maintenance of the present law, can thwart this desirable achievement.
I can understand how our success should be doubted and our failure
accepted with satisfaction in Wales, but I cannot understand how any
American can take that view of the question or why he should always
approach every evidence of the successful establishment of this
industry in this country with a disposition to discredit it and reject
it. If the great experiment is to fail, our own people should not add
to the mortification of failure the crime of rejoicing in it.
Very truly yours,
BENJAMIN HARRISON.
WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 14 AND DECEMBER 9, 1891.
_The Chilian Imbroglio._
In January, 1891, civil war broke out in the republic of Chili between
the Congressional forces and the established Government under President
Balmaceda. Deeds of cruelty signalized the conflict, which continued
until August 28, when the insurgent forces landed near Valparaiso and,
after a bloody engagement, captured that city. President Balmaceda
became a fugitive, and a few weeks later committed suicide, by shooting,
at the residence of Señor Uribirru, the Argentine Minister.
During the conduct of the war, the _Itata_, an armed vessel, commanded
by an officer of the Chilian insurgent fleet, was seized under process
of the United States Court at San Diego, Cal., for a violation of the
neutrality laws. This seizure and the subsequent escape, surrender,
and return of the _Itata_, and the strict neutrality observed by the
American Minister, Hon. Patrick Egan, and Admiral Brown, commanding
the squadron, caused the victorious Chilians to manifest a spirit of
animosity toward the Government and people of the United States. This
feeling was intensified by the false statements published in the British
press, notably the London _Times_, touching the conduct of Admiral Brown
and the American Minister, and by the fact that the American Legation,
exercising the established right of asylum, opened its doors to several
prominent political refugees of the defunct Balmaceda Government.
On October 16, 1891, this hostility culminated in an attack, in the
streets of Valparaiso, upon a number of sailors attached to the U. S.
cruiser _Baltimore_, who were upon shore leave. These sailors, wearing
their uniforms, were assaulted by armed men in different localities
in the city; one petty officer was killed outright, and eight seamen
seriously wounded, one of whom died a few days later. Many of their stab
wounds were in the back. The news of this bloody and unprovoked attack
sent a thrill of indignation across the American continent, and it was
felt that the deadly insult must be atoned in blood. The war feeling was
not lessened by the impudent tone of the reply from the Chilian Minister
of Foreign Affairs. American indignation subsided somewhat pending a
judicial inquiry into the attack, but the determination to expiate the
insult had in no degree abated when, on November 14, Señor Don Pedro
Montt was presented to President Harrison as the newly accredited
Chilian Minister to the United States.
The reception of a new Minister is ordinarily a very formal and
uninteresting affair, but the circumstances narrated--with the two
governments apparently on the verge of war--lent an unusual interest to
this official meeting; and the President's remarks, characterized by his
usual frankness and firmness, called forth the approval of the whole
Nation.
The Minister was accompanied by Señors Anibal Cruz, Secretary of
Legation; Guillermo Arenanetegan and Valentin del Campo, attachés. After
the formal introductions by Secretary Blaine, Señor Montt addressed the
President in Spanish as follows:
_Mr. President_--I have the honor to present the credentials which
accredit me in the capacity of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary of the republic of Chili in the United States of North
America. The object of the mission which the Government of Chili has
confided to me is to cultivate and maintain the relations of peace
and friendship between the United States and Chili, which have ever
been close and cordial. For the accomplishment of this purpose I rely
upon the kindness and good-will which the United States Government
has always manifested for the representatives of Chili. Permit me to
express my country's sincere wishes for the prosperity and welfare of
this noble country, which is so highly favored by Providence, and for
your own happiness.
The President, in response, said:
_Mr. Minister_--I am glad to receive from your hands the
letters accrediting you as the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary of the republic of Chili to the United States. The
presence of a representative of the Government of Chili at this
capital will, I hope, tend to promote a good understanding between
the two governments and the early settlement, upon terms just and
honorable to both, of the diplomatic questions now somewhat urgently
awaiting adjustment. The Government of the United States, as well as
its people, particularly desire and rejoice in the prosperity of all
our neighbors in this hemisphere. Our diplomatic relations with them
have always been and will continue to be free from intermeddling with
their internal affairs. Our people are too just to desire that the
commercial or political advantage of this Government should be sought
by the promotion of disastrous dissensions in other countries. We
hear with sorrow every fresh tale of war or internal strife, and are
always ready to give our friendly offices to the promotion of peace.
