Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

the New Club, suggested that the Club should be made more distinctly Democratic in its tone, its receptions to reflect the

same.

On March 21, 1878, the Club amended its Constitution to permit ordinary members to become non-resident members by a vote of the managers, if they were non-resident constitutionally and not in debt to the Club; also to regulate the date for the eventual surrender of bonds, or fraction thereof, in lieu of dues, and to permit the admission, if before June 1, of not less than forty members of the Young Men's Democratic Club on such terms as to fees as the managers might deem expedient.

On May 2, 1878, forty-five members of the Young Men's Democratic Club took advantage of this and joined the Manhattan. The New Club at this time suffered a great loss in the resignation of Mr. August Belmont as president. The third of its presidents and one of the oldest of its members, he was also one of the leading citizens of New York City and State. A faithful Democrat, he rendered many and valuable services to his party. We find the Club records dwelling upon the fact that though he was "earnest in the expression of his views and eloquent in their advocacy," he never "went beyond the limits of good sense, good breeding, and entire fairness in the effort to make his political views prevail." His services to his country when consulted upon financial matters, we are further told, were invaluable and "of material assistance in overcoming doctrines the triumph of which would have proved disastrous to the best interests of the nation."

Moreover, he was a broad-minded citizen, a generous patron of art, a lover of New York, and a friend to all he deemed for its best interests,-in short, "a man entitled to the respect and gratitude of the Manhattan Club," a fact the Club emphasized on the occasion of his death on November 25, 1890.

Two years and a half later, on June 22, 1893, Mr. Belmont's three sons, Perry, August, and Oliver H. P. Belmont, presented to the Club the fine portrait of their father which forms one of its most valued possessions. The Club ordered that the preamble and resolutions drawn up by the Board of Managers in accepting the gift, "as a memorial of one of its Presidents and most distinguished founders,” should be engrossed and sent to the givers as an expression in permanent form of its appreciation of the sentiment that dictated the gift of a valuable work of art which "recalls in a singularly lifelike manner one who was long a leader in the party which it is the design of the Manhattan Club to support and encourage." In the resolution which follows the Club declared its own faithfulness to those principles of popular government of which Mr. Belmont was one of the most earnest, consistent, and conspicuous advocates, and it deemed it eminently appropriate, therefore, that his memory should be kept alive in the Club by the memento upon its walls. It ordered that the preamble and resolutions be spread in full upon the records of the Board of Managers, as an “enduring evidence of the generosity of the givers of the fine portrait, as a testimonial of the spirit in which it is accepted, and as a mark of the affectionate regard in which Mr. Belmont was held in the Club."

Judge Aaron J. Vanderpoel was elected in Mr. Belmont's place, and held office until February 11, 1886, when he resigned, Mr. Manton Marble being elected his successor. The Club, in accepting Judge Vanderpoel's resignation, placed on record a resolution declaring that his presidency had been of the greatest value, and that during his term of office many strides were made from adversity to prosperity, he having come into office at a critical moment in the history of "the most important non-factional Democratic organization in the country," and at his retirement leaving the Club in the first rank as the outcome of his courage and ability. Judge

Vanderpoel lived only a short time after his retirement, his death occurring on October 13, 1887.

On the seventh of May of the following year a group of Club members presented a portrait of Judge Vanderpoel to the Club, as a memorial, they said, of their friend who had rendered such valuable services as president, and also in remembrance of his high attainments as a member of the legal profession, in which he was one of the most prominent figures.

During the presidencies of Mr. Belmont and Judge Vanderpoel the Club had been energetic in its work for Democracy. On January 25, 1878, it invited Professor Sumner, of Yale, and the Hon. David A. Wells to address its members upon "The Silver Question."

On January 2, 1878, the Club honored General Winfield Scott Hancock with a dinner, an outcome of the latter being the presentation of a bust of General Hancock, with pedestal, to the Club by Mr. John T. Agnew. On May 23, 1878, it entertained with a reception in honor of Governor Robinson.

On December 8, 1878, a reception was given for Hon. John McKeon, and on the fourteenth of the following January another for the Governor and ex-Governor, and in February yet another for the judges of the Supreme Court. In 1885 a reception was given in honor of Grover Cleveland, whose election to the Presidency the Club celebrated, expressing its joy at the return of its party to power after twenty-five years. During the preceding campaign it had extended its privileges to the members of the National and State Committees. On November 12, 1885, it gave a reception for Governor Hill.

Another event of this period was the sudden death of Mr. Cadwallader Evans, one of the Club managers and its secretary. He was still a young man whose career in business had been most promising. His interest in the Club was

Charles H. Truax

« PředchozíPokračovat »