SAMUEL W M C CALL 
 
 Governor of Massachusetts 
 
 BY LAWRENCE B. EVANS 
 
Class 
 Book 
 
SAMUEL W. McCALL 
 
 GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS 
 
, hi bt H 
 
 SAMUE1 w M ' Ml 
 
SAMUEL W. McCALL 
 
 GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSE'l 1 S 
 
 BY 
 
 LAWRENCE B. EVANS 
 
 OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAR 
 
 With Illustrations 
 
 HOIT.HTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK HjlG 
 
 
f 
 
 COrYRIGHT, 1916, BY LAWRENCE B. EVANS 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published April iqjb 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE notable career of Mr. McCall, extend- 
 ing over more than a generation, is a sufficient 
 excuse for this biography. As a member of Con- 
 gress he was a participant in several of the most 
 important discussions of questions of govern- 
 mental policv which have ever occurred in our 
 history, and his utterances, both spoken and 
 written, were based upon such extensive knowl- 
 edge and were characterized by such logic of 
 thought and fitness of literary expression as will 
 insure them a high place in our political litera- 
 ture. In the preparation of this book I have 
 made large use of them and have embodied nu- 
 merous extracts from them in the narrative. 
 
 It is a distinguishing feature of Mr. McCall's 
 speeches in Congress that for the most part they 
 deal with subjects of permanent importance and 
 continuing interest. No public man of the pres- 
 ent generation has been more earnest in his de- 
 fense of the principle of our system of distributed 
 power. On the one hand he stands for the largest 
 measure of individual freedom, and against that 
 undue centralization of governmental power at a 
 single pomt which is so destructive of freedom ; 
 but on the other hand, in his liberal interpreta- 
 
 v 
 
Preface 
 
 tion of the power of the Federal Government 
 and in his opposition to measures which would 
 hamper it in the execution of the functions which 
 have been committed to it he belongs to the 
 school of Marshall. When economic and social 
 conditions in the country so change as to make 
 alterations in the fundamental law advisable, he 
 is ready to meet the new situation, as was shown 
 by his introduction of an amendment to the Con- 
 stitution empowering Congress to enact laws pro- 
 viding for uniform hours of labor. 
 
 In reproducing extracts from the " Congres- 
 sional Record" I have been in some doubt as to 
 whether I ought to retain the reporter's indica- 
 tions of "Laughter" and "Applause." Since, 
 however, it was not Governor McCall's custom 
 to revise his remarks for publication, as is done 
 by some members who insert these indications 
 of approval at points where in their judgment 
 their hearers should have risen to the occasion, 
 I have concluded to let them stand. They are a 
 part of the story and as such have some historic 
 value. I am the more ready to do this since I 
 find that Governor McCall himself adopted this 
 practice in his life of Speaker Reed. 
 
 LAWRENCE B. EVANS. 
 
 701 Barristers Hall, Boston, 
 April 19, 1 91 6. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. CHIEFLY BIOGRAPHICAL I 
 
 II. TWENTY YEARS OF LEGISLATION 47 
 
 III. CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 78 
 
 IV. THE POLICY OF PROTECTION I I 5 
 
 V. THE SPANISH WAR AND ITS PROBLEMS I45 
 
 VI. THE PRESIDENCY OF DARTMOUTH 
 
 COLLEGE 172 
 
 VII. THE MAN OF LETTERS I 89 
 
 VIII. MR. McCALL 217 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SAMUEL W. McCALL Frontispiece 
 
 From a photograph by Bachrach 
 
 SAMUEL W. McCALL AT THE AGE OF ELEVEN 8 
 
 MR. McCALL AT NINETEEN 12 
 
 MRS. MCCALL 21 8 
 
 From a photograph by Henry Havelock Pierce 
 
SAMUEL W. McCALL 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CHIEFLY BIOGRAPHICAL 
 
 IN the early annals of Pennsylvania, the name 
 ot McCall occupies a conspicuous place. The 
 identity of the enterprising immigrant of the Mc- 
 Call clan who deserted Scotland in order to try 
 his fortune in the province of William Penn is 
 not known, but the stock made a lasting impres- 
 sion in its new home. Peter McCall was a Jus- 
 tice ot the Supreme Court ot Pennsylvania and 
 Mayor of Philadelphia. Samuel McCall, Jr., was 
 associated with Benjamin Franklin as one of the 
 incorporators of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 Whether these men were members of Governor 
 McCall's family cannot be determined, but the 
 population of the colony was small, and the name 
 ot McCall was not a common one. Hence it is 
 probable that all the McCalls of Pennsylvania 
 were kinsmen. 
 
 Among those who fell at Brandy wine in the 
 War tor Independence was Governor McCall's 
 great-grandfather, who left a son, William, then 
 
 i 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 seven years of age. In spite of being thus early 
 deprived of a father's care, the son grew and pros- 
 pered, and his death, at the ripe age of ninety- 
 five, was partly due to an accident. He took to 
 wife a woman of that sturdy stock known as 
 Pennsylvania Dutch, and her portrait, made 
 late in life, shows that her distinguished grand- 
 son closely resembles her. One of the children 
 of this marriage was Henry McCall, who was 
 born in 1808. He married Mary Ann Elliott, 
 whose father, Ennion Elliott, was High Sheriff 
 of his county. Old residents of Chambersburg, 
 the shire town, were long in the habit of relating 
 stories of his industry in politics. Early in the 
 morning he would set out on horseback equipped 
 with saddlebags, and canvass the voters of his 
 county. His wife, Susan Carver, who was a na- 
 tive of Maryland, lived to be almost ninety-nine 
 years of age. In fact, Governor McCall came of 
 unusually vigorous ancestry, since the average 
 age of his four grandparents was about ninety. 
 
 Henry McCall and his wife were the parents 
 of eleven children — seven sons and four daugh- 
 ters. The sixth in order in this goodly company 
 was Samuel Walker McCall, who was born at 
 East Providence, Pennsylvania, February 28, 
 1 85 1. When he was two years old, his father was 
 attracted by the opportunities offered by the 
 2 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 newer communities west of the Alleghanies, and 
 he therefore abandoned Pennsylvania and jour- 
 neyed down the Ohio River from Pittsburg to 
 Cairo and thence up the Mississippi to Mount 
 Carroll, Illinois, — a town not far from the Wis- 
 consin line. Here he established his home. He 
 was a well-to-do man for those days, as may be 
 seen rrom the fact that he carried with him from 
 Pennsylvania between eight and nine thousand 
 dollars in gold. He invested in large tracts of 
 land, which could then be bought almost at gov- 
 ernment prices, and also engaged in the manu- 
 facture of stoves, ploughs, and other machinery 
 for the farmers. In this enterprise he was quite 
 successful, but his credits were so extensive that 
 the panic of i ^ 5 7 — 5 <S , which was the result 
 largely of Buchanan's tariff policy, compelled 
 him to close his factory. The countv was then 
 without a railroad, and the men who owned land 
 very generally mortgaged it in order to secure 
 the construction of a road. The enterprise failed, 
 and the farmers who had mortgaged their land 
 were compelled to take subscriptions for stock 
 which was wholly worthless or to surrender their 
 land. In common with the other people of the 
 county Henry McCall suffered heavy losses in 
 this way. Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil 
 War, he moved upon a farm near Mt. Carroll, 
 
 3 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 and in this undertaking he prospered greatly and 
 did much to restore his fortunes. It was doubt- 
 less his father whom Governor McCall had 
 in mind when, in one of his early campaigns 
 for Congress, he said in reply to his opponents, 
 who dwelt much upon the fact that their nomi- 
 nee was a son of John A. Andrew, the great 
 War Governor of Massachusetts: — 
 
 With reference to this question of fathers, I have to 
 say that we are not consulted in the matter. It may be 
 a fine thing to have a distinguished governor for a father. 
 I think, however, that some of us would not swap the 
 fathers that nature gave us for all the war governors in 
 the world. 
 
 The free and open life upon the Illinois farms 
 during the middle decades of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury made a profound impression upon the young 
 boy Samuel. His father kept a large number of 
 horses, and young Sam was frequently seen upon 
 a horse usually without a saddle and sometimes 
 without a bridle taking long rides over the al- 
 most unbroken prairies. The contest with the 
 primitive forces of nature was still on. The In- 
 dian wars were close to them both in time and 
 space. Towns were few and small. Government 
 was not much in evidence. Men were subject to 
 little law except "the natural law which is in one's 
 own heart." Years afterward Mr. McCall spoke 
 
 4 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 with deep feeling of his recollection of his prairie 
 home : — 
 
 There were neighbors on one side of us, and a great 
 open prairie on the other. The fragrance of the wild 
 flowers, roses among the rest, is with me yet. Hare- 
 tooted, I walked through the native grass, which was 
 so tall that it reached to my neck. I saw blue-raters 
 and now and then passed the brown nest of a prairie 
 chicken, which I only discovered when the hen rose 
 behind me and beat a tattoo of retreat with her wings. 
 The air was as transparent as plate glass and full of 
 tonic and sunlight. I have loved the prairies ever since, 
 but they are gone with some of the other joys of my 
 boyhood. Now, if one goes to a sparsely settled region, 
 he rinds mountains, arid plains or forests. 
 
 It was doubtless due to the happy memories 
 of this period of his life and to his actual knowl- 
 edge of the conditions under which farmers live 
 that later he became so impatient with the whining 
 tone often assumed, particularly in legislative 
 bodies, bv self-appointed spokesmen of the tarm- 
 ing interest. In a speech delivered in Congress 
 in 191 i he said: — 
 
 According to his eulogists here, the American farmer 
 is a very serious-minded individual, with his wife and 
 numerous progeny gathered about him — and I observe 
 that these eulogists usually bless him with a bountiful 
 offspring — desperatclv and with great solemnity endeav- 
 oring to cling to a precarious existence. These orators 
 
 5 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 lament over his rugged qualities, they almost brood over 
 his virtues, and as for his faults, he has none, for he is 
 a being to whom it is impossible to sin. 
 
 Air. Chairman, I have had some experience with the 
 American farmer. I have seen him in his native lair. 
 It was my great good fortune to live for a number of 
 years in my boyhood upon one of those glorious farms 
 in northwestern Illinois — a $200-an-acre farm, as the 
 gentleman from Indiana called it — one of those prairie 
 farms, not the flat farms that you have farther to the west, 
 but where you have the billows of the prairie tumbling 
 about you. One of those farms which, when thev are 
 under cultivation, present a scene of pastoral beauty and 
 of fertility such as can scarcely be found anywhere in the 
 world. I have seen farmers actuallv burn corn for fuel, as 
 has been so dramatically stated in this debate. Why, it has 
 been presented here, as if it showed the destitution of 
 the American farmer and his straitened circumstances, 
 that he actually burned corn for fuel. I have seen him 
 burn corn. Sometimes he would overcrop with one grain 
 and could not sell it profitablv, but he was pretty sure 
 to get even on some other grain ; and instead of brood- 
 ing over the burning of corn, more probably the farmer 
 would sit cheerily smoking his pipe in the light of its 
 blazing fire and his sons would rejoice that thev did not 
 have to chop wood. [Laughter and applause.] 
 
 The American farmer is not the sad-eyed monstros- 
 itv, always staring destiny in the face, that we have had 
 painted here. The farmers, as I knew them, were a 
 prosperous, independent, and happy race of men. 1 have 
 known many farmers, and 1 have known some men even 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 on Wall Street, and I have made up my mind that they 
 DOth belong to the same race, and that there is about 
 
 as much human nature in the one class as in the other. 
 I have sometimes thought that if the numbers wrere re- 
 versed and that if we had five million voters on Wall 
 Street and only a few hundred farmers, our statesmen 
 would sing the homely virtues of J. P. Morgan and his 
 crew and would bestow upon them some of those lugu- 
 brious eulogiums of which the American farmer has 
 been so long the patient victim. [Applause and laugh- 
 ter.] And their worst enemy could hardly wish them a 
 harder fate. 
 
 Mr. McCall was but ten years old when the 
 Civil War broke out — too young to participate 
 in it, but old enough to be profoundly impressed 
 bv it. That impression was made all the deeper 
 by the tact that two of his brothers enlisted in 
 the army, and the family was thus brought into 
 direct personal contact with the struggle. His 
 interest in the war was further enhanced by the 
 proximity of the two great leaders in the contest, 
 Lincoln and Grant, who were in a sense his neigh- 
 bors. During the most receptive years of his lite, 
 therefore, he was daily in the presence of events 
 which confirmed and strengthened a natural in- 
 terest in public affairs. 
 
 Mr. McCall's education was begun in the pub- 
 lic schools of Illinois, but in 1864 he entered the 
 Mt. Carroll Seminary, a boarding-school for both 
 
 7 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 boys and girls, which, however, about a year and 
 a half later was converted into a school for girls, 
 and its male attendants were compelled to seek 
 educational advantages elsewhere. From one of 
 their neighbors who came from New Hampshire, 
 the boy Samuel had heard of an academy situ- 
 ated at New Hampton, New Hampshire, and he 
 was so impressed bv what was told him that he 
 persuaded his father to send him to that institu- 
 tion. Early one Monday morning he was put upon 
 a train and started for New Hampshire. That was 
 a long journey in those days, and especially for 
 a boy who had never traveled alone more than 
 twenty-five miles from home. After running off 
 the track and experiencing other adventures, he 
 arrived at the school the following Friday night. 
 Thus began, in 1867, his long connection with 
 New England. 
 
 The ontrast between the physical aspect of 
 New England and the prairies of Illinois made 
 a strong impression upon his mind. I n the speech 
 to which reference has already been made he 
 said: — 
 
 I not only saw agriculture in the West, but when T 
 was a young boy my father sent me to New England 
 to school, and I had an opportunity there to see how 
 thcv farmed in New England. In the West a farmer 
 could turn a furrow for a mile, if his farm went that 
 
SAM1 Kl W M.< \l I 
 Al 1 HI AGE 01 El EV1 N 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 far, without taking his hand from the plough; but in 
 New England the fanner would urge his horse, and 
 more often bis oxen, for a few feet and then would h.i\ e to 
 
 turn out for a stump or stone. [Laughter.] He would 
 try to select smooth little patches upon the hillside. 
 While a New England hillside, with its alternation of 
 little rye-fields and corn-fields and pasture and meadow 
 and woodland, presents a very beautiful mosaic to the 
 eve, it certainly is not favorable to agriculture. [Laugh- 
 ter.] And it was inevitable that under the adverse 
 natural conditions and with the antiquated methods 
 which the New England farmers employed thev could 
 not compete with the rich and fertile prairie lands of 
 the West. 
 
 Mr. McCall remained in the academy at New 
 Hampton three years. The instruction in that 
 institution was unusually good. His teacher in 
 Latin and Greek was George C. Chase, later Presi- 
 dent of Bates College, whom Mr. McCall regards 
 as one of the very best teachers he has ever known. 
 In mathematics he had Professor Rand, who for 
 many vcars was head ot the Departmentof Mathe- 
 maticsin Hates College. Dr. Meservey, the princi- 
 pal of the academy, an author of books and a fa- 
 mous teacher in his dav, gave instruction in science. 
 On Mr. McCall's graduation from the academy 
 in 1870, he was made valedictorian of his class. 
 The following autumn he entered Dartmouth 
 with the Class of 1874. 
 
 9 
 
Samuel \V. McCall 
 
 A knowledge of the classics and mathematics 
 was not the only, or even the chief, acquisition 
 which Mr. McCall made at the New Hampton 
 Academy. One of his fellow students at that 
 institution was Miss Ella Esther Thompson, 
 who in 1 88 1 became Mrs. McCall. She was the 
 daughter of Sumner Shaw Thompson, a native 
 of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, where his 
 ancestors had resided ever since the landing of 
 the Mayflower. His business interests took him 
 to Vermont where he established his home and 
 made a reputation as a man of large affairs, extend- 
 ing far beyond the boundaries of his State. He 
 achieved a remarkable success as a business man, 
 being identified with the construction of railroads 
 from his boyhood and becoming one of the best- 
 known railroad builders of his time. He was also 
 a banker and had large interests in timber lands 
 in Vermont and Michigan. He left a well-earned 
 fortune which might have been much larger ex- 
 cept for his generous giving. He was a Repub- 
 lican in politics, and, while reluctant to hold office, 
 was called upon at different times to render impor- 
 tant public service. His wife, Harriet Stark Wiley, 
 was from Maine, and through her Mrs. McCall is 
 related to Admiral Peary. While Mr. McCall was 
 in Congress, he was invited to speak on Fore- 
 fathers' Day before the New England Society of 
 10 
 
Chief ly Biographical 
 
 Philadelphia, and was introduced to the audience 
 as a real Yankee from New England. He some- 
 what surprised his hearers by saving that he was 
 probably the only person present who was a na- 
 tive of Pennsylvania. In speaking of the matter 
 afterward, he said that they were somewhat dis- 
 concerted when they found that he had never 
 seen New Kngland until he was sixteen years old. 
 But they were reconciled to the situation when 
 he told them that he had married a Mayflower 
 descendant; and as he and Mrs. McCall were the 
 parents of five children, he could claim to be 
 literallv one of the "Pilgrim Fathers." 
 
 In the autumn of 1870 Mr. McCall began his 
 studies in Dartmouth College. From his early 
 bovhood he had been strongly attracted by Dan- 
 iel Webster, and his mind first turned toward 
 Dartmouth because that was Webster's college. 
 1 I was unusually well fitted, and this, together 
 with the ease with which he learned, enabled him 
 to take hiedi rank, especially in the classics. At 
 graduation he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and 
 according to the method of ranking used by that 
 society, he stood second in his class which num- 
 bered a little more than sixty. Among his class- 
 mates who have since become well known were 
 John A. Aiken, Chief Justice of the Superior Court 
 of Massachusetts ; Edwin G. Eastman, for twenty 
 
 11 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 years Attorney General of New Hampshire; 
 Homer P. Lewis, Superintendent of Schools of 
 Worcester, Massachusetts ; Frank N. Parsons, 
 Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New 
 Hampshire; Samuel L. Powers, ex-member 
 of Congress from Massachusetts ; Charles E. 
 Quimby, a prominent physician in New York ; 
 and General Frank S. Streeter, a leading mem- 
 ber of the bar of New Hampshire. 
 
 Although Mr. McCall took high rank as a 
 student he also found time for other activities. 
 He was a member of Kappa Kappa Kappa, a 
 strong local society established in opposition to 
 the intercollegiate fraternities. He was also much 
 interested in debating. It was in his junior year 
 that boating was introduced as a college sport. 
 For some time there had been a regular college 
 regatta on the Connecticut River at Springfield, 
 in which nearlv all the New England colleges 
 participated. Dartmouth decided to join this 
 association, and formed a boat club of which Mr. 
 McCall was in turn vice-president and president. 
 In his senior year he had charge of the Dart- 
 mouth crew in the intercollegiate regatta which 
 that year was held at Saratoga. After his gradua- 
 tion he was made a member of the graduate com- 
 mittee of three chosen by all the colleges in the 
 association and which had charge of the regatta. 
 
 12 
 
S \ M I I I W M ' A 1 I 
 
 AT 1 II h \r.\- <>Y NINETEEN 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 In the work of this committee he showed that in- 
 dependence of judgment which has been so char- 
 acteristic of him throughout his life. The major- 
 ity ot the committee recommended that the next 
 regatta be held at Saratoga, which was then a 
 notorious gambling center, and this recommen- 
 dation was adopted. Mr. McCall dissented and 
 broutzht in a minority report in favor of New 
 London. " So you see I began my career as a 
 kicker and I have kept it up ever since." 
 
 As a student Mr. McCall was also much in- 
 terested in college journalism. Some members 
 of the Class of i 873 established the " Dartmouth 
 Anvil," and Mr. McCall and some of his class- 
 mates were invited to seats on the editorial board. 
 In his senior year, he became editor-in-chief of 
 the paper, and among his associates were three 
 men now known as Chief Justice Aiken, Chief 
 J ce Parsons, and ex-Congressman Powers. 
 In its general plan the " Dartmouth Anvil " was 
 quite different from the current type of college 
 paper. At present such a paper is expected to 
 give the news of the college circle, but no effort 
 is made to chronicle the happenings of the outer 
 world. But in the "Dartmouth Anvil" there 
 was little in the character ot its news to indicate 
 that it was a college paper. Any other paper pub- 
 lished in Hanover might have been expected to 
 
 13 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 give as much attention to college affairs as did 
 the " Anvil." In the main it was made up of 
 the local news of Hanover and near-by towns, 
 excellent summaries of the news of the world at 
 large, able reviews of new books and extended 
 editorials on the important happenings of the 
 day. It was all treated, however, from the stand- 
 point of a college student and was pervaded with 
 the tang of college life. Its daring comments and 
 cock-sure judgments could only have emanated 
 from undergraduate circles. 
 
 The Governor of Massachusetts was the au- 
 thor of the following comment in the "Anvil" 
 upon the achievements of the Legislature of New 
 Hampshire : — 
 
 The State Legislature, after an unusually short ses- 
 sion, has at length adjourned. Scarcely anything beyond 
 the necessary work of a session has been attempted. 
 To be sure, a zealous reformer offered a bill which 
 recognized and to some extent atoned for the wrongs 
 of the weaker sex, but our sturdy Spartan legislators 
 refused to grant attention to a subject of such trivial 
 importance, and voted it a place upon the table. A 
 movement was made to appropriate £25,000 for the 
 purpose of making a much-needed improvement upon 
 the insane asylum, but the State was poor — so thought 
 these rustic statesmen — and insanity was a human weak- 
 ness, and the fostering of human weaknesses was n't 
 good and great, and so it was wisely ordained that the 
 
 14 
 
Chi i l LY BIOGRAPHICAL 
 
 State should discourage people in their foolish habit of 
 becoming insane by refusing to make the appropria- 
 tion! The "•local-option" plan, which is finding such 
 fa\or in other States, and which was recommended for 
 action by the Governor, was not meddled with, and we 
 think wisely too. The revision of the Constitution, 
 which in our opinion should have been the great ques- 
 tion of the Legislature, was left untouched. In fact, 
 about the only positive thing these eighteen scores of 
 nun did, in a session of twenty-eight days, was to ad- 
 journ. This Legislature might easily have rendered 
 itself more dangerous by tinkering with the laws of the 
 State in imitation of other legislative bodies, but for 
 cool, stoical inactivity we have never seen its equal. If 
 some ingenious Yankee could invent a machine to say 
 yea, yea, and nay, nay, but principally nay, and teach 
 some deaf mute to run it, the State would be saved the 
 expense of assembling its sages in every torrid June. 
 
 In another issue of the "Anvil" Mr. McCall 
 wrote an extended report of the inauguration of 
 the Governor of New Hampshire, the style of 
 which may be inferred from this sentence: "The 
 Governor arose and in a firm tone announced 
 that he h;ul a sore throat and that the clerk 
 would read his message. " 
 
 It is not surprising that such a paper made 
 considerable impression upon its contemporaries 
 and was much quoted in the metropolitan jour- 
 nals. It was never a financial success, however, 
 
 '5 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 and as it was a private venture, published at the 
 expense of the editors, some of them had cause 
 to regret their connection with it. It finally came 
 to grief because of an audacious article reflecting 
 upon the credit of the Dartmouth National Bank, 
 a local institution of which the college treasurer 
 was cashier and which was regarded as a fair 
 subject of criticism. As a result the faculty inter- 
 vened, and after two or three more numbers pub- 
 lication was suspended. Each of the editors gave 
 a note for his share of the debt of the paper. 
 After a number of years Mr. McCall paid his 
 note, and in speaking of it at a college dinner he 
 remarked that the New Hampshire method of 
 computing interest made compound interest seem 
 quite unimportant, and that the principal of his 
 note was insignificant as compared with the ac- 
 crued interest. 
 
 Like many other distinguished men, Mr. 
 McCall has had some experience as a teacher. 
 In his junior year at Dartmouth, the principal 
 of Kimball-Union Academy at Meriden, New 
 Hampshire, fell ill, and asked the president of 
 Dartmouth to send a student to teach his classes 
 in the ancient languages. Mr. McCall was sent 
 and for three weeks expounded Greek and Latin. 
 It was one of his pupils at this institution who, 
 after Mr. McCall's speech in 1893 in favor of the 
 16 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 repeal of the Silver Purchase Act, wrote to him 
 from Nebraska : — 
 
 /) .. s. : r: You once were irrf teacher in Latin and 
 Greek at the Kimball-Union Academy. I have just read 
 your speech on the silver bill. You are a damned fool. 
 Yours truly. 
 
 To this frank expression ot opinion the follow- 
 ing reply was made: — 
 
 /) or Sir : I may have been your teacher in Latin 
 and Greek, but I am glad I was not your teacher in 
 piety and propriety. 
 
 Yours respectfully 
 
 S. W. McCall. 
 
 After his graduation, while he and his friend 
 Powers were studying law at Nashua, they decided 
 to supplement the remittances which they re- 
 ceived from home by teaching a night school. 
 Mr. McCall has given this account of their 
 experience : — 
 
 Many of the pupils were lustv chaps and pugilistic 
 in disposition. Consequently, when Sam taught I 
 watched, and when I taught he watched. One night 
 he got into a heated controversy with a big fellow in 
 the back line of seats, and there were indications that 
 the fight which ensued might become general. I knew 
 the school could whip both Sam ami me, and so I said, 
 " Bovs, if you don't interfere, I won't. Let the better 
 man win." Sam conquered the ruffian by a free appli- 
 
 '7 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 cation of his fists and has ever since boasted of my art 
 in diplomacy. 
 
 While a boy in Illinois Mr. McCall had been 
 captivated by a speech which he heard Senator 
 Lyman Trumbull make at a county fair, and while 
 still at Dartmouth he arranged that on his grad- 
 uation he should go to Chicago and study law 
 in Trumbull's office. This plan was abandoned, 
 partly perhaps because of his unwillingness to go 
 so far away from the young lady who was to be- 
 come his wife, and partly because of the persua- 
 sion of his classmate, Samuel L. Powers, who was 
 to study law at Nashua, New Hampshire, and 
 wished Mr. McCall to join him. After a year at 
 Nashua the two young men removed to Worces- 
 ter, Massachusetts, where they continued their 
 studies, and in 1875 tne Y vvere admitted to the 
 Massachusetts Bar. They formed a partnership 
 and opened an office in the Equitable Building in 
 Boston. Like many another young law firm, it 
 encountered stormv waters. Their first case con- 
 cerned a bill often dollars for rent, and thev lost 
 it. The later history of the partnership and its 
 final dissolution are best told in Mr. McCall's 
 own words : — 
 
 Sam said we ought to live in a better-looking house. 
 It would help business, he thought. He hunted around 
 and found an imposing edifice with a marble front. We 
 18 
 
CHIEFLY Biographical 
 
 moved, but Sam was wrong. Furthermore, our landlady 
 kept a miserable little dog which furiously barked at us 
 
 every time we approached our habitation. Sam said that 
 the barking was undignified and that it tended to lower 
 our tone both as lawyers and citizens. " Who," he 
 asked, "wants to be yelped at as if he were a cow or 
 a tramp : " 
 
 On Saturday night, if our resources were scant, we 
 went home together, and after bedtime, in the hope of 
 finding the dog nodding at his post, dead, or absent. But 
 he was always wide awake and on duty, and then the 
 woman would get out of bed and dun us. Finally, the 
 firm held a consultation. Sam said that the partners 
 separately could make fully as much money as they could 
 jointly. He got a piece of paper and multiplied nothing 
 by one and then by two and mathematically proved the 
 accuracy of his observation. Thus the partnership was 
 dissolved. My practice grew and so did his and we got 
 along all right. 
 
 Mr. McCall's law practice, in which he had 
 encountered such difficulties in the beginning, 
 finally attained considerable proportions, but after 
 he entered Congress, where he remained so long, 
 it inevitably disappeared. 
 
 Throughout these early vears at the bar Mr. 
 McCall participated in the discussion of public 
 affairs both in political speeches and in newspapers 
 and magazines. He began a life of Napoleon, 
 part of which was published in a magazine which 
 
 i9 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 failed before the work was completed. Another 
 paper, entitled " English Views of America," re- 
 sented the condescending attitude assumed to- 
 ward America by English visitors. A character 
 who strongly attracted him and was made the sub- 
 ject of one of his early magazine articles was Rufus 
 Choate. Another article was a somewhat severe 
 arraignment of Charles Sumner. In consequence 
 of his own experience subsequentlv in public life, 
 Mr. McCall has said that he has modified his 
 judgment and would not now be so harsh with 
 Sumner. In view of the present discussion ot 
 national preparedness, an article by him, entitled 
 "A Plea for a Strong Navy," published in the 
 "Penn Monthly," Philadelphia, in 1 88 1, is of 
 particular interest. Even at that early day, when 
 the subject was not much discussed, he perceived 
 the necessity of maintaining a force sufficient to 
 protect the rights of this country. In a striking 
 passage he said: — 
 
 While our two great political parties are fighting over 
 again in Congress or in their campaigns the battles of 
 the rebellion, while they arc disputing whether our in- 
 significant army should not be made more insignificant, 
 the weakness of our navy is inviting insult to our flag 
 upon the seas. It is possible for European ironclads of 
 even the second rate to enter our harbors uninjured in 
 spite of our ships of war or of any guns mounted in our 
 
 20 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 forts, to hold our chief cities at the mercies of their 
 armaments, and to extort from our merchants tribute 
 enough to build three navies. We are not even secure 
 from invasion by foreign troops. The fleets of England 
 
 alone could escort across the Atlantic all the armies of 
 Europe, and the battlefield between ourselves and foreign 
 invaders, which should be the wide barrier of the sea, 
 would thus become our own shores. Suppose some for- 
 eign power should attempt an invasion with a well- 
 trained army of two hundred thousand men under the 
 convoy of a powerful fleet. If we had an effective navy, 
 such an expedition could never cross the ocean. But 
 with our present fleet, our only defense would be the 
 liability to a disastrous storm, and if no such accident 
 should intervene, the expedition could without doubt 
 choose its own landing-place. And what would prob- 
 ably be the result? It is by no means sufficient to tell 
 us that we are brave. Experience demonstrates that a 
 regular armv, manoeuvring upon open plains, such as 
 the richest portions of our coast afford, should be en- 
 countered with discipline as well as valor. Nothing could 
 be hoped for from our weak and scattered army, but we 
 should be compelled to rely upon volunteers. And volun- 
 teers, however brave, could not at first do otherwise 
 than to permit such an armv to slaughter them. In a 
 short time we would be disciplined, and, by incredible 
 exertions, our unwieldly masses would be formed into 
 armies. But in that short time our rich and unprotected 
 cities, the wealthy tract of country along our eastern sea- 
 board, would be overrun and pillaged, and having de- 
 stroved or stolen the fruits of our unexampled growth, 
 
 21 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 the invaders could retreat to their ships as the English 
 did from Portugal, and return unharmed. These are no 
 mere chimerical dangers. If it is granted that they are 
 not probable, they are at least possible. Wars do arise, 
 and in these days of ocean cables and steamships they 
 can arise quickly. Our defenseless condition and the 
 possibility of inflicting a tremendous blow upon us might 
 tempt the cupidity or ambition of foreign nations. It is 
 criminal for us, through our weakness and our wealth, 
 to permit such large appeals to the piratical instincts of 
 mankind. We may presume too far upon the enlighten- 
 ment even of this age. It seems little less than treason- 
 able negligence upon the part of our statesmen to permit 
 such humiliating possibilities. 
 
 In 1887 Mr. McCall was elected to the Mass- 
 achusetts House of Representatives from the 
 Winchester-Arlington District, and with but 
 two brief intervals he has been in the service of 
 Commonwealth or Nation ever since. In this 
 Legislature he was made chairman of the House 
 Committee on Probate and Insolvency, and he 
 showed his reforming tendencies by introducing 
 a bill dealing with poor debtors. Prior to that 
 time, when an execution had been obtained for 
 a debt of more than twenty dollars, the lawyer 
 representing the creditors would have the debtor 
 brought before an inferior magistrate, who was 
 paid by fees. As the business of some of the 
 professional debt-collectors was very consider- 
 22 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 able, it was made directly to the interest of the 
 magistrate to secure the business of these law- 
 yers; and verv manv times men whose only crime 
 was poverty were sent to jail for debt, while 
 manv a rich debtor was able to defy his creditors. 
 Mr. McCall introduced a comprehensive bill 
 which abolished the fee system, and conferred 
 jurisdiction over cases of poor debtors upon a 
 reputable and established court. The effect of 
 this bill, which was declared at the time to have 
 been the most beneficent measure of the whole 
 session, was to abolish imprisonment for debt in 
 Massachusetts, except in cases of fraud. 
 
 In 1888, Mr. McCall made his first appear- 
 ance in national politics in consequence of elec- 
 tion as a delegate to the National Republican 
 Convention, where he made a speech before the 
 convention, seconding the nomination of Judge 
 G res ham. 
 
 Early in that year, in company with William 
 E. Barrett and Henrv Parkman, he purchased 
 the "Boston Dailv Advertiser" and "Record" 
 and became the editor-in-chief of the "Adver- 
 tiser." During his editorship, the paper was 
 strongly Republican, and supported the election 
 of Benjamin Harrison. 
 
 He was again elected to the Legislature of 
 1889, and was made chairman of the Committee 
 
 23 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 on the Judiciary, a position which made him the 
 leader of the House. The volume of work before 
 this committee was unusually large; and it re- 
 ported to the House about two hundred different 
 measures. It is extraordinary that in onlv one 
 case did the House set aside the recommendation 
 of the committee. 
 
 At this session, Mr. McCall introduced a 
 corrupt practices bill. It was adversely reported 
 by the Committee on Elections, but he moved 
 to substitute his bill in the House, and after a 
 contest, it passed the House, although it failed 
 in the Senate. This bill, which was popularly 
 known at the time as "The Anti-Boodle Bill," 
 was the first corrupt practices bill ever passed 
 by a legislative body in America. 
 
 At this session, also, Mr. McCall introduced 
 an order for the abolition of the Boston City 
 Council. Although the order was not adopted, 
 it was not without effect; for thereafter the 
 Council showed a commendable degree of atten- 
 tion to business. 
 
 One of the most important events of the ses- 
 sion was the controversy between the House and 
 the Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court. Act- 
 ing under what it claimed were its constitu- 
 tional rights, the House asked the opinion of 
 the Justices upon certain questions growing out 
 24 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 of the laws relating to the public schools. The 
 Justices replied, declining to give their opinion. 
 This reply was referred to the Judiciary Com- 
 mittee, on behalf of which Mr. McCall prepared 
 an elaborate and learned report, and introduced 
 a resolution embodying the views of the House, 
 to the effect that it was the constitutional duty 
 of the Justices to answer the questions pro- 
 pounded to them. This resolution was adopted 
 by the House by a vote of 1 68 to 8. The ques- 
 tion involved in the controversy is one of much 
 importance in the government of Massachusetts, 
 and was widely discussed in the legal periodicals 
 of that time. 
 
 Another controversy in which Mr. McCall 
 took a leading part arose on the last dav of the 
 session. The House was to adjourn on June 7, 
 and on that day a bill which had passed the Sen- 
 ate, by which fishermen were excluded from the 
 exemption which protects the wages of sailors 
 from trustee process, came before the House 
 for action. Mr. McCall's committee to which 
 it had been referred reported adversely; but 
 the House, by a majority of 30, set aside the 
 report of the Committee, and substituted the 
 bill. 
 
 Mr. McCall vehemently opposed this action, 
 and said: — 
 
 25 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 Throughout all the last campaign, we heard of little 
 except your love for the poor fisherman. You deco- 
 rated him with the flag. You were ready to die in de- 
 fense of the men who compose the nursery of our future 
 navy, who brave the dangers of the storm and the Ca- 
 nadian pirates, and were finally almost the only men 
 who displayed our flag upon the sea. But the election 
 has been held, and you now propose to repeal the only 
 law that exists in his favor. He was emphatically a 
 sailor for campaign purposes, but you now propose to 
 declare that he is not a sailor for purposes of the trustee 
 process. While I am as anxious to adjourn as any mem- 
 ber of this House, I will stay here, if necessary, until 
 the 4th of July, rather than permit such a bill to pass, 
 except through the regular stages. 
 
 When the final vote was taken, the House re- 
 versed itself, chiefly because of Mr. McCall's in- 
 dependent opposition. And the bill was finally 
 defeated by 27 votes. 
 
 Mr. McCall was not a member of the Legis- 
 lature the following two years, but served during 
 that period as a Ballot Law Commissioner, to 
 which office he was appointed by Governor 
 Russell. In 1892 he was again a member of the 
 Legislature, and became chairman of the House 
 Committee upon Election Laws. This position 
 gave him opportunity to renew the agitation which 
 he had begun two years before, in favor of the en- 
 actment of a corrupt practices act. His efforts 
 26 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 were now successful, and the hill which it was his 
 good fortune to conduct through the House be- 
 came the law of the Commonwealth. To antici- 
 pate somewhat the course of events, it may be 
 said here that many Years later, while a member 
 of Congress, he introduced a bill in the House 
 dealing with the same subject. After two or three 
 attempts, it finally was adopted, and bore his 
 name. He thus has had the distinction of leading 
 the way, both in the Legislature of Massachusetts 
 and in the Federal Congress, in the enactment 
 of legislation haying for its object the restric- 
 tion and regulation of the use of money in elec- 
 tions. 
 
 In 1 89 1, the congressional districts in Massa- 
 chusetts were rearranged, and Winchester, the 
 town in which Mr. McCall resided, was taken 
 out of the Lvnn district, in which it had been 
 for many years, and where Mr. McCall had many 
 friends, and was attached to a metropolitan dis- 
 trict, which included the cities of Cambridge and 
 Somerville and the Back Bay wards of Boston. 
 Although Winchester was the smallest place in 
 the district, Mr. McCall was nominated in 1892 
 by the Republican Party as its candidate for 
 Representative in Congress. His opponent was 
 John F. Andrew, a son of the great " War Gov- 
 ernor," and a man of great popularity. The con- 
 
 27 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 test was a notable one; and, on account of the 
 balancing of the political parties in the district, 
 was very close; but although William E. Russell, 
 a Democrat, carried the district for Governor by 
 52 votes, Mr. McCall was elected to Congress 
 by 992 votes. This was the first of his ten cam- 
 paigns for Congress. And it is a notable indica- 
 tion of his popularity among his constituents, that 
 each time after his first nomination, he was re- 
 nominated by his party by acclamation, and was 
 reelected by substantial majorities. In one elec- 
 tion his majority reached the figures of 18,888, 
 which was the largest majority ever given to a 
 candidate for Congress in Massachusetts. 
 
 Mr. McCall's part in the discussion of the 
 measures which came before Congress during his 
 membership of twenty years in the House will 
 be treated in subsequent chapters. It should be 
 said at this point, however, that his course in 
 Congress was marked by an unusual degree of 
 independence. When he thought that the atti- 
 tude of his party was wrong, he did not hesitate 
 to say so and to vote accordingly. It was natural 
 that his refusal to join with the great mass of his 
 party associates in Congress in support of the 
 measures advocated by the President should 
 have aroused antagonism in the minds of strong 
 partisans, to whom opposition to the President 
 28 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 appeared little short of treason. At a Republi- 
 can caucus in Winchester in September, 1900, 
 a resolution was presented expressing " unquali- 
 fied disapproval " of his action on the issues 
 growing out ot the Spanish War, and declar- 
 ing it to be his duty to fall in line with the rest 
 of the party, especially when importuned to do 
 so by such a man as Representative Grosvenor 
 of Ohio. An interesting discussion followed, 
 in which Mr. McCall participated. He gave his 
 reasons for his attitude on the various matters as 
 to which he had been criticized, and concluded 
 by saying, " If you are looking for a man to rep- 
 resent you who will vote as Grosvenor savs, if 
 you want a man with the backbone of an angle- 
 worm, don't send me back to Congress." The 
 resolution was defeated by a vote of 197 to 3. 
 The next month Mr. McCall was renominated 
 by acclamation and his plurality in November 
 was nearly 12,000, — the largest given to any 
 Massachusetts Congressman at that election. 
 
