 
 His spectacular performances at the battle of San Juan 
 gained for him a vast amount of public notice, so that to 
 the popular mind he seemed to have won the day almost 
 single-handed like an old-time hero of romance. 36 Re 
 turning home he narrated his adventures in various maga 
 zine articles and public speeches, and no one was permitted 
 to forget him. Not long after his regiment had been 
 mustered out, Mr. Roosevelt became the Republican can 
 didate for the Governorship of New York and was elected 
 by a plurality of 18,000 votes, his success being very 
 largely due to the prestige of his military service. 
 
 When peace was finally declared, the nation leaped at 
 once into an era of unprecedented prosperity. As is always 
 the case, a brilliantly successful foreign war stimulated 
 commercial activity in every quarter. The American 
 people no longer suffered frorr that intangible ailment 
 which during the second administration of Mr. Cleveland 
 had been styled a general " lack of confidence." Now 
 they were, if anything, over-confident, with the result 
 that the year 1899 became an annus mirabllis in the 
 records of American commerce and finance. Capital, 
 which had long been locked up by its timid owners, 
 now came forth and reaped abundant profits. All the 
 staple products of the country were in keen demand, and 
 prices soared almost from day to day. For the first time 
 in American economic history, the volume of foreign trade 
 for the single year amounted to more than two billion 
 dollars. In the iron and steel trade, prices increased more 
 than 100 per cent, during the year. The growth in 
 textile manufactures was almost equally remarkable. 
 
 36 See Roosevelt, The Rough Riders (New York, 1899). 
 
628 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 " Agriculture shared in the general prosperity, mortgages 
 being rapidly cleared off, savings banks deposits increas 
 ing, new and improved buildings and implements being 
 used, while comforts and* even luxuries hitherto unknown 
 were now enjoyed. The price of raw cotton rose, within 
 the year, 30 per cent., while the price of wool almost 
 doubled in the same period. " 37 On October 1 2th, the stock 
 of gold in the United States Treasury amounted to $258,- 
 000,000, the highest figures since the foundation of the 
 Government; while the gold in actual circulation reached 
 the enormous sum of $703,000,000. Mr. James T. 
 Woodward, President of the New York Clearing House 
 Commission, wrote : 
 
 " All trade reports show that our factories are taxed to their 
 utmost capacity in filling their orders. The railroads are unable 
 to cope with the traffic that is offered, not having sufficient equip 
 ment to haul the raw materials to the factories and mills or to 
 carry the finished product to the wholesaler and jobber; and on 
 every hand we hear of a record-breaking business and constantly 
 increasing wages, the latter in many cases as much as 10 and 15 
 per cent." 38 
 
 The winning of a foothold in Asia stimulated American 
 trade throughout the East. Imports from Asia showed 
 an increase in this one year of $40,000,000, as against a 
 smaller increase in exports of about $6,000,000. With 
 the West Indies there was an increase in imports of $14,- 
 000,000, and in exports of some $15,000,000. In ex 
 ports generally, the most noticeable circumstance was the 
 volume of manufactured goods sent abroad. The United 
 States began to compete successfully with British iron- 
 
 37 Financial Review in the New York Times, January i, 1900. 
 
 38 Times 1. c. See an article entitled " The New Prosperity," by R. S. 
 Baker, in McC lure s Magazine for May, 1900, pp. 86-94. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 629 
 
 masters not only in distant parts of the world, such as 
 India and Australia, but in Great Britain itself. On the 
 whole, the year 1899 saw an almost furious commercial 
 activity, a steady rise in the prices of staple goods, and an 
 unprecedented confidence in the immediate business future 
 of the country. 
 
 There were, of course, many causes for this revival of 
 prosperity. In the first place, the people had pinched and 
 saved for years and had, therefore, in a measure dimin 
 ished the burden of their debts. Again, the surplus stock 
 of manufactured goods had been gradually consumed, 
 the more speedily, because so many mills and factories had 
 either been shut down or had been working on half time. 
 Still further, as has been already noted, there was the 
 stimulus of the war and the lavish expenditures by the 
 Government for supplies of every sort and for transpor 
 tation. But back of all these causes there was another 
 even more important of which, however, only scientific 
 economists recognised the profound significance. The 
 demonetisation of silver and the practical adoption of the 
 gold standard in the preceding decade had limited the 
 medium of exchange for commercial purposes and had 
 tended to cause an increasing contraction in the money 
 market. The enhanced value of the dollar, as measured 
 in gold, would in consequence have sent prices lower and 
 lower and would thus have steadily increased the burdens 
 of the debtor class not only in the United States, but 
 throughout the entire world. As Mr. Charles Francis 
 Adams expressed it, in speaking of the adoption of the 
 gold standard: 
 
 Thereafter, in the great system of international exchanges, silver 
 ceased to be counted a part of that specie reserve on which draughts 
 
630 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 were made. Thenceforth, the drain, as among the financial cen 
 tres, was to be on gold alone. In the whole history of man, no 
 precedent for such a step was to be found. So far as the United 
 States was concerned, the basis on which its complex and delicate 
 financial fabric rested was weakened by one-half and the cheaper 
 and more accessible metal, that to which the debtor would natur 
 ally have recourse in discharge of his obligations, was made un 
 available. It could further be demonstrated that, without a 
 complete readjustment of currencies and values, the world s ac 
 cumulated stock and annual production of gold could not, as a 
 monetary basis, be made to suffice for its needs. A continually 
 recurring contest for gold among the great financial centres was 
 inevitable. A change which, in the language of Lecky, " beyond 
 all others affects most deeply and universally the material well- 
 being of man," had been unwittingly challenged. 39 
 
 This contraction of the currency would naturally have 
 been hastened with the increase of the world s population 
 and with the growing demand for gold for use in the arts. 
 The disastrous result of such conditions could have been 
 averted iri only one of two ways, either by restoring silver 
 to its former place as was proposed by Mr. Bryan, or by 
 an unforeseen and unexpected addition to the world s stock 
 of gold. It was the second solution which was actually 
 arrived at, and this was due to the achievements of the 
 explorer and the man of science. 
 
 In August of 1896, a roving miner named Cormack 
 found himself near the Klondike Creek in the remote 
 Canadian Territory of Yukon, a region thirteen hundred 
 miles northwest of the city of Seattle and almost within 
 the Arctic Circle. In this desolate and nearly unknown 
 spot, Cormack discovered indications of rich gold deposits. 
 
 39 Address delivered at the annual meeting of the American Historical 
 Association, December 27, 1901 ; enlarged and reprinted in Adams, Lee 
 at Appomattox and other Papers, pp. 274-338 (Boston, 1902). 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 631 
 
 At that time even the rudest habitation had not yet been 
 erected there. A year later, some fifteen thousand fortune- 
 seekers had reared a ragged sort of city in this barren 
 waste and were enduring the horrors of an Arctic winter 
 for the sake of the precious metal which the frozen earth 
 reluctantly gave up to them. 40 Still larger deposits were 
 subsequently discovered in the Nome district of Alaska ; 
 while the beach-sands and river-gravels at the head of 
 Cook s Inlet proved also to be richly auriferous. During 
 the few years which immediately followed upon these dis 
 coveries, the districts mentioned yielded not far from 
 $140,000,000 worth of gold. Almost coincidently, the 
 production of the South African gold mines increased so 
 rapidly as to bring forth nearly $100,000,000 annually. 
 The unexpected, therefore, actually happened. The end 
 which Mr. Bryan had had in view was accomplished in 
 another way -not by the appreciation of silver, but rather 
 by the depreciation of gold, or at least, by the operation 
 of causes which prevented gold from becoming scarcer. 
 
 This fact explains the comparatively slight friction at 
 tending the passage of a very important financial measure 
 in the year 1900. The Congressional elections of 1898 
 had somewhat reduced the size of the Republican majority 
 in the House; but it had also eliminated from the Senate 
 a number of the silver advocates ; so that the upper Cham 
 ber for the first time contained a working majority of 
 Senators favourable to the gold standard. What had 
 hitherto been in practice the financial policy of the Govern 
 ment was now embodied in formal legislation. A so- 
 
 40 See Heilprin, Alaska and the Klondike (N. Y., 1899); and a paper 
 entitled " Voyage Minier au Nord-Ouest Canadien," by J. M. Bel in the 
 Memoires de la Societe des Ingenieurs Civiles de France, pp. 580-648 
 (Paris, 1904). 
 
632 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 called Currency Bill was introduced into the House on 
 December 4, 1899, and with some amendments became 
 law on March 14, 1900. It declared the gold dollar to 
 be the standard unit of value, and all other forms of money 
 in use to be redeemable in gold. It established a gold 
 reserve of $150,000,000 and directed the Secretary, of the 
 Treasury to sell bonds to replenish this reserve whenever it 
 should fall below $ioo,ooo,ooo. 41 The Currency Act 
 carried out the pledges made in the Republican platform 
 of 1896 ; and both at home and abroad it strengthened the 
 financial credit of the United States. 
 
 The buoyant feeling which was perceptible in the busi 
 ness world found instant expression in the centres of specu 
 lation. Hundreds of millions of dollars had been added 
 to the market value of the shares listed on the New York 
 Stock Exchange alone, with the result that speculation 
 assumed extraordinary proportions. New enterprises and 
 new combinations of capital were almost daily announced 
 to an interested and eager public. The business done in 
 Wall Street during the first three months of 1899 was 
 greater by nearly 15,000,000 shares than during the first 
 three months of 1898. There was a keen demand for 
 the so-called industrial stocks, and this demand was sup 
 plied and over-supplied by the flotation of new companies 
 which were capitalised at sums ranging from $150,000,- 
 ooo down to $50,000,000. Existing companies also 
 greatly increased their capital, or in popular language, 
 " watered their stock," in order to form combinations 
 which in effect were Trusts. " Money was easy; profit- 
 
 41 Another clause of the Act provided for the refunding of Government 
 bonds, then bearing a larger rate of interest, into two per cent, bonds. 
 It allowed national banks to issue their notes to the full par value of the 
 bonds deposited by them as security for their circulation. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 633 
 
 making easier; the speculative disposition developed with 
 rushes ; the industrial fever was high. Promoters crowded 
 into Wall Street and madly rolled out gigantic capitalisa 
 tions. The era of consolidation was on all sides pro 
 claimed as present and as full of blessings." 42 Even a 
 sharp reaction which occurred late in the year was treated 
 lightly, and was optimistically called a " prosperity panic." 
 At this time there came conspicuously into public notice 
 a number of bold financiers who, being already possessed 
 of great fortunes, amazed the country and, in fact, the 
 world, by the magnitude of their operations. The pro 
 moter and the underwriter were continually forming new 
 Trusts or " holding companies " into each of which were 
 merged a large number of smaller properties. Thus, the 
 Corporation Trust Company of New Jersey became the 
 agent of seven hundred corporations with an aggregate 
 capital of $1,000,000,000. The New Jersey Corporation 
 Guarantee and Trust Company represented five hundred 
 corporations with not less than $500,000,000 capital. 
 The combined capital of such combinations as were ac 
 tually Trusts amounted to more than $4,000,000,000. A 
 scientific economist has estimated that the addition to the 
 capitalisation of the country in the brief period which is 
 now under consideration exceeded the total capitalisation 
 of all the manufacturing companies established in the 
 United States during the thirty years between 1860 and 
 i89O. 43 The underwriters and promoters who effected 
 these combinations reaped huge profits. Thus, Messrs. 
 J. P. Morgan and Company who promoted the United 
 States Steel Corporation and advanced it $25,000,000 in 
 cash, received in return $106,800,000 in its preferred and 
 
 42 New York Times, January i, 1900. 
 
 43 Montague, Trusts of To-day, p. 101 (New York, 1904). 
 
634 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 common stock. For promoting the American Tin Plate 
 Company, Mr. W. H. Moore received $10,000,000 in 
 the common stock of that concern. The persons who pro 
 moted the Distilling Company of America were paid in 
 stock amounting to $24,000,000. The disproportion be 
 tween the capital of some of these companies and the 
 market value of their securities was startling to conserva 
 tive financiers. Thus, the United States Leather Com 
 pany was capitalised at $125,000,000, while the market 
 value of its stock was about $50,000,000. The United 
 States Steel Corporation was over-capitalised to the extent 
 of about $830,ooo,ooo. 44 
 
 The bigness of these extraordinary figures and the 
 rapidity with which such profits were made, dazzled men s 
 minds, so that they became drunk with the passion oi 
 money-getting and blind to all other standards and ideals. 
 They thought and spoke in millions; and the Napoleons 
 of Wall Street became, in a sense, heroes and demi-gods. 
 Men and women and even children all over the country 
 drank in thirstily every scrap of news that was printed in 
 the press about these so-called " captains of industry," 
 their successful " deals," the off-hand way in which they 
 converted slips of worthless paper into guarantees of more 
 than princely wealth, and all the details concerning their 
 daily lives, their personal peculiarities, their virtues and 
 their vices. To the imagination of millions of Americans, 
 the financial centres of the country seemed to be spouting 
 streams of gold into which anyone might dip at will; and 
 every Wall Street gutter figured as a new Pactolus. 
 
 The men who represented the achievements of this 
 era were of varied types. Most conspicuous among them 
 all was Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, whose bold conceptions, 
 successfully wrought out, attracted the attention of both 
 
 44 Montague, op. /., p. 112. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 635 
 
 hemispheres. Mr. Morgan was a gentleman of cultivated 
 tastes who as a young man had inclined for a time toward 
 the scholar s life. He pursued his studies at the Boston 
 Latin School, where he read the classics leisurely and 
 was grounded thoroughly in the old-fashioned education. 
 Later, in Germany, he spent some time at the University 
 of Gottingen where he heard lectures in history and polit 
 ical economy, and won such distinction by his mathemati 
 cal work as to receive the offer of a professor s chair in 
 that historic institution. He became in after years a con 
 noisseur of the fine arts, a collector of rare books and 
 manuscripts, and a patron of science and learning. But 
 these were only the diversions, the -parerga, of an extraor 
 dinary career. Wall Street and Lombard Street both 
 spoke of him and of his achievements with bated breath. 
 His schemes for multiplying ordinary fortunes into 
 colossal accumulations of wealth made him appear to the 
 small fry of finance a modern Midas whose magic touch 
 turned everything to gold. Haughty and often arrogant 
 in bearing, he asserted an irresistible influence over all he 
 met, and he justified their belief in him by the inviolability 
 of his plighted word, no less than by the great success 
 which seemed for a time to be inseparable from his enter 
 prises. It was he who organised in 1901 the United 
 States Steel Corporation, capitalised at $1,404,000,000, 
 a company which swallowed the plants, the bonds and the 
 stocks of ten of the largest corporations in the world. 45 
 
 Of an entirely different type was Mr. Andrew Car 
 negie, who came to the United States from Scotland when 
 
 45 Montague, op. cit., pp. 26, 36, 97, 105, 106, no; Wilgus, " U. S. Steel 
 Corp." xii. Ind. Com. pp. 448-487 ; and an article by Professor R. T. Ely 
 entitled " Analysis of the Steel Trust " in the Cosmopolitan for August, 
 1901, pp. 428-431. 
 
636 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 a mere child, and at the age of twelve was set to work in 
 a Pennsylvania cotton mill on a weekly salary of $1.20. 
 Subsequently he became a telegraph operator employed by 
 the Pennsylvania Railroad, and after some years the super 
 intendent of an important division of that road. Mr. 
 Carnegie was " canny " even beyond the proverbial can- 
 niness of his countrymen; and little by little through the 
 judicious purchase of stocks, he secured an interest in oil- 
 producing concerns. Mr. Carnegie s investments pres 
 ently netted him a comfortable fortune, with which in 
 1865 he began the manufacture of iron. Protected by 
 the high tariff, his ventures proved remarkably successful, 
 and he very shrewdly acquired valuable coal and ore beds. 
 His relations with the railroads also gave him great and 
 special advantages. When the United States Steel Cor 
 poration was formed, Mr. Carnegie s company had to be 
 bought out; and it is said that in the negotiations attend 
 ing this sale the Scotchman outmanoeuvred even Mr. Mor 
 gan. He did, at any rate, receive in exchange for bonds 
 and stock valued at $217,000,000, an allotment of five 
 per cent, bonds in the Steel Trust of a par value- of $304,- 
 000,000, constituting a mortgage not only upon the 
 former Carnegie works, but upon all the other plants ab 
 sorbed by the new corporation. Mr. Carnegie then re 
 tired from active business, devoting himself to the build 
 ing of libraries, to fostering education by his munificence, 
 and to posing as an authority upon almost every subject of 
 human interest, from Homeric criticism to spelling reform, 
 and becoming rather famous for his dictum to the effect 
 that " to die rich is to die disgraced." 46 
 
 46 See the autobiographical notes in Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth 
 (New York, 1900) ; and Bridge, Inside History of the Carnegie Steel 
 Company (New York, 1902). 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 637 
 
 Mr. John D. Rockefeller and Mr. Philip D. Armour, 
 the respective organisers of the Standard Oil Company 
 and the so-called Beef Trust, were men who laid the 
 foundations of their colossal fortunes first of all by the 
 minutest attention to small savings. Mr. Rockefeller 
 studied carefully every possible method of avoiding waste 
 in the handling of oil, while Mr. Armour contrived to 
 convert every part of each slaughtered animal horns, 
 hoofs, hide, hair, bones, and bristles into a marketable 
 product. Yet their fortunes would never have exceeded 
 moderate limits had they not been able to secure secret 
 advantages as against their rivals, from the railways. 
 Other exponents of the New Wealth were Mr. H. H. 
 Rogers, the audacious and powerful manager of Mr. 
 Rockefeller s company; Mr. J. W. Gates, who came out 
 of the West at this time and who was a sublimation of the 
 reckless, speculative type of financier; and Mr. August 
 Belmont, Mr. Charles T. Yerkes and Mr. Thomas F. 
 Ryan, who by ingenious management absorbed valuable 
 franchises for street railways in New York and Chicago, 
 which paid their owners immense annual sums while yield 
 ing next to nothing to the cities which had improvidently 
 granted them such favours. 
 
 These and scores of other capitalists consolidated not 
 only the related parts of particular industries and enter 
 prises, but they massed together unrelated interests. Thus, 
 Mr. Rockefeller, in control of the Standard Oil Company, 
 absorbed also the Amalgamated Copper Company, and 
 in time linked with these corporations two powerful 
 " chains " of banks. Through the National City Bank 
 of New York the combination assumed practical control 
 of more than fifty other banking institutions in various 
 parts of the country, and at least a dozen trust companies, 
 
638 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 together with the Mutual Life Insurance Company. It 
 was estimated that they could influence within New 
 York City alone not less than $108,000,000 of banking 
 capital, $474,000,000 of deposits, and $323,000,000 of 
 loans. In like manner, Mr. Morgan was practically the 
 master of another " chain " of banks and trust companies, 
 of the New York Life Insurance Company, and of the 
 Equitable Life Assurance Society, commanding an equal 
 aggregation of capital. 
 
 Together, these two alliances have at their disposal nearly one- 
 half of the banking capital of New York City. Not only are they 
 ready at a moment s notice to loan millions and to undertake any 
 vast enterprise for the favoured Trusts, but by their preponderance 
 in the money market they are able to force the rivals of the Trust 
 to borrow at disadvantageous rates." 47 
 
 It is not surprising that the same wave of materialism 
 which was in full flow elsewhere, should submerge every 
 department of the national Government. The " era of 
 consolidation " which was declared to be a blessing, was 
 ascribed wholly to the Dingley Tariff Law and to the 
 dominance of the Republican party. Mark Hanna was 
 now the spokesman of the Administration and already one 
 of the leaders in the Senate. That body, naturally con 
 servative, looked somewhat askance at the prominence of 
 one who had but just entered the senatorial order. Mr. 
 Hanna, however, while not obtrusive, broke through the 
 unwritten laws which repress the activities of new Sena 
 tors. His hard-headed, indomitable business sense, and 
 his great force of character, made it impossible to ignore 
 him. Though not an orator, he could speak with force 
 
 47 Montague, op. cit., p. 54; Clark, The Problem of Monopoly, pp. 3-24 
 (New York, 1904). 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 639 
 
 and point upon many questions. He was never abashed, 
 and he had a fund of tough, dry humour at his command. 
 At first, one or two of the older Senators attempted to 
 teach this neophyte his proper place; but none of them 
 cared to make the attempt a second time. Mr. Hanna met 
 all thrusts with imperturbable serenity, and never failed 
 in his riposte. Whenever he spoke, his colleagues, and 
 the galleries as well, paid him the unusual compliment of 
 an appreciative silence. Little by little, too, it came to be 
 known that, because of his practical good sense, his ser 
 vices were really valuable upon committees and in the 
 everyday work of Congress of which the public knows and 
 cares but little. Moreover, he was a man of his word, 
 direct, and upright in all personal relations, and courteous 
 to the many strangers with whom he came in contact. It 
 was only because he embodied and typified all the forces of 
 materialism that he was still assailed by a part of the press 
 and by the Opposition. The multiplication of Trusts, the 
 absorption of franchises by the favoured few, and the 
 building up of special interests by special legislation 
 these things Mr. Hanna honestly believed to be in essence 
 good. And therefore, he favoured subsidies for Ameri 
 can shipping, and every other form of bounty which would 
 artificially make some classes of Americans more pros 
 perous than others. His spirit was, in truth, the spirit 
 of the day. The nation, for the moment, dazzled by the 
 evidences of material prosperity, accepted the new gospel, 
 and the voice of opposition was little heeded. 
 
 In 1899, the Government of the United States had an 
 opportunity to requite, though in a very small degree, 
 the friendliness which Great Britain had displayed dur 
 ing the war with Spain. The Transvaal Republic and the 
 
6 4 o TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Orange Free State had challenged the British Empire to a 
 contest in which the disparity of the contending forces 
 seemed at first sight almost ludicrous. The bravery of 
 the Boers, however, coupled with their skill in adapting 
 their warlike operations to the physical conditions of the 
 country, led at first to severe reverses to the British 
 arms. Those Continental nations which had sympathised 
 with Spain and which, but for Great Britain s attitude, 
 might have attempted intervention on her behalf, now 
 sneered and mocked at English valour. In several chan 
 celleries there were concocted sinister schemes which under 
 some conditions might have been transmuted into action 
 still more sinister. In the United States there no doubt 
 existed a certain sympathy with the Boers, springing from 
 an admiration of their fighting qualities and from the 
 natural good will which goes out to the weaker of two 
 antagonists. But the American Government had not for 
 gotten what Lord Pauncefote had done for the American 
 cause in Washington and what Captain Chichester had 
 done in Manila Bay. Its neutrality in the Boer War was 
 modelled on the neutrality of Great Britain in 1898. It 
 was frankly benevolent toward the latter power. British 
 agents were allowed to purchase in the United States great 
 numbers of horses and mules for the use of the Queen s 
 army in South Africa, and even to make enlistments in a 
 quiet way. Later, when a number of Boer delegates 
 came to Washington with an appeal for either mediation 
 or actual intervention, President McKinley consented to 
 receive them at the White House only as private individ 
 uals. Though he chatted with them pleasantly, he said 
 no word about the war; and when they approached the 
 subject, he blandly called their attention to the beautiful 
 view which could be seen from the windows of his draw- 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 641 
 
 ing-room. The enemies of England received neither aid 
 nor comfort from the American Government, and pres 
 ently the crisis passed. Another link, however, had been 
 forged in the chain of interest and understanding which 
 united the two English-speaking nations. 
 
 In the early months of the year 1900, the impending 
 presidential election began to arouse the interest of poli 
 ticians. Yet even among politicians this interest was but 
 a languid one. That President McKinley would be re- 
 nominated without opposition had long been a foregone 
 conclusion. That he would be elected was regarded as 
 almost equally inevitable. The country was so prosper 
 ous, and the government had on the whole been so well 
 administered, as to give the Democrats no popular issue, 
 not even the issue of discontent. The four years which 
 had elapsed since 1896 had done very little to unite the 
 demoralised Opposition. No new leader had come to the 
 front. Mr. Bryan, in spite of the defeat which he had 
 suffered in 1896, was still the dominant figure in his party, 
 and it was held that he might have the nomination if he 
 chose to lead what was likely to be the forlornest of for 
 lorn hopes. When the Republican Convention assembled 
 in Philadelphia on June 2Oth, the only topic of animated 
 discussion was the question whether Governor Roosevelt 
 of New York would accept a nomination for the Vice- 
 Presidency. Mr. Roosevelt s position was somewhat 
 peculiar. As Governor he had alienated the sympathy of 
 the great corporate interests by securing the passage of a 
 much-needed law imposing a tax upon corporation fran 
 chises. He had also estranged the so-called " machine 
 politicians " of his State, the chief of whom was Senator 
 Thomas C. Platt. Governor Roosevelt strongly desired 
 
642 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 to serve a second term as Governor in order to carry 
 out the reforms which he had instituted. Mr. Platt 
 was anxious to get Mr. Roosevelt out of the way. The 
 Vice-Presidency of the United States was popularly 
 supposed to be an innocuous and purely ornamental 
 office, the occupant of which passed through it to a 
 species of political oblivion. Senator Platt, therefore, 
 did all in his power to foster a sentiment in favour of 
 Mr. Roosevelt s nomination at Philadelphia. In this he 
 found supporters who, unlike Mr. Platt himself, were 
 enthusiastic friends of the New York Governor. Mr. 
 Roosevelt had lived long on the Western plains. His 
 ardent and unconventional manners endeared him to the 
 people of that section. Hence, the delegates from the Far 
 Western States came to Philadelphia bent upon making 
 him the candidate who was to divide the electoral honours 
 with President McKinley. It is now well understood that 
 President McKinley by no means shared this feeling, 
 though he made no open signs of disapproval. Both he 
 and Senator Hanna had a certain distrust of Mr. Roose 
 velt, whom they regarded as too impetuous a person to be 
 wholly safe. Perhaps in President McKinley s heart of 
 hearts there was a slight lack of cordiality based upon 
 reasons that were purely personal. When Mr. Roosevelt 
 was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he had often fretted 
 over what he held to be the extreme conservatism of the 
 President; and in accordance with his natural impulsive 
 ness he had voiced his opinion to many persons in language 
 that was by no means consistent with respect. " McKin 
 ley has no more backbone than a chocolate eclair ! " was a 
 favourite saying of his at that time; and doubtless there 
 were many tale-bearers to carry this and other like expres 
 sions to the presidential ear. But the very fact that Mr. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 643 
 
 Hanna was opposed to Mr. Roosevelt brought to the 
 Governor friends with whom he would otherwise have 
 had no natural affiliations. Senator Quay detested Mr. 
 Hanna ; and therefore, in order to displease him, he threw 
 his influence in favour of Mr. Roosevelt s candidacy. 
 
 Governor Roosevelt himself was quite sincere in his un 
 willingness to take the nomination. On June i8th, two 
 days before the Convention met, he read a statement to a 
 large number of newspaper correspondents in which, after 
 expressing his appreciation of the attitude of his many 
 friends, he said: 
 
 " I feel most deeply that the field of my best usefulness to the 
 public and the party is in New York State; and if the party should 
 see fit to re-nominate me for Governor, I can in that position help 
 the national ticket as in no other way. I very earnestly ask that 
 every friend of mine in the Convention respect my wish and my 
 judgment in this matter." 48 
 
 Nevertheless, when the Convention met on June 2Oth, 
 the talk was all for Roosevelt, The proceedings on the 
 first day were purely formal, with no evidence of excite 
 ment. The applause given to the speeches was decorous 
 but not enthusiastic. On the following day, the Com 
 mittee reported a platform which was speedily adopted. 
 It praised the record of the Administration, and renewed 
 the allegiance of the party to the gold standard and to the 
 policy of protection and reciprocity. It advocated sub 
 sidies to the American merchant marine, and a more effec 
 tive restriction of pauper immigration. It commended 
 the reform of the Civil Service and " a liberal pension 
 policy," and put forth the usual number of popular ge/ 
 eralities. In order to prevent the Democrats from rr 
 
 48 Report in the New York Sun, June 19, 1900. 
 
644 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ing a distinct issue of the Trust question, it denounced 
 " conspiracies and combinations to restrict business." On 
 June 22nd, the third day of the Convention, Senator Fora- 
 ker presented Mr. McKinley s name for. the nomination, 
 and was seconded by Mr. Roosevelt. When the roll 
 was called it showed that every delegate had voted for 
 Mr. McKinley, who received 930 ballots. The applause 
 following upon the announcement was hearty but not up 
 roarious, since there had been no contest to stir men s 
 blood. Instead, the delegates indulged in various forms 
 of horseplay; while a mock elephant, the popular symbol 
 of the party, moved clumsily around the hall amid cheers 
 and laughter. 
 
 At one o clock on the same day, Governor Roosevelt 
 was put in nomination for the Vice-Presidency by an Iowa 
 delegate, who was followed by other speakers, among 
 them Mr. Depew of New York who spoke of " William 
 McKinley, a Western man with Eastern ideas; and Theo 
 dore Roosevelt, an Eastern man with Western character 
 istics." The noise and clamour and shouting which had 
 hitherto been lacking, now broke forth in a tempest which 
 was renewed and prolonged when the announcement was 
 made that Mr. Roosevelt had received 925 votes every 
 one, in fact, except his own and those of four delegates 
 who were absent from the hall. Mr. Roosevelt signified 
 his acceptance of the nomination, yielding, as he said, to 
 the will of his party. 
 
 The Democratic National Convention met in Kansas 
 City on July 4th, in the midst of the noise and excitement 
 attending the celebration of the national holiday. The 
 Convention was more disposed to join in that celebration 
 than to proceed at once to business. It listened to the 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 645 
 
 reading of the Declaration of Independence, to patriotic 
 orations, and to vocal music. In the evening, Governor 
 Altgeld pronounced a eulogy on Mr. Bryan, and Senator 
 Tillman read out with tremendous emphasis the platform 
 which had been adopted by the Committee on Resolu 
 tions. This document denounced the so-called " colonial 
 policy" of the Republican Adminstration; declared its 
 opposition to militarism; attacked the Trusts and all pri 
 vate monopolies; and called the Dingley Tariff u a trust- 
 breeding measure." The vital paragraph, however, was 
 that which indicated the party s intention to make " im 
 perialism " the supreme question to be discussed before the 
 people. 
 
 The burning issue of imperialism growing out of the Spanish 
 War involves the very existence of the Republic and the destruc 
 tion of our free institutions. We regard it as the paramount issue 
 of the campaign." 
 
 Another paragraph reaffirmed and endorsed " the prin 
 ciples of the National Democratic platform adopted at 
 Chicago in 1896," and demanded once more "the im 
 mediate restoration of the free and unlimited coinage of 
 silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to i without 
 waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation." 
 
 The platform was received with tremendous cheering, 
 many of the delegates seizing their State emblems and 
 marching with them about the hall; and banners were 
 displayed bearing such partisan inscriptions as " Lincoln 
 abolished slavery; McKinley has restored it." The climax 
 of this temporary frenzy was reached when there was sud 
 denly swung from the iron-girdered roof a gigantic Ameri 
 can flag more than seventy-five feet long, which streamed 
 
646 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 over the heads of the mob, bearing the words lf The Flag 
 of the Republic forever, of an Empire never." 49 
 
 On the following day, in the presence of 20,000 men 
 and women, the Democratic platform was adopted amid 
 tumultuous shouting which continued for more than twenty 
 minutes, after which Mr. Bryan was nominated for the 
 presidency, not by roll-call, but by acclamation. His 
 nomination was seconded by Mr. Hill of New York, who 
 could undoubtedly have been made the candidate for Vice- 
 President had he been willing to accept the nomination. 
 As he explicitly declined, the Convention nominated Mr. 
 Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois who had been Vice-Presi 
 dent from 1893 to 1897. The Convention then ad 
 journed, having made it clear that the three issues of the 
 campaign were the Trusts, free silver, and imperialism. 
 
 As to the Trusts, the Democratic party could not hope 
 to make a very strenuous fight. The Republicans had 
 also denounced these monopolistic combinations, and Pres 
 ident McKinley in a recent message had devoted a para 
 graph to them, somewhat vaguely worded, but still with 
 sufficient point to make his remarks available for campaign 
 use. Moreover, the country still remembered how Demo 
 cratic Senators had surrendered to the Sugar Trust in 
 1894. The revival of the free silver question was credit 
 able to Mr. Bryan s sincerity and consistency, but it was 
 exceedingly bad politics. The West was now prosperous. 
 There was no longer an immense debtor class to whom the 
 silver argument could appeal. Even Mr. Bryan s own 
 following had lost interest in that cause and there was 
 nothing to be gained by its further advocacy. Impe 
 rialism, as an issue, was a most amorphous nondescript. 
 The word was one of those party cries which have the 
 
 49 New York Tribune, July 5, 1900. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 647 
 
 exasperating characteristic of meaning anything and every 
 thing or nothing. For what was indicated by " impe 
 rialism " when the term was analysed impartially? The 
 Democratic orators professed to think that the American 
 Republic was in danger of being turned into an empire 
 over night. Yet in reality, no one had the slightest fear 
 of any such catastrophe. To talk of imperialism in such 
 a sense as this was so ludicrous a thing as to make it quite 
 impossible for Americans to take it seriously. The 
 Democratic platform also identified imperialism with 
 " militarism "; and in the campaign which followed, Mr. 
 Bryan talked in a most portentous way about the fortresses 
 which in imagination he already saw towering above every 
 city in the land, bristling with cannon, and filled with a 
 licentious soldiery prepared at a moment s notice to make 
 the gutters run with blood. His followers professed a 
 horror of what they called the growth of the military 
 spirit in the United States, beginning so they said, in the 
 war with Spain. But as that war had been declared by 
 the unanimous vote of all parties in Congress, the war 
 spirit was scarcely fraught with peril to AmeMcan inde 
 pendence. 
 
 Mr. Bryan should have known this, because a,t the time 
 he himself had felt the war spirit, and it had caused him 
 to volunteer and to get himself appointed colonel of a 
 regiment. Did he and his regiment resemble a licentious 
 soldiery? He would hardly have admitted it; yet his 
 command was typical of all American regiments; and 
 hence, his vivid picture of frowning forts and blood- 
 bespattered streets failed lamentably in its appeal to the 
 common sense of the American people. 
 
 The campaign, therefore, opened with slight enthusi 
 asm; and though Mr. Bryan repeated his spectacular can- 
 
648 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 vass of 1896, and though there was an immense amount 
 of oratory indulged in by the hired speakers of both 
 parties, the issue was never doubtful. During the sum 
 mer, in fact, attention was largely diverted from domestic 
 politics to a series of dramatic incidents that were taking 
 place in China. The Chinese had been greatly irritated 
 by the aggressions made upon their territory by ^France 
 and Germany and Russia. In May of 1900, rumours 
 began to spread regarding a powerful secret organisation 
 in the province of Shan-tung. The organisation was 
 spoken of as " the Boxers," this being a very free trans 
 lation of the native name. Its object was originally to 
 defend the country against foreign intrigues. Finally, 
 however, it fell under the direction of ignorant fanatics 
 whose watchword was " Exterminate the foreigners ! " 
 Sporadic acts of violence were followed by demonstrations 
 so serious that the legations in Pekin finally called upon 
 their respective governments for military protection. 
 Small bodies of marines were sent by various nations in 
 response to this request; but presently the Boxers, who 
 were now^oined by a portion of the Chinese army, gained 
 possession of Pekin, cut off its communications with the 
 outer world, murdered the German Ambassador, and 
 besieged the foreigners who had gathered in the grounds 
 of the British legation, fortified with skill and defended 
 with splendid courage against overwhelming numbers. 
 But for a time, the fate of the beleaguered band was 
 utterly unknown, and the most startling stories were 
 accepted as being true. It was reported that the wife of 
 the Russian Ambassador had been boiled in oil, that the 
 Christians in the legation had been butchered after being 
 put to torture, and that Pekin had been the scene of indes 
 cribable outrages. There were cabled to Europe and the 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 649 
 
 United States, specific and most alarming details of which 
 the following are an example : 
 
 " In their final attempt to cut their way through, the legationers 
 formed a square with the women and children in the centre. 
 When the Boxers realised that they were being attacked, they be 
 came like wild beasts and shot each other in the darkness. The 
 foreigners went mad and killed all their women and children with 
 revolvers. Heavy guns bombarded all night until the buildings 
 were demolished and in flames. Many foreigners were roasted 
 in the ruins. The Boxers rushed upon them and hacked and 
 stabbed both dead and wounded, cutting off their heads and carry 
 ing these through the streets on their rifles shouting furiously. 
 They then attacked the native Christian quarters, massacring all 
 who refused to join them, ill-treating the women and braining the 
 children. Hundreds of mission buildings were burned. All China 
 is now menaced. In the provinces of Hupe and Hunan thousands 
 of native Christians have been mutilated and tortured, the women 
 being first assaulted and then massacred." 50 
 
 Meanwhile, the United States and Europe were astir. 
 Ships of war were sent to Chinese waters, and on June 
 loth a body of some 2,000 marines and sailors British, 
 American, Japanese and French attempted to march 
 upon Pekin under the command of Vice-Admiral Seymour 
 of the British Navy. This attempt would not have been 
 made had not the American naval representative, Captain 
 McCalla, declared at a council of war: " The Minister 
 of my country is in danger, and I have been ordered to 
 rescue him. I shall march even if I have to do so with 
 none but my own men." The attempt was unavailing, 
 however, for the hostile Chinese swarmed by thousands. 
 They were well armed and had cannon of the latest 
 models. On June iyth, the allied ships bombarded the 
 
 50 Despatch in the New York JVorld, July 16, 1900. 
 
650 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Chinese forts at Taku, and then carried them by storm. 
 The result was simply to infuriate the Chinese, who massed 
 an army at Tien-Tsin. Upon this place an attack was 
 made by a force of Japanese, Russians, British, Ameri 
 cans, and French, and after much fierce fighting it was 
 taken. Then an allied force of 18,000 troops pushed on 
 to Pekin. The march began on August 4th; and, after 
 almost continuous fighting, Pekin was reached, its walls 
 were battered open by artillery, and the legations were re 
 lieved. British soldiers had the honour of first entering 
 the beleaguered compound; but the American flag was the 
 first foreign standard to be hoisted, on the walls of the 
 Chinese capital. 51 
 
 Throughout this period, diplomacy had been active. 
 Of all the Foreign Offices, the American State Department 
 was the only one which had thoroughly kept its head. 
 Since Mr. McKinley s inauguration, several changes had 
 taken place in this important Cabinet place. Mr. John 
 Sherman, who was greatly enfeebled when he became Sec 
 retary, had broken down completely under the strain of the 
 Spanish War. He lost his memory and remained only 
 nominally at his post until his resignation in 1898, when 
 he was succeeded by Judge William R. Day of Ohio, 
 whom President McKinley characterised as having " a 
 genius for common-sense." Judge Day held office for a 
 few months only, resigning in order to head the American 
 peace envoys at the Congress of Paris. His successor was 
 Mr. John Hay, who soon proved himself to be one of the 
 ablest statesmen of his time. As a very young man he 
 had been private secretary to President Lincoln, and then 
 for several years a member of the diplomatic service in 
 Paris, in Vienna, and in Madrid. Under President Hayes 
 
 51 Savage-Landor, China and the Allies, ii., p. 178 (London, 1901). 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 651 
 
 he had been First Assistant Secretary of State; and in 
 1897, President McKinley had made him Ambassador to 
 Great Britain. Mr. Hay was a gentleman of unusual 
 breadth, intelligence, and tact. His social gifts were very 
 marked. He was an accomplished man of letters, and his 
 experience had given him a comprehensive knowledge of 
 men and of great affairs. When the Chinese crisis became 
 acute, Mr. Hay took and maintained a consistent attitude, 
 and by his skill and judgment won the assent to it of the 
 great Powers of Europe. He chose to regard the Boxer 
 outbreak as a rebellion against the Chinese Imperial Gov 
 ernment, and he mantained the fiction that for its excesses 
 that Government was not responsible. During the dark 
 period of the march upon Pekin, the American Secretary 
 was almost alone in believing that the legations were still 
 safe. In the meantime, he laboured to avoid the dismem 
 berment of China, 52 and he both asked and secured 
 from other nations written pledges that the " open door " 
 for trade should be maintained after the suppression of 
 the Boxers. In the negotiations of September and Octo 
 ber of the same year, the United States through Mr. Hay 
 did much to soften the harshness of the terms imposed by 
 the allies upon China, and he secured the preservation of 
 what he called the " administrative entity " of that 
 country. 53 
 
 The last few weeks before the presidential election were 
 
 52 Circular note to the Powers under date of July 3, 1900. 
 
 53 See Foster, American Diplomacy in the Orient, pp. 414-434; and for 
 fuller accounts of the Boxer Rebellion and its causes, Krausse, The Story 
 of the Chinese Crisis (London, 1900) ; Parker, China (London, 1901) ; 
 Martin, The Siege of Pekin (New York, 1900) ; Thompson, China and the 
 Powers (London, 1902) ; Ireland, China and the Powers (Boston, 1902) ; 
 and also Savage-Landor, op. cit. 
 
652 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 full of bustle, but only the most optimistic Democrats felt 
 any real hope of Mr. Bryan s success. On Saturday, 
 November 3rd, the great " Sound Money " parade of 
 1896 was duplicated in New York. More than 100,000 
 voters marched in the pouring rain. This demonstration 
 is to be remembered chiefly because of the tactlessness of 
 the Democratic managers who hung across the* line of 
 march banners bearing the legend: " McKinley s badge 
 is on my coat, but Bryan is near my heart, God bless 
 him ! "} This insult to the sincerity and courage of the 
 Republican paraders gave so great offense as undoubtedly 
 to lose thousands of votes to the cause which Mr. Bryan 
 represented. Nothing, however, in that year could have 
 been done to turn the tide away from. President McKin- 
 ley. In the popular vote he received a majority over Mr. 
 Bryan of some 850,000 ballots, and in the Electoral Col 
 lege he had 292 votes against Mr. Bryan s 155. Mr. 
 Bryan, in fact, failed to carry his own State, his own city, 
 and even his own polling precinct; and he received the elec 
 toral votes of only Idaho, Colorado, Montana and 
 Nevada, in addition to those of the Southern States. The 
 Neo-Republicanism was everywhere triumphant. 
 
 President McKinley s second inauguration resembled 
 his first, though it was still more imposing. His new ad 
 ministration began with the best omens. No perplexing 
 problems existed to burden his mind or to stimulate a 
 purely factional opposition. His personal popularity had 
 become very great. In the early spring of 1901, he made, 
 in company with his wife, a journey westward to Cali 
 fornia, passing through the Southern States. Everywhere 
 he was received with the utmost cordiality and respect. 
 He spoke to the multitudes that greeted him, not as the 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 653 
 
 President of a party, but as the chosen ruler of a united 
 nation. These days recalled to students of history the 
 second administration of President Monroe which has be 
 come memorable as the Era of Good Feeling. The Pres 
 ident himself had really risen above the plane of partisan 
 ship. The wider field of interest which the United States 
 now occupied had undoubtedly broadened and elevated 
 President McKinley s statesmanship. He gave striking 
 evidence of this in a remarkable speech which he delivered 
 on September 5th, in the city of Buffalo, before a gather 
 ing of fifty thousand people. In that speech he showed 
 plainly that he was no longer fettered by the dogmas of 
 a narrow protectionism. He spoke words which ten years 
 before would have seemed to him heretical. But they 
 were words of genuine statesmanship, and they should be 
 remembered and inscribed in golden letters upon the 
 temple of American economics : 
 
 " Comparison of ideas is always educational ; and as such it 
 instructs the brain and hand of man. Friendly rivalry follows 
 which is the spur of industrial improvement, the inspiration to 
 useful invention and to high endeavour in all departments of 
 human activity. . . . The quest for trade is an incentive to 
 men of business to devise, invent, improve and economise in the 
 course of production. Business life, whether among ourselves or 
 with other people, is ever a sharp struggle for success. It will be 
 none the less so in the future. But, though commercial competi 
 tors we are, commercial enemies we must not be. The wisdom and 
 energy of all the nations are none too great for the world s work. 
 The success of art, science, industry and invention is an interna 
 tional asset and a crowning glory. 
 
 " Isolation is no longer possible or desirable. God and man 
 have linked the nations together. No nation can longer be in 
 different to any other. . . . Only a broad and enlightened 
 
654 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 policy will keep what we have. No other policy will get more. 
 By the sensible trade arrangements which will not interrupt our 
 home production we shall extend the outlets for our increasing 
 surplus. 
 
 "A system which provides a mutual exchange of commodities 
 is manifestly essential to the continued healthful growth of our ex 
 port trade. We must not repose in fancied security that we can 
 forever sell everything and buy little or nothing. If such a thing 
 were possible, it would not be best for us or for those with whom 
 we have to deal. We should take from our customers such of 
 their products as we can use without harm to our industries and 
 labour. 
 
