The Reminiscences of an Astronomer Part 24

This example was rather unfortunate. The fact is, the name in question was that of a well-known officer of engineers in the army, then on duty at Washington, who had been invited to join the academy, and had consented out of good nature without, it seems, much if any inquiry. It happened that Senator Patterson had, some time during the winter, made the acquaintance of a West Indian meteorologist named Poey, who chanced to be spending some time in Washington, and got him mixed up with the officer of engineers.

The senator also intimated that the gentleman from Ma.s.sachusetts had been approached on the subject and was acting under the influence of others. This suggestion Mr. Sumner repelled, stating that no one had spoken to him on the subject, that he knew nothing of it until he saw the bill before them, which seemed to him to be objectionable for the very reasons set forth. On his motion the bill was laid on the table, and thus disposed of for good. The academy held meetings for some time after this failure, but soon disappeared from view, and was never again heard of.

In the year 1862, a fine-looking young general from the West became a boarder in the house where I lived, and sat opposite me at table.

His name was James A. Garfield. I believe he had come to Washington as a member of the court in the case of General Fitz John Porter.

He left after a short time and had, I supposed, quite forgotten me. But, after his election to Congress, he one evening visited the observatory, stepped into my room, and recalled our former acquaintance.

I soon found him to be a man of cla.s.sical culture, refined tastes, and unsurpa.s.sed eloquence,--altogether, one of the most attractive of men. On one occasion he told me one of his experiences in the State legislature of Ohio, of which he was a member before the civil war.

A bill was before the House enacting certain provisions respecting a depository. He moved, as an amendment, to strike out the word "depository" and insert "depositary." Supposing the amendment to be merely one of spelling, there was a general laugh over the house, with a cry of "Here comes the schoolmaster!" But he insisted on his point, and sent for a copy of Webster's Dictionary in order that the two words might be compared. When the definitions were read, the importance of right spelling became evident, and the laughing stopped.

It has always seemed to me that a rank injustice was done to Garfield on the occasion of the Credit Mobilier scandal of 1873, which came near costing him his position in public life. The evidence was of so indefinite and flimsy a nature that the credence given to the conclusion from it can only ill.u.s.trate how little a subject or a doc.u.ment is exposed to searching a.n.a.lysis outside the precincts of a law court. When he was nominated for the presidency this scandal was naturally raked up and much made of it. I was so strongly impressed with the injustice as to write for a New York newspaper, anonymously of course, a careful a.n.a.lysis of the evidence, with a demonstration of its total weakness. Whether the article was widely circulated, or whether Garfield ever heard of it, I do not know; but it was amusing, a few days after it appeared, to see a paragraph in an opposition paper claiming that its contemporary had gone to the trouble of hiring a lawyer to defend Garfield.

No man better qualified as a legislator ever occupied a seat in Congress. A man cast in the largest mould, and incapable of a petty sentiment, his grasp of public affairs was rarely equaled, and his insight into the effects of legislation was of the deepest. But on what the author of the Autocrat calls the arithmetical side,--in the power of judging particular men and not general principles; in deciding who were the good men and who were not, he fell short of the ideal suggested by his legislative career. The brief months during which he administered the highest of offices were stormy enough, perhaps stormier than any president before him had ever experienced, and they would probably have been outdone by the years following, had he lived. But I believe that, had he remained in the Senate, his name would have gone into history among those of the greatest of legislators.

Sixteen years after the death of Lincoln public feeling was again moved to its depth by the a.s.sa.s.sination of Garfield. The cry seemed to pa.s.s from mouth to mouth through the streets faster than a messenger could carry the news, "The President has been shot."

It chanced to reach me just as I was entering my office. I at once summoned my messenger and directed him to go over to the White House, and see if anything unusual had happened, but gave him no intimation of my fears. He promptly returned with the confirmation of the report. The following are extracts from my journal at the time:--

"July 2, Sat.u.r.day: At 9.20 this morning President Garfield was shot by a miserable fellow named Guiteau, as he was pa.s.sing through the Baltimore and Potomac R. R. station to leave Washington. One ball went through the upper arm, making a flesh wound, the other entered the right side on the back and cannot be found; supposed to have lodged in the liver. In the course of the day President rapidly weakened, and supposed to be dying from hemorrhage."

"Sunday morning: President still living and rallied during the day. Small chance of recovery. At night alarming symptoms of inflammation were exhibited, and at midnight his case seemed almost hopeless."

"Monday: President slightly better this morning, improving throughout the day."

