Autobiography of Seventy Years Part 19

After his election to fill Sumner's unexpired term I had a letter from Adin Thayer in which he said: "Washburn hates Butler with an Evangelical hatred which you know is more intense than a Liberal Christian can attain to."

James Buffington was a shrewd and amusing character. He understood the temper of the House very well and had great influence in accomplis.h.i.+ng anything he undertook. He prided himself on the fact that he never missed answering to his name at roll call during his whole term of service. He understood very well the art of pleasing his const.i.tuents. He made it a rule, he told me, to send at least one doc.u.ment under his own frank every year to every voter in his District. On one occasion in a hotly contested election he had four votes more in a town on Cape Cod than any other candidate. He was curious and inquired what it meant. The Chairman of the Selectmen told him that there were four men who lived in an out-of- the-way place, who never came to town meetings and n.o.body seemed to know much about them. They were a father and his three sons, living together on the same farm. But at that election they appeared at the town meeting. All four voted for Buffington and for no other candidate and disappeared at once. The Selectman asked him why he voted for Buffington.

"If he knew him?" "No!" said the old fellow. "He knows me.

He sends me and each of my sons a doc.u.ment every winter."

Buffington was very anxious about the matter of patronage and of getting offices for all his const.i.tuents. A great many men applied for his support; frequently there were many applications for the same office. He did not like to refuse them. So he made it a rule to give all of them a letter of recommendation to the Departments. But he had an understanding with the appointing clerks that if he wrote his name Buffington with the g he desired that man should be appointed, but if he wrote it Buffinton without the g he did not wish to be taken seriously.

Beyond all question the leader of the Ma.s.sachusetts delegation, and of the House, was Henry L. Dawes. He had had a successful career at the bar and in public life before his election to Congress. In Congress he made his way to the front very rapidly.

No member of the House of Representatives from Ma.s.sachusetts and few from any part of the Union had an influence which could be at all compared with his. He became in succession Chairman of the two foremost Committees, that of Appropriations and that of Ways and Means. He was a prominent candidate for the office of Speaker when Mr. Blaine was elected and was defeated, as I have said elsewhere, only by the adroit management of Butler.

Mr. Dawes represented the Berks.h.i.+re District in the House for eighteen years when he declined further service there.

He was then elected to the Senate where he remained eighteen years longer, when he declined further service there. During the last part of his last term he was troubled with a growing deafness which I suppose had much to do with his declining to enter upon the contest for another reelection. He was regarded by the manufacturers of Ma.s.sachusetts as their faithful and powerful representative. He had several contests for his seat in the Senate when his opponents thought they were sure of success; but they found themselves left in the minority when the vote came to be taken. They never fully comprehended what defeated them. They would get the support of men who were active in caucuses and nominating conventions and supposed with excellent reason that they were safe. But there was in every factory village in Ma.s.sachusetts some man of influence and ability and wealth, frequently a large employer of labor, who had been in the habit of depending on Mr. Dawes for the security of his most important interests, so far as they could be affected by legislation. They knew him and they knew that he knew them, and their power when they chose to exert it could not be resisted.

Persons who saw Mr. Dawes in his later years only, when he sat quietly in his seat in the Senate, taking little part save in a few special subjects, could not realize what a power he had been when he was the leading and strongest champion in that great body which contained Blaine and Bingham and Butler and Schenck and Farnsworth and Allison and Eugene Hale and Garfield.

When Mr. Dawes left the Senate in 1893, his a.s.sociates gave a banquet in his honor, at which I made the following remarks.

They were, I believe, approved by the entire company. I record them here as my deliberate judgment:

"If there be any admirer of other forms of government who think unfavorably of our republican fas.h.i.+on of selecting our rulers, I would invite him to examine the list of men whom Ma.s.sachusetts for a hundred years has chosen as her Senators of the first cla.s.s. I do not claim for her any superiority over other Commonwealths in this respect--but certainly she has given you of her best. She has sent men who were worthy to be peers of the men who have represented her sister States, and if that be true, they surely have been worthy to be peers in any Senate that was ever gathered upon earth. The line begins with Tristram Dalton, save Was.h.i.+ngton the stateliest gentleman of his time, rich in every mental accomplishment, whose presence graced and enn.o.bled every a.s.sembly that he entered. Next to him comes George Cabot, the wise statesman and accomplished merchant, beloved friend of Hamilton, trusted counsellor of Was.h.i.+ngton, whose name and lineage are represented at this table to-night, who shared with this successor, Benjamin Goodhue, the honor of being the first authority in finance in their generation, save Hamilton alone.

