GRANT, HAYES, AND GARFIELD--1871-1881
At various times after the death of Mr. Lincoln I visited
Washington, meeting many men especially influential,
and, first of all, President Grant. Of all personages whom
I then met he impressed me most strongly. At various
times I talked with him at the White House, dining with
him and seeing him occasionally in his lighter mood, but
at no time was there the slightest diminution of his
unaffected dignity. Now and then he would make some dry
remark which showed a strong sense of humor, but in
everything there was the same quiet, simple strength. On
one occasion, when going to the White House, I met Professor
Agassiz of Cambridge, and took him with me: we
were received cordially, General Grant offering us cigars,
as was his wont with visitors, and Agassiz genially
smoking with him: when we had come away the great
naturalist spoke with honest admiration of the President,
evidently impressed by the same qualities which had
always impressed me--his modesty, simplicity, and quiet
force.
I also visited him at various times in his summer
cottage at Long Branch, and on one of these occasions he
gave a bit of history which specially interested me. As
we were taking coffee after dinner, a card was brought
in, and the President, having glanced at it, said, ``Tell him
that I cannot see him.'' The servant departed with the
message, but soon returned and said, ``The gentleman
wishes to know when he can see the President.'' ``Tell
him NEVER,'' said Grant.
It turned out that the person whose name the card bore
was the correspondent of a newspaper especially noted
for sensation-mongering, and the conversation drifted to
the subject of newspapers and newspaper correspondents,
when the President told the following story, which I give
as nearly as possible in his own words:
``During the hottest period of the final struggle in
Virginia, we suffered very much from the reports of newspaper
correspondents who prowled about our camps and
then put on the wires the information they had gained,
which of course went South as rapidly as it went North.
It became really serious and embarrassed us greatly. On
this account, one night, when I had decided to make an
important movement with a portion of the army early
next day, I gave orders that a tent should be pitched in an
out-of-the-way place, at the earliest possible moment in the
morning, and notified the generals who were to take part
in the movement to meet me there.
``It happened that on the previous day there had come
to the camp a newspaper correspondent named ----, and,
as he bore a letter from Mr. Washburne, I treated him as
civilly as possible.
``At daylight next morning, while we were assembled in
the tent making final arrangements, one of my aides,
Colonel ----, heard a noise just outside, and, going out,
saw this correspondent lying down at full length, his ear
under the edge of the tent, and a note-book in his
hand. Thereupon Colonel took the correspondent
by his other ear, lifted him to his feet, and swore to him
a solemn oath that if he was visible in any part of the
camp more than five minutes longer, a detachment of
troops would be ordered out to shoot him and bury him
there in the swamp, so that no one would ever know his
name or burial-place.
``The correspondent left at once,'' said the President,
``and he took his revenge by writing a history of the war
from which he left me out.''
The same characteristic which I had found at other
meetings with Grant came out even more strongly when,
just before the close of his term, he made me a visit at
Cornell, where one of his sons was a student. To meet
him I invited several of our professors and others who
were especially prejudiced against him, and, without
exception, they afterward expressed the very feeling which
had come over me after my first conversation with him--
surprise at the revelation of his quiet strength and his
knowledge of public questions then before the country.
During a walk on the university grounds he spoke to me
of the Santo Domingo matter.[3] He said: ``The annexation
question is doubtless laid aside for the present, but the time
will come when the country will have occasion to regret
that it was disposed of without adequate discussion. As I
am so soon to leave the presidency, I may say to you now
that one of my main thoughts in regard to the annexation
of the island has been that it might afford a refuge for the
negroes of the South in case anything like a war of races
should ever arise in the old slave States.'' He then alluded
to the bitter feeling between the two races which was then
shown in the South, and which was leading many of the
blacks to take refuge in Kansas and other northwestern
States, and said, ``If such a refuge as Santo Domingo
were open to them, their former masters would soon find
that they have not the colored population entirely at their
mercy, and would be obliged to compromise with them on
far more just terms than would otherwise be likely.''
[3] See my chapter on Santo Domingo experiences.
The President said this with evidently deep conviction,
and it seemed to me a very thoughtful and far-sighted
view of the possibilities and even probabilities involved.
During another walk, in speaking of the approaching
close of his second presidential term, he said that he found
himself looking forward to it with the same longing which
he had formerly had as a cadet at West Point when looking
forward to a furlough.
I have never believed that the earnest effort made by
his friends at Chicago to nominate him for a third term
was really prompted by him, or that he originally desired
it. It always seemed to me due to the devotion of friends
who admired his noble qualities, and thought that the
United States ought not to be deprived of them in obedience
to a tradition, in this case, more honored in the
breach than in the observance.
