cash refused by the Democrats, took their final pay in patronage from their own party.1 V I passed the Christmas week of 1876 in New York with Mr. Tilden. We dined alone on Christmas Day. The outlook was, on the whole, cheering. With John Bigelow and Manton Marble he had been busily engaged compiling the data for a constitutional battle to be fought by the Democrats in Congress, maintaining the right of the House of Representatives to concurrent jurisdiction with the Senate in the counting of the Electoral vote, pursuant to an unbroken line of precedents established by the method of procedure in every Presidential election between 1793 and 1873. There was very great perplexity in the public mind. Both parties were far at sea. The dispute between the Democratic House and the Republican Senate made for thick weather. Contests of the vote of three States, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida-not to mention single votes in Oregon and Vermont-which presently began to blow a gale, had already spread menacing clouds across the political sky. Except Mr. Tilden, the wisest among the leaders knew not precisely what to do. From New Orleans, the Saturday night succeeding the Presidential election, I had wired Mr. Tilden detailing the exact conditions there and urging active and immediate agitation. The chance had been lost. I thought then, and I 1 At a meeting held at Chickering Hall on the evening of November 12, 1891, to sympathize with Governor Nichols's war on the Louisiana lottery system, the late Abram S. Hewitt was one of the speakers. In the course of his remarks in denunciation of the lottery gambling in Louisiana, Mr. Hewitt said: "I can't find words strong enough to express my feelings regarding this brazen fraud. This scheme of plunder develops a weak spot in the government of the United States, which I would not mention were it not for the importance of the issue. We all know that a single State frequently determines the result of a Presidential election. The State of Louisiana has determined the result of a Presidential election. The vote of that State was offered to me for money, and I declined to buy it. But the vote of that State was sold for money!" still think, that the conspiracy of a few men to use the corrupt Returning Boards of Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida to upset the election and make confusion in Congress, might, by prompt exposure and popular appeal, have been thwarted. Be this as it may, my spirit was depressed and my confidence discouraged by the intense quietude on our side, sure that underneath the surface the Republicans, with resolute determination and multiplied resources, were as busy as bees. Mr. Robert M. McLane, later Governor of Maryland and Minister to France, a man of rare ability and large experience who had served in Congress and in diplomacy and was an old friend of Mr. Tilden, had been at a Gramercy Park conference when my New Orleans report arrived, and had then and there urged the agitation recommended by me. He was now again in New York. When a lad he had been in London with his father, Lewis McLane, then American Minister to the Court of St. James, during the excitement over the Reform Bill of 1832. He had witnessed the popular demonstrations and been impressed by the direct force of public opinion upon law-making and law-makers. analogous situation had arisen in America. The Republican Senate was as the Tory House of Lords. We must organize a movement such as had been so effectual in England. Obviously, something was going amiss with us, and something had to be done. An It was agreed that I should return to Washington and make a speech, "feeling the pulse" of the country with the suggestion that there should assemble in the national capital "a mass convention of at least one hundred thousand peaceful citizens," exercising "the freeman's right of petition." The idea was one of many proposals of a more drastic kind, and the merest venture. I myself had no great faith in it. But I prepared the speech, and after much reading and revising it was held by Mr. Tilden and Mr. McLane to cover the case and meet the purpose. Mr. Tilden wrote Mr. Randall a letter, carried to Washington by Mr. McLane, instructing him what to do in the event that the popular response should prove favorable. Alack-the-day! The Democrats were equal to nothing affirmative. The Republicans were united and resolute. I delivered the speech, not in the House, as had been intended, but at a public meeting which seemed opportune. The Democrats at once set about denying the sinister purpose ascribed to it by the Republicans, who, fully advised that it had emanated from Gramercy Park and came by authority, started a counter-agitation of their own. I was made the target for every manner of ridicule and abuse. Nast had a grotesque cartoon which was both offensive and libellous. Being on friendly terms with the Harpers, I made my displeasure so resonant in Franklin SquareNast himself having no personal ill-will-that a curious and pleasing opportunity which came to pass was taken to make amends. A son having been born to me, "Harper's Weekly" contained an atoning cartoon representing the child in its father's arms, and beneath the legend, "The only one of the one hundred thousand in arms who came when he was called." For many years afterward this unlucky speech-or rather the misinterpretation given it alike by friend and foe-pursued me. Nast's first cartoon was accepted as a faithful portrait, and I was accordingly satirized and stigmatized, although no thought of violence had ever entered my mind, and in the final proceedings I had voted for the Electoral Commission Bill and faithfully stood by its decisions. Joseph Pulitzer, who immediately followed me on the occasion named, declared that he wanted my "one hundred thousand” to come fully armed and ready for business, yet was never taken to task or reminded of his temerity. |