If these are not acceptable or do not avail, it is our policy to
preserve an honorable and strict neutrality, as was done during the
recent war in Chili. Tempting commercial and political advantages may
be offered for our aid or influence by one or the other of the two
contending parties, but this we have not deemed to be consistent with
the obligations of international honor and good-will. This Government
was quite as determined in its refusal to allow a war-vessel of the
United States to carry to a neutral port, where it could be made
available for war purposes, the silver of Balmaceda, as it was to give
aid to the forces opposing him. The questions involved were Chilian
questions, and this Government endeavored to observe those principles
of non-intervention upon which it had so strongly insisted when civil
war disturbed our own people. I cannot doubt that this policy will
commend itself to those who now administer the Government of Chili;
nor can I doubt that when excitement has given place to calmness, when
the truth is ascertained and the selfish and designing perversions of
recent incidents have been exposed, our respective governments will
find a basis of increased mutual respect, confidence, and friendship.
Mr. Minister, this Government and our people rejoice that peace has
been restored in Chili, and that its Government is the expression of
the free choice of its people. You may assure your honored President,
who has been chosen under circumstances which so strongly testify to
his moderation and to the esteem in which he is held by the people of
all parties, that the Government of the United States entertains only
good-will for him and for the people of Chili, and cannot doubt that
the existing and all future differences between the two governments
will find an honorable adjustment. To you, Mr. Minister, I tender a
personal welcome.
In his annual message to Congress, December 9, President Harrison
concludes his remarks upon Chilian affairs relating to the attack upon
the sailors of the cruiser _Baltimore_ with the following significant
paragraphs:
So far as I have yet been able to learn, no other explanation of
this bloody work has been suggested than that it had its origin in
hostility to these men as sailors of the United States, wearing the
uniform of their Government, and not in any individual act or personal
animosity. The attention of the Chilian Government was at once
called to this affair, and a statement of the facts obtained by the
investigation we had conducted was submitted, accompanied by a request
to be advised of any other or qualifying facts in the possession of
the Chilian Government that might tend to relieve this affair of the
appearance of an insult to this Government. The Chilian Government
was also advised that if such qualifying facts did not exist, this
Government would confidently expect full and prompt reparation.
It is to be regretted that the reply of the Secretary for Foreign
Affairs of the Provisional Government was couched in an offensive
tone. To this no response has been made. This Government is now
awaiting the result of an investigation which has been conducted
by the criminal court at Valparaiso. It is reported unofficially
that the investigation is about completed, and it is expected that
the result will soon be communicated to this Government, together
with some adequate and satisfactory response to the note by which
the attention of Chili was called to this incident. If these just
expectations should be disappointed or further needless delay
intervene, I will, by a special message, bring this matter again to
the attention of Congress for such action as may be necessary. The
entire correspondence with the Government of Chili will at an early
day be submitted to Congress.
PROTECTION FOR RAILROAD EMPLOYEES.
[_Extract from President's Message, December 9, 1891._]
On the evening of August 5, 1888, at Indianapolis, General Harrison,
responding to an address from D. T. Downs, President of the Terre
Haute Railroad Club, and in the presence of several thousand railroad
employees, speaking of the heroic services rendered by the men who
operate the great railroad lines of the country, said:
I do not doubt that certain and necessary provisions for the safety
of the men who operate these roads will yet be made compulsory by
public and general law. The dangers connected with your calling are
very great, and the public interest, as well as your own, requires
that they should be reduced to the minimum. I do not doubt that we
shall yet require that uniformity in the construction of railroad cars
that will diminish the danger of those, who must pass between them in
order to make up trains.
Consistent with these views, President Harrison, in his message to
Congress, December 9, 1891, made the following pertinent suggestions:
I have twice before urgently called the attention of Congress to the
necessity of legislation for the protection of the lives of railroad
employees, but nothing has yet been done. During the year ending June
30, 1890, 369 brakemen were killed and 7,841 maimed while engaged in
coupling cars. The total number of railroad employees killed during
the year was 2,451 and the number injured 22,390. This is a cruel and
largely a needless sacrifice, The Government is spending nearly one
million dollars annually to save the lives of shipwrecked seamen;
every steam-vessel is rigidly inspected and required to adopt the most
approved safety appliances. All this is good; but how shall we excuse
the lack of interest and effort in behalf of this army of brave young
men who in our land commerce are being sacrificed every year by the
continued use of antiquated and dangerous appliances? A law requiring
of every railroad engaged in inter-State commerce the equipment each
year of a given per cent. of its freight cars with automatic couplers
and air brakes would compel an agreement between the roads as to the
kind of brakes and couplers to be used, and would very soon and very
greatly reduce the present fearful death-rate among railroad employees.
THE APPOINTMENT OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS.
