University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII
HENDRICKS, JOHN SHERMAN, BANCROFT, AND OTHERS—1884-1891

THE following spring, visiting Washington, I met President Cleveland again.

Of the favorable impression made upon me by his career as Governor of New York I have already spoken, and shall have occasion to speak presently of his Presidency. The renewal of our acquaintance even increased my respect for him. He was evidently a strong, honest man, trying to do his duty under difficulties.

I also met again Mr. Cleveland's opponent in the previous campaign—Mr. Blaine. Calling on Mr. William Walter Phelps, then in Congress, whom I had known as minister of the United States at Vienna, and who was afterward my successor at Berlin, I made some reference to Mr. Blaine, when Mr. Phelps said: "Why don't you go and call upon him?'' I answered that it might be embarrassing to both of us, to which he replied: "I don't think so. In spite of your opposition to him at Chicago, were I in your place I would certainly go to his house and call upon him.'' That afternoon I took this advice, and when I returned to the hotel Mr. Blaine came with me, talking in a most interesting way. He spoke of my proposed journey to Virginia, and discussed Jefferson and Hamilton, admiring both, but Jef-ferson the most. As to his own working habits, he said that he rose early, did his main work in the morning, and never did any work in the evening; that, having been

brought up in strongly Sabbatarian notions during his boyhood in Pennsylvania, he had ever since, from the force of habit, reserved Sunday as a day of complete rest. Speaking of the customs in Pennsylvania at that time, he said that not even a walk for exercise was allowed, and nothing was ever cooked on the sacred day.

I met him afterward on various occasions, and could not but admire him. At a dinner-party he was vexatiously badgered by a very bumptious professor, who allowed himself to speak in a rather offensive manner of ideas which Mr. Blaine represented; and the quiet but decisive way in which the latter disposed of his pestering interlocutor was worthy of all praise.

Mr. Blaine was certainly the most fascinating man I have ever known in politics. No wonder that so many Republicans in all parts of the country seemed ready to give their lives to elect him. The only other public man in the United States whose personality had ever elicited such sympathy and devotion was Henry Clay. Perhaps his nearest friend was Mr. Phelps, to whom I have referred above,—one of the best, truest, and most winning men I have ever known. He had been especially devoted to Mr. Blaine, with whom he had served in Congress, and it was understood that if the latter had been elected Mr. Phelps would have been his Secretary of State.

Mr. Phelps complained to me, half seriously, half jocosely, of what is really a crying abuse in the United States —namely, that there is no proper reporting of the proceedings of the Houses of Congress in the main journals of the country which can enable the people at large to form any just idea as to how their representatives are conducting the public business. He said: "I may make a most careful speech on any important subject before Congress and it will not be mentioned in the New York papers, but let me make a joke and it will be published all over the United States. Yesterday, on a wager, I tried an experiment: I made two poor little jokes during a short

talk in the House, and here they are in the New York papers of this morning.''

During this visit to Washington I met at the house of my classmate and dear friend, Randall Gibson, then a senator from Louisiana, a number of distinguished men among them the Vice-President, Mr. Hendricks, and General Butler, senator from South Carolina

Vice-President Hendricks seemed sick and sore. He had expected to be a candidate for the Presidency, with a strong probability of election, but had accepted the Vice-Presidency; and the subject which seemed to elicit his most vitriolic ill will was reform in the civil service. As we sat one evening in the smoking-room at Senator Gibson's he was very bitter against the system, when, to my surprise, General Butler took up the cudgels against him and made a most admirable argument. At that moment, for the first time, I felt that the war between North and South was over; for all the old issues seemed virtually settled, and here, as regarded this new issue, on which I felt very deeply, was one of the most ardent of Confederate soldiers, a most bitter pro-slavery man before the Civil War, one who, during the war, had lost a leg in battle, nearer me politically than were many of my friends and neighbors in the North.

