Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume I Part 32

But the painful thing in the matter was that, had Mr Sumner read the sentence immediately following that which he quoted, it would have shown simply and distinctly that his contention was unfounded; that, at the time when the annexation proceedings WERE formally initiated and accomplished, there were Spanish ships off those sh.o.r.es and Spanish soldiers on the island.

I recall vividly the deep regret expressed at the time by Dr. Howe that his friend Senator Sumner had been so bitter in his opposition to the administration that he had quoted the first part of the Spanish minister's speech and suppressed the second part. It was clear that if Mr. Sumner had read the whole pa.s.sage to the Senate it would have shown that the conduct of the United States had not been less magnanimous than that of Spain in the matter, and that no argument whatever against the administration could be founded upon its action in sending ships and troops to the island.

In drawing up our report after our arrival, an amicable difference of opinion showed itself. Senator Wade, being a ''manifest-destiny'' man, wished it expressly to recommend annexation; Dr. Howe, in his anxiety to raise the status of the colored race, took a similar view; but I pointed out to them the fact that Congress had asked, not for a recommendation, but for facts; that to give them advice under such circ.u.mstances was to expose ourselves to a snub, and could bring no good to any cause which any of us might wish to serve; and I stated that if the general report contained recommendations, I must be allowed to present one simply containing facts.

The result was that we united in the doc.u.ment presented, which is a simple statement of facts, and which, as I believe, remains to this day the best general account of the resources of Santo Domingo.

The result of our report was what I had expected. The Spanish part of that island is of great value from an agricultural and probably from a mining point of view. Its valleys being swept by the trade-winds, its mountain slopes offer to a white population summer retreats like those afforded by similar situations to the British occupants of India. In winter it might also serve as a valuable sanatorium. I remember well the answer made to me by a man from Maine, who had brought his family to the neighborhood of Samana Bay in order to escape the rigors of the New England winter. On my asking him about the diseases prevalent in his neighborhood, he said that his entire household had gone through a light acclimating fever, but he added: ''We have all got through it without harm; and on looking the whole matter over, I am persuaded that, if you were to divide the people of any New England State into two halves, leaving one half at home and sending the other half here, there would in ten years be fewer deaths in the half sent here, from all the diseases of this country, than in the half left in New England, from consumption alone.''

A special element in the question of annexation was the value of the harbor of Samana in controlling one of the great pa.s.sages from Europe to the Isthmus. It is large enough to hold any fleet, is protected by a mountain-range from the northern winds, is easily fortified, and is the natural outlet of the largest and most fertile valley in the islands. More than this, if the experiment of annexing an outlying possession was to be tried, that was, perhaps, the best of opportunities, since the resident population to be a.s.similated was exceedingly small.

But the people of the United States, greatly as they honored General Grant, and much as they respected his recommendations, could not take his view. They evidently felt that, with the new duties imposed upon them by the vast number of men recently set free and admitted to suffrage in the South, they had quite enough to do without a.s.suming the responsibility of governing and developing this new region peopled by blacks and mulattos; and as a result of this very natural feeling the whole proposal was dropped, and will doubtless remain in abeyance until the experiments in dealing with Porto Rico and the Philippines shall have shown the people of the United States whether there is any place for such dependencies under our system.

CHAPTER XXIX

AS COMMISSIONER TO THE PARIS EXPOSITION OF 1878

My next experience was of a quasi-diplomatic sort, in connection with the Paris Exposition of 1878, and it needs some preface.

During the Centennial Exposition of 1876 at Philadelphia, I had been appointed upon the educational jury, and, as the main part of the work came during the university long vacation, had devoted myself to it, and had thus been brought into relations with some very interesting men.

Of these may be named, at the outset, the Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil. I first saw him in a somewhat curious way. He had landed at New York in the morning, and early in the afternoon he appeared with the Empress and their gentlemen and ladies in waiting at Booth's Theater.

