Fifty Years of Public Service Part 37

"Hotel Ponce de Leon, "St. Augustine, Fla., "_March 13, 1888_.

"Hon. S. M. Cullom,

"My dear Sir:--

"I have just received your favor of 9 inst. and confess that I am taken a little by surprise. I had got the impression from various quarters that you did not desire to secure the Illinois delegation, and did not want to be considered a candidate. Acting on this idea _The Tribune_ has been leaning towards Gresham as an available candidate, as you have noticed. However, you have lost no ground by standing in the shade. If I was managing your boom I would keep your name in the background and out of the newspapers as a candidate seeking the nomination until the last. A few strong judicious friends among the Illinois delegation is all you want to watch events and move quickly at the opportune moment, if it arrives.

I should say that on general principles you would be the second choice of any set of Illinois delegates and the chances are all in the direction of some second-choice candidate. Harrison is likely to have a pledged delegation from Indiana, but what good will it do him? Logan had a pledged delegation from Illinois; Sherman, from Ohio; Windom, from Minn.; and Hawley, from Conn. The convention will be largely chiefly actuated and governed by the stability idea. Personal friendship won't count for much in that search for the most available candidate. This you see as clearly as I do.

Whatever Western man the New York delegates (or a majority of them) favor will stand a good chance of getting it. It is almost impossible to figure out a victory without the electoral vote of New York.

Indiana and Connecticut would be absolutely indispensable in the absence of New York. But even then we have doubtful States that voted for Blaine. Michigan, for instance, and the three Pacific Coast States, in case any such man as Sherman, Harrison, or Hawley, who voted against restricting Chinese immigration, should be nominated. And then it remains to be seen what sort of action will be had in Congress on tariff reduction. If we are obliged to go before the people defending the present tariff, that is breeding trust monopolies all over the country, a nomination will not be worth having. High protection is a nice thing for those who pocket it, but not so fascinating to the unprotected cla.s.ses who have to pay the big bounties out of their pockets sold at free trade prices.

All those things must be taken into consideration. I am about leaving Florida for home, either via Atlantic or Washington. If the latter, I shall see you when I get there, when we can talk over the whole matter more fully than on paper. All I can really say is, I am peering about in the dark for the strongest candidate, the most available man on an available platform, and even then we shall have desperate hard work to win in the face of the immense losses our party is suffering from the ravages in the rank and file, committed by the prohibitionists. We shall have to face a loss of fifty thousand in New York. How is that to be made good?

and twenty-five to thirty thousand in Illinois and five to seven thousand in Indiana, and thirty thousand in Michigan. How can we stand this loss of blood and men?

"(Signed) J. Medill."

"Niagara Falls, N. Y., "_Aug. 5, 1888_.

"My dear Sir:--

"Searching for a cool place I found it here, where I shall remain a few days and then proceed to Kaetershill Mountain top, which is the best hot-weather place I found last year.

"I take it for granted that none of your friends keep you posted about the secret negotiations going on between Palmer and the Socialistic Labor element for a fusion. You have seen by _The Tribune_ that all the labor element is not disposed to support Palmer, in consideration of his pardoning the imprisoned anarchists.

You may rely on _The Tribune_ ventilating this unholy alliance.

At the same time there are ten thousand to twelve thousand of these socialists who will vote for Palmer and the Democratic ticket in Cook County; and this fusion may with the aid of the prohibitionists cost the Republicans second seats in the Legislature, which is the phase of the matter in which you are specially interested. There is considerable coldness among the Irish Catholics toward Cleveland, but whether it will continue until election night remains to be seen. They think he is too pro-English, but they dislike Harrison.

Blaine was their ideal.

"I have spent a good deal of spare time to point out flaws and tricks in the sugar and whiskey sections of the Mills bill. The latter really opens and invites universal evasion of taxes and the multiplication of small moonshine distilleries; and the former perpetuates the sugar trust profits and affords the public no relief.

