 | EMPEROR GRANT. Saratoga in 1901 |  |
EMPEROR GRANT.
“What do you think of the Ku-Klux bill?”
“Good bill, sir! It has already stopped a good many
outrages. The fact that the President has power to send troops
into any State to quell disturbances, in itself is enough to
frighten the disturbers of the public peace.”
“But John Quincy Adams says the bill `is an absolute
surrender of the principle of free government—placing in the
President's hands the power, through that and the `Election
bill,' to raise himself to the Empire.”'
“All stuff! How ridiculous to talk about a `man raising
himself to the Empire' in this country! Such a man, after
declaring for the Empire, might hold a regiment of soldiers in
the White House yard for just one day, and then the people
would put him in the Potomac River.
“A set of Imperialists
bivouacking around the
statue of Jackson? Why
the old Roman would give
one shake of his old cock
hat and their traitor
cavalry would execute a
steeple - chase over the
picket fences and out of
the White House yard.
The silly French had sense enough to shut up Napoleon at
Strasbourg and duck him in the sea at Boulogne for just such
nonsense.”
“But in '52 he did ride to the top, after all.”
“Yes, but France was not composed of States—sovereign
States, as far as each State controlling its own troops—and every
Governor, Democratic and Republican, watching jealously his
own State militia.”
“We are not France. Let some crazy President declare himself
Emperor, and intrench himself in the White House yard with
the whole regular army—about 18,000 fighting men—around
him, and how long would it take Governors Hoffman, Jewett,
Randolph, Geary, and Claflin, and the rest, to surround and
capture the whole concern? Why! your loyal governors
backed by your grand old Goddess of Liberty on the dome of
the capitol, and
forty millions of
people behind her,
would push an
army of Imperialists
out of sight of
the White House
in forty minutes.”
“No, sir,” said
the General indignantly;
“when a
President declares
Imperialism, every
Governor will have
to be in the mess
too, and when that
shall be the case,
the country will be
too rotten to be
worth preserving.”
“Adams calls
the Ku-Klux bill
Grant's negro policy,”
I remarked.
“All humbug
again! It is simply
a law making it
possible to arrest
and disperse unlawful
gangs of
rascals, black or
white, in any of
the Southern
States—to imprison
them, and try and
punish them. Grant
don't have any
negro, nor German,
nor Irish policy.
His policy is to
protect all citizens;
remain at peace,
economize and try
and pay the debt.
All this stuff and
talk about Imperialism
in America
is a libel on the
good sense of the people, and Adams ought to have too much
good sense to talk such foolishness.”
We now brought up at Congress Hall, and the General went
in to an early breakfast. He was surrounded by a charming
family of children, and looked the picture of a good, quiet,
honest, sensible citizen, as he is. Always radical, but pretty sure
to be right, the General is a hater of humbugs—a hater of impossible
theories—a hater of long, empty talkers. He puts more
sense into one sentence than some men will get into ten. He
spent most of the forenoon talking with Mr. Larz Anderson,
brother of Major Anderson, of Cincinnati. General Sherman
left at three P. M. to-day for Lake George and the White
Mountains.
| EMPEROR GRANT. Saratoga in 1901 | |