 Few candidates for public office have ever re- 
 ceived so marked a compliment at the hands of 
 their constituents as did Mr. McCall in the elec- 
 tion of 1904. Mr. Roosevelt, then at the zenith 
 ot his popularity, was the candidate for Presi- 
 dent. Mr. B:ites was the Republican nominee for 
 Governor of Massachusetts. Mr. McCall was for 
 
 29 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 the seventh time the candidate of his party 
 for Congress. His election was assured, for the 
 Democrats nominated no one against him. This 
 was not an unprecedented situation, since it 
 rather frequently happens that a party which 
 feels itself hopelessly in the minority does not 
 even name a stalking horse. The extraordinary 
 feature of this election lay not in the fact that 
 the opposition named no candidate, but that 
 about forty per cent of the Democratic voters in 
 the district cast their ballots for Mr. McCall. The 
 total vote of the three Republican candidates in 
 the district was 15,000 for Bates for Governor, 
 18,626 for Roosevelt for President, and 21,551 
 for McCall for Congress. In commenting upon 
 this extraordinary result, a metropolitan journal 
 said : — 
 
 The wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot he blind 
 to the significance of all this. In the Eighth District 
 the voters encountered the appeal of two very different 
 kinds of popularity. Not a vestige of doubt remains re- 
 garding President Roosevelt's popularity ; and yet in the 
 district in question it did not excite so much enthusi- 
 asm at the polls as that evoked by Mr. McCall. The 
 latter has none of the spectacular qualities of President 
 Roosevelt. The President "does things"; the times 
 have apparently been right for his kind of things rather 
 than for Mr. McCall's. . . . Loyalty to the Constitu- 
 tion, a rational tariff, justice to our conquered provinces, 
 
 30 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 a conservative foreign policy, ami economy in public 
 expenditures are issues to which Mr. McCall's name 
 
 has been indissolublv linked in the past. His record is 
 known tar and wide. His course has been one of more 
 than mere acquiescence in the great policies just enumer- 
 ated. In his speeches in and out of Congress, and by 
 his pen, he has defended them with skill and courage. 
 His remarkable plurality on November 8 mav therefore 
 be regarded as Massachusetts' clearest utterance regard- 
 ing the future policy of the nation. 
 
 Mr. McCall's first important committee ser- 
 vice in Congress was as a member of the Com- 
 mittee on Elections, of which he was chairman 
 for two years. In fourteen contests, his reports, 
 several of which were against his own partv's 
 candidates, were followed by the House in 
 every instance. One of the most notable of these 
 contests was that between Yost and Tucker, 
 which was debated by the House for two days 
 and resulted in a decision in favor of Tucker, 
 the Democratic contestant, by a majority of five 
 votes. The system, however, by which the 
 House is made the judge of what is essentially 
 a question of law and evidence, is bad, and Mr. 
 McCall introduced a resolution providing that 
 in every such case there should be a preliminary 
 investigation by a court whose conclusions could 
 be adopted or rejected by the House as it saw 
 
 3 1 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 fit. This proposal, however, was not accepted, 
 and the old system continues. 
 
 Mr. McCall was also a member of the Judi- 
 ciary Committee, and was for ten years a mem- 
 ber of the Committee on the Library during four 
 years of which he was its chairman. This com- 
 mittee hasjurisdiction over bills relating to public 
 memorials and works of art in Washington. For 
 the better regulation of the artistic development 
 of our capital city Mr. McCall introduced a 
 measure, which was adopted, for the establish- 
 ment of a National Commission on the Fine 
 Arts. Some of the most eminent of American 
 artists, including Burnham the architect, French 
 the sculptor, and Olmsted the landscape archi- 
 tect, have served on this commission. Such legis- 
 lation is not spectacular and attracts the attention 
 of comparatively few, but the development of 
 Washington, which is rapidly becoming the 
 world's most beautiful capital, owes much to 
 this measure. Mr. McCall was also responsible 
 for the completion of the pediment of the House 
 wing of the Capitol, and the sculptured group by 
 Paul Bartlett, which is now about to be put in 
 place, will confer new distinction upon Amer- 
 ican art. Another important work with which 
 Mr. McCall is associated is the building of the 
 Lincoln Memorial, the design of which shows 
 
 3* 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 that it will be one of the most beautiful and 
 impressive structures in any country. I [e was 
 named bv Congress as one of the commission 
 to have charge of its erection. His most import- 
 ant committee service, however, was on the Com- 
 mittee on Ways and Means, of which he was a 
 member for fourteen years — a longer tenure 
 than that ever enjoyed by any other New Eng- 
 land Representative. The nature and extent of 
 his work on this committee will appear in a later 
 chapter dealing; with the tariff. 
 
 Mr. McCall has also had the uncommon 
 distinction ot having served upon nearly every 
 committee appointed by the House for the inves- 
 tigation of the conduct of its own members. One 
 of these was the committee to investigate the 
 charges of corruption in connection with the pur- 
 chase of the Danish West Indies. The most im- 
 portant committee of this kind was that appointed 
 to investigate the relations of members of the 
 Housewiththe Post-Office Department. Charges 
 and insinuations of the most serious character 
 had been made against many Representatives. 
 Such charges could not be ignored, and yet if the 
 House undertook an investigation it was likely 
 to be accused of "whitewashing its members." 
 The character of the men appointed to this com- 
 mittee inspired such confidence that there was 
 
 33 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 general acquiescence in its findings. It was com- 
 posed, besides Mr. McCall, of Hitt of Illinois, 
 Burton of Ohio, Metcalf of California, and three 
 Democrats all of whom had served upon the 
 bench. Of this committee Mr. McCall was made 
 the chairman, and he has been heard to refer to 
 this appointment as the highest honor which he 
 ever received at the hands of his colleagues in 
 the House. 
 
 A phase of Mr. McCall's career in Congress 
 which is of considerable personal interest and of 
 some public importance concerns his relations 
 with Speaker Cannon. When Mr. McCall en- 
 tered the House in 1893, Mr. Cannon had 
 already been a member since 1873. Mr. McCall 
 had high respect for Mr. Cannon's ability as a 
 legislator and especially for his great service in 
 connection with the Committee on Appropria- 
 tions. He was one of the strongest forces ever 
 in Congress in favor of the honest and economic 
 expenditure of public money. No proposition 
 tainted with graft ever received his approval. 
 Mr. McCall was not originally in favor of Mr. 
 Cannon's election to the speakership, but he was 
 so strong that all other candidates withdrew and 
 in the Republican caucus he had no opposition. 
 As Speaker he was the leading representative of 
 his party in the House, and as Mr. McCall fre- 
 
 34 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 quently criticized the party he often antagonized 
 
 the Speaker. The relations ot the two men were 
 thus picturesquely described by J. B. Morrow, 
 a prominent Washington correspondent: — 
 
 It' Samuel Walker McCall were an ox, tractable un- 
 der the yoke and callous to the gad, he might he the 
 one mighty leader in the lahors and policies of the lower 
 House of Congress. He has the head for it. Hut he is 
 an intellectual thoroughbred, with the pernicious vices, 
 from a party point of view, of jumping fences, biting 
 and striking at his trainers, and running away with 
 those who trv to drive him. So he is put in a stall 
 by himself, and whenever Uncle Joseph Cannon ap- 
 proaches, either with a bridle or a measure of oats, he 
 carries a pitchfork and holloas M Whoa !" 
 
 Mr. Cannon was frequently urged to displace 
 Mr. McCall from the Committee on Ways and 
 Means because of his advocacy of lower duties, 
 but the Speaker steadily refused and reappointed 
 him in each Congress. 
 
 At the end of Mr. Cannon's third term in the 
 speakership, he was perhaps the most popular 
 man in his party. Then he incurred the hostility 
 of the newspapers because of his opposition to 
 free paper. It soon became the correct thing; to 
 criticize the Speaker. The so-called "insurgents" 
 reaped a golden harvest of reputation by abus- 
 ing Mr. Cannon. To attack " Uncle Joe" was 
 
 35 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 at that time a short cut to fame. The opprobrium 
 heaped upon him makes one wonder why an in- 
 telligent constituency has chosen him as its Rep- 
 resentative for forty years and why his colleagues 
 in the House have four times elected him to the 
 office of Speaker. In spite of the honors which 
 his party had showered upon him, enough Re- 
 publicans were found who were willing to unite 
 with the solid Democratic membership in a move- 
 ment to degrade him, and a resolution was 
 brought in to remove him from the Committee 
 on Rules, of which the Speaker had been a mem- 
 ber ex officio for fifty years. In the debate on the 
 resolution, March 19, 19 10, Mr. McCall said: — 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I desire to say a few words upon the 
 proposition before the House; but it is manifestly im- 
 possible to discuss it within the two minutes yielded to 
 me. 
 
 This proceeding, in my opinion, is aimed at the 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives. The prop- 
 osition of the gentleman from South Dakota deposes 
 the Speaker from his present position as a member of 
 the Committee on Rules. Now, if it were an entirely 
 new proposition, at the beginning of a Congress, I 
 should consider its adoption ; but I do not propose to 
 vote for it, and I do not consider that it is open to be 
 passed by a House controlled by Republicans. I do not 
 propose to vote to deliver the Speaker, hound hand and 
 foot, over to the minority party, although 1 know that 
 36 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 if you do that, he will go with head unbowed and 
 in the simple majesty of American manhood. [Ap- 
 plause.] This movement does not originate in the 
 ■ of Representatives. I am not undiscriminating. 
 
 I do not condemn a whole class, but you are about to 
 do the behest of a gang of literary highwaymen who arc 
 
 entirely willing to assassinate a reputation in order to 
 sell a magazine. [Applause.] I believe that the Speaker 
 of the House, by his conduct in the last three davs, if 
 the countrv has been permitted to know it, has shat- 
 tered many of the criticisms that have been made against 
 him; and, as I see him there, his spirit reminds me of 
 that of the old Ulysses starting off on his last voyage: — 
 
 «« Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
 The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds 
 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
 Of all the western stars, until I die." 
 [Applause.] 
 
 As Mr. McCall approached the completion of 
 twenty years of continuous service in the House 
 ot Representatives, he decided not to be a candi- 
 date tor reelection. This decision was announced 
 to his constituents in the following letter: — 
 To the J'oters of the Eighth Congressional District: — 
 
 I have decided not to be a candidate for the House of 
 Representatives at the approaching election. I have an 
 ambition, not unworthy, I tru>t, to serve you in another 
 capacity, concerning which I shall make a definite an- 
 nouncement at a suitable time. Hut, apart from that, 
 after the strain of twenty years' continuous service in 
 
 37 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 a great popular assembly like the national House of Rep- 
 resentatives, I should feel quite disposed to ask you not 
 to consider me in selecting your Representative. 
 
 I regret keenly to arrive at this conclusion. The 
 Eighth Massachusetts District is altogether unique. In 
 point of intelligence and civic virtue it has no superior 
 in the country. The support I have received from such 
 a constituency is far beyond my deserts. Since my hrst 
 election in 1892 I have been regularly renominated by 
 acclamation in the conventions of my party, and have 
 been elected by the most gratifying majorities. I have 
 always felt that the best recompense I could make for 
 your generous support was to reverence my relation as 
 your Representative and treat your commission broadly 
 as a mandate to serve the whole country. 
 
 Those twenty years have been crowded with events 
 so momentous as to make them, with the exception 
 of the Civil War era, easily the most important period 
 since the establishment of our Government. In meeting 
 the difficult problems forced upon the attention of Con- 
 gress, I have often felt called upon to act independently 
 of my own party, and sometimes of both parties. While 
 I have occasionally found myself in a small minority, I 
 have known no other way than to follow where my own 
 judgment clearly led. But this is not the place, nor is 
 mine the pen, to recount the record of those years. I 
 may only say that the chief purpose animating me in 
 my sen ice has been to help keep vital the essential prin- 
 ciples of the American Constitution so necessary to the 
 continued greatness of our country and to the preserva- 
 tion of our liberties. 
 
 38 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 I acknowledge my deep gratitude at the opportunity 
 of service you have given me. In that service I have 
 
 doubtless made many mistakes, but my intention lias 
 always been true to you, and the commission I return is 
 as clean as on the day when I received it from your 
 hands. 
 
 Samuel W. McCall. 
 
 Mjopia Road, Winchester, Mass. 
 July jg, igi2. 
 
 Senator Crane had already announced his in- 
 tention to retire from the Senate on the expira- 
 tion of his term. The choice of his successor 
 aroused interest throughout the country. The 
 general opinion of the press indicated Mr. McCall 
 as the most appropriate selection. In fact he was 
 the onlv candidate who attracted the attention of 
 the great newspapers outside of the State. The 
 " New York Times" in a long editorial said : — 
 
 It really looks as if Massachusetts was making up its 
 mind to honor itself and serve the nation as well by 
 sending Samuel W. McCall to the Senate to fill the va- 
 cancy caused by the retirement of Murray Crane. It is 
 a Bay State tradition that the senatorship is an office not 
 to he wasted upon small men. Tradition counts for 
 more in Massachusetts than in some other States. She 
 has had a hahit of sending to the Senate men oi' note 
 and real substance, men whose reputations become coun- 
 trywide. Congressman McCall is worthy of a place in 
 that distinguished line. He has the gifts and the acquire- 
 
 39 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 merits that fit him for public life, for the senatorial ca- 
 reer. . . . He is a man of matured opinions and strong 
 convictions with the full courage thereof. No man is 
 more insensible to public clamor of the passionate, 
 wrong-headed kind, yet none more ready to support 
 worthy causes with his voice and all the powers of his 
 mind. . . . Progressives will be inclined to call him a 
 reactionary. The description is inappropriate. Air. Mc- 
 Call does believe in the Constitution and in the inde- 
 pendence of the judiciary. He has faith in many prin- 
 ciples and institutions of government that came into 
 being longer ago than last summer. But he understands 
 the sober-minded people of the United States. He knows 
 the needs of the country. One of its needs is more 
 men like Samuel W. McCall in the Senate. 
 
 The most distinguished citizen of the district 
 which Mr. McCall represented in Congress so 
 long, President Eliot, expressed himself in favor 
 of Mr. McCall's election in a letter containing 
 this passage : — 
 
 On constitutional and judicial questions Mr. McCall 
 is conservative, like the great majority of the people of 
 Massachusetts. In regard to the industrial, financial, 
 and social reforms in which Massachusetts is sincerely 
 interested and has long been a leader, Mr. McCall's 
 position is that of a reasonable, prudent, open-minded 
 man, who wishes to avoid doing harm while trving to 
 do good. In general, Mr. McCall is an independent 
 thinker, who has the courage of his convictions, and is 
 willing to be in a minority for the time being, and so 
 40 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 makes the action of the majority wiser and more likely 
 to be durable. It is of high importance that men of this 
 
 surt should be kept m Congress. 
 
 i iarles Francis Adams also printed and widely 
 circulated a strong appeal for the election of Mr. 
 McCall. 
 
 The " Springfield Republican," in comment- 
 ing upon President Eliot's letter, said that among 
 all the aspirants for senatorial honors in Massa- 
 chusetts " Congressman McCall is conspicuously 
 the one favored by prominent citizens who are 
 without interest in the matter beyond a de- 
 sire that the best thing for the State may be 
 done." 
 
 It was before the day of the election of senators 
 by popular vote. I ndeed it was the last election in 
 Massachusetts at which a United States senator 
 was chosen by the Legislature. The contest in 
 the Republican caucus was a long one and the 
 balloting ran through four days. Mr. McCall 
 was the leading candidate at the start, and at the 
 end of the third day he lacked but a few votes of 
 a majority of the caucus, but at the last he failed 
 to receive the nomination. No sooner was the 
 contest ended than suggestions of further polit- 
 ical honors for him began to be made. Massa- 
 chusetts felt that the most distinguished man 
 whom she had sent to the House of Representa- 
 
 4i 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 tives for many years must not be allowed to 
 withdraw from public life. From all parts of the 
 State came demands that he accept the nomina- 
 tion for Governor. For the time, however, Mr. 
 McCall determined to remain in private life. 
 He had literary engagements which would fully 
 occupy him, and to be relieved of official cares 
 of any sort would give him a freedom such as 
 he had not known for nearly a quarter of a cen- 
 tury. 
 
 On the last day of Mr. McCall's service in 
 the House, his colleagues by unanimous consent 
 yielded him the floor, and he pronounced a brief 
 speech of farewell which in its gentle humor and 
 lofty idealism was typical of all his public utter- 
 ances. He said : — 
 
 Mr. Speaker, if I were to indulge in anything in the 
 nature of a valedictory and impose it on the House, I 
 should perhaps follow recent precedents rather than my 
 own inclination, and I should feci that what I might 
 say would suggest by contrast rather than by resem- 
 blance the wit of my genial colleague from Massachu- 
 setts and the grace and eloquence of my fair-haired 
 friend from Pennsylvania. " Positivel) last appearances" 
 are under suspicion. A farewell address which is en- 
 gagingly spoken is apt to defeat its object, because it is 
 liable to incite the people to take political action which 
 may make it necessary to repeat the performance. 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 4^ 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 I am not thinking of making that kind of address, 
 but as I am about to leave the House to-day, I th 
 
 I would like to say a tew words to the- members with 
 whom I have Inen associated so lone- I say simply this 
 to the members of the House individually, that I shall 
 be entirely satisfied if their respect for me is equal to 
 mv respect for them. [Applause.] 
 
 Of the House as a whole, I would say I reverence 
 its structure and its place in our Constitution ; but it 
 seems to me it might occupv a more powerful practical 
 place, and that with its democratic composition and 
 with the popular character of our Government it rests 
 with the House itself to say whether or not it shall be 
 the dominating organ in our svstem of Government. 
 
 In mv twenty vears of service here I have voted 
 against a great many measures that hnallv became laws : 
 and if I had any particular regret to-night in that re- 
 spect, it would be that I had not voted against more of 
 them, because I believe there is much truth in what 
 Mr. Hurke said, that repeal is more blessed than enact- 
 ment. We are acquiring a facility for passing laws; we 
 are making such encroachments upon our own freedom 
 that I trust those of vou who remain here will do what 
 you can to postpone the day, now threatening to come 
 speedily, when a multiplicity of statutes shall mar the 
 fair image of our liberties. If we are to sacrifice our 
 freedom upon the altar of piled-up statutes, then it 
 will only be left for us to strive to attain some such 
 lofty but difficult refuge as that portraved in the lines 
 of a noble Greek poet, nobly rendered by Gilbert 
 Murray : — 
 
 43 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 "But the world with a great wind blows, 
 
 Blowing to beautiful things; 
 On amid dark and light, 
 
 Till life, through the trammelings 
 Of laws that are not the right, 
 
 Breaks clear and pure, and sings 
 Glorying to God in the height." 
 
 [Applause.] 
 
 When Mr. McCall retired from Congress the 
 Republican Party in Massachusetts was in a bad 
 way. It is not unusual for the Democrats to elect 
 their candidate for Governor, but he seldom ob- 
 tains a reelection, and until recently there has 
 been no instance of two Democratic Governors 
 in succession. But beginning in 1910, the Demo- 
 crats carried the governorship in five successive 
 elections and with two different candidates. Part 
 of their success could be attributed to the defec- 
 tion of the Progressives from the Republican 
 Party, but there were also other causes. As the 
 party went down to defeat year after year, it 
 grew disheartened and discouraged, and it be- 
 came evident that the strongest man in the ranks 
 must be drafted into service if the party was to 
 regain control of the State. Mr. McCall was 
 urged to accept the nomination. In 1 913 he re- 
 fused, but the next year, when the matter was 
 pressed upon him ao;ain, he agreed to accept pro- 
 vided the nomination came to him without a 
 
 44 
 
Chiefly Biographical 
 
 contest. In so doing he realized that he was 
 probably entering upon a losing fight. Indeed, 
 he was urged by many of his friends to announce 
 that he was a candidate for the nomination for 
 two vears. This, however, would have amounted 
 to a confession of defeat at the beginning of the 
 campaign and was not to be thought of. 
 
 The contest upon which Mr. McCall entered 
 in 1914 was a difficult one. His chief opponent 
 was the most popular Democrat who has ap- 
 peared in Massachusetts politics since the days 
 of Governor Russell. The breach with the Pro- 
 gressives had not vet healed and this deprived 
 the Republican candidate of much support which 
 he would otherwise have received. But Mr. Mc- 
 Call fought the campaign with vigor, and a few 
 davs before the election he predicted that he 
 would receive 200,000 votes. The returns showed 
 that he was onlv a few hundred votes in error. 
 While he was defeated, he had raised the Repub- 
 lican vote from 116,705 of the year previous to 
 198,627, and had attracted so many Progressives 
 back to the fold that the ultimate merging of 
 that partv with the Republicans was seen to be 
 imminent. This notable achievement made his 
 renomination in 191 5 natural and just. While 
 he was not accorded this honor without a con- 
 test, a reunited party was successful at the polls, 
 
 45 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 and the Republicans elected their Governor. 
 Mr. McCall received 235,843 votes, which was 
 the largest vote with a single exception ever cast 
 for a Governor in Massachusetts. The vote of 
 the Progressive Party was so small that it lost 
 its legal status as a party. When Mr. McCall 
 was inaugurated on January 6, 191 6, the Repub- 
 lican Party for the first time since 1909 found 
 itself in complete control of the Executive de- 
 partment of the State as well as of both branches 
 of the Legislature. 
 
 The accession of the new Governor brought 
 into office a man to whose training several sections 
 of the country had contributed. Born in Penn- 
 sylvania, he had passed his boyhood amidst the 
 prairies of northwestern Illinois, and then, con- 
 trary to the general current which carried men 
 westward, he had cast in his fortunes with Mas- 
 sachusetts, where his long career in the public 
 service had been fittingly recognized by his elec- 
 tion to the highest office in the Commonwealth. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 TWENTY YEARS OF LEGISLATION* 
 
 MR. McCALL took his seat in Congress 
 August 5, 1893, at the special session 
 called by President Cleveland for the repeal of 
 the Silver Purchase Act of 1890. This law had 
 not had its expected effect in maintaining the 
 price of silver. After a short rise, the price of sil- 
 ver bullion had steadily fallen. While the law 
 was in effect more than $ 140,000,000 of treasury 
 notes had been issued for the purchase of silver, 
 which lay uncoined in the vaults. Hundreds of 
 millions of greenbacks were in circulation, as well 
 as hundreds of millions of silver dollars, which 
 were worth inherently onlv a fraction ot their 
 nominal value. For the maintenance at par and 
 the redemption of all this money, there was a 
 gold reserve which, for the first time since 1879, 
 had fallen below 5 100,000,000. There was a gen- 
 eral distrust of the Government's ability to main- 
 tain the gold standard, and a financial panic en- 
 sued. President Cleveland summoned Con 1 
 and recommended as a measure of relief that the 
 Silver Purchase Act of 1890 be repealed. There 
 
 47 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 was much doubt as to whether this would be done. 
 In fact, if President Cleveland had to rely on the 
 votes of his own party, it was known that it could 
 not be accomplished. A majority of the Demo- 
 crats were already infected with those heresies 
 which were to lead the party to its downfall in 
 1896 and make it a negligible quantity for a 
 dozen years. But the situation was altogether too 
 serious for partisanship. The Republicans gave 
 the President the support which was denied him 
 by his own party, and the Silver Purchase Act 
 was repealed. In the Republican State Conven- 
 tion in Massachusetts in 1892, Mr. McCall, as 
 chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, had 
 brought in a resolution in favor of this action. He 
 was therefore committed to this course when he 
 took his seat in Congress, and his first speech 
 was in support of the recommendation of Presi- 
 dent Cleveland. He said: — 
 
 I agree entirely with the proposition advanced in this 
 House by most of the opponents of this bill, that the 
 question at issue is monometallism against bimetallism; 
 but I do not agree with those gentlemen as to which 
 side represents monometallism and which side represents 
 bimetallism. To my mind it is as clear as the sunshine 
 that a continuance of the policy of the Government in 
 purchasing 4,500,000 ounces of bullion each month, 
 or the free coinage of silver at any of the ratios in the 
 
 48 
 
Twenty Years of Legislation 
 
 amendments pending before this House, will result in 
 this country's becoming a monometallic and not a bi- 
 metallic country, and in our having as our standard of 
 value the amount of silver coined in the silver dollar. . . . 
 
 During the three years in which we have been upon 
 this policy our Treasury has parted with nearly $100,- 
 000,000 of its gold, and the reason it has not parted 
 with precisely the amount of gold that it has purchased 
 in silver is, in my judgment, due to the extraordinary 
 measures pursued by it during the last two years to keep 
 it. If we look at the matter from an international stand- 
 point we find this remarkable coincidence, that up to 
 July [,1893, we had purchased $140,500,000 of silver 
 bullion, and we had exported from this country $141,- 
 000,000 of gold. The effect of this policy then, I say, 
 is precisely what we might expect it would be — that 
 as we have parted with our gold we have piled up silver. 
 
 It will not require any very long time, it will not be 
 a very distant day when this Government, at this rate, 
 will have parted with so much of its gold that it will be 
 compelled to suspend gold payments, and the result will 
 thus inevitably be the expulsion of all our gold from cir- 
 culation, and the placing of the country upon a silver 
 standard. 
 
 And that is the essential question at issue here to- 
 day. What standard do we propose to maintain in this 
 country 3 What is our dollar? You might infer that a 
 "dollar" was simply a hat of the ( government, an um- 
 bra, a piece ^t that very intangible and unmcasurable 
 thing called the " faith of the Government." . . . 
 
 But there is this significant thing in the situation, this 
 
 49 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 extraordinary coincidence, that what we call our dollar 
 is worth precisely, and has been since the first day of 
 January, 1879, the amount of gold in the gold dollar. 
 That means simplv that we are upon a gold standard. 
 That means that the gold dollar is, in effect, the dol- 
 lar of ultimate redemption, and every one of our dollars, 
 whatever may be the intrinsic value of the material of 
 which it is made or upon which it is stamped, whether 
 it is worthless paper or whether it is silver, is worth pre- 
 cisely the value of the amount of gold in a gold dollar. 
 That results from the fact that this Government has 
 since 1879 declared its purpose to convert every kind 
 of its dollars into any other kind that any person may 
 desire. The consequence has been that so long as it 
 could maintain pavment upon the basis of the gold dol- 
 lar, which is the most expensive dollar, that would be 
 our standard of value. But when we see the gold flow- 
 ing from our Treasury we see that the Government is 
 appoaching the point where, although it may have the 
 willingness, it cannot have the ability to redeem its 
 promises, and when the time arrives then it will have 
 to go to the basis of the next most valuable dollar. . . . 
 
 He then points out that during the past twenty 
 years, many governments had ceased to coin sil- 
 ver and at the same time the world output of 
 that metal had increased. The inevitable result 
 was a fall in price. 
 
 I do not imagine that it is necessary here to repeat 
 any of the old classical arguments about the desirability 
 
 50 
 
Twenty Years of Li gisi \ i ion 
 
 of the gold standard as against the silver standard; and 
 I may say here that I take no stock whatever in the 
 exploded theory that we can have a double standard. 1 
 
 do not believe you can have any double standard of 
 value any more than you can have a double quart n 
 
 ure or a double pound weight. It seems to me that we 
 must adopt some standard in value; and while, from 
 the nature of the case, we cannot get anything that is 
 indexible, that will never rise or decrease in value, it is 
 our dutv to adopt that at least which will put us on 
 terms of equality with the other trading nations of the 
 world, and which will possess, in the highest degree 
 obtainable, the quality of stabilitv. 
 
 [f wc take the value of gold as compared with labor, 
 which I think is fairlv the unit of production, we shall 
 see that gold and labor during the last twenty \ ears 
 have maintained their relations to each other, and that 
 wages expressed in terms of gold are at least equal 
 to-day to what they were twenty years ago, if not 
 greater. . . . 
 
 There is another reason in favor of the gold stand- 
 ard besides the reason that it is the better Standard. 
 The gold standard is the existing standard in this coun- 
 try, and it should require some very potent reason to 
 justify us in changing that standard to another. . . . 
 
 long as tbis Government is able, and so long as 
 the people believe it able, to redeem all its money in 
 . people will be entirely controlled in the kind of 
 money they select by considerations of mere conven- 
 ience. Hut the moment the point is reached when 
 it appears that the Government may not be able to 
 
 5i 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 redeem all its money in gold, but that some holders of 
 its obligations will be obliged to take a less valuable 
 metal, then convenience gives place to fear; the bill 
 holder becomes timid ; and from the effect of this im- 
 pulse of fear there is a locking up of our money from 
 actual use. 
 
 I say, in conclusion, that if we want to maintain the 
 two metals in circulation here, if we want to maintain 
 the gold standard in this country, if we do not desire 
 to drive from our business every drop of the rich, red, 
 golden blood that vitalizes every civilized nation, if we 
 do not wish to continue this paralysis of business, and 
 subject our farmers to the system of exchange that is 
 chiefly responsible for the degradation and practical 
 slavery of the Indian peasant, we will have to repeal 
 the act of 1890 unconditionally. And while we may 
 not restore confidence in the minds of the people at one 
 blow, we will go very far towards remedying the de- 
 pression which has settled upon all of the industries of 
 the country. [Applause.] 
 
 There are few members of Congress whose 
 first speech in that body has attracted such wide 
 attention as did this. William Everett, a keen 
 critic, who was a member of the House at the 
 time, said in the discussion that Mr. McCall had 
 proved himself thoroughly worthy to speak for 
 the district in which Harvard College stood. 
 
 Manv vcars afterward Mr. McCall said of 
 President Cleveland's conduct on this occasion: 
 
 52 
 
Twenty Years of Legislation 
 
 Mr. Cleveland displayed a resolute courage in | 
 ing the measure, but he achieved a large measure of un- 
 popularity with his party, which was in favor of free 
 coinage as was afterward clearly shown. That hi> ef- 
 forts prevented the currency of the country from falling 
 speedily to the silver standard, there can be no doubt. 
 The contest was not finally won. Other battles remained 
 to be fought. But it would have been lost but for the 
 Silver Purchase repeal. And those who believe that in- 
 calculable damage would have come upon the country 
 by the depreciation of its currency, and its departure 
 from the established standard of the civilized world, will 
 hold in grateful remembrance the patriotic self-sacrifice 
 and the stern and heroic courage of Grovcr Cleveland. 
 
 Three years after the repeal of the Silver 
 Purchase Act came the Bryan campaign on a 
 free-silver platform. Mr. McCall carried the 
 war into that part of the country where the sen- 
 timent for free silver was strongest, and delivered 
 a series of addresses in Iowa, Nebraska, and Col- 
 orado, and on the Pacific slope. According to 
 the newspapers of the day his arguments made a 
 deep impression. 
 
 In [898 the money question again came be- 
 fore Congress, when the Senate passed a concur- 
 rent resolution to the effect that the bonds of the 
 United States were payable, at the option of the 
 ernment, in silver dollars containing 41 2.5 
 grains of standard silver, and that to restore to 
 
 53 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 its coinage such silver coins as a legal tender in 
 payment of the Government's bonds is " not a 
 violation of the public faith nor in derogation 
 of the rights of the public creditor." In the de- 
 bate on the resolution in the House, where it 
 was overwhelmingly rejected, Mr. McCall said: 
 
 In standing in opposition to this resolution, and also 
 in favor of the maintenance of the gold standard, the 
 Representatives from Massachusetts are not unmindful 
 of the history of the State they represent. They remem- 
 ber that during the war of the rebellion, when that State 
 might have paid the interest upon its bonds in a greatly 
 depreciated currency, it paid that interest in gold, and 
 as a result of its scrupulous honor within ten years we 
 have seen the bonds of that Commonwealth selling in 
 the public markets of this country, subject though they 
 were to taxation, above the untaxed bonds of the Na- 
 tional Government. 
 
 A high public credit is not merely ornamental, but it 
 is also in the highest degree useful. It both sustains and 
 decorates a nation. It gives it the means of equipping 
 armies, of building fleets, and of maintaining a struggle 
 for its national existence. The great Junius never ut- 
 tered a more brilliant epigram nor a greater truth than 
 when, speaking of the public credit of England, he said, 
 "Public credit is wealth; public honor is security. The 
 feather that adorns the royal bird supports its flight. 
 Strip it of its plumage and you fix it to the earth." [Ap- 
 plause on the Republican side.] 
 
 You arc in a business that is not onlv paltry and mis- 
 
 54 
 
Twenty Years of Legislation 
 
 erable, but disastrous as well, when you would utter 
 again this forgotten expression of the emotion of twenty 
 
 (rears ago to tarnish the fair fame of your country. 
 
 The repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase 
 Act was bv far the most important legislative 
 achievement of the first Congress in which Mr. 
 McCall served. Another measure bearing upon 
 the finances of the Government which was intro- 
 duced at this Congress was an act permitting the 
 States to tax the legal-tender notes of the Fed- 
 eral Government. It was doubtful whether Con- 
 gress had the constitutional right thus to place 
 the agencies of the Federal Government at the 
 mercv of the States, and, whether it had the 
 power or not, the wisdom of such a measure was 
 more than doubtful. In the debate on July 6, 
 1894, Mr. McCall said: — 
 
 Should the States or the lesser local governments of 
 this Union he permitted to tax the agencies and instru- 
 mentalities of the National Government? Should we 
 permit them to tax the ohligations of that Government, 
 which are usually employed hv it in emergencies to 
 raise money and to preserve its very existence ? The 
 power to tax is the very highest incident of sovereignty. 
 The power to tax involves the power to destroy. If 
 * r css can grant to the States the power to impose a 
 
 limited tax on our national obligations, it can grant them 
 the power of free and unrestricted taxation. It the 
 
 55 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 authority were granted to the States to tax the bonds 
 or the demand notes of the National Government, they 
 would be given the power, practically, to destroy these 
 obligations, and consequently the Government itself. . . . 
 
 The proposition of this bill is hostile to the public 
 credit. The Government, of course, will be able to bor- 
 row money more cheaply if its bonds are not subject to 
 taxation. But you say the greenback is not a bond ; it 
 is simply a demand note. The case is then stronger for 
 the non-taxing of the demand note. In the case of a 
 bond, the Government borrows money bv paying inter- 
 est. In the case of a greenback, it borrows money with- 
 out paying interest. The greenback was a forced loan 
 made in a grave emergency when the Government was 
 in danger of destruction in the time of war, and its value 
 was increased by the pledge of the Government, written 
 upon our statute books, that it should not be subject to 
 taxation. 
 
 I say that so far as the exemption from taxation is 
 concerned, the greenback is surrounded with more sa- 
 cred obligations than the bond, and if in any time of 
 war or disaster that may in the future fall upon this 
 country it should be necessary for it to make another 
 emergency loan and to ask the money of the people 
 without giving them any interest on their debt, it would 
 be vastly to the advantage of the Government if it 
 should religiously have observed every obligation with 
 reference to the greenback. . . . 
 
 You surrender a point vital to the sovereignty of this 
 nation when you subject its obligations to the tax- 
 gatherers of the States and municipalities. The fine 
 
 56 
 
Twi n rv Years of Legisla i ion 
 
 sentiment for the national honor and the national faith, 
 especially shown in the support of this very greenback, 
 
 ami which Stands to the immortal honor of the Repub- 
 lican parte, is apparently disregarded, and the Hag which 
 has so proudlv floated at the mast-head in every storm 
 of war is hauled down after the ship has reached the 
 peaceful port. 
 
 At this Congress Mr. McCall introduced a 
 bill providing for a commission to promote uni- 
 formity of state laws in matters of common in- 
 terest. The measure was defeated, however, be- 
 cause of the extreme adherence to the doctrine 
 of state rights on the part of the Democrats, 
 who controlled the House. 
 
 When Mr. McCall entered Congress the merit 
 system of appointment to office was still on the 
 defensive. Members did not hesitate openly to 
 Stigmatize its advocates as " foul-mouthed dema- 
 gogues" and ll Miss Nancys," while such high- 
 minded leaders as Carl Schurz and George Wil- 
 liam Curtis were even denounced as " traitors." 
 The merit svstem has become so well established 
 that invective such as this is now seldom heard 
 in Congress, even though the actual administra- 
 tion of the civil service still witnesses many re- 
 grettable lapses from the principles on which it 
 should be based. President Harrison showed his 
 faith in the principle of the merit system and his 
 
 57 
 
Samuel \V. McCall 
 
 sincere desire to make it effective by appoint- 
 ing to the office of Civil Service Commissioner 
 Theodore Roosevelt, who had taken an active 
 part in securing the establishment of the svstem. 
 Of his achievements in that office, Mr. McCall 
 said in 1894 : — 
 
 A great deal was said yesterday concerning the Civil 
 Service Commission, and a good deal more of Mr. 
 Roosevelt; but concerning that gentleman I noticed 
 that the charges were very general and very vague. It 
 was alleged against him that he was a Republican. I 
 regard that as a matter mutually complimentary to Mr. 
 Roosevelt and to the Republican Partv. But this I 
 think can be said, that no man has made any specific 
 issue with Mr. Roosevelt under this civil service law, 
 be he Republican or be he Democrat, who has cared to 
 repeat the experiment. I believe that from the founda- 
 tion of this Government to the present day there has 
 been no officer who has more zealously, more loyally, 
 and with a finer public spirit performed the duties of 
 his office than Theodore Roosevelt has performed the 
 duties of Civil Service Commissioner. [Applause on the 
 Republican side.] 
 
 In 1898, when the merit system was severely 
 attacked in the House, Mr. McCall made a 
 speech in which he entered into an elaborate ex- 
 amination of the principles upon which the civil 
 service is based and the practice of the govern- 
 ment since the days of Washington. 
 
 58 
 
Twenty Years of Legislation 
 
 I have listened with a good deal of astonishment to 
 the course of this debate. We have heard the old spoils 
 
 system proclaimed here in all its pristine and ori 
 corruption, and as vigorously as it was ever pronounced 
 or put in practice by Andrew Jackson. . . . The wide 
 range of the debate makes it necessary to revert not 
 merely to these early teachings, but to some ot the pri- 
 mary notions of popular government. When George 
 Washington was put at the head of the Government 
 there may have been factions, but there were no parties, 
 and it was one of the public sorrows of that great man that 
 he could not check the tendency, so certain and so irre- 
 sistible in popular government, to the formation of parties. 
 
 John Adams succeeded to the office and the political 
 views of George Washington, and the first appearance 
 of political parties in their full development was during 
 his term. Thomas Jefferson was elected President after 
 a contest as heated as any political contest we wage 
 to-day. His friends demanded to be recognized with 
 offices. They said that they had been excluded from the 
 government, and they demanded that the incumbents 
 of the offices should be removed and that they be put in 
 their places. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson wrote — and I commend this to 
 our Democratic friends who make him the patron saint 
 of their party — a letter to Dr. Rush about three weeks 
 after his inauguration, and he declared that his party 
 should come in for the vacancies that might occur un- 
 til something like an equilibrium between the parties 
 should be restored, but that he would not create va- 
 cancies for the purpose of filling them with his sup- 
 
 5 I 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 porters. "Of the thousands of officers, therefore," said 
 he, " in the United States, a very few individuals, prob- 
 ably not twenty, will be removed, and those only for 
 doing what they ought not to have done. I know that in 
 stopping thus short in the career of removals I shall give 
 great offense to many of my friends. That torrent will 
 be pressing me heavily, but my maxim is ' Fiat justitia, 
 ruat coelum.' " In his eight years of office he made only 
 thirty-nine removals. 
 
