I IIP' . I''lllll, IT il!l I tip' ll! «»tLi||Sl!|||ill Ml • ; ! > i\ i OLD POLITI mmm$: 'ii'ii'i BH 11 ■ I™ I m !liM<15^J'll!;t! 1 it ih'ii ! CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DATE DUE va '■,■ i>^ '?/• ■■M , . ^^lU r;;££iJ|-4: -iS7y F GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. cecH Li»9?''""' ""'veral'y Library cbDi .Hoo "flilH^iTiiiilwif""*''''""® °* ^" "''' P°''''cal ,. 3 1924 030 904 571 oiin The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030904571 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF AN Old Political Reporter By WILLIAM C. HUDSON Author of '* J. Percy Dunbar." "Problems of Insurance,'* CBic Staff 'Writer for forty-four years on political and economic subjects in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle WITH INTRODUCTION BY ST. CLAIR McKELWAY, LL.D. CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY 443-449 FOURTH AVENUE NEW YORK 1911 COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE 1 ^^^^^^1 ^■■■mdHpt'- 1 ^H ^\ ■■'j ^^H /^f9!''*v*^', ~fr JjiMll^^ i 1 ^^^^^1 .^"^"'fefe. fi^Mf ;1 ^^^^H r# Jh ^M ^Hl > /'^pPM^^^f ■-■j 1 beL . ^HH| \^^^^^^^^H^ ^■../•i ^^^^HbIb^XIkj ■■; ^^^^^^^HH H&i ^^^B^ i" J^^^^^^B^H^^T^s ^H 1 B^'a . 1 GROVER CLEVELAND AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER THE EMERGENCE OF GROVER CLEVE- LAND N 1881 there arose in Bufifalo a man who, by the vigor and strength of his admin- istration of the mayoralty, attracted the notice of those who were paying especial attention to political affairs in this state. This was Grover Cleveland. Prior to that year Buffalo had been for some time in the grasp of an interlaced ring made up of the worst elements of the two parties. The machines of the two parties were under its control and the muni- cipal government at its mercy. Representatives of the Republican better element told representatives of the better element in the Democracy that if they could secure the nomination of Grover Cleveland by the Democratic convention he would receive a sup- port from the Republicans that would surprise them. The effort was made and Cleveland, who had given a reluctant consent, was nominated. The Republi- can machine was not disturbed, for it expected to poll the full Republican strength for its candidate, who was a machine man, and receive aid from the Democratic machine. The result at the election was a surprise. Immediately on taking office as Mayor, Cleve- land revealed those qualities of independence and courage which later became so well known to the whole country. Erie County and the counties which might be described as tributary to Buffalo were de- lighted and the praises of Cleveland were loudly 131 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF sounded. Yet the noise made did not reach the eastern end of the state. , But, as September of 1882 was reached, Demo- cratic leaders learned that Buffalo was prepared to offer its Mayor as a candidate for the nomination for Governor, and that its pretentions were sup- ported by the counties making up the Eighth Ju- dicial District. That meant that Mr. Cleveland would have the support of about fifty delegates, a very nice nucleus in a whole number of 384, the remainder being divided among half a dozen as- pirants with no one of them showing anything like the 193 necessary to a choice. The rest of the state began to sit up and take notice. I was sent to Buffalo to look over the situation and the new aspirant. But before I went to Buf- falo I was instructed to make a tour of the state and an examination of the political conditions. This is why I reached Buffalo with positive opinions. The late Charles McCune, then proprietor of the Buffalo Courier, took me to see Mr. Cleveland in his law office. There was also present at the time the late Wilson S. Bissell, Mr. Cleveland's law part- ner. Mr. McCune, who knew that I had been tour- ing the state, led me to talk of the political condi- tions existing, and to give the sum of my conclu- sions. And these conclusions were that in view of the strong fight between Roswell P. Flower and General Slocum of Kings for delegates and the Democratic divisions in New York City there would be a large chance for the nomination of a third candidate who had a substantial body of sup- port, if he kept aloof from contests and divisions, for then he would be available when the inevitable 132 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER break came as a rallying point to which all could turn. Mr. Cleveland during the time of the call was a listener, having little to say. But, as I was about to leave, he asked me to ride with him the next afternoon, naming the hour. We had not been riding long when Mr. Cleve- land said: "I don't believe that the fellows in the east will let Buffalo have the Governor, although I was much struck by your 'lay out' of the political situation yesterday." The use of the two words quoted caught my attention, and I wondered if the man beside me was a faro player, a suspicion, if it was a suspicion, that I subsequently learned was without basis, for Mr. Cleveland was not in any sense of the word a gam- bler. However, I promptly expressed the thought that was strong within me : "Mr. Cleveland, you will be the nominee of the Syracuse convention. I can see no other outcome of the situation." The Mayor of Buffalo turned with that stern look upon his face which he always assumed when his own strong convictions were opposed. But he soon withdrew it and was silent for some time. Then he said : "Some time ago my mother, who lived down at Holland Patent in Oneida County, was taken seri- ously ill. She is dead now. I was sent for. Laying everything aside, I hastened to her and remained with her to the end. When all was over and she was laid away, I returned to Buffalo to find that in my absence the boys had started a campaign for me 133 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF for Governor. It had such an impetus that it was difficult to stop it. I did not attempt to stop it, not because I believed then, or do now believe, that it is possible to secure that nomination, but because I thought and do now think that it would help me in the direction of the only political ambition I ever had. There are two vacancies on the Supreme Court bench of this district — one by death and one by addition to the number through constitutional amendment. There is not a Democrat on the bench in this district and there cannot be by party choice. But there is a strong disposition on the part of the Republican members of the bar of the district to give a minority representation on it. I want that place. Experience in the mayoralty office has not put me in love with executive administration." Then after a brief hesitation he added : "To say this to you is why I asked you to ride with me." To this I replied : "Well, Mr. Mayor, when a man plunges into the political stream he soon becomes subject to its current. My outlook is that the current will land you in the nomination. And with that I shall not be in such support of you as I can give, for duty, affiliation, and, perhaps, inclination, send me to the support of Slocum." "That's all right," heartily replied Mr. Cleve- land, "but your compulsion does not seem to have clouded your judgment." At the convention the following month exactly what had been foreshadowed in these conversations took place. The majority divided among at least four other candidates, unable to combine on either, 134 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER finally turned to the one who, with the greatest strength stood aloof from the contests and the di- visions. After the smoke of the conventions cleared away the effect of the trickery by which the control of the Republican convention was obtained and the nom- ination of Folger secured became apparent to the degree of greatly raising the hopes of the Cleveland advocates. I was sent to make a tour of the state and ex- amine and report upon conditions. Reaching the interior, I was soon aware of a peculiar state of things most difficult to measure or appraise. Op- position to Folger because of the way of his nomi- nation was apparent, but the degree of it was hard to estimate. There was no organization of this hostile sentiment, no public expression of it ; indeed, those who were resenting the fact were reserved and guarded. This reticence finally became the mark of the bolter. I began to dig for my informa- tion. Obtaining an approach to one supposed to be "off" I came on a curious fact. The man ap- proached would not admit that he was "off," but he would glibly tell of neighbors whom he knew were determined not to vote at all. By pursuing this process diligently I was enabled to arrive at a conclusion that led me to my last successful predic- tion of that fortunate year. I predicted a plurality for Cleveland approaching 200,000, something un- heard of in those years. Having concluded my tour of the state at Al- bany, I called on Daniel Manning, the state leader of the Democrats, and expressed to him the convic- tion that those enormous figures would be reached. 13s RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF Mr. Manning laughed derisively and said: "You're wild — a fit subject for the lunatic asylum. If we get 50,000 we'll be happy." On reaching New York, Daniel S. Lamont, who was secretary of the state committee, told me that the canvass sheets showed 125,000 for Cleveland and added: "That's too great. It is impossible. People have lost their heads. It can't reach a hundred thousand." The exact figures were 192,854. After the election I called again on Mr, Cleve- land, in his law office in Buffalo. The extraordinary result became the topic of conversation. "It is an astonishing vote of confidence," said Mr. Cleveland. "The responsibility is great. I shrink from it. I doubt my capacity. I doubt my knowledge. But I mean to go down to Albany and do, with God's help, the best there is in me for the people of the state." And he brought his ponderous first down on his desk with a blow that made the room tremble. 136 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER HOW TO GET RID OF UNDESIRABLES FEW days before the inauguration of Grover Cleveland as Governor, former Lieutenant Governor William Dor- sheimer said to me: "Cleveland does not want to occupy the Executive Mansion. He thought he could establish himself at one of the hotels and live the same bachelor life as in Buffalo. It would have been a tremendous error. A number of us — strong friends of his — got at him in protest. We told him that he would offend the sense of the people of the state, who had provided for their Chief Exe- cutive an official residence and who desired to see the man they had honored hedged about with the dignity which is part of his great office. And also on the ground of expediency we showed him that it would be a mistake, for he would be overwhelmed in the easy approach hotel life would afford. He has yielded and will occupy the Mansion, but I think the argument of expediency, rather than the other, swayed him. His desire to go to a hotel is an evidence of the simplicity of his mind; of his opinion of the office as a place in which difficult public duty is to be performed, in utter disregard of the trappings and glory of the office ; and also of his democracy, which makes him look on all official places as positions of trusteeship for the whole people." That democracy which Dorsheimer thought was inherent in the man was shown immediately on tak- n7 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF ing ofifice. He threw open the doors of the Execu- tive Chamber, and the pubHc was at Uberty to wan- der about, with or without business, and to approach him without the intermediary services of a secretary or a clerk. One day in the early part of the Cleve- land administration I stood with the Lieutenant Governor, David B. Hill, at the door of the Execu- tive Chamber watching the people thronging the room, not more than one or two of them having any real business there. "It's a town meeting," said the Lieutenant Gov- ernor. "The Governor might just as well place his desk on the grass in front of the Capitol. He would not be any more easy of approach than he is now and he would have the advantage of the fresh air which is denied him by the presence of all these people. All of this is a waste of energy — a strain which will tell even on his powerful physique. It must be stopped." It was stopped in due course of time, and it was stopped by the Governor himself and no one else when he realized how much of the time he needed for the business of his office was taken up by the idly curious. Yet, during all of the time Cleveland was Governor, access to him was easy. On the night before his inauguration as Gov- ernor he was in possession of the Executive Man- sion, Governor Cornell having courteously vacated it for him. The retiring Governor called on the incoming Governor to give him such assistance as he could. During the course of the evening Governor Cornell asked Governor-elect Cleveland as to the person who was to be his private secretary. 138 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER "Oh," replied Cleveland, "I haven't appointed anyone yet. That is a matter that can wait." "Ah," returned Cornell, "you are in the same po- sition precisely that I was in three years ago to- night. You must appoint your private secretary to-night or early to-morrow morning. Certain duties which must be discharged on the first day of your administration are devolved by law on your private secretary and can be performed by no one else." The new Governor was incredulous, but the truth of Governor Cornell's position and the ne- cessity for action were soon demonstrated. Dan- iel S. Lamont had already been appointed military secretary. Taking counsel of his friends who were present, Cleveland called Lamont to him and tell- ing him of the situation, said: "You will have to serve in both positions, but will draw only the salary of one — that of private secretary." This was a part of what he used to call Cleve- land's luck. He never was served so well as he was when compulsion drove him to the appointment of Lamont. The latter was a heaven-born secretary. He was equipped with the sort of knowledge so necessary to the Governor and had a wide acquain- tance with the men and things of the state. Also, he was able, shrewd, secretive, loyal to the inter- ests he espoused and possessed infinite tact. La- mont became indispensable to Cleveland. The Governor was not an easy man to handle. When he had arrived at a conclusion he was most difficult to move. Opposition was of little use — it seemed to confirm him in his course. He was not a good judge of men and was apt to select the wrong 139 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF instruments. Lament soon learned that the wrong way to deal with him was to combat him, and his course with him was largely that of indirection. On one occasion Governor Cleveland said to me: "Lamont is a wonderful man. I never saw his like. He has no friends to gratify or reward and no enemies to punish." To those who were admitted to the intimacy of the Executive Chamber Lament's methods were a source of much amusement. Here is an instance. There was a vacancy in the office of State Superin- tendent of Salt Springs in Syracuse. There were several aspirants. Delegations were journeying to the Capitol in support of one or the other. There came a delegation on behalf of an aspir- ant who was not of either party. The spokesman was a man of pleasant appearance, engaging man- ners and fluent speech. Nevertheless he was an undesirable citizen, unreliable in habits and prac- tice, not guided by the rules of morality. Cleve- land, knowing nothing as to his reputation, took an enormous fancy to him, preferring him to the man whose claims the delegation had advocated and af- ter the delegation had gone, made it clear to La- mont that he had made his choice for the place. Lamont became alarmed. He realized that it would be a blunder of great dimensions. To combat the idea would be to confirm the Governor in his inten- tion. The private secretary went at the problem in a diplomatic manner. He sought the aid of the Lieutenant Governor. The aid came in the presence of Mr. Hill in the Executive Chamber that after- 140 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER noon, after the doors were closed to the pubHc This Httle drama was enacted: HOW TO DISPOSE OF AN UNDESIRABLE By Daniel Scott Lamont. cast: The Governor of the State Grover Cleveland The Lieutenant Governor David B. Hill The Private Secretary Daniel S. Lamont The Audience Myself Scene: Executive Chamber, in the Capitol of the State. Discovered: The Governor of the State busily en- gaged at his desk, facing the south. His Private Secretary, busily engaged at his desk, in the im- mediate rear, facing the north. (Enter the Lieutenant Governor, and crossing to the executive desks.) Hill — Good afternoon, Governor. Public busi- ness seems to weigh heavily on you to-day. Cleveland — Yes, quite busy. Since you are here, the Senate is not in session ? Hill — No; adjourned until to-morrow. (To the Private Secretary:) Good afternoon, Dan. I see your old friend. So and So, from Syracuse, was here to-day. Lamont — Yes; he was here. Hill — Was he sober ? (Cleveland suspends work and partly turns to listen. ) Lamont — Seemed to be. Hill — How did he get here ? Lamont — Like the rest, I suppose — by the cars. 141 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF Hill — But to ride on the cars requires money. Who'd he borrow it from? Lamont — I don't know. Some stranger to Syra- cuse, I suppose. Hill — Did he go away sober ? Lamont — I don't know; didn't see him after he left here. Hill — How did he get back? Didn't borrow money from you, did he? Lamont — Oh, no ; I kept out of his way. (Cleveland turns to his desk, with a grumble.) CURTAIN. An entirely different man was finally appointed. Lamont rarely attempted to bring his personal influence to bear on the Governor when he thought Mr. Cleveland should be dissuaded from a purpose; but it was his practice to select for the effort some person who, he thought, was in the Governor's good books. On one occasion he chose me, and sent me to the Executive Mansion, where the Governor was laid up with an attack of inflammatory rheumatism. The Governor had determined to veto a measure which Lamont desired him to sign. It was not a matter of great concern, but Lamont thought that by the approval of the bill a political point for Cleve- land would be made in the movement, just started without the Governor's knowledge, to advance the cause of Cleveland's nomination for the Presidency. Cleveland suspected that politics was at the bottom of the matter, and that was sufficient to head him the other way. The Governor was not in the sweetest humor, because of the pain he suffered ; and, as I proceeded 142 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER with such argument as I had, his face hardened. Finally he lifted his arm and said, in the sternest tones : "I shall veto that bill." He brought his arm down in emphasis, and in doing so struck the knee that was torturing him. The atmosphere of the room became too hot for me to pursue my mission, and I abandoned it in a hasty exit. A week later, when the bill had been killed, the Governor, with his eyes twinkling with suppressed humor, said to me : "I don't think I heard the end of your argument the other day in favor of that bill — the one Dan was interested in." 143 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT IN THE MAKING J HERE came up from the Twenty-first Assembly District of New York County, in the year 1882, to a seat in the lower House of the Legislature, a young man 23 years old, who immediately took a conspicuous position. The young man was Theodore Roosevelt. He came to the same hotel at which I lived and occupied a seat at the table in the restaurant, at the head of which, by virtue of long years of possession, I had a seat. The others at the table were young men from New York City, serving in either House of the Legislature, friends of Roosevelt, most of whom if not all, of the same walk of life. These bright fellows, bubbling over with youth, energy and ambition, made the meal hours gay. And to these gatherings Mr. Roosevelt brought all those qualities which have since been impressed upon the country, indeed on the civilized world — a strong personality, abundant vigor, great energy of mind, a combative positiveness, whether right or wrong, and intense interest in all that concerned humanity. It was Roosevelt's habit to come into the break- fast room with a rush, copies of all the morning papers he could lay his hands on under his arm, and, seating himself, to go through those papers with a rapidity that would have excited the jealousy of the most rapid exchange editor. He threw each paper, 144 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER as he finished it, on the floor,, unfolded, until at the end there was, on either side of him, a pile of loose papers as high as the table for the servants to clear away. And all this time he would be taking part in the running conversation of the table. Had anyone supposed that this inspection of the papers was su- perficial, he would have been sadly mistaken. Roose- velt saw everything, grasped the sense of every- thing and formed an opinion on everything which he was eager to maintain at any risk. In the first year of his service in the Assembly he was frequently called the "Scotch Terrier," and it is to be admitted that in those years there was a strong suggestion of that pugnacious and cour- ageous breed in his appearance and manner. In debate he stood at his seat, snapping and barking out his pregnant sentences, caring little whom he attacked, so long as he believed himself to be right. His democracy and his aggressive defense of the public against the abuses of combined wealth were / as marked when he was in the Assembly, at 23 or 24 years of age, as in later years, when he sat in the White House. I have a vivid recollection of a speech delivered by him in the Assembly when he denounced the "guilty rich" and the "criminal rich." Thus it was that I was able to observe, at short range, a great man in the making. And I recall with no little satisfaction that in those days, vvhen Roosevelt was under discussion by his companions, as he frequently was, my invariable prediction was that "Teddy" would yet be heard from in the upper regions of politics. Recently I have read, as the conclusion of a lo 145 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF writer obviously affected by the revealed greatness of Mr. Roosevelt, that Roosevelt exercised a com- manding influence over Cleveland during the two years the latter was Governor. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In their intellectual con- stitutions and their mental habits and processes they were diametrically opposite. Cleveland arrived at his conclusions through laborious thought; there was nothing inspirational about him. The natural tendencies of his mind were confirmed into habit by the practice of the law. Roosevelt, in those years at least, seemed to be wholly inspirational. His mental processes were so rapid that he ap- parently reached his conclusions instantaneously, and he seemed to be surprised when his opinions were not taken at his own valuation of them. In- deed, in being opposed, he seemed to take as a personal grievance the necessity of offering argu- ment in support of his determinations. Roosevelt was a frequent caller on the Governor, but not more so than other members of his party in the Assembly. To Cleveland, Roosevelt was a perplexity. The Governor liked the Assemblyman personally, but the latter's peculiar mental attitude bothered the executive. The Governor would sit large, solid and phlegmatic, listening gravely to the energetic utterances of the mercurial young man, but signifying neither assent nor dissent. Not in- frequently, taking silence for acquiescence, Roose- velt would go away thinking that he had carried everything before him. One day while I was standing at the private secretary's desk with Lamont, watching Cleveland at the executive desk, Lamont said: 146 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER "I never see those two together that I'm not reminded of a picture I have of a great mastiff solemnly regarding a small terrier, snapping and barking at him." One day I asked the Governor his opinion of Roosevelt : "There is great sense in a lot that he says, but there is such a cocksuredness about him that he stirs up doubt in me all the time." Turning to Lamont, he asked : "Dan, didn't you say to me the other day that someone said of Macaulay, 'that he wished that he was as sure of one thing as Macaulay was of all things?'" Lamont replied in the affirmative. Then to me : "That fits Roosevelt. • Then he seems to be so very young." It was in 1882 that Roosevelt introduced a num- ber of bills relating to the City and County of New York, some of them reducing fee offices to salaried offices. He passed them with great effort and against serious opposition. One day after the Legislature had adjourned and Roosevelt was in attendance on the Republican convention at Chicago that nominated Blaine, the Governor, at work on the "thirty-day bills" as the passed measures left unacted upon by the executive on adjournment were called, said to me : "I shall have to veto the most of those Roosevelt reform bills. Not that I object to the principles in- volved, but the bills are so loosely drawn that they will be as laws ineffective and give endless trouble." A day or two later, while walking down State 147 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF street in Albany, I met Roosevelt, who was on his way home from Chicago and who had stopped off at Albany to look after his legislation. He im- mediately asked what the Governor had done with his bills. I replied that as yet the Governor had done nothing, but that I thought that he intended to veto some of them. Without seeking to know why, Roosevelt exclaimed: "He mustn't do that. He mustn't do that. I can't have that. I won't let him do it. I'll go up and see him at once." He fairly flew up the hill. Having in my mind that old stock problem as to what would be the re- sult of an irresistible force meeting an 'immovable body and perceiving some fun ahead I followed after into the executive chamber. The contest was begun immediately by Roose- velt's asking what the Governor proposed to do about his bills. "Mr. Roosevelt," replied the Governor, "I must veto them. While I'm not opposed to the principles involved, the bills are so loosely drawn that if they were made laws the City and County of New York would be plunged into prolonged and expensive litigation." Roosevelt bristled up immediately and after stating that the main thing was the establishment of the principle and combating the idea that litiga- tion must follow he went into a forceful argument, in which he used the most vigorous language, pounding the desk for emphasis. Finally he con- cluded with these words: "You must not veto those bills. You cannot. You shall not. I can't have it, and I won't have it." 148 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER "Mr. Roosevelt," said the Governor, sitting up very straight in his chair, "I am going to veto those bills." And his fist came down on the desk with a solid whack. The irresistible force had been smashed on the immovable body! Roosevelt fell back in his chair, declaring it was an outrage to overturn a year's work in that way. Lament went to the window and looked out on the green in an endeavor to get rid of the broad smile that was plastered on his face. With hard and stubborn front Cleveland turned to his work and the interview was over. The bills were vetoed. 