"July 6. This P. M. sought an interview with Dr. Woodward at the White House, to talk of an apparatus for locating the ball by its action in r.e.t.a.r.ding a rapidly revolving el. magnet. I hardly think the plan more than theoretically practical, owing to the minuteness of the action."

"The President still improving, but great dangers are yet to come, and nothing has been found of the ball, which is supposed to have stayed in the liver because, were it anywhere else, symptoms of irritation by its presence would have been shown."

"July 9. This is Sat.u.r.day evening. Met Major Powell at the Cosmos Club, who told me that they would like to have me look at the air-cooling projects at the White House.

Published statement that the physicians desired some way to cool the air of the President's room had brought a crowd of projects and machines of all kinds. Among other things, a Mr. Dorsey had got from New York an air compressor such as is used in the Virginia mines for transferring power, and was erecting machinery enough for a steamship at the east end of the house in order to run it."

Dr. Woodward was a surgeon of the army, who had been on duty at Washington since the civil war, in charge of the Army Medical Museum.

Among his varied works here, that in micro-photography, in which he was a pioneer, gave him a wide reputation. His high standing led to his being selected as one of the President's physicians.

To him I wrote a note, offering to be of any use I could in the matter of cooling the air of the President's chamber. He promptly replied with a request to visit the place, and see what was being done and what suggestions I could make. Mr. Dorsey's engine at the east end was dispensed with after a long discussion, owing to the noise it would make and the amount of work necessary to its final installation and operation.

Among the problems with which the surgeons had to wrestle was that of locating the ball. The question occurred to me whether it was not possible to do so by the influence produced by the action of a metallic conductor in r.e.t.a.r.ding the motion of a rapidly revolving magnet, but the effect would be so small, and the apparatus to be made so delicate, that I was very doubtful about the matter. If there was any one able to take hold of the project successfully, I knew it would be Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.

When I approached him on the subject, he suggested that the idea of locating the ball had also occurred to him, and that he thought the best apparatus for the purpose was a telephonic one which had been recently developed by Mr. Hughes. As there could be no doubt of the superiority of his project, I dropped mine, and he went forward with his. In a few days an opportunity was given him for actually trying it. The result, though rather doubtful, seemed to be that the ball was located where the surgeons supposed it to be.

When the autopsy showed that their judgment had been at fault, Mr. Bell admitted his error to Dr. Woodward, adding some suggestion as to its cause. "Expectant attention," was Woodward's reply.

I found in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the house an apparatus which had been brought over by a Mr. Jennings from Baltimore, which was designed to cool the air of dairies or apartments. It consisted of an iron box, two or three feet square, and some five feet long. In this box were suspended cloths, kept cool and damp by the water from melting ice contained in a compartment on top of the box. The air was driven through the box by a blower, and cooled by contact with the wet cloths. But no effect was being produced on the temperature of the room.

One conversant with physics will see one fatal defect in this appliance. The cold of the ice, if I may use so unscientific an expression, went pretty much to waste. The air was in contact, not with the ice, as it should have been, but with ice-water, which had already absorbed the latent heat of melting.

Evidently the air should be pa.s.sed over the unmelted ice.

The question was how much ice would be required to produce the necessary cooling? To settle this, I inst.i.tuted an experiment.

A block of ice was placed in an adjoining room in a current of air with such an arrangement that, as it melted, the water would trickle into a vessel below. After a certain number of minutes the melted water was measured, then a simple computation led to a knowledge of how much heat was absorbed from the air per minute by a square foot of the surface of the ice. From this it was easy to calculate from the known thermal capacity of air, and the quant.i.ty of the latter necessary per minute, how many feet of cooling surface must be exposed. I was quite surprised at the result. A case of ice nearly as long as an ordinary room, and large enough for men to walk about in it, must be provided. This was speedily done, supports were erected for the blocks of ice, the case was placed at the end of Mr. Jennings's box, and everything gotten in readiness for directing the air current through the receptacle, and into the room through tubes which had already been prepared.

It happened that Mr. Jennings's box was on the line along which the air was being conducted, and I was going to get it out of the way.

The owner implored that it should be allowed to remain, suggesting that the air might just as well as not continue to pa.s.s through it.

The surroundings were those in which one may be excused for not being harsh. Such an outpouring of sympathy on the part of the public had never been seen in Washington since the a.s.sa.s.sination of Lincoln. Those in charge were overwhelmed with every sort of contrivance for relieving the sufferings of the ill.u.s.trious patient.

Such disinterested efforts in behalf of a public and patriotic object had never been seen. Mr. Jennings had gone to the trouble and expense of bringing his apparatus all the way from Baltimore to Washington in order to do what in him lay toward the end for which all were striving. To leave his box in place could not do the slightest harm, and would be a gratification to him. So I let it stand, and the air continued to pa.s.s through it on its way to the ice chest.

