My Memories of Eighty Years Part 22

Though this temporary residence was very ancient, yet its hospitalities were dispensed by one of the most up-to-date and progressive couples in the kingdom. In the intimacy of a house-party, not too large, one could enjoy the versatility, the charm, the wide information, the keen political ac.u.men of this accomplished and magnetic British statesman. It was unfortunate for his country that from overwork he broke down so early in life.

No one during his period could surpa.s.s Baron Alfred Rothschild as host. His dinners in town, followed by exquisite musicales, were the social events of every season. He was, however, most attractive at his superb place in the country. A week-end with him there met the best traditions of English hospitality. In the party were sure to be men and women of distinction, and just the ones whom an American had read about and was anxious to meet.

Baron Rothschild was a famous musician and an ardent lover of music. He had at his country place a wonderfully trained orchestra of expert musicians. In the theatre he gave concerts for the enjoyment of his guests, and led the orchestra himself. Among the company was sure to be one or more of the most famous artists from the opera at Covent Garden, and from these experts his own leadership and the performance of his perfectly trained company received unstinted praise and applause. Baron Rothschild had the art so necessary for the enjoyment of his guests of getting together the right people. He never risked the harmony of his house by inviting antagonists.

Lord Rothschild, the head of the house, differed entirely from his amiable and accomplished brother. While he also entertained, his mind was engrossed in business and affairs. I had a conference with him at the time of the Spanish-American War, which might have been of historical importance. He asked me to come and see him in the Rothschild banking-house, where the traditions of a century are preserved and unchanged. He said to me: "We have been for a long time the bankers of Spain. We feel the responsibility for their securities, which we have placed upon the market. The United States is so all-powerful in its resources and spirit that it can crush Spain. This we desire to avert. Spain, though weak and poor compared to the United States, has nevertheless the proudest people in the world, and it is a question of Spanish pride we have to deal with."

In answering him I said: "Lord Rothschild, it seems to me that if you had any proposition you should take it to Mr. John Hay, our accomplished minister."

"No," he said; "then it would become a matter of diplomacy and publicity. Now the Spanish Government is willing to comply with every demand the United States can make. The government is willing to grant absolute independence to Cuba, or what it would prefer, a self-governing colony, with relations like that of Canada to Great Britain. Spain is willing to give to the United States Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands, but she must know beforehand if these terms will be accepted before making the offer because if an offer so great as this and involving such a loss of territory and prestige should be rejected by the United States there would be a revolution in Spain which might overthrow not only the government but the monarchy. What would be regarded as an insult would be resented by every Spaniard to the bitter end. That is why I have asked you to come and wish you to submit this proposition to your president. Of course, I remain in a position, if there should be any publicity about it, to deny the whole thing."

The proposition unfortunately came too late, and Mr. McKinley could not stop the war. It was well known in Washington that he was exceedingly averse to hostilities and believed the difficulties could be satisfactorily settled by diplomacy, but the people were aroused to such an extent that they were determined not only to free Cuba but to punish those who were oppressing the Cubans.

One incident which received little publicity at the time was in all probability the match which fired the magazine. One of the ablest and most level-headed members of the Senate was Senator Redfield Proctor, of Vermont. The solidity of his character and acquirements and his known sense and conservatism made him a power in Congress, and he had the confidence of the people. He visited Cuba and wrote a report in which he detailed as an eyewitness the atrocities which the government and the soldiers were perpetrating. He read this report to Mr. McKinley and Senator Hanna. They both said: "Senator Proctor, if you read that to the Senate, our negotiations end and war is inevitable."

The president requested the senator to delay reporting to the Senate. The excitement and interest in that body were never more unanimous and intense. I doubt if any senator could have resisted this rare opportunity not only to be the centre of the stage but to occupy the whole platform. Senator Proctor made his report and the country was aflame.

One summer I arrived in London and was suffering from a fearful attack of muscular rheumatism. I knew perfectly well that I had brought it on myself by overwork. I had suffered several attacks before, but this one was so acute that I consulted Sir Henry Thompson, at that time the acknowledged head of the British medical profession. He made a thorough examination and with most satisfactory result as to every organ. "With your perfect const.i.tution," he said, "this attack is abnormal. Now tell me of your day and every day at home. Begin with breakfast."

"I breakfast at a quarter of eight," I said.

"Then," continued the doctor, "give me the whole day."

"I arrive at my office," I said, "at nine. Being president of a great railway company, there is a large correspondence to be disposed of. I see the heads of the different departments and get in touch with every branch of the business. Then I meet committees of chambers of commerce or shippers, or of employees who have a grievance, and all this will occupy me until five o'clock, when I go home. I take a very short lunch, often at my desk, to save time. On arriving home I take a nap of ten or fifteen minutes, and then look over my engagements for the evening.

If it is a speech, which will probably happen four evenings in a week, I prepare in the next hour and then deliver it at some public banquet or hall. If I have accepted a formal address or, as we call them in America, orations, it is ground out on odd evenings, Sunday afternoon and night."