 In Madison's Administration there were but five 
 removals, in iMonroe's eight, and in John Quincy 
 Adams's two. So that during the first forty years of this 
 Government, of men holding office there were removed 
 only about sixty, all told, and a committee of this 
 House, which carefully investigated the facts, reported 
 that during these forty years not a single man was re- 
 moved from office on account of his political views. 
 Then Jackson came in. He had a verbal record upon 
 this question. No man had uttered more lofty declara- 
 tions against the evils of patronage than he. One of the 
 last things he did as Senator from Tennessee was to in- 
 troduce an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting 
 a second term to the President, in order to avoid the 
 misuse of the offices. He was finally elected after two 
 very warm contests. His passions were aroused. He 
 was a man who believed a political enemy was a per- 
 sonal foe. He had plenty of bad and interested advisers, 
 although his hot zeal needed no kindling. He made in- 
 discriminate removals and looted the public service in a 
 way that has made him the envy and despair of every 
 spoilsman from that day to this. 
 
 60 
 
Twenty Years of Legislation 
 
 His course was condemned by the greatest and pur- 
 est statesmen of both parties living at that time. Henry 
 
 Clay condemned it. He said that course followed out 
 would destroy popular government and establish a des- 
 potism. Daniel Webster condemned it. Calhoun con- 
 demned it, and it w.:s not supported by any prominent 
 man who is to-day known as a statesman. 
 
 Jackson's doctrine was as forcibly stated by Swart- 
 wout, of New York, as by Marcv. He declared soon 
 after Jackson was elected that " no damned rascal who 
 tried to keep Adams in and Jackson out was entitled to 
 the least mercy from that Administration save that of 
 hanging." Swartwout well illustrated in his own person 
 the new system then inaugurated. He was made col- 
 lector of the port of New York and promptly proceeded 
 to make way not only with his own salary, but with the 
 public money of the Government. 
 
 The proscription put in practice by Jackson invited 
 counter proscription from the other party, so that as the 
 Administrations alternated from that time until the time 
 of the Civil War, each Administration tried to get even 
 with the one that had preceded it. Ami vet an attempt 
 was made by some Administrations to do away with the 
 spoils system. . . . 
 
 Let us, then, get the spirit of our own historw Omit- 
 ting the terms of Lincoln and Johnson, when tin- 
 upheaval of the Civil War ami the stupendous problems 
 which followed it rendered a thought of this reform out 
 of the question, we find the spirit of our first forty 
 years against the spoils idea, and the last thirty years 
 characterized by an earnest effort on the part of all 
 
 61 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 parties to return to the earlier and better practices of 
 the fathers of the Constitution. 
 
 So, I ask you which example is the more command- 
 ing — that of Washington and Jefferson and Adams and 
 Madison, of Grant and Garfield and Hayes and Mc- 
 Kinley, illustrating and adorning seventy years of our 
 national life, or the proscription of Jackson, followed 
 by the counter proscription of his successors, covering 
 only thirty years of our existence and denounced by the 
 greatest statesmen of that era ? 
 
 He fortified his argument by appealing to the 
 experience of England, where, after a long fight 
 under the leadership of such men as John Bright 
 and Gladstone, the public service was opened to 
 all classes in the community and any man might 
 aspire to any post for which he was qualified. 
 The argument in favor of the merit system was 
 concisely stated and both parties were urged to 
 join in support of these principles which would 
 do so much to purify public life. 
 
 I will enumerate a few of the advantages of civil 
 service reform. In the first place it will secure a more 
 efficient and economical public service. In the next 
 place, it gives to all who desire to enter the service an 
 equal opportunity through the open door of merit and 
 takes away from the privileged few the power to pay 
 their political debts with places in the people's service. 
 It learns the power of bossism and favoritism, already 
 62 
 
Twenty Years of Legislation 
 
 too Strong in this country. It dries up most fruitful 
 
 sources of angry political cOntentioi 
 
 It takes away from Congressmen executive powers 
 which they have so long usurped and gives to them the 
 
 time to perform the duties which are theirs under the 
 Constitution and which they were elected to disch 
 It preserves the independence of the legislative branch 
 of the Government, which is destroyed if members of 
 Congress are continually going to the White House 
 and importuning the President for offices. I can show 
 you more than one instance where appointments have 
 been made for the purpose of pushing legislation 
 through the two Houses of Congress. And then it 
 secures to popular elections their real dignity and value, 
 by enabling the people to express their will in the 
 choice of political officers free from the corrupting 
 influence of hundreds of thousands of placemen on the 
 one hand and hundreds of thousands of place hunters 
 on the other. 
 
 This is a question in which both sides of the House, 
 aye, the whole American people, are interested. The 
 Democrats believe that they have vital principles, and 
 that if the people can fairlv pa^s upon them they will 
 pronounce in their favor, and that those policies and 
 principles will be put in force for the benefit of the 
 countrv. We believe also in the policies and principles 
 which we advocate on this side. Let us then join hands 
 and take away the corrupting influence of these thou- 
 sands of nonpolitical offices, and then the policies which 
 you represent and the policies which we represent can 
 be submitted in the great constitutional forum and can 
 
 63 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 be decided by a free and unbought expression of the will 
 of the American people. [Loud applause on the Repub- 
 lican side.] 
 
 A subject of the first importance to the com- 
 mercial world is the law governing bankruptcy. 
 The Constitution vests in Congress the power to 
 enact a uniform rule on the subject, but during 
 most of our history, its regulation has been 
 left to the States. From 1800 to 1803, from 
 1 841 to 1 843, and again from 1867 to 1878 stat- 
 utes in exercise of the power of Congress were 
 in force, but in nothing has the jealousy of na- 
 tional authority been manifested more strongly 
 than in opposition to the attempts to place bank- 
 ruptcy under the control of a Federal law. The 
 insolvency laws of the several States are neces- 
 sarily limited in their operation to those transac- 
 tions over which the States enacting them have 
 jurisdiction, and it must furthermore be said that 
 many of them were framed with little regard to 
 the just rights of creditors. In 1898, when the 
 Bankruptcy Act which is now in force was pend- 
 ing in Congress, Mr. McCall said: — 
 
 To-dav New York and Charleston, Baltimore and 
 New Orleans, are nearer together than, at the time of 
 the framing of the Constitution, Boston was to Salem 
 or to Providence. The telegraph, the telephone, and 
 
 64 
 
Twenty Years of Legislation 
 
 the frequent fast-flying mails have almost annihilated 
 
 distance, and our nearly 180,000 miles of railroad en- 
 able us now, in an incredibly short space of time, to 
 transfer from one State to another great masses of 
 freight and merchandise which one hundred years ago 
 were as immovable as mountains. The marvelous instru- 
 mentalities of modern commerce, undreamed of one 
 hundred vears ago, have compelled us to become com- 
 mercially one people. State lines are eliminated. The 
 merchant in New York makes a trade, in his own office 
 and within a minute of time, with the merchant in 
 Chicago, and it becomes absolutely necessary for us to 
 exercise this great power entrusted to us, this great duty 
 enjoined on us, the performance and exercise of which 
 have become so vital to the proper regulation of com- 
 merce and trade. . . . 
 
 We have to-day a vast number of men in this coun- 
 try who are hopelessly in debt. This bill will set them 
 upon their feet. It will also provide a rule for the future, 
 so that the merchant will more readily send his mer- 
 chandise across state lines. He will be willing to run the 
 chances of mismanagement or misfortune of his debtor 
 when he would not, in addition to that risk, run the 
 chances of rascalitv and the preferences that might be 
 secured under local laws, or, if he did, he would charge 
 for it. Business is done with reference to all the risks 
 to which it is subject. If there is an extra risk by rea- 
 son of the lack of just remedies, that risk is added to 
 the price of the goods; it is paid in the end by the con- 
 sumer, so that in the last analysis the cost of rascality 
 is borne by the people. . . . 
 
 65 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 The time has come for us to lift a heavy millstone 
 from the neck of industry ; to bid the hundreds of thou- 
 sands of our financially maimed and crippled fellow 
 citizens to get upon their feet and walk, and to provide 
 an open highway over which the overburdened debtor 
 of to-day and of the future may walk from the land of 
 hopeless struggle and financial bondage into a position 
 of freedom. 
 
 Congress has many times discussed the subject 
 of subsidies for American shipping, either for the 
 purpose of building up the American merchant 
 marine or for facilitating commercial relations 
 with other countries by providing adequate mail 
 service. The latter consideration is one of special 
 importance, and when a measure designed to as- 
 sist the establishment of mail routes to South 
 America was before the House, in 1907, Mr. 
 McCall said: — 
 
 The academic speeches which have been made about 
 subsidy are very interesting, and I agree with them on 
 general principles, but they do not deal at all with the 
 question involved in establishing these South American 
 lines. It is a power prescribed bv the Constitution to 
 establish mail routes. That is a governmental power, 
 and if it is " subsidy " to carrv our mails to South 
 America in the first instance at more than the Govern- 
 ment receives tor postage, then why was it not "sub- 
 sidy" when the Government established and maintained 
 hundreds of routes in advance of civilization, for the 
 66 
 
Twenty Years of Legislation 
 
 development of the country, until the time came when 
 the postage received from the routes would pay tor tlu-ir 
 maintenance? It' this is "subsidy" then it is gross "sub- 
 
 sulv " to maintain the rural free delivery, which absorbs 
 all the postage received from the routes and at least 
 $10,000,000 more each \ ear. So I assert that the ob- 
 jection of subsidy cannot be raised to this proposition. 
 The question simply is: Is it in accord with a sound 
 public policy to establish these South American routes 
 — and that is the particular part of the bill to which I 
 am now speaking — and is the compensation reasonable? 
 
 We are not so insular and contracted, Mr. Chair- 
 man, that we will establish liberal mail facilities where 
 the letter starts in the United States and its destination 
 is in the United States, and yet will deny our people the 
 same liberal treatment when they desire to trade or to 
 communicate with the people of other lands. The inter- 
 national mail system rests upon the same high public 
 ground as the domestic mail system, with this in addi- 
 tion, that the former is in the interest iA' peace, that it 
 will tend to bind the people of the different nations to- 
 gether ami create a community of interest which is a 
 powerful influence against war; and in that view it sub- 
 serves a hiuh purpose which is not especially subserved 
 bv the service in the United States. 
 
 'There may be some incidental benefit connected with 
 establishing these mail routes, but I do not think gentle- 
 men should shudder and be greatly alarmed lest as a 
 result of this policy a few ships should be built in Ameri- 
 can shipyards. The total cost of all the fleets established 
 bv th:s bill will probably not exceed two battleships. 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 This is not a very munificent provision for the ship- 
 building industrv. From the standpoint of peace, these 
 couriers of peace traversing the ocean will be a more 
 powerful agency against war than the two battleships 
 would be. 
 
 Another measure of a somewhat prosaic de- 
 scription, but which will do a great deal to en- 
 hance the efficiency of the House as a legislative 
 body, owes its origin and adoption to Mr. McCall. 
 This is the bill for rearranging the hall of the 
 House. The chamber in which the House sits is 
 altogether too large to serve as the meeting-place 
 of a deliberative assembly. Since the members 
 can hear very little of what is being said, noise 
 and confusion result, and only a few members of 
 stentorian lung power possess the physical abil- 
 ity to transmit their thoughts to their colleagues. 
 This has a bad effect on debate. " It is hard," said 
 Lord Bryce, " to talk hard good sense at the top 
 of your voice." The act introduced by Mr. Mc- 
 Call provides that the desks for members shall 
 be removed, and that the area of the chamber 
 shall be greatly reduced. The carrying-out of 
 these alterations will make the sessions of the 
 House seem less like an open-air meeting;, and 
 will enable the members to make themselves 
 heard by their colleagues. 
 
 In 1 91 2 Mr. McCall introduced into Con- 
 68 
 
Twenty Years of Legislation 
 
 gress a proposal to amend the Constitution by 
 conferring upon Congress the power to puss uni- 
 form laws regulating the hours of labor. The 
 comment upon this suggestion showed how easily 
 a public man's utterances may be turned against 
 him and his motives misconstrued. Many news- 
 papers pretended to believe that Mr. McCall 
 had been converted from a conservative into a 
 radical, and that he was now abandoning his ad- 
 vocacy of the reserved rights of the States in favor 
 of a centralized government in Washington. But 
 a study of Mr. McCall's arguments upon the 
 Constitution and the necessity of observing its 
 provisions discloses nothing to indicate that he 
 thought the Constitution was an unchanging and 
 unchangeable instrument. His argument simply 
 was that when the need for change became ap- 
 parent, the change should be made by a straight- 
 forward amendment and not by a forced and 
 twisted construction. He was convinced that 
 manufacturers in States where the hours of labor 
 and the conditions of work are prescribed by law- 
 could not compete upon an equality with manu- 
 facturers in States which had no such regula- 
 tions. 
 
 The obvious remedy is to confer authority upon 
 the national legislature to deal with a subject which 
 is of national importance. The advocacy of such 
 
 69 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 an amendment was in no way inconsistent with 
 his insistence upon the recognition of the re- 
 served rights of the States. 
 
 One of the most important subjects that have 
 come before Congress since the Civil War is the 
 regulation of interstate transportation. The inti- 
 mate relation that exists between industry and 
 transportation, and the control which great rail- 
 way systems exert over the fortunes not only of 
 individuals and corporations but ot cities and 
 States make the question of the regulation of 
 transportation agencies one of profound interest 
 to every part of the country. Unfortunately the 
 field is a rich one for the demagogue. Baiting 
 the railways has been a popular sport in many 
 localities, and one who ventured to question the 
 wisdom of every fresh twist of the thumb-screw 
 and to ask for the same degree of justice for the 
 owners of the railways which is extended to other 
 forms of property invited denunciation as a tool 
 of the interests and an enemy of the people. Un- 
 doubtedly there were evils in railway management 
 which demanded correction, and even it no evil 
 could be shown it is doubtful if it was in the pub- 
 lic interest to allow the prosperity of individuals 
 and of communities to be at the mercy of groups 
 of men who were not under public control. Rail- 
 way regulation is necessary and proper, but this 
 70 
 
Twenty Years oe Legislation 
 
 is far from savins; that every measure introduced 
 for that purpose should be adopted. 
 
 Mr. McCall was opposed to trenching too far 
 upon the management of privately owned rail- 
 ways, because such a policy would tend to bring 
 about government ownership. As to this he said 
 in 1905: — 
 
 The ownership of transportation lines would give the 
 National Government the ready means to usurp the 
 insignificant powers remaining to the States. One party 
 would demand that the railroads should not be operated 
 on Sundays, another party would contend that the Gov- 
 ernment should not transport intoxicating liquors, still 
 another would claim that veterans or other classes should 
 ride free, and others would urge that men engaged in 
 kinds of business at the time obnoxious should not be 
 permitted to ride at all, and you would enter upon an 
 era of extravagance, of favoritism, and of centralization 
 of power at Washington which would be subversive of 
 our Government or would radically change its char- 
 acter. Take off the lid from this Pandora's box and you 
 will see everything escape except hope. 
 
 The great purpose of the Interstate Commerce 
 Act of 1887 was the prevention of discrimination 
 between individuals and localities. There has 
 never been much complaint in any part ot the 
 United States that rates were too high. That 
 question has seldom been raised except when an 
 
 7" 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 advance in rates was suggested. But discrimina- 
 tion has been a real evil, very difficult to detect 
 and to abolish. By rebates, by secret rates varying 
 from the published rates, by industrial switches, 
 private cars, refrigerator cars and numerous 
 other devices, one shipper was given a preference 
 over another. As the act of 1887 proved insuffi- 
 cient to meet the evil, the Elkins law of 1903 
 was passed, but for some years no serious attempt 
 was made to enforce it. In his message of 1904, 
 President Roosevelt discussed rebates and dis- 
 criminations, and proposed as a remedy that the 
 Interstate Commerce Commission be empowered 
 to fix rates. Just why it would be any more diffi- 
 cult for a railway to grant a rebate on a rate fixed 
 by the Commission than on a rate fixed by itself 
 was not made apparent. 
 
 In 1906 Congress enacted the Hepburn Act 
 by which authority to fix rates was vested in the 
 Interstate Commerce Commission. Mr. McCall 
 had supported the Elkins Act of 1903, and had 
 advocated that the Commerce Commission be 
 made a prosecuting body with ample funds at its 
 disposal for the purpose of carrying" before the 
 courts in a summary fashion any rates which after 
 investigation it believes to be unjust, unreason- 
 able, or unequal." Let the number of judges be 
 enlarged sufficiently to obtain speedy decisions, 
 
 72 
 
Twenty Years of Legislation 
 
 and then trust to the orderly proceedings of the 
 courts to determine the rights involved. But he 
 
 was opposed to the Hepburn Act. Not only 
 did he think that the remedies which it pro- 
 vided were not adapted to the removal of the 
 evils at which they were directed, but that the 
 bill involved a dangerous concentration of power 
 in the National Government. We have often 
 heard lately of " the little father at Washing- 
 ton." He first made his appearance in Mr. 
 McCall's speech of February 7, 1905: — 
 
 The enormous concentration and pressure of power 
 involved in the attempt to have the National Govern- 
 ment run our railroads, and, as a result, those great 
 engines that produce the articles of interstate com- 
 merce, would he to engender here a heated center of 
 despotism destructive of the last appearance of indi- 
 vidual freedom. Liberty is onlv compatible in this 
 country with keeping the management of their ariairs 
 near to the people, where thev can see how they are 
 conducted. Distant as they are from Washington, they 
 get merely the stage effects, and the actor who is set 
 down to play all the virtuous parts in the play may be 
 in fact the real villain. A system like ours, with the 
 functions of government distributed among different 
 organs and localities, is tolerant in the h i 51 h 
 of freedom, and the unshackled liberty of millioi 
 men employing with the least restraint the faculties 
 God has given them is what has produced our marvel- 
 
 73 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 ous development. . . I do not care to see created at 
 Washington a "little father" as there is one at St. 
 Petersburg. For my part I prefer the American system 
 of distributed power, with as much as possible left to 
 the individual, rather than the Russian system of cen- 
 tralized power. 
 
 In his speech in opposition to the Hepburn 
 Act, which was one of his most learned speeches 
 and showed a wide acquaintance with the prac- 
 tices of other countries as well as an intimate 
 knowledge of the technicalities of rate-making, 
 Mr. McCall said: — 
 
 So far as favoritism is concerned, in every one of 
 its forms I am opposed to it. I would have vou enact 
 against it the most drastic law which ingenuitv could 
 devise. And I would have the right of every man to a 
 just, reasonable, and equal rate taken to the courts at 
 the expense of the Government, in the first instance, 
 and ultimately of the railroads, if they were held to be 
 in the wrong, under every effective species of remedy, 
 taken to that forum where Anglo-Saxon freedom has won 
 its noblest triumphs. For my part I prefer the natural 
 and beneficent liberty of the courts to the cast-iron reg- 
 ulations of a commission. 1 would encourage proceed- 
 ings such as that in Scotland, which for a differential 
 given in good faith, took from a railroad company in 
 damages and costs about £700,000. 
 
 After examining the economic arguments ad- 
 vanced in support of the bill, Mr. McCall con- 
 74 
 
Twenty Years of Legislation 
 
 eluded his great speech bv inquiring what effect 
 such a law must have upon our system of con- 
 stitutional liberty : — 
 
 We pass laws here with an casv optimism and a 
 profound faith that, so great arc the American people, 
 their prosperity is proof even against vicious govern- 
 ment. And so the two great parties, in playing the 
 game of politics, sometimes vie with each other in 
 pandering to the popular passion of the hour, and 
 court the roar of the galleries rather than history's ap- 
 proved voice. Undoubtedly the splendid strength and 
 youth of the American people are well-nigh uncon- 
 querable, but no state was ever vet so great that a per- 
 sistence in evil courses could not lay it low. We may 
 presume too far. If we are guilty of reckless and im- 
 pulsive action here we may wreck the nation. It you 
 will pardon an old fable: As the boy Phaeton, driving 
 the horses of the sun, but lacking Apollo's darting 
 glance and unerring touch of rein, did not follow the 
 safe middle course, and thus wrought havoc to both 
 the earth ami skv ; so bv impulse and unsteadiness in 
 driving this Washington chariot of ours, now steering 
 too high and now too low, we may put our American 
 constellations to flight, dry up the courses of our iron 
 river-., and make of our fertile prairies the sands of 
 another Libya. [Applause.] 
 
 Mr. McCall was one of the seven members of 
 the House who voted aoainst the Hepburn Act. 
 He prophesied that its enactment would have an 
 
 75 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 unfavorable effect upon the business of the rail- 
 ways and would lead to an increase in their rates. 
 Within little more than a year of its passage, 
 the country had one of the most acute financial 
 panics that it has ever experienced. Railway rates 
 have increased, while confidence in railway invest- 
 ments has so diminished as to check very ma- 
 terially the construction of new roads, and the 
 necessary expansion of existing roads and their 
 efficient operation in the public interest. The 
 number of miles of railway which have gone 
 into the hands of receivers since the enactment 
 of the Hepburn Act is perhaps not altogether 
 unconnected with the provisions of that law. 
 
 While the debate on the Hepburn Act was 
 still fresh in the public mind, Mr. McCall came 
 up for reelection. The following letter from one 
 of the most acute thinkers in the country is 
 weighty evidence of the place then occupied by 
 Mr. McCall in American public life: — 
 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
 November i, 1906. 
 
 Hon. David T. Dickinson, 
 Cambridge^ Mass. 
 
 Dear Mr. Dickinson: — In these days, when the 
 Democratic Party has no firm hold on any stable politi- 
 cal principles and tends in many parts of the country 
 to nominate erratic demagogues as candidates for high 
 76 
 
Twenty Years of Legislation 
 
 positions, a courageous, independent, conservative, forci- 
 ble thinker ami speaker like Mr. McCall renders a great 
 service to the dominant part}- and the country by sup- 
 plying in some measure the empty place of a vigorous 
 opposition. It has been a great satisfaction to me for 
 some years past to help return Mr. McCall to Con- 
 gress, and I hope to continue to enjoy that satisfaction 
 so long as I live. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Charles W. Eliot. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 
 
 IT has sometimes been urged as a reproach 
 upon American public life that all discussion 
 of proposed legislation degenerates into a debate 
 as to constitutional power. The merits of meas- 
 ures, it is alleged, are quite obscured by arguments 
 as to the authority of the legislature to enact them. 
 There is undoubtedly considerable reason tor 
 this criticism. Seldom, indeed, is any contentious 
 measure enacted by Congress or by any state 
 legislature which is not at some stage denounced 
 as unconstitutional. When the opposition finds 
 itself bereft of all other arguments, it falls back 
 upon the final plea that the proposed legislation 
 is in violation of the fundamental law. How- 
 ever objectionable such a practice may be, it 
 has some undoubted compensations. This plea 
 keeps constantly before the people the nature of 
 their system of government, and familiarizes them, 
 to a greater degree than is true of the people of 
 any other country, with the chief concepts of their 
 system of public law. The value of such discus- 
 sions in the political education of the people is 
 
 78 
 
Constitutional Ques riONS 
 
 enormous, and their influence in preserving the 
 limitations of the Constitution is incalculable. 
 
 Mr. McCall's speeches and writings show that 
 he has been a thoughtful student of political phi- 
 losophy, and that he is familiar, not only with 
 the working, but with the underlying principles, 
 of the chief systems of government of both ancient 
 and modern times. He is impressed with the 
 soundness of the principles upon which the Ameri- 
 can Constitution is based and with the necessity 
 of their faithful observance. This does not mean 
 that he regards the framework of our Government 
 as perfect and incapable of improvement. He has 
 voted for such changes as the election of United 
 States Senators by popular vote, and he intro- 
 duced into the the House a bill for amending 
 the Constitution by vesting Congress with the 
 power to regulate hours of labor throughout the 
 United States. Such changes as these are, how- 
 ever, mere details. They do not affect the fun- 
 damentals of the constitutional system by which 
 the American people are endeavoring to solve 
 the problem of reconciling liberty and law, and 
 of preserving unity without that uniformity u hich 
 tends to aristocracy and tyranny. The instru- 
 mentality by which we are endeavoring to attain 
 these results is a written constitution which sets 
 bounds to the authority of the governmental 
 
 79 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 agents whom the people select. This can be effec- 
 tive only in so far as its provisions are regarded. 
 Mr. McCall might have taken as the basis of 
 his constitutional discussions Chief Justice Mar- 
 shall's query, " To what purpose are powers lim- 
 ited and to what purpose is that limitation com- 
 mitted to writing, if these limits may, at any time, 
 be passed by those intended to be restrained ? " 
 
 It was while Mr. McCall was in Congress that 
 the strongest effort known in the history of the 
 country was made to magnify the authoritv of 
 the Federal Government at the expense of the 
 States. Officials who were anxious to " do things " 
 plainly showed their impatience under the re- 
 straints imposed by the Constitution. Responsi- 
 ble statesmen in public speech warned the States 
 that if they failed in the performance of their duty, 
 "constructions" of the Constitution would be 
 " found " which would vest the necessary author- 
 ity in the Federal Government. It was a danger- 
 ous period in American history — all the more 
 dangerous because the objects which those in 
 authority sought to accomplish were in general 
 so praiseworthy, and because the people were so 
 impressed by what they would gain as to be 
 almost oblivious to what they would lose. It was 
 a time for recourse to fundamental principles, and 
 for a testing o( the new statesmanship by an 
 80 
 
Constitutional Questions 
 
 application of the political philosophy upon which 
 the American Government was founded. 
 
 On Lincoln's birthday, 1907, Mr. McCall 
 delivered an address before the Republican Club 
 of New York City on " The Importance of pre- 
 serving the Constitutional Balance between the 
 Federal Government and the States." The ad- 
 dress attracted wide attention and the House of 
 Representatives ordered it printed in the " Con- 
 gressional Record." It was one of Mr. McCall's 
 most thoughtful speeches, and would rank high 
 in comparison with any discussion of the funda- 
 mental principles of the Constitution. The an- 
 niversary upon which he was speaking naturally 
 surr^ested Lincoln's attitude toward the States. 
 
 Lincoln might easily be pardoned if the consuming 
 work to which he devoted his life had produced in his 
 mind an undue regard for the National as against the 
 State Governments and a willingness to see the balance 
 established by the Constitution destroyed. Hut while 
 he was compelled to employ every power in the great 
 conflict of arms, in the presence of which the Consti- 
 tution and all other laws were silent, he was in the 
 highest degree conservative of the State Governments. 
 His speeches before the war show his regard for the 
 States, but it is more significantly proven by the policy 
 he had determined upon near the end of his life, a 
 policv which rejected the u conquered-province " theory 
 of the status of the seceding States, and presented a 
 
 81 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 plan so mild, so constitutional, and so opposed to the 
 radicalism of the moment that his successor was over- 
 thrown for attempting to put it in force. 
 
 What, then, is the system of government that Lincoln 
 stood for and that emerged victorious from the Civil 
 War? It is a dual system, under a Constitution which 
 as distinctly reserved powers to the States and the peo- 
 ple as it granted others to the National Government. 
 It was thus presented by the Supreme Court after the 
 war, and in the light of the consequences of that 
 struggle : " it may not be unreasonablv said that the 
 preservation of the States and the maintenance of their 
 governments are as much within the design and care 
 of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union 
 and the maintenance of the National Government. The 
 Constitution in all its provisions looks to an indestruct- 
 ible union composed of indestructible States." Nulli- 
 fication by States of the action of the National Gov- 
 ernment would be entirely repugnant to this svstem, 
 but no more repugnant than usurpation by the Na- 
 tional Government of the powers reserved to the 
 States. Either would be, in substance, precisely what 
 South Carolina tried to do and would be destructive of 
 our constitutional system. If the forces of disunion, 
 the centrifugal forces, were permitted to have sway, 
 the States would fly from their orbits and cease to re- 
 volve about the Central Government. On the other 
 hand, if the centripetal forces were given unchecked 
 domination the powers of the States would be drawn 
 by attraction of gravitation to the central authority, 
 they would become the mere shadows of governments 
 
 82 
 
Constitutional Questions 
 
 and a powerful central despotism would be the result. 
 Whether you may favor the one system or the other 
 it is enough to sav that neither one is the balanced 
 system established by the American Constitution. 
 
 Advocates of the new nationalism, to be sure, 
 proposed to limit the expansion of Federal au- 
 thority to "fields of necessary control." 
 
 But who is to decide, in the first instance, what are 
 "fields of necessary control " ? Obviously the gentle- 
 men who wish to exercise the control. . . . And a 
 given field of "necessary control" having been taken 
 possession of by the National Government, a construc- 
 tion will be found to keep it under control. This 
 theory, it is needless to say, would erect usurpation 
 into a constitutional system. . . . 
 
 Mr. McCall then attacked the fundamental 
 assumption of the argument for the expansion 
 of the Federal authority by construction by show- 
 ing that the charge of inefficiency brought against 
 the State Governments, as compared with the 
 Federal Government, was not warranted by the 
 facts. The Federal Government has been cred- 
 ited with an "imagined perfection" which it 
 does not possess. " The railroads," he said, 
 " have been built almost entirely through state 
 agencies. But one railroad, the Union Pacific, 
 was constructed under national control, and the 
 Credit Mobilier and other scandals associated 
 
 83 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 with it almost shook the Government to its 
 base." In the District of Columbia, where the 
 national authority has full sway, the corporation 
 laws "would make a New Jerseyman blush." 
 
 In any consideration of the relation between 
 the Federal Government and the States, the vast 
 size of the country and the diversity of interests 
 of its several sections must be remembered. 
 
 It is a slow process to develop a homogeneous public 
 opinion in so populous and scattered a people. Diversity 
 of interests will develop diversity of opinions in differ- 
 ent groups of States. These diverse and conflicting in- 
 terests will often bring into play forces that neutralize 
 each other and prevent all national action. Or in cases 
 where a uniform sentiment is aroused the impetus of 
 so great a body of opinion is overwhelming, reason 
 loses its force, and the most extreme course is liable to 
 be taken. The failure of the effort to retire in times of 
 peace the forced loan of the Government put out in war 
 and the many compromises regarding silver illustrate 
 the balancing of forces, while Reconstruction, which 
 resulted from an unmistakable, widespread, and uncon- 
 trollable public opinion, illustrates unreasonable and 
 extreme action. Reconstruction was pressed thi 
 by patriots and statesmen at Washington, acting in ig- 
 norance of local conditions, and it produced a condi- 
 tion of things which made it necessary for the people 
 of the States affected to resort to violence and fraud in 
 order to save civilization. Burke says repeal is more 
 blessed than enactment j but when a law once finds its 
 
 84 
 
Constitutional Questions 
 
 WZJ upon our national statute books, it requires almost 
 a revolution to repeal it. Witness so necessary a meas- 
 ure as the silver repeal, which Cleveland was able to 
 secure only through the disruption of his party. 
 
 The political philosophy underlying the Amer- 
 ican constitutional system was thus expounded : — 
 
 The founders of our Government were jealous of 
 power. They aimed to secure liberty — first, by pro- 
 tecting the individual against the encroachments of gov- 
 ernment, and second, by retaining the maximum of 
 governmental powers in those governmental organs near 
 to the people. They knew that mankind had suffered 
 quite as greatly from too much as from too little gov- 
 ernment and that uncounted millions of men had 
 groaned under its persecutions and exactings; that gov- 
 ernments were very apt to be conducted for the benefit 
 of those, or of the favorites of those, who wielded them, 
 and that the creation of an enormous central engine of 
 authority would be subversive of individual freedom. 
 They knew that bad men, honest and fanatical men, 
 had often secured control of governments and had made 
 of them scourges more deadly than the earthquake or 
 the pestilence. And their jealousv of unrestrained power 
 was as justifiable as it was profound. 
 
 Francis Lieber has said that we do not enjoy liberty 
 by grace of government, but bv limitations upon its 
 powers. This is precisely the theorv upon which our 
 rnment was founded. Freedom inhered in the in- 
 dividual, and powers not granted were expressly re- 
 served. And the proposition to take them away by 
 
 8 5 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 "construction" in any supposed emergency is only a 
 part of the unending conflict between autocracy and 
 liberty. 
 
 The cautious grant of powers to the Central Gov- 
 ernment, the express limitations imposed upon them, 
 the reservation of other important powers to the sub- 
 ordinate governments with limitations again, made of 
 our Constitution by far the most tolerant of liberty of 
 any system ever established. The States are ideally 
 constituted to deal with the great mass of questions 
 relating to personal government. They do not possess 
 the war power. They can have no foreign policies, and 
 the most important cause of governmental infatuation 
 and of dangerous ambition is thus taken away. They 
 conduct their operations under the very eyes of the 
 people, and there is far less temptation to theatric gov- 
 ernment than where actors are performing to very large 
 and very distant galleries and in order to thrill them 
 are compelled to make up too heavily to impose upon 
 nearer spectators. They deal especially with the hum- 
 drum but vital concerns of everyday life, and, by an 
 apportionment of their powers among towns and coun- 
 ties, the people not only have an opportunity of know- 
 ing how government is conducted, but they have an 
 opportunity to engage in it. They feel a practical re- 
 sponsibility for it, see that its affairs are really their 
 own, and instead of being like the political upholsterer 
 of Addison, who was taken up with the concerns of 
 the king of Sweden or some other distant monarch 
 while he neglected his own, they acquire a practical 
 and vital interest in it and deal with it through their 
 
 86 
 
Constitutional Questions 
 
 senses and reason instead of their imagination. We thus 
 sec our system of government springing from a broad 
 base and extending by a gradual and easy slope to the 
 summit of power which rests as lightly as docs the top- 
 most point of a pyramid upon the mass beneath. How 
 much better this than a jutting and overhanging mass 
 of power at the very top, oppressing the people below 
 with its intolerable weight until, in the providence of 
 God, it topples over. 
 
 In the effort to enlarge the functions of the 
 Federal Government, the achievements of the 
 States and particularly the accomplishment of 
 individuals were belittled and overlooked. In 
 the struggle of mankind toward better things, it 
 is the individual rather than government who 
 has usually been responsible tor the advance. 
 The best service that government can render is 
 that of protection to the individual while he 
 works out the problems of the race. 
 
 The individual citizen has not done badly. What 
 reason is there for the deification of the Federal office- 
 holder r Our contributions to astronomy have been 
 made, not by the magnificent Government instruments 
 at Georgetown, but by the private and often humble 
 institutions of the country. The effect of drugs upon 
 the human system has been disclosed, not by the chief 
 of the poison squad of the Department of Agriculture, 
 ostentatiously trumpeting information already known 
 to every sophomore in medicine, but bv research carried 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 on in a hundred schools. Our marvelous inventions 
 and all our other gifts to civilization have come from the 
 splendid body of our private citizenship, containing 
 uncounted men fitted to honor our highest offices. And 
 as our chief source of greatness in the past has been in 
 the cherishing freedom which has stimulated that citi- 
 zenship, so will our hope for the future be in the con- 
 tinuance of that freedom. Our citizens may be trusted 
 to learn how to spell and how to regulate their diets 
 and their baths without too much governmental assist- 
 ance from Washington. 
 
 The time may come when the muckraker shall sit 
 in the seat of the publicist and the sensational dema- 
 gogue take the place of the statesman, and when we 
 shall be given over to the heralds of a statutory millen- 
 nium who would make everybody equal and perfect 
 by penal enactment. But I trust the Republican Party 
 will make it its first duty to resist the coming of that 
 day, and while always ready to exercise when necessary 
 any national power in its full vigor, that it will safe- 
 guard the autonomy of the States, so that those who dwell 
 in America hereafter may continue to enjoy that rounded 
 and symmetrical system of free government preserved 
 and handed down to us under that greatest of Repub- 
 lican statesmen, whose career we to-day commemorate, 
 and to the end, too, that in the words of the immortal 
 message from Gettysburg, " government of the people, 
 by the people, for the people shall not perish from the 
 earth." 
 
 Mr. McCall attached so much importance to 
 the preservation of the balance between the 
 SS 
 
Constitutional Questions 
 
 Federal Government and the States as a means 
 of guarding the liberty of the individual that 
 later in the same year he returned to this theme, 
 and at the Jamestown Exposition, on September 
 17, 1907, — the anniversary of the signing of 
 the Constitution and of Washington's Farewell 
 Address, — he spoke eloquently of the attempt 
 of the framers of the Constitution to reconcile 
 order with liberty, and of the success which had 
 followed their efforts. If the Constitution, he 
 said, "has thwarted some adventurous designs 
 and set at naught the crude and callow projects 
 of inexperience, that was one of the things it was 
 suprcmelv designed to do." 
 
 In eulogizing the Constitution, however, Mr. 
 McCall had no intention of representing it as hav- 
 ing reached such a state of perfection as to be in no 
 need of change. His contention simply was that if 
 change was necessary it should be made in the pre- 
 scribed way and not by so-called "construction." 
 
 If amendments are desirable, there is a wav provided 
 for their adoption. And upon this day, which is the 
 anniversary of the Farewell Address, as well as of the 
 final action of the Convention, we mav well ponder 
 upon those weighty words spoken bv that great soldier 
 and statesman, to whom more than to anv other man 
 we are indebted for our independence and our National 
 Government. " If in the opinion of the people," said 
 
 8 
 
v Samuel W. McCall 
 
 George Washington one hundred and eleven years ago 
 to-day, "the distribution or modification of the constitu- 
 tional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be cor- 
 rected by amendment in the way the Constitution des- 
 ignates. But let there be no change by usurpation ; for, 
 though this in one instance may be the instrument of 
 
 © J 
 
 good, it is the customary weapon by which free govern- 
 ments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly 
 overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient 
 benefit which the use can at any time yield." 
 
 But it is proposed to expand the Constitution by 
 « construction." So far as the rules of interpretation 
 are concerned, they should, of course, be applied, not 
 with the technical narrowness employed in construing 
 penal statutes, but with the liberality befitting the 
 organic act of a government in which general terms 
 must necessarily be used. But if under the pretense of 
 exercising a granted power a power not granted is put 
 in force, then we should have substantially that usurpa- 
 tion which would fall under the denunciation of George 
 Washington. 
 
