Northwestern
University Library
Evanston,
Illinois 60201
CARTER HENRY HARRISON
^ ílemoír
CARTER HENRY HARRISON
S iEemotr
BY
WILLIS JOHN ABBOT
¥
XfiW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1895
Copyright, 1895,
Bt Dodd, Mead and Company.
{SnitaetsÜs l^rtss:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
CONTENTS.
cb4ptkb pagb
I. The Harrison Family 1
II. Carter Harrison's Boyhood 24
III. Seeking a Career 42
IV- Entrance upon Public Life 55
V. Congressional Life 70
VI. The Mayoralty 93
VII. The Race with the Sun 153
VIII. Two Campaigns 180
IX. The "World's-Fair Mayor 198
X. His Political Ideas 238
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Cabteb H. Harrison at the age of 68 . . Frontnpiece
Homestead "Clifton," near Lexington, Ky. . . Page 29
Carter H. Harrison at the age of 31 52
SoPHONiSBA Preston Harrison 80
Carter H. Harrison at the age of 55 112
Residence at 231 Ashland Boulevard, Chicago, III. 155
CARTEE HENRY HARRISON.
CHAPTER 1.
the harrison family.
Benjamin Harrison, the earliest known progeni¬
tor of that illustrious family which has furnished to
American political annals so many shining names,
appears first in the annals of Virginia as clerk of the
Royal Council from 1634 to 1642. Whether he was
a native Virginian or an emigrant from the mother
country, no record remains to tell. His parentage,
the place and date of his birth are alike unknown.
The genealogical zeal which the later achievements
of his distinguished descendants have inspired has
failed to solve with any degree of certainty the
problem of his birth and parentage. There is proba¬
bility, supported by strong circumstantial evidence,
that he was either the son or an immediate connec¬
tion of John Harrison, one time governor of the Somers
Islands, or Bermudas as they are now called. In
the seventeenth century Virginia and the Somers
Islands were intimately connected, being for a time
under the control of the same colonial company.
1
2
eAlíTER HENRY HARRISON.
înterGôurse between the t.wo colonies was free and
constant, and there is nothing improbable in the
hypothesis that Benjamin came to the mainland
from the Somers Islands, and was the son of the
governor of that province. But this is still purely an
hypothesis, a speculation based upon mere conjecture.
Unless new and unsuspected genealogical data be
discovered, the history of the Harrison family of
America will continue to be bounded by the limits
of the continent, — a limitation which after aU seems
not inappropriate to a family of such sterling
Americanism.
Chiefly because of careless assertion and indiffer¬
ence to facts, the idea has become current that
the Harrison family in America had descended in
direct line from the regicide General Thomas Harri¬
son. In America, particularly in the days immedi¬
ately succeeding the revolution, no ignominy could
attach to the possession of such an ancestor. Indeed
it might rather be a bit of blazonry on the family
escutcheon which a house that had already produced
a signer of the Declaration of Independence might
regard with complacency. But so far as direct
descent is concerned, the theory is readily demolished.
In 1606 the regicide was born, but in 1635 the earli¬
est known ancestor of the American Harrisons had
attained years suflicient to enable him to discharge
with credit the functions of clerk of the Virginia
Council. That the two may have had a common
ancestor is in no way improbable, but that Benjamin
THE HARRISON FAMILY.
3
the Clerk ever sympathized with the political beliefs
of his kinsman — if kinsman he was — is made
doubtful by the very fact of his enjoying honor in
Virginia, — a colony always in hearty accord with
the royalist party, even when that party was broken
and out of power. There is significance in the fact
that the only two regicides who fled to America —
Goffe and Whalley — sought refuge in the New Eng¬
land colonies, where both the political and the reli¬
gious opinions of the colonists accorded with those of
the Roundheads, who sent Charles I. to the scaffold.
In Virginia, where the Church of England flourished
with transplanted vigor, where loyal planters, cling¬
ing to the ways of the landed gentry at home, drank
deep, with scarce an effort at secrecy, to the health
of "Charley over the water," there would have been
cold welcome for the near kinsman of one of the
judges of the regicidal bench. And finally, a man
of such family and such beliefs would not have
instilled into his son principles of loyalty so sterling
that upon his death his tombstone would bear wit¬
ness, as in the case of the second Benjamin Harrison,
son of Benjamin the Clerk, not to his wealth or his
temporal honors, but to his devotion to his king.
In a lonely little churchyard in Virginia, near
Cabin Point, there stands, or stood until recently, an
ancient tablet marking the last resting-place of
Benjamin Harrison of Surrey, which in letters de¬
faced with time gives mute testimony that " he did
justice, loved mercy, and walked humbly with his
4
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
God; was always loyal to his Prince and a great
benefactor to his country."
Dismissing as purely fanciful the attempt to name
an earlier ancestor for the American Harrisons than
Benjamin, clerk of the Royal Council in 1635, and
member of the Virginia House of Burgesses a few
years later, the genealogist finds thenceforth no diflS-
culty in tracing the further course of the family
which produced a signer of the immortal declaration,
two presidents of the United States, and the distin¬
guished subject of this memoir. He finds thereafter
the family name inextricably interwoven with all
that is most brilliant in the history of the most
venerable of our American States, Virginia. In that
commonwealth, the development of great landed
properties, tilled by slaves, bred an aristocracy of
wealth and position. Half a score of families be¬
came so knitted together by intermarriage that one
can almost read the history of the colony and the
State in the constant recurrence of historic names on
the family tree of almost any highly bred Virginian.
The family founded by Benjamin Harrison, the
clerk and burgess, was destined to become preemi¬
nent in the patriarchal society of the Old Dominion.
The foundation of the family estates was laid by the
acquisition of two hundred acres on Warrosquioake
Creek, which was conveyed to Benjamin Harrison
by deed dated "July 9, in Ninth Year of King
Charles I.," and is declared to be in requital of the
said Harrison's services as clerk. How long he had
THE HARRISON FAMILY.
5
served to earn this compensation the records of the
colony say not, but in 1641 he was again its creditor,
this time to the amount of six hundred pounds of
tobacco due as salary ; and the " Grand Assembly "
of the House of Burgesses passed an act to pay him
seven pounds, ten shillings sterling, in lieu thereof.
By the succeeding year the veteran clerk had become
himself a burgess from Warrosquioake County, and a
personage of some importance. His name appears
upon a protest against the renewal of the charter
and franchises of the Virginia Company, together
with those of the governor, the council, and his
fellow-burgesses. His marriage soon followed, but
the Christian name only of his wife, Mary, has been
preserved. His eldest son, Benjamin, was born in
1645 upon the family estate, which had by this time
discarded the cumbrous Indian name of Warrosqui¬
oake for the title, redolent of old England, of South-
wark parish, Surrey County.
The records of Virginia bear frequent evidence of
the activity and importance of this second Benjamin.
He was member, and for a time speaker of the House
of Burgesses. From 1700 to 1704 he sat in the Royal
Council. He was the intimate friend and stanch
adherent of Sir William Berkeley, governor of Vir¬
ginia during the troublous days of the restoration.
Dying in 1712, he was buried in the churchyard
of a sanctuaiy of his own foundation, and upon his
tombstone was graven the testimony to his loyalty
and nobility heretofore quoted.
6
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
The incompleteness of early genealogical records
leaves the family name of the wife of Benjamin
Harrison of Surrey in doubt. It is only known he
survived her many years and dying left two sons,
Benjamin, third of that name, who settled at Berke¬
ley, and Nathaniel, who made his home at Brandon.
It is rather a curious fact that descendants of Na¬
thaniel Harrison, through intermarriage with the
Willings of Philadelphia, and the Byrds of Westover,
did bring into the American branch of the Harrison
family the blood of doughty General Thomas Har¬
rison the regicide.
It was through the eldest son, Benjamin, — of
Berkeley as he afterward became known, — that the
strain of Harrison blood which later gave such emi¬
nent men to the nation was preserved. Born in
1667, he added lustre to the later family name by
marrying Elizabeth Burwell, a daughter of one of
the most distinguished Virginia families of that day.
The earliest of the name was governor of Virginia.
His descendants intermarried with such eminent
families of the Old Dominion as the Pages, Nelsons,
Randolphs, Claibornes, Marshalls, and other leaders
in politics and society, until by the early part of the
eighteenth century the Burwell interest became the
most powerful family force in the colony. In 1713, in
a letter to the commissioners of trade. Governor Alex¬
ander Spottswood said : " The greater part of the pres¬
ent council are related to the family of the Burwells.
And as there are sundry other gentlemen of the same
THE HARRISON FAMILY.
7
family whose qualifications may entitle them to be
of the council, if they also shall be admitted upon
the same private recommendations as Mr. Berkeley
hath been, the whole council in a short time would
be of one kindred. As it is now, if Mr. Bassett and
Mr. Berkeley should take their places, there will be
no less than seven so near related that they will go
off the bench whenever a cause of the Burwells
comes to he tried."
Like earlier members of his family, Benjamin Har¬
rison the third was prominent in the affairs of the
colony. He was for a time treasurer, and later attor-
ney-general of Virginia, and sat in the House of Bur¬
gesses both as member and speaker. A man of
culture and some literary ability, he was engaged
upon a history of the colony when death overtook
him at the age of 37, in 1710. Two children sur¬
vived him. The younger, a daughter, extended still
further the brilliant family connections of the Har¬
risons by marrying a Randolph. The other child, a
son, was given the name of Benjamin, borne already
by three of his race in direct line.
Benjamin Harrison the fourth settled upon the
family estate at Berkeley. Here he led the life of
his father and his grandfather before him, managing
his broad acres, principally given over to Virginia's
staple, tobacco, doing his duty as a country gentle¬
man by sitting in the House of Burgesses, holding for
a time the office of sheriff of his county, and making
occasional journeys away from home to the planta-
8
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
tions of the neighboring gentry, the Randolphs, the
Lees, the Pages, the Fitzhughs, and the Carters.
It was while on one of these visits that he met
Anne, the daughter of Robert Carter of Corotoman,
whom he soon after married.
Robert Carter, whose family name was destined to
become almost as persistent a Christian name in the
Harrison family as the traditional Benjamin, was a
famous and a picturesque character of the colonial
days in Virginia. His father. Colonel John Carter,
of Lancaster County, was prominent in the political
and business life of the colony, sat in the House of
Burgesses and in the Royal Council, commanded the
forces of the colony in warfare against the Indians,
and accumulated a large landed property which he
bequeathed to his son. The younger Carter, a man
of brilliant parts, well conserved the estate which his
father left him, and greatly enhanced by his energy,
sagacity, and public spirit, the lustre of the family
name. As the agent of Lord Fairfax, the proprietary
of a wide territory in the northern neck between the
Rappahannock and the Potomac, he was a man of
much importance in business circles, and this fact,
coupled with his own possession of a large estate,
and a certain lordliness of manner and freehanded-
ness, earned for him the sobriquet of " King." As
Robert, King Carter, he lives in Virginia tradition
and history, and the meagre personal details which
have been preserved until this day go far to justify
the spirit of the title.
THE HARRISON FAMILY.
9
Virginia in colonial times was, as we have already
said, faithful to the English tradition of an estab¬
lished church. The house of burgesses had direct
authority over the church establishment, but there
was but slender revenue available for the purpose of
paying the clergy or erecting church edifices. John
Carter, alert man of affairs and doughty soldier as
he was, gave loyal support to the church, and in
1640 built a place of worship on his estate at Coroto-
man. In 1732, this edifice showing signs of decay,
Robert Carter erected on its site a sturdy church,
which is still standing, a fine specimen of early Vir¬
ginia architecture. From the vestry book of this
church much of the information concerning the
Carter family is drawn. On its pages are still legi¬
ble the signatures of John Carter, John Carter his
son, and Robert Carter, whom neighbors called King.
It is significant that the Carter name led all the rest,
preceding even that of the rector, as befitted the
patron of the sanctuary in a patriarchal state of
society. Tradition has it that at the time of service
none might enter the sacred edifice until King Carter
and his family had arrived. Responding with be¬
coming condescension to the salutations of his ten¬
antry as they stood grouped about the chancel door,
the great man entered and took his stately course to
the spacious family pew, occupying the whole of one
end of the transept. Here, shielded from curious
gaze by the high walnut walls of his pew, still
further reinforced by damask curtains dependent
10
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
from a brass railing, the lord of the manor did his
devotions with the comforting reflection that to his
beneficence and that of his forbears was due the
existence of the church. But the uncertainties of
life left Robert Carter little time to enjoy the
earthly reward of his pious beneficence. The church
which he builded so well had been finished but a few
months when a sudden illness carried him off at
the age of sixty-nine. In a corner of the weedy
churchyard, surrounded by a brick wall fast falling
into ruin, is still to be seen the mossy tombstone on
which in scarcely decipherable Latin are set forth the
personal worth and the earthly honors of Robert
Carter.
" Here lies buried," it reads, " Robert Carter, Esq.,
an honorable man who by noble endowments and
pure morals gave lustre to his gentle birth. Rector
of William and Mary he sustained the institution in
its most trying times. He was speaker of the
House of Burgesses, and treasurer under the most
serene princes William, Anne, George I., and George
II. Elected by the house its speaker six years and
governor of the colony for more than a year, he
upheld equally the regal dignity and the public
freedom. Possessed of ample wealth, blamelessly
acquired, he built and endowed at his own expense
this sacred edifice, — a signal monument to his piety
towards God. He furnished it richly. His first
wife was Judith, daughter of John, Amistead, Esq. ;
his second, Betty, a descendant of the noble family
THE HARRISON FAMILY.
11
of Landons. By these wives he had many children,
on whose education he expended large sums of
money. At length, full of honors and of years,
when he had well performed all the duties of an
exemplary life, he departed from this world on the
4th day of August, in the 69th year of his age.
" The unhappy lament their lost comforter, the
widows their lost protector, and the orphans their
lost father."
Before Benjamin Harrison and his wife, Anne,
there opened the easy patriarchal life which their
ancestors for two generations past had led. The
best homes in Virginia were open to them. He, like
his forefathers, filled the office of sheriff in his
county and sat in the House of Burgesses. The chil¬
dren who came to brighten their home were given
the slender education of the time, and, reaching the
estate of men and women, married into other famous
families of Virginia. The eldest son, to whom by
custom, now become sanctified by long tradition,
fell the name of Benjamin and the family posses¬
sions at Berkeley, added by the eminence of his later
career greatly to the high repute of the family.
Active in the movement which led to the American
Revolution, he introduced to Congress a resolution
declaring the independence of the American colonies,
and signed the immortal Declaration of Indepen¬
dence. His third son, William Henry Harrison,
after long and honorable military service, became
president of the United States in 1841, and his
12
CÁRTER HENRY HARRISON.
great-grandson, bearing the family name of Ben¬
jamin, succeeded to the same exalted ofl&ce in 1889.
Less brilliancy perhaps attaches to the achieve¬
ments of the younger children of Benjamin Harrison
fourth, of Berkeley, than to their elder brother, but
the later history of none of them was commonplace.
The second son, Charles, became a brilliant soldier in
the Continental armies, and commanded the Virginia
and Maryland artillery in the war for independence.
The third child, a daughter, married Peyton Ran¬
dolph, president of the first Continental Congress.
The youngest son. Carter Henry Harrison, uniting in
his Christian names the name of his maternal grand¬
father, Robert Carter, and the patronymic of the
famous Virginia family which gave to the nation the
matchless orator Patrick Henry, left the family
plantation and settled at Clifton, in Cumberland
County. From him descended the subject of this
memoir, the late mayor of Chicago.
The reader will note that the divergence in the
families to which belonged the two Harrisons who
occupied the White House, and the Harrison who for
many years governed the city of Chicago, began with
the children of Benjamin Harrison, fourth of the
name, and third to hold the family estate at Berke¬
ley, whose death in 1744 was caused by a stroke of
lightning which struck him dead, and two of his
daughters with him. From his eldest son descended
the two presidents ; from his youngest the " World's
Fair mayor."
THE HARRISON FAMILY.
13
Carter Henry Harrison, of Clifton, in Cumberland
County, was true to the traditions of his race in
more ways than one. He founded and built a
church, as had his ancestors on both his father's and
his mother's side. He took him to wife a Randolph,
Susannah, daughter of Isham Randolph of Dun-
geness, a ship-owner, merchant, planter, magistrate,
and burgess of the colony. Through this marriage
he was brought into kinship with the Jeffersons,
Blands, Lees, Fitzhughs, Boilings, and other notable
Virginia families. In the veins of his wife there
flowed a strain of royal Indian blood derived from
Pocahontas. These matters of collateral relation¬
ship, of slender interest to-day, were of serious import
in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when a
man's social station in Virginia was fixed more by
the kinship which he and his wife bore to the first
families of the dominion than by his material
possessions.
Of the children of Carter Henry Harrison, the
eldest son, Randolph Harrison, married Mary Ran¬
dolph and remained on the estate at Clifton. Of
the youngest son, Thomas, little is known except
that he was killed in the Battle of Tippecanoe, where
he was fighting under the orders of his uncle,
the future president. But the second son, Robert
Carter Harrison, took the momentous step of leav¬
ing, not only his father's estate and neighborhood,
but even of turning his back upon Virginia which
had so long sheltered his family, and passing be-
14
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
yond the mountains to the young commonwealth of
Kentucky.
At this period the tide of emigration toward Ken¬
tucky was very strong. Though Virginia was only
sparsely settled, the system of great estates which
had grown up under the law of primogeniture and
entail abolished through the efforts of Thomas Jeffer¬
son in 1777, seemed to close the most promising
avenues toward realization of the ambition of the
day, namely, to become a great planter. From those
who had passed the barrier of the Alleghany Moun¬
tains and established pioneer homes in Kentucky,
there came back glowing reports of the fertility of
the soil, the magnificence of the timber, the indica¬
tions of mineral wealth, and the plentitude of game.
The younger sons of the best families of Virginia in
no inconsiderable number, packed up goods and chat¬
tels, mustered their array of horses and slaves, and
made the pilgrimage to this new land of plenty. It
was in 1806 that Robert Carter Harrison succumbed
to the constant temptation of the enterprising Ameri¬
can to "go West." He had married some time
before, and his brother-in-law, Mr. Breckinridge, him¬
self an early settler in Kentucky, urged the change
upon him and purchased for him an estate of 2000
acres at Elk Hill, in Fayette County, about seven
miles from Lexington. Thither the Harrisons moved
in patriarchal state, taking with them horses, cattle,
lumbering wagons with the family effects, and over
two hundred negro slaves. The vague traditions
THE HARRISON FAMILY.
15
of this pilgrimage which have come down through
members of the family say it consumed six weeks,
but give no hint of the route followed. From his¬
tories of that time it is learned that the great west¬
ern road lay through Pennsylvania to the westward
by wagon, up, up, and still up by winding and craggy
roads through the Alleghanies until the crest was
scaled, then down the western slopes until Pitts¬
burgh, at the junction of the rivers which form the
Ohio was reached. Here the road was left for the
river. The steamboat had not yet made its appear¬
ance and the favorite craft for descending the Ohio
a huge scow, with a cabin built at one end for
the family, while at the other end were crowded
indiscriminately the cattle, both biped and quad¬
ruped. The science of navigation was simple. At
that time the noble forests which lined either bank
of the river prevented droughts and consequent low
water. A flat-boat launched at Pittsburgh would
float, with only occasional aid by poling, to New
Orleans. Such was the ordinary method of navi¬
gation. The craft drifted along as the current
willed, now stem first, then bow first, turning slowly
all the time, striking the bank occasionally, but
quickly dislodged by the rapidly flowing river. Prog¬
ress if not rapid was constant, and the Ohio was
well filled with boats of this sort ; for by this time its
banks were thickly settled and the river had become
an artery of commerce.
In some such way Robert Carter Harrison, his
16
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
household, and his sable retinue, made their way into
Kentucky. When he reached his estate he built on
the summit of Elk Hill a large house, which, from its
commanding position, was a prominent feature in
the landscape for miles around. Though built of
logs this house was then esteemed a notable mansion,
and Kentuckians came from considerable distances to
see and to admire it.
Before leaving Virginia Mr. Harrison had, as we
have said, married, his wife being Anne Cabell,
daughter of Colonel Joseph Cabell. The Cabells
were people of distinction in Virginia. One of them
sat in the convention which ratified the Constitution,
and was a member of the first United States Con¬
gress. Colonel Joseph Cabell himself, father-in-law
of Robert Carter Harrison, was a colonel in the revo¬
lutionary army, and an intimate friend of Washing¬
ton. One of his sons married Pocahontas Boiling, a
lineal descendant of the Indian princess. One daugh¬
ter married John Breckinridge, attorney-general
under President Thomas Jefferson, and United States
senator from Kentucky, from whom came the Ken¬
tucky Breckinridges so distinguished in American
political annals. Another daughter married William
I. Lewis, a distinguished member of Congress.
Five children were born to Robert Carter Harrison
and his wife Anne, only one, however, being born on
the Kentucky estate. The second son, Joseph Cabell
Harrison, became a Presbyterian minister, and died
full of years and honors. Of the three daughters.
THE HARRISON FAMILY.
17
one married Samuel G. Richardson, a brilliant law¬
yer, who was assassinated on the Court-house steps
at Frankfort. A second married Samuel M. Brown
who won fame in those turbulent days of Kentucky
by being the antagonist of Cassius M. Clay in a
bloody fight at Russell's Cave, while a third married
David Castleman, and was still living in 1892. Car¬
ter Henry Harrison, the eldest child, and father of
the subject of this memoir, inherited the family
estate at Elk Hill, and there lived until his death,
which occurred in early life.
In 1822, Carter Henry Harrison, of Elk Hill, mar¬
ried Caroline Evalind, daughter of Colonel William
Russell of the regular army. Colonel Russell was
the distinguished son of a distinguished father. In
1710, the first William Russell, an oflBcer in the
English army came to Virginia with his friend Gen¬
eral Alexander Spottswood, royal governor of the
colony. He acquired a large estate in Spottsylvania,
Culpeper, Frederick, and other counties, partly by
purchase, but largely through grants from the crown.
He was a gentleman of high standing in the com¬
munity, his name being preserved in the records of
his church in St. Mark's parish as warden. About
1730, he married Mary Henley having by her three
children, of whom Henry, the second son is believed
to have been slain in that contest with the Indians
known as Lord Dunmore's war. A deed still pre¬
served shows that Thomas Jefferson, as governor of
Virginia, conveyed to William Russell as heir of
2
18
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
Henry Russell 2000 acres of land in what was after¬
wards Fayette County, Kentucky, in return for ser¬
vices rendered by Henry Russell in Lord Dunmore's
war.
William Russell the second, elder brother of Henry,
was born in 1735, enjoyed the typical Virginia gen¬
tleman's education at the now venerable college of
William and Mary, and, marrying before reaching
his majority, settled on a plantation in Culpeper
County. His wife was Tabitha Adams, of whose
family little is now known. In 1773, he determined
to remove to the Kentucky estate which he had
acquired as heir to his brother Henry, and had
travelled with his family in that direction as far as
Castle Woods on the Clinch River, when reports of
hostile Indians in the path caused him to hesitate. At
this juncture a party of pioneers under the guidance
of the famous pathfinder and Indian fighter Daniel
Boone chanced that way, and Colonel Russell deter¬
mined to send his eldest son, Henry, and some negroes
with them to prepare a settlement on the new estate,
to which the family might make their way later.
The expedition, made up of eighty persons in all,
had proceeded but forty miles when it was ambushed
by savages, and six of the party, including the eldest
son of Daniel Boone, and Henry Russell, then only
seventeen years old, were slain. Heart-broken by
this disaster, the father abandoned all purpose of
emigrating to Kentucky, and remained on the Clinch
River, in what is now Russell County, Virginia.
THE HARRISON FAMILY. 19
•
There followed a time of constant and cruel Indian
warfare, and for much of his later life, Colonel Rus¬
sell led almost constantly the life of a soldier in the
field. He fought the Sbawnees in southwestern
Virginia, the Cherokees on the banks of the Ohio.
In 1776, he commanded a mounted regiment, and
was continually engaged with the savages on the
frontier. The Indian war still raged when the revo¬
lutionary struggle with England began. In that
contest Colonel Russell took active part with the
friends of liberty. He was commissioned a colonel
in the regular army, and fought in the battles of
Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth, was cap¬
tured at Charleston, exchanged, and took the field
again in season to witness the surrender of Cornwallis
at Yorktown.
The war ended, he was brevetted brigadier, and
retired on half pay. His first wife having died be¬
fore the beginning of the war, he married Mrs.
Elizabeth Henry Campbell, a sister of Patrick Henry.
With her he led, for the remainder of his life, a quiet
life at Aspenville, sitting for a time in the State
senate, honored throughout the community in which
his name was well known as that of a gallant soldier
and a loyal Virginian.
By his two marriages General Russell had many
children. Of these one only has pertinence to the
subject of this memoir, — the second son, born in
Culpeper County, Virginia, in 1758, and named after
his father, William. The boy grew to manhood in
20
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
rude and cruel times. It was the period in which
the ceaseless battle between the redskins and the
whites earned for Kentucky the gloomy name of
" the dark and bloody ground." The rifle was
wielded then by women and children, and we find
record of young William Bussell, at the age of six¬
teen, fighting against the savages, under the cap¬
taincy of Daniel Boone. From red foes of the
settlers he turned to the white enemies of growing
liberty, and entered the revolutionary army in
which his father already held a commission. "In
the memorable battle of King's Mountain," says
Collins, in his " History of Kentucky," " the most
decisive of the Revolution, young Russell bore a
distinguished part. He was a lieutenant in the
mounted regiment from Virginia, and, owing to the in¬
disposition of his captain, led his company in the
action. He was, it is believed, the first man to reach
the summit of the mountain, and among the fi^^t to
receive a sword from the vanquished enemy."
In the battles of Whitesell's Mills and Guilford
Court-house, also, Colonel Russell took active part,
and on the close of the Revolution, the Indians be¬
coming troublesome again, he led an expedition
against the Cherokees. Soon after peace was de¬
clared he went into Kentucky to look after his
father's lands, including the two-thousand-acre tract
received from the State in requital of Henry Russell's
services in Lord Dunmore's war. Pleased with the
situation and nature of this estate, he settled upon
THE HARRISON FAMILY.
21
it, gaining title to one half of it later by the will of
his father, under which the two thousand acres were
divided equally between the two sons, William and
Robert, with a bonus of £100 to the former " to buy
him a negro in lieu of negro Adam, who I once
intended for him."
On a high hill within his estate, near a large cave
whence flowed constantly a stream of pure spring-
water, William Russell built his house, and named it
" Mount Brilliant," after the Virginia homestead of
the Henry family. Here, in 1786, he entertained
Samuel Price, of Virginia, and his family, while that
gentleman was arranging for a permanent settlement
in the neighborhood. The host speedily fell in love
with his guest's comely eighteen-year-old daughter
Nancy, and they were married on Christmas day of
the same year. Though become a benedict. Colonel
Russell did not lay down his sword and rifle,
but served in Indian warfare under Gen. Charles
Scott and " Mad " Anthony Wayne. The War of
1812 again roused his patriotic ardor, and he was
given command of a regiment. He fought in the
battle of Tippecanoe, and soon after was given com¬
mand of the forces on the frontiers of Indiana, Illi¬
nois, and Missouri. After peace was restored, General
Russell served his State for many years in the
legislature.
Fifteen children came to bless the union of Wil¬
liam and Nancy Russell. It was the seventh child,
Caroline Evalind, bom June 16, 1797, who won the
22
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
heart of Carter Henry Harrison, of Elk Hill, to
whom she was married in 1822.
Such, then, was the stock from which sprung the
sturdy American who for so many years dominated
the great and cosmopolitan city of Chicago with his
robust personality and his commanding mind. On
the side of his father there stretched back to the
earliest days of the American people a line of ster¬
ling Virginia gentlemen of unblemished character.
On the side of his mother, a heritage of patriotism
tried in battle and proven by the sword, an ancestry
of soldiers reaching back, if one desired to trace it so
far, to the family which coming from Normandy to
England with William the Conqueror, gave to Britain
her Dukes of Bedford.
The father of Carter Harrison died too early to
have won that place in the community to which his
talents would have doubtless elevated him. But in
her early widowhood, the mother, in an isolated
house, in a primitive community, amid hard condi¬
tions of life, showed a wondrous self-reliance, a
strength of character and native ability to which her
son was ever indebted for the foundations upon
which was erected the structure of his glorious man¬
hood. How strenuously she toiled for him, how
jealously she guarded him from danger, how eagerly
she hailed his triumphs as they were won, we shall
see in the course of this narrative. The outspoken
love and gratitude he expressed for her at all times,
even up to within a few days of his death, was well
THE HARRISON FAMILY.
23
earned. The rhapsody of the following tribute to
the mother from the son's pen, seems, in the light of
her care and sacrifice for him, in no wise extreme :
" I close my eyes and go far back in years to the time
when, a tiny babe, I lay in a woman's lap. I look up into
dark brown eyes and upon a face full of female beauty. I
cannot speak. My infant tongue can form no word, but I
coo out in gentle murmurs, ' my beautiful mother.' A few
years roll by. I lie on a rug at a woman's feet on a warm
summer's day. A dove gently cooes on a tree close by ; a
cricket chirps on the summer's heath, and the old clock in
the corner goes tick-tuck, tick-tuck, tick-tuck. The woman
gently hums a sweet song as she fans my cheek ; I close
my eyes and dream. 1 dream of my beautiful mother.
Long years go by. I am past a half-century old. I am
pressed to a woman's heart. She is past three-score years
and eighteen. An ocean will soon divide mother and child.
Her eyes are yet soft and brown ; a flush of love is upon
her face as she blesses her son. I never saw her again.
But in my heart lives her image, the image of my beautiful
mother."
CHAPTER IL
caeter Harrison's boyhood.
In the rude log cabin on the crest of the Elk Hill,
near Lexington, the babe destined to lead a long life,
full of variety and public honor, and to die at last
by the hand of an ignoble assassin in the hour of his
greatest triumph, was born on the 15th of February,
1825. In later years Carter Henry Harrison — for
the child was given the name borne by two of his
ancestors before him — used to say that he was bom
in a cane-brake, and rocked to sleep in a sugar-
trough. The half-humorous reminiscence was liteiv
ally true, although the privations at which it hinted
were not due to the straitened circumstances of
his parents. The log cabin of his childhood was the
typical country residence of the time, and the sugar-
trough did duty for a cradle only until a visit to the
neighboring village made possible the purchase of a
more suitable resting-place for the welcome and
dearly beloved son.
The childhood of the boy was that of any country-
bred lad. His home was in the most beautiful sec¬
tion of Kentucky, — the region of blue grass, stately
groves, sparkling streams, and, in later days, noble
CARTER HARRISON'S BOYHOOD. 25
estates. The healthy out-door life he led as a child
built up his physique and made him at 68 a sturdy
pedestrian, a magnificent figure on horseback, and
a model of robust, active manhood. Sorrow and
bereavement came to him early in life, — too early
for him to comprehend their meaning. October 29,
1825, the elder Harrison died, little more than four
years after his marriage, and a few months only
after the birth of his child. But the teachings of the
mother filled the boy's mind with enduring love and
reverence for the father whom he had never known.
Writing in far-off Bombay on the night of his sixty-
third birthday, his mind wandered from the strange
oriental and half-barbaric scenes by which he was
surrounded to that simple Kentucky home, and he
set down this noble tribute to a father's love and a
mother's devotion : —
" Sixty-three years ago I came into this breathing life.
To the young this seems a long time, yet how quickly has
it sped ! How poor and meagre its results ! I open mem¬
ory's book and sadly turn back its leaves and read its
pages. I go a little farther back even than memory can
carry me, and read a page all fresh as if it had been just
written and I had known it all myself. It was fastened in
my brain by a mother's words. It is the picture of a virgin
forest on the other side of the globe. In the centre of the
forest tract is a small opening, a Kentucky cane-brake of
two or three acres. On one edge of this opening is an
Indian mound a few feet high, when and by whom built no
one can know. A noble tree grew upon its crown, and the
roots of a far older one were mouldering on its side. Here
had been a camping-ground of red men dead ages ago. I
26
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
see a field being cleared by belting the trees and burning
their dead trunks. A one-roomed log-house is built upon
the lower edge of the brake. There I was unexpectedly
born. A new-made trough, cut for the coming sugar sea¬
son, was my extemporized cradle. It was a rough house
for two young, refined, and educated people. But Western
energy and new-born hope filled their hearts.
" Pressed upon this page is another, printed ere the year
had taken its wintry leaf. The young father lies upon his
dying couch. His weeping wife holds before him their
baby boy. His blanching lips try to speak. She bends
down to catch his dying words. They are a message to his
child.
" I turn over a leaf. I see the saddest spot of all seen in
my early years, — the graveyard behind my grandfather's
orchard, all silent, deeply shaded, and solitary. This pic¬
ture is the earliest that lives in my own memory, graven
into the very heart's core. My mother is holding me, now
three years and three months old, by the hand. We stand
over a grave. Not a spear of grass nor a weed was green
upon it. For long years its mould was kept as fresh as if
it were newly made. Long we stood. Tears were running
down her pallid cheek ; a dove was cooing mournfully in a
tree close by ; crickets were chirruping in the warm May
noon. They seemed to make the very silence more silent.
My mother knelt upon the edge of the grave and prayed.
I remember but one sentence : ' Thou hast promised to be
a father to the fatherless and the widow's God.' When she
arose her eyes were dry, though her cheek was still wet.
She pointed to the silent grave and said : ' Your father lies
there, my child ; his last words were for you : " Tell our
child that an honest man is the noblest work of God.
Teach him not to tell a lie;" and then he died.' Oh,
mother in heaven ! that message has been given to me a
thousand times, — in angel whisperings, upon the briny
deep, upon the mountain's side, in the turmoil of angry
CÁRTER HARRISON'S BOYHOOD. 27
strife, in the silent watches of the night, in the loving
glances of your own dark, honest eyes, in the far-ofi land
where was our home and where your ashes lie. My father
left me lands, but those dying words watered by a mother's
tears, were a richer legacy than all the lauds. They have
checked erring steps a thousand times, and have taught me
to hold that ' there is no religion higher than truth.' "
The mother of Carter Harrison must have been a
woman of rare force of character and noble mind.
Left thus early a widow, alone in a log cabin sur¬
rounded by cane-brakes and the virgin forest, she
maintained herself nobly, educated her son, managed
so well the family estate that when he reached man¬
hood he found himself the possessor of an ample
patrimony, and watched ever lovingly and intelli¬
gently over the development of his mind and his
moral nature.
At his mother's knees the boy obtained the ele¬
ments of his education. She taught him to read, to
write, and to cipher, keeping him close by her until
he reiiched the age of fifteen years, when he was
sent to the school of Dr. Lewis Marshall, brother of
the famous chief-justice, and father of the Kentuckj'^
orator, Thomas Marshall. Lexington at this time
made pretensions to fame as an intellectual commu¬
nity. There was situated the Transylvania Univer¬
sity, an institution of learning which, despite the
pedantry of its title, contributed much to the diffu¬
sion of education in the West. The town had
produced a sculptor, Joel T. Hart, supported four
28
Cárter henry harrison.
newspapers, one religious weekly, and one medical
monthly, maintained an Athenaeum," and was one
of the score or more "Western cities which bore
proudly the title, " The Athens of the West." So¬
ciety in the town and the neighborhood was culti¬
vated and hospitable. The country was rich and
plentifully besprinkled with comfortable homes.
Though not one of the largest towns in the West,
Lexington was one of the most famous for its beauty,
and for the high character of its people.
As early as 1825 the town was of sufficient impoi>
tance to receive a visit from General Lafayette, dur¬
ing his triumphal progress through the country he
had helped to make an independent nation. Later,
Andrew Jackson paid visits to the old town, and
Henry Clay, once a student at the Transylvania
University, lived in the magnificent homestead of
Ashland, just without its limits. Such names as
Breckinridge, Marshall, Clay, and Humphreys were
borne by its leading citizens. Socially and politically,
Lexington stood for what was best in Kentucky.
The Harrison homestead was six miles from the
town, whither, the boy, after reaching the age of
fifteen, went daily to school. His hours of leisure
were spent in riding about the neighboring country,
hunting, and helping his mother in the management
of the estate. Near his own home at Clifton was the
estate of his maternal grandfather. Colonel Russell,
on which was a natural curiosity, the fame of which
attracted visitors from all the country round. Rus-
CARTER HARRISON'S BOYHOOD. 29
sell's Spring, as it was called, was a stream of pel¬
lucid, ice-cold water, issuing from a narrow, shallow,
and crooked cave. The cave itself had been traced
for a distance of over three-quarters of a mile, and
had further connection with distant " sink holes " on
the Bussell estate.
After two years under the tutelage of Mr. Marshall,
the circumstances of his family having by this time
become comfortable, Harrison was sent to Yale Col¬
lege, entering the class of 1845 at the beginning of
the sophomore year. In thus skipping the first year
of the college course, he always felt he made a mis¬
take ; " for," as he says in a sketch written for a col¬
lege annual, " I was ül prepared in Greek, and thus
being unable to win a high average, became careless
of college honors, and paid, probably, too much at¬
tention to general reading."
Few memorials remain of Carter Harrison's col¬
lege career. It was that of an average student;
neither notable for scholastic successes nor for serious
neglect of duty. Immediately upon entering Yale
he joined Calliope, a college debating society, and in
his senior year became a member of the celebrated
Scroll and Key Society. Some of his classmates,
writing after the lapse of forty-nine years, recall him
as " bright, genial, affable, and courteous, — a thor¬
ough gentleman. Tall, fine-looking, and striking in
appearance, he commanded respect and esteem, and
was able to pursue the even tenor of his way without
exciting envy or animosity. He had many friends
80
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
and no enemies or detractors." The physical charac¬
teristics of good looks and robust health which he
retained until his last day are vividly recalled by his
college associates, who write of him as active in out¬
door sports, — though athletics had not then taken
first rank as a collegiate science, — always glowing
with robust health, ready always for a day on the
Sound, in the saddle, or afoot on the high hills neigh¬
boring to New Haven. There is a touch in this
reminiscence of a classmate which later friends of
Harrison will recognize as characteristic : " It was
as a student of men and of the times that he was
conspicuous, and his observations on passing events
and the principles underlying them gave indications
that he was laying the foundation of a career des¬
tined to be distinguished."
The secretary of the Class of 1845, Mr. Oliver
Crane, says, in a letter to the biographer, —
" In college, Mr. Harrison was known as one of the most
genial mirth-awakeners in the Class. His presence was
always welcome in any Class-gathering and his innocent
sallies of wit were always sure to promote good feeling.
His vivacity never fiagged, while exuberance of spirit was
a marked characteristic, which, though sometimes exhibited
in a little pardonable flourish, was invariably taken in good
part, and even made him a favorite in the Class. As a
scholar his standing was good, though he seemed not to aim
at the highest honors, hut rather to be a well-balanced
student in all his studies. His classmates predicted for
him a successful career, because of the indomitable push
which he possessed."
CARTER HARRISON'S BOYHOOD. 31
Although these sketches of Carter Harrison as he
appeared in his college days were written after his
death, they possess in great part the quality of con¬
temporary memoranda, for, though the writers knew
of the eminence of his later career, few of them had
renewed personal acquaintance with him after gradu¬
ation. It may properly be noted here that the few
Yale alumni of the Class of 1845 who, being in
Chicago in the World's Fair, summer of 1893, sought
out their old classmate in the mayor's office were
greeted with a hearty good-fellowship almost boyish.
Graduating at the age of twenty Carter Harrison
returned to his home in Kentucky, and began the
study of the law at Transylvania University. He
reached Lexington at an exciting moment. The
memorable struggle for the presidency between Ken¬
tucky's idolized hero, Henry Clay, and James K.
Polk was just over, and the blue-grass country was
in mourning. Another Clay was now engaging the
attention of Lexington, — Cassius M. Clay, an ex-
student of Transylvania and a graduate of Yale.
Mr. Clay was an earnest advocate of the abolition of
slavery, preached his doctrines in the columns of a
paper, " The True American " which he edited, and
was always willing to support them with knife or pis¬
tol, — arguments which in that day and place enjoyed
a certain vogue and much respect. But neither Mr.
Clay's rhetoric nor his valor proved convincing to the
Lexingtonians, and in the summer of 1849 they pro¬
ceeded to box up the press and types of " The True
82
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
American *' and despatch them to Cincinnati, politely
presenting the unfortunate owner of the summarily
suppressed journal with the bill of lading with all
charges prepaid. That the young Harrison took any
part in this dire assault on the freedom of the press
is improbable. Though a slave-owner himself he
was never a believer in the "peculiar institution,"
and only four years after his graduation, was a del¬
egate— with Cassius M. Clay — to an anti-slavery
convention at Frankfort. The convention must have
been as far in advance of the spirit of the time as
was the editorial policy of " The True American," for
it accomplished nothing, and no record of its personnel
or its deliberations survives.
Carter Harrison did not immediately complete his
law course at Transylvania, but suspended it after
one year's study. In later years he ascribed his final
abandonment of the law to a dread of the ordeal of
public speaking,— a weakness which those familiar
with his later ease and self-confidence on the plat¬
form will be slow to credit. But his first abandon¬
ment of his legal studies was due to tenderness for
his widowed mother, for whom, throughout life, he
cherished ever the most beautiful filial love. He
recognized that to succeed in his profession he would
have to reside in town, and he dreaded the thought
of leaving his mother longer alone on the distant
farm. Accordingly, he laid down his law-books at
the end of the first term, and returned to the family
home at Clifton, to take up the life of the country
CARTER HARRISON'S BOYHOOD. 33
gentleman. That this life was much to his liking,
many incidents of his later career, and frequent refer¬
ences to it in his writings show. For years after
settling in Chicago, his avowed ambition was to
accumulate money enough to return to Kentucky,
repurchase his family estate, which had by that time
been sold, and resume the comfortable and leisurely
career of the Southern planter. The careful reader
of the book in which Carter Harrison recounted the
incidents of his tour around the world will be struck
by the keenness with which he observed agricultural
conditions prevailing in the various countries through
which he passed, and the comments by which the
traveller's familiarity with the methods of American
farming is demonstrated. And so, though there
remains no record of the daily life of Harrison in the
few years he spent at Lexington, it seems just to
conclude that he took active supervision of the Clif¬
ton estate, directed the slave-workers, and performed
all the duties of a gentleman-farmer. He travelled
much in his native country too, during this period,
visiting the early Virginian home of his family, and
making the long river-voyage from Louisville to New
Orleans. The great Northwest, which later he came
to know so well, did not then tempt him. That was
the era of Southern domination in wealth and all
that made life enjoyable.