While these arrangements were in progress three officers of engineers of the navy reported under orders at the White House, to do what they could toward the cooling of the air. They were Messrs. William L. Baillie, Richard Inch, and W. S. Moore. All four of us cooperated in the work in a most friendly way, and when we got through we made our reports to the Navy Department. A few weeks later these reports were printed in a pamphlet, partly to correct a wrong impression about the Jennings cold-box. Regular statements had appeared in the local evening paper that the air was being cooled by this useless contrivance. Their significance first came out several months later, on the occasion of an exhibition of mechanical or industrial implements at Boston. Among these was Mr. Jennings's cold-box, which was exhibited as the instrument that had cooled the air of President Garfield's chamber.

More light yet was thrown on the case when the question of rewarding those who had taken part in treating the President, or alleviating his sufferings in any way, came before Congress. Mr. Jennings was, I believe, among the claimants. Congress found the task of making the proper awards to each individual to be quite beyond its power at the time, so a lump sum was appropriated, to be divided by the Treasury Department according to its findings in each particular case.

Before the work of making the awards was completed, I left on the expedition to the Cape of Good Hope to observe the transit of Venus, and never learned what had been done with the claims of Mr. Jennings.

It might naturally be supposed that when an official report to the Navy Department showed that he had no claims whatever except those of a patriotic citizen who had done his best, which was just nothing at all, to promote the common end, the claim would have received little attention. Possibly this may have been the case.

But I do not know what the outcome of the matter was.

Shortly after the death of the President, I had a visit from an inventor who had patented a method of cooling the air of a room by ice. He claimed that our work at the Executive Mansion was an infringement on his patent. I replied that I could not see how any infringement was possible, because we had gone to work in the most natural way, without consulting any previous process whatever, or even knowing of the existence of a patent. Surely the operation of pa.s.sing air over ice to cool it could not be patentable.

He invited me to read over the statement of his claims. I found that although this process was not patented in terms, it was practically patented by claiming about every possible way in which ice could be arranged for cooling purposes. Placing the ice on supports was one of his claims; this we had undoubtedly done, because otherwise the process could not have been carried out. In a word, the impression I got was that the only sure way of avoiding an infringement would have been to blindfold the men who put the ice in the box, and ask them to throw it in pellmell. Every method of using judgment in arranging the blocks of ice he had patented.

I had to acknowledge that his claim of infringement might have some foundation, and inquired what he proposed to do in the case.

He replied that he did not wish to do more than have his priority recognized in the matter. I replied that I had no objection to his doing this in any way he could, and he took his leave. Nothing more, so far as I am aware, was done in his case. But I was much impressed by this as by other examples I have had of the same kind, of the loose way in which our Patent Office sometimes grants patents.

I do not think the history of any modern munic.i.p.ality can show an episode more extraordinary or, taken in connection with its results, more instructive than what is known as the "Shepherd regime" in Washington. What is especially interesting about it is the opposite views that can be taken of the same facts. As to the latter there is no dispute. Yet, from one point of view, Shepherd made one of the most disastrous failures on record in attempting to carry out great works, while, from another point of view, he is the author of the beautiful Washington of to-day, and ent.i.tled to a public statue in recognition of his services. As I was a resident of the city and lived in my own house, I was greatly interested in the proposed improvements, especially of the particular street on which I lived.

I was also an eye-witness to so much of the whole history as the public was cognizant of. The essential facts of the case, from the two, opposing points of view, are exceedingly simple.

One fact is the discreditable condition of the streets of Washington during and after the civil war. The care of these was left entirely to the local munic.i.p.ality. Congress, so far as I know, gave no aid except by paying its share of street improvements in front of the public buildings. It was quite out of the power of the residents, who had but few men of wealth among them, to make the city what it ought to be. Congress showed no disposition to come to the help of the citizens in this task.

In 1871, however, some public-spirited citizens took the matter in hand and succeeded in having a new government established, which was modeled after that of the territories of the United States.

There was a governor, a legislature, and a board of public works.

The latter was charged with the improvements of the streets, and the governor was _ex officio_ its president. The first governor was Henry D. Cooke, the banker, and Mr. Shepherd was vice-president of the board of public works and its leading member. Mr. Cooke resigned after a short term, and Mr. Shepherd was promoted to his place.

He was a plumber and gas-fitter by trade, and managed the leading business in his line in Washington. Through the two or three years of his administration the city directory still contained the entry--

Shepherd, Alex. R. & Co., plumbers and gas-fitters, 910 Pa. Ave. N. W.