 After quoting Mr. Gladstone's rhetorical flour- 
 ish, to the effect that our Constitution is " the 
 most wonderful work struck off at a given time 
 by the brain and purpose of man," Mr. McCall 
 compares our form of government with that of 
 some other countries for the purpose of noting 
 its distinctive feature: — 
 
 To my mind the distinctive thing about the Amer- 
 ican Constitution, which indelibly stamps its character, 
 9 o 
 
Constitutional Questions 
 
 is that it embodied an experiment before that time un- 
 known, and established a government upon the corner- 
 stone of the individual, making him for certain essential 
 purposes of freedom superior even to the Government 
 itself. In other nations, whatever liberty there was had 
 commonly appeared in the form of concessions and 
 grants from sovereigns to the people. The kings ruled 
 by a claim of divine right. Whatever of liberty the 
 people enjoyed came by gift from the king, and what- 
 ever authority was not granted by the king remained 
 vested in him. But the American Constitution reversed 
 all that. It proceeded from the people. The Government 
 which it established was one of limited powers. Every 
 power that it possessed was delegated by the people, 
 and every power not granted was expressly reserved to 
 the people or to some of the governmental organs which 
 they had previously established. The original Constitu- 
 tion was framed upon this theory, but that there might 
 be no doubt about it, at least six of the States, and 
 among them Virginia and Massachusetts and New 
 York, accompanied their ratification by resolutions 
 making an express construction that all powers not 
 granted were reserved ; and the first Congress submitted 
 among the amendments embodying the Bill of Rights, 
 the Tenth Amendment, declaring that " the powers 
 not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, 
 nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the 
 States respectively or to the people." This amendment 
 immediately ratified and placed in the Constitu- 
 tion. It is there even m<>re impressively than if it had 
 been made a part of the original instrument, and it 
 
 91 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 deals a death-blow to the theory that our Government 
 has about it any " divine right " or any u inherent 
 power," or any power that is not contained in the ex- 
 press grant. To my mind, therefore, the striking thing 
 in the American Constitution, which differentiates it 
 from the previously formed constitutions of all other 
 nations, is the manner in which it imposed limitations 
 upon government, recognizing that all power originally 
 resided in the people, and that no government had any 
 species of authority over them which they did not ex- 
 pressly grant. 
 
 We Americans as a people are easily impressed 
 by mere bulk. It pleases us to think that in terri- 
 torial extent we are the largest of the great powers ; 
 that the population of the United States exceeds 
 that of any other one country, exclusive of its de- 
 pendencies, except only China and Russia; that 
 more than half the total railway mileage of the 
 world lies in the United States; that no other 
 country has so many cities with more than a mil- 
 lion inhabitants as has this country, — and other 
 facts of a similar degree of importance or unim- 
 portance. But we do not so easilv perceive that 
 the larger the country and the more numerous its 
 population, the less important is each individual 
 and the more he is obscured by the size of the 
 community to which he belongs. 
 
 Herein lies another reason for maintaining the 
 autonomy of the States. 
 92 
 
Cons it tu riONAL Questions 
 
 A groat central government exerting its authority in 
 all governmental matters over a vast ami scattered popu- 
 lation necessarily takes on an autocratic character. The 
 part of each individual in such a government becomes 
 so infinitesimal and diluted that it vanishes almost en- 
 tirely as an appreciable force. The wide range of powers 
 heretofore exercised under the Constitution by the States 
 gives an opportunity to the individual citizen to bear an 
 appreciable part in actual government. The historian 
 Freeman, in comparing small states with great ones, said 
 that a M small republic develops all the faculties of indi- 
 vidual citizens to the highest pitch. The average citizen 
 of such a state is a superior being to the average citizen 
 of a large kingdom. He ranks, not with its average sub- 
 jects, but at the verv least with its average legislators." 
 I have given the obvious reason. In a small community 
 resting upon suffrage, which is practically universal, the 
 average citizen takes part in the actual work of govern- 
 ment, ami is disciplined by it, while in a very large nation 
 he is practically a spectator. In the one case participa- 
 tion in government will beget a facility for it, and, dealing 
 with subjects at close range, his practical sense instead 
 of his imagination will be brought into play. Hut where 
 he is a spectator looking at transactions taking place 
 upon a distantstage,the thing that stages well is the thing 
 that will command his attention. The rotund chest and 
 swelling shoulders of the hero may be only sawdust, but 
 the effect upon the distant onlooker will be the same. He 
 is dealing with things which may or mav not be real. The 
 opportunity for deception is great, the chance of detection 
 small. The ideal condition is that provided by our sys- 
 
 93 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 tem. We can have the protection, the security, and the 
 sense of national pride attending a great nation, and 
 we can at the same time be free, in conjunction with 
 those in our immediate neighborhoods, to manage our 
 local affairs in our own way, without the intermeddling 
 of an autocrat. 
 
 Whatever faults the people of the United States 
 may have developed, their most stringent critics 
 will admit that in most situations they have dis- 
 played a robust common sense, which, when they 
 have taken time for reflection, has saved them 
 from serious blunders. But there is always the 
 danger that in some critical situation we may yield 
 to the blandishments of an impatient statesman 
 who wishes to "do things." It is then that the 
 restraints of the Constitution are most valuable. 
 
 The mortal disease of democracies is the dema- 
 gogue. It is so easy to make the most prosperous peo- 
 ple think they are ill-treated and badly off; it is so 
 easy to use the property of a small class to bribe the 
 members of a large class, that unscrupulous politicians 
 in all ages have found a ready means to advance their 
 fortunes under democratic goverments. The makers of 
 our Constitution were well aware of this danger, and 
 they made careful provision against the demagogue. 
 They knew that often history condemned what the 
 crowd at the moment applauded. They safeguarded 
 liberty and property, imposed checks against hasty ac- 
 tion, so that the people might have time to think and 
 
 94 
 
Constitutional Qui riONS 
 
 form an opinion worthy of the name, ami they carefully 
 distributed power among the three great departments of 
 government. The system has worked admirably. 
 
 That was an impressive dictum of Montesquieu, that 
 u there is no liberty if the judiciary be not separated from 
 the legislative and executive powers." The independent 
 judiciary of the United States, standing apart and coldly 
 scrutinizing in the light of the Constitution the action of 
 the other departments, has proven a most effective guar- 
 dian of libertv. 
 
 The House of Representatives, fresh from the people, 
 is sure to voice the immediate popular demand. The 
 Senate, differently constituted, acts with more deliberate 
 reserve, although its efficiency would be increased and 
 its conservatism in no degree lessened if the democratic 
 principle were not so grossly violated in its composition. 
 The Constitution so invested the President with power 
 at the same time that it decorated him with honor that it 
 satisfied his ambition and sobered him with the weight of 
 great responsibilities. And. our Presidents have usuallv 
 been a great conservative force, and more than once 
 thev have not hesitated to step into the cold light of 
 unpopularity if thev might thereby advance their coun- 
 try's honor. Sailing before the wind has not been a 
 favorite pastime with American Presidents ; their great 
 deeds often have been at the time unpopular. Washing- 
 ton breathed the popular furv when he issued his procla- 
 mation of neutralitv, but he struck a mighty blow 
 the independence of our foreign relations. Cleveland 
 heroically braved a widespread sentiment and sacrificed 
 his popularity in order to preserve the standard of value 
 
 95 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 of our money. And when the printing-presses were to 
 be set in motion and the national bondholders were to 
 be paid in paper, Grant, the silent, inflexible soldier, who 
 was always a hero unless upon dress parade, interposed 
 his veto against inflation. The result of the workings 
 of our institutions has been seen in a progress which 
 has conserved, and while we have made haste slowly we 
 have outstripped all other nations. 
 
 Thus the Constitution has safely carried us through 
 the most rapidly moving century the world has ever 
 seen. It has shown itself equal to this great era. How 
 will it ride the tumbling waters of the century that has 
 just dawned ? How will it be in the far future when 
 mayhap the Gaul shall insultingly leap upon the ruins 
 of the Capitol and " wasteful wars shall statues over- 
 turn" ? Whether it shall then endure or be derided and 
 trampled under foot will depend not so much upon the 
 virility of its powers, as upon the integrity and sense of 
 justice of the American people. No constitution can 
 save a nation from itself. To that riddle of the future 
 the wise and venerable Franklin in almost the last 
 words spoken to the convention, after the engrossed 
 copy had been read, gave perhaps the most illuminating 
 answer that can be made. It can, he said, speaking of 
 the Constitution, " onlv end in despotism, as other forms 
 have done before it, when the people shall become so 
 corrupted as to need despotic government — being in- 
 capable of any other." 
 
 The relation between the Federal Govern- 
 ment and the States was involved in the proposal 
 96 
 
 
Constitutional Questions 
 
 to amend the Constitution by giving to Congress 
 the power to levy an income tax. The amend- 
 ment, which was proposed to the States by Con- 
 gress on July 12, i 909, was passed by that body 
 in great haste and with slight consideration of 
 its form. Mr. McCall approved of the income 
 tax as a means of raising revenue but thought 
 that the power to levy it, except in great national 
 emergencies, should be reserved to the States. 
 He also advocated that the proposed amendment 
 be so changed as to give to the House of Repre- 
 sentatives the sole right to originate a bill levy- 
 ing an income tax and as to require the Senate 
 to accept or reject the bill in the exact form in 
 which it came from the House. He added: — 
 
 It is said that this tax is for use in time of war. . . . 
 Why not, then, limit it expressly to time of war ? Why 
 not, for the just protection and the equal rights of the 
 people of New York and of the other great States of 
 this Union, five of which probahlv will pay nine tenths 
 of an income tax, although they will have only one 
 ninth of the representation in the Senate — why not 
 preserve the limitation upon the power of the Central 
 Government. 5 Whv drag every governmental power to 
 Washington so that a vast centralized government may 
 devour the States and the libertv of the individual as 
 well? I say this amendment should be more carefully 
 sidered than it has vet been considered. 
 
 It is liable to go into the Constitution of the United 
 
 97 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 States and be forever a part of the organic law in the 
 form in which it has been, I may almost say, extem- 
 porized or improvised. The character of the argument 
 which has been made, that this tax is for use in time of 
 war, leads me to observe that the chief purpose of the 
 tax is not financial, but social. It is not primarily to 
 raise money for the State, but to regulate the citizen 
 and to regenerate the moral nature of man. The indi- 
 vidual citizen will be called on to lay bare the inner- 
 most recesses of his soul in affidavits, and with the aid 
 of the Federal inspector, who will supervise his books 
 and papers and business secrets, he mav be made to be 
 good, according to the notions of virtue at the moment 
 prevailing in Washington. And, incidentally, and since 
 access to every business secret in the country can be had 
 by the authorities at Washington, the citizen mav be 
 made to see his political duty if you happened to have 
 a President who confused the attainment of his ambition 
 with the highest good of the universe and was willing 
 to abuse his power in order to coerce the citizen. You 
 are creating here an ideal condition for corruption and for 
 the political Jack Cade of the future to levy blackmail. 
 And so, Mr. Speaker, believing that this amendment, 
 with no compensation whatever, does away with an 
 important part of the great compromise of the Consti- 
 tution, and that it is not limited to the emergency for 
 which it is said to be intended, I shall vote against it. 
 The amendment has not carefully been considered by 
 a committee of this House or by anybody else in the 
 United States that I know of, unless possibly by Mr. 
 William J. Bryan. [Applause.] 
 
 98 
 
Constitutional Qui g rioNS 
 
 The income tax amendment became part of 
 the Constitution on February 25, 1913. I low 
 
 little reference it had to the war necessities of the 
 Government may be seen from the fact that a bill 
 levying an income tax was introduced into the 
 House six weeks later, and became a law Octo- 
 ber 3, 1913. 
 
 While thus maintaining the rights of the States 
 against encroachment, Mr. McCall was equally- 
 strenuous in asserting the supremacy of the Fed- 
 eral Government within the sphere allotted to it. 
 When the amendment providing for the popular 
 election of United States Senators was before 
 Congress, strong efforts were made to deprive the 
 Senate of all authority over the election of its 
 members. Had this movement succeeded, we 
 should have had the strange situation that if a 
 State sent to the Senate a man who had been 
 chosen by the most corrupt methods, or even one 
 who did not possess the constitutional qualifica- 
 tions for membership in the Senate, there would 
 have been no instrumentality of the Federal 
 Government to exclude him. There would have 
 been the further anomaly that while the House 
 of Representatives would still have been the sole 
 judge of the election and qualifications of its mem- 
 bers, the election of Senators would have been 
 entirely under the control of the States. Mr. 
 
 99 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 McCall was in favor of the popular election of 
 Senators. The state legislatures were not chosen 
 primarily for the purpose of electing Senators, 
 and the influences to which they were often 
 subjected did not conduce to good government. 
 But, on the other hand, Mr. McCall was so 
 much opposed to the proposition that the Fed- 
 eral Government should have no control over the 
 choice of this important class of Federal officers 
 that he declared that he would vote against the en- 
 tire amendment unless that feature was removed. 
 Ultimately this strange attempt to cripple the 
 Federal Government was defeated. 
 
 Another constitutional controversy, on which 
 Mr. McCall has spoken and written much, con- 
 cerns the relations between the House and the 
 Senate. The latter, as the smaller and more per- 
 manent body of the two, and endowed also with 
 extensive executive powers, has tended for many 
 years to magnify its place in the Government, and 
 in so doing has encroached upon the constitutional 
 prerogative of the House to originate revenue 
 bills. The power of the purse, which in England 
 is vested in the House of Commons, was in- 
 tended by the framers of the Constitution to be 
 vested in the House of Representatives. At first 
 the House took the position that the power of 
 the Senate over money bills was confined to sim- 
 100 
 
Constitutional Questions 
 
 pie acceptance or rejection. But the Senate argued 
 that the exclusive power of the House was con- 
 fined to hills tor raising revenue, and that the 
 Senate not only could amend such bills to any 
 extent, but could even originate bills for the re- 
 peal of taxes or reduction ot revenue. The con- 
 troversy has never been settled. The House 
 has always refused to pass bills for the reduction 
 of revenue which originated in the Senate, but it 
 has not been consistent in its attitude toward its 
 revenue measures, some of which have been radi- 
 cally amended in the Senate. In 1872 the House 
 sent to the Senate a bill relating to a tax on coffee 
 and the Senate amended it bv substituting a com- 
 plete revision of the tariff. This called forth a pro- 
 test from the House, and in the course of the de- 
 bate in that body Garfield said that the action of 
 
 the Senate violated " a ricrht which cannot be sur- 
 
 o 
 
 rendered without inflicting a fatal wound upon the 
 rity of our whole system of government." 
 Nevertheless, the Senate persisted in its practice. 
 The Mills Bill, framed by the House on free- 
 trade lines, was converted by a Republican Sen- 
 ate into a high protective tariff. The Wilson Bill 
 was so radically changed by the Senate that Presi- 
 dent Cleveland refused to sign it. The Payne 
 Bill was returned to the House with more than 
 six hundred amendments. This long-continued 
 
 101 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 practice has made the prerogative of the House 
 little more than a shadow. Both on the floor of 
 the House and in print Mr. McCall has urged 
 the necessity of observing the spirit of the Con- 
 stitution. On February n, 1901, he said in the 
 House in reference to a revenue bill: — 
 
 I believe that the Senate's action is contrary to the 
 spirit of the Constitution. A reading of the debates at 
 the time of the adoption of the Constitution, a reading 
 of the contemporaneous construction of that instrument 
 in the " Federalist," the whole history of the struggle 
 in Great Britain over the exercise of the power of 
 taxation, it seems to me, can leave no doubt that the 
 Senate, in the case of the bill it has returned here, is 
 practically usurping power. It is not a mere technical 
 question, as put by the gentleman from Texas. It is a 
 question of political power, the distribution of political 
 power between the two Houses of Congress. It is a 
 question on which it is the dutv of the House to assert 
 its prerogative and to contend for a fair and broad con- 
 struction, rather than a technical construction which 
 will leave it with the mere shadow of power. . . . The 
 framers of the Constitution vested a great power in the 
 smaller States in the Senate, and to offset that power a 
 compensation was provided by conferring a special power 
 over taxation upon the House. . . . The trainers of 
 the Constitution, as shown by the debates oil the Con- 
 stitution, intended to leave the House in substantially 
 the same position as the House of Commons. Taxes 
 were declared to be the voluntary grant of the House 
 102 
 
Constitutional Questions 
 
 of Commons which represented the people of England. 
 The States do not pay the national taxes; the taxes are 
 
 paid by the people. One sixth of the people of this 
 country elect a majority of the whole Senate. The State 
 of New York has as many people as the combined pop- 
 ulation of States electing thirtv-six Senators. The fram- 
 ers of the Constitution provided that while certain powers 
 of government, such as might be exercised by a council 
 of a State, should be transacted by the Senate, the power 
 over the purse should be held by the House, which 
 represented the people. On the theory of the Senate's 
 action the great power of the House to originate reve- 
 nue bills dwindles to the power only of originating an 
 enacting clause. The House cannot with any dignity 
 and with a due regard to its own prerogative ask the 
 Senate for a committee of conference. [Applause.] 
 
 Mr. McCall has also protested against the 
 Senate's use of the treaty-making power to usurp 
 the prerogative of the House to originate revenue 
 bills. In an article in the "Atlantic Monthly" 
 for October, 1903, he said: — 
 
 The expansion of the power of the Senate in an un- 
 democratic as well as in an unconstitutional direction 
 is also seen in the growing tendency to pass laws, and 
 especially taxation laws, by treaty. Treaties are high 
 contracts between nations, and it can hardly be believed 
 that it was within the contemplation of the framers of 
 the Constitution so elaborately to construct a legislative 
 machine and at the same time to throw the whole mech- 
 anism out of gear by a single clause regarding tr< 
 
 I0 3 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 providing that the President and Senate might call in a 
 foreign potentate and make laws for the National Gov- 
 ernment of the United States. Treaties have the force 
 of law, but they should obviouslv be within the fair 
 scope of the treaty-making power. At any rate, it would 
 scarcely be reasonable to claim that they set aside the 
 Constitution, and if we are to regard the Senate as a 
 part of two legislative machines, it cannot, as a part of 
 either, do the things prohibited by the Constitution. 
 Under that instrument revenue bills must originate in 
 the House. How, then, can thev originate by treaty? 
 It would, indeed, be a curious spectacle, that of the 
 Senate, composed in the way it is, sitting behind closed 
 doors, and deciding in secret what taxes the American 
 people are to pay. 
 
 Another phase of the relations between the Sen- 
 ate and the House of Representatives is involved 
 in the respective authority of the two bodies in 
 the making and abrogation of treaties. The Con- 
 stitution declares that a treaty which has received 
 the sanction of the President and two thirds of 
 the Senate is a part of the supreme law of the 
 land and all persons are bound thereby. This is 
 clear and explicit, but if the United States desires 
 to rid itself of a treaty into which it has entered, 
 some difficult questions arise. May the agents 
 of the United States who made the treaty — that 
 is, the President and the Senate — also abrogate 
 it, or must both branches of the legislature join 
 104 
 
Constitutional Questions 
 
 in altering the supreme law of the land? This 
 matter was folly discussed in Congress in [911 
 in connection with the abrogation of the treaty 
 with Russia. Mr. McCall, in a speech on De- 
 cember 20, 191 1, argued that treaties should 
 only be abrogated by a joint resolution of the 
 two Houses of Congress. In support of this 
 view he said : — 
 
 I do not concur at all in the view that has been ad- 
 vanced in another bodv, that the power to break trea- 
 ties resides in the Executive, by and with the advice 
 and consent of the Senate. The Constitution expressly 
 confers upon the President the power to make treaties, 
 with the concurrence of two thirds of the Senators pres- 
 ent. Now, we all know what the making of a treatv is. 
 Jay has said that a treaty is a trade between two na- 
 tions. It requires two or more parties to make a trade ; 
 but treatv-brcaking is a radically different thing. That 
 can be done bv one party. It is sometimes a perilous 
 thing to do. It mav sometimes lead to war. It mav lead 
 to the destruction of the vested rights of millions of 
 people, and it seems to me that it is a very extraordi- 
 nary construction to put upon the Constitution to hold 
 that the term " making treaties" is so pregnant as to 
 include its opposite. 
 
 I have no doubt that the Senate can very wisely ex- 
 ercise this power. It is a great thing for the country to 
 have a bodv i)( wise and virtuous men who arc con- 
 scious of their qualities and are willing in a patriotic way 
 to exercise not mere!) - their own constitutional powers, 
 
 1 5 
 
Samuel \V. McCall 
 
 but whatever other powers may be scattered about 
 under our system of government and which, not being 
 nailed down, can be made to move in their direction. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 Treaties have usually been abrogated by both Houses 
 of Congress. There are a very few exceptions. There 
 is the exception of the action of Air. Lincoln, taken 
 during war-time, and yet it was thought best in that 
 case to have his action subsequently affirmed by a vote 
 of the two Houses of Congress. [Applause.] 
 
 When the Fifty-sixth Congress assembled in 
 December, 1899, it was found that on the face 
 of the returns Brigham H. Roberts had been 
 elected to the House of Representatives from the 
 State of Utah. It was not questioned that he 
 possessed the requisite constitutional qualifica- 
 tions and that he had received a majority of the 
 votes cast. But it was alleged that he was a po- 
 lygamist, and in consequence of a fit of moral 
 hysteria, such as sometimes seizes Congress, 
 a resolution was introduced declaring that he 
 "ought not to have or hold a seat in the House 
 of Representatives and that the seat to which he 
 was elected is hereby declared vacant." This res- 
 olution presented an important question of con- 
 stitutional right and power. The Constitution 
 provides that either branch of Congress may, by 
 a two-thirds vote, expel one of its members. It 
 also provides that each House shall be the judge 
 106 
 
( ' >nsi i ro rioNAL Questions 
 
 of the election, return, and qualifications of its 
 own members. By virtue of this clause, the spon- 
 sors of the resolution for the exclusion of Hub- 
 erts claimed the right to declare his seat vacant. 
 Mr. McCall took the opposite view. He argued 
 that if the House assumed the right to exclude 
 a legally-elected member for any reason not spec- 
 ified in the Constitution, it thereby to that extent 
 added to the constitutional qualifications for elec- 
 tion to the House. Furthermore, if the House 
 could exclude any man because it did not ap- 
 prove of his personal habits, it could exclude 
 him tor any other reason that might seem good 
 to it. The Constitution itself clearly distinguished 
 between the power to exclude and the power to 
 expel. The former requires only a majority vote, 
 while the latter, which is evidently regarded as a 
 more serious matter, requires a two-thirds vote. 
 Since the committee appointed to investigate the 
 Roberts case had found that he possessed the con- 
 stitutional qualifications for membership in the 
 House and that he had been duly elected, Mr. 
 McCall argued that he was entitled to take his 
 seat. Having been admitted to the House, that 
 body could then, if it saw fit, expel him. And 
 Mr. McCall added that in his judgment the prac- 
 tice of polvgamv was sufficient cause tor expul- 
 sion. Mr. MeCall's argument is undoubft 
 
 1 : 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 sound exposition of the clauses of the Constitu- 
 tion to which it relates, but the House, in acting 
 upon the resolution, furnished another illustra- 
 tion of the fact that in disposing of election cases 
 it pays little heed to either law or evidence. The 
 resolution was adopted by a vote of 268 to 50. 
 When a similar case arose shortly afterward in 
 the Senate, that body by a decisive vote adopted 
 the course advocated by Mr. McCall. 
 
 In recent vears considerable dissatisfaction has 
 been manifested with reference to the working 
 of our political institutions. It has been felt that 
 representatives did not reflect the sentiments of 
 their constituents, and that partisan machinery 
 was used to defeat the popular will. Senator 
 Root's statement that the government of New 
 York had been no more responsive to public 
 sentiment during the past forty years than had 
 the government of Venezuela was expert testi- 
 mony in support of a widespread conviction. 
 While there was little question as to the exist- 
 ence of the condition, there was difference of 
 opinion as to the cause and the remedy. There 
 can be no doubt that one of the most potent rea- 
 sons for the failure of our institutions to achieve 
 the results desired is the excessive burden which 
 their operation imposes upon the voter. No 
 other electorate in the world is called upon to 
 108 
 
Constitutional Questions 
 
 take so large a share in government as is that 
 of the United States. Our elections are so fre- 
 quent, the number of officers to be chosen is so 
 large, and the questions of policy to be consid- 
 ered are so numerous, that the voter cannot 
 properly discharge the task which is imposed 
 upon him. Most members of the electorate are 
 obliged to earn their living. Their time and at- 
 tention must be given to their private affairs. If 
 in addition they are obliged to pass upon numer- 
 ous and complicated questions of public policy, 
 the latter are certain to suffer. It is absurd to 
 submit measures to the decision of electors who 
 have neither time nor opportunity to inform 
 themselves concerning them, and it is obvious 
 that comparatively few legislative questions arouse 
 any general public interest or can be sufficiently 
 freed rrom details to make them suitable for sub- 
 mission to a popular vote. 
 
 The remedies for admitted evils which have 
 been most ardently advocated have been the in- 
 itiative, the referendum, and the recall. These 
 have been heralded by their sponsors as though 
 they were the latest discoveries in the art of gov- 
 ernment, whereas they are as old as organized 
 society and are the devices under which the highly 
 cultivated democracies of the ancient world went 
 to ruin. It is somewhat strange that so practical 
 
 109 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 a people as the Americans give so little heed to 
 the experience of other countries in matters gov- 
 ernmental, and so often assume that the laws of 
 economics and of politics which operate in the 
 rest of the world are suspended within our bor- 
 ders. It is well, therefore, that some of our States 
 have adopted the machinery of direct govern- 
 ment which has proved so unsuccessful else- 
 where, in order that we may have an ocular dem- 
 onstration of its working. The State of Oregon, 
 which has gone further in this direction than any 
 other State in the Union, is rendering an impor- 
 tant service in acting as a sort of political testing 
 laboratory for the whole country. It may not be 
 out of place to refer here to an instructive illus- 
 tration of the working of the referendum in a 
 town in that State which desired to issue bonds 
 under conditions which necessitated a popular 
 vote on the question. In accordance with the 
 provisions of the law of Oregon, a pamphlet set- 
 ting forth the reasons for the issue was printed 
 and a copy sent to each voter. In the pamphlet 
 a mistake was made as to the date of maturity 
 of one series of the bonds, and the attorney for 
 a prospective purchaser raised the question as 
 to whether this mistake might not affect their 
 validity. Whereupon the officers of the town 
 offered to prove that only one voter had read 
 1 10 
 
Constitutional ( ^ i stions 
 
 the pamphlet and that he had not noticed the 
 error. 
 
 Oil several occasions, but especially in an ad- 
 dress before the Ohio State Bar Association in 
 19 1 1, Mr. McCall has indicated the objections to 
 the initiative, referendum, and recall as methods 
 ot government in the United States. Such suc- 
 cess as these methods have ever had has been in 
 small, homogeneous communities. He has many 
 times protested against our tendencv to multiplv 
 laws — a tendency which the initiative would only 
 confirm. The facility with which signatures for 
 the submission of a new law could be obtained 
 was well illustrated by Mr. Roosevelt, who re- 
 plied to an applicant for appointment as post- 
 master who said that his application was sup- 
 ported by a petition from his fellow townsmen, 
 "I could get a petition to have you hanged." 
 
 The referendum is less objectionable than the 
 initiative, but in addition to the fact that the elec- 
 torate is seldom sufficiently informed as to the 
 details of legislative projects to make an intel- 
 ligent decision on them, this method of procedure 
 has an unfavorable effect on legislative bodies. 
 As to this Mr. McCall said: — 
 
 The referendum takes away from the legislature the 
 responsibility for the final passage of the laws, and per- 
 mits it to shift the burden upon the people. Legislators 
 
 1 1 1 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 will be asked : " Are you not willing to trust the people 
 to say in their wisdom whether a given bill should he 
 enacted ? " The prevailing vice of members of lawmak- 
 ing bodies in our country is not venality, it is political 
 cowardice ; and they will be ready to take refuge in that 
 invitation to trust the people. A witty member of Con- 
 gress from Mississippi once said that he usually found 
 it easier to do wrong than to explain why he did right. 
 There will be no such difficulty under the referendum. 
 The legislator may dodge the responsibility of voting 
 upon some bad but specious law where his political in- 
 terest would lead him to vote one way and his sense of 
 duty another way. He would only need to say that he 
 believed in the people, and would vote to refer it to 
 that supreme court of appeal. 
 
 One of the most pernicious measures ever rec- 
 ommended as a method of popular government 
 is the recall of judicial decisions. If the liberty of 
 the individual is to be preserved, the judiciary 
 must be independent. If the courts are deprived 
 of their freedom, whether by the decree of a 
 monarch after the manner of James II or by the 
 vote of the people, men's rights are without any 
 sure guaranty. Judges, to be sure, are fallible, but 
 experience has shown that of all the means of 
 protecting human freedom, an independent judi- 
 ciary is the best. If a judicial decision were 
 submitted to a popular vote, the result would 
 inevitably be determined in large measure by the 
 
 I 12 
 
Constitutional Ques riONS 
 
 popularity or unpopularity of the litigants, and 
 yet the most unpopular man or corporation is 
 entitled to the equal protection of the laws. 
 Those who have advocated that a judicial decision 
 should be subject to being set aside by a popular 
 vote have usually based their argument upon cases 
 in which an attempted exercise of the police 
 power has been held invalid on the ground that it 
 was not due process of law. Justice Holmes once 
 said of the police power, "It may be put forth in 
 aid of what is sanctioned by usage, or held by the 
 prevailing morality or strong and preponderating 
 opinion to be greatly and immediately necessary 
 to the public welfare." There could be no safer 
 rule for the guidance of the courts than this, and 
 the historv of the American judiciary shows that 
 in general it has been faithfully followed. But the 
 fact that a particular piece of legislation has been 
 enacted does not in itself prove that it represents 
 the " prevailing morality or strong and prepon- 
 derating opinion." The courts may judge of that 
 with as much hope of reaching a correct result 
 as mav the legislature, and if they make a mistake 
 experience has shown that they will correct it 
 without a resort to a popular vote. In 1907, for 
 instance, the Court of Appeals of N ew York held, 
 in People v. Williams (189 N.Y, 1 3 1 ), that a 
 statute regulating women's hours of work violated 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 their freedom of contract. Only eight years later, 
 in People v. Schweinler Press (214 N.Y. 395), 
 the court reversed this decision in accordance 
 with the " prevailing morality " and " strong and 
 preponderating opinion." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION 
 
 THE electoral contest of i 892, which was the 
 first campaign in which Mr. McCall was a 
 candidate for Congress, turned chiefly upon the 
 tariff. From the beginning of its history the Re- 
 publican Party had been committed to the policy 
 of so shaping the tariff upon imports as to en- 
 courage the establishment of new industries for 
 which the country was adapted and to protect 
 existing industries against foreign competition 
 which could be met onlv by reducing wages be- 
 low what was regarded as the proper American 
 standard. The financial needs of the Government 
 during the Civil War and the years immediately 
 following were so great that there was little dis- 
 cussion as to the rate of duties which should be 
 imposed, but the Democratic platform of 1868 
 declared for "a tariff for revenue upon foreign 
 imports," and the two parties have continued to 
 divide upon that issue, although in one or two 
 campaigns, particularly those of 1S96 and 191 2, 
 the tariff has been overshadowed by other ques- 
 tions. The Democratic platform has otten been 
 
 i'5 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 so cryptic in its utterances upon the tariff that 
 both a high protectionist like Samuel J. Randall 
 and a free-trader like John G. Carlisle could sup- 
 port it. In 1892, however, it was faultlessly clear. 
 It denounced Republican protection as a fraud by 
 which a great majority of the people were robbed 
 for the benefit of a few, and declared it to be " a 
 fundamental principle of the Democratic Party 
 that the Federal Government has no constitu- 
 tional power to impose and collect tariff duties, 
 except for the purposes of revenue only." A 
 President and a Congress elected on such a plat- 
 form could have no choice but to undertake a 
 revision of the tariff in accordance with the prin- 
 ciple of a tariff for revenue only. 
 
 The campaign of 1892 was one of the most 
 listless that this country has ever known. Neither 
 party displayed much enthusiasm either for its 
 nominee or its platform. The situation was well 
 expressed by Colonel Ingersoll when he said, 
 " Each party would like to find some way to beat 
 the candidate of the other without electing its 
 own." The Democrats had for a third time 
 nominated Grover Cleveland, who promptly re- 
 pudiated one of the most important planks in the 
 party platform. The Republicans, in a perfunc- 
 tory spirit, had renominated President Harrison. 
 He was a man of unblemished character and high 
 116 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 ahilitv, hut he rivaled Whistler in his mastery of 
 the art of making enemies, while his coldness of 
 manner and lack of tact alienated even his friends. 
 The most marked feature of the election was the 
 sudden rise of the People's Party, which advo- 
 cated many of the economic doctrines adopted 
 by the Democrats four years later, and which 
 polled over a million votes. The Democrats won 
 an overwhelming victory, and for the first time 
 since 1 86 1 found themselves in control not only 
 of the Presidency but of both branches of Con- 
 gress. 
 
 The clear-cut pronouncement in the Demo- 
 cratic platform in favor of a tariff for revenue, as 
 well as President Cleveland's well-known views 
 on the subject, made it inevitable that the new 
 Congress, in which Mr. MeCall took his seat for 
 the first time, should undertake a revision of the 
 existing duties. Accordingly, when Congress met 
 in regular session in December, 1893, the Com- 
 mittee on Ways and Means, under the lead- 
 ership of William L. Wilson, of West Virginia, 
 brought in a tariff bill. The proposed law lowered 
 the duties on a comparatively small number of 
 articles, and was in general a very moderate meas- 
 ure of tariff reform. Moderate, however, as it 
 was, the Democrats in the Senate refused to 
 accept it, and returned it to the Mouse with 
 
 •'7 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 amendments so numerous and so radical as to 
 make it a materially different measure. In its 
 amended form it was so far from fulfilling the 
 pledges of the Democratic platform that Presi- 
 dent Cleveland wrote an indignant letter in which 
 he characterized the action of the Democratic 
 Senators as "party perfidy and party dishonor," 
 and when the bill was accepted by the House and 
 submitted to him for his approval, he held it for 
 ten days and allowed it to become a law without 
 his signature. 
 
 While the Wilson bill was pending in the 
 House, Mr. McCall delivered an important 
 speech in which he urged that the tariff policy of 
 the country should be determined by experience 
 rather than by abstract theory. As his first utter- 
 ance in Congress on a subject with which he was 
 closely identified for twenty years, as well as 
 for the reasoning involved, it possesses peculiar 
 interest. 
 
 I have been somewhat struck by the significant trib- 
 ute that has been paid by the leading advocates of this 
 bill to the strength of the practical evidence in favor 
 of protection. They evidently prefer to soar among the 
 clouds in the realm of pure abstraction and to commune 
 with the kindred spirits of departed free-traders, rather 
 than to cast even an occasional glance at the essential 
 history of their country. I do not mean to assert, be- 
 118 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 cause it would not be true.-, that the supporters of this 
 bill have not alluded to American affairs. They tell 
 us that employers arc selfish. That, unfortunately, is a 
 charge that can be truthfullv made against any portion 
 of mankind. They tell us that we have labor troubles 
 and strikes in America, but they fail to tell us also that 
 nowhere in the world are strikes more prevalent than in 
 free-trade England. But the great central fact of our 
 national prosperity they discreetly ignore, and I submit 
 that that fact is not to be obscured or answered by mere 
 noise or bv theory, or by bellowing about Carnegie. 
 Adam Smith's theories have been tested in this country 
 on a gigantic scale. Why not look at the result of the 
 experiment ? 
 
 One hundred years ago this was essentially an agri- 
 cultural nation, and there has been no day from that 
 time to this when the application of your theory, that 
 we should consult the immediate needs of the consumer, 
 that we should give our attention to those things that 
 would at once and most easily turn a penny, would not 
 have directed our growth in the direction of a purely 
 agricultural development. 
 
 As England and other countries supplying us with 
 manufactured goods might have needed more bread, we 
 should have reclaimed more land, until to-day we should 
 be mere producers of raw materials in competition with 
 Australia and the South American Republics. With 
 land so plenty that each man could have his own farm, 
 at any given time the laborer would cam more in tilling 
 his own soil than in working in a factory in competition 
 with similar labor abroad. With us, land was plenty 
 
 119 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 and cheap ; abroad, it was comparatively scarce and 
 dear. The free play of the theories of Adam Smith, 
 whose laws have so often in this debate been confused 
 with the ordinances of the Almighty, would have made 
 us essentially an agricultural nation. 
 
 It was the happy fortune of this country that it was 
 guided in its early days by men who took a broader view 
 than that the immediate interest of consumption was the 
 general interest. The good sense of Washington and 
 those who aided him in laying the foundations of the 
 Republic shaped for the young nation a far better des- 
 tiny and started it under brighter auspices on the high- 
 way of nations. 
 
 Built to work out the sound aspirations of those 
 immortal statesmen, and not an impracticable pedant's 
 dream, the Republic has gone on to conquer and civil- 
 ize the vast areas of her territory and to become great 
 in every essential that goes to the making of a state. 
 And she has conquered more. Mighty in her own 
 growth, her achievements in invention and in every 
 liberal pursuit have been of incalculable benefit to the 
 world at large, and she has developed into a splendid 
 agency for the uplifting of mankind. She is the practical 
 answer to your theories, and also to your miserable as- 
 sumption, made to masquerade in this debate as broad 
 philanthropy, that the children of Adam the world over 
 are poorer because of her prosperity. . . . 
 
 The difficulty is that the theorist measures even- 
 thing here by a standard of price that exists in England 
 or some other foreign country, and finds the domestic 
 price by adding to the foreign price the cost of removing 
 
 120 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 the obstacles necessary to land a given article in our 
 market. It is immaterial, so far as the theory goes, 
 whether those ohstacles arc natural or artificial ones set 
 up at the custom-house. There are certain industries 
 to-day in this country which are protected from for- 
 eign competition by obstacles that are insuperable. In 
 these cases the Chinese wall towers to the skies. The 
 protection is equivalent to a rate of dutv infinitely 
 high. What conditions prevail in such industries? For 
 instance, distance with regard to many articles of com- 
 merce has by the invention of modern times been prac- 
 ticallv done away with. But it is not yet possible to 
 land on our shores European newspapers on the morn- 
 ing of their publication. If what is accomplished bv dis- 
 tance were accomplished bv a tariff, we should hear a 
 great deal about the terrible exactions of the daily news- 
 paper tru^t, the tax upon light and intelligence and the 
 monstrous burdens laid upon our people. But since this 
 obstacle has not been produced by the tariff, it has not 
 occurred to any one to deny that our dailv newspaper 
 press, though far from perfection in many respects and 
 partaking of our national faults, gives more for the 
 money than any other newspaper press in the world. . . . 
 The free-traders, as if the classification settled the 
 whole question, divide mankind into consumers and 
 producers. Then they assume on this artificial line that 
 as consumption makes production necessary, and we 
 never consume simplv because we have produced, we 
 should only have a care for the immediate interest of 
 the consumer. They do not consider the fact that in 
 order to be consumers men must first be producers. It is 
 
 I 2 I 
 

 Samuel W. McCall 
 
 necessary for man to consume, and it is first necessary, 
 therefore, for him to produce. A policy which would 
 regard him simply as a consumer would leave out half 
 of the problem. The immediate interest of the consumer 
 would require the breaking down of every tariff wall. 
 
 Things for the day would doubtless be cheaper, but 
 when millions of men thereby cease to be producers 
 they very quickly cease to be consumers and starve. 
 