In 1851, Mrs. Harrison married a neighboring
clergyman, who had been one of her earliest friends
and her sincerest adviser during her widowhood.
3
84
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
Rev. Thomas P. Dudley, who became the secoud
husband of Carter Harrison's mother, was a man
of remarkable qualities, which gained for him wide¬
spread fame in the middle West. A clergyman him¬
self, he was also the son of a clergyman. His
father, Ambrose Dudley, a giant in frame, in will,
and in intellect, was first pastor of the little Bap¬
tist church built at Bryan's Station, near Lexington,
in the days when Kentucky was earning the title
"the dark and bloody ground." Thomas Dudley
succeeded to the pastorate and held it for more than
sixty years. Churchman as he was, he did his part
with rifle and with sabre against both the Indians
and their allies, the British, in 1812. In the battle
of Raisin River, during that war, he was sorely
wounded, and escaped the fate of many of his com¬
rades, who were massacred by Indians, only by
chance, or, as he himself would doubtless say, by
the merciful interposition of Providence. For a
long time he was held captive by the savages.
Wounded as he was, he was forced to march through
the snow for nearly two hundred miles, without
surgical attention or even the rudest attempts to
alleviate his sufferings. On the way he saw his
closest associates brained by the savages' toma¬
hawks, and supposed himself reserved from death
only for torture. At last, at Niagara, he was
bought from the Indians by a British ofl&cer whom
he knew, and released. Nothing daunted, however,
by this experience, he took up arms again for his
CARTER HARRISON'S BOYHOOD. 85
country, and was in Jackson's line at the battle of
New Orleans, thus serving in the most southerly
and almost the most northerly of the battles of 1812.
After the war he remained for a brief time in com¬
mercial pursuits, which he relinquished at the death
of his father, to take the pastorate of the little
church at Bryan's Station. This duty, which he
fulfilled for more than sixty years, was for him
wholly a labor of love. Of independent, though
slender means himself, he never took from his
parishioners in return for his services more than
enough to pay for the keeping of his horse. Yet
his services to them were earnest and untiring, his
influence among them paramount, and as " Uncle
Tom" Dudley, his name was known in all the
counties of Kentucky and through a great part of
Tennessee as that of an earnest Christian, a valiant
soldier, a wise counsellor, and a good citizen.
Upon the marriage of his mother young Harri¬
son made his first voyage to Europe, spending two
years in travel through England and the continent.
A very full journal kept by the traveller and still
preserved in the family, gives the details of this
tour. Though it lacks the entertaining and even
brilliant qualities of Harrison's later book of travel,
" A Race With the Sun," it gives evidence that in
that early day its writer possessed those gifts of
observation, intrepidity, and honJiomie which would
have made him a great literary traveller had not
destiny willed it otherwise. Coming from an old
86
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
Kentucky family, he bore letters which opened to
him the doors of the best English society, and he
enjoyed to the fullest degree the hospitalities ten¬
dered him. But he appeared to find even more
pleasure in mingling with the masses, in sharing
the meals of the peasant and the factory hand. In
later days he told with some unction of having
dined in the kitchen of a nobleman, as the guest
of his housekeeper, and the incident is entirely
characteristic. While by no means devoid of that
lingering admiration for rank which comes to even
the best Americans as part of their British heritage,
he was without snobbishness which would make him
hold aloof from the untitled class. Doubtless dinner
in the state dining-room of the nobleman's mansion
would have been a function wholly to Harrison's
taste, and many such he enjoyed, but the entertain¬
ment in the servants' hall was accepted and par¬
taken of by him in the same simple hearty manner
in which it was proffered.
This first foreign tour of Harrison's extended
through the main-travelled roads of Europe, Egypt,
Syria, and Asia Minor. The latter countries he
visited with Bayard Taylor, who made of the trip
the material for his book " The Land of the Sara¬
cen." A younger man and less practised traveller
than Taylor, Harrison had a sharper eye for the
picturesque, and his journal, rough and unliteraiy
in style though it is, shows how admirable a story
of this expedition he might have written. In a
CARTER HARRISON'S BOYHOOD. 37
later chapter will be given copious extracts from
his "Race With the Sun," showing his literary
style at his best, and detailed description of his
early travels may well be omitted here. But one
incident of this European visit, though related in
the later book, well merits recountal in his own
words. He was in Paris at the time of the Third
Napoleon's coup â^état, and saw something of the
street scenes which attended that stroke of nine¬
teenth-century Csßsarism.
" My lack of confidence in Louis Napoleon was soon
justified," he writes. " The evening of December 1st was
calm, and the sunset sky sweetly rose-tinted. The house
in which I had apartments was on St. George's, near the
one in Rue Lafitte in which the president was born. It
was occupied by a large number of Italian patriots, refugees
from Rome. Prom one I was taking lessons in his soft
language. Early in the morning of the 2d, his tap came
upon my door. Pale and excited, he told me that the city
was in a state of siege, and that Cavaignac, Thiers, and
other republican leaders were arrested and sent off to Ham
and other fortresses. My blood boiled, and my tongue rat¬
tled off denunciations. 'Tais-toi, mon garçon,' he said.
* But I am not afraid, I am an American.' * C'est vrai,
mais nous sommes — nous autres — Romains, and your
words may be dangerous to us.' I swallowed my coffee
hurriedly and sallied forth. The boulevards close by were
crowded by excited people. Soon a line of mounted lancers
began to pour up the broad avenue. There were ten thou¬
sand of them. Close by my side on the curh-stone stood a
distinguished-looking lady. I asked her what were the
feelings of the Parisians now. With a shrug of the shoul¬
ders and a sweet smile, she answered : ' It is gratitude to
Monsieur le Prince for this magnificent spectacle.' Her
88
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
words were so cold-blooded that I angrily retorted, * C'est
impossible ! ' With sweet condescension she rejoined :
* Monsieur est Américain, n'est pas ? Je suis Parisienne ;
mais je connais les Parisiennes : attendez les dénouements.'
She was very beautiful, but for the moment I forgot my
admiration and disliked her.
" Events afterward showed that she was right, and that
my patriotic sympathies were all wasted. Rapidly the great
streets were filled with soldiers, and news came of barricades
in several localities. Afterwards, with a party of students,
I started to get near Porte St. Martin, where a strong bar¬
ricade was thrown up and fighting was going on. I stopped
in a boutique (shop) to write a postscript in a letter I was
about to post home. My friends got a little way ahead of
me, and the crowd was so great that I could not overtake
them. 1 got within sight of St. Martin, when an order
ran down the boulevard to open every upper window. Some
shots had come from behind closed blinds; and immedi¬
ately after, another order ran along the line of soldiers to
clear the streets. The crowd at first did not budge; a
rattle of musketry poured down towards us, and a cannon-
ball crashed into a bouitique window a few steps behind
me. Then there was a rush to get away. I was carried
along by the moving mass. Bits of plaster came down
upon my head from upper walls upon which musket-balls
were rattling. As Sam Weiler said, ' It was too exciting
to be pleasant.' I was glad to reach a cross street, into
which I plunged, and made a détour so as to reach a point
where I could cross the boulevard to get to my residence.
This I could not do until I reached the Madeleine, over a
mile off. The crowd rapidly vanished from the streets, as
if by magic. When I crossed Rue Vivienne, there was not
a person to be seen except the soldiers, two hundred or
three hundred yards off at the boulevard's intersection,
who at that moment poured a volley adown the street. I
thought I heard bullets whistling; when I had crossed
CARTER HARRISON'S BOYHOOD.
89
Vivienne I laughed at myself for imagining I had heard
bullets, for I then felt sure the volleys were of blank car¬
tridge. 1 afterwards found that the walls above the second
story at that point had been riddled with balls, and more
than probably some of them came while I was there. It
was almost impossible to remain in my room, so great was
the fever of excitement burning in me. At one time I was in
a pack at the mouth of Rue Lafitte when some firing was
heard up the boulevard ; we were ordered to disperse with
an 'allez-vous en!' We paid no attention to it. Then
came a stern 'Va-t'en!' We knew that meant business,
especially when a platoon of infantry was seen rapidly
approaching. I was open to the enemy. I ran, putting
my hands in front of me, and then drawing them back, as
if swimming. Each motion put two or three Frenchmen,
not so strong as I, behind me. I thus made a living breast¬
work to my rear, of probably a hundred, when the crash
of musketry was heard. There were screams. How many
were hit I did not hear, but I soon saw two men on shut¬
ters borne up the street.
"St. Martin's barricade fell and was captured, and at
dusk, with a little lady friend of our concierge, I went out to
reconnoitre. The public were permitted to cross the boule¬
vard only at Rue Montmartre. Mounted sentinels were
moving back and forth, while the mass of cavalry were
bivouacked in the centre of the broad avenue. We had
crossed, and were stooping down to examine what we took
to be blood in the gutter. All at once I felt something
cold touch my cheek. I looked up ; the barrel of a horse-
pistol was within two inches of my nose, and the mounted
owner ordered us on. I need not say that we obeyed with
exceeding alacrity. I said some things at that time bor¬
dering on the tragic. My friends who got lost from me on
the way to St. Martin were unable to reach a cross street
when the firing commenced. Chaupan of New Orleans
went through a hole in a boutique shutter, made by a
40
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
cannon-ball, and hid himself in the deserted house. Jones,
of Kentucky, got into a shop with a crowd ; soldiers rushed
in and gave him a sahre cut in his hand. Metcalffe, of
Mississippi, finding the bullets were whistling dangerously,
dropped with face down to the ground close to the house-
walls and lay still. Soldiers in file passed along ; one gave
him a kick, saying : ' C'est fait pour lui ' (He is done for).
Poor Orrick played Falstaff, hut dreading the while lest
they might put in a finishing touch. All were more or less
greatly endangered. Ap Cateshy Jones had a leg broken
in two places below the knee, and was for months in a criti¬
cal condition. One of my Italian friends appeared no more
in our house, and his companions were sad and silent.
Some gay young ladies lamented the places lately filled by
student friends (French) in a boarding-house I sometimes
frequented in the Latin quarter. The bulletins set down
the killed at a dozen or so. I knew of nearly that many
myself. I talked the other day with an old soldier ; he
said there were one thousand killed, most of them idle
spectators."
Returning to the United States in 1853, Carter
Harrison at first determined to take up again the
placid patriarchal life on the Clifton estate. But
two years of European travel had greatly changed
his tastes. Neither the duties nor the pleasures of a
planter were congenial to him longer. He had
tasted the sweets of town life while abroad, and
though the new country in which his lot was cast
had neither a London, a Paris, or a Berlin to attract
him, he determined to fit himself for urban life, and
to make his home and habitation in one of the grow¬
ing cities of the great West. To this end he took
up again his interrupted law studies, — the filial rea-
CARTER HARRISON'S BOYHOOD. 41
sons which had led to their temporary interruption
no longer existing, — and graduated from the law
school of Transylvania University in the spring of
1855. The same year he married Miss Sophonisba
Preston, of Henderson, Kentucky, a descendant of
one of the most famous of Southern families, and
immediately upon his wedding set out to seek a new
home and a new career.
CHAPTER III.
seeking a cabeeb.
The wedding journey took the young couple into
lands to them both new and strange. It was at once
a bridal tour and a prospecting expedition ; for the
mind of the young Kentuckian was fixed on desert¬
ing his farm for the more stirring activities of a
Northern city. If he had ambitions other than to
secure a competence and with it return to lead the
life of a Kentucky gentleman-farmer, he did not at
this time express them. Some instinct, the reason
for which he would probably have been unable to
give, told him that the prizes lay to the northward.
It is a familiar phenomenon that the course of emi¬
gration proceeds along the parallels of latitude. Ken¬
tucky was settled by immigration from Virginia;
Missouri, in turn, obtained the overflow population
of Kentucky. But chance, or superior judgment, led
Carter Harrison to break over this law and turn his
steps to the northward, although, as we shall see by
his own writing, he narrowly escaped casting his lot
with the metropolis of Missouri.
The first stage of the wedding journey took the
young couple to St. Louis. Here they found rela-
SEEKING A CAREER.
43
lives and a host of friends, and were welcomed to
the gay society of what was then the principal city
of the West, and a town in which the vivacity and
brilliancy of its early French founders still persisted.
The city made a decided impression on Harrison. " I
am exceedingly pleased with St. Louis," he wrote to
a Kentucky relative ; " it is more like a European
city than any, except New York and New Orleans,
which I ever visited in the United States. Its amuse¬
ments, its shops, and the people promenading of
evenings and looking in the shop windows are quite
foreign."
So much was he taken with the city that he
thought of ending his tour of investigation and dis¬
covery there, although he had planned to go to St.
Paul and thence to Chicago. " I would not be at all
surprised if I should yet locate here," he continues ;
" for it pleases me more than any town I know, and
I do not much fancy living in a free State, For this
I should be compelled to make a wholesale disposal
of my negroes at public sale, and to sell a man is to
me one of the most disagreeable things I could pos¬
sibly do. I sold one of my men a day or two before
I left home. I got $1,020 for him, payable Christ¬
mas, equal to $975 cash. If times should get some¬
what better such a hand would bring $1100 or
$1200."
Brief statement of Harrison's views on the question
of slavery is pertinent here. Though his ancestors,
from their earliest appearance in America, were slave-
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
owners, and he himself had been reared in a slave-
holding community by slave-owning parents, he had
never any sympathy with the " peculiar institution."
Reference has already been made to his participation
in the Frankfort anti-slavery convention. His posi¬
tion was not that of the Northern Abolitionists, but
in accordance with the views of the very considera¬
ble body of thoughtful men in the South, who de¬
plored the existence of slavery, but held that it could
not be in justice abolished without some remunera¬
tion to the slaveholder for his loss.
Leaving St. Louis, the young couple turned towards
Chicago. On the way they stopped for a time at
Galena, then a thriving and bustling town. It is
matter of tradition in the family that both were so
charmed with the beauty and the life of the ambitious
mining community that full determination to settle
there had been formed. But little things settle the
destinies of men and nations. The Galena mosquito
is, or was then, a pest of peculiar pertinacity and
virulence. His persecutions were so effective on the
first night of the travellers' stay that all the social
and commercial advantages of Galena were forgotten,
and they took their departure in haste.
Chicago, when the Harrisons reached it, gave but
faint promise of its future greatness. A recent State
census gave it a population of 80,023 ; the public
revenue from taxation amounted to $206,209. In
the year when untimely death struck down Mayor
Harrison, he administered a city treasury containing
SEEKING A CAREER.
45
over $15,000,000. In area the town was ambitious ;
Thirty-first Street, "Western Avenue, and Fullerton
Avenue being its extreme boundaries. But the spa¬
cious territory thus included within the city limits
was only very sparsely settled.
Chicago was not at that time so finished a city as
St. Louis. Though there was little disparity in pop¬
ulation, the Mississippi River town had the advantage
of long years of existence and civic improvements
over the city by the lake. Successive raising of the
grade had not yet artificially elevated Chicago streets
above the swamp which the almost indecipherable
laws of commerce had made the site of a great city.
An air of newness was over everything. There were
no such old mansions betokening long-time repose
and cultivation as the travellers had been accustomed
to in Kentucky and had found again in St. Louis.
Everything outside the business quarter was frame.
The odor of pine lumber was in the air and the curse
of the clapboard was on the architecture. It is
known that the young couple were far from being
pleased with the city. Two or three days' stay de¬
termined them to continue their travels and make a
lake voyage to West Superior, with an overland trip
thence to St. Paul, and from there down the river to
St. Louis again. But here that eminently active
factor in the upbuilding of Chicago, the astute real-
estate agent, intervened, and Carter Harrison was
riveted to the city, which afterwards so greatly hon¬
ored him, by a heavy investment in eligible property.
46
CÁRTER HENRY HARRISON.
The site of the purchase was the southwest comer
of Clark and Harrison streets, a neighborhood then
eminently respectable and even, as the real-estate
agent would put it, " gilt-edged." That this was the
nature of the locality then is further indicated by
the fact that not long after the purchase Mr. Harri¬
son improved his property by building there a brick
edifice which was maintained as a fashionable family
hotel in which he and his wife lived for some time.
The building is still standing (1894), and is part of
the Harrison estate, but residents of Chicago will
not need to be told how greatly the character of the
neighborhood has changed.
Soon after buying this property and determining
to settle in Chicago — not permanently, but, as he
expressed it, " for a few years until I can make
grease enough to grease my own and my children's
wheels for all time to come " — Carter Harrison
returned to Lexington and closed out his estate
there, including the negroes he was so loath to sell.
He had embarked upon the stormy waters of real
estate speculation in Chicago, and needed his entire
patrimony in available form. " I bought two par¬
cels of land last spring," he wrote to a friend at
this time, " one valuable immediately, the other in
prospect. To build I shall have to go in debt quite
largely, — that is, I purchased on time, and will
invest in improvements what is due on the land in
three, four, and five years. But then if things keep
up here as now, my rents each year will pay up my
notes."
SEEKING A CAREER.
47
Like most investors in new and " booming "
towns, Harrison was over-sanguine. Things did
not keep up. The panic of 1858, bitterly remem¬
bered in Chicago, was even then ripening, and when
it came the notes which he had out gave the enthu¬
siastic investor no small anxiety. But he weathered
the storm then, and in this fall of 1856, with not
a cloud yet visible, he was loud in his prophecies of
great things for Chicago.
" This town is wonderful," he wrote. " Its
growth is almost beyond belief. In 1840 it had
four thousand five hundred people, in 1850 less than
fifty thousand, and now over eighty thousand. Men
who five years ago invested their all, four or five thou¬
sand dollars, are now worth two or three hundred
thousand. Where I now sit, ground is worth six
hundred dollars a foot, and five years ago I suspect
it could have been bought for forty or fifty dollars.
There are more noble marble-front buildings here
than in St. Louis, and more under way than are in
Louisville. I hardly know what the thing is to be.
I would not be at all astonished if in ten years there
should be five hundred thousand inhabitants. One
train brought in to-day, sixteen carloads of passen¬
gers, and fourteen railroads pour in here their pas¬
sengers and produce. Over one hundred trains a
day come here, sometimes forty to sixty vessels.
Over two thousand houses have been built this year.
Most of them, it is true, are of wood, but that is
because there is such a demand that men can put
48
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
up a house for two or three years, pay for it, and
build a more substantial one. The last six days
over six hundred thousand bushels of grain were
brought here."
It reads like an extract from a board-of-trade
prospectus intended to invite settlers, but certainly
the wonderful city which grew up on the shores of
Lake Michigan has fully justified all this enthusiasm.
And the writer had the courage of his convictions
in the fullest degree, for he eagerly invested all that
he had in Chicago realty, and went heavily into
debt for more. The history of early real-estate
speculations in a city of such rapid growth is always
interesting. Another quotation from a letter of
1856 may not be out of place : —
" I am about to purchase another piece (of land) about
three miles from the centre of the city, but just in the
suburbs, and the seller lets me have fifty-five acres of good
land adjoining it, simply for fencing and paying taxes for
six or seven years. On this I think I can make a very
handsome thing by gardening on a large scale. As soon
as I have got things into proper gearing, I shall open my
office and do the best I can for my clients, if I should ever
have any. On the five acres I shall build ; and my wife
may amuse herself raising flowers and bramah chickens."
The office, however, was never opened, — at least
as a law office. The activities of buying and selling
real estate engaged Mr. Harrison's attention until
his political labors began to occupy his full time.
In later years he used to say that he abandoned
law because public speaking was agony to him,—
SEEKING A CAREER.
49
that he could never address a court without painful
trepidation. In some measure this was probably
true, but allowance must be made for the humorous
exaggeration which was so characteristic a feature
of his conversation. It is certain that as early as
1856 he appeared before a public assemblage in
Chicago, and made a speech which one of his audi¬
tors describes as very pretty and effective.
This speech marks the first political activity of
Carter H. Harrison. There are two odd features
about it. It was delivered in support of a cause
hostile to all the principles which in later and riper
years he upheld, and after its delivery, he made no
further appearance in politics for nearly fifteen years.
It will be remembered that in the presidential elec¬
tion of 1856, three candidates were in the field, —
Buchanan, Democrat, Fremont, Republican, and Mil¬
lard Fillmore, the nominee of the American, or as it
was more generally termed, the Know Nothing party.
The American party numbered among its members
numbers of Southern Whigs, loyal and loving disci¬
ples of Henry Clay, who, when the Whig party
disappeared from politics, could not ally themselves
with the Democrats, the enemies of their idol, nor
join the new Republican party, which they denounced
as sectional. Carter Harrison was in 1856 one of
these Whigs without a party. Indeed, up to the
time of his death, he professed himself a Henry Clay
Whig, and clung to that policy of moderate protec¬
tion to American industries preached by the great
4
60
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
commoner. There were many young Kentuckians
of Harrison's belief in Chicago, and, being with a
number of them one night at a Fillmore meeting, he
was called on for a speech, and delivered what was
his first political address, and his last for fifteen years.
The disastrous failure of the American party is a
matter of history. It carried but one State, Mary¬
land, in that campaign, and never put out another
national ticket.
It is not likely, however, that the failure of his
ticket brought any sorrow to Harrison. His political
interest at that time was only incidental. Heal
estate was his pursuit and his passion. Early in
1857, he, with H. H. Honore, his principal associate
in all his investments at that time, and one or two
others bought forty acres of land extending from
Madison to Harrison, and from Ashland Avenue west
and platted it as Ashland addition. It was then
what might be termed eligible suburban property.
The partners in the speculation took the first step
toward making their property merchantable by build¬
ing homes for themselves on it. Honore built the
large, square mansion on the block between Jackson
and Van Buren streets which afterwards passed into
the ownership of Harrison and was for years widely
known as the latter's home. Harrison, for his part,
built a few blocks west. But for a time the pros¬
pects of success in this speculation were very dubious.
When all seemed most prosperous, the clouds were
gathering from which the financial storm of 1857
SEEKING A CAREER.
61
was to burst. The disaster of that year will not soon
be forgotten. Banks failed, great commission firms
went to the wall, the great food staples which created
the bulk of the city's business went lower and lower
in price. For lack of shipments, the railroads and
the vessel interests languished. Idle men congre¬
gated on the street corners, or haunted the business
district seeking for work. Money was scarce, collec¬
tions slow. On the one hand, creditors pressed for
payment, on the other, debtors sought to evade set¬
tlements. It was one of those periods of commercial
distress which seem to recur at almost stated intervals.
In this panic Carter Harrison suffered with the
others. The real estate which he had bought on
credit became unsalable, and the notes he had given
for deferred payments fell due when no money was
to be had for their payment. His associates were in
the same plight. The heaviest creditor of the little
coterie of investors was William B. Ogden, from
whom the Ashland addition had been bought. It
was the delicate duty of young Harrison, as notes
from time to time fell due, to wait upon the creditor
and arrange for their renewal, — a task which called
for all his resources of diplomacy, good-fellowship,
and firmness. The investors succeeded in keeping
their property, but for two or three years Mr. Harri¬
son was constantly pinched for money. He felt
and talked poor, as, indeed did most Chicagoans at
that time. The gay and prosperous colony of Ken-
tuckians who had eagerly received him when he came.
52
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
bearing a good name, strong introductions, and a
comfortably filled pocket, began to show signs of dis¬
tress. For himself, his burden was increased by the
failure of his wife's health, which made her pro¬
tracted absence at her mother's home in Henderson,
Kentucky, necessary. The apparently fatal check to
the prosperity of Chicago, and to his own fortunes,
plunged him into perplexity and gloom. For a time
he seriously considered disposing of his property at
such prices as were obtainable, and returning to Ken¬
tucky to live. The commercial depression setting in
in 1857, continued with but little alleviation for
three years. In 1859, we find him writing to a
friend at Lexington : —
" I got here a few days since. Came from Lexington,
where I had been staying for a month. My wife and little
girl are still there. I had hoped to be able to go to Fayette
this season and look about me preparatory to buying back
my old place or some other one. But my trip here in May
convinced me it would yet be a good while before I could
carry out my wishes. The mass of my means here consists
in bonds and mortgages, — all pretty well secured, but col¬
lections are as yet utterly impracticable, times hard, and it
will require a crop or two to put things right. I have to
wait upon everybody, and in some instances will have to
take back the property sold. As I had on selling taken
other property, or other secured notes as cash payments,
this will give me a great deal of property here, but it will
be a good while before I can sell out again. I yet have
payments to make, so that I will be pretty hard up for a
year or two. This year ought to have put me out of doubt
and left me with a pretty estate and been able to live like
a gentleman ; as it is, I shall have to watch and work, and
be hard up for one or two more years."
r--^<71 7y (-fy,-/" rc'Tf-'/'ù.
^yt .^/
SEEKING A CAREER.
53
Never was there a more striking illustration of
that
" divinity that shapes our ends,
Bough hew them how we will,"
than the temporary turn in the tide of fortune
which balked Carter Harrison of his desire to return
to Kentucky, there to lead the inconspicuous, aim¬
less life of a country gentleman. When prosperity
came again, the development of ambitions which,
if not wholly new, were hitherto almost unexpressed,
bound him to Chicago. We say that the ambition
which in later years dominated him may have pos¬
sessed him in youth, though he then gave no sign
of striving for its gratification. In the letter of
such a de prof unáis tone already quoted he wrote : —
" I am shorn of many of my bright hopes, but still have
to repress the desires and aspirations, the feelings and
longings of sixteen. Time has not taken these from me,
but has convinced me of their hopelessness. It is hard to
acknowledge we would when we know we carCt. To look
aloft at the bright pinnacles we yet admire and once hoped
to clamber to, and know the ladder is taken from before
us, and feel we have unfitted our feet for the rugged as¬
cent, — and yet still be unable to keep our yearning eyes
from looking upward.*'
Whatever may have been the ambition thus
secretly cherished, whether it was for the political
success so fully attained in later years, for literary
triumphs, or for the acquisition of great wealth,
the business and domestic troubles of the next ten
years left him no opportunity to seek its gratifica-
54
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
tion. If he took part in the exciting presidential
canvass which ushered in the Civil War, his share
was so very inconspicuous that no record remains
of it. It is probable that the conflicting sentiments
due to his Kentucky birth and Virginia lineage,
his Northern residence and his antagonism to slavery,
made him withdraw silently from the political activi¬
ties of the time as they impelled him to avoid any
participation in the actual hostilities of which he
disapproved. During the decade 1860-1870, he was
but a private citizen, busily engaged in repairing
his impaired fortunes, devoting himself to family
cares, called on to mourn the deaths of five infant
children, making hosts of friends whose attachment
in later days stood him in good stead, — in short, an
inconspicuous resident of Chicago, in comfortable
circumstances and with good social connections,
but without particular eminence or apparent public
ambition.
CHAPTER IV.
entrance upon public life.
It was characteristic of Carter Harrison that his
first serious appearance in politics should be as a can¬
didate on a non-partisan ticket, put forward by the
business men of Chicago, in a time of great calamity,
when the best efforts of men of integrity and ability
were needed in the conduct of public affairs. In
1870 he had been a candidate for a seat in the lower
house of the State legislature, but this candidacy
was a diversion rather than a serious political effort.
In the fall of 1871 Chicago was swept by the two
disastrous conflagrations, the first of which would be
historical if it had not been dwarfed into compara¬
tive insignificance by the second. Mr. Harrison's
own loss by the disaster was trivial. His property
at the corner of Harrison and Clark streets proved
the turning-point of the flames. It is a singular
coincidence that in the great conflagration of 1874,
the flames were again checked when only the open
street separated them from Mr. Harrison's property.
His office, which was in a building further down
town, went in the flames which swept over the busi¬
ness district, and he, like hosts of other Chicago busi-
66
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
ness men, sufiered some loss and an immense amount
of annoyance by the destruction of his personal
papers.
The marvellous buoyancy with which Chicago rose
from the depths of disaster is familiar to the whole
world. While the ruins were still smoking, and the
ground still hot, her men of affairs were making
plans for rebuilding their fortunes and recreating the
city. The sound of the mason's trowel and the car¬
penter's hammer was heard before the hum of the
fire-engines had died away. The parched and ghastly
expanse of ruins which marked the spot where once
had stood a prosperous city was attacked by an
army of workmen. First, shanties appeared, then
solid business-blocks arose, more stately than those
whose places they took. There was unprecedented
demand for labor, and skilled workmen flocked
thither. Public works had to be undertaken, the
débris carted away, streets repaired or repaved, a
new city hall and county building to be erected.
There was unprecedented demand for labor of every
kind, and for those unable to labor or hopelessly depen¬
dent there was generous and sufficient public aid to
be disbursed from the enormous stores of food and
clothing poured into Chicago by the spontaneous
awakening of the world's sympathy and benevolence.
There was need, at such a moment, of public offi¬
cers of more than ordinary capacity and devotion.
The problems which confronted the city government
were such as no municipality ever before had to
ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC LIFE. 67
meet. A sudden demand for enormous expenditures
came just when a vast amount of taxable property
had been swept away, and when the citizens were
almost all sadly impoverished. The problem of po¬
licing a city of ruins to which had been attracted the
hordes of harpies that always attend upon disaster,
was a serious one. Proper public supervision of the
distribution of the relief funds was essential. The
city and county records were destroyed, and a fearful
insecurity hung about titles to land and the descrip¬
tion of property. In the matter of collecting public
revenue all was chaos ; the assessment rolls had per¬
ished, and with them a good share of the property
assessed; tax receipts were gone, and the books in
which their issuance was recorded. There was nei¬
ther a jail for the detention of prisoners, a court-house,
nor police station. Everything was swept away.
At that period the city elections in Chicago, which
now are held in April, came in November, con¬
currently with the election of county officials ; so
the people of Chicago had scarcely recovered from
the first shock of the calamity in September, when
they found themselves confronted with the necessity
of electing entirely new officials for the city and
county government. In the presence of such a crush¬
ing disaster, it was natural that party spirit should
be thrust aside, and a non-partisan ticket composed
of men of high standing and universal acceptability,
elected. This course was strenuously urged by the
newspapers of the city, which had speedily recovered
58
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
from the fiery visitation, and bent their- energies to
the work of upbuilding the town again. It was
received with very general approval, although not
with that unanimous acquiescence which it would
appear so obvious a course would meet. Even in the
presence of such a misfortune as the Chicago fire, the
professional politician could not forget his profession,
and the citizens' ticket encountered his resistance
from its suggestion to the moment of its victory.
The union ticket — or the " fireproof ticket," as it
speedily came to be called — was put in nomination
by the central committees of the two political parties,
who first agreed together as to the division of the
offices between Democrats and Republicans, and then
each for its own party chose the nominees. The
ticket was headed by Joseph Medill, the distinguished
editor of the "Chicago Tribune," as mayor. It
included among the city and county officials many
men whose names have since become identified with
all that is best and brightest in Chicago's history.
In the work of the convention Carter Harrison took
an active part, warmly advocating the nomination of
Mr. Medill, and personally soliciting that gentleman
to accept the trust. It does not appear, either from
the printed records or the recollections of his con¬
temporaries, that Mr. Harrison sought for himself the
office to which he was nominated, — that of county
commissioner. He had, up to this time, shown little
of the aptitude for politics and nothing of that pas¬
sion for public life which in later years became his
ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC LIFE. 69
most notable characteristics. He had dabbled a little
in the politics of bis ward, had sat as a delegate in a
judicial convention, had been a candidate for the
State legislature, and had come to be known as a
Democrat who might be relied upon for the service of
his party. It was as a business man rather than as
a politician that he was given place on the " fire¬
proof *' ticket.
The campaign that followed was bitter, — rather
more so than the strength of the opposition necessi¬
tated. For there were opposition tickets. The polit¬
ical fervor of an American city could not rest content
with a single ticket in the field, however admirable
its personnel. Irreconcilable members of each of the
regular parties held conventions and put tickets in
nomination. These discordant elements were vigor¬
ously, if not elegantly, described by the press which
supported the " fireproof " ticket, as " soreheads,"
"scalawags," and "bummers." Nero did not more
gleefully fiddle over burning Rome than did the poli¬
ticians bandy epithets over burned Chicago.
Carter Harrison was active in the work of the
campaign, being on the campaign committee. He
had by this time acquired a considerable reputation
for ready speaking, founded largely on a speech in a
judicial convention of 1870, which first gave him a
name and place in Chicago politics. This speech
possessed two of the more notable characteristics of
his later manner, — audacity and humor. The con¬
vention which was to nominate a circuit judge had
60
CÁRTER HENRY HARRISON.
been very vigorously opposed by the "Chicago
Times,'* a paper in later years the property of Mr.
Harrison. It was about to be " stampeded " by the
friends of Lambert Tree, one of the candidates, when
Harrison leaped to his feet and captured the instant
attention of the delegates by his first words.
" This is a convention of disorganizers ! This is a
convention of revolutionists ! This is a convention
of bummers and scalawags !" he said ; and then after
waiting for a storm of hoots and hisses to subside,
proceeded calmly : —
"Such is the language of the 'Chicago Times,'
which has prevented the Central committee from
calling a convention in the interest of Mr. Tree ; and
yet this convention is about to stultify itself and
nominate the very man who, by himself or his
friends, so stigmatizes it. If Mr. Tree, or some one
authorized to speak for him, will agree to abide by
the action of this convention, I can promise him
three votes out of the four from my ward. If no
guarantee be given, then this convention would
stultify and disgrace itself by nominating him."
The effect of the speech was electrical. The con¬
vention sat silent, waiting for Tree or his represen¬
tatives to respond ; but no answer came, and in a
moment Harrison offered the name of John G. Rogers
as a candidate, and his nomination was made in the
first ballot. In such happy strokes of audacity, Har¬
rison excelled, and his reputation as an engaging off¬
hand political speaker was enhanced by the few
ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC LIFE. 61
speeches he made in support of the " fireproof " ticket.
Of the success of that ticket, there was never any
doubt, and its election by a majority exceeding ten
thousand was only the realization of a foregone con¬
clusion. Harrison's own majority was 10,674.
December 4, 1871, one month after the election,
the new board of county commissioners entered upon
the duties of office. In the drawing of lots for terms
of office, Harrison drew the longest term, — three
years. He was assigned to the committees on
finance, towns and town accounts, and education,
the first two calling into play his admitted business
sagacity. There was need for all the business ability
in the board to meet the emergency of the time. In
all the most important work of the board, Harrison
took active part. He was chairman of the committee
which arranged for county offices with the city in
the old " rookery " at the corner of Adams and La
Salle streets,—a structure which in later years became
something like a feudal castle for his tenancy. He
served on the committee which aided in the super¬
vision of the distribution of relief funds. His clear¬
headed sense of right and propriety enabled him to
make a notable record during his three years' incum¬
bency of an office which involved an immense amount
of hard routine work, and conferred in return no
particular glory. He was one of three who voted
against raising the pay of commissioners, and when
his salary for three years' service was finally paid,
he handed the entire amount to the officers of the
62
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
Foundlings' Home. By his own efforts he succeeded
in shelving a resolution passed by the commissioners
asking Congress to refund the money paid out by
Cook County as bounties to enlisted men during war
times. His service while on the county board was,
in short, of such a character, that, when he aspired to
another and a higher office, newspapers which were
normally opposed to his school of political belief,
referred to his public record in the most complimen¬
tary terms.
In the fall of 1872 Harrison was nominated for
Congress by the Liberal Democrats, or " Greeleyites,"
of his district, the then second district, which in¬
cluded the greater part of the West Side. His oppo¬
nent was Jasper D. Ward, an active Republican
politician of the day. The campaign was spirited,
the congressional nominees sharing in the popular
excitement created by the presidential issue. Party
lines were sadly torn. The " Chicago Tribune " de¬
serted the Republican ticket, not only giving its
support to Greeley, but to the Liberal Democratic con¬
gressional candidates as well. The " Times," for its
part, broke away from Greeley and threw its influ¬
ence on the side of the hopeless ticket of O'Conor
and Adams, nominated by a Democratic convention
at Louisville. In ordinary years the congressional
district in which Harrison had been nominated was
heavily Republican, and the serious dissension in the
Democratic ranks gave him little hope of overcoming
the normal adverse majority. Nevertheless, he made
ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC LIFE. 63
a spirited campaign, speaking night after night on
the issues of the day. Though the newspaper re¬
ports of the time show that he already enjoyed
something of that great personal popularity for
which in later days he was famous, the whole cur¬
rent of public sentiment was against his ticket, and
election day ended with Ward winner by 3,309 votes.
There followed two years of routine service in the
county board and in private business. They were
years of great prosperity for Chicago, and Harrison
soon found his affairs in such comfortable condition
that he granted himself the luxury of a holiday, and
in the spring of 1874 went abroad. His wife, with
her three children, was then in Germany, having gone
thither a year earlier for her health. The death in
infancy of six out of nine of her children had greatly
preyed upon her mind and impaired her health, and
by the advice of her physician she was sent abroad.
After a few months travel in Germany, Austria, and
Switzerland, Harrison returned home and found the
people of his district preparing to nominate him
again for Congress.
The nomination was made October 6, 1874, in the
convention of what was then called the People's
party, but which was in effect the regular Democratic
organization. Two other competitors appeared seek¬
ing the nomination, — Messrs. W. J. Onahan and S. S.
Gardner; but on the first ballot Harrison was chosen.
The campaign was hotly contested, Mr. Harrison
having for his opponent the same gentleman who
64
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
had succeeded in defeating him two years earlier,
Mr. Jasper D. Ward. A speech made by Harrison
on the night of his nomination sets forth the issues
of the campaign, and some extracts from it may be
interesting to-day: —
" I am deeply grateful to you for the high compliment
you have this day paid me, in choosing my name to be
placed at the head of the ticket of the opposition party in
the Second Congressional District of Illinois. This is an
honor that would be grateful to me under any circum¬
stances, but it is doubly grateful when I know that it has
come to me wholly and entirely unsolicited. When I re¬
turned from a lengthened trip abroad with my family last
month, I was not aware that my name had been mentioned
in connection with this oflice during my absence. Going
abroad for recreation and rest, I not only did not take
the Chicago papers, but I did not even have my agent
write to me on my own private affairs, I wanted rest, and
therefore, gentlemen, when I came baqk I came back in
total ignorance that I would probably be a candidate.
When approached by my friends, I took the position at first
that I could not go before the people. I had determined
that I would never again be a candidate ; not but that I
am, as Mr. Caulfield said, one of those who believe that in
a republican government every man owes a part of his ser¬
vices to his people when they demand it. And as such,
when the people demanded it, I was compelled to consent.
I therefore asserted that if I should be nominated by an
untrammelled and unpledged convention, I would not have
the courage to say nay.
" Gentlemen, a few days ago — the week before last —
being called to Kentucky to the sick bed of my old mother,
now fast verging upon her octogenarian years, and knowing
that an illness at such great age might prove fatal, and that
I should not be able to return, I felt it my duty to my
ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC LIFE. 65
friends to notify some of them that I could not stand before
you as a candidate. But, thanks to Providence, and to a
strong constitution, I was enabled to see my mother better.
I returned here four days since, and I found that my name
was still used. I again said to my friends, ' If you nomi¬
nate me, I will accept.' You have nominated me, gentle¬
men, and I accept the position and will do my best to
secure success at the polls. If our end shall be attained,
and I shall be sent to the Halls of Representatives in the
American Congress I feel that if any fault is ever com¬
mitted by me, I know it will be a fault of the head and not
of the heart. I shall go to Congress living upon the adage,
the motto, the resolution that I have long since made with
myself, that in any position of public trust, any position of
private trust, any position of trust at all, I would never
think of my own interests, when the interests of those I
was called to serve were in conflict before me. I would
have no axes to grind for myself ; I am a servant of the
people, and as a servant of the people I will do nothing for
my own interests ; I will do all I can for yours.
" Gentlemen, so much of a personal character in this
little speech of mine of acceptance. I shall hope that from
now to the day of election, I will not have to say one word
that appears egotistical. But I wish to say a few words,
and only a few words, on the contest and the principles of
the opposition party. I will not detain you by a lengthened
address. My own ideas — my own views — agree largely
with those of Mr. Caulfield ; much of what he has said may
be taken as an expression of my own views. But we are
told that the opposition party has no principles. They say
— Mr. Farwell said in an interview the other day — that in
New York we were for hard money ; in Ohio, we were for
greenbacks ; in Indiana, for neither one nor the other, and
the Lord only knew what we were for in Illinois. Gentle¬
men, there is not a word of truth in it. We have the
grandest principles that a people ever had when it was
5
66
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
endeavoring to throw off misrule and corruption. The
same principles that actuated our forefathers, when thej
severed the bonds that bound them to Old England, are the
principles of the opposition party. That was the resolution
to have ourselves governed for the people's good, and not
have ourselves governed for the governor's good. That is
the great principle of our party. We may differ in our
views ; and the very difference is an evidence of the ear¬
nestness of the people to-day. We came together all over
the United States, from the hill-tops, the mountain-sides,
from the valleys and plains, with the determination as an
opposition party to clean out the speculators and money¬
changers that have gone into the inner sanctum of our
political temple. We intend to clean them out, and then
we will see how best we may govern afterward. Had the
old revolutionary fathers stopped to consider how they
would make a new government, what would have become
of them ? Part were for a republic, part for a monarchy ;
the larger part for still living under English rule ; but they
said, ' We were oppressed, we will not stop to consider
what shall be our future government; we will crush the
oppression that is now put upon us, and afterward settle
that question.' So a few years ago when the South came
up, driven by men who, like the leaders of the Republican
party to-day, were determined to rule or ruin, the people of
the North were undetermined how to act. Some said,
' Look to the constitution ; ' others said, ' Free the negroes ; '
others said, ' Let it be a white man's war.' And the North,
for weeks, months,—ay, for almost a year,—was paralyzed.
The Southerner boasted that he would place the Confederate
flag on the top of Bunker Hill Monument, and then when
the people found that the union was in danger, they stopped
their disputes about how they should do it, they went in
and fought shoulder to shoulder. Democrat and Republican,
and the union was saved. We are to-day the opposition
party ; we are like men on a tempest-tossed vessel ; our
ENTBANCE UPON PUBLIC LIFE. 67
rudder is gone, our machinery is broken, our sails and
masts are overboard, and our decks are cumbered with the
cordage of corruption. Do you suppose the passengers on
board such a ship should stop to dispute how they would
go into port, whether it should be by steam or by rail?
