My Memories of Eighty Years Part 14

Roosevelt was a marvel of many-sidedness. Besides being an executive as governor of a great State and administrator as civil-service commissioner and police commissioner of New York, he was an author of popular books and a field naturalist of rare acquirements. He was also a wonderful athlete. I often had occasion to see him upon urgent matters, and was summoned to his gymnasium, where he was having a boxing match with a well-known pugilist, and getting the better of his antagonist, or else launching at his fencing master. The athletics would cease, to be resumed as soon as he had in his quick and direct way disposed of what I presented.

Horseback riding was a favorite exercise with him, and his experience on his Western ranch and in the army had made him one of the best riders in the world. The foreign diplomats in Washington, with their education that their first duty was to be in close touch with the chief magistrate, whether czar, queen, king, or president, found their training unequal to keeping close to President Roosevelt, except one, and he told me with great pleasure that though a poor rider he joined the president in his horseback morning excursions.

Sometimes, he said, when they came to a very steep, high, and rough hill the president would shout, "Let us climb to the top,"

and the diplomat would struggle over the stones, the underbrush and gullies, and return to his horse with torn garments after sliding down the hill. At another time, when on the banks of the Potomac, where the waters were raging rapids the president said, "We will go to that island in the middle of the river," and immediately plunge in. The diplomat followed and reached the island after wading and swimming, and with great difficulty returned with sufficient strength to reach home. He had an attack of pneumonia from this unusual exposure, but thereafter was the envy and admiration of his colleagues and increased the confidence of his own government by this intimacy with the president.

The president's dinners and luncheons were unique because of his universal acquaintance with literary and scientific people. There were generally some of them present. His infectious enthusiasm and hearty cordiality drew out the best points of each guest.

I was present at a large dinner one evening when an instance occurred which greatly amused him. There were some forty guests.

When they were seated, the president noticed four vacant chairs.

He sent one of his aides to ascertain the trouble. The aide discovered an elderly senator standing with his wife, and another senator and a lady looking very disconsolate. The aged senator refused to take out a lady as his card directed or leave his wife to a colleague. He said to the president's aide, who told him that dinner was waiting and what he had to do: "When I eat I eat with my wife, or I don't eat at all." The old gentleman had his way.

The president had one story which he told often and with much glee.

While he was on the ranch the neighbors had caught a horse thief and hung him. They soon discovered that they had made a mistake and hung the wrong man. The most diplomatic among the ranchers was selected to take the body home and break the news gently to his wife. The cowboy amba.s.sador asked the wife: "Are you the wife of ----?" She answered "Yes." "Well," said the amba.s.sador, "you are mistaken. You are his widow. I have his body in the wagon. You need not feel bad about it, because we hung him thinking he was the horse thief. We soon after found that he was innocent. The joke is on us."

Mr. Roosevelt was intensely human and rarely tried to conceal his feelings. He was to address the New York State Fair at Syracuse. The management invited me as a United States Senator from New York to be present. There were at least twenty thousand on the fair ground, and Mr. Roosevelt read his speech, which he had elaborately prepared, detailing his scheme for harmonizing the relations between labor and capital. The speech was long and very able and intended for publication all over the country. But his audience, who were farmers, were not much interested in the subject. Besides, they had been wearied wandering around the grounds and doing the exhibits, waiting for the meeting to begin.

I know of nothing so wearisome to mind and body as to spend hours going through the exhibits of a great fair. When the president finished, the audience began calling for me. I was known practically to every one of them from my long career on the platform.

Knowing Roosevelt as I did, I was determined not to speak, but the fair management and the audience would not be denied. I paid the proper compliments to the president, and then, knowing that humor was the only possible thing with such a tired crowd, I had a rollicking good time with them. They entered into the spirit of the fun and responded in a most uproarious way. I heard Roosevelt turn to the president of the fair and say very angrily: "You promised me, sir, that there would be no other speaker."

When I met the president that evening at a large dinner given by Senator Frank Hisc.o.c.k, he greeted me with the utmost cordiality.

He was in fine form, and early in the dinner took entire charge of the discussion. For three hours he talked most interestingly, and no one else contributed a word. Nevertheless, we all enjoyed the evening, and not the least the president himself.