 " Reciprocity is the natural growth of our wonderful industrial 
 development under the domestic policy now firmly established. 
 What we produce beyond our domestic consumption must have a 
 vent abroad. The excess must be relieved through a foreign out 
 let and we should sell everywhere we can, and buy wherever the 
 buying will enlarge our sales and productions, and thereby make a 
 greater demand for home labour. 
 
 " The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our 
 trade and commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are 
 unprofitable. A policy of good will and friendly trade relations 
 will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with 
 the spirit of the times; measures of retaliation are not. 
 
 " If, perchance, some of our tariffs are no longer needed for rev 
 enue or to encourage and protect our industries at home, why 
 should they not be employed to extend and promote our markets 
 abroad ? 
 
 " Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest is in con 
 cord, not conflict, and that our real eminence rests in the victories 
 of peace and not in those of war. We hope that all who are rep 
 resented here may be moved to higher and nobler effort for their 
 own and the world s good, and that out of this city may come not 
 only greater commerce and trade for us all, but more essential than 
 these, relations of mutual respect, confidence and friendship, which 
 will deepen and endure. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 655 
 
 " Our earnest prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe pros 
 perity, happiness and peace to all our neighbours, and like blessings 
 to all the peoples and the powers of the earth." 5 * 
 
 President McKinley had visited Buffalo for the purpose 
 of inspecting the so-called Pan-American Exposition. On 
 the day after his public speech, he held a reception in the 
 Temple of Music, giving a personal greeting to all who 
 wished to meet him. Among these was a young man hav 
 ing the appearance of a respectable mechanic, whose right 
 hand was apparently covered with a bandage. As he ap 
 proached the President, he rapidly uncovered a revolver, 
 and before he could be prevented, he had fired two bullets 
 into the body of the President. Ere he had fired a third 
 time, he was seized and hurled to the ground. Mr. Mc 
 Kinley stood for a moment as though dazed, and then 
 swayed backward into the arms of his attendants. The 
 first words that he spoke were to his private secretary: 
 " Corteiyou, be careful; tell Mrs. McKinley gently." 
 Then, observing the attempt of the maddened people to 
 tear his assailant to pieces, the President said in a feeble 
 voice, " Let no one hurt him." 
 
 The assassin was rescued by the police. He proved to 
 be a German Pole named Leon Franz Czolgosz, by occu 
 pation a blacksmith in Detroit. He was an unintelligent, 
 dull young man whose brain had been inflamed by listen 
 ing to the oratory of foreign anarchists, among them par 
 ticularly a woman named Emma Goldman, who had long 
 been conspicuous as an agitator. In 1893, she had spent 
 ten months in prison for inciting to riot and her views 
 were revolutionary even beyond those of ordinary anarch 
 ists. Short in figure, hard featured and frowsy in ap- 
 
 54 Text in Halstead, Life of William McKinley, pp. 225-227 (Cincin 
 nati, 1901). 
 
656 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 pearance, she hated women and spent her life chiefly 
 among men. At one time she had been the mistress of 
 Johann Most, though later she had quarrelled with him 
 and had assaulted him at an anarchistic meeting. 55 It 
 was from her more than from any other that Czolgosz re 
 ceived the impulse which led him to commit the crime for 
 which presently he suffered death (October 29th). 
 
 President McKinley lingered for a few days; and the 
 favourable reports which were given out by his physicians 
 led the country to hope that he might recover. This hope 
 proved to be baseless, and he died on the morning of Sat 
 urday, September I4th. His remains lay in state in Buf 
 falo and afterwards in the rotunda of the Capitol at 
 Washington, where they were received with impressive 
 ceremonies. His body was interred in the cemetery at 
 Canton. 
 
 To President McKinley there was accorded a sponta 
 neous tribute f universal grief such as no one in our his 
 tory, since Washington, had ever yet received. Americans 
 sorrowed both for the ruler and for the man; and their 
 sorrow was the more poignant because of the false hope 
 which had been given them by the premature and quite un 
 justifiable optimism of his physicians. In it all there was 
 nothing official, nothing studied or insincere. Its most 
 impressive feature was found in its quiet intensity, the in 
 tensity of a feeling too sacred and too profound for utter 
 ance in mere words. At the hour when the simple cere 
 monial in Canton was proceeding, a great hush came over 
 every city and hamlet in the land. The streets were de- 
 serted. The activities of seventy millions of people 
 ceased. Men and women of every type and class felt the 
 shadow touch for a moment their own lives, and they let 
 their sorrow find supreme expression in the solemnity of 
 
 55 New York World, September n, 1901. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 657 
 
 a reverent silence. It was very human and it was very 
 w r onderful. 
 
 As a man, Mr. McKinley belonged to the older school 
 of American statesmen whom he recalled in his per 
 sonal appearance, in his smooth-shaven face, his custom 
 ary garb of black, and the suavity of his address. He 
 would have been at home in the society of Clay and Cass 
 and Benton, and he will undoubtedly stand as the last 
 President of that particular type. He possessed also the 
 personal dignity of the older days, with the advantage of 
 a change in public sentiment which allowed him to main 
 tain that dignity without offense to the people. The time 
 had gone by when Americans took delight in an assump 
 tion of roughness and rudeness in their Chief Magistrate. 
 The orgy which disgraced Jackson s first inauguration 
 would have been impossible in 1901 ; and Americans no 
 longer expected their Presidents to appear, so to speak, in 
 their shirt-sleeves. Mr. McKinley always managed to 
 keep his purely personal affairs and his domestic life from 
 being vulgarised by the peculiar sort of publicity which the 
 newspapers gave to many of his predecessors. He main 
 tained, indeed, outside of his public appearances, the quiet 
 dignity and reserve that befit a private gentleman, and 
 that are still more to be desired in the ruler of a mighty 
 nation. It is remarkable, indeed, that Mr. McKinley 
 should have been so thoroughly successful in this particular 
 thing; for his early environment was one of the most dem 
 ocratic simplicity; while before 1896, his political asso 
 ciates were by no means sticklers for niceties of form. 
 Probably Mr. McKinley was fortunate in his advisers and 
 at the same time quick to take a hint. At any rate, the 
 fact remains that with the single exception of Mr. Arthur, 
 
658 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 no President since the pre-Jacksonian days had made 
 things "go off " so well as did President McKinley. And 
 as Americans had begun to learn some needed lessons from 
 older countries, they heartily commended the refined sim 
 plicity which pervaded the White House from 1896 to 
 1901. This satisfaction was heightened by the knowl 
 edge that the President s private life and character were 
 not only spotless but exceptionally beautiful. 
 
 Intellectually, Mr. McKinley is probably to be com 
 pared with Millard Fillmore, to whom he bore some like 
 ness. Not in any sense endowed with originality, he 
 possessed good judgment, shrewdness, tact, and a willing 
 ness to listen to advice from any quarter. He was not a 
 reader of books, and the only quotation that one recalls as 
 made by him in public was from some obscure newspaper 
 poet of the West a woman. He knew men, however, 
 and he was a close student of political events. As a 
 speaker, he had a pleasant manner and at times could be 
 sententious; but he never made a speech that was at all 
 remarkable for its eloquence. Mr, McKinley, indeed, in 
 oratory, as in his other gifts and attributes represented the 
 Horatian aurea mediocritas. He was neither bloodless 
 and cold, like Calhoun; nor, on the other hand, did he 
 possess the compelling magnetism which made Clay and 
 Elaine so wonderful as political leaders. Yet, if he could 
 not rouse great masses of men to a frenzy of enthusiasm, 
 he could always win a hearing. If men would not die for 
 him, as they would for Clay, they would at any rate vote 
 for him; which, after all, was much more to the point. 
 He lacked magnetism, but he possessed a rare benevolence, 
 a genuine kindliness, which made it utterly impossible for 
 even a political enemy to be anything but a personal- 
 friend. And kindliness such as this must have been ab- j 
 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 659 
 
 solutely genuine, or the insincerity of it would have been 
 sometimes felt; whereas the popular belief in Mr. Mc- 
 Kinley s good intentions grew firmer with every year. In 
 the early days of his incumbency there were many who 
 thought that they detected in his phraseology something 
 which savoured of cant; but they forgot that he was a 
 member of a religious body which makes a freer use of 
 certain semi-religious expressions than is common; and 
 that Mr. McKinley s way of expressing himself was the 
 way in which he had been taught to speak, and was, in 
 deed, a mere faqon de parler. That he was no bigot, that 
 he exercised a self-respecting independence of thought and 
 action in such matters, was seen in the fact that, in spite of 
 a bitter outcry from the most extreme of his coreligion 
 ists, he stood out firmly for the retention of the army 
 canteen, that he set wine upon his table at diplomatic 
 dinners, and that he was rather immoderately fond of very 
 black and very strong cigars. All these things serve to 
 characterise the man sincere, kind-hearted, firm and sen 
 sible, not brilliant, to be sure, but eminently safe the sort 
 of man who does in general go farther than any but the 
 very greatest genius. 
 
 As a statesman, any discussion of Mr. McKinley must 
 centre around the assertion so often made to the effect that 
 he always " held his ear close to the ground." This was 
 for a long while flung at him by his political opponents 
 as a taunt; but in time it was taken up by his supporters 
 and set forth as embodying the highest possible compli 
 ment to his sagacity. Yes, they said, Mr. McKinley al 
 ways has his ear close to the ground so that he may catch 
 the earliest echoes of popular opinion. This shows his 
 statesmanship; for in the American Republic, the Presi 
 dent is the servant of the people, elected to do their bid- 
 
660 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ding; and it is by " holding his ear close to the ground " 
 that he learns just what it is that they desire. The best 
 example of this sort of statesmanship, they said, is found 
 in Lincoln, who, like McKinley, also held his ear close to 
 the ground, and this is why Lincoln always had the peo 
 ple with him rather than against him. 
 
 There is much truth in this; yet the comparison with 
 Lincoln challenges inquiry and justifies dissent. It is un 
 doubtedly true that a President is elected for the purpose 
 of translating into action the political aspirations of the 
 nation over which he rules. But a distinction must be 
 made between a well-considered policy that has been dis 
 cussed perhaps for years, and the hasty impulse of the 
 moment. When a sudden wave of excitement surges over 
 the country and sweeps away all sober judgment, is the 
 Chief Executive to ask himself only whether this is what 
 the people want? Or is he to consider whether it is what 
 they will approve when the passions of the moment have 
 died away? Is he to be a reed shaken by the wind, or a 
 rock standing four-square to all the winds that blow, defy 
 ing obloquy and misrepresentation, when his own brain 
 and conscience tell him that the thing should not be done? 
 Had Washington in 1793 simply held his ear close to the 
 ground he would have found the nation eager for a second 
 war with England. He would have meekly submitted to 
 the insolence of Genet; and the poor little fledgeling of a 
 Republic would have perished in the train of France, then 
 drunken and delirious with the madness of revolution. In 
 1 86 1, when Captain Wilkes forcibly took the Confederate 
 envoys, Mason and Slidell, from the British steamer 
 Trent, had Lincoln merely held his ear to the ground he 
 would have heard the people of the North demanding 
 loudly that the envoys should be kept and that the nation 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 66 1 
 
 should face a war with England. It was hard for Wash 
 ington to ignore the clamour of the Jacobins; but he did 
 so at the cost of vile aspersions on his character, which 
 made him say in the bitterness of his soul, " I would 
 rather be in my grave than in the presidency." It was 
 hard for Lincoln to ignore the momentary passion of the 
 North and to comply w^ith the peremptory and arrogant 
 demand of Lord John Russell; but he did so, and was 
 charged with having humiliated and dishonoured his coun 
 try. Both Washington and Lincoln, knew, however, that 
 the supreme mandate which had been given them was in 
 the one case to build up, and in the other to preserve, the 
 State; and they both stood firm against the people s will 
 in order that the people might be saved from its own mad 
 ness. A true statesman holds his ear close to the ground; 
 but he does not do so for the purpose of catching every 
 murmur that is audible, but rather to detect that deeper 
 note which tells him that the time is ripe for the consum 
 mation of far-reaching plans long cherished and long since 
 decided upon. One may admit that the President is the 
 people s servant, but one should not admit that (to use a 
 rather vulgar phrase of Mr. Bryan s), he is the people s 
 " hired man." He is, no doubt, an officer. He is not a 
 lackey. 
 
 President McKinley s response to every popular impulse 
 explains the apparent inconsistencies of his political career. 
 These inconsistencies lay in his action, but not in his funda 
 mental theory. He wished to serve the people; and if 
 the people chose to veer from one view to another, then 
 the people and not he was answerable for it all. This 
 was a consistent theory; but the fact that he held it takes 
 him out of the category of high statesmanship. For a 
 statesman of the first rank makes up his mind upon cer- 
 
662 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 tain questions once for all; and having done so, he remains 
 true to his convictions. He may tack and seem at times 
 to take another course, but one will always find him in the 
 end still sweeping toward the goal. Thus, President Gar- 
 field was by study and conviction a Free Trader, and in 
 1880 he was for the time the leader of the party of Pro 
 tection. Yet he had not changed. He never once re 
 tracted his ringing assertion, made years before in the 
 House of Representatives, " I am for the kind of Protec 
 tion which in the end leads to Free Trade." He believed 
 in the ultimate triumph of Free Trade, and he looked upon 
 Protection as at the most a mere expedient. But with 
 Mr. McKinley the case was different. He was a high 
 protectionist for many years because his constituents and 
 his party favoured high protection. In 1901, he advo 
 cated a limited Free Trade because the people had begun 
 to veer around in that direction. The passages already 
 quoted from his speech at Buffalo prove his readiness to 
 adapt his opinions to the opinions of the great majority. 
 
 It must be confessed that Mr. McKinley clung to his 
 advocacy of silver for a remarkably long time. From 
 1890 to 1896, he probably did a great deal that indirectly 
 helped to strengthen Mr. Bryan s cause. The main dif 
 ference between the two men at this time was that Mr. 
 Bryan came out boldly as an advocate of free silver, while 
 Mr. McKinley used the more discreet yet substantially 
 identical phrase "bimetallism"; just as in the Buffalo 
 speech he veiled his partial conversion to a species of Free 
 Trade by giving it the tactful name of " reciprocity." It 
 is perfectly well known that even after Mr. McKinley 
 had been nominated in 1896 he shrank from declaring that 
 " honest money " was understood by him to mean gold 
 monometallism. He hoped to fight the campaign of that 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 663 
 
 year upon the single question of the tariff ; and it was only 
 when the issue had been absolutely forced upon him that 
 at last he gave up his " bimetallism/ and took the stand 
 which President Cleveland had taken long before. 
 
 These facts by no means indicate that Mr. McKinley 
 was weak or inconsistent. They simply mean that his 
 fundamental position was one of compliance with what 
 ever seemed to him to be the popular will. He changed 
 his views whenever he became convinced that the opinion 
 of the majority had changed; for he regarded this as the 
 duty of a statesman. It was not a very lofty view, but 
 it was at least an intelligible one; and it explains his whole 
 political career. It is strange that he was so often and so 
 absurdly misunderstood. The failure to understand him 
 was responsible for a singular incongruity in many of the 
 estimates formed by otherwise intelligent men regarding 
 his character. The opposition press, for instance, used to 
 speak of him at one time as " gelatinous," and at another 
 as unfeeling and implacable. In a single issue of an in 
 fluential newspaper there once appeared a column devoted 
 to ridicule of Mr. McKinley for being a mere puppet in 
 the hands of his advisers, and another column devoted to 
 denunciation of him as a sort of political ogre, relentlessly 
 crushing out the liberties of an innocent people in seas of 
 blood. Now it is sufficiently obvious that he could not 
 very well have been at once a puppet and a stern dictator; 
 and it is clear enough that he was really neither. He 
 was not a weak man; nor, on the other hand, was he a 
 man of iron. He could be very firm in matters upon 
 which his mind had been made up. Witness his manly 
 independence in retaining an upright Commissioner in the 
 Pension Office 56 despite the venal clamouring of innumer 
 able " old soldiers." But in the main, and in matters of 
 
 56 Mr. H. C. Evans. 
 
664 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 high policy, he conscientiously believed that he must shape 
 his action in accordance with his party s needs and wishes; 
 and this, in fact, he did. For the rest, his statesmanship 
 was often far from brilliant. A more sagacious Presi 
 dent, for instance, would not have allowed himself to say 
 that it was " our plain duty " to give to Puerto Rico unre 
 stricted privileges of trade with the United States ;,or else, 
 having said so, he should have made his Congress say so 
 too. A stronger party leader would not have negotiated 
 an important treaty 57 only to see it almost contemptuously 
 rejected by a Senate of which his own party had entire 
 control. 
 
 Such, then, was President McKinley as a man and as a 
 statesman. His place in history will be greater than that 
 of greater men, because it was his fortune to hold office 
 at a time when the events occurred which made his presi 
 dency epoch-making. For the war with Spain Mr. Mc 
 Kinley deserves neither praise nor blame. The conflict 
 had been inevitable ever since the Cubans rose in 1868 
 against the tyranny of Spain, and since Spanish soldiers 
 shot down the crew of the Firginius at Santiago. From 
 that moment, Spain and the United States were like two 
 railway engines heading toward each other upon a single 
 track. A collision between them could not be avoided. 
 The moment of the crash was one to be determined by 
 pure chance. But because that moment came when Presi 
 dent McKinley was in power, and because the conse 
 quences of it were so far-reaching as to transform the 
 whole genius of our government, the years of his adminis 
 tration must always be a subject of the deepest interest to 
 the student of American history. 
 
 57 The so-called Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1900, to repeal the Clayton- 
 Bulwer Treaty of 1852. See p. 700. 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF M KINLEY 665 
 
 He died at an hour that was friendly to his fame. A 
 foreign war had ended in the triumph of the American 
 arms. The Republic of the West had at last assumed its 
 place among the greatest nations of the earth. Political 
 bitterness had spent itself in the electoral contest of the 
 preceding year, and there had succeeded a lull which 
 brought with it good will and tolerance. Extraordinary 
 material prosperity had enriched the nation, so that men 
 might at some future day look back upon those years as to 
 a Golden Age. And finally, the tragic ending of a use 
 ful, honourable life stirred all the chords of human sym 
 pathy, and seemed to cast upon that life itself the pathos 
 and the splendour of a consecration. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 
 
 ON the afternoon of September i3th, Vice-President 
 Roosevelt was at Lake Colton near the summit of Mount 
 Marcy in the Adirondacks, beyond the reach of telegraphic 
 or telephonic communication. He had left Buffalo upon 
 the assurance of President McKinley s physicians that their 
 patient was in no immediate danger. Mr. Roosevelt s own 
 family were on Mount Marcy, and the illness of his chil 
 dren had called him thither. He was in the heart of the 
 unbroken forest in the company of several friends, when a 
 mountain guide, making his way through the black tangle 
 of the woods, brought a message from Buffalo to the 
 effect that the President was sinking fast. Two hours 
 were consumed in returning to the house from which Mr. 
 Roosevelt had started upon his long tramp. Another 
 delay of four hours was necessary before any further 
 messages could be carried up the mountain. When they 
 arrived, they made it evident that President McKinley 
 had but a short time to live. Just before midnight, a 
 light mountain wagon drawn by two black horses was pro 
 cured; and amid inky darkness and in a misty rain the 
 long and perilous journey from the mountain peak to 
 the nearest line of railway was begun. More than thirty 
 miles of trail and broken road were covered before morn 
 ing in this nightmare of a drive, among huge boulders and 
 massive stumps of trees, the horses plunging through the 
 darkness where a single lurch might mean instant death 
 
 666 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 667 
 
 at the bottom of a ravine. 1 Toward daybreak the driver 
 drew rein at a little railway station where a special train 
 was waiting with steam up. As Mr. Roosevelt leaped 
 from the mud-splashed wagon and entered the railway car 
 riage, a despatch was put into his hands informing him 
 that the President was dead. 
 
 Arriving in Buffalo, he found the Cabinet assembled 
 in a private house where presently the oath of office was 
 administered, and Theodore Roosevelt became the twenty- 
 fifth President of the United States. Having taken the 
 oath, he said: 
 
 " In this hour of deep and terrible national bereave 
 ment, I wish to state that it shall be my intention and en 
 deavour to continue, absolutely unbroken, the policy of 
 President McKinley, for the peace and prosperity and 
 honour of our beloved country." 
 
 Soon after, in Washington, he requested each member 
 of the Cabinet to remain in office, saying: >l I need your 
 advice and counsel. I tender you the office in the same 
 manner that I would tender it if I were entering upon the 
 discharge of my duties as the result of an election by the 
 people, with this distinction, that I can not accept a 
 declination." 
 
 These words of the new President did much to allay 
 a feeling of apprehension which the news of President 
 McKinley s death had aroused in many minds. In 
 the campaign of the preceding autumn, many conservative 
 persons had found their one objection to the Republican 
 nominations in the fact that in case of President McKin- 
 ley s death, his successor would be a man so young, so im 
 pulsive, and so little sobered by the responsibilities of high 
 
 1 Correspondence of the New York Herald, September 15, 1901. See 
 Halstead, Life of Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 234-243 (Chicago, 1902). 
 
668 TWENTY YEARS OF THE! REPUBLIC 
 
 office as Mr. Roosevelt appeared to be. His declared 
 intention to follow out the policies of President Mc- 
 Kinley, and the serious and dignified manner in which he 
 entered upon the presidency were distinctly reassuring. 
 Senator Hanna voiced the general opinion when he said 
 a few weeks later: 
 
 " Mr. Roosevelt is an entirely different man to-day 
 from what he was a few weeks since. He has now ac 
 quired all that is needed to round out his character 
 equipoise and conservatism. The new and great re 
 sponsibilities so suddenly thrust upon him have brought 
 about this change." 2 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt was, in truth, the youngest of the Presi 
 dents. When he took the oath of office in Buffalo, he was 
 in the forty-third year of his age. There can be no doubt 
 that some apprehension was: justified, both from a knowl 
 edge of his temperament and from a recollection of his 
 previous career. Mr. Hanna s remark which has just 
 been quoted, was on the whole an optimistic one. It rep 
 resented an ultimate truth, but it was rather in the nature 
 of prophecy than of existing fact. At that time Mr. 
 Roosevelt had not yet been tried out in the fire of supreme 
 responsibility. He was even younger than his years. His 
 character was still unformed. It may be said, indeed, 
 that its defects, while far less numerous than its virtues, 
 were, perhaps, more obvious and more likely to attract 
 the notice of a superficial observer. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt was the descendant of a line of re 
 spected merchants of Dutch extraction. He had had 
 advantages which few of the later Presidents possessed. 
 Educated at Harvard University, his early associations 
 
 2 Despatch from Cleveland, Ohio, in the New York World, September 
 25, 1901. 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 669 
 
 had been with men and women of cultivation and re 
 finement. In his own family, it had been his misfortune 
 to be regarded as something of a prodigy. Whatever 
 he did or said or wrote was viewed with unstinted admira 
 tion. He was praised and flattered so habitually that a 
 weaker nature would have been wholly spoiled. It was 
 to Mr. Roosevelt s credit that he was not spoiled; yet it 
 is also true that there was developed in him a certain 
 egoism which throughout his early career took the form 
 of an extreme self-consciousness. This accounts for the 
 circumstance that, however fine might be the things which 
 he accomplished, he never seemed to do them simply, 
 or without an eye to approbation. Whether he wrote 
 a book, or made a speech, or felled a tree, or broke a 
 bronco, or championed a measure of reform, or charged 
 a Spanish fort he always did it more Galileo, with a 
 certain instinct for theatrical effect, while his appetite for 
 praise was quite insatiable. He was fond of talking of 
 himself; and in talking of himself he almost invariably 
 monopolised the conversation. He had the professional 
 reformer s love of sermonising, and a restless desire to 
 make any and every subject a text for a dogmatic 
 harangue. " Theodore," said Ex-Speaker Reed to him, 
 on one occasion, " if there is one thing more than another 
 for which I admire you, it is for your original discovery 
 of the Ten Commandments." 3 An eminent English his 
 torian, after visiting the White House, was asked by a com 
 patriot what he thought of the new American President. 
 
 ;t Why," said he after reflecting for a moment, " he 
 seems to be an interesting combination of Saint Paul and 
 Saint Virus." 
 
 In writing one of his earlier books he used the personal 
 
 3 Leupp, The Man Roosevelt, p. 292 (New York, 1904). 
 
670 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 pronoun " I " so frequently that his publishers were com 
 pelled to order from a type-foundry a fresh supply of that 
 particular letter. Sufficiently robust to endure public 
 criticism, he was as sensitive as a girl to any shadow of 
 disparagement that came to him in private life. After 
 he had read over one of his early messages as President 
 to a group of three or four intimate friends, Secretary 
 Hay in answer to a request for criticism, suggested that 
 the word " big " occurred somewhat too frequently. Mr. 
 Roosevelt took instant umbrage. With a snap of his 
 teeth he answered: " * Big is a good strong Saxon word! 
 I like to use such words as that," a remark which re 
 vealed at once his thinness of skin and his utter misunder 
 standing of Mr. Hay s objection. During the presiden 
 tial campaign of 1900, Mr. Roosevelt was in Chicago 
 where he made several speeches. On entering his hotel 
 one Sunday morning, a number of little blackguard news 
 boys jeered at him for having, as they said, shot a Spaniard 
 in the back. This taunt from such a source, to which 
 most men would have given barely a moment s thought, 
 wounded Mr. Roosevelt to the quick; and it was some 
 time before he recovered his composure. 
 
 The President s self-esteem sometimes led him to make 
 light of the self-respect of others. He gave great offense 
 in the early months of his administration by the manner 
 in which he treated men much older than himself, men 
 who had grown gray in the public service and who were 
 accustomed, if not to deference, at least to courtesy from 
 others. Toward these men, Mr. Roosevelt bore himself 
 as toward inferiors, slapping them on the back, calling 
 them by nicknames and inspiring in them an uncomfort 
 able sense of personal humiliation. Even Senator Hanna, 
 bluff and unconventional though he was, took umbrage at 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 671 
 
 this off-hand treatment. Mr. Lincoln Steffens is responsi 
 ble for a story 4 which illustrates the assertion. It is re 
 peated because contemporaneous anecdotes, while often 
 apocryphal, do unquestionably represent contemporaneous 
 opinions and impressions. During President McKinley s 
 funeral ceremonies, Mr. Roosevelt and Senator Hanna 
 were seated side by side. Mr. Hanna was moved by sin 
 cere grief at the loss of his lifelong friend. Tears ran 
 down his cheeks and he made no effort to control his feel 
 ings. Mr. Roosevelt, on the other hand, with question 
 able taste, was at that very moment thinking of his own 
 political future. Turning to the Senator he said: "I 
 hope, old man, that you will be to me all that you have 
 been to him." Yes," returned Mr. Hanna, still choking 
 with emotion, " I will I will only, d n it, don t call 
 me old man ! " The German Ambassador, Baron 
 Speck von Sternburg, was on terms of some intimacy with 
 President Roosevelt, who nicknamed him " Specky." This 
 was all very well in their private intercourse; but the Presi 
 dent was not always careful to use in public a more formal 
 mode of address; so that great irritation was aroused in 
 Germany over what was thought to be a personal indignity 
 offered to the representative of the German Empire. The 
 President was likewise reckless in his speech, often express 
 ing his private opinion of his associates most freely, and 
 at times in the vocabulary of the cowboy. Such things 
 as these were bruited about, and quite unnecessarily did 
 harm in stirring up bad feeling and resentment. A very 
 notable instance of the President s lack of consideration 
 for others was found in his treatment of Sir Thomas Lip- 
 ton, the Irish yachtsman, who had visited the United 
 States in order to race his yacht for the America Cup. 
 The President had entertained him at the White House 
 
 4 In McC lure s Magazine for July, 1905. 
 
672 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 and had shown him much civility. A little later a 
 yacht club gave a dinner in honour of Sir Thomas, and 
 asked the President also to be its guest. This, of course, 
 was a breach of etiquette for which primarily the 
 ignorance of the Club s committee was responsible. The 
 President of the Unted States can not attend a dinner 
 at which any other person is the chief guest of honour. 
 What Mr. Roosevelt ought to have done was to decline 
 the invitation on some conventional plea. Instead of 
 that, he both declined and let it be known that he would 
 not attend any dinner to which Sir Thomas Lipton was 
 especially invited. Now Sir Thomas Lipton was not a 
 person to be taken very seriously. Many thought his inter 
 est in yachting to be not that of a sportsman, but of an 
 advertiser who was concerned in calling attention to the 
 teas in which he dealt at home. Yet he was a stranger, 
 and he had been the President s guest; so that the open 
 affront then put upon him was deplorable both in its 
 lack of feeling and in its breach of ordinary civility. 
 Many persons laid the blame upon the President s private 
 secretary; but his intimate friends denied that this was 
 so, and reported that Mr. Roosevelt was alone respon 
 sible and that he regarded the whole thing as a tremendous 
 joke, forgetting that the President of the United States 
 should be the last person in the land to forego the self- 
 respecting courtesy which marks a high-bred gentleman. 
 His self-consciousness appeared in many other ways. 
 When he first became President, his friends, bearing in 
 mind the fate of President McKinley, urged him not to 
 go about the streets alone and unprotected. " I am amply 
 able to protect myself," remarked the President with a 
 glance at his two fists; and the listening reporters tele 
 graphed this characteristic speech from one end of the 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 673 
 
 country to the other. Yet before many weeks had passed, 
 and in fact, throughout his presidency, Mr. Roosevelt 
 caused himself to be more closely guarded, and made 
 approach to him more difficult, than had been the case 
 with any of his predecessors. Secret-service men swarmed 
 about his person ; and once when he visited New York to 
 attend the funeral of a relative, a thousand policemen 
 were detailed to safeguard him as he passed along the 
 streets. While visiting a fair in Syracuse he was hemmed 
 in on every side by cavalry. Now it was a courageous 
 thing to declare that he could amply protect himself; and 
 it was a very sensible thing for him to guard against 
 assassination. But to have declared that he could pro 
 tect himself, and then to seek or even to permit the sort 
 of protection which a Czar of Russia might require, was 
 not only inconsistent but somewhat ludicrous. The ex 
 planation of it is to be found in the workings of his ego. 
 He doubtless came to believe that his own person was 
 sacrosanct beyond that of any other President; and so he 
 passed from a state of recklessness to one which seemed 
 to indicate timidity. When President Grant was most 
 unpopular, when he was maintaining " carpet-bag " gov 
 ernment at the South by Federal bayonets, and when 
 thousands of newspapers were denouncing him as a tyrant 
 and a military dictator, he used to stroll along the streets 
 of Washington wholly unattended, pausing to gaze into 
 the shop windows, and moving about as freely as any 
 private citizen. This was the highest type of courage 
 the courage which is quite unconscious of itself and 
 which does not even think of danger. Mr. Roosevelt 
 could scarcely have attained the same degree of im 
 perturbability. His courage, in fact, was of the French, 
 rather than of the Anglo-Saxon, type. It was allied with 
 
674 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 a certain nervousness which could perform the most dar 
 ing deeds if they were deeds of action, but which became 
 restive and almost uncontrollable when patience and grim 
 endurance were demanded. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt s physical courage was, however, beyond 
 all question. As to his moral courage, opinions were 
 divided, and this division of opinion was justifiable. Bold 
 in the utterance of his convictions and in asserting the fixity 
 of his purposes, he nevertheless, in the face of strong 
 opposition, was sometimes known to yield. His actions 
 often failed to square with his spoken words. He was 
 amenable to pressure. His mercurial nature led him fre 
 quently to take the line of least resistance, rather than to 
 fight doggedly against a stubborn opposition. In this re 
 spect his conduct compared at times unfavourably with 
 that of President McKinley, whom Mr. Roosevelt himself 
 had spoken of as having no " backbone." An illustration 
 of this fact was early afforded. President McKinley had 
 in 1897 appointed Mr. H. C. Evans of Tennessee to the 
 office of Pensions Commissioner. Mr. Evans admin 
 istered that difficult office with the strictest integrity, re 
 forming abuses, exposing frauds, and thereby incurring 
 the bitter enmity of pension lawyers and of the swarms of 
 persons who presented dishonest claims. The office had 
 seldom known so clean and upright an administration. 
 But the Grand Army of the Republic sided against the 
 Commissioner and demanded of the President his removal 
 from office. Enormous political pressure was brought to 
 bear In order to secure this end; but President McKinley 
 resisted it like a man. He could not be moved, and he 
 gave unflinching support to Mr. Evans despite the clamour 
 of venal claimants and malingerers. The same pressure 
 was applied to President Roosevelt. He withstood it for 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 675 
 
 a time, but in the end he yielded. He feared to risk his 
 popularity and incur the danger of losing what was called 
 " the soldier vote." Mr. Evans was ostensibly advanced 
 to another and more lucrative office; but it was perfectly 
 obvious that this was only an indirect fashion of getting 
 him quietly out of the way. It is but fair to add, however, 
 that the gentleman whom the President appointed in the 
 place of Mr. Evans was no* less honest and capable than his 
 predecessor. 
 
 A very characteristic glimpse of Mr. Roosevelt s mental 
 processes was afforded by another incident. Not long 
 after he had become President, he received at the White 
 House, Mr. Booker T. Washington. Mr. Washington 
 was a mulatto who had successfully established a school 
 for the training of negroes at Tuskegee in Alabama. By 
 his sound sense and tact in teaching his people not to ask 
 for social recognition from the whites, he had won the 
 good will of Southerners and seemed to be in a fair way to 
 solve the negro problem at the South. After he had 
 talked with the President for some time, the latter invited 
 him to be his guest at luncheon, and Mr. Washington ac 
 cepted. Now Mr. Roosevelt in his private capacity had 
 undoubtedly the right to entertain at luncheon whomso 
 ever he might please. The President of the nation also 
 had the right to make any one his guest. But in doing 
 so, it could be only with a full understanding that even 
 the simplest action of the President of the United States 
 can never be the action of a private individual or free from 
 consequences. In this particular instance the consequences 
 were lamentable. The President had offered social recog 
 nition and Mr. Washington had accepted it. At once all 
 the good feeling which had existed in the South toward 
 the experiment at Tuskegee vanished; and a great part of 
 
676 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the excellent work which Mr. Washington had labour- 
 iously accomplished was undone in half an hour. The 
 President is said subsequently to have given an account of 
 the affair to a political friend in the following words: 
 
 " When luncheon-time came around, my first thought 
 was to invite him to stay and lunch w T ith me. Immediately 
 it flashed across my mind that this would make no end of 
 trouble. But I asked myself: Are you afraid to do it? 
 and I answered, * No ! And so I invited him to come 
 in to luncheon." 
 
 Now at first sight this may seem rather fine; but when 
 analysed it shows a certain lack of moral courage. Al 
 though the President knew that his invitation, defensible 
 enough in itself, would do serious harm to a really noble 
 cause, he lacked the courage to refrain from giving it. In 
 other words, he was afraid of being thought afraid. 
 
 It was partly from this lack of firmness and of loyalty to 
 his own ideals, and partly from his love of approbation, 
 that the President often fell short of what men felt they 
 had a right to expect of him. In generalities no one 
 was ever more energetic in denouncing the sinister in 
 fluence of politicians who made public office a means of 
 private gain. Yet in practice, when some of Mr. Roose 
 velt s own supporters and associates crossed the line which 
 divides right from wrong, he dealt with them most ten 
 derly and allowed his thunderbolts to sleep. A congress 
 man named Littauer, who was shown to have used his 
 official influence to foist upon the War Department the 
 wares which he produced as a private manufacturer, was 
 still made welcome at the President s table, though he had 
 escaped indictment only by a legal technicality. When 
 the notorious Quay died, President Roosevelt sent a tele 
 gram of effusive sympathy on the loss of his " loyal 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 677 
 
 friend." Many times he made it plain that he had one 
 ethical standard for strangers and quite a different one 
 for those who had, as it were, been sanctified by their 
 intimacy with himself. 
 
 Of more far-reaching importance was a widely spread 
 belief that President Roosevelt was " unsafe." He was 
 certainly impulsive in his mental processes, impatient of 
 restraint, and had little respect for ordinary conventionali 
 ties when these stood in the way of his desires. His reck 
 lessness of speech was thought to indicate an equal reckless 
 ness in action; and his youth was cited as affording still 
 another reason for distrusting him. On several occasions, 
 indeed, his precipitancy led him into blunders, as when 
 he once sent a message to Congress urging the passage of 
 a bill which in fact had become law several days before; 
 and as when he nominated for a judgeship a gentleman 
 who was constitutionally ineligible for that office. His 
 talk was often couched in hyperbole. He was fond of 
 sonorous adjectives, and he garnished his speeches with 
 eulogies of war and of the warlike virtues. For these rea 
 sons there were many who described the new President as 
 having " a lawless mind." 
 
 One enumerates these defects in an interesting char 
 acter, not because they were in themselves transcen- 
 dently important, but because they explain the feeling of 
 opposition which President Roosevelt often roused in the 
 minds of the conservative. On the other hand, it is 
 probably quite true that these same defects did much to 
 make him popular. They were very largely defects which 
 he shared with a vast number of his countrymen; so that 
 they proved him, as it were, to be a typical American. 
 The self-consciousness, the touch of swagger, the love of 
 applause and of publicity, the occasional lapses from offi- 
 
678 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 cial dignity, even the reckless speech, the unnecessary 
 frankness, and the disregard of form, were traits that in 
 a sense were national. That he stood by his friends, even 
 when his friends were not only wrong but reprehensible, 
 was counted as a virtue. On the whole, then, Mr. Roose 
 velt s failings were held by most Americans to be quite as 
 worthy of admiration as were his finer qualities. 
 
 Of finer qualities there was assuredly no lack. All the 
 natural impulses of the man were sound and right and 
 true. His whole training and the influences to which he 
 had been subjected from childhood, tended to make him 
 generous and high-minded. He had an instinctive scorn 
 of whatever was cowardly and hypocritical. In the best 
 sense of the word he was democratic, respecting men not 
 for their pretentions or for their station or for their wealth, 
 but for what they were as men. Popular opinion, grop 
 ing about for the most appropriate adjective, asserted that 
 the President was "square "; and this homely description 
 was absolutely true. However often personal prejudice 
 or mistaken beliefs may have made him inconsistent with 
 his own professions and ideals, he was fundamentally 
 sound, and his purposes were those which all good citizens 
 could unreservedly commend. He was the first President 
 who had been born to something like wealth; and this 
 fact had freed him throughout his career from the need 
 of considering public office in the light of a financial neces 
 sity. His income, while modest enough according to the 
 standards of the time, sufficed at any rate to make him 
 personally independent. This was an enormous advant 
 age to him, since he was not obliged to curry favour with 
 mercenary politicians. He was free to disregard them 
 or to fight them as he chose. Hence, as an Assemblyman 
 in New York State, as Civil Service Commissioner, and 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 679 
 
 as Police Commissioner, he was regarded less as a Republi 
 can than as an Independent. He was, theoretically, at 
 least, a believer in free trade. He cooperated freely with 
 Mr. Cleveland when the latter was Governor of New 
 York, and he opposed the nomination of Mr. Elaine in 
 1884. Caricatures of that period represent him as a 
 Mugwump, grouping him with George William Curtis 
 and Carl Schurz. Yet none the less he was essentially a 
 party man; and after Mr. Elaine had received the party 
 nomination, Mr. Roosevelt supported him. His own ex 
 planation of his attitude at that time was interesting and 
 wholly logical. He said: 
 
 " I intend to vote the Republican presidential ticket. A man 
 cannot act both without and within the party. He can do either, 
 but he cannot possibly do both. . . . It is impossible to com 
 bine the functions of a guerrilla chief with those of a colonel in 
 the regular army. The one has greater independence of action, 
 the other is able to make what action he does take vastly more 
 effective. ... I am by inheritance and by education a Repub 
 lican. Whatever good I have been able to accomplish in public 
 has been accomplished through the Republican party. I have acted 
 with it in the past, and wish to act with it in the future." 5 
 
 When he came to the presidency, Mr. Roosevelt kept 
 the same argument clearly before his mind. He must 
 often have reflected that the partial failure of President 
 Cleveland s administration was due to the open breach 
 between that statesman and the other leaders of his own 
 party. Mr. Roosevelt s purpose was to* work through 
 his party for the modification of its policies. But from 
 the very first he found it difficult to tolerate many things 
 to which the Republican party was committed. Still more 
 difficult was it for him to receive with real cordiality some 
 of the men who in Congress figured as the party s chiefs. 
 
 5 Leupp, op. at., pp. 20-21. 
 
680 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Unlike President McKinley, Mr. Roosevelt had never sat 
 in Congress. He was not imbued with the traditions of 
 the place. His ethical sense had not been dulled by long 
 familiarity with the ways of Washington. He brought 
 in, as it were, a stream of fresh, pure, bracing air from 
 the mountains, to clear the fetid atmosphere of the national 
 capital. 
 
 He did not, as most Presidents have done, restrict his 
 official and social intercourse to the company of politicians 
 or of men who could be directly useful in the sphere of 
 politics. Mr. Roosevelt had come in contact with many 
 sides of life, and his range of interest was much broader 
 than that of any President since Jefferson. His early 
 years had been spent as a member of the wealthy and 
 cultivated class. He had been a ranchman and knew well 
 the people of the West. His service in the Spanish war 
 opened to him still another field of new experience. In his 
 life he had tried his hand at many undertakings. He 
 had written books. He had advocated social and politi 
 cal reforms. He had herded cattle on the great ranges 
 of Dakota. He had directed the police of the Ameri 
 can metropolis. He had helped equip the navy for the 
 war with Spain. He had fought in the Cuban swamps. 
 He had governed the most populous State of the Union. 
 He had presided over the Senate of the United States. A 
 caustic English critic once said of Mr. Gladstone that 
 statesmen believed him to be a scholar, while scholars were 
 under the mistaken belief that he was a statesman. Some 
 thing of the same sort might have been said at this time 
 with regard to Mr. Roosevelt; for in all his pursuits he 
 exhibited something of the naivete of the amateur; yet 
 with the incompleteness of technical knowledge which 
 marks the amateur, he had also the amateur s enthusiasm 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 68 1 
 
 and sincerity. 6 His intellectual curiosity was a marked 
 feature of his character. He wished to know all sides of 
 life, to learn all shades of opinion, and to keep himself in 
 formed of all that was going on in the world of thought 
 and action. It was his custom to send notes from time to 
 time to the Librarian of Congress saying: " Let me have 
 a batch of the latest books on all kinds of subjects "; and 
 presently there would be delivered at the White House a 
 miscellaneous assortment of volumes comprising works on 
 psychology, engineering, chemistry, medicine, horticulture, 
 and sociology, besides novels, poems, essays everything, 
 in fact, which represented contemporary thought. These 
 books Mr. Roosevelt would devour eagerly, storing away 
 the essential facts in his retentive memory. As with, 
 books, so it was with men. He gathered about his dinner- 
 table guests from every section of the country scholars, 
 lawyers, men of letters, men of business, manufacturers, 
 ranchmen, Adirondack guides, journalists, and members 
 of his old Rough Rider regiment. Whoever had done 
 anything or said anything or written anything that was 
 at all notable, eventually found his way to the White 
 House at the President s invitation. To the talk of all 
 these men he listened most attentively, and thus he gained 
 a first-hand knowledge of what the people as a whole were 
 interested in, o/ what were their prejudices and prefer 
 ences, and also of what were their complaints and griev 
 ances. He knew his countrymen ; and with his keen sense 
 of justice and his wide range of sympathy, he gradually 
 became more and more, in the true sense of the words, 
 the people s President. 
 
 6 An amusing instance of Mr. Roosevelt s combination of zeal and inex 
 perience while Assistant Secretary of the Navy, is given in Long, The New 
 American Navy (ii. p. 174), New York, 1904. 
 
682 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 All this was by no means pleasing to the veteran politi 
 cians who sat in Congress and who were jealous of their 
 own assumed prerogatives as keepers of the presidential 
 conscience. Between them and Mr. Roosevelt there ex 
 isted, and there could exist, but little sympathy. The 
 sleek, sly senators who dabbled in stocks on the basis of 
 their official knowledge of coming legislation, who took 
 large fees from corporations in return for legal " opin 
 ions " which were never read or heeded by the persons 
 who paid for them, the men who owed their senatorial 
 seats to the favour of protected interests these had 
 an instinctive distrust of a President who looked them 
 squarely in the eye and knew their baseness. They dis 
 liked him from the outset, and they spoke of him con 
 temptuously among themselves as " this young man,"- 
 using the term which his opponents applied to the 
 younger Pitt, and which Bismarck, when dismissed from 
 office, growled out to characterise his Emperor. And they 
 had good reason for their apprehension. From every 
 quarter of the land there came to the President s knowl 
 edge facts, convincingly substantiated, that there existed 
 many evils which could be corrected only by a strong hand 
 and a fearless heart in Washington. 
 