[_From Annual Message to Congress, December 9, 1891._]
Perhaps no official utterance of President Harrison received more
serious and profound consideration--as indicated through the press
of the day--than the following patriotic admonishment regarding the
danger lurking within certain possible methods of choosing presidential
electors. He said:
The method of appointment by the States of electors of President and
Vice-President has recently attracted renewed interest by reason of a
departure by the State of Michigan from the method which had become
uniform in all the States. Prior to 1832 various methods had been
used by the different States, and even by the same State. In some the
choice was made by the Legislature; in others electors were chosen by
districts, but more generally by the voters of the whole State upon
a general ticket. The movement toward the adoption of the last-named
method had an early beginning and went steadily forward among the
States, until in 1832 there remained but a single State--South
Carolina--that had not adopted it. That State, until the Civil War,
continued to choose its electors by a vote of the Legislature, but
after the war changed its method and conformed to the practice of the
other States. For nearly sixty years all the States save one have
appointed their electors by a popular vote upon a general ticket, and
for nearly thirty years this method was universal.
After a full test of other methods, without important division or
dissent in any State and without any purpose of party advantage, as
we must believe, but solely upon the considerations that uniformity
was desirable and that general election in territorial divisions not
subject to change was most consistent with the popular character of
our institutions, best preserved the equality of the voters, and
perfectly removed the choice of President from the baneful influence
of the "gerrymander," the practice of all the States was brought into
harmony. That this concurrence should now be broken is, I think, an
unfortunate and even a threatening episode, and one that may well
suggest whether the States that still give their approval to the
old and prevailing method ought not to secure, by a constitutional
amendment, a practice which has had the approval of all. The recent
Michigan legislation provides for choosing what are popularly
known as the Congressional electors for President by Congressional
districts, and the two Senatorial electors by districts created for
that purpose. This legislation was, of course, accompanied by a new
Congressional apportionment, and the two statutes bring the electoral
vote of the State under the influence of the "gerrymander."
These gerrymanders for Congressional purposes are in most cases
buttressed by a gerrymander of the legislative districts, thus making
it impossible for a majority of the legal voters of the State to
correct the apportionment and equalize the Congressional districts.
A minority rule is established that only a political convulsion
can overthrow. I have recently been advised that in one county of
a certain State three districts for the election of members of the
Legislature are constituted as follows: One has 65,000 population,
one 15,000, and one 10,000; while in another county, detached,
non-contiguous sections have been united to make a legislative
district. These methods have already found effective application to
the choice of Senators and Representatives in Congress, and now an
evil start has been made in the direction of applying them to the
choice by the States of electors of President and Vice-President. If
this is accomplished, we shall then have the three great departments
of the Government in the grasp of the "gerrymander," the legislative
and executive directly and the judiciary indirectly, through the power
of appointment.
An election implies a body of electors having prescribed
qualifications, each one of whom has an equal value and influence in
determining the result. So when the Constitution provides that "each
State shall appoint [elect], in such manner as the legislature thereof
may direct, a number of electors," etc., an unrestricted power was not
given to the legislatures in the selection of the methods to be used.
"A republican form of government" is guaranteed by the Constitution
to each State, and the power given by the same instrument to the
legislatures of the States to prescribe methods for the choice, by
the State, of electors must be exercised under that limitation. The
essential features of such a government are the right of the people
to choose their own officers and the nearest practicable equality of
value in the suffrages given in determining that choice.
It will not be claimed that the power given to the Legislature
would support a law providing that the persons receiving the smallest
vote should be the electors, or a law that all the electors should
be chosen by the voters of a single Congressional district. The
State is to choose, and under the pretence of regulating methods
the legislature can neither vest the right of choice elsewhere nor
adopt methods not conformable to republican institutions. It is not
my purpose here to discuss the question whether a choice by the
Legislature or by the voters of equal single districts is a choice by
the State, but only to recommend such regulation of this matter by
constitutional amendment as will secure uniformity and prevent that
disgraceful partisan jugglery to which such a liberty of choice, if it
exist, offers a temptation.
Nothing just now is more important than to provide every guaranty
for the absolutely fair and free choice by an equal suffrage, within
the respective States, of all the officers of the national Government,
whether that suffrage is applied directly, as in the choice of members
of the House of Representatives, or indirectly, as in the choice of
Senators and electors of President. Respect for public officers and
obedience to law will not cease to be the characteristics of our
people until our elections cease to declare the will of majorities
fairly ascertained, without fraud, suppression, or gerrymander. If I
were called upon to declare wherein our chief national danger lies, I
should say, without hesitation, in the overthrow of majority control
by the suppression or perversion of the popular suffrage. That there
is a real danger here all must agree, but the energies of those who
see it have been chiefly expended in trying to fix responsibility upon
the opposite party, rather than in efforts to make such practices
impossible by either party.