The doctor turned to me abruptly and said: "You ought to be dead.

Now, you have the most perfect const.i.tution and less impaired than any I have examined at your time of life. If you will follow the directions which I give you, you can be perfectly well and sound at the age of one hundred. If you continue your present life until seventy, you will have a nervous breakdown, and thereafter become a nuisance to yourself and everybody else. I advise absolute rest at a remote place in Switzerland. There you will receive no newspapers, and you will hear nothing from the outside world.

You will meet there only English who are seeking health, and they will not speak to you. Devote your day to walking over the mountains, adding to your tramp as your strength increases, and lie for hours on the bank of a quiet stream there, and be intensely interested as you throw pebbles into it to see how wide you can make the circles from the spot where the pebble strikes the water."

I thought I understood my temperament better than the doctor, and that any rest for me was not solitude but entire change of occupation. So I remained in London and lunched and dined out every day for several weeks, with a week-end over every Sunday.

In other ways, however, I adopted the doctor's directions and not only returned home cured, but have been free from rheumatism ever since.

I was in London at both the queen's fiftieth anniversary of her reign and her jubilee. The reverence and love the English people had for Queen Victoria was a wonderful exhibition of her wisdom as a sovereign and of her charm and character as a woman. The sixty years of her reign were a wonderful epoch in the growth of her empire and in its relations to the world.

Once I said to a member of the Cabinet, who, as minister of foreign affairs had been brought in close contact with the queen: "I am very much impressed with the regard which the people have for Queen Victoria. What is her special function in your scheme of government?"

"She is invaluable," he answered, "to every prime minister and the Cabinet. The prime minister, after the close of the debate in the House of Commons every night, writes the queen a full report of what has occurred at that session. This has been going on for more than half a century. The queen reads these accounts carefully and has a most retentive memory. If these communications of the prime ministers were ever available to the public, they would present a remarkable contrast of the minds and the methods of different prime ministers and especially those two extreme opposites, Gladstone and Disraeli. The queen did not like Gladstone, because she said he always preached, but she had an intense admiration for Disraeli, who threw into his nightly memoranda all his skill not only as a statesman, but a novelist. The queen also has been consulted during all these years on every crisis, domestic or foreign, and every matter of Cabinet importance. The result is that she is an encyclopaedia. Very often there will be a dispute with some of the great powers or lesser ones, which is rapidly growing to serious proportions. We can find no report of its beginning. The queen, however, will remember just when the difficulty began, and why it was pushed aside and not settled, and who were the princ.i.p.al actors in the negotiations. With that data we often arrive at a satisfactory settlement."

I remember one garden-party at Buckingham Palace. The day was perfect and the attendance phenomenally large and distinguished.

While there were places on the grounds where a luncheon was served, the guests neglected these places and gathered about a large tent where the royalties had their refreshments. It was an intense curiosity, not so much to see their sovereign eat and drink, as to improve the opportunity to reverently gaze upon her at close range. The queen called various people whom she knew from this circle of onlookers for a familiar talk.

When the luncheon was served the attendant produced an immense napkin, which she spread over herself, almost from her neck to the bottom of her dress. A charming English lady, who stood beside me, said: "I know you are laughing at the economy of our Queen."

"On the contrary," I said, "I am admiring an example of carefulness and thrift which, if it could be universally known, would be of as great benefit in the United States as in Great Britain."

"Well," she continued, "I do wish that the dear old lady was not quite so careful."

At a period when the lives of the continental rulers were in great peril from revolutionists and a.s.sa.s.sins, the queen on both her fiftieth anniversary and her jubilee rode in an open carriage through many miles of London streets, with millions of spectators on either side pressing closely upon the procession, and there was never a thought that she was in the slightest danger. She was fearless herself, but she had on the triple armor of the overmastering love and veneration of the whole people. Americans remembered that in the crisis of our Civil War it was the influence of the queen, more than any other, which prevented Great Britain recognizing the Southern Confederacy.

Among the incidents of her jubilee was the greatest naval demonstration ever known. The fleets of Great Britain were summoned from all parts of the globe and anch.o.r.ed in a long and imposing line in the English Channel. Mr. Ismay, at that time the head of the White Star Line, took the Teutonic, which had just been built and was not yet in regular commission, as his private yacht.

He had on board a notable company, representing the best, both of men and women, of English life. He was the most generous of hosts, and every care taken for the individual comfort of his guests. In the intimacy for several days of such an excursion we all became very well acquainted. There were speeches at the dinners and dances afterwards on the deck for the younger people. The war-ships were illuminated at night by electric lights, and the launch of the Teutonic took us down one lane and up another through the long lines of these formidable defenders of Great Britain.

One day there was great excitement when a war-ship steamed into our midst and it was announced that it was the German emperor's.

Even as early as that he excited in the English mind both curiosity and apprehension. One of the frequent questions put to me, both then and for years afterwards at English dinners, was: "What do you think of the German emperor?"

