The speaking on the line of the Erie road by Garfield, Harrison, and
Kirkwood was of a very high and effective character. The man who did
more to make peace than any other was General Grant. Conkling had a
genuine affection for him, and consented to go with him to Mentor;
and yet there was some trifle always in the way of a complete
understanding with the old guard of the Third-Term Crusaders.
Garfield was very sensible of and grateful for the work done by Grant
and Conkling, and did not stint expression of his feeling. The State
of New York was carried by the Republicans, and Garfield indisputably
elected President of the United States. There was a vast amount of
worry in making up the cabinet, and Mr. Conkling's hand appeared,
but not with a gesture of conciliation. He and Garfield were of
incompatible temper. Each had mannerisms that irritated the other; and
when they seemed to try to agree, the effort was not a success.
As soon as the administration was moving the President was under two
fires: one in respect to the attempted reforms in the postal service,
and the other about the New York appointments. Mr. Conkling did not
seem able to understand that anything could be done that was not
according to his pleasure, without personal offence toward himself.
He was a giant, and that was his weakness. It was Garfield's ardent
desire to be friendly with the senior New York Senator; but one
position he avowedly maintained. It was that he was not to blame for
being President of the United States; that he had taken the oath
of office, and was the man responsible to the people for the
administration, and he could not, dare not, shift that obligation;
and, more than that, he must give the "recognition" due friends to
the men who had aided him in breaking down Mr. Conkling's policy at
Chicago. If that was a crime he was a criminal. He was President, and
he would be true to his friends; and surely he should not be expected
to serve another man's purpose by humiliating himself.
Conkling had taken part in the campaign at last, but that was his duty
at first. It is needless to refer to questions of veracity--to what
practical politicians call "promises." A polite phrase is twisted,
by the many seized with fury to be officers, to mean what is desired,
though it may be but a mere civility--the more marked probably because
the President knows he has only good words to give! There are always
such issues when there is patronage to be distributed, for, of course,
there is dissatisfaction. Everybody cannot be made happy, with or
without civil service reform; and it is no effort, when the President
says "Good morning," and seems to be obliging, and says he will take a
recommendation into consideration and if possible read the papers,
and adds, "I shall be glad to see you again," to say, when he appoints
another to the coveted place, that he has falsified.
Mr. Conkling's friends relate that he was about to go to the White
House and hold a consultation in which Mr. Arthur and Mr. Platt were
to participate, when he received a telegram in cipher from Governor
Cornell which, when translated, turned out to be an urgent request
that the Senator should vote to confirm Robertson; and that this was
regarded as insulting, and Mr. Conkling refused to go to the White
House, with a burst of scorn about the dispensation of offices! This
is not consistent with the accusations that Garfield was influenced to
be perfidious. There are those who think there would have been peace
if it had not been for that Cornell telegram; but they are of the
manner of mind of the peacemakers of 1861, who thought another
conference would heal all wounded susceptibilities. The source
of discordance was not near the surface; it was in the system of
"patronage" and "recognition," and deep in the characteristics of the
individuals.
It is not true that Mr. Blaine was fierce for war upon Conkling; he
thought a fight was inevitable, and that the time for the President
to assert himself was at the beginning; and said so. "Fight now if at
all," said Blaine then to Garfield, "for your administration tapers!"
As to his personal wishes, he was often overruled in the cabinet,
and took it complacently. But he was warlike on the point that the
President was entitled to be friendly with his friends, and must not
be personally oppressed.
One day Mr. Conkling in the Senate had one of the New York
appointments pleasing to him taken up and confirmed, leaving half a
dozen others, about evenly divided between his own and the President's
favorites. Then came a crisis; and it was represented to the President
that he should pull those appointments out of the Senate at once,
before Conkling's power was further exhibited; and that if he did not,
the bootblacks at Willard's would know that the Senator, and not the
President, was first in affairs. The appointments were withdrawn, and
it was perfectly understood that this withdrawal signified that the
President would not allow men to be discriminated against because they
were opposed to Conkling at Chicago. A letter came from General Grant
in Mexico, addressed to Senator Jones of Nevada, and was published,
reflecting upon Garfield's course; and at once the President wrote
to the Old Commander defending his administration. This was done as a
matter of personal respect. General Grosvenor of Ohio happened to be
in the President's room when he mailed a copy of his letter to
General Grant, and read the duplicate that was reserved. It was a very
respectful and decisive statement. This letter was personal to General
Grant, and the rush of events caused it to be reserved and finally
forgotten, except by the few who knew enough of it to value it as an
historical document.
There were but a few days of the four months between the inauguration
of President Garfield and his assassination that he could be said to
have had any enjoyment out of the great office. It brought him only
bitter cares, venomous criticisms, lurking malice, covert threats
ambushed in demands that were unreasonable if not irrational. He felt
keenly the accusation that he had been nominated when his duty was due
another; and he was aware that friends had given color to accusation
by a zeal that was unseemly. He was pathetic in his anxiety to be very
right; and only the assurance that Conkling was implacable took the
sting out of the haughty presumption he encountered in that severe
gentleman, whose egotism was so lofty it was ever imposing, when it
would have been absurd in any one else.
During the summer and autumn of the campaign and the winter following,
President Garfield was subject to attacks of acute indigestion that
were distressing; and it was remembered with concern that he had at
Atlantic City suffered from a sunstroke while bathing, and fallen into
an insensible condition for a quarter of an hour. The question whether
his physical condition might not be one of frailty was serious. Then
Mrs. Garfield became ill, and the situation was gloomy.