 In 1899 Mr. McCall was made a member of 
 the Committee on Ways and Means, and he 
 continued to serve on that committee until his 
 retirement from the House fourteen years later. 
 At the time of his first appointment, the Dingley 
 Act of 1897 was in force. That measure had 
 been framed when public sentiment was in a state 
 of violent reaction against the Wilson-Gorman 
 Act of 1894. The duties were therefore made 
 unreasonably high, even from the standpoint of 
 a protectionist, and it was easy to see that the 
 adoption of the measure would be followed im- 
 mediately by agitation for its revision. When 
 that measure was before the House, Mr. McCall 
 urged that the schedules be made more moder- 
 ate in order that they might have some chance 
 of permanence. In the debate on March 29, 
 1897, he said : — 
 
 With all due respect to the Committee on Ways 
 and Means, and its chairman, whose fine capacity I 
 122 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 admire, I think we might safely moderate some of the 
 duties of this schedule. Our manufacturers and busi- 
 ness men want a tariff" law which will stand. They are 
 weary of being forever upon the rack, of passing through 
 the crucible of tariff" agitation every four years, and of 
 having the price of every article of the commerce and 
 trade of this great country constantly in danger of 
 change by tariff* legislation. What they long for is in- 
 dustrial peace and a settled and permanent order, so 
 that they can mature their plans for years in the future, 
 instead of working from hand to mouth and skulking 
 between Presidential elections. We should be careful 
 not to put in any of the schedules of our law an invita- 
 tion to further agitation, or place there the germs of a 
 new reaction. After the disastrous experience of the last 
 four years, the countrv is prepared to accept a broad 
 and rational application of the doctrine of protection; 
 but the course of moderation is the course of safety. 
 
 It had been urged by the friends of the Ding- 
 ley bill that the Republican victory in 1896 had 
 been so overwhelming and the Democratic Party 
 was so disrupted that no opposition to the Re- 
 publican programme need be feared. Mr. McCall 
 did not share this view. He pointed out that 
 while a million Democrats had voted for Mc- 
 Kinlev, six and a half millions had voted for 
 Bryan. 
 
 Let us, then, take counsel of our reason. Let us 
 pass a law with a moderate but sufficient measure of 
 
 123 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 protection, and not put weapons in the hands of our 
 adversaries and, by resorting to any extremes, alienate 
 those splendid allies who came to us from the Demo- 
 cratic Party. 
 
 It was in this speech that Mr. McCall first 
 stated his conception of the principles which 
 should govern the formulation of a protective 
 tariff. 
 
 The argument advanced upon this floor that we 
 should make protective duties not merely cover the 
 difference in cost of production here and abroad, but 
 also the difference in rates of freight from foreign ports 
 and from our inland points to our seaports, is one the 
 ingenuity of which I can admire much more than its 
 force. The people of our Northern Atlantic seaboard 
 do not have direct access to the iron ores or coal. Their 
 territory is poor in natural resources. In that respect 
 they are at a great disadvantage with the States of Penn- 
 sylvania and Alabama and Tennessee. But they have 
 one great natural advantage. They have the sea. In 
 my humble opinion the doctrine of protection does not 
 require this to be taken from them any more than it 
 requires the coal mines of Pennsylvania to be closed in 
 order that the sea may be more profitable to those upon 
 its shores. Is that doctrine to be carried to the extent 
 of holding that duties shall be levied and Pennsylvania 
 and Alabama and Tennessee shall be protected, not 
 merely to the extent of the difference in the cost of 
 production in those States and abroad, but that they 
 shall be protected against the beneficent forces of na- 
 
 124 
 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 ture which it is the birthright of other less-favored por- 
 tions of thiir own land to enjoy? This freight argu- 
 ment requires that the people of New York and the 
 New England States, with their ships swinging idly at 
 their wharves, should refuse a service which would be 
 performed for them without cost by the free winds of 
 heaven, in order to support long lines of railroads, and 
 that in the carrying of heavy freights over rivers and 
 mountains and hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles 
 of territorv there should be uselessly consumed the coal 
 which a kind Providence had stored up for the use of 
 future generations. This argument is largely based on 
 the theory that the people were made for the railroads 
 and not the railroads for the people. There is no place 
 in the economy of this nation, or of the race, for such 
 wanton waste as this. It would be as rational for vou 
 to bar out the sunshine in order to stimulate the manu- 
 facture of electric light. 
 
 That is not the sort of protection in which I believe. 
 If a given industry is established here, if we have nat- 
 ural advantages for carrying it on, then the amount of 
 protection which can fairly be asked is a duty which 
 will suffice to cover the difference in the labor and 
 other cost of producing the article here and producing 
 it abroad, and a slight additional margin to protect our 
 producers in times of industrial depression or overpro- 
 duction abroad. If you go beyond that, you are liable 
 to drift upon the rocks of extortion, of monopoly, and 
 ultimately of Populism. 
 
 In the debate in April, 1902, on a bill for the 
 establishment of reciprocal trade relations with 
 
 125 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 Cuba, Mr. McCall again indicated some of the 
 limitations which should be observed in the ap- 
 plication of the principle of protection. This is 
 not an immutable law, operating like the law of 
 gravitation, without regard to changes of time or 
 circumstance. It should be applied when it will 
 work to the national advantage, and not other- 
 wise. In discussing the advisability of attempting 
 to foster the growing of sugar cane in the United 
 States, Mr. McCall said: — 
 
 As to the future of cane sugar in the United States, 
 I can see little ground for optimism. It seems to me 
 it cannot stand beet-sugar competition at home when 
 that industry shall be developed. People who are en- 
 gaged in that industry, if they take a far look ahead, 
 will prepare to use their fields for some other purpose. 
 Cuba is one of the few countries in the world where 
 cane sugar can be raised in competition with the beet 
 sugar of other nations. They need only to plant their 
 cane on the average once in every ten years. In Loui- 
 siana it must be planted every two years at a cost, as 
 was testified, of twenty dollars an acre. It is a rational 
 application of protection to develop those industries 
 which we are by nature fitted to carry on, but a mere exotic 
 industry, which we are not fitted to carry on and which 
 must be maintained by a perpetual tax upon the Amer- 
 ican people, is something which does not come within 
 any proper application of the doctrine of protection. 
 
 If the soil, the sunshine, and the air of Cuba will do 
 work for the American people which those same natural 
 126 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 agents refuse to do in our own country, it would be 
 the grossest kind of waste for us to refuse to accept 
 the benefit of those blessings and forever to put upon 
 poor human nature the burden of doing the work which 
 Nature herself would do for us with her lavish hand. 
 We have enough of avenues for the profitable employ- 
 ment of labor without taxing ourselves to maintain in- 
 dustries which can never be profitably maintained. 
 
 In his discussion of the Payne bill (April i, 
 1909), he again stated this underlying principle 
 with great clearness and force: — 
 
 The only justifiable object of a protective tariff is to 
 develop in our nation the industries which it is naturally 
 fitted to carry on. It should not have for an object to 
 divert labor into channels where it would be employed 
 at a disadvantage. The gospel that labor in itself is a 
 blessing is preached by those who have practiced it but 
 little. A country with poor natural resources and a ster- 
 ile soil, where a man could wring from nature onlv with 
 great difficulty the bare means of subsistence, would be 
 the ideal sort of a country, according to some gentle- 
 men's ideas of labor. There every one would have an 
 opportunity to work and to work hard. But such a coun- 
 try would be a proper home for a penal colony and not 
 for a nation. [Applause.] 
 
 Blessed as we are with an unexampled variety of 
 splendid natural resources we should not by legislation 
 make our country to any degree the sort of a land to 
 which I have just referred. We can employ our labor 
 with profit upon thuse natural resources which are ours 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 beyond question, and we do not need to go into the 
 hothouse business and to divert the labor of America 
 into doing those things which the sunshine and the cli- 
 mate of other lands would do for us with only a slight 
 contribution from labor. Where we are fitted by nature 
 to carry on an industry with a given amount of labor 
 as well as it can be carried on abroad, we should de- 
 velop and encourage such an industry ; but when we 
 embark upon lines which must be followed permanently 
 at a disadvantage, we waste labor and do violence to 
 the laws of nature. Where the difference in the labor 
 cost of production is caused, not by the greater amount 
 of labor required, but by the greater wage, there pro- 
 tective laws should intervene. Let us employ our labor 
 in doing those things which we can do to the best advan- 
 tage and permit foreign nations to do the work which 
 they have greater natural advantages for doing, and then 
 exchange our products with them. That is the sound 
 basis for industry and for international trade. There is 
 a great deal of truth in the celebrated saying of Ben- 
 tham : " Industrv makes of government as modest a re- 
 quest as that of Diogenes to Alexander, ' Stand out of 
 my sunshine.' " 
 
 The Dingley Act had not been long in opera- 
 tion when the outbreak of war with Spain raised 
 a set of new questions which for several years quite 
 obscured the tariff. But on the restoration of 
 peace, agitation for a reduction of duties again 
 set in and became more and more insistent. The 
 Democrats had so fully committed themselves 
 128 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 to the economic hallucinations of Mr. Bryan as 
 to make their party an object of fear and appre- 
 hension. Extreme protectionists, incited by Mark 
 Hanna to "stand pat," contended that when the 
 tariff" was revised it must be done by its friends. 
 Moderate men, who only asked that the sched- 
 ules might be put upon a rational basis, had little 
 to hope for from either of these groups. But the 
 demand for revision persisted, and the Repub- 
 lican Party committed itself to undertake it. The 
 need for it was brought before the House in 
 January, 1906, in a speech by Mr. McCall which 
 attracted attention throughout the countrv. He 
 told the House of the growing demand on the 
 part of great industries that they be relieved of the 
 outworn schedules of the Dingley Act. In defense 
 of the outspoken sentiment of Massachusetts he 
 said : — 
 
 What is her fault to-day ? It is that under her system 
 of untrammcled freedom of speech and of public discus- 
 sion a great and increasing number of her people have 
 dared to think and to sav that the whirling changes of 
 the nine years that have elapsed since the passage of 
 the Dingley Act have thrown some of those great sched- 
 ules out of gear with existing conditions, and that some 
 duties, just, or at least harmless at the time they were 
 enacted, have, by reason of industrial combination to 
 stirle internal competition, and from other reason - 
 come exorbitant, and instead of protecting the people 
 
 1: 1 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 they are shielding monopoly and aiding it to pick the 
 pockets of the people. [Applause.] 
 
 And they are somewhat weary of seeing that ancient 
 friendof ours paraded upon ceremonial occasions, namely, 
 "If the tariff is to be revised, let it be revised by its 
 friends." If the tariff can ever be revised by its friends, 
 can it not be revised by a Congress two thirds of whose 
 members in both the Senate and the House are Repub- 
 licans ? [Applause.] 
 
 I think that our noble governor never said a truer 
 word — that a truer word never was spoken — than 
 when he said that upon a " stand-pat platform " last 
 fall the State would have been lost to the Republicans. 
 
 Now, the people of Massachusetts are only thinking 
 a little in advance of some of the people — not all of 
 the other people — of this countrv. Soon this idea will 
 invade New York and Illinois and Ohio, gathering force 
 as it moves ; and I sav to you that if we do not treat pro- 
 tection as a rational principle, instead of a cast-iron, 
 immutable set of schedules, we are liable to have the 
 Democratic Partv, and then possibly the deluge. [Laugh- 
 ter and applause.] 
 
 It was in commenting upon this speech that 
 the New York "Sun" declared Mr. McCall to 
 be "one of the ablest men in public life," and a 
 few days later it again characterized him as " per- 
 haps the most intellectual man in the House and 
 without doubt the most independent." 
 
 On March 21, 1906, Mr. McCall, on behalf 
 of the Republican members of the Massachusetts 
 130 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 delegation in Congress, addressed a letter to the 
 chairman of the Ways and Means Committee 
 of the House, calling his attention to the fact 
 that the last Republican national platform de- 
 clared that "rates of duty should he readjusted 
 only when conditions have so changed that the 
 public interest demands their alteration," and 
 that in the judgment of Massachusetts Repub- 
 licans conditions had so changed as to demand 
 readjustment, and asking that the Committee 
 begin the consideration of the tariff with a view 
 to its revision. To this the chairman replied that 
 a majority of the Republican members of the 
 House were opposed to such action, and added, 
 "Congress is not prepared to review the tariff 
 schedules in that calm, judicial frame of mind so 
 necessary to the proper preparation of a tariff 
 act so near the coming Congressional elections." 
 But the events of the next few months showed 
 that Mr. McCall's statement that "the people 
 of Massachusetts were only thinking a little in 
 advance of some of the people " was well-founded. 
 In 1908 President Taft was elected upon a plat- 
 form which definitely committed the party to a 
 revision of the tariff. 
 
 When the Republican Party finally undertook 
 the work of tariff revision, Mr. McCall was not 
 only an influential factor in bringing it about, but 
 
 'J 1 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 as one of the oldest members of the Committee 
 on Ways and Means he had an important part in 
 the framing of the new measure and in explain- 
 ing it to the House. In the form in which it 
 passed that body it was a sincere effort to revise 
 the tariff in accordance with the pledges made in 
 the Republican platform. Even as amended by 
 the Senate and finally enacted, the New York 
 "Nation," which has no bias in favor of protec- 
 tion, declared it to be the best tariff ever enacted 
 by the Republican Party. And Mr. McCall's 
 judgment upon the completed act was that it 
 represented " the greatest reduction that has been 
 made in the tariff at any single time since our 
 first revenue law was signed by George Wash- 
 ington." 
 
 Mr. McCall's chief speech upon the Payne 
 bill was made in the House April i, 1909. He 
 was far from endorsing all the features of the act. 
 He had no fancy for the inheritance tax nor for 
 the tax on tea, nor did he approve of all the in- 
 creases and reductions which were made. But the 
 bill dealt with more than five thousand articles 
 of commerce, and such a measure necessarily en- 
 tailed much compromise of opinion. After a pro- 
 longed debate, it passed the House by a vote of 
 217 to 161. In the Senate it suffered the fate 
 which usually befalls revenue measures at the 
 
 132 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 hands of that bodv, and on its return to the 
 House from the conference committee there was 
 serious question as to whether the Republican 
 majority would accept it. Mr. McCall, as indi- 
 cated above, was not satisfied with the bill in all 
 its parts when it was first reported to the House. 
 I le was less satisfied with it in the form in which 
 it passed the House, and his dissatisfaction was 
 vastly increased by the changes made by the Sen- 
 ate. Nevertheless, he urged the House to accept 
 the conference report. Much as he objected to 
 many features of the bill, he believed that it was 
 a great improvement upon the existing law. He 
 felt also that the honor of the Republican Party 
 and its dutv to its President required the passage 
 of the bill. The party was pledged to a revision 
 of the tariff downward, and while this bill did not 
 go as far as Mr. McCall wished, he believed 
 that its rejection would lead to the abandonment 
 at that session of all further attempts to reduce 
 the duties. 
 
 When the tariff again came before Congress 
 in the summer of 1911, Mr. McCall was able 
 to justify his faith in the Payne bill by point- 
 ing to accomplished results. He was able to show 
 that in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1 9 1 1 , the 
 free imports into the United States had been 
 $770,000,000, while the dutiable imports had 
 
 *33 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 amounted to only $749,000,000, upon which 
 duties amounting to $3 13,000,000, or an average 
 ad valorem of 20.54 per cent, had been collected. 
 This was a lower ad valorem than had been im- 
 posed either by the Wilson bill, the Dingley 
 bill, or the McKinley bill. "And yet gentle- 
 men say that this was revision upward." At the 
 same time the total exports from the United 
 States exceeded two billion dollars — the largest 
 in the history of the country. 
 
 An important phase of tariff legislation with 
 which Mr. McCall had much to do concerned 
 reciprocity with neighboring countries. The ac- 
 ceptance of the principle was not inconsistent 
 with the maintenance of a protective policy, and 
 many of the most ardent advocates of extreme 
 protection had also supported various forms of 
 reciprocitv. In one of his first speeches on this 
 subject, Mr. McCall said: — 
 
 I think " reciprocitv " is a word that no gentleman 
 on either side of the House can properly take offense 
 at. I believe that the first reciprocity treaty was negoti- 
 ated by Richard Cobden, and that the greatest advocate 
 of reciprocitv in our time was William McKinley. The 
 name of one is a synonym for free trade, and the name 
 of the other is a synonym for protection. 
 
 Reciprocity goes upon the theory that there are often- 
 times, in the relations of two peoples, conditions that 
 make it peculiarly proper that they shall have reciprocal 
 
 1 34 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 trade arrangements with each other. The position of 
 Cuba, ber political relations to this country, the fact 
 that American interests predominate there, the fact that 
 we buy nearly all she has to sell, and sell her a great 
 portion of what she buys, make her case, it seems to 
 me, as strong a one as could be imagined tor the appli- 
 cation of the principle of reciprocity. 
 
 In the case of Cuba the argument for reci- 
 procity might be based either upon the economic 
 advantages which would result to both coun- 
 tries or upon the moral obligation resting upon 
 the United States to do all that was in its power 
 to set Cuba upon its feet. Mr. McCall believed 
 that the policv was sound from whichever stand- 
 point it was approached. The chief opposition to 
 the measure on economic grounds came from the 
 beet-sugar interests, which attempted to win sup- 
 port for their cause by conjuring up the Sugar 
 Trust. In the debate, on April 14, 1902, Mr. Mc- 
 Call said : — 
 
 I do not think it is exactly fair to discredit the 
 cause of Cuba by bringing in the Sugar Trust or by 
 holding up the Sugar Trust as the beneficiary of this 
 ition. Of course we understand that the Sugar 
 Trust is a bogv that it is always safe to batter, but I do 
 not think that in the consideration of an economic 
 question we should be frightened from !■ 
 the facts as they are in the light of economic principles. 
 ... I for one decline now, as I did two years ago, to 
 
 J 35 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 be frightened from the calm consideration of an economic 
 measure by this conjuring with the octopus. . . . 
 
 Mr. McCall then suggested some of the prob- 
 able consequences of the rejection of the measure. 
 Suppose Congress should refuse to foster Cuban 
 industry, and that in consequence the Cuban 
 people should suffer such financial distress as to 
 lead to outbreaks of disorder in the island. For 
 the protection of life and property and the rees- 
 tablishment of stable conditions, the Government 
 of the United States might assume permanent 
 control of Cuba. 
 
 What will become of the beet-sugar industry then ? 
 I confess it is hardlv a satisfactory answer which gentle- 
 men give to that proposition, to say to us grandly that 
 we will face that crisis when we reach it. 
 
 It is a simple question : What will the beet-sugar in- 
 dustry do if Cuba is annexed ? It will not meet the point 
 to say that they will then have to produce sugar under 
 a protected market and with severe anti-immigration and 
 anti-contract-labor laws, because the provisions of this 
 bill will put upon Cuba, if she shall assent to them, our 
 own contract-labor laws and will put her under our 
 protected markets, so that practically all her supplies 
 bought from other nations will be purchased in this 
 market. 
 
 If our beet-sugar industry cannot hold its own with 
 Cuba, with a specific duty equal to 67.5 of the cost of 
 Cuban production, what will happen when Cuban sugar 
 136 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 has absolutely free access to our market ? The great 
 threat to the sugar industry of this country dors not 
 come from this hill, hut it will come from a failure to pass 
 the hill. It will come from a condition which makes an- 
 nexation necessarv. Viewed, therefore, simply from its 
 economic aspects as a measure to promote international 
 trade, I think it is entirely clear that the pending hill will 
 be for the interests of both countries and will injure no 
 class of people in either nation. 
 
 When the Payne bill was before the House, 
 Mr. McCall urged that the peculiar geographical 
 relations between the United States and Canada 
 be considered, and that the duties upon certain 
 products be mutually remitted. The argument 
 in favor of such a policy with regard to coal was 
 stated in these words : — 
 
 I will now speak concerning the paragraph for reci- 
 procity on coal, which, in effect, means that if Canada 
 will admit our coal free of duty we will extend the 
 same privilege to her coal. In the last fiscal year we ex- 
 ported to Canada 8,592,296 tons of coal and imported 
 from the same countrv 5 tons. It will he seen 
 
 that our exports to Canada considerably exceed our im- 
 ports. Each country has a duty against the coal of the 
 other. The coal question as between the two countries 
 lately resolves itself into a question of freight. A glance 
 at the map will show that. The great Province of On- 
 tario is remote from the Canadian coal-fields and near 
 to our own coal in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and W est 
 Virginia. On the other hand, our northeastern seaboard 
 
 137 
 
Samuel \V. McCall 
 
 is remote from our own coal-fields and contiguous to 
 the fields of Nova Scotia. By setting up mutual barriers 
 against coal it can be transported from the mines of 
 Canada farther into the central parts of that country 
 and can also be carried from our mines farther into 
 those regions of this country which would naturally be 
 served by the Canadian coal. These tariffs are expended 
 in each case in paying the useless hauling of freight. If 
 we remove them, we shall supply from our mines the 
 territory of Canada naturally tributary to them, and our 
 own people, who are nearer the Canadian mines, may 
 have an opportunity to get access to them. Why should 
 each nation create artificial barriers in order that labor 
 may be uselessly employed in carrying this heavy com- 
 modity? The reciprocal removal of the coal duties will 
 thus take off a tax upon the coal miner and the con- 
 sumer of both countries and will benefit both. 
 
 More far-reaching than either of these pro- 
 posals was the measure introduced into the 
 House in 1 9 1 i which provided remission of duties 
 upon a considerable number of Canadian prod- 
 ucts in return for similar concessions by Canada. 
 The action taken by Canada in response to the 
 advances made to her has removed the question 
 from the field of practical politics, but the episode 
 played too important a part in our history to 
 be ignored. For many years statesmen in both 
 countries had been impressed by the fact that 
 purely artificial barriers prevented trade from fol- 
 138 
 
Tm: Policy OF PROTECTION 
 
 lowing its natural channels. On her northern 
 border Canada was lost in the uninhabitable re- 
 gions of the Arctic. To the east and west she was 
 hemmed in by vast expanses of ocean. To the 
 south lay a rich and powerful neighbor, from 
 whom she was separated by only an imaginary 
 line, and from whom, in spite of her compara- 
 tively small population, she purchased more 
 goods than the United States sold to France, and 
 almost as much as we sold to Germany. The 
 value of the exports from the United States to 
 Canada equaled the value of the exports from 
 Great Britain to her Indian Empire. The great 
 frontier of thirty-seven hundred miles — the 
 longest frontier between any two countries — 
 did not offer a single natural barrier to the freest 
 intercourse. It is not strange that many states- 
 men in both countries had sought to remove the 
 barriers created by law. Both Blaine and Mc- 
 kinley had advocated it. President Roosevelt 
 approved of it, and President Taft made it one 
 of the chief measures of his administration. It 
 was at the request of President Taft that Mr. 
 McCall introduced the bill and took charge of it 
 ill the House. His chief speech upon it was, in 
 point of clear analysis, learning, and eloquence, 
 one of the most important which he delivered 
 during his whole term in Congress. Opponents 
 
 «39 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 of the bill cited the example of Bismarck who 
 had imposed duties upon imports of agricultural 
 products into Germany. To this Mr. McCall 
 replied, "Bismarck did not establish agricultural 
 duties so much for the sake of agriculture as to 
 placate the powerful agrarian element and estab- 
 lish generally in Germany the policy of protec- 
 tion." He also showed how in other ways the 
 agrarian element dictated the policy of the Ger- 
 man Government. 
 
 Many persons feared that the cheaper agri- 
 cultural lands of Canada would prove attractive 
 to young men from the United States, and cited 
 the State of Iowa, whose population had de- 
 creased in the preceding decade, as an example 
 of the results to be expected. To this Mr. Mc- 
 Call said : — 
 
 Youno; men have gone from Iowa because thev could 
 get more land in Canada than at home. . . . Suppose 
 thev shall found upon the eastern slopes of the Can- 
 adian Rockies a newer and a fairer Iowa. Who is there 
 who will not wish them Godspeed ? [Applause.] 
 
 Again, the opposition urged that just as the 
 farmers of New England had gone down before 
 the competition of the Western farmers, so the 
 latter would be the victims of the farmers of 
 Canada. To this Mr. McCall said: — 
 140 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 So far as competition with Canada is concerned, if 
 North Dakota, which has a longer summer and a shorter 
 winter than Canada, can be a part of the same agricul- 
 tural domain and can compete with Kansas and Iowa 
 and Oklahoma and those wonderfully rich lands toward 
 the south, lands as fertile as those in Campania, where, 
 as Virgil said — 
 
 " Summer borrows months beyond her own ; 
 Twice the teeming flocks are fruitful, 
 Twice the laden orchards groan " — 
 
 if North Dakota can compete with lands like these, 
 what has she to fear from the more frosty Alberta ? 
 What has Minnesota to fear from Manitoba when she 
 can prosper side by side with Iowa and Nebraska? 
 
 The opposition really centered upon the argu- 
 ment that the adoption of the bill would lower 
 the price received by the American farmer for 
 his wheat. Mr. McCall showed conclusively 
 that so long as the United States exported wheat, 
 the price received by the American fanner would 
 be fixed in the market which took his surplus, 
 and he concluded his speech with this beautiful 
 passage : — 
 
 The boundary line between these two countries 
 stretches, as I have said, for thirtv-scven hundred 
 miles. There is no modern fort along that line. 
 After the War of 1 8 I 2, hv the Rush-Hagehot Treaty, 
 we agreed to have no further armaments upon the 
 Great Lakes, although two of the chief battles of that 
 
 141 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 war had been fought upon them. Great cities, with 
 billions of dollars of property, with fabulous wealth, 
 have grown up along that boundary. They are not de- 
 fended by a single gun, but there are no cities in all 
 the world that are more safe, because they are fortified 
 and guarded by the good sense, the common interests, 
 and the friendly sentiments of two great nations. [Ap- 
 plause.] We have forts, it is true, and guns along that 
 line, but they are antiquated and the survivals of a time 
 long past. And we have made the dreams of the poets 
 come true, for the boys wage mimic wars in the crum- 
 bling embrasures of the forts, the birds build their nests 
 in the lips of the cannon, and little children play upon 
 them and clasp their silent throats. We can just as 
 safely dismantle the tariff forts between the two coun- 
 tries. Canada is one with us in sentiment. She is one 
 with us in all the strongest ties that can draw nations 
 together ; and I trust that this side of the House will 
 vie with that side of the House and support the 
 President of the United States in the enlightened and 
 civilized policy proposed by this bill. [Prolonged 
 applause.] 
 
 The measure was duly adopted by Congress, 
 and was made the issue in the ensuing electoral 
 campaign in Canada. There it was defeated, 
 largely through the fears aroused by the levity 
 and irresponsible utterances of an American poli- 
 tician, who seemed not to realize that his occu- 
 pancy of the high office of Speaker of the House 
 gave to his words abroad a weight to which their 
 142 
 
The Policy of Protection 
 
 intrinsic merit did not entitle them, and which 
 they did not have at home. When the subject 
 came before Congress again in the summer of 
 19 1 2, Mr. McCall said : — 
 
 Reciprocity was pressed upon the attention of Can- 
 ada as involving annexation to this country. If I were 
 to give an opinion upon that point, I should sav that 
 those political ties are most apt to he permanent which 
 coincide with the material interests of a people, and 
 that such ties are subjected to a severe strain when they 
 are maintained at the sacrifice of natural advantages. 
 If I am correct, then reciprocity would certain!] not 
 weaken the present political relations of Canada. Polit- 
 ical relations are in greater danger from laws which 
 stand in the path of commerce than they are in from 
 laws which recognize commercial rights. The Tories 
 of Lord North's breed on both sides of the Atlantic 
 should remember that taxation laws framed to divert 
 trade from its natural channels will be more fraught 
 with danger to the continued possession bv Great 
 Britain of her colonies than the more enlightened policy 
 which she has recently been pursuing. If the 
 Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and Manitoba 
 are prevented from trading with their neighbors across 
 the border, in Minnesota and other States, and if the 
 price of their continued allegiance to the British Crown 
 is to compel them to send their produce two thousand 
 miks to the- seaboard and then across the- ocean, and 
 to pay preferential duties of thirty-three per cent in 
 order to force them to consume British goods, the-n I 
 
 •43 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 think no better way could be devised to lead those great 
 Provinces to drift away from Great Britain and to cause 
 the dismemberment of the Empire. 
 
 But this is no concern of ours. Canada must work 
 out her own destiny. It is for her to say whether 
 the obstruction of the pathway to her natural markets, 
 whether, indeed, complete non-intercourse with the 
 United States, will be the tie to bind her more firmly to 
 the motherland. Even in that event I imagine we shall 
 be able to survive. This arrangement will benefit us, 
 but Canada relatively much more. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SPANISH WAR AND ITS PROBLEMS 
 
 THE presidential election of 1896 turned 
 chiefly upon the money question. The ex- 
 plicit declaration in the Republican platform in 
 ravor of the gold standard and the equally expli- 
 cit declaration of the Democrats in favor of the 
 free coinage of silver, together with the well- 
 known views of that partv's nominee, caused the 
 question as to what should be the country's mon- 
 etarv standard to overshadow all others. For 
 almost a generation, however, another question 
 had vexed succeeding administrations at Wash- 
 ington, each of which had been glad to hand 
 over the problem to the next for solution. The 
 island of Cuba, a colonial dependency of Spain, 
 had been in a condition of disorder for manv vears. 
 Its proximity to the United States and the ex- 
 tent of American interests in its commerce, and 
 the stories of the inhumanity connected with the 
 warfare in the island, made the restoration of or- 
 der a matter of pressing importance to the Amer- 
 ican Government. When feeling in this country 
 was already almost at the breaking point, the 
 
 '45 
 
Samuel \V. McCall 
 
 American battleship Maine was sunk, on Febru- 
 ary 15, 1898, in the harbor of Havana. The 
 cause of this disaster still remains unknown. 
 Nothing, however, has ever been disclosed which 
 in any way implicated the Government of Spain. 
 But whatever the cause, the conviction grew that 
 the dominion of Spain in Cuba must cease. In 
 Congress, so far as is known, there was absolute 
 unanimity of opinion on this point. The only 
 question which still remained open was as to the 
 method by which the desired result should be 
 accomplished. It is now known, on the testimony 
 of General Woodford, American Minister to 
 Spain in 1898, that the Spanish Government also 
 saw that withdrawal from Cuba was inevitable, 
 and was prepared to submit. He has given it as 
 his opinion that a further delay of twenty-four 
 hours would have resulted in the acceptance by 
 Spain of proposals entirely satisfactory to the 
 United States. But Congress was bent on war, 
 and only such a President as Grover Cleveland 
 or Thomas B. Reed could have withstood the 
 pressure brought to bear in support of that pol- 
 icy. President McKinley could not, hv the wild- 
 est flight of the imagination, be compared in stav- 
 ing power with such men as Cleveland or Reed, 
 and the war came. 
 
 When it was seen that hostilities might be 
 
 D 
 I46 
 
The Spanish War and i is Problems 
 
 imminent, a resolution was introduced in the 
 House appropriating fifty million dollars to be 
 expended at the discretion of the President for 
 the national defense. Mr. McCall supported this 
 resolution, " because it is a prudent measure of 
 defense and is in no sense an act of aggressive 
 war." The bill passed the House unanimously. 
 After the receipt of the report of the commission 
 appointed to investigate the sinkingof the Maine, 
 — an investigation in which the Government of 
 Spain was not allowed to participate, — President 
 Mckinley threw up his hands and transmitted a 
 message in which he said, " The issue is now with 
 Congress." In the early hours of April 19,1898, 
 the House adopted a joint resolution making 
 demands upon Spain which inevitably entailed 
 war. Mr. McCall was one of the six members 
 of the House who voted against it. Of these six 
 who were strongly in favor of the utmost utiliza- 
 tion of the resources of diplomacy before resort- 
 ing to war, — a course which General Woodford 
 believed would be successful, — four had served 
 in the Civil War and knew what war meant. 
 The other two were too young for such service. 
 The attitude of Mr. McCall toward the war 
 with Spain was like that of Lord Brvce toward 
 the South African War. Brvce looked upon that 
 war as unjustifiable, but having been begun he 
 
 "47 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 assisted the Government in fighting it out and 
 bringing it to a conclusion. So likewise Mr. 
 McCall voted in Congress for all the measures 
 which were necessary for the prosecution of hos- 
 tilities after they had once been begun. In the 
 discussion of the war revenue bill, on April 28, 
 1898, after saying that there had been differ- 
 ences of opinion as to " the wisdom and the 
 justice and the expediency of this war," Mr. 
 McCall continued : — 
 
 Since war has been declared by the high constitu- 
 tional authority of this Government, and our warships 
 have been set in motion, and our youth have been 
 summoned from their homes, — destined, perhaps, like 
 the youth of Athens, " to perish from the city like the 
 spring from the year," — the high, and urgent, and 
 patriotic duty that is upon us now is to give to those 
 men whom we have summoned into a position of dan- 
 ger our prompt, ungrudging, and generous support. 
 
 The war with Spain was in itself a matter of 
 small moment. To be sure, it disclosed that a 
 training camp in the United States was attended 
 with greater danger to the enlisted men than a 
 battle with the Spanish forces, and the adminis- 
 trative methods of the War Department were 
 almost criminal in their inefficiency. The chief 
 importance of the war with Spain, however, lies 
 in the annexation of territories which are not now 
 148 
 
The Spanish War and its Problems 
 
 and never can be lit for admission to the Federal 
 
 Union. For the first time in our history territory 
 was annexed which, from its situation and the 
 character of its inhabitants, can never be held as 
 anything else than a dependency. It has been the 
 great good fortune of the United States that prior 
 to 1898 every one of its territorial acquisitions 
 consisted of lands possessing almost no inhab- 
 itants and well fitted by nature to become the 
 home of people of the white race. With the ac- 
 quisition of the Philippines the country entered 
 upon a course which necessitated the holding of 
 tropical territories not only unfit for settlement 
 by a white population, but also inhabited by 
 some seven million people who accepted Ameri- 
 can rule only when it was forced upon them at 
 the point of the bayonet. The situation of the 
 islands also involved their possessors in Asiatic 
 politics to a degree incommensurate with our in- 
 terests in that quarter. 
 
 The acquisition of Porto Rico, in view of its 
 proximity to the United States, was natural, and 
 if it had been followed by the bestowal of Amer- 
 ican citizenship upon its inhabitants would have 
 met with general acquiescence on their part. The 
 Philippines were annexed apparentlv because Pres- 
 ident McKinley did not know what else to do 
 with them. There have been few instances in the 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 history of the English-speaking race when poli- 
 cies of the first importance have been determined 
 by a man who seemed to be actuated so little by 
 any guiding principle. A few months after the 
 annexation, when the United States was bending 
 all its efforts to subjugating the Filipino insur- 
 gents, — a task which occupied it for some years, 
 — President McKinley solemnly declared in a 
 message to Congress, " I had every reason to be- 
 lieve, and I still believe, that this transfer of sov- 
 ereignty was in accordance with the wishes and 
 the aspirations of the great mass of the Filipino 
 people." 
 
 In the decision that the Philippines should 
 be acquired by the United States, the House of 
 Representatives had no voice, but their acquisi- 
 tion and that of Porto Rico raised a set of ques- 
 tions in constitutional law and governmental 
 policy which were entirely new in American his- 
 tory. Their solution was made the more diffi- 
 cult by the fact that the Government had adopted 
 no policv with reference to which its action on 
 measures affecting our colonial dependencies 
 should be framed. Whether legislation was to 
 be formulated for a group of tropical islands which 
 we expected to hold in permanent subjection, or 
 in which we expected to establish an autono- 
 mous government under an American protec- 
 150 
 
The Spanish War and its Problems 
 
 torate, or from which we intended soon to with- 
 draw, leaving the government in the hands of 
 those to whom nature gave it — nothing of this 
 had been decided. In the debate on the Army 
 Bill in December, 1900, Mr. McCall argued 
 that it was the duty of the United States to 
 make up its mind as to what disposition it in- 
 tended to make of the islands: — 
 
 It seems to me the time has arrived at last when the 
 question of the ultimate relations of this country to the 
 Philippine Archipelago should be considered and our 
 position as a nation declared. Before the treaty we 
 were told that the question could not with propriety 
 be discussed; that we were at war with Spain, and that 
 a discussion of that character should wait the return of 
 peace. After peace had been declared, and we had 
 bought from her the civil war which we had at least 
 encouraged against her, we were told that it would not 
 do to discuss the ultimate relations of the Philippine 
 Islands with us while they were in what was called a 
 state of rebellion against their purchasers. We have 
 been told, however, with a good deal of iteration by 
 our generals and commissioners and other civil officers, 
 that the organized rebellion was broken up; that an 
 appearance of war was only kept up by the hope of a 
 political occurrence in this country which has not taken 
 place. 
 
 If the question cannot with proprietv be discussed 
 to-day, if we must wait until the Philippine Islands are 
 a.s peaceful as Ohio or Massachusetts, I fear that it 
 
 '5' 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 will never become proper for us to discuss what our 
 duties and our interests demand, but we shall be thrust 
 along to one ill-considered step after another until our 
 position shall become irretrievably fixed. In my opinion 
 our policy in the Philippines should have been declared 
 at the outset and should have been a similar policv to 
 that which we declared for Cuba. Unfortunately, our 
 course was consistent with no other theory than that 
 the Filipino had been fighting simply for a change of 
 masters and that the yoke of the United States might 
 be substituted for the yoke of Spain. If we had prac- 
 ticed a similar policy in Cuba, which some influential 
 gentlemen seem to regret, who can doubt that we 
 should have had a war in Cuba as we have one in the 
 Philippine Islands ? 
 
 In his discussion as to what the policy of 
 America toward the Philippines should be, Mr. 
 McCall resorted in his accustomed manner to 
 fundamental principles. He pointed out that, 
 geographically and ethnologicallv, the people of 
 those islands and the people of the United States 
 are poles apart. This in itself constituted such 
 an obvious barrier that no advocate of retaining 
 the islands had ever suggested that they be 
 made a part of the American political system. 
 The islands were also unfit to become a colony 
 to which the surplus population of the United 
 States could be sent. Even if we had a surplus 
 population, the white race cannot colonize the 
 152 
 
The Spanish War and its Probli ms 
 
 tropics, and particularly it cannot colonize the 
 Philippines which arc already as densely populated 
 as New England. But all of Mr. McCall's ar- 
 guments on the Philippines come back in the 
 last analysis to the fundamental precept that 
 one people has no right to subjugate another. 
 He accepted literally the doctrine of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence, that all governments 
 "derive their just powers from the consent of 
 the governed." But it was said that the Fili- 
 pinos were incapable of self-government. To this 
 Mr. McCall replied that doubtless they could 
 not maintain a government which would rank 
 very high according to American standards, but 
 
 DO ' 
 
 whatever government they fashioned for them- 
 selves would be better than any government that 
 could be forced upon them by an alien power. 
 "The Filipino," he said, "does not, perhaps, 
 come up to Anglo-Saxon standards and should 
 not be judged by them. . . . He seems ad- 
 vanced enough, however, to fight for his free- 
 dom. Give him the benefit of that." 
 
 At a time when governmental expenditures 
 are increasing at an appalling rate, the cost of 
 holding the Philippines is an important consid- 
 eration. In his speech on the Army Bill, De- 
 cember 5, 1900, Mr. McCall said, "As a portion 
 of the cost of retaining the Philippine Islands 
 
 '53 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 we are to include the maintenance of the greater 
 part of the army established by this very bill"; 
 and he proceeded to show that the amount ex- 
 pended by the United States for military pur- 
 poses was greater than the combined expenditure 
 of France and Germany. Men who have held 
 high office in the Philippines have solemnly as- 
 sured us that the possession of the islands costs 
 us nothing. Yet within the last few weeks high 
 naval officers have informed committees of Con- 
 gress, who are formulating legislation to meet 
 the new demand for national preparedness, that 
 without the Philippines two warships would do 
 the work of three. In other words, the posses- 
 sion of this outpost in Asia requires a naval force 
 fifty percent larger than would otherwise be neces- 
 sary for adequate national defense. And vet we 
 are told that the Philippines cost us nothing. 
 