Senator Jones of Florida, who was present, gave us some character sketches, and among others delineated admirably General Williams, known in the Mexican War as "Cerro Gordo Williams,'' who was for a time senator from Kentucky. He said that Williams had a wonderful gift of spread-eagle oratory, but that, finding no listeners for it among his colleagues, he became utterly disgusted and went about saying that the Senate was a "d—d frigid, respectable body that chilled his intellect.'' This led my fellow-guests to discuss the characteristics of the Senate somewhat, and I was struck by one remark in which all agreed—namely, that "there are no politics in executive session.''

Gibson remarked that the best speech he had ever heard in the Senate was made by John Sherman.

As regards civil-service matters, I found on all sides an opinion that Mr. Cleveland was, just as far as possible, basing his appointments upon merit. Gibson mentioned the fact that a candidate for an important office in his State, who had committed three murders, had secured very strong backing, but that President Cleveland utterly refused to appoint him.

With President Cleveland I had a very interesting interview. He referred to his visit to Cornell University, said that he would have liked nothing so well as to go more thoroughly through its various departments, and, as when I formerly saw him, expressed his regret at the loss of such opportunities as an institution of that kind affords.

At this time I learned from him and from those near him something regarding his power for hard work. It was generally understood that he insisted on writing out all important papers and conducting his correspondence in his own hand, and the result was that during a considerable period of the congressional sessions he sat at his desk until three o'clock in the morning.

It was evident that his up-and-down, curt, independent way did not at all please some of the leading members of his party; in fact, there were signs of a serious estrangement caused by the President's refusals to yield to senators and other leaders of the party in the matter of appointments to office. To illustrate this feeling, a plain, bluff Western senator, Mr. Sawyer of Wisconsin, told me a story.

Senator Sawyer had built up a fortune and gained a great influence in his State by a very large and extensive business in pine lumber, and he had a sort of rough, quaint woodman's wit which was at times very amusing. He told me that, some days before, two of his most eminent Democratic colleagues in the Senate were just leaving the Capitol, and from something they said he saw that they

were going to call upon the President. He therefore asked them, "How do you like this new President of yours?'' "Oh,'' answered the senators in chorus, "he is a very good man—a very good man indeed.'' "Yes,'' said Senator Sawyer, "but how do you like him?'' "Oh,'' answered the senators, "we like him very much—very much indeed.'' "Well,'' said Sawyer, "I will tell you a story before you go to the White House if you will agree when you get back, to tell me—`honest Injun'—whether it suits your case.'' Both laughingly agreed, and Mr. Sawyer then told them the following story: When he was a young man with very small means, he and two or three other young wood-choppers made up an expedition for lumber-cutting. As they were too poor to employ a cook for their camp, they agreed to draw lots, and that the one on whom the lot fell should be cook, but only until some one of the company found fault; then the fault-finder should become cook in his turn. Lots being drawn, one of them, much to his disgust, was thus chosen cook, and toward the close of the day he returned to camp, before the others, to get supper ready. Having taken from the camp stores a large quantity of beans, he put them into a pot boiling over the fire, as he had seen his mother do in his boyhood, and then proceeded to pour in salt. Unfortunately the salt-box slipped in his hand, and he poured in much more than he had intended—in fact, the whole contents of the box. On the return of the woodmen to the cabin, ravenously hungry, they proceeded to dish out the boiled beans, but the first one who put a spoonful in his mouth instantly cried out with a loud objurgation, "Thunder and lightning! this dish is all salt''; but, in a moment, remembering that if he found fault he must himself become cook, he said very gently, "But I like salt.'' Both senators laughed and agreed that they would give an honest report of their feelings to Senator Sawyer when they had seen the President. On their return, Sawyer met them and said, "Well, honest Injun, how was it?'' They both laughed and said, "Well, we like salt.''

Among many interesting experiences I recall especially a dinner at the house of Mr. Fairchild, Secretary of the Treasury. He spoke of the civil service, and said that a short time previously President Cleveland had said to him, regarding the crowd pressing for office: "A suggestion to these office-seekers as to the good of the country would make them faint.''