The attraction was Shakspere's ''Henry V,'' and no sooner was he seated in his box than he had his Shakspere open before him. Being in an orchestra stall, I naturally observed him from time to time, and at one pa.s.sage light was thrown upon his idea of his duties as a monarch. The play was given finely, by the best American company of recent years, and he was deeply absorbed in it. But presently there came the words of King Henry--the noted pa.s.sage:

''And what have kings, that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony?

And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?''

Whereupon the Emperor and Empress, evidently moved by the same impression, turned their heads from the stage, looked significantly at each other, and his majesty very earnestly nodded to his wife several times, as if thoroughly a.s.senting.

The feeling thus betrayed was undoubtedly sincere. His real love was for science, literature, and art; but above all for science. Some years before, at the founding of Cornell University, Aga.s.siz had shown me private letters from him revealing his knowledge of natural history, and the same thirst for knowledge which he showed then was evident now. From dawn till dusk he was hard at work, visiting places of interest and asking questions which, as various eminent authorities both in the United States and France have since a.s.sured me, showed that he kept himself well abreast of the most recent scientific investigations.

On the following morning he invited me to call upon him, and on my doing so, he saluted me with a mult.i.tude of questions regarding our schools, colleges, and universities, which I answered as best I could, though many of them really merited more time than could be given during a morning interview. His manner was both impressive and winning. He had clearly thought much on educational problems, and no man engaged in educational work could fail to be stimulated by his questions and comments. In his manner there was nothing domineering or a.s.suming.

I saw him at various times afterward, and remember especially his kindly and perfectly democratic manner at a supper given by the late Mr. Drexel of Philadelphia, when he came among us, moving from group to group, recognizing here one old friend and there another, and discussing with each some matter of value.

Republican as I am, it is clear to me that his const.i.tutional sovereignty was a government far more free, liberal, and, indeed, republican, than the rule of the demagogue despots who afterward drove him from his throne ever has been or ever will be.

Another very interesting person was a Spanish officer, Don Juan Marin, who has since held high commands both in his own country and in the West Indies. We were upon the same jury, and I came to admire him much. One day, as we sat in our committee-room discussing various subjects brought before us, there appeared in the street leading to the main entrance of the grounds a large body of soldiers with loud drumming and fifing. On his asking what troops these were, I answered that they were the most noted of our American militia regiments--the New York Seventh; and on his expressing a wish to see them, we both walked out for that purpose. Presently the gates were thrown open, and in marched the regiment, trim and brisk, bearing aloft the flag of the United States and the standard of the State of New York.

At the moment when the standard and flag were abreast of us, Colonel Marin, who was in civil dress, drew himself up, removed his hat, and bowed low with simple dignity.

The great crowd, including myself, were impressed by this action. It had never occurred to any one of the rest of us to show such a tribute to the flag under which so many good and true men had fought and died for us; and, as one of the crowd very justly remarked afterward, ''The Spaniard cheapened the whole lot of us.'' With a single exception, it was the finest exhibition of manners I have ever seen.[11]

[11] See the chapter on my attachship in Russia.

Still another delegate was Professor Leva.s.seur, of the College of France and the French Inst.i.tute. His quickness in ascertaining what was of value in a politico-economical view, and his discussions of geographical matters, interested and instructed all who had to do with him.

With him was Rn Millet, an example of the most attractive qualities of a serious Frenchman--qualities which have since been recognized in his appointments as minister and amba.s.sador to Sweden and to Tunis. Both these gentlemen afterward made me visits at Cornell which I greatly enjoyed.

At this time, too, I made a friendship which became precious to me--that of Gardner Hubbard, one of the best, truest, and most capable men, in whatever he undertook, that I have ever seen. The matter which interested him then has since interested the world. His son-in-law Mr. Alexander Graham Bell, was exhibiting what appeared to be a toy,--a toy which on one occasion he showed to Dom Pedro and to others of us, and which enabled us to hear in one of the buildings of the exposition a violin played in another building. It was regarded as an interesting plaything, and nothing more. A controlling right in its use might have been bought for a very moderate sum--yet it was the beginning of the telephone!