I may add here that, having seen him on several
convivial occasions, and under circumstances when, if ever,
he would be likely to indulge in what was understood to
have been, in his early life, an unfortunate habit, I never
saw him betray the influence of alcohol in the slightest
degree.
Shortly after General Grant laid down his high office,
he made his well-known journey to Europe and the East,
and I had the pleasure of meeting him at Cologne and
traveling up the Rhine with him. We discussed American
affairs all day long. He had during the previous week
been welcomed most cordially to the hospitalities of two
leading sovereigns of Europe, and had received endless
attentions from the most distinguished men of England
and Belgium, but in conversation he never, in the slightest
degree, referred to any of these experiences. He seemed
not to think of them; his heart was in matters pertaining
to his own country. He told me much regarding his
administration, and especially spoke with the greatest
respect and affection of his Secretary of State, Mr.
Hamilton Fish.
Somewhat later I again met him in Paris, had several
walks and talks with him in which he discussed American
affairs, and I remember that he dwelt with especial
admiration, and even affection, upon his colleagues Sherman
and Sheridan.
I trust that it may not be considered out of place if, in
this retrospect, which is intended, first of all, for my
children and grandchildren, I state that a personal fact,
which was known to many from other sources, was confirmed
to me in one of these conversations: General Grant
informing me, as he had previously informed my wife, that
he had fully purposed to name me as Secretary of State
had Mr. Fish carried out his intention of resigning. When
he told me this, my answer was that I considered it a very
fortunate escape for us both; that my training had not
fitted me for such duties; that my experience in the diplomatic
service had then been slight; that I had no proper
training as a lawyer; that my knowledge of international
law was derived far more from the reading of books than
from its application; and that I doubted my physical ability
to bear the pressure for patronage which converged
upon the head of the President's cabinet.
In the Washington of those days my memory also recalls
vividly a dinner with Senator Conkling at which I
met a number of interesting men, and among them Governor
Seymour, who had been the candidate opposed to
Grant during his first presidential campaign; Senator
Anthony, Senator Edmunds, the former Vice-President
Mr. Hamlin, Senator Carpenter, and others. Many good
stories were told, and one amused me especially, as it was
given with admirable mimicry by Senator Carpenter. He
described an old friend of his, a lawyer, who, coming
before one of the higher courts with a very doubtful case,
began his plea as follows: ``May it please the court, there
is only one point in this case favorable to my client, but
that, may it please the court, is a chink in the common law
which has been worn smooth by the multitude of scoundrels
who have escaped through it.''
During the year 1878 I was sent as an honorary
commissioner from the State of New York to the Paris
Exposition, and shall give a more full account of this period in
another chapter. Suffice it that, having on my return
prepared my official report on the provision for political
education made by the different governments of Europe,
I became more absorbed than ever in university affairs,
keeping aloof as much as possible from politics. But in
the political campaign of 1878 I could not but be
interested. It was different from any other that I had known,
for the ``Greenback Craze'' bloomed out as never before
and seemed likely to poison the whole country. Great
hardships had arisen from the fact that debts which had
been made under a depreciated currency had to be paid
in money of greater value. Men who, in what were known
as ``flush times,'' had bought farms, paid down half
the price, and mortgaged them for the other half, found
now, when their mortgages became due, that they could
not sell the property for enough to cover the lien upon it.
Besides this, the great army of speculators throughout
the country found the constant depreciation of prices
bringing them to bankruptcy. In the cry for more greenbacks,--
that is, for continued issues of paper money,--
demagogism undoubtedly had a large part; but there were
many excellent men who were influenced by it, and among
them Peter Cooper of New York, founder of the great
institution which bears his name, one of the purest and
best men I have ever known.
This cry for more currency was echoed from one end
of the country to the other. In various States, and
especially in Ohio, it seemed to carry everything before it,
nearly all the public men of note, including nearly all the
leading Democrats and very many of the foremost Republicans,
bowing down to it, the main exceptions being John
Sherman and Garfield.
In central New York the mania seemed, early in the
summer, to take strong hold. In Syracuse John Wieting, an
amazingly fluent speaker with much popular humor, who
had never before shown any interest in politics, took the
stump for an unlimited issue of government paper currency,
received the nomination to Congress from the
Democrats and sundry independent organizations, and
for a time seemed to carry everything before him. A
similar state of things prevailed at Ithaca and the region
round about Cayuga Lake. Two or three people much
respected in the community came out for this doctrine,
and, having a press under their control, their influence
seemed likely to be serious. Managers of the Republican
organization in the State seemed at first apathetic; but at
last they became alarmed and sent two speakers through
these disaffected districts--only two, but each, in his way,
a master. The first of them, in order of time, was Senator
Roscoe Conkling, and he took as his subject the National
Banking System. This had been for a considerable time
one of the objects of special attack by uneasy and unsuccessful
people throughout the entire country. As a matter
of fact, the national banking system, created during the
Civil War by Secretary Chase and his advisers, was one of
the most admirable expedients ever devised in any country.
