A Political History of the State of New York Volume III Part 40

"Mr. Conkling, in all his conversations, seemed to consider men who differed from him as enemies of the human race."--White, _Autobiography_, Vol. 1, p. 188.

"Conkling spoke with great severity of President Hayes, and said he hoped it would be the last time that any man would attempt to steal the presidency."--h.o.a.r, _Autobiography_, Vol. 2, p. 44.]

Conkling's criticism of the fitful execution of the civil service order was not too severe. Instead of justifying the expectations he had aroused by vigorously enforcing the principles of his letter of acceptance and inaugural address, the President, as if inthralled by some mysterious spell, had discredited his professions by his performances. The establishment of a real change in the system of appointments and of office-holding control invited a severe contest, and success depended upon the courage and conviction of the Administration itself. For firmness, however, Hayes subst.i.tuted hesitation, compromise, and in some instances surrender. Numerous cases were cited in proof of this criticism, notably the reappointment of Chauncey I. Filley, postmaster at St. Louis, whom George William Curtis p.r.o.nounced the most conspicuous office-holder in the country for his active manipulation of politics. "He is a shining example of 'the thing to be reformed.'"[1630]

[Footnote 1630: _Harper's Weekly_, December 8, 1877.]

The President's removal of Arthur and Cornell, it was argued, was no less irrational. In failing to charge them with inefficiency he subjected himself to the graver charge of inconsistency, since his letter of acceptance and inaugural address declared in substance that efficient officers would be retained. The President meant, his friends a.s.sumed, that political activity nullified efficiency, to which opponents replied that the President, after inviting Arthur to carry out the recommendations of the Jay Commission, had condoned the collector's wrong-doing if any existed, making him an agent for reform, and that his subsequent removal was simply in the interest of faction. Cornell's case likewise presented a peg upon which to hang severe criticism, since the Administration, when asked for the reason of his removal, dodged the decisive one. Such inconsistency showed timidity and confusion instead of courage and conviction, disappointing to friends and ridiculous to opponents.

Conkling made use of these and other points. Indeed, for more than six weeks after Congress convened he bent all his energies and diplomacy to defeat the confirmation of Roosevelt and Prince. That a Republican senator might be subst.i.tuted for a Democrat on the commerce committee, of which he was chairman and to which the nominations were referred, he delayed action until a reorganisation of the Senate. Finally, in a forceful and pathetic speech, regarded by colleagues as his most impressive address,[1631] he illuminated what he deemed an act of injustice to Arthur and Cornell. It was less bitter perhaps than that in the contest with Fenton over the confirmation of Thomas Murphy, but no less carefully worked up and quite as successful. To the consternation of the Administration, which relied upon a solid Democratic party, the Senator won by a decisive vote, having the support of several Democrats and of all the Republicans except five.

[Footnote 1631: Conkling, _Life of Conkling_, p. 373.]

It was an important victory for Conkling, who must soon begin another canva.s.s for members of the Legislature. It sent a thrill of joy through the ranks of his friends, renewed the courage of office-holding lieutenants, and compelled the Administration's supporters to admit that the President was "chiefly to blame."[1632]

Moreover, the cordial support given Conkling by Blaine created the impression that it had led to their complete reconciliation, a belief strengthened by a conversation that subsequently occurred between them on the floor of the Senate Chamber in full view of crowded galleries.

David Davis had added to the tableau by putting an arm around each, thus giving the meeting the appearance of an unusually friendly one.[1633]

[Footnote 1632: _Harper's Weekly_, December 22, 1877.]

[Footnote 1633: New York _Tribune_, December 17, 1878.]

But the President, if he had previously omitted to say what he meant, determined not to surrender, and on July 11 (1878), after the adjournment of Congress, he suspended Arthur and Cornell and appointed Edwin A. Merritt and Silas W. Burt. Arthur's suspension did not involve his integrity. Nor was any distinct charge lodged against Cornell. Their removal rested simply upon the plea that the interests of the public service demanded it, and the death of Roosevelt very naturally opened the way for Merritt.[1634]

[Footnote 1634: Theodore Roosevelt died on February 9.]

All his life Merritt had been serviceable and handy in politics. After holding successively several local offices in St. Lawrence, the people sent him to the a.s.sembly in 1859 and in 1860. When the rebellion began he entered the quartermaster's and commissary departments, and at its close served as quartermaster-general of the State until appointed naval officer in 1869, an office which he lost in 1870 when Conkling got control of the patronage. Then he followed Fenton and Greeley into the Liberal party, but returning with other leaders in 1874, he accepted the nomination for State treasurer in 1875, the year when administrative reform accelerated Tilden's run for the White House.