During this dinner I happened to be seated between Senators John Sherman of Ohio and Vance of Georgia, and presently Mr. Vance—one of the jolliest mortals I have ever met—turned toward his colleague, Senator Sherman, and said, very blandly: "Senator, I am glad to see you back from Ohio; I hope you found your fences in good condition.'' There was a general laugh, and when it was finished Senator Sherman told me in a pleasant way how the well-known joke about his "looking after his fences'' arose. He said that he was the owner of a large farm in Ohio, and that some years previously his tenant wrote urging him most earnestly to improve its fences, so that finally he went to Ohio to look into the matter. On arriving there, he found a great crowd awaiting him and calling for a speech, when he excused himself by saying that he had not come to Ohio on political business, but had merely come "to look after his fences.'' The phrase caught the popular fancy, and "to look after one's fences'' became synonymous with minding one's political safeguards.

I remember also an interesting talk with Mr. Bayard, who had been one of the most eminent senators in his time, who was then Secretary of State, and who became, at a later period, ambassador of the United States to Great Britain. Speaking of office-seeking, he gave a comical account of the developing claims of sundry applicants for foreign missions, who, he said, "are at first willing to go, next anxious to go, and finally angry because they cannot go.''

On another social occasion, the possibility of another attempt at secession by States being discussed, General

Butler of South Carolina said: "No more secession for me.'' To this, Senator Gibson, who also had been a brigadier-general in the Confederate service, and had seen much hard fighting, said, "And no more for me.'' Butler rejoined, "We may have to help in preventing others from seceding one of these days.'' I was glad to note that both Butler and Gibson spoke thoroughly well of their former arch-enemy, General Grant.

Very interesting was it to meet again Mr. George Bancroft. He referred to his long service as minister at Berlin, expressed his surprise that Bismarck, whom he remembered as fat, had become bony, and was very severe against both clericals and liberals who had voted against allowing aid to Bismarck in the time of his country's greatest necessity.

I also met my Cornell colleague Goldwin Smith, the former Oxford professor and historian, who expressed his surprise and delight at the perfect order and decorum of the crowd, numbering nearly five thousand persons, at the presidential levee the night before. In order to understand what an American crowd was like, instead of going into the White House by the easier way, as he was entitled by his invitation to do, he had taken his place in the long procession far outside the gate and gradually moved through the grounds into the presidential presence, taking about an hour for the purpose. He said that there was never any pressing, crowding, or impatience, and he compared the crowd most favorably with any similar body in a London street.

Chief Justice Waite I also found a very substantial interesting man; but especially fascinating was General Sheridan, who, at a dinner given by my Berlin predecessor, Mr. Bancroft Davis, described the scene at the battle of Gravelotte when, owing to a rush by the French, the Emperor of Germany was for a time in real danger and was reluctantly obliged to fall back. He said that during the panic and retreat toward Thionville he saw the Emperor halt from time to time to scold soldiers who threw

away their muskets; that very many German soldiers, during this panic, cast aside everything except the clothes they wore—not only their guns, but their helmets; that afterward the highways and fields were strewn thickly with these, and that wagons were sent out to collect them. He also said that Bismarck spoke highly to him regarding the martial and civil qualities of the crown prince, afterward the Emperor Frederick, but that regarding the Red Prince, Frederick Charles, he expressed a very different opinion.

Speaking of a statement that some one had invented armor which would ward off a rifle-ball, Sheridan said that during the Civil War an officer who wore a steel vest beneath his coat was driven out of decent society by general contempt; and at this Goldwin Smith told a story of the Duke of Wellington, who, when troubled by an inventor of armor, nearly scared him to death by ordering him to wear his own armor and allow a platoon of soldiers to fire at him.

During the course of the conversation Sheridan said that soldiers were braver now than ever before—braver, indeed, than the crusaders, as was proved by the fact that in these days they wear no armor. To this Goldwin Smith answered that he thought war in the middle ages was more destructive than even in our time. Sheridan said that breech-loading rifles kill more than all the cannon.

