Historical Essays Part 12

Reed was speaker and developed the power of that office to an extraordinary extent. McKinley was the leader of the House and from long service in that body had become an efficient leader. The election of Harrison was interpreted to mean that the country needed a higher tariff, and McKinley carried through the House the bill which is known by his name. Among the other Representatives Mr. Lodge was prominent. It was not an uncommon saying at that time that the House was a better arena for the rising politician than the Senate. In addition to the higher tariff the country apparently wanted more silver and a determined struggle was made for the free coinage of silver which nearly won in Congress. In the end, however, a compromise was effected by Senator Sherman which averted free silver but committed the country to the purchase annually of an enormous amount of silver bullion against which Treasury notes redeemable in coin were issued. This was the Act of 1890 which, as I have mentioned, was repealed under Cleveland in 1893. It is entirely clear from the sequence of events that the Republican party as a party should have opposed the purchase of more silver. It could not have been beaten worse than it was in 1892, but it could have preserved a consistency in principle which, when the tide turned, would have been of political value. The party which has stuck to the right principle has in the long run generally been rewarded with power, and as the Republicans, in spite of certain defections, had been the party of sound money since the Civil War, they should now have fought cheap money under the guise of unlimited silver as they had before under the guise of unlimited greenbacks. But the leaders thought differently, and from their own point of view their course was natural. The country desired more silver. Business was largely extended, overtrading was the rule.

Farmers and business men were straitened for money. Economists, statesmen, and politicians had told them that, as their trouble had come largely from the demonetization of silver, their relief lay in bimetallism. It was easy to argue that the best form of bimetallism was the free coinage of gold and silver, and after the panic of 1893 this delusion grew, but the strength of it was hardly appreciated by optimistic men in the East until the Democrats made it the chief plank in the platform on which they fought the presidential campaign of 1896.

Nominating an orator who had an effective manner of presenting his arguments to hard-working farmers whose farms were mortgaged, to business men who were under a continued strain to meet their obligations, and to laborers out of employment, it seemed for two or three months as if the party of silver and discontent might carry the day. After some hesitation the Republicans grappled with the question boldly, took ground against free silver, and with some modification declared their approval of the gold standard. On this issue they fought the campaign. Their able and adroit manager was quick to see, after the issue was joined, the force of the principle of sound money and started a remarkable campaign of education by issuing speeches and articles by the millions in a number of different languages, in providing excellent arguments for the country press, and in convincing those who would listen only to arguments of sententious brevity by a well-devised circulation of "nuggets" of financial wisdom. McKinley had also the support of the greater part of the Independent and Democratic press.

While financial magnates and the bankers of the country were alarmed at the strength of the Bryan party, and felt that its defeat was necessary to financial surety, the strength of the Republican canva.s.s lay in the fact that the speakers and writers who made it believed sincerely that the gold standard would conduce to the greatest good of the greatest number. It was an inspiring canva.s.s. The honest advocacy of sound principle won.

Under McKinley the Democratic tariff bill was superseded by the Dingley act, which on dutiable articles is, I believe, the highest tariff the country has known. The Republican party believes sincerely in the policy of protection, and the country undoubtedly has faith in it. It is attractive to those who allow immediate returns to obscure prospective advantage, and if a majority decides whether or not a political and economic doctrine is sound, it has a powerful backing, for every large country in the civilized world, I think, except England, adheres to protection; and some of them have returned to it after trying a measure of commercial freedom. McKinley and the majority of Congress were in full sympathy, and the Dingley act had the approval of the administration. But the change in business conditions which, though long in operation, became signally apparent after 1893, wrought in McKinley, during his four and a half years of office, a change of opinion. Under improved processes and economies in all branches of manufactures the United States began to make many articles cheaper than any other country, and sought foreign markets for its surplus, disputing successfully certain open marts with England and Germany. In McKinley's earlier utterances the home market is the dominating feature; in his later ones, trade with foreign countries. In his last speech at Buffalo he gave mature expression to his views, which for one who had been a leader of protectionists showed him to have taken advanced ground. "We find our long-time principles echoed," declared the _Nation_. McKinley's manner of developing foreign trade was not that of the tariff reformers, for he proposed to bring this about by a variety of reciprocity treaties; but it was important that he recognized the sound economic principle that if we are to sell to foreign countries we must buy from them also. That McKinley had a strong hold on the country is indisputable from the unanimous renomination by his party and his triumphant reelection, and it was a step toward commercial freedom that he who more than all other men had the ear of the country and who had been an arch-protectionist should advocate the exchange of commodities with foreign lands. Economists do not educate the ma.s.s of voters, but men like McKinley do, and these sentences of his were read and pondered by millions: "A system which provides a mutual exchange of commodities is manifestly essential to the continued and healthful growth of our export trade. We must not repose in fancied security that we can forever sell everything and buy little or nothing. If such a thing were possible it would not be best for us or for those with whom we deal." It is useless to speculate on what would have been the result had McKinley lived. Those who considered him a weak President aver that when he encountered opposition in Congress from interests which were seemingly menaced, he would have yielded and abandoned reciprocity. Others believe that he understood the question thoroughly and that his arguments would in the end have prevailed with Congress; yielding, perhaps, in points of detail he would have secured the adoption of the essential part of his policy.

