THE 
 
 A.F. 
 MEMORIAL LIBRARY 
 
 Univ. of California 
 Withdrawn 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
 
 
THE HISTORY OF THE 
 LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
Drawn by B. Ifcst Clinedimt 
 
 THE CROWD IN FRONT OF THE NEW YORK TIMES OFFICE ON THE NIGHT OF THE 
 T1LDEN-HAYES ELECTION, iBjb 
 
THE HISTORY OF THE 
 LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 1870-1895 
 
 BY 
 
 E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS 
 
 PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY 
 
 WITH MORE THAN 
 
 THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 MDCCCXCVI 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
Copyright, 1895, 1896, 
 By CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
 New York. U. S. A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IT^EW quarter-centuries in the world's life bristle 
 with salient events as does that following the 
 year 1870. Recognizing this the writer recently un 
 dertook, in a series of papers published in Scribner's 
 Magazine, to portray the chief of these events so far as 
 they relate to the United States. In the opinion of 
 the publishers the series met with gratifying success, 
 which suggested the preparation of the present work. 
 While based on the Magazine articles it is essentially 
 new. The original matter has been carefully revised, 
 much of it, in fact, re-written, while extensive and 
 valuable additions have been made, securing to the 
 narrative a consecutiveness which the separate papers 
 forbade. A detailed national history since 1870 the 
 reader must not expect. He is going upon a rapid 
 excursion through vast tracts, with frequent use of the 
 camera, and not upon a topographical survey. Hap 
 penings of mere local moment are ignored altogether ; 
 legal and constitutional developments we can only 
 
 95100 
 
PREFACE 
 
 sketch; while many other interesting and even vital 
 matters are barely brought to notice. The task is 
 certainly arduous and hazardous. None of the sources 
 for our most recent history have as yet been sifted. On 
 each specially critical occurrence studied by them con 
 gressional committees report contradictorily. State and 
 private papers needed fully to explain the acts of pub 
 lic men and the policies of administrations falling 
 within the period covered by this History are still 
 under seal. A writer treating of affairs so uncertainly 
 vouched must keep in tense exercise a form of dis 
 cretion which in better trodden fields predecessors 
 have made unnecessary. At best he will err, and he 
 will often be thought to err when he does not. In dis 
 cussions of yesterday's transactions statements the most 
 true are sure to be challenged from some quarter. 
 If you are right in essentials, your ideas of proportion 
 and of the relative importance of things may to many 
 seem strange. And, however sincere and unremitting 
 the effort to treat all sections, parties, and persons with 
 perfect fairness, perhaps no man can judge his contem 
 poraries without a degree of prejudice. To write 
 freshly made history would thus be difficult enough 
 had one ample space for all necessary modifications 
 and explanations ; being obliged to condense the narra 
 tive as these chapters require doubly aggravates the un 
 dertaking. A. labor so forbidding in these many ways 
 
PREFACE 
 
 might well be declined but for the following consider 
 ations : It is hoped that precisely on account of their 
 occurrence in recent time the doings set forth will 
 have a peculiarly living interest; that the work may 
 here and there rescue from oblivion some significant 
 deed which would surely meet that fate were the 
 recording deferred; and that prospectors traversing 
 this forest hereafter may get on better for our toil in 
 blazing the path. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I The United States at the Close of Recon 
 struction . . , . ". i 
 
 Land and people in 1870. Territories. Railroads in the West. Fenian 
 Movements. Boston's Peace Jubilees. The Great Cities. The Chicago 
 Fire. The Boston Fire. The Tweed Ring. Tweed's Escape and Cap 
 ture. Financial Condition of the Nation. Ships. Army and Navy. 
 Reconstruction, the Problem. The Presidential and the Congressional 
 Plan. Iron Law of March 2, 1867. The Process of Reconstruction. 
 Situation in 1870. Debate on the Coercion of States. Outcome. 
 The Test. All States at Last Again Represented in Both Houses of 
 Congress. 
 
 II General Grant as a Civil Chief . . . 23 
 
 The Republican Party in 1870. Its Defects. President Grant's Short 
 comings. His First Cabinet. The Party's Attitude Toward the Tariff". 
 Toward the Democracy. Toward Re-enfranchisement at the South. 
 The Liberal Movement. The Democrats. The "New Departure" 
 Among Them. Vallandigham. John Qujncy Adams. Reconstruction. 
 Errors Committed Therein. The Fifteenth Amendment. The Ku- 
 Klux Klan. The Force Bill Re-enfranchisement at the South. Grant 
 and the Nation's Finances. Gould and Fisk. Black Friday. The Treaty 
 of Washington. Relations with Cuba. Proposed " Annexion " of Santo 
 Domingo. Sumner and the Administration. 
 
 Ill The Greeley Campaign . . . . 57 
 
 The Rise of Horace Greeley. The Tribune. Greeley and Grant. The 
 Liberal-Republican Movement. The Spoils System. Shepherd at Wash 
 ington. Scandals Connected With the Collection of the Revenues. 
 Reversal of Hepburn -vs. Griswold. Grant and Greeley Nominated. 
 Mixed Politics. Both Candidates Severely Criticised. A Choice of Evils. 
 A Bitter Campaign Difficulties Confronting Greeley. Grant Elected. 
 Greeley' s Death. His Character. Continuation of Republican Policy 
 at the South. Force and Anarchy in Louisiana. 
 
CONTENTS 
 IV The Geneva Award and the Credit Mo- 
 
 bilier . 87 
 
 Outcome of the Washington Treaty. The " Alabama Claims." Vain 
 Efforts at Settlement. The Geneva Tribunal. Rules for its Guidance. 
 Questions Answered by It. Its Decision. The Northwestern Boundary 
 Settlement. The Credit Mobilier Story. Enthusiasm for the West. 
 Vastness of that Section. The Rush Thither. The Pioneers. Land 
 Grabbing. Grants for Transcontinental Railways. Inception of the 
 Union Pacific Company. The Credit Mobilier Company. Oakes Ames 
 and His Contract. Stock Sold to Congressmen. The "Sun's" Publica 
 tion. The Facts. Ames's Defense. Censure of Him by the House of 
 Representatives. His Death. Reasons for the Sentiment Against Him. 
 
 V "Carpet-Bagger " and " Scalawag " in Dixie in 
 
 Grant's Re-election and the South. Court Decisions Confirming State 
 Sovereignty. The Louisiana "Slaughter House Cases." Osborn vs. 
 Nicholson. White vs. Hart. Desolation at the South After the War. 
 Discouragement, Intemperance, Ignorance. Slow Revival of Industry. 
 Social and Political Conflict. The " Scalawag." The "Carpet-Bagger." 
 Good Carpet-Baggers. Their Failings. Resistance. Northern Sympathy 
 With This. The Freedmen. Their Vices. Their Ignorance. 
 Foolish and Corrupt Legislation. Extravagant Expenditures in Various 
 States In Mississippi. In Georgia. In South Carolina. Overthrow of 
 Many Carpet-Bag Governments. Violence Still, But Often Exaggerated. 
 
 VI Decline of the Transitional Governments in 
 
 South Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas 
 and Louisiana . . . . . 131 
 
 Gen. Sherman on the Southern Problem. Reckless Legislation in South 
 Carolina. Appeal of the Taxpayers' Union. Gov. Chamberlain's Re 
 forms. The Conflict in Arkansas. Factions. The Stake Fought For. 
 A New Constitution. Gov. Garland Elected. Report of the Poland 
 Committee. The Vicksburg "War." Mayor vs. Governor. Pres 
 ident Grant Will Not Interfere. Senator Revels on the Situation. The 
 Mississippi Reconstructionists. The Kellogg-McEnery Imbroglio in 
 Louisiana. Metropolitans and White Leaguers Fight. The Kellogg 
 Government Overthrown but Re-established by Federal Arms. Protests. 
 The Election of November 2, 1874. Methods of the Returning Board. 
 Gen. Sheridan in Command. Legislature Organized Amid Bayonets. 
 Members Removed by Federal Soldiers. Sheridan's Views. Allegations 
 Contra. Public Opinion at the North. The "Wheeler Adjustment." 
 
 VII Indian Wars and the Custer Death . -, . 169 
 
 Civilized Indians in 1874. Grant's Policy for the Wild Tribes. Diffi 
 culties of the Indian Commissioners. Indians' Wrongs and Discontent. 
 Troubles in Arizona. Gov. Safford's Declaration. Massacre of Apaches 
 in 1871. Report of Federal Grand Jury. The Apaches Subdued. 
 Grievances of the Sioux. The Modoc War and Gen. Canby's Death. 
 Troubles in 1874. The Mill River Disaster in Massachusetts. The 
 Sioux Rebellion. The Army's Plan of Campaign. Custer' s Party. 
 - His Death. How the Battle Went. "Revenge" of Rain-in-the-Face. 
 Custer Criticised. And Defended. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 VIII " The Year of a Hundred Years " The 
 Centennial Exposition and the Hayes- 
 Tilden Imbroglio . . . . 195 
 
 Origin of the Centennial Exposition. Philadelphia Landmarks. The Ex 
 position Buildings. The Opening. The Various Exhibits. Attendance. 
 A Political Crisis. Grant and Jewell. The Belknap Disgrace. An 
 other Reform Movement. Fear of a Third Term for Grant. Issues Be 
 tween the Parties. Hayes and Tilden Nominated. Their Letters of 
 Acceptance. The Campaign. Prophecy of Trouble Over the Presidential 
 Count. The Twenty-second Joint Rule. Result of the Election in 
 Doubt. Cipher Dispatches. Queer Ways of Returning Boards. Fears 
 and Hopes. The Electoral Commission. The Case of Florida, of Louisi 
 ana, of Oregon, of South Carolina. Hayes Declared Elected. An Elec 
 toral Count Law. 
 
 IX Hayes and the Civil Service . . . 223 
 
 Hayes's Character. His Cabinet. End of Bayonet Rule at the South. 
 This the Result of a "Deal." "Visiting Statesmen" at the Louisiana 
 Count. Hayes Favors Honesty. His Record. Hayes and Gar-field Com 
 pared. The Spoils System. Early Protests. A Civil Service Commis 
 sion. Its Rules. Retrogression Under Grant. Jewell's Exit from the 
 Cabinet. Hoar's. Butler's "Pull" on Grant. Collector Simmons. 
 The Sanborn Contracts. Bristow a Reformer. The Whiskey Ring. 
 Myron Colony's Work. Plot and Counter-Plot. " Let no Guilty Man 
 Escape." Reformers Ousted. Good Work by the Press. The " Press- 
 gag." First Democratic House Since the War. Hayes Renews Reform. 
 Opposed byConkling. Fight Over the New York Collectorship. The 
 President Firm and Victorious. 
 
 X "The United States Will Pay" . . 249 
 
 Back to Hard Money. Act to Strengthen the Public Credit. Difficulty 
 of Contraction. Ignorance of Finance. Debtors Pinched. The Panic 
 of 1873. Causes. Failure of Jay Cooke & Co., and of Fiske & Hatch. 
 Black Friday No. z. On Change and on the Street. Bulls, Bears 
 and Banks. Criticism of Secretary Richardson. First Use of Clearing- 
 House Certificates. Effects and Duration of the Panic. An Important 
 Good Result. Resumption and Politics. The Resumption Act. Sher 
 man's Qualifications for Executing It. His Firmness. Resumption Act 
 ually Begun. Magnitude and Meaning of This Policy. Our Bonded 
 Debt Rapidly Reduced. Legal Tender Questions and Decisions. Juilliard 
 vs. Greenman. The "Fiat-Greenback" Heresy. "Dollar of the 
 Fathers" Demonetized. Not By Fraud But Without Due Reflection. 
 The Bland Bill and the " Allison Tip." The Amended Bill Vetoed, But 
 Passed. Subsequent Silver Legislation. 
 
 XI Agrarian and Labor Movements in the 
 
 Seventies . . . . . .281 
 
 The "Grangers." Their Aims. Origin of the Inter-State Commerce 
 Act. Demand for Cheap Transportation. Illinois' s " Three-Cent War." 
 Court Decisions. Land-Grant Colleges. Their Significance. Various 
 Labor Congresses and Platforms. Rise of Labor Bureaus. The National 
 Department of Labor. Its Work, Methods, and Influence. Value of 
 the State Bureaus. Contract-Labor Law. The Greenback Partv. Peter 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Cooper and Gen. Butler. Violence in the Labor Conflict. Causes. 
 Combinations of Capital. Of Laborers. Black List and Boycott. Labor 
 War in Pennsylvania. Methods of Intimidation. The " Mollie Ma- 
 guires." Murder of Alexander Rea. Power and Immunity of the 
 Mollies. Plan for Exposing Them. Gowen and McParlan. Assassina 
 tion of Thomas Sanger. Gowen' s Triumph and the Collapse of the Con 
 spiracy. Great Railway Strike in 1877. Riot at Pittsburg. Death and 
 Destruction. Scenes at Reading and Other Places. Strikes Common 
 From This Time On. 
 
 XII "Anything to Beat Grant" . . . 307 
 
 Presidential Possibilities in 1880. Grant the Lion. Republican Conven 
 tion. A Political Battle of the Wilderness. Garfield the Dark Horse. 
 Grant's Old Guard Defeated But Defiant. Democrats Nominate Han 
 cock. "The Ins and the Outs." Party Declarations. The Morey 
 Forgery. Elaine Can't Save Maine. Conkling's Strike Off. Garfield 
 Elected. "Soap" vs. Intimidation and Fraud. From Mule Boy to 
 President. Hancock's Brilliant Career. The First Presidential Appoint 
 ments. Conkling's Frenzy and His Fall. The Cabinet. Garfield Assas 
 sinated. Guiteau Tried and Hanged. Star Route Frauds. Pendleton 
 Civil Service Act. 
 
 XIII Domestic Events During Mr. Arthur's 
 
 Administration . . . . 343 
 
 Mr. Arthur's Dilemma. His Accession. Responsibility Evokes His 
 Best. The Presidential Succession Question. Succession Act Passed. 
 Electoral Count Act Passed. Arthur's Cabinet. Condition of the Coun 
 try in 1 88 1. Decadence of Our Ocean Carrying. Tariff Commission 
 of 1882 and the Tariff of 1883. Mahone and the Virginia "Readjust- 
 ers." Mahone's Record. His Entry Into the Senate. President Arthur 
 and the Chinese. Origin of the Chinese Question. Anson Burlingame. 
 The 1878 Embassy. Chinese Throng Hither. Early California. 
 The Strike of 1877 Affects California. Rise and Character of Denis 
 Kearney. His Program. The "Sand-Lot" Campaign. Kearney's 
 Moderation. He Is Courted. And Opposed. His Constitutional Con- . 
 vention. Its Work. Kearneyism to the Rear. The James Desperadoes. 
 Their Capture. The Yorktown Celebration. Mementoes of Old 
 Yorktown. The Pageant. "Surrender" Day. The Other Days. 
 Close of the Fete. Flood and Riot in Cincinnati. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SCENES AND VIEWS 
 
 Crowd in Front of the New York Times Office on the Night of the Tilden-Hayes Election, 
 1876 . . . . . . :'* . . . . . Frontispiece 
 
 Drawn by B. West Clinedinst 
 
 Driving the Last Spike of the Union Pacific. Scene at Promontory Point, May 10, 1869 . 3 
 
 Drawn by B. West Clinedinst from photographs loaned by General G. M. Dodge 
 The Court House at Chicago before the Fire ..,* ..... . . 6 
 
 From a photograph 
 
 The Chicago Court House after the Fire . . .' . . ..-!-. 6 
 
 From a photograph 
 
 The Chicago Court House in 1895 . ...'.. . . " . . 7 
 
 From a photograph 
 
 The Reconstruction Committee . ' . ... . . . . 25 
 
 Drawn by W. R. Leigh from photographs 
 
 The High Commissioners in Session at Washington . . * . ' ... 33 
 
 Drawn by E. B. Child from photographs 
 
 Fisk and Gould's Opera House in a State of Siege .... . . .41 
 
 Drawn by B. West Clinedinst 
 
 Scene in the New York Gold Room on Black Friday . . . . . . 49 
 
 Drawn by C. S. Reinhart from photographs and descriptions by eye witnesses 
 
 Horace Greeley Signing the Bail Bond of Jefferson Davis .... '' .- . 63 
 Painted by W. R. Leigh from photographs, and sketches made at the time by W. L. Sheppard 
 
 Mr. Greeley Receiving the Democratic Committee which Notified him of his Nomination . 65 
 Painted by W. R. Leigh from photographs and descriptions 
 
 Dispersal of the McEnery Legislature at Odd Fellow's Hall, New Orleans . ~". .81 
 
 Drawn by C. K. Linson from photographs and descriptions 
 
 Three Famous Confederate Cruisers : The Florida, the Shenandoah and the Alabama . .89 
 
 Drawn by M. J. Burns from photographs 
 
 Count Sclopis Announcing the Decision of the Geneva Tribunal . . . . -93 
 
 Painted by W. R. Leigh from photographs and diagrams loaned by J. C. Bancroft Davis, Esq. 
 
 The South Carolina Legislature of 1873 Passing an Appropriation Bill . . . - . . 123 
 
 Painted by W. R. Leigh from photographs, plans, and a description by an eye-witness 
 
 Beginning of the Conflict in Front of the Anthony House, Little Rock, Arkansas . .133 
 
 Painted by W. R. Leigh from photographs and descriptions 
 
 The Brooks Forces Evacuating the State House at Little Rock . . . . .137 
 
 Painted by Howard Pyle from photographs and descriptions 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Scene of the Conflict at the Pemberton Monument, near Vicksburg, December 7, 
 
 1874 143 
 
 From a photograph made for this work 
 
 The Mississippi Legislature Passing a Resolution Asking for Federal Aid after the Attack on 
 Vicksburg .... 146 
 
 Drawn by B. finest Clinedinst from photographs and descriptions 
 
 General Badger in Front of the Gem Saloon, New Orleans . . . . . . 1 49 
 
 Drawn by C. K. Linson from photographs 
 
 The Mass Meeting of September 14, 1874, at the Clay Statue, New Orleans . . . 154 
 
 Drawn by C. K. Linson from photographs 
 
 L. A. Wiltz Taking Possession of the Speaker's Chair in the Louisiana State House, Janu 
 ary 4, 1875 : .163 
 
 Drawn by W. R. Leigh from photographs and plans 
 
 The Lava Beds . . . . . . . . ... ... .178 
 
 From a photograph by Taker 
 
 Scene of the Canby Massacre . - . ...... . . . . 1 79 
 
 From a photograph by Taker 
 
 Indian Trader's Store at Standing Rock, North Dakota . . .. . . .185 
 
 Drawn by W. A. C. Pape from a photograph by Barry 
 
 The Custer Monument . . .. ' ,, . . ... . . .190 
 
 Drawn by Harry Fenn from a photograph by Barry 
 
 Old Swedes' Church, Philadelphia, Built in 1700 . ... . . . 195 
 
 Drawn by Harry Fenn from a photograph by Rau 
 
 State House Row, Philadelphia . . . . ... . . . 197 
 
 Drawn by Harry Fenn from a photograph by Rau 
 
 Centennial Opening Ceremonies on May 10, 1876 . . ' . . ... . 199 
 
 Drawn by Harry Fenn from a photograph 
 
 View From Photographic Hall Looking Toward Machinery Hall . ... . -203 
 
 Drawn by C. K. Linson from a photograph 
 
 Fountain Hall . . . .... > . . . . . . 206 
 
 Exterior of Horticultural Hall . . . ..- . . . . . 206 
 
 Interior of Horticultural Hall . . -. ... ' .... . ; ; . . 207 
 
 The Main Building at Philadelphia . . . . . . . . . 209 
 
 After a photograph 
 
 The Trial of Thomas Munley, the " Mollie Maguire," at Pottsville, Pa. ... 297 
 
 The Attempt to Fire the P. R.R. Roundhouse in Pittsburg, at daybreak of Sunday, July 
 
 22, 1877 . . . . . "~ . " * . . . . . . . .301 
 
 Painted by US. R. Leigh from photographs by Robinson 
 
 Burnt Freight Cars at Pittsburg . ' . . . ... . . . . 303 
 
 From a photograph by Robinson 
 
 Union Station and Interior of Roundhouse after the Riot of 1877 ..': . -". ,. * . 304 
 
 From photographs by Robinson 
 
 The Interview at the Riggs House Between Conkling and Garfield .. . . -322 
 
 Drawn by B. West Clinedinst from photographs and descriptions 
 
 Conkling' s Speech Before the "Committee of Conciliation" ... . . . 325 
 
 Drawn by C. K, Linson from photographs, and a diagram and description furnished by Mr. H. L. 
 Dawes 
 
 The Anti-Chinese Riot of 1880, in Denver, Col. .... . . .328 
 
 Drawn by C. K. Linson from a photograph and a sketch made by an eye-witnesi 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 President Garfield's Remains Lying in State at the Capitol . . . . . -335 
 
 Drawn by W. R. Leigh from f holographs 
 
 Scene at a Station on the P. R.R. as the Garfield Ambulance Train Passed on its Way to 
 Elberon .............. 337 
 
 Drawn by C. K. Linson 
 
 The Garfield Funeral Car About to Start from the Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio, for the 
 Cemetery ............. 339 
 
 Drawn by T. dt Thulstrup from a photograph by Ryder 
 
 President Arthur Taking the Inaugural Oath at his Lexington Avenue Residence . . 345 
 
 Drawn by IT. R. Leigh 
 
 President Hayes and his Cabinet Receiving Chen Lan Pin and the First Resident Chinese 
 Embassy to the United States, September 28, 1878. . . . . . -358 
 
 Drawn by W. R. Leigh from photographs 
 
 The Chinese Consulate in San Francisco . . . . . . . . . 360 
 
 Drawn by A. F. Jaccaci from a photograph by Taker 
 
 A "Mixed Family" in the Highbinders' Quarter, "Chinatown" . . . 361 
 
 From a photograph by Taker 
 
 God in Joss Temple, "Chinatown," San Francisco . . . . * ; . 362 
 
 Drawn by Harry Fenn from a photograph by Taker 
 
 Chinese Accountants ............ 363 
 
 Drawn by E. B. Child from a photograph by Taker 
 
 Alley in "Chinatown" ........... 365 
 
 Drawn by F. H. Lungren from photographs by Taker 
 
 Dining Room of a Chinese Restaurant in Washington Street, San Francisco . . . 366 
 
 Drawn by Harry Fenn from photographs by Taker 
 
 A "Sand Lot" Meeting in San Francisco . . . . . .'''.- . 368 
 
 Composition of B. West Clinedinst with the assistance of photographs by Taker 
 
 Denis Kearney Addressing the Workingmen on the Night of October 29, on Nob Hill, San 
 Francisco ............ _..'. . 372 
 
 Drawn by G. W. Peters from photographs, and diagrams and descriptions by eye-witnesses 
 
 Denis Kearney Being Drawn Through the Streets of San Francisco After his Release from 
 the House of Correction . . . . . . . . . . 375 
 
 Painted by Howard Pyle from photographs by Taker and a description by Kearney himself 
 
 The Old Chronicle Building in San Francisco ........ 377 
 
 Drawn by Otto H. Backer from a photograph by Taker 
 
 Procession Wong Fong in San Francisco . . . . . . . ; . . 379 
 
 Drawn by T. de Thulstrup from a photograph by Taker 
 
 The Nelson House in 1 88 1 -383 
 
 The West House at Yorktown 384 
 
 The Yorktown Memorial Monument . . . . . . . . -385 
 
 Lawrenceburg, Indiana, During the Floods of 1884 . . . . . . . 387 
 
 From a copyrighted photograph by Rombach & Groene 
 
 Second Street, Cincinnati, Looking East . . . . . . . . .388 
 
 Gas Tanks in Second Street, Cincinnati . . . . . . . . .388 
 
 Cincinnati Riots of 1884 Barricade in South Sycamore Street ..... 389 
 From a photograph by Rombach & Groene 
 