 In the early months of 1902 there was Beginning to be 
 felt a distinct reaction against that glorification of ma 
 terialism which had been so wide-spread and for a time 
 so thoroughly acceptable. The country was still as pros 
 perous as ever; yet it was impossible to close men s eyes 
 to the fact that in the train of this prosperity had come 
 great wrongs. The worship of wealth had bred corrup 
 tion both social, municipal, and national. The words of 
 Horace quocunque modo rent had apparently been 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 683 
 
 taken as a text by thousands of unscrupulous men who were 
 practising the myriad forms of knavery now characterised 
 by the collective name of " graft " a word appropriately 
 borrowed from the argot of common thieves. The cities 
 of the country, great and small, had been looted by fran 
 chise-grabbers, who in securing invaluable concessions 
 without rendering an equivalent, had found it necessary 
 to corrupt the municipal officials and to maintain a swarm 
 of hired lobbyists in the legislatures of the different States. 7 
 Some of the greatest fiduciary institutions of the country, 
 notably the life insurance companies, had developed a 
 complex system by which they misused the funds entrusted 
 to them. 8 With these things, however, and others like 
 them, the national Executive had not the constitutional 
 power to deal. There were, however, two far-reaching 
 abuses from which the entire country suffered and against 
 which the statutes of the United States had armed the 
 Federal Government with a measure of power. These 
 abuses were first, the discriminations by railways against 
 shippers; and second, the oppressive domination of the 
 Trusts. The two evils were closely related, since many 
 of the Trusts, such as the Standard Oil Company, the 
 Sugar Trust and the Beef Trust, owed much of their su 
 premacy to the secret and unlawful favours which they had 
 extorted from the railroads. Early in 1902, the price 
 of meat had so advanced as to direct general attention 
 to the methods of the six great packing houses which to 
 gether constituted what was popularly called the Beef 
 Trust. 9 Investigation showed that these meat-packers 
 
 7 See Steffens, The Shame of the Cities (New York, 1905). 
 
 8 See the report of the Armstrong committee of the New York Legis 
 lature (Albany, 1906). 
 
 9 See Russell, The Greatest Trust in the World (New York, 1906). 
 
684 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 had agreed not to compete against one another, that they 
 had divided the cattle-country into districts, in each 
 of which only a single branch of the Trust should buy, and 
 that the practice had been established of bidding up the 
 price of cattle from time to time so as to induce large ship 
 ments, and then of ceasing to bid when the shipments 
 reached their destination. It was discovered also that ! 
 railways in the Middle West had granted to certain pur 
 chasers of grain, rates which were lower than those 
 charged to the smaller buyers ; so that in practice there was 
 but one buyer in each system, who was thus enabled to 
 destroy competition and to fix at will the price to the 
 producer. 10 A like injustice was inflicted in the same way 
 upon cotton growers in the South. Finally, in 1901, the 
 Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railways, by pur- ; 
 chasing a third railway system, had effected a " merger " 
 of the three in what was known as the Northern Securities 
 Company, which thus became a combination able to 
 monopolise the entire transportation facilities of the 
 Northwest. 
 
 All these acts were not only contrary to public policy 
 but they were in violation of two statutes which have 
 already been described the Interstate Commerce Act of 
 1887 and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of I89O. 11 Until 
 the present time, however, these laws had, to all intents 
 and purposes, remained a dead letter. The Interstate 
 Commerce Commission had been practically deprived of 
 any effective power to curb the railways, owing to the fact 
 that its decisions were subject to review by the Federal 
 courts, which were jealous of any assumption of judicial 
 
 10 See the Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission for 1902; and 
 Montague, Trusts of To-day, pp. 149, 150 (New York, 1904). 
 
 11 See pp. 140, 141 and 220-222. 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 685 
 
 authority by the Commission. Small shippers who ap 
 pealed to the Commission against the railways were com 
 pelled to follow up a long and tedious course of litigation 
 in which after many years, no substantial results were 
 reached, and of which the loss involved in the delay was 
 sufficient to beggar men of ordinary means. The rail 
 ways had at their disposal the ablest legal talent in the 
 country; and against this a private person, however great 
 his injuries, was absolutely helpless. The Sherman Anti- 
 Trust Act was also difficult of enforcement, partly be 
 cause its phraseology was so sweeping as apparently to 
 condemn both lawful and unlawful business enterprises, 
 and also because the Trusts were protean in their char 
 acter. Chartered by individual States, when attacked by 
 Federal law they pretended to be only local corporations. 
 When prosecuted by the State officials, they claimed 
 exemption from such prosecution on the ground that they 
 were engaged in commerce between the States. It was 
 plain enough that these powerful and lawless combinations 
 could not be effectively assailed either by individuals or 
 by the States, but that only the strong hand of the national 
 Government could take them by the throat and force them 
 from their attitude of insolent defiance. 
 
 The wilful violations of law from which all sections of 
 the country were suffering aroused the indignation of the 
 President; while the difficulty of suppressing them against 
 the opposition of united capital, appealed to his fighting 
 spirit. By his direction, therefore, the Attorney-General 
 moved against the most obnoxious of the Trusts. This 
 officer was Mr. Philander C. Knox of Pennsylvania, who 
 had been appointed late in President McKinley s admin 
 istration to succeed Mr. J. W. Griggs. Mr. Knox was 
 a lawyer of very great ability. He had for years been 
 
686 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 counsel for several large corporations, among them the 
 Carnegie Steel Company. He knew their methods well 
 and could search out all the crevices in their armour. 
 Until this time, however, he had remained inactive. The 
 press had urged him to prosecute the Trusts; and because 
 he had not done so he had received the popular nickname 
 of " Sleepy Phil." He was, however, merely waiting for 
 instructions; and no sooner did the President speak the 
 word, than Mr. Knox revealed himself to be a highly 
 trained and powerful prosecutor whose client was the 
 nation. He secured an injunction against the Beef Trust, 
 restraining it from raising and lowering prices in collusion, 
 and from other practices which had become notorious. 
 Again, at the direction of the President, he attacked the 
 Northern Securities " merger," asking for an injunction 
 to prevent this railway combination from controlling the 
 companies involved in it. The motion was made before 
 the United States district court in Minnesota under the 
 Anti-Trust Law of 1890. Vigorous measures such as this 
 stirred all the corporate interests to anger. They and 
 their journalistic mouthpieces began to speak of the Presi 
 dent in terms of mingled hatred and contempt. After the 
 easy-going tolerance of Mr. McKinley, the energetic pur 
 pose of President Roosevelt gave them an unpleasant shock. 
 They had come to regard themselves as almost divinely 
 commissioned to disregard the laws which were made for 
 other citizens, and to look upon themselves as above and 
 beyond restraint from any source. Their feelings were 
 not assuaged by some very pointed utterances of the 
 President, made during a journey through New England 
 in the summer of 1902, and in a visit to the Middle West in 
 September of the same year. These utterances expressed 
 only the most elemental principles of justice and right 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 687 
 
 reason; yet the lawless financiers and the editors whose liv 
 ing depended on financial favours viewed many sentences 
 which Mr. Roosevelt spoke as being revolutionary if not 
 anarchical. Thus in Providence, 12 the President said: 
 
 The great corporations which we have grown to speak of 
 rather loosely as Trusts are the creatures of the State, and the 
 State not only has the right to control them, but it is in duty bound 
 to control them wherever the need of such control is shown. 
 It is idle to say that there is no need for such supervision. 
 There is ; and a sufficient warrant for it is to be found in any one 
 of the admitted evils appertaining to them. . . . The im 
 mediate necessity in dealing with Trusts is to place them under 
 the real and not the nominal control of some sovereign to which, as 
 its creatures, the Trusts shall owe allegiance and in whose courts 
 the sovereign s orders may be enforced." 
 
 Again, at Boston, 13 the President declared: 
 
 " So far as the anti-trust laws go, they will be enforced. No 
 suit will be undertaken for the sake of seeming to undertake it. 
 Every suit that is undertaken will be begun because the great 
 lawyer and upright man whom we are fortunate enough to have 
 as Attorney-General, Mr. Knox, believes that there is a violation 
 of the law which we can get at; and when the suit is undertaken 
 it will not be compromised except upon the basis that the Govern 
 ment wins." 
 
 And at Cincinnati, 14 he said: 
 
 " In dealing with the big corporations which we call Trusts, 
 we must resolutely purpose to proceed by evolution and not revolu 
 tion. . . . The evils attendant upon over-capitalisation alone, 
 are in my judgment sufficient to warrant a far closer supervision 
 
 12 August 23, 1902. 1?> August 25, 1902. 14 September 20, 1902. 
 
688 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 and control than now exists over the great corporations. 
 We do not wish to destroy corporations; but we do wish to make 
 them subserve the public good. All individuals, rich or poor, 
 private or corporate, must be subject to the law of the land ; and 
 the Government will hold them to a rigid obedience. The biggest 
 corporation, like the humblest private citizen, must be held to 
 strict compliance with the will of the people as expressed in the 
 fundamental law. The rich man who does not see that this is in 
 his interest is, indeed, short-sighted. When W T C make him obey 
 the law, we insure for him the absolute protection of the law. 3 13 
 
 These strong, frank, manly sentences struck a respon 
 sive chord throughout the nation. They seemed to clear 
 the air which had become clogged and gross with the 
 miasma of materialism. But they were read with resent 
 ment by the men who for years had thought of the 
 law of the land merely as something which their hired 
 lawyers could artfully circumvent. Mr. Roosevelt s popu 
 larity and a certain fear which he had already inspired, 
 prevented open attacks upon him by members of his own 
 party; but from this moment there was instituted in the 
 venal press and through the myriad agencies which lawless 
 wealth controlled, an underhanded campaign to discredit 
 him and to prevent, if possible, his nomination for a second 
 term of office. Meanwhile, however, the country was 
 receiving a vivid object-lesson as to the evils of monopoly. 
 Until now it was the people of the West who had suffered 
 most and whose complaints had been both loud and bitter; 
 but in 1902, the people of the East in their turn were made 
 to know that corporate greed could strike unerringly and 
 unpityingly at the welfare of every section. 
 
 15 The text of these quotations follows that in Addresses and Presidential 
 Messages of Theodore Roosevelt, with Introduction by H. C. Lodge (New 
 York, 1904). 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 689 
 
 It has already been explained in the course of this nar 
 rative 16 how the coal-carrying-railways of Pennsylvania 
 had, in violation of their charters and of the fundamental 
 law, secured possession of practically all the anthracite coal 
 mines of that district which, indeed, furnished the hard 
 coal supply of the entire country. Early in 1902, a dis 
 pute arose between the mine-owners that is to say the 
 officials of the railways and the miners in their employ. 
 The latter had formed an organisation known as the 
 United Mine Workers of America, at the head of which 
 was Mr. John Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell was a man who 
 had once worked in the coal mines, but who had educated 
 himself by close study in his spare hours, and who had 
 found time to read law and to investigate economic ques 
 tions and labour conditions in the United States. He was 
 a man of great intelligence, of superior organising ability, 
 and of inflexible integrity. He had gained the confidence 
 of the miners, and his heart had been wrung by the hard 
 ships which they had experienced and which he himself 
 at one time had shared. The mine-owners compelled the 
 men in their employ to purchase their supplies at the com 
 pany s stores, to employ the company s doctors, and to 
 live in the houses which the company furnished them, all 
 at the company s own price. 17 These and other griev 
 ances led the miners to ask for an increase of wages and 
 for a recognition of the union. On February I4th, Mr. 
 Mitchell addressed a letter to the railway presidents 
 
 10 See p. 313; and Brooks, History of the Anthracite Coal Mining 
 Industry. 
 
 17 Mitchell, Organised Labour, p. 358. "Often a man, together with his 
 children, would work for months without receiving a dollar of money; and 
 not infrequently he would find at the end of the month, nothing in his 
 envelope but a statement that his indebtedness to the company had in 
 creased by so many dollars." 
 
690 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 requesting a joint conference. This request was curtly 
 refused. Again on May 8th, it was proposed to Mr. 
 George F. Baer, President of the Reading Coal and 
 Iron Company, to submit the miners claims to arbitration. 
 Mr. Baer replied contemptuously that " anthracite mining 
 is a business, and not a religious, sentimental, or academic 
 proposition." Therefore on May I2th, a strike was or 
 dered, and 150,000 miners at once ceased work. Through 
 out the summer the strike continued, the mine-owners 
 endeavouring with no success to replace the men who had 
 gone out. There was, as is always the case, some violence 
 on the part of individual strikers; and these sporadic acts 
 the corporation-ridden portions of the press exaggerated, 
 so as to make them seem indicative of a reign of terror. 
 On the whole, however, the strikers were orderly, ana 
 showed far more respect for law than did the railway 
 presidents whose very ownership of the coal mines was 
 prohibited by the Constitution of the State. As the 
 months dragged on, the country s available coal supply 
 began to be depleted, and a coal famine was obviously 
 impending with the advent of the winter. In early Sep 
 tember, the retail price of hard coal which was normally 
 about $5 per ton, advanced to $12, and within a few 
 days to $14. The poor, who purchased it by the pailful, 
 were obliged to pay something like one cent a pound. By 
 September 24th, no coal-yard in the city of New York 
 had on hand more than two hundred tons of coal, whereas 
 a year before, the average stock had been at least two 
 thousand tons. Many dealers began to refuse all but 
 their regular customers, and to these they doled out only 
 a small supply of fuel at prices which kept increasing 
 every day. Gas-stoves and coke and kerosene were sub 
 stituted for coal in many families; but the price of gas 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 691 
 
 advanced, the coke supply was quite inadequate, and kero 
 sene was manifestly unsuited for heating purposes when 
 the weather should become extremely cold. On Septem 
 ber 26th, several schools in New York were closed and 
 the pupils were sent home in order that the fuel on hand 
 might be saved for the winter months. 18 Kindling wood 
 was practically unattainable. On September 3Oth, hard 
 coal brought $20 a ton; and by October ist, as much as 
 $28 and $30 was demanded. 
 
 The widespread distress caused by the coal famine led 
 to innumerable appeals to the Governor of Pennsylvania, 
 and at last to the President of the United States. Apart 
 from the merits of the strike, it was plain to everyone 
 that a few selfish men, having secured a complete monop 
 oly of one of the necessities of life, were abusing their 
 power with a stolid indifference both to public opinion 
 and to the health and comfort of the people. It was 
 noted with indignation that long lines of cars laden with 
 coal blocked the lines of the coal-carrying railways in New 
 Jersey, at a time when even so much as a bucketful could 
 with difficulty be procured to warm the dwellings of the 
 poor. The mine-owners had thousands upon thousands of 
 tons within easy reach of the market; yet they refused to 
 sell, hoping that t-hp n^neral suffering would react against 
 
 icr State or national troops would 
 ic strike. But their schemes pro- 
 suit. Detestation of them became 
 i a general sympathy was given 
 struck. It was proposed in many 
 d States Government should take 
 le coal mines and work them un- 
 t domain. Even the least radical 
 
 Id for September 26th and 2yth, 1902. 
 
692 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 suggestion looked to some exercise of the President s power 
 to save the country from the horrors of the famine. In 
 the city of New York a coal-riot was dreaded. The 
 Mayor, Mr. Seth Low, telegraphed to the President: 
 
 ;< The welfare of a large section of the country imperatively 
 demands the immediate resumption of anthracite coal-mining. In 
 the name of the city of New York I desire to protest through you, 
 against the continuance of the existing situation, which, if prolonged, 
 involves, at the very least, the certainty of great suffering and heavy 
 loss to the inhabitants of this city, in common with many others." 
 
 The Governor of Massachusetts hurried to Washing 
 ton to beg the President in some manner to find a way out 
 of the existing crisis which was becoming more acute each 
 week. On the other hand, the representatives of capital 
 assumed a threatening attitude and evidently meant to end 
 the President s political career if he should dare to inter 
 vene. Oddly enough, the people of the West felt little 
 interest in the outcome of the strike. They used soft coal 
 instead of anthracite; and though the price of this had 
 also steadily advanced, they experienced no such pinch as 
 did the Eastern cities. Hence the Western press and the 
 political leaders of that section advised the President not 
 to interfere. 
 
 Of course, in his official capacity he had no power to 
 act. The coal-strike, though national in its consequences, 
 was local in its origin and progress. If he moved at all, 
 it must be as a private citizen, though whate\er action he 
 might take would be made significant by the dignity of the 
 great office which he held. It was a position of extreme 
 embarrassment. The Secretary of the Navy afterwards 
 described just how a decision was ultimately reached. He 
 said: 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 693 
 
 " I remember the President sitting, with his injured leg in a 
 chair while the doctors dressed it. 19 It hurt, and now and then he 
 would wince a bit, while he discussed the strike and the appeals 
 for help that grew more urgent with every passing hour. The 
 outlook was grave; it seemed as if the cost of interference might 
 be political death. I saw how it tugged at him, just when he saw 
 chances of serving his country which he had longed for all the 
 years, to meet this. It was human nature to halt. He halted 
 long enough to hear it all out : the story of the suffering in the big 
 coast-cities, of schools closing, hospitals without fuel, of the poor 
 shivering in their homes. Then he set his face grimly and said : 
 
 Yes, I will do it. I suppose that ends me ; but it is right, 
 and I will do it. " 20 
 
 Having come to this decision, the President telegraphed 
 to the railway presidents, to the presidents of the anthra 
 cite district unions, and to Mr. John Mitchell, asking them 
 to meet him in Washington on October 3rd. On the day 
 appointed, these persons accordingly assembled. The 
 mine owners were headed by Mr. George F. Baer, and 
 the labour representatives by Mr. Mitchell. There were 
 present also the Attorney-General of the United States, the 
 Commissioner of Labour, and the President s private secre 
 tary. The meeting began with an embarrassing silence, 
 The opposing delegates sat eyeing each other with looks 
 of evident hostility. Then the President read to them a 
 statement in which he said that he spoke neither for the 
 mine owners nor for the miners, but for the American 
 people. 
 
 " I disclaim any right or duty to intervene in this way upon 
 
 19 The President, while coaching in Massachusetts, had met with an 
 accident which injured the bone of one leg. 
 
 - (> Quoted in Riis, Theodore Roosevelt the Citizen, pp. 375-376 (New 
 York, 1904). 
 
694 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 legal grounds or upon any official relation that I bear to the situa 
 tion; but the urgency and the terrible nature of the catastrophe 
 impending over a large portion of our people in the shape of a 
 winter fuel-famine impel me after much anxious thought to believe 
 that my duty requires me to use whatever influence I personally 
 can bring, to end a situation which has become literally intoler 
 able. ... In my judgment, the situation imperatively re 
 quires that you meet upon the common plane of the necessities of 
 the public. With all the earnestness there is in me I ask that there 
 be an immediate resumption of operations in the coal mines, in 
 some such way as will, without a day s unnecessary delay, meet the 
 crying needs of the people. I do not invite a discussion of your 
 respective claims and positions. I appeal to your patriotism, to 
 the spirit that sinks personal considerations and makes individual 
 sacrifices for the general good." 21 
 
 No sooner had the President finished reading this care 
 fully prepared address, than Mr. Mitchell leaped to his 
 feet and said in a loud, clear voice : 
 
 " I am much pleased, Mr. President, with what you 
 say. We are willing that you shall name a tribunal which 
 shall determine the issues that have resulted in the strike; 
 and if the gentlemen representing the operators will ac 
 cept the award or decision of such a tribunal, the miners 
 will willingly accept it, even if it be against our claims." 
 
 Mr. Baer s face flushed red, and he and his associates 
 were obviously disconcerted. But after a moment s pause 
 they emphatically rejected Mr. Mitchell s proposal. Mr. 
 Baer offered on his side to submit any special grievance 
 to the decision of the Court of Common Pleas in the dis 
 tricts where the mines were situated. This offer was de 
 clined by Mr. Mitchell. The President then asked his 
 visitors to retire for consultation, and to return in the 
 
 21 See the New York Times for October 4, 1902. 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 695 
 
 afternoon. At this second meeting the operators read, 
 one after another, long statements which had evidently 
 been prepared for them by their legal advisers. Their 
 tone throughout was one of studied insolence toward the 
 President himself, and of hatred toward the striking 
 miners. They intimated that Mr. Roosevelt had failed in 
 his duty; that he should long since have broken the strike 
 by the employment of the regular army; and that the 
 responsibility for the existing situation rested largely upon 
 him. They called the Government " a contemptible 
 failure if it can secure the lives and property and comfort 
 of the people only by compromising with the violators of 
 law and the instigators of violence and crime." The coun 
 sel for the Delaware and Hudson Company, David B. 
 Wilcox, addressed the President in a most arbitrary 
 fashion, and demanded of him that he do his duty. The 
 operators evidently intended to rouse the President to an 
 outburst of anger and thereby to put him in the wrong; but 
 he kept his temper perfectly, 22 as did also the labour lead 
 ers; and the conference presently adjourned, having, as it 
 seemed, accomplished no result. 23 
 
 Such, however, was not the case. The indignation of 
 the whole country was aroused by the refusal of the oper 
 ators to accept the arbitration of the President of the 
 United States. Mr. Baer was widely quoted as having 
 in a letter to a friend, spoken of himself and his associates 
 as " those Christian men to whom God in his infinite 
 
 - 2 One account, however, says that the President spoke very sharply to 
 the operators. He is quoted as having remarked to a friend afterwards: 
 " There was only one person there who bore himself like a gentleman, 
 and it wasn t I ! " The exception is supposed to have been Mr. Mitchell. 
 
 i3 See the Washington correspondence of the New York World and 
 Herald for October 4, 1902; and Mitchell, Organized Labour, pp. 362-390 
 (Philadelphia, 1903). 
 
696 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 wisdom has entrusted the property interests of this coun 
 try." That Mr. Baer ever wrote these words was denied, 
 pnd there is no good reason for ascribing them to him; 
 yet at the time they were accepted as authentic and they 
 served to suffuse the public anger with a deep disgust. 
 Mr. Roosevelt had now the entire nation behind him; and 
 whatever he might do was certain to receive the approval 
 of his countrymen. 
 
 There was in New York at that time a financier whose 
 name was known throughout the civilised world for the 
 power which he exercised over other capitalists and 
 especially over the railway owners. In 1900, an earlier 
 coal strike had begun. It was near the time of the 
 presidential election, and a labour outbreak then would 
 have jeopardised the success of the Republican candidates. 
 This gentleman at that period had by his own personal 
 influence forced the mine-owners to make concessions to 
 the miners whereby the strike was for a while averted. 
 In yielding to him the operators had told him : 
 
 " We concede this now ; but you must promise never 
 again to ask it of us." 
 
 And he had promised. 
 
 There is an interesting story which seems to rest upon 
 good authority and which may be repeated here, though 
 with due reserve. It tells how this gentleman was in a 
 private yacht then lying in the North River. To him 
 it is said that in the evening there came from Wash 
 ington the Secretary of War, Mr. Elihu Root, a personal 
 acquaintance, and one of the ablest lawyers in the United 
 States. In the sumptuous cabin of the yacht, Mr. Root 
 went over the whole situation and urged with all his elo 
 quence that the great financier should once more use his 
 influence to end the strike. To the request, made many 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 697 
 
 times and in many ways, a cold refusal was returned. 
 Then the Secretary changed his tone. 
 
 " I have given you a chance to do this of your own free 
 will, but you have refused. I am now instructed to inform 
 you that the President will appoint a commission to inquire 
 very strictly into the legality of the connection between 
 the railways and the mines, and that this commission will 
 publish the exact truth so that the whole country may 
 know it. At the head of this commission the President 
 will place a gentleman, not of his own party, but one in 
 whose word and in whose courage the people will place 
 implicit confidence." 
 
 The financier shot a keen look from his steely eyes. 
 
 Who is this person? " he asked, with an accent partly 
 of defiance and partly of curiosity. 
 
 " His name," said Secretary Root, " is Grover Cleve 
 land. And I may add that, as the result of such a report, 
 the persons who shall be found to have violated the law 
 and who are thereby responsible for the existing distress 
 will be criminally indicted by a Federal Grand Jury." 24 
 
 The interview terminated late that night; and on Oc 
 tober 1 3th, the operators made a formal offer to the Presi 
 dent to submit all matters in dispute to a commission 25 
 of five men to be appointed by the President. The offer 
 was accepted by Mr. Mitchell on behalf of the miners; 
 and on October 23rd, work was resumed and the great 
 coal strike was broken. It had continued for five months, 
 and it was estimated to have entailed a loss of more than 
 
 24 This story here told is given for what it is worth. It tallies, however, 
 with several facts which are matters of record. 
 
 25 The commission subsequently appointed by the President was headed 
 by Judge Gray of Delaware, and it arranged a compromise, after taking 
 a vast amount of testimony which was published by the Government 
 (Washington, 1903). For a synopsis, see Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 391-396. 
 
698 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 $100,000,000. Because of what the President had done 
 he received the unstinted praise of a great majority of 
 Americans; while in Europe his name was spoken with 
 sincere respect as of one who " had done a very big thing 
 and an entirely new thing." 2G Only the representatives 
 of predatory capital were incensed, but for the time they 
 took refuge in a sullen silence. Among themselves, how 
 ever, they had marked the President down for political 
 destruction. 
 
 The succeeding year passed quietly enough, save for a 
 few slight ripples on the surface of international relations. 
 In January, much feeling was excited among the American 
 people by a joint naval expedition sent by Great Britain, 
 Italy, and Germany into Venezuelan waters for the purpose 
 of enforcing certain pecuniary claims and of redressing 
 grievances. The German ships shelled several Venezuelan 
 forts and sank a few insignificant Venezuelan ships, be 
 sides blockading the most important harbours. The 
 United States was not directly interested; for the three 
 foreign powers had disclaimed any desire for territorial 
 acquisitions in Venezuela. Nevertheless, perhaps because 
 Germany was involved, there existed some uneasiness. The 
 President studiously declined to interfere. He was in 
 vited to act as arbitrator, but wisely refused to do so. He 
 sent a fleet into West Indian waters, and used his influence 
 to secure a settlement of the affair. This was arranged 
 at Washington, and the three European powers made easy 
 terms with Venezuela. On the surface, the affair w r as 
 but a momentary incident, yet it afforded a new proof of 
 American influence in world politics. Foreign comment 
 was decidedly significant. The Allgemeine Zeltiing of 
 
 26 London Times, October 24, 1902. 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 699 
 
 Vienna declared resentfully that the United States had 
 gained the hegemony of the whole Western Hemisphere. 
 Continuing its comment, it said: 
 
 " Europe has displayed a nervous anxiety to appease American 
 diplomacy. The interested powers looked on enviously. Europe 
 was united on one point only the desire not to rouse the antip 
 athy of the American people. Even the allies wished to shake 
 each other off. The close of the Venezuelan dispute is equivalent 
 to a victory of America over Europe." 27 
 
 i 
 
 Subsequently, the German Kaiser, seeing the futility 
 of a policy of irritation, made frank overtures of friend 
 ship toward the United States and of personal good will 
 to the American President. He ordered a yacht to be 
 built for himself at an American shipyard, and requested 
 the President s daughter, Miss Alice Roosevelt, to christen 
 it at the launching. Not to do things by half, he also de 
 spatched his brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, as his 
 personal representative to visit the United States on the 
 occasion of the launching. Prince Henry came, accom 
 panied by a retinue of keen observers, who were instructed 
 to make minutely careful notes of everything they saw. 
 During the few weeks of their stay in the United States, 
 they visited the largest cities as far West as St. Louis, 
 inspecting libraries, universities, manufactories, navy- 
 yards, and battlefields, and being overwhelmed with an 
 excessive hospitality. Prince Henry, by his easy demo 
 cratic manners, did much to obliterate the memory of his 
 tactlessness at Hong Kong in 1898; and Americans had 
 an opportunity to show how far they had acquired the 
 
 27 Allgemeine Zeitung, February 15, 1903. For the French view, see 
 Petin, La Doctrine de Monroe (Paris, 1900) ; and Barral-Montferrat, De 
 Monroe a Roosevelt (Paris, 1905). 
 
700 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 art of entertaining royal guests. It can not be said that 
 their achievements in this respect were very creditable. 
 The ultra-rich displayed an effusive snobbishness which 
 was fatuous and fulsome. The rabble, on the other hand, 
 showed little of the decorum which marks the multitude 
 in European countries on ceremonious occasions. Prince 
 Henry, while in New York, was greeted through 3 mega 
 phone with the words: "Hullo, Henry! How s your 
 brother Bill?" On another occasion, when the Prince s 
 Pullman coach was sidetracked at a little country station 
 for the night, a band of yokels surrounded it, and beat 
 ing on its sides with sticks, cried out: Wake up, Hen! 
 Wake up, Hen ! " for half an hour at a time. But the 
 Prince took all these things with a good grace and they 
 doubtless gave a piquant flavour to the report which he 
 carried back to his imperial brother in Berlin. 
 
 Foreign observers had said that the United States now 
 possessed the hegemony of the entire Western hemisphere. 
 In 1903, a series of events occurred which emphasised the 
 truth of this assertion. For half a century, the project 
 of uniting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by a ship-canal 
 across the Central American Isthmus had received the 
 attention of Great Britain, France, and the United States. 
 Such a canal would decrease the distance by sea from New 
 York to San Francisco by some 8,500 miles and from New 
 York to Australia by nearly 4,000 miles. The so-called 
 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty between the United States and 
 Great Britain, signed in 1850, had contemplated the open 
 ing of such a canal. From time to time the subject had 
 been revived, and in 1870, two expeditions had reported 
 upon the subject. In 1881, a French company had been 
 organised to cut the Isthmus of Panama, and the carry- 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 701 
 
 ing out of the plan was entrusted to M. Ferdinand de 
 Lesseps, who had successfully united the Red Sea with 
 the Mediterranean. The attempt, however, resulted in 
 an engineering failure, and in a great financial scandal; 
 for out of the 700,000,000 francs subscribed, only about 
 90,000,000 francs were actually expended upon the engi 
 neering works, the rest having been squandered in bribery, 
 or lost through peculation. In the United States, the best 
 scientific opinion had favoured a canal through Nica 
 ragua, and this route was examined by a commission ap 
 pointed in 1897. Meanwhile, the French project had 
 collapsed (1889) an ^ tne French company had offered 
 to sell its rights to the United States. Various commis 
 sions made surveys and reports; but finally on January 
 20, 1902, President Roosevelt sent to Congress a mes 
 sage, recommending the construction of a canal at Panama, 
 and the purchase of the French rights for $40,000,000. 
 Congress responded by appropriating $170,000,000 for 
 the realisation of the plan; and, in case It were not possible 
 to secure the consent of the United States of Colombia, 
 directing the President to have the canal constructed by 
 the Nicaragua route at a cost not to exceed $180,000,000, 
 A treaty was then negotiated between Secretary Hay and 
 the Colombian Minister, Serior Herran, by which Co 
 lombia was to grant the desired privilege in return for the 
 sum of $10,000,000 to be paid outright, and an annual 
 rental of $250,000. This treaty was ratified by the 
 United States Senate in extra session (March 17, 1903), 
 and then went to the Senate of Colombia. That body, 
 strangely enough, rejected the treaty by a unanimous vote 
 (August I7th). The Government of Colombia let it be 
 known a little later that a new treaty would be ratified 
 if the United States would pay the sum of $25,000,000 
 
702 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 instead of the $10,000,000 provided for in the Hay- 
 Herran agreement. It was obvious that Colombia was 
 " holding up " the North American Republic and that the 
 whole question turned upon the payment of money. 
 
 At this juncture the State of Panama, incensed by the 
 sacrifice of its commercial interests, seceded from Co 
 lombia and established a provisional government of its 
 own, appealing to the United States for recognition. 
 President Roosevelt within three days acknowledged 
 the independence of the Republic of Panama. Physical 
 conditions prevented Colombia from sending troops to 
 Panama by land to coerce the seceding State; and 
 American vessels of war at once appeared in Central 
 American waters and began to cruise up and down the 
 coast. Marines were landed on the Isthmus, and the 
 Colombian Government was informed that the United 
 States would permit no fighting there. France and Eng 
 land almost at once gave their recognition to the new 
 Republic. Colombia then, when it was too late, offered 
 every possible concession, but the offer was rejected. M. 
 Bunau-Varilla, a Franco-Spanish engineer, was by cable, 
 accredited as Panama s representative at Washington; 
 and on November i8th, he and Secretary Hay signed a 
 treaty by which the Republic of Panama granted to the 
 United States the privilege of constructing a canal, in re 
 turn for $10,000,000, and a guarantee of Panama s inde 
 pendence. To the United States was also given control 
 of a belt of land ten miles wide through which the canal 
 was to be cut. The provisional government of Panama 
 ratified this treaty on December 2d, and it was approved 
 by the United States Senate 2S on February 23, 1904, only 
 fourteen votes being cast against it. 
 
 28 See the special message of President Roosevelt, January 4, 1904. 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 703 
 
 Public opinion favoured the action of the Government, 
 though wifh some reservations. In the presence of a fait 
 accompli there was no possibility of retreat. Moreover, 
 the mercenary conduct of the Colombians had deprived 
 them of much of the sympathy which might otherwise 
 have been given to them. It was proved also that the 
 United States had in no way instigated the revolt of Pan 
 ama a State which had revolted before, and which had 
 for years been hostile to the central Government. Finally, 
 the gain to the whole world from the construction of a 
 canal across the Isthmus was obvious to all. 
 
 Nevertheless, the transaction was not one of which 
 Americans could be proud. It violated the principles of 
 international comity and morality. The alleged baseness 
 of the Colombian Senate did not Justify the spoliation 
 of Colombia by a professedly friendly power. The in 
 decent haste with which Panama s independence had been 
 recognised was repugnant to many Americans. When 
 the President received the new Panamanian Minister, he 
 very unwisely compared his own recognition of Panama to 
 President Monroe s recognition of the South American 
 States after their revolt from Spain. Yet he must have 
 known that President Monroe took that step only after 
 waiting more years than President Roosevelt had waited 
 days. 
 
 It was plain, too, that the President had acted to 
 ward a feeble State like Colombia as he would not have 
 dared to act toward a great and warlike Power, His con 
 duct in this affair, therefore, savoured too strongly of 
 bullying to be admirable. Morally, the acquisition of the 
 canal zone was as reprehensible as the partition of Poland, 
 and it was effected with every possible circumstance that 
 could give offense. The New York Evening Post ex- 
 
704 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 pressed, though rather infelicitously, a wide-spread feeling 
 when it remarked: 29 
 
 The same result could have been reached with some regard 
 for appearances. The booty could have been bagged just the 
 same, yet the burglar could have looked, to the casual eye, more 
 like a church member." , 
 
 The wrong involved in this affair was destined to bring 
 a part its own revenge. President Roosevelt in his san- 
 N uine, off-hand way, declared that the canal must be com 
 menced at once; that he would begin immediately to 
 " make the dirt fly." He could not then foresee the long 
 delays, the shocking waste, the crass incompetence, and 
 the noisome scandals that were to dog and defer the work 
 upon which he had entered with so light a heart. Here, 
 as oftentimes before in his career* he displayed the hopeful 
 inexperience of an amateur; and that which he lightly 
 fancied the achievement of a few years, dragged wearily 
 along until even the most optimistic of Americans per 
 ceived that it was destined to remain the despair of distant 
 decades. 30 
 
 The President, however, was satisfied with the result 
 of his action and proceeded to display his self-compla 
 cency in a piece of phrase-making which became famous. 
 His notion of a foreign policy, he said, was u to speak 
 softly but to carry a big stick." What really gave him 
 serious anxiety at this time was the question of his election 
 in 1904, or rather, the question as to whether his own 
 party would nominate him for the Presidency. There were 
 good reasons for his doubt. On April 9th, 1903, the suit 
 
 20 Evening Post, December 3, 1903. 
 
 30 See Forbes-Lindsay, Panama: the Isthmus and the Canal (New York, 
 1906). 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 705 
 
 of Attorney-General Knox for the dissolution of the 
 Northern Securities u merger " had been decided in favour 
 of the Government and against the railway magnates. 31 A 
 decree ordering the dissolution of the merger was filed in 
 accordance with this decision. The independent press 
 of the country rejoiced at so effective a check to the 
 march of monopoly. Thus the Portland Oregonian 
 declared: 
 
 " It is a blow at anarchy. Disregard and violation of law come 
 to the same thing whether held at the corner of Broad and Wall 
 Streets, in private palace cars and along Fifth Avenue, or by the 
 ragged beggar stealing a loaf from a baker s wagon." 
 
 The Cincinnati Times-Star remarked: 
 
 " Wall Street, from its short-sighted standpoint of pecuniary 
 gain in the immediate future, may regard the Northern Securities 
 decision as a great evil ; those Americans who are more deeply and 
 unselfishly interested in the industrial and political future of their 
 country, however, can scarcely fail to take a diametrically opposite 
 position and regard the decision as fraught with much of practical 
 benefit and promise for the future of the Republic." 
 
 But of course, the decision of the Court enraged the 
 representatives of capital as much as it alarmed them. It 
 renewed their purpose to prevent the nomination of Mr. 
 Roosevelt. Beginning with the early autumn of 1903, 
 all their insidious agencies were set to work to discredit 
 him and to make his nomination seem impossible. The 
 country beheld a wonderful exhibition of the power of 
 
 31 The Decision of the Circuit Court was written by Judge Thayer, his 
 three associates concurring. It was afterwards, on appeal, sustained by 
 the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
706 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 this Third Estate. Its newspapers were filled with studied 
 sneers, with slanderous hints, and with expressions of 
 veiled contempt. Chief among the condottieri of this 
 veiled opposition was the New York Sim, which since the 
 death of Mr. Dana in 1897 had suffered various vicissi 
 tudes, but which was now believed to be controlled by Mr. 
 Pierpont Morgan. The Sun displayed an ingenuity and 
 a malice worthy of the great editor who was gone. It 
 quoted with relish an offensive phrase which described the 
 friends of Mr. Roosevelt as " bugs on the White House 
 doormat." It ridiculed his military record, and with 
 solemn irony strove to sap the foundations of his popu 
 larity. 82 At first, the real drift of all this criticism was 
 not apparent; but the secret was let out in an editorial 
 which the Sun published on December 14, 1903, in com 
 menting on the election in Ohio which had resulted in a 
 great Republican majority. Quoth the Sun: 
 
 " We see the Hon. Marcus A. Hanna crowned with the laurels 
 of that mighty November majority. Victorious as he is, the bugs 
 on the White House door-mat/ to use a coarse phrase worth) of 
 that low and practical view of politics that obtains among the 
 Buckeyes, are biting him sharply. On the other hand, the mighty 
 majority is crowding in on him, seeking to force him away from 
 the stake to which he has bound himself, a monument of self- 
 denial. There is every indication that at the present time Sena 
 tor Hanna is holding himself in restraint, but only showing the 
 stoicism of a martyr at the stake. His patience is remarkable, his 
 endurance marvellous. Yet the air around him is charged with 
 electricity. The pie-counter brigade, or sycophants for office, 
 and the bugs on the White House door-mat, as the members of 
 Roosevelt s immediate circle at Washington are known, have been 
 
 32 See the editorial columns of the Sun from November, 1903, to June, 
 1904. 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 707 
 
 assiduously at work, nibbling and gnawing at his ankles. Never 
 a day goes by but he must suppress anger that would cause most 
 men to break loose and hurl defiance at the headsman. 
 
 " This situation must be distressing, not so much perhaps to the 
 martyr himself as to one deeply interested soul, the object of this 
 drama of abnegation. Between the bugs and the majority, will 
 the stake hold? " 
 
 From this moment, Mr. Hanna was everywhere re 
 garded as a rival of Mr. Roosevelt for the Republican 
 nomination. The movement in his favour was carried on 
 all over the country with infinite skill and through all 
 the channels of the business world. Bankers told their 
 customers that a continuance of Mr. Roosevelt in office 
 would lead to hard times and would compel a curtailment 
 of discounts. Manufacturers and great business houses 
 let it be known to their employes that their prosperity in 
 the future was imperilled by " the unsafe man " in the 
 White House. This feeling spread from man to man 
 until, in January, 1904, it really seemed as though the 
 conspiracy would be successful. 
 
 A knowledge of these facts seriously disturbed the 
 President. He frankly sought a nomination, and was not 
 ashamed to say so. He had enjoyed the experiences of 
 his office with a keen relish. Often, writing to friends, 
 and dictating his letters to a stenographer, he would speak 
 of the burdens of the presidency. Yet before the letter 
 was sent he sometimes scrawled with his own hand at the 
 bottom of the page the words: "But I like it! " He 
 was tired of having it said that he was only " an accidental 
 President." He wished such an endorsement of his policies 
 and of himself as an election by the people would im 
 ply. His anxiety was very obvious. Mr. Hanna s popu 
 larity gave him many perplexing hours. Mr. Hanna 
 
708 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 himself once remarked laughingly: " Whenever I call at 
 the White House, the President thinks it necessary to 
 swear me in again." Whether the Senator was seriously 
 hoping for his own election, it is difficult to say. It is 
 certain, however, that he began to seek the favour of the 
 labour element which had long been hostile to him. He 
 helped organise the National Civic Federation and be 
 came its president. He also set his business affairs in 
 order, withdrawing from various enterprises in which he 
 had been interested, thereby making it possible to assume 
 any new duty which might be imposed upon him. For 
 the moment, the party was divided and the President 
 seemed to be daily losing ground. 
 
 A sudden change in the aspect of affairs was caused 
 by Mr. Hanna s death in February, 1904. Without him, 
 the opposition within the party had no head. Dislike of 
 Mr. Roosevelt among the capitalists had not decreased, yet 
 there was no one available to oppose him. Then en 
 sued a period of uncertainty. As was said by a Repub 
 lican adversary of the President: "Everybody is for 
 Roosevelt, but nobody wants him." Yet this remark 
 was utterly untrue. The country was decidedly for Mr. 
 Roosevelt, and it also wanted him. Now that Mr. 
 Hanna was removed, there came a great surge of favour 
 which in a month or two gave to the President the abso 
 lute mastery of his party. When the Republican Con 
 vention met at Chicago on June 2ist, it met as a mere 
 machine to register the presidential wishes. Every speech 
 had been submitted to him and had been revised by him. 
 The platform was practically of his own composition. The 
 great hall of the Coliseum which covered five acres of 
 ground, contained a body of delegates who felt that there 
 could be no interest in a gathering where no initiative was 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 709 
 
 allowed. Enthusiasm was lacking, and one cynical dele 
 gate remarked : " The only live thing about the Con 
 vention to-day was the picture of the dead Hanna." On 
 the second day, the platform was read and adopted. It 
 contained in essence little more than formal endorsement 
 of the Administration. On the third day, Mr. Roosevelt 
 was formally nominated by Ex-Governor Frank S. Black 
 of New York, who succeeded in rousing the Convention 
 for the first time to something like enthusiasm. His speech 
 was, in fact, a superb piece of rhetoric, of which at least 
 one passage may be quoted here: 
 
 :< There is no regret so keen in man or country as that which 
 follows an opportunity unembraced. Fortune soars with high and 
 rapid wing, and whosoever brings it down must shoot with accur 
 acy and speed. Only the man with steady eye and nerve and the 
 courage to pull the trigger, brings the largest opportunities to the 
 ground. He does not always listen while all the sages speak, but 
 every nightfall beholds some record which, if not complete, has 
 been at least pursued with conscience and intrepid resolution. 
 
 : The fate of nations is still decided by their wars. You may 
 talk of orderly tribunals and learned referees; you may sing in 
 your schools the gentle praises of the quiet life; you may strike 
 from your books the last note of every martial anthem ; and yet out 
 in the smoke and thunder will always be the tramp of horses and 
 the silent, rigid, upturned face. Men may prophesy and women 
 pray ; but peace will come here to abide forever on this earth only 
 when the dreams of childhood are the accepted charts to guide the 
 destinies of men." 33 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt was nominated by acclamation, and Mr. 
 Charles W. Fairbanks of Indiana was made his associate 
 as a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. Mr. Fairbanks 
 was a gentleman of conservative views whose rather cold 
 
 33 New York Tribune for June 24, 1904. 
 
710 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 and formal manners presently gained for him the popu 
 lar nickname of " Icebanks." The Convention adjourned 
 with as little enthusiasm as had marked its gathering. Yet 
 in spite of this unprecedented absence of emotion, or per 
 haps because of it, there was something grimly suggestive 
 and impressive about the whole affair. One seemed to 
 see here no shouting mob of volunteers, but rather an army 
 highly organised and disciplined, trained to obey im 
 plicitly the orders of a single chief, and with the prestige 
 of past victory upon its banners. The soldiers in the 
 ranks might have their private hesitancies and dislikes; 
 but these were not to count when in the presence of the 
 enemy, nor to alter, however slightly, an unflinching de= 
 termination to win the coming battle. 
 