After his election McKinley became a believer in the gold standard and urged proper legislation upon Congress. It is to his credit and to that of Congress that on March 14, 1900, a bill became a law which establishes the gold standard and puts it out of the power of any President to place the country upon a silver basis by a simple direction to his Secretary of the Treasury, which could have been done in 1897. As it has turned out, it was fortunate that there was no undue haste in this financial legislation. A better act was obtained than would have been possible in the first two years of McKinley's administration. The reaction from the crisis following the panic of 1893 had arrived, made sure by the result of the election of 1896; and the prosperity had become a telling argument in favor of the gold standard with the people and with Congress.

McKinley was essentially adapted for a peace minister, but under him came war. Opinions of him will differ, not only according to one's sentiments on war and imperialism, but according to one's ideal of what a President should be. Let us make a comparison which shall not include Was.h.i.+ngton, for the reason that under him the country had not become the pure democracy it is at the present day. Of such a democracy it seems to me that Lincoln is the ideal President, in that he led public sentiment, represented it, and followed it. "I claim not to have controlled events," he said, "but confess plainly that events have controlled me."

During his term of office he was one day called "very weak," and the next "a tyrant"; but when his whole work was done, a careful survey of it could bring one only to the conclusion that he knew when to follow and when to lead. He was in complete touch with popular sentiment, and divined with nicety when he could take a step in advance. He made an effort to keep on good terms with Congress, and he differed with that body reluctantly, although, when the necessity came, decisively. While he had consideration for those who did not agree with him, and while he acted always with a regard to proportion, he was nevertheless a strong and self-confident executive. Now Cleveland did not comprehend popular opinion as did Lincoln. In him the desire to lead was paramount, to the exclusion at times of a proper consideration for Congress and the people. It has been said by one of his political friends that he used the same energy and force in deciding a small matter as a great one, and he alienated senators, congressmen, and other supporters by an unyielding disposition when no principle was involved. He did not possess the gracious quality of Lincoln, who yielded in small things that he might prevail in great ones. Yet for this quality of st.u.r.dy insistence on his own idea Cleveland has won admiration from a vast number of independent thinkers. Temperaments such as these are not in sympathy with McKinley, who represents another phase of Lincoln's genius. The controlling idea of McKinley probably was that as he was elected by the people he should represent them. He did not believe that, if a matter were fully and fairly presented, the people would go wrong.