PORTRAITS 
 
 William M. Tweed 12 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 
 Hiram R. Revels, of Mississippi . . . . . . . .20 
 
 Joseph F. Rainey, of South Carolina ......... 20 
 
 George E. Harris, of Mississippi .......... 21 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 
 John F. Lewis, of Virginia . . . . . . . . . . .21 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 
 James Fisk, Jr. ............. 28 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph by Rockwood 
 
 Jay Gould . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 
 
 President Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 
 
 From a photograph by Hoyt in i8bq 
 
 Fred. Douglass ............. 30 
 
 Buenaventura Baez, President of Santo Domingo . ....... 30 
 
 From a photograph in the collection of James E. Taylor 
 
 President Grant's First Cabinet Borie, Creswell, Hoar, Washburne, Cox, Schofield and 
 Boutwell . . . . . . . . . . . . . -35 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from photographs 
 
 Alexander T. Stewart ............ 36 
 
 After the portrait by Thomas Le Clear 
 
 Stanley Matthews . . . ... . . . . . . . -37 
 
 Oliver P. Morton . . . . . . . . . . . -45 
 
 Clement L. Vallandigham . . . . . . . . . . -53 
 
 From a photograph in the collection of James E. Taylor 
 
 Horace Greeley . . .. . . . . . . . . -59 
 
 From a photograph by Sarony 
 
 William Henry Fry . -. , . . . ... . .60 
 
 After a daguerreotype in the possession of Horace B. Fry 
 
 Count Adam Gurowski ........... 60 
 
 After a daguerreotype in the possession of Charles A. Dana 
 
 George Ripley . . . . . . . . ... . .60 
 
 After a daguerreotype in the possession of Charles A. Dana 
 
 Margaret Fuller . . . . ...... . . . .60 
 
 After a daguerreotype in the possession of H. If. Fay 
 
 Bayard Taylor .' . ... . . '., 60 
 
 From a photograph by Sarony 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Thomas Hicks 
 
 Charles A. Dana . > 61 
 
 George William Curtis 
 
 From a daguerreotype "by Brady, l8j2, in the possession of Charles A. Dana 
 
 Zebulon B. Vance .......... -69 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 
 Lyman Trumbull . . . . . . ...... .~ . . . -7 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 Henry Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 
 B. Gratz Brown . . . , -. . . ... 72 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 
 Charles O'Conor . . j . - . . .... . . . . . 76 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 
 John Quincy Adams, in 1870 . . . .. .... . . 77 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 
 Henry Clay Warmoth .... . . " . . . . . ' .. -79 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 
 P. B. S. Pinchback . . . . . . . . ...,-. 79 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 
 Charles Sumner 
 
 90 
 
 The English Representatives at Geneva Tenterden, Bernard, Cockburn and Palmer . . 96 
 
 Drawn by Orson Lowell from photographs 
 
 The American Representatives at Geneva Gushing, Evarts, Adams, Davis and Waite . 97 
 
 Drawn by Orson Lowell from photographs 
 U. S. Grant . ... . -99 
 
 From a very rare photograph by Walker, June 2, 1875 
 
 George Bancroft . . .... . . . . . . . . 101 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph in the historical collection of H, IV. Fay 
 
 Emperor William I. of Germany . . ... . . ... . 105 
 
 Oakes Ames . ... . . . -.' . .' . . 107 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 
 Daniel H. Chamberlain . . ... . . " . . . . . -113 
 
 W. Beverley Nash . . . . . . " . i 2I 
 
 Charles Hayes, of Alabama . . . . . '. . . ' -. . 128 
 
 Elisha Baxter . . . . . . . . . . .- ' . 135 
 
 Drawn by J, Brittain from a photograph 
 
 Joseph Brooks . .. - : . '"'. ." -. . . . . . . ... 135 
 
 Drawn by J. Brittain from a photograph 
 
 Chief Justice John McClure . . . . . ' ; . . . 135 
 
 Drawn by J. Brittain from a photograph 
 
 Augustus H. Garland . ' . . ... . . . . -. 139 
 
 Adelbert Ames . . . . . . . " . + . . . . 142 
 
 Richard O'Leary, Mayor of Vicksburg in 1874 . . . . . . . . 144 
 
 William Pitt Kellogg . __- . . . 7: . , . . .- .. .. . 15 6 
 
 Drawn by Alfred Brennan from a photograph 
 
PLANS, MAPS, FACSIMILES, ETC. 
 
 TITLE PAGE 
 
 Railroads of the United States in 1870 . ... . . . . 4 
 
 Railroads of the United States in 1894 . . . . . . . -5 
 
 Chicago in 1869, Showing the Burned District .' . ' , . . . ... 8 
 
 Chicago in 1894 . . . ". . . . 9 
 
 Autograph Telegram from General Sheridan to the Secretary of War, Announcing the Great 
 Fire at Chicago . . . .... . . . - .10 
 
 In the collection of C. F. Gunther 
 
 Nast Caricature : "The Brains that Achieved the Tammany Victory at the Rochester 
 Convention" . . . . . . . ... . . 13 
 
 Nast Caricature : " Who Stole the People's Money ?" . . . . . 15 
 
 Fragment from the Original Engrossed Text of the Fourteenth Amendment at the State De 
 partment, Washington .... . . . . . . . 2 4 
 
 A Ku-Klux Warning in Mississippi, put in Evidence Before the Congressional Committee . 27 
 A Newspaper Cutting put in Evidence Before the Congressional Committee . . 27 
 
 Signatures to the Treaty of Washington ......... 3* 
 
 From the original at the State Department, Washington 
 
 Grant and Wilson Campaign Medal . . ^ . . . . . . . -74 
 
 Greeley Campaign Medals and Badge . .... . . . . -75 
 
 Map of the Northwest Water Boundary ......... 102 
 
 Summary of the Amounts Paid to One Firm for Furniture by the South Carolina Legislature 
 of 1 872-74 . . . . . . . . . . . . H5 
 
 From the Report of the Investigating Committee 
 
 "Gratuity" Voted to Governor Moses by the South Carolina Legislature of 1871 . .116 
 
 From the original at the State House, Columbia 
 
 A Bill for Furnishing the State House at Columbia, South Carolina, in 1872 . . . 119 
 
 From the original at the State House, Columbia 
 
 Map of the Region Occupied by the Modocs, Showing the "Lava Beds" . . . 174 
 
 Ku-Klux Notice Posted up in Mississippi During the Election of 1876 .... 214 
 One of the Cipher Dispatches Sent During the Election Deadlock with Translation . .217 
 
 From the original put in evidence before the Congressional Committee 
 
 Two Chamberlain-Hampton Letters After the State Election of 1876 in South Carolina . 229 
 
 From the originals at the State House* Columbia 
 
 A " Mollie Maguire " Notice ... . . . . . . . 293 
 
 A Notice put in Evidence During the "Mollie Maguire" Prosecutions .... 294 
 
 A " Mollie Maguire " Notice. . . . . . . . . . . 295 
 
 Front Page of the Issue of Truth Containing the Morey Letter . . . . . 315 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE UNITED STATES AT THE CLOSE 
 OF RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 LAND AND PEOPLE IN 1870. TERRITORIES. RAILROADS IN THE 
 
 WEST. FENIAN MOVEMENTS. BOSTON'S PEACL JUBILEES. THE 
 
 GREAT CITIES. THE CHICAGO FIRE. THE BOSTON FIRE. THE 
 
 TWEED RING. TWEED'S ESCAPE AND CAPTURE. FINANCIAL CON 
 DITION OF THE NATION. SHIPS. ARMY AND NAVY. RECON 
 STRUCTION, THE PROBLEM. THE PRESIDENTIAL AND THE CON 
 GRESSIONAL PLAN. IRON LAW OF MARCH 2, 1867. THE PROCESS 
 
 OF RECONSTRUCTION. SITUATION IN 1870 DEBATE ON THE 
 
 COERCION OF STATES. OUTCOME. THE TEST OATH. ALL STATES 
 
 AT LAST AGAIN REPRESENTED IN BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS. 
 
 IN 1870 the United States covered the same tract of 
 the globe's surface as now, amounting to four million 
 square miles. Hardly more than a fifth of this represented 
 the United States of 1789. About a third of the vast do 
 main was settled, the western frontier running irregularly 
 parallel with the Mississippi, but nearer to that stream than 
 to the Rocky Mountains. The centre of population was 
 forty-eight miles east by north of Cincinnati, having moved 
 westward forty-two miles since 1860. Except certain well- 
 peopled sections on the Pacific slope, and small civilized strips 
 in Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, the Great West had 
 but a tenuous white population. Over immense regions it 
 was still an Indian fastness, rejoicing in a reputation, which 
 few could verify, for rare scenery, fertile valleys, rich mines, 
 and a delightful climate. 
 
 The American people numbered 38,558,371 souls. Not 
 quite one in seven had colored blood, while a little more than 
 that proportion were of foreign birth, most of these Irish 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 and German. In the settled partG of our country the popu 
 lation hacLa density of 30.3 persons to the square mile, south 
 ern New England b&hg'fclie'most closely peopled. Much of 
 western /Pennsylvania was in "the condition of the newest States, 
 railroads building as' never * before, population increasing at 
 a remarkable rate, and industries developing on every hand. 
 Petroleum, which before the Civil War had been skimmed off 
 the streams of the oil region and sold for medicine, in 1870 
 developed a yield of over five and a half million gallons in 
 Pennsylvania alone, more than eleven times as much as a 
 decade previous. The West was rapidly recruiting itself from 
 the East, the city from the country. Between 1790 and 1860 
 our urban population had increased from one in thirty to one 
 in six; in 1870 more than one in five dwelt in cities. 
 
 There were now thirty-seven States, nine organized terri 
 tories, and two unorganized ones, these being Alaska and the 
 Indian Territory. Noteworthy among the territories was 
 Washington, whose population had doubled in the preceding 
 decade and was now 24,000. Colorado had about 40,000. 
 Utah boasted 86,000, one-third of whom were foreigners. 
 New Mexico numbered in 1870, 91,874, in 1871, 114,000, less 
 than one to each square mile. Arizona was still much harried 
 by Indians, and contained hardly 10,000 civilized men. This 
 year female suffrage, hitherto unknown in America, if not in 
 the world, gained a foothold in Wyoming and in Utah. 
 
 During the ten years preceding 1 870 the railroad mileage 
 of the country nearly doubled. The Union and Central Pa 
 cific Roads, forming the only transcontinental line then in 
 existence, had been completed on May 10, 1869. Into Denver 
 already came, besides the Union Pacific, three other railroads, 
 all short, while Washington Territory contained the germ of 
 the Northern Pacific, whose eastern extremity had just been 
 begun at Duluth. Dakota had sixty-five miles of railway, 
 Wyoming four hundred and fifty-nine. With the above ex 
 ceptions the territories were wholly v/ithout railroads. 
 
DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE OF THE UNION PACIFIC. SCENE AT PROMONTORY POINT, 
 
 UTAH, MAT /o, i8bq 
 
 Drawn by B. West Clinedinst from photographs in the possession of General G. M. Dodge 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 V / r v- 
 
 > "^r I . M c*.r i /.r *** 
 
 RAILROADS 
 
 pfthe 
 
 UNITED STATES, 
 
 1870 
 
 The close of the long Civil War had gladdened all true 
 American hearts. Only the Fenians sought further bloodshed, 
 and even they pursued their aim rather feebly. Their attempt, 
 in April, 1866, to capture the British island of Campobello, 
 near Eastport, Me., collapsed on the approach of Gen. 
 Meade with United States troops. On June i a detachment 
 of Fenians succeeded in capturing Fort Erie, across from 
 Buffalo, and on the yth another company occupied St. Ar- 
 mand, just over the Vermont border ; but both parties were 
 speedily dislodged and routed. The heart of the nation 
 delighted in peace. In 1 869, carrying out a conception of Mr. 
 P. S. Gilmore, Boston held a great Peace Jubilee to celebrate 
 the end of the late fraternal strife. An immense coliseum was 
 erected for the performances, which began on June 15 and 
 lasted till June 20. A choir of 10,000 singers, an orches 
 tra of over 1,000 pieces, a battery of artillery, and an anvil 
 chorus of 100 men beating anvils made up the unique musical 
 ensemble. So great was the success, financially and other- 
 
THE GREAT CITIES 
 
 KAILROADS 
 
 o/the 
 
 UNITED STATES, 
 1894. 
 
 wise, of this scheme, that in 1872 Mr. Gilmore under 
 took an international Peace Jubilee. This, too, was held in 
 Boston, opening June 17 and lasting till July 4. Twenty 
 thousand voices and an orchestra 2,000 strong joined in it, 
 parts being taken also by choice military bands from France, 
 Germany and England, and from the United States Marine 
 Corps. Vast crowds were attracted, but the receipts this time 
 fell far short of the expenditures. 
 
 In 1870, New York, with 942,292 inhabitants, Phila 
 delphia, with 674,022, Brooklyn, with 396,099, St. Louis, 
 with 310,864, and Chicago, with 298,977, were, as in 1890, 
 our five largest cities, and they had the same relative size as in 
 1890, save that Chicago meantime passed from the fifth to 
 the second place. This in the face of adversity. In October, 
 1871, the city was devastated by one of the most terrible 
 conflagrations of modern times. It began on Sunday evening, 
 the 8th, in a wooden barn on DeKoven Street, in the West 
 Division. Lumber yards were numerous there, and through 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 The Court House at Chicago before the Fi 
 
 these the flames raged, 
 leaping across the stream 
 before a strong westerly 
 wind into the Southern 
 Division, which was 
 closely built up with 
 stores and warehouses. 
 The fire continued all 
 Monday. It crossed the 
 main channel of the 
 Chicago River into 
 the Northern Division, 
 sweeping all before it. 
 
 " Niagara sank into 
 insignificance compared 
 
 with that towering wall of whirling, seething, roaring flame. It 
 swept on and on, devouring the massive stone blocks as though 
 they had been the cardboard playthings of a child. Looking 
 under the flame one could see, in the very centre of the furnace, 
 stately buildings on either side of Randolph Street whose 
 beauty and magnificence 
 and whose wealth of con 
 tents were admired by 
 thousands the day be 
 fore. A moment and the 
 flickering flame crept 
 out of a window; another 
 and another hissing 
 tongue followed; a sheet 
 of fire joined the whirl 
 ing mass above, and the 
 giant structure was gone. 
 One pile after another 
 thus dissolved like snow 
 on the mountain. Loud rbt chicago Court House after the Fi 
 
THE CHICAGO FIRE 
 
 T'be Chicago Court House in i8Qj 
 
 detonations to the right and left, where buildings were being 
 blown up, the falling of walls and the roaring of flames, 
 the moaning of the wind and of the crowd, and the shrill 
 whistling of tugs endeavoring to remove the shipping out of 
 the reach of danger, made up a frightful discord of sounds that 
 will live in every hearer's memory while his life shall last." 
 
 The glare could be seen for hundreds of miles over the 
 prairie and the lake. The river seemed to boil and mingle its 
 steam with the smoke. Early Monday morning the Tribune 
 building, the only structure left in the business quarter, re 
 mained intact. Two patrols were constantly at work; one 
 sweeping away live coals and brands, the other watching the 
 roofs. Till four o'clock the reporters passed in regular reports 
 of the fire. At five the forms were sent down. In ten min 
 utes the cylinder presses would have been at work. At that 
 moment the front basement is discovered on fire. The water- 
 plug at the corner is opened, but the water-works have been 
 destroyed. The pressmen have to fly for their lives. By ten 
 o'clock the block is in ashes. 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Streets, bridges, parks are gorged with panic-stricken 
 throngs. Not a few are crazed by terror. One old woman 
 stumbles along under a great bundle, crooning Mother Goose 
 melodies. Anarchy reigns. The horrors of the night are mul 
 tiplied by drunkenness, arson, burglary, murder, rape. Vigil 
 ance committees are formed. It was estimated that fifty ruf 
 fians first and last were shot in their tracks, among them five 
 notorious criminals. Convicts locked in the court-house base 
 ment would have been burnt alive but for the Mayor's timely 
 order, which his son, with the utmost difficulty and danger, de 
 livered after the building had began to burn. 
 
 The morning after the fire the indomitable Chicago pluck 
 began to show itself. William D. Kerfoot knocked together 
 a shanty, facetiously called " Kerfoot's block/' an unrivalled 
 structure, for it was the only one in the neighborhood. To it 
 he nailed a sign which well typified the spirit of the city. " Wm. 
 D. Kerfoot, all gone but wife, children, and ENERGY." The 
 next Sunday the Rev. Dr. Collyer preached where his church 
 had formerly stood, in the midst of the city, yet in the heart 
 of a wilderness, more than a mile from human habitation. 
 
 Not till Tuesday morning was the headway of the fire 
 checked, and- parts of the charred debris smouldered on for 
 
THE BOSTON FIRE 
 
 months. Nearly three and a third square miles were burned 
 over; 17,450 buildings were destroyed; 98,500 persons ren 
 dered homeless; and over 250 killed. The total direct loss 
 of property amounted to $190,000,000, which indirect losses, 
 as estimated, swelled to $290,000,000. Fifty-six insurance 
 companies were rendered insolvent by the fire. A Relief and 
 Aid Society was at once formed, which within a month had 
 subscriptions from all over the country amounting to three and 
 a half million dollars, was aiding 60,000 people, and had 
 assisted in building 4,000 temporary shelters. Later the Illi 
 nois legislature voted aid. 
 
 Next after that of Chicago the most destructive conflagra 
 tion ever known in the United States visited Boston in 1872. 
 It originated during Saturday evening, November 9, on the 
 corner of Kingston and Summer Streets, spread with terrible 
 rapidity east and north, and raged with little abatement till 
 nearly noon next day. During Sunday afternoon the flames 
 seemed well under control, but an explosion of gas about mid 
 night set them raging afresh, and much of Monday had passed 
 before they were subdued. Ordinary appliances for fighting 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY. 
 
 3TAGEB. neVal3uperintend<mt. Chicago, m. WILLIAM OBTON, President. 
 
 *lAf 
 
 Facsimile of the Autograph Telegram from General Sheridan to the Secretary of War, announcing the Great Fire 
 at Chicago; in the collection of C. F. Gunther 
 
 fire were of no avail, the demon being at many points brought 
 to bay only by the free use of dynamite to blow up buildings 
 in his path. Sixty-five acres were laid waste. Washington 
 Street from Bedford to Milk formed the western limit of the 
 tract, which, at Milk, receded to Devonshire, lying east of this 
 from Milk to State, which formed its northern term. Noth 
 ing but the waters of the harbor stayed the eastern march of 
 the fire. The district burned had been the home of Boston's 
 wholesale trade, containing the finest business blocks which 
 the city could boast. Fourteen or fifteen lives were lost, and 
 not far from eight hundred buildings consumed. The prop 
 erty loss was placed at $ 8 0,000,000. 
 
THE TWEED RING 
 
 Meantime New York City was suffering from an evil 
 worse than fire, the frauds of the " Tweed Ring," notorious 
 forevermore. In the summer of 1870 proof was published of 
 vast frauds by leading city officials, prominent among them 
 " Boss " William M. Tweed, who, in the language of Judge 
 Noah Davis, " saw fit to pervert the powers with which he 
 was clothed, in a manner more infamous, more outrageous, 
 than any instance of a like character which the history of the 
 civilized world afforded." 
 
 William Marcy Tweed was born in 1823, at 24 Cherry 
 Street, New York City. A youth devoted to business made 
 him a fair penman and an adept reckoner, but not a business 
 man. He, indeed, once attempted business, but, as he gave 
 his chief attention to speculation, gambling and ward politics, 
 completely failed, so that he seems forever to have renounced 
 legitimate money-making. As a volunteer fireman, known as 
 <c Big Six," a gross, licentious Falstaff of real life, albeit loyal 
 and helpful to his friends, Tweed led the " Roughs," being op 
 posed by his more decent fellows, the " Quills." The tide of 
 " respectability," receding uptown, left Tweed's ward in the 
 hands of poor immigrants or the sons of such, who became 
 partly his willing accomplices, partly his unwitting tools, in his 
 onslaughts upon taxpayers. He began these forays at twenty- 
 seven, as Alderman, suspended them for a time in Congress, 
 resumed them in 1857 as Public School Commissioner, con 
 tinued and enlarged them as member and four times President 
 of the Board of Supervisors, and brought them to a climax as 
 a functionary of the Street Department. He thus became, in 
 time, the central sun in the system of brilliant luminaries 
 known as the cc Tweed Ring." 
 
 The multitudinous officials of the city were the Ring's 
 slaves. At one time eight hundred policemen stood guard to 
 prevent a hostile majority, in Tammany Hall itself, from meet 
 ing. The thugs of the city, nick-named " Tweed's lambs," 
 rendered invaluable services at caucus and convention. Two 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 days before election these venal cohorts would assemble in the 
 340 election districts, each man of them being listed and reg 
 istered under several assumed names and addresses. From 
 Tweed's house in 1868 six registered, from Justice Shandley's 
 nine, from the Coroner's thirteen. A State Senator's house 
 was put down as the home of thirty voters. One Alderman's 
 residence nominally housed twenty, another's twenty-five, an 
 Assemblyman's fifteen. And so it went. Bales of fictitious 
 naturalization papers were secured. One year 105,000 blank 
 applications and 69,000 certificates were ordered printed. In 
 one case thirteen men, in another fifteen, were naturalized in 
 five minutes. The new citizens " put in " election day fol 
 lowing their leaders from polling place to polling place as 
 needed. 
 
 When thieves could be kept in power by such means 
 plunder was easy and brazen. Contractors on public works 
 were systematically forced to pay handsome bonuses to the 
 Ring. One of them testified : " When I commenced building 
 I asked Tweed how to make out the bills, and he said : c Have 
 fifteen per cent, over.' I asked what that was for, and he 
 said, ' Give that to me and I will take care of your bills.' I 
 handed him the percentage after that." Innumerable methods 
 of fraud were successfully tried. During the year 1863 the 
 expenditures of the Street Department were $650,000. Within 
 four years Tweed quadrupled them. A 
 species of asphalt paving, dubbed "Fisk's 
 poultice," so bad that a grand jury ac 
 tually declared it a public nuisance, was 
 laid in great quantities at vast cost to 
 the city. Official advertising was doled 
 to twenty-six daily and fifty-four weekly 
 sheets, of which twenty-seven vanished 
 on its withdrawal. But all the other 
 robber enterprises paled before the city 
 Court House job. This structure, com- 
 
THE TWEED RING 
 
 [Reproduced from Harper's Weekly (October 21 ^ 1871) 
 by permission of Messrs. Harper & Brothers. Copy 
 right, 1871, by Harper & Brothers] 
 
 THE BRAINS 
 
 that achieved the Tammany Victory at the Rochester 
 Democratic Convention 
 
 menced in 1 868, under stipu 
 lation that it should not cost 
 more than $250,000, was in 
 1871 still unfinished after an 
 outlay of $8,000,000, four 
 times as much as was spent 
 on Parliament House in 
 London. Its ostensible cost, 
 at last, was not less than 
 $12,000,000. As by witch 
 craft the city's debt was in 
 two years more than doubled. 
 The Ring's operations cheat 
 ed the city's tax-payers, first 
 and last, out of no less than 
 
 $ 1 60,000,000, " or four times the fine levied on Paris by 
 the German army." Though wallowing in lucre, and prodigal 
 withal, Tweed was yet insatiably greedy. " His hands were 
 everywhere, and everywhere they were they were feeling for 
 money." In 1871 he boasted of being worth $20,000,000, 
 and vowed soon to be as rich as Vanderbilt. 
 
