gime to destruction.Of political men, the most noted whom I met in those days was Governor Cleveland. He was little known, but those of us who had been observant of public affairs knew that he had shown st.u.r.dy honesty and courage, first as sheriff of the county of Erie, and next as mayor of Buffalo, and that, most wonderful of all, he had risen above party ties and had appointed to office the best men he could find, even when some of them were earnest Republicans.
In June of 1883 he visited the university as an ex-officio trustee, laid the corner-stone of the chapel above the remains of Ezra Cornell, and gave a brief address. It was short, but surprised me by its lucidity and force. This being done, I conducted him to the opening of the new chemical laboratory. He was greatly interested in it, and it was almost pathetic to note his evident regret that he had never had the advantage of such instruction. I learned afterward that he was cla.s.sically prepared to enter college, but that his father, a poor country clergyman, being unable to defray his expenses, the young man determined to strike out for himself, and so began one of the best careers known in the history of American politics.
At this same commencement of Cornell University appeared another statesman, Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, author of the Morrill Bill of 1862, which, by a grant of public lands, established a college for scientific, technical, military, and general education in every State and Territory in the Union. It was one of the most beneficent measures ever proposed in any country. Mr. Morrill had made a desperate struggle for his bill, first as representative and afterward as senator. It was twice vetoed by President Buchanan, who had at his back all the pro-slavery doctrinaires of his time. They distrusted, on various accounts, any system for promoting advanced education, and especially for its promotion by the government; but he won the day, and on this occasion our trustees, at my suggestion, invited him to be present at the unveiling of his portrait by Huntington, which had been painted by order of the trustees for the library.
He was evidently gratified at the tribute, and all who met him were pleased with him. The time will come, I trust, when his statue will stand in the capital of the Union as a memorial of one of the most useful and far-seeing statesmen our country has known.
A week later I addressed my cla.s.s at Yale on ""The Message of the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth."" In this address my endeavor was to indicate the lines on which reforms of various sorts must be inst.i.tuted, and along which a better future for the country could be developed, and it proved a far greater success than I had expected.
It was widely circulated in various forms, first in the newspapers, then as a pamphlet, and finally as a kind of campaign doc.u.ment.
From July to September of that year (1883) I was obliged to be in Europe looking after matters pertaining to the university lawsuit, and, on returning, was called upon to address a large meeting of Germans at the funeral of a member of the German parliament who had died suddenly while on a visit to our country--Edward Lasker. I had known him well in Berlin as a man of great ability and high character, and felt it a duty to accept the invitation to give one of the addresses at his funeral. The other address was given by my friend of many years, Carl Schurz; and these addresses, with some others made at the time, did, I suppose, something to bring to me the favor of my German fellow-citizens in New York.
Still, my main thoughts were given to Cornell University.
This was so evident that on one occasion a newspaper of my own party, in an article hostile to those who spoke of nominating me for the governorship, declared: ""Mr.
White"s politics and religion are Cornell University.""
But suddenly, in 1884, I was plunged into politics most unexpectedly.
As has been usual with every party in the State of New York from the beginning of the government, the Republicans were divided between two factions, one supporting Mr. Arthur for the Presidency, the other hoping to nominate Mr. Blaine. These two factions thus standing opposed to each other, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, with a few others in various parts of the State, started an independent movement, with the result that the two main divisions of the party, detesting each other more than they detested the independents, supported the latter and elected independent candidates as delegates at large to the approaching Republican Convention at Chicago. Without any previous notice, I was made one of these delegates. My position was therefore perfectly independent; I was at liberty to vote for whom I pleased. Although my acquaintance with Mr.
Blaine was but slight, I had always felt strong admiration and deep attachment for him. As Secretary of State, during a part of my residence in Berlin, he had stood by me in a contest regarding the double standard of value in which I had feared that he might waver; and, far more than all this, his general political course had caused me, as it had caused myriads of others, to feel grateful to him.
But I had learned some things regarding his vulnerability in a presidential campaign which made me sure that it would be impossible to elect him. An impartial but kindly judge had, some months before, while expressing great admiration for Mr. Blaine, informed me of some transactions which, while they showed no turpitude, revealed a carelessness in doing business which would certainly be brought to bear upon him with great effect in a heated political campaign. It was clear to me that, if nominated, he would be dragged through the mire, the Republican party defeated, and the country at large besmirched in the eyes of the whole world.