At times he felt he should wait for their sober, second thought, but if, after due consideration, the people spoke, it was his duty to carry out their will. Unquestionably if the Cleveland and McKinley qualities can be happily combined as they were in Lincoln, the nearest possible approach to the ideal ruler is the result. One Lincoln, though, in a century, is all that any country can expect: and there is a place in our polity for either the Cleveland or the McKinley type of executive. So it seemed to the makers of the Const.i.tution. "The republican principle,"

wrote Hamilton in the _Federalist_, "demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs." "But," he said in the same essay, "however inclined we might be to insist upon an unbounded complaisance in the executive to the inclinations of the people, we can with no propriety contend for a like complaisance to the humors of the legislature.... The executive should be in a situation to dare to act his own opinion with vigor and decision." It is frequently remarked that no President since Lincoln had so thorough a comprehension of public sentiment as McKinley. This knowledge and his theory of action, if I have divined it aright, are an explanation of his course in regard to the Spanish War and the taking of the Philippines. It does not fall to me to discuss in this article these two questions, nor do I feel certain that all the doc.u.ments necessary to a fair judgment are accessible to the public, but I can show what was McKinley's att.i.tude toward them by reporting a confidential conversation he had on May 2, 1899, with Mr.

Henry S. Pritchett, president of the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology, who made a record of it the day afterward. The President, Mr. Pritchett relates, spoke of the "war and of his own responsibility, and the way in which he has gradually come to have his present position with respect to the Philippines. The talk was started by my reminding him of the fact that just a year ago that morning, on May 2, 1898, I had come into his room with a map of Manila and Cavite on a large scale--the first time he had seen such a map--and from this he drifted into a most serious and interesting talk of his own place in the history of the past twelve months. He described his efforts to avert the war, how he had carried the effort to the point of rupture with his party, then came the Maine incident, and, finally, a declaration of war over all efforts to stem the tide. Then he spoke of Cuba and Porto Rico and the Philippines, related at some length the correspondence he had had with the Paris Commission, how he had been gradually made to feel in his struggling for the right ground that first Luzon and finally all the Philippines must be kept. He then went on to indicate his belief that Providence had led in all this matter, that to him the march of events had been so irresistible that nothing could turn them aside. n.o.body, he said, could have tried harder than he to be rid of the burden of the Philippines, and yet the trend of events had been such that it seemed impossible to escape this duty. He finally came to speak with more emotion than I have ever seen him exhibit, and no one could doubt the sincerity of the man."

Of McKinley's achievements in the field of diplomacy Secretary Hay in his memorial address spoke with knowledge and in words of high praise.

Sometimes the expression of a careful foreign observer antic.i.p.ates the judgment of posterity, and with that view the words of the _Spectator_,[168] in an article on the presidential election of 1900, are worth quoting: "We believe that Mr. McKinley and the wise statesman who is his Secretary of State, Colonel Hay, are administrators of a high order. They have learnt their business thoroughly, hold all the strings of policy in their hands."

Opinions will differ as to the impress McKinley has left on the presidential office. It is the judgment of two men of large knowledge of American history and present affairs that no President since Jefferson has been so successful in getting Congress to adopt the positive measures he desired.

Of the administration of Theodore Roosevelt it would be neither proper nor wise for me to speak in other terms than those of expectation and prophecy. But of Mr. Roosevelt himself something may be said. His birth, breeding, education, and social advantages have been of the best. He has led an industrious and useful life. As an American citizen we are all proud of him, and when he reached the presidential office by a tragedy that n.o.body deplored more than he, every one wished him success.

His transparent honesty and sincerity are winning qualities, and in the opinion of Burke especially important in him who is the ruler of a nation. "Plain good intention," he wrote, "which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the government of mankind." To these qualities, and to a physical and moral courage that can never be questioned, Mr.

Roosevelt adds a large intelligence and, as his books show, a power of combination of ideas and cohesive thought. Moreover, he has had a good political training, and he has the faculty of writing his political papers in a pregnant and forcible literary style. He is fit for what Mr.

Bryce calls "the greatest office in the world, unless we except the Papacy." His ideals are Was.h.i.+ngton and Lincoln. "I like to see in my mind's eye," he said, "the gaunt form of Lincoln stalking through these halls." "To gratify the hopes, secure the reverence, and sustain the dignity of the nation," said Justice Story, "the presidential office should always be occupied by a man of elevated talents, of ripe virtues, of incorruptible integrity, and of tried patriotism; one who shall forget his own interests and remember that he represents not a party but the whole nation." These qualities Theodore Roosevelt has. Whether he shall in action carry out the other requirements of Justice Story may only be judged after he shall have retired to private life.