They would not do anything of the kind. First save the
ship from sinking and get her into port, and then we
will decide. It makes no difference how we may differ in
our individual views. We say to the Republican party,
' You have had a control of the Congress of America
unheard-of in the history of our country. You have been
able for years to override a presidential veto; you have
had the control of nearly all the State legislatures, and yet
year after year we have had panics manipulated by head
centres at Washington, for the purpose of making rich men
grow richer, as they hardly exist in the old world, and
grinding poor men into the dust, until they are as poor as
those of our forefathers who came from the old world to
make their fortunes.' Every panic we have had has
widened the gulf between the rich and the poor ; every
panic we have had, every change in the value of stocks,
only makes a few rich at the expense of the masses. The
millions that Henry Clews has manipulated, that Vander-
bilt manipulates, are all drawn from your and my pockets.
We have had to suffer. We say to the Republican party,
' You have been monopolists, and incapables, and dishonest.
You cannot manage the finances of the country.' We will
get hold of them, and will put honest men in their places.
We will right the finances, and we will have a safe and
steady currency like that of specie payment of American
wealth. We say to the Republican party, ' There is not a
rebel soldier in the Southern States of America, for nine
years there has not been a clash of arms, except by a few
men that would do the same thing in any other country.
And what have you done? You had an overwhelming
majority; we save the union by the expenditure of our
68
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
treasure and our blood, and you with all this majority have
80 mismanaged the government that to-day we have a revo¬
lution in Louisiana, and the president of the American
government puts one governor out of his position by bayo¬
nets and upholds another governor by the same means/
Say to the Republican party by your votes, ' You are incap¬
able, you have not the honesty to do what is right, and
therefore we will displace you. We will clean out the
Augean stable and have a pure government, something like
the one of which Washington and Jefferson were the
heads.' Those great men in future will be almost wor¬
shipped as mythical heroes."
It required either a superb self-confidence or a
strong sense of party obligation to persuade Carter
Harrison to make this second race for Congress.
Two years before he had been defeated in the same
district by 3,309 votes. There was but little reason
to hope that the complexion of the district had so
greatly changed as to assure his success, although a
certain growth of the Democratic forces was appar¬
ent. And the result showed that the task under¬
taken by the Democratic candidate was a perilous
one ; for after a prolonged campaign and a heavy
vote he found himself elected by the slender majority
of eight votes. Out of this narrow majority he came
near being cheated by partisan tricksters, and in
after years he often told the story of forcing his way
into a polling-booth and forcing a recount of the
ballots, with the result of discovering that fourteen
which had been cast for him had been counted for
his adversary. The honor thus narrowly won had
ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC LIFE. 69
not been sought by him, and in after years he was
frank to say that the duties it entailed he found dis¬
tasteful. But at the time he looked eagerly forward
to his entrance upon congressional activities. In
December, 1874, his term as county commissioner
ended, and in March, 1875, his family being still
abroad, he betook himself to Washington to take his
seat as a member of the Forty-fourth Congress.
CHAPTER V.
congbessional life.
The Congress in which Carter H. Harrison made
his first appearance as a representative was in some
respects a remarkable body. In the house of which
he was a member were no less than sixteen men,
who afterwards became senators of the United States,
and one who became president. Garfield, Proctor
Knott, Ben. Hill, L. Q. C. Lamar, S. S. Cox, Abram
S. Hewitt, James G. Blaine, Samuel J. Randall,
George F. Hoar, Eugene Hale, and N. P. Banks were
among the more distinguished members of that no¬
table representative gathering. Democratic in its
general complexion, the house was nevertheless so
narrowly divided between the parties that the session
was one of keen interest. The growing strength
of the Democratic party, which a few years earlier it
was thought would never recuperate from the disas¬
ter of the war, gave inspiration to its members, and
stimulated them to constant vigilance and ceaseless
activity in Congress. Like most new members Har¬
rison was forced for a time into the background.
The only regular committee to which he was assigned
was that on public buildings and grounds, which gave
CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.
71
but little scope to his activity. But the special com¬
mittee on the Centennial Exposition and proposed
national census of 1875, which it was at first believed
would have but perfunctory duties to discharge, be¬
came a body of much importance as the merits of
the centennial project grew upon the country. On
this committee Carter Harrison did yeoman service.
In later days Harrison was used to speak with
some indifierence of his career in Congress. Com¬
mittee work was never to his liking, and in com¬
parison with the almost autocratic authority of the
mayor's office, the position of a congressman must
have seemed to him commonplace. Yet his was
more than an ordinary record in the national legisla¬
ture. He was no silent member. Not deterred by
the impatience of the house, which is apt to keep
new members off the floor, he entered actively into
debate. The immediate interests of his constituents
he defended on the floor of the house and in the com¬
mittee rooms. In his first session he took up the
case of that tract of land known in Chicago as the
Lake Front, and begun the fight which ended in
the confirmation of the city's title to it. Nor did he
confine himself to measures of purely local interest.
His proposition for an amendment to the Constitu¬
tion providing for a six years' presidential term, and
making the president ineligible to re-election, but
ex officio a member of the United States Senate was
hotly debated in the house, and, though failing of
passage, started a discussion throughout the nation
72
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
which has hardly yet died out. As a member of the
committee on the Centennial Exposition he strenu¬
ously urged a national appropriation in aid of that
great enterprise, and defended himself against the
bitter attacks of New York members of the house —
who fought Philadelphia in 1876 as they fought
Chicago in 1893 — in a rough and tumble debate
which, as reported in the "Congressional Record,"
shows him to have been a master of verbal thrust
and parry. The active part he took in the great
Columbian Exposition in Chicago lends particular
interest to his efforts in behalf of the Philadelphia
Centennial almost twenty years earlier. His speech
urging the appropriation is typical of his style of ora¬
tory, — always somewhat too ornate, but brimful of
infectious enthusiasm. A brief quotation will suffice :
" Sir, they say it is unconstitutional. I could if I had
time convince any man that it is according to the very
spirit of the Constitution. Sir, the Constitution made our
government. When it formed it, it made it with certain
incidents of government, incidents which belong to nation¬
ality. A very incident of nationality is to preserve itself,
to glorify itself among nations, to give expression to its
pride of existence. One of these incidents is to nourish
the heart of our people as we nourish its brain. Sir, what
right under the Constitution had we to erect this magnifi¬
cent pile here as the nation's capitol ? Brick and mortar
would have warmed us as well — would have protected us as
well in summer and winter ; hut when we stand at the
foot of this hill and look at yonder magnificent dome, cut¬
ting the blue vault of heaven with its rounded brow, we
feel proud of the country, proud of the land of which it is
CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.
73
the type and emblem, and our citizens when they come here
tell us not of any waste of money. Yet that dome cost
many millions.
"Sir, what right had our forefathers to fill that panel
there to the right of your chair with the picture of the
Father of his Country ? The right was incident to govern¬
ment, to erect statues and to paint pictures commemorating
our glorious heroes, — men who gave their time and wasted
their fortunes for our benefit. When sitting here and our
minds are clouded with any ignoble thought, let us look at
that calm face and remember that no sordid thought ever
stained his mind, and then every grovelling desire will be
exorcised from our heart. What right have we to put that
picture, Mr. Chairman, to your left ? He was the friend of
America ; there was no other right than the right incident
to our nationality to reward this friend of our country, — a
man who came here when we were struggling for indepen¬
dence, came in the name of his king. It stands there a
memoria technica of international obligations. When in
this Hall we feel disposed in our power to snatch from a
weak sister republic her lands and appropriate them to
ourselves, he stands there and bids us remember what we
owe to foreigners. When in the greed and lust of party
power we are asked to take advantage of the internecine
strife of a sister government, when Spain is rocked by
wars and we are asked to rob her of her brightest jewel,
Lafayette stands there and tells us to remember our
duty to those who have gone before us, and to remember
that golden rule, * We should do unto others as we would
they should do unto us.'
" Mr. Chairman, we decorate the graves of our soldiers.
Is it under the war power ? Do the bones and ashes of our
soldiers fight? No, sir; it is an incident of nationality
itself. It is our duty, not simply our right ; it is our duty
to give a resting-place befitting the heroes who gave their
lives for us. We do so at Gettysburg ; and we are not
told we are doing an unconstitutional thing.
74
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
" When Ireland was starving and stretched her meagre
hand across the ocean and pleaded to America for bread,
did we cry out, ' The Constitution prevents ' ? No, sir, we
sent ships freighted with corn. And Ireland was grateful
and happy.
" When the late Egyptian scourge came like a blighting
cloud from the Rocky Mountains, sweeping from Nebraska
and Kansas everything that was green, and the people in
distress appealed to Congress for assistance, it gave them
raiment and bread, and gave them seeds. Under the Con¬
stitution ? No, sir. Oh, no ! But under the right that
belonged to us as an incident of nationality, believing that
we were made in the image of the Eternal Jehovah, to be
kind and generous to those who were cast in the like mould
with ourselves."
It was in the forty-fifth Congress, too, that Carter
Harrison earned the reputation of being the humorist
of the House of Representatives, — a reputation which
he bitterly deplored, and of which he systematically
sought to free himself by steadfastly refraining from
any avowedly humorous speaking after the one luck¬
less but effective speech, which won for him the
undesired fame. Many who in later years, heard
Harrison referred to as the savior of the Marine
Band have wondered how he won the title. Probably
he himself at times vaguely marvelled at the inspira¬
tion which prompted him to rush to the defence of
that ornamental institution, and at the complete
success of his efforts. It was in the spring of 1876,
and a Democratic committee, with economy before
their eyes, had reported to Congress a naval appro¬
priation bill with the usual appropriation for the
CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.
76
support of the marine band omitted. Sudden im¬
pulse drew Representative Harrison to the rescue of
the band, which had for fifteen years been a pic¬
turesque and popular feature of Washington. Al¬
ways rather a lover of pageantry, he had probably
been impressed by the spectacular part the band
took in the rather colorless ceremonies at Washing¬
ton. Doubtless, too, the great outpouring of the
people of Washington to listen to the afternoon con¬
certs on the White House lawn had touched his
ever-active human sympathies.
The speech which he delivered in defence of the
band, and which turned the day in its favor is his
most famous public utterance. For years the mem¬
ory of it was cherished at Washington, and it ranks
with Proctor Knott's celebrated panegyric on Duluth
among the humorous masterpieces of the House of
Representatives. Though it loses much of its flavor
when robbed of the inimitable manner of the speaker,
the Marine Band speech merits place in a volume
devoted to the memorable achievements of Carter
H. Harrison. Its full text, with the running fire
of interruptions and retorts which lent it added
piquancy, is as follows : —
" Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose a feature of the amend¬
ment which the gentleman from Alabama thinks is not an
important one ; it being, at any rate, one to which he has
paid no attention in his remarks. It is that part which
strikes at the Marine Band, which proposes to abolish this
band. I oppose that part of the amendment from two
motives, one purely aesthetic, and the other purely selfish
76
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
If I had time I would like to dwell on the first motive. I
would like to tell how in olden times, at Athens, those
grand people considered music one of the great educators
of youth ; how wise fathers regularly carried their children
to places where they could listen to the finest music ; how
they thought it not only ennobled the heart and purified
the soul, but through them beautified the body. I would
like to descant upon the beauty of the Athenian maid, the
product of music, who stood in her naked loveliness before
Praxiteles ; and how the shapeless mass of Parian marble
burst into the Venus de Medici. I would like to dwell
upon the manly beauty of the young hero who stood before
Phidias, and how his image sprang from the soulless mar¬
ble into the godlike Apollo Belvedere. I would like to
prove that the beauty of the models for these chefs-d'œuvre
was due in a great measure to music. But, sir, I have not
the time. So I will pass by this first motive, and shall
confine my remarks to the other ; especially as it will come
home to the gentlemen on my side of the House more
readily.
" Mr. Chairman, for fifteen long dreary years at the other
end of Pennsylvania Avenue the White House has been
occupied by a Republican, and during the winter months,
of evenings, the Marine Band has been up there at recep¬
tions to discourse sweet music for the delectation of a
Republican president, and for the delectation of his Repub¬
lican friends. At every reception a Republican president
has stood in a certain room receiving his guests, and his
pet Republican friends, in white vests and white cravats,
have stood behind him enjoying the dulcet tones poured
forth from the silver throats of silvered instruments by
twenty-four gentlemen in scarlet coats. For long years, of
summer Saturday afternoons, twenty-four gentlemen in
scarlet coats have caused twenty-four silvered instruments,
on the green in front of the White House, to belch forth
martial music for the delectation of a Republican president,
and for the delectation of his Republican friends.
CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.
77
" On the 4th of next March, sir, there will be a Demo¬
cratic president in the White House. Sir, is the Demo¬
cratic president to have no music ? I have been up there
at a presidential reception. I went in and I saw my friends
from the other side enjoying the music. I went through a
crowd of Republicans with one hand on my watch-fob and
the other on my wallet. I caught now and then the notes
of the music, but I could not enjoy it. I was as a stranger
in a strange land. I felt that I was one too many. But
next year, sir, it will be different.
" Mr. Milliken. They will have their hands on their
watch-fobs then.
" Mr. Harrison. Very good ; but we will be enjoying
the music. Why, sir, the other Saturday evening I was out
in front of the White House among the canaille^ the sans
culottes, the men and children without breeches and shoes.
" Mr. Townsend (of New York). Was it a Democratic
meeting ?
" Mr. Harrison. And there, on the south portico, sat
the Chief Magistrate, the Republican president, with his
feet on the balustrade and his Partaga in his mouth, listen¬
ing to the Marine Band. His Republican friends were
about him. Their feet were on the balustrade of the south
portico, wreaths of blue smoke curled up in balmy delicious-
ness from Partagas fresh from the Flowery Isle. I shook
a mental fist in their mental faces, and whispered to myself
that every dog had his day, and I asked myself, ' Shall this
be ever thusly ? ' And from deep down in my heart came
a reply, 'No ! No ! never ! ' I will see a Democratic
president in the White House. He shall receive his friends
to the music of twenty-four silvered instruments, filled
with the breath of twenty-four gentlemen in scarlet coats.
The Marine Band shall play true Democratic music for a
Democratic president, and out there on that south portico,
I want to see a Democratic president sitting with his feet
on the balustrade listening to the music poured forth by
78
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
the Marine Band, and I hope to be one of his friends ; and
I will sit there with my feet on the balustrade enjoying one
of his Partagas. But they wish to abolish the Marine
Band. Think of this being done, Democrats, before the
Democratic president goes into his position. We have
many men who we feel are fit to fill that position. In my
mind's eye I see them now marching on from St. Louis to
the White House. Let me name them as they come in
sight. They come first from the East.
" Why, there is one from the great Empire State (Gover¬
nor Tilden), who we know is greater than Alexander was,
for Alexander only cut the Gordian knot with his sword ;
but the Gordian knot was made of nothing but a hempen
string; but this man with "his fist smashed a ring of ada¬
mantine steel, cut and destroyed the canal ring. He may
be in the position, sir, and I want the Marine Band there
to give him music. He is a man of purity, ay, of virginal
purity. Perhaps he may wish to lead a bride into the
White House. Shall we say the Marine Band shall not
play for him the wedding march ? Shall we refuse to let
the Marine Band fill with sweet music the bridal chamber ?
Not by my vote. Never, sir ! never ! NEVER ! "
(Here the hammer fell amid loud cries of "Go on !
Go on ! ")
" The Chairman. Is there objection to the gentleman
from Illinois proceeding?
"Mr. Lewis. I must object. (Cries of 'Oh, no! Oh,
no! ')
" Mr. Kasson. I move to strike out the last word, and
yield my time to the gentleman from Illinois.
" Mr. Harrison. We have other men. There may be
one from a smaller State (Senator Bayard) who would
grace the presidential chair as it has not been graced for
long, long years past; one who in character as in name
resembles the peerless knight who was sam peur at »am
reproche. Sir, this almost faultless man may be there.
CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.
79
Are you to deny him music from the Marine Band ? Never,
sir ! never ! NEVER ! I will never consent by my vote.
" We have them from Western States —
" Mr. Kellet. Bill Allen.
" Mr. Harrison. From the Buckeye State one, — a man
who, at the other end of the Capitol (Senator Thurman),
never speaks but he utters words of wisdom, — who is
ready on every subject and makes no mistakes. Are we to
have no music for him other than that which he himself
gives forth from a nasal instrument in his own red ban¬
danna ? No, sir ; never ! never ! NEVER !
" Sir, we have a man from the Hoosier State, the old
Democratic war-horse (Governor Hendricks), a great Demo¬
cratic leader, who, they say, is a little of a trimmer. If he
is ever a trimmer or appears to be a trimmer, it is because
his mind is so round that he sees both sides of a question,
and does not go wildly off on either side. He may be in
that position, and I may be his friend in the White House.
Shall he have no music from the Marine Band ? Never by
my vote ! never ! NEVER !
" From my own State, Mr. Chairman, there is a man who
would fill the chair as it never was filled (Judge Davis) ;
not a single inch of it will not be filled ; a great man in
law and a great man in politics, who, if president, would
never give a wrong decision; one against whom not a
word can be said. When, sir, I shall come down from
Illinois to be at his inaugural, to receive him at the White
House, shall we have no music to aid him in tripping the
light fantastic toe ? Never, sir, by my vote will I consent
to that ; never ! never ! NEVER !
" Sir, there is another still ; there is one from your own
Keystone State, great in arms (General Hancock) ; great
as a civilian ; a man who, if he had not been a great general,
would have been talked of for his great civil acquirements.
He may be there and he will wish to have some memories
of the past brought to his mind by martial music. Is it to
80
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
be denied him ? Shall the Marine Band be refused to
him ? Not by my vote ; never ! never ! NEVER !
" Then, sir, there is still another, the Great Unknown of
the Democratic party.
" A Member. Parker ?
" Mr. Harrison. No, sir ; I will call no names. He is
all around in the Democratic party. It is full of the Great
Unknown.
" Mr. willard. The great unknowing ?
"Mr. Milliken. I suppose that delicacy prevents the
gentleman from naming him.
" Mr. Harrison. Yes, sir ; delicacy and modesty forbids
me calling names. Sir, when the Great Unknown gets
here, shall he have no music ; shall no tunes come from
those twenty-four silver-throated instruments, blown out by
those twenty-four gentlemen in red coats, to welcome him
to the White House ? Shall we have no music when we
introduce him to the American people ? Not by my vote.
No, sir ; never ! never ! NEVER ! "
The address saved the Marine Band, but it in¬
stalled its author in the profitless post of the house
jester. His reputation for wit was enhanced by
a post-prandial discourse delivered not long after,
before the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, in
which he introduced himself as the congressional
representative of a district which raised more wheat
than any two States in the Union, — raised it in
elevators. "When in the succeeding sessions of
Congress he came to take active part in debates on
the currency, on the Hayes-Tilden electoral com¬
mission, on the Hennepin canal, and on the naviga¬
tion laws, he found that he had an unprofitable
reputation for flippancy to live down.
CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.
81
Nomination and re-election to Congress came to
him at the end of his first term as a matter of
course, and almost without effort on his part.
Though his district was still close, the extremely
narrow majority by which he won his first seat in
the house was very materially increased. In oppo¬
sition to him, the Republicans nominated Mr. George
R. Davis, already a leading figure in the Republican
party of Chicago, and in later years its absolute
ruler. But despite the notable political strength of
his opponent, Harrison was returned by a majority
of 642 votes. At the time of the election he was
abroad, summoned thither by the sudden death of
his wife, who with his children was sojourning in
Germany. The blow fell heavily upon him, —
the more so, since it was dealt in a way which
added cruel suspense to the sorrow of bereavement.
He was in Chicago, expecting daily a cable message
announcing the starting of his family for home,
when he received the ominous despatch "Come."
Starting at once, he made the long journey only to
find at the end that his wife had died within a few
days of his departure. He remained but a brief
time abroad, and returning, threw himself into
political work with the energy which only desire
to seek refuge from sorrow could give.
When he returned to Washington after his re¬
election, it was to enter upon what was undoubtedly
the most exciting session of the house since the days
of Civil War. For the first time in the annals of
6
82
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
the nation, the result of the presidential election
was in such grave doubt that the interposition of
a special tribunal was necessary to secure the seating
of either candidate. The story of the contested
election of 1876, the electoral commission, the
Louisiana returning-board, the rejection of Samuel
J. Tilden, and the inauguration of Rutherford B.
Hayes, is familiar to most Americans, The events
are of too recent occurrence to need rehearsal here.
The part of Carter Harrison in the proceedings in
the house, though not conspicuous, was that of a
sincere and loyal Democrat. It was the part too
of an earnest and conscientious patriot, for at a time
when, had hot-heads ruled, civil war might have
ensued, he counselled moderation, peaceful methods,
and orderly procedure. No man was ever more
fully convinced that injustice was finally done to
Mr. Tilden than he, yet none accepted the result
with more complete resignation. When the com¬
mission, in defiance of its earlier expressed inten¬
tion, announced its purpose to go behind the returns
in the Louisiana election Mr. Harrison shrewdly
foresaw the end, and gave up hope. With quiet
humor he used to tell in later days, of having met
James A. Garfield on the steps of the Capitol at
that critical moment, and having reproached him
with the unjustness of his party's action. " Carter,
if you had the cards would n't you play them ? "
was the cynical response of the Republican leader.
When the forty-fifth Congress assembled, Harri-
CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.
83
son, no longer a new member, was one of the most
active representatives on the floor. He spoke readily
and often, showing particular interest in currency
legislation, and in debates touching upon the right
of Congress to make appropriations for internal
improvements. Though always afliliating with the
Democratic party, and characterized by the truest
democracy of thought and manner, he did not hold
to the strict Democratic doctrine of opposing federal
expenditures for internal improvements. A plan
such as a great ship canal, or liberal expenditures
for improving navigable rivers, always appealed to
him, and found in him an active and able supporter.
The so-called Hennepin canal project, which had in
contemplation the digging of a ship canal from Lake
Michigan at Chicago, to the Illinois River, thus pro¬
viding navigable connection between the Great Lakes
and the Gulf of Mexico, enlisted his heartiest efforts.
No subject which came under his immediate con¬
sideration while he was in Congress so wholly en¬
grossed his attention. His work in committee room
and on the floor of the house in urging a large
appropriation toward the canal was unremitting,
and at one time seemed likely to be crowned with
complete success. It was in his second and last
term that, after untiring efforts, he succeeded in
convincing a majority of the Committee on Rivers
and Harbors of the merit of the proposition, and the
propriety of government aid to an enterprise which,
though the canal was wholly within the borders of
84
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
a single State, was certainly of national importance.
A favorable report was assured, but when it was in
course of preparation a member of the committee
in sympathy with the project died, and the report
was never made. In the course of a long and logical
speech, urging the appropriation, made in May, 1878,
when the speaker thought success was within his
grasp, he said : —
"Sir, the Mississippi and its navigable feeders give a
water line of nearly twelve thousand miles. They water
soil capable of producing nearly every fruit and grain
known to the world. The lakes have a shore line of five
thousand miles. Every foot of that shore line except on
Lake Superior is as rich as the valleys of Judea, the home
of God's chosen people. The rugged shores of Superior are
solid with minerals as pure as the product of the furnace.
" Mr. Speaker, all of this vast inland sea-board can be
brought into union by a canal thirty-six miles long, and yet
our statesmen ask, is it national ?
" Sir, look again at the railroads entering at the mouth
of this canal. Fourteen different roads, whose arms reach
over and through all of the grain-fields of the Northwest,
enter at Chicago. One can read on the sides of cars any
day within her limits the names of nearly every railroad
corporation of this northern continent
" All of the fourteen roads entering in Chicago, whose
connections are like the nerves of the body, leading to
every extremity of the republic, unite, and their rolling
stock is freely transferred from one to another. They all
run into a common stock-yard. They all run into the great
lumber yards. They all lie along the huge grain elevators,
many of which have storage for over a million bushels each.
These elevators handle a car-load of grain as readily as a
man can a bushel-measure. Deep water washes their walls.
CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.
85
A car-load of wheat is lifted on one side and poured into
the ship's hold on the other. Thirty thousand bushels are
thus poured into the vessel's hold, so that she can arrive
and depart between the rising and the setting of a single
day's sun.
" At an expense of a few millions of money, the Missis¬
sippi steamer can be enabled to lie against these elevators,
or at the piers of a huge lumber yard, and after unloading
upon the lake ships the produce of the far West or the
extreme South, she can steam to Upper Missouri, laden
with lumber or ready made houses, or to New Orleans with
grain and pork, and the minerals of the Superior to be
poured into an ocean-bound argosy. A vast trade would
thus, Mr. Speaker, be divorced from the more costly railroad
transportation. Corporations would be brought to assume
the semblance of having souls, though they possessed
none."
The interest of Mr. Harrison in this canal project,
which is still, despite the antagonism of railroad
corporations and sectional jealousies, a living issue
in Illinois, did not die with the close of his con¬
gressional career. In 1883, as member of a special
committee of the Iroquois Club of Chicago, he wrote
a formal memorial to the United States Senate and
House of Eepresentatives praying for a proper appro¬
priation for the construction of the canal. Through¬
out his life, whenever occasion offered, he did his
best with voice and pen to further a public work
which he was convinced would be of inestimable
benefit, not to Chicago and Illinois alone, but to the
producers and consumers of the whole Mississippi
Valley.
86
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
In the currency debates which took up so great a
share of the attention of Congress in 1878, Harrison
took active part. He was a bimetallist from firm
conviction, and in the time when silver was struck
down, fought for its retention as a money metal. In
one set speech he outlined the policy of bimetallism
with notable clearness, and in the running fire of
argument and retort in the house day after day he
defended his position manfully. It is worthy of
note here that in later days when he became the
owner and editor of the " Chicago Times," his first
action was to change that journal's policy from that
of a preacher of gold monometallism to champion¬
ship of the free coinage of silver. It is improbable
that the district which Mr. Harrison represented in
Congress held the views upon the currency question
which he avowed, for the urban communities at the
North are usually wedded to the single gold stand¬
ard. His action in Congress was rather an expres¬
sion of his individual opinions than any reflection of
the sentiment of the constituency he represented.
Another question of but slender interest to his own
constituency enlisted his heartiest interest. In his
travels abroad, travels pursued in every leisure sea¬
son he had enjoyed since early youth, he had noted
the gradual disappearance of the American flag from
the ports of the world. Always a man of most
robust Americanism, he was mortified by the slight
participation of his countrymen in the carrying trade
of the world. The sentiment of a free flag on free
CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.
87
ships appealed to him strongly. Though, as we have
already noted, a protectionist of the Henry Clay
school, he repudiated and condemned the principle
of sacrificing the carrying trade of the United States
in order to protect a few ship-yards on the Delaware.
The bill for free ships which he introduced into the
forty-fifth Congress, and the speech with which he
supported it, might serve for a text-book upon the
question to-day. Too long for quotation in full, too
homogeneous to admit of effective extracts being
made, it must be dismissed with a mere mention.
It was a losing fight of course. A Republican presi¬
dent and a Republican senate would have given short
shrift to this piece of radical Democratic legislation,
even had it passed the house. And the house to
which it was presented was not made up of the free-
trade Democrats of later days. The Hon. Samuel
J. Randall and his following were in power there,
and so it happened that beyond creating very wide
popular discussion, and perhaps sowing some seeds of
thought which may come to fruition in future.
Representative Harrison's free ship bill accomplished
nothing.
One other measure with which Harrison was
identified merits particular mention. Recognizing,
as many before and since have done, the injury to
the business and prosperity of the nation wrought by
the frequent national elections, he introduced a bill
proposing a constitutional amendment fixing the
presidential term at six years and making outgoing
88
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
presidents ineligible to re-election, but giving them
seats for life in the United States Senate with the
privilege of joining in debate but without a vote.
Amendments to the Constitution of the United States
are not made except under pressure of extraordinary
popular excitement. Representative Harrison's plan
met the fate which was to have been expected. But
it was ably urged by him and widely discussed in the
American press. It fitted in with a certain popular
conviction that the turmoil of a presidential election
every four years is neither beneficial nor intelligent.
Though there was not sufficiently vigorous public
opinion in behalf of the proposition to force through
the almost impossible project of amending the consti¬
tution, there was enough to gain for the measure
and its author the widest commendation.
One incident in Harrison's congressional career
won him wide-spread reputation, first as an able
parliamentary fighter, and later as a man whom
no consideration of personal friendship could divert
from the pursuit and punishment of wrong. It was
an incident which would hardly have created a
ripple in any other country than the United States,
and which indeed, could probably have not occurred
in any national legislature other than our own Con¬
gress. In the second session of the forty-fifth Con¬
gress, the charge was made that the doorkeeper of
the house was carrying upon his payrolls, the names
of more employés than he was by law entitled to, or
indeed than were actually employed. In the United
CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.
89
States Congress, the doorkeeper of the house, despite
his modest title, is a very considerable functionary.
Always a member of the dominant party, the per¬
quisites and the patronage attaching to his position
are so great that there is ordinarily a sharp struggle
for the appointment, and the fortunate winner is
ordinarily a man of wide political influence and
almost national reputation. In 1878, John W.
Polk held this position. He was a man of great
personal popularity, and was upon terms of some
intimacy with Harrison, who had urged his selection.
But in his effort to reward all the Congressmen who
had given him their support, by placing their con¬
stituents upon his staff. Polk exceeded all lawful
limits, and his payrolls soon became a scandal
notorious to the house. Early in the session a
resolution directing the Committee on Civil Service
Reform to make an investigation of the conduct of
the doorkeeper passed the house. Of that com¬
mittee Mr. Harrison was chairman. He speedily
found that in accordance with the time-honored
custom of partisans in Congress, the Democrats in
the committee were prepared to exonerate their
accused fellow-Democrat, to " whitewash " him, as
the political phrase has it. Against this plan of
action the Chicago congressman fought bitterly.
Taking charge of the case himself, he brought into
the committee room so great a mass of testimony
that the members were convinced against their will,
and a majority of them united with the chairman
90
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
in a report recommending the discharge of the
offending doorkeeper.
Armed with this report, Harrison returned to the
house only to find the struggle there more arduous
than it had been in the committee. A strong minor¬
ity " whitewashing " report was presented to the
house, and with this the friends of the culprit rallied
to his support. The storm — which at this late day
seems like a tempest in a teapot, but which was
really a significant struggle for an early application
of civil service reform principles — raged for several
days. The debate on the floor of the house was
always lively, sometimes acrimonious. The formal
speech in which Harrison set forth the case of the
prosecution was a telling piece of rhetoric, but less
brilliant than the swift fence of retort and argument
with which he met the attacks of hostile members,
most of them of his own party, and many his warm
personal friends. He based his whole attack on the
accused official upon the Democratic platform decla¬
ration for civil-service reform. His argument and
his criticism are crystallized into this one paragraph
from his speech : —
" Mr. Polk is a kind man, sir. I will say here in my
place that when I went into that committee I went in with
the resolution, if possible, to save Mr. Polk. I was desirous
of saving him. I wanted to be not only fair, but I leaned
toward the employé of my party. I had voted for him, not
only on this floor but in caucus. He was my candidate.
I was friendly disposed toward him. But Mr. Polk has
employed men outside of the law, making a law to him-
CONGRESSIONAL LIFE.
91
self, disregarding the law. The Democratic party has
pledged itself by its platform to civil-service reform, and
are they going to the country to tell it that our pledge and
our platform was but a promise to be broken ; that we will
punish a Republican for guilt or wrong, but we will spread
whitewash over our own friends ? I do not believe it ; I
never have believed it. If the party does that I am not
one of them. I am not schooled in the whitewash business.
I read our platform as an honest expression of my party ;
I read it as an honest promise to the people, a promise to
be fulfilled to the letter, and I will do what I can to fulfil
that promise, whether it be a Democrat or a Republican
who gets hit, whether the wrong-doer be high or low. Never
while I am a member of this body will I consent to cover
up or overlook violation of law in any ofl&cer of the law."
Against the evidence which Harrison had col¬
lected, and the force of his arguments, the mere
devotion of personal friends to Polk could make no
stand. After three days' debate the resolution of
dismissal was adopted. Not a very extraordinary
triumph, the business man to whom " stuffed " pay¬
rolls are an unpardonable offence will say, but still
one which the public man familiar with congressional
methods and practices will recognize as a notable
achievement. Precedents are made quickly in the
House of Representatives. To-day an official, guilty
as Polk was guilty, would resign rather than brave
investigation and certain dismissal. That this is
the case is largely due to Harrison's stubborn fight
for right in 1878. He overthrew the precedent
which then obtained, and set a new one, probably for
all time.
92
CAJtTER HENRY HARRISON.
With the close of his second term in Congress, in
1878, Carter Harrison retired from the national
legislature, declining to be a candidate for re-elec¬
tion. In the spring of 1879 he was elected mayor
of Chicago, and began that long career as chief
executive of a great and peculiarly characteristic
city, in which he won his most enduring laurels. Of
his congressional career it is enough to say that,
beside doing his full duty to his constituents, he won
prominent place and national reputation in a legis¬
lative body in which only men of strong intellectual
characteristics can ever push themselves to the front.
But however successful his efforts in the house may
have been, the task was not at all to his liking. In
later years, while filling the mayor's office, he was
offered a congressional nomination in the third dis¬
trict, under conditions which assured his election, —
an offer which he declined promptly and without
regret.
CHAPTER VI.
the mayoralty.
Returning home upon the adjournment of Con¬
gress, Harrison was greeted with an enthusiasm
which testified to the hold he had retained upon
the people despite his long absence at the capital.
There was a public reception at his home on Ashland
Avenue, — a forerunner of the many political rallies
which that spacious mansion with its broad lawn
was to see. Speaking in response to the congratula¬
tions of his friends, he gave a brief outline of his
course in Congress and of the political principles
which animated him. The reception, though wholly
non-partisan was the precursor of the mayoralty
campaign in which Harrison was to be a candidate.
Before his return from Washington, his friends had
been urging his eminent fitness for the post of chief
executive of the city, and by the time he reached the
city his nomination was generally conceded. Muni¬
cipal politics in Chicago at that day were decidedly
complicated, — as indeed they have been ever since.
Harrison's first nomination for mayor was at the
hands of the " greenback-labor " party, although he
had never espoused the radical financial theories
94
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
which formed the corner stone of that party's politi¬
cal structure. Indeed his lack of avowed adhesion
to the greenback doctrine coupled with his shrewd
and stubborn refusal to accept or refuse the nomina¬
tion, or to discuss it in any way until after the
Democratic convention should have been held, created
a revulsion of feeling among the Greenbackers them¬
selves, and for a week dire threats of rebellion
against the candidate whom they had put forward
filled the political atmosphere; but on March 15 the
regular Democratic convention met and chose Harri¬
son for its mayoralty candidate. The other candi¬
dates before the convention were Murray F. Tuley
and George L. Dunlap, both men who in later years
attained high standing in the community. To Chica-
goans familiar with the proportions of more recent
city conventions, it will be interesting to note that
this one in 1879 seated but sixty-eight delegates.
Of these thirty-eight gave their votes on the first
ballot to Harrison.
At the time of the convention the nominee was
out of the city. A few days later, however, return¬
ing to Chicago, he addressed a committee of repre¬
sentative Democrats accepting the nomination in
thoroughly characteristic fashion. He had not de¬
sired the nomination, he said, — a statement which
must be classed as disingenuous in the light of his
dalliance with the Greenbackers. But having been
nominated, he thought he would be elected by the
votes of Democrats, Greenbackers, Nationalists, and
THE MAYORALTY.
95
" good Republicans." For the press he had a charac¬
teristic word of defiance, and he closed by assuring
his hearers that he was no politician, and that if
they desired his election they must do the work
necessary to accomplish it. The campaign was a
short one of little more than two weeks. Two rivals
to Mr. Harrison were in the field, A. M. Wright, a
well-known merchant, who represented the Republi¬
can party, and Ernst Schmidt, a German physician,
who headed the Socialistic labor ticket. Though the
latter candidate drew very largely from the normal
Democratic following, Harrison won by a substantial
plurality, his vote being 25,685, to 20,496 for Wright,
and 11,829 for Schmidt.
On the 28th of April, 1879, Mayor Harrison was
inaugurated with the usual ceremonies, Mayor Heath
retiring. The new mayor's inaugural address, the
first of a long series he was destined to deliver, was,
with some slight elisions as follows : —
" Gentlemen of the Council, — The welfare of nearly
600,000 people depends to a great extent upon the manner
in which you may during the next twelve months discharge
your official duties. A city sprung into existence within
your own memory, but already the third in population and
in commercial importance, ranking among the ten leading
cities of the world, will have its growth and progress more
or less advanced or retarded by your action. Its citizens
have within the past eight years struggled under difficulties
sufficient to paralyze any other people. These difficulties
with them have only called forth unexampled energy.
They know not how to despair.
" Rising from the ashes of two conflagrations unequalled
96
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
in the past, Chicago and her people, burdened by an enor¬
mous debt, were at once confronted by a financial revolu¬
tion which has disturbed the social foundations of nations.
Labor has struggled for bread and has often been forced to
go without sufficient food. Real estate, the fouudatioii of
wealth, which furnishes four-fifths of the city's revenues,
has been laid under a heavy load of taxation. Rents being
low and sales practically impossible, land has been unable
to meet the obligations. Taxation locks up money in the
hands of the money dealer where it escapes the eye of the
collector, thus forcing legitimate enterprise to bear an
unequal burden. This stifles energy, deters investment,
and will, unless checked, dry up the sources of revenue.
Chicago expects you to give her relief.
" On me, gentlemen, devolves the duty and responsibility
of carrying out your will. I accept the responsibility with
diffidence, and shall endeavor to perform the duty with an
eye single to the good of the public. I have but one policy
to declare: that is to protect the lives, the property and
health of the city at all times and in every emergency, and
to do it in an honest and economical manner. I recognize
but one science in finance. That is to collect the revenues
and to live within them. Debts can be wiped out in but
one way, — payment. Surplus can be acquired only by
saving ; saving can be made only by honest expenditures
for wise and legitimate purposes and by preventing all
leakage. Life and property in cities are protected by the
police. A corrupt police is a gnawing cancer. The citizen
lying down at night should not only be protected but
should feel secure. Apprehension of a fancied danger is
as disquieting as that of a real one. I shall endeavor as
far as may be possible in my short term to make the police
department brave, honest, and efficient. Ours is a cosmo¬
politan people aggregated from many nationalities within a
little more than one generation of man. Each of the
several elements has its own ideas of social and religious
THE MAYORALTY.
97
life — its own civilization. They have one bond of union
— devotion to Republican institutions and energy in pur¬
suit of fortune. Each should study to accommodate itself
as much as possible to the social life and prejudices of
each of the others and of the whole. For any one to
attempt to make a Procrustean bed to which the others
should be forced to fit would be both dangerous and
unwise. Time alone can make them all homogeneous.
" The constitution of the land guarantees to all citizens
the right to peaceably assemble, to petition for redress of
grievances. Tbis carries the right to free discussion. It
also guarantees the people the right to keep and bear arms.
But it does not give to any one the right to threaten or to
resist lawful authority. The genius of our institutions
rests on law. To it and to its officers all good citizens
should appeal for protection. I will protect all in their
lawful rights. Some fear an organized resistance to author¬
ity in Chicago. I do not. I do not believe that there is in
our midst any considerable body of men mad enough to
attempt such folly, for they must know they would be but
as chaff, compared to the solid masses who love our insti¬
tutions and are determined that law and order shall reign.
If, however, there be any so ignorant as to think differ¬
ently, so rash as to attempt violence, they will quickly find
that they have made a fatal blunder. Our honest citizens
and brave police can and will protect the city."
The final paragraph of the foregoing message had
reference to the sentiment for armed resistance to
law then existing among certain of the more radical
labor organizations in the city. This sentiment,
which in later days culminated in the throwing of
the bomb in the Haymarket, at this time took the
form of organized armed military companies, with¬
out responsibility to the State, which drilled by night
7
98
CÁRTER HENRY HARRISON.
in the streets, and were held by the more timid
citizens to portend a coming revolution. How Carter
Harrison met this peril will be described later. It
never amounted to a serious menace to the sover¬
eignty of law and was very justly characterized in
his words quoted above.
The financial question to which he adverted in
this first message was, however, more serious. He
found the city penniless and estopped from borrow¬
ing money by constitutional limitations. In a mes¬
sage to the common council a few weeks after his
inauguration, he described the financial situation
briefly but comprehensively as follows : —
" When I entered upon the duties of this oflBce, I found
the city without money to defray current expenses, and,
though having a boundless credit, yet constitutionally pro¬
hibited from borrowing a dollar. Its only resource was
to issue non-interest bearing warrants upon the taxes to
be collected. I found that this enforced upon the city,
directly or indirectly, an annual loss of about $200,000.
There seemed to be but one way to escape a continuance of
this loss, which was to make an annual saving for several
years. My predecessor had, wisely, during the past year
restricted expenditures to within eighty-five per cent of
the several appropriations. I resolved to imitate his
example, though I knew it to be a more difficult matter
from the fact that four months of the year had been run
on a basis of ninety per cent instead of eighty-five. I gave
orders to the several departments in accordance with this
resolution. On the first of June I found that a law had
been hurriedly passed, restricting the issuance of warrants
or scrip to seventy-five per cent of the tax levy. The cor¬
poration counsel consulted with several leading lawyers,
THE MAYORALTY.
99
and gave me his opinion that this limitation operated upon
the entire year of 1879. A law had also been passed to
restrict the tax levy hereafter to two per cent, exclusive
of a levy for the payment of bonds or the interest thereon.
The last valuation in Chicago was in round numbers,
$130,000,000. On this a levy of 2.86 per cent realized
$3,777,000. Of this, fifty-one per cent was for interest;
the remaining 2.35 was for general purposes. This brings
in about $3,100,000. Hereafter, the valuation remaining
the same, we will be able to raise only $2,620,000, and
will be able to issue scrip to only seventy-five per cent of
the levy."