At a breakfast given by Goldwin Smith at Wormley's, Bancroft, speaking of Berlin matters, said that the Emperor William did not know that Germany was the second power in the world so far as a mercantile navy was concerned until he himself told him; and on the ignorance of monarchs regarding their own domains, Goldwin Smith said that Lord Malmesbury, when assured by Napoleon III that in the plebiscite he would have the vote of the army, which was five hundred thousand, answered, "But, your majesty, your army numbers seven hundred thousand,'' whereupon the Emperor was silent. The inference

was that his majesty knew a large part of his army to be merely on paper.

At this Mr. John Field, of Philadelphia, said that on the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian War he went to General Grant at Long Branch, and asked him how the war was likely to turn out, to which the general answered, "As I am President of the United States, I am unable to answer.'' "But,'' said Field, "I am a citizen sovereign and ask an opinion.'' "Well,'' said General Grant, "confidentially, the Germans will beat the French thoroughly and march on Paris. The French army is a mere shell.'' This reminded me that General Grant, on my own visit to him some weeks before, had foretold to me sundry difficulties of Lord Wolseley in Egypt just as they afterward occurred.

At a dinner with Senator Morrill of Vermont I met General Schenck, formerly a leading member of Congress and minister to Brazil and to England. He was very interesting in his sketches of English orators; thought Bright the best, Gladstone admirable, and Sir Stafford Northcote, with his everlasting hawing and humming, intolerable. He gave interesting reminiscences of Tom Corwin, his old preceptor, and said that Corwin's power over an audience was magical. He added that he once attended a public dinner in Boston, and, sitting near Everett, who was the chief speaker, noticed that when the waiters sought to clear the table and were about to remove a bouquet containing two small flags, Everett would not allow them to do it, and that later in the evening, during his speech, just at the proper point, he caught up these flags, as if accidentally, and waved them. He said that everything with Everett and Choate seemed to be cut and dried; that even the interruptions seemed prepared beforehand.

Senator Morrill then told a story regarding Everett's great speech at the opening of the Dudley Observatory at Albany, which I had heard at the time of its delivery. In this speech Everett said: "Last night, crossing the

Connecticut River, I saw mirrored in its waters Arcturus, then fully at the zenith, and I thought,'' etc., etc.; "but,'' said Morrill, "some one looked into the matter and found that Everett, before leaving home, had evidently turned the globe in his study wrong side up, for at that time Arcturus was not at the zenith, but at the nadir.''

At the Cornell commencement of this year (1885) I resigned my presidency of the university. It had nominally lasted eighteen years, but really more than twenty, since I had taken the lead in the work of the university even before its charter was granted, twenty years previously, and from that day the main charge of its organi-zation and of everything except providing funds had been intrusted to me. Regarding this part of my life I shall speak more fully in another chapter.

Shortly after this resignation two opportunities were offered me which caused me considerable thought.

As to the first, President Cleveland was kind enough to write me an autograph letter asking whether I would accept one of the positions on the new Interstate Railway Commission. I felt it a great honor to be asked to act as colleague with such men as Chief Justice Cooley, Mr. Morrison, and others already upon that board, but I recognized my own incompetence to discharge the duties of such a position properly. Though I had been, some years before, a director in two of the largest railway corporations in the United States, my heart was never in that duty, and I never prepared myself to discharge it. Thinking the matter over fully, I felt obliged to decline the place. My heart was set on finishing the book which I had so long wished to publish,—my "History of the Warfare of Science with Theology,''—and in order to cut myself off from other work and get some needed rest I sailed for Europe on October 3, 1885, but while engaged most delightfully in visits to Oxford, Cambridge, and various places on the Continent, I received by cable an offer which had also a very tempting side. It was sent by my old friend Mr. Henry Sage of Ithaca,

urged me to accept the nomination to Congress from that district, and assured me that the nomination was equivalent to an election. There were some reasons why such a position was attractive to me, but the more I thought of it the more it seemed to me that to discharge these duties properly would take me from other work to which I was pledged. Before deciding the question, however, I determined to consult two old friends who were then living in London hotels adjacent to my own. The first of these was my dear old instructor, with whom my relations had been of the kindest ever since my first year at Yale—President Porter.

