It is one of the tragedies of history that in the procession of
events, the accumulation of incidents, year by year and generation
by generation, famous men of any period so rapidly disappear.
At the close of the Civil War there were at least a score of
generals in the North, and as many in the South, whose names
were household words. About fifty-five years have passed since
the war closed, and the average citizen knows only two of
them--Grant and Lee.
One of the last acts of General Grant was to tender to
Senator Conkling the position of chief justice of the Supreme Court
of the United States. Conkling had gained from the senatorship
and the leadership of his party a great reputation, to which
subsequent service in the Senate could add little or nothing.
He was in his early forties, in the prime of his powers, and he
would have had before him, as chief justice of this great court,
a long life of usefulness and distinction.
Conkling was essentially an advocate, and as an advocate not
possessing the judicial temperament. While there was a great
surprise that he declined this wonderful opportunity, we can see
now that the environment and restrictions of the position would
have made it impossible for this fiery and ambitious spirit. It
was well known that General Grant, so far as he could influence
the actions of the national Republican convention, was in favor
of Senator Conkling as his successor. The senator's friends
believed, and they made him believe, that the presidency was
within his grasp.
When the national convention met it was discovered that the
bitterness between the two leaders, Blaine and Conkling, made
harmony impossible. The bitterness by that time was on Conkling's
side against Blaine. With the latter's make-up, resentment could
not last very long. It is an interesting speculation what might
have happened if these two leaders had become friends. It is
among the possibilities that both might have achieved the great
object of their ambitions and been presidents of the United States.
The outstanding feature of that convention in the history of those
interesting gatherings was the speech of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll,
nominating Mr. Blaine. In its effect upon the audience, in its
reception by the country, and by itself as an effort of that kind,
it stands unprecedented and unequalled.
As usual in popular conventions, where the antagonism of the
leaders and the bitterness of their partisanship threatens the
unity of the party, the result was the nomination of a "dark horse,"
and the convention closed its labors by presenting to the country
General Rutherford B. Hayes.
President Hayes, although one of the most amiable, genial, and
companionable of our presidents, with every quality to attach men
to him and make warm friendships, was, nevertheless, one of the
most isolated. He inherited all the business troubles, economic
disorganization, and currency disturbances which grew out of the
panic of 1873. He was met with more bankruptcy than had ever
occurred in our business history.
With rare courage and the most perfect good nature, he installed
essential reforms, which, in the then condition of party organization
and public sentiment, practically offended everybody. He threw
the extreme radicals of his party into a frenzy of rage by wiping
out the "carpet-bag" governments and restoring self-government
for the South. He inaugurated civil-service reform, but in doing
so antagonized most of the senators and members of the House.
When he found that the collector of the port of New York,
Chester A. Arthur, and the surveyor, Alonzo B. Cornell, were
running their offices with their vast patronage on strictly machine
lines, and that this had the general approval of party leaders,
he removed them and appointed for their successors General
Edwin A. Merritt and Silas W. Burt, with instructions to remove
no one on account of politics, and to appoint no one except for
demonstrated efficiency for the place. He pursued the same policy
in the Internal Revenue and Post-Office Departments. This policy
threatened the primacy of the Conkling machine.
President Hayes had a very strong Cabinet. The secretary of state,
William M. Evarts, and the secretary of the treasury, John Sherman,
were two of the ablest men in the country. Evarts was the leader
of the national bar, and in crystallized mentality had no equal in
the profession or outside of it. Sherman was the foremost and
best-informed economist, and also a great statesman. In close
consultation with Sherman, Hayes brought about the resumption
of specie payment. The "green-backers," who were for unlimited
paper, and the silver men, who were for unlimited coinage of
silver, and who were very numerous, joined the insurgent brigade.
While Mr. Hayes retired from the presidency by what might be called
unanimous consent, he had created conditions which made possible
the success of his party in 1880.
It was a refreshing experience to meet the president during these
troublous times. While everybody else was excited, he was perfectly
calm. While most of the great men at the Capitol were raging, he,
at the other end of the avenue, was placid and serene. He said
once to me: "It is a novel experience when you do what you think
right and best for the country to have it so generally criticised
and disapproved. But the compensation is that you expect antagonism
and disapproval and would think something was the matter with your
decisions if you did not receive them."
The general abuse to which he was subjected from so many sources
affected the public's view of him. After he had left the presidency
he told me that he thought it was the duty of an ex-president to
utilize the prestige which belonged to the office in the aid of
education. "I have found," he said, "that it helps enormously in
colleges and schools to have lectures, lessons, etc., in history
and patriotism, and behind them the personality of an ex-president
of the United States."
As an illustration of how distinguished men, when out of power, no
longer interest our people, I remember I met Mr. Hayes one day
in front of a fruit display of a well-known grocery establishment,
and after greeting said to the groceryman: "That is ex-President
Hayes. Don't you want to meet him?" The groceryman replied:
"I am not interested in him, but I have the finest collection of
pears in the city and want to sell you some."