 Much keener interest was felt in the action of the Demo 
 cratic Convention which had been called for July 6th 
 in St. Louis. The Democracy was in a mood to revert to 
 its earlier conservatism rather than to experiment once 
 more with the policies of Mr. Bryan. This conservatism 
 was the more clearly indicated, because radicalism had 
 now been approved by the Republicans and was embodied 
 in the personality of their chief. Hence, the name most 
 often heard as that of the possible Democratic candidate 
 was the name of Alton B. Parker, Chief Judge of the 
 New York Court of Appeals. Judge Parker had been 
 bred to the profession of the law, and his first thought 
 in public life was of rule and precedent. He had all the 
 jurist s dread of innovation; and, while his courage was 
 undoubted, it was always manifested in a quiet fashion. 
 He recalled the American public men of other days the 
 Adamses, the Jays, and the Marshalls, statesmen and 
 jurists who gave form and definite cohesion to the Federal 
 Government in its early years. Personally he had the 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 711 
 
 human qualities in abundant measure the kindliness and 
 courtesy of one who is always genuine and sincere, with 
 just a touch of that elusive rusticity which carries a whole 
 some suggestion of a purely natural environment. As the 
 weeks passed on, Judge Parker seemed more and more 
 likely to receive the Democratic nomination. 
 
 His chief rival was Mr. William Randolph Hearst of 
 JMew York. Mr. Hearst was a young man, the son of 
 Senator Hearst of California; and he had inherited from 
 his father a large fortune with which he had established 
 newspapers of a sensational character in New York, in 
 Boston, in Chicago, in San Francisco, and in Los Angeles. 
 Mr. Hearst was more radical even than Mr. Bryan. He 
 was a State Socialist, who had formerly advocated free 
 silver, and in his newspapers had never wearied of de 
 nouncing the abuses of capitalism. He was seriously 
 regarded in many portions of the country as a great tribune 
 of the people who would, if he had the power, destroy the 
 lawless corporations, give over the railways and the tele 
 graphs to the Government, and in general bring about a 
 sort of socialistic millennium. This belief and an abundant 
 use of money in his preliminary canvass, with perhaps the 
 secret support of Mr. Bryan, secured for Mr. Hearst 
 not only delegations from several of the so-called Silver 
 States, but those of such great commonwealths as Illinois, 
 Iowa, and California. 
 
 When the Convention met, it was obviously dominated 
 by the conservative element. Mr. Cleveland s name was re 
 ceived with thunders of applause, and it was said that now 
 at last the Democracy would show itself to be both " safe 
 and sane." The first day was devoted to speech-making; 
 but on the second day, the Convention displayed its 
 temper in a test vote as to the seating of certain Illinois 
 
712 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 delegates. Mr. Bryan advocated their admission; but by 
 a vote of 647 to 299 his proposal was defeated, and he left 
 the hall in a state of evident dejection. Nevertheless, in 
 committee he was able by the force of his personality to 
 exclude from the platform any reference to the money 
 question. 
 
 On the evening of July 8th, the candidates were put 
 in nomination; and Judge Parker received 658 ballots 
 as against the 204 that were cast for Mr. Hearst. Men 
 wondered, however, in what light the Judge would view 
 a nomination given him after the adoption of a platform 
 so negative in character. They had not long to wait. 
 On the next day, a telegram was received and read, of 
 which the text was as follows : 
 
 " I regard the gold standard as firmly and irrevocably estab 
 lished, and shall act accordingly if the action of the Convention 
 to-day shall be ratified by the people. As the platform is silent on 
 the subject, my views should be made known to the Convention, 
 and if they prove to be unsatisfactory to the majority, I request 
 you to decline the nomination for me at once, so that another may 
 be nominated before adjournment. 
 
 " ALTON B. PARKER/ 
 
 To this telegram, after a hasty consultation among the 
 leaders, a reply was sent in these words: 
 
 " The platform adopted by this Convention is silent on the 
 question of the monetary standard, because it is not regarded by us 
 as a possible issue in this campaign, and only campaign issues were 
 mentioned in the platform. Therefore there is nothing in the 
 views expressed by you in the telegram just received which would 
 preclude a man entertaining them from accepting a nomination 
 on said platform." 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 713 
 
 The terms of this reply were bitterly assailed by Mr. 
 Bryan, who rose from a sick-bed, pale and shaking with 
 fever, to utter a last plea for the cause with which his name 
 was linked. His passionate eloquence never was more 
 splendid than in this hour of momentary defeat. He 
 thrilled all who heard him, yet he failed to shake the set 
 purpose of the majority. 
 
 The Convention then adjourned after nominating for 
 the Vice-Presidency Mr. Henry G. Davis of West Vir 
 ginia, a wealthy octogenarian. The most conservative 
 Democrats all over the country lauded the courage of their 
 chief candidate. * The supporters of Mr. Bryan, however, 
 and the friends of Mr. Hearst, were thoroughly discon 
 tented, and throughout the campaign which followed they 
 exhibited not only apathy but unfriendliness. Mr. Bryan 
 himself, though deeply disappointed, displayed unshaken 
 loyalty to his party s choice. 
 
 At first it seemed as though the conservative elements 
 of the country might be rallied to Judge Parker s support. 
 Mr. Cleveland emerged from his seclusion to speak in 
 behalf of his party s candidate. The moneyed interests 
 hesitated for a few weeks. But in the end, they accepted 
 Mr. Roosevelt, in the belief that he was certain to be 
 elected; and that, while they might not be able to control 
 his policies, they could at least succeed in blocking them or 
 in accomplishing their defeat. Moreover, some of the men 
 who were most conspicuous in their advocacy of Judge 
 Parker s election failed to inspire general confidence. 
 Again, Judge Parker s utterances were too sedate and too 
 conservative for a people which had grown accustomed to 
 more stirring words. Moreover, Mr. Roosevelt was 
 fortunate in having Mr. John Hay as his chief Cabinet 
 adviser. Many conservative Republicans were wont to 
 
7H TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 remark: " Well, after all, a vote for Roosevelt is really 
 a vote for Hay." As the summer advanced, the tide set 
 in with increasing force in favour of the President, and 
 the Democrats were obviously losing ground. One thing 
 alone gave a shock to the moral sense of the country. 
 At the head of the Republican National Committee was 
 placed Mr. George B. Cortelyou, who had resigned a 
 seat in the Cabinet to act as campaign manager. It was 
 intimated that in case the President should be elected, Mr. 
 Cortelyou would be made Postmaster General. There 
 was a certain impropriety in all this. Mr. Cortelyou 
 had been Secretary of Commerce and Labour, and in 
 that office he had learned the secrets of the great cor 
 porations. His demands upon them for pecuniary con 
 tributions would therefore be especially effective; while 
 the chance of his being the future head of the Post Office 
 Department made every postmaster in the country a po 
 litical agent through dread of possible removal. Judge 
 Parker called attention to these circumstances in a speech 
 to which the President wrote a reply couched in hot words 
 of anger and ending with the following notable passage: 
 
 The statements made by Mr. Parker are unqualifiedly and 
 atrociously false. As Mr. Cortelyou has said to me more than 
 once during this campaign, if elected I shall go into the presidency 
 unhampered by any pledge, promise or understanding of any kind, 
 sort or description, save my promise, made openly to the American 
 people, that so far as in my power lies, I shall see to it that every 
 man has a square deal, no less and no more." 
 
 This for the moment silenced public criticism. Of 
 course, no one had supposed that Mr. Roosevelt was per 
 sonally aware of any bargaining. Indeed, it was not 
 
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 715 
 
 necessary to assume that any open or explicit bargaining 
 had been made. But in the following year it became 
 known that large sums had been improperly, if not dis 
 honestly, paid into the Republican campaign fund by the 
 great insurance companies of New York, and that in one 
 instance the company s books had been falsified to conceal 
 the evidence of this illegal use of a trust fund. It was 
 plain that such contributions would hardly have been made 
 without a confident expectation of receiving valuable 
 favours in return. Judge Parker s charges were, there 
 fore, in essence justified. 
 
 At the election, however, Mr. Roosevelt was so over 
 whelmingly successful as to make the result certain within 
 two hours after the polls had closed. In the popular 
 vote he had a majority of nearly 2,000,000, while in the 
 Electoral College he had 336 votes as against 140 given 
 to Judge Parker. Yet when analysed, it was apparent 
 that his great success was due largely to the defection at 
 the polls of the Hearst and Bryan voters. The total num 
 ber of ballots cast in the country was less by nearly half 
 a million than those which had been cast in 1900, in spite 
 of the growth in population. It was not, then, so much 
 an increase in the Republican vote as a decrease in the 
 Democratic, that brought about a result which on the 
 face of it seemed cataclysmic. No sooner had the news 
 of his success been carried to the President, than he gave 
 out a written statement from the White House to the effect 
 that under no circumstances would he be a candidate for 
 another nomination. 34 
 
 President Roosevelt entered upon his second term in 
 March, 1905, under happy auspices and with a great 
 majority of his own party in control of Congress. What 
 
 34 Text in New York Times, November 9, 1904. 
 
7i6 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 he might actually do thereafter was uncertain. How far 
 his efforts in behalf of honesty and equal justice might be 
 effectual in the face of sinister and reactionary influences, 
 none could say. But he had at least, by speech and act, 
 committed the powerful organisation of which he was the 
 head to a new and truer policy and one consistent with 
 the ideals of its founders, a policy from which {hereaf 
 ter it would be not only difficult but base to swerve. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 
 
 IN the twenty years which followed the first inauguration 
 of President Cleveland, the philosophic observer finds 
 a multiplicity of tendencies -^nd of achieved results, among 
 the maze of which it is often difficult to disentangle those 
 that possess supreme significance. No period in the whole 
 history of the Republic had been so fraught with the con 
 summation of changes long impending. It was a period 
 of precipitation. In it a score of influences which for 
 many years had been almost imperceptibly at work, now 
 with a rapid rush wrought out results so swiftly and so 
 surely as to daze the purblind and confound the calcula 
 tions of conservative students of political and social history. 
 
 The central fact which dominates these twenty yearsToT] 
 evolution is the fact that in them the United States at 
 last attained a genuine national unity. Whatever orators 
 and political theorists may have said and written during 
 the preceding century, no dispassionate analyst of Ameri 
 can conditions could blink the truth that the Federal Re 
 public throughout that century had been, not one nation, 
 but several nations, held together, so to speak, mechanic 
 ally, rather than blended chemically in a complete identity 
 of sentiment and interest. The fact might well seem odd 
 to those who took a purely superficial view and constructed 
 a theoretical argument. Here was a people mainly of 
 English stock, occupying a continuous territory, speak- 
 
 7*7 
 
718 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ing the same language, and possessing the same racial, 
 governmental, and social traditions. In the War of Inde 
 pendence, the colonies had resisted a common enemy in 
 defence of a common principle, and had won a victory of 
 which the glory was a common heritage. They had vol 
 untarily accepted the rule of a central government in which 
 the rights of each constituent part were carefully safe 
 guarded. In all this there was to be detected the pres 
 ence of influences making for a more perfect unification. 
 How came it, then, that actual unity was not attained until 
 more than a century had elapsed? What was the cause 
 which kept the centrifugal and the centripetal forces so 
 nearly balanced as to make it often doubtful which would 
 finally prevail? 
 
 The anomaly was the more interesting because, from the 
 very outset, the drift toward a true nationalisation of the 
 Republic had been clearly indicated. Although the Revolu 
 tion itself was succeeded by an ebbing of national energy, 
 this merely evidenced the lassitude of a reaction, It was 
 swiftly followed by a vigorous impulse which came from 
 the South and from the West, and which was personified 
 in the two great leaders, Calhoun and Clay. While Fed 
 eralist New England was sulking in sterile criticism or im- 
 potently muttering treason, these two ardent souls were 
 urging a boldly aggressive policy the adoption of which 
 would inevitably bind the States together. They spurned 
 the timid temporising of their elders, and flung the gaunt 
 let of defiance in the face of Britain. Calhoun s early 
 statesmanship urged the construction of " great permanent 
 roads for defence . . . connecting more closely the 
 interests of various sections of this great country." Clay 
 personified the spirit of the West, its impatience of tradi 
 tional restraints, its thirst for expansion even at the cost of 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 719 
 
 conquest, and its conviction that the Government at Wash 
 ington should give the vivifying impulse which the in 
 dividual States withheld. In the early years of the 
 nineteenth century it really seemed as though the barriers 
 between one section and another were soon to be demol 
 ished. Canals were cut and other waterways were opened. 
 Steamboats began to ply between the growing cities. 
 Great roads were built across the mountains. Meanwhile, 
 the constructive jurist, Chief Justice Marshall, a native 
 of Virginia, was strengthening the authority of the central 
 government by holding the Supreme Court to his broad 
 views of constitutional interpretation. It appeared at that 
 time as though, within a few decades, facility of inter 
 course, commercial interests, and a growing pride in ma 
 terial and moral progress would link the States so closely 
 and so surely as to give the natural ties of race and lan 
 guage their full effect. 
 
 It was of course the blight of slavery which deferred 
 this consummation not because of any moral taint asso 
 ciated with that institution, but because of the economic 
 clash which it made inevitable. It not merely kept the 
 South a purely agricultural community without the varied 
 industries which flourished in the North, but it erected 
 the breeding of slaves into a highly profitable occupa- 
 tion. 1 This special interest caused in the South a reaction 
 against the centralising, unifying tendency which had 
 earlier been noticeable. It paralysed the larger patriot 
 ism of Calhoun and his able followers and forced them 
 into a narrow particularism and the exaltation of the 
 State above the Nation. Their political genius was thence 
 forth devoted to the undoing of what they had before ac 
 complished and to the stifling of a sentiment which was 
 beginning to prevail. For many years thereafter, the 
 
 1 See Reed, The Brothers War (Boston, 1906). 
 
720 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 narrowness of the New England abolitionist was matched 
 by the narrowness of the Southern slave-owner; and the 
 bitter strife between the two set back the birth of a true 
 nationalism for three-quarters of a century. 
 
 The period of the Civil War, when the vigorous West 
 threw its sword into the scale and determined the issue 
 of the contest, settled the question of slavery forever. Yet 
 the United States could not at once become a real political 
 entity. The bitterness of the war itself would soon have 
 passed away; but the horrors of Reconstruction sank 
 deeper into the soul of the South than even the memory 
 of devastated lands and of cities laid in ashes. It is painful 
 now to dwell upon the folly and fanaticism which made 
 that period the darkest in all American history. The wise 
 and conciliatory plans of Lincoln were forgotten by the 
 Northern Radicals. To disfranchise the best and ablest 
 citizens of the South was bad enough. The incredible 
 scheme of granting immediate suffrage to the half-brutish 
 blacks and of thrusting them into the supreme control 
 of civilised communities was the high-water mark of po 
 litical insanity. Unprincipled white men from other sec 
 tions of the country flocked into the Southern States and 
 exploited the ignorance of the negroes. There was seen 
 the spectacle of Governors of States carrying with them 
 to low orgies bundles of State bonds, of which they filled 
 in the amounts according as they needed the money for 
 debauchery. Legislative halls which had been honoured 
 by the presence of learned jurists and distinguished law 
 givers were filled with a rabble of plantation-hands who 
 yelled and jabbered like so many apes, while drunken 
 wenches sprawled upon the dais before the Speaker s ros 
 trum. Public debts of every sort were piled up mountain 
 high; and whole communities, already impoverished by 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 721 
 
 war, were crushed under new and even more appalling 
 burdens. 2 
 
 But the reconstruction period and negro domination:^ 
 passed away after the inauguration of President Hayes 
 in 1877. Slowly but surely the South began to get upon 
 its feet once more. Yet so long as it was excluded from 
 any leading share in the Federal Government, a sentiment 
 of nationality could not, in the nature of things, be fostered 
 in the Southern States. So long as Northern orators and 
 statesmen filled their speeches with allusions to " rebel 
 brigadiers " and pointed to the " Solid South " as a menace 
 to the nation s welfare, for just so long the South re 
 sponded by a show of sullen anger and defiance. In a 
 word, so long as the Democratic party was kept out of 
 power for the sole reason that one wing of it was com 
 posed of Southern voters, the Republic still remained fun 
 damentally divided. It was this fact which gave to the 
 election of Mr. Cleveland in 1884 so profound a signifi 
 cance. Whatever one may think of his two administra 
 tions, they certainly demonstrated not merely that the 
 bugbear of the Solid South was nothing but a bugbear, 
 but also that the nation could ill afford to reject the serv 
 ices of the able men whom the South bred up, and of 
 whom Lamar and Herbert and Carlisle and Francis were 
 conspicuous examples. Political recognition in the execu 
 tive departments of the Government did much to soften 
 the harshness of Southern feeling. 
 
 Meanwhile, the South was recovering with astonishing 
 
 2 See H. A. Herbert and others, Why the Solid South? (Baltimore, . 
 1890) ; Reynolds, Reconstruction in South Carolina (Columbia, 1905) ; 
 Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, pp. 730-782 (New 
 York, 1905) ; and, in general, Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Re 
 construction (New York, 1898). 
 
722 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 celerity the material wealth which it had lost. Manufac 
 tures were established very successfully at many points, 
 and notably in Georgia and Alabama. Mines began to 
 be worked. Capital was attracted from the North and 
 from Europe. Between 1895 and 1905, the economic 
 development of the Southern States was one of the most 
 remarkable in the whole history of the modern industrial 
 world. 3 The distribution of wealth, the new activities, 
 and the wider outlook which resulted from them, meant 
 more than a shifting of the industrial centre of gravity 
 at the South. It meant a transformation in the political 
 relations of the South with reference to the nation as a 
 whole. As one expressed it at the time, the Southern 
 people were too busily engaged in providing for a pros 
 perous future to waste valuable time in brooding over a 
 melancholy past. Hence, after 1 890, we find a new South, 
 hopeful, vigorous, and alert, forming each year new ties 
 to hold it fast as an integral part of the great Republic, 
 whose foundations had been laid by the genius and pa 
 triotism of Southern men. The one thing necessary to 
 make this clearly evident was the impulse given by the 
 war with Spain. It was then that the South itself learned 
 
 3 See Murphy, The Present South, pp. 97-102 (New York, 1904). In 
 1870, the assessed value of property in New York and Pennsylvania was 
 greater than that of the entire South. In the same year the assessed prop 
 erty of Rhode Island and New Jersey exceeded in value that of South 
 Carolina by nearly $700,000,000. In 1880, the manufactured products of 
 the South were less by $200,000,000 than that of her agricultural products. 
 In 1900, however, Southern manufactures, including mining interests, 
 surpassed in value all Southern agricultural products by nearly $300,000,- 
 ooo. The products of Southern factories in the last named year reached 
 a total of $1,563,000,000, an increase since 1880 of more than 220 per cent. 
 " To realise the deep and far-reaching significance of such figures, one 
 must be able to see through them the vast industrial and social changes 
 which they represent." 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 723 
 
 how far it had emerged from its old seclusion. Its volun 
 teers flocked with enthusiasm to the recruiting offices ; and 
 they fought shoulder to shoulder with their fellow-coun 
 trymen of the North and West for the same flag and the 
 same country. It was a superb instance of political tact: 
 when President McKinley gave commissions in the army 
 to Fitzhugh Lee and Joseph Wheeler two ex-Confeder 
 ate commanders. This single act intensified the warmth of 
 patriotic feeling which the South displayed throughout 
 that war and afterwards. President Roosevelt, himself 
 of Southern ancestry on his mother s side, succeeded in 
 increasing this good feeling in spite of the temporary ex 
 citement aroused by the Booker Washington affair. Some 
 of his utterances appealed directly to Southern sentiment. 4 
 His Secretary of War, Mr. Elihu Root, in an address 
 delivered before the Union League Club in New York 
 City, frankly confessed that the Republican party had 
 been guilty of a grave error after the Civil War, in be 
 stowing the unrestricted franchise upon the negroes. These 
 things and others like them made Mr. Roosevelt so popu 
 lar in the Southern States, that at the time of the election 
 of 1904, an eminent Southern Democrat, answering a 
 question put to him in private conversation, said: 
 
 In the South >we are going to vote for Parker, but 
 we are all praying hard for Roosevelt." 
 
 As a matter of fact, this election actually broke the 
 ranks of the long Solid South; for the States of West 
 Virginia and Missouri then cast their electoral votes for 
 a Republican President. 
 
 With the consummation of true national unity it came 
 
 4 See his speech before the Republican Club at Philadelphia, on February 
 i3th, 1905. New York Times, February i4th. 
 
724 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 about that the political and social phenomena which the 
 United States exhibited after 1895 were no longer 
 sectional. The problems which they involved confronted 
 the people of the entire country. These phenomena 
 and these problems, when analysed philosophically, re 
 lated first to the astonishing growth of material pros 
 perity and the distribution of wealth; and secqnd and 
 partly consequent upon the first, to a strong and rapid drift 
 toward something like State Socialism. All the other im 
 portant questions that arose during the period under con 
 sideration will be found to have sprung from one or the 
 other of these two causes. Sufficient has been already said 
 in the course of this narrative concerning the exploitation 
 of the country s natural resources and the diffusion of 
 wealth. The economic history of the United States had, 
 on the whole, been the history of material success broken 
 only now and then by financial crises which at times re 
 tarded, but could not long prevent, the accelerated enrich 
 ment of the nation. From 1846 to 1860, industrial 
 activity of every sort was very marked. The Civil War 
 for a moment brought panic and financial depression; but 
 it soon proved a stimulus not merely to speculation but to 
 legitimate enterprise as well. From that time the record 
 varied, until at the beginning of the McKinley adminis 
 tration, the country reached a pitch of material well-being, 
 such as had never before been known. It was not, how 
 ever, so much the growth of wealth as the manner of its 
 distribution which now became significant, not the riches 
 of the nation, but the riches of individuals. Until 
 1860-65, tne national wealth had been widely diffused. 
 After 1865 it began to be gathered into great fortunes. 
 The first, and for a long while the only American million 
 aire, had been George Washington, who achieved wealth 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 725 
 
 by the judicious purchase of Western lands. For many 
 years after his time there were, in the words of Mr. 
 James Bryce, " no great fortunes in America, few large 
 fortunes, and no poverty." The same careful observer 
 contrasted this condition with that which prevailed about 
 1890. He then wrote: 
 
 " Now there is some poverty, many large fortunes, and a greater 
 number of gigantic fortunes than in any other country of the 
 world." 5 
 
 The much-lauded " era of consolidation " exhibited the 
 truth of this assertion and revealed a growing tendency 
 to increase still more the concentration of wealth in the 
 hands of a comparatively few. No statement on this 
 subject professing to be exact can be accepted literally; 
 yet the results of some careful investigations represent at 
 least an approximate truth. Thus, it was computed in 
 1896 that one-eighth of the families in the United States 
 possessed at least seven-eighths of all the country s wealth. 
 The assertion was also made in 1903 that the twenty-four 
 men who then composed the directorate of the United 
 States Steel Corporation controlled at least one-twelfth 
 of the total wealth of the United States. A New York 
 lawyer, one of Jay Gould s counsel, Mr. Thomas G. Shear 
 man, had said eleven years earlier that the United States 
 was practically owned by less than 250,000 persons, and 
 that within thirty years from that time it would be con 
 trolled by fewer than 50,000 persons. 7 
 
 Merely as an interesting fact, therefore, it would be 
 
 5 Bryce, The American Commonwealth, ii. p. 616 (New York, 1895). 
 
 6 Spahr, The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States, p= 69 
 (New York, 1896). 
 
 7 In the Forum, for November, 1889. Quoted in George, The Menace of 
 Privilege, pp. 1-13 (New York, 1905). 
 
726 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 worth recording that the rapidity with which wealth had 
 grown was balanced by the startling inequality of its dis 
 tribution. To a very large extent this inequality repre 
 sented a natural inequality in the brain-power which exists 
 among individuals. It was a tribute, in part, to efficiency 
 of organisation and to that superior ability which in the 
 world of finance is comparable to a like ability in the 
 sphere of military affairs. The military analogy is, in 
 deed, a very apt one. Translate the strategic maxims of 
 Napoleon into the language of finance, and there is formu 
 lated a system quite as axiomatic as was his, because it 
 expresses fundamental truths. Napoleon s battles were 
 won by a tenacious adherence to a few simple principles. 
 " Always have your forces so distributed," said the Em 
 peror, " as to make it possible for you to direct all of 
 them at once upon the weak point in the enemy s position." 
 This implies singleness of command, clearness of design, 
 and concentration of power. When, therefore, immensity 
 of force is directed by supreme ability centred in one 
 dominant mind, there is effected a combination which is 
 practically irresistible. And the same thing is true with 
 regard to money. When millions are united and massed, 
 and when their concentrated power is wielded by one 
 far-seeing brain, they will draw to themselves swiftly and 
 surely other millions and will justify the proverb which 
 declares that wealth breeds wealth. An anecdote current 
 in 1902 elucidates one of the causes of American success 
 in financial management. 
 
 Not long ago, the head of an American corporation walked into 
 the London offices of a great concern which represented similar 
 interests in England. The American came unknown and unan 
 nounced. After waiting for half an hour in an ante-room he was 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 727 
 
 admitted to the presence of the manager, and came at once to 
 business, with an unconcern of manner in striking contrast to Eng 
 lish ways. 
 
 " Now see here," he began, without any preliminary talk: " I ve 
 looked into your concern and know all about it, and just what it s 
 worth, and I ve come here to buy you out." 
 
 The Englishman gasped and stared at what appeared to him 
 the extreme assurance and even insolence of his visitor. 
 
 " Yes," continued the American, swinging his leg easily over 
 the arm of the chair ; " I know all about your business. It isn t 
 worth a million pounds, but I m prepared to offer you that, if 
 you ll close the thing right here." 
 
 " And when would you be ready to pay over the million 
 pounds?" asked the Englishman, with what he regarded as elab 
 orate irony. 
 
 The American looked at his watch. 
 
 " Well," he said, " it s rather late to-day; but if you ll have the 
 papers drawn, I ll turn the million over to you to-morrow after 
 noon." 8 
 
 When men by temper and training come to possess the 
 ability to do large things in this direct and simple way, 
 they have an immense advantage over those who can act 
 only in committees, or boards, or companies, and they will 
 inevitably dominate them and use them quite at will. 
 Hence it was that the concentration of wealth in the United 
 States between 1885 and 1905, being directed in a swift, 
 effective and overwhelming fashion, seemed to promise the 
 commercial and financial conquest of the world. It was 
 this which dazzled for a while the imagination of the 
 American people. They had begun to make other nations 
 pay tribute to the Republic. They confidently looked 
 forward to a time when, as a certain Senator somewhat 
 extravagantly phrased it, both the Atlantic and the Pa- 
 
 8 The Independent, May i, 1902. 
 
728 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 cific Oceans would commercially become " American 
 lakes," traversed by American fleets and washing no 
 shores that were not tributary to the United States. 
 
 In many respects the possession of great fortunes by in 
 dividuals was a direct advantage to the nation as a whole. 
 The new millionaires differed greatly from their prede 
 cessors of the period immediately following the Civil 
 War. That war had created the American millionaire. 
 From 1865 to 1875 tne most striking figure in American 
 life was that of the nouveau riche. He was, to instructed 
 minds, a most pathetic sight, so grossly conscious of his 
 wealth, so anxious to spend it in an impressive way, to 
 do something princely, something really " big," while still 
 so hopelessly ignorant of how to do it. He purchased 
 urban dwellings with " brown-stone fronts " and plate- 
 glass windows. He procured horses and carriages, and 
 stocked his cellars with champagne. In the country, he 
 built for himself enormous wooden mansions in many col 
 ours, surmounted by wooden cupolas and towers and bat 
 tlements, and adorned with a maze of wooden pillars 
 representing what someone cleverly styled " the jigsaw 
 renaissance," while his lawn was dotted with cast-iron 
 statuary painted to resemble bronze. Many of these war- 
 made millionaires ultimately lost their money as quickly 
 as they made it. Some of them left it to be squandered 
 by their sons. The wealth of those days was seldom 
 perpetuated; and this fact was crystallised in a popular 
 proverb to the effect that " There are only three genera 
 tions from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves." 
 
 The representatives of the still newer wealth bore slight 
 resemblance to the shoddy millionaire. They lived in the 
 age that had discovered Europe, where they had travelled 
 and observed and learned; for at this time Europe be- 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 729 
 
 came a mighty educator of the American people. It led 
 them to the appreciation and encouragement of art and 
 architecture and landscape gardening, and to a knowledge 
 of the true refinements of civilised existence. There began 
 to be laid in the United States the basis for something 
 which resembled an aristocracy, founded in the first in 
 stance upon w r ealth, but in its higher forms deserving a 
 better name than that of mere plutocracy. An aristocracy 
 must always ultimately rest upon either power or service, 
 and more often upon a combination of these two. In by 
 gone centuries, power in its last analysis meant physical 
 force; and hence the founders of the older aristocracies 
 of Europe had been warriors, often soldiers of fortune 
 who, by the edge of the sword, carved out for themselves 
 a permanent place in the kingdoms of the Old World. 
 In the nineteenth century, the greatest source of power 
 was wealth; and, therefore, upon it and upon that service 
 to the people which it was enabled to perform, a new aris 
 tocracy rapidly arose in the United States. It was easy 
 to sneer at the source as being vulgar; yet power, when 
 it is so great as this, is never vulgar, even though the 
 wielders of it are. In the United States at the beginning 
 of the twentieth century, only the early stages of this 
 evolution could be seen. Its frequent crudities and inani 
 ties everyone could detect and mock at; for there had 
 so far been reached only the period of imitation and dis 
 play. Yet already the possession of great wealth had ex 
 ercised a sobering influence and had begun to create a 
 sense of civic responsibility in many of its possessors. 
 Foreign observers had been wont to say that in America, 
 public office was held only by the representatives of the 
 ignorant, and that men of light and leading held themselves 
 aloof from politics, This criticism lost its point in the years 
 
730 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 from 1890 to 1905. More and more did it become usual 
 for young men of cultivation and intelligence to enter 
 public life. At the time of the Spanish War, such men 
 were eager to receive commissions in the army, or failing 
 that, to fight even in the ranks. The nobility of service 
 was beginning to be understood. President Roosevelt 
 himself was an admirable example of this new tendency 
 to sacrifice the delights of cultivated ease to the welfare 
 of the nation. 
 
 The indirect value to the country at large of the concen 
 tration of wealth was also undeniable. Many of the latter- 
 day millionaires in fact, an ever increasing number of 
 them even in the pursuit of their own pleasures and the 
 gratification of their own tastes, conferred a benefit upon 
 the entire people. Following, sometimes unintelligently, 
 but, as time went on, with a truer comprehension, the 
 English models, they set a fashion that in many things 
 was admirable. The open-air life, the love of country 
 homes, and the practice of outdoor amusements, of rid 
 ing and hunting and of healthful sports, all tended to im 
 prove the physical and moral tone of Americans. The 
 great estates of the wealthy, the splendid country-houses 
 on Long Island, in the Berkshires, in Maine, and in other 
 picturesque localities, the country clubs, the golf-links, no 
 less than the sumptuous hospitality offered by the rich to 
 their friends, all set a standard of living which little by 
 little added to the refinement of American life and did 
 much to smooth away the crudities which had marked an 
 earlier stage of American civilisation. Still more impor 
 tant was the generosity which gave with lavish hand to 
 educational endowments, and to create and maintain libra 
 ries, picture galleries and museums. American purchasers 
 brought to their native land masterpieces of art from the 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 731 
 
 choicest collections of Europe; and they patronised, often 
 with great discrimination, the artists and architects of their 
 own country. In this sphere, the new wealth and the 
 growth of an aristocracy primarily founded upon wealth, 
 were beginning to make the cities of the United States 
 what the great merchant princes of Northern Italy made 
 their cities at the time of the Renaissance. 
 
 There were many who deplored the inevitable growth 
 of social distinctions which resulted from the state of 
 things that has just been described; yet these critics 
 ignored the fact that social distinctions had always ex 
 isted in the Republic, and that they sprang, not from 
 external circumstances, but from the inborn social habits 
 of the race. That the multi-millionaire should think of 
 himself as in a class apart from the man of moderate 
 means was no more absurd than the fact that the great 
 merchant should look down upon the petty tradesman, that 
 the clerk should feel himself to be above the mechanic, 
 or that the shop-girl should exclude from her society the 
 domestic servant. The Anglo-Saxon cherishes an intoler 
 ance of social equality as intense and as ineradicable as 
 is his championship of equality before the law. 
 
 That the rapid growth of wealth and its unequal dis 
 tribution were known in many cases to be the result of in 
 equality before the law, explains the discontent which 
 throve among the American people during the years with 
 which this narrative has to do. Americans are singularly 
 free from envy. That some men should grow rich while 
 others remained poor was not in itself a cause of dissatis 
 faction. Great fortunes honestly acquired were rightly 
 held to be an honour to their possessors, because they were 
 the concrete evidence of ability, economy, and persever- 
 
732 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ance. But, on the other hand, the fortunes that had been 
 gained through illicit favour, in defiance of the law and 
 by the debauchery of those who had been chosen to make 
 and to administer the law these roused a widespread 
 and steadily deepening resentment. 9 Conspicuous in 
 stances of this lawless wealth have already in these pages 
 been sufficiently pointed out in discussing the growth of 
 Trusts, and the discrimination by railways in the making 
 of their rates and in the stifling of competition by other 
 means in flagrant violation of both the statutes and the 
 common law of the land. For twenty years the courts 
 had been practically impotent to check and to destroy 
 the power of monopoly. Americans began to feel that 
 the orderly processes of the law were unavailing. Petty 
 criminals, underlings, and agents were sometimes pun 
 ished; yet no great criminal of the wealthy class had ever 
 been sent to prison, but was at most permitted to escape 
 on the payment of a fine which was to him of no more 
 consequence than the copper coin which one tosses to an 
 urchin in the streets. State after State adopted legisla 
 tion intended to be remedial or punitive, yet this practically 
 accomplished nothing; and some of these very States, 
 notably New Jersey, most inconsistently framed their cor 
 poration laws in such a way as actually to encourage the 
 increase of oppressive combinations. The feeling of help 
 less rage which spread through the West in 1892 had 
 permeated the entire country in 1905, and had prepared 
 the minds of the people for measures far more drastic than 
 any which had hitherto been known in the Republic. 
 
 It is thus that one may account for the rapid develop 
 ment of State Socialism in the United States. The germs 
 of this movement were perhaps sown by the German im 
 migrants who came to America at the time of the political 
 
 9 See Brooks, The Social Unrest, pp. 68-106 (New York, 1904). 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 733 
 
 disorders of 1848, and who were imbued with the doc 
 trines of Karl Marx. For a long while the organisations 
 which these men formed remained apart from the current 
 of American political life. The name " socialist " was 
 little understood by the people at large, and was vaguely 
 held to be synonymous with " communist " and " anarch 
 ist." In time, however, the social unrest which was 
 aroused by the growing inequality of conditions began to 
 stir the native section of the people. The various labour 
 organisations which have elsewhere been mentioned, 10 
 early showed the drift toward Socialism, and looked to 
 the central government for the rectification of what they 
 held to be deep-seated social wrongs. An epoch in the 
 history of this movement was marked by the publication 
 in 1880 of a work entitled Progress and Poverty, written 
 by Mr. Henry George. Henry George was a native of 
 Philadelphia. He was born to poverty, so that at the age 
 of fourteen he was obliged to leave school in order to earn 
 a living for himself. Shipping, as a deck-hand on a mer 
 chant vessel bound for Australia, he ultimately found his 
 way to California (1858) where he learned the printer s 
 trade. For years he suffered great privations, drifting 
 from one employment to another and proving unsuccessful 
 in them all. With some of his fellow-printers he estab 
 lished a small newspaper, and this also failed; yet the 
 venture influenced his subsequent career, since it led him 
 to try writing for the press. His earliest productions show 
 that he had already begun to study political and social 
 questions and to urge his fellows " to check the tendency 
 of society to resolve itself into classes that have either 
 too much or too little." Presently he became chief of staff 
 on the San Francisco Times, and thenceforward he de 
 voted himself to a propaganda directed against the in- 
 
 10 See pp. 131, 132. 
 
734 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 equalities of society as it existed. As early as 1866, he 
 exposed the illegal practices of the Western railways; and 
 in 1877, a fter long reflection, he began to write the book 
 which ultimately made him famous. The first edition 
 was a small one, the author himself setting a part of 
 the type, and for a while it attracted slight attention. 
 Within a few years, however, it was taken up in Eng 
 land and widely reviewed as being a remarkable con 
 tribution to the literature of sociology. With the ex 
 ception of Uncle Tom s Cabin, no American book had 
 ever been so widely read. It was translated into all the 
 languages of Europe. Cheap editions were published in 
 England and the United States, and it is estimated that 
 between 1880 and 1905 no less than two million copies 
 of it were sold and circulated. 11 Mr. George s thesis 
 was that the entire burden of taxation should be levied 
 upon land, irrespective of all improvements upon it, thus 
 confiscating the economic rent, freeing industry from taxa 
 tion, and affording equal opportunity to all men by de 
 stroying the unfair advantage which the possession of 
 land gives to monopoly. Closely allied to his theory of 
 the " single tax," as it was called, was his doctrine that 
 the labourer is really paid, not out of capital, but out of 
 value which he himself creates. In 1886, Henry George 
 was a candidate for the mayoralty of New York City, 
 receiving 68,000 votes. He failed of election; yet the 
 ballots cast for him exceeded the number of those cast 
 for Mr. Roosevelt, who was his Republican competitor. 12 
 This display of popular strength gave an enormous im 
 pulse to State Socialism. Of great importance also was 
 
 11 See George, The Life of Henry George (New York, 1900) ; and the 
 Introduction by Henry George, Jr., to the anniversary edition of Progress 
 and Poverty (New York, 1905). 
 
 12 See p. 131. 
 
TRANSFO 
 
 THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 735 
 
 the publication in 1888 of a widely read socialistic novel 
 by Edward Bellamy^ entitled Looking Backward. This 
 book attracted the attention of many who had never before 
 given any thought to social problems. Bellamy Clubs, as 
 they were called, became fashionable. The study of so 
 ciology spread, and men and women belonging to the 
 highly educated classes now joined hands with the repre 
 sentatives of labour. As was written at the time: " Bel 
 lamy s book brought Socialism up from the workshops and 
 the beer-gardens into the libraries and the drawing- 
 rooms." A third writer, whose influence can not be 
 ignored, was Mr. Henry Demarest Lloyd, a lecturer on 
 political economy, who later became a practising lawyer. 
 After a long investigation, carried on with scientific thor 
 oughness, he published his memorable volume, Wealth 
 Against Commonwealth. 1 * In it he exposed, with a mass 
 of documentary evidence, the methods of the Standard Oil 
 Company, and incidentally those of other Trusts, the drift 
 of his conclusions being in favour of the public ownership 
 or control of natural monopolies, such as water, coal, oil, 
 and natural gas. From this time, the doctrine of the 
 municipal ownership of public utilities rapidly won favour 
 with the people. It seemed to embody a practical means 
 of restraining some, at least, of the aggressions of capital. 
 It involved no rash experiment, since it had been already 
 tried with great success in several of the cities of Great 
 Britain and the Continent, and it presented no formidable 
 difficulties in the way of its realisation. The coal strike 
 of 1902 had brought out very glaringly the dangers of 
 the private ownership of one of the necessities of life; and 
 in the autumn of that year, the platform of the Democratic 
 State Convention in New York advocated the acquisition 
 of the coal fields by the national Government. 
 
 13 New York, 1894. 
 
736 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 The argument in favour of municipal and national own 
 ership was extremely plausible. The Government already 
 owned and operated with efficiency the Post Office. Why 
 not also the railways, the telegraphs, the telephones, and 
 the express companies? Some American cities already 
 supplied their citizens with water. Why should they not 
 also supply them with gas? Why should they not manage 
 the local means of transportation the ferries, the street 
 railways and the elevated roads? It was answered that 
 private companies could do this with greater economy than 
 could either State or city; but the reply was instantly made 
 that such economies as private control effected went into the 
 pockets of individuals and in nowise benefited the public. 
 Moreover, bitter experience had taught the American peo 
 ple that for the abuses of private ownership there was 
 practically no penalty; while a like abuse of public owner 
 ship could be punished at the polls. Overcrowded, un- 
 ventilated, and ill-heated cars, excessive fares and general 
 discomfort usually went with private ownership; and 
 against these things complaints were unavailing, while the 
 law afforded no redress. A legislative investigation in 
 1905 showed that the gas companies in the city of New 
 York made enormous profits through a regulation of the 
 flow of gas, whereby at will they could manipulate the 
 meters and increase the consumers bills to whatever sum 
 they wished. Moreover, private ownership selfishly re 
 fused to employ inventions and improvements, because at 
 the outset these would entail an additional expense for 
 their installation. 14 A remarkable invention in long-dis 
 tance telephoning was purchased by a corporation, not for 
 the purpose of putting it into use, but in order to suppress 
 it. For twenty years the New York Central and Hudson 
 River Railway refused to employ electricity as a motor 
 
 14 See Ely, Monopolies and Trusts, p. 79 (New York, 1900). 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 737 
 
 power in the long tunnel leading out of New York City; 
 although the use of steam had twice caused shocking acci 
 dents in which many lives were lost and in which men and 
 women were frightfully scalded and maimed for life. 
 Governmental ownership, it was argued, could not possibly 
 be worse than this. It must almost inevitably be more con 
 ducive to the public welfare. 15 
 
 It is not surprising, then, that the question of a govern 
 mental regulation of railway rates and the municipal own 
 ership of public utilities became a very vital one in the 
 minds of the American people in 1905. It marked an 
 end of the old individualism and a triumph of what was 
 still called Socialism, but what, in Mr. Bellamy s phrase, 
 was more truly to be described as Nationalism. For many 
 decades, Americans had held that corporations were pos 
 sessed of the same natural rights as persons. That belief 
 was now shattered, and it was clearly seen that corpora 
 tions had no natural rights whatever, but only such priv 
 ileges as the people might choose to grant them; that they 
 were the creatures of the State; and that their activities 
 might be restricted or even, if necessary, destroyed, when 
 they should cease to serve the public interests. By the 
 end of 1905, more than half the cities and towns of the 
 United States had acquired the ownership of their water 
 works. Many were successfully operating their own gas- 
 plants. Chicago had elected a mayor who was pledged to 
 secure to that city the ownership of its street railway sys 
 tem. In New York, Mr. W. R. Hearst, the candidate of 
 the party of Municipal Ownership, polled 225,000 votes, 
 failing of election by the narrowest of margins. More 
 important than all, President Roosevelt was urging upon 
 
 15 See the papers collected in Bemis, Municipal Monopolies (New York, 
 1900) ; and also Spargo, Socialism (New York, 1906). 
 
738 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Congress the passage of a bill giving the United States 
 Government power to regulate the rates imposed by rail 
 ways upon shippers and thus to prevent the unjust discrim 
 inations which had made possible the Beef Trust, the 
 Sugar Trust, and the Standard Oil Company. 
 
 Both the great political parties had, in fact, without 
 really knowing it, become permeated with the fundamental 
 \ principles of State Socialism. The Republican party had 
 been essentially socialistic from the outset; since it had 
 looked to the national Government to destroy slavery, even 
 though slavery was protected by the Constitution. Later, 
 when in control of the Government, that party had used 
 the Federal power through tariff legislation to foster 
 special interests and to enrich particular classes of individ 
 uals. Later still, it had given bounties to sugar growers 
 and had proposed the subsidising of the merchant marine. 
 The Democratic party, on the other hand, which in the 
 early nineteenth century was very jealous of Federal 
 authority, desiring to limit it as much as possible, had, in 
 1892, under the leadership of Mr. Bryan, become frankly 
 socialistic, advocating Federal action to help men pay their 
 debts and to diffuse prosperity among the agricultural 
 population. The general recognition of these facts 
 marked a new era in American political history. Hence 
 forth, most Americans looked to the nation and not to the 
 several States for the righting of all wrongs and for the 
 encouragement of favourable conditions not only commer 
 cial and industrial, but likewise social. This meant a 
 severing of old traditions, the establishment of new 
 theories of government, and in consequence the transfor 
 mation of the American Republic. 
 