Up to the time of its establishment the whole country
had suffered enormously from the wretched currency
supplied from the State banks. Even in those States where
the greatest precaution was taken to insure its redemption
all of it was, in time of crisis or panic, fluctuating and much
of it worthless. But in other States the case was even
worse. I can recall perfectly that through my boyhood
and young manhood every merchant and shopkeeper kept
on his table what was called a ``bank-note detector,''
which, when any money was tendered him, he was obliged
to consult in order to know, first, whether the bill was a
counterfeit, as it frequently was; secondly, whether it was
on a solvent bank; and thirdly, if good, what discount
should be deducted from the face of it. Under this system
bank-notes varied in value from week to week, and even
from day to day, with the result that all buying and selling
became a sort of gambling.
When, then, Mr. Chase established the new system of
national banks so based that every bill-holder had security
for the entire amount which his note represented, so
controlled that a bill issued from any little bank in the
remotest State, or even in the remotest corner of a Territory,
was equal to one issued by the richest bank in Wall
Street, so engraved that counterfeiting was practically
impossible, there was an immense gain to every man, woman,
and child in the country.
To appreciate this gain one must have had experience
of the older system. I remember well the panic of 1857,
which arose while I was traveling in eastern and northern
New England, and that, arriving in the city of Salem,
Massachusetts, having tendered, in payment of my hotel
bill, notes issued by a leading New York city bank,
guaranteed under what was known as the ``Safety Fund
System,'' they were refused. The result was that I had to
leave my wife at the hotel, go to Boston, and there manage
to get Massachusetts money.
But this was far short of the worst. Professor Roberts
of Cornell University once told me that, having in those
days collected a considerable debt in one of the Western
States, he found the currency so worthless that he
attempted to secure New York funds, but that the rate of
exchange was so enormous that, as the only way of saving
anything, he bought a large quantity of cheap clothing,
shipped it to the East, and sold it for what it would bring.
As to the way in which the older banking operations
were carried on in some of the Western States, Governor
Felch of Michigan once gave me some of his experiences
as a bank examiner, and one of them especially
amused me. He said that he and a brother examiner made
an excursion through the State in a sleigh with a pair of
good horses in order to inspect the various banks
established in remote villages and hamlets which had the power
of issuing currency based upon the specie contained in
their vaults. After visiting a few of these, and finding
that each had the amount of specie required by law, the
examiners began to note a curious similarity between the
specie packages in these different banks, and before long
their attention was drawn to another curious fact, which
was that wherever they went they were preceded by a
sleigh drawn by especially fleet horses. On making a
careful examination, they found that this sleigh bore from
bank to bank a number of kegs of specie sufficient to enable
each bank in its turn to show the examiners a temporary
basis in hard money for its output of paper.
Such was the state of things which the national banks
remedied, and the system had the additional advantage of
being elastic, so that any little community which needed
currency had only to combine its surplus capital and
establish a bank of issue.
But throughout the country there were, as there will
doubtless always be, a considerable number of men who, not
being able to succeed themselves, distrusted and disliked
the successful. There was also a plentiful supply of
demagogues skilful in appealing to the prejudices of the
ignorant, envious, or perverse, and as a result came a cry
against the national banks.
In Mr. Conkling's Ithaca speech (1878), he argued the
question with great ability and force. He had a sledge-
hammer way which broke down all opposition, and he exulted
in it. One of his favorite tactics, which greatly
amused his auditors, was to lead some prominent gainsayer
in his audience to interrupt him, whereupon, in the blandest
way possible, he would invite him to come forward, urge
him to present his views, even help him to do so, and then,
having gradually entangled him in his own sophistries and
made him ridiculous, the senator would come down upon
him with arguments--cogent, pithy, sarcastic--much like
the fist of a giant upon a mosquito.
In whatever town Mr. Conkling argued the question of
the national banks, that subject ceased to be a factor in
politics: it was settled; his attacks upon the anti-bank
demagogues annihilated their arguments among thinking
men, and his sarcasm made them ridiculous among
unthinking men. This was the sort of thing which he did
best. While utterly deficient in constructive power, his
destructive force was great indeed, and in this campaign it
was applied, as it was not always applied, for the advantage
of the country.