"The Republican members of the House did not expose these defects enough. Cannon did well on sugar, but n.o.body dissected the whiskey section which bored gimlet holes into the bottom of every barrel of high wine to let it out without paying a cent of tax. The Democrats are therefore the real free whiskeyites. This ought to be shown up thoroughly in the Senate. Our miserable platform places us on the defensive. The Mills bill places the Democrats on the defensive if it is rightly handled. I do not mean attacking the free wool part of it, for that portion if enacted would do your const.i.tuents certainly ten or twenty times more good than harm, nor the free lumber or free salt or free soap, etc., etc., which would benefit all Illinois; but I mean fraud free sugar, and fraud free whiskey, and a hundred per cent tax on rice--these are the things to hit. On these the Democrats are placed with their noses on the grindstone.

"I have been reading the discussion in the Senate over your resolution in regard to the compet.i.tion of the Canadian railways with our transcontinental railway freight charges. It is well enough perhaps to inquire into the matter, but I have a notion that the sharp compet.i.tion is of great benefit to the ma.s.ses. I know that I am a little heterodox in looking at the interest of the consumers instead of railroad plutocrats, of the millions instead of the millionaires, but I can't help it. Senator Gorman had much to say in his speech about the undue advantage the Canadian roads had over ours by reason of Government subsidies received in constructing the Canadian railways, and to a line of steamers from Victoria to j.a.pan and Hongkong. But his memory failed in the most astonishing manner to recall and perceive the fact that all the American roads west of the Mississippi to the Pacific have been enormously subsidized by our Government. In fact the subsidies amount to a good deal more than the actual total cost of the construction of the whole of them. For twenty years some of these roads have been plundering the American people by the most outrageous charges, and Congress, the people's representatives, have not lifted a finger to stop the rapacious robbery. And now, when the Canadian road, built by Government subsidies, begins to compete with the American roads built with Government subsidies, the latter who have pocketed hundreds of millions of subsidy spoils and overcharge plunder, appeal to the Senate to protect the scoundrels against a little healthy compet.i.tion, and Senator Gorman pleads for the robbers on the floor of the Senate with tears in his eyes! So whatever extent the competing Canadian roads cause our contiguous roads to lower their freights so much the better for the public. They act just the same as competing waterways. The Grand Trunk, beginning at Chicago and running through Michigan to Sarma; crossing at Niagara Falls and feeding the Lackawanna and Erie to New York; running to Boston through Vermont, etc., and also to Montreal; and the Alden line of steamers carrying cattle to England, as a healthy compet.i.tion with our pooling trunk lines east from Chicago, is of enormous value to Chicago and all the shippers, cattle-dealers, grain-raises, farmers, and merchants of half a dozen States in the Northwest.

Any interference with its compet.i.tive activity will harm millions of Western people, tending as it will to increase cost of transportation and re-establish trunk line pooling monopoly.

"So the compet.i.tion of the Canadian transcontinental at the Red River and at the '500' ensures cheaper freights for all Minnesota and Dakota, and the effect extends clear down into Nebraska and Iowa. So, too, the Canadian road's rates at its Pacific terminal --Victoria--are exercising a most beneficent and ameliorating influence on the charges of the enormously subsidized Northern Pacific, forcing down to a reasonable rate Pacific Coast; and as it climbs down from its extortionate schedule of charges the Union and Central and Southern and Santa Fe Pacifics will be forced to do likewise. I'd give something handsome to have had the opportunity to reply for thirty minutes to Senator Gorman, to present the other side of the question from the American standpoint. On one point I am in agreement with you, viz.: that the British flag should be removed from this continent. This territory along our northern border should be incorporated into the American Union. It is ridiculous that Uncle Sam should allow a foreign power to hold it.

We have as much need for it and right to it as England has for Scotland. If we had a respectable navy and a supply of fortification guns the problem would be easy of solution, and won't be until then.

"Each day convinces me more and stronger that if we lose this election McKinley--will be the cause. They make the party say in its platform 'Rather than surrender any part of our protective system, the whiskey, tobacco, and oleomargarine excises shall be repealed.' The Democrats are making much capital out of this.

The tax on lumber and on salt are parts of our 'protective system.'

Now the Mc. plank discloses that rather than reduce the tax on lumber, the Rep. party will repeal the tax on oleo b.u.t.ter. How many farmers' votes will that give us? Rather than allow any lowering of the high taxes on clothes, or salt, or lumber or crockery, etc., the tax on whiskey must be repealed, and the old evil era of cheap rotgut and still-houses everywhere shall be restored! Do you really think that position will make votes for us this fall among the farmers? The final outcome will probably turn on the character of the Senate bill, of which I am not sanguine.