 Mr. McCall's speech on the Army Bill was 
 noteworthy for its thorough examination of the 
 experience of other countries in the management of 
 colonies. In this he gave an illustration of that 
 characteristic of which the Washington "Post" 
 said, "The Massachusetts member has a reputa- 
 tion for going pretty thoroughly into questions 
 on which he undertakes to address the House." 
 Mr. McCall appealed to the history of Eng- 
 land in Jamaica and in India, to the experience 
 '54 
 
The Spanish War and its Problems 
 
 o\ France in Tonkin and Madagascar, and to 
 that of Italy in the districts conquered from Ab- 
 yssinia, all of which showed that these colonics 
 were from a financial standpoint losing ven- 
 tures. And there was no reason to hope that the 
 Philippines would be any more profitable to the 
 United States than the tropical colonies of other 
 countries had been to them. 
 
 Mr. McCall also showed that the annexation 
 of territories outside the western hemisphere 
 greatly weakened our position with reference to 
 our one great tradition in foreign policy known 
 as the Monroe Doctrine: — 
 
 The assertion of a policy of Asiatic domination will 
 bring the Monroe Doctrine tumbling about our ears, 
 tor we shall make ourselves the laughing-stock of man- 
 kind if we say to the overcrowded nations of the other 
 hemisphere, M Keep \ our hands ofr the empty and un- 
 occupied portions of this continent," and then at the same 
 time, having a sparse population, embrace a thousand 
 islands in the other hemisphere. Such a course would 
 deprive the Monroe Doctrine of the last appearance of 
 justice, and thenceforward it would have to stand upon 
 force alone. 
 
 He also pointed out that the holding of the 
 Philippines would add another to the race prob- 
 lems with which our country is troubled and which 
 seem necessarily to arise whenever men of A 
 
 i55 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 Saxon blood attempt to rule a people of another 
 color. The experience of England in Africa, 
 India, and China, as well as our own experience 
 in the South and in the Philippines since the date 
 of Mr. McCall's speech, amply justify his warn- 
 ing. The speech concludes with a fine tribute to 
 the spirit in which the Filipinos were endeavor- 
 ing to maintain their independence: — 
 
 I have seen this spirit called somewhere, and I think 
 admirably called, the " unconquerable spirit." It is the 
 spirit that kept George Washington fighting after Valley 
 Forge. It is the spirit which animates DeWet to-day 
 in South Africa after the organization of the republican 
 armies has been destroyed and they have been broken up 
 into bands of roving patriots. It is the same spirit which, 
 according to the reports of our own generals, has broken 
 down tribal lines and made the people of the Philippines 
 unanimous in their hostility to this nation. It is the 
 same spirit which would have shown itself in Cuba had 
 we turned our war of deliverence in that countrv, as 
 we did in Asia, into one of conquest. Those who think 
 that the Filipinos continue to wage against us the war 
 we purchased from Spain because of some speech made 
 by somebody against the treaty have read history to 
 but little purpose, if, indeed, thev have read it at all. 
 They are inspired by that same unconquerable spirit 
 which is the noblest heritage of the human heart, which 
 I am glad to believe is universal ; it is man's best title 
 to freedom, and that is the spirit to wage unrelenting 
 war in behalf of liberty. 
 156 
 
The Spanish War and its Problems 
 The Empire of Great Britain never attained a loftier 
 
 moral stature than when, after Majuba Hill, she showed 
 herself willing to do justice to the Boers. Standing almost 
 peerless in physical strength among the nations, she dis- 
 played that nobler and more essential quality of great- 
 ness when after a reverse she yet listened to the demands 
 of that weak little republic in South Africa. That act 
 of Gladstone's strengthened his country in the hearts of 
 men the world over; and it will shine in history all the 
 more brightly in contrast with the brutal and merciless 
 policy of extermination which is now shocking the sen- 
 sibilities of Christendom. But how much easier is it for 
 us to-dav to pursue a policy of justice ? We have suffered 
 no reverse, or none indeed unless it be a moral one which 
 our own conduct has inflicted. The organized armies 
 have been dispersed. The Filipino leader, whom we 
 bore to Luzon with arms in one of our own ships, has 
 been driven bv us to the caves of the mountains, if indeed 
 he vet lives. The time has come when we should frankly 
 declare to those people our ultimate purpose toward 
 them. Let us give them that assurance which all our 
 history inspires. Let us tell them that we will aid them 
 for one year — for five years if need be — in setting up 
 a government of their own, symbolized by their own 
 flag, and that we will leave with them all that is most 
 glorious in the meaning of another flag — liberty, inde- 
 pendence, self-government. 
 
 The annexation of Porto Rico as a result of 
 the war with Spain was so obviouslv fitting and 
 so much in accord with the feeling of its inhahit- 
 
 '57 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 ants as to occasion little dissent, but its relation 
 to the United States after annexation and the 
 constitutional status of its inhabitants provoked 
 wide discussion. Mr. McCall took the view, 
 which still seems to be in strict accordance with 
 every decision of the Supreme Court prior to 
 Downes v. Bidwell (1901), 182 U.S. 244, that 
 the authority of Congress to legislate for Porto 
 Rico and the Philippines was subject to the re- 
 straints of the Constitution, and that the inhab- 
 itants of the insular possessions were entitled to 
 theprotectionofthe guaranties of that instrument. 
 Mr. McCall's speech on the Porto Rico tariff, de- 
 livered in the House February 22, 1900, was a 
 close-knit constitutional argument and shows 
 what eminence he might have attained as a con- 
 stitutional advocate had he chosen to devote his 
 labors to the bar. Almost a year later ex-President 
 Harrison, in what was probably the ablest address 
 of his life, announced at the University of Michi- 
 gan the same principles of constitutional inter- 
 pretation which formed the basis of Mr. McCall's 
 speech. " The man who has to relv upon be- 
 nevolence for his laws is a slave," said Har- 
 rison. "The Revolution," said Mr. McCall, "was 
 started and fought to a successful conclusion 
 upon the broad principle that one community 
 had no right permanently to levy taxes upon 
 158 
 
The Spanish War and its Problems 
 
 another community." And a few months later 
 in his discussion of the Army Bill, he said, 
 " There is at least one thing in government worse 
 than government by revolution, and that is gov- 
 ernment by brute force. The government of one 
 community by another community, of one race 
 by another race, contrary to the customs and ideas 
 of the governed is something worse than govern- 
 ment by revolution." 
 
 Whether or not the United States should levy 
 duties upon imports from Porto Rico was not, 
 in Mr. McCall's view, simply a matter of consti- 
 tutional power. "This is no question of mere 
 syntax," he said. While he believed that the 
 Constitution gave to Congress no power to dis- 
 criminate between different portions of American 
 territory, vet, even it it did, such discrimination 
 was to his mind contrary to the spirit of American 
 liberty. His interpretation of the Constitution 
 was rejected by the Supreme Court, but it is in- 
 teresting to note that the decision was by a vote 
 of five to four, and there was great difference of 
 opinion among the majority as to the grounds 
 of their judgment. This decision, however, did 
 not affect the question of the duty owed by the 
 United States to the people under its dominion, 
 and it may be doubted if this whole debate, which 
 was the loftiest in tone which this country has 
 
 159 
 
Samuel \V. McCall 
 
 heard since the abolition of slavery, produced 
 anything more eloquent than the concluding por- 
 tion of Mr. McCall's speech in opposition to the 
 Porto Rico tariff: — 
 
 Remember that if the race from which our institu- 
 tions sprang has great virtues it has great faults as well. 
 It may not be cruel like the Spanish race; but is it free 
 from cupidity ? Do you want an instance from its his- 
 tory which may show you whither you are drifting? To 
 the west of England there rises from the sea an island 
 larger but not more beautiful than Porto Rico — Ireland. 
 English statesmen thought their country needed protec- 
 tion against her products, and the linen and other great 
 industries of Ireland were taxed and legislated almost 
 out of existence for the benefit of the taxing countrv, 
 and the people of Ireland were beggared. That svstem 
 has been abandoned, and to-day a British citizen in Ire- 
 land has equal rights with a British citizen in any other 
 part of the Empire, even in England itself; but genera- 
 tions will not obliterate the bitter memories of the op- 
 pression and wrong which rankle in the hearts of the 
 Irish people. 
 
 Do you want to make Porto Rico our Ireland ? I 
 say far wiser will it be if, instead of entering upon 
 a policy which will make her happv, sunnv-hearted 
 children the mere chattels of this Government, we 
 follow the humane recommendation of the President 
 and lav the foundations of our empire deep in the hearts 
 of those people. If you will not regard the question 
 from the standpoint of their interests, look at it some- 
 160 
 
Tiik Spanish War and its Problems 
 
 what broadly from the standpoint of your own. Our 
 injustice will react upon ourselves. [Applause.] 
 
 Our nation was founded and has prospered upon the 
 doctrine of constitutional liberty. Do you not sec that 
 you arc degrading that liberty from a high principle ? If 
 BO, how long can vou expect it to survive at home f W e 
 restrain our own power when it may be exerted upon 
 ourselves. You demand now that it shall be absolute 
 and despotic when it mav be exerted upon others. If 
 restraint is to be removed, it can more safely be dis- 
 pensed with when thev who wield the power are likely 
 to suffer. 
 
 I do not care to see our flag emblazon the principle 
 of liberty at home and tyranny abroad. Sir, I brand with 
 all my energy this hateful notion, bred somewhere in the 
 heathenish recesses of Asia, that one man may exercise 
 absolute dominion over another man or one nation over 
 another nation. That notion comports very little with 
 mv idea of American liberty. It was resisted to the last 
 extremity by the heroes who fought at Bunker Hill and 
 Starved at Valley Forge. It fell before the gleaming 
 sabers of our troopers at Five Forks and Winchester. 
 It was shot to death by our guns at Gettysburg and 
 Appomattox. A half-million men gave up their lives 
 that their country might stand forth clothed in the re- 
 splendent robes of constitutional liberty and that we 
 might have a government of laws and not of men for 
 every man beneath the shining folds of the flag. All the 
 sweet voices of our history plead with us for that great 
 cause to-day. And I do not believe, sir, that this nation 
 will tokrate any abandonment of that principle which 
 
 [( i 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 has made her morally, as she is physically, without 
 a peer among nations. 
 
 The status of the Philippines and their relation 
 to the United States were again before Congress 
 in the winter of 1905-06, when a bill providing 
 for free trade between the United States and the 
 Philippines was introduced. It was perhaps not 
 surprising to find that many men, who had been 
 most strenuous in their advocacy of the annexa- 
 tion of the islands, now opposed the removal of 
 tariff barriers against the coming of their prod- 
 ucts to the United States, on the ground that 
 such a measure would prove destructive to cer- 
 tain American industries. To these men Mr. 
 McCall said : — 
 
 I think they should manfully recognize that they are 
 simply going to pay the price for having indulged in 
 some beautiful rhetoric about the flag, — how it should 
 never be hauled down, no matter for what purpose it 
 had been run up, — and also for the pleasure of stand- 
 ing upon the mount of prophecy and seeing dazzling 
 visions of an illimitable trade destined never to exist. 
 They are paying the penalty to-day for having contrib- 
 uted toward making the Philippine Islands American 
 territory. 
 
 1 [e taunted those members who constantly 
 justified the subjugation of the Philippines by a 
 resort to "destiny" and appeals to Providence: — 
 162 
 
Tin: Spanish War and its Probli i 
 
 My friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. Dalzell], who 
 
 is one of tlu- most genuine orators I have ever listened 
 to upon this Boor, in a burst of piety and eloquence 
 yesterday credited the providence of God with the re- 
 sponsibility or the glorj for our possession of the Phil- 
 ippine Archipelago. This observation of my friend 
 reminded me of a remark credited to Mr. Henry Labou- 
 chere concerning a celebrated British statesman. He 
 did not rind fault, Mr. Labouchcre said, that that states- 
 man should now and then be found with an ace up his 
 sleeve, but he did object when he claimed that it was 
 put there by Divine Providence. [Laughter.] Horace, 
 in his "Art of Poetry," has said that you should not 
 introduce a deity upon the scene unless there were some 
 very hard knot to untie, which it would require a deity 
 : , and it seems to me gentlemen who have defended 
 
 our Philippine policy here have acted strictly within the 
 rule laid down by Horace. They have a hard knot to 
 untie, and they have frequently introduced Providence 
 into this debate. It is a convenient refuge to fly to when 
 one is hard pressed for argument. 
 
 judged simply from an economic standpoint, 
 Mr. McCall thought that there should be a duty 
 upon Philippine sugar. If American capitalists in- 
 troduced modern methods of sugar production 
 into the islands, the American farmer could be 
 undersold in the American market. But politi- 
 cal and constitutional considerations were more 
 mighty than economic arguments. Having com- 
 pelled the Filipinos to submit to American rule, 
 
 ■ ; 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 it became the duty of the American Government 
 to act the part of a faithful guardian and to do all 
 that was possible to promote the interests of its 
 ward. " The farmer is paying the penalty," he 
 said, " because some of our statesmen at a critical 
 time in the history of the nation saw fit to ' think 
 imperially.'" Trade relations with the islands 
 should have been considered when their annexa- 
 tion was under discussion. It was not now an 
 open question. 
 
 The policy of free trade was established, to my mind, 
 when we annexed the Philippine Islands, and my action 
 was determined for me by others in spite of my oppo- 
 sition when annexation was decreed, and I feel con- 
 strained to support free trade as a necessary result of 
 annexation. It was ordained when we bought from 
 Spain the bloodiest foreign war in which this Republic 
 ever engaged. I say foreign war, because those people 
 never owed us any allegiance whatever, and the war 
 was purely one of conquest and subjugation. It was a 
 war aptly characterized by the fine line cited by Air. 
 Mead : — 
 
 « Cursed is the war no poet sings." 
 
 Imagine, if you can, an American poet singing and 
 the American schoolboy declaiming the most glorious 
 exploit of that war, the capture of the Philippine chief- 
 tain by American soldiers in Philippine uniforms at the 
 very moment when he was extending to them succor 
 from impending starvation, 
 i 64 
 
The Si>. wish War and its Problems 
 
 When the Payne Bill, which provided practi- 
 cally for free trade between the United Si 
 and the Philippines, was before the House, Mr. 
 McCall, while advocating that provision of the 
 measure, also urged that Congress should at the 
 same time frankly declare its purpose as to the 
 ultimate disposition of the Philippines. If Con- 
 gress continued to encourage trade with the is- 
 lands and the investment of American capital 
 therein, the plea would be made that such invest- 
 ments were entitled to the permanent protection 
 of the American Government. The Filipinos 
 themselves foresaw this contingency, and the 
 Filipino Assembly was for that reason opposed 
 to the policy of free trade with the United States. 
 Mr. McCall said : — 
 
 I have noticed the manner in which this bill has been 
 received bv the Philippine Assembly. That is no revo- 
 lutionarv body, but it was set up under our auspices. 
 So far as this country is concerned, it cannot be sus- 
 pected of having an unfriendly structure. And it is 
 most significant of the aspiration of the people of those 
 islands that, great as the advantages of this bill arc to 
 them, their assembly, constituted bv us, puts above 
 those great material advantages the cause of the inde- 
 pendence of their country. Believing that free trade 
 with this countrv will call into being powerful inl 
 hostile to their independence, they do not wish to accept 
 the gift. 
 
 165 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 I believe we should heed their wish and couple this 
 grant with an unequivocal declaration of our ultimate 
 policy which will sanctify every schedule of this bill and 
 make it one of the most glorious acts in our history. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 There are only three solutions which we can avow. 
 We can declare that we propose to hold them perpetu- 
 ally as vassals, passing their taxation laws at Washing- 
 ington, and conceding them now a little authority and 
 now, perhaps, none at all; or that we will admit them 
 some dav as States into the American Union to take 
 part in the common government; or that we will en- 
 deavor to fit them for self-government; and when that 
 result shall have been accomplished will permit them 
 to take their place among the free and independent na- 
 tions. To mv mind the first and second purposes are 
 inadmissible. I have heard no one seriously avow either 
 of them. Then why not, at the same time that we are 
 granting them this extension of trade and calling new 
 interests into being, why not declare that it is our pur- 
 pose to fit them for self-government and then to grant 
 them their freedom ? [Applause.] Such a policy has 
 been, in effect, approved by Mr. Taft before he became 
 President and by his two predecessors in office. But 
 the treaty of Paris imposes upon Congress the duty of 
 fixing the status of the Philippines. Then let Congress 
 at this fitting moment frankly declare, after ten years 
 of drifting, just what we mean to do with those people. 
 Let us make the declaration called for by American 
 principles. Let us make it no less in their interests than 
 in our own. [Loud applause.] 
 
 166 
 
The Spanish War and its Problems 
 
 \s this book goes to press, Congress has under 
 discussion a bill, supported by both the great par- 
 ties, by which the principles of the Declaration of 
 Independence are applied to the Philippines and 
 :y advocated by Mr. McCall ever since the 
 war with Spain would be put into effect. 
 
 It was the condition of Cuba which precipitated 
 the war with Spain. Whatever sinister motives 
 individuals may have had with reference to that 
 conflict, there can be no doubt that the great 
 mass of the American people were actuated by 
 broad motives of humanity and a sincere de- 
 sire to benefit the Cuban people without regard 
 to any direct benefit to ourselves. It may be 
 questioned whether any war was ever entered 
 upon in a more disinterested spirit. The resolu- 
 tion of Congress which precipitated hostilities 
 declared that " the people of the island of Cuba 
 are, and of right ought to be, free and independ- 
 ent," and disclaimed any intention on the part 
 of the United States to exercise sovereigntv, ju- 
 risdiction, or control over the said island except 
 for the pacification thereof, "and asserts its de- 
 termination, when that is accomplished, to leave 
 the government and control of the island to its 
 people." As the task of restoring order in Cuba 
 was approaching completion, Congress enacted 
 the Piatt Amendment, by which the acceptance 
 
 167 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 of certain safeguards for the maintenance of its 
 independence was imposed upon the Cuban 
 Government as a condition precedent to the 
 withdrawal of the American troops. 
 
 But when the authority of Spain had been ex- 
 pelled from Cuba and a stable government had 
 been established therein, Mr. McCall argued 
 that the whole duty of the United States had 
 not yet been discharged. By the terms of the 
 Piatt Amendment, Cuba's power to make treaties 
 with other nations was greatly restricted, and 
 Mr. McCall argued from this, as well as from 
 other considerations, that Cuba had peculiar 
 claims upon the generosity of the United States. 
 When a bill establishing reciprocal trade rela- 
 tions with Cuba was before the House in 1902, 
 it was this aspect of the question which Mr. 
 McCall urged as the most important reason for 
 its adoption : — 
 
 How does Cuba's case stand in equitv compared with 
 that of the Philippines ? Cuha is at our doors. She 
 guards a great stretch of our coast, the mouth of the 
 Mississippi, and the Isthmian Canal. It was her cause 
 that stirred the hearts of the American people. She is 
 a part of us, not by the harsh fiat of war which, in de- 
 fiance of the laws of nature, sets up an artificial and 
 unnatural relation with incongruous peoples who live 
 under another sky and who are not so far separated 
 168 
 
The Spanish War and its Problems 
 
 from us by the space of half the planet which divides us 
 as by those more ineradicable differences in institutions, 
 
 in race, and in civilization, but she is a part of us by 
 those- common interests which bind peoples together. 
 
 I know it is commonly said that destiny decrees that 
 she should somedav become an integral part of the Amer- 
 ican Union. Destiny is too often a mere synonym of un- 
 hallowed greed. For my part, I prefer to have her go on 
 and flourish as an independent republic rather than to 
 have her take a part in the Government of the people 
 of the United States. Under the protection of this na- 
 tion in foreign affairs, with the instability of the races 
 which inhabit her, regulated and tempered by people ot 
 American birth, whom prosperity will attract to her in 
 large numbers, I think she can flourish as an independ- 
 vernment in a wav that will make her the model 
 of the other Latin-American States. Hut if she is ever 
 to become a part of us, it is far better that she should 
 enter as a prosperous and contented member than 
 through the door of starvation. 
 
 If we are to have Porto Rico and Cuba and other 
 tropical countries with their incongruous populations 
 admitted to participate in the government of the Amer- 
 ican commonwealth, we must be prepared for a radical 
 chance in the character of our institutions. For the 
 sake, then, of our own future, as well as for the sake 
 of that newborn republic, let us pass this bill. What- 
 ever the faults of the Cuban people, we must all admit 
 the great patience and serenity with which they have 
 acted during the last three years. 
 
 Let us now set them upon their course as a r 
 
 169 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 with the help and the encouragement contained in this 
 measure. That little republic is the child of this great 
 nation, sprung from her loins, and she appeals to our 
 highest interests, to our tenderness, to our sense of jus- 
 tice, and to that high sentiment that makes men respond to 
 the call of duty, and I trust that such an appeal will never 
 be made to this Republic in vain. 
 
 Mr. McCall regarded the policy of reciproc- 
 ity with Cuba as economically advantageous to 
 the United States, and as to Cuba he did not 
 exaggerate when he said that to that young and 
 weak people "it comes as the very bread of life." 
 Every consideration of honor impelled us to ex- 
 tend to them the help of which they stood so 
 much in need. It was this aspect of the ques- 
 tion which Mr. McCall emphasized in his speech 
 of November 19, 1903: — 
 
 I have, perhaps, said more than is necessary concern- 
 ing- the financial features of this measure in view of the 
 clear sentiment of the House upon the bill. I wish to 
 say a word about those weightier considerations of a 
 hi^h political and moral character that are based not 
 upon mere expediency, but that grow out of the de- 
 mands of justice. An individual man, strong and rich, 
 may not with impunity oppress another who is weak 
 and poor, because he is held in terror by the law. But 
 what court is there which could enter and enforce a 
 decree against the United States in favor of Cuba? Her 
 case therefore calls for the exercise of that higher and 
 1-0 
 
The Spanish War and its Problems 
 
 more difficult, because merely voluntary, justice which 
 •ne nation measures out to a weak one. 
 Cuba is not stron- enough physically to enforce any 
 
 claim against the United States. She has no army or 
 navy. She is just entering upon her career as a na- 
 tion. She is absolutely in the hollow of our hands, so 
 that whatever we do for her will not be done by us out 
 of tear, but will come about by the operation upon our 
 will of the abstract principles of justice. Cuba has 
 already done something at our dictation. She has sur- 
 rendered to us important naval stations upon her south- 
 ern coast, and surrendered them at our demand. She 
 has also imposed very serious limitations upon her 
 power to treat with other nations, and she has done this 
 upon our demand. 
 
 We have put Cuba in a position where she can safely 
 make no trade compact with any other nation than our- 
 selves. We have resting upon us the obligations of a 
 mother to a daughter. Her government has been reared 
 upon soil soaked by the blood of our soldiers, and it ex- 
 ists because of the battles that have been fought by 
 Americans upon her territory and upon the seas that 
 surround her and on the other side of the world. She 
 guards the approach to the isthmian canal and the 
 mouth of the Mississippi. Her peace and happiness are 
 most important to us. Her prosperity will conduce to 
 our repose as well as our renown, and the members of 
 this House have an opportunity to-day to add appre- 
 ciably to the glory and to serve the honor ot their 
 countrv by voting for this bill with substantial una- 
 nimity. [Loud applause on the Republican side.] 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PRESIDENXY OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 
 
 HOWEVER busy Mr. McCall's life has 
 been and however much his public duties 
 have taken him away from New England, noth- 
 ing has ever diminished his interest in his alma 
 mater. Ever since his graduation from Dart- 
 mouth in 1874, he has kept in close touch with 
 her affairs, and as his reputation grew he has been 
 the recipient of her highest academic honors. He 
 has been her chosen spokesman upon such festi- 
 val occasions as the centennial of the graduation 
 of Daniel Webster. He has been her trusted 
 counselor in many a difficult situation. It was but 
 natural, therefore, that when the presidency of 
 the college became vacant in 1908, the thoughts 
 of Dartmouth men turned to Mr. McCall. 
 
 The history of Dartmouth is in many respects 
 unique. Founded as a school for Indians and 
 isolated in a mountain village remote from any 
 considerable citv, there was little in her origin or 
 environment which promised the development of 
 an influential institution of learning. Several cir- 
 cumstances, however, combined to make her well 
 172 
 
Presidency of Dartmouth College 
 
 known. Several of her alumni, such as Daniel 
 Webster and Kufus Choate, Thaddeus Stevens 
 
 and Salmon P. Chase, kept her much in the public 
 eye. She had been the subject also of one of the 
 most famous legal controversies ever heard in 
 American courts, and Daniel Webster's well- 
 known phrase, uttered in the course of his argu- 
 ment in her behalf, " It is, Sir, as I have said, a 
 small college. And yet, there are those who love 
 it," was a part of the rhetorical equipment of 
 many an American schoolboy. Like much other 
 rhetoric, however, it was misleading. The truth 
 is that even when Webster made the statement, 
 Dartmouth, as compared with her contempo- 
 raries, was not a small college. While her situa- 
 tion was in some respects unfavorable to rapid 
 growth, she was for many years the only college 
 in Maine, New I lampshire, and Vermont. In the 
 eighteenth century those sections ot New Eng- 
 land were rapidly settled with a population of 
 character and enterprise and ability, and the 
 sons of these pioneers flocked to Dartmouth in 
 considerable numbers. It is true that measured 
 by the standards of the present day, when out- 
 great universities number their students by thou- 
 sands, the Dartmouth of Webster's day would 
 fittinglv be described as a small college. But u hen 
 we remember that from 1790 to about 1850 the 
 
 "73 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 institution of which Webster spoke was in point 
 of attendance sometimes second and much ot the 
 time third among American institutions of learn- 
 ing,. it can be seen how misleading his statement 
 was. History, however, is too prosaic to compete 
 with the genius of the orator. " Eagle wings " are 
 not only the means by which, as Juvenal says, 
 "immortal scandals fly," but they bear anything 
 which can be compacted into a convincing phrase. 
 The Dartmouth of Webster's day will continue to 
 be thought of as a small college. Mr. McCall has 
 finely said in his oration on Webster: — 
 
 Whatever may have been its relative rank, the one 
 thing most certainly known about it now is that it was 
 a small college. The pathetic statement of Webster in 
 the argument of its cause at the bar of the Supreme 
 Court has settled that fact for all time. It is true that 
 it was a day of small things, but the smallness of con- 
 temporary objects was not immortal i/.ed by the touch 
 of genius, which has it in its power to endow with per- 
 petual life any passing condition or mood in the lite of 
 a man or an institution. Fifty generations have grown old 
 and died since the Greek artist carved his marble urn, but 
 the maiden and her lover chiseled there are still young, 
 and to the immortality conferred by art has been added 
 the immortality of poetry in the noble verse of Keats: — 
 *' Forever wilt thou love and she be fair." 
 
 Even the most cursory account of Dartmouth 
 should mention her noteworthy record in the 
 
 »74 
 
Presidency of Dartmouth Colli gi 
 
 Civil War. In 1 86 1 she had only C1753 living 
 alumni, many of whom were too old for military 
 service. Yet from this small band and from the 
 undergraduates then in attendance she contrib- 
 uted 652 men to the armies that fought for the 
 Union, — a larger proportion of her sons than 
 was contributed by any other college in the 
 North. 
 
 When President Tucker became the head of 
 Dartmouth in 1893, she was st '" a typical old 
 New England college, doing excellent work upon 
 ancient lines, but not much concerned with new 
 and progressive ideas in education. The expan- 
 sion in every field so characteristic of the univer- 
 sities situated near great cities had not yet pene- 
 trated to the country college. It is due chiefly 
 to President Tucker that Dartmouth is no longer 
 apologetically described as a small college. But 
 even more marked than its extraordinary growth 
 in attendance has been its growth in all those 
 things which indicate a great scholastic center. 
 Removed though she is from the large cities, 
 she has nevertheless attracted scholars to her 
 faculty, books to her library, and apparatus to 
 her laboratories in such goodly measure that the 
 little academy established in the mountains by 
 a missionary clergyman as a center of light to 
 Indians has become an institution of the first 
 
 175 
 
Samuel \V. McCall 
 
 importance in the educational life of the entire 
 country. 
 
 When the health of President Tucker com- 
 pelled him to resign, leading members of the 
 board of trustees urged Mr. McCall to allow 
 them to present his name to the board as Presi- 
 dent Tucker's successor. This suggestion, which 
 was never made public, came to Mr. McCall as 
 a great surprise. He said while he was deliberat- 
 ing upon it that it was entirely different from any- 
 thing that he had ever thought of for himself. He 
 was strongly tempted to accept it. It was another 
 opportunity to serve his alma mater and such op- 
 portunities always appealed to him. It was also in 
 line with his scholarly tastes. It would bring him 
 into contact with the life of youth with which he 
 feels so strongly in sympathy. Ultimately, how- 
 ever, he urged his friends among the trustees to 
 turn elsewhere for a president and to give him 
 no further consideration. But the feeling of the 
 board that he was the proper successor to Presi- 
 dent Tucker was shared by the college faculty 
 and by the alumni of the college throughout the 
 country. A few months later, therefore, the ques- 
 tion was again brought up, with much insistence. 
 Through an accident the desire of the trustees 
 became known and there was then a general public 
 discussion. Dartmouth men everywhere began to 
 i 76 
 
Presidency of Dartmouth College 
 
 urge Mr. McCall to accept. Forty-three mem- 
 bers of the Dartmouth faculty united in address- 
 ing to him the following letter: — 
 
 We, the undersigned members of the faculty of Dart- 
 mouth College, having learned that you have under con- 
 sideration the presidency of this institution, take this 
 opportunity of expressing to you our sincere hope that 
 you may accept the tender made you. While we recog- 
 nize the many sacrifices which would be entailed by 
 leaving vour present field of civic usefulness, we feel that 
 we are not going bevond the limits of propriety in urg- 
 ing you to accept the position upon the grounds of public 
 duties and of devotion to the interests of this institution. 
 In the confident belief that under your guidance Dart- 
 mouth College will not only hold its present enviable 
 position, but will extend its influence nationally, we 
 pledge you our cordial support and cooperation. 
 
 This collective letter from the faculty was sup- 
 ported by individual letters from many of its 
 members. President Tucker, who was in hearty 
 sympathy with the action of the trustees, wrote: 
 
 I cannot refrain from saying, in a personal wav, how 
 much I feel that the future of the college depends upon 
 your decision. Of course institutions live, even under 
 adverse conditions, but the difference between living 
 under ordinary and under unusual conditions of a favor- 
 able sort is very great. I can think of nothing which 
 would put so much heart and enthusiasm into Dart- 
 mouth men all over the countrv, or give to the college 
 
 177 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 such an assured position for the coming years, as your 
 acceptance of the presidency. 
 
 Probably no communication from the faculty- 
 gave Mr. McCall greater satisfaction than this 
 from one of his former teachers : — 
 
 I shall esteem it a pleasure to work under one whom 
 I remember so satisfactorily as a student and of whom I 
 have known so honorably as a public man. From the 
 side of the faculty I therefore add my urgency to that 
 of the trustees. 
 
 The alumni, of course, manifested the greatest 
 interest in the election, and from every side came 
 urgent requests that he should accept the posi- 
 tion. One of the most noted religious leaders of 
 the country wrote : — 
 
 I want to tell you, as an old Dartmouth contemporary, 
 how for many reasons it would please me should you 
 accept the position. ... I feel sure that under your 
 administration, Dartmouth would hold on to all that is 
 best in the past, and would not forget its noble moral 
 and religious traditions, or its great founder who was 
 such a noted evangelist as well as educator. 
 
 A letter which preserves much of the tang of 
 college camaraderie is the following : — 
 
 M. dear Sam : — 
 
 I want to say to you that all the Dartmouth gang 
 who have been active in her affairs in the last fifteen 
 years, with whom I have talked, hope you can see your 
 
 l 7 8 
 
Presidency of Dartmouth College 
 
 way clear to accept the- presidency of Dartmouth Col- 
 lege. To be sure, this gang is getting older than it used 
 to Ik-, as you and I both realize, but I believe the genti- 
 ment among the younger crowd that is coming on to 
 take our places is just the same, and I believe that you 
 will have as loyal alumni back of you as Tucker has 
 alwavs had since his accession to the presidency. W e 
 shall all feel greatly relieved and delighted to hear that 
 you have concluded to accept. 
 
 Another alumnus who had served in Congress 
 said in urging his acceptance: — 
 
 I regard the position of the head of Dartmouth as far 
 more important and more useful than that of a Congress- 
 man. I appreciate, however, that I do not have that 
 exalted view of the position ot Congressman that I en- 
 tertained before I went to Washington. 
 
 Interest in Mr. McCall's decision was by no 
 means confined to the immediate Dartmouth 
 circle. One of the most eminent citizens of Bos- 
 ton, the Honorable Richard Olney, himself an 
 alumnus of Brown, wrote thus : — 
 
 Unless you are going to be President of the United 
 States, I trust vou will see vour way to become presi- 
 dent of the college of which Daniel Webster and Rufus 
 Choate were graduates. . . . I have, of course, no ad- 
 vice to give upon the subject, the matter being so pecu- 
 liarly of a personal nature. But I am sure that you would 
 fill the chair o\ the president entire! \ full to the 
 
 I I 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 benefit of Dartmouth and with a success which would 
 enhance even the large reputation you now enjoy. 
 
 A letter of peculiar interest came from Major 
 Henry L. Higginson : — 
 
 Dear Mr. McCall: — 
 
 In any event you have done your work like a high- 
 minded man and public servant and we are very grateful 
 to you. Dartmouth is doing an excellent part in our 
 country, and has had a noble president. If it really gets 
 you, it will be in luck — and you will have a dignified 
 and interesting task so long as you wish. I know that 
 the matter is not settled — and I am sorry to miss 
 you from Washington and glad to see you — at peace. 
 Education ! It is our great need. Pray don't reply, 
 but tie up your words in peace, and be ready to come 
 home. 
 
 Most of Mr. McCall's correspondents as- 
 sumed that his acceptance of the presidency would 
 involve his permanent retirement from political 
 life, but suggestions were not wanting that by be- 
 coming a resident of Hanover he made himself 
 eligible to election to the United States Senate 
 from the State of New Hampshire, and the pros- 
 pect of such an event was held out as a definite 
 reason for his acceding to the invitation from 
 Dartmouth. 
 
 No one questioned Mr. McCall's eminent fit- 
 ness for the presidency, but many of his friends 
 1 80 
 
Presidency of Dartmouth College 
 
 urged that it was his paramount duty to retain 
 his place in Congress. Numerous letters from his 
 constituents indicated their desire that he should 
 continue to represent them. An organization of 
 colored men in Boston expressed much concern 
 because of his prospective retirement. " We are 
 in doubt," they wrote, " as to how well we will 
 fare during the coming administration, and view 
 with alarm the prospect of losing so good and 
 influential a friend as you in Congress." 
 
 A distinguished historian, James Ford Rhodes, 
 wrote, as spokesman for a group of well-known 
 men : — 
 
 Dear McCall : — 
 
 On last Tuesday at the Wintersnight Club dinner, 
 dining with Dr. J. C. Warren on Beacon Street, the 
 question came up about the offer of Dartmouth Col- 
 lege to vou, and the opinion was generally expressed 
 that, while you would make an excellent president of a 
 college, we should all regret your acceptance of the flat- 
 tering offer ; because you were peculiarly situated to ex- 
 ercise a salutary influence in the House, and, having a 
 sure district and devoted constituency, it would be a 
 misfortune for the State and nation for you to forsake 
 them for a position which you would bring more to than 
 it could give to vou. You have made a good record, 
 have a standing and acquaintance that is valuable tor the 
 country ; and thev must be agreeable to yourself. Tal- 
 ent like yours should not be buried at Hanover when it 
 
 181 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 may be exercised in the larger field of Massachusetts 
 and on the theater of Washington. 
 
 There were eight of us dining ; J. C. Warren, James 
 Crafts, Judge Grant, Moorfield Storey, James Storrow, 
 Charles Sargent, Edmund Wheelwright, and myself. 
 As I understand it the sentiment was unanimous and I 
 was asked to report the same to you. 
 
 One of the foremost lawyers in the United 
 States, the Honorable Moorfield Storey, put 
 the case thus: — 
 
 I hope you will not accept the presidency of Dart- 
 mouth College. You have won for yourself a position of 
 very great influence and power in the nation, and all 
 your experience tends to make your influence in the 
 future greater. The problems that we are called upon 
 to deal with in the near future are such as require the 
 very best men we can get, and there is no one who can 
 step into your place if you leave it. Any one, whatever 
 his ability, would have to demonstrate it to the country, 
 would have to spend years in showing what he was ca- 
 pable of before he could acquire such a power for good 
 as you now have. 
 
 The New York "Sun" commented on the 
 subject in this wise: — 
 
 During this now closing seven or eight years' war 
 upon the Constitution, the courts, property, and common 
 sense, Mr. McCall has kept his head. He must have 
 been pretty lonely a good deal of the time. If calmer 
 days are hoped for, still the public mind, the new ad- 
 182 
 
Presidency of Dartmouth College 
 
 ministration, the Congress must long feel the chYcts of 
 the debauch of violent personal government which the 
 
 country has undergone. 1 he clear intellect and courage 
 of Mr. McCall cannot well be spared from Washing- 
 ton ; and it is to the honor of his congressional district, 
 the "Harvard College district," that in spite of con- 
 tinual hopes and efforts of cheap little Republican poli- 
 ticians, he can be reelected as long as he pleases. If 
 the college of Webster and Choate is fortunate enough 
 to lure from Washington to Hanover this worthy pcr- 
 pctuator of its best traditions, Dartmouth gets a singu- 
 larly able man of affairs and the House of Represcnta- 
 tives loses its most intellectual and engaging figure. 
 
 After a full consideration of the factors in- 
 volved, Mr. McCall finally decided to remain in 
 Congress. The reasons which actuated him are 
 fullv set forth in the following communication 
 to the Dartmouth Trustees: — 
 
 Washington, D.C., Feb. 22, 1909. 
 
 Gen. Frank S.Streeter, Chairman of Committee of Trustees 
 of Dartmouth College, Con , ..•,/, A.//. 
 My Dear Gen. Stricter: While I expressed to you 
 my impression when vou first mentioned to me the sub- 
 ject of the presidency of the college, yet its very great 
 importance, the impressive manner in which it was pre- 
 sented, and the widespread interest in the decision, as 
 shown in the many letters I have received from gradu- 
 ates of the college and from others imposed upon me 
 the duty of giving the matter mi most serious thought. 
 
 183 ^ 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 That duty I have made a sincere effort to perform, and, 
 whether right or wrong, I have reached a conclusion. 
 
 If I had never been at all connected with the college, 
 I must yet have been stirred at the suggestion you have 
 made me. There could be no greater distinction than to 
 be thought of to lead one of the great intellectual armies 
 of the country, to be associated with so noble a past 
 and with such a splendid present in which the old and 
 new are so richly blended. But I had long known the 
 wonderful charm of Hanover, so beautifully seated 
 among the hills and so completely dominated by the 
 college spirit as to make it, one might fairlv sav, the 
 most characteristic college town in America. No one 
 could be more sensible than mvself of both the attract- 
 iveness and the distinction of the proposal, the value of 
 which was enhanced by the fact that I had been thought 
 of by a board of trustees who personally knew me and 
 containing among its members two of my classmates 
 with whom I had been bound by ties of intimacy since 
 we were boys together at Hanover. 
 
