the great coal mines of Pennsylvania tossed out their grimy workers,
and they rushed to the defence of Washington, without stopping to
change their clothes or bid their wives farewell, William Sprague was
at the scene of action, giving his time, money, all that a man has to
give, that these citizen-soldiers might have wherewith to preserve
life. With the boom of the first cannon this citizen of Rhode Island
flung his soul into the struggle for the life of the Republic. Away
up in the rocky ledges of the American continent is a magic spring
of smallest proportions. If at a certain period of the world’s life a
foreign substance, no larger than a man’s boot, had been thrust into
it, the course of the mighty Mississippi would have been changed.
Who can estimate the incalculable blessing to this nation produced
by a single man coming forward at exactly the right moment with the
real bone and sinew of war in his hands. He bought the blankets, and
tincups, and loaves of bread for the new recruits, whilst General
Jim Lane was guarding Abraham Lincoln. It is superfluous to recall
his meritorious conduct as an officer in every fearful trial which
has rocked our ship of state, for it is fresh within the memory of
us all. It may be said that many speeches for polish and elegance
of diction surpass those of the Senator from Rhode Island, but the
inquiry naturally arises, is a man dear to our hearts for his words
or his deeds? For both, we answer. But if the two are not always
found wedded like husband and wife, give us the substance, and whilst
the Creator is filling anew his generous order for more men, let us
humbly petition that he send a good round number no better, no worse,
than Senator Sprague.
OLIVIA.
SEALED SISTERS OF MORMONISM.
INTERVIEW WITH ONE OF THE RIBS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG.
WASHINGTON, _April 23, 1869_.
The dreamy twilight which envelops the city during every recess of
Congress has settled upon Washington. During the small hours of
the morning the tardy Senators have folded their tents and to-day
they are stealing away. Spring, clean and fresh as a mermaid, trips
daintily along our broad highways. The flowers are opening their
pretty eyes; the zephyrs greet us sweet as the breath of love, and
all nature conspires to lead the mind into the luxurious revels
of an Oriental extravaganza. The modern Caliph, Brigham Young, of
Utah, has sent his beloved Zobedie to Washington, and to-day at
11 a. m. her shadow falls across the door of the White House, but
whether she gains the ear of President Grant your correspondent
knoweth not. Several weeks ago the newspapers told us that a number
of women, all so-called wives of Brigham Young, were en route for
the States. A party composed of the elite of the Salt Lake harems
are in Washington. No single man has two wives in the expedition.
Brigham Young has contributed his favorite, whilst both of his two
sons, who help compose the party, have confined themselves to one
apiece. Two single women are added to this rare bouquet, but whether
“sealed” or otherwise is known only to the “Prophet” or the saints.
The party is stopping near the corner of I and Fourteenth streets,
under the protecting care of Mr. Hooper, the Delegate from Utah
Territory. It has been said by those who thought they were acquainted
with Mr. Hooper that he does not profess the Mormon faith, but for
the information of those who may be curious about this interesting
subject it is safe to believe that Brigham Young has no more faithful
follower than this accomplished Delegate.
Just at this magic hour when the light and the darkness were
quarreling for supremacy we might have been found in the presence of
one of our own countrywomen, a woman born in the great State of New
York, educated, beautiful, elegantly attired, and yet there seemed
to be no common platform upon which we could meet and converse, for
our ideas ran in grooves as far apart as thought can separate. Had
it been Victoria, we could have recalled the memory of the Blameless
Prince, or alluded to the Alabama claims; had it been Eugenie, we
could have seized Pio Nono; or Mrs. President Grant, we could have
applied for the “Nasby” postoffice. But, oh, tortured soul, it was
Lady Zobedie, the seventieth double of Brigham Young. What did it
matter? Though she is a rib nearest his heart to-day, a woman with a
ruddier cheek may crowd her aside to-morrow. Woman, is she living,
breathing, poised on the edge of a frightful precipice? Yes! But a
woman with the fire of life smoldering in the ashes; no rollicking
flame. A woman who would leave a room colder for having passed
through it.
Conversation darted hither and thither like Noah’s dove, who could
find no rest for the sole of her foot. The watery waste of speech
was all around us, but the Gentile was afraid and the Saint coldly
indifferent. The Gentile ventured to ask if the queen was not pleased
with the prosperity of our country, and was it not astonishing, after
such a prolonged civil war?