"Then comes John Quincy Adams, who left the Senate, after years of ill.u.s.trious public service, in 1808, but to begin another public service of forty years, still more ill.u.s.trious.

He served his country in every department of public occupation.

He was Minister in five great Powers in succession. He was present as Secretary when the treaty of peace was signed in 1783. He negotiated and signed the Treaty of Ghent, the Commercial Treaty of 1815, the French Treaty of 1822, the Prussian Treaty, and the treaty which acquired Florida from Spain. He was Senator, Representative, Foreign Minister, Secretary of State, and President. He breasted the stormy waves of the House of Representatives at the age of eighty, and when he died in the Capitol, he left no purer or loftier fame behind him.

"Next came James Lloyd, the modest gentleman, the eloquent orator and the accomplished man of business. Then came Gore and Ashmun and Mellen and Mills, each great among the great lawyers of a great generation. Next in the procession comes the majestic presence of Daniel Webster, whose matchless logic and splendid eloquence gave to the Const.i.tution of the country an authority in the reason and in the hearts of his countrymen equal to anything in judicial decision and equal to that of any victory of arms. With his reply to Hayne, it has been said that every Union cannon in the late war was shotted.

His power in debate was only equalled by his wisdom in council.

It was said of him by one whose fame as a great public teacher equals his own: 'His weight was like the falling of a planet, his discretion the return of its due and perfect curve.'

"Then comes Rufus Choate, next to Webster himself the foremost forensic orator of modern times, against whose imperial eloquence no human understanding, either on the Bench or in the jury box, seemed to be proof. Following them is he who still lives in his honored age, with his intellectual powers unshattered, the foremost citizen of his native Commonwealth, the accomplished and eloquent Winthrop. Next comes Rantoul, who died when his foot had scarcely crossed the threshold of the Senate Chamber, whose great hope was equal to the greatest of memories.

Next is the figure of the apostle of liberty, Charles Sumner, the echo of whose voice still seems to linger in the arches of the Capitol. To those of us who remember him, he seems, as Disraeli said of Richard Cobden, 'still sitting, still debating, still legislating' in the Senate Chamber.

"No two of these men were alike in the quality they brought to the public service. Their mental portraiture is as different and as individual as the faces painted by t.i.tian or Van d.y.k.e or Holbein. But each brought to the service of the State what she most needed in each generation. The constructive statesman, the framer of the Const.i.tution and statutes, the financier, the debater, the lawyer, the man of business, the diplomatist, the reformer, the orator, are all there, and all are there at their best.

"It is enough, and not too much, to say of my colleague that, as he lays down his office, the State that has been proud of them is proud of him. The State that has been satisfied with them is satisfied with him. In all this ill.u.s.trious line, there is none other who has more faithfully and more successfully discharged every duty of Senatorial service, and who has more constantly represented the interests and character of the dear old Commonwealth, who has maintained a higher or firmer place in her confidence and respect than he whom we greet and with whom we part to-night. Mr. Dawes was elected to the Ma.s.sachusetts House of Representatives in 1847. Every year since, with one exception, he has held some honorable public station from the gift of his native State. Everywhere, at the Bar, in the State Legislature, in the Representative Chamber, in the Senate Chamber, he has been a leader. Some great department of public service has depended upon him for a successful administration. He has always been appointed to some special service or duty or difficulty which he has discharged to the entire satisfaction of his const.i.tuents and his political a.s.sociates. His work has been as remarkable for its variety as for its dignity and importance, or the length of time for which it has continued. He has proved himself fit for every conspicuous position in our Republican army except that of trumpeter. When the duty was done, he has not sought for personal credit or popular applause. His qualities have not been those for which the people manifested their regard by shouting or clapping of hands, or stamping of feet in public meetings; he has had no following of ambitious politicians whom he has sought to repay for their political services at the public expense.

"But he has had a place second to that of no other man in the solid and enduring esteem of the people of the Commonwealth.