149 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF SETTING CLEVELAND'S FEET ON THE PRESIDENTIAL PATH NE day in the latter part of June, 1884, in one of the rooms of the executive suite in the Albany Capitol, a group of devoted adherents of Cleveland, of whom I was one, were gathered about the telephone eagerly, awaiting the news of a momentous event. At the other end of this large room, at an im- provised table made of planks laid on sawhorses, sat Grover Cleveland, industriously at work, with all of the thirty-day bills within easy reach of his hand. The event so eagerly awaited by the group was the nomination for President by the Republican con- vention at Chicago. The fourth ballot was in prog- ress. It appeared from what had gone before that it was to be the final ballot. On it would depend who would be the Republican nominee for President and, on that would depend whether the industrious man at the other end of the room would be pre- sented to the country as the Democratic candidate. Blaine and Arthur were the leading contestants at the Republican convention, with Edmunds of Vermont a good third in the race. All of the members of this group, under the leadership of Daniel S. Lamont, had been engaged for weeks in advancing the cause of Cleveland, but without the knowledge of the man for whom the work was being done. Most of this band of earnest ISO AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER workers had access to newspaper columns and, under their efforts, there came from various sec- tions of the country considerations in print of Cleve- land as a man and as a possible Democratic candi- date. A striking act of the Governor was promptly, and with favorable color, spread broadcast over the country. Knowledge of this work was sedulously kept from the Governor, for it was believed that he was by no means certain that he desired the Presi- dential nomination and, that he would put a stop to the activity of his friends if it came to his notice. But he saw the result of their activity and wondered over it. "It is astonishing," he said to me one day, "what a close watch the rest of the country keeps on New York and the way its state government is adminis- tered." "It is a watch kept on you, Governor," I replied. "The Democrats of the nation see in you a possible candidate for the Presidency." He frowned and turned the conversation to an- other subject. Daniel Manning, the state leader, of course, was aware of the work being done. Too familiar with Tilden methods not to recognize their employment, he saw in it the handiwork of Lamont, brought up in the Tilden school, indeed a favorite pupil of the man of Gramercy Park and Greystone. Manning had protested a bit, not seriously, by saying : "It is possible that you boys will arouse a senti- ment that will be troublesome to us. Cleveland is not yet a candidate and Tilden is not yet out of the way." 151 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF Tilden's attitude was the perplexity of the situa- tion. Those who were in intimate contact with the sage of Greystone and who visited him frequently, knew that Tilden's physical condition made his ac- ceptance of a nomination and his leadership of a campaign a sheer impossibility. But a large num- ber of influential Democrats, all over the country, unaware of the real situation at Greystone, were be- sieging him and the party leaders with demands for his candidacy and the rebuke, in his own person, of "The Crime of '76." Mr. Tilden made no reply to these demands. In- deed he maintained a stolid silence in the matter. The question: "Is Tilden a candidate or not?" be- came a vital one. No one but Tilden was able to answer it, and he would not. Manning was much embarrassed. The state committee met in May, in accordance with custom, but adjourned subject to the call of the chair (Man- ning) without setting the date of the state conven- tion to choose delegates to the national convention or ordering the election of delegates to the state con- vention. And there was no programme to be given out, to the great offense of trusted county leaders who were accustomed to receive it much earlier. As the time approached for the meeting of the Republican convention at Chicago, Lamont and others he summoned to the task, persuaded Manning to undertake the work of clearing the atmosphere. Lamont knew that Tilden's physical condition made his candidacy impossible and he had been watching with alarm Roswell P. Flower's activity in securing pledges. Finally Manning yielded and, as a first step, secured Cleveland's consent to stand as a can- 152 JAMES G.BLAINE AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER didate on the contingency that either Blaine or Arthur was nominated by the RepubHcans. Then he visited Tilden and secured from him a letter which was, in fact, Tilden's absolute withdrawal from all politics. Mr. Manning told me that Cleveland's consent was "a. reluctant consent," and that it was "difficult to understand the Governor's attitude." However, when Manning returned from his visit to Grey- stone, the word that "Tilden was out" and that he "acquiesced in the Cleveland candidacy" was passed along to the chosen few and the work went on with increased vigor and merrily. The state committee was called into session and the date of the conven- tion named. That is the reason why the group about the tele- phone in the executive room, described above, hav- ing knowledge of the programme, were so eager for news from Chicago and so fearful that in the inevit- able break to come the votes of a sufficient number to nominate would go to some other candidate than Blaine or Arthur. While the group waited the Governor called nie to him and began to talk of certain bills, the neces- sity for vetoing which he regretted. So interested did he become that he plunged into arguments sup- porting his position. Suddenly he awoke to the fact that my interest was not in his words but in what was going on at the telephone. "It does not appear to me," he said, "that you are giving me your attention." "Good heavens, Governor," I cried, much ex- cited and striving to justify my own inattention, "how can you potter over these bills when any mo- 153 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF merit the announcement may be made of an event that will force you into the Democratic nomination for President?" The Governor looked up with an indulgent smile, and replied: "Oh, neither Blaine nor Arthur will be nom- inated. I have observed that in the time of a crisis the moral sense of the Republican party comes up- permost. The crisis is here. The Republican sit- uation demands the nomination of Edmunds. Ed- munds will be nominated." Hardly had the utterance left his lips when there was a shout from the group at the telephone. "Blaine's nominated !" A hard expression with which was mingled the suggestion of sadness came over the face of the Governor. The group, the oldest of whom was not yet forty, and the greater number of whom were much younger, all of them ardent, rushed across the room, surrounding the table and crying: "Now we'll have you for the Democratic nom- inee." It was not possible for even so phlegmatic a man as Cleveland to look unmoved upon those eager, earnest faces, expressing such devotion to him and his fortunes. There was the suggestion of moisture in his eyes, as his face softened and a smile began to play on his lips. He put out an uncertain hand, laying it on the bill before him and then, in a voice with an unusually tender note in it, he said : "Go away boys, and let me do my work as Gov- ernor. You're always trying to get me into a scrape." 154 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER TURNING CLOSE CORNERS ETWEEN the declaration of Cleveland as the nominee of the National Demo- cratic Convention and the declaration of tf- jLiPl Jl his candidacy for that nomination there ^^^^ was a divided state party to be managed, a state convention the complexion of which was in doubt to be controlled and a delega- tion to be welded into a whole. The issue of it all was not certain. This work, requiring the ut- most nicety of execution, was imposed on Mr. Man- ning. That the final issue was what was desired is overwhelming testimony to the executive and diplomatic capacity of Manning. His general- ship lifted him high in the esteem of men who had doubted the wisdom of his appointment to the lead- ership. It made him a power in the national party. The real history of that convention, meeting in the summer of 1884 at Saratoga Springs to choose delegates to the National Convention, has never been written. It constitutes one of the most in- teresting chapters in national politics. It also shows what may be accomplished against great odds by wise and tactful generalship, and that the glory of leadership is attended by vexation. Much of this unwritten history comes to my knowledge through my employment as an instrument by Mr. Manning. In my earnest support of Mr. Cleveland I had gone to Mr. Manning and told him that I had laid aside all newspaper work that I might be free to labor for the Governor and that I desired to place myself sub- I5S RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF ject to his (Manning's) directions. The state leader was good enough to say that I could be most useful and that he would not hesitate to call for my ser- vices. On the day we journeyed to the place of the state convention Mr. Manning occupied a seat at the end of the car opposite to that in which I had found a place. During the journey the leader sent for me and making room in the seat beside him, without preliminaries, said: "The Governor (meaning Cleveland) is most in- sistent that Dorsheimer shall present his name to the national convention and that he, Dorsheimer, shall be one of the four delegates-at-large. This is very troublesome and will be offensive to many of our friends on whom we must rely for aid. So I've cut out some work for you. So soon as we reach Sara- toga a list of delegates will be given you. I shall mark the names of some men you must see. It will be your business to visit these men and explain the situation, making it clear, that it is because of the Governor's desire to have his name presented by Dorsheimer and for no other reason that Dor- sheimer has been decided on for delegate-at-large. It is important work I'm giving you, for I find on examination that we have not a working majority of more than five or six. The situation is a most doubt- ful one." The significance of these instructions is to be found in the fact that after the events of 1876, the former Lieutenant Governor, Mr. Dorsheimer, had gradually drifted away from his old allies in the Tilden campaign, under the feeling that he had been badly treated and had finally landed in Tammany 156 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER Hall, becoming a Congressman under its auspices. Tammany was in open antagonism to Cleveland and its course made it actually hated by the vast ma- jority of the Democrats of the interior of the state. The belief that Tammany had treacherously de- feated Hancock for the Presidency in 1880 was still firmly held by many Democrats. To advocate a man as a candidate for one of the four places as delegate- at-large, who was so conspicuous a member of Tam- many Hall, was, therefore, looked upon by the old sterling Democracy of the state as an abandonment of principle and a weakness in management. Mr. Manning, however, had accepted the burden im- posed without murmur and had met the problem forced on him as seemed best in his judgment. Mr. Dorsheimer was at the Springs, but not as delegate. Though he had changed his political af- filiations, he yet had many personal friends in the ranks of the regular organization and I went to him to have him name some of them who might be dele- gates, to aid in the work imposed on me. It turned out that this was the first intimation Dorsheimer had of the settled programme. He went with it to John Kelly, the Tammany leader. Kelly was not pleased. He chose to look upon the concession to the Gover- nor's desire as a concession to Tammany and then declared that in such case he, Kelly, Tammany's leader, should be the one to go as delegate-at-large, while Dorsheimer could go as a district delegate from his, Kelly's, congressional district. His determination caused an explosion. Man- ning refused to agree and declared that in conceding the place to Dorsheimer he had gone as far in re- cognition of Tammany as he would go. Dorsheimer, 157 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF utterly disgusted with the turn of affairs, packed his bag and went home to go out of Tammany and poli- tics. In the meantime the breach between the regu- lars and the opposition was widened while the roll of Flower delegates was enlarged and the Flower candidacy strengthened. "I was compelled to take the stand I did," said Manning, "or lose control of the convention. Per- haps we've lost it now, but I think work will over- come this trouble." Now as the possibility of having Cleveland as the nominee of the national convention depended on the control of the delegation to Chicago, at the first step there was doubt and trouble. There were other divisions to vex. Out in Mon- roe County there had been a contest of factions, one led by George Raines and the other by William Pur- cell, the forceful editor of the Rochester Union and Advertiser. Raines had won in the primaries but under employment of methods, as charged by the Purcell faction, that were unfair, with the result that the Purcell wing sent to Saratoga a contesting delegation. Just after the Dorsheimer affair had fallen down, as described above, I was passing through the din- ing room of the United States Hotel when I was called by Nicholas E. Kernan, a son of ex-United States Senator Kernan. He was seated at a table with his uncle, Mr. Devereaux of Utica. Mr. Ker- nan said: "Your people must be careful in handling that Monroe contest. I can assure you that there are more than forty delegates from Central and West- ern New York who will take the setting aside of 158 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER Purcell as a personal grievance. They believe in the justice of his position and they may overturn your control." Passing on after listening to this it was not until I reached the door of the dining room that the full significance of the warning was appreciated. It meant possibly the defeat of Cleveland. Returning to Kernan I asked him for the names of those who had assumed the position for Purcell. With the aid of his uncle thirty names were given. With the list I hurried to Mr. Manning. The leader took it into serious consideration, nodding his head affirma- tively as he ticked off the list. "I understand this," he said, "and it is most serious. More trouble and more corners to turn. I do wish people would keep religion out of their politics. Well," he continued, "you have had some time to think of this ; how would you meet it ?" "The danger is," I replied, "that even thirty of the delegates, counted on our list, if they supported a minority report of the committee on contested seats, would be enough to carry the minority report and seat Purcell, would they not ?" "Surely," replied Mr. Manning. "And that would show that you had lost control of the convention ?" "No doubt of that." "And that would beat Cleveland?" "Yes." "Then I see nothing for it but to concede the seats to Purcell and so avoid the contest and the showing up." "Pretty rough on a consistent friend like George Raines who, I think, has the ri^ht of this quarrel, 159 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF especially when it is done in favor of an enemy of the Governor. However, find Cady Herrick — ^he's chairman of the committee on contested seats. Tell him what you have told me, show him the list, tell him what you have suggested and what I have said and tell him that I say that everything must be done to avoid a test vote on anything in this convention. We're skating on awfully thin ice." Cady Herrick, then a practicing lawyer of Al- bany and subsequently on the Supreme Court bench, was quickly found and the matter laid before him. He instantly grasped the sense of it and after a mo- ment's consideration he said : "A mighty unpleasant thing to do. It will break a strong friendship. But I see no other way out." There was another contest in St. Lawrence Coun- ty, headed by Sawyer and supported by Tammany simply because it was in the opposition. Bourke Cockran was Tammany's representative on the committee. To him with Machiavelian intent went Herrick, saying that he did not suppose that Cock- ran cared m«i?h for Sawyer, but did for Purcell, and that if he, Cockran, would join him they would seat Purcell and Magone, who, I think, was Sawyer's opponent. Cockran eagerly accepted the proposi- tion and thus Herrick insured a report from the committee that would not be contested on the floor of the convention and for the Qeveland votes lost in Monroe secured those from St. Lawrence, while he satisfied the forty likely to bolt regular leader- ship in any other result. It was a close call, for the contest over the report had been well organized. And all other test votes were avoided. A reso- lution indorsed the administration of Cleveland as i6o AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER Governor. But that was invariable Democratic custom. But the resolution instructing the delega- tion to vote for Grover Cleveland was not presented, because Mr. Manning would not permit it, to the great distress of the more ardent of the Cleveland men. "We would have been beaten," said Mr. Man- ning on his return from Saratoga." We did not have a majority. We get away from Saratoga with the credit of controlling the convention in Cleveland's interest, without showing our weakness and after defeating all the purposes and plans of the opposi- tion. We must be content with that and the Gov- ernor must be content with Dan Lockwood, again, for a spokesman. But," he continued, "our work is not done yet. We've got our delegation to look after." As a matter of fact an apparent Cleveland vic- tory was wrung from a convention that was, in its actual majority, in opposition to Cleveland. The triumph belonged to Mr. Manning. But for it there would have been no President Cleveland known to history. " i6i RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF BY WHAT SMALL CHANCES HERE is more work for you to do," said Mr. Manning on the day after his return from Saratoga to Albany, after the state convention of 1884, "and it is most important work." He was seated at his desk in the par- lor of the National Commerical Bank, of which he was the president, looking over three slips of paper he held in his hands. "I've sent for you to know if you will under- take it." "I'm enlisted for the war, Mr. Manning," I re- plied, "and am subject to your orders." He looked up with a smile at the response and said: "You may not like this, but it must be done by someone." He handed me one of the slips he held. "This contains the names of the delegates chosen at Saratoga for Chicago, whom we rely upon to support Cleveland." "This," he continued, as he handed another slip, "contains the names of those who we think will be against us." The list was formidable and disturbing to Cleve- land's adherents. He handed over the third slip. "This," he said, "contains the names of those who are doubtful or undeclared." There were six, perhaps eight, names on the last slip. Mr. Manning went on, quite calmly : 162 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER "You will perceive that we have not as yet a majority of the delegation." "Heavens," I said to myself, "after the triumph of Saratoga we are not yet out of the woods." As if he had heard the unexpressed thought, Mr. Manning continued : "You perceive the situation is delicate, to say the least. If we cannot win these doubtful men we cannot hope to make a successful presentation of the Governor's name. Now, I want you to devote yourself to these doubtful men. Find out the con- ditions surrounding them, the influences, political, commercial and moral, they are subject to, and if they are inclined to be against us, find out why. I suppose that we may take it as a fact, in such a juncture, that they are inclined to be against us if they are undeclared. We must subject them to pressure, but first we must learn the sort of pres- sure which should be applied. That's your work. You may rely on those lists as being accurate. They were made up by Lamont." Filled with an appreciation of the importance and difficulty of the task I was silent for a moment. Then I said : "It is something like detective work." "Much like it," replied Mr. Manning, "but de- tective work that can be done only by a man acquainted with state and local politics." Taking the slips, I went up the hill to consult with Lamont, somewhat saddened in the revelation that we were as yet far away from the position in which we might insistently press the name of Cleve- land. It seemed as if Cleveland's chances for the presidential nomination depended on small things. 163 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF When we were within two weeks of the meeting day of the national convention, I was recalled from the work by Mr. Manning. "Your work is nearly accomplished," he said, "and I will put someone else on to finish it up. You must go to Chicago at once. Open the Cleveland headquarters at the Palmer House, and stand for the cause till we get there. I had intended that Apgar (E. K.) should do this, but my programme has been disarranged by John Boyle O'Reilly, of Boston, who has sent most imperatively for Apgar on what he, O'Reilly, calls business of the utmost importance. Look up the situation there and in- form me daily, hourly, if necessary. Use the wire freely." On arrival in Chicago it required no especial shrewdness to discover that the Chicago press was prejudiced against the Cleveland cause, nor to dis- cover that all of this prejudice was due to the very efficient work of State Senator "Tom" Grady of New York, who had stolen into Chicago for the pur- pose. The first duty, then, was to counteract the effect of Grady's work by visiting the editors of the various papers, telling the "regular" side of the story and submitting to cross-examination as to po- litical conditions in New York. If the Chicago press was not swung to an ardent advocacy of Cleveland, at least the Tammany influence was neutralized, and the tone of the press toward the candidacy was changed. The next discovery was one not so easily met or understood. Indeed, it was not fully understood until later in the campaign that it was an intrigue in the interest of Blaine, operated in the Democratic 164 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER convention and having for its purpose the defeat ol Cleveland for the nomination. It appeared that Blaine, with his usual political prescience, had de- termined that his most dangerous opponent would be Cleveland. To have him killed in the convention was the easiest way to dispose of him. The intrigue was being worked through a resi- dent of Chicago, Alexander Sullivan, president of the Irish National League, all of which, however, was not visible on the surface. What was visible was that there were many agents about who were endeavoring to stir up Irish prejudice against Cleve- land, on the ground that he was an enemy of the race. The side of the intrigue which was at once the most dangerous and the most difficult to meet was that which attempted to represent Cleveland as "a Presbyterian bigot," who was bitterly hostile to anything related to Catholicity. These facts were communicated to Mr. Man- ning, with the suggestion that John D. Kernan, rail- road commissioner; James Shanahan, superintend- ent of public works, and John A. McCall, superin- tendent of insurance, should come to Chicago at the earliest possible moment. The idea was that these men occupied the most important offices in the gift of the Governor of the state, under the ap- pointment of Cleveland, and that a charge of big- otry against Cleveland, under the circumstances, became absurd. The reply of Mr. Manning was that all three would be on hand except Mr. Kernan, who would be represented by his father, ex-United States Sen- ator Francis Kernan, and, further, that the matter communicated was comprehended and was being 165 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF dealt with from the Albany end. On Mr. Man- ning's arrival in Chicago he told me that the or- ganized attempt to charge Cleveland with religious bigotry was the reason of John Boyle O'Reilly's call for Apgar and that there was among the powers of the great church much indignation over the effort to drag their sacred faith into the troubled and muddy waters of politics. Mr. Manning was in- clined to the belief that, in the end, the effort would act as a boomerang on those who had attempted the doubtful — to use the least offensive term — ^tactics. And, as a matter of fact, Mr. Manning's judgment was justified by events. The leader was more troubled over the fact that the intrigue had had no little effect on the delega- tion, and, in talking of it, admitted that as yet the Cleveland people were short two of a majority in the delegation. To persuade these two became a matter of earn- est work. It was not even accomplished on the morning of the day on which the delegation was to meet and determine how it was to vote. On that day the two delegates disappeared from sight. Scouting parties were organized to find them, and I have a distinct recollection of seeing Henry Mowry of Syracuse sitting at the head of the main stairway of the Palmer House, where the great tide flowed to and from the various headquarters, stolid and im- perturable, waiting by the hour, patiently, for one or both of the greatly desired delegates to appear. It was Mowry who reached them and hurried them into a conference, from which the two emerged pledged to Cleveland, and I do not think I outrasre the truth when I say that one of them bore the i66 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER promise of the nomination to a state office when he entered the meeting room of the delegation. The two made the majority by which Cleveland was named in that caucus of the delegation on the last day before the meeting of the convention. After the victory many who had been on the other side accepted the situation and bowed to the decision^ but Tammany didn't. During all this struggle the desperate straits of the Cleveland men had been successfully concealed — from all, indeed, except those who were employed in the labor of winning the majority. But "alPs well that ends well." New York went into the con- vention solid and strong and confident. To me, in looking back upon these events, Car- lyle's remark in "Sartor Resartus," "By what small chances do we live in history," comes with great force. By many "small chances" was Cleveland carried to the nomination. For a man so eminently practical and sane his career was attended by many dramatic incidents. 