She “hadn’t been accustomed to think much about such things.”
“How does Utah compare with this part of the world?” was the next
inquiry.
“Not much difference; the world is just about the same all over.”
“I am told it is very expensive living after you leave Omaha.”
“I never think about such things.”
“Have you met Madame Daubigney, the great French traveler? I am told
she has a reputation in Europe next to the late Madame Pneiffer. She
is in Washington, and expects to leave soon for Salt Lake.”
“Yes, she has been to see me two or three times, but I try to
discourage her. I don’t believe in women lecturers and women artists.
I am told she dabbles in both.”
A fearful pause.
“Have you called upon Mrs. Grant?”
“No, I never call upon ladies, but I intend to pay my respects to the
President. I wouldn’t like to tell them at home that I hadn’t seen
him.”
The Gentile kindly alluded to the fact that Joseph Smith was an old
acquaintance of her family, and although her father differed with him
in belief, yet, as a neighbor, he was trusted with many of his first
revelations. No response; the electric current of the mind would not
work.
Our meeting was like the greeting of two planets whose paths happened
to intersect. We neared each other for a moment, only to separate,
each flying from the other, and one, if not both of us, feeling the
awful effects of human fanaticism when it comes between two citizens
of the same Republic.
The lengthening shadows of night crept into the room. A street lamp
before the open window had been lighted, and its rays fell upon the
marble features of this pale, amber-haired blonde, and the classic
cast of her countenance might have answered for a model of beauty
for either the sculptor or the painter. But other shapes almost as
tangible were there also. They were the demons of the dark ages come
back to mock us. This seventieth wife with her fair face had touched
the sepulchre of the past, and grinning specters of the past were
among us. The very air seemed to say for this silent woman: “If we
were strong and you were weak, woman should again take her place at
the foot of a ladder. Is the woman of to-day wiser or better than was
Rachel or Sarah?”
Brigham Young has sent this woman abroad to be on exhibition like
any other work of art. She is expected to make new converts. She
is allowed to indulge her taste in silks, jewels and point lace.
The other wives are young, giddy, and commonplace. Their manners
are just what must be expected from youth and inexperience, and
their conversation, so far as two of them are concerned, was only
noticeable on account of its warmth of grammatical accuracy. All the
Mormons who come to Washington make us feel that they are by the
side of us yet not annealed with the great body of the people. They
have a bitter hatred of the Gentiles, cloaked, though it may be, by
a frigid politeness. Mr. Hooper says: “Things seem strange to you,
out our way, but it is quite as strange to us in this part of the
country; but we don’t feel like meddling with your institutions.” He
also remarked that it was very strange that so many people seemed
desirous to settle out in that part of the world. He said it was the
poorest, most unattractive portion of the American continent. It was
for this reason that the “chosen people” exiled themselves, planted
their homes where nature has set a bitter, sterile face. The late
cry of “We only ask to be let alone” is borne to us from the saline
hills of Utah. We answer it with the scream of the locomotive. The
Pacific Railroad is the guillotine which will cleave the head of
Mormonism asunder, and polygamy, the last sad relic of barbarism, the
one single blemish which clings to our beloved Republic, is doomed.
OLIVIA.
AWAITING AUDIENCE AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
GENERAL DENT AND ROBERT DOUGLAS AS BUFFERS.
WASHINGTON, _April 27, 1869_.
Just as the monarch of a Persian story gives audience to the high
and low, so does President Grant receive the people, precisely after
the fashion of an Oriental tale. It is not quite certain whether the
President roams about the capital in the disguise of a dervish, as
did the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid in his beloved Bagdad, but of a
Sunday, if the weather be fine, he dashes up Fourteenth street, drawn
by steeds, as fleet as the far-famed Arabian coursers, and a cloud of
dust envelops his costly barouche as potent and insinuating as the
flying sand in the desert.
A day in the ante-rooms of the White House will prove to the most
skeptical that the “Arabian Nights” are as authentic as Hawthorne’s
“Twice-Told Tales.” The Eastern Hemisphere had her rise and decline
before the sun of civilization kissed our rugged New England hills.
The Orient is asleep. The Occident fills the eyes of the world to-day.
