Fifty Years of Public Service Part 10

He was a leading candidate at the Cincinnati Convention, when Hayes was nominated. I was there and heard Ingersoll's great speech placing him in nomination. I have always felt that Blaine would have been nominated by that convention if a strong, courageous presiding officer had been in the chair. As I sat behind Mr.

McPherson, the presiding officer, and watched the proceedings, I thought that if I had had that gavel in my hands there would have been no adjournment and James G. Blaine would have been nominated.

An adjournment was secured, however; the lights were extinguished, and the enemies of Blaine united, and Hayes became the nominee.

But at the convention held in Chicago, in 1884, no other candidate was seriously considered, and Blaine was nominated for President and Logan for Vice-President.

I had to do much in connection with Blaine in the campaign of 1884.

He was a very agreeable man so long as things went to suit him; but he did not attempt to control himself when things went at all against him. He was campaigning through Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, in 1884; I had been on the platform with him at Ma.s.sillon, Ohio, when the people would scarcely listen to any one except Mr. McKinley.

It was arranged that Blaine should come from La Fayette, Indiana, to Springfield, Illinois. I was chairman of the delegation consisting of one hundred of the most prominent men of the State, selected to accompany him to Springfield. The delegation went to La Fayette, and the Adjutant-General of the State and I waited on Mr. Blaine at the residence of Mr. George Williams, who is still living and whom I have always known intimately. Mr. Blaine's son came down in response to our call, announcing that his father had retired, ill, and would not be disturbed until eight o'clock in the morning.

At the hour appointed we still had difficulty in seeing him, and finally I enlisted the a.s.sistance of Mr. McKinley, who was there, and the Hon. Joseph Medill of _The Chicago Tribune_, to help me to prevail upon Blaine to keep his engagement. He had come to the conclusion that he ought to go back East; that he was needed there more than he was in the West. The truth was that he was trying to evade the Springfield engagement. I told him that there would be no less than a hundred thousand people from all parts of the State gathered at Springfield to see him, and it would not do to disappoint so vast a crowd. He finally consented to go, but was very ungracious about it, telling us not to disturb him during the trip from La Fayette to Springfield, and at once retired to his drawing-room.

We soon came to a city in Indiana where there was a large crowd to greet him, and following his orders, the train did not stop. He emerged from his drawing-room very angry because the train had not been stopped when a crowd was waiting to hear him. Afterwards we halted at almost every station on the line to Springfield, where we did not arrive until almost dusk. Probably a hundred thousand people had been gathered there during the day, and at least fifty thousand waited until we arrived; but it was so dark that the audience could scarcely see the speaker. He left for Chicago that night, hurrying through that city; hence to Wisconsin, I believe, making enemies rather than friends. He had gained the election by his Western tour, but lost it during his stay in New York City.

"Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion," the Delmonico dinner, the old row with Conkling beginning in the Thirty-ninth Congress, caused his defeat. I told him afterwards that if he had broken his leg in Springfield and been compelled to remain as my guest there, he would have been elected. He agreed with me that he would.

Notwithstanding his defeat, however, he continued as one of the foremost leaders of the Republican party up to the time of his death. He might have been nominated at the Chicago Convention, when Mr. Harrison received the nomination the first time had he not retired to Europe, apparently so disgusted at his own defeat four years before that he had not the heart to make the race again.

I do not think Harrison ever did like Blaine, but he invited him to become the Premier of his cabinet, a position which Mr. Blaine had held for a few months under General Garfield. Harrison and Blaine never got along. As I say elsewhere in these recollections, Harrison seemed jealous of Blaine, and Blaine was not true to his chief. Mr. Blaine sent for me one evening, and I called at his house. He related to me with considerable feeling how the President had treated both his family and himself. He urged me to become a candidate for President, but I told him that I would not think of doing so. I afterwards supported Mr. Harrison for reasons personal to myself, and not because I was particularly fond of Mr. Harrison.

James G. Blaine retired to private life and died soon afterwards, a broken, disappointed man. He was one of the greatest men of his day, and was the most brilliant and probably the most popular man with the ma.s.ses in the history of the Republican party.