 With his coarse nature the Boss revelled in jibes made at 
 the expense of his honor. He used gleefully to show his friends 
 the safe where he kept money for bribing legislators, finding 
 those of the " Tammany Republican " stripe easiest game. Of 
 the contractor who was decorating his country place at Green 
 wich he inquired, pointing to a statue, " Who the hell is that ? " 
 " That is Mercury, the god of merchants and thieves," was 
 the reply. " That's bully ! " said Tweed. " Put him over 
 the front door." His donation of $100 for an altar cloth in 
 the Greenwich Methodist Church the trustees sent back, de 
 claring that they wanted none of his stolen money. Other 
 charitable gifts of his were better received. 
 
 The city papers, even those least corruptible, were for 
 long either neutral or else favorable to the Ring, but its doings 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 were by no means unknown. They were matters of general 
 surmise and criticism, criticism that seemed hopeless, so hard 
 was it to obtain exact evidence. 
 
 But pride goeth before a fall. Amid its greatest triumph 
 the Ring sowed the wind whence rose the whirlwind which 
 wrought its ruin. At a secret meeting held in .the house of 
 John Morrissey, pugilist member of Congress, certain of the 
 unsatisfied, soon known as the " Young Democracy," planned 
 a revolt. Endeavoring to prevent the grant by the New 
 York legislature of a new charter which the Ring sought, the 
 insurgents met apparent defeat, which, however, ultimately 
 proved victory, Tweed building for himself far worse than he 
 knew. The new charter, abstractly good, in concentrating 
 power concentrated responsibility also, showing the outraged 
 people, when awakened, where to strike for liberty. In spite 
 of whitewashing by prominent citizens, of blandishments and 
 bulldozing, of attempts to buy the stock of the 'Times and to 
 boycott Harper s Weekly^ where Nast's cartoons his first 
 work of the kind gave the Ring international notoriety, the 
 reform spirit proved irresistible. The bar had been servile or 
 quiet, but the New York Bar Association was now formed, 
 which at once became what it has ever since been, a most 
 influential censor of the bench. The Young Democracy 
 grew powerful. Public-spirited citizens organized a Council 
 of Political Reform. 
 
 The occasion of conclusive exposure was trivial enough. 
 Sheriff O'Brien was refused part of what he thought his share 
 of the sheriff fees. An expert accountant in the Comptroller's 
 office supplied him with damning evidence against the Ring. 
 On July 1 8, 1871, Mr. O'Brien walked into the 'Times office 
 and, handing the editor a bundle of documents, said : " There 
 are all the figures : you can do with them just what you please." 
 The figures were published on the 2Oth in an exhibit printed 
 in English and German, causing excitement compared with 
 which that .arising from the Orange Riot of July 1 2th seemed 
 
 14 
 
THE TWEED RING 
 
 STOlE THC rtOfl.rS MOW ? - DO TfLL .UPTIMES, 
 
 'TWAS MM- 
 
 \Rcproducedfrom Harper's Weekly (August 79, /S//) 6y permission of Messrs. Harper & Brother:. 
 Copyright, 1871, by Harper & Brothers] 
 
 trifling. The sensation did not end with talk. On September 
 4th a mass-meeting of citizens was held at Cooper Institute 
 and a committee of seventy prominent men chosen to probe 
 the frauds and to punish the perpetrators. For the work of 
 prosecution the Attorney-General appointed Charles O'Conor, 
 who associated with himself the ablest counsel. Samuel 
 J. Tilden was conspicuously active in the prosecution, thus 
 laying the foundation for that popularity which made him the 
 Governor of New York, 1 875-^77, and in 1876 the Demo 
 cratic candidate for the presidency of the United States. 
 
 On October 28, 1871, Tweed was arrested and gave a 
 million dollars bail. In November, the same year, he was 
 elected to the State Senate, but did not take his seat. On 
 December i6th he was again arrested, and released on $5,000 
 bail. The jury disagreed on the first suit, but on the second 
 
 15 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 he was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of 112,550 and 
 to suffer twelve years imprisonment. This sentence was set 
 aside by the Court of Appeals and Tweed's discharge 
 ordered. In the meantime other suits had been brought, 
 among them one to recover $6,000,000. Failing to find bail 
 for $3,000,000, he was sent to the Ludlow Street Jail. Being 
 allowed to ride in the Park and occasionally to visit his resi 
 dence, one day in December he escaped from his keepers. 
 After hiding for several months he succeeded in reaching 
 Cuba. A fisherman found him, sunburnt and weary but not 
 homesick, and led him to Santiago. Instead of taking him 
 to a hotel, Tweed's guide handed him over to the police as 
 probably some American filibuster come to free Cuba. The 
 American consul procured his release (his passports had been 
 given him under an assumed name), but later found him out. 
 The discovery was too late, for he had again escaped and 
 embarked for Spain, thinking there to be at rest, as we then had 
 no extradition treaty with that country, Landing at Vigo, he 
 found the governor of the place with police waiting for him, 
 and was soon homeward bound on an American war- vessel. 
 Caleb Cushing, our Minister at Madrid, had learned of his 
 departure for that realm, and had put the authorities on their 
 guard. To help them identify their man he furnished them 
 a caricature by Nast, representing Tweed as a Tammany 
 policeman gripping two boys by the hair. Thus it came about 
 that " Twid antelme " was apprehended by our peninsular 
 friends as a child-stealer. Though everything possible was 
 done to render him comfortable in jail, Tweed sighed for 
 liberty. He promised, if released, to turn State's evidence 
 and to give up all his property and effects. Some papers sug 
 gested that the public pitied the man and would be glad to 
 have him set free. No compromise with him was made, how 
 ever, and he continued in jail till his death in 1878. 
 
 In 1870 the national debt amounted to a little less than 
 $2,500,000,000, nearly three times the sum of all the country's 
 
 16 
 
SHIPS 
 
 State, county and municipal indebtedness combined. Yet the 
 revenues sufficed to meet the interest and gradually to pay off 
 the principal. Reduction in the rate of taxation was recom 
 mended in the President's Message, as also a refunding of the 
 debt, but this latter was postponed for the time by the out 
 break of the Franco-Prussian war. Our imports for the 
 year ending June, 1870, were worth $462,377,587, which ex 
 ceeded the figure for any previous fiscal year. The duties 
 on these imports footed up nearly $195,000,000. The imports 
 for the year fell short of the exports by over $36,000,000. 
 
 Painful to notice was the small proportion of our com 
 merce which was carried on in American vessels. Between 
 1850 and 1855 we had outstripped England both in shipbuild 
 ing and in tonnage. Seventy-five per cent, of our ocean traffic 
 was then borne in American vessels; in 1869 the proportion 
 had fallen to thirty per cent. The decay of our merchant 
 marine was originally due to the fatal enterprise of Con 
 federate privateers during the war, and to the change now 
 going on from wood to iron as the material for ships. This 
 transferred to British builders the special advantage which 
 Americans had so long as wood was used. Why the advan 
 tage continued with the British was a much-disputed question, 
 not yet separating the two political parties. Protectionists found 
 it in British labor and British subsidies to steamship lines, 
 and wished to offset it by bounties and by still higher subsi 
 dies to American shipping enterprise. Anti-protectionists 
 traced all the difficulty to protection, particularly denouncing 
 the duties on materials imported for ship-building. They 
 urged free United States registry for foreign-built ships, or 
 at least the privilege of importing free of duty all stock to be 
 used in the construction of ships. 
 
 The United States navy was neglected after the war and 
 soon became antiquated, being occupied mainly with the most 
 peaceful enterprises, such as hydrographic and coast surveys. 
 Indeed, it was fitted only for such. The destruction of the 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 pirate Forward on the coast of Mexico and the bombard 
 ment of certain Corean forts were its only warlike deeds dur 
 ing 1870. The army, this year, numbered 34,000 enlisted 
 men, soon to be reduced to the legal number of 30,000. It 
 was busied in making surveys, in protecting settlers against 
 Indians, and one-sixth of it in assisting Government officials 
 to keep order in the South. Some of the army officers and 
 men were also busy in taking and publishing over the country 
 scientific observations of the weather, an extremely useful form 
 of public service then in its infancy. The United States 
 Weather Bureau dates from 1870, its origin and organization 
 mainly due to the then Chief Signal Officer of the Army, 
 General Albert J. Myer. 
 
 When the resuscitation of the South began, it raised a 
 most interesting constitutional question, viz., what effect seces 
 sion had upon the States guilty of it ; whether or not it was 
 an act of State suicide. That it amounted to suicide, leaving, 
 of the State that was, " nothing but men and dirt/' was held 
 by many, among them Sumner and Stevens. Both these men 
 conceived the problem of the disordered States as that of an 
 out-and-out " reconstruction ;" and they ascribed to Congress 
 the right to work its will in the conquered region, changing 
 old State lines and institutions as it might please, and postpon 
 ing settlement for any convenient length of time. Against 
 this theory a strong party maintained that of State indestructi 
 bility, asserting the total nullity of secession acts. 
 
 The universal supposition at first was that the Southern 
 States needed only "restoration," to be conducted by the 
 President. " Restoration " was the policy of Presidents Lin 
 coln and Johnson; as also of the entire Democracy. Follow 
 ing the idea of simple restoration, Lincoln had recognized 
 loyal State governments in Virginia at the beginning of the 
 war, and in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee later. Dur 
 ing 1865 Johnson did the same in all the other States lately 
 in secession. 
 
 18 
 
THE IRON LAW OF MARCH 2, 1867 
 
 Strong considerations had led Congress, at this point, 
 to assume charge of the restitution of the States, and, brav 
 ing President Johnson's uttermost opposition and spite,, 
 to rip up the entire presidential work. " The same autho 
 rity which recognized the existence of the war" seemed 
 "the only authority having the constitutional right to 
 determine when, for all purposes, the war had ceased. The 
 Act of March 2, 1867, was a legislative declaration that the 
 war which sprang from the Rebellion was not, to all intents 
 and purposes, ended ; and that it should be held to con 
 tinue until State governments, republican in form, and subordi 
 nate to the Constitution and laws, should be established."* 
 
 On March 2, 1866, it was enacted that neither House 
 should admit a member from any seceder-State till a congres 
 sional vote had declared the State entitled to representation. 
 The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, making negroes 
 citizens of the United States and forbidding legislation to 
 abridge their privileges, was made prerequisite to such vote. 
 Tennessee accepted the terms in July, but, as action was 
 optional, all the other States declined, thus defeating for the 
 time this amendment. Congress now determined not to wait 
 for the lagging States, but to enforce their reconstruction. 
 The iron law of March 2, 1867, replaced " secessia " under 
 military rule, permitted the loyal citizens of any State, blacks 
 included, to raise a convention and frame a constitution en 
 franchising negroes, and decreed that when such constitu 
 tion had been ratified by the electors to the convention 
 and approved by Congress, and when the legislature under 
 it had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and this had be 
 come part of the Constitution, then the State might be 
 represented in Congress. The supplementary law of March 
 1 9th hastened the process by giving district commanders the 
 oversight of registration and the initiative in calling conven 
 tions. 
 
 * Opinion of Attorney-General E. R. Hoar, May 31, 1869. 
 '9 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 HIRAM R. REBELS 
 
 of Mississippi 
 
 The first colored member o/ 
 the U. 5. Senate. Admit 
 ted February sjth, 1870 
 
 JOSEPH F. RAINET 
 
 of South Carolina 
 The first colored member of 
 the U. S. House of Rep 
 resentatives. Admitted 
 December 12, l8jl 
 
 THE FIRST COLORED MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 
 
 After this the work went 
 rapidly on. Registration 
 boards were appointed, the 
 test-oath* applied, dele 
 gates elected, and constitu 
 tions framed and adopted. 
 These instruments in all 
 cases abolished slavery, re 
 pudiated the Confederate 
 debt and the pretended 
 right of a State to secede, 
 declared the secession acts 
 of 1 86 1 null and void, or 
 dained manhood suffrage, and prohibited the passage of laws 
 to abridge this. 
 
 Congress then acted. Alabama, Arkansas, North and 
 South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana, were admitted 
 to representation in June, 1868, agreeing never to revoke uni 
 versal suffrage. As Georgia was suspected of evading some 
 of the requirements, the senators from the State were refused 
 seats at Washington, and did not obtain them till the last of 
 January, 1871. Georgia's representatives were given seats, but 
 
 TEST OATH. Act of July 2, 1862. Be it enacted, etc. That hereafter every 
 person elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit under the Government of the 
 United States, either in the civil, military, or naval departments of the public service, except 
 ing the President of the United . States, shall, before entering upon the duties of such office, and 
 before being entitled to any of the salary, or other emoluments thereof, take and subscribe the 
 following oath or affirmation : "I, A. B., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never 
 voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have 
 voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel or encouragement to persons engaged in armed 
 hostility thereto ; that I have neither sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the functions 
 of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States, 
 that I have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power or 
 constitution within the United States hostile or inimical thereto. And I do further swear (or 
 affirm) that, to the best of my knowledge and ability, I will support and defend the Constitu 
 tion of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic ; that I will bear true faith 
 and allegiance to the same ; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation, 
 or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on 
 which I am about to enter, so help me God." 
 
ALL STATES AGAIN REPRESENTED 
 
 subsequently, in 1869, these were vacated, and they remained 
 empty till 1871. To regain representation in Congress this 
 State, too, was obliged to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment. 
 
 Thus stood matters in 1 870 : all but four of the late Con 
 federate States nominally back in the Union, these still con 
 tumacious, but confronted by an inflexible Congress, which 
 
 barred them from every national 
 function of statehood till they had 
 conformed to all the conditions 
 above described. 
 
 Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas 
 held out the longest. The Act of 
 April 10, 1869, was passed to hasten 
 their action, authorizing the Presi 
 dent to call elections for ratifying 
 or rejecting the new constitutions in 
 those States. To punish the States' 
 delay, their new legislatures were 
 required to ratify the proposed Fif 
 teenth Amendment, guarantee 
 ing the negro's right to vote, as 
 well as the Fourteenth. When it 
 passed the House the bill lacked 
 such a provision, which was moved 
 by Senator Morton, of Indiana, 
 an ultra Republican. Morton 
 urged the adoption of the amend 
 ments as of vast importance to 
 the country. If the three recal 
 citrant States were commanded 
 to ratify and did so, the negroes* 
 ballot would be once for all as 
 sured, placing the South forever in 
 loyal hands. The unreconstruct 
 ed States, he said, ought not to 
 
 Representative George E. H 
 Misiissifft 
 
 23, 1870 
 
 . Admit- 
 
 Senator John F. L, 
 ted Ja 
 
 'RECONSTRUCTED CONGRESSMEN" 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 oppose this requirement, and their opposition was sad evidence 
 of their treacherous purpose later to amend their constitutions 
 so as to strike down colored suffrage. Senator Thurman replied 
 that the question concerned every State in the Union. By forc 
 ing these three States to ratify this amendment, he declared, 
 " you do not coerce them alone. You coerce Ohio, you coerce 
 Illinois, you coerce every State whose people are unwilling to 
 adopt the amendment." Senator Bayard thought it a most 
 dangerous Federal encroachment to take from the States and 
 deposit with the Federal Government the regulation of the 
 elective franchise, " the power of all powers, that which under 
 lies and creates all other powers." The opposition was, how 
 ever, overborne, and by February, 1870, the new constitutions, 
 together with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to 
 the United States Constitution, had been ratified, and the 
 three belated States again stood knocking at the doors of 
 Congress. 
 
 The House of Representatives began by declaring Vir 
 ginia entitled to representation in the national legislature. 
 The Senate, more radical, influenced by the still lurking sus 
 picion of bad faith, amended this simple declaration with a 
 provision requiring the " test-oath " of loyalty from members 
 of the Legislature and public officers before they should 
 resume their duties, at the same time making it a condition 
 that the constitution of the State should never be so amended 
 as to restrict the suffrage, the right to hold office, or the privi 
 lege of attending public schools. Similar provisos were at 
 tached to the resolution admitting senators and representatives 
 from the other two States. Out of sheer weariness the House 
 concurred. By January 30, 1871, all the States were again 
 represented in both Houses, as in 1860. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 GENERAL GRANT AS A CIVIL CHIEF 
 
 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN 1 870. ITS DEFECTS. PRESIDENT 
 
 GRANT'S SHORTCOMINGS. HIS FIRST CABINET. THE PARTY'S AT 
 TITUDE TOWARD THE TARIFF. TOWARD THE DEMOCRACY. 
 
 TOWARD RE-ENFRANCHISEMENT AT THE SOUTH. THE LIBERAL MOVE 
 MENT. THE DEMOCRATS. THE "NEW DEPARTURE" AMONG THEM. 
 
 VALLANDIGHAM. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 ERRORS COMMITTED THEREIN. THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 
 
 THE KU-KLUX KLAN. THE FORCE BILL. RE-ENFRANCHISEMENT 
 
 AT THE SOUTH. GRANT AND THE NATION'S FINANCES. GOULD 
 
 AND FISK. BLACK FRIDAY. THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 RELATIONS WITH CUBA. PROPOSED " ANNEXION " OF SANTO 
 
 DOMINGO. SUMNER AND THE ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 THE year 1870 found the Republican party in full power. 
 In the Senate of the Forty-first Congress sat but nine 
 Democrats, and out of its two hundred and thirty Representa 
 tives only seventy-five were Democrats. Spite of differences 
 in their own ranks, spite of the frantic struggles of the opposi 
 tion, the Republican policy of reconstruction had been put 
 through and consummated by the Fifteenth Amendment, 
 " making all men equal." Sweepingly victorious upon every 
 issue recently tried, freed, moreover, from the incubus with 
 which President Johnson had weighted them, having elected 
 to the executive chair of the nation a hero whom practically 
 the entire party and country trusted, the Republicans could 
 not but be in a happy mood. No wonder that the Republican 
 platforms of the different States in 1870 and 1871 breathed 
 utmost satisfaction and hope. 
 
 This self-gratulatory spirit among the Republicans was 
 an unhealthy sign. Honest as were its rank and file and 
 a majority of its leaders, much corruption defiled the party's 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 0r* 
 
 re &&&&>**/ <zf2^ &te&^ 3&Z&S a^i^ 
 f 
 
 lfffor&nJ~rfL&y /*&t^&/ '. ^^^ 
 
 C/ ts 
 
 frterr 
 
 S ' <?'- " 
 
 *. 
 
 A Fragment in Facsimile from the Original Engrossed Text of the Fourteenth Amendment, at the State 
 Department, Washington. Adopted July 28, l8bt> 
 
 high places. "The early movements of Grant as President 
 were very discouraging. His attempt to form a cabinet with 
 out consultation with any one, and with very little knowledge, 
 except social intercourse, of the persons appointed, created 
 a doubt that he would be as successful as a President as he 
 had been as a general, a doubt that increased and became a 
 conviction in the minds of many of his best friends. . . The 
 impression prevailed that the President regarded the heads 
 of departments, invested by law with specific and inde 
 pendent duties, as mere subordinates, whose functions he 
 might assume. . . It can hardly be said that we had a 
 strictly Republican administration during Grant's two terms. 
 While Republicans were selected to fill the leading offices, the 
 policy adopted and the controlling influence around him were 
 purely personal. He consulted but few of the Senators or 
 members, and they were known as his personal friends. Mr. 
 Conkling, by his imperious will, soon gained a strong influ 
 ence over the President, and from this came feuds, jealousies 
 and enmities, that greatly weakened the Republican party and 
 threatened its ascendancy."* In the questions of taxation, 
 debt and finance, so important to the welfare of all, Grant 
 showed little interest. " His veto of the bill to increase the 
 amount of United States notes, on the 22d of April, 1 874, was 
 
 * John Sherman's Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet. 
 
 24 
 
THE RECONSTRUCTION COMMITTEE 
 
 Drawn by ^. R. Leigh 
 
 The Joint Committee of Fifteen, appointed to " inquire into the condition of affairs in the so-called Confederate States," wh 
 finally adopted, April 28, I&bb, a series of resolutions embodying a recommendation which afterward took form as the Four 
 teenth Amendment. Senators W. P. Fessenden, Maine, 'Chairman; J. W. Grimes, Iowa; Ira Harris, New York; 
 J. M. Howard, Michigan; George H. Williams, Oregon. Representatives: Thaddeus Stevens, Pennsylvania; E. B. 
 Washburn, Illinois; Justin S. Morrill, Vermont; J. A. Bingham, Ohio; G. 5. Boutwell, Massachusetts; Roscoe Conkling^ 
 New Tork; H. T. Blow, Missouri; H. M. Grider, Kentucky; A. J. Rodgers, New Jersey; Senator Reverdy Johnson, 
 Maryland. The last three voted against the resolutions. 
 
PRESIDENT GRANT'S SHORTCOMINGS 
 
 "Dam Your Soul. The Horrible Sepulchre and Bloody Moon ha at last arrived. 
 Some live to-day to-morrow "Vie." We the undersigned understand through our 
 Grand "Cy%>s" that you have recommended a big Black Nigger for Male agent ou 
 onr nu rode; wel, sir, Jest you understand in time if he gets on the rode yon can 
 make up yonr mind to pull roape. If yon have any thing to say in regard to the 
 Matter, meet the Grand Cyclops and Conclave at Den No. 4 at 13 o'clock midnight, 
 Oct. 1st, 1871. 
 
 "When, you are in Calera we warn you to hold your tounge and not speak o mncb 
 <vith your month or otherwise yon will be taken on supprise and led out by the Klan 
 and learnt to stretch hemp. Beware, Beware. Beware. Beware. 
 
 (Signed) "PHILLIP ISENBAUM, 
 
 " Grand Cydtp*. 
 "JOHN BANKSTOWN 
 "ESAU DAVES. 
 "MARCUS THOMAS. 
 "BLOODY BONES. 
 "Yon know who. And all other* of the Klan." 
 
 Facsimile of a Ku-Klux " Warning " in Mississippi put in evi 
 dence before the Congressional Committee 
 
 an exception, but on 
 this he changed his 
 mind, as he had ex 
 pressed his approval 
 of the bill when pend- 
 ing."* 
 
 " General Grant 
 became afterward so 
 thoroughly a party 
 man that it is neces 
 sary to recall by a 
 positive effort that 
 his position was 
 looked upon as very 
 uncertain when his administration began. His report to 
 President Johnson on the condition of the Southern States had 
 indicated that he was not in sympathy with the congressional 
 plan of reconstruction, which was the burning question of 
 the time. Party leaders were nervous lest he should prove 
 unwilling to conduct his administration in harmony with 
 them, and in case of a break they feared a total loss of party 
 
 control in the 
 country. Mem 
 bers of the ad 
 ministration were 
 therefore urged 
 strenuously to 
 make no issue 
 on what might 
 be regarded as a 
 personal wish of 
 the President, 
 
 Ttuar complexion is vierfect sallows. Stand fast, good 
 * If they be not born to be hanKcd.om case is miserable. 
 