167 nl — * \ 3 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF MANNING'S MASTERLY MANAGEMENT |T is doubtful whether a campaign for a nomination at a national convention was ever so wisely and ably conducted as that for the nomination of Cleveland at Chicago in 1884, organized and con- ducted as it was under adverse cir- cumstances and with many difficulties to face. At a time when there was no assurance that a majority of the state delegation could be secured for Cleveland, when there was a large doubt whether a single vote from New York could be cast for Cleveland, and when the leaders were compelled to summon to their efiforts all the skill and energy and address they were capable of, a Cleveland propa- ganda was organized at Chicago which, I can say out of a long and wide experience at national con- ventions, was the most complete and effective I ever observed. This propaganda was conducted by a corps of men of character, dignity and standing, not mere "heelers" who could talk — such men as David B. Hill, ex-Senator Kernan, Wilson S. Bis- sell, D-Cady Herrick, Edward Cooper and others. While this propaganda was being organized and conducted not only were the leaders compelled to deal with the fact that a majority of the New York delegation was yet to be secured for their can- didate, but with the intrigue which sought to estab- lish Cleveland as "a Presbyterian bigot" in the minds of the delegates to the national convention, mention of which was made in a previous chapter. 168 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER This was a most troublesome affair. No matter how often or how authoritatively the false state- ments of this intrigue were met, they cropped up again and again, as positively asserted as if they had never been denied and disproved. These asser- tions were not made in the open, but were whis- pered from mouth to ear. Denials and disproof seemed to have the effect only of increasing the activity of the agents of the intrigue and the instru- ments of the slanderers. Under the circumstances it was difficult to meet and counteract the influence. When all the difficulties and obstacles, above re- cited, had been overcome, there was one more fight to engage in, which was the outcome of the effort of Tammany to break the unit rule. It had been suggested by the success attending a similar effort in the Republican National Convention of 1880. But obedience to the instructions of a state conven- tion was Democratic custom entrenched in tradition and the effort failed. So it was that when the day of balloting was reached the hands of Mr. Man- ning were strengthened and he was enabled to cast the 'J2 votes of New York for Grover Cleveland, while he had the comforting assurance that as a result of the propaganda he had organized, Cleve- land, among the delegates of the rest of the country, was the leading candidate. There was an unusual number of aged men among the delegates. On the day that the ballot- ing began the greater part of the time had been absorbed in listening to the reports of the com- mittee on contested seats, in discussion of the plat- form, in the making of the permanent organiza- 169 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF tion, and, in the presentation of the names of the various candidates for the presidential nomination. The first ballot was not reached until late in the evening. On that ballot Cleveland received 392 votes out of a total of 818, which was 224 more than had been recorded for Thomas F. Bayard, the next in rank of numbers. The rest were scattered among "favorite sons." Mr. Manning had assur- ances that, on the second ballot, so many of these votes as had gone to favorite sons in a compli- mentary way on the first ballot, would be turned to Cleveland as would give him, at least, a majority. While a two-thirds vote was, and is yet, in a Demo- cratic convention requisite for a nomination, it is rarely that a convention withholds that two-thirds vote from a candidate when he has once attained a majority. Thus it was that in the Cleveland camp confidence as to the ultimate result obtained. During the taking of the first ballot Mr. Man- ning had observed that after casting their votes a large number, especially the aged men, tired out by a long day's work, had left the hall. He, therefore, conceived it to be the part of prudence and wisdom to take an adjournment until the next morning. This he effected. The more ardent of the Cleveland men, elated by the great lead of their candidate, questioned this act of the leader, contending that as victory was in sight the Cleveland forces should have pressed on to the end. But Mr. Manning was courageous enough to be insistent. After the ad- journment he said to me : "It was wise to adjourn. We could not have reached an end in any event. So many of our friends had left the hall that it was doubtful if on a 170 DANIEL MANNING AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER second ballot we could have obtained for our can- didate as many votes as we did on the first ballot. That would have been damaging. We must have steady growth to succeed. We can't stand fluctua- tions, especially if they are downward. We will have a full house and an increased vote to-morrow morning." But there were those of the opposition who did not read the act that way. They took the adjourn- ment to be an evidence of a want of courage and a lack of confidence in the ultimate result. And they undertook to take advantage of the supposed situa- tion. Immediately after the adjournment Benja- min F. Butler — the redoubtable Ben — ^who was a delegate from Massachusetts, John Kelly, the Tam- many leader, and Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana, got together to lay plans to "stampede" the conven- tion at its next session for Hendricks for President. These plans were carefully and skillfully made. "Dick" Bright of Indiana, who was sergeant-at- arms of the convention, was sent for, and instruct- ed to pack the galleries with shouters for Hen- dricks. Bright carried out his instructions with fidelity. He withdrew all of the tickets that had been issued for admission to the galleries and in- structed the doorkeepers, all of whom were under his direction, to refuse to recognize them and to receive only the new ones issued. These were given into the hands of all that he could muster from the purlieus of Chicago and that were willing, for a consideration, to sit and "holler" for Hendricks when the signal to do so was given. The convention met in a large rectangular hall, the platform being on one side of it, half way up. 171 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF Alongside of that platform was a door leading from an anteroom and he who entered the hall by that door came face to face with the delegates and the audience. One delegate from Illinois had voted for Hendricks and could be relied on to do so on the second ballot. It was, therefore, planned that as he voted for the Indiana statesman, Hendricks should open the door described and enter to face the delegates when the "stampede" was to be loosed. It was believed that thereby the convention could be carried from its feet. It was a cunningly devised plan, and well calcu- lated to succeed. It was a danger not apprehended by the Cleveland managers, all of whom had gone to bed confident in the result of the next day. 1 had but just crawled into my bed for a sadly needed sleep at a late, or, rather, an early, hour in the morning, when I was imperatively summoned to the Cleveland headquarters at the Palmer House. Ar- riving there I learned that Mr. Manning had been promptly informed of the Hendricks intrigue and, recognizing its dangerous possibilities, had as promptly formed a counter plan. To its execution the late William E. Smith, a nephew of Smith Weed, and later an assistant secretary of the treasury in the first Cleveland administration, had been as- signed. He had rapidly divided the states into groups, according to the size of their delegations. To each group a trusted man was assigned, withi instructions from Mr. Manning to find each dele- gate of his group, tell him of the Hendricks intrigue, when the stampede was to occur, how it was to occur, and, having prepared the mind of each one by taking from the attempted "stampede" the qual- 172 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER ity of surprise, ask the delegate to sit tight and close, unmoved, until the effort had spent its force. Iowa and three other states were given to me. It was an all-night job. It was not until 7 o'clock in the morning that I located the last man on my list, and not until 8 that I reached him and fore- warned him. The programme was carried out by both sides. At the dramatic moment Hendricks opened the door, as planned, and entered. The signal was given. The galleries became frantic with cheers for Hen- dricks, who stood before the platform, blandly bow- ing before the storm. There were among the noise makers a few delegates here and there, but the rest, and the vast majority, sat fast and tight, unmoved, for only that was occurring of which they had been forewarned. There was an exception. In the mid- dle of the New York delegation there was a knot of some ten or twelve men who stood on their chairs wildly cheering. These were Tammany delegates, with John Kelly at their head. The only man to whose head the manufactured excitement went was Governor Waller of Connecticut, who jumped to his seat in a wild cry for recognition from the chair, but Senator William H. Barnum reached him by hard pushing from one side, and little Apgar from the other side by going like a monkey over the heads of the delegates. The two pulled Waller down amid the laughs of his colleagues. The turmoil lasted ten minutes and died out through exhaustion without the fire even reaching the delegates. When the leader of the Illinois dele- gation caught the eye of the chairman and asked for a recalling of the Illinois delegates and they re- 173 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF sponded with the name of Cleveland, notice was served that the best organized and most skillfully conceived stampede of history had failed. And when Pennsylvania was reached and its leader asked permission for the delegation to retire for consultation, and, returning a short time after, withdrew the name of Samuel J. Randall and re- corded its vote for Grover Cleveland, the end was. After that it was almost a scramble to get recorded for Cleveland. The second ballot showed 684 for Cleveland, or 138 more than the needed two-thirds. And with it ended the host of dramatic incidents attending the nomination of Grover Cleveland in 1884. 174 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER PUBLIC OFFICE IS A PUBLIC TRUST N the campaign of 1884, six words, "Public Office Is a Public Trust"— be- came the slogan of the Cleveland battle line. The words were attributed to ^^ Cleveland — they were believed to be an '"^ utterance of the Democratic presidential candidate. But of all the nearly five millions who upheld the cause of Cleveland and fought for him, not five persons could have told where the words first appeared or from what speech, or letter, or message, or interview, or public document of Cleve- land's authorship they were taken. When the battle had been won, and its smoke had cleared away, and it was realized what a power for Cleveland the epigram had been, and that it had become of historical significance, effort was made to frame it with descriptions of the context out of which it was supposed to have come. The result was to discover that the only place in which the phrase in its epigrammatic form was to be found was on the title page of the first political document issued in the campaign. The next step was to discover that Mr. Cleve- land had not written or uttered it. A search was begun for its origin. This was not found because only two persons knew it and they were not asked for information. These two persons were Grover Cleveland and the writer. After this, much was written and said about the phrase that had become famous, but all was specu- 175 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF lation and romance. It was attributed to half a dozen persons, who were in relations, more or less intimate, with Cleveland. It was asserted that it was the contribution of Manton Marble to the cam- paign of 1884. It was circumstantially stated that at a conference of leading Democrats the necessity of a ringing phrase to catch the public ear was de- terniined on, and that on the suggestion of Daniel Manning the invention of such a phrase was in- trusted to St. Clair McKelway, at that time the editor of the Albany Argus, the famous one being the result. Finally, George F. Parker, in an article in the North American Review about Cleveland as a phrase maker, with all the earmarks of authority, dogmatically asserted that the famous phrase was invented for Cleveland by the late Daniel S. Lament. All of these assertions and statements were er- roneous. Mr. Lamont did not invent the phrase nor had he any knowledge of it until he read it on the title page of the document on which it appeared. Mr. McKelway did not invent it, for the very good reason that there was never a con- ference to provide a phrase for campaign purposes, although he did coin a term afterward employed by Mr. Cleveland, and that was "innocuous desue- tude." There was more of truth as to Manton Marble, for that person did etnploy a similar phrase in his writing of the Democratic platform of 1876, some eight years previously. This is the story of the origin and use of the phrase : Of those who went from Albany to Chicago in 1884, I was the first to reach Albany from Chicago and to call on the newly nominated presidential 176 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER candidate. I had left Chicago immediately after the nomination of Cleveland had been announced. Arriving in Albany the next day, I saw the candi- date in his office at the Capitol, and congratulatea him on the result. Before I left he asked me ro dine with him the next day (Sunday), as he had a communication to make of some importance. After dinner, when cigars had been produced, the Gov- ernor told me that Lamont had suggested that the fight for the Presidency should be begun at once, without waiting for the organization of the larger committees, and that it should be begun by the prep- aration and publication of a political document, the scope of which he laid out in general terms. He asked me to undertake the work of the preparation, telling me at the same time that he had already re- ceived the promise of Francis Lynde Stetson of New York to write a defense of his (the Governor's) veto of the elevated railroad 5-cent fare bill, to be in- cluded in the document. This was a matter which had brought upon Cleveland no little criticism. He was sensitive as to it because, convinced that he was right in his act, he thought the public should see as he did. Mr. Stetson arrived the next day, and, after a conference with him as to the character and detail of the work, it was taken up earnestly and pushed vigorously. In a week's time I had read the latest revises and the time had come for the ordering of the printing. On that day Lamont came to me and, asking what I was doing about the title page, sug- gested that I use a cut of Cleveland, which he handed me and, as a title line, "The Open Record of an Honest Man." 12 177 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF Exclaiming that it was an admirable line, I drew a sheet of paper before me and wrote it, send- ing it to the printers with the cut Lamont had hand- ed me, with instructions to return a proof of the page. But when the proof came back it did not look well. The cut of Cleveland was an outline cut, with- out any shading whatever. Lamont's heavy, black- faced line stared out too boldly from the page, and it was badly balanced. Thinking that its appear- ance would be improved if I could place at the top and bottom of the page pithy or pregnant sentences uttered by Cleveland, I sent for copies of his speeches and writings. I quickly found a sentence relating to labor and its rights, of three lines length, for the bottom of the page, but, search as I might, I could not find one of the kind I needed to fill the top. What I did find, however, was the iteration and reiteration of the sentiment that public officials were the trustees of the people, and an office a sacred trust. For instance, he had said in his speech before the City Convention in 1881, in accepting the nom- ination of Mayor of Bufifalo : "Public officials are the trustees of the people, and hold their places and exercise their powers for the benefit of the people." In his first annual message as Mayor of Buffalo, January 2, 1882, he said: "We (public officers) are the trustees and agents of our fellow citizens, holding their funds in sacred trust." In several of his veto messages as Mayor he repeated this sentiment in different forms. And in 178 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER his letter accepting the nomination of Governor he said: "Public officers are the servants and agents of the people to execute laws which the people have made and within the limits of a constitution which they have established." What I did acquire was the understanding that the dominating sentiment in Cleveland's mind was this idea of trusteeship and that in his public acts he was guided by it. And I remember that as I read and searched, my mind went back to the Democratic national platform of 1876 and that I thought that Mr. Cleveland had been influenced by it. This was the platform utterance of 1876: "President, Vice-President, judges, senators, representatives. Cabinet officers — these and all others in authority are the people's servants. Their offices are not a private perquisite ; they are a public trust." That my mind should have gone back to the eight-year-old platform was not such an effort of memory as the mere statement of it makes it appear to be. During the thirty-six hours' session of the platform committee, at St. Louis, I acted, tempo- rarily, as the secretary of Lieutenant Governor Dor- sheimer, its chairman. It fell to my hand to copy that platform, and parts of it, with suggestions of amendment and addition so often that by the time it was adopted I was familiar with every line of it. But the reflection, on looking over Cleveland's official papers, that he had been influenced to much thought on the subject by the 1876 platform utter- ance did not furnish me with the pithy short sen- 179 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF tence I wanted for the top of the title page of the first political document of the 1884 campaign. So I went at the making of one, much after the manner of the headline writer in a newspaper office, who compresses into a single short sentence the gist of the article turned into him to "put a head on." "Public Office Is a Public Trust" was the result. That was what the platform of 1876 had said and what Cleveland had said on every occasion that was proper. It was the dogmatic form of what he had expressed with greater elucidation. A proof of the amended page was required and, when it was received, I took it to the Governor for his inspection. His eye at once went to the top line and, pointing to it, he asked : "Where the deuce did I say that?" "You've said it a dozen times publicly but not in those few words," I replied. "That's so," he said. "That's what I believe. That's what I've said a little better because more fully." "But this has the merit of brevity," I persisted, "and that is what is required here. The question is, will you stand for this form ?" "Oh, yes," replied the Governor. "That is what I believe. I'll stand for it and make it my own." So I wrote "G. Cleveland" under the line and sent the proof to the printing office with instruc- tions to go to press. In a week's time the printed document had been circulated in the State of New York. The phrase which topped the title page was immediately seized upon by the adherents of Cleveland. Rapidly it spread to the rest of the country. It was printed on 180 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER badges which men wore on their coats as a declara- tion of their poHtical sentiments. It was emblazoned on banners hung in the air. It was mouthed by campaign orators and helped swell the periods ot resounding resolutions. It was made the refrain of campaign songs and afforded the beat shouted by enthusiasts and by which they marched in proces- sion under torches and fireworks. No one was so much surprised by the way the public seized on the phrase as the two men instru- mental in its concoction — the presidential candidate and myself. To make a campaign slogan was far from our purpose. It was not in the mind of either. It was not in the purview of either. It was wholly due to the persistency of the writer that he must have a short, pithy utterance of the candidate for a top line to preserve the symmetrical appearance of the title page. To that was the outlook limited. And when we found that the phrase that had been thus formed had been seized upon by more than one- half of the voters, as the concrete expression of Mr. Cleveland's dominating idea, then, and only then, we learned that we had builded better than we knew. During the four years that followed that cam- paign there was much discussion as to the origin , of the phrase, and in the course of it there were as- sertions that as a phrase, in exactly the way it had been used in the campaign of 1884, it had been em- ployed at various times previously. From time to time, after that period, there have been outcrop- pings of the discussion, the subject apparently hav- ing an irresistible attraction for the disputants. In its last edition, "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations," at- 181 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF tributes the use of the phrase to a number of people. Under the head of Public Trusts, it has this item: "The phrase, 'public office is a public trust' has of late become common property." — Charles Sumner (May 31, 1872). This would indicate that the phrase not only had been used twelve years before it was credited to Cleveland, but that it had been in use before then. Of this I have only to say that at the time I put the phrase on the title page, I had never heard it, had known nothing of this quotation from Sumner and that to-day I do not know that Sumner ever said what is attributed to him except as it appears in "Bartlett's." This also appears in the same work : "The pubUc offices are a public trust." — Dorman B. Eaton (1881). This may be true, for as I never read anything Eaton ever wrote or said, I can have no other knowl- edge than what Bartlett says Eaton said, and I learned this twenty-six years after I put the phrase on the title page. Also the phrase appears in the same work, cred- ited to Abram S. Hewitt, in 1883. Now I knew Mr. Hewitt very well and having a great admiration for the man, was tolerably well acquainted with his speeches and public utterances. I never knew that Mr. Hewitt had used the phrase, and do not know it now except as Bartlett says, and I would be greatly troubled where to find it at this day, among Mr. Hewitt's speeches or letters. It is quite among the possibilities that I had met with the phrase