Out of this desperate condition of the city's
finances grew a dissension with the fire marshal of
the city, Matthew Benner, a man of ability and wide
infiuence and one whom, personally, the mayor
highly esteemed. Pursuant to his determination to
reduce all municipal expenditures, the mayor ordered
heavy cuts in the estimates for both the fire and
police departments. The chief of the former depart¬
ment failed to give his earnest co-operation to the
mayor's policy. There was an interchange of formal
orders and evasive or defiant replies, and finally,
after having in vain asked for his subordinate's
resignation. Mayor Harrison summarily removed
him. Though entirely within the scope of the
mayor's authority, the act was a bold one. A cer¬
tain element of romance in the fireman's calling
makes the fire marshal in almost every great city
a public hero. Chicago was, and still is, no excep¬
tion to the rule, and the deposed chief was perhaps
100 CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
more widely, personally popular than any other who
ever filled the post. His dismissal awakened a storm
of protestation and abuse from politicians, the press
and a great part of the people. The common coun¬
cil, to whom the mayor presented a report of his
action and the reasons impelling him to take it,
formally disapproved of the removal. But out of
the tempest gradually grew conviction that the
mayor had been right, that he had sacrificed a per¬
sonal friendship in his determination to bring the
city's expenditures within the city's receipts, and,
as the removal of Benner was the first step in what
proved to be a systematic and effective plan for
wholly purging the fire department of politics, pub¬
lic opinion veered round to the mayor's side. In
later years the achievement of Mayor Harrison for
which the greatest credit was allowed him by even
his enemies was his masterly reform of the fire
department, by which it was brought to its present
high state of efficiency.
It will be proper at this point to consider the
further measures of economy which Mayor Harrison
put in force during his first term of office and of
their effects upon the finances of the city. Despite
the evidence of firmness he had given in dealing with
Benner, the council still continued in opposition to
his wish to keep the city's expenditures well within its
revenues. The first clash occurred when the general
appropriation bill of March, 1880, was returned to
the council without the mayor's signature. By the
THE MAYORALTY.
101
ordinance appropriations to the amount of $4,055,381
were made. The mayor returned it with objections
to certain items, which being stricken out accom¬
plished a saving of more than $80,000. In the
message with which he accompanied the measure on
its return, the mayor indignantly reproached the
council for having sought to reappropriate some of
the funds which he had saved and intended to apply
to the payment and retirement of scrip. Though
there ensued the usual struggle in the council. Mayor
Harrison carried his point. But a Chicago council, is
quick to forget the lesson of economy, however thor¬
oughly it may be taught. A year later, when the
appropriation bill for 1881 was sent to the mayor,
he returned it with notice of his non-concurrence in
certain of the items, which he declared extravagant.
Less success attended his efforts on this occasion,
however, for after twice returning the ordinance
unsigned, he suffered the mortification of seeing it
passed over his veto. In the midst of the struggle
over this appropriations ordinance, came the muni¬
cipal election by which he was again chosen mayor.
The annual, or inaugural message with which he
greeted the common council at the beginning of his
second term, announced the result of his policy of
firm economy, and showed how much he had been
able to accomplish despite the antagonism of the
council. In 1878, the last year of his predecessor's
term, city scrip to the amount of $2,238,000 had
been issued. Upon this the city lost, through the
102 CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
higher prices contractors charged because of being
paid in scrip, from $150,000 to $200,000 a year,
while city employees who were paid in it, were
obliged to pass it at a discount of from five to ten
per cent. In his first year. Mayor Harrison reduced
the issue of scrip to less than $1,500,000, and in his
second to less than $590,000. Nor was this all.
The interest coupons on outstanding city bonds,
which in prior years had been hypothecated, were
during his term paid on maturity. Over $700,000
of maturing obligations were paid off, and over
$1,200,000 refunded at a saving to the city of nearly
$55,000 in annual interest, while the sinking fund
which had become depleted during the years of bank¬
ruptcy was restored to its proper proportions. Upon
this record of successful financiering Mayor Harrison
built the reputation for ability as a "business mayor "
which for years afterwards gave him the active sup¬
port of large tax-payers without regard to their
political aflBliations.
The duties of a mayor of Chicago comprehend a
multiplicity of little things. His attention is di¬
rected constantly to matters which, if judged by
national standards, are trivial, but which to the
people of the city he serves are of vast importance.
He is engaged in a constant struggle with great cor¬
porations which are ever seeking to invade the
people's rights, and generally find means to make
the members of the common council join them in the
attack. The eight years during which Carter Harri-
THE MAYORALTY.
103
son held the mayoralty of Chicago, were a period of
great development in the railroad systems making
Chicago a focal point. Much of his time was given
over to struggles with railroads seeking rights of
way into the heart of the city, and careless of the
people's rights in the premises.
The Eastern or foreign visitor to Chicago to-day
cannot fail to be impressed with the extent to which
the railroads dominate the city. From the South,
West, and JSTorth, their iron highways enter the city
and push on to its very business centre. With a
single exception their rails are all laid at grade, and
street-cars, wagons, carriages, and pedestrians, on a
score or more of streets, go to and fro across the
busy tracks with a sacrifice, according to recent
statistics, of an average of two human lives a day to
the grade-crossing evil. Whole streets have been
given up by venal councils to railroads, without any
just return to the public. Whole districts have been
so walled in by broad rights of way and yards, that
they have been made wholly untenable for residence
purposes, and suitable only for the heavier kind of
manufacturing.
To the practice of yielding up the people's rights
to the railroads without due return. Mayor Harrison
always offered most strenuous resistance. His con¬
troversies with "franchise-grabbers" were many, and
though often beaten by a hostile council, he always
fought to the bitter end. In his first term he en¬
countered the pushing railroad influence in the
104
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
shape of a broadly drawn ordinance, granting the
Chicago and Eastern Illinois railroad a right of
way to the heart of the city. This right of way,
finally obtained and transferred years later to the
Santa Fé Company, is now one of the most offensive
and most dangerous of the railroad entrances to the
city. With a keen insight into the possibilities of the
future, the mayor put himself flatly against the ordi¬
nance granting this franchise, and vetoed it as soon as
it reached him. He pointed out in his veto message
that the road was to be given enormously valuable
privileges with no compensating returns to the people ;
that a vast number of streets would be practically
closed by the tracks. With shrewdness bordering on
prophesy, he suggested that the council was giving to
a weak corporation for nothing an immensely valuable
franchise, which it would presently sell at a huge
profit, — exactly what followed. He declared that
passage of the ordinance would utterly ruin Clark
Street as a thoroughfare, that they might as well
erect barriers at its two ends and call it a railroad
alley, that " if this ordinance becomes a law, all that
large area from Van Buren Street to Sixteenth and
west of State Street will be as the victim within the
folds of a boa-constrictor, crushed into an inert mass
and then leisurely swallowed." A more just and
graphic description of the condition of that district
to-day could not be conceived.
Nor was the mayor's attitude toward this fran¬
chise based upon consideration of the merits and
THE MAYORALTY.
105
defects of this particular measure alone. Rather he
sought to make it the occasion for beginning a line
of municipal legislation which should free at least
the central part of Chicago from the evil of grade
crossings. He closed his message by urging that
there should be only two passenger stations in the
heart of the city, — one on the lake front, to which
trains would come along the lake shore without
crossing streets, and one on the west side, where
the Union depot now stands, the tracks leading to
which would skirt the river, and be spanned by the
approaches to the bridges crossing that stream.
Chicagoans of to-day will readily recognize the
sagacity of this plan, and will appreciate the force
of Mayor Harrison's declaration to the aldermen in
1879 : " Gentlemen, if not taken hence before your
time, some of you will see Chicago a city of a
million. The struggle then will not be to get rail¬
roads into the heart of the ' city, but to force those
now in to seek more remote localities. . . . When
the time comes for forcing the various railroads to
build viaducts, and for that purpose to unite on some
common lines, the difficulty will be increased in pro¬
portion to the number having foothold."
But however just and admirable the criticisms
which the mayor expressed upon this ordinance, it
became a law in spite of him. The council passed
it over his veto, and though the appellate court
declared it void, a final appeal to the State Supreme
Court resulted in the affirmation of its validity.
106
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
The right of way granted thereby is now in the
possession of the Santa Fé corporation, and people
familiar with the neighborhood through which its
blighting path proceeds, will readily bear witness
that the lessons of later years have more than
established the justice of Mayor Harrison's con¬
demnation of the ordinance of 1879.
It would be idle now to recount in detail the
efforts of Mayor Harrison during his first term, or
indeed during the three subsequent thereto, to pro¬
tect the interests of the people, to advance interests
of the city, or to defend the liberty of citizens.
Many of the issues of that time are now not only
settled but forgotten. Some of the questions which
then seemed of vital importance to the community,
and about which discussion, pro and con, raged
fiercely in the press, seem now so simple that people
wonder any dissension should have arisen about
them. It is perhaps worth while, however, to note
in passing that in 1879 he declared^ war on the
" smoke nuisance," and made valiant effort to rally
the council for its overthrow. Fifteen years later
Chicagoans still suffered from that sooty evil, and
the message of Mayor Harrison to the common
council on the subject, dated Dec. 15, 1879, might
well have been repeated in 1894. Yet another
measure of this first term, which bears" upon a
Chicago problem of later days, was his veto of an
ordinance giving two militia regiments the privilege
of erecting armories upon that expanse of vacant
THE MAYORALTY.
107
land known in Chicago as the Lake Front. It will
be remembered that while in Congress Harrison
had secured the passage of a bill transferring to the
city the rights of the federal government in this
park. When the subject came before him again as
mayor, he declared that the land was dedicated to
the city for park purposes only, and strenuously
opposed giving militia companies, or other bodies
seeking to erect buildings, any foothold thereon.
The future of the Lake Front was always a matter of
solicitude to him, and his negotiations and struggles
with the Illinois Central railroad for the purpose of
limiting that corporation's rights in that territory
or forcing it off altogether would fill a volume if
fully detailed. His efforts in this direction, however,
were fruitless, as indeed have been the like endeavors
of later executives of Chicago, and even the decree
of the United States Supreme Court. The corpora¬
tion still (in 1894) holds its ground, — or rather the
people's ground, — seemingly unterrified by mayors
or by courts.
What may be called the extra-official duties of a
mayor of Chicago, or indeed of any great city, are
many and onerous. He must entertain largely, be
ever ready for a speech at banquet or reception,
cheerfully point out the beauties of the city to dis¬
tinguished guests, and act as general master of great
public ceremonies. A mayor who, like Harrison, is
distinctively a popular executive, who is genial in
entertainment and happy on the platform, is doubly
108
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
taxed in this way. Throughout his public career
Harrison was in demand to make speeches of wel¬
come, or other formal expressions of the city's share
in the entertainment of prominent visitors, The
audacious bluntness of his campaign speeches always
brought down upon him the thunderbolts of the
opposition press, and even in his purely social
addresses, he was prone to let his zeal carry him
away, and introduce political suggestions or urge
personal convictions not always entirely pleasing to
his auditors. His celebrated Iroquois Club tariff
speech — to which further reference will be made
later — was the most striking example of this prac¬
tice, and the speech of welcome made by him during
his first term to Ex-President Grant offers further
illustration of it.
Grant, returning from his fairly regal tour around
the world, had been received in every city of the
United States with royal honors. His progress
across the continent from San Francisco, at which
point he had re-entered the country, was like the
triumphant return to Rome, in the days of pagan
splendor, of a conqueror. Everj'where the air rang
with plaudits, and amid the shouts of welcome was
heard everywhere the suggestion, the demand even,
that the policy enunciated by George Washington,
and followed loyally throughout a hundred years of
national life should be abandoned, and the hero of
Appomattox re-elected to the presidency for a
third time. The convention which should name the
THE MAYORALTY.
109
republican candidate for the election of 1880 was
still nearly a year away. Grant, with characteristic
taciturnity, had spoken no word which would show
his purpose to seek or not to seek the nomination.
On almost every lip was the question, " Does Grant
want a third term ? "
Chicago, always a city of enthusiasm, and devoted
to the spectacular, turned out in gallant fashion to
do honor to the nation's hero. There were the
usual processions, banquets, and a grand reception.
Among the orators of the occasion was Mayor Har¬
rison. His was the duty of welcoming the honored
guest. In a few brief and eloquent words he eulo¬
gized the soldier and the statesman, sketched in
graphic lines the stirring scenes of Donaldson, Vicks-
burg, Richmond, and Appomattox, then unex¬
pectedly to his hearers, and, perhaps in phrase too
delicate for the less acute among them to discern its
true meaning, made keen allusion to the topic which
all the world thought near to the ex-president's
heart and warned him against error, thus : —
" Sir, you have served your country nobly. Your coun¬
try has honored you grandly. Like the immortal Washing¬
ton you rose from the lowly walks of life, passed through
all military grades until you commanded the victorious
armies of your country. Like him you filled the office of
president two long terms. He, when his two terms were
over, was offered a crown by his admiring friends, but pre¬
ferring an immortality of renown to temporary power, he
retired to private life and lives and will live in the hearts
of his people, and all time will call him his country's father.
You too, sir, when your two terms were over, obeying that
110
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
part of your country's constitution in its unwritten tradi¬
tions hallowed by the example of the immortal Washington,
— you too retired and thus you too, sir, live and will live
forever in your countrymen's hearts."
It may well be imagined that this frank sugges¬
tion to the ex-president, generally believed to be
planning at that very moment for a third term,
created wide interest. The party press teemed with
allusions to it, and with commendation or abuse of
the orator according to the political character of the
journal. The sensation was enjoyed by no one more
than by its author. Thoroughly characteristic as
the speech was, it was not more so than his satisfac¬
tion that he had done an audaciously clever thing
and set the world talking.
In April, 1881, Harrison was re-elected mayor by a
substantial majority. His renomination was given
him by the Democratic party as a matter of course,
no other candidate appearing in the convention.
He assured the delegates who nominated him that he
had no desire for office, but that if chosen to it, he
would continue to conduct the affairs of the city
after the business-like fashion which had character¬
ized his first administration. Against him the Re¬
publicans put up John M. Clark, a gentleman who
had sat in the common council, and was in every
way well-fitted for the office to which he was nomi¬
nated. The campaign, like all in which Carter Har¬
rison figured, was bitterly contested. The Democratic
nominee went into the struggle strengthened by his
phenomenally successful management of the city
THE MAYORALTY.
Ill
finances. He cleverly seized upon some of the pre¬
dictions made by the Republican press at the time of
his first election to office, and made their authors
laughable by contrasting the prophecies with the
actual accomplishment. He quoted the prediction of
" The Tribune," that "the election of Mayor Harrison
means that city scrip now worth from 92 to 94 cents
will be brought down to 62 cents on the dollar," and
showed that so far from fulfilling it, he had reduced
the volume of scrip outstanding to almost nothing
and was meeting current expenditures in cash. " The
Tribune " had further asserted that " the election of
Carter Harrison means that our bonds, now so hand¬
somely above par, or seven per cent bonds which
are worth somewhere between 111 and 113, will be
reduced below par." To this the mayor retorted,
" What are the facts to-day ? Those same bonds are
worth 123 to 127, and our 4|^ per cent bonds, which
the bankers said last July we could not float, are
to-day bearing a premium of seven per cent. Our
four per cent bonds are to-day selling at three per
cent premium, and we have to-day in our office, or
on its way from New York, the proceeds of $700,000
of those bonds already paid for. So much for the
prophecies of the papers ! "
Against a man with such political ammunition at
hand, against an official who had been tried and
found efficient, mere partisanship could make little
headway. It was significant that at no time during
the campaign did the opposition press or the op-
112
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
posing speakers attempt to challenge the financial
features of Mayor Harrison's administration or to
impugn his integrity. Their main attack was on his
police policy, which they charged had delivered the
city over to vice and crime. Throughout his official
career Mayor Harrison frankly avowed liberal views
on this very serious feature of municipal adminis¬
tration. He stood for the fullest liberty consistent
with good order, opposed Sunday laws and sump¬
tuary laws, and believed that gambling and other
vices incident to city life could not be wholly sup¬
pressed and should be regulated. He met the charges
of his enemies in this instance by showing that the
police regulation of these evils was wisely directed
and well enforced, and that the city had never been
more free from actual crime.
The result of such a campaign could hardly have
been a matter of doubt. After the election of April
5, 1881, the ballots showed for Carter H. Harrison
35,668; for John M. Clark, 27,925. A few days
later Mr. Harrison was formally installed for the
second time in the office of mayor. In his inaugural
address, besides the formal review of the work of the
past year and statement of the condition of the city
finances, he made pleas for the abandonment of the
wood-block pavement then in use on all the down¬
town streets, and the substitution of granite, and for
an increase in the pumping facilities of the city
water-works. He closed his address with a defence
of his policy in the management of gambling so
THE MAYORALTY.
113
impassioned as to make it clearly evident that the
campaign shafts had left a sting. He declared it
utterly impossible to suppress the evil, that it was
rooted in the nature of man, and that he believed,
with Abraham Lincoln, that " you can't turn a cow's
tail into a third hind leg by statutory enactment."
" The fireside, the lyceum, and the well-stocked
public library," he said, " will do more than laws to
suppress social evils."
The Second administration of Mayor Harrison
lacked much of the political interest of the first.
The reins of office were already in his hands, the
steeds broken to the pace he set for them. There
were no further struggles with insubordinate officials
for they had learned his metal ; few serious contests
with the council. The appropriation bills were passed
and approved without the bitter struggles of the first
term, partly because the improved condition of the
city finances made pinching economy unnecessary,
but more because the mayor had learned the art of
making the council do as he wished.
Only a short time after the beginning of Mayor
Harrison's second term the nation was shocked by
the horrible crime of the assassin Guiteau, by which
a president of the republic lost his life. In a mes¬
sage to the common council dated July 6, 1881, the
mayor gave official notice of the dastardly crime
against the nation in these words : —
" Gentlemen, — Since your last meeting, the hand of an
assassin has been lifted against the life of the president of
8
114
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
the United States. It has caused a thrill of horror to fill
the hearts of all good men throughout the civilized world,
and the people of the United States have been inexpressibly
shocked that such an attempt should have been a second
time made against their first magistrate and their most
exalted servant.
" The citizens of Chicago have had but one feeling aroused
by this horrible deed, — a feeling mingled with detestation
of the great crime, and heartfelt sympathy with President
Garfield and his family. While they deeply deplore that
any one could conceive and execute so dastardly a deed,
they yet know that it was the act of a single man and not
the conspiracy of others, and they earnestly condemn the
rancor which could even suggest that Guiteau's crime was
the premeditated act of any faction in the countiy. They
recognize that assassination as a means of removing a
public servant can never become a growth on free Ameri¬
can soil. The assassin may shock the sentiment of Ameri¬
cans, but cannot cause them to doubt the safety of the
republic, nor can he materially disturb the equipoise of its
institutions. Chicago now rejoices that the condition of
the president gives hopes of his recovery. I recommend
that you pass resolutions of sympathy with him and his
family."
This message and the one in which he announced
the death of President Garfield after the long and
painful struggle at Elberon, have added interest
because Carter Harrison, like the president, fell
before the wanton bullet of a " crank," an ignoble
groveller, who, spurred on partly by vanity, partly
by the promptings of a half-crazed mind, followed
his victim to his home and shot him down. When,
at Garfield's burial, Harrison stood looking at the
THE MAYORALTY.
115
impressive outpouring of the people to do honor to
the distinguished dead, and turned, saying to a
friend at his side, " For such a funeral it would
almost be worth while to pay the price," he had no
thought that he too should meet his end as Garfield
did, and that his pathway to the tomb, through the
streets of the city he loved so well, would be at¬
tended with even greater pomp than the funeral
progress of Garfield's bier. And the fact that his
own assassin was a disappointed office-seeker gives
to certain phrases of the following message, in which
he announced the death of Garfield, an air of unin¬
tended prophecy : —
To the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Chicago, in City
Council Aaemhled:
Gentlemen, — Last night, while you were discussing an
important matter, the fire gong startled you by its measured
toll. It said, " The President is dead !" You at once
silently adjourned. I have called you together to make the
announcement that the Chief Magistrate of the United
States, after an heroic struggle of eighty days with grim
death, has at last given up the fight, — that his spirit at
10.35 last night winged its flight to the presence of its
God, leaving behind it a name which will live as long as
history continues to be written.
This is a painful announcement, whether you think of
James A. Garfield as a man or as the executive head of
this mighty republic. As a man he had his faults, perhaps,
— for who that is human has not ? — but his virtues were
far greater than have been bestowed on even a minority of
those whom the world has called great. He was a kind
and generous friend, a loving and gentle husband, and a
devoted father. He was an industrious public servant, and
116
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
endeavored to square all of his public acts by an upright
and peculiarly sensitive conscience. He was an earnest
patriot, and showed his love for his country on the battle¬
field as well as in the legislative halls. He was ambitious,
but bis ambition was of that exalted character which pined
for an eternal fame. He has been cut off in a manner
which will cause his name to live forever. But he has been
robbed of his most darling wish, which was that he would
fasten his name to some act which would forever endear
him to his fellow-men. As President of this mighly land,
had he been spared, this most earnest desire might have
been gratified. It is a bitter thing for such a man to be cut
off thus on the threshold of his great opportunity.
Regarding him as a man, we can profoundly mourn his
untimely death ; but when we regard him as the Chief
Magistrate of the United States, we have far more poignant
pain. He was murdered, not because he had awakened
personal animosity, not because he had embittered a
human life, but because he was the Chief Magistrate.
The assassin aimed at his heart, not because the heart was
a mán's, but because it beat within a President's breast.
It is a terrible thought that the man whom a nation exalts
to be its Chief Executive, its chief servant, should be a
target for a fanatic's bullet. Thank God, but one feeling
animates the hearts of all men and women of this broad
land, — execration and horror of the deed and of the
wretch who perpetrated it. I hope this execration will
grow and grow into a hatred of the vile system in our
body politic which maddened infamous Guiteau's brain.
The assassin of the President was a mad fanatic, but his
last act was the result of political pyaemia in our govern¬
mental fabric, — greed of office. It has been charged that
the black axiom, " To the victor belong the spoils," was
promulgated by a great man. Every friend of the defender
of New Orleans should resent the vile aspersion. To that
axiom we owe the rapid diffusion of the poison which
THE MAYORALTY.
117
belongs to the spoils system. Office is for the good of the
people, and not spoils for the office-holder. That party
should be entitled to the longest life in this country which
most boldly and honestly demands that this upas-tree of
republican institutions be eternally and utterly eradicated.
The death of James A. Garñeld brings this hideous mon¬
ster plainly before the eyes of the world. He believed in
reform in the civil service. His countrymen can best show
their appreciation of his worth by following what he
would advise could his spirit speak to them to-day. Let
it be written in letters of blood, " Guiteau's bullet was
sped by the spoils system. In the name of Garñeld, death
to the vile system !"
Gentlemen, I recommend that you adopt appropriate
resolutions, that the same be spread upon the records, and
that you appoint a committee of the Council to attend the
funeral of our lamented President, and in the name of
Chicago to drop a tear upon his grave.
I shall issue a proclamation calling upon the people of
this great city to desist from all labor and amusements
during the hours of the funeral, and thus to show their
respect for the dead President of the United States and
their horror of the black deed which so untimely took him
off. Carter H. Harrison.
The most important incident of Mayor Harrison's
second term was perhaps the fight upon overhead
telegraph-wires in the business streets of the city,
begun and prosecuted to a successful conclusion by
him. To-day the business district of Chicago is
clear of telegraph poles and wires, but it does not
need a long memory to recall the time when the
unsightly poles, with their rows upon rows of cross-
pieces, from which the scores of wires stretched in
118
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
either direction, disfigured the best business streets
of the city. Unsightly and a dangerous nuisance in
every town, these overhead wires were especially
so in Chicago where the sky is already sufficiently
darkened by smoke, and where such additional ob¬
structions to light and air are intolerable. The first
really effective step toward abolishing this nuisance
was Mayor Harrison's veto of an ordinance authoriz¬
ing the Mutual Union Telegraph Company to erect
poles and string wires on certain city streets. In the
spring of 1881, the council passed an ordinance direct¬
ing all telegraph and telephone wires to be placed
under ground within a specified period of time. The
corporations, after their ordinary fashion, paid no
attention to it, regarding it merely as one of the sops
to public opinion so often thrown out by corrupt
aldermanic bodies. Events showed that the estimate
placed upon the sincerity of aldermanic devotion to
the principle of underground wires was entirely just,
for, with this ordinance still on the record and in
force, the council passed one permitting a new tele¬
graph company to add its poles and wires to those
already obstructing and defacing the streets.
Mayor Harrison promptly vetoed the ordinance.
The message with which he accompanied the disap¬
proved measure was one of the strongest of his
executive documents, and a model of what a veto
message should be. Too long for reproduction here
in full, some of its salient points may well be
noted. In graphic phrase he described the unsight-
THE MAYORALTY. 119
liness and peril of the overhead wires, and he com¬
bated successfully, with facts and figures, the
arguments of the company that underground wires
were yet to be proved practicable. The insidious
plea that the new company would be a competitor of
the monopolistic Western Union and should not be
more burdened with regulations than that corpora¬
tion, he met firmly. It is the plea by which one
monopoly after another fastens its tentacles upon a
city, and never yet has relief come of favors granted
by the public upon such representations. Demanding
sturdily that the council take no backward step,
insisting that the opinion of the people be respected,
the mayor sent back the ordinance without his ap¬
proval. Determined effort was made to pass it over
his veto, but failed by a close vote. The promoters
of the ordinance, not to be baffled, amended it largely
in accordance with the mayor's demands, making the
right to maintain overhead wires merely temporary,
providing for the filing of a bond to secure the city
against all expense that might be incurred in remov¬
ing poles and wires at the end of the stipulated time,
and otherwise protecting the interests of the people.
In this form the ordinance was passed and received
the mayor's approval. But the beneficiary corpora¬
tion, as is not infrequently the case, took all the
limitations upon its privileges as so many meaning¬
less phrases. The day set for the expiration of its
privilege came and nothing had been done toward
burying the wires. The next morning the overhead
120
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
wires were cut by Mayor Harrison's orders. There
was immediate recourse to the courts by the corpora¬
tion, spirited defence by the city, and finally the
adoption of another modus vivendi^ by which the day
of the complete burial of all electric wires was
hastened. While this controversy with the telegraph
company was in progress. Mayor Harrison also inter¬
posed his veto power to prevent the granting of over¬
head privileges to an electric-light company. ' This
veto too was an admirable document. It recited the
progress which had been made in other cities of
America and Europe in putting electric wires under¬
ground. It rehearsed vividly, if possibly in some¬
what lurid phrase, the perils of wires in the open air
carrying an illuminating current. It pleaded elo¬
quently with the council for the protection of the
people's rights. Endorsed by a unanimous vote of
the council, this veto did not deter the corporation
from making reiterated demands for the privileges
sought, but Harrison's persistence and courage carried
the day. The wires when laid were put underground.
To-day the down-town section of Chicago is as clear
of telegraph wires as that of- any great city. Though
this result was not wholly achieved during Mayor
Harrison's term of office, the policy which produced
it was established and defended by him.
While the financial history of Mayor Harrison's
administrations is best summarized in the message
with which he retired from office at the end of his
fourth term and eighth consecutive year of service,
THE MAYORALTY.
121
quotations from which will be presented at the proper
place, it is pertinent to say, in connection with the
events of his second term, that he was able to notify
the council, in the first annual report of that term,
that " For the first time in several years the city has
not been obliged during 1881 to issue any *city
scrip.' In my last message I said I would earnestly
endeavor to so manage the municipal affairs as to
evade any necessity for issuing the paper. That
promise has been fulfilled, and no occasion has pre¬
sented itself to demand the issue of a single dollar."
The achievement was indeed one almost unparalleled
in municipal finance, and in the face of it Harrison's
bitterest and noisiest political enemies were compelled
to admit his surpassing merit as a "business mayor."
The council, at the last meeting of July, 1882, hav¬
ing extended the somewhat unusual courtesy of
voting him a vacation of six weeks. Mayor Harrison
straightway sailed for Europe, whither indeed he was
throughout his life apt to go when his engrossing
occupations gave him a long enough holiday. On
this occasion he confined his tour to the United
Kingdom, and, while departing from his usual cus¬
tom of keeping a journal, brought home a memento
in the form of a wife. On the 22d of August, he
married in London Miss Marguerite Stearns, daughter
of a Chicago business man, Marcus Stearns. The
couple had been engaged for some time, and chose to
be married in Europe to escape the publicity and
pomp of a wedding in Chicago.
122
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
While abroad he spent much time in Ireland, the
intimate connection between that country and many
of his warmest friends and supporters at home at¬
tracting him perhaps more than ^e scenery or the
historic associations of the Emerald Isle. In Dublin
he was entertained by the Lord Mayor at a formal
banquet, given at the instance of Famell, Justin
McCarthy, Dillon, Sullivan, and the other Irish mem¬
bers of Parliament, at which nearly a hundred dis¬
tinguished citizens were present. The address he
delivered on the occasion, though enthusiastically
received then, was made the basis of many attacks
upon him at home. He was accused of " pandering "
to the Irish vote, and the very newspapers which, in
the campaign of 1881, had tried to make an issue of
his refusal to preside at an Irish nationalist meeting,
now berated him as bitterly for his friendly words to
Irish hosts. It must be admitted that Carter Harri¬
son had much reason for the contemptuous estimate
which to the day of his death he put upon the honor,
honesty, and justice of the newspaper press. The
address he delivered at the Dublin banquet was
purely a piece of after-dinner oratory, yet had in it a
tactful recognition of the deeper sentiment of the
occasion which charmed his auditors. He accepted
the honor as one tendered, not to him as an individual,
but as the mayor of Chicago, a city which, as he
assured his hearers, numbered among its people over
110,000 Irishmen. The people of that city, he said,
had " learned to love not only liberty itself, but the
THE MAYORALTY.
123
name of liberty \ and when the cry came across the
ocean that Ireland was struggling for freedom, when
the news came that there was a dawn breaking in
the far East and there was a chance for Irish liberty,
there was one wild feeling of hurrah in Chicago in
the hope that Ireland would at last be free." He
declared that he spoke not as an Irishman, for no
Irish blood flowed in his veins. He gave public
utterance to that strange error in genealogy which
was exploded in the first chapter of this book, say¬
ing, "My ancestor who handed down his name to
me led Charles I. to the block, that terrible deed
which taught kings that heads were supported upon
shoulders by a slender neck, and taught the people
that that neck was easily severed. . . . Thank God,
owing to the inheritance that I got from my revolu¬
tionary forefathers, I love liberty and hate tyranny
wherever it be." He went on to make an impas¬
sioned plea for freedom for Ireland, declaring her
people law-abiding, intelligent, manly, and free-born.
Of the Irish in America he said, " Every act of Con¬
gress, every sermon in the pulpit, every grand plead¬
ing at the bar has something of Irish brain, and
every wall, every rail that spans the continent has
Irish sweat in it. They are not idle there; they
come from your most ignorant classes, your most
down-trodden, poor, oppressed, and uneducated ; yet
in the first generation they work, and in the second
generation they are among our best citizens. We
say to England, * Give them a chance here in Ireland,
124 CÁRTER HENRY HARRISON.
and maybe they will do as well as they have in
America.' "
Reports of this speech, preceding the mayor to
America, awakened great enthusiasm among the
Irish in this country, — those warm-hearted, brilliant,
enigmatic Irish, who, when in eidle, do so much for
their native land, for which they do so little while
there. Partly because of the enthusiasm of his Irish
constituency, but more through the friendly ofl&ces
of some of his personal followers, a reception was
arranged for him on his return. There were the
usual concomitants of a political festival in America,
— parades, brass bands, speeches, fireworks, and
punch. An affair wholly trivial in itself, yet one of
the many little incidents by which the ever popular
mayor of Chicago was brought nearer to the people
and the people closer to him.
In the spring of 1883, Mayor Harrison was again
the candidate of his party for re-election. He had
encountered the hostility of the whole press of the
city, and of that class of the " best citizens " who
are forever reforming municipal politics by putting
" citizens' tickets " in the field, and then forgetting
to vote for them. These elements took issue with
his policy of regulating inevitable evils, with his
liberal Old World notions of Sabbath observance,
with his treatment of the liquor traffic, with his
attitude toward the socialistic propaganda, — just
then very terrifying to timid capitalists, and with
nearly everything he had done, except his manager
THE MAYORALTY.
125
ment of the city finances. Their first step was to
nominate for mayor, as an independent candidate on
a high-license platform, Mr. R. T. Crane, a wealthy
manufacturer. But the Republicans, discerning, as
they thought, promise of victory in Democratic dis¬
sension, made certain agreements with the " reform "
faction, and Mr. Crane withdrew in favor of the
regular Republican candidate, Eugene Cary. Of the
campaign that followed, it is only necessary to say
that it was on the surface, apparently, a struggle of
Carter Harrison against all Chicago. The press was
practically a unit against him, and spared no epithet,
no slander, no falsehood for his overthrow. Every
sin committed in Chicago was laid at Harrison's door.
His supporters were declared to come only from the
slums and purlieus. The pulpit, ever easily led astray
by senseless clamor, joined in the attack, and on the
last day of the campaign the mayor was bitterly
assailed from a score of pulpits. To the batteries
of slander and malice he, as was his custom, made
little reply. He declared that the sole plank in the
platform on which he stood was " Personal Liberty,"
and the one exhibit of service on which he relied
for the continuance of the confidence the public
reposed in him, the integrity with which he had
ever conducted the affairs of the city. He pointed
to the fact that he had redeemed his promise to wipe
out the blot of scrip-issuance from the city's credit.
He showed that the city hall, under his management,
was being erected for upwards of a $1,000,000 less
126
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
than the court-house, identical in plan, but built
under Republican supervision. Election day brought
a repetition of the story that had become familiar to
Chicago. Harrison, the target for the abuse of the
press and the denunciations of the pulpit, was elected
easily, by a majority of 10,263. " The Chicago
Times," still under the editorship of the brilliant
Wilbur F. Storey, which had taken the lead in the
attack, said the day after election : —
" It was a campaign of vilification, of which the mayor
was made the target, and the virulence of the assaults
upon him aroused among hundreds of citizens, who cared
nothing for him personally or politically, that feeling of re¬
sentment which persistent malice always excites in lovers of
candor and fair play. The effect of this feeling was found
in the ballot-boxes. While the outcome of yesterday's
voting will be a sore disappointment to the managers of
the Gary canvass and the hungry horde of expectants who
followed their banners, the many good citizens who joined
that army and strove earnestly for a victory that would
bring a change of city administration will not despair of
Chicago's future because of their failure. They know that
though the management of municipal affairs has not been
all they could desire, it has at least been clean-handed and
reasonably efficient in most directions. The utmost malice
of the mayor's assailants has never charged him, or the ad¬
ministration for which he has been responsible, with pecu¬
lation or corruption. If the police force has not been at all
times effective in protecting property, it will be remembered
that that force is smaller in proportion to the area and
population than in any other great city on the continent."
The elevated tone, ostentatious devotion to fair
play, and deep political wisdom of the average par-
THE MAYORALTY.
127
tisan newspaper after election, are equalled only by
its noisy and stupid virulence before. " The Times,"
despite its sage post-election explanations, was in
the fore-front of the " campaign of vilification "
which it so deplored. Nor did the newspapers of
the city learn any wisdom from the result of the
campaign of 1883, but in 1885 and again in 1893
repeated their effort to substitute intemperate and
incredible abuse for honest arguments, with results
equally favorable to Mr. Harrison.
Mayor Harrison's third term was void of municipal
legislation of importance. He had a council more
thoroughly in harmony with his ideas than in earlier
years, and there was dearth of those tenacious
struggles over doubtful legislation which marked his
earlier administrations.. So thoroughly had the
council come to know and to respect him that at
its first meeting it requested him to name its com¬
mittees, — a prerogative for which in earlier years
he had had to fight. On this occasion, however, he
refused to accept the charge except after the passage
of a formal ordinance making the arrangement of
the committees a regular prerogative of the mayor.
Four years earlier, he had been unable to get his
committees accepted at all ; this year the ordi¬
nance he demanded was passed without a dissent¬
ing vote.
But while the municipal affairs of Mayor Harri¬
son's third term are devoid of any especial interest,
the political history of the period 1883-1885 and
128
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
his own part in it are full of interest. His nomina¬
tion for governor of Illinois, and his magnificent
though unsuccessful campaign for that oflSce may
well be left for an ensuing chapter. The part he
took in the national politics of the period is almost
equally interesting. Chicago that year played a
prominent part in national affairs. Her great Demo¬
cratic club, the Iroquois, determined to enter the
national arena with a banquet, the speeches at which
should set the keynote for the Democratic presi¬
dential campaign of 1884. It was to be a thoroughly
"free-trade" chorus. Such well-known proponents of
that theory as Frank Hurd, J. Sterling Morton, and
George Hoadly were invited to lead the discussion.
From all parts of the country, distinguished Demo¬
crats were bidden to the feast. Samuel J. Tilden
sent a letter. The editor of the " New York World,"
the president of the National Free Trade League,
and other notable Democrats came from the East.
According to the prearranged programme, the speeches
were all eulogistic of unrestricted commercial inter¬
course between all the nations of the earth. Mayor
Harrison, who was present as a member of the club,
grew restive. Always a believer in the principle of
protection himself, — even up to the year of his
death, when he saw a Democratic president ovei>
whelmingly elected upon a platform which declared
protection unconstitutional, — he felt that the whole
trend of the oratory of the evening was in the wrong
direction. His opportunity came when he was
THE MAYORALTY.
129
called upon to speak, though not down upon the
regular programme. Unquestionably aware that the
whole sentiment of the assembly was against him,
he nevertheless courageously avowed his beliefs.
Though his address throughout was brilliant, the
portions of it touching upon the tariff question are
the more interesting because of their audacity and
of the prodigious sensation they created, not only in
the Iroquois Club, but in all political circles.
" I say to you," he cried, — and in that free-trade assem¬
blage it was much like one crying in a wilderness, — " you
may make your tariff for revenue only a plank in your next
resolutions, and you will split the Democratic party. But
if you take the position that protection as a political doc¬
trine is a hydra-headed monster, that must be stricken down,
you will not split the party.
" Protection is a monster ; free-trade is a thing for the
doctrinaire. The times and country's financial condition
are not yet ripe for it. The people are not yet educated up
to it. It was a good thing to be discussed twenty-odd years
ago, when we held the power of the administration in
Washington. But take that as your plank now, and you
do not win from the Republican party one single one of its
adherents. They stick to the party that gives them patron¬
age and gives them spoils. You will drive tliousandte of
our own people from our ranks, and you will probably have
a presidential candidate writing a letter at the wrong
moment that kills your platform. The manufactures of the
country, the business of the country is more or less based
upon the high-protection tariff so many years in vogue.
To suddenly reduce the tariff to a purely revenue basis
would paralyze many industries, would produce a crash.
Our party would not, could not, desire to bring about such
conditions. A purely revenue tariff, ' a tariff for revenue
9
130
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
only,' would tax coffee, tea, and all other articles not pro¬
duced in this country, and these articles would be logically
the first ones sought for duties. Is the country ready for
this ? Are we as a party ready for it ? Could we hope to
win the country on such a programme ? I think not. And
yet this would be the logical sequence of a determination
to have ' a tariff for revenue only.' If we are not ready for
these results, then we are not ready for such a determina¬
tion. If we are not ready for it then we mislead when we
press the dogma. Here in Chicago, where over forty-one
thousand Democrats voted last week, not one in ten of
these Democrats is really in favor of such results. This
fact impels me to say what I do. My silence would mislead
other parts of the country, and might help to cause the
Democratic party to make a mistake in 1884.
• •••••••
" Let us go on steadily discussing the tariff question until
we can educate the people,— educate the people not by dog¬
matic assertions, but by facts, figures, and statistics. Strike
down protection as a political theory, but do not make a
platform to be spoken about in Illinois and slurred over in
Pennsylvania. Do not make a platform that one part of
your country denies while another part of your country
preaches it up. Be honest. Be bold and be fearless. Say
that the tariff must and shall be reformed. It has errors
in it. It has criminal errors. You can reform it and still
have revenue, and yet not drive our friends from us, who
believe in other parts of the Democratic doctrine. What is
Democratic doctrine ? Some say it is a tariff for revenue
only. I hold the tariff is not a principle of the Democratic
party and never was. It was an incident however. It was
not the great underlying principle of the Democratic party.
It is not the great underlying principle of the Democratic
party to-day. It is not a principle. It is simply a policy
growing out of and incident to a great principle, — the great
principle that legislation must be for the many and not for
THE MAYORALTY.
131
the few ; that we have in America no privileged classes,
for whose benefits laws shall be made, to the injury of the
many. ' A tariff for revenue only,' is a policy and a good
policy, — a policy to which I hope the country will eventu¬
ally come, but a policy which must be reached gradually,
and not with such haste as to injure the country's business ;
a policy, which I fear none of us here present will live to
see inaugurated. What was Jackson's idea of this ques¬
tion ? He said : 'With regard to a proper selection of the
subjects of impost, with a view to revenue, it would seem
to me that the spirit of equity, caution, and compromise, in
which the constitution was formed, requires that the great
interests of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, should
be favored.' This was certainly tariff for revenue doctrine,
but not for revenue only. But there is a principle that is
Democratic, and that is the principle enunciated by Thomas
Jefferson, — that man is capable of self-government, that
the poor man, in his humble citizenship, is as great a man
with a ballot in his hand as is your Vanderbilt or your
Gould, rolling in his carriage or travelling over the country
in his palatial coach. That is Democracy. Free-trade was
not Democracy at any time. Free-trade is not Democracy
to-day. Tariff for revenue only cannot be reached during
several Democratic administrations to come. In part of
the country they tell you to give us protection to home
industry, and Mr. Hurlburt himself says a tariff for
revenue brings incidentally protection. Let your news¬
papers, the Democratic newspapers of this country educate
the people up to the question. Let your public writers
educate the people up to it. But when you come to a city
with its vast monopolies, and when you tell them in a
platform that you are going to have a tariff for revenue
only, the ballots will be printed and put in the voter's hands
the night before election, and he will be commanded to vote
as his employer wishes him to vote. At the last election
in this city, when Hancock and Garfield were running,
132
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
Republican ballots were put in the hands of every great
employer in this city the night before the election. Em¬
ployees were told that their bread depended on the election
of Garfield, and they voted with their bread. Great pro¬
cessions marched over the streets — processions composed
to a great extent of men who usually vote with the Demo¬
cracy — carrying banners denouncing free-trade. They
thought their bread was endangered. We could not con¬
vince them to the contrary. We may win on a new doc¬
trine, on a principle of that sort, when the country is
oppressed and suffering, when the finances are in a bad
condition, when labor is not winning a proper reward, but
you cannot bring on a change of that sort when a country
is prosperous. You cannot change a policy of government
which is fixed in the minds of the people, and when the
people have living wages and are working every day for
those wages. We all believe in tariff for revenue. It is
the true policy of government. This club in its constitu¬
tion, to which I subscribe as a member, says in the ninth
section, ' Tariff for revenue only at the earliest practicable
period consistent with due regard for existing interests and
the financial needs of the government; and immediately
such a revision of the present system as shall fairly and
equitably distribute burdens.' That is right — ' as soon as
may be consistent with a due regard for existing interests.'