 A Newspaper Cutting put in Evidence before the Congressional Committee 
 
 *John Sherman's Recol 
 lections of Forty Years 
 in the House, Senate 
 and Cabinet 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 JAMES FISK, Jr. 
 {After a photograph by Rock- 
 wood) 
 
 and they shared the opinions of their 
 party friends enough to make them feel 
 the importance of avoiding collision."* 
 
 General Grant's deficiencies in the 
 presidential office were, however, nearly 
 all due to faults of his character which 
 were based in virtues. To the man's 
 moral and physical courage, and his 
 calm, but all but stubborn bearing, he 
 added a magnanimity and an unsuspect 
 ing integrity, which were at once his 
 strength and his weakness. Herein lay 
 the secret of the love men bore him and 
 of their trust in him. But these charac 
 teristics combined with his inexperience 
 
 of civil life to disarm him against the dishonorable subtleties 
 of pretended friends, thus continually compromising him. 
 " A certain class of public men adopted the practice of getting 
 an audience and making speeches before him, urging their 
 plans with skillful advocacy and impassioned manner. They 
 would then leave him without asking for any reply, and trust 
 to the effect they had produced. Perhaps their associates would 
 follow the matter up in a similar way. It would thus sometimes 
 happen that, for lack of the assistance 
 which a disinterested adviser could 
 give, his habitual reticence would make 
 him the victim of sophistries which 
 were not exposed, and which his te 
 nacity of purpose would make him cling 
 to when once he had accepted them."f 
 General Sherman thought that his old 
 friend, Grant, would be " made miser 
 able to the end of his life by his eight 
 
 *J. D. Cox, Atlantic Monthly , August, 1895, p. 167. 
 |J D. Cox, ibid., p. 173. 
 
 28 
 
 JAY GOULD 
 
GRANT'S FIRST CABINET 
 
 years' experience" in the presidency. As we shall see, there was 
 considerable reason for this foreboding. He evidently had 
 Grant's case chiefly in mind in regretting " the reputations 
 wrecked in politics since 1865," and "the many otherwise 
 good characters " whom political life had " poisoned." 
 
 Grant's first cabinet was on the whole not strong, though 
 comprising several thoroughly competent men. Hon. E. B. 
 Washburne, of Illinois, was at first Secretary of State, but re 
 signed to accept the position of Minister to France. He was 
 succeeded by Hon. Hamilton Fish, of New York, a gentle 
 man of great ability, who had been honorably prominent in 
 the politics of his State, and had served a term in Congress. 
 The Interior Department was placed in charge of J. D. Cox. 
 A. E. Borie was made Secretary of the Navy. This appoint 
 ment was much criticised, and Borie soon resigned, when the 
 place was given to George M. Robeson. President Johnson's 
 Secretary of War, General 
 Schofield, Grant retained 
 for a time. General Raw- 
 lins, an excellent and use 
 ful officer, succeeded him, 
 but died soon. His suc 
 cessor was William W. 
 Belknap. J. A.J.Creswell 
 was Postmaster- General, 
 E. Rockwood Hoar, At 
 torney-General. A. T. 
 Stewart, the New York 
 millionaire merchant, was 
 named for the Treasury 
 portfolio, and the Senate 
 confirmed him with the 
 rest, but the appointment 
 was found to be contrary 
 to a statute of 1789, pro- 
 
 PRESIDENT GRANT 
 (From a f holograph by Hoyt, in f86qi) 
 
 *9 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 viding that no person engaged in trade or commerce should 
 hold that office. Efforts were made to remove the legal bar 
 rier, which failed, and George S. Boutwell was appointed. 
 
 No strictly positive policy at this time inspired the Re 
 publican body. Republicans certainly opposed any repudi 
 ation of the war debt, whether by taxing bonds or by paying 
 the principal or the interest of them in dollars less valuable 
 than gold dollars. But this was only a phase of the party's war 
 zeal, which always carried men's thought backward rather than 
 to the future. Upon the tariff question it was impossible to tell 
 where the party stood, though, clearly, the old Whig high- 
 tariff portion of its constituency did not yet dominate. Noth 
 ing bolder than " incidental protection " was urged by anyone, 
 
 except where a State or section, like 
 Maine, tentatively commended some 
 interest to the " care, protection, and 
 relief" of the Government. In their 
 public utterances touching the tariff the 
 two great parties differed little. In 
 each, opinion ran the gamut from "in 
 cidental protection," where Democrat 
 met Republican in amity, to " approxi 
 mate free trade," which extreme there 
 were not lacking Republicans ready to 
 embrace had the tariff been then a 
 party issue. 
 
 Instead of looking forward and 
 studying new national interests, the 
 party grounded its claims too exclu 
 sively upon the " glorious record " 
 which truly belonged to it, and upon 
 the alleged total depravity of the 
 Democrats with the eternal incorrig- 
 ibleness of the South. Said Senator 
 Morton, of Indiana: "The Republican 
 
 FRED. DOUGLASS 
 (From a photograph by Handy) 
 
 BUENAVENTURA BAEZ 
 
 President of Santo Domingo 
 
 (From a photograph in the collection 
 
 of James E. Taylor) 
 
 3 
 
THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT 
 
 Party . . . could not afford to make a distinct issue on the 
 tariff, civil service reform, or any other individual measure; 
 it must make its stand on these assertions : The Democrats, 
 if they return to power, will either take away the pensions 
 of the loyal soldiers, or else will pension Confederate soldiers 
 also ; will, when they have a majority in Congress, quietly 
 allow the Southern States to secede in peace ; will tax national 
 bonds and unsettle everything generally." In January, 1871, 
 Senator Henry Wilson wrote : " To keep out of power the 
 Democratic party and its semi-rebellious adherents both North 
 and South, has became a matter of supreme importance to 
 the nation and to the cause of humanity itself." 
 
 There were, however, Republicans who by no means 
 shared these views, and the lifting of their hands already fore 
 shadowed the bolt of 1872. Not a few Republican partici 
 pants in the war wished the earliest possible re-enfranchisement 
 of the Southern whites. It was this sentiment that carried 
 West Virginia for the Democrats in 1870. Re-enfranchise 
 ment was a burning question also in Missouri. At the 
 Republican convention in that State the same year, after a hot 
 discussion, General McNeill mounted a chair and shouted 
 " to the friends of the enfranchisement of the white man, that 
 they would withdraw from this convention to the senate 
 chamber." About a third of the delegates, led by Carl 
 Schurz, retired, and nominated a Liberal-Republican State 
 ticket, headed by B. Gratz Brown. Supported by most of 
 the Democrats who could vote, this ticket was triumphant. 
 
 Early in the year 1871, at a political meeting in St. 
 Louis, was manifested the first overt hostility on the part of 
 the Liberals, or " Brownites," to President Grant. This sign 
 of the times was followed on March loth by a meeting of a 
 dozen prominent Republicans in Cincinnati, Ex-Governor 
 Cox and Stanley Matthews being of the number. They 
 drafted a report, which was signed by a hundred well-known 
 Republicans, advancing four principles: (i) general amnesty 
 
 3 1 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 *^e*^. 
 
 to the late Con 
 federates, (2) civil 
 service reform, (3) 
 specie payments, 
 and (4) a revenue 
 tariff. During the 
 year the "bolt" 
 took on national 
 importance. Sym 
 pathy with it ap 
 peared through 
 out the country 
 and in Congress, 
 and existed where 
 it did not ap 
 pear. Influenced 
 by Mr. Sumner, 
 even the Massa 
 chusetts Repub 
 lican Convention, 
 without going fur 
 ther, condemned, 
 impliedly, Grant's 
 foreign policy. Finally a call was issued from Missouri for 
 a National Convention, to be held at Cincinnati on May i, 
 1872, in opposition to Grant and his administration. 
 
 In impotent wrath and bitterness proportioned to the 
 apparent prosperity of the Republicans, stood the Democracy. 
 The more strenuous its opposition to a cc godly thorough 
 reformation " of unrepentant rebels, the more determinedly 
 had the people rebuked it at the polls. Hardly more inclined 
 were the people to follow it upon the great question of the 
 public debt, where the party demanded that the five- twenties 
 should be redeemed in greenbacks " the same money for the 
 plough-holder and the bond-holder" and that all national 
 
 FACSIMILE OF SIGNATURES TO THE TREATY OF 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 (From the original at the State Department, Washington) 
 
tit 
 (^ 
 S; 
 
 O 
 
 '~r> 
 
 !! 
 
 li 
 
THE "NEW DEPARTURE" 
 
 A. E. Borie, Navy. J. A. J. Creswell, Postrn'r-General. E. R. Hoar, Att'y-General. 
 
 E. B. Waubburne, State. J. D. Cox, Interior. *J. M. Scbofield, War. G. S. Boutwell, Treasury. 
 
 PRESIDENT GRANT'S FIRST CABINET 
 
 bonds or the interest thereon should be taxed. Even in the 
 South the leaders began to see that the true policy of "The 
 Reform Party" the Democracy's nom de guerre ', was that 
 voiced by the South Carolina Convention of 1870, which pro 
 posed to "accept the results of the war as settled facts" and 
 make the best of them, striking out for new issues. This was 
 the key-note of the "New Departure" led by Clement L. 
 Vallandigham, of Ohio. Vallandigham had been the most 
 extreme " copperhead " in all the North. By his outspoken 
 ness in defence of the Confederacy during the war he had got 
 himself imprisoned and banished to the South. It was signifi 
 cant, therefore, when, in his last public utterance he acci 
 dentally shot himself a month later his voice once more 
 joined that of South Carolina, this time in accepting " the 
 results of the war, including the three several amendments 
 de factO) as a settlement in fact of all the issues of the war." 
 
 *Schofield held the office for several months after President Grant's inauguration. 
 The latter then appointed John A. Rawlins. 
 
 35 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Chief Justice Chase wrote Vallandigham, praising his action as 
 a " great service to the country and the party," and " as the 
 restoration of the Democratic Party to its ancient platform of 
 progress and reform/' John Quincy Adams, Democratic can 
 didate for Governor of Massachusetts, like Vallandigham, pro 
 posed a hearty acquiescence in what was past, and " deplored 
 the halting and hesitating step with which the Democracy was 
 sneaking up to its inevitable position." " The South," he 
 continued, " is galled to-day not by the presence of the Fif 
 teenth Amendment, but by the utter absence of the Constitu 
 tion itself. Is it not silly then to squabble about an amend 
 ment which would cease to be obnoxious if it was not 
 detached from its context ? " 
 
 The method of reconstruction resorted to by Congress 
 occasioned dreadful evils. It ignored the natural prejudices of 
 the whites, many of whom were as loyal as any citizens in the 
 land. To most people in that section, as well as to very 
 many at the North, this dictation by Congress to acknowledged 
 States in time of peace seemed high-handed usurpation. If 
 Congress can do this, it was said, any State can be forced to 
 change its constitution on account of any act which Congress 
 dislikes. This did not necessarily 
 follow, as reconstruction invariably 
 presupposed an abnormal condi 
 tion, viz., the State's emersion from 
 a rebellion which had involved the 
 State government, whose over 
 throw, with the rebellion, neces 
 sitated congressional interference. 
 Yet the inference was natural and 
 widely drawn. 
 
 " Congress was wrong in the ex 
 clusion from suffrage of certain 
 classes of citizens, and of all unable 
 to take a prescribed retrospective 
 
 3 6 
 
 ALEXANDER T. STEWART 
 (Mr. Stewart always refused to sit for a 
 portrait. The accompanying illustration 
 is from a painting, made after his death, 
 by Thomas Le Clear, and now at St. 
 Paul's School, Garden City, Long Island) 
 
ERRORS COMMITTED IN RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 oath, and wrong also in the establishment 
 of arbitrary military governments for the 
 States, and in authorizing military commis 
 sions for the trial of civilians in time of 
 peace. There should have been as little 
 military government as possible ; no military 
 commissions, no classes excluded from suf 
 frage, and no oath except one of faithful obe 
 dience and support to the Constitution and 
 l aws > an d sincere attachment to the Consti 
 tutional Government of the United States/'* 
 " It is a question of grave doubt whether the Fifteenth 
 Amendment, though right in principle, was wise or expedient. 
 The declared object was to secure impartial suffrage to the 
 negro race. The practical result has been that the wise pro 
 visions of the Fourteenth Amendment have been modified by 
 the Fifteenth Amendment. The latter amendment has been 
 practically nullified by the action of most of the States where 
 the great body of this race live and will probably always 
 remain. This is done not by an express denial to them of 
 the right of suffrage, but by ingenious provisions, which 
 exclude them on the alleged ground of ignorance, while per 
 mitting all of the white race, however ignorant, to vote at all 
 elections. No way is pointed out by which Congress can 
 enforce this amendment. If the principle of the Fourteenth 
 Amendment had remained in full force, Congress could have 
 reduced the representation of any State, in the proportion 
 which the number of the male inhabitants of such State, denied 
 the right of suffrage, might bear to the whole number of male 
 citizens twenty-one years of age, in such State. This simple 
 remedy, easily enforced by Congress, would have secured the 
 right of all persons, without distinction of race or color, to 
 vote at all elections. The reduction of the representation 
 would have deterred every State from excluding the vote of any 
 
 * Salmon P. Chase, Letter to Democratic National Committee in 1873. 
 37 
 
THE LAST QUARTER- CENTURY 
 
 portion of the male population above twenty-one years of age. 
 As the result of the Fifteenth Amendment, the political power 
 of the States lately in rebellion has been increased, while the 
 population conferring this increase is practically denied all 
 political power. I see no remedy for this wrong except the 
 growing intelligence of the negro race.'** 
 
 If the South was to become again genuine part and par 
 cel of this Union, it would not, nor would the North consent 
 that it should, remain permanently under military government. 
 Black legislatures abused their power, becoming instruments 
 of carpet-bag leaders and rings in robbing white property- 
 holders. Only doctrinaires or the stupid could have expected 
 that the whites would long submit. So soon as federal bayo 
 nets were gone, fair means or foul were certain to remove 
 the sceptre from colored hands. Precisely this happened. 
 Without the slightest formal change of constitution or of 
 statute the Southern States one by one passed into the control 
 of their white inhabitants. 
 
 Where white men's aims could not be realized by per 
 suasion or other mild means, resort was had to intimidation 
 and force. The chief instrumentality at first used for keeping 
 colored voters from the polls was the Ku-Klux Klan, a secret 
 society organized in Tennessee in 1866. It sprung from the 
 old night patrol of slavery times. Then, every Southern 
 gentleman used to serve on this patrol, whose duty it was to 
 whip severely every negro found absent from home without 
 a pass from his master. Its first post bellum work was not ill- 
 meant, and its severities came on gradually. Its greatest 
 activity was in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi, where its 
 awful mysteries and gruesome rites spread utter panic among 
 the superstitious blacks. Men visited negroes' huts and 
 " mummicked " about, at first with sham magic, not with arms 
 at all. One would carry a flesh bag in the shape of a heart and 
 go around " hollering for fried nigger meat." Another would 
 
 *John Sherman, Recollections. 
 38 
 
THE KU-KLUX KLAN 
 
 put on an India-rubber stomach to startle the negroes by 
 swallowing pailfuls of water. Another represented that he 
 had been killed at Manassas, since which time " some one 
 had built a turnpike over his grave and he had to scratch like 
 h 1 to get up through the gravel." The lodges were " dens," 
 the members "ghouls." "Giants/ "goblins," "titans," 
 " furies," " dragons," and " hydras" were names of different 
 classes among the officers. 
 
 Usually the mere existence of a " den " anywhere was 
 sufficient to render docile every negro in the vicinity. If 
 more was required, a half-dozen " ghouls," making their noc 
 turnal rounds in their hideous masks and long white gowns, 
 frightened all but the most hardy. Any who showed fight 
 were whipped, maimed, or killed, treatment which was ex 
 tended on occasion to their " carpet-bag " and " scalawag " 
 friends these titles denoting respectively Northern and South 
 ern men who took the negroes* side. The very violence of 
 the order, which it at last turned against the old Southrons 
 themselves, brought it into disrepute with its original instiga 
 tors, who were not sorry when Federal marshals, put up to it 
 by President Grant, hunted den after den of the law-breakers 
 to the death. 
 
 In 1870 and 1871, by the so-called Force Bills, Federal 
 judges were given cognizance of suits against anyone for 
 depriving another of rights, privileges, or immunities under 
 the Constitution. Fine and imprisonment were made the 
 penalties for " conspiracy " against the United States or the 
 execution of its laws, as by forcibly or through intimidation 
 preventing men from voting. The army and navy were placed 
 at the service of the President to enforce the act, and Federal 
 judges might exclude suspected persons from sitting on juries. 
 By this drastic measure and its rigorous execution in nine 
 counties of South Carolina the organization was by 1873 
 driven out of existence. But some of its methods survived. 
 In 1875 several States adopted and successfully worked the 
 
 39 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 " Mississippi plan," which was, by whatever necessary means, 
 to nullify black votes until white majorities were assured. Less 
 violent than the Ku-Klux way, this new one was equally thor 
 ough. 
 
 Considering the stupendous upheaval in Southern society 
 marked by the erection of bondmen into full citizens, dark 
 days were few. Schools arose. The ballot itself proved an 
 educator, rough but thorough. The negro vote, become a 
 fixed fact, was courted by the jarring factions of whites, and 
 hence to some extent protected. Meanwhile it was plainly to 
 the negro's advantage that he was fighting, not to acquire 
 status and rights, but for status and rights guaranteed in the 
 organic law of his State. 
 
 It yet remained to restore the disfranchised whites and to 
 remove the political disabilities imposed by the Fourteenth 
 Amendment. Except in the case of a few leaders, the disa 
 bilities were annulled by the Act of Amnesty passed May 22, 
 1872. At about the same time general re-enfranchisement was 
 accomplished by State legislation, Liberal-Republicans joining 
 with those Democrats, specially numerous in Missouri and 
 West Virginia, who already enjoyed the right of suffrage. 
 
 By March, 1866, the price of gold in paper money had 
 fallen from war figures to 130^. There was much illegiti 
 mate speculation in the metal, dealing in " phantom gold " 
 mere betting, that is, on gold fluctuations. Prominent among 
 the operators was the firm of Smith, Gould, Martin & Co. 
 The mind of the firm was Jay Gould, a dark little man, with 
 cold, glittering eyes. Closely associated with him was James 
 Fisk, a vulgar and unprincipled yet shrewd and bold man of 
 business. During the spring of 1869 Gould bought $7,000,- 
 ooo or $8,000,000 in gold, immediately loaning it again on 
 demand notes. There being not over $20,000,000 gold 
 available outside the Treasury, the business community, in 
 case of any call for gold, was at his mercy, unless the Treasury 
 should sell. This must be prevented. 
 
Drawn by B. West Clinedimt 
 FISK. AND GOULD'S GRAND OPERA HOUSE IN A STATE OF STEGE 
 
GRANT AND THE NATION'S FINANCES 
 
 In June, 1869, President Grant, on a trip from New 
 York to Boston, accepted a place in a private box of the 
 theatre which Fisk owned, and next day took, at the invita 
 tion of Fisk and Gould, one of their magnificent steamers to 
 Fall River. After a handsome supper the hosts skillfully 
 turned the conversation to the financial situation. Grant re 
 marked that he thought there was a certain fictitiousness in the 
 prosperity of the country, and that the bubble might as well be 
 tapped. This suggestion "struck across us," said Mr. Gould, 
 later, " like a wet blanket/' Another wire must be pulled. 
 
 Facts and figures were now heaped together and pub 
 lished to prove that, should gold rise in this country about 
 harvest time, grain, the price of which, being fixed in Liver 
 pool, was independent of currency fluctuations, would be worth 
 so much the more and would at once be hurried abroad ; but 
 that to secure this blessing Government must not sell any 
 gold. Gould laid still other pipes. Fisk visited the presiden 
 tial sphinx at Newport ; others saw him at Washington. At 
 New York Gould buttonholed him so assiduously that he was 
 obliged to open his lips to rebuke his servant for giving Gould 
 such ready access to him. 
 
 The President seems to have been persuaded that a rise 
 in gold while the crops were moving would advantage the 
 country. At any rate, orders were given early in September 
 to sell only gold sufficient to buy bonds for the sinking fund. 
 The conspirators redoubled their purchases. The price of 
 gold rose till, two days before Black Friday, it stood at 140^. 
 
 Though he kept it to himself Gould was in terror lest the 
 Treasury floodgates should be opened to prevent a panic. 
 Business was palsied, and the bears were importuning the Gov 
 ernment to sell. At his wits' end he wrote Secretary Bout- 
 well : 
 
 " SIR : There is a panic in Wall Street, engineered by a 
 bear combination. They have withdrawn currency to such an 
 extent that it is impossible to do ordinary business. The Erie 
 
 43 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Company requires eight hundred thousand dollars to disburse 
 . . . much of it in Ohio, where an exciting political contest 
 is going on, and where we have about ten thousand men 
 employed, and the trouble is charged on the administration. 
 . . . Cannot you, consistently, increase your line of currency?" 
 
 Gould, like Major Bagstock, was " devilish sly, sir." In 
 his desperation he determined to turn " bear " and, if neces 
 sary rend in pieces Fisk himself. Saying nothing of his fears, 
 he encouraged Fisk boldly to keep on buying, while he him 
 self secretly began to sell. Fisk fell into the trap, and his 
 partner, taking care in his sales to steer clear of Fisk's brokers, 
 proceeded secretly and swiftly to unload his gold and fulfil all 
 his contracts. From this moment they acted each by and for 
 himself, Gould operating through his firm and Fisk through 
 an old partner of his named Belden. 
 
 On Thursday, September 23 d, while his broker, Speyers, 
 is buying, Fisk coolly walks into the Gold Room and, amid 
 the wildest excitement, offers to bet any part of $ 50,000 that 
 gold will rise to 200. Not a man dares take his bet. 
 
 On Black Friday the Gold Room is crowded two hours 
 before the time of business. In the centre excited brokers are 
 betting, swearing, and quarreling, many of them pallid with 
 fear of ruin, others hilarious in expectation of big commissions. 
 In a back office across from the Gold Room, Fisk, in shirt 
 sleeves, struts up and down, declaring himself the Napoleon of 
 the street. At this time the Ring was believed to hold in gold 
 and in contracts to deliver the same, over $ 100,000,000. 
 
 Speyers, whom all suppose to represent Gould as well as 
 Fisk, begins by offering 145, then 146, 147, 148, 149, but 
 none will sell. "Put it up to 150," Fisk orders, and gold 
 rises to that figure. At 1 50 a half million is sold him by Mr. 
 James Brown, who had quietly organized a band of merchants 
 to meet the gamblers on their own ground. From all over 
 the country the " shorts " are telegraphing orders to buy. 
 Speyers is informed that if he continues to put up gold he 
 
 44 
 
GOULD AND FISK 
 
 will be shot; but he goes on offering 151, 
 152, 153,154. Still none will sell. Mean 
 time the victims of the corner are sum 
 moned to pay in cash the difference between 
 135, at which the gold was borrowed, and 
 150, at which the firm is willing to settle. 
 Fearing lest gold go to 200, many settle at 
 148. At 155, amid the tremendous roar 
 of the bull brokers bidding higher and OLIFER p. MORTON 
 higher, Brown again sells half a million. 
 " 1 60 for any part of five millions." Brown sells a million more. 
 " 161 for five millions." No bid. " 162 for five millions." 
 At first no response. Again, "162 for any part of five mil 
 lions." A voice is heard, " Sold one million at 162." " 163^ 
 for five millions." "Sold five millions at 163}^." Crash! 
 The market has been broken, and by Gould's sales. Every 
 body now begins to sell, when the news comes that the Gov 
 ernment has telegraphed to sell four millions. Gold instantly 
 falls to 140, then to 133. " Somebody," cried Fisk, " has run 
 a saw right into us. We are forty miles down the Delaware 
 and don't know where we are. Our phantom gold can't 
 stand the weight of the real stuff." 
 
 Gould has no mind permanently to ruin his partner. He 
 coolly suggests that Fisk has only to repudiate his contracts, 
 and Fisk complies. His offers to buy gold he declares " off," 
 making good only a single one of them, as to which he was so 
 placed that he had no option. What was due him, on the 
 other hand, he collected to the uttermost dollar. To prevent 
 being mobbed the pair encircled their opera-house with armed 
 toughs and fled thither. There no civil process or other 
 molestation was likely to reach them. Presently certain of 
 " the thieves' judges," as they were called, came to their relief 
 by issuing injunctions estopping all transactions connected 
 with the conspiracy which would have been disadvantageous 
 for the conspirators. 
 