Mr. Roosevelt merits the encouragement and sympathy of all lovers of good government, and he is ent.i.tled, as indeed is every President, to considerate and forbearing criticism. For, ardently desired as the office is, it is a hard place to fill. Through the kindness of President Roosevelt, I have been enabled to observe the daily routine of his work, and I am free to say that from the business point of view, no man better earns his pay than does he. Mr. Bryce remarks that a good deal of the President's work is like that of the manager of a railway. So far as concerns the consultation with heads of departments, prompt decisions, and the disposition of daily matters, the comparison is apt, if a great American railway and a manager like Thomas A. Scott are borne in mind.

But the railway manager's labor is done in comparative privacy, he can be free from interruption and dispose of his own time in a systematic manner. That is impossible for the President during the session of Congress. Office-seekers themselves do not trouble the President so much as in former days; they may be referred to the heads of the departments; and, moreover, the introduction of compet.i.tive examinations and the merit system has operated as a relief to the President and his Cabinet officers. But hearing the recommendations by senators and congressmen of their friends for offices consumes a large amount of time. There are, as Senator Lodge has kindly informed me, 4818 presidential offices exclusive of 4000 presidential post offices; in addition there are army and naval officers to be appointed. The proper selection in four years of the number of men these figures imply is in itself no small labor; it would by a railway manager be considered an onerous and exacting business. But the railway manager may hear the claims of applicants in his own proper way, and to prevent encroachments on his time may give the candidates or their friends a curt dismissal. The President may not treat senators and representatives in that manner, nor would he desire to do so, for the intercourse between them and the executive is of great value. "The President," wrote John Sherman, "should 'touch elbows' with Congress." There are important legislative measures to be discussed in a frank interchange of opinion. Senators and representatives are a guide to the President in their estimates of public sentiment; often they exert an influence over him, and he is dependent on them for the carrying out of any policy he may have at heart. While the encroachments on the President's time are great, I am convinced that no plan should be adopted which should curtail the unconventional and frank interchange of views between the President and members of the National Legislature. The relief lies with the public. Much of the President's time is taken up with receptions of the friends of senators and representatives, of members of conventions and learned bodies meeting in Was.h.i.+ngton, of deputations of school-teachers and the like who have gone to the capital for a holiday: all desire to pay their respects to the Chief Magistrate.

Undoubtedly, if he could have a quiet talk with most of these people, it would be of value, but the conventional shaking of hands and the "I am glad to see you" is not a satisfaction great enough to the recipients to pay for what it costs the President in time and the expenditure of nervous force. He should have time for deliberation. The railway manager can closet himself when he likes: that should be the privilege of the President; yet on a certain day last April, when he wished to have a long confidential talk with his Secretary of War, this was only to be contrived by the two taking a long horseback ride in the country. It is difficult for the President to refuse to see these good, patriotic, and learned people; and senators and representatives like to gratify their const.i.tuents. The remedy lies with the public in denying themselves this pleasant feature of a visit to Was.h.i.+ngton. One does not call on the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad or the president of the New York Central Railroad in business hours unless for business purposes; and this should be the rule observed by citizens of the United States toward the President. The weekly public receptions are no longer held. All these other receptions and calls simply for shaking hands and wis.h.i.+ng him G.o.d-speed should no longer be asked for. For the President has larger and more serious work than the railway manager and should have at least as much time for thought and deliberation.

Moreover, the work of the railway manager is done in secret. Fiercer by far than the light which beats upon the throne is that which beats upon the White House. The people are eager to know the President's thoughts and plans, and an insistent press endeavors to satisfy them. Considering the conditions under which the President does his work, the wonder is not that he makes so many mistakes, but that he makes so few. There is no railway or business manager or college president who has not more time to himself for the reflection necessary to the maturing of large and correct policies. I chanced to be in the President's room when he dictated the rough draft of his famous dispatch to General Chaffee respecting torture in the Philippines. While he was dictating, two or three cards were brought in, also some books with a request for the President's autograph, and there were some other interruptions. While the dispatch as it went out in its revised form could not be improved, a President cannot expect to be always so happy in dictating dispatches in the midst of distractions. Office work of far-reaching importance should be done in the closet. Certainly no monarch or minister in Europe does administrative work under such unfavorable conditions; indeed, this public which exacts so much of the President's time should in all fairness be considerate in its criticism.