In recent years he had added to his plumbing business that of erecting houses for sale. He had had no experience in the conduct of public business, and, of course, was neither an engineer nor a financier.

But such was the energy of his character and his personal influence, that he soon became practically the whole government, which he ran in his own way, as if it were simply his own business enlarged. Of the conditions which the law imposes on contracts, of the numerous and complicated problems of engineering involved in the drainage and street systems of a great city, of the precautions to be taken in preparing plans for so immense a work, and of the legal restraints under which it should be conducted, he had no special knowledge.

But he had in the highest degree a quality which will bear different designations according to the point of view. His opponents would call it unparalleled recklessness; his supporters, boldness and enterprise.

Such were the preliminaries. Three years later the results of his efforts were made known by an investigating committee of Congress, with Senator Allison, a political friend, at its head. It was found that with authority to expend $6,000,000 in the improvement of the streets, there was an actual or supposed expenditure of more than $18,000,000, and a crowd of additional claims which no man could estimate, based on the work of more than one thousand princ.i.p.al contractors and an unknown number of purchasers and sub-contractors. Chaos reigned supreme. Some streets were still torn up and impa.s.sable; others completely paved, but done so badly that the pavements were beginning to rot almost before being pressed by a carriage. A debt had been incurred which it was impossible for the local munic.i.p.ality to carry and which was still piling up.

For all this Congress was responsible, and manfully shouldered its responsibility. Mr. Shepherd was legislated out of office as an act of extreme necessity, by the organization of a government at the head of which were three commissioners. The feeling on the subject may be inferred from the result when President Grant, who had given Shepherd his powerful support all through, nominated him as one of the three commissioners. The Senate rejected the nomination, with only some half dozen favorable votes.

The three commissioners took up the work and carried it on in a conservative way. Congress came to the help of the munic.i.p.ality by bearing one half the taxation of the District, on the very sound basis that, as it owned about one half of the property, it should pay one half the taxes.

The spirit of the time is ill.u.s.trated by two little episodes.

The reservation on which the public library founded by Mr. Carnegie is now built, was then occupied by the Northern Liberties Market, one of the three princ.i.p.al markets of the city. Being a public reservation, it had no right to remain there except during the pleasure of the authorities. Due notice was given to the marketmen to remove the structures. The owners were dilatory in doing so, and probably could not see why they should be removed when the ground was not wanted for any other purpose, and before they had time to find a new location. It was understood that, if an attempt was made to remove the buildings, the marketmen would apply to the courts for an injunction. To prevent this, an arrangement was made by which the destruction of the buildings was to commence at dinner-time.

At the same time, according to current report, it was specially arranged that all the judges to whom an application could be made should be invited out to dinner. However this may have been, a large body of men appeared upon the scene in the course of the evening and spent the night in destroying the buildings. With such energy was the work carried on that one marketman was killed and another either wounded or seriously injured in trying to save their wares from destruction. The indignation against Shepherd was such that his life was threatened, and it was even said that a body-guard of soldiers had to be supplied by the War Department for his protection.

The other event was as comical as this was tragic. It occurred while the investigating committee of Congress was at its work.

The princ.i.p.al actors in the case were Mr. Harrington, secretary of the local government and one of Mr. Shepherd's a.s.sistants, the chief of police, and a burglar. Harrington produced an anonymous letter, warning him that an attempt would be made in the course of a certain night to purloin from the safe in which they were kept, certain government papers, which the prosecutors of the case against Shepherd were anxious to get hold of. He showed this letter to the chief of police, who was disposed to make light of the matter.

But on Harrington's urgent insistence the two men kept watch about the premises on the night in question. They were in the room adjoining that in which the records were kept, and through which the robber would have to pa.s.s. In due time the latter appeared, pa.s.sed through the room and proceeded to break into the safe. The chief wanted to arrest him immediately, but Harrington asked him to wait, in order that they might see what the man was after, and especially what he did with the books. So they left and took their stations outside the door. The burglar left the building with the books in a satchel, and, stepping outside, was confronted by the two men.

I believe every burglar of whom history or fiction has kept any record, whether before or after this eventful night, when he broke open a safe and, emerging with his booty, found himself confronted by a policeman, took to his heels. Not so this burglar. He walked up to the two men, and with the utmost unconcern asked if they could tell him where Mr. Columbus Alexander lived. Mr. Alexander, it should be said, was the head man in the prosecution. The desired information being conveyed to the burglar, he went on his way to Mr. Alexander's house, followed by the two agents of the law.

Arriving there, he rang the bell.