Arrived at Chicago June 2, 1884, I found the political caldron seething and bubbling. Various candidates were earnestly supported, and foremost of all, President Arthur and Mr. Blaine. The independent delegates, led by Theodore Roosevelt and George William Curtis, and the Ma.s.sachusetts delegation, headed by Governor Long, Senator h.o.a.r, and Henry Cabot Lodge, decided to support Senator Edmunds of Vermont. No man stood higher than he for integrity as well as for statesmanlike qualities and legal abilities; no one had more thoroughly the respect of thinking men from one end of the country to the other.
The delegates having arrived in the great hall where the convention was sitting, a number of skirmishes took place, and a momentary victory was gained by the Independents in electing, as temporary chairman, a colored delegate of great ability from one of the Southern States, over Mr. Powell Clayton of Arkansas, who, though he had suffered bitterly and struggled bravely to maintain the Union during the Civil War, was supposed to be identified with doubtful methods in Southern politics.
But as it soon became evident that the main tide was for Mr. Blaine, various efforts were made to concentrate the forces opposed to him upon some candidate who could command more popular support than Mr. Edmunds. An earnest effort was made in favor of John Sherman of Ohio, and his claims were presented most sympathetically to me by my old Cornell student, Governor Foraker.
Of all the candidates before the convention I would have preferred to vote for Mr. Sherman. He had borne the stress of the whole anti-slavery combat, and splendidly; he had rendered great services to the nation as a statesman and financier, and was in every respect capable and worthy.
Unfortunately there were too many old enmities against him, and it was clear that the anti-Blaine vote could not be concentrated on him. My college cla.s.smate, Mr.
Knevals of New York, then urged me to vote for President Arthur. This, too, would have been a fairly satisfactory solution of the question, for President Arthur had surprised every one by the excellence of his administration.
Still there was a difficulty in his case: the Ma.s.sachusetts delegates could not be brought to support him; it was said that he had given some of their leaders mortal offense by his hostility to the River and Harbor Bill. A final effort was then made by the Independents to induce General Sherman to serve, but he utterly refused, and so the only thing left was to let matters take their course. All chance of finding any one to maintain the desired standard of American political life against the supporters of Mr.
Blaine had failed.
As we came into the convention on the morning of the day fixed for making the nominations, I noticed that the painted portraits of Washington and Lincoln, previously on either side of the president"s chair, had been removed.
Owing to the tumultuous conduct of the crowd in the galleries, it had been found best to remove things of an ornamental nature from the walls, for some of these ornaments had been thrown down, to the injury of those sitting below.
On my calling Curtis"s attention to this removal of the two portraits, he said: ""Yes, I have noticed it, and I am glad of it. Those weary eyes of Lincoln have been upon us here during our whole stay, and I am glad that they are not to see the work that is to be done here to-day."" It was a curious exhibition of sentiment, a revelation of the deep poetic feeling which was so essential an element in Curtis"s n.o.ble character.
The various candidates were presented by prominent speakers, and most of the speeches were thoroughly good; but unquestionably the best, from an oratorical point of view, was made on the nomination of Mr. Edmunds by Governor Long of Ma.s.sachusetts. Both as to matter and manner it was perfection; was felt to be so by the convention; and was sincerely applauded even by the majority of those who intended to vote for Mr. Blaine.
There was one revelation here, as there had been at many conventions previously, which could not fail to produce a discouraging impression upon every thoughtful American. The number of delegates and subst.i.tutes sent to the convention amounted in all to a few hundreds, but these were almost entirely lost in the immense crowd of spectators, numbering, it was said, from twelve to fifteen thousand. In the only conventions which I had ever before seen, including those at Baltimore and Philadelphia and various State conventions of New York, the delegates had formed the majority of those in the hall; but in this great ""wigwam"" there were times in which the most important part was played by the spectators. At some moments this overwhelming mob, which encircled the seats of the delegates on the floor and rose above them on all sides in the galleries, endeavored to sweep the convention in the direction of its own whims and fancies. From time to time the convention ceased entirely to be a deliberative body.
