in the House went to prevent any final conclusion of the electoral
proceedings under the very law that they themselves had almost
unanimously voted for. What would have followed had this effort to
prevent a regular conclusion of the proceedings been successful it was
and is impossible to know. What _might_ have followed was a declaration
of a majority of the House that there had been no election at all,
after which Mr. Tilden (according to the law in case of failure to
elect) could have been elected by the House,--as against the inevitable
claim of Mr. Hayes that the returns as made to the president of the
Senate in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution, showed
that he had been elected President of the United States.
In the then state of public feeling I think there can be little, if
any, doubt that an armed collision of the supporters of the respective
claimants would have taken place.
Mr. Watterson states that when the election by the people in the
various States “ ... came to an end, the result showed on the face of
the returns 196” votes for Mr. Tilden “in the Electoral College, 11
more than a majority.” The returns he speaks of must have been the
_newspaper returns_, for, of course, on November 8, 1876, the day
after the election, there could have been no official returns of any
character in existence excepting, possibly, precinct and district
returns of the local votes in some sections. He states that on the
evening of the eighth of November Senator Barnum, the financial head
of the Democratic National Committee, sent a telegram to “The New York
Times” asking for the latest news from Oregon, Louisiana, Florida, and
South Carolina, and that from that unlucky telegram sprang all the
woes of the Democratic party! The next day, after some telegraphic
correspondence with Mr. Tilden--of the contents of which the public
never has been informed--Mr. Watterson left Louisville for New Orleans,
being joined en route by Mr. Lamar of Mississippi; and they were
soon followed by the body of Democrats chosen by Mr. Tilden to go
to the “seat of war.” President Grant, having been informed of the
Pelton enterprise, appointed a body of Republicans to go there also
to ascertain the truth and support a lawful and peaceable course. The
names of some or all of these Republicans visiting New Orleans are
given in Mr. Watterson’s article and have been already mentioned. His
recital of what happened I have already referred to, though the object
and purpose is not stated. But he does say, “There was corruption
in the air,” and “It was my own belief that the Returning Board was
playing for the best price it could get from the Republicans, and that
the only effect of any offer to buy on our part would be to assist this
scheme of blackmail.”
The last scene in this eventful history mentioned by Mr. Watterson
was “the Wormley conference,” as the consequence of what he correctly
calls the Democratic “bluff” “filibuster” intended merely to induce the
Hayes people to make certain concessions touching some of the Southern
States; and he says that “It had the desired effect,” and that,
satisfactory assurances having been given, the count proceeded to the
end.
I have no personal knowledge whatever of the doings of the so-called
conference, and had then no information even of its existence, and have
therefore no comment to make upon it except that the filibuster was a
“bluff” and would have died in time without issue from very shame of
its bluffing actors.
I am glad that Mr. Watterson’s article has appeared at this time,
before all the gentlemen, who in one form or another were personally
connected with public affairs during the years 1876-77, have passed to
the future life. Such as survive may now have an opportunity, if they
think it worth while to take it, to defend themselves from accusations
stated or implied in his article.
Recollections of ancient conversations, hearsays, or traditions are
of very little value in showing what the very facts were; while
written correspondence or other writings of the time would clarify and
illuminate the events supposed to have happened. Mr. Watterson most
correctly says that “Once in a while the world is startled by some
revelation of the unknown which alters the estimate of the historic
event or figure.” It is, therefore, very much to be regretted that he
did not print every writing (of which he appears to know many) within
his reach relative to the subject. He imputes to the members of the
Republican party at that time officially or otherwise connected with
public affairs the crime of bribing the State canvassing boards of the
disputed States “at least in patronage, to make false returns in favor
of the Republican electors.” As one of the few survivors of that stormy
time, as the _last survivor_ of the members of the select committees of
the two Houses who conducted the passage of the Electoral Bill, and as
the last survivor of the members of the Electoral Commission, I feel
bound to repel the imputation as wholly groundless. In all our frequent
consultations during the whole time there never was a proposal,
suggestion, or hint of ours, or on the part of any one of us, resorting
to bribery in any form, or of promise of office or other benefit, or
influencing or trying to influence any of the canvassing boards or
other state officials to depart from their lawful duty.