in my earlier readings ; that it made its impression and remained in my mind until 182 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER the requirements brought it to the surface, when it appeared to me as an original conception; but, whether that is so or not, the true story of its use in the campaign of 1884 and the crediting of it to Mr. Cleveland are here told and for the first time. 183 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF HOW CLEVELAND DEALT WITH A BLAINE SCANDAL JHE mail of Grover Cleveland, immedi- ately after his nomination for Presi- dent, at Chicago, on July ii, 1884, swelled into enormous proportions. It came pouring in literally by the bushel. In order that he might look over this mail free from undue interruption, as the Private Secretary of the Governor, Colonel Lamont seized on a desk in the last room of the gubernatorial suite to which visitors, even if they were intimate friends of the Governor, rarely if ever, penetrated. While engaged in the preparation of the "Open Record of an Honest Man" document, on the title page of which appeared the words "Public Office Is a Public Trust," as previously described, I was given a desk in the same room, adjoining that oc- cupied by Colonel Lamont. One morning in the third week of July, on en- tering to my work, I saw Lamont at his desk with a frown of perplexity on his face, evidently much disturbed. He was studying a letter and some ac- companying documents and was so much absorbed that he was hardly conscious of my entrance. But in a moment or two, looking up, he saw me. There was an eager tone in his voice as he said: "I'm glad you've come. I want to talk to you about a perplexing matter." He went to the door and turned the key. Com- ing back, he stood for some time looking down on AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER the papers that had absorbed his attention, and then said: "I don't know what to do with these papers. If I show them to the Governor I fear he will put his foot on them. If I conceal them from him and turn them over to the managers of the campaign and he comes to know of it, he'll be angry. If I do show them to the Governor and he does put his foot on them and they are concealed from the man- agers, they will be angry, as they would have a right to be, since they are entitled to have all the weapons we can put in their hands for use in this campaign." Knowing Lamont as well as I did, I neither asked him the nature of the papers that troubled him nor made remark. Lamont did not give his confidences easily. Any attempt to draw him out excited his suspicions and usually resulted in an extreme case of reticence. If he intended to give me his confidence in this matter I knew that it would be given without the asking. So I waited. It was at a time when what subsequently became known to history as the Halpin affair was having its first swing and I supposed the papers in Lamont's hands related to that. Such, however, was not the case, as was plain so soon as Lamont began to talk of the matter vexing him. It appeared that a correspondent re- siding in Kentucky, I think, whose name I have now forgotten, had written to Governor Cleveland relating what he alleged to be certain incidents in the private life of James G. Blaine, the opposing candidate. These he offered as more than an offset to the Halpin affair. He asserted his ability to i8s RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF furnish conclusive documentary proof of his allega- tions and had forwarded copies of certain docu- ments as indicating the nature of the proof. Although the matter in great part found its way to publication, I shall not attempt to indicate here the nature of the allegations because, first, I never read the proof or what purported to be the proof of them; second, because I have every reason to believe that there is not to-day in existence any proof or the possibility of it, and, third, that all the parties to the story are under the sod, unable to make a defense, while those left in the guardian- ship of their fame can meet the allegation made at this late day only by a denial. In this third week in July, 1884, the allegations as they appeared in the mail of Governor Cleveland seemed to be very real and the writer offered, if his communication was deemed to be of value, to travel to Albany and personally submit his proof and himself to examination. Having informed me of the contents of the communication and his own thought on the matter. Lament asked me what I would do were I placed in a similar position. "Turn them over to the Governor, Dan," I said, "and let him deal with them." "You know the Governor," said Lamont, "and what he is capable of doing — tossing them into the waste basket." "Possibly," I replied; "but in view of the rela- tions of the Governor and yourself I cannot see that you can do anything else." "That is my inclination — indeed, was my first impulse, but afterward I thought of the use that 186 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER might be made of it to fight this other devilish thing," repHed Lamont. After a moment he added : "It is a question of how I can best serve him." After another moment of thought he continued: "Well, I'll lay the matter before the Governor now, before anyone else can hear of it. I'll ask him to come into this room to read these papers." He went out and almost immediately returned with Cleveland, directing the latter' s attention to the papers without comment. Cleveland sat down in Lamont' s chair and read the papers very deliberately, giving no sign of the impression they made on him. Finishing his read- ing of them he leaned his elbow on the desk and looked out of the window to the park in front of the Capitol for a long time, the while we waited, ostensibly busy with our work, but covertly watch- ing the presidential candidate. Finally he turned to the desk and, gathering up the papers, folded them neatly, after his habit, and, rising, said: "I'll take these. Say nothing about them to anyone. I say this to both of you. Dan, send for this man to bring his proof as soon as he can. Promise to pay his expenses." He went out, leaving Lamont and myself to stare at each other. Apparently he was about to do what each of us thought he would not do. An instant later he was back again in the door. "Dan," he said, "when that man does come bring him directly to me. I will deal with him." He went away, leaving us to look at each other again. "I'll be hanged !" I exclaimed. "He's going to use them after all." 187 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF "I don't know," replied Lamont, doubtfully, "Though he hasn't taken it as I thought he would." Days passed and nothing was heard from Cleve- land on the subject. Lamont had carried out his instruction and had sent for the correspondent. On entering the apartment early one morning five days after the scene described I found Lamont await- ing my coming. "That man is here with the proofs," he said. "I have been waiting for you to come so that you could be present and be a witness that on receiving the package from him I did not open it." He called the man to him and, receiving the package, said: "I will take this to the Governor at once. Come with me." At the same time he gestured to me to follow. The three of us went into the executive chamber, where Cleveland sat alone at his big desk. Lamont went to him, saying in a voice loud enough to be heard by all: "The man is here with those proofs. Here they are." He handed the package to Cleveland as he had received it. The Governor took it in his hand, ask- ing at the same time: "Is the man here?" "Yes," replied Lamont, "in this room." "Bring him to me," said Cleveland, calmly, as he tore the wrapping from the package. Lamont brought the man to the Governor, who asked him to be seated. Then, holding the docu- ments in his hand, the Governor asked: "Are your proofs all here?" i88 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER "Yes, sir, all of them," replied the man. "Do you substantiate by- these papers or proofs all of the promises of your letter?" "I am sure that you will say so if you will look the papers over," returned the man. "They are mostly certified copies of public records which, taken in their place, with one affidavit and three private letters, complete the whole story." "Everything is here, then, and you are holding nothing in reserve?" persisted Cleveland. "Nothing," replied the man, "and you will see that by running over the indorsements of the papers." Cleveland did so and then he turned to Lamont and said: "Arrange with this man a proper sum for his expenses, the time he has lost and his good will in the matter, and pay him." Apparently it was not a difficult negotiation, for the man soon departed with Lamont's check, appar- ently more than well satisfied. In the meantime, Cleveland again ran over the indorsements of the papers but without opening any of them. When the man was gone from the room Cleve- land laid the papers on the desk before him and, taking from the private drawer of his desk some others, handed them to Lamont, saying: "These are the ones you gave me the other day, are they not ?" Lamont said they were, giving them back to Cleveland, who held out his hand for them. Then, drawing a waste paper basket to him the Governor began to tear them into small bits, to the unbounded astonishment of Lamont and myself. When he had 189 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF finished that lot he took up the proofs brought that morning and destroyed them in the same manner. No words were spoken by any one until the Govern- or called a porter and directed him to burn in the fireplace the scraps of paper, standing over him to watch the process. When all were consumed he came back to where Lamont and I were standing, and said to Lamont: "The other side can have a monopoly of all the dirt in this campaign." Then he talked about something else and so far as I am informed never referred to the matter again. Years after the event Colonel Lamont told me that Cleveland had never afterward alluded to the matter. Some weeks after the man in question, preceiv- ing that no use had been made of the matter which he had taken to Albany, through a mutual ac- quaintance, reached Senator A. P. Gorman, who was the chairman of the executive committee of the National Democratic Committee — that is to say, the campaign manager — to tell him of the com- munication to Mr. Cleveland. Senator Gorman knew nothing of it. He asked me if I had heard anything of the story. Under the seal of confidence everything relating to the matter was told the Maryland Senator. He listened with intense interest to the conclusion of the tale. When it was finished he rose from his desk and, going to the mantelpiece, leaned on it in thought for a few moments. Then he said: "The destruction of that proof was very noble and high minded in Mr. Cleveland. I don't know 190 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER whether, in a similar position, attacked with slan- der as he has been, I could have reached the same elevated plane. Oh, but what a missed opportu- nity it was ! In my hands, without publication or public exploitation of them, I could have used those papers diplomatically, to have made the other side eager to suppress the Halpin scandal, which has vexed us so and which will vex us to the end of the campaign." 191 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF A MYSTERIOUS FOREIGN MISSION |N the campaign of 1884, after the Na- tional Committee was organized, and at the suggestion of Senator A. P. Gor- man, who, by virtue of being the chair- man of the Executive Committee, was the campaign manager, I was appointed head of the Hterary department. This was a de- partment which had nothing whatsoever to do with literature, though it was supposed to have super- vision of the documents published by the commit- tee. It was quickly apparent that Senator Gorman regarded the head thereof as one whom he could use in confidential missions. It was in such employment that I came into one of the strangest experiences of my life. Senator Gorman was the pink of courtesy. He never issued a command. Everything was a request for assist- ance. "You can assist me very materially if you can do so and so," was his most frequent form of expression, sometimes varied with "The commit- tee will be greatly obliged if you will do so and so." But he was a dull fellow who did not pre- ceive that he took rank in the Senator's mind for efficiency from the quickness with which he saw, under the sugar coating of courtesy, an order to be promptly obeyed. One afternoon in the latter part of August a messenger told me that Senator Gorman would like to see me in his room. Going there immediately, I found hirn intently reading a letter. He looked 192 ARTHUR PUE GORMAN AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER up pleasantly, and in a low voice, marked by his slight Southern accent, asked: "Can you take a steamer for Europe to-morrow morning ?" Somewhat startled by the suddenness of the question, and confused, in an endeavor to think what possible mission relating to the campaign could take me to Europe, I hesitated a moment or two before I replied, the while the Senator watched me with a look of amusement on his face. Finally I said: "I can, although it is rather short notice to pre- pare for an ocean voyage." "Everything that can be done in the way of preparation has been done — everything but the packing of your bag." "Very well," I replied. "What am I to do?" "Receive a package at Queenstown from a man who will cross the Continent of Europe to meet you there. Your chief eflFort will be to conceal your identity as much as possiblei — completely if you can. I want no one, no matter who, to know that you have set out for Europe. I want no one to know that you go to Queenstown — that you are in Queenstown when you are there, nor on your re- turn that you have been in Queenstown. It is a mission of the extremest secrecy, and the secrecy is at the insistent request of the man you are to meet." I began to be interested. "Who is this man?" "You are not to know his name — that is, his real name. I know it, but it is at his request that it be concealed from everyone else. He will come to you 13 193 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF at the hotel in Queenstown and ask this question: 'You come here from Senator Gorman?' and you will reply : 'Yes, Mr. Brown.' Then he will hand you a package. He will recognize you, for your description has been forwarded to him." My face must have expressed curiosity and amazement, for the Senator laughed as if he were greatly amused, and then he said: "All this seems to be very mysterious. It is, and all of the mystery that perplexes you is the work of the man you are going to see. Even I can shed very little light on it at present. I know the man in ques- tion well, have known him many years, know his standing and consequence, know him so well that when he communicates with me and tells me that he has matter to place in my hands that will have a powerful influence on this campaign, I have the greatest respect for what he says and I recognize and try to comply with his desire for all secrecy in the transmission of the matter, the subject of which I do not now know. I think he has carried this mat- ter of secrecy to unnecessary lengths. Especially when he requests that you will, in your journey, use an assumed name. However, if the matter is one- quarter so important as he says it is, all of this mys- tery will be justified." "The mission is not a difficult one," I replied with a laugh. "All I have to do is to keep my mouth shut as to the journey and its object, suppress my- self and convey to you safely a package. Romance would be added to the affair if there was to be some- one on my track to rob me of the package." "I shouldn't wonder," said the Senator, "if the 194 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER object of all this mystery on the part of our man is to avoid just that possibility." As he handed me the steamer tickets, he said: "The best that could be obtained for you has been gotten. It has been arranged that you may go aboard to-night. You will oblige us if you will keep to your stateroom to-morrow morning until the steamer has passed the Hook. I wish you a pleas- ant journey." So it was that that night I slept on board the steamer and breakfasted the next morning in my stateroom. The trip across was uneventful. Among the passengers there was none who manifested an un- due interest in my existence, and so it was not dif- ficult to conceal my identity. I was landed at Queenstown by means of the mail boat and imme- diately went to the designated hotel. Looking about I saw no one who seemed at all anxious to meet me or, indeed, seemed likely to be the person I had crossed the ocean to meet. So I secured a room and went to it. I had been in that room but a short time when there came a gentle tapping at the door. Opening it I saw a rather impressive-looking per- son of middle age, who said in a courteous tone: "You come here from Senator Gorman?" "Yes, Mr. Brown," I replied. "Come in." He entered and waited for me to close the door. When that was done and, without seating himself, he took from an inner pocket a small package, liter- ally covered with seals of red wax, and extended it to me. As I took it he said : "I have the assurance that this packet will be 195 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF placed in the hands of Senator Gorman with each seal unbroken." I placed the package in the inner pocket of my waistcoat and said in reply: "It will remain where it is now, until I take it out in New York to deliver to Senator Gorman, Not a seal will be broken." He bowed courteously and asked when I in- tended to return. On my saying that I would go on the first steamer I could, he told me that one would leave Liverpool that night and that I could board it at Queenstown the next morning. When he learned that I wished to do so he offered to as- sist me in securing a stateroom by telegraph and did so, indeed, taking all the trouble of it off my shoulders. We dined and spent the evening together until a late hour. Never once from the time that he re- ceived my assurance that the seals of the package would not be broken did he allude to the matter. But I found him a most companionable person, evi- dently a citizen of the United States, very well informed as to public matters at home and, to me, extraordinarily well informed as to matters of the various countries of Europe, with a fund of most interesting gossip and anecdote of the conspicuous persons of England and Europe. But while all this was very delightful I yet felt that he was keeping close to me for purposes of espionage and did not propose that I should have communication with any other person. And the impression gained on me that he was in some way connected with the diplomatic service of the United States. He met me at breakfast and assisted me 196 AN, OLD POLITICAL REPORTER to board the steamer, going out with me on the mail boat. The return voyage was as uneventful as the outward bound passage. The list of passengers was small. I knew none of them and there was no one who manifested any special interest in me. In- side of nineteen days I was treading again the pave- ment of New York. It may not have been flatter- ing to me to learn that my absence had hardly been noted. The first acquaintance I met said, as he looked at the little hand bag I carried : "Hello, been away somewhere? I thought I had missed you for the last two or three days." Two or three days! And I had crossed the ocean twice since he had last seen me! I went at once to the room of Senator Gorman. He was alone when I entered. He welcomed me warmly and congratulated me on my quick trip. As I handed him the package I said : "You will please observe that not a seal is broken. Mr. Brown was particularly insistent that the package should be delivered with unbroken seals." "It is so delivered," said the Senator, as he tore off the outer covering and plunged into an examina- tion of the contents. Soon I was made aware that he was greatly excited by his reading. As I watched him his agitation grew. He ejaculated from time to time, 'This is awful!" Finally he looked up at me with a sternness I never before or afterward saw on his face and, emphasiz- ing his words by pounding on his desk, said: "No! No! No! Not for twenty Presidencies 197 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF will I precipitate such a scandal on the country. Why, it would make a war!" He hurriedly wrapped up the matter in the original covering as he called for his secretary to bring him the sealing wax. Resealing the package he said: "This must remain in the knowledge of the man who gave you this and myself. It is a duty I owe to humanity. If Mr. Cleveland cannot be elected without its use he must be defeated. I must put this in a place where it is safe from everybody." Taking his hat he left the room hurriedly. It was fully two years after the event that I ventured to speak of the matter to the Senator. Then it was in Washington. After saying that in view of the trip I had made to get the package 1 might be pardoned curiosity as to it, I asked if the time had come when the secret of it might be re- vealed. "Oh, my God, no!" he cried, again showing signs of excitement. "I have concealed knowledge of it as I would that of an unknown crime I had committed. No eye will ever see that story." When the Senator died I watched for some in- timation that the mystery might be revealed in the thought that perhaps the package had been found among his papers. But there was none. Evidently he had destroyed the papers or returned them to the man who had sent them to him. 198 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER CONKLING'S HOSTILITY TO BLAINE NE hot day, in the latter part of August, 1884, I was making a hurried passage from the office to the Hoffman House to Twenty-fourth street, New York, by short cut of the barroom, when I no- ticed Senator Roscoe Conkling; sitting with some friends at a table just outside the office door. As I passed he tipped back his chair and caught me by the lapel of my coat, pulling me down to say in a low tone: "Keep your ear close to the ground and you will hear something drop." Without further remark he brought his chair again to all fours and continued his conversation with his companions. It was a Delphic utterance which seemed to say much and yet said nothing. I was perplexed. Sen- ator Conkling was an important figure of great consequence. He was not given to capricious re- marks and weight was attached to his utterances, however oracular they might be. I knew that the statesman was assuming an indifference to the cam- paign, but that he was quietly supporting Cleveland and I had learned that more than once his sugges- tion and advice had reached the Cleveland man- agers by roundabout means. I ended my perplexity by determining to consult Senator Gorman. When I told the Maryland statesman of the in- cident he laughed heartily for a while before he said: 199 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF "That is Conkling all over. He always shakes his rattles before he strikes. Of course you know that Conkling is with us, in sympathy at least. It is not because he loves Cleveland so much as it is that he hates Blaine with a consuming hatred. However, in this matter Conkling has something to communicate and he has chosen you as the means. Follow him up and see what he has got." I went back to the Hoffman House to find that he had disappeared. On inquiry I was told that he had gone to the clubhouse of John Chamberlain in Twenty-sixth street. On following him there I had little difficulty in reaching him. After attentively hearing me say that I supposed there was something back of his remark which was of importance, and which I had not been able to comprehend, and that he might be willing to give me a little more light on the matter, he questioned me as to my exact rcr lations with the Democratic National Committee. Then, without comment, he went to a desk in the corner of the room, and taking his own card, wrote on it an address with a word at the bottom of it which evidently was a cipher word. Certainly it was cryptic to me. The address was that of a build- ing in Wall street, and the name one I had never heard or seen, nor have I ever heard it since. As the SeAator handed me the card he said : "That will shed light on the road you are to travel." On reaching the address I found it to be that of one of those old-fashioned three-story buildings which have since been displaced by skyscrapers. I had some difficulty in finding the man I was in search of. When I did find him, he was in an office 200 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER on the top floor, on the door of which there was no sign indicating the name of the occupant or of the business done behind it. I entered this room in response to a call of "Come" after my rap on the door, to find an elderly man of astounding thin- ness and a young man busily engaged in writing something. I inquired for the one who bore the name on Senator Conkling's card, and was told by the thin, elderly person that he was the individual I was seeking. As introducing my business I handed him the card. He read it carefully and then nodded to the young man, who got up from his desk and went out. There was a tone of irritation in his voice when he spoke to me : "He should not have sent you to me. He ought to know that I can't give the address of the cus- todian, and that I don't want to be mixed up with it." This was not encouraging. While I was en- deavoring to think what I could say in response to words that conveyed no intelligence to me he tore Senator Conkling's card into small bits and threw them into the wastebasket. Then he turned to his desk and wrote something on the paper before him, the while I stood in the center of the room trying to size up his profession. When he had finished he handed me the slip of paper on which he had been writing, saying: "Go to that man, he knows." Examining it, I saw the name of another man whom I had never heard of before, and his address was at the corner of Broadway and Chambers street, in a building which by this time has also 20I RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF gone the way of brick and mortar. At the bottom of the slip was the same cipher word. To this new man I went at once. On finding his office, I entered a large room in which were en- gaged a number of clerks. Preferring my request to see the person whose name was on the paper I bore, I was asked my business with him. This was something I could not tell, for I did not know, but I answered that I came from Mr. Blank on a per- sonal matter. I was soon taken to a small inner room, where I found a man of middle age, evidently of abounding vitality and energetic ways. He greeted me with an imperative "Well, sir," which was apparently not intended to be oflfensive. 