This made him eligible for surveyor, an office to which he had been confirmed in December, 1877. His unsought promotion to the collectorship, however, was a testimonial to his ability. Whatever Merritt touched he improved. Whether quartermaster, naval officer, or surveyor, he attended rigorously to duty, enforcing the law fairly and without favour, and disciplining his force into a high state of efficiency, so that revenues increased, expenses diminished, and corruption talk ceased. In selecting him for collector, therefore, the President had secured the right type of man.

Nevertheless, Hayes's action roiled the political waters. Conkling's friends accused the President of violating his own principles, of endeavouring to set up a new machine, and of grossly insulting the Senator. On the other hand, Administration supporters maintained that the law authorising removals was as obligatory as that empowering a senator to advise and consent to appointments, and that in removing Arthur the President did not insult Conkling any more than Conkling insulted the President by rejecting the nomination of Roosevelt. This renewal of an ugly quarrel was auguring ill for the Republicans, when the organisation of the National Greenback-Labour-Reform party, suddenly presenting a question which involved the integrity and welfare of the country, put factional quarrels and personal politics into eclipse.

Conkling had exhibited both tact and skill in that campaign. He did not lead the gold column. In fact, it was not until the last moment that the Saratoga committee on resolutions which he dominated, subst.i.tuted "the fixed monetary standard of the commercial world" for the word "coin." But after the guide-boards pointed the way he became a powerful champion of hard money. Besides, the moderation and good temper with which he discussed the doctrine of the inflationists did much to hold dissenters within the party and justly ent.i.tled him to high praise. His unanimous re-election to the Senate followed as a matter of course. Not that unanimity of action implied unanimity of feeling. It was rather, perhaps, a yielding to the necessity of the situation.[1635]

[Footnote 1635: The strength of the anti-Conkling sentiment was clearly shown in the contest for speaker of the a.s.sembly. Thomas G. Alvord received 52 votes to 43 for George B. Sloan of Oswego. Although Sloan and his supporters declared for Conkling, Alvord was confessedly the Conkling candidate.]

Nevertheless, to all appearances Conkling had recovered the prestige lost at Rochester. His conduct at the convention and in the campaign excited the hope, also, that he would drop his opposition to Merritt and Burt. Such a course commended itself to the judgment of a large majority of the New York delegation in Congress as well as to many stout legislative friends; but re-election seemed to have hardened his heart, and when, ten days after that event, he rose in the Senate to defeat confirmation he exhibited the confidence of the man of Gath.[1636]

[Footnote 1636: New York _Tribune_ (correspondence), February 1, 1879.]

Prior to his re-election Conkling had not voluntarily moved in the matter. To him the settlement of one thing at a time sufficed. Early in January, however, the Secretary of the Treasury, on his own initiative and with the skill of a veteran legislator, had addressed the President of the Senate, setting forth that Arthur's conduct of the custom-house was neither efficient nor economical. To this Arthur answered, denying inattention to business or loss of revenue, and affirming that he had recommended a system of reform upon which the Secretary had not acted.[1637] After the reception of this letter Conkling demanded immediate action. But the Senate, by two majority, preferred to wait for Sherman's replication, and when that statement came the Senate again, by a vote of 35 to 26, put off action until the doc.u.ment, with its many exhibits, could be carefully examined.[1638]

These delays augured ill for the Senator. It appeared that a Democratic member of his own committee had left him, and on the day fixed for consideration other Democrats, while calmly discussing the matter, disclosed a disposition to desert. Alarmed at their loss Conkling suddenly moved to recommit, which was carried by a _viva voce_ vote amidst shouts of approval and whispered a.s.surances that further action should be deferred until a Democratic Senate convened on March 4. Then some one demanded the yeas and nays.

[Footnote 1637: _Ibid._, January 28.]

[Footnote 1638: These exhibits made a doc.u.ment of 423 pages, of which 308 were extracts from the testimony taken by the Jay Commission, then published for the first time.]

Believing the matter practically settled, Conkling, to improve the last chance "of freeing his mind," he said, unexpectedly took the floor, and for more than an hour, with a bitterness and eloquence not excelled at Rochester, a.s.sailed the President and those a.s.sociated with him. To ill.u.s.trate the insincerity of the Administration's desire to reform the civil service he read several place-seeking letters addressed to Arthur while collector and written by the President's private secretary, by a member of the Cabinet, and other reformers.

One letter sought a position for the son of Justice Bradley, who had figured conspicuously on the Electoral Commission. Such a scene had never before been witnessed in the Senate. Exclamations of mock surprise followed by fun-making questions and loud laughter added to the grotesque exhibition. It was so ludicrous as to become pitiful and painful. Although no particular harm was done to anybody, the Government for the moment was made ridiculous.