I, and I believe all the others, thought that the Republican ticket
had been truly and lawfully elected; and everything we did was to try
by lawful means to save the cause we believed our party had fairly
and lawfully won. We had not been educated under, and did not believe
in, the standard of political morality Mr. Watterson sympathetically
imputes to us; but we feared, as well we might from the Pelton work
and other revelations of occurrences in the disputed four Southern
States, that unlawful and more practical methods were being resorted
to by our adversaries to pervert, if possible, the lawful course and
result of the election. I cannot close this condensed statement without
expressing my earnest and grateful admiration of the conduct of all
the justices of the Supreme Court who were members of the Electoral
Commission. They were pure, high-minded, and patriotic, trying
earnestly to expedite our work. The venerable Justice Clifford, the
president, performed his arduous duties with promptness and perfect
impartiality. My memory of him and of his associates is among the most
pleasant of my public life.
(For Colonel Watterson’s rejoinder, see page 285.)
[Illustration]
_The_ GRAND CAÑON _of the_ COLORADO
_Six Lithographs drawn from nature
in 1912 for the Century by_
JOSEPH PENNELL
[Illustration: THE GREAT TEMPLE]
[Illustration: A RIFT IN THE WALLS]
[Illustration: A STORM PASSING OVER THE CAÑON]
[Illustration: IN THE GLOW OF SUNSET]
[Illustration: MISTS IN THE CAÑON]
[Illustration: From a photograph by Hanfstaengl. Half-tone plate
engraved by H. Davidson
RICHARD WAGNER]
IF RICHARD WAGNER CAME BACK
BY HENRY T. FINCK
Author of “Wagner and His Works,” “Chopin,” “Success in Music,” etc.
The outcome of the first Bayreuth Festival, in 1876, was a deficit of
$37,500. There was need of thirteen hundred subscriptions to cover the
expenses, but barely one half that number had been secured, thanks
to the hostility of the German press, which for years in advance
had systematically decried the project as a humbug, and at the last
moment actually got up a fake smallpox scare in order to frustrate
the festival. Wagner was only sixty-three years old at that time, and
therefore quite too young to be appreciated in a country where it seems
to be held that the only real genius is a dead genius. A series of
concerts given in London in the hope of covering the deficit referred
to resulted in further losses. The plan of repeating the Nibelung
performances in Bayreuth every year or two consequently vanished like
a rainbow, and it was not till Wagner was ready with his swan-song,
“Parsifal,” in 1882, that he found it possible again to invite the
world to that Bavarian town. This time there was actually a surplus of
$1500. Wagner was beginning to be appreciated! Six months later he died.
If he came back to-day, thirty years after, what would he find? If
he glanced at the newspapers and the musical periodicals, he would
note, perhaps not without some surprise, that no trace is left of the
virulent opposition to his music-dramas which had thwarted his plans
and made life a burden to him. He would see himself ranked with the
classics, the musical world no longer divided into Wagnerites and
anti-Wagnerites, and most of those who do not personally care for his
music yet willing to pay him the tribute of respect which they give to
Bach and Beethoven.
It is not generally known that Wagner was forty-four years old and had
written all but three of his operas before a single one of them was
produced in Vienna, Munich, or Stuttgart, and that he was fifty-six
and over before even his early works were staged in France, Italy, and
England. He was obliged to publish “Rienzi,” “The Flying Dutchman,”
and “Tannhäuser” at his own expense, and never got his money back. The
leading musical firms in Germany were aghast at his asking $7500 for
the publishing rights of “Das Rheingold,” “Die Walküre,” “Siegfried,”
and “Götterdämmerung.” He needed money, and reduced his demand by one
half; but again his offer was declined. Breitkopf and Härtel did buy
“Lohengrin,” only to be jeered at for so doing by Mendelssohn, who
thought it was a bad bargain. The same firm purchased “Tristan and
Isolde,” but had to wait years to get back the sum expended.