He has been content to do a service, and has left the other men who sought for it the credit of doing it. His official action has tended to make or unmake great industries. Great fortunes have depended upon it. He has affected values of millions upon millions, and yet he retires from office with unstained hands, without fortune, and without a spot upon his integrity. He has no children pensioned at the public charge. He will leave behind him no wealth gained directly or indirectly from his public opportunities. He will go back to a humble and simple dwelling not exceeding in costliness that of many a Ma.s.sachusetts merchant or farmer. But honor, good fame, the affection of his fellow citizens, the friends.h.i.+p of his fellow Senators will enter its portals with him, and there they will dwell with him until he leaves it for his last home."

Mr. Dawes was a very powerful and logical reasoner. He was a very successful advocate when at the Bar and he was always a strong antagonist in debate and very effective as a campaign speaker. He stuck closely to his subject. He had a gift of sarcasm with which he could make an adversary feel exceedingly uncomfortable, although he rarely indulged in it. He almost never attempted eloquence, except so far as it is found in his grave and effective statement of his case. One sentence of his which I myself heard deserves to be remembered among the best things in American eloquence. Speaking to thirty or forty people at a club in Boston of the power and greatness of the Republic, he said: "If we cannot say of our country, as Mr. Webster said of England, 'that her morning drum-beat circles the earth with an unbroken strain of her martial airs,'

we can at least say that before the sun sets upon Alaska he has risen upon Maine."

In my first Congress the leaders.h.i.+p was shared between my colleague, Mr. Dawes, and Robert C. Schenck of Ohio. General Schenck was an old Whig. He had served with distinction in the time of Webster and Clay and Calhoun and Corwin. He had the gift of vigorous, simple Saxon English. He was a very powerful debater, a man of wisdom and of industry. He was Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and carried through to success, against odds and difficulties, an important tariff bill. At one time he found the measure, which he had introduced, overloaded and destroyed by amendments. He abandoned it in disgust, declaring that it had been "nibbled to death by pismires." But he afterward introduced the measure in another form, and came off successful and triumphant in the end.

He was afterward sent abroad by General Grant to succeed Mr.

Motley. He got into trouble there by giving a letter of recommendation which was unwisely used to promote an enterprise known as the Emma Mine. He gave the recommendation, I have no doubt, in entire good faith. The stock of that mine went down. The investors lost their money, and great complaint was made that he had used his official position to promote a fraudulent scheme. He was compelled to withdraw from the Mission. He was not recalled, but came home on leave of absence, and resigned here. So he was not obliged to take formal leave. But the stock of the mine afterward became exceedingly valuable, and the public regretted the unjust judgment they had formed about General Schenck. I had and have a great regard for him. There was not a dishonest hair on the old fellow's head.

His health failed soon after, so he had no opportunity to render further service, which would undoubtedly have caused that unpleasant affair to be forgotten.

Judge Luke P. Poland of Vermont was another very interesting character. He was well known throughout the country. He had a tall and erect and very dignified figure, and a fine head covered with a beautiful growth of gray hair. He was dressed in the old-fas.h.i.+oned style that Mr. Webster used, with blue coat, bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and a buff-colored vest. His coat and b.u.t.tons were well known all over the country. One day when William Lloyd Garrison was inveighing against some conduct of the Southern whites, and said: "They say the South is quiet now. Order reigns in Warsaw. But where is Poland?"

An irreverent newspaper man said: "He is up in Vermont polis.h.i.+ng bra.s.s b.u.t.tons."

The Judge was a very able lawyer, and a man of very great industry. He and Judge h.o.a.r went over together the revision of the United States statutes of 1874, completing a labor which had been neglected by Caleb Cus.h.i.+ng. Judge Poland had a good deal of fun in him, and had a stock of anecdotes which he liked to tell to any listener. It was said, I do not know how truly, that he could bear any amount of whiskey without in the slightest degree affecting his intellect. There was a story that two well-known Senators laid a plot to get the Judge tipsy. They invited him to a room at Willards, and privately instructed the waiter, when they ordered whiskey to put twice as much of the liquid into Poland's gla.s.s as into the others. The order was repeated several times. The heads of the two hosts had begun to swim, but Poland was not moved. At last they saw him take the waiter aside and heard him tell him in a loud whisper: "The next time, make mine a little stronger, if you please." They concluded on the whole that Vermont brain would hold its own with Michigan and Illinois.

One of the most amusing scenes I ever witnessed was a call of the House in the old days, when there was no quorum. The doors were shut. The Speaker sent officers for the absentees.