 Centralisation of power, however, took on a more def 
 inite form than any vague enlargement of Federal author- 
 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 739 
 
 ity in the various departments of the Government. It 
 tended specifically to make the President a supreme arbiter, 
 with prerogatives transcending those of the legislative 
 and judicial branches. Just as Congress was a more effi 
 cient, conspicuous, and responsible body than the legisla 
 tures of the separate States, so the President was a more 
 efficient, conspicuous, and responsible agent than Congress. 
 Americans were eager for results; and results could appar 
 ently be achieved with less delay if their accomplishment 
 were entrusted to an individual. As in finance, so in 
 politics, the one-man power was acclaimed. There lurked 
 somewhere, perhaps, in the national consciousness, a love 
 of the monarchical principle, provided only that it were 
 blended with a democratic element. The Tory Democracy 
 of England in the early eighties found its analogue in the 
 Imperialistic Republicanism of the United States in the 
 late nineties. The whole history of the nation had been, 
 indeed, a history of the gradual strengthening of the presi 
 dential power. Jefferson s unauthorised purchase of the 
 Louisiana Territory, Jackson s struggle with Congress over 
 the Bank, Polk s practical declaration of war against 
 Mexico in assuming that a state of war existed, Lincoln s 
 use of the " war power," his trials by military commis 
 sion, and his edict of emancipation, Johnson s refusal to 
 enforce the reconstruction acts, Grant s military govern 
 ment in the Southern States, and Cleveland s rejection of 
 the demand which Congress made upon him to surrender 
 the documents relating to suspensions from office, were all 
 indicative of the tendency that has here been mentioned. 
 It is by a process of easy transition, therefore, that one 
 finds President McKinley invested with absolute discretion 
 in expending the money voted by Congress to prepare for 
 war with Spain; and, after that war, there was little pro- 
 
740 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 test when the same President ruled, without any legislative 
 check upon his authority, the conquered Philippines and 
 Cuba and Puerto Rico. 
 
 President Roosevelt s first administration was likewise 
 marked by instances of personal government. He was, 
 in fact, by temperament no less than by the accumulated 
 precedents of a century, bound to magnify the prerogatives 
 of his office. Under him the Executive function Assumed 
 almost the form of a frank paternalism. His interference 
 in the coal strike, his personal direction to the Attorney- 
 General to prosecute the Trusts, and his hasty action in 
 recognising the Republic of Panama, were no more indica 
 tive of this fact than was his share in almost every other 
 matter of public concern, from what he called " race 
 suicide " to college football. And behind him stood the 
 people, not only consenting to his exercise of authority, 
 but eagerly applauding it. They liked his way of seeking 
 tangible results; and their endorsement of him at the elec 
 tion of 1904 set the seal of their approval upon Executive 
 supremacy. A member of the New York Bar, after 
 analysing both the expressed and implied powers of the 
 President under the Constitution, and after tracing the 
 course of then recent historical events, concluded his study 
 with the following words: 
 
 " He [the President] had claimed practically all their executive 
 and magisterial sovereignties and unlimited discretion to exercise 
 them; and 7,600,000 electors, representing 46,000,000 citizens, 
 voted that he was right and peremptorily commanded him to use 
 them. 
 
 "That is my conception of the election of 1904. After one 
 hundred and eighteen years it made the President in fact, as in 
 theory, the head of the nation and the dominating force in the 
 Republic. ... It was a remarkable popular interpretation 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 741 
 
 of the Constitution. . . . Thus, my ideal of the President 
 coincides with the ideal of the people a majestic, constitutional 
 figure, uncontrolled by Congress, unrestrained by the courts, vested 
 with plenary constitutional power and absolute constitutional dis 
 cretion a sovereign over eighty million people and the servant of 
 eighty million sovereigns, whose soul-inspiring purpose is to serve 
 his fellow-citizens, guard their liberties, and make this nation the 
 freest, most enlightened, and most powerful sovereignty ever or 
 ganised among men." 16 
 
 Without going so far as this interpreter, one may, never 
 theless, reasonably hold that in the twenty years inter 
 vening between 1885 and 1905, the President of the 
 United States did become in essence a sovereign, upon 
 whose acts there existed no effectual restraint save that 
 which lay in the right of Congress to impeach him and 
 depose him. Yet the case of President Johnson shows 
 that the successful impeachment of a President is practi 
 cally impossible. If his partisans in the Senate should 
 number only one more than a third of that body, the im 
 peachment would fail, and it would be wholly impossible 
 if he were supported by a majority in the House. Even 
 the power of the purse would not avail to hamper him; 
 since most appropriations made by Congress are not 
 annual, but continuing, and extend over a term of years. 
 It may be said, therefore, that at the beginning of the 
 twentieth century, the United States had evolved an elec 
 tive monarchy resembling very closely the ideal of Napo 
 leon III. Precisely as in the French system, so in the 
 American, the ruler was in great crises, absolute, the more 
 truly so, because he derived his powers directly from the 
 people through a plebiscite. The American presidency 
 
 16 Carding, The Constitutional Powers of the President (New York, 
 1905). 
 
742 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 differed from its Napoleonic prototype mainly in the single 
 fact that the sovereign s term was limited to a brief period 
 and that another plebiscite was necessary at the end of 
 each four years. Here then, was established a union of 
 two definite principles the principle of popular selection 
 and the principle of an independent and practically uncon 
 trolled Executive. 
 
 
 
 The growth of Socialism in the United States had im 
 portant developments other than those which have already 
 been described. It gave a distinct impetus to the agitation 
 for woman s suffrage and full political rights. This agita 
 tion began historically in America in colonial days, when 
 Margaret Brent, as the executrix of Lord Baltimore, de 
 manded the right to sit in the Assembly of Maryland. 
 When the Federal Constitution was under consideration, 
 Abigail Adams and Mary Warren asked for a recognition 
 of women in the national charter. In 1845 an d immedi 
 ately thereafter, Lucy Stone and Abby Kelley kept the dis 
 cussion alive; and the Anti-Slavery movement, of which 
 the women of the North were strong partisans, had been 
 favourable to the cause. Two leading abolitionists, Wil 
 liam Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, gave it their 
 energetic support. In 1848, the first woman s suffrage 
 convention was held at Seneca Falls, New York, under the 
 direction of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and 
 Martha C. Wright. From this time, in spite of strong 
 opposition and every form of ridicule and obloquy, many 
 women laboured persistently to secure the franchise, form 
 ing associations all over the country, until in 1869 there 
 were organised in New York the National Woman s Suf 
 frage Association, headed by Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. 
 Stanton, and in Ohio, the American Woman s* Suffrage 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 743 
 
 Association directed by Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, 
 and George F. Hoar. In 1892, the two associations were 
 merged into the American Woman s Suffrage Association, 
 of which the first two presidents were Miss Anthony and 
 Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt. 
 
 The great political parties looked askance at this move 
 ment, without, however, directly antagonising it. At the 
 Republican National Convention in 1876, the delegates 
 listened to an address from a woman; and at the Demo 
 cratic Conventions of 1876 and 1880, women were among 
 the speakers. At the Democratic Convention of 1900, a 
 woman delegate from Utah seconded the nomination of 
 Mr. Bryan; yet even the Populists declined to give their 
 official approval to the doctrine of woman s suffrage. On 
 the other hand, the Prohibition party, the Greenback, 
 Labour and Socialist parties, favoured the right of women 
 to vote; and the various labour organisations, especially 
 the Knights of Labour, admitted women to membership. 
 In some of the newer States, women succeeded in obtaining 
 the franchise. Thus, prior to 1905, the full suffrage was 
 given them in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho; 
 while in many States they obtained the right of municipal 
 suffrage, school suffrage, and suffrage upon questions of 
 taxation. In the older States their efforts were unsuccess 
 ful ; for there their petitions were met by counter petitions 
 signed by women who believed the grant of suffrage to 
 their sex to be politically and socially inexpedient. 17 
 
 Far more important in its ultimate results than any 
 
 17 See Anthony, A History of Woman s Suffrage, 4 vols. (New York, 
 1881-1904) ; Jacobi, Common Sense Applied to Woman s Suffrage (New 
 York, 1894) ; and Stanton, Eighty Years and More (New York, 1898). 
 For an unfavourable view of woman s suffrage, set forth by an American 
 woman who had carefully observed its workings, see McCracken, The 
 American Woman (New York, 1905). 
 
744 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 attempt to secure political equality, was a very widespread 
 and persistent propaganda intended vaguely to give women 
 an exceptional prominence in the national life. The most 
 concrete evidence of this was found in the formation in 
 the States and Territories of women s clubs, not established 
 with any one particular object, or at least with no object 
 specifically defined, but all tending to push women to the 
 front and to lay stress upon the potentialities of the sex. 
 Many of these clubs were literary in character; others were 
 interested in education; still others in local improvements; 
 and a few in politics and legislation. " The club move 
 ment," as one woman wrote, " represents a tendency to 
 associated effort . . . The club is the post-graduate 
 [school] for the individual woman." One of the first of 
 these organisations was Sorosis, established in 1868, by 
 Miss Kate Field, Mrs. Botta, and others. By the end of 
 1905, these clubs and u federations " had become so nu 
 merous and so influential as to constitute a distinct and very 
 striking social phenomenon. 18 The agitation for suffrage 
 and the attempted participation by women in every sphere 
 of effort was but another remarkable sign of the social 
 unrest which permeated the United States toward the end 
 of the nineteenth century. It assumed various forms; but 
 it meant in the end a profoundly important change in the 
 relation of American women to the American social sys 
 tem. It represented an emancipation less from political 
 restraint than from the social conventions which had pre 
 vailed for centuries. Like all far-reaching changes, it 
 was fraught with both good and evil. 
 
 The underlying tendencies of the woman movement 
 
 18 See Croly, The History of the Woman s Club Movement in America 
 (New York, 1898). In 1903, there were enrolled in women s clubs, 
 3*1,763 women. 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 745 
 
 were perhaps best set forth by one of its leaders, Mrs. 
 Charlotte Stetson Oilman. 19 Mrs. Oilman s thesis was so 
 interesting as to deserve serious attention; and it explains 
 many important facts in the social history of the United 
 States from 1885 to 1905. Two sentences of hers may 
 be cited as representing her viewpoint and that of her 
 followers : 
 
 " We have kept half humanity tied to the starting post while 
 the other half ran. We have trained and bred one kind of qualities 
 into one-half of the species, and another kind into the other half." 
 
 In other words, according to Mrs. Oilman, everything 
 in the past had been done to make men brave and socially 
 important, and also strong and intellectually creative. On 
 the other hand, women were held by her to have been 
 trained to become moral cowards and to develop in them 
 selves only the minor virtues of personal usefulness. The 
 sex-relation had been exaggerated, and the place of woman 
 in society had been based entirely upon it, thus restricting 
 her physical activities and dwarfing her power to think 
 and to judge for herself. Throughout the centuries she 
 had never had that moral freedom which would come to 
 her from being mistress of her own actions and from learn 
 ing what was right and what was wrong through the ob 
 servation of consequences. Hence, woman, either as 
 daughter or as wife, had been kept in a state of dependence 
 upon man, while her power of choosing the man most 
 fitted for her had been limited by convention. Freedom 
 of association, such as men enjoyed, had been restricted. 
 Sentiment and emotion had been abnormally developed in 
 her. The whole existence of woman had been made to 
 centre around those functions which had to do, either 
 
 19 See Stetson (Oilman) Women and Economics (Boston, i! 
 
746 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 directly or collaterally, with the sex relation; so that at the 
 best she was a plaything, and at the worst a drudge. 
 
 Mrs. Gilman, therefore, advocated and, it must be said, 
 with remarkable ability, what she called economic inde 
 pendence for women, teaching that woman should be so 
 trained as to subordinate the sex instinct, to acquire the 
 courage to stand alone against the world, to face life as 
 men have always faced it, and to reject all thought df turn 
 ing to another for comfort and protection. Should she 
 marry, she should do so from practical considerations, and 
 in order to perpetuate the race. In marriage her affairs 
 should be independent of her husband s, and her partner 
 ship with him should be governed by considerations hav 
 ing no reference to sentiment. 
 
 Without pausing to consider the soundness of these 
 views, it may be said that they represented a feeling which 
 more and more began to sway the minds and actions of 
 American women. A desire for economic independence 
 and an impatience of conventional restraint led to funda 
 mental changes in the position of the women of the United 
 States. Such stereotyped phrases as u We must live our 
 own lives," became common. Young women from remote 
 parts of the country left the farm and village home, where 
 before they had been well cared for and contented, and 
 flocked to the cities with a curious willingness to regard 
 the excitements of urban life as a compensation for hard 
 ships, for affronts, and for the diminished respect with 
 which they were now regarded. Many of them un 
 happily cherished ambitions far beyond the range of their 
 abilities, and these, after bitter disappointments, dropped 
 into the ranks of humble workers, or were forced to 
 lead a life of shame. Those who followed, whether con 
 sciously or unconsciously, the teachings of Mrs. Gilman, 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 747 
 
 received the nicknames of " New Women," and " Bachelor 
 Girls." The great majority of them entered occupations 
 in which they were obliged to compete with men; and 
 because of their physical inferiority, they were forced to 
 do so for a smaller compensation than men received. In 
 spite of all discouragement, however, there was a steady 
 influx of woman workers into almost every occupation, 
 including even the professions. The census of 1900 
 showed that 5,329,807 women were in that year engaged 
 in self-supporting pursuits. 20 
 
 The ultimate effect upon the community of this revolu 
 tionary change in the position of women, could not, of 
 course, be fitly estimated at the end of a short period of 
 time. Opinions, therefore, were divided. Many ob 
 servers held that, on the whole, women themselves and so 
 ciety at large had gained because of the moral training 
 imparted by self-support to so many thousands who had 
 hitherto occupied a position of dependence. It was 
 asserted that women also as a sex profited by an extension 
 of social, in place of personal, relations, and by the de 
 velopment of special abilities and technical skill. 
 
 On the other hand, there were many who regarded the 
 change as both economically and morally detrimental. 
 It was economically detrimental because woman, owing 
 
 20 In round numbers 2,000,000 women were employed in domestic serv 
 ice, 665,000 as agricultural labourers, 1,300,000 in manufactures, 340,000 
 as dressmakers, 335,000 as laundresses, 150,000 as saleswomen, and about 
 400,000 as stenographers, clerks, and telegraph and telephone operators. 
 As a matter of interest it may be mentioned that some 1,200 women were 
 bank officials, 2,000 were saloon keepers, 1,900 were stock-raisers, 5,500 
 were barbers, 440 were bartenders, 879 were watchmen and policemen. 
 In the practice of law and medicine and the other professions no fewer 
 than 430,000 women were engaged. See Veblen, The Theory of the 
 Leisure Classes (New York, 1899) ; and Campbell, Women Wage Earners 
 Bibliography (Boston, 1893). 
 
748 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 to the expectation of marriage, was as a rule inadequately 
 equipped for self-support; and by reason of her loss of 
 time through illness, her competition with men was 
 carried on under inevitable disadvantages. Hence, she 
 must usually receive a lower rate of compensation. In 
 most occupations the labour of women was but another 
 form of cheap labour, and its introduction involved 
 a lowering of the scale of wages for the man as well 
 as for the woman. As was said: "The female com 
 petitor brings the earnings down to a point where the 
 man is too poor to marry her." Students of social phe 
 nomena declared that in consequence of this fact, marriage 
 was growing more infrequent, and that the decline of 
 marriage necessarily meant the spread of immorality. 
 Again, the circumstance that women now worked with 
 men and, as in shops and factories, in complete subordina 
 tion to men, was a cause of incessant temptation and a 
 menace to chastity. 21 
 
 Another and a less tangible ground of objection was 
 noted in the sphere of education. In the primary schools 
 the teaching was given more and more into the hands of 
 women, and even in the high schools they formed a large 
 majority of the teaching staff. The result was said to be 
 a gradual feminisation of American mental training, which 
 was enhanced by the entrance of women into the sphere of 
 the higher education. An acute investigator of German 
 nationality, who had spent many years in the United 
 States, wrote the following suggestive words with regard 
 to this phase of the woman movement in America : 
 
 " If we keep up an artificial equality through the higher develop 
 ment of the present day, American intellectual work will be kept 
 
 21 Startling facts on this subject are collected in Lydston, Diseases of 
 Society (Philadelphia, 1905). 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 749 
 
 down by the women, and will never become a world power. How 
 differently, when compared with that of men of the same class, 
 the female mind works, we see daily around us when we turn our 
 eyes from the educated level down toward the half-educated multi 
 tude. Here we are confronted with the woman who antagonises 
 serious medicine through her belief in patent medicines and quack 
 ery, the woman who undermines moral philosophy through her 
 rushing into spiritualism and every superstition of the day, the 
 woman who injures the progress of thought and reform by running 
 with hysterical zeal after every new fad and fashion introduced 
 with a catchy phrase. A lack of respect for really strenuous 
 thought characterises woman in general. Dilettantism is the key 
 note. The half-educated man is much more inclined to show an 
 instinctive respect for trained thought, and to abstain from opinions 
 where he is ignorant. But the half-educated woman can not dis 
 criminate between the superficial and the profound; and, without 
 the slightest hesitation, she effuses, like a bit of gossip, her views 
 on Greek art or on Darwinism or on the human soul, between two 
 spoonfuls of ice cream. Even that is almost refreshing as a soften^ 
 ing supplement to the manly work of civilisation ; but it would be a 
 misfortune if such a spirit were to gain the controlling influence." u 
 
 In the period under discussion, the United States ex 
 hibited a remarkable advance in the development of educa 
 tion. Americans had always shown a high regard for 
 mental training. Both the individual States and the 
 National Government had been extremely generous to 
 educational institutions of every grade, making large gifts 
 of public lands and grants of public money to maintain 
 them on a liberal scale. The diffusion of wealth led many 
 private citizens to supplement these grants by the most 
 lavish benefactions and endowments. Hence, on the 
 
 22 Miinsterberg, American Traits, pp. 163-4 (Boston, 1901). See also 
 the same author s more elaborate work, The Americans, pp. 558-589 (New 
 York, 1905). 
 
750 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 material side, from 1885 to 1905, the cause of education 
 was markedly advanced. For the first time, the United 
 States came to possess great universities, which in the mag 
 nificence of their buildings and in the completeness of their 
 equipment, were comparable to the historic universities 
 of Europe. The unstinted generosity which supplied 
 their needs was, indeed, the marvel and despair of foreign 
 visitors. The Stanford University, founded in Califor 
 nia by Senator Stanford and his wife in 1885, was en 
 dowed with the enormous sum of $30,000,000. Mr. 
 John D. Rockefeller made gifts to the University of 
 Chicago, amounting to more than $12,000,000; while to 
 Yale University he presented a million dollars in a single 
 gift. A stream of benefactions from individuals made 
 possible a steady growth of the other universities, such as 
 Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Cornell. Many of 
 the State universities, notably the University of Michigan, 
 the University of California, the University of Illinois, 
 and the University of Wisconsin, were enabled to develop 
 their activities so rapidly as to take rank with the oldest of 
 their sister institutions. The colleges, also, were not 
 forgotten. 
 
 It was natural, given the practical characteristics of the 
 American people and the materialising influences of this 
 period, that the higher education, while making an im 
 mense advance, should still have been retarded and to some 
 extent injured by the conditions of the time; that it should 
 often have subordinated to mere size and numbers and dis 
 play, the fine idealism of earlier years. Great stress was 
 laid upon the more utilitarian branches of study, while 
 those of a humanistic character were, for a while, at least, 
 less highly valued. There was a disposition to lessen the 
 time demanded for those pursuits which make for general 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 751 
 
 culture, and to devise short cuts by which the ambitious 
 student could earlier begin preparing directly for a pro 
 fessional career. This tendency was most noticeable in 
 the greater universities where, not unnaturally, the work 
 of the graduate schools was stimulated at the expense of 
 the undergraduate life. The prosecution of original re 
 search was fostered and encouraged in every possible way; 
 and American specialists began to win deserved distinction, 
 some of them being called to chairs in foreign universities. 
 A very significant proof of a growing appreciation of 
 highly scientific work was seen in the noble gift by Mr. 
 Andrew Carnegie for the foundation of the Carnegie In 
 stitution in Washington, which he endowed with the sum 
 of $10,000,000 for the encouragement of original investi 
 gation in any and every department of science. It seemed 
 likely, however, that the dissemination of liberal culture 
 must more and more become the peculiar mission of the 
 smaller institutions, which wisely refrained from styling 
 themselves universities, and which still preserved the old 
 traditions of broad culture and intellectual discipline as an 
 end entirely apart from an intense specialisation. 23 
 
 In the sphere of secondary and technical education, the 
 United States displayed an extraordinary development sur 
 passing that of its whole previous history. Not merely 
 was the number of common schools multiplied; not merely 
 did high schools and normal schools, and colleges for the 
 training of teachers spring up on every hand; but great 
 attention was paid to educational methods, and to the 
 application of psychology to teaching. Manual train- 
 
 23 See, for a philosophical treatment of the higher education in America, 
 Burgess, The American University (Boston, 1894) ; Thwing, The Ameri 
 can Colleges and American Life (New York, 1897); and Butler, Educa* 
 tion in the United States (Albany, 1900). 
 
752 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ing took its place in the educational scheme, and a large 
 number of technical schools were established. Univer 
 sity extension courses were carried on in every part of 
 the country. Many of the great universities opened their 
 laboratories and lecture-rooms during the summer months, 
 Nowhere in the world was so full and so free an oppor 
 tunity given to the young for instruction ranging from the 
 most elementary subjects to those which involved the 
 most advanced and scientific methods of research. 24 
 
 If we turn to the field of American literature during 
 the period under consideration, its most significant feature 
 will be found in the fact that it exhibits very strikingly 
 the nationalising tendency. Until the year 1880, while 
 the United States had certainly produced many writers of 
 great merit and of real distinction, and while their themes 
 had often been American, still their spirit and especially 
 their technique 1 reflected unmistakably the influence of 
 Europe and above all of England. Only a very few of 
 them, notably Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain) and Bret 
 Harte, had exhibited a wholly new and national inspira 
 tion. But after the year that has been mentioned, Ameri 
 can literature (using the word in its broadest sense) 
 became truly and undeniably American. One finds this 
 exemplified first of all in the growing interest which was 
 then shown in the study of American history and of 
 American historical, political, and social problems. His 
 tory had always been a subject to attract the attention 
 of native authors and investigators; yet many of these had 
 followed Old World models and, like Prescott and Mot 
 ley, had found their subjects in the field of European his- 
 
 24 See the reports of the United States Commissioner of Education from 
 1895 to 1905; and Brown, History of Secondary Education in the United 
 States (New York, 1902). 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 753 
 
 tory. Now, however, material was drawn from sources 
 less remote. Contemporaneous events, or those that were 
 nearly contemporaneous, were seized upon with enthusi 
 asm; while the phenomena of American life itself were 
 regarded as worthy of the most painstaking study. In 
 1883, there appeared the first volume of Professor John 
 Bach McMaster s History of the People of the United 
 States, intended by its author to cover the period begin 
 ning with 1783, and to end with the outbreak of the Civil 
 War. Professor McMaster, in his treatment of his 
 theme, derived from Lord Macaulay through John Rich 
 ard Green; and his style possessed many of the defects and 
 not a few of the merits of both those widely read histor 
 ians. His work is a mine of information, drawn from 
 sources not easily accessible, and exhibiting every evidence 
 of elaborate investigation. Still more remarkable was the 
 great History of the United States from the Compromise 
 of 1850 to 1877, by Mr. James Ford Rhodes the most 
 important and interesting analytical narrative yet written 
 of the events of that momentous period. The first two 
 volumes appeared in 1898, and the fifth, which reached the 
 period of Reconstruction, in 1904. No treatise on Ameri 
 can history had ever been so richly documented, as none 
 was ever so temperate and impartial in its treatment of 
 events regarding which contemporary feeling was still 
 stirred by prejudice and political passion. In the exposi 
 tion of constitutional history, chiefly that of the United 
 States, Professor John W. Burgess published treatises 
 which became classics in the lifetime of their author. 25 
 
 25 Political Science and Comparative Constitutional La<w (New York, 
 1890) ; The Middle Period of United States History (New York, 1897) ; 
 The Civil War and the Constitution, 2, vols. (New York, 1901) ; and Re 
 construction and the Constitution (New York, 1902). 
 
754 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Other names which made this period memorable in the 
 annals of historical and political research are those of 
 Hart, Fiske, Schouler, Henry Adams, Dunning, Foster, 
 and Mahan. Nor would any enumeration be complete 
 which failed to mention Professor William Milligan 
 Sloane, who won for his country the honour of having pro 
 duced the definitive life of Napoleon, an enduring monu 
 ment of profound research and of philosophical analysis.-" 
 
 Political economy was enriched during the same period 
 by many notable contributions. Popular attention had 
 been fixed upon economic questions so eagerly as to make 
 this inevitable. Therefore, the work of such men as F. 
 A. Walker, W. G. Sumner, and Horace White, of the 
 older generation, was ably supplemented by that of others 
 who dealt with still newer problems, Clark and Ely, 
 for instance, with the Trusts, Taussig with the tariff, 
 Seligman with taxation, Wright and Mayo-Smith with 
 statistics, Laughlin with finance, and Bemis with municipal 
 ownership. 
 
 In literature of a less serious character there appears 
 the same unmistakable preoccupation with subjects dis 
 tinctly national. In fiction, after the year 1890, American 
 books delineating American life banished from popular 
 favour the novel of English manners. Historical romances 
 relating to the colonial period enjoyed a remarkable 
 vogue; but of more significance were the works of those 
 authors who depicted with artistic fidelity the peculiar con 
 ditions of contemporary America. Thus, just as Bret 
 Harte had drawn the California of 1849, so with a far 
 more realistic pen, did Mr. Hamlin Garland reveal the 
 life of the Northwest, while Miss Mary Wilkins etched 
 with exquisite art the New England hamlets. Mr. Har 
 old Frederic s novels were studies in the village life of 
 
 26 Napoleon Bonaparte, 4 vols. (New York, 1895-97). 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 755 
 
 Central New York; Mr. Cable told sympathetically of 
 Creole Louisiana. Mr. Robert Grant wrote one book, 
 Unleavened Bread, which is a masterpiece in drawing to 
 the very life a peculiarly American type of woman hard, 
 crude, and ignorantly pretentious. Cowboy life in the 
 West, already vanishing before the march of civilisation, 
 was caught and fixed in the pages of Owen Wister. The 
 rough and lawless existence of the gold-hunters of Alaska 
 was described in a no less rough and lawless style by Mr. 
 London. The subjects which stirred the interest of the 
 American people at this time were turned to the purposes 
 of fiction by a hundred writers, who found material in the 
 Trusts, in municipal corruption, in the New Wealth, and 
 in the slum life of American cities. The sybaritic luxury 
 of the new American aristocracy, its manners and its mor 
 als, were drawn with delicate art and a sophisticated 
 psychology by Mrs. Edith Wharton, whose style attained 
 a preciosity unlike that of any other American writer. 
 American literature found a singularly acute and discrim 
 inating historian in Professor Barrett Wendell of Har 
 vard University. 27 
 
 The one representative of belles-lettres, whose impor 
 tance was more than literary, was Mr. William Dean 
 Howells, by far the most eminent of American novelists at 
 that time. As an essayist and poet, his writings were 
 characterised by a too intense individualism; but as a 
 portrayer of the American life of his generation, and 
 of contemporary types, he had so far been unequalled. 
 With a keen eye for what was striking in individuals or 
 in life, with a wonderful photographic instinct for detail, 
 with a shrewd insight into human motives, with a per 
 vasive sense of humour and a subtle gift of language, 
 he possessed an experience so broad as to be national 
 
 27 Wendell, A Literary History of America (New York, 1900). 
 
756 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 rather than sectional, with the advantages of an interna 
 tional point of view. He gave to American literature a 
 series of books which constitute what may be called a na 
 tional portrait gallery, thus providing for future genera 
 tions a clue to American civilisation while in a state of 
 flux. The social conditions which he depicted were those 
 which to a foreigner were quite inexplicable arfd which 
 will ultimately present almost equal difficulties to Ameri 
 cans of the future. In this way his novels have a distinct 
 historical value and, taken together, may be not unreason 
 ably compared with Balzac s Comedie Humaine. It 
 was in 1885 that he published The Rise of Silas LapJiam, 
 which embodies a piece of portraiture attaining to the pro 
 portions of a broadly national type. The self-made man, 
 who works his way up to material prosperity, was never 
 more convincingly depicted; and the portrait is one that is 
 true of the native American everywhere, in the East as 
 well as in the West. Rooted in the soil of the farm, this 
 homely figure, with its heaviness and gentleness, its simpli 
 city and shrewdness, its rugged honesty and worldly w r is- 
 dom, its uncouthness and native humour, its quaint conceit 
 and innocent pride tempered always with a hesitating self- 
 depreciation, its eye to the main chance, and its haunting 
 and unpltying conscientiousness one finds them all in 
 this amusing yet profoundly touching creation, which is as 
 vital as anything that human art has ever limned. This 
 book, together with A Modern Instance, The Lady of the 
 Aroostook, April Hopes, and The Kentons, contains in 
 valuable human documents over which the student of 
 American conditions will hereafter linger with delight and 
 gratitude. 
 
 During this period the United States produced nothing 
 of lasting importance in other departments of literature. 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 757 
 
 Many Americans had acquired a facile technique, and the 
 level of literary excellence was a high one. Nevertheless, 
 there arose no poet of real distinction, no great essayist, 
 and no constructive philosopher. Stimulated, however, 
 by the demands of education, an immense deal of interest 
 ing experimentation was carried on in psychological 
 laboratories; and at least one psychologist, Professor Wil 
 liam James of Harvard, left a mark upon the records of 
 that science. 
 
 A survey of literature would be incomplete without 
 some notice of American journalism, since, even when 
 regarded in a narrow way, journalism and literature are 
 intimately associated. The influence of the press in the 
 United States had always been extremely great. Toward 
 the close of the nineteenth century, however, that influence 
 may be said to have declined to some extent owing to the 
 changes wrought in the conditions under which journalism 
 was carried on. Until about 1885, the great newspaper 
 had been the mouthpiece of some single dominant person 
 ality, well known instances of which are to be found in the 
 New York Tribune under Greeley, the New York Times 
 under Raymond, the New York Sun under Dana, and the 
 New York Evening Post under Godkin. Right or wrong, 
 these men lent each a powerful individuality to the news 
 papers whose policies they swayed; and each of them prac 
 tically compelled the adhesion of his readers to the causes 
 which he advocated. Presently, however, many news 
 papers became great properties purchased by wealthy men 
 and used by them to further their own interests, political, 
 financial, or social. The editorial page then represented 
 not a single personality, but a syndicate, the members of 
 which were unknown to the public and were simply em 
 ployes who wrote as they were directed to write, and 
 
758 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 who came and went at the pleasure of the owner. In this 
 way the newspaper staff lost its esprit de corps, and so 
 far as the editorial page was concerned, its influence. 28 In 
 1905 there remained only one editor of national renown, 
 to continue for a time the old traditions of personality in 
 journalism, Mr. Henry Watterson, of the Louisville 
 Courier-Journal. In place, however, of the kind of 
 journalism which he typified, and side by side with the 
 somewhat colourless journalism of the syndicate, there 
 arose a third class of newspapers which succeeded to much 
 of the power that had been wielded by the great journal- 1 
 ists of former years. 
 
 In 1883, Mr. Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian by birth, 
 but long resident in the United States, purchased the New 
 York World, a paper which had for years been dwindling , 
 in circulation. Mr. Pulitzer, in his conduct of the World, 
 introduced methods and policies which were not altogether 
 new, since they had been foreshadowed long before by the 
 Bennetts, but which were now carried out upon so startling 
 a scale as to command general attention. Sensational 
 journalism was not a new thing. Mr. Pulitzer s develop 
 ment of it was. In his hands the newspaper not merely 
 sought to procure news, but to create it. A reporter 
 would be instructed to feign insanity in order to gain 
 access to an asylum and there secure material for vivid 
 exploitation in the columns of the paper. A young woman 
 was sent off at an hour s notice to make a circuit of the 
 world, with instructions to accomplish it in less than the 
 eighty days required by Jules Verne s hero. Every stage 
 of her journey across the continent was made in a special 
 train, decorated with banners, and received at various 
 
 28 See an article by R. W. Kemp entitled "The Policy of the Paper 
 in The Bookman for December, 1904, pp. 310-316. 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 759 
 
 points with music and the cheers of the multitude. Any 
 thing and everything that could startle and cause talk was 
 eagerly caught at by what presently came to be known as 
 Yellow Journalism. 29 The example set by Mr. Pulitzer 
 was followed with even greater energy and unrestraint by 
 Mr. W. R. Hearst, who, in 1895, bought the New York 
 Journal from Mr. Albert Pulitzer, and soon after issued 
 an evening edition of the same paper. The methods of 
 Mr. Hearst were mainly those of Mr. Pulitzer, but they 
 were exemplified upon a still larger and more striking 
 scale. Mr. Hearst, however, added the force of per 
 sonality to that of the spectacular when he secured, as 
 his principal editorial writer, Mr. Arthur Brisbane. Mr. 
 Brisbane possessed a style of wonderful effectiveness- 
 Short, pithy sentences and a strong Saxon vocabulary won 
 him readers everywhere. Mr. Hearst founded other 
 newspapers in various parts of the country, and in all of 
 them the Brisbane editorials appeared. Finally, Mr 
 Hearst s six organs came to be read every day in the year 
 by more than a million voters, most of whom read no 
 other papers. It became impossible to ignore the power 
 which was thus exerted, especially as Mr. Hearst and 
 Mr. Brisbane advocated the socialistic doctrines that were 
 everywhere permeating the masses of the people. So 
 marked became this influence that many persons actually 
 
 29 The origin of this name is as follows: A periodical entitled The 
 Yellow Book, devoted to rather questionable literature was appearing in 
 London, and gave an unpleasant connotation to the term " yellow." 
 At about this time the World happened to publish a series of rude cartoons 
 in colour depicting the adventures of an urchin described as " The Yel 
 low Kid." The public linked the two notions together and thus arose the 
 combination " Yellow Journalism." See a paper by Miss E. L. Banks en 
 titled "American Yellow Journalism" in the Nineteenth Century for 
 August, 1898. 
 
760 TWENTY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 believed the Spanish War to have been brought on by the 
 so-called " Yellow Press." On this point The Nation 
 said: 
 
 " Our cheap press to-day speaks in tones never before heard out 
 side of Paris. It urges upon ignorant people schemes more savage, 
 disregard of either policy, or justice, or experience more< complete, 
 than the modern world has witnessed since the French Revolution. 
 It is true it addresses the multitude mainly or only. The wise 
 and learned and the pious and industrious do not read it. But it 
 is the multitude, and not the wise and learned and industrious, who 
 now set fleets and armies in motion, who impose silence and ac 
 quiescence on all as soon as the word war is mentioned, and insist 
 successfully that they shall not be interfered with, by either voice 
 or vote, until they have had their fill of fighting. They have al 
 ready established a regime in which a ... boy with several 
 millions of dollars at his disposal has more influence on the use a 
 great nation may make of its credit, of its army and navy, of its 
 name and traditions than all the statesmen and philosophers and 
 professors in the country." 30 
 
 These words are savage and bitter, but they concede 
 so much in the way of fact as to constitute a reluctant 
 tribute to undoubted power. 
 
 Summing up the underlying tendencies of these twenty 
 years of the nation s life, it seems plain that they exhibited 
 a change through which the civilisation of the United 
 States was becoming rapidly assimilated to the civilisation 
 of Europe. In place of an agglomeration of hetero 
 geneous communities, having but few interests in common, 
 and moved by no single dominant idea, there was emerg 
 ing a compact and highly complex State, with all the char 
 acteristics of the Old World monarchies. Political power 
 
 30 The Nation, May 5, 1898, p. 336. 
 
THE TRANSFORMED REPUBLIC 761 
 
 was centralised. Social distinctions were accentuated. 
 The lines between class and class were every year more 
 rigorously drawn. Luxury and all the refinements that 
 great wealth could give were seen on every side, as were 
 also, at the other extreme, the squalors and the suffering 
 of pauperism. The American Republic was, in fact, 
 responding to the play of those powerful forces which 
 have shaped the destinies and the character of all great na 
 tions. It was yielding to the inexorable law of evolution. 
 Those who looked with a myopic eye upon the evils which 
 accompanied this process, recoiled and prophesied a future 
 full of woe. Corruption, defiance or evasion of the law, 
 social selfishness, and a denial of the fundamental rights 
 of man were everywhere to be detected. Yet far more 
 significant than all these things was the fact, made clear by 
 a thousand evidences, that the heart of the nation at its 
 core was sound; that there still existed the capacity for 
 strong indignation which springs from righteousness ; that 
 every evil raised up swift avengers; and that all the blots 
 upon the escutcheon of the Republic failed utterly to dim 
 its brightness. The hope of the future lay in the racial 
 characteristics of the American himself in his sense of 
 justice, in his courage, his humour, his capacity for high 
 achievement, and his invincible love of country. Such, 
 therefore, as were not blighted and blinded by a queru 
 lous pessimism could still make their own the noble words 
 of Lincoln, and could say with him: 
 
 " Why should there not be a patient confidence in the 
 ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or any 
 equal hope in the whole world? " 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 A LIST OF THE BOOKS (EXCLUSIVE OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS) 
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 ADAMS, C. F. and H. Chapters (New York, 1905). 
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 ADAMS, C. F. Lee at Appomat- diciary (New York, 1905). 
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 ALGER. The Spanish - American BENTON. Greeley on Lincoln 
 
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 ANDREWS. An Honest Dollar BIGELOW, J. Life of Samuel J. 
 
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 ANONYMOUS. McKinley s Rec- cences of the Santiago Cam- 
 
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 ANTHONY. A History of Woman s BRIDGE. Inside History of the 
 
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 BRYAN. The First Battle (Chi- way (New York, 1903). 
 
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 BRYCE. The American Common- Club Movement in America 
 
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 BURGESS. Political Science and Webster. 2 vols. (New York, 
 
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 CARNEGIE. The Gospel of Wealth 
 
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 767 
 
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 GEORGE, H., JR. The Menace of 
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 HOPKINS. Political Parties in the 
 United States (New York, 
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 IRELAND. China and the Pow 
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 Fourth Edition (New York, 
 1900). 
 
 KIPLING. American Notes (New 
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 KRAUSSE. The Story of the Chi 
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7 68 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
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INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 A Allison, William B., 485 
 
 Almlrante Oquendo, The, 591 
 
 Abbett, Leon, 293 Altgeld, John P., pardons Anarch- 
 Aberdeen, Lord, 414, 417 ists, 130; sympathises with strik- 
 "A condition and not a theory," 154 ers, 384; asks withdrawal of Fed- 
 Adams, Abigail, 742 eral troops, 384, 385; at National 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 13; on rail- Convention of 1896, 492, 494; eu- 
 way monopolies, 133; advises logises Bryan, 645 
 
 Union Pacific road, 223, 224; fa- Amalgamated Copper Company, 
 vours bimetallism, 321 ; quoted, 637 
 
 630 Amalgamated Steel and Iron Work- 
 Adams, Henry, 754 ers, 300 
 
 Adams, The, 182; at Apia, 184 Ambassador, rank of created by 
 Adee, Alvey A., 603, n. Congress, 530 
 
 " Adlai and his Axe," 147 American Federation of Labour, 269 
 
 Adler, The, 182; ordered to bom- American Railway Union, 376, 
 bard Apia, 183; prevented by the 377, 388; refuses to run Pullman 
 Adams, 184; wrecked in typhoon, cars, 378, 379 
 
 186 American Tin Plate Company, 634 
 
 Ad valorem duties, 204 American Woman s Suffrage Asso- 
 " Advance agent of prosperity," 481, ciation, 742, 743 
 
 482 Amphitrite, The, 430 
 
 Aguadores, skirmish at, 595 Amy, Affair of the, 411, 412 
 
 Aguinaldo, Emilio, leads revolt in Anarchists, 129, 130; attack Chi- 
 Philippines, 587; treachery of, 587; cago police, 130; punishment and 
 dislikes Americans, 588; chosen pardon of, 130 
 
 President of Filipino Republic, Anderson, E. Ellery, 243, n. 
 
 588; distrusted by Americans, 606; Anderson, Gen. T. M., in Philippine 
 an obstacle to Filipino independ- expedition, 571, 572, 583, 588 
 
 ence, 612, 613; attacks Ameri- Andersonville, horrors of, described 
 can forces, 612, 613 by Blaine, 18, 19 
 
 Alaska, gold discovered in, 631 Andrews, Elisha Benjamin, 321 
 
 Alger, Gen. Russell A., 155, 156; in Andrews, Samuel, 134 
 
 the first McKinley Cabinet, 521 ; Anthony, Susan B., 742, 743 
 
 during Cuban War, 591 Antietam, battle of, 100, 101, 123, 
 " Aliunde Joe," 262, n. 125 
 
 Allen, William V., his fourteen-hour Anti-Expansionists, 6n 
 
 speech in Senate, 346 Anti-Imperialist League, 610 
 
 Allgemeine Zeilung, quoted, 699 Anti-Imperialists, The, 610-612 
 
 Ailianqa, Affair of the, 533 Anti-Monopoly party, 268 
 
 773 
 
774 INDEX 
 
 Anti-Polygamy Bill, The Edmunds, B 
 
 54, 55 
 
 "Antis," 610 Babcock, Orville E., 317 
 
 "Anti-Snappers," 281 "Bachelor Girls," 747 
 
 Anti-Trust Law. See Sherman Anti- "Back-pay," 90, 198 
 
 Trust Act Baer, George F., 690, 693-695 
 
 Apia. See Samoa Bainbridge, Commodore William, 
 
 Arbeiter Zeitung, 129 620 
 
 Arbitration, in Bering Sea dispute, Balfour, Arthur J., 321 
 
 192, 193; in Venezuelan crisis, Balmaceda, Jose Manuel, * President 
 434, 434, n., 427 of Chile, 229 ; at war with the 
 Aristocracy, growth of in United Congressionalists, 229-232; de- 
 States, 729, 731 feated, 232; commits suicide, 232 
 Armenia, Turkish massacres in, 410 Baltimore, Lord, 742 
 " Armies of the Unemployed," 373 Baltimore, The, 94, 234, 237, 242, 
 Armour and Company, 221 555, 559, 561, 566, 579 
 Armour, Philip D., 44, 637 Bank of France, practice of regard- 
 Armstrong investigating committee, ing silver payments, 404 
 
 683, n. " Bank-parlour negotiations," 404 
 
 Army canteen, 659 Barnard, George, 115 
 
 " Army of the Commonweal of Barrett, John, secures provisions for 
 
 Christ," 373 Dewey, 586 
 
 Army of the Potomac, 100, 106 Bates, George H., 188 
 
 Arrears of Pension Act, 90 Bayard, Thomas F., as president of 
 
 Arthur, Chester Alan, as a lawyer, Senate, 51 ; suggested for presi- 
 
 4, 5 ; as a politician, 4, 5, 29; re- dency, 16; in Cleveland s first 
 
 lations with Conkling, 4-7; elected Cabinet, 51; action in Samoan 
 
 Vice-President, 5; as President, 7; crisis, 181 ; negotiations with Bis- 
 
 administration of, 6-8; desires sec- marck, 188; attacked by North 
 
 ond term, 7, 16; death of, 97; American Review, 194; in Vene- 
 
 social and domestic life of, 4, 6-n zuelan dispute, 416, 417, 433 
 
 Aspinwall, captured by Prestan, 54 Beauregard, Pierre G. T., 216 
 
 " Assassination of Silver," 456 Beck, James B., 147 
 
 Associated Press, 218 Becker, Carl, succeeds Herr Stiibel 
 
 Atlanta Exposition, 459 in Samoa, 181 ; declares war upon 
 
 Augusta Victoria, The, 432 Malietoa, 181 ; orders bombard- 
 
 Augustin, Gen. Basilic, proclama- ment at Apia, 183 
 
 don of, 562, 563; refuses to neu- Beecher, Henry Ward, describes 
 
 tralise Manila cable, 570; escapes Hayes s administration, 15; sup- 
 
 from Manila, 589 ports Cleveland, 32 
 
 Australian ballot, 299, 441 Beef Trust, 221, 319, 622, 637, 683, 
 
 Austria, allied with Germany, 179; 738; injunction against, 686 
 
 humbled by Bismarck, 179; ar- Belgium, adopts gold standard, 321 
 
 ranges to adopt gold standard, Belknap, William W., proposed im- 
 
 321; seeks to prevent war between peachment of, 14, n., 316, n., 317 
 
 Spain and United States, 545, Bellamy, Edward, 735, 737 
 
 546 Belmont, August, 637 
 
INDEX 
 
 775 
 
 Belmont, August and Company, 398 
 
 Belmont, Perry, his clash with 
 Elaine, 178 
 
 Bemis, John W., 754 
 
 Benedict, Elias C., 405 
 
 Benham, Rear-Admiral Andrew E., 
 commands squadron at Rio de 
 Janeiro, 411; breaks the blockade, 
 411, 412; as member of naval 
 court, 625 
 
 Benton, Thomas H., 657 
 
 Bering Sea controversy, 190-193; 
 Elaine s demand for mare clau- 
 sum, 190; settled by arbitration, 
 192, 193 
 
 Berlin, Treaty of, 188, 189 
 
 Biddle, Nicholas, 315 
 
 Bigelow, John, 119; quoted, 159 
 
 " Big Stick," The, 704 
 
 "Bill McKinley and the McKinley 
 Bill," 213, 481 
 
 " Billion-Dollar Congress," 198, 301 
 
 Bimetallism, 320, 321, 630; advo 
 cated by McKinley, 467, 482, 501, 
 510, 662, 663 
 
 Bismarck, Otto von, power and arro 
 gance of, 179, 187, 188; his colo 
 nial scheme, 179 ; seeks to acquire 
 Samoa, 179-190; proposes confer 
 ence at Berlin, 187; his demands 
 opposed by American commission 
 ers, 188; his anger, 188; with 
 draws his demands, 189; his first 
 diplomatic reverse, 189, 546; his 
 letter on bimetallism, 510; quoted, 
 100, 432; his characterisation of 
 the German Emperor, 682 
 
 Bissell, Wilson S., in the second 
 Cleveland Cabinet, 309 
 
 Black, Frank S., 709 
 
 Black Friday, 47, 317 
 
 Black, Judge Jeremiah, 24 
 
 Blacklock, Vice-Consul, 185 
 
 Black Wednesday, 45 
 
 Black, General Wilson, 585, 586 
 
 Blackburn, J. S. C., 503, n. 
 