I used to wonder how he found time, with his great activities and engagements, to read so much. Publishers frequently send me new books. If I thought they would interest him I mentioned the work to him, but invariably he had already read it.

When my first term as senator expired and the question of my re-election was before the legislature, President Roosevelt gave me his most cordial and hearty support.

Events to his credit as president, which will be monuments in history, are extraordinary in number and importance. To mention only a few: He placed the Monroe Doctrine before European governments upon an impregnable basis by his defiance to the German Kaiser, when he refused to accept arbitration and was determined to make war on Venezuela. The president cabled: "Admiral Dewey with the Atlantic Fleet sails to-morrow." And the Kaiser accepted arbitration. Raissuli, the Moroccan bandit, who had seized and held for ransom an American citizen named Perdicaris, gave up his captive on receipt of this cable: "Perdicaris alive or Raissuli dead." He settled the war between Russia and j.a.pan and won the n.o.bel prize for peace.

Roosevelt built the Panama Ca.n.a.l when other efforts had failed for five hundred years. As senator from his own State, I was in constant consultation with him while he was urging legislation necessary to secure the concession for the construction of the ca.n.a.l. The difficulties to be overcome in both Houses seemed insurmountable, and would have been so except for the marvellous resourcefulness and power of the president.

When the Republican convention met in 1908, I was again delegate at large. It was a Roosevelt convention and crazy to have him renominated. It believed that he could overcome the popular feeling against a third term. Roosevelt did not think so. He believed that in order to make a third term palatable there must be an interval of another and different administration. When the convention found that his decision was unalterably not to accept the nomination himself, it was prepared to accept any one he might advise. He selected his secretary of war and most intimate friend, William Howard Taft. Taft had a delightful personality, and won distinction upon the bench, and had proved an admirable administrator as governor of the Philippine Islands.

After Mr. Taft's election the president, in order that the new president and his administration might not be embarra.s.sed by his presence and prestige, went on a two years' trip abroad.

During that trip he was more in the popular mind at home and abroad than almost any one in the world. If he reviewed the German army with the Kaiser, the press was full of the common characteristics and differences between the two men and of the unprecedented event of the guest giving advice to the Kaiser.

When he visited England he told in a public speech of his experience in Egypt, and recommended to the English Government that, if they expected to continue to govern Egypt, to begin to govern it.

All France was aghast and then hilarious when, in an address before the faculties of Sorbonne, he struck at once at the weak point of the future and power of France, and that was race suicide.

XV. UNITED STATES SENATE

My twelve years in the Senate were among the happiest of my life.

The Senate has long enjoyed the reputation of being the best club in the world, but it is more than that. My old friend, Senator Bacon, of Georgia, often said that he preferred the position of senator to that of either President or Chief Justice of the United States. There is independence in a term of six years which is of enormous value to the legislative work of the senator.

The member of the House, who is compelled to go before his district every two years, must spend most of his time looking after his re-election. Then the Senate, being a smaller body, the a.s.sociations are very close and intimate. I do not intend to go into discussion of the measures which occupied the attention of the Senate during my time. They are a part of the history of the world. The value of a work of this kind, if it has any value, is in personal incidents.

One of the most delightful a.s.sociations of a lifetime personally and politically, was that with Vice-President James S. Sherman.

During the twenty-two years he was in the House of Representatives he rarely was in the City of New York without coming to see me.

He became the best parliamentarian in Congress, and was generally called to the chair when the House met in committee of the whole.

He was intimately familiar with every political movement in Washington, and he had a rare talent for discriminatory description, both of events and a.n.a.lysis of the leading characters in the Washington drama. He was one of the wisest of the advisers of the organization of his party, both national and State.

When President Roosevelt had selected Mr. Taft as his successor he made no indication as to the vice-presidency. Of course, the nomination of Mr. Taft under such conditions was a foregone conclusion, and when the convention met it was practically unanimous for Roosevelt's choice. Who was the best man to nominate for vice-president in order to strengthen the ticket embara.s.sed the managers of the Taft campaign. The Republican congressmen who were at the convention were practically unanimous for Sherman, and their leader was Uncle Joe Cannon. We from New York found the Taft managers discussing candidates from every doubtful State.