Shortly after his arrival he came on to the Teutonic with the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII. The prince knew many of the company and was most cordial all around. The emperor was absorbed in an investigation of this new ship and her possibilities both in the mercantile marine and as a cruiser.

I heard him say to the captain: "How are you armed?" The captain told him that among his equipment he had a new invention, a quick-firing gun. The emperor was immediately greatly excited.

He examined the gun and questioned its qualities and possibilities until he was master of every detail. Then he turned to one of his officers and gave a quick order that the gun should be immediately investigated and all that were required should be provided for Germany.

I heard a picturesque story from a member of the court, of Queen Victoria's interest in all public affairs. There was then, as there is generally in European relations, some talk of war.

The queen was staying at her castle at Osborne on the Isle of Wight.

He said she drove alone down to the sh.o.r.e one night and sat there a long time looking at this great fleet, which was the main protection of her empire and her people. It would be interesting if one could know what were her thoughts, her fears, and her hopes.

The queen was constantly a.s.sisting the government in the maintenance of friendly relations with foreign powers by entertaining their representatives at Windsor Castle. When General Grant, after he retired from the presidency, made his trip around the world, the question which disturbed our American minister, when General Grant arrived in London, was how he could be properly received and recognized. Of course, under our usage, he had become a private citizen, and was no more ent.i.tled to official recognition than any other citizen. This was well known in the diplomatic circles.

When the amba.s.sadors and ministers of foreign countries in London were appealed to, they unanimously said that as they represented their sovereigns they could not yield precedence to General Grant, but he must sit at the foot of the table. The Prince of Wales solved this question with his usual tact and wisdom. Under the recognized usage at any entertainment, the Prince of Wales can select some person as his special guest to sit at his right, and, therefore, precede everybody else. The prince made this suggestion to our minister and performed this courteous act at all functions given to General Grant. Queen Victoria supplemented this by extending the same invitation to General and Mrs. Grant to dine and spend the night with her at Windsor Castle, which was extended only to visiting royalty.

I remember that the Army of the Potomac was holding its annual meeting and commemoration at one of our cities when the cable announced that General Grant was being entertained by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. The conventions of diplomacy, which requires all communications to pa.s.s through the amba.s.sador of one's country to the foreign minister of another country before it can reach the sovereign were not known to these old soldiers, so they cabled a warm message to General Grant, care of Queen Victoria, Windsor Castle, England.

One of the most delightful bits of humor in my recollections of journalistic enterprise was an editorial by a Mr. Alden, one of the editors of the New York Times. Mr. Alden described with great particularity, as if giving the details of the occurrence, that the messenger-boy arrived at Windsor Castle during the night and rang the front door-bell; that Her Majesty called out of the window in quite American style, "Who is there?" and the messenger-boy shouted, "Cable for General Grant. Is he staying at this house?"

I can only give a suggestion of Alden's fun, which shook the whole country.

One of the court officers said to me during the jubilee: "Royalties are here from every country, and among those who have come over is Liliuokalani, Queen of the Hawaiian Islands. She is as insistent of her royal rights as the Emperor of Germany. We have consented that she should be a guest at a dinner of our queen and spend the night at Windsor Castle. We have settled her place among the royalties in the procession through London and offered her the hussars as her guard of honor. She insists, however, that she shall have the same as the other kings, a company of the guards. Having recognized her, we are obliged to yield." The same officer told me that at the dinner the dusky queen said to Queen Victoria: "Your Majesty, I am a blood relative of yours."

"How so?" was the queen's astonished answer.

"Why," said Liliuokalani, "my grandfather ate your Captain Cook."

One of the most interesting of the many distinguished men who were either guests on the Teutonic or visited us was Admiral Lord Charles Beresford. He was a typical sailor of the highest cla.s.s and very versatile. He made a good speech, either social or political, and was a delightful companion on all occasions. He had remarkable adventures all over the world, and was a word painter of artistic power. He knew America well and was very sympathetic with our ideals. I met him many times in many relations and always with increasing regard and esteem.

I was entertained by Lord Beresford once in the most original way.

He had a country place about an hour from London and invited me to come down on a Sunday afternoon and meet some friends. It was a delightful garden-party on an ideal English summer day. He pressed me to stay for dinner, saying: "There will be a few friends coming, whom I am anxious for you to know."

The friends kept coming, and after a while Lady Beresford said to him: "We have set all the tables we have and the dining-room and the adjoining room can hold. How many have you invited?"

The admiral answered: "I cannot remember, but if we delay the dinner until a quarter of nine, I am sure they will all be here."

When we sat down we numbered over fifty. Lord Charles's abounding and irresistible hospitality had included everybody whom he had met the day before.

The butler came to Lord Charles shortly after we sat down and said: "My lord, it is Sunday night, and the shops are all closed.

We can add nothing to what we have in the house, and the soup has given out."

"Well," said this admirable strategist, "commence with those for whom you have no soup with the fish. When the fish gives out, start right on with the next course, and so to the close of the dinner. In that way everybody will get something."