 The chief work of my life has been only in the most 
 general way related to education. One's habits of thought 
 tend to become fixed and more or less adapted to the 
 pursuit he is engaged in, and he should hesitate before 
 transplanting himself to a new field. The difference in 
 the work I have been doing and that you propose may 
 not really be one of kind, and I should not wish upon 
 that point to set my opinion against your own and that 
 of President Tucker, who is a master in his calling and 
 is giving an administration in brilliancy conspicuous in 
 the history of colleges. And to decide upon that ground, 
 
 184 
 
Presidency of Dartmouth College 
 
 too, would be merely to take the view of caution and 
 
 consen atism, something scarcely to be thought <>t when 
 
 there is an influence mure positive operating upon my 
 mind. 
 
 The work which I am trying to do was not entered 
 upon by accident, and if I have not pursued it with suc- 
 cess it at least is not because my vows were lightly 
 taken. And since I did not lightly take it up, I cannot, 
 in what I believe to be a very grave crisis, drop it easily 
 and shift to something else. I may be accomplishing 
 little of value, but I happen to be on the battle-line, 
 and I should, indeed, be a sorry soldier nicely to v 
 causes and to decide at this moment to step out of the 
 ranks. This is not the place for political discourse, but 
 perhaps I should say to you that the crisis I referred to 
 is in mv opinion full of peril to our institutions, and 
 how soon the movement is to begin toward sanity and 
 safety I do not know. I am far less concerned by par- 
 ticular theories than bv general methods of government 
 — methods which have been carrying us swiftly toward 
 a condition under which limitation upon governmental 
 power would be done away with, and the favoritism and 
 caprice of an autocrat would take the place of con>ti- 
 tutional restraint. And some chance barbarian as an auto- 
 crat might overturn our temples and do more harm in 
 the direction of uncivili/.ing the country than all our 
 colleges together could possibly repair. 
 
 It may Ik- that I have an ited notion of the 
 
 relative importance of mv present work, but if so, the 
 teachings I received at "the college on the hill" must 
 bear a part of the responsibility. Her traditions are vital 
 
 185 
 
Samuel \V. McCall 
 
 and throbbing with inspiration to public service. I need 
 only mention to you the supreme causes of constitutional 
 government and the preservation of the Union. W ith 
 both of those causes her name is imperishably identified. 
 
 I have decided, therefore, to continue in the service 
 of the most tolerant and generous of all constituencies, 
 which has just honored me by a reelection to Congress, 
 and accordingly, I ask that you do not consider my 
 name when the time comes to choose a president. 
 
 In conclusion, let me say that I should deem myself 
 a quite unworthy son of Dartmouth to deny her any- 
 thing that would help her and that she might fairly ask; 
 but I cannot but think my decision the wiser one, ei en 
 for her. She has sons highly fitted for her service, skilled 
 in administration, with a special training and scholar- 
 ship to which I can lay no claim, and under some one 
 of them she will continue to grow and prosper. Planted 
 even before the nation was born, she has been through 
 every crisis of our history, has had her own special stress 
 of storm and has emerged from every trial more lovely 
 and more strong, until to-day she is confronted with no 
 grave problems, unless with such as prosperity often 
 imposes. Those problems, whatever they may be, will 
 trouble her but little when she comes to face them, as she 
 surely will, her heart filled with the great memories of her 
 past and her fair eyes looking hopefully upon the future. 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 S. W. McCall. 
 
 Mr. McCall's decision and particularly the 
 terms in which it was announced evoked a chorus 
 186 
 
Presidency of Dartmouth College 
 
 of approval. One of the most honored of his 
 constituents, Colonel Thomas Wcntworth Hig- 
 ginson, wrote: — 
 
 Allow one of the oldest in years and one of the most 
 cordial or" vour supporters to thank you for keeping M in 
 the battle-line." My Wentworth alliance would have 
 justly given me associations with Dartmouth, so that I 
 can look at that side also. 
 
 A resident of another congressional district in 
 Massachusetts expressed his satisfaction in these 
 words : — 
 
 If it is permitted a graduate of Brown and a voter in 
 the eleventh Congressional District to express any opin- 
 ion as to matters relating to Dartmouth and the eighth 
 Congressional District, allow me to thank you for your 
 declination of the Dartmouth presidency. I am very 
 glad, indeed, that you are to continue in Congress and 
 your decision will be gratifying to many of us Demo- 
 crats. Some of your party colleagues might consider 
 this a doubtful compliment, but I trust you will not find 
 it offensive. 
 
 Interest in Mr. McCall's decision was not con- 
 fined to this country. From Toronto, one of the 
 most eminent of British scholars and publicists, 
 Goldwin Smith, wrote: — 
 
 It is with real delight that I see you have decided in 
 favour of Washington against Dartmouth. With all 
 due respect to Dartmouth, there be nothing to be done 
 there at all comparable in importance to the removal 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 of the barriers of trade between the two sections of this 
 continent, bringing as that measure will social and po- 
 litical advantages in its train. 
 
 The following letter from one of his constitu- 
 ents well summarizes the whole correspondence: 
 
 Your letter to the Dartmouth Trustees causes much 
 rejoicing in this bailiwick. The Eighth District has 
 realized for a long time that it was represented bv the 
 sanest man in either house, and it is glad to know that 
 it is not to be deprived of that distinction. The coun- 
 try at large is to be congratulated on your decision. It 
 is a much easier matter for Dartmouth to find a satis- 
 factory president than it would be for the country to find 
 another man who would stand for the things that vou 
 stand for in Congress. I am glad, however, that the 
 presidency was offered you, not only because it was a 
 compliment which was richly deserved, but also because 
 of the noble reply which it called forth. Your letter to 
 the trustees was one of the most uplifting documents 
 which any public man in our history has sent out, and 
 I am sure the country will recognize it as such and that 
 your influence on public affairs will be correspondingly 
 increased. 
 
 These are but a few extracts from the letters, 
 more than two hundred in number, which came 
 to Mr. McCall from all parts of the country, and 
 which are convincing evidence of the widespread 
 interest in his decision and of the place which he 
 occupied in American public life. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE MAX OF LETTERS 
 
 AMERICAN public life has often been unfa- 
 vorably contrasted with that of other coun- 
 tries, particularly Great Britain, because it has at- 
 tracted so few men of eminence in letters and 
 science. It is true that the roll of the British Par- 
 liament contains many names which confer luster 
 on the oldest of legislatures because of attainments 
 outside the field of politics. Lord Bryce and Lord 
 Morley, Lord Curzon and Lord Rosebery, Ar- 
 thur Balfour, Augustine Birrell, and Sir Gilbert 
 Parker are examples of a class of men who have 
 long been conspicuous in British public life. But 
 in America similar examples, if not so numerous, 
 have not been altogether lacking. The beginnings 
 of our existence as a nation are indelibly associ- 
 ated with Benjamin Franklin, who was not only 
 our leading man of letters in his day, but is one 
 of the chief figures in the history of science. Since 
 his time, Bancroft and Irving, Motley and White, 
 Lowell and Hay have all been members of our 
 diplomatic service. But a few years ago, with 
 Mr. Roosevelt in the Presidency, Mr. Hay in 
 
 189 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 the State Department, Mr. Lodge in the Senate, 
 and Mr. McCall in the House, we had a group 
 in our public councils which in point of literary 
 achievement could well be compared with any- 
 similar group in the public service of any other 
 country. Had Mr. McCall not given his life to 
 statesmanship, he would undoubtedly have de- 
 voted it to letters. While the public life of the 
 country has been enriched by his career, Ameri- 
 can literature has been deprived of a great histo- 
 rian and essayist. To a considerable extent, to 
 be sure, he has combined literature and politics, 
 but it is obvious that the time and energy which 
 his public duties consumed made impossible those 
 literary productions which it would otherwise have 
 been reasonable to expect from him. For such 
 contributions he is rarely equipped. His wide 
 acquaintance with the masterpieces of Greek and 
 Roman and English literature, his sound schol- 
 arship, his grace of expression, and his gift of 
 imagination constitute a combination of qualities 
 which admirably fit him for a high place in 
 American letters. 
 
 As civilization in the United States has moved 
 westward and as new States have developed, the 
 epoch of transition from frontier conditions to 
 communities of a more settled and complex type 
 has been marked in several instances by the 
 190 
 
The Man of Letters 
 
 appearance of names which hold places of dis- 
 tinction in the literature of the country. Their 
 nearness to nature and the simplicity of their 
 surroundings may have assisted in the develop- 
 ment of a sympathy with the primitive and an 
 understanding of the human spirit which might 
 not have tared so well in the older and more 
 sophisticated communities. At any rate, it was 
 in surroundings of this sort that were spent the 
 formative vears of such writers as William Dean 
 Howells and Whitelaw Reid in Ohio, Edward 
 Eggleston ill Indiana, John Hay in Illinois, Mark 
 Twain in Missouri, and Bret Harte and Joaquin 
 Miller in California. And it was in a region that 
 was just passing out of the frontier stage that 
 Mr. McCall spent his boyhood, and the strong 
 human svmpathies, as well as the feeling for 
 libertv and the varying moods of nature which 
 characterizes much of what he has spoken and 
 written, may be due in part to the impressions 
 of those early vears in northwestern Illinois. 
 
 Mr. McCall is the author of two important 
 biographies, which are included in the American 
 Statesmen Series. They deal with two men who, 
 in their personal characteristics, had much in 
 common. In their masterful personalities, their 
 caustic wit, their independence, and their readi- 
 ness to adopt radical measures tor the attainment 
 
 191 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 of what seemed to them justifiable ends, and 
 in the strong antagonism which they aroused, 
 Thaddeus Stevens and Thomas B. Reed were 
 not unlike. But Mr. McCall approached the 
 two from totally different points of view. He 
 was but a boy of seventeen when Stevens died. 
 The closest point of contact between them lay in 
 the fact that Mr. McCall in 1870 entered the 
 college from which Stevens had been graduated 
 in 1 8 14. There was much in Stevens's radical- 
 ism with which Mr. McCall had no sympathy, 
 and much in his personality that was repugnant 
 to him. He could write of him in a spirit of 
 critical detachment which was impossible in his 
 biography of Reed. The great Speaker was his 
 close friend. They had served together in Con- 
 gress. Thev thought alike upon most public 
 questions. They held some opinions for which a 
 large section of their party wished to ostracize 
 them, and they were alike in the tenacious inde- 
 pendence with which they supported their con- 
 victions. Mr. McCall's life of Stevens was, 
 therefore, a study of the career of a man who, 
 whatever one's opinion of him may be, was the 
 dominant force in this country in one of the 
 crises of our history; but his life of Reed was 
 a labor of love. 
 
 Perhaps the most prominent characteristic of 
 192 
 
The Man of Letters 
 
 Mr. McCall's life of Stevens is its judicial tone. 
 Its restrained language is in marked contrast 
 with the tempestuous character and stormy period 
 of which it treats. His ultimate judgment of 
 Stevens and of the great principles which guided 
 him are thus set forth in the concluding sentences 
 of the book : — 
 
 A truer democrat never breathed. Equality was the 
 animating principle of his life. He deemed no man so 
 poor or friendless as to be beneath the equal protection 
 of the laws, and none so powerful as to rise above their 
 sway. Privilege never had a more powerful nor a more 
 consistent foe. 
 
 Nowhere is Mr. McCall's analysis of a situa- 
 tion and balancing of the factors which enter into 
 it better exemplified than in his comment on 
 Lincoln's policy of emancipation : — 
 
 Emancipation was, above even union itself, the great 
 contribution which the war made to the progress of 
 mankind ; but it was only the wisest statesmanship that 
 so shaped and directed the varying issues of the war 
 that freedom was secured and the Union saved. In a 
 great institution like slavery, as it existed, firmly in- 
 trenched bv law over a great portion of the country, 
 there is so much that quickly becomes vested, so much, 
 too, that is sure to be interwoven into the fabric of so- 
 cietv, that nothing short of a great national convulsion 
 can remove it. It w:is not difficult for those who were 
 not financiallv interested in it, and who looked upon it 
 
 193 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 from a safe distance, to become impressed with a sense 
 of its wickedness. But how to do away with it was a 
 problem for the profoundest statesmanship. The most 
 casual survey of the course of slavery to its extinction 
 will convince one both of the danger of agitation and 
 of the danger of compromise, when each of them is 
 taken alone, but of the potency of each in finally set- 
 ting in motion the resultant force which brought forth 
 freedom. Very many patriotic people were found who 
 were willing to make the best of the evil in order to be 
 at peace, or who would at the most employ palliatives 
 and trust to time to do the work of regeneration. Others 
 desired to resort to methods which were excessively 
 heroic, and would have killed the patient in order to 
 destroy the disease. The progress and the very exist- 
 ence of society lay in the fact that neither of these ex- 
 treme views could have its way, but that, as a result 
 of antagonistic, or certainly not concurrent, forces a 
 middle and safer pathway was pursued. Whether slav- 
 ery could, within any reasonable period, have been 
 blotted out, except through war, is a question which 
 is even now debated ; but there can be little doubt that, 
 after war had been entered upon, the rational and con- 
 servative course was taken, and instead of sacrificing 
 the Union by a premature attempt at freedom, or de- 
 laving freedom until the Union was lost, the time and 
 the methods were chosen which made freedom more 
 certain, and made it also an instrumentality for preserv- 
 ing the Union. It was fortunate that men like Stevens 
 foresaw the ultimate result and prepared the minds of 
 men to receive it. It was fortunate that Lincoln appa- 
 
 194 
 
The Man of Letters 
 
 rently drifted with public opinion and waited until the 
 moment was ripe. The immortal event was finally 
 consummated, not by one side or extreme of humanity, 
 
 but as a result of the combined wisdom of all. 
 
 To do exact justice to a friend is a most diffi- 
 cult task. Warmth of affection may result in 
 over-much laudation, unless, on the other hand, 
 excess of caution leads to the withholding of 
 merited praise. In writing his life of Reed, Mr. 
 McCall met this dilemma by allowing Reed as 
 far as possible to tell his own story. Mr. McCall 
 has been heard to say that he regarded Reed as 
 the ablest man that he had met in public life. 
 His retirement from Congress when apparently 
 at the zenith of his power is thus narrated: — 
 
 In the summer of 1898 Reed stood for election to 
 the House for the twelfth time, and received the great 
 majority that he had become accustomed to receive 
 during the last half-dozen elections at which he was a 
 candidate. But the difference between him and the ad- 
 ministration became more serious, as the result of an 
 issue which the war had brought forward. The war 
 with Spain had proved a most unequal contest, because 
 of the vast difference between the resources of the two 
 nations. In the treaty of peace we purchased the Philip- 
 pines and therein- purchased a war which proved much 
 more deadly than that which the treaty had brought to 
 an end. . . . Reed profoundly disbelieved in the exist- 
 ence of a colonial th( titution, or in 
 
 195 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 making an application of such a theory to the Philip- 
 pines by taking on the a last colonial curse of Spain." 
 When therefore the islands had been acquired from 
 Spain by treaty made by the President with the advice 
 and consent of the Senate, and war had been entered 
 upon for the purpose of subjugating their inhabitants to 
 our control, he determined to retire from public life. 
 He said to his trusted friend and secretary, Asher C. 
 Hinds, "I have tried, perhaps not always successfully, 
 to make the acts of my public life accord with my con- 
 science, and I cannot now do this thing." 
 
 When Reed resigned, he had just been re- 
 elected to the House and was assured of reelec- 
 tion to the speakership — an office of which he 
 said that it had but one superior and no peer. 
 And it was not unreasonable for him to look 
 forward to election to the Presidency. Surely 
 few men have ever made a more costly sacrifice 
 to conscience. 
 
 Mr. McCall is not only the biographer of 
 Reed, but he also pronounced the oration at the 
 unveiling of his statue in the city of Portland in 
 19 10. As a work of literature it deserves to rank 
 with his centennial oration on Daniel Webster. 
 There is room here for but one of its many 
 beautiful passages: — 
 
 Beyond his brilliancy as a debater, his resplendent 
 wit, and his skill as a parliamentary leader, his title to 
 remembrance rests upon his quality as a statesman. 
 196 
 
The Man of Letters 
 
 He had a great ambition, but it was not great enough 
 to lead him to surrender any principle of government 
 which he deemed vital. Like Webster, like Clay, and 
 
 others of our most conspicuous statesmen, he was dis- 
 appointed at not reaching the Presidency, but he could 
 fitly aspire to the office, for he was of the fiber and 
 nurture out of which great Presidents are made. He 
 probably would not have been a continuously popular 
 President, but our great Presidents never have been. 
 He had that supreme quality which was seen in Wash- 
 ington breasting the popular anti-British feeling and 
 asserting against France our diplomatic independence; 
 in Lincoln bearingthe burden of unsuccessful battles and 
 holding back the sentiment for emancipation until the 
 time was ripe for freedom; in Grant facing the popular 
 clamor and vetoing inflation ; and in Cleveland alienat- 
 ing his partv while he persisted in as righteous and 
 heroic a battle as was ever waged by a President. 
 
 Undoubtedly Mr. McCall's most important 
 publication is his book on " The Business of 
 Congress." This consists of a series of lectures 
 delivered at Columbia University in the winter 
 of 1908-09. To its preparation he brought an 
 unusual equipment. Obviously such a book could 
 be written onlv by one who had seen years of 
 service in Connress. But in addition to his ex- 
 perience in the House, lie was possessed of a 
 wide knowledge of the history of parliamentary 
 institutions in the two countries in which rhey 
 
 1 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 have been most fully developed, and a keen ap- 
 preciation of the political principles on which 
 representative government rests. The result is a 
 book which is a real contribution to the science 
 of politics. The first chapter contains a note- 
 worthy argument on the use of the treaty-making 
 power for purposes of legislation. In other chap- 
 ters he recurs to the theme on which he has fre- 
 quently spoken and written — the proper rela- 
 tion between the two branches of Congress and 
 between Congress and the Executive. There is 
 an illuminating exposition of the functions of the 
 Speaker in the transaction of the business of the 
 House wherein he shows that much of his power 
 is derived from the fact that in becoming Speaker 
 he does not lose his membership in the House, but 
 retains all the rights possessed by other members. 
 The last chapter of the book, which bears the 
 caption "Results," is an impressive account of 
 the outcome of representative institutions as seen 
 in the working of the Government at Washing- 
 ton. It may be doubted whether any more 
 thoughtful and weighty comment upon certain 
 tendencies in American government has ever 
 been written. 
 
 Mr. McCall has been the orator on many fes- 
 tival or commemorative occasions when fitness 
 required scholarship and a gift of literary exprcs- 
 198 
 
The Man of Letters 
 
 sion. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and 
 various chapters of that organization have turned 
 to him for the annual address which is a fixed in- 
 stitution in the activities of that learned society. 
 In 1904, when he delivered the oration before 
 the Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, he chose 
 as his theme "The Newspaper Press." Few men 
 in public life could have treated it so adequately, 
 for he brought to it not only the results of his 
 observation of the press as a factor in the forma- 
 tion of that public opinion upon which the action 
 of a great democracy is based, but also his expe- 
 rience as the editor in chief of an important daily 
 newspaper. The address is so closely knit that 
 it inevitably suffers from condensation, but the 
 following passages will convey some conception 
 of its thought and form : — 
 
 Sydney Smith said that reputation is one of the prizes 
 for which men contend, and therefore that praise should 
 should not he given unless justly due. Praise should not 
 be bestowed grudgingly when deserved, but it violates 
 the inherent sense of justice to confer the palm not 
 upon the swift runner but upon the laggard. I fancy 
 no one would accuse our press as a whole with dis- 
 crimination or even an attempt at a just holding of 
 the scales. Gross tion as a dailv mental diet 
 
 helps to engender a condition of mind in the American 
 people which is only satisfied hv the constant employ- 
 ment of superlatives — a condition which rinds itscon- 
 
 199 
 
Samuel \V. McCall 
 
 summate flowering-out in our national conventions, 
 where to the incredible laudation of words is added a 
 noisy powwow, running thirty minutes by the clock, 
 from which nothing is lacking but enthusiasm and paint 
 to make it a reproduction of the war-dance of the sav- 
 age. Our newspapers alternate between violent eulogy 
 and violent abuse. You may read the contemporary his- 
 tories of the golden age of American eloquence or of 
 the time when Gladstone, Peel, Disraeli, and Palmer- 
 ston were contending for supremacy in the British Par- 
 liament, and you will find, if not always measured and 
 temperate statement, at least the lineaments of the great 
 actors retaining the appearance of real humanity. But 
 living in an era of the headline and the limelight, news- 
 papers speak of our war ministers often in terms that 
 could not justly be applied to Stanton and Carnot ; we 
 have secretaries who eclipse Adams and Webster ; and 
 statesmen, who in former times were developed by a 
 long discipline and training in their calling, now spring 
 full-armed from the head of the appointing power. They 
 will paint the war bantam as the eagle and drive the eagle 
 from the sky. Charges of criminality will be leveled at 
 large numbers of men in the mass and, by way of com- 
 pensation, other men will be exalted to the heavens. 
 Abuse, however, greatly predominates over commenda- 
 tion, especially in the treatment of agencies of govern- 
 ment. To illustrate: There maybe instances in recent 
 years when a State Legislature has been spoken of by 
 the newspapers in anv other terms than of derision and 
 contempt, but if so the instances are rare indeed. It the 
 press is justified in the matter, one of two conclusions 
 
 200 
 
The Man of Letters 
 
 follows, cither that the American people are not far from 
 being a corrupt people, or that they usually elect their 
 worst men to public office. There has been a reversal 
 of conditions since the first appearance of newspapers. 
 Then the Government persecuted the press and now 
 the press is apt to persecute the Government. Criticism, 
 turse, only attains its object when it is discrimi- 
 nating and just. Unrestrained, furious, and unjust at- 
 tack can in no sense be called criticism, but it is de- 
 structive of its ends. Since the public must see public 
 officers chiefly through the press, it is necessary that 
 it should be vigilant, sparing no wrongdoing wherever 
 it may exist, but it is as necessary, too, that it should be 
 just. Unsparing denunciation, particularly of represen- 
 tative bodies, has become a seated habit. The people 
 come to recognize this habit of mind and are less in- 
 fluenced bv it. Indeed, on more than one important 
 occasion, when the press was united in support of a 
 good political cause, it has gone down to defeat largely 
 because the weight of its opinion had been impaired by 
 its own intemperance. 
 
 Hut the real danger after all probably lies in the oppo- 
 site direction. The press is more apt to combine with 
 the Government, especially if it be a Government of 
 the blessed paternalistic kind. Newspapers already are 
 a species of monopoly. They are increasingly hard toset 
 on foot. That fact is the prime cause of yellow jour- 
 nalism. Great sums of money legitimately expended 
 are hardly adequate to establish a newspaper, and it be- 
 comes neeessarv in addition to employ the art<: of the 
 showman, the art of the pander, and to appeal to the 
 
 : i 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 side of human nature most easily reached, which is the 
 side of passion. With the present economic tendency 
 continuing, the time is not far distant when it will be 
 nearly as difficult to create a new newspaper as to cre- 
 ate a new coal-mine. The great news centers are com- 
 paratively few^ and so are the important newspapers. 
 Combinations have already been made for the purpose 
 of collecting news — combinations perfectly natural and 
 highly beneficial to the public because they have tended 
 to do away with the competition to tell the largest storv, 
 and they furnish us to-day with the greater part of the 
 real news. The general tendency to combination, al- 
 ready at work in the newspaper field, will not need to 
 proceed far before we shall have, if not a common own- 
 ership of newspapers, at least a "gentleman's agree- 
 ment" or the "community of interest" plan, and we 
 shall have our news "barons" as well as our steel and 
 coal "barons." Great capitalists do not fancy agitation. 
 They prefer to have things go along as they are. Being 
 on the box-seat, they are willing to let well enough alone. 
 And so there is a likelihood that there may be a new sort 
 of partnership with the Government, not the kind of a 
 partnership which existed until lately in Germany when 
 policemen acted as editors-in-chief, putting the finish- 
 ing touches upon editorials, and harmonizing evervthing 
 with the Government's wishes, but a partnership of 
 real interest where rich newspaper owners and the indi- 
 viduals controlling the Government will desire to " stand 
 pat" and keep what they have. Then we should have 
 the really strong newspapers smugly proclaiming to the 
 multitude the freedom so full of blessings to themselves, 
 
 202 
 
The Man of Letters 
 
 and the struggling, short-lived newspaper, wildly crying 
 out tor liberty, and smearing on the yellow in order to 
 gain a living support. I imagine none of us, if we were 
 there, would fancy either of these sorts of newspaper, 
 but as between the sleek, thoroughly commercialized 
 champion of privilege, trying to lead public opinion in 
 the direction of its own interests, baffling justice in her 
 eternal struggle to give one measure to all men, and 
 the miserable starving yellow sheet, protesting against 
 a system of government for the benefit of the few, I 
 trust we should be with the yellow starveling. 
 
 At Tufts College in 1903 he again appeared 
 as the Phi Beta Kappa orator, and spoke on 
 the subject " The Scholar in Politics a Conserva- 
 tive," — an address which he later repeated in 
 substance at the Louisiana State University. He 
 deprecated the idea that education comes only 
 from the schools, or that educated men consti- 
 tute a separate class. But it was with the duty 
 of educated men toward the public that he was 
 concerned, and he argued that it was incumbent 
 upon them particularly to preserve what had been 
 won in the way of ordered liberty. 
 
 In despotic governments;, which cherish the privileges 
 of the few rather than the good of the many, the real 
 scholar is usually radical. If he is honest he will likely 
 incur ostracism or banishment in proclaiming the evils 
 which he perceives. But in a democratic government, 
 where there is substantial equality of political rights 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 and where the State may be embarked upon perilous 
 enterprises with little knowledge, I think the highest 
 function of the scholar is to be conservative. He will 
 preserve the liberty which exists by preventing hazard- 
 ous and doubtful experiments, and by preventing the 
 excesses which are the common cause for superseding a 
 democratic government by government of a more ex- 
 clusive character. The American Constitution is not 
 exactly what Macaulay characterized it, " all sail and 
 no anchor," but it so readily permits motion that a con- 
 servative force becomes vitally important. 
 
 The spirit of the ideal citizen under a government 
 like ours will be what Stevenson calls the " hope-starred, 
 full-blooded spirit," at once aggressive and sane, which 
 shows its exuberance rather in preserving and building 
 up than in smashing the existing order. Assuming that 
 our system of government is the justest yet discovered, 
 that better than any other it gives to each individual the 
 opportunity of self-development, this spirit will occupy 
 itself in preserving our democracy from the peculiar evils 
 to which democracy is liable, and, for the sake of pre- 
 serving it, will batter down the palpable abuses which 
 threaten the system. Do not imagine that an easv task. 
 It will require almost the ferocity of spirit of rare Ben 
 Jonson when he said : — 
 
 " With an armed and resolved hand, 
 I '11 strip the ragged follies of my time, 
 Naked as at their birth. And with a whip of steel, 
 Print wounding lashes in their iron ribs. 
 I fear no mood, stampt in a private brow, 
 "V\ hen I am pleased t' unmask a public vice." 
 
 204 
 
Tin: Man of Letters 
 
 It was of this address that William James 
 wrote : — 
 
 It seems to me, both for form and matter, to b< 
 to the very best type of oratory embodying political 
 thought. Its wisdom is as deep as its epigrams are sharp ; 
 it is a memorable utterance, and I hope it may become 
 classical. 
 
 How admirably Mr. McCall would have ful- 
 filled the functions of historian had he chosen to 
 devote himself to the interpretation of the past 
 appears from his comment on John Brown's 
 raid which forms part of his memorial address 
 on Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson: — 
 
 While Higginson was not disposed to shirk one 
 particle of responsibility, it is clear that he did not 
 understand the exact nature of the raid beforehand, as 
 it was actually put into execution, and the same is 
 doubtless true of most, if not all, of the other people in 
 Massachusetts who were interested with him. So far as 
 I have been able to learn, Higginson supposed that 
 Brown intended to establish an underground railway, 
 such as he had operated in Missouri, and that it was his 
 object to free individual slaves, to conceal them in the 
 Alleghany Mountains, and if necessary to defend their 
 freedom. When it came time for Brown to put his 
 plan into execution, with a remarkable aberration of 
 judgment, he openly began war upon the National I 
 ernment by capturing the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. 
 Frederick I >S attempted in vain to dissuade him 
 
 2 5 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 from the plan and give him sensible advice. The attack 
 on the arsenal Douglass declared was an attack on the 
 P'ederal Government and would array the whole coun- 
 try against him ; it " was a perfect steel trap," Doug- 
 lass said, and once within it, he would never be able to 
 get out alive. The enterprise as Brown developed it 
 was entirely impossible of success and resulted in the de- 
 struction of many lives, the first victim being an inno- 
 cent free negro. Mr. Villard in his "Life" of Brown, 
 in which he shows a remarkable desire to chronicle the 
 exact facts, leaves little room for doubt, upon the ma- 
 terial he has collected, as to the cause of Brown's ex- 
 traordinary action. Air. John M. Forbes, at whose house 
 Brown once visited, spoke of the look of insanity in his 
 "glittering gray-blue eyes." Brown's own personal his- 
 tory and that of his family would have made perfect the 
 defense of insanity, if any additional evidence were 
 needed to that which the character of the raid itself af- 
 forded. He certainly did not have the kind of responsi- 
 bility that should have sent him to the scaffold. The un- 
 doubted effect of the raid was to produce a genuine 
 alarm in the South. It is not so clear that it strength- 
 ened abolitionism in the North. At any rate, this much 
 is true — that in the critical winter of 1 860-61 the 
 cause of abolitionism seemed to have less strength than it 
 had ever had after it had become an established agitation. 
 The most abhorrent compromises with slavery, such 
 as had never been dreamed of by the Whigs, were 
 passed through both Houses of Congress by the votes 
 of the Republican members. As to one of the important 
 counts in the indictment against Webster, his accept- 
 
 206 
 
The Man of Letters 
 
 ancc in the Compromise of 1850 of the proposition 
 that certain Territories should be permitted to decide 
 for themselves whether they would have slavery when 
 
 they should be admitted to the Union — that was 
 one of the mildest of the compromises offered and 
 voted for by Republicans in Congress in the winter 
 of 1S00. Freedom was indeed brought about by a rev- 
 olution, but it was not a revolution inaugurated by the 
 enemies ot slavery but by its friends. The force that 
 won freedom was the force of law. We can all admire 
 Brown's fervent zeal for freedom, but it would be very 
 dangerous to sanction the methods which he employed. 
 Slavery was a terrible thing, but in the opinion of men 
 living to-day there are many other terrible things in so- 
 cietv. Often real wrongs find shelter for a time under 
 any system of government, as well as fancied wrongs, 
 and often men whose minds dwell upon a single evil 
 will come to think of it as the sum of all evil. Men 
 have a laudable way of devising political inventions 
 for making society better, if not perfect. These are 
 somewhat like the inventions in the Patent Otliee, 
 a very large proportion of which are ingenious but not 
 practical, and it often happens that the less of real value 
 a political or mechanical invention has the more it is 
 believed to have by the man who possesses it or who is 
 possessed by it. Some of these inventors are likely to 
 take the law into their own hands, and, if they cannot 
 do so peaceably, to employ violent methods to establish 
 their reform. The true method of providing remedies 
 under a government like ours is by a resolute and law- 
 ful agitation such as Garrison employed. Any other 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 principle than that would make violence the agency of 
 reform, dynamite and the dagger would take the place of 
 discussion, and government by law would cease to exist. 
 
 The most recent of his books is the series of 
 lectures delivered at Yale University in 191 5 
 and published under the title " The Liberty 
 of Citizenship." The Dodge Lectureship at Yale 
 has been held by many eminent men, among 
 whom were President Taft, Lord Bryce, Justice 
 Brewer, Justice Hughes, Secretary Root, Bishop 
 Potter, President Hadley, and Governor Bald- 
 win. This was a lofty succession, and when Mr. 
 McCall undertook the duties of the lectureship 
 he recurred to the theme which more than any 
 other runs through the whole of his public career. 
 He embodied in these lectures much that he 
 had said on the same subject on other occasions, 
 but the fundamental importance of the theme 
 justifies the repetition. He feels that one of the 
 greatest dangers which threaten American life 
 to-day is the constant curtailment of individual 
 freedom by unwise governmental restraint. 
 
 Those who confuse liberty with dcmocracv are prone 
 to decide that whatever fetters democracy may fasten 
 upon man, he still remains free. But freedom to mail 
 in society consists in his right to use his faculties and 
 to profit by their use, subject to the equal right of other 
 men to do likewise, and it is the important function of 
 208 
 
Tin Man of Letti 
 
 the State to restrain only such exercise of his faculties 
 hv man as may injure others. With this qualification 
 freedom should be safeguarded, not merely because it 
 
 is a riLiht of the individual man, but because its enjoy- 
 ment by developing enterprise has been the great agency 
 in pushing forward civilization. And men should he per- 
 mitted to build up their characters in the only way in 
 which strong and robust characters can be built, not in 
 the stifling hothouse of governmental restraint, but in 
 the free and open fields played upon by the sunshine 
 and beaten bv winds and storms. 
 
 Dartmouth is perhaps the only American 
 college which has felt justified in celebrating the 
 centennial of the graduation of one of its alumni. 
 The place of Daniel Webster in American his- 
 torv, his supereminent qualities as an orator, and 
 his peculiar services to his alma mater made such 
 a celebration as appropriate as it was unique. 
 Of the other figures in American public life 
 who were worthy of such a distinction, Wash- 
 ington and Franklin and Lincoln were not col- 
 lege men, and Hamilton's course at Columbia 
 was abandoned at the outbreak of the Revolu- 
 tion. The invitation to Mr. McCall to deliver 
 the commemorative oration was one of the most 
 gratifying distinctions of his life. Webster had 
 been one of the heroes of his boyhood, and his 
 maturer years had found a solid basis for his 
 youthful judgment. The address which he pre- 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 pared was therefore much more than a formal 
 tribute to an eminent public man. There was a 
 warmth of personal feeling in it which sets it 
 apart from the usual commemorative oration. 
 
 One of its most beautiful passages pictures 
 the orator : — 
 
 The transcendency great orator, who has kindled 
 his own time and nation to action, and who also speaks 
 to foreign nations and to distant ages, must divide with 
 great poets the affectionate homage of mankind. While 
 the stirring history of the Greek people and its noble 
 literature shall continue to have charm and interest for 
 men, the wonderfully chiseled periods of Demosthenes 
 and the simple yet lofty speech of Pericles will be no 
 less immortal than the odes of Pindar or the tragedies 
 of Sophocles or i^Eschylus. The light that glows upon 
 the pages of Virgil shines with no brighter radiance than 
 that seen in those glorious speeches with which Cicero 
 moved that imperial race that dominated the world. 
 The glowing oratory of Edmund Burke will live until 
 sensibility to beauty and the generous love of liberty 
 shall die. And I believe the words of Webster, nobly 
 voicing the possibilities of a mighty nation as yet only 
 dimly conscious of its destiny, will continue to roll on 
 the ears of men while the nation he helped to fashion 
 shall endure, or indeed while government founded upon 
 popular freedom shall remain an instrument of civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 In 1913 Mr. McCall again paid tribute to the 
 hero of his boyhood when he delivered the chief 
 2 10 
 
Thk Man of Letters 
 
 address at the dedication of Webster's birthplace 
 
 at Franklin, New Hampshire. In his concluding 
 sentences he spoke with marked tenderness of 
 Webster's character, and in a spirit of charity and 
 justice and comprehensive recognition of his 
 service in developing a sentiment of nationality, 
 he weighed his faults against his great virtues : — 
 
 His faults were those of a great and lavish nature. If 
 he sometimes forgot to pay his debts he often forgot to 
 demand his own due. They said he was reckless in ex- 
 pense. But instead of squandering his substance at the 
 gambling table according to the common vice among 
 the statesmen of his day, his extravagance consisted in 
 the generous entertainment of friends, in choice herds 
 of cattle and in the dissipation shown in cultivated fields. 
 If he put Storv under tribute to serve him upon public 
 questions, he himself would neglect the Senate and the 
 courts and for nights and days watch by the bedside of 
 a sick boy. His faults did not touch the integrity of his 
 public character and were such as link him to our hu- 
 manitv. If he had been impeccable, incapable to err, 
 with no trace about him of our human clay, a Titan in 
 strength but with no touch of weakness, we should be 
 dedicating to-day the birthplace, not of a man but of a 
 god. A superb flower of our race, he was still a man 
 and he is nearer to us because he was a man. Product 
 of this soil and these mountain winds, of this skv, the 
 sunshine of the summer and of the winter snows, the 
 hardships of the frontier, the swift-moving currents of 
 his country's life, the myriad accidents that envelop us 
 
 21 1 
 
Samuel \V. McCall 
 
 all, we reverently receive the gift and thank God to-day 
 for Daniel Webster as he was. We who meet here may 
 speak for the millions of our countrymen when we do 
 this homage to his memory. We reverence the great 
 lawyer, the peerless orator and the brilliant literary genius. 
 But most of all we honor the memory of the statesman 
 who kindled the spirit of nationality so that it burned 
 into a flame, who broke through the strong bonds of 
 sectionalism and taught men to regard their greater coun- 
 try, and whose splendid service in making his country 
 what she is and what she may hope to be has won for 
 this son of New Hampshire a lasting and a priceless fame. 
 
 The American people have been strangely 
 neglectful of the fame of Alexander Hamilton. 
 Whether because he was overshadowed by Wash- 
 ington ; whether because he never came to the 
 Presidency nor occupied a seat in either house 
 of Congress; or whether because of the brevity 
 of his life, the fact remains that it is only in com- 
 paratively recent years that he has been acknowl- 
 edged as the most creative of our statesmen and 
 the most brilliant intellect that ever appeared in 
 American politics. Mr. McCall's address advo- 
 cating the erection of a monument to Hamilton 
 in the National Capital, while comparatively 
 brief, is marked by incisive analysis and a clear 
 comprehension of the functions of a statesman. 
 Particularly happy is the perception of Hamil- 
 ton's relation to Washington: — 
 21 2 
 
Tiir. Man of Letters 
 
 In one respect no statesman was ever more fortu- 
 nate than Hamilton. Probably he would have produced 
 
 his financial and economic policies without the aid of 
 Washington, but he never would have been able to put 
 them into effect. Washington was the greatest man of 
 his time. He has been surpassed by many other men in 
 some single element of greatness. But there was never 
 in any other man such a blending of great qualities, 
 each in its due and exact proportions, and he had a 
 regular and balanced genius that makes him unique 
 among all figures of history. In the most trying times 
 of peace and war he had revealed himself to his coun- 
 trymen and they knew him as he was. Thus he had a 
 degree of authority among masses of the people which 
 was probably never attained by any other statesman. 
 The policies of Hamilton were carried by the magic 
 of Washington's name, and those policies were so out 
 of touch with the ideas and passions of the times that 
 even the influence of Washington was none too great. 
 Washington knew Hamilton as only he could know 
 one who, during long years of war, had held the most 
 confidential place upon his staff. He knew Hamilton's 
 Strength and weakness. He knew how to direct and 
 restrain him. His marvelous good sense could provide 
 the needed touch to make the difference between suc- 
 cess and failure. There were no two great men of his- 
 tory whose careers were more intimately blended. What 
 a fortunate thine their union was for America. When 
 we regard the one we arc sure to think of the other. 
 We look upon the grandeur of Washington's fame with 
 the awe and reverence which a near approach to per- 
 
 213 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 fcction inspires. We do not find in Hamilton that bal- 
 anced greatness. But he had creative qualities in which 
 he stands peerless among our statesmen. He survives 
 to-day in the very structure and fiber of the Nation and 
 of its Government. And his countrymen even yet feel 
 the light and heat of his splendid genius. 
 