1 handed him the slip of paper I had received in Wall street. He looked at me with a sharp, quick look, saying as he did so, "Then they are moving, are they?" In a few well-directed and searching ques- tions he ran me down through Senator Conkling to the National Committee and my connection with it. "You will have to go to Boston," he said, as he tore up the slip of paper. On his own card he wrote the name and address of a man in that city and at the bottom these words, as .nearly as I now recall them: "This is all right. You can hand the matter to him. He is well indorsed by our friends and is to be trusted." As he handed me the card, he said : "You'll get from him what you're after." This was encouraging at least. It conveyed the assurance that I was after something and that was something I had not known before. Nevertheless I was not in a happy frame of mind. It seemed to 202 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER me that I was being made game of. With this card, I went to Senator Gorman, saying that it appeared to me that I was the victim of a joke similar to that played on April Fool's Day — "Send the fool farther." Senator Gorman, greatly amused, laughed heartily, ending his laugh with this remark : "Conkling moves in a mysterious way his won- ders to perform." Again he laughed heartily, evidently quite as much amused at my irritation as by anything else. Finally he said : "You and I seem to meet with mysterious in- cidents. When I was a boy there was a game we used to play called "Follow your leader." I think you will have to follow your leader, even if it takes you to Boston. We'll see the thing out to the end." So the next day saw me in Boston, where I pre- sented my card to a very cautious lawyer, who ques- tioned me quite severely before he tore up the card as the others had done. When he had finished that bit of ceremony, he went to the safe in the corner of his room and took from it a package that was fully a foot long, nine inches wide and two inches thick. "What will you do with this when it goes into your keeping?" he asked. ■ "Open it and find out what it is all about," I replied. "That will not do," he said, sharply. "I will not give this to you unless I have the assurance that it will go unopened into the hands of Sen- ator Gorman." I gave him the assurance he desired, tucked the package under my arm and went back to New 203 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF York, where I laid it, unopened, before Mr. Gor- man. At the time he was presiding over a meeting of the Executive Committee. As he took it, he said: "Something has come of your trip, then? I'll talk about it with you later." But he never did. I was plunged immediately in a matter which at the time seemed to be of much greater importance than mysterious packages, and the whole thing went out of my head. But, some time later, when the papers were filled with the sec- ond batch of the Mulligan letters, I exclaimed to myself : "Ah ha! What I brought back from Boston was the second batch of the Mulligan letters." And I have believed so ever since, though I do not know it for a fact. Once I expressed that belief to Senator Gorman, but he merely smiled. 204 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER THE PHRASE THAT COST BLAINE THE PRESIDENCY HE "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" in- cident was the turning point in the campaign of 1884. On Wednesday, October 29, 1884, less than a week be- fore the election, I met Senator Gorman as he descended the stairs from his room in the National Democratic Headquarters. He was dull, gloomy and wearied in manner, quite the reverse of his buoyant habit. As he reached the bottom step he said : "I want to get away into the fresh air for a short time. I'm going to ride through Central Park and I want a companion. Come with me." As we rode by the corner of Twenty-fourth street and Broadway we saw a number of ministers on the sidewalk. The Senator directed my atten- tion to them and laughed rather bitterly: "Going to see Blaine," he said. "An imitation of the Brooklyn incident. The Republican man- agers think that that ministerial visitation to Cleve- land in Brooklyn was prearranged, and that it was sharp politics. As a matter of fact, it was no pre- arrangement at all. It was a case of interference with an arranged programme the conduct of which was in the hands of the Brooklyn managers. They were much put out by it. I had a good deal of trouble in getting them to acquiesce in the disarrange- ment after the ministerial movement was started. The visit to Cleveland was a spontaneous move- 20s RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF ment ; this one to Blaine is an organized movement. The two incidents well describe the two campaigns. The characteristic of the Cleveland campaign is its spontaneity; that of the Blaine campaign is its almost perfect organization." "And spontaneity will win ?" I asked. The Senator smiled shrewdly as he replied: "Usually organization wins." We rode up Fifth avenue in silence for some time, the Senator apparently having nothing weightier on his mind than his enjoyment of the crisp October air. Suddenly he said: "Colonel Lamont has returned the New York canvass sheets with his report." "I did not know that they had been sent to him," I replied. "Yes; at Manning's suggestion," he went on. "Manning seems to have great confidence in La- mont's knowledge and judgment." "He has reason to," I said. "No man in the state is better informed as to its political condi- tions than Lamont, and he is one who looks on things as they are and not as he would like them to be. What is his report?" "It does not differ in any essential way from your examination of the same sheets or from your conclusions," said the Senator. "And that was that our own canvass showed a plurality of 63,000 for Blaine in the counties out- side of New York and Kings," I said. "He marks it up a little bit higher," replied the Senator, and continuing he said: "The out- look is not comforting. Everything depends on New York. We can carry the country only by 206 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER carrying this state. Kings promises us 20,000 plurality for Cleveland, but my best advices are not to count on more than 15,000. New York prom- ises 60,000, but I am warned not to count on rnore than 40,000. Tammany is playing for the control of the city. It is convinced that Cleveland can- not carry the state, and it will trade him in its con- test with the County Democracy." "That means that Cleveland will be at least 5,000 behind in the whole state," I mournfully com- mented. "It means that Cleveland will be beaten in the nation," replied the Senator, bitterly. "I have felt that for some time. I regret exceedingly that I permitted myself to be persuaded to take charge of this campaign. I yielded against all my in- tuitions. I came away from my first visit to Cleve- land in Albany, after I had consented to take charge, feeling that I had made the mistake of my life." That this frank talk on the part of the leader should have plunged me, ardent supporter of Cleve- land, into deep gloom, is not surprising. My own information had led me to believe that the contest in New York would be close, but I had had an abid- ing faith that we would pull through. This glimpse of the mind of the leader made me despair. We rode back in a silence punctuated by these remarks by Senator Gorman : "I do not know that we would have done better with another candidate." "It is a very difficult matter to turn a party out of power, for it has all the advantages." "It has been a scan- dalous campaign, with credit to nobody on either side," and "Cleveland has not been an easy man to 207 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF handle, and I think I see that he would not be easy if he were put in the presidential office." As we stopped at the headquarters the Senator said: "Of course what I have said is confidential. I shall keep up my whistling until I have passed the graveyard. Come with me to my room. I want to go to West Virginia as soon as I can. There are some matters to be attended to on Friday and Saturday that I must turn over to you for execu- tion." We were engaged on these matters when we heard some one come up the stairs in great haste. In a moment Colonel John Tracey, the head of the newspaper bureau, plunged into the room so much out of breath by reason of his haste and ex- citement that he could not speak — could only point to pages of the papers he had. Gorman took the papers from his hand, and on reading the words pointed out straightened up with a start and earn- estly read the context. The words pointed out were "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." A word here in explanation: It was the prac- tice of the news bureau of the committee to send a stenographer to take a verbatim report of all Repub- lican functions that were open to the public. The same practice as to Democratic functions was fol- lowed by the Republican news bureau. In pur- suance of this practice a stenographer had attended the ministerial visit to Blaine at the Fifth Avenue Hotel and had taken down the speeches made by the Rev. Dr. Burchard and by Mr. Blaine. Re- turning to his desk he had written out the report and turned it over to Colonel Tracey, who ran it over in the hope that he might find something to 208 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER feed out to the newspapers. He had come upon the words and had instantaneously appreciated their tremendous significance. As Senator Gorman ran over the pages of Blaine's speech he asked : "Is this a verbatim report?" "Every word uttered is there," replied Colonel Tracey. "Surely," said Gorman sternly, "Blaine met this remark?" "That is the astounding thing," said Tracey, ex- citedly. "He made no reference to the words. I have confirmed that fact." A Catholic Irishman (Tracey) and a Protestant Irishman (Gorman) with the desk between them, stood looking into each other's eyes in a mutual realization, each from his own angle of view, of the tremendous possibilities that lay in the phrase, soon to become so. famous. Finally, Senator Gorman spoke, his voice cracking like the snap of a whip : "This sentence must be in every daily news- paper in the country to-morrow, no matter how, no matter what it costs. Organize for that imme- diately. Colonel Tracey. And it must be kept alive for the rest of the campaign." As Colonel Tracey left the room with full powers, Senator Gorman said : "If anything will elect Cleveland these words will do it. It is amazing that a man so quick witted as Blaine, accustomed to think on his feet and to meet surprising changes in debate, should not have corrected the thing on the spot. It is too late now. He cannot deal with it at all. The advantages are now with us. For the first time we are able to meet 14 209 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF that intrigue to excite religious prejudices against Cleveland. There will be a stampede of the alien- ated back to Cleveland. God grant that it may be in sufficient volume to turn the tide to Cleveland." That night was a busy night at headquarters. The wires were kept hot with carrying the dis- patches, the letters, the editorials from New York to the farthest corner of the country. Dispatches that would not excite political suspicion or political animosities went to Republican papers. Corre- spondence that contained the color desired went to Democratic papers. It was anything to get the fateful sentence before the public. Senator Gorman did not go to West Virginia until late in the week, for he stayed to direct the employment of the weapon which, as he said to Edward Cooper, "Providence, in its infinite mercy, had placed in the hands of the Democrats." In two days time the stampede was apparent. The Republicans were helpless before it. They realized that more damage was likely to result from explanation than from allowing it to take its course. So it was that the State of New York, which on the Wednesday before the election the leader of the campaign was willing to admit was lost by at least 5,000 was carried by 1,047. How accurate were the canvasses made by Senator Gorman is seen in the fact that Kings gave 15,729 plurality and New York City 43,064 for Cleveland, and the counties outside gave Blaine 57,746. It was close enough in all conscience sake and justified the ap- prehensions entertained by Senator Gorihan before the election and his belief after it that the "Rum, 3IO AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER Romanism and Rebellion" incident had tipped the scale to Cleveland. Charges were made almost immediately that the incident was the result of a conspiracy on the part of the Democratic leaders. This was wholly untrue, for the good reason that no Democrat knew that Dr. Burchard was going to speak any more than Dr. Burchard knew himself. I had this on the testimony of Mr. Blaine. In the late spring of the following year of 1885 I was in Washington. Wandering about for a walk, I found myself opposite the Blaine residence at a moment when Mr. Blaine came from his house to take the carriage awaiting him. I saluted him by raising my hat as I passed him, a salute which he courteously returned, without at the moment recognizing me. But in an instant that great memory of his was at work. He called me by name and as we met he said: "I've been wanting to meet you ever since Chauncey Depew told me what you had told him about that unfortunate Burchard incident. Have you any objection to telling it to me?" I had none whatsoever, so he asked me to go into the house with him, and taking me to the li- brary made me comfortable with a cigar. I re- lated the story as I have here told it and answered a number of questions he put as to it, and when I had finished he said: "1 never took any stock in the story that it was a conspiracy. In fact, I knew it could not have been unless fortune had played into the hands of the Democrats in a most marvelous manner. On that occasion there were two different bodies of 211 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF ministerial visitors between whom there was fric- tion, which at the time I did not know. When they learned that they must be received together the question arose which body should furnish the spokesman. The matter was referred to me. The fact has been impressed on me again that no matter of difference is unimportant. I treated the matter as if it were unimportant by saying let the oldest clergyman present be the spokesman. The oldest happened to be the Rev. Dr. Burchard, who had not dreamed of officiating in any way. That is the way the man who was loaded with that dynamite was chosen. He, himself, hardly knew what he was going to say. Well, you Democrats made a very cruel and efficient use of the blunder, which cost the Republican party a Presidency. We had a per- fectly working machine and this man came along with a crowbar and threw it into the middle of the machine. Then everything went to pieces." With some hesitancy I asked Mr. Blaine how it was that he did not meet the remark at the time. "1 never heard it," he replied promptly. "I had been up late the night before at a dinner and got up rather late that morning. I was so busy with important callers that I had not given even a ix.u- ment's thought to what I should say. So while Burchard was talking I was trying to arrange some thought and did not hear him." It is a curious fact that the next youngest clergyman present, and only by a few days, was the Rev. Father Sylvester Malone of Brooklyn. Had he been six days older than he was the of- fensive words would not have been uttered in a place where they could have done so much harm. 212 DANIEL SCOTT LAMONT AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER ELECTION NIGHT TELEGRAMS CAUGHT ON THE WING JLECTION DAY in 1884 was reached by a few with doubt and misgiving. But the few were those who possessed all the knowledge of political conditions in the State of New York an almost per- fect organization could give them and who were associated as well in control of the Democratic machinery. The situation was figured down to a single point. If the State of New York were carried for Cleveland he would be the next President. If it were not carried for Cleveland, Blaine would reign for the next four years. The canvass sheets of all the counties outside of Kings and New York, kept under secret lock and key, were not encouraging. The closest and lowest estimate gave Blaine 63,000. If Kings and New York could not together run up more than 65,000, on the information before the leaders the day would be lost for Cleveland. It was true that 85,000 was promised from these counties, but Hugh McLaugh- lin had told Mr. Manning that while the Kings County canvass showed something more than 20,000, his own information led him to believe that 17,000 would not be reached. To deepen the gloom there was the distrust of Tammany. The one gleam of hope was the "Rum, Roman- ism and Rebellion" incident. It was having some effect. That was made plain by advices from all parts of the state that voters who during the cam- 213 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF paign had been in open antagonism to Cleveland had, under the influence of the incident, shifted back to Democratic affiliation. But in what measure the shift had taken place could not be ascertained. It was too late even to think of organizing to obtain the exact knowledge. Of course these leaders kept their forebodings and their doubts to themselves. The rank and file were buoyant and enthusiastic. Nothing was per- mitted to be said that would in any degree mod- erate their enthusiasm or lessen their confidence in the ultimate result. On the Saturday previous to the election it was loudly and widely asserted by Republicans, as an offset to the possible effect of the Burchard utterance, that the Republican com- mittee had direct information that the Democratic canvass gave the State of New York to Blaine. As there were but two persons who had dealt with the canvass sheets as a whole, one of whom was Colonel Daniel S. Lamont, and the other myself, it was certain that the two were somewhat disturbed over the assertions. But as the analyses of the can- vass sheets and the deductions of these two had been under consideration by the executive commit- tee, the leak, if there was one, was to be found in a circle of about ten. Each one felt that the sus- picions of the other reached him. Finally on the night of Saturday, a member of the committee ad- mitted that, on Friday night, in confidence, and be- hind the closed doors of his club, he had said that the canvass of the state was not as promising as he could wish. The admission was such a relief to all that no one felt like criticising. On Election Day, however, while the vote was 214 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER being cast there was greater freedom of expression. But none of the fears and apprehensions were al- lowed to reach Governor Cleveland. He awoke on the great day with an abiding faith that the verdict would be in his favor. I left New York for Albany on Election Day on the call of Colonel Lamont, who wished to be informed as to the latest developments, to reach him in the afternoon. In the course of the conversation he said: "Experience teaches me that when Election Day comes everybody who has been in the work of the campaign scampers home, leaving the headquarters uncovered. I have determined to take charge here in Manning's name, Manning, of course, consent- ing. In anticipation of this I had copies of the rec- ords of the committee sent me here. I ask you to help me in this if occasion for work should arise." Giving him the means by which he could call me quickly, I went to my dinner. After the polls had closed I went to the office of the superintendent of public works, where, as I knew, a private wire had been placed, and sat down to listen to the re- turns. I did not go to the Executive Mansion, where a wire had been run in for the night, although La- mont had asked me to be present. All work having been ended, apparently, and nothing left to do but to wait for the verdict, I had gone down into the depths. I despaired as to the result, and did not wish to be a witness of the deep disappointment which, I was convinced, was to be the portion of those gathered there. As usual, the earliest definite returns were from Kings and New York counties. They were a bitter 2IS RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF disappointment. The former gave less than 16,000 and the latter less than 44,000. This meant a total of little more than 59,000, while the Democratic canvass gave at least 63,000 to Blaine in the state outside of those two counties. It looked like Blaine by a plurality of 4,000. The little gathering was plunged into gloom. Later, the returns from the interior began to come in. They were more favor- able than had been hoped. They indicated that Blaine would not have more than 50,000 in the state outside of Kings and New York. Spirits rose, for now a plurality of 10,000 for Cleveland was indi- cated. We became jubilant. At that moment there was a call for me to go to the Executive Mansion, at once, to see Lamont. On reaching him he asked : "You have seen the returns ?" "Yes," I replied. "New York and Brooklyn are a disappointment, but we are gaining on our canvass in the state, so that it looks like 10,000 for us." "I'm afraid," he returned, biting his moustache as was his habit when nervous. "Do you know from what part of the state the returns have come so far?" "No," I replied. "They came in the usual way. So many districts out of a total, and so on." "The Associated Press figures," he said. "I have had private telegrams and know the districts. That is what frightens me. They are all from the strongest Democratic districts. What will be the result when the Republican districts come in ? Now see here. There is a recent law which permits a candidate or an organization to have a representa- tive at each polling place, and which also provides 216 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER that the counting shall be begun immediately after the closing of the polls, and, when the counting is done, the certificates of the returns shall be made out and sealed up, one copy of which shall be filed with the county clerk within twenty-four hours. The law has never been observed heretofore, and some time ago I got the state committee to appoint a man for each polling place, a lawyer if possible, to watch the count. It was done, and I have here the list. Now, I have written a circular telegram, over Manning's name, which I want to go to each man. It merely asks them to watch the count closely. Will you take it to the telegraph office, see that it is not delayed, and put it on as many wires as you can get? That means that you will have to group these names at discretion." As I went out on this mission I passed the door of the room in which was seated Cleveland, sur- rounded by friends, all of them jubilant, including the presidential candidate. He saw me and called out: "Come in and be sociable." "I have some work to do. Governor," I replied. "Mr' President! Mr. President!" cried out the others in jubilant correction. "Oh," exclaimed the Governor, "you and La- ment think you work! But the work is all over. Shouting time is here. Come in and shout." "No," I said, " 'Totherer governor' has got me on a job." This was a term borrowed from Dickens which I often applied to Lamont, much to Cleveland's amusement. My mission was performed in a short time, and 217 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF thus by the foresight of Lamont the whole state was covered. Returning to the Executive Mansion I found a stranger at the door, begging for an inter- view with Governor Cleveland or Colonel Lamont, insisting that he had a communication of the great- est importance, and which he would give to no one else. The doorkeepers were not disposed to listen to him. Unknown men by tens, with similar re- quests, were besieging the door. As the man be- came the more insistent the doorkeeper became the more determined that he should not pass. Some- thing about the man impressed me with his sin- cerity. I interfered to the extent of asking him if he could not give me an inkling of his business, promising him that if he had real business with the Colonel I would obtain for him an interview with Lamont. "Well," he said, after a quick, shrewd glance at my face as he could see it under the lamp of the porch, "I am a telegraph operator, and standing in a telegraph office I heard a message go over the wire that I want to tell the proper person about." I waited no longer, but hurried him in to Colonel Lamont, who immediately gave ear to him. As he did so, I turned to find that the atmosphere of jubila- tion had departed. It had changed to that of doubt and apprehension. A short time after the Colonel came to me in what was for him unusual excitement, and said: "That man says that he heard a message go from Republican headquarters in New York to sev- eral points in the upper parts of the state and the Far West parts, telling somebody to go slow about finishing up the count; that the vote was uncom- 218 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER fortably close, and that further information and in- structions must be awaited. That means work for us. We must inform all our watchers that they must see that the count is finished, sealed up and filed to-morrow by noon at the offices of the county clerks, according to law. We will go over to the Executive Chamber, where my lists are. The 10,000 lead is wasting very fast. Our best figures now are less than 5,000. Perhaps we can save enough to make a plurality." It was an all-night job, for there were in that year, at least, 2,000 polling places. All through the anxious hours of that night we were in com- munication with 2,000 men. Many of our watch- ers increased our labors by putting up new ques- tions and asking instructions. The sun of the new day was shining over the east front of the Capitol when we dragged our weary selves out of the great stone building and bought a morning newspaper on the street to read the claim that Cleveland had car- ried the state by 1,200. "If that is so, Dan," I said, "then your work this night did the trick. Your quick wit prevented them from reversing the figures." "I guess," he said, slowly, "the credit goes to that telegraph operator who gave us the timely warning and information. And I got neither his name nor his address. ' He gave me such a fright that I forgot to ask it." "When he reads the figures he'll turn up, never fear," I said with a laugh as I went off to my bath and breakfast. Whether he did or not I never knew. The final record was that Cleveland carried the 219 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF state by a plurality of 1,047 ^^ ^ total vote of 1,171,- 263 — about one-ninth of i per cent. To those at the seat of knowledge the figures demonstrated that, in the State of New York, the effect of the Rum, Romanism and Rebellion incident was the shifting of about 3,500 votes to Cleveland in the last six days of the campaign. The shift to Cleveland, however, was much greater. For some occult reason, never fully understood, as this disaf- fected vote came back, a proportion of the German vote which had been in support of Cleveland during all of the campaign, under the influence of Carl Schurz, went back to former Republican affiliations. The return of the wanderers was sufficient to over- come the German desertion and give the plurality to Cleveland. In short, there was a strange change of front in the last six days of that memorable cam- paign. 