As the names of certain favorite candidates were called, or as certain popular allusions were made in speeches, this mob really took possession of the convention and became almost frantic. I saw many women jumping up and down, dishevelled and hysterical, and some men acting in much the same way. It was absolutely unworthy of a convention of any party, a disgrace to decency, and a blot upon the reputation of our country. I am not alone in this opinion. More than once during my official life in Europe I have heard the whole thing lamented by leading liberal statesmen as bringing discredit on all democratic government.
There were times indeed when the galleries sought to howl down those who were taking part in the convention, and this was notably the case during a very courageous speech by Mr. Roosevelt.
I may mention, in pa.s.sing, that the country then received the first revelation of that immense pluck and vigor which have since carried Mr. Roosevelt through so many political conflicts, borne him through all the dangers of the Santiago campaign, placed him in the governor"s chair of the State of New York and in the Vice-Presidency of the United States, leading to the Presidency, which he holds as I revise these lines. At the Chicago Convention, though he was in a small minority, nothing daunted him.
As he stood upon a bench and addressed the president, there came from the galleries on all sides a howl and yell, ""Sit down! sit down!"" with whistling and cat-calls.
All to no purpose; the mob might as well have tried to whistle down a bronze statue. Roosevelt, slight in build as he then was, was greater than all that crowd combined.
He stood quietly through it all, defied the mob, and finally obliged them to listen to him.
Toward the end of the convention this mob showed itself even worse than before. It became evident that large parts of the galleries were packed in the interest of the local candidate for the Vice-Presidency, General Logan, and this ma.s.s of onlookers did their best to put down all delegates supporting any other.
No more undemocratic system was ever devised. The tendency of this ""wigwam"" plan of holding great meetings or conventions is to station a vast mob of sensation- seeking men and women in the galleries between the delegates and the country at large. The inevitable consequence is that the ""fog-horns"" of a convention play the most ef- fective part, and that they seek mainly the applause of the galleries. The country at large is for the moment forgotten. The controlling influence is the mob, mainly from the city where the convention is held. The whole thing is a monstrous abuse. Attention has been called to it by thinking Democrats as well as by Republicans, who have seen in it a sign of deterioration which has produced many unfortunate consequences and will produce more. It is the old story of the French Convention overawed by a gallery mob and mistaking the mob whimsies of a city for the sober judgment of the country. One result of it the whole nation saw when, in more recent years, a youthful member of Congress, with no training to fit him for executive duties, was suddenly, by the applause of such a mob, imposed upon the Democratic National Convention as a candidate for the Presidency. Those who recall the way in which ""the boy orator of the Platte"" became the Democratic candidate for the Chief Magistracy over seventy millions of people, on account of a few half-mawkish, half- blasphemous phrases in a convention speech, can bear witness to the necessity of a reform in this particular--a reform which will forbid a sensation-seeking city mob to usurp the function of the whole people of our Republic.
In spite of these mob hysterics, the Independents persisted to the last in supporting Mr. Edmunds for the first place, but in voting for the second place they separated.
For the Vice-Presidency I cast the only vote which was thrown for my old Cornell student, Mr. Foraker, previously governor of Ohio, and since that time senator from that State.
In spite of sundry ""defects of his qualities,"" which I freely recognized, I regarded him as a fearless, upright, downright, straightforward man of the sort who must always play a great part in American politics.
It was at this convention that I saw for the first time Mr. McKinley of Ohio, and his quiet self-possession in the midst of the various whirls and eddies and storms caused me to admire him greatly. Calm, substantial, quick to see a good point, strong to maintain it, he was evidently a born leader of men. His speeches were simple, clear, forcible, and aided at times in rescuing the self-respect of the body.
This Republican convention having adjourned, the National Democratic Convention met soon afterward in the same place and nominated Grover Cleveland of New York.
He was a man whom I greatly respected. As already stated, his career as sheriff of Erie County, as mayor of Buffalo, and as governor of the State of New York had led me to admire him. He had seemed utterly incapable of making any bid for mob support; there had appeared not the slightest germ of demagogism in him; he had refused to be a mere partizan tool and had steadily stood for the best ideals of government. As governor he showed the same qualities which had won admiration during his previous career as sheriff and mayor. He made as many appointments as he could without regard to political considerations, and it was remarked with wonder that when a number of leading Democratic ""workers""
and ""wheel-horses"" came to the executive chamber in Albany in order to dictate purely partizan appointments, he virtually turned them out of the room. Most amazing thing of all, he had vetoed a bill reducing the fare on the elevated railroads of New York, in the face of the earnest advice of partizans who a.s.sured him that by doing so he would surely array against him the working-cla.s.ses of that city and virtually annihilate his political future.