In connection with these and other interesting men, I had devoted myself to the educational exhibits of the exposition; and the result was that, during the following year, I was appointed by the Governor of the State of New York one of two honorary commissioners to the Paris Exposition; the other being Mr. Morton, afterward Minister to France, Vice-President of the United States, and Governor of the State of New York.

I was not inclined, at first, to take my appointment very seriously, but went to Paris simply to visit the exposition, hoping that my honorary function would give me good opportunities. But on arriving I found the commissioner- general of the United States, Governor McCormick, hard pressed by his duties, and looking about for help. A large number of regular commissioners had been appointed, but very few of them were of the slightest use. Hardly one of them could speak French, and very few of them really took any interest in the duties a.s.signed them. The main exception, a very n.o.ble one, was my old friend President Barnard of Columbia College, and he had not yet arrived.

Under these circ.u.mstances, I yielded to the earnest request of Governor McCormick and threw myself heartily into the work of making our part of the exposition a success.

The American representation at the Vienna Exposition a few years before had resulted in a scandal which had resounded through Europe, and this scandal had arisen from the fact that a subordinate, who had gained the confidence of our excellent commissioner-general at that post, had been charged, and to all appearance justly, with receiving money for a.s.signing privileges to bar-keepers and caterers. The result was that the commissioner-general was cruelly wounded, and that finally he and his a.s.sociates were ignominiously removed, and the American minister to Austria put in his place until a new commission could be formed. Of course every newspaper in Europe hostile to republican ideas, and they were very many, made the most of this catastrophe. One of them in Vienna was especially virulent; it called attention to the model of an American school-house in the exposition, and said that ''it should be carefully observed as part of the machinery which trains up such mercenary wretches as have recently disgraced humanity at the exposition.''

To avoid scandals, to negotiate with the French commissioners on one side, and the crowd of exhibitors on the other, and especially to see that in all particulars the representatives of American industry were fully recognized, was a matter of much difficulty; but happily all turned out well.

Among the duties of my position was membership of the upper jury--that which, in behalf of the French Republic, awarded the highest prizes. Each day, at about nine in the morning, we met, and a remarkable body it was. At my right sat Meissonier, then the most eminent of French painters, and beyond him Quintana, the Spanish poet. Of the former of these two I possess a curious memento. He was very a.s.siduous in attendance at our sessions, and the moment he took his seat he always began drawing, his materials being the block of letter-paper and the pencils, pens, and ink lying before him. No matter what was under discussion, he kept on with his drawing. While he listened, and even while he talked, his pencil or pen continued moving over the paper. He seemed to bring every morning a ma.s.s of new impressions caught during his walk to the exposition, which he made haste to trans- fer to paper. Sometimes he used a pencil, sometimes, a quill pen, and not infrequently he would plunge the feather end of the quill into his inkstand and rapidly put into his work broader and blacker strokes. As soon as he had finished a drawing he generally tore it into bits and threw them upon the floor, but occasionally he would fold the sketches carefully and put them into his pocket.

This being the case, no one dared ask him for one of them.

But one morning his paper gave out, and for lack of it he took up a boxwood paper-knife lying near and began work on it. First he decorated the handle in a sort of rococo way, and then dashed off on the blade, with his pen, a very spirited head--a bourgeois physiognomy somewhat in Gavarni's manner. But as he could not tear the paper-knife into bits, and did not care to take it away, he left it upon the table. This was my chance. Immediately after the session I asked the director-general to allow me to carry it off as a souvenir; he a.s.sented heartily, and so I possess a picture which I saw begun, continued, and ended by one of the greatest of French painters.

At my left was Tresca, director of the French National Conservatory of Arts and Trades; and next him, the sphinx of the committee--the most silent man I ever saw the rector of the Portuguese University of Coimbra. During the three months of our session no one of us ever heard him utter a word. Opposite was Jules Simon, eminent as an orator, philosopher, scholar, and man of letters; an academician who had held positions in various cabinets, and had even been prime minister of the republic.