On my laying the matter before him, he said, "Accept by all means''; but as I showed him the reasons on both sides, he at last reluctantly agreed with me that probably it was best to send a declination.

The other person consulted was Mr. James Belden of Syracuse, afterward a member of Congress from the Onondaga district, a politician who had a most intimate knowledge of men and affairs in our State. We had been during a long period, political adversaries, but I had come to respect sundry qualities he had more lately exhibited, and therefore went to him as a practical man and laid the case before him. He expressed his great surprise that I should advise with him, my old political adversary, but he said, "Since you do come, I will give you the very best advice I can.''

We then went over the case together, and I feel sure that he advised me as well as the oldest of my friends could have done, and with a shrewdness and foresight all his own.

One of his arguments ran somewhat as follows: "To be successful in politics a man must really think of nothing else; it must be his first thought in the morning and his last at night; everything else must yield to it. Heretofore you have quietly gone on your way, sought nothing, and taken what has been freely tendered you in the interest of the party and of the public. I know the Elmira

district, and you can have the nomination and the election without trouble; but the question is whether you could ever be happy in the sort of work which you must do in order to take a proper place in the House of Representatives. First of all, you must give up everything else and devote yourself to that alone; and even then, when you have succeeded, you have only to look about you and see the men who have achieved success in that way, and who, after all, have found in it nothing but disappointment.'' In saying this he expressed the conclusion at which I had already arrived.

I cabled my absolute declination of the nomination, and was reproved by my friends for not availing myself of this opportunity to take part in political affairs, but have nevertheless always felt that my decision was wise.

To tell the truth, I never had, and never desired to have, any capacity for the rough-and-tumble of politics. I greatly respect many of the men who have gifts of that sort, but have recognized the fact that my influence in and on politics must be of a different kind. I have indeed taken part in some stormy scenes in conventions, meetings, and legislatures, but always with regret. My true rôle has been a more quiet one. My ambition, whether I have succeeded in it or not, has been to set young men in trains of fruitful thought, to bring mature men into the line of right reason, and to aid in devising and urging needed reforms, in developing and supporting wise policies, and in building up institutions which shall strengthen what is best in American life.

Early in 1891 I was asked by Mr. Sherman Rogers of Buffalo, one of the best and truest men in political life that I have ever known, to accompany him and certain other gentlemen to Washington, in order to present to Mr. Harrison, who had now become President of the United States, an argument for the extension of the civil-service rules. Accompanied by Mr. Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Cabot Lodge, our delegation reached the Executive Mansion at the time fixed by the President,

and were received in a way which surprised me. Mr. Harrison seemed, to say the least, not in good humor. He stood leaning on the corner of his desk, and he asked none of us to sit. All of us had voted for him, and had come to him in his own interest as well as in the interest of the country; but he seemed to like us none the better for all that. The first speech was made by Mr. Rogers. Dwelling on the disappointment of thoughtful Republicans throughout the country at the delay in redeeming pledges made by the Republican National Convention as to the extension of the civil service, and reiterated in the President's own speeches in the United States Senate, he in a playful way referred to the conduct of certain officials in Buffalo, when the President interrupted him, as it seemed to me at the time very brusquely and even rudely saying: "Mr. Rogers, you have no right to impute evil motives to any man. The motives of these gentlemen to whom you refer are presumably as good as your own. An argument based upon such imputations cannot advance the cause you support in the slightest degree.'' Mr. Rogers was somewhat disconcerted for a moment, but, having resumed his speech, he presented, in a very dignified and convincing way, the remainder of his argument. He was followed by the other members from various States, giving different sides of the case, each showing the importance which Republicans in his own part of the country attributed to an extension of the civil-service rules.

My own turn came last. I said: "Mr. President: I will make no speech, but will simply state two facts.