 45 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Far the strongest side of Grant's Administration was the 
 State Department, headed by the clever diplomat, Hamilton 
 Fish, one of the most successful Secretaries of State who ever 
 served our country. Here distinguished ability and abso 
 lute integrity reigned and few mistakes were made. Were 
 there no other testimony, the Treaty of Washington would 
 sufficiently attest Mr. Fish's mastery of his office. Ever since 
 1863 we had been seeking satisfaction from Great Britain for 
 the depredations committed during the war by Confederate 
 cruisers sailing from British ports. Negotiations were broken 
 off in 1865 and again in 1868. In 1869 Reverdy Johnson, 
 then our Minister to England, negotiated a treaty, but the 
 Senate rejected it. In January, 1871, the British Govern 
 ment having proposed a joint commission for the settlement 
 of questions connected with the Canadian fisheries, Mr. Fish 
 replied that the adjudication of the "Alabama Claims " would 
 have to be first considered, " as an essential to the restoration 
 of cordial and amicable relations between the two govern 
 ments." England consented to submit this question also to the 
 commission, and on February 2yth the High Commissioners 
 met at Washington. The British delegation included, besides 
 several noblemen, Sir E. Thornton the Queen's Minister at 
 Washington, Sir John Macdonald, of Canada, and Mountague 
 Bernard, Professor of International Law at Oxford. The Ameri 
 can commissioners were the Secretary of State himself, Justice 
 Nelson of the Supreme Court, Robert C. Schenck our Minister 
 to England, E. Rockwood Hoar late United States Attorney- 
 General, and George H. Williams, Senator from Oregon. 
 
 On May 8th the commission completed a treaty, which 
 was speedily ratified by both Governments. It provided for 
 arbitration upon the "Alabama Claims," upon other claims by 
 citizens of either country against the other for damages during 
 the Rebellion, upon the fisheries, and upon the northwest 
 boundary of the United States. The principal settlements 
 happily arrived at in this way will be described later. 
 
 4 6 
 
RELATIONS WITH CUBA 
 
 In 1868 the "Junta of Laborers" in Cuba inaugurated a 
 rebellion against the mother country. By 1870 most South 
 American States had recognized them as belligerents, and they 
 were eager that the United States should do the same. The 
 sympathies of our people and Government were with them. 
 In the summer of 1869 Secretary Fish, directed by the Presi 
 dent, had prepared and signed a proclamation according to 
 the insurgents the rights of belligerents, but owing to the 
 Secretary's firm unwillingness this document was never issued. 
 In July, 1870, the President changed his mind, heartily thank 
 ing Mr. Fish for restraining him from issuing the belligerency 
 message. The good offices of the United States were, how 
 ever, tendered, with the view of inducing Spain to recognize 
 Cuba's independence, preventing further bloodshed ; but the 
 overtures were declined. 
 
 Spain's barbarous method of warring excited horror. 
 The Spanish Captain-General in Cuba freely sequestrated 
 property, to whomsoever belonging, ordered shot every male 
 over fifteen years of age found outside his premises without 
 good excuse, burned every uninhabited hut and every hamlet 
 not flying a white flag. Such procedure called forth our re 
 monstrance, which, in conjunction with the known sympathy 
 of Americans for the rebels, greatly irritated Spain. Our lega 
 tion house at Madrid was threatened, our vessels in one or 
 two instances brought to by Spanish men-of-war, and a num 
 ber of our citizens in Cuba and on the high seas maltreated or 
 killed. Two American citizens, Speakman and Wyeth, em 
 barked by mistake in a vessel carrying an insurrectionary force 
 destined for Cuba. They gave themselves up, but were bru 
 tally murdered after the merest form of a trial. This was 
 exasperating enough; but when, on October 31, 1873, tne 
 VirginiuS) belonging to an American citizen, was captured on 
 the high seas off Jamaica by the Spanish man-of-war %*0maJo, 
 the American flag hauled down, and Captain Fry, with fifty- 
 six of his ship's company nine of them American citizens 
 
 47 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 shot, for some weeks hostilities seemed actually imminent. 
 The Virginiuss errand was in spirit illegal, perhaps literally 
 so. Many revolutionists were on board, also 2,000 Remington 
 rifles, a mitrailleuse, and a large supply of ammunition and 
 provisions for the insurgents. According to the best authori 
 ties Spain was quite justified in seizing the vessel, though 
 Attorney-General Hoar denied this, but not in putting to death 
 those on board with no trial but a drumhead court-martial. 
 
 When the news of the outrage reached this country innu 
 merable indignation meetings were held. President Grant 
 convoked his Cabinet to deliberate upon the case, and the 
 navy yards were set working night and day. The Spanish 
 Minister of State at first haughtily rejected our protest, saying 
 that Spain would decide the question according to law and her 
 dignity. Madrid mobs violently demonstrated against the 
 American minister, General Sickles. November 4th, Secretary 
 Fish cabled Sickles: "In case of refusal of satisfactory repara 
 tion within twelve days from this date, you will, at the expira 
 tion of that time, close your legation and will, together with 
 your secretary, leave Madrid." On the I5th, hearing that 
 fifty-seven men had been executed, he sent word : " If Spain 
 cannot redress these outrages the United States will." And 
 on November 25 : " If no accommodation is reached by the 
 close of to-morrow, leave." Next day Spain became tractable 
 and Sickles remained. War was happily averted. Spain re 
 leased the Virginius and all the surviving prisoners. Having 
 been on December 1 6th delivered to officers of our navy, the 
 ship, flying the Stars and Stripes, proudly sailed for New York, 
 but foundered in an ocean storm. The prisoners freed reached 
 New York in safety. Spain solemnly disclaimed all thought 
 of indignity to our flag, and undertook to prosecute any of 
 her subjects guilty, in this affair, of violating our treaty rights. 
 
 President Grant's negotiations for the annexation of the 
 turbulent little republic known as Santo Domingo " Holy 
 Sabbath," a bit of unconscious irony ended less happily. 
 
 4 8 
 
THE SCENE IN THE NEff YORK GOLD ROOM ON BLACK FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 
 Drawn by C. S. Rtinhart jfrom pbotografhs and dtscriftions by eyt-witnutti 
 
PROPOSED "ANNEXION" OF SANTO DOMINGO 
 
 The strategic situation of the island is good, and its aspect in 
 viting luxurious and fertile valleys between grand ranges of 
 volcanic mountains. The heat is tempered day and night by 
 sea-breezes sometimes rising to hurricanes. The rich mineral 
 and other resources of the island were known in 1870 but lit 
 tle exploited. A tenth of the people were white, living mainly 
 in the sea-board towns. The rest were hybrid descendants of 
 the man-eating Caribs and of the buccaneers and warlike ne 
 groes who fought under Toussaint L'Ouverture. 
 
 Embarrassed with a rival, President Baez wished to turn 
 his domain over to us, as a predecessor of his had in like case 
 once given it to Spain. He indicated his desire to President 
 Grant, who dispatched Col. Babcock, his assistant private Sec 
 retary, to report upon the country, its people, its harbors, etc. 
 No member of the Cabinet favored the mission, yet none offi 
 cially objected. The State Department had nothing to da 
 with arranging it. New York merchants trading to San Do 
 mingo offered Babcock passage thither, showing that his pro 
 posed mission was known, and he would have accepted their 
 offered favor but for Secretary Fish's protest. Transportation 
 for him by the navy was then ordered, and it was found that 
 he was to be accompanied by Senator Cole, of California, and 
 an officer from the Inspector-General's department who spoke 
 Spanish. "As the members of the Cabinet were carefully dis 
 creet in their reticence, the increase of the party and of the 
 apparent importance of the mission caused a certain uneasi 
 ness, especially as rumors began to fly about that business 
 speculations were involved, and that the official character of 
 the affair was much less than its real significance. The mem 
 bers of the Government felt loyally bound to suppress their 
 own doubts, and to attribute to the excitability of the quid 
 nuncs the rumors of important purposes connected with Bab- 
 cock's voyage."* 
 
 * This and the next following quotations are from J. D. Cox's interesting article, already 
 cited in this chapter. 
 
THE LAST QUARTER CENTURY 
 
 Babcock returned bearing a draft of a treaty containing 
 an agreement to cede Santo Domingo to the United States 
 out-and-out for something over a million dollars, or to accept 
 our protectorate over it at the same time giving us *a fifty-year 
 lease of the important bay and harbor of Samana. President 
 Grant had become intensely anxious to acquire this realm. It 
 would afford us a coaling and naval station and a commercial 
 entrepot, enrich the United States and extend its power, and 
 open a region which the American negro could colonize and 
 manage. At the first Cabinet meeting after his arrival in 
 Washington Babcock appeared, showing each member as 
 he arrived " specimens of the ores and products of the island 
 and descanting upon its extraordinary value. He met a rather 
 chilling reception, and soon left the room. It had been the 
 President's habit at such meetings to call upon the members 
 of the Cabinet to bring forward the business contained in 
 their portfolios, beginning with the Secretary of State. This 
 would at once have brought the action of Babcock up by Mr. 
 Fish's disclaimer of all part in the matter, and his statement of 
 its utter illegality. On this occasion, however, General Grant 
 departed from his uniform custom, and took the initiative. 
 < Babcock has returned, as you see,' said he, and has brought 
 a treaty of annexation. I suppose it is not formal, as he had 
 no diplomatic powers ; but we can easily cure that. We can 
 send back the treaty and have Perry, the consular agent, 
 sign it ; and, as he is an officer of the State Department, it 
 would make it all right/ ' 
 
 " But, Mr. President," said Mr. Secretary Cox, " has it 
 been settled, then, that we want to annex San Domingo ? " 
 
 General Grant " colored, and smoked hard at his cigar. 
 He glanced at Mr. Fish on his right, but the face of the Sec 
 retary was impassive, and his eyes were fixed on the portfolio 
 before him. He turned to Mr. Boutwell on his left, but 
 no response met him there. As the silence became painful, 
 the President called for another item of business, and left the 
 
SUMNER AND THE ADMINISTRATION 
 
 CLEMENT L. LALLAN- 
 DIG HAM 
 
 (After a photograph in the col 
 lection of James E. Taylor) 
 
 question unanswered. The subject was 
 never again brought up before the assem 
 bled Cabinet." 
 
 The treaty was put into form, signed 
 on November 29, 1869, and sent to the 
 Senate the following month. Violent op 
 position to it was at once manifest, of 
 which Mr. Sumner was the soul. Sumner 
 was Chairman of the Senate Committee 
 on Foreign Relations, and in whatever 
 related to this committee's work was in 
 clined to domineer. He had not agreed 
 with Secretary Fish or the President respecting the ground 
 of our war complaint against England. " Sumner insisted 
 that the hasty proclamation by Great Britain of neutrality 
 between the United States and the Southern Confederacy 
 was the gravamen of the Alabama claims. The President 
 and Mr. Fish contended that this proclamation was an act of 
 which we could not complain, except as an indication of an 
 unfriendly spirit by Great Britain, and that the true basis of 
 the Alabama claims was that Great Britain, after proclaiming 
 neutrality, did not enforce it, but allowed her subjects to build 
 cruisers, and man, arm and use them, under cover of the rebel 
 flag, to the destruction of our commercial navy." 
 
 The President, Sumner now said, had violated our Con 
 stitution in negotiating the San Domingo treaty as he did ; he 
 was also conniving at an infringement of the Dominican consti 
 tution, which forbade alienating any part of that land ; and 
 was traversing international law by a menace to the indepen 
 dence of Hayti. San Domingo, he alleged, with its undesir 
 able population, was in continual turmoil, had cost Spain more 
 blood and treasure than it was worth, and been lost to her 
 after all. Baez he denounced as a " political jockey," and he 
 declared that adventurers were abusing the President's confi 
 dence, as it was beginning to be suspected they had done in 
 
 53 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 regard to " Black Friday " the September previous. Writing 
 to Garrison December 29, 1870, and referring to his speech 
 on the " annexion " of San Domingo, Sumner said that the 
 Haytian Minister had previously visited him, " full of emo 
 tion at the message of the President as ( trampling his country 
 under foot.' ' 
 
 President Grant did his utmost to secure ratification for 
 the treaty. Having expired by limitation on May 2ist, it 
 was renewed and sent to the Senate again on the Jist. 
 Direct application to Senators in this interest was made on 
 the President's behalf, a course generally felt to be very objec 
 tionable. Republican politicians became divided touching 
 annexation, and the utmost bitterness of feeling prevailed. 
 Secretary Fish's position pending this business was extremely 
 embarrassing. An intimate friend of Mr. Sumner, he was ac 
 customed freely to discuss with him all diplomatic affairs. "He 
 had honestly treated the talk of Dominican annexation as mere 
 gossip, without solid foundation, and now he suddenly found 
 his sincerity in question, under circumstances which forbade 
 him to say how gravely the State Department had been com 
 promised." Twice during the episode he offered his resigna 
 tion, but the President's earnest entreaty, backed by that of 
 leaders anxious to avoid a breach in the party, each time in 
 duced him not to insist on its acceptance. " But the progress 
 of the San Domingo business put Mr. Fish in a false position, 
 apparently, and having yielded to the President's urgency that 
 he should remain in the Cabinet he could not, at the moment, 
 explain fully to Mr. Sumner the seeming changes of his atti 
 tude. It is in the nature of such differences to grow larger, 
 and in the following winter they led to an open rupture be 
 tween the old friends." 
 
 The President's campaign to secure annexation involved 
 bargaining for the votes of certain " carpet-bag " Senators. 
 " He was told that they desired to please him and to support 
 his plans, but, considering Mr. Sumner's controlling influence 
 
 54 
 
SUMNER AND THE ADMINISTRATION 
 
 with their colored constituents, it would be at no small politi 
 cal peril to themselves if. they opposed that Senator on the 
 San Domingo question. . . In matters of patronage . . . they 
 found themselves less influential than they had a right to 
 expect. Reciprocity was necessary if the President required their 
 aid. When asked in what departments they found a lack of 
 consideration, the Attorney-General's was named, and it was 
 strongly urged that Judge Hoar should be displaced by a South 
 ern man acceptable to them." Attorney-General Hoar was 
 nominated to the Supreme Court presumably to answer this 
 Southern demand. The Senate refused to confirm his appoint 
 ment, and Mr. Hoar had to be gotten rid of in some other 
 way. One morning in June, 1870, he received a letter from 
 the President containing the " naked statement that he found 
 himself under the necessity of asking for Hoar's resignation. 
 No explanation of any kind was given or reason assigned." In 
 an interview, subsequently, the President was frank enough to 
 connect this action with " the necessity, to carry out his pur 
 poses, of securing support in the Senate from Southern Repub 
 licans, who demanded that the Cabinet place should be filled 
 from the South." Amos T. Ackerman, of Georgia, was im 
 mediately nominated and soon confirmed. The final vote on the 
 treaty was taken June joth. A considerable majority of the Sen 
 ators favored it, but not quite the necessary two-thirds. 
 
 The treaty having been refused ratification the matter 
 died out of mind ; but an irreparable rift between Grant and 
 Sumner resulted. Shortly after Sumner' s speech, above re 
 ferred to, Grant asked Fred. Douglass, who, friendly to Sum 
 ner, yet agreed with Grant : " What do you think of Sumner 
 now ? " "I believe that Sumner thought himself doing a 
 service to a down-trodden people, but that he was mistaken," 
 Douglass replied. This answer not seeming to please the 
 President, Douglass asked what he thought of Sumner. After 
 some hesitation Grant replied, with feeling : " I think he is 
 mad." President Grant considered the failure of the treaty a 
 
 55 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 national misfortune, but submitted with patience, not only to 
 the adverse action of the Senate, but to the suspicions of friends 
 and to the attacks of enemies which his San Domingo ambi 
 tion had aroused. 
 
 The annexationists had their revenge when Sumner lost 
 the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Foreign Rela 
 tions, which he had held so long and prized so highly. John 
 Lothrop Motley's recall from the British mission was also 
 referred by nearly all to Senator Sumner's course in the Santo 
 Domingo matter. The Saturday Club, of Boston, protested 
 against thus allowing the President's disagreement with Sum 
 ner to prejudice Minister Motley by reason of their friend 
 ship, considering such treatment certain " to offend all the 
 educated men of New England." Grant's only reply was : 
 " I made up my mind to remove Mr. Motley before there 
 was any quarrel with Mr. Sumner." In his annual message 
 the next December the President proposed a commission to 
 visit San Domingo for additional information about the island 
 and to inquire into the charges of corruption which had been 
 made against the Executive and his agent. With his usual 
 intemperance Sumner opposed this as committing Congress to 
 " a dance of blood ; " yet a bill to create the commission 
 passed the Senate unanimously, the House by a majority of 
 123 to 63. The commissioners were Dr. Samuel G. Howe, 
 President Andrew D. White, and Hon. A. A. Burton. Their 
 report was favorable, making it credible that the President 
 might have secured annexation had he attempted it in a less 
 autocratic way. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN 
 
 THE RISE OF HORACE GREELEY. THE TRIBUNE. GREELEY AND 
 
 GRANT. THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT. THE SPOILS SYS 
 TEM. SHEPHERD AT WASHINGTON. SCANDALS CONNECTED WITH 
 
 THE COLLECTION OF THE REVENUES. REVERSAL OF HEPBURN VS. 
 
 GRISWOLD. GRANT AND GREELEY NOMINATED. MIXED POLITICS. 
 
 BOTH CANDIDATES SEVERELY CRITICISED. A CHOICE OF EVILS. 
 
 A BITTER CAMPAIGN. DIFFICULTIES CONFRONTING GREELEY. 
 
 GRANT ELECTED. GREELEY' S DEATH. HIS CHARACTER. CONTINU 
 ATION OF REPUBLICAN POLICY AT THE SOUTH. FORCE AND 
 
 ANARCHY IN LOUISIANA. 
 
 ONE hot day in August, 1831, an ungainly journeyman 
 printer from Erie, Pa., was among the " arrivals " in 
 New York City. It was Horace Greeley, born twenty years 
 before, on a farm in Amherst, N. H. From childhood an 
 insatiable reader, at ten he had become the prodigy of his 
 native town. His stump-grubbing on a farm in Vermont, 
 whither poverty drove his father's family, his service as prin 
 ter's devil there, and later as job and newspaper printer at 
 Erie, paid little. The young man reached the metropolis 
 with only ten dollars in his pocket, while the rest of his 
 earthly goods formed a bundle which he swung in his hand. 
 After long and vain search for work he at last secured a situa 
 tion so hard that no other printer would take it. In it he 
 wrought twelve or fourteen hours a day at a rate never exceed 
 ing six dollars a week. 
 
 After various vicissitudes in job-printing and desultory 
 editorial work, where he evinced genius and zeal but no 
 special aptitude for business, Mr. Greeley, in 1841, started 
 the 'Tribune. For this venture he had borrowed $>i,ooo. 
 
 57 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 The first week's losses engulfed nearly half this sum, but at 
 the end of a year the paper was an assured success. It soon 
 became the mouth-piece of all the more sober anti-slavery 
 sentiment of the time, whether within or without the Whig 
 party, and rose to power with the mighty tide of free-soil 
 enthusiasm that swept over the land after 1850. Greeley and 
 his organ were the chief founders of the Republican party, and 
 the most effective moulders of its policy. The influence of the 
 paper before and during the war was incalculable, far exceed 
 ing that of any other sheet in America. Hardly a Whig or a 
 Republican voter in all the North that did not take or read 
 it. It gave tone to the minor organs of its party, and no 
 politician on either side acted upon slavery without consider 
 ing what the Tribune would say. 
 
 While hating slavery and treason, and hence not averse 
 to the war, Greeley was anxious for peace at the earliest 
 moment when it could be safely had ; and forthwith upon the 
 collapse of the Confederacy he dismissed all rancor toward the 
 South. At Jefferson Davis's presentment for treason he 
 stepped forward as bondsman ; and in the long friction which 
 followed he persistently opposed all harshness in dealing with 
 the conquered. He disliked Grant as the exponent of severe 
 methods in reconstruction, and, like Sumner, peculiarly 
 abominated his policy of annexing San Domingo. 
 
 At length Grant and Greeley became, in effect, foes. 
 They had many party friends in common, who sought by 
 every means to reconcile them, but in vain. Greeley was 
 once induced to call at the White House. Grant invited him 
 to a drive, and he accepted. The horses went, the President 
 smoked, and Greeley kept silence, all with a vengeance. Only 
 monosyllables were uttered as the two stiff men rode side by 
 side, and each was glad when they could alight and separate. 
 
 In January, 1872, the Liberal Republicans of Missouri 
 issued a call for a national convention at Cincinnati. Greeley 
 and his Tribune took sides with the revolt. Soon they were 
 
 58 
 
THE SPOILS SYSTEM 
 
 the life of it. Henceforth the opposition to the Administra 
 tion increased in strength day by day. The Cincinnati Com 
 mercial and the Springfield, Mass., Republican sided with the 
 Tribune, while the New York Times and Harper s Weekly 
 earnestly advocated Grant's re-election. Sumner had long 
 since broken with Grant. Many other prominent Republi 
 cans in Congress and outside had lost confidence in the 
 Administration, and then become hostile thereto. General 
 Banks was one of these, Stanley Matthews another, George W. 
 Julian another. Senator Schurz openly stated that if Grant 
 should be nominated for a second term he would bolt the 
 ticket. Early in the second session of the Forty-second Con 
 gress there was question 
 of appointing a com 
 mittee on Investigation 
 and Retrenchment. De 
 bating this, Senator 
 Trumbull vigorously de 
 nounced the prevalent a- 
 buses in the civil service. 
 The spoils system had 
 been permitted to in 
 vade every branch of 
 the Government. The 
 odium heaped upon car 
 pet-bag rule at the South 
 was all along due in large 
 measure to its corruption. 
 By their influence and 
 example many white 
 federal office - holders 
 misled the negro officers, 
 State and national, and 
 the voters as well, to 
 regard office as the legiti- 
 
 HORACE GREELET 
 
 59 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 mate prey of the 
 party triumphant on 
 election day. At 
 the North, no less, 
 appointments in an 
 swer to political wire 
 pulling were the 
 regular order of the 
 time. " Work ! " 
 said an office-holder 
 in 1870 ; " I work 
 ed to get here ! You don't expect me 
 to work now I am here ! " 
 
 Federal offices were needlessly multiplied. In March, 
 1871, a custom-house appraiser was appointed at Evansville, 
 Ind. He informed " his Senator " and the Secretary of the 
 Treasury that his office was a sinecure, writing " his other 
 Senator " soon after that it ought to be abolished. He was 
 removed and a more contented incumbent appointed. " Yet/* 
 says the ex-appraiser, " there could be no charge of neglect or 
 incompetency, for no officer was ever more faithful and dili 
 gent in drawing his salary than I was during those two years, 
 
 WILLIAM HENRT FRT 
 
 After a daguerreotype in the p 
 sion of Horace B. Fry 
 
 After a daguerreotype in the 
 possession of Charles A. Dana 
 
 GEORGE RIPLET MARGARET FULLER BAYARD TAYLOR 
 
 After a daguerreotype in the posses- After a dague 
 sion of Charles A. Dana 
 
 er a daguerreotype in the histori- After a photograph by Szrony 
 
 cal collection of H. W. Fay 
 
 SOME NOTED CONTRIBUTORS TO 
 
 60 
 
SHEPHERD AT WASHINGTON 
 
 THOMAS HICKS CHARLES A. DANA GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 
 
 After a daguerreotype by Brady, 1852, in the possession of Charles A. Dana 
 
 and absolutely there was nothing else to do." In connection 
 with offices where there were far weightier functions than 
 drawing salaries, extravagance, carelessness, and corruption 
 were exposed with damning iteration. 
 