Rutherford B. Hayes was the nineteenth President of the United States, and preceded General Garfield in that office. He was neither as great a man nor as great an orator as General Garfield, although he was a much better executive officer, and in my opinion gave a better administration than General Garfield would have given had he served the term for which he was elected. Rutherford B.

Hayes was an inconspicuous member of the House, as I recollect him now. He was what I would term a very good, conscientious man, who never made any enemies; but I do not think that any one would say that he was a great man. He did not talk very much in the House, nor accomplish very much. I became quite friendly with him there.

Subsequently he was nominated for Governor of Ohio, and he invited me to come to the State and campaign for him, which I did.

Thurman was his opponent, a very strong and able man, who subsequently became a Senator from Ohio, and was a nominee of the Democratic party for Vice-President. But Hayes defeated him for the Governorship, and was once re-elected. He was nominated for President at the Cincinnati Convention of 1876, when Blaine really should have been the nominee, and would have been had the permanent chairman of the convention, Edward McPherson, grasped the situation and held it with a firm hand.

McPherson, while a man of good intentions, earnest and sincere, was Clerk of the House for many years and had occupied what might be termed a subordinate position. The fact of the matter is that he permitted the convention to get away from him; an adjournment was secured, and the same night it was framed up to beat Blaine by nominating Hayes.

Hayes was just the kind of man for a compromise candidate. He was seriously handicapped all through his administration owing to the manner in which he secured the office. The Electoral Commission, an unheard-of thing, created by act of Congress, by eight to seven declared that Hayes was elected over Tilden. Very many people were of the opinion that Tilden was ent.i.tled to the office. The Electoral Commission never would have been agreed to by the Democrats had they known that Judge David Davis, of our own State, would retire from the Bench to take a place in the Senate; and it is almost certain that had Judge Davis remained on the bench he would have been a member of the Electoral Commission, and would have surely voted in favor of Tilden, which would have made him President.

While Hayes was President the "green-back craze" seemed to almost take possession of the country. I delivered an address at Rockford, Illinois, before an agricultural society, taking issue to some extent with the public sentiment of the country, and favoring sound money. The President was going through the country at that time on a speaking tour, and in the course of some of his addresses he commended what I had said. He, accompanied by General Sherman, visited Springfield, and I entertained them at the Executive Mansion.

President Hayes, himself realizing the embarra.s.sment under which he entered the office of President, was not a candidate for renomination, and very wisely so. But as I have said, President Hayes was a good man; he made a very commendable record as President of the United States, and he was specially fortunate in the selection of his cabinet, showing rare discrimination in selecting some of the ablest men in the country as his advisers. Evarts was his Secretary of State, and John Sherman Secretary of the Treasury.

It is a rather peculiar coincidence that both James A. Garfield and R. B. Hayes were members of the Ohio delegation in the Thirty- ninth Congress, and both afterwards arrived at the Presidency.

James A. Garfield was a man of extraordinary ability. I was very intimate with him during our service in the House. He was an extremely likable man; I became very fond of him, and I believe the feeling was reciprocated. Also he was distinguished for his eloquence, and I have heard him make some of the most wonderfully stirring and impressive speeches in the House. He was probably not the orator that Robert G. Ingersoll was, but I should say that he was one of the most effective public speakers of his period; his speeches were deeper and more serious, uttered in a graver style than the beautiful poetic imagery of the great agnostic.

President Lincoln liked Garfield, and he was one of the younger men in the House who always supported the President, and on whom the President relied. He entered the Thirty-eighth Congress and served many terms. He enjoyed the peculiar distinction of being a member of Congress from Ohio, Senator-elect from Ohio, and President-elect of the United States, all at the same time.

I attended the National Republican Convention of 1880, in which Grant and Blaine were the leading candidates. I was at the time Governor of Illinois and a candidate for re-election myself; consequently I could not take any active part in the contest between Blaine and Grant, but of course, naturally, my sympathies were with General Grant.

I was not a delegate to the National Convention, but I attended it, and it so happened that I occupied a room directly opposite that occupied by General Garfield.