No one, I think, would care to have abated the fearless political criticism which has in this country and in England attained to the highest point ever reached. From the nature of things the press must comment promptly and without the full knowledge of conditions that might alter its judgments. But on account of the necessary haste of its expressions, the writers should avoid extravagant language and the too ready imputation of bad motives to the public servants. "It is strange that men cannot allow others to differ with them without charging corruption as the cause of the difference," are the plaintive words of Grant during a confidential conversation with his Secretary of State.

The contrast between the savage criticism of Cleveland and Harrison while each occupied the presidential chair and the respect each enjoyed from political opponents after retiring to private life is an effective ill.u.s.tration of the lesson I should like to teach. At the time of Harrison's death people spoke from their hearts and said, "Well done, good and faithful servant." A fine example of political criticism in a time of great excitement were two articles by Mr. Carl Schurz in _Harper's Weekly_ during the Venezuela crisis. Mr. Schurz was a supporter and political friend of Cleveland, but condemned his Venezuela message. In the articles to which I refer he was charitable in feeling and moderate in tone, and though at the time I heard the term "wishy-washy" applied to one of them, I suspect that Mr. Schurz now looks back with satisfaction to his reserve; and those of us who used more forcible language in regard to the same incident may well wish that we had emulated his moderation.

The presidential office differs from all other political offices in the world, and has justified the hopes of its creators. It has not realized their fears, one of which was expressed by Hamilton in the _Federalist_.

"A man raised from the station of a private citizen to the rank of Chief Magistrate," he wrote, "possessed of a moderate or slender fortune, and looking forward to a period not very remote, when he may probably be obliged to return to the station from which he was taken, might sometimes be under temptations to sacrifice his duty to his interest, which it would require superlative virtue to withstand. An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the state to the acquisition of wealth. An ambitious man might make his own aggrandizement, by the aid of a foreign power, the price of his treachery to his const.i.tuents."[169] From dangers of this sort the political virtue which we inherited from our English ancestors has preserved us. We may fairly maintain that the creation and administration of our presidential office have added something to political history, and when we contrast in character and ability the men who have filled it with the monarchs of England and of France, we may have a feeling of just pride. Mr. Bryce makes a suggestive comparison in ability of our Presidents to the prime ministers of England, awarding the palm to the Englishmen,[170] and from his large knowledge of both countries and impartial judgment we may readily accept his conclusion.

It is, however, a merit of our Const.i.tution that as great ability is not required for its chief executive office as is demanded in England. The prime minister must have a talent for both administration and debate, which is a rare combination of powers, and if he be chosen from the House of Commons, it may happen that too much stress will be laid upon oratory, or the power of making ready replies to the attacks of the opposition. It is impossible to conceive of Was.h.i.+ngton defending his policy in the House or the Senate from a fire of questions and cross-questions. Lincoln might have developed this quality of a prime minister, but his replies and sallies of wit to put to confusion his opponents would have lacked the dignity his state papers and confidential letters possess. Hayes and Cleveland were excellent administrators, but neither could have reached his high position had the debating ability of a prime minister been required. On the other hand, Garfield, Harrison, and McKinley would have been effective speakers in either the House or the Senate.

An American may judge his own country best from European soil, impregnated as he there is with European ideas. Twice have I been in Europe during Cleveland's administration, twice during McKinley's, once during Roosevelt's. During the natural process of comparison, when one must recognize in many things the distinct superiority of England, Germany, and France, I have never had a feeling other than high respect for each one of these Presidents; and taking it by and large, in the endeavor to consider fairly the hits and misses of all, I have never had any reason to feel that the conduct of our national government has been inferior to that of any one of these highly civilized powers.

[164] Henry Adams, II, 113.

[165] _Ibid._, 130.

[166] Sumner's Jackson, 138.

[167] Twenty Years of Congress, II, 185.

[168] July 14, 1900.

[169] See also the _Federalist_ (Lodge's edition), 452. Bryce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence, 308.