Soon after Wagner’s death the tide turned, and if he came back to-day,
he would enjoy a spectacle which would perhaps surprise him as much
as the disappearance of his detractors. Though he had great faith in
his “music of the future” (it was not he, but one of his enemies who
dubbed it so), he would hardly be prepared to find that in New York,
as in all the cities of Germany, his operas year after year now have a
greater number of performances than those of any other composer, and
that the same is true even in the cities of Italy, Spain, and France
whenever it is possible to secure for them competent singers and
conductors. But the most astonishing spectacle would be presented to
him in the warehouses of the publishing firms, nearly all of which have
whole floors stacked to the ceiling with reprints of his scores ready
to be rushed into the markets the moment the copyright on them has
expired a few months hence. While he might be wroth at a law which will
thus suddenly reduce the income of his heirs, he could not but feel
flattered on discovering that no other composer had ever been reprinted
in such wholesale fashion, proof of unprecedented popularity.
If it were possible to communicate with him to-day, would he join his
widow and son and their followers in petitioning parliament to make
an exception to the copyright law in favor of preserving “Parsifal”
forever for Bayreuth? I very much doubt if he would. In all probability
he would say to them:
“My prose writings and letters should have made it clear to you that
my chief reason for building a theater at Bayreuth for special model
performances of my music-dramas was that the royal opera-houses of the
empire had neither the means nor the good-will to produce these works
in a satisfactory manner. To-day I find the situation entirely changed,
the opera-houses vying with one another in their efforts to present my
works in exact accordance with my wishes. There is therefore no reason
for withholding ‘Parsifal’ from them any longer. They will stage it
conscientiously, and henceforth not only those who are wealthy enough
to travel to Bayreuth, but hundreds of thousands of others, will be
able to hear it. That the Bayreuth atmosphere is not a necessity for
the appreciation of my last work I infer from the reports from New
York, where ‘Parsifal’ is always listened to in the devotional attitude
which this semi-religious composition calls for.”
In 1852, Wagner wrote that a Lohengrin singer was yet to be born.
Twenty-four years later, for the Bayreuth performances of the Nibelung
dramas and “Parsifal” he selected his singers from all the German
opera-houses; yet it is not difficult to read between the lines of
his subsequent comments, appreciative and cordial though they were,
that few of these singers approximated to his ideal, and in most cases
he had to turn instructor to impart correct ideas of his new vocal
style, in which melody and declamation are amalgamated. Emil Scaria,
the wonderful _Gurnemanz_ of the Parsifal festival in 1882, was the
nearest approach to his ideal. Lilli Lehmann was too young in 1876 to
assume the part of _Brünhild_ in which she afterward established a new
standard of singing, combining the Italian _bel canto_ with German
realism of dramatic accent and emotional coloring.
That it was at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York that Lilli
Lehmann first revealed this new art is a detail of operatic history
which would interest Wagner if he came back to-day. When he composed
“Tristan and Isolde” he had in his mind prophetic visions not only of
Lehmann, but of Jean de Reszke, who established the same new standard
for tenors. While good dramatic singers are still scarce, the general
level has been raised, as Wagner would be the first to acknowledge.
How happy he would have been could he have had at Bayreuth masters of
his style as Nordica, Eames, Ternina, Krauss-Seidl, Gadski, Fremstad,
Schumann-Heink, Matzenauer, Homer, Knote, Burrian, Reiss, Goritz,
Alvary, the De Reszke brothers, Urlus, Braun, and Fischer, all of whom
are or have been associated with the Metropolitan.
One of the most important changes Wagner would note relates to the
importance now attached to orchestral conductors. Before he wrote his
essay on conducting, the orchestral leaders as a rule were little more
than mere time-beaters. He taught them by example and precept to be
real interpreters, molding an orchestral performance to their own will
as much as a pianist does the piece he plays.
What would Wagner say about the operas composed since his death?
