IMPORTANT EVENTS IN CAREER
It will be necessary now to go back a few years in order to record
certain events important in my personal career.
In the summer of 1880 James A. Garfield received from the republican
national convention at Chicago the nomination as candidate for
President of the United States. At that time the states of Indiana and
Ohio continued to hold their state elections early in the month of
October, and the result of the elections in those two states in October
had a most important and almost controlling influence upon the result
of the presidential contest at the ensuing November election.
Early in September of that year I received from the state central
committee of the state of Indiana an invitation to accompany
ex-Governor Kirkwood of Iowa in a canvassing tour of two weeks, which
invitation I accepted. We had a very agreeable and enjoyable trip.
Governor Kirkwood was a very companionable man and was received with
much honor and enthusiasm, and our meetings were largely attended and
were quite successful. Part of the time we did not speak together at
the same meetings, but had separate appointments assigned us. At one
point where there existed a considerable manufacturing industry, the
local committee waited upon us at our hotel before the speaking, and
suggested that they desired us to especially discuss the tariff
question and its effect upon our American manufacturers. After the
committee had retired Governor Kirkwood walked the floor of the room
for a few minutes, and turning suddenly upon me he said, "Charlie, do
you understand this tariff question?" I told him no, I knew very little
about it. "Well," he said, "I was raised a democrat and am not much of
a tariff man anyhow, and I want you to take up this tariff question if
either of us must." I told him that I could talk about the general
effect of protecting American labor and the duty of the American
congress to so arrange the tariff upon imports as to relieve our people
from competition with the low wages paid in Europe; that the American
laborer must receive higher wages than the European laborer for he must
educate his children and must enjoy better conditions in life, and as
our free institutions were based upon the intelligence of the voter, we
could not afford to allow the laboring man to occupy the position
socially or politically of the European laborer; that I could talk
along that line all they wanted, but when it came to discussing
schedules or specific duties I should not venture upon any such
discourse; in fact, I was satisfied that few people understood the
subject sufficiently to discuss the detail of tariff duties with
intelligence. I filled the bill accordingly, as Governor Kirkwood
placed that part of the program in my charge, but he himself did not
say "tariff" once.
At Indianapolis we attended a grand rally at which Roscoe Conkling, of
New York, was the principal orator of the day. The managers had
arranged for a grand parade, and the Governor with myself and several
other gentlemen were assigned to a carriage that was to take prominent
part in the procession. Conkling had arrived, it seems, early in the
day, and the procession was delayed for over an hour waiting for that
distinguished gentleman to complete his toilet before making his
appearance in public. The streets and the balcony of the hotel were
lined with ladies in their holiday attire, and as the procession passed
by we heard frequent inquiries from the finely dressed maidens as to
which was Conkling, and when he was pointed out to them they were
enthusiastic in their declarations that he was a handsome man. I was
introduced to Mr. Conkling in the corridor of the hotel, after his
speech, and was shocked and surprised at his want of courtesy and
decent manners. He was there for the purpose of advocating the election
of Mr. Garfield, and adding if possible enthusiasm to the occasion, and
yet openly in the hearing of the crowd he was cursing the folly of the
convention in nominating Mr. Garfield instead of renominating Grant for
the third term. A more arrogant and conceited public man it has never
been my misfortune to meet.
An incident occurred the following Sunday morning more pleasant to
record. I got up very early, and going down to the lower portico of the
hotel I found a few persons astir. I felt somewhat lonesome and seeing
a well dressed, intelligent looking colored man on the pavement, I
entered into conversation with him in regard to the political
situation, and asked him whether or not the colored men of the city
would not all support Mr. Garfield, the republican nominee. To my
surprise he said, "No, sah, some of them will vote the democratic
ticket." I said to him, "How is it possible for a colored man to
support the democratic ticket in view of the history of the past
twenty-five years? The colored race have been emancipated and
enfranchised and made equal before the law through the efforts of the
republican party of the nation. How, then, can any of your people
support the democratic party?" "Well, sah," said he, "in some respects
a colored man is very much like a white man." Said I, "What do you mean
by that?" "Well, sah," said he, "I'll tell you. Occasionally, sah, you
will find a colored man that is a damn fool." I saw a twinkle in his
eye and realized that he was intending his reply for a joke. I
immediately offered him my hand and shook hands with him heartily,
telling him that since there were so many white men of that kind I
supposed it would be unreasonable not to expect occasionally a colored
man that was a fool.