[170] American Commonwealth, I, 80.

A REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION

Address delivered at the annual meeting of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Graduate Schools of Applied Science and Business Administration, Harvard University, on October 8, 1908; printed in the _Century Magazine_ for October, 1909.

A REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION

Many of our Presidents have been inaugurated under curious and trying circ.u.mstances, but no one of them except Hayes has taken the oath of office when there was a cloud on his t.i.tle. Every man who had voted for Tilden,--whose popular vote exceeded that of Hayes by 264,000,--believed that Hayes had reached his high place by means of fraud. Indeed, some of the Hayes voters shared this belief, and stigmatized as monstrous the action of the Louisiana returning board in awarding the electoral vote of Louisiana to Hayes. The four men, three of them dishonest and the fourth incompetent, who const.i.tuted this returning board, rejected, on the ground of intimidation of negro voters, eleven thousand votes that had been cast in due form for Tilden. In the seventh volume of my history I have told the story of the compromise in the form of the Electoral Commission which pa.s.sed on the conflicting claims and adjudged the votes of the disputed states, notably Florida and Louisiana, to Hayes, giving him a majority of one in the electoral college, thus making him President. When the count was completed and the usual declaration made, Hayes had no choice but to abide by the decision. Duty to his country and to his party, the Republican, required his acceptance of the office, and there is no reason for thinking that he had any doubts regarding his proper course. His legal t.i.tle was perfect, but his moral t.i.tle was unsound, and it added to the difficulty of his situation that the opposition, the Democrats, had a majority in the House of Representatives. None but a determined optimist could have predicted anything but failure for an administration beginning under such conditions.

Hayes was an Ohio man, and we in Ohio now watched his successive steps with keen interest. We knew him as a man of high character, with a fine sense of honor, but we placed no great faith in his ability. He had added to his reputation by the political campaign that he had made for governor, in 1875, against the Democrats under William Allen, who demanded an inflation of the greenback currency. He took an uncompromising stand for sound money, although that cause was unpopular in Ohio, and he spoke from the stump unremittingly and fearlessly, although overshadowed by the greater ability and power of expression of Senator Sherman and of Carl Schurz, who did yeoman's service for the Republicans in this campaign. Senator Sherman had suggested Hayes as candidate for President, and the nomination by the Republican national convention had come to him in June, 1876. While his letter of acceptance may not have surprised his intimate friends, it was a revelation to most of us from its outspoken and common-sense advocacy of civil service reform, and it gave us the first glimmering that in Rutherford B. Hayes the Republicans had for standard bearer a man of more than respectable ability.

His inaugural address confirmed this impression. He spoke with dignity and sympathy of the disputed Presidency, promised a liberal policy toward the Southern states, and declared that a reform in our civil service was a "paramount necessity." He chose for his Cabinet men in sympathy with his high ideals. William M. Evarts, the Secretary of State, was one of the ablest lawyers in the country. He had been one of the leading counsel in the defense of President Johnson in the impeachment trial, and had managed the Republican cause before the Electoral Commission with adroitness and zeal. John Sherman, the Secretary of the Treasury, was the most capable financier in public life. Carl Schurz, the Secretary of the Interior, was an aggressive and uncompromising reformer, who had served the Republican party well in the campaigns of 1875 and 1876. If these three men could work together under Hayes, the United States need envy the governors of no other country.

They were in the brilliant but solid cla.s.s, were abreast of the best thought of their time, had a solemn sense of duty, and believed in righteous government. Devens, the Attorney-General, had served with credit in the army and had held the honorable position of Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Ma.s.sachusetts. Thompson of Indiana, Secretary of the Navy, was a political appointment due to the influence of Senator Morton, but, all things considered, it was not a bad choice. McCrary of Iowa, as Secretary of War, had been a useful member of the House of Representatives. The Postmaster-General was Key of Tennessee, who had served in the Confederate army and voted for Tilden. This appointment was not so genuine a recognition of the South as would have been made if Hayes could have carried out his first intention, which was the appointment of General Joseph E. Johnston as Secretary of War.