 " Blaine Irishman," 232, 303 
 
 Blaine, James Gillespie, parentage, 
 17; as a teacher and editor, 17; 
 early political life of, 17; his 
 speech against Jefferson Davis, 17, 
 1 8, 19, 20; nominated for the 
 presidency, 16, 17, 20; accused in 
 connection with railway compa 
 nies, 20-22, 27, 28 ; his acts in 
 vestigated by the House, 22-28 ; 
 testimony of Mulligan regarding, 
 22-28 ; his dramatic defence of 
 himself, 24-26 ; revives war issue, 
 33; raises tariff question, 33, 34; 
 scandal regarding, 37-39; Conk- 
 ling s enmity toward, 41, 42 ; his 
 relations with General Logan, 42, 
 43; the Burchard incident, 43, 44; 
 attends the " Millionaires Din 
 ner," 44, 45 ; admits his defeat, 48 ; 
 his call upon Mr. Cleveland, 56 ; 
 Cleveland s courtesy toward, 56, n.; 
 in Europe, 152; declines a re- 
 nomination, 155; returns to United 
 States, 163; his speeches against 
 Cleveland, 164; becomes Secre 
 tary of State, 172, 173, 176; com 
 pared with Disraeli, 176; as Secre 
 tary under Garfield, 177; offends 
 Chile, 177; criticised at home, 
 177, 178; characterises "Mug 
 wumps," 32 ; his connection with 
 the Landreau and Cochet claims, 
 177, 178 ; investigated by the 
 House, 178 ; his dispute with Bel 
 mont, 178; opposes Bismarck, 188; 
 his triumph in Samoan crisis, 189; 
 the Bering Sea controversy, 190- 
 193, 421 ; opposes the McKinley 
 bill, 209-211; correspondence with 
 Italian Government, 225-227 ; his 
 firmness in Chilean crisis, 229, 235- 
 237, 241, 242; abused by Chileans, 
 230, 234, 236; is estranged from 
 President Harrison, 237, n., 284- 
 286 ; refuses nomination for presi 
 dency, 284-286 ; resigns Cabinet 
 office, 286, 286, n.; ill health of, 
 
776 
 
 INDEX 
 
 285-287; his resignation misunder- Boston, The, 237; at Honolulu, 247, 
 
 stood, 287; urges friends to sup- 248, 251, 331, 559, 565, 566, 567 
 
 port Harrison, 288; death of, 289; Botta, Anne Lynch, 744 
 
 real cause of his resignation, 288, Boxers, The, 648-665 
 
 289; in Venezuelan affair, 416; " Boy Orator of the Platte," 506 
 
 quoted, 344; estimate of, i, 17-20, Bragg, General Walter A., 141; 
 
 25, 31, 32, 42, 256, 284, 285, 289, quoted, 290, 492 
 
 290, 658 Brazil, revolt of navy in, 410-412 
 
 Blaine, Mrs. James G. (Harriet Brent, Margaret, 742 
 
 Stanwood), 37, 38, 39, 288 Brewer, Justice David JL, opinion 
 
 Blaine, Walker, 285 against income tax, 370, n. 
 
 Blanco, General, 538, 543 Brice, Calvin S., opposes Wilson Bill, 
 
 Blanco, President Guzman, 229 361 ; inimical to Cleveland, 459 
 
 Bland-Allison Law, 81-83, 342, 392, Brisbane, Arthur, 759 
 
 467; repealed, 201, 272; proposal British Guiana, boundary dispute 
 to re-enact, 345 with Venezuela, 413-436. See 
 
 Bland, Richard P., argues for free Venezuela 
 
 silver, 342 ; his speech against " Broad gaugers," 504 
 
 Cleveland, 457; quoted, 492; sug- Brooke, General John R., Military 
 
 gested for presidency, 502, 503 Governor of Cuba, 619 
 
 Bland Silver Law. See Bland- Brook Farm, 258 
 
 Allison Law Brown, Justice Henry B., favours in- 
 
 Blatchford, Samuel, 260 come tax, 370, n. 
 
 Bliss, Cornelius N., 522 Brown, Rear-Admiral George, 230, 
 
 "Blocks of five," 158, 299 234 
 
 "Bloody Bridles Waite," 452 Bruix, The, 576 
 
 Blount, James H., commissioner to Bryan, William Jennings, early years 
 Hawaii, 329; his reception, 330; of, 343; elected to Congress, 343; 
 declared " paramount " by Cleve- opposes repeal of Sherman Law, 
 land, 330-332; orders lowering of 343-345; his oratorical power, 343, 
 American flag, 331; recalled, 333 400; opposes issue of 3 per cent. 
 
 Blucher, Gebhard Leberecht von, bonds, 399-402; his views of Mr. 
 quoted, 429 Cleveland, 4.00, 407 ; criticises 
 
 Boca Grande, Dewey enters the, 566- Morgan-Belmont contract, 400, 
 568 401 ; heads silver delegation at 
 
 Boers, 431, 432; their war with National Convention of 1896, 494; 
 Great Britain, 640 his dramatic speech for silver, 498- 
 
 Boies, Horace, candidate for presi- 502, 630; first nomination for 
 dential nomination, 276, 293, 295, presidency, 503 ; his New York 
 503, n. address, 505-507; his energetic 
 
 Bolivia, at war with Peru, 227 campaign, 507 ; his courtesy to his 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 98, 105, 106, opponents, 508; attacks upon, 508, 
 490; quoted, 726; life of, 754 509; his defeat and its causes, 515- 
 
 Bond sales, under President Cleve- 517; accepts commission during 
 land, 394-404, 445-447; under Spanish War, 610, 647; favours 
 President McKinley, 591, 632 Treaty of Paris, 612; eulogised by 
 
 Bond syndicate, 396, 401, 402 Altgeld, 645; renominated for 
 
INDEX 
 
 777 
 
 presidency, 646; again advocates 
 free silver, 646; denounces impe 
 rialism, 647; defeated, 652; at 
 Democratic Convention of 1904, 
 711-713; attitude toward Judge 
 Parker, 713; quoted, 661 
 
 Bryce, James, quoted, 725 
 
 Buckner, General Simon B., 505 
 
 " Bugs on the White House door 
 mat," 706 
 
 Bull Run, battle of, 98 
 
 Buller, Sir Redvers, 431 
 
 Bunau-Varilla, Philippe, arranges 
 Panama canal treaty, 702 
 
 Bunner, Henry C., 353 
 
 Burchard, Rev. Samuel D., his allit 
 erative speech to Mr. Blaine, 43, 
 44; calls upon President Cleve 
 land, 57 
 
 Burgess, John W., 445, n., 753 
 
 Burnett, John D., 84 
 
 Burnside, General Ambrose E., 123, 
 126 
 
 "Burn this letter," 28 
 
 Burr, Aaron, Tribune compares Mr. 
 Bryan to, 516 
 
 Burriel, General, 535 
 
 " Business man in politics," 476-478, 
 524, 529 
 
 "Butcher," The, 106 
 
 Butler, Benjamin F., "Greenback" 
 candidate in 1884 for President, 
 46; supported by N. Y. Sun, 264; 
 charges against, 264 
 
 Cabinet, of Lincoln, 99, 101 ; first of 
 Cleveland, 49-53, 55, 73, 93; of 
 Harrison, 172-174; second of 
 Cleveland, 307-310; first of Mc- 
 Kinley, 520-522 
 
 Cable, George W., 755 
 
 Cadiz, Spanish squadron at, 599 
 
 Ca fiery, Donelson, 505, n. 
 
 " Calamity howlers," 269 
 
 Caldwell, Josiah, connected with 
 railway charges against Blaine, 
 26, 27 
 
 Calhoun, John C., 658, 718, 719 
 
 Calliope, The, at Samoa, 186, 187 
 
 Camara, Admiral Manuel de la, 
 599, 600 
 
 Cambon, Jules, 550, 601 
 
 Camden, J. N., 140 
 
 Cameron, Simon, 283 
 
 Camp Alger, 590 
 
 Camp Black, 591 
 
 Campaign, Garfield-Hancock, 63 ; 
 Tilden-Hayes, 15; Blaine-Cleve- 
 land, 32-48 ; Harrison-Cleveland, 
 157-165; Cleveland-Harrison, 297- 
 305; McKinley-Bryan of 1896, 
 503-517; of 1900, 647, 648, 651, 
 652; Roosevelt-Parker, 713-715 
 
 Campos, General Martinez, 531 
 
 Canadian fisheries question, 161 
 
 Canalejas, Sefior, 540 
 
 Cannon, George Q., 489, n. 
 
 Cano, The, 568; destroyed, 571 
 
 Cape Verde Islands, Spanish naval 
 force at, 555; Cervera departs 
 from, 591 
 
 " Captains of industry," 634 
 
 Cardozo, Judge, 115 
 
 Carlisle, John G., in Cleveland s sec 
 ond Cabinet, 308, 309 ; an oppo 
 nent s opinion of, 309; quoted, 
 340, n.; suggests tax upon corpora 
 tions, 359; views on redemption of 
 paper money, 392; calls meeting of 
 financiers, 395; arranges second 
 issue of bonds, 396; makes contract 
 with financiers, 398; draws bill for 
 currency reform, 399 
 
 Carnegie, Andrew, early life of, 
 635, 636; his investments, 636; in 
 Steel Trust, 636; his wealth, 44; 
 his gifts, 751 
 
 Carnegie Institution, 751 
 
 Carnegie Steel Company, reduces 
 wages, 300; closes works, 300 
 
778 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Carolines, The, sold to Germany by 
 
 Spain, 605, n. 
 
 Carpenter, Matthew H., counsels 
 Elaine regarding the Mulligan 
 letters, 24 
 
 " Carpet-baggers," 249 
 "Carpet-bag government," 15, 215, 
 
 216, 673 
 
 Carter, James C., 371 
 Cartoons, political, 40, 42, 326, 327 
 Cass, General Lewis, 444, 657 
 Cassatt, Alexander J., 140 
 Castilla, The, 569; destroyed, 571 
 Catchings, Thomas C., 368 
 Catt, Carrie Chapman, 743 
 Cavite, Spanish at, 567, 568; Ad 
 miral Dewey shells, 570, 575 
 Cemetery Ridge, 124 
 Cervera, Admiral Pasqual de, sails 
 from Spain, 592; alarm caused by, 
 592; stops at Martinique, 592; 
 touches at Curagao, 592; enters 
 Santiago Harbour, 593 ; his fleet 
 destroyed, 597 
 
 " Chains " of banks, 637, 638 
 Chamberlain, Joseph, 573 
 Chandler, William E., 116, 346, 
 
 425, n. 
 
 " Charles F. Murchison," 162 
 Charleston, The, 231, 411, n., 572, 
 
 583, 603, 603, n. 
 
 Chase, Salmon P., 12, 99, 204, 529 
 Cherubusco, battle of, 122 
 Chicago and the World s Fair, 351, 
 
 352 
 
 Chicago Gas Trust, 405 
 Chicago Strike. See Strikes 
 Chichester, Sir Edward, at Manila, 
 
 581-585, 640 
 Chickamauga Park, volunteers at, 
 
 590 
 
 Childs, George W., 116 
 Chile, at war with Peru, 177, 227; 
 its general relations with United 
 States, 177, 178, 227, 228; elects 
 Balmaceda President, 229; civil 
 war in, 227, 229-232; its distrust 
 
 of the United States, 230, 234, 236; 
 delays indemnity for assault upon 
 American sailors, 234-242; receives 
 ultimatum from United States, 241 ; 
 apologises and pays indemnity, 
 242 
 
 China, Lord Salisbury s comment on, 
 573 ; irritated by foreign nations, 
 648 ; American policy toward, 
 648-651 
 
 Chinese Exclusion Bill of 1882, 7 
 Choate, Joseph H., 371 
 "Cipher telegrams," scandal of, 117, 
 
 118 
 
 Civic Federation of Chicago, 377, 378 \ 
 Civil Service Commission, 8, 67, 68, 
 
 89 
 
 Civil Service Reform, 8, 51; Presi 
 dent Cleveland s policy toward, 
 66-81 ; ridiculed by Senator Ingalls, 
 87-89; disliked by Democrats, 
 147; President Harrison s views 
 on, 167, 168; commended by Pres 
 ident McKinley, 519; approved by 
 Republican National Convention 
 of 1900, 643 
 
 Civil War, The, lax methods during, 
 64; financial strain of, 104, 204; 
 military rule during, 104; taxation 
 during, 591 ; increase of wealth 
 during, 132, 312, 724, 728; reac 
 tion after, 530 
 " Claim everything," 116 
 Clark, John B., 754 
 Clarke, James Freeman, supports Mr. 
 
 Cleveland, 32 
 Clarkson, J. S., 194 
 Clay, Henry, compared with Elaine, 
 17; his eloquence, 256, 658; his na 
 tionalism, 718 
 
 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, The, 700 
 Clearing House in New York City, 
 
 337, 338 
 
 Clemens, Samuel L., 752 
 Cleveland (Stephen) Grover, parent 
 age and early life of, 29 ; as law 
 yer and office-holder in Buffalo, 29 ; 
 
INDEX 
 
 779 
 
 elected Governor of New York, 29 ; 
 independence of, 31 ; first nomi 
 nated for the presidency, 16, 31; 
 supported by "Mugwumps," 32; 
 his relation to war issue, 33; to 
 tariff question, 33, 34; personal 
 charges against, 34-37, 40; first 
 election of, 46, 47, 48; importance 
 of his election, 48, 721 ; first inaug 
 uration of, 1-3, 50; his first Cabi 
 net, 49, 51, 52, 53 ; action in Isth 
 mian revolt, 54; his demand on 
 Ecuador, 54; prevents Mormon 
 outbreak, 54, 55; contrasted with 
 Buchanan, 55; his courtesies to Mr. 
 Elaine, 37, 56, n.; his policy re 
 garding Civil Service reform, 66- 
 81 ; his contempt for office-seekers, 
 7i> 72, 73; his firmness, 74, 75; his 
 relations with Mr. Hendricks, 75, 
 76, 80; criticised by leading Dem 
 ocrats, 62, 66, 71, 73, 76; attacked 
 by Democratic newspapers, 76; his 
 sharp letter to a politician, 71, n.; 
 his first message to Congress, 80, 
 81 ; recommends suspension of 
 Bland Act, 81-83; rebukes his crit 
 ics, 8 1 ; Republican attitude 
 toward his appointments, 83, 84; 
 his contest with Senate over re 
 movals from office, 84-86, 739; crit 
 icised by Senator Ingalls, 86, 88, 
 89 ; appoints new Civil Service 
 Commission, 89; corrects abuses of 
 pension system, 89-92; charged 
 with hostility to war veterans, 91 ; 
 his marriage, 92, 93 ; annoyed by 
 newspaper correspondents, 93, 94; 
 signs bill for increase of navy, 94; 
 eulogised by J. R. Lowell, 95, 96; 
 his annual message to Congress in 
 1886, 139, 224; signs Interstate 
 Commerce Bill, 141 ; veteos private 
 pension bills, 143, 198; vetoes De 
 pendent Pension Bill, 143, 144; of 
 fends Grand Army of the Republic, 
 144, 145 ; approves " Rebel Flag 
 
 Order," 145 ; revokes it, 145 ; affair 
 of the St. Louis encampment, 146 ; 
 censured by Independents, 146-148 ; 
 alienates the press, 148-151; his 
 dislike of newspapers, 148, 149 ; 
 misrepresented by them, 149-151; 
 his tariff message to Congress, 152- 
 155, 208, 210, 257; renominated for 
 presidency, 156; campaign of 1888, 
 157, 165; his position on tariff 
 question, 157, 161; hostility of Til- 
 den men toward, 158-160; com 
 pared with Tilden, 159; his treat 
 ment of Daniel Manning, 160, 
 1 60, n.; Governor Hill s opposition 
 to, 161 ; " Murchison " and Sack- 
 ville-West letters, 162-164; his 
 defeat in 1888, 165; resumes prac 
 tice of law, 252, 253, 256; his views 
 on Trusts, 253, 254; his private 
 life, 254, 254, n., 255, 255, n., 256; 
 as a public speaker, 255, 256; as a 
 phrase-maker, 77, 150; popular 
 confidence in, 255-257; Mr. Dana s 
 hostility toward, 263, 263, n., 264, 
 296; his letter to Reform Club, 
 274-276, 278 ; his courage admired, 
 276; Mr. Hill s opposition to, 290, 
 291, 293 ; Mr. Cockran s speech 
 against, 293-295; renominated for 
 presidency, 295 ; his relations with 
 Tammany and Croker, 302, 303 ; 
 anecdote concerning, 303, 304; re- 
 elected President, 304, 305 ; his 
 pledge, 305, 323 ; second inaugura 
 tion of, 306 ; second inaugural ad 
 dress of, 310, 311; Mr. Hill s in 
 terview with, 307 ; his second Cabi 
 net, 307-310; difficulties of his ad 
 ministration, 311, 322-324; offends 
 Senators and Representatives, 326, 
 327; withdraws Hawaiian treaty 
 from Senate, 329 ; despatches Mr. 
 Blount to Hawaii, 329; criticised 
 for Hawaiian policy, 332, 386; 
 seeks to restore Liliuokalani to 
 throne, 332-335; unpopularity of 
 
?8o INDEX 
 
 his course, 334, 335, 386, 407; calls Lincoln, 461-463; repudiated by 
 
 extra session of Congress, 336; his National Democratic Convention 
 
 message, 339, 340; recommends re- of 1896, 494, 496; his Cuban mes- 
 
 peal of Sherman Act, 340; anec- sage, 532-534; proposed as head of 
 
 dote regarding its repeal, 349; railway-mining commission, 697; 
 
 forces its repeal, 349, 359, 461; his supports Judge Parker, 713; ap- 
 
 message to Congress on tariff, 355, pearance and personality of, i, 29- 
 
 356, 364; his letter to Mr. Wilson, 31, 58-60, 95, 325; estimate of, 324- 
 
 365, 366; his predicament, 368; his 326; quoted, 326, 332 
 
 letter to Mr. Catchings, 368; or- Cleveland, Mrs. GroveV (Frances 
 
 ders General Miles to Chicago, Folsom), 92, 93, 327-329 
 
 381, 382; his course in strikes ap- Cleveland, Rose Elizabeth, 60, 62, 60, 
 
 proved, 385, 386; appoints com- 61, 61, n. 
 
 mission to investigate Chicago " Cleveland s Map of the United 
 
 strike, 388; his message on gold States," 326 
 
 standard, 390, 391, 393 ; vetoes bill Coal Trust, its relations with rail- 
 
 for coining seignorage, 399; adver- ways, 319 
 
 tises bond sales, 394, 395; special Cobden, Richard, 443 
 
 message on bond sales, 397, 398; Cochran, The, 238 
 
 rebuffed by Congress, 402; Mr. Cockran, Bourke, 293, 294; opposes 
 
 Bryan s views on, 400; public opin- Mr. Cleveland in Chicago conven- 
 
 ion of his financial policy, 403, 404; tion, 294 
 
 incurs odium of the West, 404, 405 ; " Coffee boilers," 144 
 
 loses control of his party, 405 ; gen- " Coffee-Pot Wallace," 262, n. 
 
 eral dissatisfaction with, 405, 406, Coin, 453 
 
 627; criticised for his foreign pol- Coin certificates, 323 
 
 icy, 407-410; the Nicaragua inci- Coinage Act. See Bland- Allison 
 
 dent, 410; his early messages on Law 
 
 Venezuela, 412, 413; declares Mon- Coinage Act of Great Britain, 321 
 
 roe Doctrine violated by Great Brit- " Coining a vacuum," 399 
 
 ain, 418, 419; the Venezuela mes- Coin s Financial School, 453-456 
 
 sage, 423-445; suggests commission Cold Harbour, loss of Union soldiers 
 
 of investigation, 424; praised for at, 106 
 
 his patriotism, 425 ; effect of mes- Colfax, Schuyler, connected with the 
 
 sage in England, 426; receives me- Credit Mobilier, 14 
 
 morial from members of the House Colombia, rejects canal treaty with 
 
 of Commons, 427 ; appoints commis- United States, 701, 702 
 
 sion, 433; effects settlement by ar- Colon. See Aspinwall 
 
 bitration, 433, 434; opinions on his Colon, The, taken from Prestan, 54 
 
 course, 435-439, 443-445; offends "Colonial policy," 645 
 
 Wall Street, 438; censured by Mr. Columbia, The, 432 
 
 Godkin, 444 ; orders another bond Columbia University, 750 
 
 issue, 445-447; hated in the West, Columbia University Quarterly, 
 
 447, 450; Congress fails to support, quoted, 625, 626 
 
 456-461; his general unpopularity, Columbian Exposition, 198, 350-353 
 
 460; opinions regarding his pub- Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 
 
 lie career, 460, 461 ; compared with 542, n. 
 
INDEX 
 
 781 
 
 Commercial Tribune (Cincinnati), 
 
 542, n. 
 
 Commission, Venezuelan, 433 
 Committee, Democratic National, 53, 
 
 280 
 
 Committee of Republicans and Inde 
 pendents in 1884, 32 
 Committee on Commerce, investigates 
 
 charges against railroads, 140 
 Committee on Ways and Means, 202 
 Committee, Republican National, 37, 
 47, 63, n., 158, 512, n.; campaign 
 expenses of, 511 
 " Commonwealers," 373 
 " Communism of Capital," 404 
 Concord, The, 559, 565, 566, 567, 585 
 Confederate Congress, 53 
 Conference, Bimetallic, 81, 82 
 Congress, methods of work in com 
 mittee, 64; authorises appointment 
 of Civil Service Commission, 67 , 
 enacts the Pendleton Law, 68 ; au 
 thorises " back pay " to pensioners, 
 90; settles question of presidential 
 succession, 94; provides for in 
 crease of the navy, 94, 189, 198; 
 limits military arrests, 114; cre 
 ates Electoral Commission, 15, 116; 
 attempts to regulate railway rate 
 discriminations, 139, 140; passes 
 Interstate Commerce Bill, 141 ; 
 passes Electoral Count Bill, 142; 
 passes Anti-Polygamy Bills, 54, 
 143 ; withdraws " trade dollar," 
 142 ; extends postal free delivery, 
 142 ; refers private claims to 
 Court of Claims, 142; grants land 
 to Indians, 142; repeals Tenure of 
 Office Act, 142, 143 ; passes De 
 pendent Pension Bill, 198, 201; 
 admits Idaho and Wyoming as 
 States, 201 ; repeals Bland-Allison 
 Act, 201 ; passes Sherman Silver 
 Law, 201 ; enacts tariff bill, 201 ; 
 repeals war taxes, 206 ; passes Mc- 
 Kinley Bill, 202, 211; composition 
 of, in 1853, 339; under President 
 
 Hayes, 339; in 1885, 83; in 1891, 
 214; in 1893, 339; in 1895, 405- 
 407; in 1897, 522; in 1905, 
 715; passes Sherman Anti-Trust 
 Bill, 220, 221 ; passes Anti- 
 Lottery Bill, 220; passes bill or 
 dering restoration of public lands, 
 224, 225 ; votes $25,000 Italian in 
 demnity, 227 ; filled with corpora 
 tion agents, 268 ; declines to act in 
 Hawaiian affair, 334; extra ses 
 sion of summoned by President 
 Cleveland, 336; debates repeal of 
 .Sherman Act, 340-349 ; repeals 
 Sherman Act, 349; appropriates 
 $2,250,000 for World s Fair, 198, 
 351; President Cleveland s mes 
 sage to on tariff question, 355; 
 debate on Wilson Bill, 358-368; 
 passes Wilson Bill, 368; passes 
 Resumption Bill, 391, n.; passes 
 bill for coining seignorage, 399; 
 resolution regarding Venezuela, 
 417; passes Dingley Bill, 526; 
 creates rank of Ambassador, 530; 
 appropriates $50,000 for indigent 
 Americans in Cuba, 538; votes 
 $50,000,000 for national defence, 
 545; appropriates $39,000,000 for 
 navy, 545 ; authorises President to 
 demand Cuban independence, 
 556; declares war on Spain, 557; 
 meets financial demands of Span 
 ish war, 591 ; makes Hawaii a 
 Territory of United States, 608 ; in 
 creases regular army, 614; restores 
 rank of Admiral, 621 ; passes Cur 
 rency Bill, 632 ; appropriates $170,- 
 000,000 for Panama Canal, 701 
 
 Congress of American Republics, 234 
 
 Congress of Paris, 650 
 
 Congressional Globe, quoted, 203, 
 206 
 
 Congressional Record, quoted, 89, 366 
 
 Congressionalists, in Chile, proclaim 
 civil war, 229 ; accuse United States 
 of violation of neutrality, 230; in 
 
782 
 
 INDEX 
 
 the Itata affair, 231; succeed in re- Cortelyou, George B., 655; as cam- 
 volt, 232; recognised by United paign manager in 1904, 714 
 States, 232 " Counting a quorum," 200 
 
 Conkling, Roscoe, relations with Gar- Courier-Journal (Louisville), 758 
 field and Arthur, 4, 5, 6, 7; his Court of Claims, 142 
 hostility to Elaine, 41, 42 Court of Honour, at World s Fair, 
 
 " Constitution follows the flag," 616 352 
 
 Constitutional Convention of Pennsyl- " Coxey s army," 373-375 
 
 Credit Mobilier, scandal of, 14; 
 builds Union Pacific Railroad, 223 
 
 of Spain, 
 
 vania, 137 
 
 Contreras, battle of, 122 
 
 Convention, Democratic National, " Crime of 1873," 513 
 of 1884, nominates Cleveland, 16; Crimean War, 439 
 of 1888, renominates Cleveland, Crisp, Charles F., 345 
 *55> X 56; of 1892, renominates Cristina, Queen-Regent 
 Cleveland, 290-295; its bold plat- 546, 556, 607 
 form, 292, 293, 360; of 1896, insists Cristobal Colon, The, 592 
 on free silver, 492-494, 502; its Critic (Washington), publishes im- 
 platform, 495; repudiates Cleve- aginary conversations with Presi- 
 land, 494, 496; minority report of dent Cleveland, 150 
 praises Cleveland, 496, 497; nomi- Croker, Richard, early life of, 302; 
 
 made head of Tammany Hall, 281, 
 302 ; compared to Grant, 302 ; op 
 posed to Cleveland, 302 ; accused 
 of murder, 302 ; denounced by 
 Cleveland, 303 ; present at Cleve 
 land s inauguration, 307 
 
 nates Bryan for presidency, 503 ; 
 of 1900, 644-646; its platform, 645; 
 nominates Bryan and Stevenson, 
 646; of 1904, 710-713; nominates 
 Parker and Davis, 713 
 Convention, Republican National, of 
 1884, nominates Elaine, 16; of 
 
 Cross of gold," 501 
 
 1888, nominates Harrison, 156; of " Crown of thorns," 501 
 
 1892, makes McKinley its presi- Crusades, Populism compared with, 
 
 dent, 287; renominates Harrison, 449 
 
 287; of 1896, 484-490; its platform, Cuba, cause of revolt in, 531, 664; 
 
 487, 488 ; nominates McKinley for 
 presidency, 490; nominates Ho- 
 bart for vice-presidency, 490; of 
 1900, renominates McKinley, 641- 
 644; nominates Roosevelt for vice- 
 presidency, 641-644; its platform, 
 643; of 1904, 708-710; nominates 
 Roosevelt and Fairbanks, 709, 710 
 
 Cooley, Thomas M., 141 
 
 Cooper, Peter, 268 
 
 Corinto Affair, The, 409, 410 
 
 Cornell, Alonzo B., Governor of New 
 York, 29, n. 
 
 Cornell University, 750 
 
 Corporation Trust Company of New 
 Jersey, 633 
 
 devastation of property in, 531; 
 reconcentrados in, 532; American 
 interests involved in, 532, 533; 
 sympathy of Americans with, 532- 
 534> 537 > desire of Americans for 
 intervention in, 487, 537, 604, 610; 
 promise of self-government to, 538, 
 539; outbreaks by Spanish loyalists, 
 539; loss of Maine hastens crisis in, 
 541-544; preparations of United 
 States, 545 ; attitude of foreign na 
 tions regarding, 545-554; naval 
 forces assemble near, 554, 555; its 
 western coast blockaded, 591 ; Cer- 
 vera arrives in, 593 ; General Shaf- 
 ter invades, 594; campaign in, 595- 
 
INDEX 
 
 783 
 
 597; naval conflict, 597, 598; end 
 of war in, 599-602 ; ceded to 
 United States, 607; disposition of 
 by United States, 617-620; annexa 
 tion to United States proposed, 
 
 617, 618; American occupation of, 
 
 618, 619, 620, n.; becomes a Re 
 public, 620, n. 
 
 " Cuba for the Cubans," 618 
 Culberson, Charles A., his letter from 
 
 Prince Bismarck, 510 
 Curacao, Cervera at, 592 
 Currency Bill of 1900, 632 
 " Currency famine," 337, 338 
 Curtin, Andrew G., 112, n. 
 Curtis, Benjamin R., 112, n. 
 Curtis, George Ticknor, supports 
 
 Cleveland, 32 
 Curtis, George William, chairman of 
 
 National Committee, 32 ; chairman 
 
 of first Civil Service Commission, 
 
 67 ; characterises office-seekers, 77 
 Gushing, The, 94, 540 
 " Custom-House gang," 4 
 " Czar Reed," 201, 214 
 Czolgosz, Leon Franz, assassinates 
 
 President McKinley, 655; executed, 
 
 656 
 
 D. 
 
 Da Gama, Admiral, blockades Rio 
 de Janeiro, 410-412 
 
 Daily News (London), quoted, 80, n, 
 572, 573 
 
 Dana, Charles A., education of, 257 ; 
 at Brook Farm, 258; joins staff of 
 Tribune, 258; his dispute with 
 Horace Greeley, 258 ; as Assistant 
 Secretary of War, 258; his services 
 to Grant, 258; as editor of Chi 
 cago Republican, 258 ; becomes edi 
 tor of Sun, 258 ; his Life of Grant, 
 259 ; his disappointments, 259 ; his 
 hatred of Grant, 259, 260; personal 
 traits, 260, 261, 263 ; as a journal 
 ist, 261 ; his power of invective, 
 
 261 ; his wit and sarcasm, 257, 
 258; his literary style, 258, 261, 
 262, 264; admired by other jour 
 nalists, 262; his politics, 262; his 
 sneer at Hancock, 262; supports 
 Tilden, 262, 263 ; cause of his atti 
 tude towards Cleveland, 263, 263, 
 n., 264; supports Butler for presi 
 dency, 264; advocates Hill for 
 presidency, 296 ; his dilemma con 
 cerning Cleveland, 296; supports 
 Cleveland on issue of Force Bill, 
 296, 297; contrasted with Godkin, 
 439-442; death of, 706 
 
 Dana, Paul, 263, n. 
 
 Daniel, John W., 493, 494 
 
 Danish West Indies, 487, 530 
 
 Dauphin, M. A., manager of Louisi 
 ana Lottery Company, 217-220 
 
 Davies, Theophilus, 327 
 
 Davis, Cushman K., 603, n. 
 
 Davis, Henry G., nominated for 
 vice-presidency, 713 
 
 Davis, Henry Winter, 41 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, Elaine s speech on, 
 18, 19; Tribune compares Bryan to, 
 516 
 
 Day, William R., 603, n., 605, n.; 
 becomes Secretary of State, 650; 
 resignation, 650 
 
 Debs, Eugene V., in Chicago strikes, 
 378, 382; indicted for conspiracy, 
 383; sentenced, 387 
 
 Deer Park, 93 
 
 De Lome, Dupuy, his letter on Presi 
 dent McKinley, 540, 541 
 
 Democratic National Committee. See 
 Committee, Democratic National 
 
 Democratic National Conventions. 
 See Conventions, Democratic Na 
 tional 
 
 Democratic Party, return of the, i- 
 48 ; Union commanders belonging 
 to the, 12; disappointed with 
 Cleveland, 62, 66 ; popular distrust 
 of, 270; pledged to tariff reform, 
 292, 305, 335J controls both 
 
784 INDEX 
 
 branches of Government, 339, 405; Dingley Bill, 524-529; compared with 
 
 transformation of, 389, 406, 457, Wilson Bill, 525-527; compared 
 
 465, 491; socialistic elements in, with McKinley Bill, 526, 527; as 
 
 738 applied to Puerto Rico, 616; de- 
 
 Democratic State Convention. See nounced by Democratic conven- 
 
 Convention, Democratic State tion, 645 
 
 Denby, Charles, 613, n. Dingley, Nelson, Jr., 524 
 
 Denmark, despoiled by Prussia, 179 Dispensary System in South Caro- 
 
 Department of the Navy, 14, 63, 65 lina, 458 
 
 Department, Post Office, 63 Disraeli, Benjamin, 176, 261, 262, 530 
 
 Dependent Pension Bill, vetoed by Distilling Company of America, 634 
 
 Cleveland, 143 ; becomes law, 198, Dixon, Thomas, Jr., on Bryan, 509 
 
 201 Dodd, Samuel C. T., addresses Con- 
 
 Depew, Chauncey M., quoted, 287; stitutional Convention of Penn- 
 
 nominates Harrison for presidency, sylvania, 137; as counsel for 
 
 287; supports Morton for presi- Standard Oil Company, 138; in- 
 
 dency, 489 vents new form of trust agreement, 
 
 Derby, The Earl of, 414 138 
 
 Detroit, The, 411, n., 412 Dole, Sanford B., as head of Pro- 
 
 Deutschland, The, 576, 581 visional Government in Hawaii, 
 
 Dewey, George, ancestry of, 560; 246, 248; his reception of Mi. 
 
 characteristics of, 560; serves un- Blount, 330; refuses to restore 
 
 der Farragut, 560; as chief of Liliuokalani, 333; appointed first 
 
 Naval Bureau, 560; collects ships Governor of Hawaii, 608 
 
 at Hong Kong, 555; resents Prince Dom Pedro, 410 
 
 Henry s affront, 577; ordered to Don Antonio de Ulloa, The, 568, 570, 
 
 Philippines, 558, 563-565; enters 571 
 
 Manila Bay, 566, 567; wins battle, Don Juan de Austria, The, 568 
 
 569, 570; his despatches to Wash- Donelson, Fort, 105, 106 
 
 ington, 570, 571 ; made Rear Ad- Dooley Case, The, 616 
 
 miral, 571; his friendly relations "Down in the cornfield," 165 
 
 with the British, 582-586; his diffi- Draft Riots, 112, 113 
 
 culties with the Germans, 579-583 ; Drapier Letters, 453 
 
 how provisioned, 586; transports Drum, General Richard C., proposes 
 
 Aguinaldo to Manila, 587, 588; return of Confederate Flags, 144, 
 
 withholds recognition of Filipino 145 
 
 Republic, 588; attacks Manila, Dry Tortugas, 539 
 
 589; member of Philippine com- Dubois, Frederick T., 489, n. 
 
 mission, 613, n.; his reception in Dudley, William W., 158 
 
 New York, 620, 621 ; made Ad- Dunning, William A., 754 
 
 miral, 621 ; a member of Schley- Duskin, George M., 84, 85 
 
 Sampson Court of Inquiry, 625 Dwiggins, Zimri, 336 
 
 De Witt, William C., 293 
 
 Diederich, Vice-Admiral von, at 
 Manila, 578; disregards Dewey s 
 
 regulations, 579, 580, 581, 605; re- Eagan, General Charles P., 622 
 
 buked by Dewey, 580-582 Eagle (Brooklyn), quoted, 509 
 
INDEX 
 
 785 
 
 Early, General Jubal A., 122, 216 
 
 Eaton, Dorman B., 70, 89 
 
 Eber, The, 186 
 
 Echo (Berlin), quoted, 552 
 
 Ecuador, relations of United States 
 with, 54 
 
 Edmunds, George F., 219, 371 ; Anti- 
 Polygamy Bill of. See Anti-Polyg 
 amy Bill 
 
 Education in the United States, de 
 velopment of, 749-752 
 
 Egan, Patrick, appointed Minister to 
 Chile, 232; charges against, 232; 
 protects Balmacedists, 233, 239; 
 defends right of asylum, 234; 
 abused by Chileans, 233, 234, 236, 
 240; his note to Matta, 241 
 
 El Caney, battle of, 595, 597 
 
 El Fraile, 566, 567 
 
 El Globo (Madrid), quoted, 544 
 
 Electoral College, as an indication of 
 party strength, 13; its vote for 
 Tilden, 116; ambition of Populists 
 regarding, 299 
 
 Electoral Commission, created to 
 settle Tilden-Hayes dispute, 15, 
 116, 117 
 
 Electoral Count Act, 142 
 
 Eliot, Charles W., 95 
 
 Elkins, Stephen B., resolution regard 
 ing bond sales, 446 
 
 El Liberal (Madrid), quoted, 573 
 
 Ely, Richard T., 754 
 
 Emancipation Proclamation, in 
 
 " Embalmed beef," 622 
 
 Employes, forced contributions from 
 governmental, 63 
 
 Enander, John P., 194 
 
 Endecott, John, 51 
 
 Endicott, William C., in the first 
 Cleveland Cabinet, 51, 145 
 
 " Endless chain," 390, 391 
 
 " Enemy s country," 506, 507 
 
 England. See Great Britain 
 
 Enquirer (Cincinnati), quoted, 59, n. 
 
 Equitable Life Assurance Society, 638 
 
 " Era of Consolidation," 638, 725 
 
 " Era of Good Feeling," 653 
 
 Erie Railroad, freight discriminations 
 of, 135, n. 
 
 Esmeralda, The, 231 
 
 Etruria, The, saves cargo owners 
 $1,000,000, 212 
 
 Evans, Commander Robley D., 
 quoted, 235, n.; his spirited con 
 duct at Valparaiso, 237, 238, 239 
 
 Evans, Henry C., 663, n., 674, 675 
 
 Evarts, William M., 5, n. 
 
 Everett, William, 32 
 
 Expansionists, 6n, 612 
 
 Extradition Treaty with Russia, 408 
 
 Fairbanks, Charles W., 485; nomi 
 nated for vice-presidency, 709 
 
 Farmers Alliance, 207, 269 ; nomi 
 nate Congressmen, 271 ; in South 
 Carolina, 458 
 
 Farragut, Admiral David G., 560; 
 quoted, 566, 620, 621 
 
 Fashoda, 432 
 
 " Father of Free Silver," 502 
 
 Fava, Baron, correspondence with 
 Secretary Blaine, 226 
 
 Federal Elections Bill, 199-201 
 
 Federalists, 50 
 
 Fessenden, Samuel, on " quitters," 
 490 
 
 Fessenden, William P., quoted, 369; 
 as a protectionist, 529 
 
 " Fiat paper money," 514 
 
 Field, Cyrus W., 44, 45 
 
 Field, James G., 297 
 
 Field, Kate, 744 
 
 Field, Stephen J., against income tax, 
 370, n. 
 
 Fielden, Samuel, harangues Chicago 
 workingmen, 129, 130; sentenced 
 for attack on police, 130; pardoned, 
 130 
 
 " Fighting Bob," 237, 239 
 
 Filipino Congress, 613 
 
786 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Fillmore, Millard, 658 Fremdenblatt (Vienna), quoted, 552 
 
 " Fire-Alarm Foraker," 262, n. Fremont, John C., 266 
 
 Fisher, Warren, Jr., recipient of " Friend of silver," 273, 274, 322, 
 
 " Mulligan letters," 22, 23, 27, 28 391, 466, 467, 481 
 
 Fish, Hamilton, 535 Fritze, Captain, in Samoa, 183, 184 
 
 Fisk, James, Jr., 47, 317 Frye, William P., 209, 603, n. 
 
 Fiske, John, 754 Frye s " Army," 373 
 
 " Floaters," 158 Fuller, Melville W., opposes income 
 
 Floating debt, 206 tax, 370, n. 
 
 Florida, disputed election returns of, Furor, The, 592 
 
 116 
 
 " Flos Regum Arthurus," n 
 
 Flower, Roswell P., 492, 505, n. G 
 Folger, Charles J., 29, n. 
 