They were brought to the bar of the House one after another.

Judge Poland happened to be one of the absentees. My colleague, Mr. Dawes, was in the chair. Poland was brought to the bar.

Mr. Dawes addressed him with solemnity: "Mr. Poland, of Vermont, you have been absent from the session of the House without its leave. What excuse have you to offer?" The Judge paused a moment and then replied in a tone of great gravity and emotion: "I went with my wife to call on my minister, and I stayed a little too long." The House accepted the excuse, and I suppose the religious people of the Judge's district would have maintained him in office for a thousand years by virtue of that answer, if they had had their way. A man who had been so long exposed to the wickedness and temptations of Was.h.i.+ngton, and had committed only the sin of staying a little too long when he called on his minister might safely be trusted anywhere.

Judge Peters, of Maine, did not speak very frequently and did not attract much public attention. But he had a strong influence with the members of the House. He was on the Judiciary Committee. He made brief, pithy speeches which generally convinced the House. He declined to continue in the National service, where the people of Maine would have been willing to keep him until his dying day. He afterward became Chief Justice of Maine, and sustained the high character which the Bench of that State has had from the beginning.

There is one anecdote of him, which does not come within the sphere of my recollections, but which I think perhaps my readers will prefer to anything that does. A few years ago a young man who kept a grocery store was tried before Judge Peters for larceny. He was a very respectable young tradesman. The Salvation Army had engaged quarters next to his store, where they disturbed him and his customers a good deal by playing on the drum and other similar religious services.

But that was not all. They used to come out on the sidewalk and beat a large drum and sing and kneel in prayer just before his door, much to the disturbance of his customers and the aggravation of the young grocer. One day he purloined and hid the large drum. He was detected and indicted for larceny.

The Attorney-General, for the Government, maintained that everything that went to const.i.tute the crime of larceny existed there. He had taken secretly another man's property from his possession, for purposes of his own. Whether he meant to destroy it or hide it or to convert it to his own use made no difference in the offence against the owner or against the law. On the other hand the defendant's counsel argued that it was a mere matter of mischief; that there was no felonious intent, and no purpose to deprive the owner permanently of the property. The Chief Justice charged very strongly for the Commonwealth. The jury very reluctantly brought in a verdict of guilty. The poor fellow was sorely distressed.

He was convicted as a thief. His life seemed to be blighted and ruined past hope. The Chief Justice said: "Mr. Clerk, you may record the verdict. I may as well sentence him now.

I shall fine him a dollar, without costs. I once stole a drum myself."

John A. Logan was a member of the House when I entered it, and I served with him in the Senate also. He was a man of remarkable power, and remarkable influence, both with the Senate and with the people. It is, I believe, agreed by all authorities that we had no abler officer in the Civil War than he, except those who were educated at West Point. He was always a great favorite with the veteran soldiers. He was rough in speech, and cared little for refinements in manner. He was said to be an uneducated man. But I believe he was a man of a good many accomplishments; that he spoke some foreign languages well, and had a pretty good knowledge of our political history. He was exceedingly imperious and domineering, impatient of contradiction in any matter which he had in charge. So he was rather an uncomfortable man to get along with. He was especially sensitive of any ridicule or jesting at his expense. He was supposed, I know not how truly, to be exceedingly impatient and ready for war on any man who crossed his path. But his behaviour when he was ordered to supersede General Thomas, just before the battle at Nashville and Franklin, is a n.o.ble instance of magnanimity.

When Sherman started for the sea, Hood, with a large rebel army, was in his rear. Gen. Thomas was ordered to attack him. But he delayed and delayed till the authorities at Was.h.i.+ngton grew impatient and ordered Logan to supersede Thomas. Everybody knows the intensity of the pa.s.sion for military glory. General Logan could have carried out his orders, taken advantage of Thomas's dispositions, and won himself one of the most brilliant victories of the war, which would have had a double l.u.s.tre from the seeming lukewarmness of his predecessor; but when he arrived at the place of operations and learned Thomas's dispositions and the reason for his delay, he became satisfied that the great Fabius was right and wise. His generous nature disdained to profit by the mistake at headquarters and to get glory for himself at the expense of a brave soldier. So he postponed the execution of his orders, and left Thomas in his command. The result was the battle of Nashville and the annihilation of Hood. Where in military story can there be found a brighter page than that? That one act of magnanimous self-denial gave to American history two of its brightest names,--the name of Thomas and the name of Logan.