Considering that Johnston had surrendered the second great army of the Confederacy only twelve years before, the thought was possible only to a magnanimous nature, and in the inner circle of Hayes's counselors obvious and grave objections were urged. General Sherman doubted the wisdom of the proposed appointment, although he said that as General of the army he would be entirely content to receive the President's orders through his old antagonist. Although the appointment of Johnston would have added strength, the Cabinet as finally made up was strong, and the selection of such advisers created a favorable impression upon the intelligent sentiment of the country; it was spoken of as the ablest Cabinet since Was.h.i.+ngton's.

A wise inaugural address and an able Cabinet made a good beginning, but before the harmonious cooperation of these extraordinary men could be developed a weighty question, which brooked no delay, had to be settled.

The Stevens-Sumner plan of the reconstruction of the South on the basis of universal negro suffrage and military support of the governments thus const.i.tuted had failed. One by one in various ways the Southern states had recovered home rule until, on the inauguration of Hayes, carpet-bag negro governments existed in only two states, South Carolina and Louisiana. In both of these the Democrats maintained that their candidates for governor had been lawfully elected. The case of South Carolina presented no serious difficulty. Hayes electors had been rightfully chosen, and so had the Democratic governor, Hampton. But Chamberlain, the Republican candidate, had a claim based on the exclusion of the votes of two counties by the board of state canva.s.sers.

After conferences between each of the claimants and the President, the question was settled in favor of the Democrat, which was the meaning of the withdrawal of the United States troops from the State House in Columbia.

The case of Louisiana was much more troublesome. Packard, the Republican candidate for governor, had received as many votes as Hayes, and logic seemed to require that, if Hayes be President, Packard should be governor. While the question was pending, Blaine said in the Senate: "You discredit Packard, and you discredit Hayes. You hold that Packard is not the legal governor of Louisiana, and President Hayes has no t.i.tle." And the other leaders of the Republican party, for the most part, held this view. To these and their followers Blaine applied the name "Stalwarts," stiff partisans, who did not believe in surrendering the hold of the Republicans on the Southern states.

Between the policies of a continuance of the support of the Republican party in Louisiana or its withdrawal, a weak man would have allowed things to drift, while a strong man of the Conkling and Chandler type would have sustained the Packard government with the whole force at his command. Hayes acted slowly and cautiously, asked for and received much good counsel, and in the end determined to withdraw the United States troops from the immediate vicinity of the State House in Louisiana. The Packard government fell, and the Democrats took possession. The lawyers could furnish cogent reasons why Packard was not ent.i.tled to the governors.h.i.+p, although the electoral vote of Louisiana had been counted for Hayes; but the Stalwarts maintained that no legal quibble could varnish over so glaring an inconsistency. Indeed, it was one of those illogical acts, so numerous in English and American history, that resolve difficulties, when a rigid adherence to logic would tend to foment trouble.

The inaugural address and the distinctively reform Cabinet did not suit the party workers, and when the President declined to sustain the Packard government in Louisiana, disapproval was succeeded by rage. In six weeks after his inauguration Hayes was without a party; that is to say, the men who carried on the organization were bitterly opposed to his policy, and they made much more noise than the independent thinking voters who believed that a man had arisen after their own hearts. Except from the Southern wing, he received little sympathy from the Democratic party. In their parlance, fraud was written on his brow. He had the honor and perquisites of office which were rightfully theirs.

Once the troops were withdrawn from South Carolina and Louisiana, no backward step was possible, and although Hayes would have liked congressional support and sympathy for his act, this was not necessary.

The next most important question of his administration related to finance. He and his Secretary of the Treasury would have been gratified by an obedient majority in Congress at their back. Presidents before and after Hayes have made a greater or less employment of their patronage to secure the pa.s.sage of their favorite measures, but Hayes immediately relinquished that power by taking a decided position for a civil service based on merit. In a little over a month after the withdrawal of the troops from the immediate vicinity of the State House in Louisiana, he announced his policy in a letter to his Secretary of the Treasury. "It is my wish," he wrote, "that the collection of the revenues should be free from partisan control, and organized on a strictly business basis, with the same guaranties for efficiency and fidelity in the selection of the chief and subordinate officers that would be required by a prudent merchant. Party leaders should have no more influence in appointments than other equally respectable citizens. No a.s.sessments for political purposes on officers or subordinates should be allowed. No useless officer or employee should be retained. No officer should be required or permitted to take part in the management of political organizations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns." The mandatory parts of this letter he incorporated in an order to Federal office-holders, adding: "This rule is applicable to every department of the civil service. It should be understood by every officer of the general government that he is expected to conform his conduct to its requirements."

