Every Trade Has Its Tricks--I Play One on William McKinley--Far Away
Party Politics and Political Issues
I
There are tricks in every trade. The tariff being the paramount issue of
the day, I received a tempting money offer from Philadelphia to present my
side of the question, but when the time fixed was about to arrive I found
myself billed for a debate with no less an adversary than William McKinley,
protectionist leader in the Lower House of Congress. We were the best of
friends and I much objected to a joint meeting. The parties, however, would
take no denial, and it was arranged that we should be given alternate
dates. Then it appeared that the designated thesis read: "Which political
party offers for the workingman the best solution of the tariff problem?"
Here was a poser. It required special preparation, for which I had not the
leisure. I wanted the stipend, but was not willing--scarcely able--to pay
so much for it. I was about to throw the engagement over when a lucky
thought struck me. I had a cast-off lecture entitled Money and Morals. It
had been rather popular. Why might I not put a head and tail to this--a
foreword and a few words in conclusion--and make it meet the purpose and
serve the occasion?
When the evening arrived there was a great audience. Half of the people had
come to applaud, the other half to antagonize. I was received, however,
with what seemed a united acclaim. When the cheering had ceased, with the
blandest air I began:
"In that chapter of the history of Ireland which was reserved for the
consideration of snakes, the historian, true to the solecism as well as the
brevity of Irish wit, informs us that 'there are no snakes in Ireland.'
"I am afraid that on the present occasion I shall have to emulate this
flight of the Celtic imagination. I find myself billed to speak from a
Democratic standpoint as to which party offers the best practical means for
the benefit of the workingmen of the country. If I am to discharge with
fidelity the duty thus assigned me, I must begin by repudiating the text in
toto, because the Democratic Party recognizes no political agency for one
class which is not equally open to all classes. The bulwark and belltower
of its faith, the source and resource of its strength are laid in the
declaration, 'Freedom for all, special privileges to none,' which applied
to practical affairs would deny to self-styled workingmen, organized into
a coöperative society, any political means not enjoyed by every other
organized coöperative society, and by each and every citizen, individually,
to himself and his heirs and assigns, forever.
"But in a country like ours, what right has any body of men to get together
and, labelling themselves workingmen, to talk about political means and
practical ends exclusive to themselves? Who among us has the single
right to claim for himself, and the likes of him, the divine title of a
workingman? We are all workingmen, the earnest plodding scholar in his
library, surrounded by the luxury and comfort which his learning and his
labor have earned for him, no less than the poor collier in the mine, with
darkness and squalor closing him round about, and want maybe staring him in
the face, yet--if he be a true man--with a little bird singing ever in his
heart the song of hope and cheer which cradled the genius of Stephenson and
Arkwright and the long procession of inventors, lowly born, to whom
the world owes the glorious achievements of this, the greatest of the
centuries. We are all workingmen--the banker, the minister, the lawyer, the
doctor--toiling from day to day, and it may be we are well paid for our
toil, to represent and to minister to the wants of the time no less than
the farmer and the farmer's boy, rising with the lark to drive the team
afield, and to dally with land so rich it needs to be but tickled with a
hoe to laugh a harvest.
"Having somewhat of an audacious fancy, I have sometimes in moments of
exuberance ventured upon the conceit that our Jupiter Tonans, the American
editor, seated upon his three-legged throne and enveloped by the majesty
and the mystery of his pretentious 'we,' is a workingman no less than the
poor reporter, who year in and year out braves the perils of the midnight
rounds through the slums of the city, yea in the more perilous temptations
of the town, yet carries with him into the darkest dens the love of work,
the hope of reward and the fear only of dishonor.
"Why, the poor officeseeker at Washington begging a bit of that pie, which,
having got his own slice, a cruel, hard-hearted President would eliminate
from the bill of fare, he likewise is a workingman, and I can tell you a
very hard-working man with a tough job of work, and were better breaking
rock upon a turnpike in Dixie or splitting rails on a quarter section out
in the wild and woolly West.
"It is true that, as stated on the program, I am a Democrat--as Artemus
Ward once said of the horses in his panorama, I can conceal it no
longer--at least I am as good a Democrat as they have nowadays. But first
of all, I am an American, and in America every man who is not a policeman
or a dude is a workingman. So, by your leave, my friends, instead of
sticking very closely to the text, and treating it from a purely party
point of view, I propose to take a ramble through the highways and byways
of life and thought in our beloved country and to cast a balance if I can
from an American point of view.
"I want to say in the beginning that no party can save any man or any set
of men from the daily toil by which all of us live and move and have our
being."
Then I worked in my old lecture.
It went like hot cakes. When next I met William McKinley he said jocosely:
"You are a mean man, Henry Watterson!"
"How so?" I asked.
"I accepted the invitation to answer you because I wanted and needed the
money. Of course I had no time to prepare a special address. My idea was to
make my fee by ripping you up the back. But when I read the verbatim report
which had been prepared for me there was not a word with which I could take
issue, and that completely threw me out."
Then I told him how it had happened and we had a hearty laugh. He was the
most lovable of men. That such a man should have fallen a victim to the
blow of an assassin defies explanation, as did the murders of Lincoln and
Garfield, like McKinley, amiable, kindly men giving never cause of personal
offense.