One evening, leaving my room, I met General Garfield just as he was leaving his, and we dropped into general conversation and walked along together.

I have always been considered a pretty fair judge of a political situation in State and National conventions, and it struck me as soon as Garfield had completed one of the most eloquent of all his eloquent addresses, placing in nomination Mr. Sherman, that he was the logical candidate before that convention.

To digress for a moment, it is a peculiar coincidence that McKinley made his great reputation, in part, by nominating Mr. Sherman as a candidate for the Presidency in the Minneapolis convention of 1892. Like General Garfield in 1880, Mr. McKinley was perfectly willing to receive the nomination himself, although he was then, as Garfield was in 1880, the leader of the Sherman forces.

But to return. General Garfield and I walked down the hall together, and being very intimate friends, I used to call him by his first name, as he did me. I said: "James, if you will keep a level head, you will be nominated for the Presidency by this convention before it is over." This was a couple of days before he was actually nominated.

He replied: "No, I think not."

But as we walked along together discussing the matter, I contended that I was right.

At the end of that memorable struggle between Grant and Blaine, in which the great Republican party refused to accept General Grant, the foremost Republican and soldier of his time, Garfield was nominated.

I remember vividly the form and features of Garfield in that convention. I see him placing Sherman in nomination, probably not realizing at the time that he was nominating himself. I see him taking an active part in all the debates, and as I look back now I do not think I ever saw a man apparently so affected as General Garfield was when it was announced that he was the nominee of the Republican party for the Presidency of the United States. Seemingly he almost utterly collapsed. He sank into his seat, overcome. He was taken out of the convention and to a room in the Grand Pacific, where I met him a very few minutes afterward.

After General Garfield was elected to the Presidency, but before his inauguration, I determined that I would urge upon him the appointment of Mr. Robert T. Lincoln as a member of his cabinet.

I thought then that his selection would not only be an honor to the State, but that the great name of Lincoln, so fresh then in the minds of the people, would materially strengthen General Garfield's administration.

With this purpose in view, I visited Garfield at his home in Mentor.

This journey was an extremely difficult one, owing to the circ.u.mstance that the snow was yet deep on the ground; so I arranged with the conductor to stop at the nearest point to General Garfield's house to let me off, which he did. I walked from the train through banks of snow, and after the hardest kind of a walk, finally reached his house.

I at once told him the mission on which I had come. We had quite a long talk, at the end of which he announced that he would appoint Mr. Lincoln his Secretary of War.

In this connection I desire to say a few words concerning Robert T. Lincoln. He is still living. I have known him from boyhood.

He has the integrity and the character which so distinguished his father, and was marked in his mother's people as well. It is my firm conviction that long ago Robert T. Lincoln could have been President of the United States had he possessed the slightest political aspiration. He has never been ambitious for public office; but, on the contrary, it has always seemed to me that the Presidency was especially repugnant to him, which would be natural, considering the untimely death of his father, if for no other reason. He was almost forced to take an active interest in public affairs, but as soon as he was permitted to do so he retired to private life to engage in large business undertakings, and finally to become the head of the Pullman Company.

It seems strange to me that he should consider the presidency of a private corporation, no matter how great the emoluments, above the Presidency of the greatest of all Republics. How unlike his father! He was a most excellent Secretary of War, and one of General Garfield's cabinet officers whom General Arthur invited to remain in his cabinet, which he did.

Under President Harrison he consented to become Minister to England.

Neither my colleague, Senator Farwell, nor I favored this appointment --not because of any antipathy for Mr. Lincoln, for whom I not only have the highest respect and admiration, but like personally as well; but Mr. Blaine, who was Harrison's Secretary of State, called on me one day and asked me to recommend some first-cla.s.s man from Illinois for the post. After a consultation with my colleague, we determined to recommend an eminent lawyer and cultured gentleman of Chicago, John N. Jewett. We did recommend him, and a.s.sumed that his appointment was a.s.sured; but Harrison--probably to humiliate Mr. Blaine--called Senator Farwell and me to him one day and announced that he had determined to appoint Robert T. Lincoln Minister to England.