About two thousand millionaires run the policies of the Rep. party and make its tariffs. What modifications will they permit the Rep.

Senators to support? We other thirty million of Republicans will have precious little voice in the matter. Turn this over in your mind, and you will see that I am right. Whatever duties protect the two thousand plutocrats is protection to American industries.

Whatever don't is free trade.

"(Signed) J. Medill."

"The Windsor, N. Y., "_Nov. 25, 1890_.

"Senator Cullom.

"Dear Sir:

"I did not think the blow would be a cyclone when I saw you just before the election. I knew that a storm was coming, but did not dream that its severity would be so dreadful.

"The thing to do this Winter is to repeal the McKinley bill, and strengthen the reciprocity scheme by giving Blaine the sugar duties to work on--freeing no sugar before reciprocal equivalents are secured from respective cane-sugar tropical countries; or (2) fail to pa.s.s the chief appropriation bills, so that an extra session of the Dem. Congress would be called, and that party must deal with the tariff and be responsible for their action or failure to act; or (3) pa.s.s the apn. bills; adjourn; next year, have the Senate defeat the Dem. tariff bill, or the President veto it, and go before the people in 1892 on the issue of standing by the McKinley bill till overwhelmed and wiped out in Nov. of that year, as the Whigs were in '52 when standing by the Forsythe-Stone Law of Fillmore and Clay.

"The last course I presume is the one that will be pursued. When men who are statesmen of the Quay-Reid-McKinley calibre start in wrong their pride keeps them in the same downward path till they tumble the whole outfit into the bottomless pit.

"I do not consider a Presidential nomination for any man worth a nickel on the issue of standing by the McKinley bill. The fate of Gen. Scott in '52 surely awaits him.

"Either of the other mentioned courses might give our party a fighting chance. But it won't get it, if the perverse members who have landed us in the ditch have their way.

"Read the suggestions from the article in _The N. Y. Times_ for Republicans.

"Yours truly, "(Signed) J. Medill."

I was elected to the Senate, the fourth time, in January, 1901.

This time I had a very serious contest. More opposition had developed, and there were more strong men against me, than at any previous election. This was largely the outgrowth of the opposition of the late Governor Tanner, who had just completed his term as Governor of Illinois, and who had announced he would not be a candidate for renomination, but would be a candidate to succeed me. I believe it was mainly through the efforts of Governor Tanner and his friends that the Hon. Robert R. Hitt, the Hon. Joseph G.

Cannon, and the Hon. George W. Prince were induced to become candidates, in the hope of weakening me in their respective districts.

I do not believe that either Mr. Hitt or Mr. Cannon was a party to any particular scheme to defeat me. They were candidates in good faith, and aspired to the office of United States Senator, but neither of them had any desire to defeat me unless he could get the office himself.

The campaign continued for a year or more. My friends were active, as were the friends of Governor Tanner. He had a horde of office- holders whom he had given places while Governor, who had been more or less actively working for him as my successor almost from the very time that the Governor entered that office. The bitter personal attacks made on me by the Governor and his friends did not help him, but tended rather to help me.

The preliminary contest was in the State Convention held at Peoria in 1900. There were a number of candidates for Governor before that convention. The Hon. Walter Reeves, the Hon. O. H. Carter, and Judge Elbridge Hanecy were the leading aspirants. My friends had insisted that I should be endorsed for re-election by the State Convention, and my friends controlled the organization of the convention and elected the Hon. Charles G. Dawes temporary chairman and the Hon. Joseph W. Fifer permanent chairman.

Governor Fifer has always been my friend, as I have always been his. He was a brave, gallant soldier in the Civil War, in which he served as a private until he was so badly wounded that his life was despaired of. He has been forced to go through life under exceptionally difficult circ.u.mstances, never fully recovering from his wound. He is ent.i.tled to far more than ordinary credit for the success which he achieved in life. He is an able lawyer, and as State's Attorney he was one of the most vigorous of prosecutors.