That does not mean, necessarily, during the incumbency of
the next Democratic president. You have no right to tax
one man to help to make another richer ; but is it necessary
for us as Democrats to put * a tariff for revenue only ' in
our platform to-day, and to declare we will bring it about
at once ? We do not know what Congress may do in the
next two years. Congress may so reform, revise, or re¬
model the present pernicious tariff as to eliminate the
whole question. But will it do it? Go ask them there
what they are doing to-day. Are the Democrats in Wash¬
ington all of one mind on the question of tariff? Here is
THE MAYORALTY.
133
my friend, Mr. Springer; ask him if every Democrat on
the floor of the House of Representatives is a man for tariff
for revenue only. He will tell you no. A congressman
from Virginia wants to protect some commodity because
his constituency demands it. A Democratic congressman
from Louisiana has voted for a tariff upon sugar because
his constituents demand it. But we may break down the
monster that is now building up the wealth of the few at
the expense of the many, and that is by reforming the
present tariff, — reforming it so as to take off the burden
of the people ; and then you have a living principle, a living
issue to flght for, and not a thing of the dead past that we
have hauled up for years, and paid no attention to when we
got to Washington.
" But I saw some of my friends shake their heads be¬
cause I say don't put in your plank the ' tariff for revenue
only.' I wish to say, Mr. President, that no man in this
audience to-night believes less in protection than I. I believe
it is a fraud on the masses. It is a thing gotten up to make
the poor man poorer and the rich man richer. But the
poor man, working day by day for his bread, is more
or less the machine and the tool of his rich employer.
We have seen it here in Chicago; we have seen it else¬
where. The other day, the Democracy of Chicago rolled up
41,000 votes. In the presidential election in 1880, the
Democracy had but 37,000. What caused this difference ?
We are not more Democratic to-day than we were then. But
it was because monopoly crushed the laborer and made him
vote with it. Look at this last election here a few days ago,
when circulars were issued by the Republican committee, —
circulars addressed to every rich employer in the city, tell¬
ing him to see to impressing on his employees the necessity
for voting for that ticket. What does that impressment
mean ? It means to impress him by letting him know that
his to-morrow's employment depends on how he votes
134
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
to-day. Then why array this terrible factor against us ?
Let the newspapers do their duty, let congressmen preach
it, and scatter over this land the true doctrine that tariff
for revenue is the best in the long run, and protection is
robbery. Spread that doctrine over the country through
your speeches, my friend. Senator Bayard. Scatter that
literature over the country, educate the people, and when
we win the presidency then we will have time to look at a
true reform in the policy of tariff. But don't put a free-
trade plank in the platform now. Did the Republican
party not offer reform the other day ? Have we reformed
the tariff ? I will ask my friend, Mr. Springer, did the last
commission reform the tariff or did it not ? Your speeches
said it was a fraud. The Republicans say it is right and
they have got the press of the North. You can only coun¬
teract the influence of that press by your speeches in
Cougress. Scatter them over the land, let Mr. Wheeler
issue from his bureau in New York proper documents that
will instruct the people ; but do not throw away the chances
of winning a presidency, and giving to the people Jeffer-
sonian democracy, by asking for something you cannot get,
and which we would not get if we could ; for if the Demo¬
cracy should get control of the country, it would not jeopar¬
dize its business interests by reducing the tariff at once to a
revenue basis. It would revise, and wisely revise, the
present iniquitous tariff, and help, not injure, the people."
Criticism of this address, based both on the wis¬
dom of the principles enunciated in it, and upon the
propriety of expressing them at all in a gathering
intended to be a harmonious celebration of the
glories of free trade, was rife for weeks after the
event. Mayor Harrison was denounced and ap¬
plauded, lampooned, caricatured, reviled, and ridi¬
culed. Yet he clung manfully to bis convictions,
THE MAYORALTY.
135
and later, when he came to he nominated for gover¬
nor of Illinois, made another forceful protest against
the political unwisdom of declaring for a policy of
tariff for revenue only, and this time carried his
point. At heart he was, indeed, more of a protec¬
tionist than he avowed himself in his speeches. In
addressing such a body as a Democratic Convention
or the Iroquois Club, he was prone to base his antag¬
onism to the free-trade programme on the not very
elevated grounds of political expediency. In fact,
however, the convictions he had imbibed in youth
as a " Henry Clay Whig " never deserted him. To
the day of his death he clung to the doctrine of
protection, and always believed Samuel J. Tilden
and Samuel J. Bandall the two greatest Democrats
of his time.
Notwithstanding his antagonism to a declaration
for a tariff for revenue only. Mayor Harrison took
an active part in the nomination and election of a
president who in later years became recognized as
the most radical and earnest proponent of that
theory in the Democracy. The Democratic National
Convention of 1884 met in Chicago. Carter Harri¬
son was seated as one of the Illinois delegation. Up
to the last moment he had hoped that his political
idol, Mr. Tilden, would be a candidate before that
convention and be nominated, — a wish which beyond
doubt was shared by an enormous majority of the
Democratic voters of the country. But Mr. Tilden's
advanced years and bodily infirmities led him to set
136 CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
a firm face against the importimities of his adherents.
The time for the national Democratic Convention
came, and no candidate for the presidential nomina¬
tion had so solid a phalanx behind him as to make
nomination certain. Cleveland, Butler, Hendricks,
Bayard and Thurman were all possibilities. The
convention, as those versed in political history will
remember, was stormy, racked with confiicting fac¬
tions and ambitions. Carter Harrison, after the
withdrawal of Mr. Tilden, cast his infiuence into the
scale for Grover Cleveland, then an unknown quan¬
tity in national politics. On behalf of Illinois, he
seconded the nomination of the New Yorker in a
speech which need not be reproduced.
The outcome of the convention is matter of his¬
tory. Cleveland was nominated despite the stren¬
uous opposition of the delegates from his own State.
In Illinois, Harrison was nominated for governor.
Pressing his own canvass with characteristic vigor,
he unquestionably contributed vastly to the strength
of the presidential ticket in the State. By his efforts
a large campaign fund was raised, and expended in
a way to benefit the national ticket quite as much
as his own candidacy. Though defeated himself, he
reduced very materially the normal Republican
majority in the State. Though unable to give the
electoral vote of Illinois to Cleveland, he sowed the
seeds of Democracy which sprouted to such full frui¬
tion in 1892. In later years there sprung up
between the Democratic president and Carter Harri-
THE MAYORALTY.
137
son a certain hostility, bred perhaps, of misunder¬
standing on both sides. When Cleveland became a
candidate for a third nomination, Harrison, as jour¬
nalist and politician, opposed him, though supporting
him loyally after the nomination was won.
In the spring of 1885, Carter Harrison was elected
for the fourth consecutive time mayor of Chicago.
His renomination had been accomplished, he declared,
without action on his part and against his will. For
a competitor he had Judge Sidney Smith, who
headed perhaps the strongest Republican city ticket
ever nominated in Chicago. Into the details of the
canvass it is idle now to go. Like earlier campaigns
it was marked by extreme bitterness on the part of
the newspapers, the pulpit and a certain class of
self-appointed " reformers " against the Democratic
nominee. The curious investigator who may scan
Mayor Harrison's official papers will be struck by
the frequency with which he goes out of his way to
denounce the newspapers. Such phrases as "the
licentious press," " the prostitute and lying news¬
paper," " a partisan and corrupt press," are of fre¬
quent occurrence in his messages to the council and
in hia speeches. But by any one who has seen some¬
thing of the malice, the intemperate abuse, the lying
and slanderous attacks to which Harrison was sub¬
jected by the Chicago newspapers, this seeming bad
taste will be condoned. It is a singular fact, how¬
ever, and one well worth the study of journalists,
that the extreme and intemperate opposition of the
138
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
newspapers seems never to have injured Harrison
politically. Time and time again he was trium¬
phantly elected in spite of a united press against
him.
In the election of 1885, however, the veteran
mayor narrowly escaped meeting his Waterloo. He
had to contend with an unusually strong ticket, and
with jealousy and treachery in the ranks of his own
party. When the campaign closed and the ballots
were counted, he was found to be elected by the
narrow majority of 293 votes. The ciy of fraud
was at once set up by the partisans of the Republi¬
can candidate. The newspapers redoubled their
vilification of the mayor. A self-styled " Com¬
mittee of Public Safety " was formed to guard the
ballot-boxes and to watch the progress of the officiai
count. There had been the usual turbulence at the
polls. Some ballot-boxes had been tampered with
and many voters intimidated. The partisan press
did not scruple to charge Mayor Harrison with per¬
sonal responsibility for these lawless acts. He
responded by suing the " Inter Ocean " newspaper,
and a noisy orator, for libel, fixing his damages at
$800,000. Reparation having been made in retrac¬
tion and public apologies, these suits were not
pressed. But out of the closeness of the vote and
the violent clamor of partisans of both mayoralty
candidates arose complications which kept the result
of the election in doubt until June 1st, when the
official count was finished, giving Harrison 375
THE MAYORALTY. 139
majority. The friends of Judge Smith began a con¬
test of the legality of the result, but were unable to
alter it. In his annual address next following, the
mayor made bitter reference to the persistent attacks
of the antagonistic press at this time, and to the
effort to unseat him. It was his weakness that he
always devoted public papers of this kind to fighting
over again the campaign he had won, — a practice
which showed that years of custom had not made
him indifferent to newspaper attacks, and that he
could not refrain from replying to them in official
documents, which he shrewdly saw the hostile papers
themselves would have to print.
Nothing in Carter Harrison's long régime is of
more interest than the varying phases of the social¬
istic and anarchistic propaganda in Chicago, which
flourished during his official career, reaching its
height and encountering its overthrow in the explo¬
sion of the bomb in the Haymarket, and the execu¬
tion of the men supposed to have incited that
murderous attack. At different times Harrison
was bitterly attacked for the liberty of speech which
he permitted to the proponents of even the most
revolutionary doctrines. The injustice of such criti¬
cisms is perhaps best indicated by their evanescence.
They were bred of temporary panic wholly. In his
last campaign for the mayoralty, when it seemed
that every charge, however well or ill founded, that
could be brought against him was put forward, this
issue was never raised.
140
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
There is and has always been about the city of
Chicago an atmosphere highly stimulative to radical
economic thought. In some degree this is doubtless
due to the rapidity with which some men have
grown rich, their sudden rise to fortune awakening
in the minds of less fortunate observers jealousy,
resentment, and doubt of the justice of the system
under which such sudden wealth could be accumu¬
lated. But probably to the large proportion of
foreign-born citizens, particularly the great and
influential German colony, this undercurrent of
socialistic thought is due. Certainly there have
been few seasons since 1877 when the spirit of
antagonism to the existing industrial system has
not been a force seriously to be reckoned with in
Chicago, and it is probable that it was never stronger
than to-day.
When Carter Harrison was first elected mayor,
the socialists put a ticket formally into the field
against him, and polled nearly 12,000 votes. It
was their last considerable appearance in Chicago
politics. By diplomatic treatment, Harrison disin¬
tegrated the socialistic element as a political entity,
and brought its most creditable faction over to the
Democratic party. Some of the candidates upon
the Socialistic ticket of 1879, he appointed to city
offices of high honor, where they were, without
exception, creditable and efficient public servants.
But while his tactful methods broke up the avowedly
socialistic organization as a political power, that
THE MAYORALTY. 141
propaganda, pressed by socialists, anarchists, and the
more radical labor organizations, was still continued.
Timid people were affrighted by it, and indeed there
were features about it which vigorously suggested
revolution. " Armed camps " of workingmen drilled
with rifles and bayonets in regular military tactics.
Speeches violently denunciatory of the " capitalist
class" were made on the lake front and in public
halls, and the orators did not hesitate to prophesy
murderous outrages and armed rebellion against the
forces of the law. The " Arbeiter Zeitung," organ
of the German radicals, printed inflammatory edito¬
rials from the pen of August Spies, afterwards
hanged for alleged complicity in the crime of the
Haymarket. To all this torrent of intemperate and
even incendiary talk. Mayor Harrison made no
effort to interpose a check. For his attitude of in¬
difference, and for the countenance he gave the
socialistic element by keeping some of their repre¬
sentatives in office at the City Hall, he was bitterly
denounced by the newspapers most nearly allied to
the " capitalist classes." And when a platoon of
police, attempting to disperse a mass meeting of
workingmen at the Haymarket, which seemed to
threaten riot, were mowed down by the explosion
of a dynamite bomb hurled by some unidentified
member of the anarchist propaganda, the outcry of
the newspapers was redoubled.
Nevertheless, Harrison held his ground coura¬
geously. In fact, his position was thoroughly well
142
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
taken, and just criticism oí his stand could not be
made. He gave countenance to these preachers of
radical ideas, not because he sympathized with their
beliefs, — for no man was further from being an
anarchist or even a socialist than, he, — but because
he was fully persuaded that interference would be a
violation of the right of free speech. As years have
rolled by, the essential justice of his position has
come to be generally admitted in Chicago, while,
even at the height of the excitement, the firm and
able manner in which he handled the turbulent
classes after the Haymarket riot, allayed all doubt
of the mayor's entire devotion to the public weal.
In a formal interview with the correspondent of a
great New York newspaper, sent to Chicago immedi¬
ately after the crime of the Haymarket, Mayor
Harrison expressed explicitly the views he held as to
the limitations upon, and the extent of the right of
free speech and socialistic agitation. He declared
that the socialist representatives in the common
council had been admirable officials, and that some
of the most beneficial public measures originated
with them. The ordinances providing for factory
and tenement-house inspection and regulation, he
cited as examples of the fruits of socialistic endeavor.
He drew sharply the line of discrimination between
socialists, communists, and anarchists, and declared
the former " the exponent of a tremendous column
of workingmen in this country, and not only of
workingmen, but of many of our most intelligent
THE MAYORALTY.
143
thinkers and writers. ... I do not believe they
sympathize with these bomb throwers or with ex¬
tremists of any nature." In an open letter to the
several Chicago newspapers about the same time, he
made bitter protest against the injustice of charging
him with being an abettor of anarchy, and pointed
out that the numerical strength of the socialists, as
shown by their vote, had dwindled down to almost
nothing in the six years he had been mayor. His
habit of wandering about the city, both by day and
by night, unattended and unostentatiously, enabled
him to speak with knowledge of the temper of the
working people, and he discerned more clearly than
the sages who sat in the editorial chairs that the
noisy bluster of Spies, Parsons, Schwab, and their
colleagues, stood for nothing ; that, so far as Chicago
was concerned, anarchy was a school of turgid ora¬
tory, nothing more. He was in the crowd at the
Haymarket the night the historic bomb was thrown,
and in spite of the protests of police officials, made
especial effort to let his presence be known. He
went away, after listening to several speeches, say¬
ing that there was nothing dangerous or riotous
about the assemblage. As a witness in the anar¬
chist trial he testified to that effect, and always
thereafter declared in private conversation that he
did not believe any of the men arrested and punished
for the bomb throwing, were immediately guilty of
the crime. When in 1893 Governor Altgeld pardoned
the surviving anarchists confined in State's prison.
144
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
Carter Harrison dictated for " The Times," of which
he was then owner, an editorial applauding the act,
though he disapproved of the language in which the
pardon was couched.
At the end of his fourth term. Mayor Harrison
found himself involved in very perplexing political
complications. His political friends who had stood
by him so loyally, and had so often carried his cause
forward to victory, demanded that he should again
be the Democratic standard bearer. To this he was
averse. There was nothing in the mayoralty to
longer attract him. He had conducted the affairs
of the city for eight years, honorably and success¬
fully. He was able to point to notable public im¬
provements accomplished under his régime, to the
progress of the city treasury from bankruptcy to
entire solvency, to a city hall built at vastly less
expense than the twin structure occupied by the
county, to an improved water system, and to the
genesis of a scientific and sufficient drainage system,
all due to his efforts in great part. He felt it an
auspicious moment to retire. But his friends were
strenuous in their opposition to his project for retire¬
ment. They declared that he must be guided by
considerations of party expediency, that the condi¬
tion of affairs in the city was such that, if he failed
them, there would be little chance of any Democrat
succeeding to the mayoralty. They urged too, that
retirement at this juncture would be retreat under
fire ; that the charges brought against him on
THE MAYORALTY.
145
account of his narrow victory over Judge Smith, and
the noisy attacks upon him growing out of the anar¬
chist troubles could only be properly met by going
once again to the polls for a vindication at the hands
of the people. Finding him still obdurate, they
declared their intention of nominating him despite
his opposition. This course they adopted, domina¬
ting the convention and carrying their plan through
with the utmost ease. Though in speech and by
letter the mayor had declared flatly his absolute
determination not to be again a candidate, the pres¬
sure upon him to accept was redoubled even after
the convention was called to order. He was sum¬
moned to the hall, and although moved greatly by
the enthusiasm with which he was greeted, he reiter¬
ated from the platform and in the presence of the
delegates who had already nominated him, his posi¬
tive refusal to accept the honor. The convention
was thrown into an uproar. A motion that Har¬
rison be not permitted to decline was carried
with enthusiasm. He left the platform, but was
surrounded by friends who carried him off to an¬
other room, and there redoubled their importuni¬
ties. At last, wearied by so much solicitation, and
especially affected by the loyalty and devotion
manifested by those whom he had led so often,
he yielded,—yielded, as he afterwards concluded,
unwisely.
A very few hours' reflection convinced the man
who had been made a candidate against his will that
, 10
146
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
it would have been wiser far to have adhered to his
original determination. Rumors of dissension and
treachery in the ranks of the party came to his ears.
The newspapers accused him of having played a
friend false, and the three Democratic journals gave
prompt notice of their intention to oppose his elec¬
tion. The candidate for treasurer, Mr. McAvoy,
whose presence on the ticket Mayor Harrison thought
would give it great strength, declared his purpose of
withdrawing. Added to these disheartening politi¬
cal troubles, the shadow of impending sorrow hung
heavy over his household, where his young wife lay
ill of a sickness that in but a few weeks ended in
death. Impelled by all these considerations, morti¬
fied, blaming himself for his own weakness, the
mayor determined to withdraw from the ticket, and
sent to the executive committee the following letter,
which he undoubtedly then believed marked the last
act in his political career : —
To the Democratic City Central Committee :
Gentlemen, — The 18th inst. I wrote to the Democrats of
this city a letter declining to be a candidate for mayor before
the coming convention, and asking that my name be not used
in that connection. This letter was written in the interest of,
and published after consultation with, a personal friend who
desired to be mayor, and who would, I believed, conduct the
affairs of this city in the same manner and upon the same
principles adopted by myself ; that his administration would
be an indorsement of my own. In publishing this letter I
made a grave mistake. No man should place himself in a
position where he cannot answer the demands of his party.
THE MAYORALTY.
147
In spite of this letter the Democratic convention met and
nominated me by acclamation. I went before the conven¬
tion positively declining the nomination, giving the rea¬
sons therefor, which I thought should be satisfactory and
conclusive.
Leaving the hall immediately, I was stopped by a friend
and detained a few moments, during which time the con¬
vention refused unanimously to accept my declination.
Friends came to me from the hall, prominent men in the
convention, insisting upon my return, and assuring me that
not to do so would utterly demoralize the party. Carried
away by the enthusiasm of the moment, I yielded to the
convention's demand and made another mistake.
Gentlemen, for years I have been the target for endless
abuse and slander. This I have borne with comparative
equanimity, because my personal integrity and honor were
never attacked ; but now I find the press almost unanimous
in its assertion that I have betrayed a friend and broken
my word, and this friend does not come forward to deny
the false allegation. This situation is unbearable. Such a
charge involves a reflection upon my personal character,
and life is too short to undertake to correct and explain
matters involving one's honor. Not a newspaper in Chicago
is willing to set me right. There is but one thing left for
me to do. I cannot afford to be elected mayor under such
circumstances. Knowing well the consequences of the
action I now take, and that it forever debars me from future
political honors, I must positively and irrevocably withdraw
my name from the head of your ticket. The ticket must
in any event be remodelled, for I have in my possession the
declination of Mr. McAvoy, and this action of mine may
enable you to harmonize the party. The confidential ad¬
viser in Chicago of the President of the United States has
taken the public position that I should be defeated in the
interest of the national administration. The three news¬
papers which are the organs of the president in Chicago,
148
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
have attacked me violently since my nomination and urged
my defeat. This convinces me that the president of the
United States does not desire me to be elected. I therefore
respectfully suggest that you call into consultation with you
the gentlemen who are known to be the advisers here of the
federal administration, and nominate a ticket which will
command their support.
Carter H. Harrison.
Naturally this sudden and positive withdrawal
from the political contest created a wide sensation.
The mayor was execrated for his abandonment of his
party, ridiculed for his vacillation, complimented for
his shrewdness. The party which he had so brusquely
brushed aside did not rally. Dazed by the complica¬
tions surrounding them, its managers determined
not to put a ticket in the field. Democratic voters
divided their support between Roche, the Republican
candidate, and Nelson, the nominee of the labor fac¬
tion,— the former being easily elected. The city
thus returned to Republican control after eight years
of Harrison Democracy.
The record of those eight years was well summed
up by the retiring mayor in his farewell message of
April 18, 1888. It was a history of achievement so
creditable that its author may well be pardoned the
flourish with which he adorns it, the air of frank self-
satisfaction with which he recounts his exploits. From
bankruptcy, depreciated scrip, wasted credit, and im¬
pending financial disaster, he had guided the city treas¬
ury through a period of rigid economy to the goal of
perfect solvency, leaving its credit unexceptionable,
THE MAYORALTY.
149
its bonds above par, and $2,665,000 in the treasury
for his successor. He found the city with one hun¬
dred and thirty-two miles of paved streets, practi¬
cally all of wooden blocks or macadam, and left it
with three hundred and forty-seven miles of pave¬
ment, a very considerable part of which was granite
or other stone. The bridges of the city — a very
serious quantity in Chicago, trisected as it is by a
river busy with commerce—he had greatly im¬
proved, building the first ones swung by steam, and
providing for two additional ones at the expense of a
street-railroad company. He had cleared the down¬
town streets of overhead wires, and established an
underground telegraph system owned by the city,
and employing sixty-five miles of wire. A city hall
had been built costing $1,676,030, equal in dimen¬
sions too, and better in construction than the adjacent
county building which cost $2,604,668. The police
force and fire department had been brought to a
notably high degree of eflSciency, and Mayor Harri¬
son had joined Judge Lambert Tree in establishing a
fund from which two medals were to be purchased
annually for the policeman and the fireman who had
performed the deed of greatest bravery during the
year. Into the police service too, he had introduced,
for the first time in America, the electric call-box and
patrol-wagon system now so widely in use in Ameri¬
can cities. Much space in this final message was
given up to the movement for a scientific and suffi¬
cient drainage system for Chicago, — a work begun
150
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
by Harrison's appointment of the "Drainage and
Water Supply Commission," by which was recom¬
mended the construction of that enormous artificial
water-way for the diversion of the city's sewage, in
dilute form, to the Illinois River, and ultimately to
the Mississippi. This colossal work, involving the
expenditure of nearly $25,000,000 is still (1894) in
progress. In name a " drainage canal " it will be, in
dimensions a ship canal. It provides for more than
two-thirds of the labor and cost of that deep navi¬
gable channel from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi
for which Harrison pleaded so earnestly in Congress.
That the other third will be provided for by the State
or the nation is reasonably certain; so that what
Harrison failed as congressman to accomplish through
federal action, he put in a fair way of accomplish¬
ment by his authority and influence as mayor of
Chicago. In this closing report of his eight years'
service in the mayoralty, which he and everybody
else then thought marked the end of his public
career, Harrison called attention to a very interest¬
ing experiment in municipal land owning made under
his direction. When the city offices were moved to
the new City Hall, the lot upon which the old muni¬
cipal structure known as " the rookery " stood, was
left vacant. Real estate speculators strove to buy it,
but the mayor recommended that it be held as a
source of city revenue. Accordingly a lease was
made to a private company at a rental of $35,000
per annum, for ninety-nine years, the lessees to erect
THE MAYORALTY.
151
a building worth at least $1,500,000, which at the
expiration of the period of the lease should revert to
the city. The council fixed lighter conditions, but
the mayor's demands, being complied with, will save
to the city during the continuance of the lease,
according to his estimate, $3,990,000.
Much of this final report is taken up with a de¬
fence of his policy in dealing with the evils of a great
city, which it is useless to reproduce here. It is
against this feature of his administrations that criti¬
cism has always been most fiercely directed. His
own conviction of the absolute wisdom of his course
was unshakable. He put his answer to his assailants
in one sentence. " They who think that the morals
of a great crowded city can be made pure by law are
as much dreamers as the mad anarchists who imagine
that crime can be destroyed by killing law." The
duty of a mayor he conceived to be to protect the
lives, persons, and property of citizens, to see that
the municipal revenues were expended honestly and
to the best advantage. That these functions he dis¬
charged efficiently throughout his long official career
has seldom been questioned even by his most partisan
opponents.
And so on the eighteenth of April, 1887, Carter
H. Harrison left public life — " forever " as the
newspapers and his political opponents were in haste
to say. Twelve days later heavy sorrow came upon
him, in the death of the wife he had wedded in Lon¬
don six years before. For a time he clung to his
162
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
retirement and nursed his sorrow, but the habits of a
lifetime of activity were not to be lightly changed, and
a few months found the veteran public man, now in
his sixty-fourth year, casting about for a new field
for his energies.
CHAPTER Vn.
THE Râ.CE WITH THE SUH.
The summer of 1887 found Carter Harrison out of
office after continuous public service throughout a
term of fifteen and one-half years. A man always
of intensely active habit of mind, the unaccustomed
leisure was irksome to him. His estate, which had
attained comfortable proportions, was of a kind
which required little attention. He had no profes¬
sion to engross him. The recent death of his second
wife had preyed upon him sorely, and filled the
family home on Ashland Avenue with a host of
melancholy memories. Always passionately fond of
travel, Mr. Harrison determined to take this period
of leisure for the gratification of a long cherished
wish to make a tour of the world. Europe and the
more accessible portions of Asia were already familiar
to him, but the glories of the Orient still existed for
him only in the imagination. It is not unlikely that
the acerbities of newspaper attacks upon him at the
time of his last renomination for the mayoralty had
something to do with his determination to leave for
a time the city which he loved so well and had
served so long. To his last day Carter Harrison was
154
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
keenly sensitive to newspaper criticism. No man in
American political life was ever subjected to more
merciless attacks- by partisan writers, but though
time after time the people by their votes showed how
little credence they gave to the slanders heaped
upon him, he never learned to regard these attacks
with indifference. It is significant that when he in
turn became the owner of a great Chicago daily, his
first instructions to his editorial staff were to abjure
epithets in political writing, and to be sure that
every criticism of a political antagonist be based
upon justice. And in his last campaign for the
mayoralty, when the attacks upon him by the allied
press of the city exceeded in indecency anything
Chicago politics had ever known, his own paper was
consistently conducted upon the just and temperate
rule he had formulated.
Early in August of 1887, Mr. Harrison, accompanied
by his younger son William Preston and a young
companion, left Chicago on his errand to put a girdle
round the earth. His course lay westward, through
British Columbia to Victoria, thence to Japan, then
on through China, India, Siam, Ceylon and Southern
Asia to the Red Sea, thence by the Suez Canal to
Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and the better known states
of Europe. The journey occupied about fifteen
months, and its story is well told by Mr. Harrison
himself in the bulky volume entitled " A Race with
the Sun."
Had politics not engrossed Carter Harrison, he
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
155
might have acquired almost equal celebrity as a
traveller and writer of books of travel. The very
quality of sympathy, of good-fellowship, which made
him a power with the people also fitted him to reap
the fullest possible fruits of travel. The indefinable
magnetism which disarmed his enemies in his pres¬
ence, and his native audacity enabled him to gather
bits of information about the domestic manners, the
intimate habits of foreign peoples, which would be
unattainable to more reserved or less engaging tour¬
ists. One of his companions said of him that he
would boldly enter a hut in Ceylon or Siam, examine
the furniture and household utensils, play with the
children, make friends with the parents, converse
laboriously but always cheerfully, by the employment
of signs and gestures, and emerge bearing a store of
information and followed by the friendly adieus of
the inmates, upon whose family circle he had intruded
in a fashion which might well have awakened resent¬
ment. In all his travels it was the people themselves,
rather than the wonders of nature or the great
triumphs of art and architecture, which most engaged
Harrison's attention. " I love to watch new people,"
he writes in one of his books of travel. " I visit cities
more to look at and into their people, than at and
into their edifices and shows." Was it not this ever-
present interest in and sympathy with the people,
and above all with the common people, that by some
sort of subtile telepathy gave him his wonderful hold
on the masses ?
156
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
The volume which gives Mr. Harrison's own story
of his " Race With the Sun " abounds with curious
information, and is intensely readable from the first
page to the last. But as a literary production it is
open to serious criticism. Its faults are due in part
to his own natural diffuseness, but chiefly to the
method of its production, for its chapters were origi¬
nally letters written to a Chicago newspaper, and
abound in local and personal allusions. In the
hands of some editor other than himself, these let¬
ters might readily have been condensed into a volume
which would secure high place among popular books
of travel ; but the faculty of abridgment was not
greatly developed in him, and his published volume
retains too many of the journalistic qualities of the
letters which constitute it. But withal it is a book
of notable interest, — the sort of a book of travel
which might well be written by a man who re¬
proached a travelling companion for reading in the
cars, saying with a sweep of the hand toward the car
window, " There is the book for us to study now."
It is the kind of a narrative of travel which one
would expect from a traveller who always rode
second class in India, because some of the British
colonists had told him always to ride in first-class
carriages, in order to avoid contact with the natives.
It was characteristic of Harrison that in all his
travelling he kept an eye open for phenomena con¬
nected in any way with municipal government. In
Japan we find him noting the character of the police
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
157
system of Tokio, and the methods of street-paving
and road-building ; in Cairo he studies the improved
sanitation due to British rule; in Christiania the
control of the liquor trafl&c interests him. An acute
observer and a man of highly assimilative mind, he
learned while on this comprehensive tour much
which, if he had lived to complete his last term of
public service, might have been incorporated in the
municipal system of Chicago.
The picturesque quality in Japanese life appealed
most strongly to the traveller. What could be more
graphic than this description of street scenes, taken
almost at random from his chapters on Japan ? —
" Politeness is the one marked virtue of this people, —
not a politeness of mere etiquette, though there is a great
deal of that, and very studied and labored it is, but a
politeness evidently coming from the heart, genuine and
kindly, and extended to the laborer as well as to the gen¬
tleman. Women, children, and light-loaded men step
aside with cheerful alacrity to let the poor jinrickisha man
pass, which is most charming to behold. If he happens to
jostle against one he is met with a joke. Not once have
we yet seen a sullen or angry look from any one who was
requested to give way. At home we would have been
cursed or blackguarded dozens of times had we made the
runs here done through densely crowded streets. When a
large party is out in jinrickishas they follow each other in
close proximity. If a bridge, rut, or bad place is encoun¬
tered, the foremost man utters a cry, which is caught up
by the next, and so on to the last, each evidently trying to
lighten the labor of the others. At night each man carries
a Japanese lantern. The effect of these in a long train is
very bright in a dark, unlighted street, or on a suburban
158 CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
road bending along a hillaide. Added to this the cries of
the men, the meeting of a hundred others, all rushing,
bending, turning, and twisting, in the tortuous lanes or nar¬
row crowded streets, you can readily see how charming
such a run must be. The men in cities wear short, tight
trunks from just above the hip to the upper thigh. They
start out with a sort of tunic or shirt over the shoulders ; if
the weather be warm they throw off the upper covering as
they run. In the country, instead of the trunk, is simply a
clout about the loins, narrow and full in front, running
between the legs in little more than a ribbon, and caught
on a band over the hip. In full garb a party will start
from a village or town. As they run, one after another the
men strip off their light upper garment, and are stalwart,
sweating Adams, clothed with a scanty fig-leaf. This is
done, too, in the cities, by men drawing natives or loaded
vehicles, but is to a considerable extent avoided by those
who run for foreigners. In Tokio and here, those about
foreign localities wear the trunks and close-fitting shirt,
always blue, resembling our undershirts. This garb is
ordered by the authorities out of respect to foreign ideas.
The natives themselves, men or women, are not shocked by
an almost naked man, and foreigners soon grow accustomed
to it.
" I made my fastest run with a couple of splendid fel¬
lows when going at night to call upon Viscount Yoshida,
formerly minister to America. The distance was long.
The men started out clothed. When and how I did not
observe, but as they ran I found them almost stark naked,
and reeking in sweat. It is a novel sight to see a dozen
wagons with their twenty-four men ahead of you, with
calves of great muscularity, and legs finely formed, only a
little bowed, owing to the habit of sitting on their haunches
instead of on chairs. The streets here are in many locali¬
ties densely packed, and not over twelve feet wide. Lan¬
terns hang from every store. People carry gay lanterns at
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
159
night. They move about a great deal, like bees about a
hive. The kuruma (rickisha) men moving in and out
among these, add greatly to the picturesqueness of the
scene.
"... Every class of people seems engaged (I mean not
the noble, but the people), and all ages do their share
towards the common support, men, women, boys, and girls.
Children under ten are the merriest, laughingest, busiest
little bodies imaginable. One can almost pronounce this
the paradise of the young. They are in a profusion I never
saw elsewhere. They are as thick as flies, and flies here
are as abundant as the sands on the seashore. Children
are in the shops and stores where their parents are at
work. Indeed, one would almost think that in the flner
stores little ones are kept tricked out in their nicest to
make the places attractive. In the streets they are running,
skipping, and jumping everywhere. Babies are strapped to
the backs of their mothers, or of sisters scarcely larger
than themselves. One often sees a dozen or two boys and
girls under ten at all sorts of play, one half of them having
babies on their backs. Oftentimes when the little nurses
are playing regular romps the little ones are sound asleep,
their heads hanging down and flopping from side to side as
if their little necks would break.
" Here in front of the hotel, when the tide was out, I saw
hundreds early one morning seeking mussels, mosses, and
seaweed. Little fellows not over ten, with babies strapped
to them, were wading about gathering shell-flsh. When
they would stoop on hands and knees the baby would
almost stand on its head. I can say I have seen hundreds
and have as yet heard but three babies crying. Little ones
of two and three years sometimes have dolls strapped to
them. Not once have I seen a doll in the arms. The
children are nurses to a greater extent in the country and
in villages, than in the cities. For there the mothers are
at work in the fields. In the cities, where a certain amount
160
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
of education is nearly universal, children over six years old
are at school. We went to a private school at Tokio.
Having left our shoes at the entrance, we were kindly, and
in fact, rather proudly received by the teacher and his girl
assistant. In one room some thirty little ones were squatted
down. The teacher had upon a blackboard a translation
from one of our Headers. It was the story of a little boy
who did not like to go to school, but preferred to play and
ride the donkey ; at least that is what our guide said it was.
"... But I suspect it will interest the youthful yet
more to tell how these little fellows leam to write. In one
room was a writing class. They, too, were small ones, —
some, I thought, under six. The order of the tenshi (mi¬
kado) is, that none younger than that age should go to
school, but their parents smuggle them in to keep them out
of misehief. They are all squatted in pairs at a rough
board, which served for a desk. Each child had a lot of
coarse paper, with a string through one end of the sheets.
This is a book. They do not write with a pen, but with a
small brush like a water color brush, only rather more
pointed. With this they write, not from the left to the
right and on the top of the paper, but on the right side of
the paper from top to bottom. Their letters resemble the
charaeters seen on a tea-chest. They use some forty-eight
Chinese characters with their own letters. These signs
express not only a whole word, but now and then short sen¬
tences. It was funny to see a beginner making his letters.
One little fellow covered the half of his sheet with one or
two. The page looked as if a web-footed bird or a cat had
stepped from the ink upon the copy. And one toddler had
nearly as much ink on his face and hands as upon his
paper. They do not use blotters or let the paper dry;
their writing paper is porous, and sucks up the ink as fast
as it is written.
" After ten or twelve years of age, the poorer children
do their share of work to support themselves and their
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
161
families. They work in the fields and in the shops, and
help their fathers to pull and push. One sees a twelve-
year-old boy at an oar, doing his full share of the work of
sculling while his father or employer pushes the other.
Parents are devoted to their children. Obedience and
assistance are demanded of the latter to their parents. If
a man dies before his son is of age, the eldest son is ex¬
empted from military service, because he must take care
of his mother and younger brothers and sisters. In the
evening one frequently sees a man walking with a baby in
his arms. He is resting the mother, or letting her prepare
the evening meal. . . . We have been a month in the
country, and all the time among its people. We have
passed through thirteen towns and cities, with population
of from 5,000 to 1,300,000 and through many hamlets and
villages of 800 or 400 people up to 2,000 and 3,000. We
have passed vast acreage of cultivated fields, and seen
many thousands of people engaged in their daily vocations.
We have slept in their houses and eaten of their food. We
have seen them reeking in sweat, but never in filth. We
have seen them in hilarious mirth, but never once in violent
anger. We have seen them in their nakedness, but never
once in anything like lewdness. We have seen them in
toiling poverty, but have never seen a single look of sullen-
ness or of despair. We have seen them in abject poverty ;
we have never seen them begging alms, except in a few
instances of total blindness and decrepit age. We have
seen them in every way shocking all preconceived ideas of
decency and modesty, yet we have never noticed a single
look or expression which would show that any one was
aware things were being done which modesty would forbid.
We have seen children without a stitch of clothing covering
them, playing with others gotten up in their holiday finery.
We have seen a man pause from his work, with only a
hand's breadth of cloth about his loins, and talk with a
neighbor in his richest visiting clothes, and the naked man
11
162
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
wore as lofty a mien of dignity as his companion did in
his robes. We have met women in the highway, naked
down to the hips, and saw no look that betokened a single
thought of shame, and within a few hundred yards we
would meet a beautiful, well-clothed woman whose eyes
would drop in pretty modesty because we gave her a look
of involuntary admiration. There is here no such thing as
conventional decency or conventional modesty."
It was characteristic of Carter Harrison to note
with such interest the children at play and at work.
Characteristic too is this exordium in which he bids
farewell to Japan, and recalls the memory of the
wife of his youth : —
" We sailed out of Nagasaki's beautiful harbor, close under
rocky Paffenburg, where so many Christians were hurled
to their death. We watched the land as it receded, and
then I sat down to my work and have worked hard all day.
And now, late at night, I close this letter and thus end my
visit to the Land of the Rising Sun. Three months ago
to-day we left Chicago to commence our race with old Sol.
It was with expectations of pleasure to be enjoyed, and yet
with no small misgivings at thus parting with those we
loved. Six weeks ago to-day, late in the afternoon, the
typhoon had gone to the eastward, its angry centre, fortu¬
nately for us, having passed some miles to the south, and
many of us were on deck looking to the west, hoping to be
able ere nightfall to cry, * Land ho ! ' The sun was strug¬
gling to drive away the clouds lying between him and the
earth, and by fits and starts shot down his pale gray rays.
The low clouds were racing wildly along, chasing each
other like mad coursers. Within a few degrees of the
western horizon there were no clouds, but the air was so
full of spray that the sun sank downward red as a ball of
blood. We kept our eyes fixed upon his bloodshot face.
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
163
for the captain told us we would probably see land just as
he would dip below the horizon. He dipped lower and
lower, when our skipper quietly said : ' See, there's land ! '
And lo ! across the sun's lower disk there was drawn a
zigzag line of a broken mountain range, and close to the
left was lifted the clear-cut cone of mighty Fujii, seventy-
two miles away. It was thus we first saw Japan, — to us
the land of the setting sun. For six weeks we have
journeyed in and about that land, among its light-hearted,
its strange and incongruous people ; its cheerful and
happy, its bright and generous, loving and modest people ;
its down-trodden and toiling, its suspicious and immoral,
revengeful and innocent people ; for they seem to possess
all of these contradictory characteristics. We have wan¬
dered among and have studied them as best we could. In
spite of their glaring faults we like them, almost love them.
And this morning, as the sun was gilding the heights
about Nagasaki harbor, we came out from among them and
cried as we passed Paffenburg's bloody rocks, 'Farewell,
good Japanese, good-bye!' For six weeks we have wan¬
dered among the mountains and valleys of the land, its
dark gorges and terraced slopes, its forest-clad heights and
grain covered plains. We have wondered and admired.
We have been happy, where birds are without note and
insects make nights musical ; where wild-fiowers deck
mountain and valley, forest and prairie, flowers of every
form and of every hue, but none of them endowed with
fragrance, or ever inviting the bee to sip from their cups ;
a land where frowning crags and dark gorges were made
to strike terror to, and wring awe from, the bravest heart,
yet clothed in trees and shrubs and mantled in garlands,
bid the youthful swain and gentle maid to wander in
dreams and to sigh for rosy love. We have been happy,
yet the happiness of one of us was all the time tinged with
sadness.
" Thirty-six years ago he had wandered afoot and alone
164
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
over Alpine heights and through Alpine valleys. Before
him then there was life and its gilded hopes. He looked
upward and was filled with gladness, for he could sing, —
' The bravest aud brightest that ever waa sung,
Shall be, and must be, the lot of the young.'
" He was alone, and yet never alone. By his side was one
of his fancy's creation, — gentle, loving, dark-eyed, and
caressing, who would yet look with him upon all he now
so much enjoyed. His every look was then upward. His
sun was always climbing and gilding the lofty pinnacles.