At times Conkling was blessed with the gift of offence, and on this occasion he seems to have exercised it to its full capacity. Before he began speaking the Senate exhibited a readiness to recommit the nominations, but as he proceeded he lost ground, and when he finished several Republican senators, unwilling to afford another opportunity for such a scene, demanded that the matter be disposed of at once and forever. Each succeeding name, as the roll-call proceeded on the motion to recommit, showed more and more the change that had taken place in senators' feelings. Failure to recommit turned defeat into confusion, and confusion into disaster. When the three roll-calls were over it was found that Merritt had been confirmed by 33 to 24 and Burt by 31 to 19. An a.n.a.lysis of the "pairs" increased the rout, since it disclosed that twenty-five Democrats and fifteen Republicans favoured confirmation, while only seven Democrats and twenty-three Republicans opposed it. In other words, the Administration required only five Democratic votes to match the strength of the dissatisfied Republicans. Kernan, although he had spoken slightingly of Merritt, refused to vote, but Blaine, who had joined heartily in the laughter provoked by Conkling's thrusts as he read the letters, antagonised the President. This noticeable desire of the Maine statesman to attach his fortunes to those of the New York Senator neither escaped the attention nor faded from the memory of Secretary Sherman.

The next morning everybody knew what had happened. Although secrecy was removed only from the vote, nothing of the seven hours' conflict remained untold, the result of which to all New Yorkers proved a great surprise. They had supposed Conkling invincible in the Senate.

Nevertheless, to most Republicans, whether friends or foes, his defeat on February 3 was a great relief. Merritt had made an excellent collector, and a feeling existed, which had crystallised into a strong public sentiment, that it was unwise to force into his place an official unsatisfactory to the Secretary of the Treasury.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

JOHN KELLY ELECTS CORNELL

1879

If threatened danger had bred an artificial harmony among the Republican factions of the State in 1878, the presence of a real peril, growing out of the control of both branches of Congress by the Democrats, tended to bring them closer together in 1879. During a special session of the Forty-sixth Congress the Democratic majority had sought, by a political rider attached to the army appropriation bill, to repeal objectionable election laws, which provided among other things for the appointment of supervisors and deputy marshals at congressional elections. This law had materially lessened cheating in New York City, and no one doubted that its repeal would be followed in 1880 by scenes similar to those which had disgraced the metropolis prior to its enactment in 1870.

But the attempt to get rid of the objectionable Act by a rider on a supply bill meant more than repeal. It implied a threat. In effect the Democrats declared that if the Executive did not yield his veto power to a bare majority, the needed appropriations for carrying on the government would be stopped. This practically amounted to revolution, and the debate that followed reawakened bitter partisan and sectional animosities. "Suppose in a separate bill," said Conkling, "the majority had, in advance of appropriations, repealed the national bank act and the resumption act, and had declared that unless the Executive surrendered his convictions and yielded up his approval of the repealing act, no appropriations should be made; would the separation of the bills have palliated or condoned the revolutionary purpose?

When it is intended that, unless another species of legislation is agreed to, the money of the people, paid for that purpose, shall not be used to maintain their government, the threat is revolution and its execution is treasonable." Then he gave the mortal stab. Of the ninety-three senators and representatives from the eleven disloyal States, he said, eighty-five were soldiers in the armies of the rebellion, and their support of these "revolutionary measures is a fight for empire. It is a contrivance to clutch the national government. That we believe; that I believe."[1639] The President, by advising the country through his spirited veto messages of the desperate tactics invoked by the majority, added to Northern indignation.

[Footnote 1639: Cooper, _American Politics_, Book 3, pp. 176-186.]

It was a losing battle to the Democrats. The longer they insisted the more the Southern brigadiers were held up to public scorn as if they had again betrayed their country, and when, finally, the appropriation bills were pa.s.sed without riders, it left Republicans more firmly united than at the beginning of the Hayes administration.[1640]

[Footnote 1640: The extra session of Congress adjourned July 1, 1879.]

Two months later the Republican State convention, held at Saratoga (September 3), evidenced this union.[1641] Every distinguished Republican of the State was present save Thurlow Weed, whose feebleness kept him at home. Conkling presided. With fine humour, George William Curtis, the sound of whose flute-like voice brought a burst of applause, asked that the crowded aisles be cleared that he might see the chairman. Conkling's speech excited close attention. It was freer and more vivid because of more human interest than his address of the year before, and his appeal for harmony, his denunciation of revolutionary methods in Congress, and his demand that freedmen be protected in their rights, brought strenuous, purposeful applause from determined men. The principles thus felicitously and rhetorically stated formed the basis of the platform, which pledged the party anew to national supremacy, equal rights, free elections, and honest money. It also thanked the President for his recent att.i.tude.

[Footnote 1641: On August 29, the State convention of Nationals a.s.sembled at Utica, and nominated Harris Lewis of Herkimer, for governor. The platform opposed National banks and demanded an issue of greenbacks at the rate of $50 per capita, at least. Lewis, who had been a member of the a.s.sembly twenty years before, was president of the Farmers' Alliance.