220 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER GROVER CLEVELAND'S RESOLVE N the day after the election in 1884 >or— «TWL Blaine sent from Maine his famous dis- l/iH D\J P^^^^' "^^^^^ everything!" There- upon the Republican committee insisted .rrijs>^,-w that Blaine had carried all of the doubt- S^I^SS) ful states — Connecticut, Indiana, New Jersey, New York and West Virginia. It even claimed Virginia, which was in no measure of doubt. The Democratic committee put forward similar claims and, as the end showed, with greater justifi- cation. In the developments of the day the Democrats received the assurances that four of the doubtful states were safe for Cleveland — Connecticut, New Jersey, Indiana and West Virginia. New York was genuinely in doubt and was claimed by both sides, by figures ranging from 5,000 to 10,000, but in their heart of hearts the leaders knew that the result in New York would turn on a few hundreds. The excitement was intense. On the second day after election it broke out in demonstrations. The Blaine telegram proved to be the last of the series of blunders that had marked Mr. Blaine's conduct of his own campaign. The Democratic rank and file accepted it as the basis of an attempt at a repe- tition of "the fraud of 1876" and anger possessed that rank and file. Men of large affairs laid aside their business matters and gathered at the Demo- cratic headquarters, standing by the hour, with 221 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF hundreds of others, anxiously awaiting any driblet of news that would help to end the suspense. Had the Republicans estimated rightly that demonstration at the Democratic headquarters they would have perceived the meaning of the presence there of bankers and merchants who had supported Blaine, but who now, for the sake of the peace of the country, were anxious that the election should be settled without a contest that would disturb eco- nomic conditions. In the meantime, the more ex- citable were parading the streets with brooms over their shoulders, cheering for Cleveland and, as they marched, the procession grew until it became un- manageable. And they marched to the refrain of "Cleveland to the White House goes, goes, goes." Then they took to marching and countermarching before the Republican headquarters, shouting in unison, "No fraud. Fair count !" followed by pro- longed howls that were like the multiplied screams of the wild beasts of the forests, fearful to listen to. The rioting point was approached and the police organized for an outbreak. What was true of New York City was true of every interior city of the state in a modified degree. On the day after election, in the late afternoon, Colonel Lamont sent for me to meet him in the Executive Chamber in Albany. He took me into an inner room and, handing me several sheets of paper covered with figures, said : "Do me the favor of going over those figures to see if you can find any flaws in the calculations or in the reasoning." I turned to the last sheet and read the last line : "Cleveland's plu. 1,612." 322 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER I looked up in surprise and apprehension to La- ment. He answered the look by saying : "It is not the best I can do; it is the worst." "It is dangerously close," I replied. "Too close for comfort." "The result cannot now be definitely settled short of the county canvasses," said Lamont. "And," returned I, "in fifty of the sixty counties the canvasses are in the hands of the enemy." "You have put your finger on the exact spot of our weakness," replied Lamont with a sardonic grin. "A change of twenty-five votes, on the aver- age, on those figures, in each county would give Blaine the state by 500." "What does the Governor think of the situa- tion ?" I asked. "He doesn't know anything about these figures. I haven't dared to show them to him. I don't know what he would do, but I know very well what I want to do. But go over them and let me know." In due course of time I returned the sheets to Lamont, with the remark that, while I had found nothing in the arithmetic that made essential changes, I questioned whether he had not been too liberal in his estimate for Blaine. "As a basis for the work that must be done it is better to be under than over," said Lamont. I suggested that he should write as the last line what would be the result of a change of twenty-five votes in each county. After he had done so, and, as he handed the papers back to me, he said : "You keep those figures. I have a copy of them. Now," he continued, talking very seriously and earnestly, "I have sent, in the name of Manning, 223 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF to each one of our county chairmen to send in the names of five reputable lawyers of ability who, on retainer, will be willing to stay on the job from now until the canvass is completed, studying the figures and watching the count." "You're magnificent, Dan," I exclaimed. "You retain 300 lawyers in a bunch." "It must be done, and it's worth it," he replied seriously. "I have persuaded Manning to recon- vene the State Committee in New York to-morrow. There must be an organization of this legal force made at once ; a strong lawyer, like Stetson, for in- stance, must draw a bill of instructions for its pro- cedure. This will be expensive and a large sum must be raised. There must be daily proclamations of our confidence and a reiteration of our determina- tion that we will not permit ourselves to be de- frauded." Then the eyes of the calm, reserved and self- contained Lamont snapped with an unusual fire as he said : "We have won this fight, and by the living God we'll hold it!" In the course of an intimacy extended over , a period of twenty-five years, lasting until the day of his death, I never, before or afterward, heard so vigorous an expression fall from his lips, or one even approaching the profane. No man ever walked the earth who was cleaner in speech than he. He recovered himself in a moment and said quietly : "Manning wants you to go with him to New York on the early train to-morrow, so that, if neces- sary, you can explain the details of those figures and of the plan I have studied out." 224 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER "You should go yourself, Dan," I said. "The plan is yours." "No," he replied, "Cleveland would not consent. He has peculiar notions as to his relation to this campaign, and he thinks that I am too closely identi- fied with him to take any open or public part in it. You must go and I will come over to your house to- night after dinner and go over the details of the plan with you." The plan was executed as Lamont had con- ceived. It was successful. Fraud was made im- possible under it. Acute lawyers sat at each can- vassing board and instructed the Democratic repre- sentatives in the board as to their rights and ini- tiated the protests that prevented deviations from the strict letter of the law. There were ten anxious days of this post-cam- paign. And they were exciting ones. The almost frantic claims of the Republicans and the deter- mined stand of the Democrats served equally to send up the thermometer of public feeling to blood heat. There were demonstrations all along the line and a notable one was against the Western Union, under the belief that the corporation had been used by Jay Gould against Cleveland. It had the effect of driv- ing that financier to take refuge on his yacht, the Atalanta, lying in the Hudson River, and induced him to send, in advance of the settlement of the issue, a dispatch of congratulation to Cleveland. During these anxious and exciting days Cleve- land set himself industriously to the work of his ofiice. Apparently he took no interest in the later campaign. He never made inquiries as to it. He asked no questions as to the changes that took IS 225 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF place from day to day. If anyone spoke to him on the subject he Hstened attentively, but made no com- ment. But he was very sober in his demeanor. His frame of mind was serious. There were none of those touches of humor with which, in normal times, he was wont to enliven his intercourse with his intimates. There was a portentous frown on his face most of the time. Each day as it passed convinced the Democratic leaders that Cleveland would have a plurality of not less than i,ioo, and one after another of the conspicuous supporters of Blaine were making pub- lic acquiescence in the election of Cleveland. But the radical Blaine element would not give up. First among Mr. Blaine's champions was the New York Tribune, which daily voiced its belief in his election and flew from the masthead its Blaine flag. It was on the tenth day of this after-campaign, I think, that I found myself alone with some work in the room just in the rear of the large Executive Chamber. It was in this room that the telephone was placed. I was interrupted by the ringing of the bell. Answering it I found that the call had come from the Evening Journal editorial rooms. The purpose was to inform Governor Cleveland that the New York Tribune had hauled down its flag and had, at last, acquiesced in the election of Cleveland to the Presidency. The last stand had given away and now there was no opposition any- where. I hastened into the larger room to give Cleve- land the glad news. He was alone, and listened to my rather excited communication. His face cleared. Then he said: 226 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER "I am very glad to hear it. I am more than glad that they yield peaceably." He swung his chair so as to face me. And on his stern face I saw the whole of the indomitable spirit that animated the man. With a force that was to me almost everwhelming he said : "For in any event I should have felt it my duty to take the office of the President of the United States on the fourth of next March." 227 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF THE "IFS" IN THE CLEVELAND CAMPAIGN [NE night in the latter part of Novem- ber, 1884, or it might have been in the very early December days, four men were seated in the inner room of the Ex- ecutive Chamber at Albany. One was Colonel Daniel S. Lamont, calm, re- served and self-contained, but elated. Another was Wilson S. Bissell of Buffalo, called "Shan" by his intimates. Postmaster General under Cleveland in his second term, big of frame, which was liberally covered with flesh, usually phlegmatic, but, on that night, bubbling over with joy over the success of his old law partner, Cleveland. Another was Edgar K. Apgar, then Deputy Treasurer of the state, small, spare, nervous, mercurial and talkative, in extraordinary contrast to Bissell. The fourth was the writer. , All were elated,, each after his own manner. The county canvasses had been completed. A plu- rality for Cleveland was assured, small as it was. Between the casting of the vote by the electors was only the state canvassing board, and it was certain that it would not change in any material degree the figures. So all were jubilant and happy. The reck- less mood of Lamont was to be seen in the fact that he had taken from the table a cigar and while finger- ing it as a strange thing was contemplating the possibilities of a resort to the matchsafe under the 228 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER impulse of taking a closer part in the jubilant oc- casion. Three were there as a matter of habit. The exception was Bissell. For the greater part of that year there had been nightly an informal gathering in that room presided over, or, rather, directed by Lamont. In this room the preliminary campaign which led up to Saratoga, where Cleveland was made an avowed candidate for the nomination at Chicago, had been planned, directed and carried out. After the nomination there had been nightly sessions at which the situation was discussed, the conduct of the campaign criticised, suggestions for further work made and weighed. The nights no sessions were held were when Cleveland worked in the chamber. After the election the post-campaign was organized and directed in that room. So when the work was all over and there was nothing to be done there was yet left for a few the habit of gath- ering there. On this occasion Bissell was present as the guest of Lamont. It was Bissell who set the pace of the conversation by saying : "I was in New York yesterday and had a talk with Abram S. Hewitt. During its course he said : 'Destiny has pointed the way for that man Cleve- land.' It is truly wonderful, this progress of 'Grove' to the highest distinction. From the time that we set him on foot in Buffalo for the nomination for Governor, through that enormous plurality of 193,- 000 to the great office of President it has been one steady, straightforward march to the successful end." Lamont threw up his head with a quick, sharp look at Bissell, his face expressive of surprise, but 229 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF before he could speak Apgar broke in with the re- mark: "You are a big man, Bissell, physically and men- tally, but if you are under the impression that dur- ing this year of 1884 it has been for Cleveland one straightforward, triumphal, unimpeded march you are away off." Bissell looked at Apgar in blank astonishment, finally saying: "I do not understand you." "I mean," said Apgar, "that Cleveland has been carried to the Presidency by a series of the smallest chances which, to use one of your lawyer phrases, in a long and varied career as a politician, it has been my fortune to observe." Bissell turned to Lamont evidently bewildered. "Apgar is quite right," said Lamont, quietly. "Our friend here," indicating me, "can give you the details of those small chances, especially those by which we got out of Saratoga with credit for Cleve- land, for he, as I know by what Manning said to me, was Manning's instrument in the most difficult and delicate parts of the manipulation of that Sara- toga Convention." Bissell turned to me with an inquiring face and finally said : "I should like to hear about those small chances." "Well," I replied, "the first small chance was the state convention itself. Manning did not have a working majority. Only the most liberal figuring gave us five majority. The reason of this was that in the delay in giving out the programme to our friends, caused by Tilden's reticence, a number of county leaders had become annoyed and let their 230 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER election of delegates go by default. Flower was on the ground with a strong organization to obtain the delegation to Chicago, and armed with a resolution of instruction to the delegates to Chicago to vote for him which he hoped to persuade the state con- vention to pass. The one advantage Manning had was the control of the state committee and his ability to effect through it the tem- porary organization of the state convention. It was the skillful use of that power which enabled us to get away with the impression on the party that a Cleveland sentiment had dominated the conven- tion. The Flower people sought a test vote which would show their strength. Manning evaded a test vote. The shortest corner he was called upon to turn was in the Monroe contest. That was turned by setting out of the convention one of our stanch friends, George Raines, with his delegation, and seating Purcell, one of Cleveland's bitterest enemies. It meant also the loss of two delegates to Chicago." "And he did this on your advice," interposed Lamont. "Cady Herrick, who was chairman of the com- mittee on credentials, did it on my advice, and Man- ning acquiesced in it. "I had learned that in the event of the contested seats committee's seating Raines, a minority report for Purcell would be presented and that for that mi- nority report not less than forty delegates, counted as Cleveland men, would vote. In such an event the control of the convention would pass from Manning and Cleveland would be beaten as a presidential can- didate. The other people would then be able to get a resolution through, instructing the delegation to 231 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF vote for Flower. By this device and not permitting a resolution of instruction for Cleveland to be of- fered, all test votes were avoided and the Flower people were not able to show their strength. When the convention adjourned the idea went abroad that the delegation chosen to Chicago was a Cleveland delegation." "But it was not a Cleveland delegation when the state convention adjourned," said Lamont. "No," I replied. "The next day Mr. Manning said that there were eight doubtful men on the dele- gation and that he was six short of a majority. That made the second small chance. Even in Chicago, on the day the delegation was to meet to determine what candidate it would vote for as a unit under the Democratic precedent, Cleveland was two short of a majority. These two men were not captured until within an hour of the time of the meeting. Had they not been captured, then Flower would have got- ten away with the vote, Cleveland's name would not have been presented to the national convention, and he would not now be the President-elect." "Manning told me," said Lamont, "that when he went into the meeting room of the delegation he was by no means sure that the two would hold true. It was not until the vote was finally cast that he felt sure." "Well," I said, "that was the smallest chance of all — and but few know how desperately small it was. The next small chance was that attempted stampede in Chicago, organized by 'Ben' Butler, Thomas A. Hendricks and John Kelly. By the small chance of a person, to whom a part of the intrigue had been committed for execution leaking to Manning, the 232 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER latter was enabled to organize a campaign, in the early hours of the morning, to warn all of our friends and acquaintances in the convention of what was to be expected and to charge them not to be carried off their feet. Had not the element of sur- prise thus been taken out of the attempt, and had the stampede broken unexpectedly on the delegates, it is quite likely that it would have been successful, for it was well organized and skilfully executed. "The 'ifs' of the campaign," I continued, "shall not count in this talk, and so we may jump to the 'Rum, Romanism and Rebellion' incident. On the day that incident occurred Cleveland was beaten in the State of New York by figures anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000. The loss of New York would have been the loss of the country and the defeat of Cleve- land. In other words, the blunder of Burchard turned the tide, and that certainly was a small chance." "I am loath to believe that the Burchard phrase elected Cleveland," remarked Bissell. "You may believe it," said Apgar; "it is the exact truth." "You will not dispute," I continued, "that the plu- rality of 1,100-odd in a vote of over a million was a small chance. Nor will you, I think, dispute, in view of the small plurality, the fact that the timely warning of a telegrapher, unknown to any of us, that an attempt was to be made by the Republicans to reverse the figures was a small chance. It in- duced Lamont to make an organization on that elec- tion night which prevented any monkeying with the figures." "There is one more small chance of which you 233 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF have not spoken," said Lamont. "There were five doubtful states and it was necessary for the Demo- crats to carry each one if we were to elect Cleveland. These were New York, which has given about i,ioo; Connecticut, which has given about 1,200; Indiana, which has given about 6,000; New Jersey, which has given about 4,000, and West Virginia, also about 4,000. That makes a total plurality for the five states of somewhere about 17,000. Now, the total vote of these five states must be a little over 2,000,000, and that makes the plurality of these five states about eight-tenths of one per cent. Small enough that ; and, if any one of the five had faltered, Cleveland would have been defeated." "Your demonstration is amazing," said Bissell. "It shows how much Cleveland owes to other people." "The other people were in for the fight," said Lamont, "and were working out the responsibility they had assumed. The point is, that it was by small chances that Cleveland was nominated. It was by small chances that he was elected. It was by small chances that the vote he did receive was se- cured for him. It was by small chances from begin- ning to end that to-day we are enabled to address him as President-ekct." "The record reads like a romance," was Bissell's comment. "The record of Cleveland is a romance, stern, practical and matter-of-fact man as he is," said Apgar. Lamont broke up the gathering with this re- mark: "Now I will tell you something no one will ever 234 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER believe. Cleveland did not want the nomination for President. He took no interest in the effort to put him on the track until he was told that certain ele- ments had combined to prevent him from obtaining the delegation from New York. That roused his fighting blood." 235 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF CLEVELAND'S RESENTMENT OF OBLI- GATION FTER the presidential question had been settled and all opposition to Cleveland had practically retired, those who were in close relation to the President-elect saw certain extraordinary changes in him. He went about his affairs with great gravity. From his manner had departed all that geniality that had marked his intercourse with his subordinates and his friends — even with that little band of companions which assembled at the Executive Mansion, of a night, in a purely social way. It was not what is commonly called a case of "swelled head." Indeed, it was very far from that. There was no elation in his manner nor increase of dignity in his deportment. The change was indefinable. He was serious and moody. The little touches of humor he gave to his conversation with intimates had departed from his speech. Those, in the speech of others, in which he had so delighted, were received with a grave face, perhaps a frown, as if they were unseemly at that time. The general disposition of those in contact with Cleveland was to attribute his changed manner to his outlook on the next four years, the duties he must discharge and the responsibilities he must assume. They thought he was weighted down and oppressed by the prospect. Appreciation of the active con- science of the man and of his enormous sense of his 236 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER duty to the people as a trustee, naturally led to this conclusion. Of course, there were cynics, cavilers and "snarleyows," who said that the change was due to the fact that Cleveland had come to believe that all that had been said in praise and advocacy of him during the campaign was the truth and that he had just found out how great a man he was. Among those in contact with Cleveland, there were, however, a few, who by reason of being ad- mitted to a closer confidence, believed that the change that had taken place in him, and which was so noticeable, was due to the ordeal of the campaign through which he had passed. Made the victim of slander, the butt of scandal, his motives belied, his character assailed, his habits misrepresented, his life explored even into the corners, and accounts of it distorted, the iron had entered into his soul and rankled. Years after, while recalling those days and dis- cussing Cleveland, Colonel Lamont said to me : "Cleveland was never the same man after that awful campaign of '84. I think he was bigger and broader. But — he was never the same man." And about the same time Wilson Bissell said : "Cleveland is entitled to all the distinction he has received. He paid a bitter, bitter price for it." The curious thing was that such open resent- ment as he displayed was over the smaller, indeed, the least important affairs. During the campaign a Republican newspaper had said that Cleveland was an ill-bred, ill-mannered boor, so ignorant of refined life that he did not know how properly to use a knife at the table. It was a silly sneer that attracted no attention and carried its own refutation. 