Upon my return to Iowa after the October election in Indiana I made a
speech in the opera house at Oskaloosa, Iowa, and the gallery was
filled with colored men, many of them from What Cheer, a mining
district near Oskaloosa. I related to them the particulars of my
interview with the colored gentleman of Indianapolis. They enjoyed it
hugely and gave me rounds of applause, and I told them I hoped that in
some respects they would not be like the few that were back in Indiana.
After the election of Mr. Garfield, Governor Kirkwood was appointed
Secretary of the Interior, and as I had official business before the
supreme court that summer I visited Washington City in company with my
wife, and spent a pleasant two weeks admiring the wonders of the
national capital. Bishop Andrews, of the Methodist Episcopal church,
had been for a number of years a resident of Des Moines and our near
neighbor on Fourth street, and in company with his excellent wife Mrs.
Nourse had a very enjoyable time. Governor Kirkwood also arranged that
we should attend a private reception of the President and his wife, and
Mrs. Nourse enjoyed the privilege of quite a tete a tete with the
President's lady, officially known as the first lady of the land. When
my wife bid her good evening she shook hands with her and expressed the
hope that she would be very happy in her new position. Mrs. Garfield
was rather a sad faced person and responded in a tone almost prophetic,
"I hope so. We do not know." Afterwards upon the assassination of Mr.
Garfield I was called upon to take part in a meeting held in the
Baptist church in Des Moines, commemorating the memory of that
excellent man. I found in my wife's scrap book some years afterwards a
newspaper clipping containing a report of the remarks I made on that
occasion which I here insert:
For the past five days our nation has been in mourning and the
Christian civilization of the world has sympathized with us in our
bereavement. By official proclamations, by public meetings and
resolutions, by draping our homes and places of business and houses
of worship with the emblems of mourning, we have sought to give
expression to our sorrow and to testify our appreciation of our
noble dead.
Tomorrow the whole nation is to attend upon his burial and the day
is set apart as sacred to his memory. And yet with all this we
cannot restore the life that has been so wantonly destroyed. Death
is inexorable, and we can do nothing for him who has gone out from
the shores of time forever.
But in a better sense of the word Garfield is not dead. So long as we
cherish the manly virtues of which his life was the exponent, so long
as we remember the trials and sacrifices of his boyhood, the labors and
successes of his riper years, the heroism, faith, fidelity of his life,
and the calm triumphant heroism of his death, so long will he live to
us and to the nation, and so long may we be profited by his life.
I can think of no better text this morning for profitable consideration
than one of the many rich gems of thought he has left us out of the
storehouse of this great heart and intellect. At the graves of the
fallen heroes of the late war he expressed this sentiment, "I love to
believe that no heroic sacrifice is ever lost, that the characters of
men are molded and inspired by what their fathers have done, that
treasured up in American souls are all the unconscious influences of
the great deeds of the Anglo Saxon race, from Agincourt to Bunker
Hill."
In the oldest book of the Book of Books the patient man in his deep
affliction asks the question, "If a man dies shall he live again?" This
question refers primarily to man's immortality, but we may dwell upon
it in its other meaning, this morning, as relating to the silent and
unconscious power and influence of the life and example of the one whom
we say is dead.
And think what a treasure we have in the memory of this man. Others
have challenged the admiration of the world because of their great
abilities. Others have been brave in war and wise in counsel. Others
have been heroes and statesmen, and we have honored them and done
homage to their greatness, but this man was not only great and wise and
brave, but a good, true and pure man also, and the nation loved him. We
give honor to his greatness, we give the tribute of praise to his great
abilities and his great achievements, but we bring tears and heart
throbs to the tomb where manly virtue, purity, and faith are to be
enshrined. How much there is in the life of this man that we would wish
to bring into the everyday life of our homes. Here is the model of a
life from which we would have our children mold their own future, no
blemishes to record, nothing to apologize for, nothing to cover up--it
stands out in its moral perfection and beauty--in its intellectual
strength and greatness--in its religious faith and fervor, a fully
developed manhood--a complete character--a perfect pattern.
Do you want an inspiration for your child? Repeat to him the story of
this man's youth, of his struggle with poverty and adversity, without
influential friends or fortune. Do you want to teach the young men of
the nation the value of sincerity, honesty, earnestness, and
truthfulness in the affairs of life? Here is the demonstration and the
proof that even in American politics and American statesmanship,
dishonesty, deceit, and duplicity are not necessary to success. Do you
want to rebuke the conceit of the would-be learned who teach our young
men that the religious faith that their mothers taught them is somehow
a reproach to their intellectual progress--we have here a man of the
broadest culture, of the strongest intellectual grasp and development,
whose religious faith was the very basis and strength of his greatness
and intellectual power.