There, clothed in garments woven of sunbeams, was the
being who was to make his years years of brightness. He
was alone and yet never alone, and never sad, for there
was always the reflection in his heart of a glorious to¬
morrow. But here in Japan, in the midst of the beautiful,
there came through the pine needles a gentle dirge and a
sweet, sad song of the past. There was, and could be, no
loving eye to look upon and revel in the dreamland around.
There was not, and never could be again, a loving heart,
real or in fancy, to beat in tune to his own pulsations.
There was not, and never could be again, a gentle voice in
loving tones to whisper, 'Hope and live, live and hope,
for there will yet be in this world a bright and rosy
to-morrow.'
" This afternoon we three, the only passengers of our good
ship, stood upon the deck, and as the sun hurried down to
the west, looked earnestly to the east for one more, one
last sight of the land we left. The captain told us that we
would see no more land until the Chinese islands should
lift up from the sea. But we looked, and far off there rose
a point — a mere point. It was a mountain cone on the
westernmost of the mikado's islands. We looked, and as
the last ray of the setting sun gilded its far-off height, one
of us sighed : ' Farewell, Niphon, Land of the Rising Sun !
Farewell, Japan, land of dreams! Good-bye ! ' "
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
165
Like most travellers, Harrison found much, of
interest, but little to admire in China. He notes
the ceaseless industry of the people, their stolidity,
their filial devotion and their cleanliness, but the
flowery kingdom clearly had but little charm for
him, and he passed on, with but brief delay, to Siam.
Here he had audience with the king, — an honor
seldom vouchsafed to unofficial wayfarers. Proceed¬
ing on his way from Siam, he with his companions
made a voyage from Singapore in a steam launch in
search of the equator, the story of which may well
be told in his own language : —
" Our launch was swift. The day was glorious. Fleecy
clouds were scattered over the heavens from the zenith to
horizon, — not enough to shut out the soft blue sky, but
every few moments veiling the sun and sheltering us from
his too hot rays. The speed of our craft gave us a gentle
breeze, and, above all, we were in the highest spirits. We
entered the archipelago through a narrow pass opposite
Singapore, and hour after hour were in the midst of scenes
of surpassing loveliness. Now we were on a broad lake a
mile in diameter, mirroring upon its placid waters the
islands around. These were fringed all along the water's
edge with mangrove-trees of beautiful green, their roots
standing in the water six to ten feet high, like spider legs
beneath the bodies of the trees. They looked like monster
insects, and when the swell on the glass-smooth water from
our little craft would run toward them, their thousands of
long legs would be reflected, and would bend and dance
upon the mirrory waves. Above and behind this fringe
the islands would lift fifty, one hundred, or two hundred
feet, clothed in dense forests, their leafy tops so thick and
bunched that they looked like masses of emerald spun and
166
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
then woven into tufted fabrics. Some tropical travellers
speak of the sameness of the green ahout the equator, and
declare it greatly inferior to the variety shown in northern
zones. So far, I have not found this well founded, — cer¬
tainly not in these one thousand islands. There was every
tint, from pale pea-green to one that was almost black in
its waxy depth ; from the ashy dye of the olive leaf to the
transparent emerald green caught from the breast of a
breaking sea wave.
" From the fairy lakes there would apparently be no out¬
let, — all was landlocked. But see yonder little creek !
We bend into it, and scudding along a narrow green sea-
river, lo ! the creek spreads, and there before us lifts a
conical little island, with a narrow shore-line of golden
sands. Then into another lake studded with little islets,
some barely large enough to furnish foothold for a single
tree, whose spreading branches kiss the rippling waters
beneath. One could almost fancy he saw a boat of mother-
of-pearl shell moored to a twig, with a fairy occupant
sleeping in the shade. Now and then we passed close to
native villages on some of the larger islands, with low
palm-walled and palm-roofed huts lifted upon bamboo piles,
and children laughing and romping in the cocoa-nut groves
ill which the village would be nestled. Every hut in this
land is lifted up as a protection against venomous serpents
and carnivorous beasts, and for coolness. Tigers swim
from island to island, and have a tooth for young human
flesh.
" Sometimes the villages were piled out over the water ;
about these, tiny fishing canoes, with a shining native in
each, were to be seen gliding about and among the spidery
roots of the mangrove trees, through which the rays of
the sun never pierce. If it be not the loveliest sail in the
world, it was certainly the most so of any I had enjoyed.
The Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence and the inland
sea of Japan are as much inferior to this as they are supe¬
rior to the islands in the upper Mississippi."
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
167
One is tempted to quote extravagantly from this
always interesting record of travel. One more ex¬
cerpt from that part of it dealing with the wilder
regions visited must suflBce. It illustrates that qual¬
ity of audacity coupled with easy good-fellowship in
Carter Harrison's nature already referred to : —
"When we first looked upon the lofty mountains of
Cashmir, there was a long line of fleecy clouds hanging
over them. One of us could not resist the temptation of
calling them ' the veil of Cashmir.' At the crossing of
the Jhelum we were close to the border of the land of bright
valleys and brilliant shawls. We would have been glad to
have visited it, but its road was barricaded with almost
impenetrable snows. We had a letter from Lord Dufferin,
bespeaking for us the good offices of all officials throughout
his empire. Armed with this, upon our arrival here, we
called upon the deputy-commissioner, and asked a permit
to go into the Khyber Pass, leading into the land of the
Ameer, as far as possible. The result was that, accom¬
panied by one of his native officials, we drove eleven miles
to the fort at the foot of the mountains. Here we found
our liverymen had sent a relay of horses to carry us part
of the way up the pass, where we expected to find saddle-
horses, also sent from the city early in the morning.
Accompanied by an escort of eight cavalry, splendidly
mounted and carrying lances, we dashed toward and into
the foothills. On every high point for a few miles, a couple
of soldiers would step from a little stone hut and present
arras as we passed by at full speed. Sometimes these sen¬
tries were one hundred or two hundred feet above us.
They made us realize that we were in a neighborhood where
dread war might at any hour break into wild whoops and
where border robbers were more than comfortably plenty.
But our escort were splendid-looking fellows, and were
168
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
fully armed. We passed a cararân of camels, mule^ and
cows, all packed and accompanied by wild-looking armed
men.
" We had not gone two miles upward into the mountain
road before our carriage horses balked. We got out and
walked. One of the soldiers dismounted and offered me
his horse, a beautiful stallion, full of mettle and horse-
sense. I mounted and rode ahead with two soldiers, the
others coming slowly up with the boys till they should
reach the next relay. The pass is through a wild, desolate,
and grand gorge ; bold, rocky, and bleak mountains lifting
far above the road, which is a fine but steep military one.
My two ' Sikhs ' were splendid-looking fellows. In about
an hour, having crossed the summit of the pass, one of
them said something to the ' sahib ' (gentleman), which I
understood to be that I must ride slowly. He dashed for¬
ward at full speed (we were now on a down grade), leaving
the other soldier and myself to follow slowly. We met
men in couples, armed and wild looking. Wilder looking
men and a wilder gorge do not often exist anywhere.
Several rocky points had small Afghan round-houses, with
loop-holes for muskets or rifles. I guessed rightly that my
departing escort had gone forward to see if we would be
permitted to proceed, for I felt pretty sure from what the
commissioner had told me that my permit only took us to
the top of the pass. The corporal knew this, but the men
with me did not, and it was not imperatively my duty to
tell them. I was going as far into Afghanistan as they
would accompany me, for I knew England was at my back.
Presently we saw our advanced guard beckoning us from
a far-off point. On we dashed. We reached a little stone
hut against a deep precipice. My men dismounted, motion¬
ing me to do the same. They brought out of the hut a
chair, and planting it against the cliff told me to take a
seat. Hardly had I done so than there came down a steep
hill, from a sort of fortress high above, a fine-looking fellow.
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
169
with a dozen wild-looking armed retainers. It was the
chief of the tribe, the head of Ali Musjed. When he ap¬
proached I grasped the situation. He was an independent
chief, in whose charge and keeping was this part of the
pass. I received him with a dignity worthy of the 60,000
Democratic voters of Chicago. He was very polite, but
could not speak a word of English, nor could any one of them.
Yet we talked. I showed him Lord Dufferin's passport,
and also that with Mr. Bayard's name attached, with the
seal of my own glorious land. He could read none of
them. I picked up a large round stone, made a mark upon
it, and said, ' Peshawur ; ' another, and said ' Calcutta,'
giving their relative positions. He understood. I then
made another, and said ' England,' ' London.' This, too,
he comprehended. I turned the stone over and drew a
big country, and said ' America.' I made America too
large, for he looked at me in a way that plainly told me he
thought I was lying. I then drew a pretty big chart, and
pointed to it, and told him that it was Ali Musjed, where
we were, and that he was rajah of it. He grinned. I
turned the stone around, and with my pencil made a mark
the size of a pea, and told him that it was Chicago, and
that I was its ' rajah.' He seemed pleased that his terri¬
tory was bigger than mine, and motioned to me to be seated.
I wanted him to sit, trying to explain that his rajahship on
the stone was bigger than mine. But he was my host, and
I must have the seat. He invited me to his stronghold on
the hill to partake of food. I showed him my watch, inti¬
mating that I was sorry not to have the time, and that my
companions would be awaiting me. We shook hands, he
touching his heart, face, and forehead. This is the token
of highest respect. I suppose my escort had convinced him
that I was a mighty man. Thus parting with the lord of
the territory of Ali Musjed, we rode forward, deeper into
the great Khyber Pass, and well into Afghanistan.
" We reached Ali Musjed, a bold-looking Afghan fortress,
170 CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
and as picturesque as can be imagined, perched upon a
lofty, rocky point, overlooking the gorge not fifty feet wide,
through which the road ran. It was stormed by Roberts'
men, and is now dismantled. By the road under it was a
stone hut, large enough, I thought, for four or five people.
A dozen armed cutthroat-looking fellows came out of it.
They were some of the chief's wild devils who convoy cara¬
vans through the pass. The chief is under the pay of the
government, and guarantees safety to all peaceful passers
who have a right to go through. After a little palaver
with them, my guard intimated we could go no faitber.
But I rode on, one of them threw his lance lengthwise
across the road and followed. I saw then that an English
soldier could not pass that line. I suppose it was the end
of our last chief's jurisdiction. But I made signs I must
ride a little further into the narrow gorge. He looked
rather perplexed, but followed me. On I galloped until the
line of Ali Musjed was far behind me, and I was in a narrow
deñle as bold, wild, and rugged as any Colorado canyon.
My escort was some paces behind me, for I was splendidly
mounted. He called to me. I paused. He rode up and
pointed to my holsters and his, saying something rather
apologetic in his own language. I saw he meant we wore
English arms, even if his lance were behind ; but I was
going through that defile a little farther if possible. I
dashed forward. It was a beautiful gallop, almost a wild
run, into as wild a pass as the wildest of lands could
afford."
India, Ceylon, and Egypt visited, the travellers
passed on into Europe. At Athens the Yale gradu¬
ate renewed the classical interests of his student
days, and noted, too, that in the thirty-five years
which had passed since his earlier visit to the Attic
capital, the city had greatly improved, — a strange
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
Ill
latter day finish upon a town whose chief glories are
relics of a civilization dead for centuries. From
Athens the party fared on to Constantinople, which
produced on Harrison the effect of a modern Babel.
" Here," he writes, —
" one jostles against groups of Englishmen as thoroughly
English as if living within the sound of Bow bells ; French¬
men, who look as if they sipped their coffee and absinthe
every evening on the boulevards ; Germans who have just
blown the cream from their lager ; Italians, who are happy
on a frugal meal of macaroni; Levantine Greeks, noisy
and full of swagger and bad wine ; Arabs, stately and dig¬
nified, conscious that they alone have the right to cry
' Illaha-il Allah ; ' Armenians, with long noses patterned
after a vulture's beak, who can give a Jew two in five and
win every time ; Albanians, whose bed-fellows are their
swords and daggers, and who think a fight in the dark
more agreeable than a feast ; Tripolitans, who wear green
turbans, claiming to be the real descendants of the prophet,
and pining for battle in his cause ; Turkomans and Kurds,
who claim for their country the land they can see beneath
the vault of the sky ; Africans from south of the Sahara
and about the springs of the Nile, who wear slashes and
gashes for jewels, and consider long scars on their cheeks
their gems ; Bulgarians, heavy and stupid, whose every
breath is a hurricane of garlic ; and Russians, whose dream
is that the Greek cross may supplant the crescent on St.
Sophia's dome."
It was the unaccustomed path which these trav¬
ellers sought ; so, turning eastward from Constanti¬
nople, they voyaged to Vama, a Bulgarian city on
the Black Sea, whence they proceeded by rail to
172
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
Bucharest and Buda-Pesth. At the latter city the
writer chronicles a characteristic incident : —
" I was in Fisher's huge magazine the other day at Buda-
Pesth, admiring his exquisite majolicas. His salesman
stopped me while bargaining, that we might go to the door
to listen to a grand band, and to see several regiments
marching by. ' Es ist schön, nicht wahr, mein Herr ? '
' Yah wohl ' I replied. ' Those fellows could kill a
great many Russians in a day, and a big crowd of unruly
Hungarians in a minute.' He understood me, and for a
while seemed to be thinking. He then asked me if we had
many soldiers. I told him about 30,000, ' but then we
have a population of only 60,000,000.' I cannot help it,
though it is none of my business, but I cannot enjoy look¬
ing at a grand parade of men paid to kill, especially in
Europe, where kings pretend to be followers of Him whose
mission on earth was one of ' love and peace.' "
So on through Austria, Hungary, and Russia,—
getting a taste of Russian autocracy in the last
named country, — to Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
We must dismiss, without quoting or recounting, the
many incidents of this portion of the tour. But
when Germany was reached, the veteran Chicago
executive enjoyed what has fallen to the lot of but
very few American travellers, — entertainment by
Bismarck at Friedrichsruhe. The prince, confronted
by serious social questions in his own State, had
heard of Mayor Harrison's treatment of the so-called
anarchists in Chicago, and desired to see the man
who had shown, in such a critical moment, so much
tact and firmness. The incidents of the interview
may best be told in Mr. Harrison's own words : —
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
173
" I had been in the room a few minutes when the coun¬
tess, looking out of the window, exclaimed : ' Ah, there
comes papa ! ' laying stress upon the lest syllable, and at
the same time leaving the front of the window for me.
The ladies all arose and stood somewhat to the side, but so
as to see out. Some fifty or more yards from the house,
I saw coming out of the park wood a man fully six feet
tall, broad-shouldered, full, but not corpulent, wearing a
low-crowned soft felt hat, a full white cravat folded about
his neck in old style, without shirt-collar, plain dark
clothes, the coat rather carelessly buttoned — walking
slowly towards the house with stately measured strides,
and accompanied by two noble greyhounds, fat and digni¬
fied, keeping by his side with such even step that I could
almost fancy they were measuring their gait by that of
their master. I looked at him silently until he was within
a few feet of the house. I noticed that his daughter was
watching my face intently, and, I fancied, almost anxiously.
I said, half as if in soliloquy : ' He will be able to keep
Russia and Austria at arm's-length for years to come.' A
glow of pleasure spread over the daughter's face. I then
understood the expression I had noticed a few moments
before. She had been watching me to see how his physical
appearance affected me. He soon entered the room, shook
hands with me almost warmly, saying he was glad that I
had come, for I had done good service, and he was pleased
to tell me that he and all lovers of law were indebted to
me. I at once understood why he had done me the honor
of inviting me to his house. The princess repeated what I
had said of his strength. He said he was glad I thought
so well of his powers. After a few moments spent in his
telling the ladies, who were interested listeners, of his walk
in the forest, which had been somewhat extended, he
offered his arm to the Countess Stalberg. The princess
placed her hand upon my arm. We followed her husband
to the breakfast-room. Bismarck took the head of the
174
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
table, with Countess Stalberg at his right, Count Rantzau
at the foot, the princess and her daughter sitting opposite
each other on the middle sides, the other ladies between
them and the foot, and I between the prince and princess.
The dining-room was handsome, but plain. The breakfast
consisted of tenderloin steaks, cutlets, cold meat, and
omelets, with red and white wines, followed by black
coffee, and was finely prepared. Conversation at once
became lively and wholly free, and was carried on in
German and in English, which the prince at first spoke
with a little hesitation, but afterwards with fluency and
purity, and with slight accent. When I spoke in German
and hesitated for a word. Countess Rantzau frequently
came to my relief in a most charming manner. In this
way the princess and I were enabled to keep up our share
of the talking. In reply to a question as to the wine I
preferred, I said I was fortunate in liking all pure wines,
but I found certain kinds had a tendency to cause a gouty
thickening of my fingers. ' So they do with me,' said the
prince, at the same time holding up both hands and work¬
ing his fingers by opening and shutting them, adding that
he had not much faith in doctors, but that his understood
his case, and interdicted any but white wine, and of that
very sparingly ; but that he was very fond of old hock, but
it did not go well with him now, and he was forced to
drink a newer one, and then only at dinner. Socialism was
spoken of. The prince showed his hostility to it, but
thought we would not suffer from it in America, for our
great political parties made no alliances with it. I said
that they voted for members of one or the other parties,
that, 'at one of my elections they had voted largely for
me.' ' Is that so ? Then you were very ungrateful.' 1
said he was mistaken; that we got some good reforms
from them, and he should not confound the socialists with
us with the anarchists ; that they came together and ran
with the same machine when the eight-hour movement
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
175
was inaugurated ; that socialism with us was not radical
as In Germany, and could not become dangerous, because
the poor man acquiring property soon became conservative.
' Yes, I know,' he rejoined, ' but the leaders are innately
bad, and only want to gain for themselves, and care not
for the cost ; and many, possibly the bulk, of the followers
were simply blind ! ' During the breakfast I endeavored
to bring up as many topics as possible, and I think the
Chancellor saw my intent, and assisted me by readily going
from one subject to another. The princess turned the con¬
versation to my travels. I said : ' I had been many times
in Europe ; had seen Mont Blanc, and had gone to Asia,
and had seen Mount Everest. I had been to the Caucasus
to see Elbruz, and was now in Germany ' — I paused, which
caused all to look up at me, when I added — ' to see Bis¬
marck.' The ladies laughed and applauded. He bowed
with an amused smile. I told him how much good my
travels had done me, and suggested to him the propriety
of his going around the world. He said he was too old
and had too much to do ; that he belonged to his country,
and that as long as it demanded his services he could not
think of rest. I told him I had found great relaxation,
when the cares of office were pressing, by going to the cir¬
cus or the minstrels, where I could laugh. ' Ah ! ' said
he, grimly, ' the newspapers afford me comedy enough.'
< Yes,' I rejoined, 'and I see they charge you with incon¬
sistency because you claim a freeman's right to change
your mind.' ' Of course I change my mind when I find I
have been wrong, and I also hold my opinions, against
those of all others even, when I am certain that I am
right.' I asked if the old emperor was not a very firm
man. ' Yes, firm almost to obstinacy on matters he
thoroughly understood, but on most matters of state, he
confided greatly in those who had charge of them. He was
very trustful of those who had his confidence.' He then
spoke somewhat at large, very feelingly, of William I. I
176
CÁRTER HENRY HARRISON.
told him that we were in Ceylon when the news of his
death reached us, and that a rumor had gotten abroad that
the crown prince had asked for his, Bismarck's, resignation,
and I was asked what 1 thought of it. He looked up
quickly and said : ' What did you reply ? ' * I told them
Frederick had too much sense for that.' The old Chan¬
cellor's eyes kindled when he straightened himself up and
said : ' Mr. Harrison, my sovereigns have always demanded
my services, for they knew I was ever ready to retire. I
have been but the people's servant.' I told him of our
hearing of Emperor Frederick's death at Vladikavkas, and
I was pleased by the regret expressed by officers we met
on the mountains. ' Ah, yes,' said Bismarck, rather sar¬
donically, ' they had an idea he would change his father's
policy. In that they were mistaken.' Speaking of a dis¬
tinguished man whom I liked, he said : ' He is amiable
enough, but a fool in politics ; a bad politician, and gave
us any amount of trouble.' ' You believe, then, in such a
thing as a good politician ? ' ' Why, certainly I do. No
man can be a successful statesman unless he be, too, an
astute politician.' A paper just engrossed (I now suspect
the memorial presented three days afterwards to the
emperor, urging the prosecution of Prof. Geffcken) was
laid on the table. He said: 'You see, Mr. Mayor, I am
down here in retirement and yet I have to work. I have
not failed to work a single day in twenty-odd years.' The
princess interjected, ' For twenty-six years.' ' Yes, for
twenty-six years, not a single day.' ' Let me suggest that
your Highness take a rest and travel incognito.' He
rejoined : ' I don't know, I have been too busy ; I am
afraid I could not bear the rust.' ' And,' I interjected,
' a little afraid also to be where you cannot have your
finger in the European pie.' He smiled at the sally, but
the ladies all laughed heartily, and Countess Stalberg
added : ' The pie would be a poor affair if his fingers were
out of it.' I said I, too, had feared rust, and to prevent
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
177
it had written very largely of what I had seen ; that it was
sometimes hard labor and yet a rest from the past ; and
then told him that Dr. von Rottenberg had enjoined upon
me silence as to this visit, but that I hoped that he would
release me from the obligation ; that our people, and par¬
ticularly my German friends, would be delighted to hear of
what I saw and heard at his table. ' Well, yes, I suppose
so ; ' adding that the doctor did not wish him to hurt the
feelings of others by refusing to see them, but that he
wished to see me because I had helped to bring the anar¬
chists to justice. I laughed and told him the political
papers had bitterly attacked me because I had not arrested
them in advance when they made their violent speeches,
and thus prevented the Haymarket crime. He quickly
said : ' You did just right ; you were not afraid, but
you struck at the proper moment.' He evidently was
familiar with that bitter night. He then inquired particu¬
larly about the acts of the authorities after the terrible
crime, and I saw that he did not agree with me in drawing
a broad line between the anarchists and socialists. I told
him that I had been present when Wilhelm had landed at
Peterhof, and how I had been impressed with his bearing,
and that Petersburgers were flattered by his driving about
unattended by guards, and that I thought the czar made a
mistake in showing a want of confidence. He exclaimed,
' Yes, his father showed confidence and got killed for it.'
The princess interjected : ' Poor man ! I do not wonder
that he feels uneasy.' ' They have a bad habit in Russia,'
said the prince, ' a bad habit of trying to kill kings ; since
Peter the Great's time they have run that way.' I told
him how during the anarchist troubles I had received
letters written in blood, but that wholly unattended I had
ridden in the most excited districts. ' Yes, yes, but you
were in America and among Americans, and not in Rus¬
sia.' I spoke of the well-dressed people about his gate
waiting to get a peep at him. He said : ' He was a
12
178
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
worker, and did not like to make a show of himself, and
that when the emperor was visiting Friedrichsruhe a few
weeks before, crowds of people came on the road hoping to
see him, but that he, too, said he had lately had enough of
that kind of thing.' When coffee and cigars came on, I
laughingly exclaimed : ' We in America think that Bis¬
marck knows the American hog, and that if he lets it get
over the frontier it will stay at the German table, but that
perhaps he did not know the American man so well that
when one gets to Prince Bismarck's table he would never
know when to leave.' He laughed heartily and explained
the pork question to the ladies, who at first looked rather
shocked at the first part of the joke. He then said he
would have to go to work shortly, but he would give me
all the time he possibly could. I told him that I had to
disobey Dr. von Rottenberg's injunction by telling my son,
who was travelling with me, of my visit, but that Willie
told me to say to him that his constant silence and eternal
gratitude could be had if the prince would write a line and
sign his name to it. He laughed at the young man's
device to get his autograph. He said he might possibly
write his name but not the line. I added we might then
put a dangerous line over the name. ' I see, it might be a
due bill, but we will block that game. Tell your son if he
will hang an anarchist, I will write an autograph letter to
him.' He then had some photographs brought to the table,
and selected a large one, and wrote his name under it and
the date, saying : ' Keep that to remind you of this
pleasant day.' "
From Berlin the homeward trip was swift. France
and England had little that was new to show the
veteran traveller. His mind had already passed back
to that lusty city on the shores of the great unsalted
sea, from which he had been absent now for more
THE RACE WITH THE SUN.
179
than a year. There were his friends, — the personal
intimates whom he numbered by scores, the political
supporters whom he might count by thousands.
There lay his future, — a future more brilliant than
at the moment he could have possibly imagined.
Back, therefore, to the Chicago which had been his
home for nearly forty years he sped with but little
delay, reaching it in November, 1888. A great
popular welcome awaited him. Though out of office,
a mere private citizen, he was received with all the
pomp and circumstance due a high official.
Without incentive from him, there had sprung up
in his absence a sentiment in favor of his renomi¬
nation for the mayoralty in the election of the
approaching spring. The administration of the
Republican mayor, carried into office by the an¬
archist scare and the refusal of Harrison to be a can¬
didate, had failed to win popular approval. There
seemed to be a fair chance of replacing Mayor Roche
with a Democrat, and the large personal following
of Harrison began thus early to urge his re-entrance
upon public life. Nothing was further from his
thoughts than a return to the activities of politics,
but the first problem which confronted him on his
arrival at home was how to satisfy the friendly im¬
portunities of the men who had stood shoulder to
shoulder with him in the hard-fought campaigns of
the past.
CHAPTER VIII.
two campaigns.
Twice, while in the full heyday of political suc¬
cess, Carter Harrison went before the people seeking
election to honorable office, and was defeated. The
long history of his victories has now been recounted
almost to its end. The story of his defeats must be
told. It will be the more interesting in the telling,
because of the fact that his very defeats were vic¬
tories. Though balked of the goal he sought, he
made such extraordinary play for it, that his ad¬
mirers have pointed to these defeats with but little
less pride than they manifest in his greatest
successes.
The story of Harrison's life must be retraced to
the summer of 1884. He was then in his third
term as mayor, and stronger than ever with the
people. His fame had spread beyond the city limits.
Democrats through the State of Illinois, and even
beyond its borders, were looking toward him as a
growing man in politics. His record had been one
of almost uninterrupted successes. County commis¬
sioner, representative in Congress for two terms,
mayor thrice, he had given up one office only to be
TWO CAMPAIGNS.
181
elected to a higher one by increased majorities. His
name was widely mentioned for the vice-presidency,
with Tilden, Bayard, or Butler in first place. He
was even suggested, and that not obscurely, for the
presidency of the United States. As for the gover¬
norship of Illinois, then about to be filled, it was con¬
ceded on all sides that he might have the Democratic
nomination if he so desired, and that he would come
as near as any Democrat possibly could to carrying
the State.
Illinois, in 1884, was a reliably Republican State.
The vote of Chicago — usually Democratic — was
not then suflSciently heavy to overcome the enormous
Republican majorities rolled up by the agricultural
counties. No Democratic executive had been in
power at Springfield since the ante-bellum period.
Nor was there anything in the immediate situation
to encourage a Democratic candidate for the gover¬
norship. It was a presidential year," and, as is
well known by observers of politics, at such seasons
a nominally hostile majority is doubly hard to over¬
come. The last Republican nominee had been elected
by a plurality of 38,000. In view of these facts, it
was but natural that Mayor Harrison should have
held aloof from the Democrats who were urging him
to enter the contest.
While the chances, at this time, were but slight
that a Democratic governor could be elected, there
was a fair prospect of carrying the Legislature on
joint ballot. A senator of the United States would
182 CÁRTER HENRY HARRISON.
be selected by the Legislature about to be chosen^
and the pledge that, in the event of defeat for gover¬
nor, he should receive the Democratic caucus nomi¬
nation for senator had much to do with persuading
Harrison to enter the almost hopeless gubernatorial
campaign. In response to repeated solicitations he
finally said that though averse to accepting the
nomination, he would do so if he had assurance that
it was given him by the united Democracy of the
State. But to make any effort to secure it he stead¬
fastly refused. Nevertheless, his repeated and
sweeping successes in Chicago made him what the
professional politicians call the " logical candidate."
As the date of the State convention approached, the
enthusiasm for his candidacy so greatly increased
that it affected him, and he plunged into the contest
with characteristic energy. By the time the conven¬
tion assembled there remained no doubt as to its
action. The whole State was prepared to see the
delegates ratify without serious controversy the
nomination of Carter Harrison, which already had
been made virtually by the people.
It was Harrison's common practice, in later years,
to attend the conventions before which he was a
candidate, and so the day of the Democratic State
convention of 1884 found him in Springfield, and,
at a critical point in the proceedings, he appeared on
the floor armed with a proxy from an accommo¬
dating delegate.
The matter which led Harrison to adopt the au-
TWO CAMPAIGNS.
183
dacious device of appearing as a delegate in a con¬
vention which was morally certain to nominate him
for the highest oflB.ce in its gift, was the tariff issue,
and his dread lest the convention should put in its
platform a more radical "tariff for revenue only"
plank than he could, in the face of his record, en¬
dorse. He was, as we have already seen, a moderate
protectionist by life-long conviction. More than
this, he was absolutely convinced of the impolicy of
making anything except guarded and conservative
pronouncement upon the tariff question. A thorough
politician, he felt it better for the party to win with
an evasive platform than to be beaten after sound¬
ing a stirring trumpet blast for tariff for revenue
only. Accordingly, on reaching Peoria, his first de¬
mand was for a copy of the proposed platform. As
he had anticipated, it declared for a tariff for revenue
only, and directed the Illinois delegates to the na¬
tional Democratic convention — which was to meet
the ensuing week — to endeavor to have a like
declaration incorporated in the national platform.
That the declaration was made even more radical
than the temper of the Illinois voters warranted, for
the very purpose of making a platform which would
deter Harrison from accepting the nomination, has
always been charged by his friends, and there is
much latent evidence in the proceedings of the con¬
vention to support the charge. He himself so con¬
strued the tariff resolution the moment he read it,
and made vigorous protest in the committee on reso-
184
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
lutions, but to no avail ; so he secured a delegate's
proxy and prepared to carry the fight into the
convention.
When the report of the committee on resolutions
was read to the convention, Harrison suddenly ap¬
peared claiming the floor. There was an attempt to
rush through the report without giving him a hear¬
ing, but the great body of the delegates, to whom
his face was familiar, seeing him standing in his
place calling upon the chaiûnan, insisted that he be
heard. It is within the facts to say that the con¬
vention, while friendly to Harrison, was a radical
tariff reform gathering, and his protest against the
proposed plank was therefore the more audacious.
Kuraors of the contest in the committee on resolu¬
tions had reached the delegates, and most of them
knew that Harrison's appearance on the floor of the
convention hall meant that the issue was to be
fought out there. But they gave him an enthusi¬
astic welcome, — so enthusiastic that, used as he was
to political ovations, he was deeply moved by it.
For several minutes he stood silent on the platform,
while the cheers of the delegates made speech im¬
possible, and when he lifted his voice to address
them its tremor gave evidence of the depth of his
emotion. The speech he then delivered must be
regarded as one of the most important in occasion
and in effect of his many public utterances. Only
the newspaper summaries of it are obtainable, but
the best of these gives its substance as follows : —
TWO CAMPAIGNS.
185
" After long years of Republican misrule, this State has
a chance at last to win. 1 ask this convention to pause a
moment before it pushes back the dawn now breaking upon
us. I move you, Mr. Chairman, that that portion of the
platform referring to the tariff question be referred to the
National Convention, for the sake of harmony and success.
I boldly proclaim my motive and speak for Democracy and
success. The National Convention will be composed of the
most earnest, most intelligent men the party possesses. 1
believe that that convention will act wisely and give us a
platform that will allow us to win.
" It is immaterial to say what I think, but I believe a tariff
levied for the sake of protection is robbery. I believe,
under the Constitution of the United States, we have no
right to impose a tariff except for revenue ; but when we
do lay a tariff, it must be on the luxuries, and so that the
burden should not be laid on the necessaries of life and
monopolies not fostered. Now, my friends who lean to¬
ward free trade, — let me say to you, however, there are
others who think themselves just as good Democrats
who do not go so far with you, — let me say to you the
city from whence I come, and where I have by counsel
and other offices helped to roll up a majority of 10,000,
which was before 8,000 against us, there are several dis¬
tricts in my neighborhood, notably the Third, Fourth, and
Fifth, in which fully one half the Democrats do not believe
in a tariff for revenue only. Yes, I will go further, and
say nearly one half believe in fostering American indus¬
tries. Not one half will go to the extreme of tariff for
revenue only. When we have a chance to win, shall we
throw success over our shoulders ? Can the Democrats of
Illinois win without Cook County ?
" I commend the platform in two points particularly, —
its length, and the fact that what is mentioned is covered
well. Don't throw success away. The principles of the
Democratic party are undying. It has been said we are
186
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
about to die; but our opponents, who are living on and
in the hope of spoils, will find that we are far from dead.
They want us to die, but on account of those undying prin¬
ciples we will live and will win. I believe our State will
not only go Democratic on the Presidential, but also on
the State ticket. In 1880 Mr. Garfield carried Chicago by
3,500 majority on a Democratic tariff for revenue only.
Yet five months after that time, on the Democratic prin¬
ciple, I was elected by 8,000 majority, and in the spring of
1883 I was elected by 10,000. Now, do you intend to throw
away this advantage ?
"I commend the Democratic members in Congress —
Morrison, Springer, and the rest — for their efforts to
reduce war taxation, but let us commence winning again.
We all may have our own ideas, but I am not in favor of
such an ultra clause.
" I move you, Mr. Chairman, that all that part referring
to a tariff for revenue only, and demanding that the State
vote as a unit on the subject, be referred to the National
Convention."
This speech created the wildest excitement in the
convention. William R. Morrison, in later years a
member of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and
General John M. Palmer, afterwards United States
senator from Illinois, took violent exceptions to Mr.
Harrison's views. There was prolonged and fever¬
ish debate of the question, but finally the mayor's
amendments were incorporated in the platform.
Then he was nominated for the governorship, and
the convention adjourned, but not without some ill
feeling on the part of the more radical anti-protec¬
tionists. They left the hall threatening vengeance.
Harrison for his part held that in forcing the modi-
TWO CAMPAIGNS.
187
fication of the tarifE plank he had accomplished per¬
haps the cleverest political coup of his career. He
was wholly sincere in his opinion of the temper of
the people, and dreaded the anger of the free-traders
far less than he did the opposition of the voters to a
candidate standing on a "tariff for revenue only"
platform. To the end of his life he believed that
the tariff plank as originally formulated was con¬
ceived by his enemies for the purpose of accom¬
plishing his defeat. And, indeed, there was among
certain Democratic leaders in portions of the State
distant from Chicago a hostility to him which would
stop at nothing necessary to compass his defeat,—
a hostility summed up in the sneering remark of
a very prominent Democrat as the convention ad¬
journed: "Well, Harrison has nominated himself;
we'll let him see if he can elect himself."
The Republicans, however, did not put reliance in
the rumors of disaffection in the Democratic party.
They recognized in Harrison a dangerous antagonist,
and selected to meet him probably the most popular
man in Republican State politics, Richard J. Oglesby.
Another Illinoisan of widespread popularity, General
John A. Logan, was on the Republican national ticket,
so that never before or since were the inducements
for a full Republican vote in the State greater. The
situation which confronted Harrison then was dis¬
affection in his own party, — the Chicago Democratic
press against him for governor, as it had always been
against him for mayor, and the Republicans, united
188
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
and harmonious, following two of the most popular
and masterly leaders their party in Illinois had ever
produced. Undaunted by the odds, however, he
plunged into the contest. Illinois was not thought
a profitable field for work by the national Demo¬
cratic committee that year, and the burden of the
campaign for the Presidency, as well as of his own
campaign, fell principally on Harrison. He was sent
from town to town, all over the State, travelling
night and day, speaking in rural opera houses, at
county fairs, at picnics, and at barbecues. In the
light of later events, it seems proper to note that
such of his speeches as have been preserved in the
newspapers show that he gave prime place and im¬
portance to the Presidential ticket. His addresses in
this campaign were of even more purely transient
interest than most of his political papers, and hardly
repay publication. He attacked Republican manage¬
ment of State institutions, and declared that long
domination of the State by a single political party
could not fail to lead to serious abuses. In his
treatment of the national issues he was vigorous,
except in discussing the tariff. Upon that point
he seemed always to feel the necessity of assuring
his hearers that under no circumstances would the
Democratic party wholly abandon the principle of
protection.
Election day demonstrated the efficiency of Harri¬
son's efforts, as well as the wisdom with which he
had taken his position. He was defeated, as was
TWO CAMPAIGNS.
189
almost inevitable, but he cut down the majority of
37,033 by which Governor Cullom had been elected
four years before to 14,599. He ran ahead of his
associates on the State ticket by more than 6,000
votes, and ahead of the Cleveland electors by more
than 7,000. Nor was it the following which he had
built up for himself in the city of Chicago which
accomplished these results. There the vote was dis¬
appointing, falling off heavily from what he had
reason to expect, and giving rise to open charges on
the part of his friends of treachery. But throughout
the State, in the farming regions, where Republican
supremacy had never before been seriously attacked,
he made heavy Democratic gains. His well-known
views on the currency question, his conservative posi¬
tion on the tariff, his aggressiveness, and, above all,
the vigor with which he prosecuted his campaign,
and made his personality known in every county of
the State, won for him thousands of farmer votes
which not for twenty years had been cast for any
Democratic candidate.
This effective work in the rural districts resulted
in giving the Democrats, for the first time in many
years, a chance of electing a United States senator
from Illinois. In making his own campaign, Harri¬
son had vastly aided the Democratic candidates for
the Legislature and State Senate, with the result that
when those bodies were polled the two parties were
discovered to be tied on joint ballot, — the Republi¬
cans having a majority of one in the Senate, the
190
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
Democrats a like majority in the House. It was the
year that a successor to Senator John A. Logan was
to be elected. Logan himself was the candidate of
the Republicans, and, according to all political pre¬
cedent, aside from the distinct party pledge which
had been made, Harrison should have been the
Democratic candidate. Underhanded opposition in
the Cook County delegation defeated him, however,
and the caucus nomination was given to William R.
Morrison. True, it proved an empty honor, for, after
an historic contest extending over three months, the
Republicans were able, through the election of a
Republican in place of a Democrat who died, to
triumph. There has always, however, been a very
wide belief in Illinois that had the Democratic
nomination been given, as time-honored precedent
dictated, to Harrison, as the party's defeated guber¬
natorial candidate, the result would have been widely
different.
Again, in 1891, Carter Harrison entered upon a
campaign which, though manfully fought, and full
of laurels won, still, by means of political trickery,
ended in defeat. There was dissatisfaction in Chicago
with the city administration. Harrison had been out
of office four years. Two of these had been filled by
the Republican mayor whom his sudden withdrawal
from politics had elected ; two by a Democrat, an old
associate of Harrison's, who, in one way or another,
had been very largely responsible for his withdrawal
from the contest in 1887. Harrison for his part had
TWO CAMPAIGNS.
191
spent these four years in absolute abstention from
politics. His tour around the world and bis shorter
journeys in America bad broadened bis mind and
stimulated it to renewed activity. Political ambi¬
tion reawakened within him. Chicago bad begun to
talk about the World's Fair which it would bold in
commemoration of the four hundredth anniversary
of the Columbian discovery of America. The pros¬
pect of being mayor during that gala year appealed
to him strongly, and he was keen enough to foresee
that the reputation acquired by a mayor of Chicago
during such a season might well contribute to his
further political advancement. The political situa¬
tion in Chicago encouraged him in his new ambi¬
tions. The then mayor, through causes for which
he was not wholly to blame, had made himself sin¬
gularly unpopular, not only with the active workers
in his own party, but with business men and that
great class of citizens who take but an occasional
interest in politics. Representatives of both ele¬
ments came to the retired ex-mayor with the sug¬
gestion that he again enter the political arena.
After reserving his decision long enough to assure
himself that there was indeed a spontaneous and
considerable movement in his behalf, he agreed to
enter the contest.
It is generally entirely within the power of a
mayor of Chicago to renominate himself if he so
desires. The party machinery, by which conventions
are called and organized, is wholly in the hands of
192
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
office-holders, and the mayor dispenses the offices.
The system is a bad one, but it exists. An unscru¬
pulous mayor or an over-ambitious one, can force his
own renomination despite any possible resistance by
the better elements of his own party. He can either
continue himself in office indefinitely, or he can
name his successor, — that is, so far as the mere
party nomination is concerned, — and for fifteen
years no regular Democratic nominee has been
beaten, save in one instance, which will presently
be recounted. For these reasons the determination
of Carter Harrison to contest for the Democratic
mayoralty nomination with the then incumbent of
the office, who had demanded a renomination, was
bold, and to many seemed even hopeless. But in
politics there is magic in a name, and Harrison's
name, partly because of his long public service, but
more through his genial and picturesque qualities,
was more widely known through Chicago than that
of any other politician. The mere report that he
would again be a candidate for mayor brought hun¬
dreds of his old supporters and hosts of new ones
trooping to his banner. In all parts of the city there
sprang up "Carter H. Harrison associations," "le¬
gions," and " phalanxes." Politicians knew that
along with that " cohesive power of public plunder "
of which reformers talk so much, there goes a cor¬
responding danger to the man who has the spoils of
office to dispense. In his thousands of office-holders
the mayor of Chicago possesses an enormous servile
TWO CAMPAIGNS.
193
following, but for every oflBce-holder devoted to him,
he must count upon several disappointed oifice-
seekers, eager to be revenged upon him. Harrison
and his lieutenants had the knowledge and the skill
to weld these disaffected elements into an organiza¬
tion antagonistic to the so-called regular Democratic
organization, which was, of course, controlled abso¬
lutely by the ruler of the city hall. The movement
spread through all the wards in the city, until the
day of the primaries, when the Harrison strength at
the polls was so great that all the devices of the pro¬
fessional politician, — devices which are notorious,
and stain the records of our municipal politics with
uncounted instances of violence and fraud, — were
necessary to prevent his complete victory. The con¬
vention which followed was packed against him, and
his supporters, seeing the futility of further struggle
against the powers which dominated that body, with¬
drew, organized a convention of their own and put
Harrison in nomination. This nomination was after¬
wards endorsed by the Personal Rights League, a body
controlling a very considerable vote in Chicago.