"First: Down to a comparatively recent period every high school, college, and university in the Northern States has been a center of Republican ideas: no one will gainsay this for a moment. But recently there has come a change. During nearly twenty years it has been my duty to nominate to the trustees of Cornell University candidates for various positions in its faculty; the fundamental charter of the institution absolutely forbids any consideration, in such cases, of the party or sect to which any candidate

belongs, and I have always faithfully carried out that injunction, never, in any one of the multitude of nominations that I have made, allowing the question of politics to enter in the slightest degree. But still it has happened that, almost without exception, the candidates have proved to be Republicans, and this to such an extent that at times I have regretted it; for the university has been obliged frequently to ask for legislation from a Democratic legis-lature, and I have always feared that this large prepon-derance of Republican professors would be brought up against us as an evidence that we were not true to the principles of our charter. As a matter of fact, down to two or three years since, there were, as I casually learned, out of a faculty of about fifty members, not over eight or ten Democrats. But during these recent years all this has been changed, and at the State election, when Judge Folger was defeated for the governorship, I found to my surprise that, almost without exception, my colleagues in the faculty had voted the Democratic ticket; so far as I could learn, but three besides myself had voted for the Republican candidate.'' President Harrison immediately said: "Mr. White, was that not chiefly due to the free-trade tendencies of college-men?'' I answered: "No, Mr. President; the great majority of these men who voted with the Democrats were protectionists, and you will yourself see that they must have been so if they had continued to vote for the Republican ticket down to that election. All that I hear leads me to the conviction that the real cause is disappointment at the delay of the Republican party in making good its promises to improve the public service. In this question the faculties of our colleges and universities, especially in the Eastern, Middle, and Northern States, take a deep interest. In fact, it is with them the question of all questions; and I think this is one of the things which, at that election in New York, caused the most overwhelming defeat that a candidate for governor had ever experienced.'' To this the President listened attentively, and I then said: "Mr. President, my second point is this: The State of New York is, of course, of immense importance to the Republican party, and it has been carried in recent years by a majority of a few hundred votes. There are more than fourteen thousand school districts in the State, and in nearly every one of these school districts there are a certain number of earnest men—anywhere from a handful to a houseful—who believe that since the slavery question is removed from national politics, the only burning question which remains is the `spoils system' and the reform of the civil service. Now, you have only to multiply the fourteen thousand school districts by a very small figure, and you will see the importance of this question as regards the vote of the State of New York. I know whereof I speak, for I have myself addressed meetings in many of these districts in favor of a reform of the civil service, have had correspondence with other districts in all parts of the State, and am sure that there is a deep-seated feeling on the subject in great numbers of them,— a feeling akin to what used to be called in the anti-slavery days `fanaticism,'—that is, a deep-seated conviction that this is now the most important question before the American people, and that it must be settled in precedence to all others.''

The President received what I had to say courteously, and then began a reply to us all. He took at first rather a bitter tone, saying that he had a right to find fault with all of us; that the Civil Service League had denounced his administration most unjustly for its relation to the spoils system; that he was moving as rapidly in the matter as circumstances permitted; that he was anxious to redeem the promises made by the party and by himself; that he had already done something and purposed to do more; and that the glorifications of the progress made by the previous administration in this respect, at the expense of his own, had been grossly unjust.

To this we made a short rejoinder on one point, stating that his complaint against us was without foundation;

that not one of us was a member of the Civil Service League; that not one of us had taken any part in its deliberations; and that we could not, therefore, be made responsible in any way for its utterances. The President now became somewhat more genial, though he did not ask us to be seated, alluding in a pungent but good-natured way to the zeal for reform shown by Mr. Roosevelt, who was standing by, and closing in considerably better humor than he had begun. Although I cannot say that I was greatly pleased with his treatment of the committee, I remembered that, although courtesy was not generally considered his strong point, he was known to possess many sterling qualities, and I felt bound to allow that his speech revealed a man of strength and honest purpose. All of us, even Mr. Roosevelt and Senator Lodge, came away believing that good had been done, and that the President, before his term of office had expired, would do what he could in the right direction; and I am glad to say that this expectation was fulfilled.