 In 1871 the District of Columbia had been given a ter 
 ritorial government, with a Governor, a Board of Public 
 Works, and a Legislature. The new territory lived too fast 
 to live long, letting out contracts at exorbitant rates, so that 
 they were bought up and sublet, sometimes again and again. 
 It entered upon ambitious schemes of city improvement, 
 which involved the District in a debt far beyond the lawful 
 limit of $ 1 0,000,000. These and other evidences of wasteful 
 administration led Congress, in 1874, to abolish the territorial 
 system and again assume direct control of the District. 
 Lapse of time disposed Washingtonians kindly to remember 
 Shepherd, the head of the territorial government during the 
 
 THE TRIBUNE IN ITS EARLY DATS 
 
 6l 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 great transformation, and later not a few wished his statue to 
 appear in the city which had been rendered so beautiful and 
 commodious through his agency. 
 
 More notorious than the " Washington Ring " were the 
 scandals connected with the collection of the revenues. Early 
 in April, 1874, a meeting was held in New York to protest 
 against the revenue and " moiety " laws ; " moiety," meaning 
 that the law gave to a spy, with certain officials, one-half of 
 the property forfeited to the Government by fraud discovered 
 through such person's agency. Under these laws there were 
 repeated instances of technical forfeitures and condemnation 
 on the ground of constructive fraud, owing to some slight 
 accidental mistake. The laws were often confused and self- 
 contradictory, placing honest officials in danger of committing 
 flagrant wrongs by the effort to execute their terms. A. T. 
 Stewart is said to have been at one time liable to a forfeiture 
 of $3, 000,000 for an error of $300. 
 
 An informer intimated to a revenue official that an im 
 porter had defrauded the Government, paying insufficient duty 
 upon his goods. The official then obtained a secret warrant 
 to seize the importer's books and papers, which was done. 
 The contingent rewards accompanying this business were so 
 enormous that every kind of intrigue, deceit and subornation 
 was practiced. Informers were charged with downright black 
 mail, for which the power to seize private books and papers 
 gave them exceptional opportunity. They sought to stigma 
 tize the entire mercantile class in the importing cities. The 
 terror in which the house of Phelps, Dodge & Co. was long 
 kept by the lurking agents of the Government would be 
 incredible to most of our citizens now. The system would 
 not have surprised people in Naples, but it was revolting to 
 Americans. " Every clerk might become an informer. The 
 Government stealthily put its hand into every counting-room, 
 as the Church through its agents surreptitiously knew every 
 secret of the household." Vicious as it was, not until after 
 
 62 
 
REVERSAL OF HEPBURN VS. GRISWOLD 
 
 Supreme Court of the United States/ etc., it was enacted 
 1 that no vacancy in the office of Associate Justice should be 
 filled by appointment until the number of Associates should 
 be reduced to six, and thereafter the Supreme Court should 
 consist of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices/ By an 
 act of loth April, 1869, to take effect from the first Monday 
 of December, 1869, it was enacted 'that the Court should 
 consist of a Chief Justice and eight Associates, and that, for 
 the purposes of this act, there should be appointed an addi 
 tional Judge/ Hepburn vs. Griswold, it is stated in the 
 opinion of the Court in the case, was decided in conference 
 November 27, 1869 (8 Wallace, 626), there being then eight 
 Judges (the Chief Justice and seven Associates) on the bench, 
 the lowest number to which the Court had been reduced. One 
 of them, Justice Grier, resigned February i, 1870. The 
 judgment in Hepburn vs. Griswold was announced from the 
 bench and entered February 7, 1870. Mr. Justice Strong 
 was appointed February 18, 1870, and Mr. Justice Bradley 
 March 21, 1870, and the order for the present [new] argu 
 ment was made by, and the argument itself heard before, the 
 Court of nine, as constituted by act of loth April, 1869."* 
 Both of the new Justices, Strong and Bradley, voted for the 
 reversal. Judgment was rendered in December, 1870, when 
 the Hepburn vs. Griswold decision was set aside by a majority 
 of one. The new dictum of the Court was later quite gen 
 erally accepted as not forced law, as in real accord with the 
 meaning of the Constitution deeply and broadly viewed. We 
 shall recur to the subject again in Chapter X., there arguing 
 that the Court's conclusion was sound ; but at the time not a 
 few classed it with the Dred Scott decision, as a partisan and 
 most dangerous attack upon our fundamental law. Said an 
 eminent writer : " When public opinion has reached the point 
 of tolerating such proceedings, paper constitutions may well 
 be consigned to oblivion before they fall into contempt." 
 
 *8 Wallace, 528, note. 
 67 
 
THE LAST QUARTER- CENTURY 
 
 In spite of all these grounds for criticism, partly solid and 
 partly fanciful, so evidently did the rank and file of the party 
 wish Grant to continue in the White House that his adver 
 saries saw no hope of capturing the Republican convention. 
 Most of them, therefore, allied themselves with the Liberals. 
 The Democrats maintained a policy of " passivity," but long 
 before their convention there were hints that they would 
 accept the bolting Republican candidates as their own, should 
 these not be too radically opposed to democratic ideas. With 
 such aid the separatists expected to carry the country. 
 
 The convention of Come-outers assembled at Cincinnati 
 on May ist, and effected a permanent organization with Carl 
 Schurz as chairman. Touching the South, the platform 
 declared for general amnesty, local self-government, and the 
 abolition of all military authority as superseding civil law. 
 The suspension of habeas corpus it especially condemned. It 
 denounced corruption in the civil service, and declared against 
 a second term in the Presidency. It demanded a tariff which 
 should not unnecessarily interfere with industry, advocated a 
 speedy return to specie payments, and ended with a eulogy on 
 the Union soldiers. Mr. Greeley was nominated for the 
 Presidency on the sixth ballot. B. Gratz Brown, Governor of 
 Missouri, received the nomination for Vice-President. 
 
 Grant's friends were not frightened. They pretended, 
 rather, to regard the nomination as a huge joke. All con 
 ceded that Greeley was an honest man, yet he did not inspire 
 confidence. He had a reputation for doing strange, compro 
 mising things. John Sherman thought him " probably the 
 most unfit man for President, except Train, that had ever 
 been mentioned." Many of the Liberals themselves did not 
 fancy him. He was an ultra protectionist, while Schurz and 
 other prominent anti-Administration Republicans leaned toward 
 a revenue tariff. Greeley was understood to intend, in case of 
 his election, to hold his tariff ideas in abeyance in deference to 
 the preferences of his free-trader and low-tariff supporters. 
 
 68 
 
GRANT AND GREELEY NOMINATED 
 
 This understanding did not conduce 
 to men's respect for him. Sumner 
 was for radical measures in the South, 
 which most of the Liberals deprecated. 
 It was Sumner who, in the Forty- 
 second and Forty-third Congresses, 
 so earnestly sought to pass the Sup 
 plementary Civil Rights Bill, with the 
 aim of securing for the Southern negro 
 
 . , ., ,. i ,. . , ZEBULON B. VANCE 
 
 social as well as political equality with 
 
 the white man. It imposed heavy penalties on hotel-keepers, 
 theatre and railway managers and others for conducting their 
 businesses so as in any way to discriminate against the blacks. 
 This bill readily passed the Senate whenever moved, but 
 always failed in the House until March i, 1875, when, a year 
 after Sumner's death, it went upon the statute book to be, by 
 a Supreme Court decision October 3, 1883, declared uncon 
 stitutional and void.* Little as they agreed with one another, 
 however, the majority of the seceders, wishing " anybody to 
 beat Grant," accepted Greeley with no small heartiness. 
 
 The Republican Convention met at Philadelphia on June 
 5th. The platform declared for civil service reform and com 
 plete equality in the enjoyment of all civil, political, and public 
 rights throughout the Union, and uttered a somewhat ambigu 
 ous statement in regard to the relations of capital and labor. 
 It upheld the President in his Southern policy, though main 
 taining that State governments should be permitted to function 
 in the fullest degree practicable. The latest amnesty bill of 
 Congress it approved, and it eulogized the President in the 
 highest terms. The Convention exhibited no opposition to 
 Grant, and he was renominated by acclamation. Henry Wil 
 son, of Massachusetts, was given the second place on the ticket, 
 defeating Colfax, who had incurred the enmity of several men 
 influential in the party^ 
 
 *i^ U. S. Supreme Court Reports, 3. 
 69 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Between the nomination of Grant and 
 the Democratic Convention at Baltimore, 
 over a month later, public attention was 
 centred upon the attitude of the Demo 
 cratic leaders to the candidacy of Greeley 
 and Brown. That these nominees were 
 not wholly acceptable to the Democracy 
 there could be no doubt. Many of the 
 party chiefs spoke of Greeley with open 
 
 LYM4N TRUMBULL . . . Ar . i " i / i 
 
 derision. Yet, as it was evident that if the 
 Liberal candidates did not receive Democratic endorsement all 
 efforts against Grant would prove unavailing, the majority of 
 the party was for Greeley at all hazards. Said ex-Governor 
 Vance, of North Carolina: " If Old Grimes' is in the demo 
 cratic hymn-book, we'll sing him through if it kills us." Accord 
 ingly, the Convention, which assembled at Baltimore July 9th, 
 notwithstanding considerable opposition, accepted the Cincin 
 nati candidates and platform, adjourning in some hope of 
 victory. A few dissatisfied Democrats met at Louisville on 
 September jd and nominated Charles O'Conor for President 
 and John Quincy Adams for Vice-President. Both gentlemen 
 declined, but the nominations were left unchanged. 
 
 Greeley accepted the Baltimore nomination in a letter 
 dated July i8th. In this he insisted on the "full enfranchise 
 ment " of all the white population at the South, and declared 
 that henceforth Democracy and Republicanism would stand 
 for one and the same idea, "equal rights, regardless of creed 
 or clime or color." The entire effective force of the Democ 
 racy, South as well as North, rallied to the Greeley standard, 
 joined, strangely, by Republicans and Abolitionists like Trum- 
 bull, of Illinois, Julian, of Indiana, Blair, of Michigan, Sedg- 
 wick, of New York, and Bird, of Massachusetts. General 
 W. T. Sherman wrote from Paris to his brother, the Senator: 
 " Of course I have watched the progress of political events 
 from this 'standpoint, and feel amazed to see the turn things 
 
 70 
 
BOTH CANDIDATES SEVERELY CRITICISED 
 
 have taken. Grant, who never was a Republican, is your 
 candidate ; and Greeley, who never was a Democrat, but quite 
 the reverse, is the Democratic candidate." The Senator re 
 plied : " As you say, the Republicans are running a Democrat, 
 and the Democrats a Republican. And there is not an essen 
 tial difference in the platform of principle. The chief interest 
 I feel in the canvass is the preservation of the Republican 
 party, which I think essential to secure the fair enforcement of 
 the results of the war. General Grant has so managed things 
 as to gain the very bitter and active hostility of many of the 
 leading Republicans, and the personal indifference of most of 
 the residue. He will, however, be fairly supported by the 
 great mass of the Republicans, and I still hope and believe will 
 be elected. The defections among Republicans will be made 
 up by Democrats who will not vote for Greeley." 
 
 On June joth George William Curtis wrote : " The best 
 sentiment of the opposition is that both parties must be 
 destroyed and Greeley's election is the way to destroy them. 
 This is Schurz's ground, who likes Greeley as little as any of 
 us. The argument seems to be, first chaos then cosmos. 
 The Nation and the Evening Post in this dilemma take Grant 
 as the least of evils. He has been foully slandered, and Sum- 
 ner's speech [of May jist see page 75] was unpardonable. 
 He was bitterly indignant at me said that my course was 
 unspeakable and inconsistent, and that I was bringing un 
 speakable woe upon my country. I could only reply, ( Sum- 
 ner, you must learn that other men are as honest as you.'-' 
 
 Much could be truly said in Greeley's favor. An editor 
 opposed to his election declared " that he was a man of 
 unimpeachable private life, just, charitable, generous ; that like 
 many of our greatest statesmen he had raised himself by his 
 own unaided exertions to a place of great power and distinc 
 tion ; that though he had been all his life a politician he had 
 never basely sought office and had never held office save once, 
 and then very briefly ; that with all his errors his influence had 
 
 71 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 always been used in favor of every true reform as well as many 
 that merely promised well ; and that he was a thorough be 
 liever in American ideas and things." 
 
 Among Grant's critics the cooler argued about as follows : 
 The war issues, they said, should be treated as settled ; in its 
 prosperity the party had become careless ; the President was 
 surrounded by unwise counsellors and influenced by unscru 
 pulous men ; under him the civil service had been debauched 
 as never before, even in Jackson's time ; if he should be re- 
 elected things could not but go from bad to worse. Putting 
 the very best possible construction upon his motives, they de 
 clared, it was obvious that Grant was dividing the party, and 
 therefore should no longer continue its 
 official head. Some of the President's an 
 tagonists did not hesitate even to impugn 
 his honesty. His advocacy of reform in 
 the civil service they denominated " thin 
 twaddle." He was charged with incorrigi 
 ble nepotism. The fact that he had been 
 given a house was deemed suspicious. 
 The utmost was made of his incessant 
 smoking and of his love for fast horses. 
 
 " It is not a great draft upon the pub 
 lic purse," said one, " nor a creation of a 
 dangerous family influence, when the Presi 
 dent appoints a dozen or more of his rela 
 tives to office ; but it is a bad example, and 
 shows a low view of the presidential office. 
 But far worse than this was the scandal 
 of the President's brother-in-law at the 
 capital following the profession of agent 
 for claims against the Government, carry 
 ing his family influence into the subordinate executive depart 
 ments where such claims are judged, and actually as he 
 testified before a Congressional Committee appealing cases 
 
 72 
 
 HENRT WILSON 
 
 B. GRATZ BROWN 
 
A CHOICE OF EVILS 
 
 from the departments to the President and appearing before 
 him to argue them. In effect this was the sale of the Presi 
 dent's influence against the ends of justice by his brother-in- 
 law." This criticism was made by an able writer who, after 
 all, preferred Grant to Greeley. 
 
 The President's thick and thin supporters pleaded that 
 under his administration the public debt had been decreased, 
 taxes lowered, the utmost honesty and economy introduced in 
 public affairs, industry revived, and confidence restored. They 
 alleged that the cause of the Cincinnati Convention was noth 
 ing but selfish discontent. The meeting, they said, had been 
 controlled by scheming politicians and place-hunters, who 
 knew that under Greeley they could have what they wished. 
 If Grant was incompetent, it was asked, what would be the 
 state of affairs should Greeley, who had hardly ever in his life 
 held an office, and never an administrative office, be elected ! 
 
 A very large class of Republicans admitted as true most 
 that was put forth in criticism of the Administration, yet wished 
 Grant elected. " Of Grant," said one of these Republicans, 
 " we have some reason to think that we know the worst. It 
 appears that he favors civil service reform at least as much as 
 Mr. Greeley does. His relations are now, we believe, all com 
 fortably provided for ; gratified citizens have showered upon 
 him as many gifts as he will probably care to receive." 
 " Pitiful as it is to be compelled to choose one of two evidently 
 unfit persons for the highest office in the nation, our prefer 
 ence would be for General Grant. . . Though of proved 
 incapacity in civil government, he is still believed to be honest, 
 cautious and steady, with a reserve of intellectual power and 
 moral purpose which, in any coming crisis of our affairs, might 
 be an invaluable aid to the country." This writer did not 
 doubt that Grant was " stolid, barren of ideas, and below the 
 intellectual level of Jackson, Taylor and Harrison," admitted 
 that vast numbers of Republicans would vote for him merely 
 as a choice of evils, and declared that his re-election could not 
 
 73 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 be taken for an unqualified approval of his administration. 
 " Grant," he said, " conspicuously fails " in obvious desire for 
 the people's good ; " his presence inspires no enthusiasm ; his 
 pulse does not beat with the popular heart ; he has the cold 
 ness of Washington without his lofty self-devotion." 
 
 As the conflict deepened feeling waxed painfully bitter 
 and the meanest personal allusions were common. Greeley's 
 supporters dubbed their candidate " Honest Old Horace ; " 
 the opposition, remembering his bail to Jefferson Davis, whom 
 most abolitionists wished hung, called him " Old Bail-Bonds." 
 " Grant beat Davis," they said, " Greeley bailed him." He 
 was named " Horrors Greeley," and his homely manners were 
 made the subject of innumerable jests. "Greeley " so ran one 
 relatively sober estimate " Greeley, with his immense experi 
 ence and acuteness, and philanthropic philosophy of life, is still 
 unsteady, grotesque, obstinate and ridiculous epithets never 
 yet justly applicable, all at once, to a President of the United 
 States." Cartoons, which played a great figure in this campaign, 
 vastly exaggerated his corpulency. On the unfortunate B. Gratz 
 Brown the stalwarts heaped the worst disgrace which a politi 
 cal candidate can receive, that of being ignored. His views 
 and his record were never mentioned ; only his bare name came 
 
 before the pub 
 lic. In every car 
 toon by Nast 
 where Greeley 
 was represented, 
 a tag bearing the 
 legend " and 
 Gratz Brown," 
 hung from his 
 
 coat-tail. Carl Schurz and Whitelaw Reid, both fighting 
 Greeleyites, were pictured with classical and pedantic features, 
 eye-glasses big as tea-cups, and legs ten feet long. 
 
 Such coarseness was not confined to the supporters of the 
 
 74 
 
A BITTER CAMPAIGN 
 
 Administration. The Gree- 
 ley press made Grant call 
 to his intimates to bid him 
 good-by, as he sang : 
 
 " My friends are gone to Chappa- 
 
 qua, 
 Oh, put me in my little bed." 
 
 Chappaqua was Greeley's 
 country residence. Greeley was dubbed " Old Whitey " for 
 his coat and hat, his most unique habiliments, and the fol 
 lowing doggerel was concocted, equally unique in its good 
 humor : 
 
 "Press where ye see my White Hat gleam amid the ranks of war, 
 And be your oriflamme this day the Coat of Chappaqua." 
 
 On May Jist Sumner delivered a speech in which he ap 
 plied to the President the following extract from a letter of 
 Lord Durham to Henry Brougham : " Among the foremost 
 purposes ought to be the downfall of this odious, insulting, 
 degrading, aide-de-campish, incapable dictatorship. At such 
 a crisis, is this country to be left at the mercy of barrack coun 
 cils and mess-room politics ? " 
 
 If the disclosures and falsehoods about the Credit Mobi- 
 lier, of which we shall give an account in the next Chapter, 
 hurt the party in power, the revelations already made and still 
 coming out concerning the Tweed Ring told against Greeley's 
 cause. Tweed was of Tammany, and Tammany, now in the 
 worst repute it had ever borne, threw to the breeze the Greeley 
 flag. The question of Female Suffrage also plagued Mr. 
 Greeley. The National Women's Suffrage Association met 
 in New York May 9, 1872, and adopted 
 resolutions strongly condemning him for his 
 position in regard to their movement assever 
 ating the right of women to vote under the 
 Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to 
 the Constitution. 
 
 75 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Nor was this all. As an uncompromising opponent of 
 the Democracy, Greeley had during his editorial career wielded 
 a terribly caustic pen. This fact much aggravated his new 
 position. A cut in Harper s Weekly represented him in the 
 act of eating uncomfortably hot soup from a dish bearing the 
 inscription, " My own words and deeds." Greeley had said 
 that the Democratic party would be better off if there were 
 not a school-house in the country, and he had always repre 
 sented that only people of the lowest sort naturally found their 
 way to its ranks. Now, as " standard-bearer of the great Lib 
 eral movement," he had accepted the nomination of that very 
 party. Against Greeley the arch-abolitionist, every fire-eater 
 paper at the South had for twenty-five years been discharging 
 its most venomous spleen. Once, before the war, a Northern 
 sheet characterized the representative plantation lord as sigh 
 ing : 
 
 " Oh for a nigger and oh for a whip, 
 Oh for a cocktail and oh for a nip, 
 Oh for a shot at Old Greeley and Beecher, 
 Oh for a whack at a Yankee school-teacher ; 
 And so he kept ohing for what he had not, 
 Not contented with owing for all he had got." 
 
 Now the quondam plantation lord was invited to the polls to 
 vote for the " Old Greeley " aforesaid. 
 
 Numerous and weighty as were Grant's faults and 
 Greeley' s virtues, events or sentiments proved too strong for 
 the bolting movement. Many for a time 
 deluded themselves with the hope of its 
 triumph, but as election day approached 
 it became evident that Grant would receive 
 an overwhelming majority in the electoral 
 college. Most of those Republicans who 
 at first disinclined to vote for Grant, hop 
 ing for a better man, determined, as the 
 campaign advanced, to put up with the ills 
 they had rather than fly to the unknown CHARLES O'CONOR 
 
 7 6 
 
GREELEY'S DEATH 
 
 ones which they believed the promotion 
 of Greeley sure to bring. As State after 
 State declared for Republicanism during 
 the late summer and fall, the shadows 
 of defeat lengthened across Greeley's 
 path. Finally he undertook a personal 
 canvass, stumping New Hampshire and 
 Maine in August, Pennsylvania and Ohio 
 in September. From this campaign work 
 
 7 HN TZ ADAMS he was called to the death-bed of his wife,- 
 over whose stricken form he watched with 
 
 the tenderest love and care until she passed away, a week before 
 the election. His defeat at the polls was overwhelming. He 
 carried but six States, all of them Southern. Grant's popular 
 majority approached three-quarters of a million. Mr. Greeley 
 was quite spent in body and mind by the terrible bitterness of 
 the campaign, by the magnitude of his defeat, and most of all 
 by his deep bereavement. Before his wife's death he had said 
 to an intimate, " I am a broken old man. I have not slept one 
 hour in twenty-four for a month. If she lasts, poor soul, another 
 week, I shall go before her." For six weeks he did not enjoy 
 a night of natural sleep. Malaria had already undermined 
 his system, and on November 29th he succumbed, ere the 
 shouts of the victors had died away. At once all laid aside 
 thoughts of triumph, his bitterest enemies hastening to do 
 honor to the memory of his noble character. 
 
 In the death of Horace Greeley the nation lost a citizen 
 of sterling worth and deep patriotism. Opinionated, an ideal 
 ist rather than a practitioner in his contention for right, he had 
 been led into more than one quixotic error, laying himself 
 open to attacks that left their sting. His judgments were 
 often precipitate and unsound. June 29, 1862, he wrote 
 to J. R. Giddings : " We are going to ruin. McClellan is 
 certainly a fool, probably a traitor, and Halleck is no better. We 
 are doomed/' But every one now forgot the man's blunders 
 
 77 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 and remembered only the purity and benevolence of his spirit. 
 No one had ever impeached the honesty of his motives. It 
 was the universal verdict that he had been a man of great soul 
 and lofty devotion, not unworthy the title bestowed upon him 
 by Whittier, of " The Modern Franklin." 
 
 As in duty bound, Congress, on February 12, 1873, 
 counted the electoral vote. When the State of Georgia was 
 reached, Mr. Beck, of Kentucky, announced three of the votes 
 of that State for Greeley. The House voting to reject these, 
 since the candidate was dead at the time they were cast, and 
 the Senate voting to receive them, they were thrown out under 
 the Twenty-second Joint Rule, then in force. Upon different 
 objections, but under the same rule, the votes of Arkansas and 
 Louisiana were also rejected. Had Greeley lived he would 
 probably have received sixty electoral votes. 
 
 Grant was inaugurated March 4, 1873. In his inaugural 
 address he declared strongly for the establishment of the ne 
 groes' civil rights. He maintained that no executive control 
 was exercised in the Southern States which would not be had 
 in others under similar circumstances. He favored the exten 
 sion of the country's territorial domains, pledging himself to 
 the restoration, so far as possible, of good feeling, and to the 
 establishment of the currency on a solid basis. He urged the 
 construction of cheaper inland routes for travel and trade, and 
 also the re-establishment of our foreign commerce. 
 