Of all of them he would, I believe, like best Humperdinck’s “Die
Königskinder,” which, while written entirely in his own style,
nevertheless is charmingly original in its melodies. He would certainly
not admire the operas of Richard Strauss, partly because of their
repulsive subjects, partly because of the violence they do to the
human voice, but chiefly because this composer too often uses his
large orchestral apparatus to hide his poverty of invention. On the
other hand, he would be likely to denounce Debussy for his boycotting
of melody in “Pelléas et Mélisande” and for his neglect of modern
orchestral means of expression and coloring. Turning to Italy, he would
smile at the two short operas of Mascagni and Leoncavallo, which, when
first launched, were supposed to have dethroned him. Possibly he might
admire Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” and the last act of “Tosca.” In any
case, he could not but feel flattered on noting how, after his death,
Verdi, who was born in the same year as himself, but lived nineteen
years longer, followed his methods in “Otello” and “Falstaff.” In other
countries Wagner would find no indication of a genius able to alienate
the affections of opera-goers from his music-dramas. There has been no
progress, no important development, since his death.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF DOROTHY McK----
FROM THE PAINTING BY WILHELM FUNK
(THE CENTURY’S AMERICAN ARTISTS SERIES)]
“BLACK BLOOD”
BY EDWARD LYELL FOX
WITH PICTURES BY WILLIAM H. FOSTER
Drifting mists enveloped the landscape, a thousand gray wraiths
crawling through the air, their thin bodies changing, contracting,
vanishing. Over toward Massapequa the sky was brightening, distant
lights of purple and pink fighting their way through the mists, a dim
burning of color like that of fire through smoke. Somewhere a rooster
crowed; a dog barked drowsily. Already the vague shadows of the night
were congealing into trees, a rail fence, farm buildings. Beyond them
more trees, a stone wall, a red barn appeared. From the earth rose the
fresh odors of a new day.
In the windows of the house on the opposite side of the road lights
appeared. The figure of a man moved into shadow on a curtain and
was gone. No sound came from within. Then a door creaked open, feet
shuffled. Four men, carrying lanterns, issued forth and waited on the
porch. They began to talk in hoarse, early morning voices. The door
opened again; a powerful, soldierly looking man appeared. He said
something in a foreign tongue, and the others, lighting their lanterns,
hurried toward the barn.
When they were gone, Léon Giron, whom the newspapers called “the
greatest automobile race-driver in the world,” lighted a cigarette and
scowled. Indeed, he had begun the last ten days in the same way--the
cigarette, the scowl. This daybreak practice on the Vanderbilt Cup
Course had become distasteful. It was unnecessary, with the race as
good as won. Still, his employees had insisted. Scowling again, Giron
waited for his mechanicians to roll out the big Saturn.
He had thought of trying the twenty-mile cup course for speed or of
studying the turns, most particularly the one just opposite, where the
Jericho Turnpike bent into a right angle and continued as a narrow
road. He was still undecided when from down the pike came the low
rumbling of a motor. Louder and louder it grew, a growing succession of
reports that split the quiet air like volleys of musketry. Now Giron
could see the flames of its exhausts, the yellow and red flashes,
wild fire shining through the mists. Now he saw the white bulk of the
machine, the long, lean hood, the tilted steering-post, the two black
forms crouched behind.
On it came, faster than the wind, a spew of flame and smoke, a
voice-breathing thunder, a monstrous white dragon bursting the dawn.
As Giron watched, as his trained eye timed instantly the frightful
speed, as his experience whispered that for a car to rush the Jericho
turn meant disaster, possible death, the man’s face showed only cold
interest. Years before men had called him steel-nerved, ruthless,
abnormally cruel.
But now the white car crashed past. Swerving, it threw up a wall of
flying dirt, skidded terribly, shot across the road, seemed about to
go off, but, righting, bellowed round “the Jericho,” and rushed toward
Westbury. And as it went, as its dust-cloud trembled and fell, as its
explosions grew fainter and fainter, Giron stood watching, a startled
figure leaning far over the porch-rail, unbelief and venom in his
face. And as he watched, waiting until the white car was only a speck
dissolving toward Westbury, his lips began to move. To the air he
talked doubtfully, musingly, saying aloud:
“I thought there was only one man who could take a turn like that. One
man,”--his eyes glittered,--“Jean Lescault was his name, and I fixed
him seven years ago.”
Turning abruptly, he walked toward the garage.