237 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF But, as the sequel showed, it found lodgement in Cleveland's mind. At a private dinner given before he went to Washington and at which he was the chief guest, the editor of the paper making the sneer was present. He had no personal acquaintance with the President-elect and sought to be formally pre- sented. Cleveland, declining the profifered hand, looked the editor straight in the eyes as he said : "I should not suppose that you would want to know a man who, you have said, is so ignorant that he does not know how to eat properly." I was certain that I discovered the correct ex- planation of this change. I had seen the same qual- ity displayed in other men who had reached posi- tions of great power. It was resentment of obliga- tion. So soon as it was apparent that there was an obligation there was an effort to get from under it, a determination not to recognize it, with a resent- ment of the very fact of its existence. There came out of this a very curious attempt at the elimination of Cleveland's personality. It was held by Cleveland that whatever had been done by any one in the campaign had been done for the Democratic party and that his personality was only an incident in the campaign, or it was insisted upon that he who supported Cleveland was in fact sup- porting the principles for which Cleveland stood and which fortune had named him to represent. In either event no obligation rested on Cleveland, per- sonally. That was the stand taken. And in that stand will be found the basis for all the charges of ingratitude that were flung up against Cleveland. A man of large consequence in the Democratic party of that day, who had been an efficient sup- 238 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER porter of the cause and a liberal contributor, told the writer that he had asked Cleveland for the ap- pointment to a foreign consulate of a man in whom he was greatly interested. He presented the man as one who was eminently qualified for the place. Everything went well until he reached the point where he could show that the applicant had given most efficient service in an extremely delicate matter which was, in fact, a personal service to Cleveland. Then Cleveland froze up ! Indeed, he intimated that it was doubtful if he could even consider the matter. The advocate realized at once that he had com- mitted a blunder, though hardly knowing how. To retrieve it he sought a distinguished man whom he knew Cleveland greatly admired and on whose ad- vice the President placed great reliance. The advo- cate told the story of the mishap. At this point the adviser broke in with the remark that Cleveland was entirely right. "He cannot recognize obligation," said the ad- viser. "All service must be charged up against the party." "But," persisted the advocate, "if the President represents the party, even impersonally, but dis- tributes its patronage, how is service to the party to be recognized if he does not recognize obliga- tion?" "The worker," said the adviser, "must be satis- fied with the triumph of the party and the principles it represents. Even if you admit the personal qual- ity as being involved, you must see that he needs this patronage to placate his opponents and turn them into friends." The advocate, being a godless man of practical 239 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF notions, with few ideals, turned away with the re- mark that it seemed to him to be an excellent policy for turning friends into enemies. The applicant was not appointed. It is a fact that Cleveland during all the cam- paign refused to make pledges of any kind. He made it clear to the manager that he desired none made for him and that if any were made he should feel at liberty to ignore them. Thus it was that I was sent by Senator Gorman up into the Adiron- dacks, where Cleveland was spending his vacation, to lay a case before the candidate. The case was this : In a certain doubtful state an element of the Democratic party had been holding aloof, but had finally intimated that if pledges were made as to the control by it of certain offices in that state, it would take active part in the campaign for Cleve- land. Such activity would, in the opinion of Sena- tor Gorman, insure the state to the Democracy, Cleveland, sitting on a log on the edge of a lake, with his fishing rod across his knees and a disrepu- table soft felt hat drawn down over his sunburnt face, listened with darkening brows to the unfold- ing of the case. At the conclusion of it he sat up erect, saying sternly : "I will make no pledges. I will consent to none made for me. If I cannot go into the White House unpledged, I will not go at all." Not long after the Presidential question was settled a state official, who was a Republican, hold- ing his position under appointment from Cleveland as Governor, by a law providing for the naming of one of that party, gave a dinner to Cleveland. An attempt was made to take from it all political signifi- 240 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER cance by inviting as the diners Republicans and Democrats in equal numbers. During the course of the dinner the host said that he had been told that one of the fine things of the Democratic campaign was that no pledges of any kind had been made and that Cleveland would assume the office without any to hamper him. "That is so," said Cleveland, emphatically, "and the best of it is that there are no great money obli- gations. I mean by that there has been no contribu- tion on the part of a single person to exceed $5,000." I was astonished at this remark. The next day in the Executive Chamber, very tactlessly, I fear, I said to Cleveland : "Surely you had forgotten that there were much larger contributions. There is Edward Cooper who, first and last, for himself and Abram S. Hewitt, gave $70,000." Cleveland, frowning heavily, swung his chair from me, struck the desk with a powerful blow, and said fiercely : "It isn't so!" I retired from the controversy. And I have since believed that I served Edward Cooper very badly at that time. That person was brought for- ward as a candidate for Ambassador to England. Mr. Hewitt had discovered that Mr. Cooper had a desire in that direction, but was too modest to prefer his claims. So Hewitt took the matter to Manning and Hubert O. Thompson. Those two entered ear- nestly into the movement. At first it was feared that an opposition would be raised up against Mr. Cooper by Tammany Hall. But John Kelly de- clared that Mr. Cooper's appointment would be a 16 241 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF singularly good one, and said, not only would there be no opposition from his organization, but, if his name would be of any aid, it could be used in advo- cacy, for he thought Mr. Cooper deserved the honor. In fact, all of Democratic New York was behind Mr. Cooper. He was a man of very large wealth and could handsomely support the position; he was a man of fine cultivation, of learning, of high char- acter, and of personal dignity. Why Mr. Cleveland refused to appoint him was never made known to any one. On the contrary, he appointed Edward J. Phelps, who was known to fame as a lecturer on law at Yale and, as the one who, when told that Grover Cleveland had been nominated at Chicago, in 1884, asked with a sneer: "And who is Grover Cleveland?" But, while there was this attempt at elimination of personality, there was a development in which the personality of Cleveland was brought to the front in an aggressive way. He demanded submis- sion to his will and personal service where he wanted it. For instance, Lamont did not want to go to Washington as his private secretary. It is not always given to us to have a clear look into the future. In view of the success that followed Lamont and the distinction of his career, consequent upon his service as secretary to the President, it may seem strange that he was reluctant to go to Wash- ington. He did not see at that time the opportu- nity, which he subsequently so skillfully seized, of elevating the office to that of Assistant President. He thought his career lay in New York. In his home state he saw his future fairly well laid out. i:42 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER But Cleveland was insistent. He demanded that Lamont should go with him as a duty Lamont owed him. While the matter was in abeyance, in the presence of Cleveland, I said to Lamont that I had heard that he was going to Washington. "I don't know about that," replied Lamont. "My interests lie here in New York." Cleveland swung around in his chair with a quick, energetic motion and said sharply: "You're going to Washington with me. If you don't go, I won't go. That's fiat." Lamont smiled a hopeless sort of smile, but did not reply. A similar demand was made on Manning. He did not wish to be Secretary of the Treasury. His ambition was satisfied. He had attained his de- sires. He had become a Warwick. He had made a President. He was, by reason of his success, in absolute political control of New York State. He was the most distinguished political leader in the country, probably the most powerful. In arriving at that stage he had reached the summit of his ambition, and he wished to be left in peace to enjoy it. But again was Cleveland insistent. Man- ning must go with him to Washington. He needed him. It leaked out that Manning had consented through the fact that he was preparing to lay aside his duties as president of the bank of which he was the head. During a call I made on him in the bank parlor in February, I mentioned the fact of his removal. "What could I do?" he said. "I did not want to go. Suppose you had brought a man into town, was responsible for his being here, and that man 243 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF was called to the top of the hill and said that he could not get up there without your help, that the giving aid was not only a duty which you owed him, but was a consequence of having brought him into town. You'd yield, wouldn't you ? That's what I've done. I'm satisfied as I am." His tone was that of a man who in yielding had shown a degree of weakness. A similar in- sistence, on personal grounds, took Whitney - to Washington to be Secretary of the Navy. 244 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER GUARDING A PRESIDENT-ELECT ^T the close of the year 1884 Cleveland resigned the office of Governor, giving way to the Lieutenant Governor, David B. Hill, who, under the Constitution succeeded to the office for a year, the unexpired term of Cleveland. On vacating the Executive Mansion Cleveland rented a furnished house in Willett street, overlook- ing the city park, until the first of the following March. In this house the President-elect addressed himself to the work of the preparation of his in- augural speech and of making his Cabinet. To this house came in never-ending procession leading Democrats from all parts of the country, many of them inspired by mere curiosity or a desire to make the personal acquaintance of the first Democratic President in a quarter of a century. But the greater part of them came for the purpose of presenting the claims of their states or sections to a representation in the Cabinet or to urge prominent Democrats for appointment to the more conspicuous offices out- side of the Cabinet. The Willett street house may be said to have been for the first two months of the year 1885 the Mecca of the Democrats. On a night in the latter part of February, pos- sibly ten days before the departure of Cleveland for Washington, I had spent the evening with a friend in the southern part of the city and had stayed to a late hour. The way home lay through Willett street and as I approached the house occu- 245 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF pied by the President-elect I saw some one emerge from the door and pause for a moment on the top step. In the bulky figure in the half shadow I recog- nized the form of the most conspicuous man of the time. Quickening my pace, I reached the foot of the steps as Mr. Cleveland gained the sidewalk. After greeting him, I asked if it were not a late hour for him to be out. "Yes," he replied, "it is late. It's after mid- night. I want some fresh air. I don't get a chance to get out in the daytime. From the moment I get out of bed in the morning until it is time to go to bed again, I am detained in the house by one thing or another. So when everybody has gone and Dan goes home I slip out and trot around the park for half an hour or an hour." Here was a man who had but recently passed through the bitterest campaign known to the his- tory of American politics, in the course of which the vilest passions had been aroused ; who had been a conspicuous mark for slander and scandal, and who, in his very strength, had incurred enmities that were deep-seated and outspoken. He had but just emerged from a post-campaign for the secur- ing of the count in which animosities had been sent up to the rioting point. He was the instru- ment of a political revolution in which a party that had. been so long in possession that its members be- lieved that it owned the country, had a prescrip- tive right to patronage, was cast from power. With his inauguration 125,000 employes of the Federal Government faced the possible loss of their places, many of whom had served so long that they had 246 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER come to believe that they had inherent rights — life rights — in the offices they held. All over the country were newspapers of the opposition bemoan- ing the people's choice, refusing to acquiesce in the result, predicting disaster and ruin as a consequence of the administration of government by the Democ- racy and thus tending to blow the glowing embers of hate into a flame. During the campaign threats of violence had reached Cleveland, which he had treated as the vaporings of temporarily overheated tempers. Those who were conspicuous in the conduct of the cam- paign had become accustomed to threats of assas- sination if they did not cease their efiforts to defeat Blaine. Such threats had become numerous after the publication of the Mulligan letters. And I had had my own experiences, for after I had attained a disagreeable notoriety in the discharge of a cer- tain duty which had been thrust upon me, I had come to a bitter realization of the meanness of human nature; the sanctity of my home had been invaded, my family distressed by bushels of letters and documents denouncing me, charging me with all sorts of crime and containing threats to my wife that if she did not recall me from that duty she would be made a widow. On the streets and in the hotels of Albany were strangers who seemed to have no other business than to obtain a glimpse of Cleveland, and in such numbers as to attract attention. The memory of Guiteau's bullet that had taken Garfield from life was yet fresh — only three years old. And the central figure of all was nightly wan- 247 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF dering through a poorly lighted park in the small hours of the morning, alone! All these things crowded into my mind, and it is not to be wondered at that, in horror, I cried out: "You go into that park alone ?" "Yes," answered Cleveland. "Alone. Why not?" "Well," said I, stirred into dogged bluntness. "Here's one night when you're not going alone. I'm going with you." With an indulgent smile Cleveland said: "I'll be glad to have you walk with me, but un- derstand, there is no compulsion about it. It is not necessary, but if you are coming, come along." He led the way across the street and we entered the park, where we walked for an hour. The next morning I got to Lamont so soon as I could and told him of this nightly habit of Cleve- land. He was genuinely alarmed. "I knew nothing of this. He never has said anything to me nor has any one else. I don't dare to speak about it to him now. He's so infernally stubborn about such things. But he won't be alone in that park again, though he won't know it." Thereafter, though Cleveland did not know it, there was a guardian behind pretty nearly every bush; the park was cleared at lo every night and after that hour, until daylight, no one was allowed to enter without being satisfactorily accounted for. No publicity was given to the precautions. Cleveland was a man of many peculiarities, and one of them was the habit of thinking aloud when he was in the company of a person he thought he 248 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER could trust. He once said it helped him in his reasoning to think aloud, or, to put it the other way, to give verbal expression to his thoughts. It was when a matter weighed heavily on him that he resorted to this. The matter of his Cabinet weighed heavily on his mind that night when I became the volunteer companion of his walk in the park, as described. We had not been walking long when he began to talk of the difficulty of Cabinet making, and of the complications arising from conflicting claims. He weighed in his mind many of these claims, show- ing that his disposition was to set aside all claims of sections and to dismiss as of no consequence those of factions. He made it clear, as he talked, that he thought the first consideration was to secure for each department of government a person espe- cially qualified for the duties to be discharged. In the matter of sections, however, he made an except tion as to the South, not because it was a section demanding a right to recognition, but because he thought that the time had arrived when the pro- scription of Southern men should end ; that the tak- ing of a representative man of the South into the Cabinet would be the taking of the Southern citizen into full citizenship and that would tend to the har- monization of the sections and assist in assuaging the animosities and in tempering the prejudices that were the inheritances of the Civil War and the re- construction era. And he was quite certain that the President had the right to choose his own advisers uninfluenced by any other consideration than their agreeability to him. In no way did he indicate or intend to indicate 249 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF what his appointments would be, but when he came to discuss men, especially those who had been sug- gested or talked of for Cabinet positions, the idea crept into my head that I could tell from the trend of his conversation who would figure on the final list. Of course, this was based not alone on his expressions of the night, but on what I thought, at least, was my estimate of the man who talked and his characteristics. That night when I got home, before I went to bed, I wrote down the names that I thought would figure in the list of appointments. The next day I said to Lamont that I thought I could name the next Cabinet. "That is more than Cleveland could do, were you to ask him," said Lamont. "He thinks he has not made up his mind." "Dan," I said, "you won't tell me that you have not an idea as to what the Cabinet will be." "No, I won't," he replied. "I have a very dis- tinct idea, but I won't tell. It is dififerent from yours and I'll make you a small bet that I am right and that you are wrong." "Good," I said, "and I think I know where you are going to pieces. It will be where Cleveland jumps the track." "I don't know what you mean by that," he re- turned, "but I propose this: You write your list and seal it up in an envelope and give it to me. I'll write my list and seal it up and give it to you, both pledging ourselves not to open the envelopes until the announcement is officially made, and also not to speak of the matter to any one." 250 AN OLD POLITIQAL REPORTER This was done. When the announcement was made we found the Hsts to be exactly aUke and identical with the announcement. Cleveland had made an innovation. For the first time two mem- bers were taken from the same state — Manning for the Treasury and Whitney for the Navy, both from New York. Each of us had thought that he alone had penetrated the purpose of Cleveland to do this and that the other would fall down on that point. Lamont's acknowledgment of his defeat was by a telegram from Washington, couched in these words : "The big one cannot keep a secret." 251 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF THE RISE OF DAVID B. HILL I HE change in the control of the Federal Government in 1885 was followed by changes in the control of the dominant political party in the State of New York, which were unexpected by those who thought themselves entrenched in power. These changes were largely due to the attitude of the new President, to his distribution of the Federal patronage and to the rise of a man in state politics whose real personal strength had not been sus- pected. By the time the new administration was com- fortably, or uncomfortably, seated in Washington, an unusual situation was developed in New York. For many years it had been the custom of certain county leaders — ^those who attached their political fortunes to the Democratic machine — to visit Al- bany in the very late spring, or the very early sum- mer, to be informed as to the party programme, get- ting "the steer," they called it. Especially was this so as to the leaders of agricultural counties, where the farmer vote was of consequence. Obtaining the information, they returned to their counties to lay their plans and drive in their stakes before the farmers became so engrossed in the harvest that they had no time for politics. The annual visita- tion to Albany, therefore, was one of real concern to the party, especially to the machine. When the county leaders went to Albany they saw Mr. Manning, or Lamont, his lieutenant. This 252 DAVID B. HILL AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER was true, even in the days of Tilden's active con- trol, when Manning was Tilden's lieutenant, as well as in later days when Manning was not only the titular but the actual leader. In 1885, at the usual time, the visitations were made, but only to find perplexity and embarrassment. Manning and La- mont were in Washington. They had left no one behind to represent them. It was true that E. K. Apgar assumed to do so, but he was not accepted by the visitors, and his assumptions were rendered nugatory by the attitude of his official superior, the state treasurer, Robert A. Maxwell, himself a coun- ty leader. Mr. Manning was yet the chairman of the state committee and had not appointed a vice chairman. Up on the hill, in the Executive Chamber, sat David B. Hill, as Governor, serving out the unex- pired term of Cleveland. He was easily the most conspicuous Democrat, in active political life, in the state. It was soon developed that a call on him, even one "of paying respects" was attended with embarrassment. The visitor, if he were a man of any political influence, soon learned that Hill was a candidate for the gubernatorial nomination. And a declaration of intention as to the visitor's atti- tude was demanded. As a rule, those who visited the Executive Chamber came away pledged to sup- port Hill. This becoming known, there was hesi- tancy in visiting the Governor. This was not due so much to antagonism to Hill as it was, in view of the fact the Democracy had a national adminis- tration for the first time in twenty-five years, to a disposition to support that administration strongly and do what it wanted. And these visitors did not 253 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF know whether Hill was favored by Washington or not. A number of these county leaders, all of them friends of mine — political allies, if I may say so — came together in Albany at the same time. In the hotel quarters of one of them they discussed the embarrassing situation. Finally they sent for me and, setting forth my duty to them through friend- ship and alliance, insisted that I should go to Wash- ington and learn the preferences of the Federal administration in regard to state politics. Arriving in Washington, the first call I made was on Manning, at the Treasury. While his re- ception of me was cordial, on the subject of my visit he was at first reticent, and when he did finally become communicative he was confidential. He did not intend to lay down his chairmanship of the committee until the state convention met, when his successor would be appointed, and he did not intend to name a representative who could act with author- ity. And then, quite cautiously, he let it be known that, in his opinion, the thing for the Democracy of New York to do was to nominate for Governor Edward Cooper of New York City. He ended by advising a visit to Whitney at the Navy Depart- ment. On reaching Secretary Whitney I found that person freer of speech and much more positive. In his judgment the only thing to be done was to nomi- nate Cooper. This would strengthen the county Democracy in New York City in its contest with Tammany Hall, which organization was the enemy of the administration. The next visit was at the White House. At the moment of my arrival there 254 AN OLD POLITIQAL REPORTER Lamont, who, naturally, I should have seen first, was engaged, and, on request, I was shown in to the President. His reception was also cordial, but when I made my statement of the object of my visit to