 The campaign of 1872 naturally sweetened Sumner's 
 temper toward the Southern people. In a letter to the col 
 ored voters of the United States, dated July 29, 1872, he 
 said : " Pile up the ashes, extinguish the flame, abolish the 
 hate such is my desire." In accordance with this sentiment 
 he introduced in the Senate a bill providing that the names of 
 battles against citizens of the United States while in rebellion 
 should not be continued in the army register or placed on the 
 colors of regiments. This failed to pass, but an act did pass 
 which happily reduced to some extent the rancor felt by the 
 
 78 
 
REPUBLICAN POLICY AT THE SOUTH 
 
 HENRT CLAY 
 WARMOTH. 
 
 South against the North. It removed political 
 disabilities from all citizens of the late Con 
 federacy, except Senators and Representatives 
 in the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Con 
 gresses, officers in the judicial, military and naval 
 service, and heads of departments and foreign 
 ministers of the United States. This act was 
 approved May 22, 1872. However, the Re 
 publican programme for governing the Southern 
 States was as yet by no means essentially al 
 tered. 
 
 Congressional discussions over race difficulties were re 
 newed with some bitterness when, in May, 1872, a bill was 
 brought before Congress, extending to all election precincts 
 the act of 1871, whereby Federal Supervisors could be ap 
 pointed in towns of over 20,000 inhabitants. It passed the 
 Senate without great difficulty. In the House it was strenu 
 ously opposed, its enemies dubbing it " election by bayonet." 
 It finally passed the House also, June 8th, as an amendment 
 to an appropriation bill. 
 
 During the second session of the Forty-second Congress, 
 there was more or less race trouble in the South, and the anti- 
 Administration forces took occasion to reflect anew on the 
 President's policy under the Force Act. On January 25, 
 1873, the House passed a resolution re 
 questing the President to inform Congress 
 touching the condition of South Carolina, 
 in which State, under the authority of 
 the act of April 20, 1871, he had sus 
 pended the writ of habeas corpus. The 
 citizens of the State also made a request 
 for a statement of the Government's 
 policy in prosecutions under that act. The 
 reply stated that the Executive was dis 
 posed, except in grave cases, to show great 
 
 P. B. S. PINCHBECK 
 
 79 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 clemency and to discontinue prosecutions against violators of 
 the law. 
 
 The election of November, 1870, gave Louisiana to 
 the Republicans by a substantial majority, but almost 
 immediately the party began to break up into factions. 
 Governor Warmoth was opposed by leading federal officers, 
 who succeeded in gaining control of the Republican State 
 convention. With the assembling of the Legislature in 
 January, 1872, the situation assumed a grave character. On 
 the death of Lieutenant-Governor Dunn, in November of 
 the previous year, P. B. S. Pinchback, a colored adherent of 
 Warmoth, had been elected President of the Senate, but the 
 Administration leaders declared his election illegal. In the 
 House, Speaker Carter, an anti-Warmoth man, was antagonized 
 by Warmoth's friends. After a bitter struggle, during which 
 Warmoth and a number of his supporters were arrested by 
 the Federal authorities, Carter was deposed. A congressional 
 committee investigated the quarrel, but could not quiet it, and 
 the politics of Louisiana continued in an inflamed condition. 
 
 Estrangement soon arose between Governor Warmoth 
 and Pinchback, Warmoth heading the Liberal Republican 
 movement in the State. After much manoeuvring the Liberals 
 united with the Democratic and " Reform " parties in a fusion 
 ticket headed by John McEnery, with an electoral ticket sup 
 porting Greeley and Brown. The Pinchback faction united 
 with the Grant party, nominating W. P. Kellogg for Governor 
 and Pinchback for Congressman-at-large. There can be little 
 doubt that McEnery was elected by a large majority. 
 
 The returns of the election were to be submitted to the 
 State Returning Board. At the time of the election the Board 
 consisted of Governor Warmoth, Lieut.-Gov. Pinchback, Sec 
 retary of State Herron, John Lynch, and T. C. Anderson. 
 When this board met, Pinchback and Anderson being candi 
 dates for office at this election whose result was to be deter 
 mined, were declared incapable of serving. The Governor 
 
 80 
 
THE DISPERSAL OF THE McENERT LEGISLATURE AT ODD FELLOES' HALL, 
 
 NEW ORLEANS 
 
 On March 6th, 1873, a body of Metropolitan Police, under orders from General Longstreet, the Commander of the 
 Kellogg militia, marched to Odd Fellows^ Hall, where the McEnery Legislature was in session, and arrested the only 
 Jive members who refused to disperse or to leave the building. 
 
FORCE AND ANARCHY IN LOUISIANA 
 
 supplanted Herron with a more trusty friend, and proceeded 
 to fill the other two vacancies. In like manner. Lynch and 
 Herron, professing to be the true board, supplied their own 
 lack in numbers. In December, the Supreme Court of the 
 State declared Herron an intruder into the office of Secretary 
 of State, thus demolishing the Lynch and Herron board,, 
 while Federal Circuit Judge E. H. Durell, in answer to 
 Kellogg's prayer, enjoined Warmoth's board from acting. 
 Meantime a legislative act, duly passed and approved, ousted 
 both boards and provided for a new one. This being speedily 
 organized, the returns were canvassed and McEnery was de 
 clared elected Governor by a majority of 7,000. 
 
 Kellogg's prospects now seemed desperate, but they did 
 not prove to be so. On the night of December 5th, " in his 
 own chambers, without any previous motion in Court," Justice 
 Durell drew up and issued to the United States Marshal, 
 Packard, the following: "It is hereby ordered, that the Marshal 
 of the United States for the District of Louisiana shall forth 
 with take possession of the building known as the Mechanics* 
 Institute and occupied as the State-house, for the assembling 
 of the Legislature therein, in the city of New Orleans, and hold 
 the same subject to the further order of the Court; and mean 
 while to prevent all unlawful assemblage therein under the 
 guise or pretext of authority claimed by virtue of pretended 
 canvass and returns made by said pretended returning officers- 
 in contempt and violation of said restraining order; but the 
 Marshal is directed to allow the ingress and egress to and from 
 the public offices in said building, of persons entitled to the 
 same." 
 
 This mandate, void in point of law, was efficient, and 
 next morning, obeying the Marshal's order, Captain Jackson, 
 with United States soldiers, began a six weeks' occupation 
 of the State-house. Collector of the Port, Casey, tele 
 graphed the President: "Marshal Packard took possession 
 of State-house this morning, at an early hour, with military 
 
 83 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 posse, in obedience to a mandate of Circuit Court, to prevent 
 illegal assemblage of persons under guise of authority of War- 
 moth's returning board, in violation of injunction of Circuit 
 Court. . . The decree was sweeping in its provisions, 
 and if enforced will save the Republican majority and give 
 Louisiana a Republican Legislature and State government. " 
 
 The same day the Lynch board met and, though without 
 the returns, elected Kellogg Governor by 19,000 majority. 
 They then proceeded by the very easy and summary method 
 set forth in the following bit of testimony, to create a Republi 
 can legislature in place of the legal body: 
 
 By Mr. Carpenter. Q. " You estimated it, then, upon 
 the basis of what you thought the vote ought to have been ? " 
 
 By Lynch. A. " Yes, sir. That was just the fact, and 
 I think, on the whole, we were pretty correct." 
 
 This Legislature at once impeached Warmoth, thus mak 
 ing Pinchback Governor for the unexpired term. The Court 
 again aided, enjoining all not named on the Lynch list from 
 claiming office, and enjoining Warmoth from interfering with 
 the organization of the Lynch Legislature. 
 
 On December n, 1872, Pinchback telegraphed the 
 Attorney-General at Washington : " May I suggest that the 
 commanding general be authorized to furnish troops upon my 
 requisition upon him, for the protection of the Legislature and 
 the gubernatorial office ? " Kellogg, the heir apparent, also 
 telegraphed: "If the President in some way indicates recogni 
 tion, Governor Pinchback and Legislature would settle every 
 thing." Collector Casey co-operated : " The delay in placing 
 troops at disposal of Governor Pinchback, in accordance with 
 joint resolution, is disheartening our friends and cheering our 
 enemies. If requisition of Legislature is complied with, all 
 difficulty will be dissipated, the party saved, . . and the tide 
 will be turned at once in our favor . . . . " 
 
 Next day, the I2th, Attorney-General Williams re 
 sponded: <c Acting-Governor Pinchback, New Orleans, Loui- 
 
FORCE AND ANARCHY IN LOUISIANA 
 
 siana : Let it be understood that you are recognized by the 
 President as the lawful executive of Louisiana, and that the 
 body assembled at Mechanics' Institute is the lawful Legisla 
 ture of the State ; and it is suggested that you make proclama 
 tion to that effect, and also that all necessary assistance will be 
 given to you and the Legislature herein recognized to protect 
 the State from disorder and violence." 
 
 In answer to a telegram from McEnery, begging for 
 delay till a committee of citizens could lay the facts before the 
 Executive, came the following: " Hon John McEnery. Your 
 visit with a hundred citizens will be unavailing, so far as the 
 President is concerned. His decision is made and will not be 
 changed, and the sooner it is acquiesced in the sooner good 
 order and peace will be restored. Geo. H. Williams, Attor 
 ney-General." Finally this: "Washington, December 14, 
 1872. General W. H. Emory, U. S. A., Commanding, New 
 Orleans, Louisiana. You may use all necessary force to pre 
 serve the peace, and will recognize the authority of Governor 
 Pinchback. By order of the President : E. D. Townsend, 
 Adjutant-General." 
 
 On January 7, 1873, tne day appointed for the assem 
 bling of the Legislature, both the opposing bodies began 
 operations " inter arma" A week later both Kellogg and 
 McEnery took the oath of office. President Grant supported 
 the Pinchback claimants with federal troops. The House 
 of Representatives instructed its Committee on Privileges and 
 Elections to inquire into the dispute. A report was made 
 February 20, 1873, which condemned federal interference. 
 The committee found that McEnery was de jure entitled to 
 the governorship, but that Kellogg, supported by the army, 
 was de facto Governor. The committee recommended the 
 passage of an act " to secure an honest re-election" in Louis 
 iana. The recommendation was not adopted and anarchy, in 
 effect, followed. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE GENEVA AWARD AND THE CREDIT 
 
 MOBILIER 
 
 OUTCOME OF THE WASHINGTON TREATY. THE "ALABAMA 
 
 CLAIMS." VAIN EFFORTS AT SETTLEMENT. THE GENEVA TRIBU 
 NAL. RULES FOR ITS GUIDANCE. QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY IT. 
 
 ITS DECISION. THE NORTHWESTERN BOUNDARY SETTLEMENT. 
 
 THE CREDIT MOBILIER STORY. ENTHUSIASM FOR THE WEST. 
 
 VASTNESS OF THAT SECTION. THE RUSH THITHER. THE 
 
 PIONEERS. LAND-GRABBING. GRANTS FOR TRANSCONTINENTAL 
 
 RAILWAYS. INCEPTION OF THE UNION PACIFIC COMPANY. THE 
 
 CREDIT MOBILIER COMPANY. OAKES AMES AND HIS CONTRACT. 
 
 STOCK SOLD TO CONGRESSMEN. THE "SUN's" PUBLICATION. THE 
 
 FACTS. AMES'S DEFENSE. CENSURE OF HIM BY THE HOUSE OF 
 
 REPRESENTATIVES. HIS DEATH. REASONS FOR THE SENTIMENT 
 
 AGAINST HIM. 
 
 NOTHING aided President Grant and his party in their 
 1872 campaign more than the honorable outcome 
 which the Treaty of Washington had in the Geneva Award 
 and the northwestern boundary settlement, both seasonably 
 made known to the world in 1872. The Award related to 
 the famous Alabama Claims, and meant that these, or the 
 most important of them, must be paid us by Great Britain. 
 Chief credit for such happy result was due to Hon. Hamilton 
 Fish, Grant's Secretary of State, yet naturally and justly, the 
 Administration as a whole profited by his triumphant diplo 
 macy. 
 
 The claims usually denominated " Alabama " claims were 
 partly national or, less accurately, " indirect," and partly indi 
 vidual or direct. The national claims were for destruction of 
 United States commerce or its transfer to other flags occa 
 sioned by Confederate privateers fitted out wholly or partly in 
 
 87 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Great Britain, and for enhanced marine insurance and increased 
 cost of the war in life and treasure due to the same cause. 
 The individual or direct claims were for damages through cer 
 tain specific acts of depredation by Confederate war-vessels, 
 notably the Alabama, the Florida, and the Shenandoah. 
 
 In spite of repeated warnings from Hon. Charles Fran 
 cis Adams, then United States Minister to Great Britain, the 
 Queen's Government had suffered the Florida, originally 
 called the Oreto, and ostensibly destined for Palermo, Sicily, 
 to be built at Liverpool in 1862, and to receive, at Green Bay, 
 near Nassau, arms and munitions from another vessel. The 
 Florida was indeed seized, but soon released. Adams's sus 
 picions were shortly directed against another vessel building at 
 Liverpool, called " the 290," from the number of merchants 
 who contributed to her construction, but later and better 
 known as the Alabama. His suspicions were confirmed 
 by evidence which distinguished British counsel declared 
 " almost conclusive," sufficient to impose a " heavy responsi 
 bility " upon the collector of customs " if he failed to detain 
 her." Easily dodging the half-hearted reach that was made 
 for her, "the 290" went forth upon her career of devastation, 
 continuing it until she was sunk by the Kearsage. The 
 Sbenandoah cleared from Liverpool as a merchant vessel, the 
 Sea King, and when, in November, 1865, she took in supplies 
 and enlisted men at Melbourne, English liability for her acts be 
 came definitely fixed. Claims of a less conclusive nature were 
 made on account of the acts of ten other Confederate privateers. 
 
 Mr. Adams left England in 1868 without having ob 
 tained any satisfaction of these claims. His successor, Hon. 
 Reverdy Johnson, was upon his arrival in London much dined 
 and wined. He made effusive speeches, judging from which 
 one would think that in his view Great Britain could do no 
 wrong. Secretary Seward, too, had a warm regard for Eng 
 land, and was moreover anxious to settle the difficulty before 
 leaving office. But the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty, the off- 
 
THE "ALABAMA CLAIMS" 
 
 The Florida 
 
 The Shenandoah 
 
 The Alabama, or 2QO 
 
 THREE FAMOUS CONFEDERATE CRUISERS 
 
 The Shenandoah is from a photograph of a drawing owned by John T. Mason, Esq. 
 The other two are from photographs owned by John M. Kell, Esq. 
 
 spring of this cordial policy, was, in the spring of 1869, 
 unceremoniously drummed out of the Senate to the music of 
 Charles Sumner's famous speech, which, as one paper put it, 
 " set almost all Americans to swinging their hats for eight or 
 nine days, and made every Englishman double up his fists and 
 curse every time he thought of it for several weeks." 
 
 That treaty contained not a word of regret for England's 
 unfriendly posture during the war, or the slightest confession 
 of fault. It ignored the national claims of the United States, 
 while its language with regard to British citizens' claims against 
 the United States, whatever was intended by it, was so catho 
 lic that when the text of the treaty became known Confederate 
 bonds in England rose from their tomb with ten per cent, of 
 their original vitality about them. 
 
 On becoming President, Grant recalled Johnson and sent 
 to succeed him John Lothrop Motley, a firm friend of Sum- 
 ner's, sharing Summer's extreme views upon the British ques 
 tion. But the policy of the new Administration was not so 
 radical as Sumner's. It laid little stress upon the recognition 
 of belligerency as a ground for damage, and left Great Britain 
 to take the initiative in coming to an understanding. Like 
 Sumner, Mr. Motley wished to insist upon damages for Eng- 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER 
 
 land's premature recognition of the 
 Confederates as belligerents. He, 
 too, was soon removed. 
 
 At the instance of England, a 
 joint High Commission was speedily 
 appointed to sit in Washington. 
 The Treaty of Washington, drawn 
 up by this Commission and pro 
 claimed on July 4, 1871, provided 
 for an adjustment of all outstanding 
 differences between the countries 
 touching the fisheries, the north 
 western boundary, and the claims 
 of citizens of either government 
 
 against the other for acts committed during the Civil War. 
 The Treaty further provided " for the reciprocal free navi 
 gation of certain rivers, including the St. Lawrence, for the 
 common use of certain Canadian and American canals, and for 
 reciprocal free transit across the territories of the United 
 States or Canada ; these provisions to be enforced by ap 
 propriate legislation, to be binding for ten years, and term 
 inable thereafter on two years' notice." In all its articles 
 together the Treaty engaged the co-operation of no fewer than 
 eight sovereign States. The Alabama claims it referred to a 
 Tribunal of Arbitration, consisting of one arbitrator from each 
 of the high contracting parties and one each appointed by the 
 executives of Italy, Switzerland, and Brazil. Count Sclopis 
 was the Italian arbitrator, Mr. Jacques Staempfli the Swiss, 
 and Baron Itajuba the Brazilian. The tribunal met at Geneva, 
 December 15, 1871, but, as we have observed, did not render 
 its decision until the succeeding year. 
 
 The Treaty of Washington had laid down for the guidance 
 of the tribunal three rules, which form such an important con 
 tribution to international law that they deserve quotation in full : 
 " A neutral government is bound, 
 
 9 o 
 
RULES FOR GUIDANCE OF GENEVA TRIBUNAL 
 
 " First : To use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, 
 arming or equipping, within its jurisdiction, of any vessel 
 which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to cruise 
 or to carry on war against a power with which it is at peace ; 
 and also to use like diligence to prevent the departure from its 
 jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise or carry on war as 
 above, -such vessel having been specially adapted, in whole or 
 in part, within such jurisdiction, to warlike use. 
 
 " Secondly : Not to permit or suffer either belligerent to 
 make use of its ports or waters as the base of naval operations 
 against the other, or for the purpose of the renewal or aug 
 mentation of military supplies or arms, or the recruitment of 
 men. 
 
 " Thirdly : To exercise due diligence in its own ports and 
 waters, and, as to all persons within its jurisdiction, to prevent 
 any violation of the foregoing obligations and duties." 
 
 In the text of the Treaty of Washington Great Britain 
 denied that these rules were a true statement of the principles 
 of international law as that law stood during the American 
 Civil War, but consented that the Alabama Claims should be 
 decided in accordance with them notwithstanding. Both coun 
 tries agreed to abide by these principles in future, and to invite 
 other maritime powers to do the same. 
 
 Question being raised as to the interpretation of certain 
 terms and the scope of certain provisions in the three rules, the 
 tribunal made the following preliminary decisions : 
 
 1. The meaning of "due diligence." The tribunal took 
 the ground that what constitutes " due diligence " varies with 
 the circumstances of the case. The greater the probable dam 
 age to either belligerent, the greater must be the care taken by 
 the neutral government to prevent the escape of cruisers from 
 its ports. 
 
 2. Should a neutral detain an escaped cruiser when it re- 
 enters the neutral's jurisdiction, the cruiser having in the 
 meantime been regularly commissioned by its government ? 
 
 9 1 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 The arbitrators decided that the neutral had a right to detain 
 such a cruiser, in spite of its commission^ but was under no 
 positive obligation to do so. 
 
 3. Does a neutral's responsibility end with the enforce 
 ment of its local laws to prevent the escape of cruisers, even if 
 those laws are inadequate ? Decision was given that the case 
 must be determined by international law and not by national 
 legislation. If a country's regulations for carrying out its ac 
 knowledged international duties are ineffective, they ought to 
 be changed. 
 
 Though these decisions touching the law of nations were 
 of world-wide significance, the verdict on the facts in the case 
 had a more immediate interest for the American people. In 
 direct claims the tribunal dismissed, and it made no award for 
 the expense of pursuing Confederate cruisers, or for any pro 
 spective earnings which ships lost through them. But, for Great 
 Britain's negligence in failing to prevent the equipment, arm 
 ing, and provisioning of the Confederate privateers, the gross 
 sum of 1 1 5, 500,000 was awarded the United States. Sir Al 
 exander Cockburn, the English " arbitrator," was the only one 
 to take this decree with ill grace. On the announcement of it 
 he seized his hat and left the room without so much as an 
 adieu, getting "leave to print" with the record of the proceed 
 ings a choleric document known as his " Opinions." 
 
 The dispute as to our northwestern boundary was also 
 decided in our favor during 1872. By a treaty of 1846 the 
 boundary line between the United States and British America 
 was run westward along the 49th parallel " to the middle of 
 the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's 
 Island, thence southerly through the middle of the said chan 
 nel and of Fuca's Strait, to the Pacific Ocean." Should 
 " the middle " referred to be interpreted as passing through 
 the Strait of Rosario, on the side next Washington Territory, 
 or through the Canal de Haro, on the Vancouver side of the 
 archipelago there ? Should those islands be looped into the 
 
 9* 
 
Charles Francis 
 Adams 
 
 Jacques Count 
 Staempfli Sclofis 
 
 COUNT SCLOPIS ANNOUNCING THE DECISION OF THE GENEVA TRIBUNAL 
 
 [''Sir Alexander Cockburn . . . left the room without so much as an adieu."] 
 Painted by W. R. Leigh from fhotografhs and diagrams loaned by J. C. Bancroft Davis^ Esq. 
 
ENTHUSIASM FOR THE WEST 
 
 territory of Uncle Sam, or given to John Bull ? This ques 
 tion the Treaty of Washington referred to Emperor William I., 
 of Germany. 
 
 The historian Bancroft, the only surviving statesman save 
 one concerned in negotiating the 1846 treaty, argued our 
 claims in this matter, and on October 21, 1872, had the satis 
 faction of seeing his plea crowned by a favorable decision. 
 " The award," said President Grant, " leaves us for the first 
 time in the history of the United States as a nation, without a 
 question of disputed boundary between our territory and the 
 possessions of Great Britain." It was a proud result for the 
 President, and assisted not a little in his re-election. 
 
 While the consequences of the memorable Treaty of 
 Washington were favorable to the party in power, another 
 revelation of the campaign had much influence in the opposite 
 direction. In August, 1872, when the excitement of the Pres 
 idential strife was already high, the New York Sun published a 
 story which added fresh fuel to the political fires already rag 
 ing, and promised to generate much steam to propel the Gree- 
 ley movement. It related to the Credit Mobilier operations in 
 constructing the Union Pacific Railway. If true, the facts said 
 to exist involved in corruption the Speaker of the House, the 
 Vice-President,the Republican nominee for the vice-presidency, 
 the Secretary of the Treasury, and others high in political life. 
 
 Enthusiasm for the Great West kindled again after the 
 war and became a mania. The climate and soil of the region 
 had been persistently misrepresented by the Hudson Bay 
 Company, by Great Britain its successor in title, by influen 
 tial Southerners jealous of the North, and by numerous ex 
 ploring parties. The " Great American Desert " was a dragon 
 of which numberless horrors were related. So early as 1850 
 it had been outflanked by way of the Horn and threatened 
 from the Pacific Coast, but not till after the war, when South 
 ern influence was withdrawn, was it transfixed by any avenue 
 of general travel or trade. 
 