President Grant has a grand vizier. It is General Dent, late of the
Union Army. It is the business of General Dent to receive all who
seek the presence of the President. When Andrew Johnson was Chief
Executive, all those waiting for an audience with power were left
by themselves to pass the long hours in waiting. It is somewhat
different now. The large reception room over the front of the East
Room is fitted up with tables, as well as sofas and chairs, and all,
from the humblest to the highest, are admitted to General Dent’s
presence. In the coziest corner of the reception room, beneath the
window which commands the uninterrupted view of the delightful
park which fronts the mansion, may be found the broad, long table
at which General Dent sits, with his accomplished assistants by his
side. General Dent is in the meridian of life, rather below the
medium size, though the rich, dark-blue military garb in which he
is encased diverts the mind from size altogether. Now add a face,
neither handsome nor plain, but a benign, good countenance, through
which the soul shines like flame through an astral shade, and you
have the picture of the man through whose hands you are to pass
before you are consigned to the august presence of majesty. At the
same table, directly opposite General Dent, may be seen the assistant
private secretary, Mr. Robert M. Douglas, eldest son of the late Hon.
Stephen A. Douglas. Those who can recall the form and features of
the departed Senator will see them reproduced, but, like the second
edition of the same book, a little revised and somewhat corrected.
Mr. Douglas inherits the broad shoulders, crowned by the same massive
head, so well remembered by the nation. His North Carolina speech has
made him famous as a youth, and it seems certain at present that he
was created to prove the exception to the rule that a great man never
bequeaths his talent to posterity. The social manners of Mr. Douglas
are such as would endear him to a sovereign as haughty as Queen
Elizabeth, and just as soon as he culminates as private secretary it
will be for the honor of the foreign service to send him abroad. But
at the present he can not be spared from a certain ante-room in the
White House.
At the left of General Dent may be seen Mr. Crook, one of the few men
left who were bequeathed as servants to the people by our beloved
Lincoln. He has seen the inauguration of four Presidents and the
installation of three different families in the White House. His mind
is a storehouse of legend and story. He is still a young man, more
than comely in personal appearance, and distinguished by social
manners which admirably befit court life.
And now we come to that part of the story which bears such a strong
resemblance to an Eastern tale. High and low, rich and poor, all
shades, all colors, from the blanched cheek of the haughty Circassian
belle to the Ethiopian polished ebony, may be found waiting in the
ante-rooms of the White House. Yellow women are there, with skins
like dead gold, their large, soft, lustrous eyes reminding one of a
Moorish picture. A dash of a carriage is heard on the stone pavement
below. Two elegant women alight, in faultless traveling costume. They
are shown by a messenger to the ante-room, and General Dent arises
to receive them. One of them is exceedingly beautiful. “We have
called,” says the beauty, “to pay our respects to the President.”
“Any business?” inquires General Dent. The dainty upper lip curls
perceptibly. “None whatever; we are traveling; we wish to see the
President.” “Impossible, Madame,” the General replies. “All these
people you see are waiting to see the President on business. General
Grant would be pleased to see you, but he has no time he can call his
own.” The great, haughty eyes of the traveler wander about the room.
As the two are about to depart General Dent asks them if they would
be “shown about the building”? A dignified consent being given, the
two stately swans sail away, piloted by the same messenger who showed
them up the stairs.
The doors of the inner temple tremble on their hinges, and the form
of a ponderous Senator emerges from the presence of the sun of day.
It is Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts. He strides to a centre table
and shakes hands with a distinguished group of men, composed of
Cole of California, Carpenter of Wisconsin, irrepressible General
Butler, and General Markland, the personal friend of General Grant,
who was nominated for Third Assistant Postmaster-General. Very soon
Mr. Gobright of the Associated Press joins hands with them; but the
attention of all eyes is drawn in another direction. Two strangers
are announced, and again General Dent arises to receive them. Two
strange beings,--the man wears the national costume of Burmah, the
picturesque turban, and the high-colored shawl gracefully draped
about his person; the woman has spoiled her identity by adopting
certain portions of European dress. They are native Burmese, and have
been studying in this country, but soon take their departure for
Burmah, where they expect to act as missionaries. They have called to
bid President Grant farewell, and are at once shown into his presence.
Every hour brings new arrivals. A colored delegation from Alexandria
has arrived. It was promised they should see the President at 1
o’clock. It is now past the hour, but still they wait patiently.