The State Prohibition convention met at Syracuse, September 3, and nominated a full State ticket, with John W. Mears of Oneida, for governor. The platform declared the license system the cornerstone of the liquor traffic and favoured woman suffrage.]

Nevertheless, a disposition to contest the strength of the organisation and its methods boldly a.s.serted itself. For months Cornell had been Conkling's candidate for governor. A searching canva.s.s, extended into all sections of the State and penetrating the secrets of men, had been noiselessly and ceaselessly carried on.

Indeed, a more inquisitorial pursuit had never before been attempted, since the slightest chance, the merest accident, might result, as it did in 1876, in defeating Cornell.

So much depended upon the control of the temporary organisation that the anti-Conkling forces begged the Vice-President to stand for temporary chairman. They could easily unite upon him, and the belief obtained that he could defeat the Senator. But Wheeler, a mild and amiable gentleman, whose honours had come without personal contests, was timid and unyielding.[1642] What the opposition needed was a real State leader. It had within its ranks brilliant editors,[1643]

excellent lawyers, and with few exceptions the best speakers in the party, but since Fenton lost control of the organisation no man had arisen capable of crossing swords with its great chieftain.

[Footnote 1642: "The only complaint that his friends have ever made of Mr. Wheeler is that his generous nature forbids him, politically, to fight. Had he been willing to lead in the State convention in 1879, it would have had a different result."--_Harper's Weekly_, March 26, 1881.]

[Footnote 1643: Among the more influential Republican editors, who wrote with rare intelligence, representing both factions of the party, may be mentioned Charles E. Smith, Albany _Journal_; Carroll E. Smith, Syracuse _Journal_; Ellis H. Roberts, Utica _Herald_; James N.

Matthews, Buffalo _Express_; S. Newton Dexter North, Albany _Express_; Whitelaw Reid, New York _Tribune_; John H. Selkreg, Ithaca _Journal_; John M. Francis, Troy _Times_; Beman Brockway, Watertown _Times_; Charles E. Fitch, Rochester _Democrat-Chronicle_; George William Curtis, _Harper's Weekly_; Charles G. Fairman, Elmira _Advertiser_; William Edward Foster, Buffalo _Commercial_; George Dawson, Albany _Journal_; Lewis J. Jennings, New York _Times_.]

Of the four p.r.o.nounced candidates for governor Frank Hisc.o.c.k of Syracuse divided the support of the central counties with Theodore M.

Pomeroy of Cayuga, while William H. Robertson of Westchester and John H. Starin of New York claimed whatever delegates Cornell did not control in the metropolis and its vicinity. Among them and their lieutenants, however, none could dispute leadership with Conkling and his corps of able managers. Starin had pluck and energy, but two terms in Congress and popularity with the labouring cla.s.ses, to whom he paid large wages and generously contributed fresh-air enjoyments, summed up his strength.[1644] Pomeroy was better known. His public record, dating from the famous speech made in the Whig convention of 1855, had kept him prominently before the people, and had he continued in Congress he must have made an exalted national reputation. But the day of younger men had come. Besides, his recent vote for John F. Smyth, the head of the Insurance Department, injured him.[1645] Robertson, as usual, had strong support. His long public career left a clear imprint of his high character, and his attractive personality, with its restrained force, made him a central figure in the politics of the State.

[Footnote 1644: The sale of a condition powder for cattle started Starin on the road to wealth, which soon discovered itself in the ownership of ca.n.a.l, river, and harbour boats, until he became known as High Admiral of the Commerce of New York. Like success attended his railroad operations.]

[Footnote 1645: Pomeroy was district-attorney of his County, 1851-56; in the a.s.sembly, 1857; in Congress, 1861-69, being elected speaker in place of Colfax on the day the latter retired to be sworn in as Vice-President; mayor of Auburn, 1875-76; State Senate, 1878-79.]

Hisc.o.c.k was then on the threshold of his public career. He began life as the law partner and political lieutenant of his brother, Harris, an adroit politician, whose violent death in 1867, while a member of the const.i.tutional convention, left to the former the Republican leadership of Onondaga County. If his diversion as a Liberal temporarily crippled him, it did not prevent his going to Congress in 1876, where he was destined to remain for sixteen years and to achieve high rank as a debater on financial questions. He was without a sense of humour and possessed rather an austere manner, but as a highly successful lawyer he exhibited traits of character that strengthened him with the people. He was also an eminently wary and cautious man, alive to the necessity of watching the changeful phases of public opinion, and slow to propound a plan until he had satisfied himself that it could be carried out in practice. It increased his influence, too, that he was content with a stroke of practical business here and there in the interest of party peace without claiming credit for any brilliant or deep diplomacy.