On one side of him was Tullo Ma.s.sarani, a senator of the Italian kingdom, eminent as a writer on the philosophy of art; on the other, Boussingault, one of the foremost chemists of the century; and near him, Wischniegradsky, director of the Imperial Technical Inst.i.tute at Moscow, whom I afterward came to know as minister of finance at St.

Petersburg. Each afternoon we devoted to examining the greater exhibits which were to come before us in compet.i.tion for the grands prix on the following morning.

At one of our sessions a curious difficulty arose. The committee on the award of these foremost prizes for advanced work in electricity brought in their report, and, to my amazement, made no award to my compatriot Edison, who was then at the height of his reputation. Presently Tresca, who read the report, and who really lamented the omission, whispered to me the reason of it. Through the negligence of persons representing Edison, no proper exhibition of his inventions had been made to the committee.

They had learned that his agent was employed in showing the phonograph in a distant hall on the boulevards to an audience who paid an admission fee; but, although they had tried two or three times to have his apparatus shown them, they had been unsuccessful, until at last, from a feeling of what was due their own self-respect, they pa.s.sed the matter over entirely. Of course my duty was to do what was possible in rectifying this omission, and in as good French as I could muster I made a speech in Edison's behalf, describing his career, outlining his work, and saying that I should really be ashamed to return to America without some recognition of him and of his inventions. This was listened to most courteously, but my success was insured by a remark of a less serious character, which was that if Edison had not yet made a sufficient number of inventions to ent.i.tle him to a grand prize, he would certainly, at the rate he was going on, have done so before the close of the exposition. At this there was a laugh, and my amendment was unanimously carried.

Many features in my work interested me, but one had a melancholy tinge. One afternoon, having been summoned to pa.s.s upon certain competing works in sculpture, we finally stood before the great bronze entrance- doors of the Cathedral of Strasburg, which, having been designed before the Franco-Prussian War, had but just been finished. They were very beautiful; but I could see that my French a.s.sociates felt deeply the changed situation of affairs which this exhibit brought to their minds.

In order to promote the social relations which go for so much at such times, I had taken the large apartment temporarily relinquished by our American minister, Governor Noyes of Ohio, in the Avenue Josephine; and there, at my own table, brought together from time to time a considerable number of noted men from various parts of Europe. Perhaps the most amusing occurrence during the series of dinners I then gave was the meeting between Story, the American sculptor at Rome, and Judge Brady of New York. For years each had been taken for the other, in various parts of the world, but they had never met.

In fact, so common was it for people to mistake one for the other that both had, as a rule, ceased to explain the mistake. I was myself present with Story on one occasion when a gentleman came up to him, saluted him as Judge Brady, and asked him about their friends in New York: Story took no trouble to undeceive his interlocutor, but remarked that, so far as he knew, they were all well, and ended the interview with commonplaces.

These two Dromios evidently enjoyed meeting, and nothing could be more amusing than their accounts of various instances in which each had been mistaken for the other. Each had a rich vein of humor, and both presented the details of these occurrences with especial zest.

Another American, of foreign birth, was not quite so charming. He was a man of value in his profession; but his desire for promotion outran his discretion. Having served as juror at the Vienna Exposition, he had now been appointed to a similar place in Paris; and after one of my dinners he came up to a group in which there were two or three members of the French cabinet, and said: ''Mr. Vite, I vish you vould joost dell dese zhentlemen vat I am doing vor Vrance. I vas on de dasting gommittee for vines und peers at Vien, and it 'most killed me; and now I am here doing de same duty, and my stomach has nearly gone pack on me. Tell dese zhentlemen dat de French Government zurely ought to gonfer ubon me de Legion of Honor.'' This was spoken with the utmost seriousness, and was embarra.s.sing, since, of all subjects, that which a French minister least wishes to discuss publicly is the conferring of the red ribbon.