The full story of the struggle for the nomination,
and of the causes which impelled him to repudiate
the so-called regular Democratic organization was
told by Harrison in a speech under the auspices of
the Personal Rights League. This address set the
key-note for one of the most remarkable contests in
the history of municipal politics. The charge of bolt¬
ing — highly obnoxious to a politician — was com-
13
194 CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
bated ; he assured his hearers that his friends lefl
the convention as better Democrats than those re
maining in the hall. Continuing, he told of hit
efEorts to restore harmony by making the proposi¬
tion that both he and the Democratic nominee should
withdraw, and a third and disinterested man be put
forth as a regular Democratic candidate. But as
these negotiations had come to nothing, he an¬
nounced his determination of boldly pressing his can-
vass as an independent; that he and his followers
were " bolters " he denied strenuously, opening his
address with the declaration that he stood there, not
alone as the nominee of the Personal Rights League,
but as the regular Democratic nominee as well. He
asserted that the frauds perpetrated against him at
the primaries utterly invalidated the nomination
made by that convention, which his followers had
summarily deserted. Some of the methods adopted
to suppress a full and free vote he described from
personal observation. At one polling booth the
boxes were so placed that the voter could not see
what became of the ballot he handed through a nar¬
row opening to a man inside. At others, the police
thrust Harrison voters out of line. Contesting dele¬
gations of course resulted in nearly every ward, but a
committee on credentials, of seven members, with but
one Harrison man among them, made short work
with Harrison contestants at the convention. It was
under such circumstances he became a candidate,
with the hope that, if not elected himself, he might
TWO CAMPAIGNS.
195
inflict upon the dominant spirits of the Democratic
organization a defeat which would prove a telling
rebuke to any who might employ their methods.
With this end in view, Harrison entered upon his
campaign. An independent candidacy for the
mayoralty of a great city like Chicago is usually
regarded by politicians as the most visionary of
undertakings. It requires the expenditure of large
sums of money, the building of a new "machine,"
overcoming by argument or personal solicitation that
sentiment which makes the generality of men vote
for their party right or wrong. In Harrison's case
this difficulty was doubled by his almost entire lack
of newspaper support. One German daily paper
gave him assistance, but the great English dailies,
without exception, were unsparing in their denunci¬
ations of him. In earlier years, as a candidate on a
regular Democratic ticket, he had had to overcome a
hostile press, but never before had the assaults of the
papers been so violent. Yet from the people he re¬
ceived daily testimonials of esteem and promises of
support, which went far to neutralize the effect of
newspaper attacks. His meetings were attended by
large and enthusiastic gatherings; the clubs and
associations bearing his name and formed to press
his candidacy, grew steadily in numbers and in in¬
fluence. Men of the highest business standing at¬
tended his meetings and gave him personal assurance
of their support. He made his campaign purely on
his own record as a "business mayor," refraining
196
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
from personal attack upon his Democratic opponent,
but criticising that official's conduct of municipal
affairs, incisively. Weeks before the day of election
it became evident that no such independent vote had
ever been cast in Chicago as was being prepared for
Harrison. The Democratic " ring " became despond¬
ent as the fact grew patent that, while Harrison
might not himself be elected, he would inevitably
divide the Democratic vote and elect the Republican.
The Republicans themselves, though at first elated,
soon grew alarmed. Election day found many of
the shrewdest judges predicting Harrison's election,
unprecedented as such a sequel to an independent
campaign would be. The vote was cast amid scenes
of turbulence and violence. The faction intrenched
in the city hall, with all the machinery for gathering
and counting the ballots in their hands, and with
the police force under their command, hesitated at
nothing to maintain their power. It is as unneces¬
sary as it would be improper, to describe in detail
the methods adopted. The devices of ward poli¬
ticians for swelling or suppressing a vote are, unhap¬
pily, matters of very wide notoriety in the United
States. But despite the employment of both coer¬
cion and falsification to suppress it, the Harrison
vote was reported to the election commissioners as
42,931, Cregier, the Democrat, had 46,588, and
Washburn, the Republican, was given 46,957, and
was therefore elected.
How extraordinary an achievement this was, can
TWO CAMPAIGNS. 197
only be appreciated by those knowing something of
the methods of American politics. For an independ¬
ent candidate in Chicago to poll 43,000 votes, and to
come within a few thousand votes of being elected,
was an exploit not likely to be soon repeated. And
even if we set aside the generally conceded fact that,
had the votes actually cast for Harrison been hon¬
estly counted, he would have been elected, it can still
be asserted that there was nothing in his long and
brilliant public career which spoke more emphati¬
cally for his marvellous qualities as an organizer, or
gave such stirring testimony to his strength with
the people, as this unsuccessful campaign for the
mayoralty in 1891.
CHAPTER IX.
the world's-pair mayor.
In April, 1893, Carter H. Harrison became mayor
of Chicago for the fifth time. The campaign which
preceded his election had been one of unprecedented
bitterness. Ever since his defeat by a narrow ap¬
parent majority in 1892, the devoted personal fol¬
lowers who had been behind him in his phenomenal
independent canvass had been pressing his claim to
the regular nomination. The approach of the season
of the World's Columbian Exposition added to the
force of the Harrison movement, for a very large
body of the people felt convinced that by his natural
courtliness of manner and his cosmopolitan experi¬
ence the veteran ex-mayor would be the man of all
men to extend the civic honors to the expected
throngs. In all parts of the city sprang up branches
of the " Carter H. Harrison Association," an organi¬
zation pledged to the nomination and election of
Harrison to the mayoralty. So strong did this or¬
ganization become that it rivalled, even if it did not
excel in political power, the regular Democratic or¬
ganization. Founded by the friends of the candidate,
it was fostered and developed largely without effort
THE WORLD'S-FÁIR MAYOR.
199
on his part. He, indeed, during the year which pre¬
ceded his final return to office, abandoned political
activity to a great extent. His ambition to be the
"World's-Fair mayor" he frankly admitted to all
questioners; but he believed — justifiably, as events
proved — that the remarkable vote given him as in¬
dependent candidate betokened that the people would
nominate and elect him of their own volition.
In the autumn of 1891 Harrison purchased the
" Chicago Times," a Democratic newspaper of long
standing and famous history. The purchase was not
made in order to provide the buyer with a personal
political organ, though later events made its posses¬
sion very fortunate for him. Into the work of the
journalist, Harrison, despite his advanced age, en¬
tered with interest. He was daily at the office, and
discussed the events of the moment and the policy
of the paper with an eagerness almost boyish. He
wrote but little. The limitations which restricted
space impose upon the editorial writer hampered
him. Always a more ready speaker than writer,
he would, when he had views he desired to express
in the paper, summon a stenographer, and deliver to
him the article in oratorical form, never failing to
be intensely astonished to find the result of his dic¬
tation an editorial article of impossible length, which
invariably required cruel cutting to get it into rea¬
sonable journalistic compass. It was, perhaps, this
lack of facility in terse and condensed expression
which led him soon to give up all writing for his
200
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
own paper. Certainly, during the two years of his
ownership of it, he wrote, with the exception of
some letters of travel, scarce a score of articles for
its columns. No lack of interest, however, was
shown by him in the course of the paper. He
directed its policy absolutely. He swung it into
liberal lines on the currency question, continuing in
its columns the fight for bimetallism he had begun
in Congress. His well-known views on the tariff —
the views of a Henry Clay Whig — were impressed
upon it, and the plea for free trade vanished from
its editorial page. With a national Democratic con¬
vention near at hand, he boldly took issue with the
preponderating public sentiment in the Northwest,
and bitterly antagonized Grover Cleveland, urging
the nomination of a Western man instead. Though
beaten for the time in this contention, he proved
himself far-seeing, for the West and Northwest were
not long in coming to his position. Upon questions
other than political affecting the policy of a news¬
paper, Carter Harrison's views were decided, and he
occasionally impressed them upon the humblest mem¬
bers of his editorial staff in a way that, while effec¬
tive, left not the slightest sting behind. He was a
stickler for dignity, decency, and truth in news¬
papers. Personal journalism he abhorred. The tor¬
rent of abuse, invective, and epithet discharged upon
him by the opposition press had not so blunted his
sympathies as to make him connive for one moment
at the use of like methods of attack on his rivals.
THE WORLD'S-FAIR MAYOR.
201
In the campaign of 1893, when the virulence of the
attacks of the allied opposition press upon him sur¬
passed in degree anything ever before seen in a poli¬
tical campaign, he positively forbade the printing of
any personal abuse of his opponent in the " Times."
It is not likely that Carter Harrison would ever have
made a great journalist. He lacked the passion for
the calling which is essential to success in it, and his
unvarying good-nature and ready sympathy made
it impossible for him to understand why any news
should be printed which might in any way give pain
to the people concerned. But his ideals of journal¬
ism, though often impracticable, were high and
honorable and gentlemanly. The salutatories in
which new editors greet their public and outline
their policy are not often taken seriously; but in
all his personal efforts as editor of the "Times,"
Mr. Harrison departed not a step from these prom¬
ises which he made over his own signature on
taking control of the paper: —
" In assuming control of the ' Chicago Times,' the new
management announces that it is here to stay. In asking
its share of public favor, it promises that the 'Times'
will always advocate Democratic principles because best for
the people, but will never be a slave to party to uphold the
wrong. It will be no man's organ, and will have no pet
theories to promulgate. It has no enemies to punish, no
hobbies to ride, and will have no axes to grind, but will be
a newspaper in the broadest sense of the word, studiously
avoiding sensational scandals, and both in its reading mat¬
ter and advertisements will exclude everything which can
shock the modest or violate the sanctity of the fireside. It
202
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
will not invade the privacy of the home nor besmirch pri¬
vate character, either to gratify personal resentment or for
the purpose of selling its issues. It will favor public and
private morality, and condemn every form of indecency,
and will ever be the strong advocate of personal as well as
of civil and religious liberty."
Into the national Presidential campaign of 1892
Harrison entered with vigor and with enthusiasm.
Though he had doubted the wisdom of the nomi¬
nation of Mr. Cleveland, he was ready as a loyal
Democrat to support that nomination with voice and
pen after the regularly constituted convention of the
party had made it. The presence of General Adlai
E. Stevenson, of Illinois, on the ticket as candidate
for Vice-President added much to the personal in¬
terest felt by Harrison in the election, as the nomi¬
nation of Stevenson was first urged by him in an
editorial in the "Times" on the last day of the
convention. A letter from Mr. Cleveland — between
whom and Mr. Harrison there had been a slight
personal estrangement for some time — soliciting his
assistance in the campaign in the West awakened
his hearty enthusiasm. He made several speeches,
and was booked by the campaign committee for
many more, when an untoward accident resulted in
the fracture of his arm and his withdrawal in great
part from political activity.
His own campaign followed fast upon the conclu¬
sion of the national struggle. He discovered soon
that his friend and former trusted lieutenant, Wash-
THE WORLD'S-FÁIR MAYOR. 203
ington Hesing, editor of the " Staats Zeitung," was
this year a candidate for the mayoralty. With a
widely read German newspaper in his control, a con¬
siderable personal following of his own, and the
machine politicians of the Democratic party almost
to a man behind him, Mr. Hesing bade fair to be
a formidable rival. The preliminary campaign for
the nomination was lively. The Democratic news^
papers, other than the " Times," abandoned the tra¬
ditional position of neutrality before the nominating
convention, and strenuously espoused Mr. Hesing's
candidacy. There were mass meetings, parades, cau¬
cuses, and all the episodes of a hard-fought political
campaign; but when, after an orderly day at the
primaries, the convention assembled, it was found
that the Hesing forces had been scattered like leaves,
and that in a convention of 681 delegates, three-
fourths were pledged to Harrison. That convention
is one of the memorable events in the history of
Chicago politics. The enthusiasm of the dominant
faction was unbounded, the chagrin of the minority
bitter and resentful. One defeated candidate began
an impassioned harangue, and being howled down by
the convention, left in a rage to ally himself with
the Republicans. When order was finally brought
out of the turmoil. Carter H. Harrison was nominated
for mayor on the first ballot, receiving 531 votes.
The next day dissensions, noisy enough to appear
to be serious, were manifest in the ranks of the
Democratic party. Mr. Harrison's competitors in
204
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
the convention refused to abide by the result, and
prepared to lead an organized " bolt." The Demo*
oratio newspapers, other than bis own, and the inde¬
pendent press roundly condemned bis candidacy, and
called upon the Republicans to put forward a candi¬
date whom all could support on non-partisan grounds.
Some difficulty was found by the managers of the
Republican party in finding a gentleman willing to
undertake the perilous labors of the campaign, and
some rather comical complications were caused by
the officious efforts of the impractical and visionary
would-be politicians who always flock to the support
of any movement for a so-called " citizens' ticket."
Finally, however, Mr. Samuel W. Allerton, a wealthy
packing-bouse proprietor, was induced to make the
race, and was provided with a regular Republican
and citizens' nomination.
The odds which confronted Harrison at the begin¬
ning of the campaign were formidable, and to an
enormous number of well-informed people seemed
absolutely insurmountable. The press of the city
was almost a unit in opposing him. Of the morning
dailies, the "Tribune," "Inter-Ocean," "Herald,"
" News-Record," and " Staats-Zeitung " attacked him
bitterly, his own paper, the " Times," being alone in
his defence. Of the evening papers, the three of
highest standing and widest circulation, the " Daily
News," "Evening Journal," and "Evening Post,"
were hostile. To the superficial observer it would
seem that the position of the press fitly represented
THE WORLD'S-FÄIR MAYOR.
205
the temper of the people, for the opposition to Harri-
son was noisy and obtrusive, while his strength lay
chiefly with people not given to talking politics.
There was an obvious split in his own party, too,
many of its shrewdest workers, who saw in his suc¬
cess a menace to their control of the party ma¬
chinery, announcing boldly their intention of fighting
him as a retaliation for his action in having run as
an independent candidate two years before. Attempt
even was made to drag the national administration
of President Cleveland, then in its first days, into
the controversy, and the assertion was freely made
that the president desired the defeat of the Demo¬
cratic candidate for mayor, — an assertion in which
there was probably a shadow of truth under a vast
deal of overstatement. The bitterness and acrimony
of the campaign exceeded anything ever before known
in Chicago politics. The methods of the allied press
were those of wanton slander and flippant ridicule.
The biting satires of Charles Dickens on American
journalism were more than justified by the course of
the Chicago newspapers in this campaign. One
great journal daily presented its readers with carica¬
tures of Mr. Harrison, clad in the garb of a clown
with cogwheels on his head, supposed to indicate his
condition of senile lunacy. He was charged with
every sin in the political calendar, his supporters
were covered with abusive epithets, his speeches
were ridiculed, his meetings systematically written
down. If abuse could ruin a politician, Harrison
206
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
would have been destroyed. If ridicule could have
driven him out of town, he would have fled. Neither
truth, decency, nor common-sense was permitted by
the editors of the opposition press to stand in the
way of their malice. From their impassioned ap¬
peals one might have thought the city in danger of
an invasion worse than one of Goths and Vandals.
They demanded, rather than advised, the defeat of
this man, held over the people the whip of the slave-
driver rather than the torch of the guide. It is im¬
possible to regard the magnificent majority which
the people ultimately gave to Mr. Harrison as other
than in great part a rebuke to the press for its in¬
temperate and extravagant raging. But for the
time, of course, the noisy and almost unanimous
chorus of defamation had its effect. The subscribers
to five out of the six morning newspapers saw Harri¬
son daily described as an associate of gamblers, a
conscienceless politician, a weak-minded and insanely
egotistic old man. They read that his meetings
were attended by toughs and plug-uglies only. Un¬
less by some chance the average citizen, who usually
reads only one newspaper, read the "Times" he
must have believed that the defeat of Harrison was
an absolute certainty. The pulpit, prone to take
hasty and ill-considered views of political questions,
took up the cry, and preachers who had come to
Chicago after Carter Harrison last retired from office,
accepted as gospel the slanders of partisans, and
strenuously called upon the members of their flocks
THE WORLD'S-FÂIR MAYOR. 207
to vote against this man lest the wrath of Heaven
fall upon the city. So tremendous was the chorus
of detraction that the fame of the campaign spread
to other cities, and the country looked with amused
disgust upon a community preparing for a great ex¬
position of the arts of civilization and refinement,
and conducting an election for the mayoralty in a
fashion seldom met outside the romances of satirists.
Old campaigner as he was, Mr. Harrison felt
keenly the cruel attacks upon him, but he bent his
head to the blast and trudged on through it. His
exertions in the canvass were extraordinary in one
of his advanced age,— for it must be remembered
that he was at this time in his 69th year. He con¬
tinued his early morning rides through the city, but
before noon was at his office in the editorial rooms
of the " Times," receiving deputations, consulting
with lieutenants, and discussing every detail of the
campaign. At night he was whirled in a carriage
from hall to hall, speaking frequently three times
in the course of the evening, in widely separated sec¬
tions of the city. These speeches were, of course,
pretty much of a kind. Local issues alone had to
be debated, and beyond defence of his earlier ad¬
ministrations, and some outline of the policy by
which he would be guided if elected, there was little
to be said. Some extracts from an address made to
a magnificent gathering of 6,500 people in the Audi¬
torium, will give a sufl&cient idea of the issues of this
campaign : —
208
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
"Ladies and Fellow-Citizens:—I am before you a
candidate for the mayoralty, nominated by a party, — nomi¬
nated by the Democratic party, — but I am not here to¬
night to discuss Democracy or Republicanism. I am here
to talk to you as business men ; men having the interests
of this city at heart, regardless of party. I am one of those
that do not believe that all is good in one party or that all
is bad in the other. Democrats and Republicans are alike
in one thing,— they want their country's interests sub¬
served. They are all patriotic and do that which they
think is best for their common country. But in the diver¬
gence of opinion, — in that strange characteristic of men
that but few look at the same point or question in the same
light, — men differ, honestly differ, in opinion as to what is
or is not good for their country. Battling, as the Demo¬
cratic and Republican parties do every year in city, county,
and State, in their elections, or every four years for the
presidential and two years for congressional elections, one
would think that one party was bad and the other good ;
that one party was inimical to the interests of their com¬
mon country ; but that is far from being right, and I con¬
cede that Republicans in Chicago are as earnestly anxious
for the success of this, our grand city, as Democrats are.
I concede, too, that there is no real, logical reason why
party politics should enter into municipal elections. It
would seem that that policy which may be good for the
entire country might be left out in our municipal elections,
but it is not the inclination of the human heart to so leave
it out. Men are anxious for the success of their party ;
they know that party success every four years is led up to
by party success every year at town elections ; every two
years at municipal elections ; that it is necessary to keep a
party line. They think it, whether right or wrong ; they
have thought it since the beginning of our country, and I
suspect they will so think until our country shall have
gone, as all things human have gone, to find its end. There
THE WORLD'S-FAIR MAYOR.
209
are some, however, who think that parties are all wrong ;
there are some people in this town — most excellent
gentlemen — who think when there can be a citizens' ticket
in control they have found a panacea for all ills, and that
the country is saved. I am adverted upon this morning by
a great newspaper because I said I believed in party nomi¬
nations ; not that 1 think that it is necessary, — that is, as
an abstract question, — but it is necessary in accordance
with the formation of our minds, and in accordance with
our habits. Now, why do I think that a party is a good
thing to have behind a mayor ? Experience has taught, —
long experience in many cities has taught, — that a party
holds its officials in restraint ; that a man in official position
is held to the line of duty by his allegiance to his party when
his duty alone would not hold him. That has been proved
in every city. I would rather be governed by a partisan
Republican mayor than by one elected on a citizens' ticket,
when there is no other ticket in the field. Citizens' tickets
are, oftentimes, beneficial, but they are beneficial as a
cyclone and the hurricane is, — to cleanse the atmosphere
when it has become foul and stagnant. The hurricane,
sweeping over our prairie, levels houses, throws down trees,
destroys lives. After the hurricane sweep has gone by
there is ozone in the air and there is a purer atmosphere
than before. When parties. Democratic or Republican,
both put up bad men, — when machines become so foul
that they refuse to obey the will of the people and put up
bad men,—then comes the time for a citizens' movement,
and citizens' movements are beneficial, but not necessarily
at all times.
" Now, I am the candidate of the Democratic party ;
there is a candidate in the field in opposition to me. He
was, a little while ago, a Republican. He says to-day he is
neither a Republican nor is he Democratic. He is a ' citi¬
zen.' What does that mean ? I think it is probable that
the people will say : ' You are a citizen, — you are neither
14
210
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
hot nor cold, and, in the language of the Scriptures, " we
will spew you out." '
" Now, when the Democratic nomination was made, why
did n't the Republican party send its people to the primaries
and have an honest primary, as the Democratic party did,
with a few exceptions ? Why did n't they hold a convention
and nominate a Republican, straight,pure, and simple ? This
great party that saved the Union, that reconstructed the
Union, that held power in Illinois for thirty-six years, at
the very first moment of defeat laid itself down like a sheep
and abandoned itself to what ? To a syndicate of five
newspaper proprietors, one of them a Democrat, — so-
called. Only four years ago Mr. Allerton was a Republi¬
can ; he it was who raised $100,000 to send down to Indiana
to buy Hoosiers in ' blocks of five,' like sheep in a shamble.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots ?
How has he all at once ceased to be a Republican and be¬
come one of that sublime set,— a ' citizen.' What clianged
him? Now, what has changed me? I am a Democrat,
and the papers denounce me. One of them — whose editor
owns two banks, and with them buys carriers and runs
his papers, and owns two newspapers with which he whips
capitalists into his banks — vilifies me ; says that I was a
profiigate when I was mayor ; that I was wasteful, extrava¬
gant ; that if I be elected again I will lead our city into
ruin. Ah, John R. Walsh, Carter Harrison has not sold
his soul to the devil for pelf, as thou hast, and he will never
lead the city, of which he is prouder than thy little soul
can hold,— he will never lead it into anything but the
paths of right, as far as his brains will permit him. Now
the others come in, and, like ' Tray, Blanche, and Sweet¬
heart,' bark their little bark and say I am corrupt, — I was
corrupt when I was mayor before. It is a little singular
that last December the editor of the ' Tribune,' the editor
of the ' Inter-Ocean,' the editor of the ' News,' the editor
of the 'Freie Press' came to me personally, or by re-
THE WORLD'S-FÄIR MAYOR.
211
spected and trusted agents, and urged me to run as a
* citizens' ' candidate, and not to accept the Democratic
nomination. That was in December. I have changed.
Has Allerton changed ? He was a Bepublican ; he is now
a ' citizen.' I was then a fit man to govern this citj, but
now heaven and earth are moved in effoi'ts to drag up lies
about me to beat me as a candidate for the mayoralty.
What has changed it ? I look over this crowd, — your de¬
meanor tells me that you are not, at least my enemies.
Let me tell you to read that old, reliable paper, — read it,
my friends ; you look to me like gentlemen ; ladies, you look
like you might even live on Prairie Avenue, and that you
would draw your skirts aside if a coal wagon was being
emptied. The ' Journal ' this evening says : ' Carter will
be at the Auditorium with his gang.' And then it goes
on and calls attention to the gang. There sits one of
the gang. Judge Otis, and all around here is a gang
that can buy even John R. Walsh out a dozen times.
There before me is a gang of bright, intelligent faces.
Aye, far back into yonder gallei'ies are men that anybody
would be proud to call fellow-citizens and to accept their
suffrages.
"A few days ago Marshall Field was advertised to sit
and preside over a meeting here for Mr. Allerton. Marshall
Field, the Allerton editors said, was taken sick, — he was
indisposed. Ay, he was indisposed as I used to be when
at college 1 did n't know my lessons and I was indisposed
to go. Marshall Field is not for Mr. Allerton ; he is for
Carter Harrison. And that is n't all. He did n't vote for
me in the past, but he will do it now because he knows the
necessity of having somebody this year that at least knows
something besides sticking pigs.
" 1 find no fault with Mr. Allerton because he was not
college bred. I don't know that it would benefit him.
These papers are college bred, but it does n't prevent them
from lying. I am sorry for Mr. Allerton from my heart.
212
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
I am sorry that he lacked an early opportunity for an edu¬
cation. He deserves credit for what he has done ; he has
been a successful man ; he knew how to guess at the weight
of a pig in the farmers' yards far better than the farmer,
and he bought them by the score. He is a most admirable
pig sticker and pig slaughterer; I admit it, and I don't
arraign him because he slaughters the queen's English ; he
can't help it, and I would not advert to it, but Mr. Allerton
says that I will be a disaster to this city if I be elected. It
is a little singular that Sam Allerton thinks that I would
be a dire calamity to Chicago, and yet Sam Allerton voted
for me either two or three times when I was elected mayor.
He voted for me because I protected his business interests,
and that is the reason you, fellow-citizens, and you, busi¬
ness men, will, I hope at least, vote for me the 4th of
April next.
" Now, last Saturday night, late, — very late, — a gentle¬
man met one of my sons and told him that he had had a
conversation with one of those great syndicate newspaper
publishers. The publisher told him that Mr. Allerton
would be elected. Says he : 'Yes, we are going to spring
on Carter Harrison, between now and the election, some¬
thing that will paralyze him.' They have been springing
paralysis on me for some time. I once had circular in¬
sanity, and then grew suddenly and prematurely old ; then
I got a wheel in my head. Why, there was a lady down in
the Third ward, not far from Mr. Allerton, and the other
day she had a little boy ; he was n't many days old when
she sent up to me to know if I would please get Dr. Owens
to come down and trepan her boy's head and put a small
wheel in it, like mine.
" But yesterday morning the great thing — or one of the
great things — culminated. They have been paralyzing
me for some weeks. One day they charged that I was a
Deputy ; they found out that I had a friend by the name of
Reynolds, and that there was a Reynolds that was a
THE WORLD'S-FAIR MAYOR.
218
Deputy ; therefore, my friend must be that Reynolds and I
must be a Deputy. Then, when I was mayor, before there
^as an ordinance called the ' Equitable Gas Company's
ordinance,' that company bought a piece of property in
Bridgeport : some poor gentleman, who had passed through
trials and troubles, and whose memory was bad, gave it to
Mr. Walsh's paper and Walsh published it, — that I went
down to Bridgeport when the Equitable Gas Company had
its ordinance before the council ; that I bought the piece of
property in Bridgeport for $28,000 ; that I sold an option
on it to the Equitable Gas Company for $90,000, — a pretty
good operation. Now, I never owned any property in Bridge¬
port in my life. I never gave an option to a piece of prop¬
erty in my life, and I actually vetoed the Equitable Gas
Company's ordinance. Yet, when these facts were made
known that paper never blushed. Its paper is as white and
its ink as black as it was before, — these papers do not
blush. There is one paper in town that does not lie ; mod¬
esty forbids my telling you what it is.
"Now, my friends, they have been putting up a good
many things against me all the time to paralyze me. Yes¬
terday morning they came out — every one of them —
with exactly the same thing, cut and dried. 'Mike Mc¬
Donald has bought Carter Harrison,' or * Carter Harrison
has bought Mike.' There is the picture, — the fac-simile
of a letter written to nobody knows who, and signed ' M.
C. McDonald.' What does it say? It says : ' I wish you
would please come to 137 Monroe Street to see me as soon
as possible on important business. Very truly yours, M.
C. McDonald.' Why, that is nearly as well written as Sam
Allerton could write. Now, that fac-simile is in every
paper,— something very strange in that. Then they go
on and say that Mike is running my campaign, and that I
have made an agreement to open Garfield Park; that
George Hankins gave me $5,000, Tuesday, in considera¬
tion of that. Why $5,000? They have forgotten that
214
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
last summer the price supposed to be sufficient to buy a
mayor was $50,000 from the Garfield Park. Now, there¬
fore, they say I have made my peace with the gamblers ;
1 am run by Mike ; be and the gamblers are going to run
me. He couldn't run Mr. Allerton. No; Mr. Allerton
would beat the gamblers. He would do it, I suspect, a
good deal like the fellow on the Mississippi steamboat did,
on which I was a passenger when 1 was a young lad. Out
in the ' texas,' —the ' texas' on a steamboat is a place on
the upper deck, — they call it the ' texas,' and it is where
they play high. Well, the ladies were very much disturbed
because they were gambling,— said it was terrible. A
young gentleman was standing by, and they said, * Mr.
Johnson, can't you go out and break up that game?*
'Well, if you insist upon it, Ï will,— I will smash them.'
They insisted ; he departed ; they did n't see him until
the next morning ; he came in and said : ' I obeyed your
injunction, ladies ; 1 broke up that bank.' ' How did
you do it?' 'I won every dollar they had and put them
in soak.' Now, Sam has been gambling ' on 'change ' long
enough, and 1 ' spec ' he could beat Mike McDonald and
George Hankins and give them an ace to spare in every
deck.
"But, my fellow-citizens, let me show you this lie.
They thought they were going to demolish me. The * Her¬
ald ' this morning comes out and gives a long tale about it.
It is eloquent. Lies generally are. Then here is a line
with a sub-head : ' Denials will not avail.' Oh, no, no,
there is no use in denying it. 'We have said it, and we
will stick to it. You belong to Mike McDonald,—you
need n't deny it ; denials, even though it be a falsehood,
won't avail.' This great syndicate of newspapers, supposed
to represent the culture of the country, to educate the youth,
won't listen to denials. ' We have said it, and we must
stick to it.' Now, what are the facts ? My friends, this
letter was written on the stationery of the executive com-
THE WORLD'S-FAIB MAYOR. 215
mittee, and they speak of Mr. McDonald as running the
campaign. Now, the facts are, that Mr. McDonald is not
a member of the executive committee ; he is not a member
of the campaign committee ; he is a member of the county
committee, and elected himself by barring up the window
at the primaries on the 27th day of last February. There
were but three absolutely wrong and foul precincts that I
heard of in the city of Chicago on the 27th day of Febru¬
ary, at the Democratic primaries, and one of them was in
the barn of Mike McDonald, where, instead of having a
large window for the voters to hand their ballots through,
as the law directs, he had a small hole, through which the
voter could put his hand and drop the ballot. As one
gentleman very tersely said, any voter who had a ring on
his finger when he put his ballot in, usually drew his hand
back without the ring or the ballot either."
With the lapse of time most of this seems trivial
and petty, but it was upon the local issues of police
and financial policy that the mayoralty campaign
was fought, and it was by just such colloquial, off¬
hand, unpretentious speeches as the foregoing that
Carter Harrison won the votes of the people.
The close of the campaign found the candidates
and the city equally weary of the struggle. The
efforts of the two chief figures had been exceedingly
wearing upon them, and the people for their part
rejoiced in impending relief from political importunity
and newspaper clamor. Mr. Allerton personally had
home himself with much dignity, not employing,
so far as his individual utterances were concerned,
any of the devices of detraction and slander upon
which his active supporters placed their chief de-
216
CÁRTER HENRY HARRISON.
pendence. Mr. Harrison for his part, though sorely
tried, had kept his temper, not meeting hard words
with harder ones, but in the main contenting him¬
self with good-natured condemnation of the mud-
throwing and earnest response to such serious
criticism upon his official character and ability as
might be made. The day of election found both
parties equally confident. The allied press made
boastful claim of certain victory, and to people who
considered the apparent odds against Harrison there
seemed to be no possibility of his election. Even
at five o'clock on the afternoon of election day the
evening papers positively assured their readers of
Mr. Allerton's triumphant election. But only three
hours later, with returns from only a fraction of the
election precincts reported, it became apparent that
Harrison had been carried into office upon a tre¬
mendous wave of popular enthusiasm. He had, in
fact, been elected with a majority of 21,089, in a
total vote of 211,418. The spontaneous ovation ten¬
dered him that night by an army of citizens was of a
kind to make the pulse of man beat fast. About
the office of the " Times," which soon began to blaze
with red fire, the people gathered, until the two
streets which there cross were black with humanity.
Cheers for the victorious candidate, who sat in his
office within, rose in mighty chorus. A great bon¬
fire, built with a view to setting a torch to an
Allerton banner which spanned the street from a
neighboring newspaper office, cast a ruddy light over
THE WORLD'S-FAIR MAYOR.
217
the whole ueighborhood. For a time it seemed that
the excitement of the populace might lead to serious
consequences, threats of violence to the hostile news¬
paper offices being freely bandied about the throng.
The mayor-elect, noting with some apprehension the
temper of his admirers, went alone among them,
fought his way into the centre of the crowd, rescued
the imperilled banner, and advised his over-enthu¬
siastic constituents to disperse to their homes,—
advice which they did not act upon without some
further horseplay intended to express their con¬
tempt for the anti-Harrison press. The enthusiasm
of the street crowds was but the expression of the
satisfaction of the vast majority of the citizens.
Even those who had been led into opposition by
the partisan press were compelled to admit that
a man who had received from the people, in the
face of an opposition of unprecedented virulence,
so magnificent a testimonial of confidence and es¬
teem could not be the combination of shallow
egotist and conscienceless politician the newspapers
depicted.
In due season Mr. Harrison was installed as mayor
for the fifth time. In his inaugural address he could
not refrain from giving expression to his sense of the
injustice of the attacks which he had just passed
through. This extemporaneous address may well
be printed in full, as the last of his official State
papers : —
218
CÁRTER HENRY HARRISON.
"Aldebmen op Chicago:—Foully glandered and shame¬
lessly abused by a reckless press, but sustained and honored
by 115,000 of the free and independent voters of Chicago,—
that 115,000 composed of all but a few sore-headed Demo¬
crats, and composed besides of the best elements of the
Republican party ; men who believed in fair play and honest
endeavor; men who believed in business interests being
protected, — I stand before you again, for the fifth time
chosen to be the mayor of Chicago.
" When years ago I stood before you, aldermen of Chi¬
cago, and took the oath which fitted me for this high
ofiice, Chicago had less than half a million of population ;
to-day it is the sixth city on the face of the globe, the
second in America in population, and the first city on
earth in pluck, energy, and determination. Standing thus,
1 feel deep anxiety lest 1 may not fulfil the expectation
of the vast majority of my fellow-citizens that have hon¬
ored me.
"All I have to say to you, aldermen of Chicago, and
through you to its citizens, is that my endeavor will be
always to further the interests of this city of which I am
so proud, of this city which I entered when it was but an
overgrown village, but of which I now enter into the man¬
agement as the great and most successful giant of tlie
West. It will be my endeavor to justify the wishes of the
suffrages that placed me here, and I earnestly ask your
co-operation in helping to wipe out the slander that has
been thrown upon our good name by a venal and corrupt
■press.
" It has been spread broadcast over this land, and has
even crossed the briny deep, that the electorate that has
chosen your chief magistrate was an electorate of thieves,
thugs, gamblers, and disreputables. We stand before the
world with a black mark upon our character. Let it be
your and my endeavor to wipe this slander out and prove
to the world that Chicago is a city governed by the best
THE WORLD'S-FAIR MAYOR.
219
people, and that its mayor and its common council govern
it on principles of business and respectability.
" Under the charter 1 am a part of the city council of
Chicago. It will be my endeavor to co-operate with you,
and I earnestly ask you to co-operate with me in proving
to the world that the city that has been honored by having
placed in its midst the Columbian Exposition is a city that
deserved to have that Exposition placed here.
" I earnestly ask all of you to co-operate with the mayor,
as he pledges himself to co-operate with you, in showing
and proving to the world that Chicago is not only the
second city in population, the first city in America in
pluck and energy, but a city of good government, of
honest and fair dealing, and that the world can come
here and feel that its pocketbook is safe while it stays in
our midst.
" Our first duty, gentlemen of the city council of Chicago,
is to keep the city in a healthy condition, so that when the
world comes here it will not enter upon a charnel-house.
I pledge my honor to you and to my fellow-citizens to do
all that lies in my power to protect the health of the city.
It is a part of our duty to present Chicago to the world in
a gala dress, with a clean front to it. It will be my earnest
endeavor to keep the city clean, not only in its heart, but
throughout its entire dimensions, so that the people of the
world can come here and say to us : ' The young city is not
only vigorous, but she laves her beautiful limbs daily in
Lake Michigan, and comes out clean and pure every
morning.'
" I need not make recommendations to you. The mayor
who has just retired has expressed to me and to you his
heartfelt wishes for our success. I thank him most
earnestly for his wishes, and pledge to him that I shall
endeavor to carry out all of his good wishes, and give the
people of Chicago the right at least to say that he did not
falsely prophesy about us.
220
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
"I will not attempt to detain you to-night by laying
down to you a programme. As the occasion arises during
the next two years, I shall present to you curtly such mat¬
ters as I think ought to be laid before you,
" It will be my endeavor, as a member of the city council,
to sit with you in your sessions, and to be a part of this
body. I only hope that you will be satisfied with the reg¬
ular weekly meetings, for although I am somewhat past
the age of youth, and though there be wheels in my head,
my fellow-citizens have shown me that the wheels are com¬
posed of flowers, and that my old eagle sits perched upon
the wheel.
" I shall ask your co-operation ; I shall endeavor to pre¬
side over you fairly ; I shall listen to you with great
pleasure when you bring into the body of which I am
now a member measures for the good of the city ; and I
promise you that if you bring in any that I do not consider
right, I will be very sure to send in the next week a veto.
If 1 do, I hope that you will not consider it an act of
unkindness on my part. You, as members of this city
council, have to act much more on your own responsibility
than does the mayor. You have not a paid body of men
behind you to direct you in your deliberations. The mayor
will have behind him an able corps of men, well paid, to
give him counsel ; and therefore if he should claim some
time to know a little better than you, it is because the
paid men behind him have aided him in arriving at just
conclusions.
" Therefore I earnestly ask of you that you will not con¬
sider a return to you without the mayor's signature of any
measure that you may pass a slight ; for the mayor will
simply say to you, and I now say to you, he returns it
to you because you have hastily considered it, and he has
considered it more maturely.
" I ask, too, that you will bear with me in presiding over
you. If I make mistakes in parliamentary rules, it will be
THE WORLD'S-FÄIR MAYOR.
221
mistakes of the head and not of the heart; and being a
somewhat positive man, and the wheel having stopped in
my head, I expect to be tolerably positive in my rulings.
1 will ask you not too often to appeal from the mayor's
decision.
" Gentlemen, we are now entered upon our work for the
next two years. It will be — certainly a part of it, the
next six months — the most trying period of Chicago's
history, except when the besom of destruction passed over
it at its mighty conflagration. The eyes of the world are
upon us ; visitors by the millions will be here in our midst.
Let us prove to the world that Jefferson's theory that ' men
are capable of self-government' was no Utopian theory;
and let us prove to the denizens of effete Europe that Chi¬
cago, the offspring of freedom and of constitutional govern¬
ment, is able to govern itself, and that its city council will
be capable of administering the affairs of this great city."
The last chapter in Carter Harrison's life, the
short six months he passed as " "World's-Fair "
mayor, must be regarded from a different standpoint
to that from which we have studied his earlier
mayoralty terms. In earlier days he was pre-emi¬
nently a business mayor. In his last term the tra¬
ditional business of the office had largely to be set
aside until the World's Fair should be ended, and he
should have relief from the social exactions of that
period of pomp and ceremony. Scarcely had he been
inaugurated when the rush of the World's-Fair sea¬
son began. Between the pressure for office of Demo¬
crats who, for two years, had been without place in
the City Hall, and the demands made upon him for
addresses at Exposition functions of every sort, his
222
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
time was so fully occupied that only á man of his long
experience and notable executive capacity could have
done anything toward the reorganization of the city
departments and expediting the public work. Much
he accomplished in this direction, but more was set
aside to await the coming of that more leisurely sea¬
son after the close of the fair, which he was destined
never to see. Chicagoans, however, will not soon
forget that, amid the exacting duties of the World's-
Fair season, he put well under way the first vigor¬
ous movement for the abolition of railroad tracks
crossing the streets at grade, giving to that move¬
ment an impetus which at this time, a year after his
death, seems to make its complete success certain.
Nor will the masterly manner in which he handled
the threatening labor troubles, and demonstrations
of the unemployed toward the close of the World's-
Fair season be soon forgotten.
It would be idle to quote in detail here many of
the speeches made by Mr. Harrison at World's-Fair
functions. Toward the latter part of the season he
was summoned to that wonderful White City almost
daily, and spoke to gatherings of all sorts and condi¬
tions of men. The occasions of his addresses were
almost comically various, comprehending all sorts of
celebrations, from that attendant upon installing a
piece of the "blarney stone," — afterwards proved
to be bogus, — in an Irish castle, to extending the
hospitalities of the city and the Exposition to the
Infanta Eulalia of Spain. There were German,
THE WORLD'S-FAIR MAYOR.
223
French, Polish, Bohemian, Swiss, and Irish days, and
a speech for each, with pleasant reference to the
nationality celebrating. There were the caravels
from Portugal, the Viking ships from Norway, to be
met with words of compliment. There was a special
day with special speeches for every State, for almost
every trade and calling, labor day, with its outpour¬
ing of the working people, Chicago day, with its
wonderful attendance, and a host of other special
events, upon all of which the mayor of Chicago was,
necessarily, an attendant. Into this work, which to
him was pleasure, he entered with the eagerness of a
boy, and the earnestness of a man who saw beneath
the outer appearance of mere festivity, the potential
good to progress and the brotherhood of man that
was in these, often trivial, ceremonies. His speeches
were not orations. They were never carefully pre¬
pared, and usually were delivered without his having
given them a single thought before mounting the
platform. But they were graceful, good-humored,
and, with the genial personality of the man behind
them, never failed to enlist the sympathies of the
audience. As he never wrote a speech, and as the
informality of these World's-Fair celebrations made
official stenographic reports infrequent, we are com¬
pelled to rest content with the ordinary newspaper
versions of his addresses. One of the more ambitious
of these was the following speech made on Independ¬
ence Day, which fairly bubbles over with enthusiastic
patriotism : —
224
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
"Mb. Chairman, Mb. President, Fellow-Citizens op
the United States, and Friends from all over the
World : — We greet you here to-day, one of the most mo¬
mentous days in the history of America. If there be a
time, or has been a time, when the people of the United
States should glory in celebrating the natal day of our land,
the Fourth of July, it is this day, when, surrounded by this
magnificent city, the White City, erected in honor of the
discoverer of America, we meet here ; and at this hour
throughout the United States all Americans should be glad
that they have lived until this Fourth of July.
" All men love their homes ; some think this is but senti¬
ment, but it is an instinct sprung from our very animal
natures, a common and natural instinct among all animals.
That is an animal of low degree which loves not his home.
The tiger loves its lair, the bear seeks its den, the hare
rushes to the farm where it was bom ; the bird that skims
across the sky, going from the very south, goes to the very
north to find the spot on which it was bred, for this is a
feeling common to all, and it is a feeling which may he ex¬
cised out of the heart by the lack of a proper education.