Meanwhile the white car, passing Westbury, had turned off the course
and, rumbling contentedly, had come to a stop before Krugs. As you may
know, Krugs, an old-fashioned Long Island road-house kept by a tidy
German woman, has for years been the quarters of the cup-racers. Here
in spacious stables are kept the machines of two companies, sometimes
of three. Here in the uncomfortable rooms of the inn sleep their crews,
drivers, mechanics, team-managers. In its low-ceilinged dining-room
they sit, a score of them, smudgy-faced and in overalls, a careless,
boyish company whose faces, were they not so lined, you would call
young.
Nobody paid much attention to the white car as its heavy panting became
quieter and then died away, nor did they notice the tall, strapping
man with the boyish face who climbed out from the driver’s seat, nor
the broken little figure who climbed with him. As one of the reporters
had said, “Sammy Stevenson always looks as if he had just jumped out
of a cold plunge.” The expression was very pat. The boyish Stevenson’s
skin always seemed tingling, coloring; his eyes clear and wide-open;
his body tense, full-blown, strong. And as he kept step with his
companion in their walk toward the house, one would have said that the
contrast was pitiless; for the other man was a cripple. One of his
legs was shorter than the other; as he walked, his body swayed from
side to side; his left sleeve was empty. His whole frame looked gaunt,
emaciated, racked--racked, one thought immediately, by some terrible
accident that had disfigured his face, lining it with a long, white
scar. Though hideously ugly, broken in body, the little man walked with
his head well up, his chin high. And Stevenson regarded him as he might
have regarded a deity.
Out in Detroit, at the Mercury Motor-Car Company factory, everybody
knew the little man as “Old Lescault.” Five years before this time he
had appeared mysteriously, and in a few hours the factory had hired him
as a “racing expert.” He had taken Sammy Stevenson from the testing
service, put him on one of the racing-cars, and taught him “the game.”
In his department his word was law. Even John Willard, the company’s
gruff and positive president, who never had been known to take advice,
obeyed this hideous little Frenchman, who ruled all with a word, a
grimace, and made the sturdy, self-reliant Stevenson his personal
worshiper and the hostile factory hands his sympathetic friends.
Just now Jean Lescault was busy explaining something to Stevenson. The
young man listened intently.
“You’ll lose time on those turns,” Lescault was saying, “unless you
take them the way I tell you. Instead of swinging wide and describing
a curve, I want you to do this: rush the car right into the turn, jam
on the brakes, skid around on your front wheels, and then shoot ahead.
Look!” He quickly sketched a diagram on the breakfast-cloth. “There,”
he exclaimed, looking up, “that shows how you’ll cut time on the fellow
who curves around. It’s dangerous, but not if you keep your head. You
tried it at Jericho this morning and made it. Do it at every turn
hereafter.”
Stevenson nodded. Jean Lescault would be obeyed.
But Lescault wanted to tell him other things. It was his first morning
on the course. For some reason he had seen fit to remain in New York
despite Stevenson’s urging him to come down. Now, as they finished
breakfast, and Stevenson, pushing back his chair, remarked that he was
going out to see that the mechanics put away the car properly, a last
question came to Lescault’s lips:
“How”--he paused--“how is Giron getting along?”
Stevenson hesitated before answering.
“Do you know him?” he asked.
“No,” said Lescault.
“I asked,” said Stevenson, “because if, being a countryman, he happened
also to be a friend of yours, I shouldn’t want to repeat certain
things. Most of the American drivers dislike him. They criticize him
for not stopping when he knocked down that boy and broke his leg during
practice the other morning. They say Giron couldn’t have known whether
he killed him or not, and cared less. They say, too, that his manner is
unbearable, conceited, and sneering.”
“But his work,” interrupted Lescault, impatiently,--“his driving, his
skill, his nerve,--what of these things? Of the others I have heard.”
“His driving,” replied Stevenson, “is really wonderful. He’s a
daredevil, cool, thorough, and skilled. The newspapers say nothing like
his ability has ever been seen on the Vanderbilt Cup Course.”
“Damn the newspapers!” cried Lescault in a rage. “We’ll beat him. I
tell you, we’ll beat him.”
As he slid up abruptly from the table and limped away, Stevenson
noticed his eyes. In them was an expression that was not good to see.