Is it not possible now to adjourn that interminable and inconclusive
debate while we take, by consent, one step in the direction of reform
by eliminating the gerrymander, which has been denounced by all
parties, as an influence in the selection of electors of President
and members of Congress? All the States have, acting freely and
separately, determined that the choice of electors by a general ticket
is the wisest and safest method, and it would seem there could be no
objection to a constitutional amendment making that method permanent.
If a legislature chosen in one year upon purely local questions
should, pending a presidential contest, meet, rescind the law for a
choice upon a general ticket, and provide for the choice of electors
by the legislature, and this trick should determine the result, it
is not too much to say that the public peace might be seriously and
widely endangered.
I have alluded to the "gerrymander" as affecting the method of
selecting electors of President by Congressional districts, but the
primary intent and effect of this form of political robbery have
relation to the selection of members of the House of Representatives.
The power of Congress is ample to deal with this threatening and
intolerable abuse. The unfailing test of sincerity in election reform
will be found in a willingness to confer as to remedies and to put
into force such measures as will most effectually preserve the right
of the people to free and equal representation.
An attempt was made in the last Congress to bring to bear the
constitutional powers of the general Government for the correction
of frauds against the suffrage. It is important to know whether the
opposition to such measures is really vested in particular features
supposed to be objectionable or includes any proposition to give to
the election laws of the United States adequacy to the correction
of grave and acknowledged evils. I must yet entertain the hope that
it is possible to secure a calm, patriotic consideration of such
constitutional or statutory changes as may be necessary to secure
the choice of the officers of the Government to the people by fair
apportionments and free elections. I believe it would be possible to
constitute a commission, non-partisan in its membership and composed
of patriotic, wise, and impartial men, to whom a consideration of the
question of the evils connected with our election system and methods
might be committed with a good prospect of securing unanimity in some
plan for removing or mitigating those evils. The Constitution would
permit the selection of the commission to be vested in the Supreme
Court, if that method would give the best guaranty of impartiality.
This commission should be charged with the duty of inquiring into
the whole subject of the law of elections as related to the choice of
officers of the national Government, with a view to securing to every
elector a free and unmolested exercise of the suffrage and as near an
approach to an equality of value in each ballot cast as is attainable.
While the policies of the general Government upon the tariff,
upon the restoration of our merchant marine, upon river and harbor
improvements, and other such matters of grave and general concern are
liable to be turned this way or that by the results of Congressional
elections and administrative policies, sometimes involving issues that
tend to peace or war, to be turned this way or that by the results
of a presidential election, there is a rightful interest in all the
States and in every Congressional district that will not be deceived
or silenced by the audacious pretence that the question of the right
of any body of legal voters in any State or in any Congressional
district to give their suffrages freely upon these general questions
is a matter only of local concern or control. The demand that the
limitations of suffrage shall be found in the law, and only there, is
a just demand, and no just man should resent or resist it. My appeal
is, and must continue to be, for a consultation that shall "proceed
with candor, calmness, and patience upon the lines of justice and
humanity, not of prejudice and cruelty."
To the consideration of these very grave questions I invite not only
the attention of Congress, but that of all patriotic citizens. We must
not entertain the delusion that our people have ceased to regard a
free ballot and equal representation as the price of their allegiance
to laws and to civil magistrates.
I have been greatly rejoiced to notice many evidences of the
increased unification of our people and of a revived national spirit.
The vista that now opens to us is wider and more glorious than
ever before. Gratification and amazement struggle for supremacy as
we contemplate the population, wealth, and moral strength of our
country. A trust, momentous in its influence upon our people and upon
the world, is for a brief time committed to us, and we must not be
faithless to its first condition--the defence of the free and equal
influence of the people in the choice of public officers and in the
control of public affairs.
THE CHILIAN MESSAGE, JANUARY 25, 1892.
Just as this book is going to the printer there has appeared a most
satisfactory closing chapter--the masterly message on the Chilian
difficulty. This message quickly won the approval of the civilized
world, and has stirred, as it has not been stirred in years, the
patriotic pride of our own people. It will rank side by side with
Monroe's famous declaration of American policy. It at once impresses
one with its character as the official statement of their position by
a powerful yet generous people, who, conscious of their own strength,
will firmly assert their rights and maintain their dignity, without any
disposition to despoil or humiliate their weaker neighbors. The position
taken by the President was so firm and the justice of our claims was so
clearly set forth that three days after the date of the message he was
enabled to announce to Congress that Chili had substantially complied
with our demands.