Another very able member of the House was Thomas A. Jenks of Rhode Island. He never seemed to care much for that field of service, but preferred to enjoy the practice of his profession, in which he was largely employed, and was earning a large income. But he is ent.i.tled to honorable memory as the originator and father of the reform of the civil service in this country.

He made a very able speech in its favor in 1867 or 1868, which was the beginning of a movement which has been successful, for which I think the public grat.i.tude should be shared between him and Dorman B. Eaton.

Elihu B. Washburn, of Illinois, was appointed Secretary of State by General Grant, whose constant friend and supporter he had been through his whole military career. Washburn was brave, vigorous and far-sighted, a man of great influence in his State and in the House. He was prominently spoken of for the Presidency. But with Grant and Logan as his compet.i.tors from his own State, there was not much chance for him. He was afterward Minister to France, and gained great distinction and credit by remaining in Paris throughout the siege, and giving shelter and support to persons who were in danger from the fury of the mob. He earned the grat.i.tude alike of the Germans and the French ecclesiastics.

He was known as the watch dog of the Treasury, when he was in the House. Few questionable claims against the Government could escape his vigilance, or prevail over his formidable opposition. But, one day, a private bill championed by his brother, Cadwallader, pa.s.sed the House while Elihu kept entirely silent. Somebody called out to the Speaker: "The watch dog don't bark when one of the family goes by."

When I entered the House, William B. Allison, of Iowa, had already acquired great influence there. He manifested there the qualities that have since given him so much distinction in the Senate. He was understood to favor what was called Revenue Reform, and moderation in the exercise of all doubtful national powers.

But his chief distinction has been gained by a service of thirty years in the Senate. He was out of public life two years, and then was elected to the Senate, where he has been kept by the State of Iowa, maintaining the confidence of his State and of his a.s.sociates in public life. During all that time he has done what no other man in the country, in my judgment, could have done so well. He has been a member of the great Committee on Appropriations for thirty years, most of the time Chairman, and for twenty-six years a member of the Committee on Finance. He has controlled, more than any other man, indeed more than any other ten men, the vast and constantly increasing public expenditure, amounting now to more than 1,000 millions annually. It has been an economical, honest and wise expenditure. He has been compelled in the discharge of his duties to understand the complications and mechanism of public administration and public expenditure.

That is a knowledge in which n.o.body else in the Senate, except Senator Hale of Maine, and Senator c.o.c.krell of Missouri, can compare with him. He has by his wise and moderate counsel drawn the fire from many a wild and dangerous scheme which menaced the public peace and safety.

He almost never takes part in the debates, unless it becomes necessary to explain or defend some measure of which he has charge. It is said that he is very careful not to offend anybody, and that he is unwilling to take responsibilities or to commit himself. There is undoubtedly some truth in that criticism. Indeed if it were otherwise, he would find it very hard to maintain the personal influence necessary to success in the duties to which he is immediately devoted.

But he never avoids voting. His name, since he has been Senator, has been first or second alphabetically on the roll of the Senate. He is found in the Senate Chamber unless engaged in his committee-room on work which requires him to be there during the sessions,--and he always votes when his name is called.

I have never seen any indication that he is interested in anything, or has any special knowledge or accomplishment, except what is necessary to the line of his duty. I do not know that he has any interest in history or literature or science or music. What he does in his time of recreation-- if he ever has any time for recreation--I cannot tell. He never seems to take any active interest in any of the questions which determine the action of the party or the destiny of the State, except those that relate to its finances. I use the word finances in the largest sense, including means for raising revenue and maintaining a sound currency, as well as public expenditures. He is like a naval engineer, regulating the head of steam but seldom showing himself on deck. I think he has had a good deal of influence in some perilous times in deciding whether the s.h.i.+p should keep safely on, or should run upon a rock and go to the bottom.

There is a good story told that after Thaddeus Stevens died, a friend of Mr. Blaine's was walking with him one day through the Rotunda of the Capitol toward the House of Representatives.

Mr. Blaine said: "The death of Stevens is an emanc.i.p.ation for the Republican Party. He kept the party under his heel."

His friend replied: "Whom have you got for leaders left?"