It is, therefore, but proper that the people of America
should gather on the fourth day of July, ay, should com¬
mence at the early morn, and as John Adams declared,
that day should be celebrated by bombs, fire-crackers, and
everything that makes a noise, for all mankind gives voice
in making a noise to what it likes. We are the sons of
America, and let us pay all possible glory to this day. We
are prone to run after material wealth ; we are all fond of
the daddy dollar. We have allowed our pursuit of money
to take the place of something that appeals to the heart
and memory. In a few moments the lightning will carry
to the uttermost bounds of America that this is high noon,
— twelve o'clock, — and at that very moment will be hoisted
that ñag (pointing to Paul Jones' flag), the first flag that
America ever had, the one that was given by the United
THE WORLD'S-FAIR MAYOR. 225
States when he manned our little navy of three ships. That
flag floated from the ' Bon Homme Richard.' In the en¬
gagement that flag fell from Paul Jones' boat into the sea,
when an ancestor of that woman sitting there, sprang from
the ship into the sea and saved that flag, and for that act
it was granted to him and his descendants by the United
States Congress. I wanted to bring it up on this platform.
*■ No,' she said, ' that is ours, and no one but myself can
touch it.' It is hers ; the bunting is hers, but that flag be¬
longs to America, from the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico,
from the Atlantic to the mighty Pacific.
" What a history has been ours ! One hundred and
seventeen years has passed since America had her birth.
At that day, one hundred and seventeen years ago to-day,
this city of which we are now so proud, this city that we
have to show to the world to make our grandest boasts, was
terra incogrbita ; but now look at this beautiful White City.
Springing like an emanation from the morass, it offers to
the world a vision unknown, never seen in the past, and I
believe will not be in the future.
" Four hundred years ago last year, three little caravels,
models of which will arrive the 12th, sailed from Spain. It
was a mighty achievement, and now Chicago and the people
of Chicago have erected this mighty city. We will hoist
that flag, — we have something else besides that flag.
These are flowers brought from the tomb of Thomas Jeffer¬
son, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence,
and who gave the feeling of patriotism, which will live as
long as time shall last. Here is a sword that belonged to
another of the great defenders of America ; it is the sword
of Andrew Jackson, who never knew how to draw it but in
the defence of liberty and his native land.
" My friends, it is going to rain. Do you think that
your forefathers, who fought and bled for you, and who
died for you, cared for the rain ? I am myself a young
man. Let us turn our brows to the sky and, like Ajax,
15
226
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
dare the lightning of the heavens. We are speaking for
American liberty. The sound of liberty has invaded our
midst from the Atlantic, and is spreading all over this
broad land. It is twelve o'clock, and the word comes and
every bell in America rings, cannon roar, tugs whistle. It
is in commemoration of the birth of American liberty.
Now shout! Shout! Shout! There is Paul Jones' flag
and here is Andrew Jackson's sword. Let every American
swear at this moment that he will be ready at any time to
draw his sword in defence of that dear old American flag."
Saturday, Oct. 28, 1893, Mayor Harrison was at
the World's Fair. It was the last day of the last
week of that noble Exposition, in which he took such
pride, and to the success of which he had contributed
so much. The ceremonies of the day were such as
to enlist his heartiest interest. It was the day upon
which the mayors of nearly a score of the larger
cities and towns of the United States had gathered
at the White City. There were music and addresses
in the Music Hall. Close friends of the mayor
declared that afternoon they had never seen him
more alert, more magnetic, in finer fettle. He bore
his sixty-eight years with the lightness of a lad of
twenty. Announcement of his pending marriage had
just been made. The speech he made that afternoon
was youthful in its audacity ; and when he declared
with mock seriousness, " I intend to live for almost
half a century " his auditors forgot, in the presence
of his magnificent vitality, that this man was already
within two years of the Scriptural limit of three¬
score years and ten. The speech he delivered that
THE WORLD'S-FAIR MAYOR. 227
afternoon—the last public utterance of Carter Henry
Harrison — may well be quoted here : —
" Mayors op the various Cities who are our Guests,
and you, Officials of Chicago, and of other Cities : —
It is my pleasing duty to welcome you to Chicago to wit¬
ness the dying scene of this magnificent Exposition. It
is a Uttle chilly in weather, but the sun is coming out,
and you have a warm beat from the heart of our people.
Tims it is that at the dying scene, while these beauties
are passing away, this World's Fair is showing itself in
its most majestic proportion, as the moment approaches
for it to pass away forever. Mr. Madden has said to you
words of praise of the efforts of our sister cities in help¬
ing to make this thing a success. All who have visited
the World's Fair are glad of the opportunity they have
had to see such a scene of grandeur, and I myself deeply
pity any American who has lost the opportunity of com¬
ing here.
" I have sometimes said what I would do if I were Presi¬
dent of the United States. If I were to-day Grover Cleve¬
land I would send a message to Congress and would say in
that message that the World's Columbian Exposition has
been a success, ay, beyond the expectation of any man
living. It was fitting for us to celebrate the greatest event
of the world, the discovery of two continents. Six months
has been altogether too short a time for this greatest of all
world's-fairs. The President should say that it has beaten
itself; and the American people should to-day make an ap¬
propriation through its Congress to preserve these build¬
ings until next year, and notify all the world to come here.
At the end of this week we shall have had 22,000,000
admissions to these grounds. No doubt many of them
have been duplicated many times. There have probably
been 10,000,000 or 12,000,000 of Americans inside these
grounds. We have in the United States 65,000,000,-ay,
228
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
nearly 70,000,000 inhabitants, and the Congress should
declare that another year be given us that all Americans
could have an opportunity to come here. The Exposi¬
tion, the directory, has not the means to continue it. It
is a national enterprise, and the Nation should breathe
new life into it and let us have the Fair for another year,
and next year we would have an average attendance of
250,000 a day.
"This World's Fair has been the greatest educator of
the nineteenth century, the greatest this century has seen.
It has been the greatest educator the world has ever known.
Come out and look upon these grounds, upon this beautiful
White City. The past has nothing for its model ; the future
will be utterly incapable of competing with it, ay, for hun¬
dreds of years to come. This great White City has sprung
from the morass. Only two years ago this was the home
of the muskrat. Two years ago this thousand acres which
is now covered by these palaces lay but a little above water
and much beneath it. Look at it now ! These buildings,
this hall, this dream of poets of centuries is the wild aspi¬
ration of crazy architects alone. None but a crazy archi¬
tect could have supposed that this scene could be created.
In two years it has sprung up from the morass and has
risen, all that you see here, crystallized in staff, looking
like marble. It has been my good fortune to have seen all
the cities of the world, or nearly alL It has been my good
fortune to have been among the ruins of the great cities of
the Old World. I have stood upon the seven hills of Rome ;
from Capitoline I have looked over and tried to re-people
old Rome. I have been in Athens. Around me were ruins.
I had enough imagination to rehabilitate them. I have
stood among the ruins of all the old cities, but no imagina¬
tion could recall any of those ruins and make them com¬
pare with this White City. A man said to me yesterday
in walking around these grounds : *■ Who could have con¬
ceived this ? What brain brought it forth ? What genius
THE WORLUS-FAIR MAYOR.
229
instigated the idea of these magnificent buildings and their
groupings ? ' I said to him ; ' There is an old adage : " Fools
enter where angels dare not tread." Our people were wild,
crazy, if you choose. They conceived all that the madness
of genius could conceive. There have been great men who
have said that genius was insanity. Genius is but auda¬
city, and the audacity of the " wild and woolly West," and
of Chicago has chosen a star and has looked upward to it
and knows nothing that it will not attempt, and thus far
has found nothing that it cannot accomplish. It was the
audacity of genius that imagined this thing. It was the
pluck of the people, congregated from all the cities of this
Union, from all the nationalities of the world, speaking all
languages, drawing their inspiration from three thousand
miles of territory from east to west, from yonder green lake
on the north to the gulf on the south, — our people who
have never yet found failure.'
" When the fire swept over our city and laid it in ashes
in twenty-four hours, then the world said: 'Chicago and
its boasting is now gone forever.' But Chicago said : ' We
will rebuild the city better than ever,' and Chicago has done
it. The World's Fair is a mighty object lesson, but, my
friends, come out of this White City, come out of these
walls into our black city. When we get there we will
find that there is an object lesson even greater than is the
World's Fair itself. There is a city that was a morass
when I came into the world sixty-eight and one-half years
ago. It was a village of but a few hundreds when I had
attained the age of 12 years in 1837. What is it now ?
The second city in America! And you, people of the East,
look well to your laurels. I told Mayor Gilroy tlie other
day : ' Look well to your laurels.' For the man is now born,
and I myself have taken a new lease of life, and I believe
I shall see the day when Chicago will be the biggest city
in America, and the third city on the face of the globe. I
once heard Tom Corwin tell a story of a man who was on
230
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
the witness stand, over near the eastern shores of Maryland.
They asked him his age. He said he was 36.
" ' Why,' said Mr. Corwin, ' you look 60.'
« ' Well,' the witness answered, ' during fourteen years
of my life I lived in Maryland, and I don't count that.'
" 1 don't count the past from the year 1892, the four hun¬
dredth anniversary of the discovery of America. I intend
to live for more than half a century, and at the end of that
half-century London will be trembling lest Chicago shall
surpass it, and New York will say, ' Let it go to the metro¬
polis of America.' It is but a little while when I expect
to get on a magnificent steamer at Chicago's wharf and go
to a suburb, — New Orleans, the Crescent City of the globe.
Mr. Mayor of Omaha, we will take you in as a suburb. We
are not narrow-minded. Our heart is as broad as the prai¬
ries that surround us.
" But we are here, gentlemen, to receive the mayors and
the officials of our American cities. The day is propitious.
I hope Congress will see this day and continue the Colum¬
bian Exposition for another year. The people of the world
did not know what we had here. Some envious newspapers
have misrepresented us. Philadelphia has alway been kind
to us. I recollect the maiden speech I made in Congress.
It was for the Centennial appropriation at Philadelphia.
We Democrats were always for the appropriation, and I,
as a Chicagoan, was for Philadelphia and the appropria¬
tion. If, however. Congress should fail in its duty, then
what is our position ? The birth of the World's Columbian
Exposition was a marvellous one. Its building was also
marvellous. But in a few days something more marvellous
sprang up. These buildings were filled with marvellous ex¬
hibits. Look at this hall. There are but few in the wide
world that equal it. The New York building has a hall
that should be crystallized and covered over with glass.
Brazil has a building, — one that we would not think could
emanate from South American genius. Japan, Sweden,
THE WORLD'S-FAIR MAYOR.
231
Germany, England, Siam, and far-off Ceylon, have build¬
ings which are marvels of beauty ; but in a few days they
will be gone forever.
" It almost sickens me when I look at this great Exposi¬
tion to think that it will be allowed to crumble into dust.
In a few days the building-wrecker will take hold of it and
it will be torn down, and all of this wonderful beauty will
be scattered to the winds of heaven. Mr. Burnham, the
architect and partner of Mr. Root, who is really the de¬
signer of this thing, — poor Root is dead, gone for¬
ever; but it is a pleasing thought that probably at the
yonder side he may look down and see what has been done ;
it must be with a feeling of great pleasure and great pride
when he looks down on what he has designed, — Mr. Burn-
ham said the other day : —
" ' Let it go ; it has to go, so let it go. Let us put the
torch to it and burn it down.'
" I believe with him. If we cannot preserve it for an¬
other year I would be in favor of putting a torch to it
and burning it down and let it go up into the bright sky
to eternal heaven.
" But I am detaining you too long. I did not expect to
make a speech of any length. But when I speak I never
know what I shall say. There is an inspiration at this
place, and I could go on talking from now until nightfall
about the glories of the Fair. We welcome you here and
tell you no statistics. We Chicagoans have put millions
in these buildings. Chicago has $5,000,000 in them. It
will get nothing back, but you won't find a Chicagoan
that has come here that regrets the expenditure of that
$5,000,000. The man that says that Chicago has wasted
money is a lunatic. It has not been wasted. This Fair
need not have a history to record it. Its beauty has gone
forth among the people, — the men, the women, ay, the
child has looked upon it, and they have all been well repaid
for this wonderful education.
232
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
" No royal king ordered it, but the American people
with the greatest of pluck, with the pluck born under the
freedom of those Stars and Stripes, made this thing possi¬
ble, — possible to a free people. It is an educator of the
world. The world will be wiser for it No king can ever
rule the American heart. We have the Monroe doctrine.
America extends an invitation to the best of the world, and
its Stars and Stripes will wave from now on to eternity.
That is one of the lessons we have taught.
" But I must stop. If I go on another moment I will get
on to some new idea. I thank you all for coming to us. I
welcome you all here ; in the name of Chicago I welcome
you to see this dying effort of Chicago, — Chicago that
never could conceive what it would n't attempt, and yet
has found nothing that it could not achieve. I thank
vou all."
0
Four hours after the plaudits of his hearers died
away Mayor Harrison lay dead in the home which had
been his for a score of years. Death came to him in
sudden and terrible guise. The hand which dealt the
fatal stroke was an ignoble one. A half-mad seeker
after place under the city administration, an illit¬
erate fellow of base instincts and with a craving for
notoriety, one Prendergast, called at the mayor's door,
summoned Mr. Harrison to the parlor, and struck
him down with three pistol-shots. The two, assassin
and victim, were alone. Always accessible to all
men, however lowly, retaining still that superb con¬
fidence in his fellow-beings which lead him to assure
Prince Bismarck of his freedom from fear of assas¬
sination, Mr. Harrison met Prendergast as he had
met a score of men seemingly more dangerous.
THE WORLD'S-FAIR MAYOR. 233
The assassin was able to do his work without inter¬
ruption. In fifteen minutes the mayor lay dead,
his last words having been a call for his betrothed,
Miss Annie Howard, to whom he would have been
married in a few days. In an hour the murderer
was in a cell, and the city, over which the news
spread with electric speed, was sorrowing for the
death of Harrison, and clamoring for the life of his
assassin. Into the circumstances of the crime it is
idle now to go. Its perpetrator was a man of the
Guiteau stamp, and was impelled to his deed by
vague semi-political promptings like those which
actuated the assassin of Garfield. With shrewdness
and mentality enough to support himself, and to
study and comprehend theological and economic
problems, he yet was suflficiently weak-minded to
think himself a fit candidate for the post of corpo¬
ration counsel ; and in a period of moody wrath over
his failure of appointment, he shot down the mayor
whom he held responsible. History has been prolific
of such crimes. Not in the proper sense of the
phrase political assassinations, as was that of the
Russian Czar Nicholas, they nevertheless spring from
partisan politics. In the specific case of Prendergast
it is easy to see how the virulent and constant
attacks of the anti-Harrison press should have
recurred to his mind when he found himself be¬
trayed and deserted, as he thought, by the mayor.
Only the most general idea of the bitterness of those
attacks has been given in these pages ; but no one
234
CÁRTER HENRY HARRISON.
who saw the torrent of invective and epithet poured
out on Carter Harrison by the hostile newspapers in
his last campaign will wonder that a man of blunted
moral sense, overweening egotism, and with a fancied
grieyance, should have thought himself doing the
State a service by the assassination of the mayor.
Throughout his trial, which resulted in his execution,
the murderer steadfastly refused to plead insanity,
firmly declaring his conviction that the people would
justify him in what he had done.
But if in life Carter Harrison had suffered cruelly
from the poisoned darts of his political antagonists,
in death he was covered with laurels. That kindly
maxim, " Speak naught but good of the dead," —
a corollary of which too often observed is, "and
naught but evil of the living," — was given full
observance in his case. Nor were the sorrow of the
people and the outpouring of praise of the dead in
any degree perfunctory. The heart of the city was
indeed sorely touched. The horrible circumstances
of the death had doubtless something to do with
increasing the general expression of sorrow ; the pity
of it, coming on the very eve of a wedding, had more.
But no one who followed intimately the career
of Carter Harrison failed to note that in the last
summer of his life he vastly strengthened himself,
made his way more closely into the people's hearts.
The enthusiasm with which he threw himself into
the ceremonies of the Columbian Exposition, the
devotion to duty which kept him close at his desk in
THE WORLD'S-FAIR MAYOR.
235
the city hall despite the fatigue of public social
functions, the grace and courtesy with which he
received for the city the distinguished guests from
all parts of the world who flocked hither, were
matters of general knowledge. Though for over
thirty years Carter Harrison had been in the eye
of the Chicago public he never filled so large a
space, nor appeared in such favorable guise, as in
the summer of 1893.
At the time of his assassination Carter Harrison
had become a national figure. The Fair, and his
part in it, had made his name intimately known in
all parts of the United States, and had even given it
a certain currency abroad. Though he had reached
an age at which most men abandon active strife
for further advancement, he had still his ambitions.
Lofty and honorable ones they were, and the future
was bright with promise for their gratification. The
news of his assassination, then, fell upon the nation
with a shock which could scarcely have been equalled
save by news of a President's violent death. From
all parts of the land there arose words of lamenta¬
tion for the cruel assassination of this man, who
had many opponents but scarcely one enemy. The
highest statesmen in the nation expressed admiration
for his character and sorrow for his end. And yet
it is probable that, had Carter Harrison living been
able to witness the mourning for Carter Harrison
dead, more than all the words of sorrow from the
rich and the eminent, would have touched him
236
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
that mighty outpouring of the common people, who
flocked to the city hall where his body lay in state.
Seldom has a more impressive tribute been paid to
the memory of a public man. For two days a dense
throng of people blocked the passages of the city
hall and county building leading to the rotunda
in which the body lay. The two buildings occupy
an entire square ; and, on the morning when the
casket was brought from the Harrison home to its
public resting-place, the streets on every side were
crowded with citizens. "When the double lines, that
for two days and the greater part of two nights filed
past the murdered mayor's bier, were formed, it took
a squad of police to force the people into line. All
sorts of men were there, and many women, but in
greatest numbers the plain people with whom in life
the dead man had sympathized so fully, for whose
good opinion he had cared so much.
This is neither the place nor the time to recount
the words of eulogy of the dead man spoken by the
press and the publicists of the nation. Nor is it
needed to make more than passing reference to the
flood of condolence which poured in upon the stricken
family of four adult children from people of every
degree, — from the highest officials of nation and
State, and from the humbler partners of the dead
politician's many campaigns. Detraction, it is true,
raised its head in the columns of a few ill-informed
or irreconcilable newspapers, but its voice was lost
in the general chorus of respect and regret. In the
THE WORLD'S-FÁIR MAYOR.
237
train of his bier followed citizens of every degree,
and when the grave closed over his body all Chicago
felt it had lost its greatest citizen, — the greatest in
the field of politics and statecraft who had made
his home in that city since the time of Stephen
A. Douglas.
CHAPTER X.
ms political ideas.
Though his character was many-sided and brimful
of variety, it is in his principal rôle of student and
exponent of municipal government that Carter H.
Harrison will be remembered. As a traveller, he was
alert and observant, and possessed of ample literary
talents to enable him to record his observations in
readable form. As representative in Congress his
career was far from commonplace. He was service¬
able to his constituents, and a conspicuous member
of the national legislature. Yet Congressional life
was never to his taste. Years after he had retired
from Congress, and was again the mayor of Chicago,
he said to a close friend who urged him to take early
action to secure the seiiatorship from Illinois : —
"I have but little desire to be United States
senator. The honor, it is true, is enticing; but I
would chafe beneath the fusty traditions of the
Senate. The inactivity of senatorial life would be
to me a constant source of weariness and irritation.
I never enjoyed my life in Congress. Executive
work is more to my taste, and I would prefer to live
and die mayor of Chicago."
HIS POLITICAL IDEAS.
239
By all his mental characteristics Carter Harrison
was fitted for the chief executive of a great city.
Chicago he knew like a lesson of boyhood, and loved
like a son. The time he spent in his office in the
city hall was the least he spent in its service.
Waking, the city was never absent from his mind.
His conversation turned almost exclusively upon civic
themes. His hours of leisure were largely spent on
the back of his Kentucky mare, riding through
streets and alleys, investigating paving, keeping an
eye on the work of street-cleaners and scavengers,
noticing whether street railways were living up to
the requirements of their franchises in the matter of
paving, and inspecting the progress of public works.
More than one derelict contractor or city employee
suffered the shock of having the first report of his
neglect of duty made to his chief by the mayor
himself. Even in his last term, when Chicago had
grown to such proportions that no one man could
hope to know it all, and when the constant demands
of the World's-Fair ceremonies kept Mr. Harrison
busy, citizens knew that the speediest way to get a
nuisance abated, work done, or police protection
increased, was to see the mayor himself. Visitors
upon such errands, who might with justice have
been referred to the heads of departments, were
always received by Harrison, their requests heard,
and in the great majority of cases the reforms for
which they asked were immediately effected.
In the choice of his lieutenants in the municipal
240
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
administration, Carter Harrison was never hampered
by purely partisan considerations. Always a Demo¬
crat himself, always making his campaigns for office
upon a Democratic ticket, he discharged his obliga¬
tions to party by giving the main body of the offices
to men of that faith. He was a believer in party
politics, and in the application of' Marcy's cynical
maxim, "To the victors belong the spoils," up to
the point at which the public interest might be put
in jeopardy. That point reached, his duty to the
public took precedence of his duty to the party, and
his appointments were made without political bias.
If clerks in a public office, bridge-tenders, or street
laborers were to be employed. Democrats and only
Democrats were chosen. If a commissioner of public
works or a comptroller was needed, the best man for
the place was sought, and his politics was considered
matter of secondary import. It was the widespread
recognition of this policy of the mayor which always
gained for him thousands of Republican votes despite
the antagonism of the Republican press, and which in
his last election caused him to make enormous gains
in every Republican ward in the city.
In his theories of municipal government Carter
Harrison followed closely the maxim of Herbert
Spencer : " Each man should have liberty to do
what he will, provided he infringes not upon the
equal liberty of every other man." His mind, natu¬
rally broad and liberal, was educated by much travel
to tolerance of, and even sympathy with, those Euro-
HIS POLITICAL IDEAS.
241
pean customs of life which in America often affront
the lingering Puritanism of our race. He recognized
in Chicago a cosmopolitan city, and held that the
standards of public morals which might be defensible
in a New England village would be impracticable of
enforcement there.
In his management of labor troubles, always a
delicate task for the mayor of Chicago, Carter
Harrison showed notable tact and diplomacy. In
earlier chapters we have noted his wise and really
statesmanlike treatment of the threatening situation
at the time of the so-called anarchist agitation, and
his prompt yet kindly suppression of the demonstra¬
tions of the unemployed during the World's-Fair
year. His liberality of thought and his active
human sympathy put him to a certain degree in
touch with the people who come to the surface at
times of industrial agitation. He trusted them, and
they trusted him. It was his common practice, if a
meeting of disaffected workingmen seemed to threaten
riot, to go in person to the spot, and address them.
During the World's-Fair year, by a few words spoken
at the foot of the Columbus statue on the Lake
Front, he quieted a crowd of the unemployed, into
whose midst he had pressed himself unattended,
which had given the whole city alarm. Alone in
the midst of a throng of malcontents, he was more
of a power for peace and order than a platoon of
police. The fearless daring of his presence elicited
the admiration of the more temperate, and cowed
16
242
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
the turbulent into silence. This audacity cannot be
better exemplified than by giving his answer to a
police official, who expostulated with him for light¬
ing his cigar with several flaming matches, in the
thickest of the crowd, on the memorable night of
the Haymarket riot : " I want them to know that
the mayor of Chicago is here."
In summing up the theory upon which Carter
H. Harrison, the veteran municipal executive, acted
in meeting the problems of civic government, the
biographer could have no more trustworthy guide
than the address upon municipal government the
mayor delivered before the Nineteenth Century Club
of New York, and which created widespread com¬
ment. This address put in formal shape the two
cardinal principles upon which he based his theory
of municipal politics, — namely, the observance of
absolute democracy in the choice of a mayor, and
the granting to that functionary, when once elected,
absolute authority, limited only by the purely legis¬
lative functions of the city council. Some quotations
from this paper will do much to elucidate the theory
by which Mayor Harrison was guided.
In discussing the right to universal suffrage and
combating the oft-suggested expedient of a property
qualification he said: —
" This experiment proving a failure, some good men have
jumped to the conclusion that the denizens of cities might
be trusted with their own government, provided the right
of suffrage should be indirectly abridged, not by taking
HIS POLITICAL IDEAS.
243
from any man the right to vote, but by giving to some men
a cumulative vote in proportion to their property. This,
they think, will make the ballot more conservative, and
therefore more wise. This, too, would be in violation of
every spirit of free government, which rests the suffrage
upon manhood, and not upon property qualifications. I
have never yet found that a biped ass is any less an ass
because of quadruped asses filling his stalls, or that a
blockhead is any less a blockhead because, by patience and
hoarding, by prudence or luck, he has become the owner of
blocks of brick and mortar. My own observations are that
the man who reared a fortune by buying cheap by the bale
and selling dear by the yard — that the man who buys
coffee by the car-load and sells it by the pound — however
skilled he may be in the rise and fall of commodities and
the prospect of markets, is not to any extent a better judge
of human nature, or of the intelligence and capabilities of
men than the porter who rolls his bale or the truckman
who hauls his sack, — than the salesman who sells and ties
up the yard or the pound. Your princely merchants are
no more skilled in reading human nature, — ay, not half
so much so as are their drummers and travelling salesmen
whose bread comes from a knowledge of human nature.
Besides, property and wealth oftentimes narrow a man's
views instead of enlarging them ; the poor man's necessities
sharpen his skill and quicken his faculties. . . . The ten¬
dencies of all governments are to one or the other of
two things,—toward centralization, consol^iation, greater
strength, and ultimate despotism, or toward decentraliza¬
tion, greater freedom, and ultimately license and destruc¬
tion. The two extremes ultimately meet. The despotism
of the one man tumbles into the despotism of the mob.
The despotism of the mob ends in the despotism of the one
strong man. It is the part of statesmanship to so guide
governments as to retard the march toward these their
logical tendencies ; to stave off the evil day, so as to make
the rule of happiness as long as possible."
244
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
The confidence in the ultimate good faith and
good sense of the people which was the fundamental
doctrine in his political creed he manfully insisted
upon : —
" Our government will follow other governments, — it will
grow and then decay. Esto perpetua was a grand appeal,
but it was Webster's oratorical peroration, not the divine
prophecy of genius. Let us hope that we will live and
many generations will follow us, happy in our country's
growth, and that its decay will be in the dim and far-off
future. To make our hope a fruition, let us tie to the moor¬
ings pointed out to us by Jefferson and the fathers. We are
anchored upon the people. When our anchorage ceases to be
trusted, then will the rot have set in and our grand heritage
will no longer give us a land of freedom. The people may
be crazed for a day, they may go astray for a term, but their
sober second thought is that vox populi which is vox Dei.
They may get drunk and grow wild, hut we can appeal
from Philip drunk to Philip sober. The masses have a
wonderful instinct in looking into men's characters and
reading them aright. General Jackson was criticised and
condemned by the learned of his day, but the people trusted
him, and now the world concedes that the people were true
to their instinct and not put their trust in vain. In the
dark days from 1861 to 1865 carping criticism laughed at
and derided Lincoln. The people put their trust in old
Abe, and now the sternest thinkers admit that what was
termed weakness in the President was his strength, and
that it saved the Union."
Upon the wisdom of giving the municipality's
chief executive plenary powers and holding him
individually to the strictest responsibility for the
efficiency of every executive department Carter Har-
HIS POLITICAL IDEAS.
245
rison was always determined. When in office him¬
self he demanded power and never sought to shirk
responsibility. His belief in a " one man power "
government — that one man having been elected by
the people — was unshakable. Much of his Nine¬
teenth Century Club address was given up to this
contention : —
"My own views are that the mayor should have the
power to appoint and discharge, free from any intervention
of the legislative branch of the city government. This vast
power would seem to many at first blush too great to place
in any one executive hand. Many will say it is undemo¬
cratic. We must remember, however, that the mayor is
the people's servant ; his term of office is short, and if his
power be improperly used the people will condemn him at
the end of his term. The people hold all the power and for
the time being delegate him to execute their will. Power
so delegated to one man is no less democratic than the
same power placed in the hands of several persons. The
people retain the power if delegated to one as much as if
they delegated it to many, and they can look into the acts
of one man more closely than into the acts of several. He
cannot shirk a single responsibility, while each of several
can and will do so. Since Adam said to his Maker, ' The
woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of
the tree to eat, and I did eat,' men have been constantly
trying to shirk responsibility and to lay the blame for their
short-comings upon some one else.
" A mayor walks in the open light. His acts of yester¬
day are seen and criticised by the people of to-day. The
sphere of his authority is limited, and can be viewed and
understood by each and every one of his fellow-citizens
from day to day. He cannot escape condemnation if he
misuses his power. It is difficult for him to please even
246
CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
when his every act is of the purest and the wisest. The
people's opinions of matters immediately arising are as
various as their various intelligences and their varied in¬
terests. The mayor's executive duties affect the citizens
immediately. Few of his acts can fail to affect injuriously,
or at least disagreeably, some part or portion of his constit¬
uents. Nearly every duty performed offends some one or
more, and this makes one or more hostile to him. And in
this way during his term of two years he will necessarily
make many, if not his enemies, at least his very lukewarm
friends, while he offends in many small matters. In this
way he finds a ready and a harsh critic on every corner.
His popularity cannot be maintained on this account, and
if maintained at all it will be a purely official and not a
personal popularity. That is, the people may re-elect him,
not because they like him as an individual, but because as
an official he protects their interests.
" Many have thought that such power, together with his
patronage, will enable such a mayor to keep himself in
office. What I have said is enough to answer one ground
of these fears. The other, I think, is easily disposed of.
Patronage is an element of weakness, not of strength, to a
self-seeking man. When once in place a ward politician
loses his influence. He is supposed to be working for his
own interests if he attempts to exercise influence, and
thereby loses what he had before, and, being himself too
often a self-seeker, he tries to hold his place by endeavoring
to please all parties about the time of elections. He is a
trimmer now, whereas he was a firm party man before he
got his position. Of course, I refer to the patronage in a
small sphere, such as is a city. The bitterest of all partisan
complaints made to me since I have held office has been
that the men I have appointed have been no good for the
party.
" Besides the benefits arising from the undivided respon¬
sibility being placed upon the one executive head, with full
HIS POLITICAL IDEAS.
247
powers, there are others of equal consequence. The mayor,
who is the real head of all departments of the city, can en¬
force a unity of action and purposes utterly impossible when
there are boards and commissions, each independent of the
single head. Given a board of police and fire, another of
health, another of public works, and still another of streets
and highways. Each of these independent departments looks
only at its own interests, and thus makes a unity of city
administration impossible. Let me illustrate this by con¬
sidering the question of finance and economy, the most
important of all in city affairs. Each department considers
itself the important one and expends the city's funds to the
full limit of its power, and no one but the people at the end
of the term of office to inspect their action. Economy
becomes impossible, and waste, or at least extravagance,
necessarily follows. But one responsible head, deeply in¬
fluenced by the city's interest, or, what will be equally
effective, working for his reputation and good name, looks
over the whole field, holds in check each department, giv¬
ing to each all he feels consistent with the public good,
knowing that he will stand or fall by the good conduct,
honesty, and economy of all, runs the entire city as a wise
merchant or great manufacturer runs his establishment,
with prudence and with an eye to the prosperity of the
whole.
" A city may be likened to a great military camp in an
enemy's country. How long would such a camp be safe if
every colonel or captain was clothed with full powers ? A
single head is necessary for the very existence of those in
camp. A great city is always in an enemy's country. Its
enemies, however, are within its own walls, and unless
there be some responsible head, a turbulent citizen may at
any time, under some great excitement such as is con¬
stantly arising in our cities, bring calamity, if not ruin.
Responsibility and power develop a man, and make him
equal to a great emergency, even as he himself little
248 CARTER HENRY HARRISON.
dreamed of. These views are those of one who will shortly
be out of office, and simply a private citizen. All I have
is in the city whose chief magistrate 1 am. I wish to live
there and have my children enjoy what I may give and
leave them. I would have Chicago governed as I have in¬
dicated, when I shall have only the ballot of a single man."
Holding the views he did it was not strange that
Carter Harrison should have clashed with the people
who esteem themselves foremost in the community,
who seek to limit, rather than extend personal
freedom and who sometimes control newspapers by
the aid of which they can make or break a political
reputation. By birth, education, and wealth Harri¬
son was one of this class, but by intellectual convic¬
tions he was antagonist to it. Nor was his apparent
alliance with the less prosperous class in the com¬
munity a mere political expedient as so many people
hastily termed it. He was really at heart a Demo¬
crat of the Jeffersonian type. More nearly than
any notable political leader of later days he approxi¬
mated in character, in his weaknesses as well as in
his strength, the " Sage of Monticello." Like Jeffer^
son he believed in the masses and in turn the people
rewarded him with their unfaltering devotion. Like
Jefferson again, he denied the superior intelligence
and integrity of the classes, and in the same way
became the target for their endless and virulent
vituperation. To the attacks upon him, which tran¬
scended in bitterness, malevolence, and indecency
anything recorded in political annals, he was keenly
HIS POLITICAL IDEAS.
249
sensitive, though he was too old a campaigner to
show his hurts, and bore the cudgelling with a smil¬
ing mien. But the comparative peace which followed
his final election to office, the appreciation which
even his enemies manifested of his unremitting and
genial efforts to play the host for Chicago during
that gala season with which his life went out,
brought to him grateful relief. To those who hold
him ever in kindly thought it will always be a
pleasant memory that, though cut down before the
attainment of the highest honors, he conquered in
the last months of his life even the good opinion
of his political foes. The tribute which all Chicago
laid upon his bier was not the perfunctory testi¬
mony of respect for an eminent man in death, it was
the true manifestation of sincere sorrow for the un¬
timely end of a man whom in life many loved,
many admired, and all respected.
INDEX.
âdams, Tabitha, 18.
Amistead, Judith, 10.
Allerton, Samuel W., 20A
Benner, Matthew, 99.
Berkeley, Sir William, governor
of Virginia, 5.
Boiling, Pocahontas, 16.
Boone, Daniel, 18.
Breckinridge, John, 16.
Brown, Samuel M., 17.
Burwell, Elizabeth, 6.
Cabell, Anne, 16.
Cabell, Colonel Joseph, 16.
Campbell, Elizabeth Henry, 19.
Carter, Anne, 8.
Carter, Colonel John, 8; bene¬
factor of the early Virginia
church, 9. '
Carter, John, 2d, 9.
Carter, Robert (called " King "),
prominent in the colony, 8; epi¬
taph of, 10.
Gary, Eugene, 125.
Castleman, David, 17.
Chicago, Carter Harrison's belief
in the great future of, 47 ; great
fires, 55; marvellous buoyancy
in rising above disaster, 56.
Clark, John M., 110.
Clay, Cassius M., 17.
Clay, Henry, 31.
Cleveland, Grover, supported for
president by Carter Harrison,
136.
Crane, Oliver, college life of Car¬
ter Harrison, 30.
Crane, E. T., 125.
Davis, George R., 81.
Dudley, Ambrose, 34.
Dudley, Rev. Thomas P., 34.
Dunlap, George L., 94.
Fairfax, Lord, 8.
Field, Marshall, 211.
Gardner, S. S., 63.
Garfield, James A., assassination
of, 113.
Grant, Ulysses S., 108.
Hankins, George, 213.
Harrison, Benjamin, of Surrey, 3.
Harrison, Benjamin, 1 ; clerk of
the Royal Council, 1; becomes
a burgess, 5.
Harrison, Benjamin, 2d, 3; mem¬
ber of the House of Burgesses,
5.
Harrison, Benjamin, 3d, 6; promi¬
nent in the affairs of the col¬
ony, 7.
Harrison, Benjamin, 4tb, 7 ; mar¬
riage, 8.
262
INDEX.
Harrison, Benjamin, 5th, 11 ;
signer of the Declaration of
Independence, 11.
Harrison, Carter Henry, settles
in Clifton, 12; marriage, 13.
Harrison, Carter Henry, 17 ; mar¬
riage, 17 ; early death of, 22.
Harrison, Carter Henry, ancestors
of, 1 ; tribute to his mother, 23 ;
boyhood of, 24 ; tribute to his
parents, 25 ; early education, 27 ;
enters Yale College, 29 ; college
life of, 29 ; begins study of law
at Transylvania University, 31 ;
gives up the law, 32 ; first voy¬
age to Europe, 35; experiences
in Paris, 37 ; again takes up the
study of law, 40 ; marriage, 41 ;
seeking a career, 42 ; views on
slavery, 43 ; settles in Chicago,
46 ; belief in the great future of
Chicago, 47 ; engages in real
estate, 48; first political activ¬
ity, 49 ; a Henry Clay Whig, 49 ;
affected by the panic of 1857,
51 ; secret ambitions of, 53 ; en¬
trance upon public life, 55 ;
speech in the Chicago Conven¬
tion of 1870, 60; elected county
commissioner, 61 ; defeated for
Congress, 63 ; second trip
abroad, 63 ; again nominated
for Congress, 63; speech of ac¬
ceptance, 64; elected to Con¬
gress, 68; congressional life, 70;
takes active part in debates,
71 ; speech on the Philadelphia
Centennial, 72; the humorist
of the House of Representa¬
tives, 74 ; the savior of the
Marine Band, 75 ; re-elected to
Congress, 81 ; death of his wife,
81 ; speech in favor of appro¬
priation for canal to connect the
Great Lakes and the Gulf of
Mexico, 84; a bimetallist, 86;
opposition to dishonest practice,
90; elected mayor of Chicago,
02; inaugural address, 95; re¬
form of the fire department«
100 ; efforts for economy, 100 ;
a "business mayor," 102; re¬
sistance to infringement of
railroads upon the rights of the
people, 103 ; declares war on
the "smoke nuisance," 106;
speech of welcome to Grant, 109 ;
re-elected mayor for a second
term, 112; messages concerning
the assassination of President
Garfield, 113,115; fight against
overhead wires, 117 ; successful
financial management,120 ; third
trip to Europe, 121 ; second mu<-
riage, 121 ; speech in favor of
freedom in Ireland, 123 ; elected
to a third term as mayor, 126 ;
nominated but defeated for gov¬
ernor of Illinois, 128; speech on
free trade, 129; elected mayor
for the fourth time, 137 ; refuses
to stand as a candidate for a
fifth term, 146; summary of
work accomplished while in of¬
fice, 148; death of his wife, 151;
makes a tour of the world, 153;
power as a writer, 155 ; fondness
for travel, 155; a " Race with
the Sun," 153; speech before
the State Convention in 1884,
185 ; campaign for governor, and
defeat, 188 ; defeated as an in¬
dependent candidate for mayor
in 1891, 196; elected mayor
for the fifth time in 1893, 198;
purchases the "Chicago Times,"
199 ; editorial written on assum¬
ing control of the " Times," 201 ;
supports Cleveland for re-nom¬
ination in 1892,202 ; abused by
the press, 205 ; address given in
the Auditorium during his cam-
INDEX.
253
paign for " World's Fair "
mayor, 208 ; inaugural address,
218; speech at the World's
Fair on Independence Day,
224 ; last public utterance, 227 ;
assassination, 232 ; tributes paid
by the people, 236; political
ideas, 238; speech before the
Nineteenth Century Club, 242.
Harrison, Charles, 12.
Harrison, John, 1.
Hariison, Joseph Cabell, 16.
Harrison, Nathaniel, 6.
Harrison, Randolph, 13; mar¬
riage, 13.
Harrison, Robert Carter, 13 ; emi¬
grates to Kentucky, 14; mar¬
riage, 16.
Harrison, General Thomas, 2.
Harrison, Thomas, 13.
Harrison, William Henry, 11 ; pres¬
ident of the United States, 11.
Hart, Joel T., 27.
Hayes, Rutherford B., 82.
Henley, Mary, 17.
Hesing, Washington, 203.
Hoadly, George, 128.
Honore, H. H., 50.
Howard. Annie, 233.
Hurd, Frank, 128.
Iroquois Club, the, 128.
Jefferson, Thomas, 14.
Landons, Betty, 10.
Lewis, William I., 16.
Lexington, Ky., the " Athens
of the West," 28; important
position held by, 28.
Logan, General John A., 187.
McDonald, M. C., 213.
Marshall, Dr. Lewis, 27.
Marshall, Thomas, 27.
Medill, Joseph, 58.
Morrison, William R., 186, 190.
Morton, J. Sterling, 128.
" Mount Brilliant," 21.
Ogdkn, William B., 51.
Oglesby, Richard J., 187.
Onahan, W. J., 63.
Palmer, General John M., 186.
Folk, James K., 31.
Polk, John W., 89.
Preston, Sophonisba, 41.
Price, Nancy, 21.
Price, Samuel, 21.
«' Race with the Sun," a, 35 ; open
to criticism as a literary produc¬
tion, 156; picture of Japanese
life, 157 ; voyage from Singa¬
pore, 165; the " veil of Cashmir,"
167 ; life in Constantinople, 171;
at Buda-Pestb, 172 ; entertained
by Bismarck, 172.
Randall, Samuel J., 87.
Randolph, Mary, 13.
Randolph, Peyton, 12.
Randolph, Susannah, 13.
Richardson, Samuel G., 17.
Rogers, John B., 60.
Russell, Caroline Evalind, 17 ; rare
characteristics of, 27; second
marriage of, 33.
Russell, Henry, 17.
Russell, Henry, 18.
Russell, Colonel William, 17.
Russell, William, 17.
Russell, William, 2d, 18.
Russell, William, 3d, 19; early
life of, 20 ; marriage, 21.
Schmidt, Ernst, 95.
Scott, General Charles, 21.
Smith, Judge Sidney, 137.
Spies, August, 141.
Spottswood, Governor Alexan¬
der, 6.
254
INDEX.
Stearns, Marcos, 121.
Stearns, Marguerite, 121.
Storey, Wilbur F., 126.
Taylor, Bayard, 36.
Tilden, Samuel J., 82.
Tree, Lambert, 60.
" True American," the, 31.
Tuley, Murray F., 94.
Virginia, still faithfol to Eng¬
lish tradition of an established
church, 9.
Walsh, John R., 210.
Ward, Jasper D., 62.
Wayne, Anthony, 21.
Wright, A. M., 95.