He was nominated and elected Governor, and gave the State an honest and capable administration. He was renominated, but local questions in the State, combined with the Democratic landslide of 1892, resulted in his defeat. President McKinley, on my recommendation, appointed Governor Fifer a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission, in which position he served with credit for some years.

He resigned voluntarily and returned to his home in Bloomington to resume the practice of law. I have always liked Governor Fifer, and consider him one of the foremost citizens of the State living to-day.

Returning to the Peoria Convention, over which Governor Fifer presided, I will only say that Mr. Reeves had the votes in that convention to be nominated; but for reasons I do not have to discuss, he did not secure the nomination, and the Hon. Richard Yates became the nominee. I was endorsed by the convention as the candidate of the Republican party to succeed myself as United States Senator.

The opposition to me in the convention was by Governor Tanner and his friends, he being the only avowed candidate against me. I thought that the endors.e.m.e.nt of that convention should have settled the matter; but the contest went on, and Messrs. Hitt, Cannon, and Prince entered it actively. Several others were standing around waiting for a chance, and this continued to be the situation until the Legislature met in January. A sufficient number of the members of the Legislature to elect me had pledged themselves in writing to stand by me as long as I was a candidate. The other candidates, probably aside from Governor Tanner, did not believe I had these written pledges. I told them so, but they did not believe me.

Governor Tanner and his friends realized that I would have a majority of the caucus, and they then began scheming for the purpose of having a secret ballot in the caucus, hoping that if certain members who had been pledged to me would not have to vote openly, they would go back on the pledges and vote secretly for one of the other candidates, thus defeating me. I had enough votes to defeat the secret ballot proposition, as many of the supporters of Tanner were really in favor of my re-election. Hon. Fred A. Busse, one of the most influential members of the State Senate at that time, and more recently Mayor of Chicago--one of the best the city ever had--and who has long been my personal friend, was pledged to vote for the Governor, but at heart was strongly for me. With many others, Busse would not consent to a secret caucus, and this really ended the contest. Tanner, after trying to induce the other candidates to unite on him, or on some one else to defeat me (which proposition Mr. Cannon and Mr. Hitt rejected), announced that he would withdraw.

Friends of the Governor in the Legislature came to me and announced that Tanner had quit the race, and later Mr. Cannon and Mr. Hitt came to my room and announced their withdrawal.

This ended the contest; my name was the only one presented to the caucus, and I was the only Republican voted for in the joint session of the Legislature. It was an interesting fight, and as it may well be supposed, the result was very satisfactory to my friends and to me.

When I returned to Washington after having been re-elected, I was warmly greeted by my colleagues in the Senate who had been watching the contest; and I recollect that Senator Hanna was particularly warm in his congratulations, and remarked that it was the prettiest political fight he had witnessed in a long time.

I want to say something in reference to the Hon. Joseph G. Cannon, who was a candidate against me at this time, and who is now, as he has been for years past, the leading member of the Illinois delegation.

I regard him as my personal friend, and was very glad indeed to support his candidacy for the Presidency in 1908, I being chairman of the Illinois delegation to the Chicago convention that year.

At the time he entered the contest against me, he had long been one of the leaders of the House of Representatives in Congress.

After refusing to enter the scheme of Governor Tanner to defeat me, as I have stated, he retired from the contest, was soon re- elected to Congress, and almost immediately elected as Speaker, in which position he continued for a larger number of consecutive terms than any statesman in our history. He is a strong, courageous man, and a man of splendid ability. He had rather a stormy career as Speaker, but he controlled the situation all the time. During his last term as Speaker he might have gotten along with the House a little more smoothly, and at the same time just as satisfactorily to himself, if he had yielded a little to his colleagues in his party who differed from him. If he had been disposed to do so, much friction could have been avoided, and at the same time he would have had his own way in caring for the interests of the country. I have believed in him and have stood by him through thick and thin, and I know he has done nothing but what he himself believed right.

Joseph G. Cannon has his own notions of what is right and what is wrong, and fearlessly follows what he thinks is right, without reference to what anybody else may think or say. The apparently determined effort on the part of the ma.s.ses of the people, and especially the newspapers, to discredit the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Bill resulted in the Democrats carrying the House in the campaign of 1910 with the result that in the Sixty-second Congress the Democratic party has a substantial majority, causing the retirement of Mr. Cannon from the Speakership.