 Folsom, Frances. See Cleveland, Gage, Lyman J., in the first McKin- 
 
 Grover ley Cabinet, 521, 591 
 Foote, Admiral Andrew H., 621 Galena, The, 54 
 Foraker Act, 616, 617 Garcia, Calixto, 618, 618, n. 
 Foraker, Joseph B., 487, 489, 644 Gardiner, Charles, quoted, 740, 741 
 Force Bill, The, 214, 294. 296, 297 " Garfield Avengers," The, 7 
 Ford, Paul Leicester, 36 Garfield, James Abram, nominated j 
 Fort Douglas, 55 for presidency, 4; election of, 15; 
 Fort Lafayette, 104 denounced by Conkling, 4-6 ; on 
 Fort Sheridan, 381 pensions, 90; on tariff, 153; assas- 
 Fort Smith scandal, 21, 22, 27, 28 sination and death of, 5, 6 ; corn- 
 Foster, Charles, 394, 523, n., 754 pared with Harrison, 171 ; as a 
 Foster, John W., 247, 436 free trader, 662 
 Fourierites, 258 Garland, Augustus H., in the first 
 France, guarantees independence of Cleveland Cabinet, 53 ; exonerated 
 
 Hawaii, 243 ; humiliated by Ger- in Pan-Electric scandal, 55, 56, n. 
 
 many, 179; adopts gold standard, Garland, Hamlin, 754 
 
 321; conquers Madagascar, 408; Garrison, William Lloyd, mobbed, 
 
 African possessions of, 432; seeks 265; favours woman s suffrage, 
 
 to prevent war between Spain and 742 
 
 United States, 545, 546 ; en- Gary, James A., in the first McKin- 
 
 croaches upon Chinese territory, ley Cabinet, 522 
 
 648; recognises Republic of Pan- Gary, 130 
 
 ama, 702 Gas companies in New York City, 
 
 Francia, Jose G. R., 229 315 
 
 Francis, David R., 145, 146, 721 Gates, John W., 637 
 
 Frederic, Harold, 754 Gazette (Emporia), quoted, 451 
 
 Fredericksburg, battle of, 123 Gefion, The, 576 
 
 " Free silver." See Silver Question General Managers Association, 375, 
 
 Free-soil party, 520 379, 380; investigated by Strike 
 
 Free Trade, as an issue in Elaine s Commission, 388 
 
 campaign, 33, 34; resemblance of George, Henry, 131, 733, 734 
 
 tariff to, 203 Germany, humiliates France, 179; 
 
INDEX 
 
 787 
 
 arrogance of, 179, 576; seeks con 
 trol in Samoa, 180-186; violates 
 agreement in Samoa, 181, 182; de 
 clares war against Malietoa, 181; 
 forces Tamasese upon Samoans, 
 1 8 1, 182, 184; naval force in 
 Samoa thwarted by Commander 
 Leary, 182-184; German defeat by 
 Samoans, 184, 185; animosity 
 toward United States, 189, 190, 574, 
 575, 620; American flag insulted 
 by Germans, 185; German ships at 
 Samoa, 180, 186; hostility of Amer 
 ican press toward, 186; German 
 opposition to the United States in 
 Chile, 240; adopts gold standard, 
 321 ; excludes American food prod 
 ucts, 409 ; ambition for commercial 
 supremacy, 432, 575; seeks to in 
 tervene in Spanish War, 545-549, 
 574> 575 > attempted interference in 
 Philippines, 579-583, 589; acquires 
 Carolines, Pelews and Ladrones, 
 605, n.; encroaches upon Chinese 
 territory, 575, 648; sends naval ex 
 pedition to Venezuela, 698 
 
 Gettysburg, battle of, 102, 112, 123, 
 124, n., 125 
 
 " Ghoulish glee," 149, 150 
 
 Gillam, Bernard, his caricatures of 
 Elaine, 40 
 
 Gilman, Charlotte Stetson, 745, 746 
 
 Gladstone, William Ewart, 530, 680 
 
 Globe (London), 572 
 
 Godkin, Edwin L., contrasted with 
 Dana, 439-442; his early life as 
 journalist, 439; becomes editor of 
 the Nation, 439; as editor of the 
 Post, 439-440; his influence, 441, 
 442; his defects, 442-444; criticises 
 President Cleveland, 444 
 
 Gold Reserve. See Bond Sales 
 
 Gold Standard Act of 1873, 512 
 
 Goldman, Emma, 655, 656 
 
 Gomez, Maximo, 531, 618 
 
 Gorman, Arthur P., 79, 252, 459; 
 early life of, 277 ; characteristics 
 
 of, 277, 360; his ambitions, 377, 
 278; suggested for presidency, 293, 
 2 95J opposes Wilson Bill, 360; 
 questions Cleveland s veracity, 367; 
 at Convention of 1896, 492, 493; 
 opposes Treaty of Paris, 610 
 
 Goschen, Lord, 321 ; quoted, 344 
 
 Gould, Jay, at the " Millionaires 
 Dinner," 44; attacked by the 
 World, 45 ; charged with altering 
 election returns, 47, 48 ; character 
 of, 47 ; signs agreement for railroad 
 freight discriminations, 135, n.; as 
 director of Union Pacific, 223 ; 
 methods of, 317 
 
 " Government by injunction," 386, 
 406, 495 
 
 Grady, Thomas F., 307 
 
 " Graft," 683 
 
 Grand Army of the Republic, its hos 
 tility toward Cleveland, 144-146 ; 
 its political interference, 198, n., 
 674 
 
 Grangerism, 207, 268, 269 
 
 Grant, Frederick D., quoted, 197 
 
 Grant, Mrs. Ulysses S. (Julia Dent), 
 105, n., 109 
 
 Grant, Robert, 755 
 
 Grant, Ulysses Simpson, at head of 
 Army of Potomac, 106; his clash 
 with Stanton, 104, n., 105, n.j 
 fights battle of Wilderness, 106- 
 108 ; his losses at Spottsylvania and 
 Cold Harbour, 106 ; army disobeys 
 his order, 106 ; at the siege of Pe 
 tersburg, 100; success at Donel- 
 son and Vicksburg, 105, 106 ; first 
 election to presidency, 13 ; public 
 dissatisfaction with first adminis 
 tration, 13; appoints first Civil 
 Service Commission, 67; scandals 
 of second administration, 14, 66, 
 116; his military government in 
 South, 739; supported by "Stal 
 warts," 4; his course in the Virgin- 
 ius affair, 535-537; his request re 
 fused by President Arthur, 7 ; his 
 
788 
 
 INDEX 
 
 commission on retired list signed with Godkin, 439; his opinion of 
 
 by Cleveland, 53 ; as a civilian, Lincoln, 462 
 
 108, no; his views on tariff, 153, Greenback party, 267, 268, 297, n., 
 
 154; at Berlin, 108 ; his last years, 514, 743 
 
 no; death of, 97, no; his funeral, Green, George Walton, 32 
 
 325 ; his military qualities, 104, 105 ; Greene, General F. V., in Philippines, 
 
 his criticism of military theorists, 588 
 
 105; the secret of his success, 107; Gresham, Walter Q., 155; in Presi- 
 
 contrasted with McClellan, 97, 100, dent Cleveland s second Cabinet, 
 
 102, 105 ; his courage, 673 ; his dis- 307, 308 ; character of, 308 ; his ap- 
 
 like of military display, 108 ; his pointment criticised, 308; a rival 
 
 relations with Dana, 258, 259; of Harrison, 329; favours restora- 
 
 Dana s hatred of, 259, 260; per- tion of Liliuokalani, 329; his course 
 
 sonal appearance of, 107, 108 ; his regarding Venezuela, 416, 417 
 
 trustfulness, no; as a husband, " Grey Gables," 256 
 
 109; general estimate of, 105-110; Gridley, Captain Charles V., 569 
 
 quoted, 256 Griggs, John W., 685 
 
 Granville, Earl, 415 Grosscup, Peter S., 381, 383 
 
 Gray, George, 603, n. Grosvenor, Charles H., speech on 
 
 Gray, Isaac Pusey, 276, 277, 496, n. financial crisis of 1893, 341, 342; 
 
 Gray, Justice Horace, opposes income quoted, 483 
 
 tax, 370, n., 697, n. Guam, ceded to United States, 603, 
 
 Great Britain, isolation of, 179; 605, n., 607 
 
 guarantees independence of Ha- " Guano claim," 178 
 
 waii, 243 ; Bismarck s policy to- Guiteau, Charles J., assassinates Pres- 
 
 ward, 179, 182; sends cruiser to ident Garfield, 5 
 
 Samoa, 186; supports United States 
 
 in Samoan crisis, 188, 189; gold 
 
 standard in, 321 ; clash with Nica- H 
 
 ragua, 409, 410; dispute with 
 
 Venezuela, 412-436; probable Habeas Corpus Act, suspension of, 
 
 course and issue of war with m 
 
 United States, 428-433; friendli- Hale, Eugene, 148, 346; opposes 
 
 ness toward United States in Span- Treaty of Paris, 610 
 
 ish War, 550, 552, 553, 557; com- Halleck, General Henry W., 99 
 
 petition of United States with in Halstead, Murat, rejected as Minister 
 
 manufactures, 629; friendliness of to Germany, 194, 195 
 
 United States toward, 639-641 ; Hamburg Lottery. See Lottery, 
 
 sends naval expedition to Vene- Hamburg 
 
 zuela, 698; recognises Republic of Hamburger Nachrichten, quoted, 552 
 
 Panama, 702 Hamilton, Gail (Dodge), quoted, 
 
 Great Northern Railway, 684 211, n. 
 
 Greece, adopts gold standard, 321 Hampton Roads, Flying squadron at, 
 
 Greeley, Horace, a leader in the Lib- 555 
 
 eral Republican movement, 13; Hampton, General Wade, 458 
 
 nominated for presidency, 13; Da- "Hancock was superb," 123 
 
 na s dispute with, 258; contrasted Hancock, Winfield Scott, at West 
 
INDEX 
 
 789 
 
 Point, i2i ; serves under Scott, 121, 
 122; his victory at Williamsburg, 
 122, 123 ; called " superb," 123 ; at 
 Antietam and Fredericksburg, 123; 
 in temporary command at Gettys 
 burg, 123, 124; on Cemetery Ridge, 
 124, 125; wounded, 125; praised 
 by Grant, 125 ; as Military Gov 
 ernor, 125; defeated for presi 
 dency, 15; sneered at by Dana, 262; 
 death of, 97 ; military qualities of, 
 122; contrasted with Grant, 122; 
 estimate of, 121, 122, 126; quoted, 
 207, 527 
 
 Hanna, Marcus A., commercial in 
 stincts of, 470; his business activi 
 ties, 470, 471 ; his morality, 470- 
 472; his frankness, 471, 472; cyn 
 ical view of politics, 471, 472; 
 his share in the election of McKin- 
 ley as Governor, 472, 475, 476; per 
 sonality of, 472-475, 638, 639; per 
 sonal traits, 472-475 ; his affection 
 for McKinley, 474, 475; his politi 
 cal ambition, 475, 520; as McKin- 
 ley s manager in campaign of 1896, 
 476, 479-487, 511; his support of 
 gold standard, 480; as spokesman 
 of administration, 638; as leader 
 in Senate, 638, 639; distrusts Mr. 
 Roosevelt, 642, 643 ; disliked by 
 Quay, 643 ; changes his opinion of 
 Mr. Roosevelt, 668 ; anecdote re 
 garding, 670, 671 ; his grief for 
 McKinley, 671 ; supported by N. Y. 
 Sun for presidential nomination, 
 706, 707; death of, 708, 709 
 
 Hanna, Robert, 136 
 
 Harlan, Justice John M., favours in 
 come tax, 370, n.y 371 ; quoted, 371, 
 ., 372, n. 
 
 " Harrison and Hill," 161 
 
 Harrison, Benjamin, ancestry of, 157; 
 as a lawyer, 157, 168; his oratorical 
 powers, 157, 168, 171, 172; candi 
 date for Governor, 168; elected to 
 United States Senate, 168; nomi 
 
 nated for presidency, 155-157; in 
 the campaign of 1888, 157-165, 210; 
 elected President, 165; inaugura 
 tion of, 166, 167; inaugural ad 
 dress of, 167, 1 68; his views on 
 Navy, Trusts, and Civil Service, 
 167, 168; his Cabinet, 172-177; 
 criticised for distribution of offices, 
 193-195; his favours to relatives, 
 194; his concessions to Platt and 
 Quay, 194, 195; entertained at 
 tooth anniversary of first inaugu 
 ration of Washington, 195-197; re 
 buked by Bishop Potter, 196, 197; 
 his message to Congress, 197; re 
 moves Tanner from office, 198, n.; 
 signs McKinley Bill, 212; signs 
 Sherman Anti-Trust Bill, 221 ; 
 signs bill for restoration of public 
 lands, 224, 225 ; supports Balma- 
 ceda in Chilean revolt, 229 ; fa 
 vours war with Chile, 236, 241; his 
 estrangement from Mr. Blaine, 237, 
 n., 285, 286; sends message on Chile 
 to Congress, 240, 242, n.; favours 
 annexation of Hawaii, 247, 250; his 
 message to Senate on Hawaii, 248, 
 2 5*> 3 2 7 S 2 ^; criticised for desir 
 ing annexation of Hawaii, 249, 
 251 ; his administration approved, 
 281 ; incurs enmity of Platt and 
 Quay, 282-284; renominated for 
 presidency, 287; in the campaign, 
 297, 298 ; his defeat, 304 ; his views 
 on redemption of paper money, 
 393 ; his journey through the West, 
 452; compared with Cleveland, 
 168; his personal appearance, 169, 
 284; his intellectual ability, 170, 
 281; estimate of, 157, 168-171, 285; 
 quoted, 297, 298 
 
 " Harrison hoodoo," The, 166 
 
 Harrison, Lynde, 496, n. 
 
 Harrison, Mrs. Benjamin, 288 
 
 Harrison, William Henry, 157, 166 
 
 Hart, Albert, 754 
 
 Harte, F. Bret, 752, 754 
 
790 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Harvard University, celebrates 25oth 
 anniversary, 95, 96; growth of, 
 750 
 
 Harvey, William H., 453, 482 
 
 Hatch, Consul, expelled from Nica- 
 ragua, 409 
 
 Havana Lottery. See Lottery, Havana 
 
 Havana, Spanish garrison at, 599 
 
 Havemeyer, Henry O., 357; testifies 
 regarding Sugar Trust, 363 
 
 Hawaii, as a monarchy, 243, 245, 
 246; under Kalakaua, 244, 245; 
 under Liliuokalani, 245, 246; revo- 
 lution in, 246-248, 331-333; pro- 
 posed annexation to United States, 
 247-250, 328, 331; President Cleve- 
 land s efforts to restore Liliuokalani, 
 332-335; acknowledged as Repub- 
 lie, 334; Republicans desire United 
 States to control, 487, 530; its 
 friendliness to United States, 607, 
 608; becomes Territory of United 
 States, 608 
 
 Hawley, General Joseph R., 219 
 
 Hay, John, becomes Secretary of 
 State, 650; previous career, 650, 
 651 ; services in Chinese crisis, 651 ; 
 negotiates Colombian treaty, 701 ; 
 signs Panama canal treaty, 702; as 
 President Roosevelt s adviser, 713, 
 714 
 
 Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, elected 
 President, 15, 116, 119; events 
 after his inauguration, 721 ; ad- 
 ministration of, 15; vetoes Bland- 
 Allison Bill, 81 
 
 Hayes-Tilden contest, 15, 116-119, 
 142 
 
 Haymarket Square, 129, 130 
 
 Haynau, Baron, 532 
 
 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 664, n. 
 
 Hearst, William R., buys New York 
 Journal, 759; his plan to block the 
 Suez Canal, 600; as candidate for 
 presidential nomination, 711, 712; 
 as candidate for Mayor of New 
 York, 737 
 
 Hendricks, Thomas A., nominated 
 for vice-presidency, 16; carica 
 tured, 40 ; gains Tammany vote for 
 Cleveland, 46; a believer in spoils 
 system, 73, 74; death of, 79, 80; 
 characteristics of, 46, 73 
 
 Hennessy, David, 225 
 
 Hepburn Committee, 136, n. 
 
 Herald (New York), quoted, 118, 
 
 197, 563 
 
 Herald (Titusville, Penn.), quoted, 
 136 
 
 Herbert, Hilary A., in the second 
 Cleveland Cabinet, 309, 310, 721 
 
 Hewitt, Abram S., 118; elected 
 Mayor of New York, 131; refuses 
 to support Cleveland, 160; his epi 
 gram on Cleveland, 255; on coin 
 ing the seignorage, 399 
 
 Higgins, Eugene, 78, 79, 89, 277 
 
 Hill, Benjamin H., his reply to Mr. 
 Blaine, 19 
 
 Hill, David B., becomes Governor of 
 New York, 161, 164, 278; his opin 
 ion of Civil Service Reform, 161; 
 opposes Cleveland, 161, 252; can 
 didate for nomination to presi 
 dency, 278-281, 295, 503 ; his love 
 of politics, 278, 279; master of the 
 party machine, 279 ; allied with 
 Tammany, 279 ; calls " snap " con 
 vention, 280, 281 ; incurs enmity 
 of Democrats, 280, 290; his efforts 
 at Chicago Convention against 
 Cleveland, 290, 291, 293 ; calls 
 upon Cleveland, 307; his Senate 
 speech in defence of Cleveland, 
 367; opposes income tax, 369, 370; 
 defends the Cleveland policy at 
 National Convention of 1896, 492, 
 496, n., 497, 502 ; anecdote concern 
 ing, 504; declines nomination for 
 vice-presidency, 646 
 
 Hill, General Ambrose P., defeated 
 at Williamsburg, 122 
 
 " His Fraudulency," 262, n. 
 
 Hiscock, Frank, quoted, 309 
 
INDEX 
 
 791 
 
 Hitt, Robert R., 425 
 
 Hoar, George F., speech on proposed 
 impeachment of Secretary Belknap, 
 14, n., 316; secures repeal of Ten 
 ure of Office Act, 142, 143 ; de 
 nounces Senator H. B. Payne, 195, 
 270; opposes Treaty of Paris, 610, 
 611 ; favours woman s suffrage, 
 
 743 
 Hobart, Garret A., nominated for 
 
 vice-presidency, 490 
 Hobson, Richmond P., sinks the Mer- 
 
 rimac, 593 ; as a popular favourite, 
 
 626 
 
 " Holding companies," 633 
 Holland, adopts gold standard, 321 
 Holleben, Dr. von, 550 
 Holman, C. V., 496, n. 
 Hoist, Hermann E. von, quoted, 609, 
 
 610 
 
 Homestead Law, 224 
 Homestead (Penn.), martial law at, 
 
 300, 301 
 
 " Honest money," 482 
 Hong Kong, United States squad 
 ron at, 555, 559; description of, 
 
 560 
 
 Honolulu. See Hawaii 
 Hooker, General Joseph, 106, 126 
 Horton, S. Dana, 321 
 House of Commons, memorial from 
 
 members to President Cleveland, 
 
 427 
 House of Representatives, election of 
 
 President by, 299. See Congress 
 Howard, General Oliver O., 102, n., 
 
 123 
 
 Howe, Julia Ward, 743 
 
 Howells, William D., quoted, 442 ; 
 
 as a novelist, 755, 756 
 Hoyt, Henry E., 136 
 Hubbell, Jay C., 63, n. 
 Hiilsemann, Chevalier, 226 
 Humbert I., King of Italy, 227 
 " Hungry horde," 77 
 Huntington, Collis P., 224; quoted, 
 
 224; methods of, 317 
 
 " Icebanks," 710 
 
 Idaho, admitted as a State, 201 
 
 " Illinois baboon," 112 
 
 Immortalite, The, at Manila, 581, 
 582, 589 
 
 "Imperialism," 613, 614; as issue in 
 campaign of 1900, 645-647 
 
 Imperialists, 611 
 
 Inauguration, first of Cleveland, 1-3 ; 
 of Harrison, 166, 167; second of 
 Cleveland, 306, 307; first of Mc- 
 Kinley, 518, 519; second of Mc- 
 Kinley, 652; of Roosevelt, 715 
 
 Income tax, 358, 359, 369, 371; op 
 posed by Hill, 369, 370; declared 
 unconstitutional, 370, 371 ; fa 
 voured by Justice Harlan, 371, n., 
 372, n. 
 
 Independent, The, quoted, 726, 727 
 
 Independents. See " Mugwumps " 
 
 India, suspends free coinage of silver, 
 335; American competition with, 
 629 
 
 Indians, granting of land to, 142 
 
 " Industrials." See Commonwealers 
 
 " Infant industry argument," 202, 
 203 
 
 Ingalls, John J., praises Republican 
 party, 87; ridicules Civil Service 
 Reform, 88, 89 ; Mrs. Lease op 
 poses, 453 
 
 Ingersoll, Robert G., his tribute to 
 Elaine, 20 
 
 " Innocuous desuetude," 143, 150 
 
 " Insulting silver," 448 
 
 Interstate Commerce Act, 141, 386, 
 478, 495, 684 
 
 Iowa, The, 600 
 
 Iquique, 231 
 
 Ireland, Archbishop, his opinion of 
 Bismarck and bimetallism, 510 
 
 Irene, The, 576, 584; at Isla Grande, 
 
 585 
 
 Irish Land League, 232 
 " Irish vote," 303 
 
792 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Irons, Martin, in St. Louis railway 
 
 strikes, 128 
 Iroquois, The, 54 
 Isla de Cuba, The, 568 ; destroyed, 
 
 Isla de Luzon, The, 568 ; destroyed, 
 
 Isla de Mindanao, The, 568, n.; de 
 stroyed, 571 
 
 Isla Grande, Philippine insurgents 
 threaten, 584; German interfer 
 ence at, 584, 585 
 
 Ismail, Khedive of Egypt, 244 
 
 Italy, allied with Germany, 179; 
 strained relations with United 
 States, 225-227 ; adopts gold stand 
 ard, 321 ; sends naval expedition 
 to Venezuela, 698 
 
 Itata, The, carries off United States 
 officers, 230, 231; surrendered to 
 Admiral McCann, 231 
 
 Jones, C. H., 149 
 
 Jones, John P., 367 
 
 Journal des Debats (Paris), quoted, 
 
 552 
 
 Journal (New York), 759 
 Journal (Providence), 542, n. 
 Judge, cartoons in, 40 
 
 J 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, nominated by ac 
 clamation, 156; first inauguration 
 of, 657 ; his hold upon his party, 
 119; denounced by the Whigs, 50; 
 his contest with United States 
 Bank, 316, 739 
 
 Jackson, Howell E., 370, 371 
 
 James, William, 757 
 
 Japan, decides to adopt gold stand 
 ard, 321 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, intentional boor- 
 ishness of, 9 ; denounced by Fed 
 eralists, 50; compared with Tilden, 
 119; Elaine compared with, 289; 
 his purchase of Louisiana, 739 
 
 Jenckes, Thomas A., 67, n. 
 
 Jevons, William S., 455 
 
 " Jig-saw Renaissance," 728 
 
 Johnson, Andrew, his conflict with 
 Congress, 84, 348, 739, 741 ; quoted, 
 348 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, 255; quoted, 298 
 
 Kaimiloa, affair of the, 245, n. 
 
 Kaiser, The, 576, 581 
 
 Kalserin Augusta, The, 576, 578, 583, 
 589 
 
 Kaiulani, Princess, proposed renunci 
 ation of her right to throne of Ha 
 waii, 247, 248 ; education of, 327 ; 
 visits United States, 327-329 ; her 
 appeal to American people, 328; 
 her personality, 329; President 
 Cleveland espouses her cause, 329; 
 loses throne and indemnity, 334, 
 
 335 
 
 Kalakaua I., king of Hawaii, his voy 
 age around the world, 244 ; his 
 misgovernment, 244; attempts in 
 terference with Samoa, 244, n., 
 245, n.; tries to evade constitution, 
 245 ; his death, 245 
 
 Kamehamehas, the, 246 
 
 " Kangaroo ticket," 40 
 
 Karl Ferdinand, Archduke, 546 
 
 Kasson, John A., 188 
 
 Kelley, Abby, 742 
 
 Kelly, John, controls Tammany vote, 
 46 ; suggested for Cleveland s Cab- 
 t inet, 49 ; calls Cleveland a traitor, 
 76; death of, 302 
 
 Kelly, O. H., 269 
 
 Kelly s " Army," 373, 452 
 
 Kenesaw Mountain, battle of, 168 
 
 Kennedy, Robert P., charges Senator 
 Quay with theft, 283 
 
 Kentucky Lottery. See Lottery, Ken 
 tucky 
 
 Keppler, Joseph, 149 
 
INDEX 
 
 793 
 
 Kernan, John D., 388, n. 
 
 Key West, naval force at, 554, 594; 
 army at, 557 
 
 Kiau-Chau, 575 
 
 Kiel, despatch from, 186; opening of 
 ship canal at, 432 
 
 Kilgore, C. Buckley, 200, n. 
 
 Kimberly, Admiral, 185; takes pos 
 session of Apia, 187 
 
 Klein, John, leads Samoans against 
 Germans, 184; takes refuge on 
 Nipsic, 185, n. 
 
 Klondike, The, 630, 631 
 
 Knights of Labour, origin and evolu 
 tion of, 131, 132; platform of, 269, 
 743 ; nominate Congressmen, 271 ; 
 take part in Pullman strike, 383 
 
 Knott, Proctor, 26 
 
 Knox, Philander C., attacks Trusts, 
 685, 686; at the White House 
 strike conference, 693 ; suit against 
 Northern Securities Company, 705 
 
 Kolnische Zeitung, quoted, 435, 574 
 
 Kohlsaat, H. H., 487, n. 
 
 Kormoran, The, 576 
 
 Krout, Mary, quoted, 330 
 
 Ku Klux Klan, 386 
 
 Ladrones, The, ceded to Germany by 
 Spain, 605, n. 
 
 Lamar, Lucius Q. C., in Cleveland s 
 first Cabinet, 52, 53 ; his tribute to 
 Charles Sumner, 52, n., 53, n.; let 
 ter to from Cleveland, 311; ability 
 of, 721 
 
 Lament, Daniel S., 150; in Cleve 
 land s second Cabinet, 309 
 
 Land laws, Reform of, 80 
 
 Landreau and Cochet claims, 177, 
 178 
 
 Las Guasimas, skirmish at, 594 
 
 Latin Union, 321 
 
 Laughlin, J. Lawrence, 754 
 
 Lauterbach, Edward, 486, n. 
 
 Law, Fugitive Slave, 5 
 Lea, Henry C., his exposure of Sena 
 tor Quay, 283 
 
 Leary, Commander Richard, opposes 
 the Germans in Apia, 182, 183; 
 threatens Captain Fritze, 184 
 Lease, Mary Elizabeth, compared to 
 Anna Dickinson, 452; practises 
 law, 453 ; joins Farmers Alliance, 
 453 ; her campaign against Senator 
 Ingalls, 453 
 
 Lecky, William E. H., quoted, 630 
 Ledger (Philadelphia), quoted, 72, n. 
 Lee, General Fitz Hugh, at Cleve 
 land s first inauguration, 2; ap 
 peals for naval force in Cuba, 539; 
 his recall demanded by Spain, 545 ; 
 commissioned by McKinley, 723 
 Lee, General Robert E., his opinion 
 of McClellan, 99; defeated at An- 
 tietam, 100; his campaigns against 
 Grant, 103, 106, 107 ; contrasted 
 with Pemberton, 106 ; his invasion 
 of Pennsylvania, 112; his fatal de 
 lay at Gettysburg, 124, n.; eludes 
 Grant, 102 
 Lemmon Case, 5, n. 
 Leslie s Weekly, quoted, 160, n. 
 Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 701 
 Leupp, Francis E., quoted, 669 
 Lezo, The, 568, n.; destroyed, 571 
 Liberal Republican Party, 13 
 Libre Parole (Paris), quoted, 552 
 Liliuokalani, queen of Hawaii, per 
 sonality of, 245 ; her opposition to 
 constitutionalism, 246, 248, 249 ; de 
 posed, 246, 247; Cleveland s ef 
 forts to restore, 332-335; slandered, 
 334; her obstinacy, 333, 334; loses 
 throne and revenue, 334, 335, 608 
 Lincoln, Abraham, his hold upon the 
 masses, 10, n; his first meeting 
 with Sumner, n, n.; unconven 
 tional manners of, 10, n, 266; his 
 first election to presidency, 13; his 
 first presidential campaign, 517; 
 underestimated by Republicans in 
 
794 INDEX 
 
 Congress, 462; his use of "war parity, 216, 217; sues A. K. Mc- 
 
 powers," 739; hampers McClellan, Clure for libel, 218; popular in- 
 
 98, 99; his reasons for retiring Me- dignation against, 218-220; sup- 
 
 Clellan, 101, 102; his treatment of pression of, 220 
 
 Meade and Grant, 102; his " f ath- Lottery, Royal Saxon, 216 
 
 erly letter " to Meade, 102 ; for- Louisiana, disputed election returns 
 
 bids Stanton to interfere with of, 116 
 
 Grant, 104, ;/., 105,, n.; opposition Louisiana Lottery Company. See Lot 
 to first administration of, no, in, tery, Louisiana 
 
 113, 114; causes of his re-election, Louisiana Territory, The, secured 
 
 462; his appreciation of Governor from France, 609, 739 
 
 Seymour, 114, n.; Cleveland com- Low, A. Maurice, 551, n. 
 
 pared with, 461-463 ; his merciful- Low, Seth, 692 
 
 ness, 109, no; his eloquence, 256; Lowell, James Russell, eulogises Pres- 
 
 his simplicity, 266; his use of pat- ident Cleveland, 95, 96; his letter 
 
 ronage, 348, n.; as a statesman, to Lord Granville on Venezuela, 
 
 461, 660, 720; McKinley compared 415 
 
 with, 660, 661 ; quoted, 761 Luzon, 605, n., 612, 613 
 " Lincoln Republicans," 308 
 Lipton, Sir Thomas, 671, 672 
 Literature, American, 752-760 
 Littauer, Eugene, 676 
 Little Rock scandal, 21, 22, 27, 28 
 
 Lloyd, Henry D., quoted, 318, 735 Maartens, Theodore, 434 
 Lodge, Henry C., 346; favours nom- Macaulay, Lord, 753 
 ination of Reed for presidency, 485, McCall, John A., 512, n. 
 489; favours gold plank, 486, //., McCalla, Commander B. N., 649 
 487, n. McCann, Admiral, 231 
 Logan, John A., nominated for vice- McClellan, General George Brinton, 
 presidency, 16; at variance with politics of, 12; defeated for presi- 
 Blaine, 42, 43; doggerel verses on, dency by Lincoln, 13; becomes 
 33 commander of army, 98; drills 
 London, Jack, 755 raw recruits, 98; blamed for 
 London Stock Exchange, 426 delay, 98, 100; his political am- 
 Long, John D., 94; in McKinley s bition, 98, 99, 101 ; hampered by 
 first Cabinet, 521 Lincoln, 99-101 ; loved by his sol- 
 Longfellow, Henry W., misquoted diers, 99, 100; superseded by Pope, 
 by Miss Cleveland, 61, n. 100; resumes command, 100; fights 
 "Long Haul," 141 battle of Antietam, 100; retired, 
 Longstreet, James, 125 100, 102, 125; death of, 97; con- 
 Lorraine, Sir Lambton, 535, 535, //. trasted with Grant, 97, 100; public 
 Lottery, Hamburg, 216 opinion regarding, 101-103; his let- 
 Lottery, Havana, 216 ters to his wife, 102, 103; his ability 
 Lottery, Kentucky, 216 as a general, 99-105 
 Lottery, Louisiana Company, first McClure, Alexander K., 37, n.; 
 charter of, 215; methods of, 216; brings suit to test lottery law, 217; 
 its charter renewed, 217; its pros- visits New Orleans, 217; sued for 
 
INDEX 
 
 795 
 
 libel by Louisiana Lottery, 218; as 
 sisted by public and press, 218, 
 219; suit against, withdrawn, 220; 
 quoted, 263 
 
 McCulloch, The, 559, 566, 567 
 
 McCunn, Judge, 115 
 
 McDowell, General Irvin, 101 
 
 McElroy, Mrs., presides at White 
 House, 8 
 
 Maceo, Antonio, 531 
 
 McKenna, Joseph, in the first Mc- 
 Kinley Cabinet, 521, 522 
 
 " McKinley and the Full Dinner- 
 Pail," 481 
 
 McKinley Law, 202, 208 ; provisions 
 of, 209; opposed by Elaine, 209- 
 211 ; effect of, 212-214, 215, n., 
 216, n., 256, 292, 357; denounced 
 by Democratic convention, 292; at 
 tacked by Democrats, 298; its re 
 peal promised by Democrats, 354; 
 compared with Wilson Bill, 357, 
 358; its repeal, 481; compared 
 with Dingley Bill, 526, 527 
 
 McKinley, William, as Governor of 
 Ohio, 468 ; charges against, 468, 
 469; his respect for majority opin 
 ion, 469, 475 ; his friendship for 
 Mr. Hanna, 475 ; Hanna s share in 
 making him Governor, 472, 475, 
 476; as Chairman of Committee 
 on Ways and Means, 202 ; defeated 
 in Congressional election, 215; 
 made president of National Repub 
 lican Convention, 287 ; candidate 
 for presidency, 287, 465 ; his tele 
 gram to Cleveland on Venezuelan 
 affair, 425 ; his availability as a 
 candidate, 466, 467 ; personality of, 
 466 ; a " friend of silver," 467 ; 
 advocates bimetallism, 467, 467, n.; 
 first nominated for presidency, 
 490; under Hanna s management 
 in campaign, 476, 479-487, 5" I 
 makes " sound money " the issue, 
 511-515; first election to presi 
 dency, 515; inauguration of, 518; 
 
 inaugural address of, 519; first 
 Cabinet, 520-522; calls special ses 
 sion to restore high tariff duties, 
 522, 523 ; his support of Col. Evans, 
 663, 674; asks Congress to relieve 
 Americans in Cuba, 538; orders in 
 vestigation of loss of Maine, 543 ; 
 receives representations of foreign 
 powers regarding Cuba, 550; his 
 reply, 550, 551; his special message 
 regarding Cuba, 555; appoints 
 Dewey acting Rear Admiral, 571 ; 
 announces terms of peace with 
 Spain, 601 ; recommends annexa 
 tion of Hawaii, 608 ; orders Gen 
 eral Otis to extend military rule In 
 Philippines, 611; appoints Philip 
 pine Commission, 613, 615; asks 
 for increase of regular army, 614, 
 described as a despot, 614; his 
 Philippine message to Congress, 
 615; proclaims Philippines pacified, 
 615; desires free trade between 
 United States and Puerto Rico, 
 616, 617; appoints commission to 
 investigate scandals in War De 
 partment, 621, 622; approves find 
 ings of court regarding Schley, 
 625 ; receives Boer delegates, 640 ; 
 renomination of, 641-644; distrusts 
 Roosevelt, 642 ; his views on Trusts, 
 646; second election of, 652; second 
 inauguration of, 652; his journey 
 to California, 652; his speech at 
 Buffalo, 653-655; assassinated, 655; 
 his death, 656, 667; nation s grief 
 for, 656, 657, 665 ; as a statesman, 
 653, 657, 659-664, 723 ; his dignity, 
 657 ; his private life, 658 ; com 
 pared with Fillmore, 658 ; his ge 
 niality and kindliness, 658, 659; 
 his good sense, 659; compared with 
 Lincoln, 660, 661 ; his sincerity, 
 659, 661-664; as a protectionist, 
 662; general estimate of, 657-665 
 
 McLean, John R., 503, n. 
 
 McMaster, John Bach, 753 
 
796 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Madagascar, conquered by French, war between Chile and United 
 
 408 States, 241 
 
 Magee, " Chris," 283 Matthews, Brander, quoted, 625, 626 
 
 Mahan, Captain A. T., 754 Mayo-Smith, Richmond, 754 
 
 " Mailed hand," The, 577 Meade, General George G., politics 
 
 Maine, The, 94; ordered to Havana, of, 12; lets Lee escape, 102; 
 
 539; destroyed by explosion, 541; Lincoln s "fatherly letter" to, 102; 
 
 effect of disaster in the United puts Hancock in command at 
 
 States, 541-543 ; report of court of Gettysburg, 123 
 
 inquiry, 543 Mello, Custodio Jose de, leads revolt 
 
 " Make the dirt fly," 704 in Brazil, 410 
 
 Malietoa, war declared upon by Ger- Merrimac, The, sunk by Hobson, 
 
 many, 181 ; captured and deported, 593 
 
 181; restored to Samoan throne, Merritt, General Wesley, goes to 
 
 189 Philippines, 588; attacks Manila, 
 
 Manassas, battle of, 100 589 
 
 Manchester School, 443 Mexican War, 121 
 
 Manderson, Charles F., receives Miantonomoh, The, 430 
 
 "back pay," 198 n. "Middle-of-the-road men," 504, n. 
 
 Manila, attacked by American forces, Miles, General Nelson A., in Chicago 
 
 589; surrenders, 590 strike, 381, 382; his campaign in 
 Manila Bay, battle of, 566-572 Puerto Rico, 601 ; his charges 
 Manila, The, 568, n. against Beef Trust, 622 
 Manley, Joseph H., 56, 490 " Militarism," 647 
 Manning, Daniel, in the first Cleve- Miller, Joaquin, interviews Cleve 
 land Cabinet, 52, 75, 150; seeks land, 72, 73 
 
 Tilden s aid, 159; letters of to Miller, William H. H., in Harrison s 
 
 Tilden, 159; leaves the Cabinet, Cabinet, 173 
 
 160; treatment of by Cleveland, "Millionaires Dinner," The, 44, 45 
 
 159, 160, 160, n.; illness and death Millionaires in United States, 724, 
 
 of, 150, 1 60 728, 730, 731 
 
 Marcy, William L., 444 Mill, John Stuart, 443 
 
 Marcy s doctrine, 73 Mills Bill, 154, 155 
 
 Mare clausum, 190 Mills, Roger Q., 154, 214 
 
 Maria Teresa, The, 592 Mirs Bay, American ships at, 559; 
 
 Marques del Duero, The, 568; de- Dewey leaves, 562, 567 
 
 stroyed, 571 Mitchell, John, 689; proposes arbitra- 
 
 Marshall, Chief Justice John, 719 tion in coal strike, 690, 694; at the 
 
 Martinique, Cervera appears at, 592 White House conference, 693-695; 
 
 Marx, Karl, 733 accepts operators offer, 697 
 
 Marye s Heights, 123 Moltke, Helmuth von, his opinion of 
 
 Maryland Civil Service Association, McClellan, 99 
 
 79 Monadnock, The, 430 
 
 Massachusetts Bay territory, 51 Monopolies. See Trusts 
 
 Matanzas, bombarded, 591 Monroe Doctrine, 228 ; alleged viola- 
 
 Matta, Manuel, insults Harrison and tion of by Great Britain, 410, 418- 
 
 Tracy, 240, 241; almost provokes 436; Cleveland criticised for his 
 
INDEX 797 
 
 view of, 443, 436-438, 445; in party Mott, Lucretia, 742 
 
 platforms, 487, 495 Miinsterberg, Hugo, quoted, 748, 
 
 Monroe, James, second administration 749 
 
 f> 653 ; recognises independence of " Mugwumps," first use of the 
 
 South American States, 703 name, 32; organisation of, 32; ask 
 
 Monterey, The, 430, 580, 588, 589 n. Cleveland s intentions regarding 
 
 Montgomery, The, 539, n. Civil Service Reform, 68, 69; pro- 
 
 Montojo, Rear-Admiral Patricio, 563; test against appointment of Hig- 
 
 goes to Manila, 565; unprepared gins, 78, 79; criticise Cleveland, 
 
 for Dewey, 567, 568; his fleet an- 146-148 
 
 nihilated, 569, 570 " Mulligan Guard Demosthenes," 
 
 Montt, Jorge, elected President of 293 
 
 Chile, 232 Mulligan, James, testifies against 
 
 Moore, John Bassett, explains real im- Elaine, 22-28 
 
 portance of Samoan affair, 190, Mulligan Letters, The, 22-28 
 
 445, n.; his cable despatch, 607, n. Municipal Ownership, 735-738 
 
 Moore, William H., 634 " Murchison " Letter, The, 162, 
 
 Morgan-Belmont contract, 400-402, 298 
 
 445, 446, 447 Murray, C. H., 215 
 
 Morgan, J. Pierpont, as President Mutual Life Insurance Company, its 
 
 Cleveland s adviser, 397; as a payments to Republican National 
 
 scholar, 635; promotes U. S. Steel Committee, 512, n., 638 
 
 Corporation, 633, 634; in Wall " My dear Hubbell," 63, n. 
 
 Street, 635; connected with Myers, Rev. Cortland, attacks Bryan, 
 
 "chain" of banks, 638; controls 509 
 
 New York Sun, 706 
 
 Morgan, J. P., and Company, in N. 
 
 bond syndicate, 398, 446 
 
 Mormons, The, 55 Nanlwa, The, 330 
 
 Morning Post (London), 572 Nanshan, The, 559, n. 
 
 Morrill, Justin S., quoted, 205, 206, Napoleon III., 741 
 
 n., 529 Nashville, battle of, 168 
 
 Morris, John A., connection of with National Civic Federation, 708 
 
 Louisiana Lottery, 215, 216 National Guard of Pennsylvania, at 
 
 Morrison, William R., 141 ; quoted, Cleveland s second inauguration, 
 
 291 306 
 
 Morton, Bliss and Company, exoner- National Labour Union, 131 
 
 ate Blaine, 21 National Woman s Suffrage Associa- 
 
 Morton, Julius S., in the second tion, 742 
 
 Cleveland Cabinet, 310 Nation, Die (Berlin), quoted, 553 
 
 Morton, Levi P., nominated for vice- Nation, The, quoted, 175, 299, 335, 
 
 presidency, 157; urged by New 760; Mr. Godkin becomes editor 
 
 York delegates for presidency, of, 439; on Dingley Bill, 528; re- 
 
 485 garding Anti-Imperialism, 6n, n. 
 
 Most, Johann, imprisoned, 130, 131, Naval Appropriation Act, 94 
 
 656 Navy, the American, decay of after 
 
 Motley, John L., 753 Civil War, 63, 65, 66, 536; Grant s 
 
798 INDEX 
 
 efforts in behalf of, 535; created Northern Securities Company, 684, 
 
 anew by Arthur, 8; Cleveland s 686, 705 
 
 characterisation of, 80; increase of, Norway, adopts gold standard, 321 
 
 94, 428, 429, 487, 530; Harrison s 
 
 plans for, 167; Tracy s manage 
 ment of, 173 ; need of shown in O. 
 
 Samoan affair, 189; advancement 
 
 of under Herbert, 310; compared "Offensive partisans," 77, 150 
 
 with that of Great Britain, 429, " Old Roman," The, 156 
 
 429, n.; Congress appropriates Olga, The, 186 
 
 $39,000,000 for, 545 Olney, Richard, in the second Cleve- 
 
 Negro Question, 49, 199, 201, 296, land Cabinet, 310; favours in- 
 
 297, 720, 721, 723 come tax, 371 ; sends instructions 
 
 Neo-Republicanism, 518-558, 652 to district-attorneys in Pullman 
 
 Newark, The, 411, n. strike, 380, 381; resorts to " gov- 
 
 New Jersey Corporation Guarantee ernment by injunction," 380, 406; 
 
 and Trust Company, 633 his despatch to Lord Salisbury re- 
 New Jersey, corporation laws of, garding Venezuela, 419; on Cuban 
 
 732 policy, 537 
 
 New, John C., quoted, 287 Olympia, The, 559, 561, 566, 567, 
 
 New Orleans Exposition, 217 569, 579, 580, 590, 620 
 
 New Protectionism, The, 208, 209 " On to Richmond," 258 
 
 " New Women," 747 " Open door," The, 651 
 
 New York, The, 411, n., 412, 432, "Open the books," 62 
 
 598 Orange Free State, at war with Great 
 
 New York Central and Hudson River Britain, 640 
 
 Railroad, freight discriminations of, Oregon, disputed election returns of, 
 
 135, n., 736, 737 116 
 
 New York Life Insurance Company, Oregonlan (Portland), quoted, 705 
 
 its payments to Republican Na- Oregonian, The, 447 
 
 tional Committee, 512, n., 638 Oregon, The, 600 
 
 New York State Convention, 280 Orton, William H., 117 
 
 New York Stock Exchange, 426 Osgoodby, 162 
 
 Nicaragua, clash of with Great Otis, General E. S., in Philippines, 
 
 Britain, 409, 410 6n; repels Aguinaldo in Luzon, 
 
 Nicaragua Canal, 487, 701 613; appointed to Philippine com- 
 
 Nicholls, Francis T., 226 mission, 613, n. 
 Nieuws van den Dag (Amsterdam), 
 
 quoted, 553 
 
 Nineteenth Century, quoted, 435 P. 
 Niobe, The, 535 
 
 Nipslc, The, 185, 186 Packard, S. M., 217 
 
 Noble, John W., in President Har- Pago-Pago, United States naval sta- 
 
 rison s Cabinet, 173, 198, n. tion at, 180 
 
 North American Review, The, at- Paine, Justice, decision of in Lemmon 
 
 tacks Secretary Bayard, 194 case, 5, n. 
 
 Northern Pacific Railway, 684 Palma, Tomas Estrada, 620, n. 
 
 
INDEX 
 
 799 
 
 Palmer, John M., 505, 515, n. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, 276 
 
 Panama, Prestan s revolt on the 
 Isthmus of, 54 
 
 Panama, secedes from Colombia, 
 702, 703 ; recognised as Republic 
 by United States, 702 ; ratifies canal 
 treaty, 702 
 
 Panama Canal, 700-703 
 
 Pan-American Congress, 175 
 
 Pan-American Exposition, President 
 McKinley at the, 655 
 
 Pan-Electric scandal, 56, n. 
 
 Parker, Alton B., 710, 711; nomi 
 nated for presidency, 712; his 
 "gold telegram," 712; Bryan s 
 loyalty to, 713; supported by 
 Cleveland, 713; his charges against 
 Republican campaign committee, 
 714, 715; defeated, 715 
 
 Parkhurst, Rev. Charles H., his 
 opinion of the Bryan platform, 
 509 
 
 Parsons, Albert R., editor of the 
 Alarm, 129; hanged, 130 
 
 Patrons of Husbandry, 269 
 
 Pattison, Robert E., 284 
 
 Pauncefote, Sir Julian, 434, 549, 
 550, 640 
 
 Payne, Henry B., 140; election as 
 Senator questioned, 194, 195; poli 
 tics of, 270 
 
 Payne, Oliver H., 140 
 
 Peel, Rt. Hon. Arthur, 347 
 
 Peflfer, William A., 271 
 
 Peixoto, Floriano, 411 
 
 Pekin, occupied by Boxers, 648 ; cap 
 tured by allied forces, 650, 651 
 
 Pelayo, The, 599, 600 
 
 Pelews, The, ceded to Germany by 
 Spain, 605, n. 
 
 Pemberton, General John C., 106 
 
 Pendleton, George H., 68, n. 
 
 Peninsula campaign, 100, 101 
 
 Pennoyer, Sylvester, 451, 465; refuses 
 to meet President Harrison, 452; 
 refuses military assistance to main 
 
 tain order, 452 ; suggested for presi 
 dency, 503, n. 
 
 Pennsylvania Railroad, freight dis 
 criminations of, 135, n. 
 