It must be a source of gratification to the alumni and faculty of Harvard College that its president and governing boards were, in June, 1877, in the judicious minority, and recognized their appreciation of Hayes by conferring upon him its highest honorary degree. Schurz, who had received his LL.D. the year before, accompanied Hayes to Cambridge, and, in his Harvard speech at Commencement, gave his forcible and sympathetic approval of the "famous order of the President," as it had now come to be called.

A liberal and just Southern policy, the beginning of a genuine reform in the civil service and the resumption of specie payments, are measures which distinguish and glorify President Hayes's administration, but in July, 1877, public attention was diverted from all these by a movement which partook of the nature of a social uprising. The depression following the panic of 1873 had been widespread and severe. The slight revival of business resulting from the Centennial Exposition of 1876 and the consequent large pa.s.senger traffic had been succeeded by a reaction in 1877 that brought business men to the verge of despair. Failures of merchants and manufacturers, stoppage of factories, diminished traffic on the railroads, railroad bankruptcies and receivers.h.i.+ps, threw a mult.i.tude of laborers out of employment; and those fortunate enough to retain their jobs were less steadily employed, and were subject to reductions in wages.

The state of railroad transportation was deplorable. The compet.i.tion of the trunk lines, as the railroads running from Chicago to the seaboard were called, was sharp, and, as there was not business enough for all, the cutting of through freight rates caused such business to be done at an actual loss, while the through pa.s.senger transportation afforded little profit. Any freight agent knew the remedy: an increase of freight rates by agreement or through a system of pooling earnings. Agreements were made, but not honestly kept, and, after a breach of faith, the fight was renewed with increased fury. As the railroad managers thought that they could not increase their gross earnings, they resolved on decreasing their expenses, and somewhat hastily and jauntily they announced a reduction of ten per cent in the wages of their employees.

This was resisted. Trouble first began on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, where the men not only struck against the reduction, but prevented other men from taking their places, and stopped by force the running of trains. The militia of West Virginia was inadequate to cope with the situation, and the governor of that state called on the President for troops, which were sent with a beneficial effect. But the trouble spread to Maryland, and a conflict in Baltimore between the militia and rioters in sympathy with the strikers resulted in a number of killed and wounded. The next day, Sat.u.r.day, July 21, a riot in Pittsburg caused the most profound sensation in the country since the draft riots of the Civil War. The men on the Pennsylvania and the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago railroads, had struck, and all freight traffic was arrested. On this day six hundred and fifty men of the first division of the Pennsylvania national guard at Philadelphia arrived in Pittsburg, and, in the attempt to clear the Twenty-eighth Street crossing, they replied to the missiles thrown at them by the mob with volleys of musketry, killing instantly sixteen of the rioters and wounding many.

Here was cause for exasperation, and a furious mob, composed of strikers, idle factory hands, and miners, tramps, communists, and outcasts, began its work of vengeance and plunder. Possessed of firearms, through breaking into a number of gun shops, they attacked the Philadelphia soldiers, who had withdrawn to the railroad roundhouse, and a fierce battle ensued. Unable to dislodge the soldiers by a.s.sault, the rioters attempted to roast them out by setting fire to cars of c.o.ke saturated with petroleum and pus.h.i.+ng these down the track against the roundhouse. This eventually forced the soldiers to leave the building, but, though pursued by the rioters, they made a good retreat across the Allegheny River. The mob, completely beyond control, began the destruction of railroad property. The torch was applied to two roundhouses, to railroad sheds, shops and offices, cars and locomotives.

Barrels of spirits, taken from the freight cars, and opened and drunk, made demons of the men, and the work of plunder and destruction of goods in transit went on with renewed fury.