It seems to be the colored man’s fate to wait. There is a silent
grandeur about this resignation. It is like the march of the
centuries. Art has portrayed it in the face of the Egyptian sphynx.
A few Senators have seen the President. General Butler has dashed
in there where none of the rest are allowed to go. No one saw a
messenger depart with his card. He went in, disappeared for a moment
only, and now flings himself again amongst the throng. He takes a
cigar from a side pocket and a barbarous arrangement of some kind
from another. With the last thing he is going to kindle a fire. He
strikes the flint against the serpent, and something clicks like the
lock of a gun. One! two! three! Civilization and Barbarism once more
embrace and General Butler has lighted his cigar by the flame, and at
the same time, like the blaze of a comet, he has disappeared.
The weary, weary waiters! The sun begins to blink askance, and to
creep into western windows. A man says: “This is the tenth day I have
waited to see the President.” Some of the people who were always
to be found haunting Andrew Johnson have transferred themselves
to President Grant. These are the barnacles, or fungi, which every
administration inherits from its predecessor. A pale woman in weeds
seems to shrink away behind the friendly covering of an open door.
Her face is tear-stained. A feeble little child sits calmly by her
side. There is much to attract sympathy to the woman. The joyousness
of infancy seems to be trampled out of the innocent child. Little
sickly bud, growing in the shadow of grief, God help thee!
In the space of one hour audience day will be over, and the
disappointed will go, to return again on the morrow.
OLIVIA.
JOHN M. BARCLAY.
A FUND OF REMINISCENCES AT THE COMMAND OF THE JOURNAL CLERK OF THE
HOUSE.
WASHINGTON, _November 6, 1869_.
For more than a score of years strangers visiting the House of
Representatives may have noticed, at the right hand yet a little
below the speaker, a dignified, majestic man, who says the least,
yet, perhaps, we may say, does the most, for the country of any man
within hearing of the Speaker’s voice. The name of this man is John
M. Barclay, and without his presence, or another equally potent
in his place, the House of Representatives might be likened to a
locomotive deprived of its beloved steam. The business of the House
can proceed with an indifferent Speaker, weakness and effeminacy in
other officers can be borne; but the man whose business it is to keep
a faithful record of all that is done in the House has to get his
commission from his Creator, and then have it approved by the man who
happens to be elected Clerk of the House. It is Mr. Barclay’s duty to
hand down the archives of the nation to other generations. For the
last twenty years his mind has been a river through which the work
of the House of Representatives has found its way into history. In
this noisy, turbulent House it is his place to catch that which is
proper and legitimate and fix it in permanent form for the benefit
of the whole country. The Clerk of the House is the responsible
figure-head for this most important position, but Mr. Barclay is the
power behind the throne. In the clamor for office, petitions few or
none are sent up for the one Mr. Barclay occupies. A man to take his
place must have a perfect understanding of parliamentary law. When
the House is in session, not for a moment must his attention wander
from the points of discussion. The reporters in the gallery can enjoy
their little siestas, give and take from each other; but Mr. Barclay
must depend upon himself. So long has he occupied this position, so
admirably has he performed his difficult duties, that he may now be
compared to an exquisite piece of machinery. He never gives offence.
In early years he was a Whig, in later a Republican; but so just is
he that partisan sentiments are entirely overlooked, and both parties
in the House reverence him alike.
The usages and precedents of the British Parliament constitute the
basis of all parliamentary law amongst people who speak the English
language. Many years ago Thomas Jefferson wrote a book, which
is called “Jefferson’s Manual of Parliamentary Practice.” It is
formed of the precepts of the United States Constitution, and the
regulations early adopted in the United States Senate, collated with
a digest of English Parliamentary practice. This book is a well-known
authority in this country. Mr. Barclay furnishes the House with a
manual containing a digest of its own rules, so much of Jefferson’s
Manual as governs the proceedings of the House, together with the
precedents of order, usages of the House, etc., which is really a
complete and independent code by which the House is guided. The
rules and laws of the House of Representatives of the United States
are universally adopted for the government of all State and local
conventions, and form the basis of the rules and practice of nearly
all State legislatures. The influence of Mr. Barclay’s knowledge and
judgment, therefore, in the parliamentary affairs of the country,
will be seen to be very great. A correspondent of much repute, in a
letter some time ago, which has been widely copied, made the clerk to
the late Speaker, an estimable young man, entirely innocent of the
profundities and bewildering intricacies of parliamentary law, the
actual monitor of Mr. Colfax--a mistake hardly necessary to correct.