To this his answer was that whatever his sympathies for the working-people might be, he could not, as an honest man, allow such a bill to pa.s.s, and, come what might, he would not. He had also dared, quietly but firmly, to resist the chief ""boss"" of his party in New York City, and he had consequently to brave the vials of Celtic wrath. The scenes at the convention which nominated him were stirring, and an eminent Western delegate struck a chord in the hearts of thousands of Republicans as well as Democrats when he said, ""We love him for the enemies he has made."" Had it been a question simply between men, great numbers of us who voted for Mr. Blaine would have voted for Mr. Cleveland; but whatever temptation I might be subjected to in the matter was overcome by one fact: Mr.
Cleveland was too much like the Trojan horse, for he bore with him a number of men who, when once brought into power, were sure to labor hard to undo everything that he would endeavor to accomplish, and his predestined successor in the governorship of the State of New York was one of those whom I looked upon as especially dangerous.
Therefore it was, that, after looking over the ground, I wrote an open letter to Mr. Theodore Roosevelt and other Independents, giving the reasons why those of us who had supported Mr. Edmunds should now support Mr. Blaine, and in this view Mr. Roosevelt, with a large number of our Independent friends, agreed.
I had, however, small hopes. It was clear to me that Mr.
Blaine had little chance of being elected; that, in fact, he was too heavily weighted with the transactions which Mr.
Pullman had revealed to me some months before the beginning of the convention.
But I made an effort to commit him to the only policy which could save him. For, having returned to the university, I wrote William Walter Phelps, an old friend, who had been his chief representative at Chicago, an earnest letter stating that there seemed to me but one chance of rallying to Mr. Blaine"s support the very considerable body of disaffected Republicans in the State of New York; that, almost without exception, they were ardent believers in a reform of the civil service; and that an out-and-out earnest declaration in favor of it by our presidential candidate might do much to propitiate them. I reminded Mr. Phelps of the unquestioned evils of the ""spoils system,"" and said that Mr. Blaine must surely have often observed them, suffered under pressure from them, and felt that something should be done to remedy them; and that if he would now express his conviction to this effect, taking strong ground in favor of the reform and basing his utterances on his experiences as a statesman, it would, in my mind, do much to save the State of New York for the Republicans.
After writing this letter, feeling that it might seem to Mr. Phelps and to Mr. Blaine himself very presuming for a man who had steadily opposed them at Chicago thus to volunteer advice, I laid it aside. But it happened that I had been chosen one of the committee of delegates to go to Maine to apprise Mr. Blaine formally of his nomination, and it also happened that my old student and friend, Judge Foraker, was another member of the committee. It was impossible for me to go to Maine, since the commencement of the university, at which I was bound to preside, came on the day appointed for Mr. Blaine"s reception of the committee at Bangor; but Judge Foraker having stopped over at the university to attend a meeting of the trustees as an alumni member of that body, I mentioned this letter to him. He asked to see it, and, having read it, asked to be allowed to take it with him. I consented, and heard nothing more from him on the subject; but the following week, at the Yale commencement, while sitting with Mr. Evarts and Judge Shipman to award prizes in the law department, I saw, looking toward me over the heads of the audience in the old Centre Church, my friend Frederick William Holls of New York, and it was evident from his steady gaze that he had something to say. The award of prizes having been made and the audience dismissed, Mr. Holls met me and said: ""Mr.
Blaine will adopt your suggestion in his letter of acceptance."" Both of us were overjoyed. It looked like a point scored not only for the Republican party, but for the cause which we both had so deeply at heart.
But as the campaign went on it was more and more evident that this concession, which I believe he would have adhered to had he been elected, was to be in vain.
It was perhaps, on the whole, and on both sides, the vilest political campaign ever waged. Accusations were made against both candidates which should have forever brought contempt on the men who made them. Nothing could have been further from the wish of either candidate than that such accusations should be made against his opponent, but each was powerless: the vile flood of slander raged on.
But I am glad here to recall the fact that when, at a later period, one of the worst inventors of slander against Mr.
Blaine sought reward in the shape of office from President Cleveland, he was indignantly spurned.