The Capitol was full of the rich and racy characterizations,
epigrams, and sarcasms which Senator Conkling was daily pouring
out upon President Hayes, and especially Secretary Evarts. By
all the rules of senatorial courtesy in those machine days, a
member of the Cabinet from New York should have been a friend of
its United States senator. Mr. Evarts was too big a man to be
counted in any other class or category except his own. Of course,
all these criticisms were carried to both the president and the
secretary of state. The president never mentioned them, and I never
heard Evarts, though I met him frequently, make any reply but once.
Dining with Mr. Evarts, who entertained charmingly, a very
distinguished English jurist among the guests, here on a special
mission, said: "Mr. Secretary, I was at the Senate to-day and
heard Senator Conkling speaking. His magnificent personal
appearance, added to his fine oratory, must make him one of the
most formidable advocates at your bar and in your courts." The
English judge thought, of course, that Mr. Evarts, as the leader
of the American Bar and always in the courts, would know every
lawyer of distinction. Mr. Evarts dryly replied: "I never saw
Mr. Conkling in court."
It is always dangerous to comment or narrate a racy story which
involves the personal affliction of anybody. Dining with Mr. Evarts
one night was also a very distinguished general of our Civil War,
who had been an important figure in national politics. He was very
curious to know about Mr. Tilden, and especially as to the truth
of a report that Mr. Tilden had a stroke of paralysis, and appealed
to me, as I was just from New York. I narrated a story which was
current at the time that Mr. Tilden had denied the report by saying
to a friend: "They say I cannot lift my left hand to my head." He
then put his right hand under the left elbow and shot the left one
easily up to his face and said: "See there, my left has reached
its goal."
I saw that Mr. Evarts was embarrassed at the anecdote and discovered
afterwards that the distinguished guest had recently had a similar
stroke on his left side and could propel his left arm and hand
only with the assistance of his right.
My old bogie of being put into office arose again in the senatorial
election of 1882. The legislature, for the first time in a
generation, was entirely leaderless. The old organization had
disappeared and a new one had not yet crystallized.
Mr. Evarts was anxious to be senator, and I pledged him my
support. Evarts was totally devoid of the arts of popular appeal.
He was the greatest of lawyers and the most delightful of men, but
he could not canvass for votes. Besides, he was entirely independent
in his ideas of any organization dictation or control, and resented
both. He did not believe that a public man should go into public
office under any obligations, and resented such suggestions.
A large body of representative men thought it would be a good
thing for the country if New York could have this most accomplished,
capable, and brilliant man in the United States Senate. They
urged him strongly upon the legislature, none of whose members
knew him personally, and Mr. Evarts would not go to Albany.
The members selected a committee to come down to New York and
see Mr. Evarts. They went with the idea of ascertaining how far
he would remember with gratitude those who elected him. Their
visit was a miserable failure. They came in hot indignation to my
office and said they did not propose to send such a cold and
unsympathetic man as their representative to Washington and
earnestly requested my consent to their nominating me at the caucus
the next morning.
The committee telephoned to Albany and received the assent of
every faction of their party to this proposition. Then they
proposed that when the caucus met, Mr. Evarts, of course, should
receive complimentary speeches from his friends. Meanwhile others
would be nominated, and then a veteran member, whom they designated,
should propose me in the interest of harmony and the union of
the party, whereat the sponsors of the other candidate would
withdraw their man, and I be nominated by acclamation. My answer
was a most earnest appeal for Mr. Evarts. Then Mr. Evarts's
friends rallied to his support and he was elected.
I place Mr. Evarts in the foremost rank as a lawyer, a wit, and a
diplomat. He tried successfully the most famous cases of his
time and repeatedly demonstrated his remarkable genius. As a
general railway counsel and, therefore, as an administrator in
the retaining of distinguished counsels, I met with many of the
best men at the bar, but never any with such a complete and
clarified intellect as William M. Evarts. The mysteries of the
most complicated cases seemed simple, the legal difficulties plain,
and the solution comprehensible to everybody under his analysis.
Mr. Evarts was the wittiest man I ever met. It is difficult to
rehabilitate in the sayings of a wit the complete flavor of the
utterance. It is easier with a man of humor. Evarts was very
proud of his efforts as a farmer on his large estate in Vermont.
Among his prizes was a drove of pigs. He sent to Chief Justice
Morrison R. Waite a copy of his eulogy on Chief Justice
Salmon P. Chase, Waite's predecessor, and at the same time a ham,
saying in his letter: "My dear Chief Justice, I send you to-day
one of my prize hams and also my eulogy on Chief Justice Chase,
both the products of my pen."
The good things Mr. Evarts said would be talked of long after
a dinner. I remember on one occasion his famous partner,
Mr. Choate, who was a Harvard man, while Evarts was a graduate
from Yale, introduced Mr. Evarts by saying that he was surprised
that a Yale man, with all the prejudices of that institution
against the superior advantages of Harvard, should have risked
the coats of his stomach at a Harvard dinner. Mr. Evarts replied:
"When I go to a Harvard dinner I always leave the coats of my
stomach at home."
Mr. Evarts once told me when I was visiting him at his country
place that an old man whom he pointed out, and who was sawing
wood, was the most sensible philosopher in the neighborhood.
Mr. Evarts said: "He is always talking to himself, and I asked
him why." His answer was: "I always talk to myself in preference
to talking to anybody else, because I like to talk to a sensible
man and to hear a man of sense talk."