The other great speaker in the campaign was General
James A. Garfield, then a member of the House of Repre-
sentatives. My acquaintance with him had begun several
years before at Syracuse, when my old school friend, his
college mate, Charles Elliot Fitch, brought him into my
library. My collection of books was even at that date very
large, and Garfield, being delighted with it, soon revealed
his scholarly qualities. It happened that not long before
this I had bought in London several hundred volumes from
the library left by the historian Buckle, very many of them
bearing copious annotations in his own hand. Garfield
had read Buckle's ``History of Civilization in England''
with especial interest, and when I presented to him and
discussed with him some of these annotated volumes, there
began a friendly relation between us which ended only
with his life.
I also met him under less favorable circumstances.
Happening to be in Washington at the revelation of the
Cr<e'>dit Mobilier operations, I found him in the House of
Representatives, and evidently in the depths of suffering.
An effort was making to connect him with the scandal, and
while everything I know of him convinces me that he was
not dishonest, he had certainly been imprudent. This he
felt, and he asked me, in an almost heart-broken tone, if
I really believed that this had forever destroyed his
influence in the country. I answered that I believed nothing
of the kind; that if he came out in a straightforward,
manly way, without any of the prevarication which had so
greatly harmed some others, he would not be injured, and
the result showed that this advice was good.
On our arrival at the great hall in Ithaca (October 28,
1878), we found floor and stage packed in every part.
Never had a speaker a better audience. There were present
very many men of all parties anxious to hear the currency
question honestly discussed, and among them many of the
more thoughtful sort misled by the idea that a wrong had
been done to the country in the restoration of the currency
to a sound basis; and there was an enormous attendance
of students from the university.
As Garfield began he showed the effects of fatigue from
the many speeches he had been making for weeks,--morning,
noon, and night; but soon he threw himself heartily
into the subject, and of all the thousands of political
speeches I have heard it was the most effective. It was
eloquent, but it was far more than that; it was HONESTLY
argumentative; there was no sophistry of any sort; every
subject was taken up fairly and every point dealt with
thoroughly. One could see the supports of the Greenback
party vanishing as he went on. His manner was the very
opposite of Mr. Conkling's: it was kindly, hearty, as of
neighbor with neighbor,--indeed, every person present,
even if greenbacker or demagogue, must have said within
himself, ``This man is a friend arguing with friends; he
makes me his friend, and now speaks to me as such.''
The main line of his argument finished, there came
something even finer; for, inspired by the presence of the great
mass of students, he ended his speech with an especial
appeal to them. Taking as his test the noted passage in
the letter written by Macaulay to Henry Randall, the biographer
of Jefferson,--the letter in which Macaulay prophesied
destruction to the American Republic when poverty
should pinch and discontent be wide-spread in the country,
--he appealed to these young men to see to it that this
prophecy should not come true; he asked them to follow in
this, as in similar questions, their reason and not their
prejudices, and from this he went on with a statement of
the motives which ought to govern them and the line they
ought to pursue in the effort to redeem their country.
Never was speech more successful. It carried the entire
audience, and left in that region hardly a shred of the
greenback theory. When the election took place it was
observed that in those districts where Conkling and Garfield
had spoken, the greenback heresy was annihilated, while
in other districts which had been counted as absolutely sure
for the Republican party, and to which, therefore, these
orators had not been sent, there was a great increase in
the vote for currency inflation.
I have often alluded to this result as an answer to those
who say that speaking produces no real effect on the
convictions of men regarding party matters. Some speaking
does not, but there is a kind of speaking which does, and
of this were these two masterpieces, so different from
each other in matter and manner, and yet converging
upon the same points, intellectual and moral.
Before I close regarding Garfield, it may be well to give
a few more recollections of him. The meeting ended, we
drove to my house on the university grounds, and shortly
before our arrival he asked me, ``How did you like my
speech?'' I answered: ``Garfield, I have known you too
long and think too highly of you to flatter you; but I will
simply say what I would say under oath: it was the best
speech I ever heard. ``This utterance of mine was deliberate,
expressing my conviction, and he was evidently
pleased with it.
Having settled down in front of the fire in my library,
we began to discuss the political situation, and his talk
remains to me among the most interesting things of my
life. He said much regarding the history of the currency
question and his relations to it, and from this ran rapidly
and suggestively through a multitude of other questions
and the relations of public men to them. One thing which
struck me was his judicially fair and even kindly estimates
of men who differed from him. Very rarely did he speak
harshly or sharply of any one, differing in this greatly
from Mr. Conkling, who, in all his conversations, and
especially in one at that same house not long before, seemed
to consider men who differed from him as enemies of the
human race.