Embarra.s.sing also was the jubilation of some of our American exhibitors at our celebration of the Fourth of July in the Bois de Boulogne. Doubtless they were excellent citizens, but never was there a better exemplification of Dr. Arnold's saying that ''a traveller is a self-const.i.tuted outlaw.'' A generous buffet had been provided, after the French fashion, with a sufficiency of viands and whatever wine was needed. To my amazement, these men, who at home were most of them, probably, steady-going ''temperance men,'' were so overcome with the idea that champagne was to be served ad libitum, that the whole thing came near degenerating into an orgy. A European of the same rank, accustomed to drinking wine moderately with his dinner, would have simply taken a gla.s.s or two and thought no more of it; but these gentlemen seemed to see in it the occasion of their lives. Bottles were seized and emptied, gla.s.s after gla.s.s, down the throats of my impulsive fellow-citizens: in many cases a bottle and more to a man. Then came the worst of it.

It had been arranged that speeches should be made under a neighboring tent by leading members of the French cabinet who had accepted invitations to address us. But when they proceeded to do this difficulties arose. A number of our compatriots, unduly exhilarated, and understanding little that was said, first applauded on general principles, but at the wrong places, and finally broke out into apostrophes such as ''Speak English, old boy!''

''Talk Yankee fashion!'' ''Remember the glorious Fourth!'' ''Give it to the British!'' ''Make the eagle scream!'' and the like. The result was that we were obliged to make most earnest appeals to these gentlemen, begging them not to disgrace our country; and, finally, the proceedings were cut short.

Nor was this the end. As I came down the Champs lyses afterward, I met several groups of these patriots, who showed by their walk and conversation that they were decidedly the worse for their celebration of the day; and the whole thing led me to reflect seriously on the drink problem, and to ask whether our American solution of it is the best. I have been present at many large festive a.s.semblages, in various parts of Europe, where wine was offered freely as a matter of course; but never have I seen anything to approach this performance of my countrymen. I have been one of four thousand people at the Htel de Ville in Paris on the occasion of a great ball, at other entertainments almost as large in other Continental countries, and at dinner parties innumerable in every European country; but never, save in one instance, were the festivities disturbed by any man on account of drink.

The most eminent of American temperance advocates during my young manhood, Mr. Delavan, insisted that he found Italy, where all people, men, women, and children, drink wine with their meals, if they can get it, the most temperate country he had ever seen; and, having made more than twelve different sojourns in Italy, I can confirm that opinion.

So, too, again and again, when traveling in the old days on the top of a diligence through village after village in France, where the people were commemorating the patron saint of their district, I have pa.s.sed through crowds of men, women, and children seated by the roadside drinking wine, cider, and beer, and, so far as one could see, there was no drunkenness; certainly none of the squalid, brutal, swinish sort. It may indeed be said that, in spite of light stimulants, drunkenness has of late years increased in France, especially among artisans and day laborers. If this be so, it comes to strengthen my view. For the main reason will doubtless be found in the increased prices of light wines, due to vine diseases and the like, which have driven the poorer cla.s.ses to seek far more noxious beverages.

So, too, in Germany. Like every resident in that country, I have seen great crowds drinking much beer, and, though I greatly dislike that sort of guzzling, I never saw anything of the beastly, crazy, drunken exhibitions which are so common on Independence Day and county- fair day in many American towns where total abstinence is loudly preached and ostensibly practised. Least of all do I admire the beer-swilling propensities of the German students, and still I must confess that I have never seen anything so wild, wicked, outrageous, and destructive to soul and body as the drinking of distilled liquors at bars which, in my student days, I saw among American students.

But I make haste to say that within the last twenty or thirty years American students have improved immensely in this respect. Athletics and greater interest in study, caused by the subst.i.tution of the students' own aims and tastes for the old cast-iron curriculum, are doubtless the main reasons for this improvement.[12]

[12] Further reasons for this improvement I have endeavored to give more in detail elsewhere.