 At the dedication of a statue to General Wil- 
 liam F. Draper, distinguished for many inven- 
 tions in connection with the development of the 
 textile art, Mr. McCall said as to the place of 
 invention in the long journey of mankind: — 
 
 Every faculty of man has been incredibly magnified 
 by invention. He has been, as it were, created anew 
 with superlatively greater powers. The distance between 
 the naked human fist and the modern battleship as im- 
 plements of warfare measures no greater progress than 
 has been shown in those less destructive arts that min- 
 ister to the well-being and comfort of man. The same 
 contrast is seen between the unclad savage, feeding pre- 
 cariously upon the free fruits of the earth, wandering 
 through his lifetime over the hills and fields where he 
 was born, seeking shelter in caves and coping with the 
 appalling difficulties about him with his unaided human 
 strength, and the man of to-day, housed and clothed in 
 comfort and luxury, his table spread with food from 
 every clime, the pressure of whose finger may fill with 
 light a great city, who may ride like Ariel " on the 
 curl'd clouds," and whose very whisper may be heard 
 a hundred leagues. As one of the rcsuits of invention, 
 the wants of the human animal are multiplied by the 
 
 21 + 
 
The Man of Letters 
 
 increased means of ministering to them, and man is 
 made a vastly more complex, if not a better, being. 
 Increased wants become necessities, and it may be that 
 the Struggle for existence, although with little of the 
 hardship, is not less strenuous than in the primitive 
 times. But undoubtedly the world is thus made a much 
 greater, more complex and more interesting world to 
 live in. . . . 
 
 It is of the very essence of civilization, therefore, to 
 tempt man to conquer the unknown, to extend the 
 boundaries of human knowledge and to widen the sway 
 of the race, so that, if it may, it shall encompass the 
 very stars. 
 
 When the mine yields such rich ore, the temp- 
 tation to make further drafts upon it is great. 
 Throughout Mr. McCall's speeches and writings 
 are compact phrases which carry an argument in 
 themselves. It is in one of his committee reports 
 that the famous sentence " Freedom follows the 
 flag " first made its appearance. " The little breed 
 of noisy politicians who defame their own virtue 
 by always vaunting it " vividly depicts a phase of 
 human nature which is not confined to politicians. 
 In a sober discussion of the tariff", he said : — 
 
 The payment of dividends upon issues of water and 
 even of atmosphere has never yet been avowed to be 
 one of the objects of protection. 
 
 The same paper is enlivened by these observa- 
 tions: — 
 
 215 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 The gentlemen who manage the Steel Trust do not 
 take more than they can get; but they display the usual 
 amount of human moderation, and get what they can. 
 Being patriots, they could not be so treasonable and so 
 untrue to the demands of good citizenship as to refuse 
 what the law forced upon them. 
 
 Humor and imagination are happily combined 
 in this picture : — 
 
 What is the central idea of citizenship ? I have a 
 notion that it is one of relation to others. No one can be 
 a citizen all by himself. Robinson Crusoe may have been 
 a sovereign, but a citizen he could not be. The conflicts 
 between labor and capital that rent his little state were 
 onlv such as swept across his own breast. Most envied 
 of mortals, he could placidly monopolize any part of the 
 trade and commerce upon his island without fear of be- 
 ing proceeded against under any Sherman Anti-Trust 
 Law. He could follow his ancient habit of taking nine 
 hours' sleep each night and not be stigmatized as a re- 
 actionary. Happy old citizen of the universe, hero of 
 so many generations of youngsters of all ages, vou and 
 your mythical island have become objects of admiration 
 and envy to old boys as well as young whose elbow 
 room in this world is being painfully hedged in. 
 
 I n sharp contrast with this is this picture which 
 suggests the solemnity of a Greek tragedy: — 
 
 The baleful Goddess of Detraction sits ever at the 
 elbow of Fame unsweetening what is written upon the 
 
 record. 
 
CHAPTKR VIII 
 
 MR. MCCALL 
 
 TH E opinions of a statesman upon the pub- 
 lic questions of his day and the measures 
 which he has originated or supported are all an 
 essential part of the record, but they tell little of 
 the human personality which lies behind and of 
 the man's intimate relations with his fellow men. 
 Hence, the account of Mr. McCall's life as a 
 public man should be supplemented by some 
 impression of him as he appears in his family 
 circle and among his friends. 
 
 The independence of mind which Mr. McCall 
 has displayed by refusing on numerous occasions 
 to follow his party has led to his being described 
 as an insurgent — a term of such belligerent 
 suggestion as to convey the impression of an 
 antagonistic or pugnacious disposition. Nothing 
 could be farther from the truth. He finds no 
 satisfaction in disagreeing with men whom he 
 admires and esteems. So far as in him lies he 
 would be glad to live at peace with all men, but 
 he is not willing to purchase peace by the sacri- 
 fice of his convictions. He does not welcome 
 
 2 I - 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 differences, and when he finds himselfin disagree- 
 ment with those about him it is not his habit to 
 give expression to his own opinion unless he 
 feels that the occasion demands it. Even his 
 family have sometimes been surprised to find, 
 when they came to carry out a plan which had 
 been discussed in his presence and from which 
 he did not dissent, that all the while he had been 
 silently disapproving. When he does express dis- 
 sent, he avoids personal criticism. In debating 
 public measures he addresses his discussion to 
 the measure in hand and not to the men who 
 mav be opposed to his views. It is rarely that 
 anything in the nature of a personality can be 
 found in his speeches. 
 
 Mr. McCall's books and speeches supply 
 abundant evidence of his scholarly tastes. As a 
 student he received unusually thorough instruc- 
 tion in the classics, but unlike most college 
 graduates he has taken pains to preserve and to 
 extend his knowledge in that field. This is 
 due partly to his fondness for the masterpieces 
 of Greek and Roman literature and partlv to 
 his sense of the value of classical studies as a 
 means of intellectual discipline. On his last trip 
 to Europe he availed himself of the leisure af- 
 forded bv the voyage to read the " Odyssey," 
 and recent visitors to his office in the State 
 218 
 
Ph.t, t rj,h h H.nr, H 
 
 MK- S IMUEL « lid U I 
 
Mr. McCall 
 
 House in Boston could have seen a copy of it 
 lying on his desk. His intimacy with Greek 
 literature appeared in his farewell address to the 
 House, the concluding words of which were 
 a quotation from Euripides. As a young man 
 he was fond of the novels of Bjornson, and he 
 is still devoted to Thackeray — particularly to 
 " Pendennis," but he cares little for current fic- 
 tion. His favorite reading is history and poetry, 
 and in both these fields his knowledge is wide and 
 exact. If one were to single out his favorite authors 
 they would probably be Burke and Macaulay 
 among prose writers, and Homer and Virgil, 
 Shakespeare and Milton among the poets. His 
 memory is well stored with striking passages 
 which he has so well digested that he uses them 
 in a debate or conversation as naturally and fitly 
 as though he were their author. It could not be 
 said of him as he said of Charles Sumner: — 
 
 He read more than he assimilated. Whatever he read 
 he did not digest and make his own, but simply trans- 
 ferred it from the book to his head, and when occa- 
 sion called for its use it would come forth unarrcctcd 
 by its residence there. 
 
 Closelv akin to Mr. McCall's appreciation of 
 the masterpieces of literature is his sense ot the 
 ennobling influence of art upon life and ot the 
 contribution which beauty can make to the de- 
 
 i i ) 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 velopment of the human spirit. When it was 
 proposed in Congress that the national memorial 
 to Lincoln should take the form of a Greek 
 temple, the objection was made that such a 
 structure would serve no useful purpose. To 
 this Mr. McCall replied: — 
 
 I am entirely willing to rest under the scorn of gen- 
 tlemen who think that we should put everything in life 
 upon the basis of efficiency. I know there are men 
 who would think it a mere waste of time to carve an 
 Apollo or a Venus, when the same amount of labor 
 might rear a hovel to shelter some human head; or who 
 would regard the work of a painter, spending weary 
 months of his life in putting immortal tints upon can- 
 vas, as a mere waste of time, when he might devote his 
 energies to painting many buildings and preserving them 
 against the weather. But I have myself no sympathy 
 with this view. I not only do not regard it as waste to 
 encourage those pursuits which aim to cultivate and 
 satisfy our sense of beauty, but I believe they make an 
 appeal which makes life richer and better for all of us. 
 The notion of mere efficiency would cover this world 
 of ours with concrete structures, built with the most 
 nicely calculated strains, and would fill them up with 
 human automatons, each devoted to his own narrow 
 specialty, perhaps of making a boot-heel, and chased by 
 fast-flying machinery all through the dav. We might 
 produce more under such a system, but the individual 
 would be shrunk. It would make us a race of dwarfs, 
 and our ores and coal, I believe, might better be per- 
 
 220 
 
Mr. McCall 
 
 mittcd to remain in the earth's untouched bosom. I 
 would not have our country, when the final reckoning 
 
 is to be made between her and other nations, have 
 
 nothing to present but an abnormally developed effi- 
 ciency, and have that put beside the painting, the sculp- 
 ture, the literature, the music, the architecture, and 
 those other consummate flowers of civilization which 
 other nations would bring. I do not underestimate a 
 highly developed industrial system, if only there should 
 be the more developed also those higher and more ar- 
 tistic expressions of the aspirations of our race, which 
 should be the choicest possession of every one of its 
 children. 
 
 It was also said by way of objection that how- 
 ever beautiful a Greek temple might be in itself 
 it was inappropriate as a memorial to Lincoln. In 
 his reply to this contention Mr. McCall paid trib- 
 ute to the surpassing artistic genius of the an- 
 cient Greeks and showed how their architectural 
 forms might fittingly be used to commemorate 
 the character of Lincoln: — 
 
 In whatever relates to artistic expression, whether in 
 poetrv, in eloquence, in sculpture, or in architecture, who 
 is there in the world who can surpass the Greek? What 
 more speaking marbles were ever carved than thos 
 Phidias 5 What strains of poetrv have ever broken with 
 sweeter music on the human car than those of Homel- 
 and of Pindar? Where else has eloquence reached the 
 chiseled beauty of Demosthenes 5 And although but 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 few remnants of the architecture of the Greeks have 
 survived the hand of the barbarian and the tooth of time, 
 yet when we come in view of some fragments of them 
 to-day, broken though they may be, and twenty cen- 
 turies after their time, we stand before them enthralled 
 in wonder. There is nothing more beautiful in archi- 
 tecture than the column of the Greek. ... It illus- 
 trates dignity, beauty, simplicity, and strength. How- 
 ever the soul of Abraham Lincoln might have been 
 chiseled in its shaping, as he came finally to be, every 
 one of those elements was represented in his char- 
 acter. 
 
 Mr. McCall is an idealist in the sense that he 
 has ideals and seeks to attain them. But he is not 
 so visionary as to refuse to make any advance at 
 all simply because he cannot advance as far as he 
 would like. Lloyd George once declared that the 
 chief part of the activity of every statesman con- 
 sists in the arranging of compromises. In politics 
 compromise is the price which must always be paid 
 for any substantial achievement, and so long as the 
 achievement is in harmony with justifiable prin- 
 ciples compromise is legitimate and praiseworthy. 
 But Mr. McCall has given abundant proof of his 
 willingness to follow his convictions no matter at 
 what consequence to himself. When he voted 
 against the resolution which precipitated the war 
 with Spain, he believed that his action would cost 
 him his seat in Congress, and when he reached 
 
 222 
 
Mr. McCall 
 
 home that night after the adjournment of the 
 House he said to Mrs. McCall, " I have cut off 
 my political head to-night." 
 
 It is one of the fortunate circumstances of Mr. 
 McCall's life that in the impressionable years of 
 his boyhood and youth he lived in two widely 
 differing sections of the country, and thus acquired 
 two points of view. Such an experience could not 
 but tend to save him from a provinciality of which 
 he might otherwise have been a victim, and it 
 partly accounts for his ability to look at impor- 
 tant questions from the standpoint of the country 
 as a whole. It is natural, therefore, to find that he 
 deprecates sectionalism. In 1893 he said in the 
 House : — 
 
 An attempt has been made in this debate to draw 
 what is called the " color line, "and to stir up a sectional 
 feeling. So tar as mv constituency or the Commonwealth 
 of Massachusetts is concerned, I can say emphatically 
 that there is nothing but the best of feeling towards the 
 South. Our scholars study her history; they are sorrv 
 at her mistakes, while they regard her great deeds with 
 pride as a part of the historv of the same imperial race 
 to which they belong. Her merchants and capitalists 
 would find in the great natural wealth of the South an 
 opportunitv for that increase whit h Nature has denied 
 them at their less favored home. They would be glad to 
 witness the offspring of the happy union between the 
 surplus wealth of one section and the abundant natural 
 
 223 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 resources of the other. Not less grateful to their eyes 
 than to yours would be the spectacle of new temples of 
 industry lifting their spires to the Southern sky, of vour 
 wonderful mineral wealth being unbarred to the sun- 
 light of your fair slopes, " rich in crops and rich in 
 heroes." 
 
 The one principle which more than anv other 
 has shaped Mr. McCall's public career is his de- 
 votion to liberty, — but not to liberty as a thing 
 which the powers that be may grant or take awav as 
 they deem it expedient, but to liberty as a birth- 
 right equally sacred with life. The unrestrained 
 freedom of his boyhood on the prairies of Illinois 
 may have had something to do with his impatience 
 with the multiplicity of statutes which threaten 
 our liberty, and this impatience has found a more 
 solid basis in his study of history and in his ob- 
 servation of the dwarfing effect produced upon 
 individual character by an excess of governmental 
 regulation. 
 
 As the youthful editor of a college paper he 
 protested against the prevailing excess of legisla- 
 tion, and forty-two years later he returned to this 
 theme, and with great amplification of detail he 
 made it the subject of the Dodge lectures delivered 
 at Yale University under the title "The Liberty 
 of Citizenship," the central thought of which 
 was expressed in this sentence : — 
 224 
 
Mr. McCall 
 
 Let us regard it as one of the first duties of citizen- 
 ship to aid in checking the rapid it \' and greed with which 
 the laws are coming to devour liberty. 
 
 In thus emphasizing the idea of liberty, Mr. 
 McCall has in mind the concrete and personal 
 liberty of the individual rather than the nebu- 
 lous liberty of the group to which the individual 
 belongs. It is only by protecting the individual 
 that the group can be protected. A free com- 
 munity in which the individual is not free is a 
 contradiction in terms. The Roman conception 
 of the relation of the individual to the state, so 
 antagonistic to the history of freedom among men 
 of 1 nglish speech, receives no support from Mr. 
 McCall. 
 
 When I speak of the individual, I mean the chief 
 thing that is essential in the meaning of the term " the 
 people." I do not accept the latter term in the sense 
 in which it is so often sweetly used hy those who de- 
 sire our votes. I am unahlc to see how any good, com- 
 ing to a mass of men, can he felt in any other wav than 
 by the individuals in the mass. And until somebody 
 shall point out a higher consciousness than that of the 
 individual man or woman or child, he can hardlv be 
 heard to denv that the individual man or woman or 
 child is the ultimate concern of the state. . . . 
 
 The notion that there is a collective personalitv called 
 M the people," separated from the individuals who com- 
 pose it, and which may be used to oppress each one and 
 
 22 S 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 all of its component parts in turn, may well have been 
 a conception of the Greek demagogues by whom it was 
 so fittingly illustrated in practice. I cannot understand 
 how there can be any freedom that is not in the last 
 analysis individual freedom. However great a mass of 
 men you may have in a nation, however powerful phys- 
 ically it may be, if each individual is the victim of op- 
 pression, if he is denied rights, if there is no forum open 
 to him, where he can be heard to say against the majoritv, 
 "this is mine" — then "the people" have no such 
 thing as liberty, they have no such thing as popular 
 rights. As to the " composite citizen," he obviously is 
 nobody who ever has existed, or ever will exist. When 
 the advocates of a reform, ignoring the man of flesh and 
 blood in the street, are conducting it with reference to 
 this mythical person, they should emigrate to Utopia. 
 
 Mr. McCall's life and thought are so perme- 
 ated with the idea of liberty as a right inherent 
 in every man as to make it inevitable that his re- 
 lations with others should be characterized by 
 great tolerance. Years ago Phillips Brooks an- 
 swered the charge that tolerance in religion was 
 only another name for indifference by showing 
 that real tolerance can proceed only from convic- 
 tion. Herein lies the explanation of Mr. McCall's 
 tolerance of opinions and courses of action which 
 are most repugnant to him. It proceeds from his 
 recognition of liberty as a supreme human right. 
 So sincere is his recognition of the right of every 
 226 
 
Mr. McCall 
 
 man to be himself, 30 long as he does not interfere 
 with a like right in others, that he instinctively 
 puts all men upon an equal plane and approaches 
 them without any assumption of superiority. And 
 this is the basis of his democracy. To him de- 
 mocracy does not appear as a political theory 
 based upon expediency, but as a right inherent 
 in mankind. " The simple majesty of manhood" 
 is a phrase which occurs in many of his speeches. 
 One who regards manhood as majestic cannot be 
 other than a firm believer in both liberty and 
 democracy. 
 
 Somewhere Mr. McCall refers to Lincoln as 
 an illustration of the " chivalry of democracy." 
 This phrase goes far to explain Mr. McCall's 
 political philosophv as well as his conception ot 
 the dignity of humanity. That democracy can be 
 chivalrous will seem to many to be a contradiction 
 in terms, while others, in spite of the present-day 
 exaltation of Lincoln, will find it difficult to as- 
 sociate him with the mediaeval knight whose lofty 
 vows of devotion to 
 
 Truthc and honour, freedom and curtesic 
 
 did not involve any idea of obligation to those 
 who were not of gentle blood. Chivalry and de- 
 mocracy, however, have this much in common, 
 — that they cherish ideals the mere profession ot 
 
 227 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 which is an incentive to their attainment, and 
 
 those ideals look to the protection of the weak 
 
 and the restraint of the strong- and the establish- 
 es 
 
 ment of righteousness in the relations of men 
 with one another. Both chivalry and democracy, 
 in so far as they are a social philosophy, repre- 
 sent conceptions of service, — the former through 
 the dedication of an individual to the protection 
 of a class, the latter through the organized effort 
 of the community to protect and cherish each of 
 its members, and to open wide to all every door 
 of opportunity. Mr. McCall's phrase was there- 
 fore not only a graceful tribute to Lincoln, but 
 was a compact statement of the principle which 
 justifies democracy, and which his own life so well 
 exemplifies. At the beginning of his legislative 
 career he was identified with such chivalrous and 
 humanitarian measures as the abolition of impris- 
 onment for debt, the protection of the wages of 
 sailors, and the preservation of the purity of the 
 ballot through the regulation of the use of money 
 in elections. Later, as a member of Congress, he 
 was actuated by the same chivalrous and human- 
 itarian motives in proposing an amendment to 
 the Federal Constitution authorizing; Congress to 
 regulate hours of labor, particularly of women 
 and children, throughout the United States. And 
 now, as Governor of Massachusetts, he is en- 
 228 
 
Mr. McCall 
 
 gaged in the same chivalrous enterprise in his 
 endeavor to obtain a revision of the constitution 
 of the State, the protection of the poor against 
 the exactions of loan sharks, and the limitation 
 of the hours of labor in industries which are 
 operated continuously. 
 
 Where snobbery is, there can be no true de- 
 mocracv. Men's position in the world will neces- 
 sarily be helped or hindered by the environment 
 into which they are born, but the worth of their 
 achievements is not to be gauged by such an 
 accident. Allusion has already been made to the 
 fact that in Mr. McCall's first campaign for Con- 
 gress his opponents made much of the circum- 
 stance that their candidate was a son of the great 
 War Governor of Massachusetts, John A. An- 
 drew. Mr. McCall reminded them that Gov- 
 ernor Andrew came to Boston from Maine, a 
 poor bov who had to fight his way without the 
 help of family prestige, and that those who now 
 sought to win votes for his son because ot the 
 achievements of the father represented the same 
 social element against which Governor Andrew 
 himself had to win his way. To advocate a man's 
 election to office because his father had held a dis- 
 tinguished place was to revert, in Mr. McCall's 
 judgment, to the verv system which our ancestors 
 came to this country to escape. Such an appli- 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 cation of heredity was repugnant to his idea of 
 democracy. 
 
 A citizen of Boston prepared a " Literary His- 
 tory of America" in which he carefully recorded 
 that Theodore Parker and William Lloyd Garri- 
 son " sprang from that lower class of New Eng- 
 land which never intimately understood its social 
 superiors "; that Benjamin Franklin " sprang from 
 socially inconspicuous origin"; that "the lower 
 class of New England produced Whittier " ; that 
 Thoreau's blood was " not of the socially distin- 
 guished kind"; that Irving "was of simple ori- 
 gin" and that "his family was in respectable 
 trade " ; and that Daniel Webster was the " son 
 of a New Hampshire countryman" and "re- 
 tained so many traces of his far from eminent 
 New Hampshire origin " as to be less typical of 
 the Boston orators than were some other men. 
 As to this reproach against Webster Mr. McCall 
 said : — 
 
 It is hardly useful to turn to a doubtful past in order 
 to learn of a known present, or to judge of a son whom 
 we know well from a father of whom we know little. 
 It it often more safe to judge of the ancestor from the 
 descendant than of the descendant from the ancestor. 
 I supposed that Daniel Webster had forever settled the 
 essential character of the stock from which he sprang, 
 just as the pure gold of Lincoln's character unerringly 
 230 
 
Mr. McCall 
 
 points to a mine of unalloyed metal somewhere, if there 
 is am thing in the- principles of heredity; and whether 
 the mine is known or unknown, its gold will pass cur- 
 rent even at the Boston mint. 
 
 His democracy has been expressed in his atti- 
 tude toward legislation which discriminated be- 
 tween men before the law because of race or 
 color. In an early debate on the merit system in 
 the public service he said: — 
 
 The gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Williams] 
 complains that in his State there were actually in the 
 postal service eleven colored people, or to use his forc- 
 ible if not elegant language, ** eleven ignorant niggers" 
 in the State of Mississippi were employed in the Rail- 
 way Mail Service. 
 
 To my mind one of the glories of this civil-service 
 reform is that it dues not regard a man's color, but that 
 to rich and poor, to black and white, to high and low, 
 it applies impartially the same test. It does not look to 
 see what political boss is behind a man, or what pull 
 he has, or what may be his circumstances in life, but 
 it regards him and his qualifications, and aims to give 
 him the place he is competent to rill. 
 
 In 1893, in discussing a bill which provided 
 that in certain classes of cases the facts should be 
 established " by at least one crediblewitness other 
 than Chinese," he said: — 
 
 Truth knows no color. Let the court find it as best 
 it may. It is a most heathenish principle to write in 
 
 *3 ! 
 
Samuel \V. McCall 
 
 our laws that our courts shall shut their eves to facts 
 because of a man's nationality or the color of his skin. 
 
 In the debate in the House, in 191 1, on a 
 resolution to abrogate our treaty with Russia 
 because of discrimination against American citi- 
 zens of Jewish descent, he said : — 
 
 My sympathies are with this brilliant race. Centuries 
 ago its nationality was destroyed in Palestine. It was 
 dispersed over the face of the globe. The laws of almost 
 all nations have discriminated against it; and yet it has 
 shown such marvelous vitality that it has made for it- 
 self a proud place. It is to-day one of the most power- 
 ful elements in great States in this Union. I should be 
 willing to take any steps in reason to protect the rights 
 of such a people. 
 
 While Mr. McCall was in Congress, he was 
 not a frequent participant in the debates. Aside 
 from the formal presentation of the reports of 
 committees over which he presided, he seldom 
 addressed the House, even briefly, more than a 
 half-dozen times in any one session. Indeed, 
 throughout one session when he was chairman 
 of an investigating committee of the House, he did 
 not take the floor at all. It was the high quality 
 of his speeches, the thorough knowledge upon 
 which they were based, the sound and independ- 
 ent judgment which they exhibited, as well as 
 their eloquent and graceful language, which 
 232 
 
Mr. McCall 
 
 gained public recognition. I lis speeches also are 
 distinguished by the fact that they usually dealt 
 with the fundamental. Mis discussions of puhlic 
 questions well exemplify Lord Macaulay's ob- 
 servation that in the administration of govern- 
 ment there are two kinds of wisdom, — the 
 highest wisdom which is conversant with great 
 principles of political philosophy and a lower 
 wisdom which meets daily exigencies by daily 
 expedients. In his first speech on the tariff he 
 examined the fundamental principle on which 
 the whole policy of protection is based. In his 
 discussion of the amendments made by the Sen- 
 ate to revenue bills sent to it from the House, 
 he concerned himself less with the details of the 
 amendments than with the constitutional ri^ht 
 of the Senate to make any alterations which 
 affected the fundamental character of the bill. In 
 his view the power over revenue bills vested in the 
 House by the Constitution was something more 
 than a right to adopt an enacting clause to which 
 the Senate might attach any sort of bill that it 
 chose. Likewise, in the debates upon the Philip- 
 pines, he emphasized less the transitory elements 
 ot the problem — the economic effect upon the 
 United States, the expense which their DO! 
 sion would entail, the possible advantages to the 
 Philippines — than the fundamental question as 
 
 ->3J 
 
Samuel W. McCall 
 
 to whether a country whose national existence is 
 based upon the principle that all just government 
 derives its powers from the consent of the gov- 
 erned, can be justified in imposing its rule upon 
 an unwilling population. Throughout the debate 
 upon the regulation of railway rates, he insisted 
 that the question as to what is a reasonable rate 
 is essentially a judicial question. The many de- 
 cisions which have since been handed down to 
 the effect that the rate decrees ot a railway com- 
 mission cannot be made final and that a carrier 
 cannot be deprived of its right to a judicial re- 
 view of the action of a commission, go far to 
 sustain Mr. McCall's contention, while the in- 
 congruity of the Government's fixing the price 
 of what the railways have to sell while it makes 
 no attempt to fix the price of what they have to 
 buy is forcing itself more and more upon the 
 attention of students of the railway problem. It 
 is this habit of exact analysis and of resolving a 
 question into its fundamental elements which is 
 Mr. McCall's most prominent characteristic as 
 a debater. 
 
 An examination of his speeches in Congress 
 will show that his discussions were usually con- 
 fined to those questions the decision oi which he 
 felt was likely to affect our whole system of gov- 
 ernment. On the great mass of petty bills which 
 234 
 
Mr. McCall 
 
 come before Congress he seldom had anything 
 to say. I 1c devoted himself to the study of such 
 questions as free silver, the merit system of ap- 
 pointments, the policy of protection, imperial- 
 ism, the regulation of railway rates, and the con- 
 stitutional relations of the States with the Federal 
 Government and of the various branches of the 
 Government with one another. And he is carrv- 
 ing the same principle of selection into the dis- 
 charge of his duties as Governor. Shortly before 
 his inauguration, he said to a friend, " I don't 
 want to be a mere routine Governor. I want 
 to accomplish something substantial for the 
 State." 
 
 Religion is often the key to much of a man's 
 character, but if he is as little inclined as is Mr. 
 McCall to speak of those things which concern 
 himself most intimately, it is a phase of his life 
 which is likely to be little known. So far as Mr. 
 McCall's religion finds any outward expression, 
 it is as a communicant of the Episcopal Church 
 of which he and all his family are members. To 
 his intimates it is apparent that the serenity of 
 his spirit is largely due to an almost mystical con- 
 fidence in the guidance of a power which shapes 
 his life and brings to good result that which 
 seemed at the time a defeat of his purpose. In 
 his speeches and writings there are few sentences 
 
 235 
 
Samuel \V. McCall 
 
 of a distinctly religious character, but they are 
 pervaded by a reverential tone which could only 
 proceed from a deeply religious nature. Many 
 of his discussions of public questions might well 
 have had for their text, " Righteousness exalteth 
 a nation." He is so impressed with the sacred- 
 ness of democracy and the inalienable right of 
 man to liberty that his pleas attain a solemnity 
 comparable to Lincoln's Second Inaugural or to 
 that of the Hebrew prophets or the Greek tra- 
 gedians. Wherein such appeals to the highest 
 emotions by which the conduct of man is influ- 
 enced differ from appeals to religion it might be 
 difficult to determine. The result is certainly 
 much the same. 
 
 In Mr. McCall's library in Winchester there 
 is a picture with an interesting historv. When 
 the treaty for the exclusion of the Chinese was 
 pending before the Senate, Senator Hoar, to 
 whom anything in the nature of racial discrimi- 
 nation before the law was abhorrent, vigorously 
 opposed its ratification, but on the final vote, he 
 found himself absolutely alone. He evidently 
 felt the isolation of his position, and in reaching 
 out for sympathy he instinctively turned to his col- 
 league in the lower House. In the evening of the 
 day that the treaty was ratified, the Senator's mes- 
 senger appeared at Mr. McCall's home bearing 
 236 
 
Mr. \I< Call 
 
 a beautiful engraving of Trumluill's well-known 
 painting, "The Signing of the Declaration ot 
 Independence." On the margin w;is written, 
 " The Hon. Samuel \V. McCall, semper fidelis, 
 with the affectionate regards of George F. Hoar." 
 
 THE END 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 41. 
 Adams, John, ^9. 
 Adams, John {Juincy, 60. 
 Aiken, John A., II, 13. 
 Andrew, John A., 4, 27, 119. 
 
 Bankruptcy, 64-66. 
 
 Barrett, William E., 23. 
 
 Bartlett, Paul, 32. 
 
 Blaine, James G., 139. 
 
 Brooks, Phillips, 226. 
 
 Bryan, VV. J., 53, 98, 129. 
 
 Brvce, Lord, 68, 147, 189, ao8. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 84, 210. 
 
 Burnham, D. H., 32. 
 
 »' Business of Congress," 197. 
 
 Cannon, Joseph G., 34-37. 
 Carlisle, John G., I 16. 
 Centralization of power, 81-89, 
 
 97- 
 
 Chase, Dr. George C, 9. 
 
 Chase, Salmon P., 1 73. 
 
 Choate, Rufus, 1-3. 
 
 Civil service reform, 57-64, 23 I. 
 Henry, 61. 
 
 Cleveland, Grover, 4-", 48, 53, 95, 
 IOI, 116, 1 18, 146. 
 
 Constitution of the United States, con- 
 struction of, 80, 83, 90; amend- 
 ment of, 89, 97, 99 ; restraints of, 
 89, 94, 100, 106-08. 
 
 Constitutional relations of the Federal 
 Government and the States, 55—57, 
 69, 81-90, 93, 9-, 99. 
 
 I - ipt practices acts, 24. 
 
 Cuba, relations with, 126, 145, 167— 
 
 "> 
 Curtis, George William, 57. 
 
 Dartmouth ,l Anvil," 13-16. 
 
 Dartmouth College, 9, II J presi- 
 dency of, 172-88 ; growth of, 1 J ', ; 
 in the Civil War, 175; develop- 
 ment under President Tucker, 1 75; 
 Webster celebration, 209. 
 
 Demagogues, danger of, 94. 
 
 Democracy, 227-32. 
 
 Dingley Act, 122, 128, 129, 134. 
 
 Draper, General William F., 214. 
 
 Eastman, Edwin G., II. 
 EB «, Chads W., 40, 77. 
 Elkins Act, 72. 
 Emancipation, 193-95, 197- 
 Episcopal Church, 235. 
 Everett, William, 52. 
 
 Federal Government, supremacy of, 
 
 99. 
 Fine Arts, National Commission on, 
 
 3-- 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 96, 189, 209. 
 
 Freeman, E. A., 93. 
 French, Daniel Chester, 32. 
 
 Garfield, James A., 101. 
 Gladstone, W. E. , 90. 
 Gold standard, 50, 51, 54. 
 Grant, U. S., 96. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 209, 212-14. 
 Hanna, M. A., 129. 
 Harrison, Benjamin, 57, I 1 6, I 58. 
 Hay, John, 189, 191. 
 Hepburn Act, 72-76. 
 Hipginson, Henry L. , 180. 
 Higpinson, Thomas WentWOftl 
 205. 
 
 »3 I 
 
Index 
 
 Hoar, George F., 236. 
 
 Holmes, Justice O. W., 1 1 3. 
 
 House of Representatives, rearrange- 
 ment of its hall, 68; right to orig- 
 inate revenue bills, 100-03; power 
 in abrogation of treaties, 103-06. 
 
 Illinois, life in, 3-8, 191. 
 Income Tax Amendment, 97-99. 
 Ingersoll, Robert G., 116. 
 Initiative, 109, 1 1 1. 
 Interstate Commerce Act, 71. 
 Ireland, 160. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, 59, 60, 62. 
 James, William, 205. 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 59, 62. 
 Jews, protection of, 232. 
 John Brown's raid, 205-08. 
 Judiciary, independence of, 95, 112. 
 
 Kimball-Union Academy, 16, 17. 
 
 Labor, regulation of hours of, 69. 
 Legal tender notes, proposal to tax, 
 
 5 5-57- 
 Lewis, Homer P., 12. 
 Liberty, 85, 86, 89, 91, 93, 112, 
 
 161, 208, 224-27. 
 " Liberty of Citizenship," 208, 224. 
 Lieber, Francis, 85. 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 81, 1 93, 197, 
 
 209, 222, 227. 
 Lincoln Memorial, 33, 220. 
 Lodge, H. C, 190. 
 
 McCall, Henrv, 2. 
 
 McCall, Peter, 1. 
 
 Mi Call, Samuel, Jr., 1. 
 
 i\K (.'.ill, Samuel Walker, birth, 2; 
 removal to Illinois, 3 ; enters Mt. 
 Carroll Seminary, 8 ; enters New 
 Hampton Academy, S ; impres- 
 sions of New F.ngKid, 8 ; enters 
 Dartmouth College, 9, II; elected 
 to Phi Beta Kappa, 1 1 ; member 
 of K.ippa Kappa Kappa, 1 2 ; in 
 
 24O 
 
 debating, 12; in boating, 12; in 
 college journalism, 13-16; teacher 
 in Kimball-Union Academy, 16; 
 in a night school, 1 7 ; study and 
 practice of law, 19 ; life of Napo- 
 leon, 19; articles on Sumner and 
 Choate, 20; " Plea for a Strong 
 Navy," 20; elected to the Legis- 
 lature of Massachusetts, 22, 23, 
 26; author of poor debtors' law, 
 22; member of Republican National 
 Convention, 23; editor of " Boston 
 Advertiser," 23; author of corrupt 
 practices acts, 24, 26; controversy 
 with Supreme Judicial Court, 24; 
 law for protection of sailors' wages, 
 25; appointed Ballot Law Commis- 
 sioner, 26; elected to Congress, 28; 
 independence, 28; large majorities, 
 29, 30; election of 1904, 29; mem- 
 ber of Committee on Elections, 31; 
 member of Committee on the Judici- 
 arv, 32; author of law establishing 
 National Commission on the Fine 
 Arts, 32; member of the Lincoln Me- 
 morial Commission, 33; member of 
 Committee on Ways and Means, 
 33, 122; member of investigating 
 committees, 33 ; relations with 
 Speaker Cannon, 34-3"; retires 
 from the House, 37; candidacy for 
 the Senate, 39-41 ; farewell address 
 to the House, 42; candidate for 
 Governor, 44; renomination, 4^; 
 election, 46; repeal of the Silver 
 Purchase Act, 47-53; defense of 
 the public credit, 54; taxation of 
 legal tender notes, 55 — 57; uniform- 
 ity of State laws, 5-; civil service 
 reform, 57-64; bankruptcy, 64- 
 68; rearrangement of hall of House 
 of Representivej, 68; constitutional 
 amendment to secure uniform hours 
 of labor, 69;railwav rate legislation, 
 70—76; performing the functions of 
 an opposition, --; constitutional dis- 
 cussions, 78-114; the policy of pro- 
 
Index 
 
 bection, 1 1 s-44; the war with Spain 
 
 and its problen 
 
 dcncy nf Dartmouth C liege, 17a 
 
 , is .1 man of letba . 
 sch 
 of art, lealiam, 2: 1 . 
 
 recites sectionalism, 123; devotion 
 to liberty, 2:4 -"; an individualist 
 and a den. erat, - -" J . 
 race discrimin.iri . • i . 
 devoted to fundamental principles, 
 :imunicant of the 
 Episcopal Church, 235; gift from 
 Set . :",6. 
 
 Samuel W., 10. 
 
 . W un, 1. 
 
 ley, William, 139, I46, 14-, 
 
 ; 
 McKinley Act, 1 34. 
 
 ■ . 9- 
 Monroe Doctrine, 1 ; ;. 
 M • • 
 Morrow, J. B., 35. 
 
 . plea for a strong, 10. 
 s, attitude toward, l8l, 23 1. 
 . 203. 
 
 . 1 : : 
 New York " Sun," I JO, 
 New York "Times," 39. 
 
 Olmsted. I I 
 
 . Richard, 1 
 1 n, direct government in, 110. 
 
 Parkman, Hcnn, 
 1 ' • . ! It N. , I a, 1 3. 
 P ! Act, 13a ]4. 
 ca Kappa, II, 
 
 Philippines, 1 . ., 1 -, 1 '12-66, 
 
 P : irbtors, act tor relief f, 22. 
 Porto Rico, 14 
 
 I. , 1 : . 1 :. 17, 1 • 
 . 20. 
 
 1 I " 44- 
 
 Public opinioi 
 
 Ouimhy, Charles E., 12. 
 
 in of, 70-76, 234. 
 . 
 Randal . , I 16. 
 
 112. 
 
 Recipnu 1". , 134; with Cuba, 135— 
 
 -, -, I 68—7 I ; with Canada, I 
 
 . Thomas B., 146,191, 195-97. 
 Referendum, I 10, 111. 
 Religion, 2 ; ;. 
 
 ie bills, authority of the House 
 over, 100—03. 
 
 . [ames Ford, 1 1 
 Roberts, Brigham H., exclusion of 
 
 fmm the House, 106-08. 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 29, 30, J - 
 
 11 1, 1 
 Root, Elihu, 108, 208. 
 
 Sailors, act for protection ' 
 
 :ive," 
 
 203-05. 
 Schurz, Carl, 57. 
 Senate and House, relations be' 
 
 IOO—06. 
 Senators, popular election of, 99. 
 Ship subsidies, 6(> I 
 Silver Purchase Act, repeal of, 47- 
 
 Smith, Goldwin, 1 B7. 
 
 Spain, war with, 128, 1 45-7 1, 
 
 222. 
 Springfield " K "4 1. 
 
 ghta and powers 1 
 Stevens, Thaddeus, 173, 192. 
 
 1 82. 
 Strecter, Frank S., 12. I 
 
 • H., 139, 1 66, 208. 
 Tariff, 131. 
 
 Thompson, Ella Esther (Mrs. Mc- 
 
 Call), 10. 
 Thompson, Sumner Shaw, 1 
 riing and a: 
 . 06. 
 
 241 
 
Index 
 
 Tucker, William J., 175, 176, 
 177- 
 
 Uniform state laws, 57. 
 
 Washington, George, 59, 62, 89, 
 95, 120, 197, 209, 212-14. 
 
 Washington " Post," 154. 
 Webster, Daniel, II, 61, 173,209- 
 
 12. 
 Wilson, William L., 117. 
 Wilson Bill, 117, 118, 122 
 
 134- 
 Woodford, Stewart L., 146, 147. 
 
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