We finally convinced them that New York was the most important, but they had gone so far with State candidates that it became a serious question how to get rid of them without offending their States.

The method adopted by one of the leading managers was both adroit and hazardous. He would call up a candidate on the telephone and say to him: "The friends of Mr. Taft are very favorable to you for vice-president. Will you accept the nomination?" The candidate would hesitate and begin to explain his ambitions, his career and its possibilities, and the matter which he would have to consider.

Before the prospective candidate had finished, the manager would say, "Very sorry, deeply regret," and put up the telephone.

When the nomination was made these gentlemen who might have succeeded would come around to the manager and say impatiently and indignantly: "I was all right. Why did you cut me off?"

However, those gentlemen have had their compensation. Whenever you meet one of them he will say to you: "I was offered the vice-presidency with Taft but was so situated that I could not accept."

One evening during the convention a wind and rain storm drove everybody indoors. The great lobby of Congress Hall was crowded, and most of them were delegates. Suddenly there was a loud call for a speech, and some husky and athletic citizen seized and lifted me on to a chair. After a story and a joke, which put the crowd into a receptive mood, I made what was practically a nominating speech for Sherman. The response was intense and unanimous. When I came down from a high flight as to the ability and popularity to the human qualities of "Sunny Jim," I found "Sunny Jim" such a taking characterization, and it was echoed and re-echoed. I do not claim that speech nominated Sherman, only that nearly everybody who was present became a most vociferous advocate for Sherman for vice-president.

The position of vice-president is one of the most difficult in our government. Unless the president requests his advice or a.s.sistance, he has no public function except presiding over the Senate. No president ever called the vice-president into his councils.

McKinley came nearest to it during his administration, with Hobart, but did not keep it up.

President Harding has made a precedent for the future by inviting Vice-President Coolidge to attend all Cabinet meetings. The vice-president has accepted and meets regularly with the Cabinet.

Sherman had one advantage over other vice-presidents in having been for nearly a quarter of a century a leader in Congress. Few, if any, who ever held that office have been so popular with the Senate and so tactful and influential when they undertook the very difficult task of influencing the action of a Senate, very jealous of its prerogatives and easily made resentful and hostile.

Among my colleagues in the Senate were several remarkable men.

They had great ability, extraordinary capacity for legislation, and, though not great orators, possessed the rare faculty of pressing their points home in short and effective speeches. Among them was Senator Frye, of Maine. He was for many years chairman of the great committee on commerce. Whatever we had of a merchant marine was largely due to his persistent efforts. He saved the government scores of millions in that most difficult task of pruning the River and Harbor Bill. He possessed the absolute confidence of both parties, and was the only senator who could generally carry the Senate with him for or against a measure. While wise and the possessor of the largest measure of common sense, yet he was one of the most simple-minded of men. I mean by this that he had no guile and suspected none in others. Whatever was uppermost in his mind came out. These characteristics made him one of the most delightful of companions and one of the most harmonious men to work with on a committee.

Clement A. Griscom, the most prominent American ship owner and director, was very fond of Senator Frye. Griscom entertained delightfully at his country home near Philadelphia. He told me that at one time Senator Frye was his guest over a week-end.

To meet the senator at dinner on Sat.u.r.day evening, he had invited great bankers, lawyers, and captains of industry of Philadelphia.

Their conversation ran from enterprises and combinations involving successful industries and exploitations to individual fortunes and how they were acc.u.mulated. The atmosphere was heavy with millions and billions. Suddenly Griscom turned to Senator Frye and said: "I know that our successful friends here would not only be glad to hear but would learn much if you would tell us of your career." "It is not much to tell," said Senator Frye, "especially after these stories which are like chapters from the 'Arabian Nights.'

I was very successful as a young lawyer and rising to a leading practice and head of the bar of my State when I was offered an election to the House of Representatives. I felt that it would be a permanent career and that there was no money in it. I consulted my wife and told her that it meant giving up all prospects of acc.u.mulating a fortune or independence even, but it was my ambition, and I believed I could perform valuable service to the public, and that as a career its general usefulness would far surpa.s.s any success at the bar. My wife agreed with me cordially and said that she would economize on her part to any extent required.

"So," the senator continued, "I have been nearly thirty years in Congress, part of this time in the House and the rest in the Senate.