Mr. Barclay has seen the rise and decline of the reign of eight
different Speakers, Mr. Blaine being the ninth on the list. Of the
Speakers whose sceptres have withered, whose gavels have sounded for
the last time, Mr. Barclay gives Mr. Colfax the credit of being the
best parliamentarian, as well as the hardest and most persevering
student of the law. Mr. Barclay has seen the proud honor of Speaker
bestowed upon Robert C. Winthrop, Howell Cobb, Linn Boyd, N. P.
Banks, James L. Orr, William Pennington, Galusha A. Grow, Schuyler
Colfax, and James G. Blaine.
During the long years of treason and rebellion he was a silent
witness of the moral battles in the House. This warfare steadily
preceded the smoke of the cannon and the surgeon’s glittering knife.
It is true Mr. Barclay stores up only the actual substance of the
House; and yet how much he might reveal in regard to this august
body which is left out of the official record, as well as out of
“Gobright’s Recollections of a Third Century,” and also the awful
columns of the Congressional Globe.
Should Mr. Barclay have kept notes of his long experience at the
helm of the House, what a book he could make. His calm, judicial
mind would be sure to do justice to all parties. No reporter in
the gallery of “the gods” over his head--no statesman on the floor
below--could give so many fascinating pages. He could describe the
men who sat in the House when Cobb was Speaker,--most of them now
gathered to their fathers. He could tell us of the finished orator,
James McDowell, of Virginia, and of that great speech of his, in
1850, which electrified the country; of George C. Drumgoole, of the
same State, calm and clear even in his potations; of the knight of
later strifes, the spotless patriot and pure rhetorician, Henry
Winter Davis, of Maryland; of Hotspur Keitt, and handsome, hectoring
Brooks, of South Carolina; of dandy Dawson, of Louisiana; of gifted
but self-destroying McConnell, of Alabama; of quick George W.
Young, of Tennessee; of young Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, when
he first came into the House, wearing a Byron collar; of haughty
Toombs; logical Stephens; jolly T. H. Bayly; quiet Mr. Aiken;
nervous Clingman; dominating David Wilmot; brilliant D. K. Carter,
and eloquent Henry M. Fuller. He could narrate many a side-scene in
the great drama, when the actors got behind the curtain and sported
in their own green-room. He could show how the great struggle grew
from words to blows, from blows to battles, and from battles to
defeat. With Cobb and Orr, and Banks and Pennington, and Grow and
Colfax, Barclay was on terms of equality and intimacy. He could
describe the discomfiture of Barksdale when he lost his yellow wig;
of Potter, when he answered Pryor and offered to fight him; of the
quarrel between Cutting and Breckinridge; of Douglas in his prime,
and of Adams in his decay; and of the whole procession of life, fun,
frolic, sorrow, failure, disgrace, and death; of the pages who grew
to be generals, of the generals who became Congressmen, and of the
Congressmen who longed to be President. Write us a book, Colonel
Barclay. You are still in your prime. Take a reporter to your room,
and let him interview you, if you won’t jot it off in your own
clerkly hand; and if Congress don’t vote you a pension, or retire you
on a solid annuity, you and your posterity can live on the proceeds,
and be honored in the inevitable credit it will confer on your name.
OLIVIA.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
GRACE GREENWOOD, PHŒBE COUZINS, AND OTHER ADVOCATES OF THE CAUSE.
WASHINGTON, _January 18, 1870_.
The National Woman Suffrage Convention was inaugurated last evening
in Washington by a lecture on domestic life by Grace Greenwood.
A respectable-sized audience, with young people largely in the
preponderance, under the auspices of the Young Men’s Christian
Association, welcomed the authorities to the platform, and listened
with grace, respect, and occasional spice of applause, to the essay
christened “Indoors.” With a handsome, gallant preamble, Mrs.
Lippincott (better known to the world as Grace Greenwood), was
introduced, and her lecture went far to prove that women “indoors”
could accomplish far more for the benefit of the human race than on
the platform. There was intellect enough in the talented woman to
fill Lincoln Hall, but unfortunately physical power was wanting. Not
over one-third of those present were within hearing of the speaker’s
voice.