 Pension bills, private, 90-92 ; vetoed 
 by President Cleveland, 143 
 
 Pension Bureau, mismanagement of, 
 90-92 ; defalcations in, 63 ; extrava 
 gance of, 144 
 
 Pensions, Military, lavish expendi 
 tures for, 89-92, 198; liberal policy 
 commended in, 643 
 
 People s Party. See Populists 
 
 "Pernicious activity," 77, 150 
 
 "Perpetual Candidate," 264 
 
 Perry, Commodore Oliver H., 620 
 
 Peru, at war with Chile, 177 
 
 Petersburg, siege of, too 
 
 Petrel, The, 559, 566 
 
 Pettigrew, Richard F., 489, n. 
 
 Phelps, Edward J., in Venezuelan 
 controversy, 415 
 
 Phelps, William Walter, Elaine s 
 letter to, 38, 39, 188 
 
 Philadelphia, The, 186 
 
 Philippine Commission, 613, 614, 615 
 
 Philippine Islands, Spanish misrule 
 in, 587; revolt in, 587; American 
 victories in, 570, 590; ceded to 
 United States, 607 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, favours woman s 
 suifrage, 742 
 
 Phoenix Park murders, 232 
 
 Pickett, General George E., 124 
 
 " Pie-counter brigade," 706 
 
 Pierce, Franklin, 339 
 
 " Pig Iron Kelly," 207 
 
 " Pinkpank Wheeler," 262 n. 
 
 " Pitchfork Tillman," 459 n. 
 
 Platt Amendment, 619 
 
 Platt, Orville H., 619 
 
 Platt, Thomas C., 157; Harrison s 
 affiliation with, 193-195, 282; his 
 hope of political office, 193, 194, 
 282; cause for his opposition to 
 Harrison, 282; opposes McKinley, 
 484; supports gold standard, 484; 
 
8oo INDEX 
 
 486, n., 487, n.; Roosevelt alienates, Hong Kong, 577; his affront to the 
 
 641, 642 United States, 577, 699; apologises 
 
 "Plumed Knight," The, 20, 287 to Commodore Dewey, 578; his 
 
 Pluton, The, 592 visit to United States, 699, 700 
 
 Poe, John Prentiss, 496, n. Princeton University, 750 
 
 Polk, James Knox, 303, 739 Prinzess Wilhelm, The, 576 
 
 " Poor whites," political uprising of, Proctor, Redfield, in Harrison s 
 
 457 Cabinet, 173 
 
 Pope, General John, 100, 126 Progressist Party, 229 
 
 Populists, 214, 276; platform of, 272, Prohibitionists, 504, 743 , 
 
 " 273, 297, 319, 743; convention of "Prosperity panic," 633 
 
 1892, 297; advocacy of free silver, Protectionists, Republican, 529; Gar- 
 
 272, 273, 297, 298 ; coalitions with, field on, 662 
 
 298, 299; poll heavy vote for Protective duties in the United States, 
 Weaver, 304, 305; strength of in 33, 34; before Civil War, 202; ad- 
 South and West, 311, 457; cause of mitted non-necessity of, 206, 206, 
 formation of party, 319; oppose re- n.; favoured in manufacturing 
 peal of Sherman Law, 341; in- States, 207; sentiment against in 
 crease of, 372, 405, 449; desire war West, 207; as illustrated by Mc- 
 with England, 447; their hatred of Kinley Bill, 209-213 
 gold standard, 448-450; conven- "Pterodactyl of politics," 89 
 tion of 1896, 504 Public Lands, Government defrauded 
 Porter, General Horace, describes of by railways, 222-225 
 
 Grant, 108 Public offices, The distribution of, 66, 
 
 Porter, Rear-Admiral David D., 621 67, 77 
 
 Porter, Robert P., 194 Puerto Rico, campaign in, 601 ; ceded 
 Post, Charles N., 578 n. to United States, 607, 616; local 
 Post, Evening (New York), defends government of, 616, 617, 664 
 its support of Cleveland, 37, 444; Pugh, James L., 76, 147 
 quoted, 94, 197, 444, 704; Godkin Pulitzer, Albert, 759 
 and White editors of, 439, 757; Pulitzer, Joseph, develops sensational 
 characterisation of, 443 journalism, 758, 759 
 Post (Washington), 542, n. Pullman, town of, 376 
 Potter, Rt. Rev. Henry C., rebukes Pullman, George M., dismisses em- 
 President Harrison, 196, 197 ployes, 376, 377 
 
 Prescott, William H., 752 Pullman Palace Car Company, 376; 
 
 Presidential power, growth of, 739- its dismissal of employes, 376, 377; 
 
 742 refuses to arbitrate, 378 
 
 Presidential succession, 94 Pullman Strikes. See Strikes 
 
 Press (Philadelphia), on loss of Puritan, The, 430 
 
 Maine, 542 
 
 Prestan, Pedro, leads revolt on Isth 
 mus of Panama, 54 Q 
 Prime, William C., 102, 103 
 
 Primrose League, Lord Salisbury s Quay, Matthew S., 174; Harrison s 
 
 speech to, 573 affiliation with, 194, 195; his pri- 
 
 Prince Henry of Prussia, arrives at vate life, 282 ; his political methods, 
 
INDEX Soi 
 
 282-284; his control of party ma- on panic of 1893, 341; re-elected 
 
 chine, 283; charges against, 283, Speaker, 524; facetious remark to 
 
 284; his quarrel with Harrison, Roosevelt, 669; personality of, 199- 
 
 284; speculates in sugar, 362, 363; 201, 347, 465, 484; quoted, 198, 
 
 suggested for presidency, 485; sup- 201, 213 
 
 ports Mr. Roosevelt for vice-presi- Reform Club, The (New York), 243, 
 dency, 643 ; Mr. Roosevelt s tele- 274 ; letter to from Cleveland, 274- 
 gram on death of, 676, 677 276, 483 
 
 Reid, Whitelaw, a leader in the Lib 
 eral Republican movement, 13; 
 
 R. letter to from Elaine, 155; ap 
 pointed Minister to France, 194; 
 
 Railway, Missouri Pacific, 128 nominated for vice-presidency, 287 ; 
 
 Railway, Texas Pacific, 128 member of Spanish-American peace 
 
 Railway, Union Pacific, incorpora- commission, 603, n. 
 
 tion of, 223 ; gift of land to from Reina Cristina, The, 568, 569 ; de- 
 
 the Government, 223 ; bonds loaned stroyed, 571 
 
 to, 223; importance of, 223 Republican (Chicago), 258 
 
 Railways in United States, growth Republican National Committee. See 
 
 and importance of, 132, 133; Committee, Republican National 
 
 freight discriminations by, 134- Republican National Conventions. See 
 
 141, 268, 314, 683, 684, 732; in- Conventions, Republican National, 
 
 vestigated by Congress, 139-141; Republican Party, its long continu- 
 
 absorption of public lands by, 222- ance in power, 11-16; charged with 
 
 225, 268, 314, 319; their monopoly misrule, 62, 63, 64; its attitude to- 
 
 of coal lands, 313, 689; evasion of ward Cleveland, 79; praised by 
 
 law by, 313, 734 Ingalls, 87; a friend of the " vet- 
 
 Raleigh, The, 559, 561, 566, 567, 585 eran," 89; its purpose to destroy 
 
 Ramsay, Rear-Admiral Francis M., slavery, 265, 738; early history of, 
 
 625 265, 266; continues war tariff, 267, 
 
 Raymond, Henry J., 439, 462, 757 73^; its different character after the 
 
 Reade, Charles, quoted, 454 Civil War, 266, 267; divisions in, 
 
 Reagan Bill, 139, n. 465; returns to power, 518, 519; 
 
 " Rebel brigadiers," 144, 721 efficiency of, 524 ; its attitude to- 
 
 " Rebel Flag Order," 145, 146 ward corporations, 738 
 
 Reciprocity, 209-211, 487, 654, 662 Republican Tariff Commission, 153, 
 
 Reconcentrados, 532, 539, 541 154 
 
 " Reconcentration," 532 Resaca, battle of, 168 
 
 Reconstruction Period, 201, 720, 753 Resumption Act, 391, n. 
 
 Record-Herald (Chicago), 487, n. Revolution, French, 760 
 
 Reed, Thomas B., examines Tilden Rhodes, James F., 103, 753 
 
 as to cipher telegrams, 118; elected Rice, Allen Thorndike, appointed 
 
 Speaker, 199; his methods, 200, 201, Minister to Russia, 194 
 
 213, 214, 465, 525; explains Re- Richard Rush, The, 330 
 
 publican defeat in 1890, 215, n., Richardson, Albert D., 101 
 
 216, n.; suggested for presidency, Riddleberger, Harrison H., remark 
 
 286, 287, 465, 466, 480; his speech regarding Thurman, 156 
 
802 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Riis, Jacob, quoted, 693 
 
 Rio de Janeiro, blockade of broken 
 by Admiral Benham, 410-412 
 
 Rios, Eugenic Montero, 603, n. 
 
 Roberts, Morley, his letter on Monroe 
 Doctrine, 427, 428 
 
 Robeson, George M., 65, 536 
 
 Rockefeller, John D., enters oil busi 
 ness, 134; obtains freight discrimi 
 nations, 135, 637; causes ruin of 
 competitors, 134-136; indicted for 
 criminal conspiracy, 136; connected 
 with "chain" of banks, 637; his 
 gifts to University of Chicago, 
 750 
 
 Rockefeller, William, 134; indicted 
 for criminal conspiracy, 136 
 
 Rogers, Charles D., 496, n. 
 
 Rogers, Henry H., 44, 637 
 
 Roosevelt, Alice L., 699 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, ancestry and 
 early life of, 668, 669; defeated for 
 mayoralty of New York, 131, 734; 
 regarded as an Independent, 678, 
 679; opposes nomination of Elaine, 
 679; cooperates with Cleveland, 
 679; his many interests, 680, 681 ; 
 disliked by politicians, 682 ; as As 
 sistant Secretary of the Navy, 626, 
 642, 681 ; as lieutenant-colonel of 
 Rough Riders, 626; at San Juan, 
 627 ; elected Governor of New 
 York, 627; alienates corporations 
 and " machine politicians," 641 ; de 
 sires second term as Governor, 642, 
 643 ; nominated for vice-presi 
 dency, 644; his summons to Mc- 
 Kinley s death-bed, 666, 667 ; suc 
 ceeds to presidency, 667, 668 ; his 
 purpose to continue McKinley s 
 policy, 667, 668 ; apprehension re 
 garding, 667, 668, 677; his self-con 
 sciousness, 669, 670; his sensitive 
 ness, 670; offends subordinates, 
 670, 671 ; his treatment of Sir 
 Thomas Lip-ton, 671, 672; his 
 courage, 672-676; his "squareness," 
 
 678; his removal of Col. Evans, 
 674> 675; entertains Booker T. 
 Washington, 675, 676; attacks 
 the Trusts, 685-688, 740; appealed 
 to in coal strike, 691-693 ; calls con 
 ference of mine owners and la 
 bour representatives, 693 ; appoints 
 investigating commission, 697 ; 
 praised at home and abroad, 698 ; 
 uses his influence to settle dispute 
 between Venezuela and Great 
 Britain, Germany and Italy, 698 ; 
 his message on Panama Canal, 701 ; 
 recognises Panama as Republic, 
 702 ; criticised for Panama policy, 
 703, 704; capitalists enraged by, 
 705 ; opposed by Sun, 706 ; his de 
 sire for presidential nomination, 
 707, 708 ; nominated for presidency 
 709 ; in presidential campaign of 
 1904, 713-715; his reply to Parker, 
 714; elected President, 715; his 
 statement regarding another nomi 
 nation, 715; his popularity in the 
 South, 723 ; urges Congress to pass 
 railway rate bill, 737, 738; per 
 sonal government of, 740; person 
 ality of, 627 
 
 Root, Elihu, 696, 697, 723 
 
 Rose, R. F., 507 n. 
 
 Rothschild, N. M. and Sons, in 
 bond syndicate, 398 
 
 Rough Riders, The, 594, 596, 626 
 
 Royal Saxon Lottery. See Lottery, 
 Royal Saxon 
 
 Rudini, Marquis di, correspondence 
 with Secretary Blaine, 225 
 
 " Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion," 
 
 43, 44, 45 
 
 Rusk, Jeremiah M., in President Har 
 rison s Cabinet, 173, 174 
 
 Russell, John E., 496, n. 
 
 Russell, Lord John, 661 
 
 Russell, Wiliam E., 492, 498, 503, . 
 
 Russia, its relations with Germany, 
 179 ; treaty of United States with, 
 408 ; decides to adopt gold stand- 
 
INDEX 803 
 
 ard, 321; encroaches on Chinese of king of, 189; Germany humil- 
 
 territory, 648 iated in, 546; Berlin Conference 
 
 Ryan, Thomas F., 637 regarding, 546 
 
 Samoan Conference, 187-189 
 Sampson, Rear-Admiral William T., 
 
 S 540, 543, 554; made Rear-Admiral, 
 556; ordered to blockade coast of 
 
 Sackville-West, Lionel, his corre- Cuba, 557; defeats Cervera at 
 
 spondence with " Murchison," 162- Santiago, 591-593; his absence from 
 
 164; his recall demanded by Cleve- the battle, 598; victory due to him, 
 
 land, 164, 421; receives his pass- 624; controversy concerning, 623- 
 
 ports, 421 625; characteristics of, 623, 624; 
 
 Sadowa, battle of, 432 tribute to, 625, 626 
 
 Sagasta, Sefior, reply of to General San Diego, 231 
 
 Woodford, 538 San Francisco, The, 411, n. 
 
 Sage, Russell, 44 San Juan, battle of, 595 ; Colonel 
 
 St. James s Gazette (London), Roosevelt at, 627 
 
 quoted, 623 Sangley Point, Spanish defences at, 
 
 St. Louis, The, 432 564, 568 
 
 St. Vincent, Spanish squadron at, Santiago, battle of, 593-599 
 
 555 Santiago (Chile), taken by Congres- 
 
 Salient, The, 125 sionalists, 232, 233; refugees in 
 
 Salisbury, Marquis of, resents recall American legation at, 233, 234, 
 
 of Lionel Sackville-West, 164, 164, 239, 241, 242 
 
 n.; correspondence of with Elaine, Santos, Julio, 54 
 
 191, 192, 421 ; his firmness in Ber- Sargent, A. S., displeases Bismarck, 
 
 ing Sea controversy, 191, 192; de- 187; humiliated by him, 187, 188 
 
 scribed by Disraeli, 261, 262; de- Saturday Review (London), praises 
 
 lays answer to Venezuela, 414; American energy in Samoan af- 
 
 claims Venezuelan lands, 414, 415; fair, 189; on war with America, 
 
 refuses arbitration, 415, 416, 417; 428; on Cuban War, 553, 554; 
 
 his view of Cleveland and the Mon- on American War Department, 
 
 roe Doctrine, 420, 421 ; his reply to 622 
 
 Olney s despatch, 422-423 ; blamed Savings banks, require sixty days 
 
 by British people, 433; agrees to notice, 337 
 
 arbitration, 433, 434; his directions Schellendorf, General Bronsart von, 
 
 to Pauncefote regarding Cuba, quoted, 553 
 
 549 ; his speech to Primrose League, Schley, Rear-Admiral Winfield S., in- 
 
 573 vestigates attack by Chileans, 234, 
 
 Salt Lake City, 55 235, 235, n.; at Hampton Roads, 
 
 "Sambo Bowles," 262, n. 555; ordered to blockade Santiago, 
 
 Samoa, situation and importance of, 593, 624; made Rear Admiral, 625; 
 
 180; foreign settlers in, 180; Ger- controversy concerning, 623-625; 
 
 man rule in, 181-189; Germans characteristics of, 624 
 
 attacked in, 184, 185; American- Schomburgk, Robert, 414 
 
 English alliance in, 180, 530; Schoonmaker, August, 141 
 
 typhoon in, 186, 187; restoration Schouler, James, 754 
 
804 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Schurman, Jacob G., 613 n. 
 
 Schurz, Carl, in Liberal Republican 
 movement, 13; supports Cleveland, 
 32; Roosevelt grouped with, 679 
 
 Schwab, Michael, sentenced to life 
 imprisonment, 130; pardoned, 130 
 
 Scott, General Winfield, 98, 121 
 
 Scott, Thomas A., denies bond story 
 about Elaine, 21 ; agrees to rail 
 way freight discriminations, 135, n. 
 
 Second Massachusetts, The, 594, 596 
 
 Seligman, Edwin R. A., 754 
 
 Seminary Ridge, 123 
 
 Senate. U. S., demands papers in 
 Duskin case, 84; seeks to dictate to 
 President Cleveland, 84, 85; passes 
 500 pension bills at a sitting, 90; 
 fails to ratify Hawaiian annexa 
 tion treaty, 251; deadlock over re 
 peal of Sherman Act, 346; repeals 
 Sherman Act, 347-349 ; amends the 
 Wilson Bill, 359-364; investigates 
 charges against Senators in the 
 matter of sugar schedules, 362; 
 amends Dingley Bill, 525 ; debates 
 question of intervention in Cuba, 
 541 ; ratifies Treaty of Paris, 610- 
 612 ; ratifies Colombian treaty, 701 ; 
 ratifies Panama Canal treaty, 702 ; 
 arrogance of, 84, 86, 359, 360; cor 
 poration representatives in, 361, 
 365, 525, 682 
 
 Sentinel (Indianapolis), first to use 
 term "Mugwumps," 32; publishes 
 scandalous story regarding Blaine, 
 37> 38; sued for libel, 38, 39, n. 
 
 Seven Days Battle, 100 
 
 " Seven Mule Barnum," 262 n. 
 
 Seventy-first New York, The, 594, 
 596* 
 
 Sewall, Arthur, nominated for vice- 
 presidency, 503 
 
 Sewall, Harold M., protests against 
 German acts in Samoa, 181, 182 
 
 Seward, William H., quoted, 609 
 
 Seymour, Horatio, becomes Governor 
 of New York, in; his opposition 
 
 to Lincoln, m, 113, 114; his 
 energy in equipping troops, 112; 
 criticises Stanton, 112; conduct dur 
 ing Draft Riots, 113: commended 
 by Republican Legislature, 113; 
 Lincoln s letter to, 114; unsuccess 
 ful candidate for presidency, 97 ; 
 death of, 97; estimate of, no, in, 
 114 
 Seymour, Vice-Admiral Sir George, 
 
 649 
 
 Shaffer, General William R., ad 
 vances upon Santiago, 594; his de 
 spondent telegram, 597; conference 
 with Sampson, 598 ; Santiago sur 
 rendered to, 598 
 
 Shakespeare, misquoted by Miss 
 Cleveland, 61, n. 
 
 Shearman, Thomas G., 725 
 
 Sheridan, General Philip H., politics 
 of, 12 
 
 Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 220, 221, 
 520, 684, 685, 686 
 
 Sherman, John, as Secretary of Treas 
 ury in 1878, 15, 520; as president 
 of Senate, 83 ; criticises Stanton, 
 112, n.; irritated by Hoar, 142, 143 ; 
 suggested as candidate for presi 
 dency, 155, 157, 307, 308, 520; let 
 ter of to Harrison, 170, n.; criticises 
 introduction of high tariff bill, 203 ; 
 frames Silver Bill, 201, 520; frames 
 Anti-Trust Bill, 220, 221, 520; 
 suggestion on Venezuelan commis 
 sion, 425 ; refutes Senator Stewarr, 
 513; in McKinley s first Cabinet, 
 520; sacrificed to Hanna, 521; 
 mental decline of, 650; resigns, 
 650 
 
 Sherman Silver Law, provisions of, 
 201, 273, 323, 335, 339, 392, 393; 
 effect of, 335, 390; Cleveland de 
 sires repeal of, 337, 340; its re 
 peal opposed by Populists, 341, 
 346; debate in House and Senate, 
 341-349; repeal of, 349; expecta 
 tions from its repeal, 354 
 
INDEX 
 
 805 
 
 Sherman, General William T., poli 
 tics of, 12; his letter regarding 
 " Rebel Flag Order," 145 
 
 Shiloh, battle of, 107 
 
 Shipherd Claims, 177, 178 
 
 Shiras, Justice George, Jr., opposes 
 income tax, 370, n., 371 
 
 " Short Haul," 141 
 
 Sibley, Joseph C., 392, 456, 459, 
 
 503, . 
 
 Sickles, General Daniel E., 123, 535, 
 
 536 
 Sigsbee, Captain Charles D.. 539, 
 
 540, n.; reports loss of Maine, 541 
 " Silver Dick," 342 
 Silver Question, The, 8r, 82, 83, 272- 
 
 274, 297, 298, 320-323, 339-349, 
 
 390-405, 448-464. 488, 489, 491- 
 
 496, 500-505, 512-514, 630, 632, 
 
 645, 646 
 
 * Silver Republicans," 341, 504 
 Simmons, Z. E., 215 
 Simpson, Jerry," 452 
 "Single Tax," 734 
 Skerrett, Rear-Admiral, his interview 
 
 with Tracy on Hawaii, 250, 251; 
 
 ordered to obey Mr. Blount, 331 
 Slavery, abolition of, 266, 720, 738 ; 
 
 a? a hindrance to national unity, 
 
 719 
 
 <; Sleepy Phil," 686 
 Sloane, William M., 754 
 Smith, Hoke, in the second Cleve 
 land Cabinet, 310 
 Smith, Sydney, describes taxes in 
 
 England, 204, n., 205, n, 
 " Snap convention," 280, 290 
 * Snappers," 280 
 * Snivel-service reform," 68 
 Socialism in the United States, 132, 
 
 724, 732-738, 742, 759 
 " Sockless Jerry," 452 
 " Solid South," The, 33, 721 
 Sorosis, 744 
 
 " Sound money," 505, 515, 652 
 South, growth of national sentiment 
 
 in, 722, 723 
 
 South African gold mines, 631 
 South African Republic, war with 
 
 Great Britain, 639, 640 
 South Carolina, disputed election re 
 turns of, 116; dispensary system in, 
 
 458 
 
 Southern State?, economic develop 
 ment of, 722, 722, n. 
 
 South Improvement Company, Rock 
 efeller denies interest in, 135, 
 n.; causes ruin of oil producers, 
 135, 136; contract of with railroads, 
 135; contract ostensibly cancelled, 
 138 
 
 Spain, hostility of United States to 
 ward, 534-537; war of with United 
 States, 559-602; misrule of in Phil 
 ippines, 587; losses of in Philip 
 pine?, 568-570, 590; Lord Salis 
 bury s comment on, 573; losses in 
 Cuba, 595, 598, 599; peace negoti 
 ations of with United States, 601, 
 603-607; sells Carolines, Pelews. 
 and Ladrones to Germany, 605, n. : 
 cedes to United States Cuba, Puerto 
 Rico, Guam, and Philippines, 607 
 
 Specie payments, resumption of, 267, 
 323, 5i3, 520 
 
 " Specky," 671 
 
 Spectator (London), quoted, 609, n. 
 
 Spies, August, editor of the Arbriter 
 Zeitung, 129; hanged, 130 
 
 " Spirited foreign policy," 176, 225 
 
 Spottsylvania, Grant s frontal attack 
 at, 106 ; Union loss at, 106 
 
 Springfield Republican, quoted, 387 
 
 14 Stalwarts," 4, 6, 42 
 
 Standard (London), quoted, 80, n.. 
 
 5i9 
 
 Standard Oil Company, origin of. 
 134; ruins competitors, 134-136; 
 escapes legal punishment, 136, 137, 
 314; influences House Committee 
 on Commerce, 140; reorganisation 
 of, 138; its treasurer refuses to 
 testify, 140; evidence against, 221; 
 secret agreement with railroads, 
 
8o6 
 
 INDEX 
 
 319, 637, 683, 738; suit against in 
 Ohio, 471 ; its methods exposed, 
 
 735 
 
 Stanford, Leland, 750 
 
 Stanford University, 750 
 
 Stanton, Edwin M., politics of, 12; 
 distrusts McClellan, 99, 100; rela 
 tions with Grant, 104, n., 105 ; 
 overruled by Lincoln, 104, 105 ; 
 criticised, 112; aided by Dana, 258 
 
 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 742 
 
 Stanwood, Edward, quoted, 191, n., 
 307, 436 
 
 Stanwood, Harriet. See Elaine, Mrs. 
 J. G. 
 
 Stanwood, Jacob, 22 
 
 Star (Kansas City), quoted, 542 
 
 " Star-Route " contracts, 8, 63, n., 
 
 3i7 
 
 State Socialism. See Socialism 
 
 States Rights, 478 
 
 Steel Trust, 636 
 
 Steele, William R., 496, n. 
 
 Steffens, Lincoln, quoted, 474, 671 
 
 Sternburg, Baron Speck von, 671 
 
 Stevens, John L., maintains order in 
 Hawaii, 247 ; proclaims United 
 States protectorate, 247; course of 
 in Hawaii, 248-250, 332; made sub 
 ordinate to Blount, 331; his ac 
 cusations regarding Liliuokalani, 
 
 334 
 
 Stevens, Thaddeus, 529 ; his opinion 
 of Lincoln, 462 
 
 Stevenson, Adlai E., as Assistant 
 Postmaster-General, 147, 277; puts 
 Republicans out of office, 147, 148 ; 
 suggested as candidate for presi 
 dency, 277, 293, 503, n.; nominated 
 for vice-presidency, 295, 296 ; 
 elected Vice-President, 304; re 
 fuses closure in Senate on repeal 
 of Sherman Act, 347; renominated 
 for vice-presidency, 646 
 
 Stevenson, Robert Louis, on German 
 insolence in Samoa, 182; quoted, 
 185, n. 
 
 Stewart, William, 513 
 Stone, Lucy, 742, 743 
 Stone, William J., 507 
 Stratford, Lord, motto of, 325 
 Strikes, of 1877, 127; of 1886, 127- 
 130; of New York street-car em 
 ployes, 127 ; of New York elevated 
 railway employes, 127 ; of Boston 
 school children, 127; centre of in 
 St. Louis and Chicago, 128 ; of 
 employes of Texas Pacific Railway, 
 128; of the Missouri Pacific, 128; 
 cause suspension of traffic in the 
 Southwest, 128; riots and incen 
 diarism, 128; mob rule in St. 
 Louis, 128; cause heavy losses, 128; 
 Chicago Pullman strike of 1886, 
 128-130; Anarchists in, 129, 130; 
 Chicago Pullman strike of 1894, 
 377-384; commission appointed to 
 investigate origin of Pullman strike, 
 388; of coal miners in 1902, 690- 
 
 698, 735 
 
 Stiibel, Herr, raises German flag at 
 Apia, 181 ; declares sovereignty of 
 Germany in Samoa, 181 
 
 " Stuffed Prophet," 264 
 
 Subig Bay, Montojo at, 564, 565; 
 Americans enter, 567 
 
 " Success in defeat," 460 
 
 " Sugar senators," 527 
 
 Sugar Trust, benefited by tariff leg 
 islation, 211, 214, 527, 646; inves 
 tigation of, 221; evades law, 314; 
 as affected by Wilson Bill, 357, 
 358, 361-364; interests in Puerto 
 Rican tariff, 616; its favours from 
 the railroads, 683, 738 
 
 Sumner, Charles, shocked by Lincoln, 
 n, n.; a leader in Liberal Republi 
 can movement, 13 ; detested in 
 South, 52; ostracised in Boston, 
 265; eulogy on by Lamar, 52, n. f 
 53, n. 
 
 Sumner, William G., 754 
 
 Sun (Baltimore), 542, n. 
 
 Sun (New York), introduces term 
 
INDEX 807 
 
 "Mugwumps," 32; supports B. F. 204, 205; efforts of manufacturers 
 
 Butler for presidency, 46 ; accuses to retain, 207 ; a " local issue," 
 
 Cleveland of plagiarism, 150; in- 207; injustice of toward farmers, 
 
 vents conversations with Cleveland, 268; an issue in campaign of 1892, 
 
 150; ridicules Wanamaker, 176; 292, 298, 308; sentiment toward 
 
 quoted, 197, 216, n., 217, n., 295, in Northwest, 299; relation to mo- 
 
 296, 437, 438, 459, 706, 707; Dana s nopolies, 314; Cleveland pledged 
 
 management of, 258-264, 757; sup- to reduce, 305, 323; necessary for 
 
 ports Hill, 296; characterisation of, revenue, 355; Cleveland s message 
 
 443; criticises Cleveland, 437, 438; regarding, 355, 356; Wilson bill to 
 
 opposes Roosevelt, 706; supports reduce, 356-368; high tariff fa- 
 
 Hanna, 706, 707 voured by McKinley, 519, 522, 
 
 Supreme Court, decision of, in Debs 523 
 
 case, 387; on income tax, 370-372; "Tattooed Man," 40 
 
 on insular cases, 616; on Northern Taussig, Frank W., 754; quoted, 527 
 
 Securities case, 705 Tax on wool, 526, 527 
 
 Sweden, adopts gold standard, 321 Taxation during Civil War, 204, 205 
 
 Switzerland, adopts gold standard, Telephone, Bell, 56, n. 
 
 321 Teller, Henry M., supports free silver 
 
 plank, 484, 485; withdraws from 
 
 T Republican party, 488, 489; sug 
 gested for presidency, 503, n.; his 
 
 Taft, William H., as Civil Governor views on Cuba, 617, 617, n. 
 
 of Philippines, 615 "Tell the truth," 35 
 
 Tamasese, made king of Samoa by Teller resolution, 617, n. 
 
 Germans, 181 ; opposed by Sa- Temps (Paris), quoted, 551, 552, 574 
 
 moans, 184 " Ten Commandments, Campaign 
 
 Tammany Hall, opposed to Cleve- against the," 516 
 
 land, 40, 1 60, 302; supports him, Tenure of Office Act, 84, 87; re- 
 
 46, 49 ; defended by Dana, 261 ; al- pealed, 142, 143 
 
 lied with Hill, 279; Croker head Ten Years War in Cuba, The, 533, 
 
 of, 281 ; mistrusted by Democracy 533, n. 
 
 at large, 290; denounced by Cleve- Terror, The, 430, 592, 593 
 
 land, 303 Texas, The, 94 
 
 Tampa, United States troops at, 590 Thayer, Judge, 705, n. 
 
 Tanner, James, as Pensions Commis- Thurman, Allen G., nominated for 
 
 sioner, 198, n. vice-presidency, 156; personality 
 
 Tariff for protection, 358; reduc- of, 156 
 
 tion of advocated by Cleveland, Thurston, Loren, 334 
 
 80, 152-154; as issue in Cleveland s Tiberius, quoted, 205 
 
 second presidential campaign, 152- Tilden, Samuel Jones, boyhood of, 
 
 J55. J 57> 161-163; views of Gar- 115, 121; as a lawyer, 115; his 
 
 field and Grant on, 153; Harri- knowledge of politics, 115; his po- 
 
 son s approval of, 167; revision of litical ambition, 115; as a politi- 
 
 recommended by Harrison, 197; c ian, 119, 120; accumulates a for- 
 
 system prior to Civil War, 202, tune, 115; destroys Tweed Ring, 
 
 203; increase in during Civil War, 115; as Governor of New York, 
 
8o8 
 
 INDEX 
 
 115; nominated for presidency, 
 115, 116; his election disputed, 15, 
 97, 116-120; Grant s belief in Til- 
 den s election, 116; scandal of 
 "cipher telegrams," 117-119; asks 
 hearing, 118; examination of by 
 T. B. Reed, 118, 119; loses popular 
 sympathy, 119; ignored by Cleve 
 land, 75, 159; contrasted with 
 Cleveland, 159; supported by 
 Dana, 262, 263 ; his pleasures, 121 ; 
 his treatment of friends, 120; his 
 indifference to women, 120, 121 ; 
 secret of his success, 120; his hold 
 upon his party, 119; his intellect, 
 115, 120; his feeble health, 115, 
 1 1 8, 120; death of, 97; estimate of, 
 115, n6, 119-121 
 
 Tillman, Benjamin R., personality of, 
 458, 465 ; elected Governor of South 
 Carolina, 458, 459 ; establishes dis 
 pensary system, 458 ; elected United 
 States Senator, 459 ; opposition to, 
 458, 459; his antagonism to Cleve 
 land, 459; at National Convention 
 of 1896, 492, 497; his rage against 
 Cleveland, 497; candidate for 
 nomination to presidency, 503, n.; 
 at National Convention of 1900, 
 645 
 
 Times (Chicago), quoted, 72, 73 
 
 Times-Herald (Chicago), 487, n. 
 
 Times (London), quoted, 61, n., 435, 
 572, 698 
 
 Times (New York), quoted, 483, 
 628, 632, 633, 693, 694; under Ray 
 mond, 757 
 
 Times (San Francisco), 733 
 
 Times-Star (Cincinnati), quoted, 705 
 
 Toral, General, surrenders Santiago 
 to Shafter, 598 
 
 Tornado, The, captures the Firgin- 
 ius, 534 
 
 Townsend, George A., his estimate of 
 Cleveland, 59, 60 
 
 Tracy, Benjamin F., in Harrison s 
 Cabinet, 173 ; insulted by Senor 
 
 Matta, 240; his remarks on Ha 
 waii, 250 
 
 " Trade-dollar," withdrawn from 
 circulation, 142 
 
 Trajano, The, 412 
 
 Transvaal Republic, war with Great 
 Britain, 639, 640 
 
 Treasury, The, scandals in connection 
 with, 62-65 ; management of under 
 Sherman, 15; expenditure^ in Civil 
 War, 105, 204; surplus in, 152, 153, 
 197, 198, 208, 210; deficit in, 323, 
 336, 361, 481 ; its condition affects 
 commercial activity, 335; gold re 
 serve in, 323, 389-391, 628; drain 
 upon, 390, 391, 394-397, 4 2 , 
 403, 445 
 
 Treaty of Paris, The, 607, 610, 6n, 
 616 
 
 Treaty of Zanjon, 533, n. 
 
 Trent Affair, The, 660 
 
 Trenton, The, 185-187 
 
 Tribune (Chicago), quoted, 295 
 
 Tribune (New York), deciphers the 
 cipher telegrams, 117; quoted, 118, 
 475, 509, 516,^575, 646, 709; in 
 vents conversations with Cleveland, 
 150; eulogises Cleveland for Vene 
 zuelan position, 425 ; changes its 
 attitude, 438; under Greeley, 757 
 
 Trust Agreement, new form of, 138 
 
 Trusts, origin of name, 138; as a 
 political issue, 141 ; criticised by 
 Harrison, 167; struggle against, 
 215, 220-222, 305; Cleveland s 
 views on, 253, 254; favoured by 
 legislation, 268 ; power of, 270, 301, 
 314-319; People s Party founded to 
 check, 319; legislation against, 386, 
 683; in Wall Street, 632-634, 638; 
 multiplication of, 639, 732; de 
 nounced by Republican convention, 
 644; denounced by Democratic con 
 vention, 645, 646; arouse President 
 Roosevelt s indignation, 682, 685; 
 attacked by him, 686-688; exposed 
 by H. D. Lloyd, 735 
 

 INDEX 
 
 809 
 
 Turkey, payment of usury by, 403; 
 massacres in Armenia, 410 
 
 Turpie, David M., 503, n. 
 
 Twain, Mark. See Clemens, Sam 
 uel L. 
 
 Tweed Ring, The, 51, 115 
 
 Tweed, William M., opposed by Til- 
 den, 115; Dana s support of, 261; 
 methods of, 317 
 
 Twining, Rev. Kinsley, letter on 
 charges against Cleveland, 35, 36 
 
 " Twisting the lion s tail," 421 
 
 Tyler John, marriage of, 92, n. 
 
 U 
 
 " Uncle Jerry," 174 
 
 "Uncle Mark," 473 
 
 " Uncrowned King," 172 
 
 Union Pacific scandal, 21 
 
 United Mine Workers of America, 
 
 689 
 
 United States Leather Company, 634 
 United States Steel Corporation, 633- 
 
 636, 725 
 
 University of California, 750 
 University of Chicago, 750 
 University of Michigan, 750 
 University of Wisconsin, 750 
 Upolu. See Samoa 
 
 Valparaiso, occupied by Congression- 
 alists, 230; assault upon American 
 sailors at, 234-236; the Yorktown 
 at, 237-239 
 
 Van Buren, Martin, compared to Til- 
 den, 119 
 
 Vance, Zebulon B., opposed to Cleve 
 land, 76, 147 
 
 Vandalia, The, 185, 186 
 
 Vanderbilt, William H., agrees to 
 railway freight discriminations, 
 135, n. 
 
 Velasco, The, 568, n.; destroyed, 571 
 
 Venezuela, boundary dispute with 
 Great Britain, 413-436; continu 
 ance of dispute, 413; basis of its 
 title to disputed lands, 413; appeals 
 to United States, 414; encroach 
 ment upon by British miners, 415; 
 protests, 415; breaks off diplomatic 
 relations with Great Britain, 415; 
 efforts of United States in behalf 
 of, 415-434; refusal of Lord Salis 
 bury to arbitrate, 416, 417, 423; 
 President Cleveland s warlike mes 
 sage concerning, 419, 424; matter 
 finally submitted to arbitration, 
 433> 4345 British, German and 
 Italian naval expedition against, 
 698 
 
 Vest, George G., 367 
 
 Vesuvius, The, 94 
 
 Vetoes, of private pension bills by 
 President Cleveland, 91-93 ; of 
 Dependent Pension Bill, 143 
 
 Vicksburg, Grant s strategy at, 105, 
 106 
 
 Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, 
 her congratulatory message to 
 President Cleveland, 93 
 
 Vilas, William F., in first Cleveland 
 Cabinet, 53, 496, ., 498 
 
 Virginius, The, captured by Spanish, 
 534, 664; surrendered, 537; out 
 rages upon Americans in connec 
 tion with, 534, 537; action of Presi 
 dent Grant concerning, 535-537 
 
 Vizcaya, The, 539, 592 
 
 Voorhees, Daniel W., amends bill re 
 pealing Sherman Act, 345 
 
 W 
 
 Waite, 451, 465; violence of public 
 speeches of, 452 
 
 Walker, Edwin, letter to from Secre 
 tary Olney, 380; asks for troops in 
 Chicago, 381 
 
8 io INDEX 
 
 Walker, General Francis A., 321, 754 Webster, Daniel, quoted by Cleve- 
 
 Walker, Rear-Admiral John G., 236 land, 82, 83 ; his letter to Chevalier 
 
 Waller, John L., charges by the Hiilsemann, 226; his eloquence, 
 
 French against, 408; sentence of, 256; foreign policy of, 332, n. 
 
 408 Weed, Smith M., 75 
 
 Wall Street, turns against President Weed, Thurlow, 439, 462 
 
 Cleveland, 438; Trusts in, 632-634, Wendell, Barrett, 755 
 
 638 West Indies, American trade with, 
 
 Wanamaker, John, in Harrison s 628 
 
 Cabinet, 173 ; appointment of crit- Weyler, General Valeriano, recon- 
 
 icised, 174-176; ridiculed by the centration order of, 532, 533; dis- 
 
 Sun, 176 like of Americans for, 537; re- 
 
 Wang, parody from, 295, n. called, 538 
 
 War, Civil. See Civil War. Wharton, Edith, 755 
 
 War Department, scandals in, 621- Wheeler, Aldace F., 141 
 
 626 Wheeler, General Joseph, 594, 596, 
 
 Warner, John DeWitt, 314 n., 723 
 
 War of Independence, 718 Whigs, opposed to Jackson, 50; use 
 
 War with Spain. See Spain of term, 50, n.; pass tariff bill, 202, 
 
 Warren, Mary, 742 203 
 
 Washburn, Cadwallader C., 462 Whiskey Insurrection, 385, n. 
 
 Washington, Booker T., 675, 676, Whiskey Ring, revelations regarding, 
 
 723 14; methods of, 317 
 
 Washington, George, looth anniver- White City, The, 353 
 
 sary of first inauguration of, 195- White, Justice Edward D., favours 
 
 197; Cleveland compared with in income tax, 370, n., 371 
 
 style, 255; suppresses Whiskey In- White, Horace, 439, 754 
 
 surrection, 385; Aguinaldo com- White, Stephen M., 494 
 
 pared to by Anti-Imperialists, 587; White, William Allen, quoted, 449, 
 
 as a statesman, 660, 661 ; his 450 
 
 wealth, 724 Whitney, William C., in first Cleve- 
 
 " Watered" stock, 314 land Cabinet, 51, 52; first report 
 
 Watson, David K., brings suit against of, 65, 66; his relation to the Stand- 
 Standard Oil Company, 471 ard Oil Company, 270, 270, n.; 
 
 Watson, Rear-Admiral J. C., squad- has charge of Cleveland s canvass, 
 
 ron of, 600, 601 291, 301; Croker s friendliness to- 
 
 Watson, Thomas E., 504 ward, 302; tries to reconcile Tam- 
 
 Watterson, Henry, describes Cleve- many and Cleveland, 302, 303 ; at 
 
 land, 58, 59; relates anecdote re- National Convention of 1896, 492, 
 
 garding him, 72 ; compares his 493 
 
 government to Grant s, 75; at- Whittier, Captain Edward N., 124 
 
 tacks Bryan, 509 ; on the loss of the Whittier, John G., threatened with 
 
 Maine, 542; as an editor, 758 lynching, 265 
 
 Wealth, concentration of, 724-732 Whittle, J. Lowrey, quoted, 366, 420, 
 
 Weaver, James B., 268 ; nominated n., 430 
 
 for presidency by Populists, 297; Wilcox, David B., 695 
 
 heavy vote cast for, 304, 305 " Wild Horses," 456 
 
INDEX 
 
 811 
 
 Wildman, Consul-General, 587 
 
 Wilderness, battle of the, 106, 125 
 
 Wilhelm II., Emperor of Germany, 
 admires American prowess at Ma- 
 nila, 575; friendly attitude toward 
 United States, 699 
 
 Wilkes, Commander Charles, 660 
 
 Wilkeson, Frank, 99, n. 
 
 Wilkins, Mary E., 754 
 
 Williamsburg, battle of, 122 
 
 Williams, George F., 503, n. 
 
 Willis, Albert S., appointed Minister 
 to Hawaii, 333; asks President 
 Dole to restore Liliuokalani, 333 
 
 Wilson Bill, 356; opposed by wool- 
 growers, 357; compared with Me- 
 Kinley Bill, 357, 358; debate on, 
 358-368; President refuses to sign, 
 368, 405; not responsible for loss 
 of revenue, 523; compared with 
 Dingley Bill, 525-527 
 
 Wilson, Henry, his opinion of Lin- 
 coin, 462 
 
 Wilson, James, in first McKinley 
 Cabinet, 522 
 
 Wilson, General James G., anecdote 
 concerning Grant, 108, 109 
 
 Wilson, William L., 290, 291 ; his 
 speech on repeal of Sherman Act, 
 340, 341 ; introduces tariff bill, 
 356; reads in House letter from 
 Cleveland, 365, 366 
 
 Wiltse, Captain, 247 
 
 Windom, William, in President Har- 
 rison s Cabinet, 173, 323 
 
 Wirz, Henry, jailer at Andersonville, 
 1 8, 19 
 
 Wister, Owen, 755 
 
 Woman Movement, The, 744-749 
 
 Woman s suffrage, doctrine of, 742, 
 743 
 
 Wood, General Leonard, as Colonel 
 of Rough Riders, 626 ; appointed 
 Military Governor of Cuba, 619 
 
 Woodburn, James A., quoted, 271 
 Woodford, General Stewart L., ap- 
 
 pointed Minister to Spain, 538; 
 
 treatment of, in Madrid, 556; 
 
 leaves Madrid, 556 
 Woodruff, J. Lyon, his account of Sa- 
 
 moan typhoon, 187, n. 
 Woods, Judge, enjoins Debs from in- 
 
 terfering with mails, 381 ; Debs 
 
 brought before, 383, 387; sentences 
 
 Debs, 387 
 
 Woodward, James T., quoted, 628 
 Wood, Justice, 219 
 Worcester, Dean C., 613, n. 
 World s Fair. See Columbian Expo- 
 
 sition 
 World (New York), on " Million- 
 
 aires Dinner," 45, 46; on the bond 
 
 syndicate transaction, 403, 404; 
 
 quoted, 492, 494, 503, n., 509, 551, 
 
 649, 668; as conducted by Mr 
 
 Pulitzer, 758 
 
 Worthington, Nicholas E., 388, n, 
 Wright, Carroll D., 388, n., 754 
 Wright, Martha C., 742 
 Wright, Robert E., 496, n. 
 Wyoming admitted as a State, 201 
 
 Yale University, students jeer Bryan, 
 507; J. D. Rockefeller s gift to, 750 
 " Yankee pigs," 540, n., 544 
 Yellow Book, The, 759, n. 
 Yellow journalism, 759, 759, n. 
 Yerkes, Charles T., 637 
 Yorktown, The, 237, 238 
 Yorktown, McClellan s siege of, 100 
 
 Zafiro, The, 559, //., 570, 585, 586 
 
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