I have been able on my salary to meet our modest requirements and educate our children. I have never been in debt but once. Of course, we had to calculate closely and set aside sufficient to meet our extra expenses in Washington and our ordinary one at home. We came out a little ahead every year but one. That year the president very unexpectedly called an extra session, and for the first time in twenty years I was in debt to our landlord in Washington."

Griscom told me that this simple narrative of a statesman of national reputation seemed to make the monumental achievements of his millionaire guests of little account.

Senator Frye's genial personality and vivid conversation made him a welcome guest at all entertainments in Washington. There was a lady at the capital at that time who entertained a great deal and was very popular on her own account, but she always began the conversation with the gentleman who took her out by narrating how she won her husband. I said one day to Senator Frye: "There will be a notable gathering at So-and-So's dinner to-night. Are you going?" He answered: "Yes, I will be there; but it has been my lot to escort to dinner this lady"--naming her--"thirteen times this winter. She has told me thirteen times the story of her courtship. If it is my luck to be a.s.signed to her to-night, and she starts that story, I shall leave the table and the house and go home."

Senator Aldrich, of Rhode Island, was once called by Senator Quay the schoolmaster of the Senate. As the head of the finance committee he had commanding influence, and with his skill in legislation and intimate knowledge of the rules he was the leader whenever he chose to lead. This he always did when the policy he desired or the measure he was promoting had a majority, and the opposition resorted to obstructive tactics. As there is no restriction on debate in the Senate, or was none at my time, the only way the minority could defeat the majority was by talking the bill to death. I never knew this method to be used successfully but once, because in the trial of endurance the greater number wins. The only successful talk against time was by Senator Carter, of Montana. Carter was a capital debater. He was invaluable at periods when the discussion had become very bitter and personal.

Then in his most suave way he would soothe the angry elements and bring the Senate back to a calm consideration of the question.

When he arose on such occasions, the usual remark among those who still kept their heads was: "Carter will now bring out his oil can and pour oil upon the troubled waters"--and it usually proved effective.

Senator George F. h.o.a.r, of Ma.s.sachusetts, seemed to be a revival of what we pictured in imagination as the statesmen who framed the Const.i.tution of the United States, or the senators who sat with Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. He was a man of lofty ideals and devotion to public service. He gave to each subject on which he spoke an elevation and dignity that lifted it out of ordinary senatorial discussions. He had met and knew intimately most of the historical characters in our public life for fifty years, and was one of the most entertaining and instructive conversationalists whom I ever met.

On the other hand, Senator Benjamin Tillman, of South Carolina, who was an ardent admirer of Senator h.o.a.r, was his opposite in every way. Tillman and I became very good friends, though at first he was exceedingly hostile. He hated everything which I represented. With all his roughness, and at the beginning his brutality, he had a singular streak of sentiment.

I addressed the first dinner of the Gridiron Club at its organization and have been their guest many times since. The Gridiron Club is an a.s.sociation of the newspaper correspondents at Washington, and their dinners several times a year are looked forward to with the utmost interest and enjoyed by everybody privileged to attend.

The Gridiron Club planned an excursion to Charleston, S. C., that city having extended to them an invitation. They invited me to go with them and also Senator Tillman. Tillman refused to be introduced to me because I was chairman of the board of directors of the New York Central Railroad, and he hated my a.s.sociations and a.s.sociates. We had a wonderful welcome from the most hospitable of cities, the most beautifully located City of Charleston. On the many excursions, luncheons, and gatherings, I was put forward to do the speaking, which amounted to several efforts a day during our three days' visit. The Gridiron stunt for Charleston was very audacious. There were many speakers, of course, including Senator Tillman, who hated Charleston and the Charlestonians, because he regarded them as aristocrats and told them so. There were many invited to speak who left their dinners untasted while they devoted themselves to looking over their ma.n.u.scripts, and whose names were read in the list at the end of the dinner, but their speeches were never called for.

On our way home we stopped for luncheon at a place outside of Charleston. During the luncheon an earthquake shook the table and rattled the plates. I was called upon to make the farewell address for the Gridiron Club to the State of South Carolina.

Of course the earthquake and its possibilities gave an opportunity for pathos as well as humor, and Tillman was deeply affected.