Washington he said quite bluntly that he did not think I could get any programme there. Then he went on to say that he was opposed to any interference on the part of the administra- tion in the aflFairs of the Democracy of New York when a choice of a Governor was being made. Evi- dently he was greatly influenced by the memory of the interference of President Arthur in the Sara- toga convention of 1882, when the nomination of Folger was dictated and by reason of which Cleve- land was carried into office by the enormous plural- ity of 193,000. He, the President, was certain there would be no interference, and he intended there should be no dictation. Then, having made clear what the attitude of the administration was, he said that he had no objection to saying to his friends who would respect his confidences that in his judg- ment the man to nominate was William R. Grace. Obviously there was no union of sentiment among those who represented New York in the adminis- tration. It did not appear that Hill had any friends in Washington. Indeed, opposition to him was apparent. The President was critical of his course in administering the office of Governor. He con- demned his act in calling the Legislature in extra session to deal with the apportionment as an act of folly. In fact, animosity toward Hill was dis- played by the President. During the time that Cleveland was Governor there had been no division between himself and Hill. 255 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF Their relations had been friendly, if not agreeable. Hill submitted deferentially to Cleveland as the head of his party, interfered in no way with his admin- istration and loyally supported him in his preten- sions for the Presidency. But at no time had they got together. They were not congenial in any way. They looked out on the world, and especially the world of politics, from diametrically opposite angles. Disciplined in a hard school of politics. Hill was a man without illusions. An amateur in politics, Cleveland was a man of ideals. An abler man, of keener intellect, with less ethical purpose, regard- ing human nature wholly as he saw it and not as it might be uplifted. Hill looked with contempt on the methods employed by Cleveland, who, on his side, ponderous, slow in his mental processes, reach- ing conclusions only after laborious effort, ever hold- ing before him duty and the advancement of moral standards, doubted and distrusted his more nimble- witted associate, whose life was so clean, who had no dissipations, not even those minor vices which, some cynic has said, redeem human nature. They could not comprehend each other. When Hill assumed the ofifice of Governor, by some process of reasoning not quite clear, Cleve- land thought that Hill should follow his (Cleve- land's) plans as Governor and pursue his policies. Hill held that he had been elected by the people with a view to his elevation to the higher place in the case of a vacancy occurring, as it had, and that his obligation was not to Cleveland, but to the peo- ple, and that he would not be excused under cen- sure by the statement that he had been trying to 256 AN OLD POLITIQAL REPORTER follow Cleveland. Out of this difference of opinion came the first friction between the two. When Cleveland became Governor he found to his hand the duty of appointing the members of the new Railroad Commission. William Purcell, who was the editor of the Rochester Union and Adver- tiser, and who had called Cleveland in his paper "a. social leper," wished to be appointed. Cleveland ignored his application. Purcell was made all the more bitter and became a permanent enemy of Cleve- land. When Hill assumed office he found to his hand the appointment of the members of the Board of Arbitration. He appointed Purcell, who was a personal friend. Cleveland was bitterly angry. In this incident, it may be remarked in passing, were the seeds sown for that division between Cleveland and Hill which later vexed the party. Of all this I had knowledge, and thought that in it was to be found the reason why Hill had no friends in Washington. But imagine my sur- prise on reaching Lamont to hear that person say promptly : "Hill is the logical candidate and ought to have the nomination." Perplexity was deepened and complexity made its appearance. Notwithstanding the President's remark that I could not get a programme, I did get one which was somewhat sensational. There had been a good deal of trouble over the Customs House in New York, knowledge of which had been con- fined to a very few. Hubert O. Thompson desired to be appointed collector of customs. Mr. Manning, in whose department the appointment fell, earnestly supported Thompson. The President disliked 17 257 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF Thompson, did not trust him, and refused to ap- point him. A serious difiference arose between Manning and Cleveland that nearly reached the breaking point. The situation was saved only by the yielding of Manning. But Manning made a programme. Thompson was to be elected chairman of the State Committee when Manning retired. Edward Cooper, Thomp- son's friend and patron, was to be nominated for Governor. A collector was to be appointed who was friendly to Thompson, and in Whitney, who con- trolled the navy yard in Brooklyn, Thompson was to find another friend. With all the patronage he could command, Thompson would be not only a city boss, but a great state boss. And this would compensate for the loss of the collectorship. Apgar was commissioned to enter the interior of the state and find delegates for Cooper. But the ship of this programme went on the rocks. Apgar died in the middle of his work. Cleveland, uncon- sciously and unwittingly, raised up obstacles by his appointments in the interior of the state and by recognition of Tammany in the distribution of the patronage. But the great snag that was run up against was Hugh McLaughlin. His support was. absolutely necessary to the success of the scheme, and because it vtas known that at that time he had no love for Hill, it was supposed that it was as- sured. It became known in Washington that Mc- Laughlin would not support Cooper. And he would not tell why. Whitney came over to see him and found him obdurate. Abram S. Hewitt was pro- posed as a substitute for Cooper. Neither would McLaughlin have him. Finally it was learned that 258 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER McLaughlin would not accept Thompson as the great boss. He would not "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee" to Thompson "that thrift might follow fawning." He would not consent to ask favors for his organization through Thompson — favors which it was his belief he was entitled to receive directly from the power dispensing them. And the President delivered the last blow by ap- pointing as collector Hedden, who could not be used by Thompson. With these mishaps the scheme went to pieces. At the convention Hill, who had known of the plan and who had played a lone hand, was nominated, and the County Democracy received a blow from which it never recovered. The while Washing- ton, with the possible exception of Lamont, was disgusted at the outcome. 259 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF HOW HILL WON McLAUGHLIN T the state convention of 1885, Roswell P. Flower was nominated for Lieu- tenant Governor on the same ticket with Hill for Governor. On the Saturday of that week it was known that Flower had positively refused, and in terms of as- perity, to accept the nomination. The declination, considering the temper in which it was made, was taken to be a severe blow to Hill's candidacy. The administration at Washington was as silent as the grave, but the idea had crept over the state that the action of the convention was a disappoint- ment. The sullen attitude of the County Democracy of New York City displayed at the convention was maintained. The action of Flower seemed to alien- ate another element of the Democracy which had not been called a Cleveland element and certainly had not been in friendly alliance with Manning when he was directing matters. There was no little grumbling under breath at Cleveland, who, it was said, had made possible by his attitude the nomina- tion of the man he did not want. By Saturday night not even the most enthusi- astic friend of Hill could see a way to success. On the following day, Sunday, quite early in the morn- ing, I was called by telephone to the Executive Mansion in Albany. On arriving there I found the drawing room filled by persons who had been sum- moned as I had been. They were friends of Hill. And they were gloomy and depressed, looking 260 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER darkly on the prospect. They had been received by MuUer, Hill's law partner, who talked in whispers as people do at funerals. AH of the talk was specu- lation as to the one who could be induced to take the vacant place on the ticket. The nominee for Governor was not in the room, but presently he entered through a rear door, with his head up and his shoulders thrown back, his face having that whiteness which later, when he was in the United States Senate, Tillman of South Caro- lina said always showed that Hill was in for a fight. Immediately he began a series of talks with indi- viduals present. Evidently they were not confer- ences ; they were instructions. Hill did all the talk- ing, and at the end the individual left the room as one bent on a mission. When nearly all had been sent away, Hill came to where I was sitting, taking a chair beside me. "Can you go to Brooklyn for me to-day ?" After learning that I could and would by the next train, if it would serve him, he continued : "I have a mission for you and it is not an easy one. McLaughlin, the Brooklyn leader, does not like me. He has never forgiven me for a blunder I made while presiding over the Democratic State Convention in 1881, which put his delegation out of the convention for the temporary organization. I am told he is very bitter toward me. However, I want him to consent to General Slocum's nomina- tion for Lieutenant Governor by the State Commit- tee. I know that he is not friendly to Slocum. But it seems that it is necessary to have a soldier on the ticket to offset General Carr on the Republican ticket. Then I want you to see General Slocum and 261 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF ask him as a personal favor to me, in my distress, to take the nomination. This done, I want you to ask Mr. McLaughHn if he will not meet me at the Hoff- man House in New York to-morrow. You see that it is a large contract I ask you to take." I, too, hurried away on a mission, thinking how bravely and how masterfully Hill was taking hold of a bad situation and that if his friends had lost courage he had not. It was not difficult to persuade Mr. McLaughlin to consent to Slocum's nomination. If Hill wanted him he was quite willing that Hill should have him. He was satisfied that Hill would not get much and would be very sick of him before long. But Slocum would not consent. Indeed, he seemed to be quite angry over the suggestion. He did not hesitate to say that it was an insult. "When I was in command of a very large and very great army," he said, "Hill was sweeping out a law office in Elmira — an office boy. I shall not play second fiddle to him twenty years after the war has closed." I was successful with the remaining point of my mission. In the beginning, however, Mr. Mc- Laughlin did not look with favor on the idea of visiting Hill. The Democratic organization of Kings would loyally support Hill because he was the regularly nominated candidate of the party. Hardly more could be asked of him. I told him that the act which had given him such offense was purely a blunder on the part of Hill, which he freely acknowledged, and back of which had been no intention of injury. I told him of the scene in the Executive Mansion that morning, when 262 AN OLD POLITIQAL REPORTER I had been impressed with the fighting quaUties of Hill, and finding I had enlisted his interest was em- boldened to venture on the prediction that Hill would be found to be a coming man, who was des- tined to distinction, and insinuated that it was a time when by going to the aid of one in distress he could win the gratitude and friendship of the man whose reputation at home was that he had never been known to forfeit a friendship or to be neglect- ful of an obligation. In the end I was enabled to telegraph the Gov- ernor that Mr. McLaughlin would meet him the next day. When Mr. McLaughlin left the Governor after his visit the basis of a friendship between the two was laid that never faltered up to the time of the death of the Brooklyn leader. The person who filled the vacancy on the ticket was Edward F. Jones of Binghamton — "He-Pays- the-Freight" Jones — who had the military title of general. Governor Hill's troubles were not over, how- ever, with this filling of the vacancy.' He found great difficulty in organizing his campaign. He could find no one who was willing to take the posi- tion of chairman of the executive committee, which, in fact, was that of campaign manager. While the national administration had ostentatiously refrained from participation in the state nominating conven- tion, it was known to be bitterly disappointed over the nomination of Hill. County leaders who had supported Hill in the convention, on visiting Wash- ington, were met with sneers and other manifesta- tions of displeasure and with no words of approval. The County Democracy of New York City, an or- 263 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF ganization in close alliance with the political powers of the administration, having a representative in the Cabinet, in the person of Whitney, stood aloof from the campaign, sullen and disgruntled. The element of the party represented by Flower hesitated as to its course. The triumph of Cleveland over Flower in 1884 was still rankling. The Flower element was not in alliance with the Cleveland wing, but, on the other side, the temper Flower had displayed in re- fusing the nomination for the second place on the ticket made it hesitate in giving support to Hill. The attitude of the County Democracy was of concern in consideration of the matter of the sinews of war. It had been the money raising quantity. The largest contributors to the funds of the party were in its ranks. It took money, and large sums, to organize a campaign in those times as in these. There was none in sight for the Hill campaign. Pov- erty stricken, with large elements of the party indif- ferent and with the displeasure of the national ad- ministration plainly apparent, the clouds lowered darkly over the Hill campaign in the very begin- ning. The defeat of the ticket was freely predicted by Democrats themselves, and the Republicans, jubilant, were openly declaring that their candidate, Davenport, was elected before the campaign was fairly begun. Thus it was tha:t no man of prominence or of latent political aspirations was willing to take charge of a losing campaign. And Hill grew bitter and more bitter as the days passed. One day, in the Executive Chamber, he discussed the situation with me. In the course of the conversation he said : 264 AN OLD POLITIQAL REPORTER "No man of prominence qualified for the work will take the place. Democrats of prominence avoid me as if there was contagion on my garments." At the moment, Robert A. Maxwell, the State Treasurer, a Cleveland man, who was loyally sup- porting Hill, entered the chamber. Hill greeted him with this remark : "Bob, you will have to take the position of Executive Committee Chairman. No one else will." Maxwell hesitated a moment before he replied: "If that be your judgment, I will. I am Treas- urer of the State. To act as chairman while I am Treasurer would be to bring me, you and the cam- paign under public censure. Nevertheless, if you think I should be the chairman, I will resign my office." "I do not want you to make such a sacrifice," quickly replied Hill. "One moment," continued Maxwell. "I came over here to suggest the name of a man who I think would be a good man for the place." "Will he take it?" asked Hill. "That I don't know," said Maxwell, "for I've had no talk with him. His name is Alton B. Parker — from Ulster County." Governor Hill looked up at Maxwell inquiringly, with a puzzled air, as if the name was not unknown to him, though mention of it carried little intelli- gence. "He is at present Surrogate of Ulster," Maxwell went on, "and he has done great work in organizing the county." Hill turned to me and asked if I knew him. "Yes," I replied; "he is in a way a protege of 265 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF Augustus Schoonmaker, who has the highest opinion of his abihties and character." "He could not have a better indorsement," said Hill, turning to Maxwell. "Bob, will you go to Kingston and see Mr. Parker and ask him if he will take the place. Whether he consents or not, ask him to cross the river and meet me on the train from Albany this afternoon." Maxwell hurried away on his mission. Parker refused to take the place, but consented to meet Hill on the train. When the two reached New York, Parker had been won by Hill and had consented to take the campaign management. And there was begun that friendship which is historical in the poli- tics of the State of New York. The brilliancy of Parker's conduct of that 1885 campaign and the forcefulness of the one waged by Hill on the platforms of the state, in which he discovered his qualities as an issue maker, are now matters of history. The campaign which was begun in gloom and universal predictions of defeat ended in a triumph for Hill with a plurality of 11,136. Out of the gloom and the darkness two men had emerged into the bright sunlight of public favor, one going to great power and the other with his feet on the road which led to the Presidential nomi- nation of his party. And the latter had won the grateful friendship of the strong man to whose aid he had come at a time of great need. That friend- ship never weakened, and was marked, more than once, by personal sacrifice on the part of Hill. 266 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER HILL'S USE OF POLITICAL POWER [OTHING succeeds like success." The first day of 1886 found David B. Hill in the office of Governor with a direct commission from the people. Already he was hailed as a strong man. His suc- cessful campaign of the previous year, waged so gallantly against such great odds, was bearing fruit in the submission of many who had been lukewarm in their support of him. To close observers it was apparent that the political machine he had builded for the campaign was to be con- tinued and strengthened, and that he meant to keep the lever in his own hands. The masterfulness of the man was soon apparent. The same vigor that had characterized his ad- ministration of his office was found in his handling of the reins of political power which he had seized with firm grasp. Among the leaders of the coun- ties there was much dissatisfaction with Cleveland's methods in the distribution of the Federal patron- age. Apparently he ignored the recommendations of local political organizations. It came to be said that it was sufficient for Cleveland to appoint an- other man when one was urged for a postmaster- ship or other office by a politician or one active in the leadership of an organization. Hill was too sagacious not to take advantage of such a situation, and so it came about that the complaining leader would find a sympathetic ear in which to pour his grievances when he visited the 267 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF Governor. And the observing saw that if the Gov- ernor was maintaining a firm hand on the machine, and was somewhat imperious in his methods, he was also self-reliant, little given to consultation. The absence of men who, in the past, had been in fre- quent consultation on the affairs of the party, was noted. In their places another set of men appeared. The older ones had been elbowed to the rear. Perhaps under all the circumstances it was not to be wondered at. Most of these old advisers had been those who had looked askance on Hill's nomi- nation and had been indifferent as to the election under the belief that defeat was coming. Hill rarely talked about the campaign of 1885, and when he did, only to his intimates. To them it was known that the events of that time had made a deep im- pression on him, and that he profoundly resented the way in which he had been abandoned by so many of the old leaders and left to make his bat- tle alone. On the contrary, those who had stood behind him and fought the battle with him he grap- pled unto himself "with hooks of steel." At all events, there were new faces and new men at the fore, and close observers began to see signs of a revolution in the political control of New York State. Affairs conspired to aid Hill. There was trou- ble over the collectorship of the port of New York, and the ranks of the forces within the party op- posed to Hill were thereby divided. There were differences, and, rumor said, serious differences be- tween Secretary Manning and President Cleveland. In the midst of it Manning fell ill, stricken with paralysis. It was the 23d of March, 1886. Man- 268 AN OLD POLITIOAL REPORTER ning was the one man, perhaps, who could have contested the control of the state and taken it. His incapacitation aided the revolution. Some time after the events which had so weak- ened what subsequently came to be known as the Cleveland wing in New York, Daniel Manning, at the old Long Beach Hotel, whither he had gone in an effort to regain strength, told me the story of those events. Seated on the veranda of the hotel, looking out on the shimmering seas, in the knowledge of a race run, a career ended, the Secretary, for he was yet Secretary, talked in even tones and in no heat. He said that the Custom House in New York had been a source of trouble from the beginning. Even before Cleveland had taken his seat as Presi- dent, Hubert O. Thompson had made known to Mr. Manning his desire to be collector of the port. He, Manning, wished him to have it, and so did nearly all of the leading Democrats who had been active in the work of the campaign of 1884. In fact, he. Manning, had not supposed that there would be any difficulty in arranging the matter. But when the appointment was broached to the President, Cleveland had manifested an unreason- able opposition to Thompson. He seemed to be filled with a personal dislike of that individual. In his urgency for the appointment of the County De- mocracy leader Mr. Manning had gone as far as he could — had gone perilously near to the break- ing point, for not only was Cleveland determined not to appoint Thompson, but he was determined to appoint one who, if he was not an enemy of the County Democracy, was at least without identifica- tion with politics. 269 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF Manning had yielded when he found that a rup- ture could be avoided only by his submission. The result was that a man named Hedden was ap- pointed. He was taken from mercantile life, hav- ing had no training in public station. His course in office was one of entire independence of politics and politicians. And there was trouble from the beginning. Mr. Hedden was an upright, honor- able man, who, however, did not appreciate that there was a wide difference between the adminis- tration of a public office, with all sorts of restric- tions of law thrown about it, and the administra- tion of a private business, where he was substan- tially a law unto himself. He had been betrayed into some indiscretions which had finally ended in a demand for his removal. By the middle of March, 1886, it was determined that his resignation must be asked. At "once the question of his successor arose. Again Thompson was a candidate. Again he was urged by Manning. But the President was opposed and made a remark as to Thompson that Mr. Manning, on behalf of his friend, resented. But not only was the President determined that he would not appoint Thompson, but declared his intention to name a man who was the personal enemy of Thompson and who would, in Mr. Manning's be- lief, use the office against Thompson. Against this Manning had rebelled and a heated scene followed, in which strong words were used. "1 told the President," said Mr. Manning, "that I had yielded to the humiliation of Thompson the year previous to prevent a rupture, but I would not consent this year to his punishment when his chief fault seemed to be that he had been able and effi- 270 AN OLD POLITICAL REPORTER cient in the work of returning the Democratic party to power. Consequently, if the President was de- termined to make that appointment, I should resign from the Cabinet and make a public statement of my reasons for doing so. This threat did not make matters better. Mr. Cleveland would not retire from his position an inch. I left the White House in, I fear, a great rage, satisfied that I must resign. I went over to the Treasury Department and on reaching the top step of the stairs leading to my office was struck down with this trouble that I am now suffering from." The illness of Mr. Manning put the matter of the change in Customs House in suspense. But the demand for Hedden's removal became so insistent that in August the matter was taken up again. The President caused Mr. Manning to be communicated with and asked if Daniel Magone of St. Lawrence would be satisfactory. Mr. Magone was satisfac- tory to the Cleveland element in New York. So on August lo of that year he was appointed. Indirectly all of these events operated to strengthen the hands of Governor Hill in his en- terprise of seizing the supreme control of the party in New York State. Practically opposition faded away from before him so that when the revolution- ary year of 1886 had ended Hill was the master, and no one was strong enough to say him nay. The revolution was complete. The Old Guard was mustered out and new sentinels were at the posts. 271 No. Ex Libris CERRY JONES