Under Mr. Hayes, the successor of General Grant in the
Presidency, I served first as a commissioner at the Paris
Exposition, and then as minister to Germany. Both these
services will be discussed in the chapters relating to my
diplomatic life, but I may refer briefly to my acquaintance
with him at this period.
I had met him but once previously, and that was during
his membership of Congress when he came to enter his son
at Cornell. I had then been most favorably impressed by
his large, sincere, manly way. On visiting Washington to
receive my instructions before going to Berlin, I saw him
several times, and at each meeting my respect for him was
increased. Driving to Arlington, walking among the soldiers'
graves there, standing in the portico of General Lee's
former residence, and viewing from the terrace the Capitol
in the distance, he spoke very nobly of the history we had
both personally known, of the sacrifices it had required,
and of the duties which it now imposed. At his dinner-
table I heard him discuss with his Secretary of State, Mr.
Evarts, a very interesting question--the advisability of
giving members of the cabinet seats in the Senate and
House of Representatives, as had been arranged in the
constitution of the so-called Confederate States; but of
this I shall speak in another chapter.
It should further be said regarding Mr. Hayes that, while
hardly any President was ever so systematically denounced
and depreciated, he was one of the truest and best men
who has ever held our Chief Magistracy. I remember,
just at the close of his administration, dining with an
eminent German statesman who said to me: ``I have
watched the course of your President with more and
more surprise. We have been seeing constantly in our
German newspapers extracts from American journals
holding up your President to contempt as an ignoramus,
but more and more I have seen that he is one of the most
substantial, honest, and capable Presidents that you have
had.''
This opinion was amply justified by what I saw of Mr.
Hayes after the close of his Presidency. Twice I met him
during conferences at Lake Mohonk, at which matters
relating to the improvement of the freedmen and Indians
were discussed, and in each he took broad, strong, and
statesmanlike views based on thoughtful experience and
permeated by honesty.
I also met him at a great public meeting at Cleveland,
where we addressed some four thousand people from the
same platform, and again I was impressed by his manly,
far-seeing grasp of public questions.
As to my after relations with Garfield, I might speak of
various pleasant interviews, but will allude to just one
incident which has a pathetic side. During my first residence
in Germany as minister of the United States, I one day
received a letter from him asking me to secure for him the
best editions of certain leading Greek and Latin classics,
adding that it had long been his earnest desire to re-read
them, and that now, as he had been elected to the United
States Senate, he should have leisure to carry out his
purpose. I had hardly sent him what he desired when the
news came that he had been nominated to the Presidency,
and so all his dream of literary leisure vanished. A few
months later came the news of his assassination.
My term of service as minister in Berlin being ended, I
arrived in America in September, 1881, and, in accordance
with custom, went to present my respects to the new President
and his Secretary of State. They were both at Long
Branch. Mr. Blaine I saw and had with him a very interesting
conversation, but President Garfield I could not see.
His life was fast ebbing out, and a week later, on Sunday
morning, I heard the bells tolling and knew that his last
struggle was over.
So closed a career which, in spite of some defects, was
beautiful and noble. Great hopes had been formed regarding
his Presidency, and yet, on looking back over his life,
I have a strong feeling that his assassination was a service
rendered to his reputation. I know from those who had
full information that during his campaign for the Presidency
he had been forced to make concessions and pledges
which would have brought great trouble upon him had he
lived through his official term. Gifted and good as he
was, advantage had been taken of his kindly qualities, and
he would have had to pay the penalty.
It costs me a pang to confess my opinion that the
administration of Mr. Arthur, a man infinitely his inferior in
nearly all the qualities which men most justly admire, was
far better than the administration which Mr Garfield
would have been allowed to give to the country.
Upon my return to the university I was asked by my
fellow-citizens of Ithaca in general, as also by the university
faculty and students, to give the public address at the
celebration of President Garfield's funeral. This I did
and never with a deeper feeling of loss.
One thing in the various tributes to him had struck me
painfully: Throughout the whole country his career was
constantly referred to in funeral addresses as showing
how a young American under all the disadvantages of
poverty could rise to the highest possible position. I have
always thought that such statements, as they are usually
presented, are injurious to the character and lowering to
the aspirations of young men. I took pains, therefore, to
show that while Garfield had risen under the most
discouraging circumstances from complete poverty, his rise
was due to something other than mere talent and exertion
--that it was the result of talent and exertion originating
in noble instincts and directed to worthy ends. Garfield's
life proves this abundantly, and whatever may have been
his temporary weakness under the fearful pressure
brought upon him toward the end of his career, these
instincts and purposes remained his main guiding influences
from first to last.