Farwell was extremely angry, and wanted to fight the nomination.

However, I counselled moderation. I pointed out that no criticism could be made of Mr. Lincoln, and that since he was my personal friend I could not very well oppose him. So I was glad to favor the appointment, although I was as humiliated as my colleague at the cool manner with which Harrison had snubbed us after Mr. Blaine's overtures.

I recollect very well the telegram which Mr. Lincoln received when he was in Springfield, attending the business of the Pullman Company.

It was from his office in Chicago. It stated that there was a letter there that demanded immediate attention, and asked whether it should be forwarded. He gave instructions to forward it to Springfield. It turned out to be the invitation of General Garfield to enter his cabinet as Secretary of War, and asking an immediate reply. He brought it to me in the Governor's office, where he sat down and wrote his reply accepting General Garfield's invitation.

But to return to General Garfield. He was not a strong executive officer. In the brief period in which he occupied the White House, he did not make a good President, and in my judgment would never have made a good one. He vacillated in the disposition of his patronage. When I visited him while he was yet President-elect, he told me that Mr. Conkling would be with him the next day, and asked my advice as to what he should say to him. It was understood that Conkling was coming to protest against the appointment of Blaine as Secretary of State. My advice was to let Mr. Conkling understand that he would appoint whomsoever he pleased as members of his cabinet; that he would run the office of President without fear or favor; and that he would appoint Mr. Blaine as Secretary of State because he considered him the very man best qualified for that high office. Garfield agreed with me, a.s.serting that I had expressed exactly what he intended saying to Conkling; but if we are believe the stories of Senator Conkling's friends, he made far different promises to Senator Conkling in reference to this as also to other appointments.

But the culmination of the trouble between Garfield and Conkling was the appointment of Robertson as Collector of Customs at the Port of New York. The President took the ground, for his own reasons, that the Collector of Customs of New York was a National office, in which every State had an interest, and was not to be considered as Senatorial patronage. Conkling strenuously contended that it was exclusively Senatorial patronage, and in this he was sustained by precedents.

It so happened that I was in Washington when the trouble between Conkling and Garfield was at its height, over the appointment of Robertson. I called to see the President to pay my respects. He asked me if I knew what General Logan would do in reference to the nomination of Mr. Robertson. I told him I did not know, and he asked me if I could find out, and to come to breakfast with him next morning. I did find out that General Logan expected to stand by the President, and I so reported to him next morning.

I bade him good-bye and this was the last time that I ever saw him alive. I attended his funeral at Cleveland, and as I saw his body laid away, I thought of the strange caprice of fate. Was it premonition that made him so sad and castdown--so utterly crushed, as it seemed to me--when he became the Republican candidate for President before that great convention of 1880? Had he not been elected President, he would probably have enjoyed a long, useful, and highly creditable public career. He would have been one of the most distinguished representatives that Ohio ever had in the upper branch of Congress. He was to the most eminent degree fitted for a legislator. In the national halls of Congress his public life had been spent; there he was at home. He was not at all fitted for the position of Chief Executive of the United States. And I say this not in a spirit of hostility, but in the most kindly way, because I loved General Garfield as one of my earliest friends, in those days of long ago, when I served in the Thirty-ninth Congress.

There was no man in the Thirty-ninth Congress with whom I was afterwards so long and intimately a.s.sociated as I was with the late Senator William B. Allison of Iowa, with whom I served in the Senate for a quarter of a century.

Senator Allison was quite a prominent member of the House when I entered Congress, and was serving then as a member of the important Ways and Means Committee. He was regarded as one of the ablest and most influential of the Western members.

From the very earliest time I knew him, Senator Allison was an authority on matters pertaining to finance. While he was in favor of a protective tariff, he was not particularly a high-tariff advocate; he, and the late General Logan who was then in the House, and I worked together on tariff matters, as against the high-tariff advocates, led by General Schenck.

On one occasion we defeated a high-tariff proposition that General Schenck was advocating. He was furious, and rising up in his place, declared:

"I might as well move to lay the bill on the table and to write as its epitaph--'nibbled to death by pismires!'"