 95 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 The United States west of the Mississippi, leaving out 
 Texas, Minnesota, and California, naturally broke up as 
 follows: (i) The Arkansas District, embracing Arkansas, 
 most of Indian Territory and a portion of Missouri. Here 
 were bottoms of Egyptian fertility and warmth, subject to 
 heavy rainfall, in parts forest-covered. Beyond the Ozarks 
 was a colder and dryer plateau. (2) The Lower Missouri 
 Valley, including nearly the whole State of Missouri, also 
 western Iowa and part of Kansas and Nebraska. This was 
 opened to settlement earlier than (i) and was the sooner 
 populated. The rainfall and temperature here were suited to 
 all northern crops, and the land was nearly level. (3) The 
 Upper Missouri Valley, practically coinciding with North and 
 South Dakota. This tract was higher, dryer and much colder 
 than (2). Fortunately, where it was cold, surface coal was 
 to be had for the digging, and where arid, the earth beneath 
 seemed a vast subterranean sponge, rendering artesian wells a 
 successful means of irrigation. This district was unwooded. 
 (4) The Cordilleran Plateau, extending from 100 W. long., 
 
 Lord Tenterden 
 
 Mountague Bernard Sir Alexander Cockburn Sir Roundell Palmer 
 
 THE ENGLISH REPRESENTATIVES AT GENEFA 
 
 westward to the Rocky Mountains, and from near the Cana 
 dian border to the Rio Grande. This vast area was too arid for 
 the plow. Formerly a buffalo range, it has become a great 
 cattle pasture, and is apparently destined to continue such. 
 
 9 6 
 
THE RUSH TO THE WEST 
 
 (5) The Mountain Region, in width from 500 miles at the 
 north and south to 1,000 in the middle, composed of basins 
 more or less extensive, enclosed by sharp and high ridges. 
 Irrigation made some farming possible here, but the mineral 
 wealth was immense and mining became the main industry. 
 
 (6) The Northwestern Country, comprising parts of Wyoming, 
 Idaho, Montana, and the States of Washington and Oregon. 
 Here timber was plentiful and farming profitable. On the 
 Pacific Slope from 50 to 200 cords of wood per acre could 
 be cut, and all ordinary crops and fruits save grapes succeeded. 
 
 The settler's way to this Promised Land was in some 
 measure made smooth between 1860 and 1870. Arizona, 
 Colorado, Dakota, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming had been 
 organized as territories ; Kansas, Nebraska and Nevada had 
 been admitted to statehood. The status of the West when 
 the rush commenced we set forth in Chapter I. Enormous 
 companies came to the Red River Valley, to Colorado, where 
 raged a mining furor second only to that witnessed by Cali- 
 
 Caleb Gushing William M. Evarts Charles Francis Adams J. C. Bancroft Davis Morrison R. Waile 
 THE AMERICAN REPRESENTATIVES AT GENEVA 
 
 fornia in '49, to Utah, and to the Slope. People pressed 
 along all river courses, especially up and down the valley of 
 the Columbia. Montana received a farming quota. Helena, 
 whose main street was the Last Chance Gulch, was destined, 
 
 97 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 unlike its compeer, Virginia City, to survive and thrive even 
 when the Last Chance Gulch should become a reminiscence. 
 From California and Colorado the Territory caught the gam 
 bling spirit. It was said that two Montana mining millionaires 
 were one evening contributing red, white and blue wafers to a 
 goodly pile on the table between them, which in due time was 
 " raked in." As they were about to proceed to a new deal, 
 an Eastern stranger approached, threw down a hundred dollar 
 bill and said: " Gentlemen, I would like to join you. There's 
 the money for some chips." Whereupon one of the players 
 told " Sam," the banker, to " take the gentleman's money and 
 give him a white chip." 
 
 Many of the Western pioneers were rough fellows, some 
 of them desperadoes. The orderly population which came 
 later brought the bad element under control, at first by vigi 
 lance committees, then by law and order methods, though the 
 pistol long had much to do in keeping as well as in breaking 
 the civil peace. Visitors were early struck with the very con 
 siderable culture of the people and by the many articles of 
 comfort and even luxury in those Western towns of a day. 
 Newspapers were common from the first. Asked how a 
 town of a few thousand could support four dailies, a resident 
 replied, " Why, stranger, it takes all those dailies to support 
 the town." " Booming " became a fine art. " No Other 
 Land," said one sheet, " No Other Clime On Top of God's 
 Green Earth, Where Land is Free as Church Bells' Chime, 
 Save the Land of Dakota Dirt. Here For a Year of Honest 
 Toil a Home You May Insure, and From the Black and 
 Loamy Soil a Title in Fee Mature. No Money Needed 
 Until the Day When the Earth Provides ; Until You Raise 
 a Crop, no Pay : What Can You Ask Besides ? " 
 
 Nevada received an overflow from the West from Cali 
 fornia. Here and there, slowly transforming the desert into an 
 empire, were scattered still other pools and lakes of humanity. 
 Not the least important of these was the Black Hills settlement. 
 
U. S. GRANT 
 
 From a photograph by ff^alker, June 2, 1873, General Grant shaved his beard 
 on purpose, the picture being for use in cutting a cameo. Only two copies each 
 of the two views, showing right and left profile, were printed. 
 
LAND GRABBING 
 
 GEORGE BANCROFT 
 After a photograph in the 
 historical collection of H. 
 W. Fay. 
 
 The rumor of " Gold in the Black Hills " 
 grew rife in 1874, and the soldiers were in 
 straits to dam the'; tiiej df*- prospectors ^ a 
 treaty of cession - could , be obtained to ex 
 tinguish the Si6Ux J trtle. * ""'AH' same* old 
 story," said a warrior. " White men come, 
 build chu-chu through reservation. White 
 men yawpy-yawpy. Say, c Good Indian, 
 good Indian ; we want land. We give muz- 
 es-kow (money), liliota muz-es-kow (plenty 
 money).' Indian say, c Yes.' What In 
 dian get ? Wah-nee-che (nothing). Some day white man want 
 move Indian. White men yawpy-yawpy. c Good Indian, 
 good Indian ; give good Indian liliota muz-es-kow.' What In 
 dian get ? Wah-nee-chee. Some day white man want half 
 big reservation. He come Indian. Yawpy-yawpy : c Good 
 Indian ; we give Indian liliota muz-es-kow.' Indian heap 
 fool. He say, c Yes.' What Indian get ? Wah-nee-chee. 
 All same old story. c Good Indian, good Indian.' Get 
 nothing ! "* 
 
 In one way and another speculators seized upon choice 
 slices of the public domain. Often the alternate quarter-sec 
 tions belonging to a railroad would be bought up, and the 
 other quarter-sections government land secured in due 
 time through " dummies " located for the purpose. One 
 Montana land shark gave a series of balls and dinners at a 
 country house, inviting a large number of ladies, and accom 
 panying every invitation with a promise of a $100 present. 
 At each festival, in the midst of the whirl, each guest signed 
 a claim to a homesteader's rights in the adjoining lands. 
 When the " claims " were " proved up " each lady received 
 her $100 and the authors of the scheme got land enough for 
 a dukedom. As many such marches depended upon irrigation 
 for their value, " grabs " for " water-rights " early began. 
 
 *Our Great West," by Julian Ralph. 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 <c We who are on the ground," said an enterprising Montanian, 
 " are going to get whatever there is lying around. You don't 
 suppose: we are gbfag^to iet a parcel of strangers pre-empt the 
 watej;- tighten so,/ t{i at : we must pay taxes to them? No; we 
 prefer L to let thefri k ptty 'the taxes to us." A very reasonable 
 preference. 
 
 Queer land laws and railroad bonuses made possible bo 
 nanza farming on an enormous scale. In the course of years 
 farming of this sort raised up bands of nomadic farm-hands, 
 who, beginning at the South, worked northward with the 
 advancing season till the ripened year found them beyond the 
 Canada border. There were also companies of sheep-shear 
 ing specialists, who 
 usually made two 
 rounds a year, 
 passing their win 
 ters riotously in the 
 towns and cities. 
 The great cattle- 
 ranges were tra 
 versed by still 
 other nomads, the 
 "cow-boys," in 
 bands known as 
 <c trails," traveling 
 about a day apart, 
 each " trail " with 
 its camp equipage 
 
 and relay of broncos. Texas cattle would be driven north 
 ward to fatten upon the Montanian " Bad Lands " as a pre 
 paration for their final journey to Chicago. 
 
 Some traits in the foregoing sketch anticipate a little, yet 
 enough of it was true so early as the end of the war to assure 
 a few that the West was to have an enormous development. 
 Two transcontinental railways were planned, one to cross the 
 
 _ Boundary claimed by England 
 
 Boundary claimed by the United States 
 
 THE NORTHWEST WATER BOUNDARY 
 
GRANTS FOR TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAYS 
 
 " Great Desert," the other to round its northern end, both to 
 be equipped as soon as possible with branch and connecting 
 lines. The more southerly, the Union and Central Pacific, 
 had the advantage of earlier completion and a more developed 
 western terminus ; but the Northern Pacific could cross the Cor 
 dilleras at a lower level and need traverse no desert. Both enter 
 prises were unstintedly favored by grants of public land.* This 
 policy was widely condemned, but also vigorously defended. 
 
 In 1871 a competent writer discussing the grant to the 
 Northern Pacific declared it self-evident that as a result of the 
 opening of this region the Government would get ample 
 returns for its liberality. It was more than a royal subsidy by 
 which it had secured the construction of that great highway. 
 It had given therefor 50,000,000 acres of land, an area larger 
 than many kingdoms, worth, if sold at the average price of 
 the Minnesota school lands, #350,000,000; if sold like the 
 lands of the Illinois Central Railroad, $5 50,000,000. Mr. 
 Wilson, for many years Commissioner of the Land Depart 
 ment of the Illinois Central Railroad, comparing this grant 
 with the Illinois Central Railroad grant, thought it a small 
 estimate to say that if properly managed the Northern Pa 
 cific's land would build the entire road connecting the then 
 terminus of the Grand Trunk through to Puget Sound, the 
 head of navigation on the Columbia, fit out an entire fleet of 
 sailing vessels and steamers for the China, East Indian and 
 coasting trade, and leave a surplus that would roll up to mil 
 lions. He deemed the probable value of the grant $990,000,- 
 ooo, its possible value $ 1,3 20,000,000. The Government 
 gained no popularity by a gift so vast. At the Jay Cooke & 
 Co. failure in 1873 a large part of these lands passed to credi 
 tors of the road, one of the circumstances which contributed to 
 make bonanza farming so marked a feature in parts of the West. 
 
 *In all the Union Pacific received 13,000,100 acres, the Central Pacific, 12,100,100; 
 the Northern Pacific, 47,000,000 ; the Kansas Pacific, 6,000,000 ; the Atlantic and Pacific, 
 42,000,000; the Southern Pacific, 9,520,000. The first transcontinental lines also got subsi 
 dies exceeding $60,000,000. 
 
 103 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 In July, 1862, Congress created the Union Pacific Rail 
 way Company to build a railroad from the Missouri River to 
 the Pacific Ocean, fixing at $1,000,000,000 the amount of its 
 stock, loaning it a vast sum in government bonds, endowing 
 it with an enormous amount of land along the route, and 
 allowing it till 1876 to complete the enterprise. The shares 
 sold slowly, and it was soon clear that unless Congress gave 
 better terms the undertaking would fail. Accordingly a more 
 liberal act was passed. Even this did not put the road in a 
 way to completion. Contractors, several of whom were 
 besought to do so, hesitated to undertake the building of such 
 a line or any part of it, and but eleven miles of the construc 
 tion were accomplished up to September, 1865. Most be 
 lieved either that the road could not be built or that it would 
 never pay. 
 
 In March, 1865, the Credit Mobilier of America, a com 
 pany organized by the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1859 as 
 the " Pennsylvania Fiscal Agency, "and in its new form soon 
 amply equipped with capital, contracted with the Union Pacific 
 to go forward with the construction. Two hundred and 
 forty-seven miles of road were thus built, carrying the line to 
 the one-hundreth meridian. Then arose trouble within the 
 Credit Mobilier Company. T. C. Durant, President of this 
 and Vice- President of the Union Pacific, wished the Mobilier 
 to realize at once all possible profits out of the construction, 
 while his opponents, New England parties, believing that the 
 road would pay, were inclined to deal honestly with it, expect 
 ing their profits as corporators in the Mobilier to come from 
 the appreciation of the Union Pacific stock, in which, to a 
 great extent, the Mobilier was paid for its work. This party 
 sought to eject Durant from the Mobilier management, and at 
 length did so ; but his power in the railway corporation was 
 sufficient to prevent the Mobilier as such from getting a fur 
 ther contract. After much contention, during which the Mo 
 bilier was on the verge of failing, Durant consented that Oakes 
 
 104 
 
UNION PACIFIC STOCK SOLD TO CONGRESSMEN 
 
 Ames might take a contract to push the construction of the 
 road. Mr. Ames was at the time a Mobilier stockholder and 
 a representative in Congress from Massachusetts. 
 
 Ames's contract was dated August 16, 1867, but on the 
 1 5th of the next October he made it over to seven trustees, 
 who took Ames's place as contractor. They did all the things 
 which he had agreed to do, and were remunerated just as he 
 was to be. The trustees bound themselves to pay over all the 
 profits of their contract to the Mobilier stockholders in the 
 proportions in which these severally held stock at the date of 
 their contract. This arrangement was fully carried out and 
 the road finished under it. It was an adroit way of circum 
 venting Durant and enabling the Mobilier to build the road 
 in spite of him. 
 
 During 1867 and 1868 Ames sold shares of Credit Mo 
 bilier stock to many members of Congress. He gave away 
 
 none, but in a number of 
 cases payment was con 
 siderably subsequent to 
 sale. Though worth much 
 more, every share was sold 
 for par and interest, just 
 what it cost Ames himself. 
 Colonel H. S. Mc- 
 Comb, of Delaware, in 
 virtue of a subscription 
 that he said he had made 
 for a friend, claimed of 
 Ames $ 2 5,000 in Mobi 
 lier stock which he alleged 
 had never been received. 
 Letters passed back and 
 forth between McComb 
 and Ames, in one of which 
 Ames, a blunt, outspoken 
 
 EMPEROR WILLIAM I. OF GERMANY 
 
 I0 5 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 man, declared that he had placed the stock with influential 
 gentlemen (naming several Congressmen) " where it would do 
 the most good." Press and public eagerly took up this phrase. 
 Soon it was in every mouth, all placing upon it the worst con 
 struction which the words could bear. McComb pressed his 
 suit and at last the letters were published. The New York 
 Sun of September 4, 1872, in the very heat of the Greeley 
 campaign, came out with the heading : " The King of Frauds ; 
 How the Credit Mobilier bought its Way through Congress ; " 
 stating that Ames had distributed in bribes thirty thousand 
 shares of the stock, worth nine millions of dollars. The scan 
 dal ran through the country like wildfire, the allegations being 
 very generally believed, as they probably are still. 
 
 But we now know that they comprised partly gross fabri 
 cations and partly gross exaggerations. Mr. Ames's motive 
 was laudable the completion of a great national work, which 
 has long since paid the country many times its cost. He knew 
 that the Pacific Railway had bitter enemies in Congress and 
 outside, most of them not public-spirited, but the blackmailer 
 servants of Durant, who stood ready, should opportunity 
 offer, to work its ruin. He wished to be fortified. His method 
 certainly carried him to the verge of propriety, and perhaps 
 beyond ; but, everything considered, the evidence shows little 
 ground for the peculiar execration visited upon him. The Po 
 land Committee of the House, reporting on February 18, 
 1873, declared that Ames had acted with "intent to influence 
 the votes of members." In the sense that he sought to inter 
 est men in the enterprise and to prevent them from sacrificing 
 it through apathy or spite, this was probably true. That it 
 was true in any other sense is at least not proved. 
 
 " These, then, are my offences/' said Ames, in his de 
 fence ; " that I have risked reputation, fortune, everything, in 
 an enterprise of incalculable moment to the Government, from 
 which the capital of the world shrank ; that I have sought to 
 strengthen the work thus rashly undertaken by invoking the 
 
 106 
 
OAKES AMES'S DEFENCE 
 
 charitable judgment of the public upon 
 its obstacles and embarrassments ; that 
 I have had friends, some of them in 
 official life, with whom I have been 
 willing to share advantageous oppor 
 tunities for investments ; that I have 
 kept to the truth through good and 
 
 evil report, denying nothing, con- ^^ ^ ^^Jf ^ 
 cealing nothing, reserving nothing. 
 Who will say that I alone am to be OAKES AMES 
 
 offered up a sacrifice to appease a pub 
 lic clamor or expiate the sins of others ? Not until such an 
 offering is made will I believe it possible. But if this body 
 shall so order that it can best be purified by the choice of a 
 single victim, I shall accept its mandate, appealing with un 
 faltering confidence to the impartial verdict of history for that 
 vindication which it is proposed to deny me here." 
 
 The committee recommended his expulsion. " It was 
 useless to point out that no act was before Congress at the 
 time of the alleged bribery, or before or after it, for which 
 Ames was seeking votes. No person whom he had bribed or 
 sought to bribe was produced. Nor was any object he had 
 attempted to accomplish suggested." Hon. B. F. Boyer, one 
 of those who received stock, testified : 
 
 " I had no idea of wrong in the matter. Nor do I now 
 see how it concerns the public. No one connected with either 
 the Credit Mobilier or the Union Pacific Railroad ever directly 
 or indirectly expressed, or in any way hinted, that my services 
 as a member of Congress were expected in behalf of either 
 corporation in consideration of the stock I obtained, and cer 
 tainly no such services were ever rendered. I was much less 
 embarrassed as a member of Congress by the ownership of 
 Credit Mobilier stock than I should have been had I owned 
 stock in a national bank, or in an iron-furnace, or a woollen- 
 mill, or even been a holder of government bonds ; for there 
 
 107 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 was important legislation while I was in Congress affecting all 
 these interests, but no legislation whatever concerning the 
 Credit Mobilier. I can therefore find nothing in my conduct 
 in that regard to regret. It was, in my judgment, both honest 
 and honorable, and consistent with my position as a member 
 of Congress. And, as the investment turned out to be profit 
 able, my only regret is that it was no larger in amount." 
 
 The House proceeded to censure Ames, and it would 
 probably have expelled him, had not the alleged offence been 
 committed under a previous Congress. Soon after this cen 
 sure, which aggravated a disease already upon him, Mr. Ames 
 went home to die. The Wilson Committee reported that the 
 Mobilier had " wronged " the Government, and drafted a bill, 
 which was passed, ordering the Attorney-General to bring suit 
 against its stockholders. He did so, and pushed it to the 
 Supreme Court, but it lamentably failed at every step. 
 
 These congressional charges against Oakes Ames have in 
 no wise the weight which has been attached to them. In 
 making them, the House was actuated by a popular clamor 
 against the Credit Mobilier,sedulously worked up by the Demo 
 cratic press and by Durant. Many members who voted for 
 the censure at once apologized to Ames, saying that they had 
 done so purely for fear of their constituents. That " credit 
 mobilier " was a foreign name rendered men suspicious of the 
 thing named. The French Credit Mobilier, from which the 
 American concern took its title, had got into trouble in 1868 
 and been wound up. Such as knew of this thought that fraud 
 must of course taint the Credit Mobilier of America as well. 
 Some of those charged with having received Ames's alleged 
 bribes cleared themselves at his expense, falsely denying all 
 knowledge of the Mobilier and declaring that they had never 
 directly or indirectly held any of the stock. Such eagerness 
 to disavow connection with it deepened people's suspicion of 
 it. Pressure was used to force Ames, who himself courted in 
 vestigation, to support these denials. It availed so far as to 
 
 108 
 
REASONS FOR THE SENTIMENT AGAINST AMES 
 
 make him hesitate, telling his story reluctantly and by piece 
 meal, as if he dreaded the truth. This of course had a further 
 bad effect. In these ways an almost universal impression came 
 to prevail that a fearful crime had been committed, involving 
 most and perhaps all the leaders of the Republican party. 
 Here was rich chance for partisan capital. Democrats and 
 Liberals presented the scandal in the worst possible light and 
 with telling effect. Could anything have defeated Grant, this 
 would assuredly have done so. 
 
 109 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 "CARPET-BAGGER" AND "SCALAWAG" IN 
 
 DIXIE 
 
 GRANT'S RE-ELECTION AND THE SOUTH. COURT DECISIONS CONFIRM 
 ING STATE SOVEREIGNTY. THE LOUISIANA "SLAUGHTER-HOUSE 
 
 CASES." OSBORN VS. NICHOLSON. WHITE VS. HART. DESOLATION 
 
 AT THE SOUTH AFTER THE WAR. DISCOURAGEMENT. INTEMPER 
 ANCE, IGNORANCE. SLOW REVIVAL OF INDUSTRY. SOCIAL AND 
 
 POLITICAL CONFLICT. THE "SCALAWAG." THE "CARPET-BAG 
 GER." GOOD CARPET-BAGGERS. THEIR FAILINGS. RESISTANCE. 
 
 NORTHERN SYMPATHY WITH THIS. THE FREEDMEN. THEIR VICES. 
 
 THEIR IGNORANCE. FOOLISH AND CORRUPT LEGISLATION EX 
 TRAVAGANT EXPENDITURES IN VARIOUS STATES. IN MISSISSIPPI. IN 
 
 GEORGIA. IN SOUTH CAROLINA. OVERTHROW OF MANY CARPET 
 BAG GOVERNMENTS. VIOLENCE STILL, BUT OFTEN EXAGGERATED. 
 
 THE re-election of President Grant did not improve the 
 state of feeling at the South. Bitterness toward the 
 powers at Washington and sullen defiance of them were still 
 the temper of most Southern whites. This notwithstanding 
 several facts which might have been expected to produce a 
 contrary effect. Certain important legal decisions of the time 
 should have pleased the South, confirming, as they in a cer 
 tain way did, the doctrine of State Sovereignty. One such 
 decision was handed down April 14, 1873, in the celebrated 
 Louisiana " Slaughter-House Cases." These arose out of an 
 act passed by the Legislature of Louisiana in 1869, creat 
 ing the Crescent City Live-Stock Landing and Slaughter 
 House Company, with the exclusive privilege of carrying on 
 the slaughtering business in New Orleans and the adjoining 
 parishes. The butchers of the city contested the act on the 
 ground that it violated the recent constitutional amendments, 
 creating an involuntary servitude, abridging the privileges and 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 immunities of citizens of the United States, denying to the 
 plaintiffs equal protection under the law, and depriving them 
 of their property without due process. In its decision, from 
 which, however, Chief Justice Waite, with Associates Field, 
 Bradley and Swayne, dissented, the Court held that servitude 
 means personal servitude ; that " there is a citizenship of the 
 United States and a citizenship of the State, each distinct from 
 the other/' that while the amendment placed citizens under 
 federal protection it gave them no new rights as citizens of a 
 State, and finally that the act of the Louisiana Legislature was 
 not a denial of equal protection by the laws or a deprivation 
 of property. 
 
 On April 22, 1872, the Court had rendered its decision 
 in the case of Osborn vs. Nicholson, confirming the validity 
 of slave contracts entered into before the Emancipation Proc 
 lamation. Another important decision of the same date 
 related to the case of White vs. Hart. This arose from the 
 attempt of the plaintiff to recover on a promissory note given 
 for the purchase-money of a slave, the defense claiming non 
 liability on the ground that by the new constitution of 
 Georgia the State courts were forbidden to consider the valid 
 ity of such contracts. In its decision the Court clearly 
 defined the relation of the seceder States to the Union and 
 held that such a State, having never been out of the Union, 
 was never absolved from the prohibition in the Constitution 
 of the United States against passing laws impairing the obliga 
 tion of contracts. 
 
 On March 22, 1875, the Supreme Court decided that cer 
 tain corporations created by the Legislature of Georgia while 
 in rebellion were legal. This meant, in effect, that any acts by 
 the de facto though unlawful government of that State, so long 
 as they did not tend to aid the rebellion or to abridge the 
 rights of citizens of the United States, were valid. 
 
 But Southerners' memories were too sad, their pains too 
 keen, their sufferings of all sorts too terrible, to be assuaged 
 
DANIEL H. CHAMBERLAIN 
 
 THE SOUTH AFTER THE WAR 
 
 merely by agreeable definitions of points 
 in constitutional law. The war left the 
 South in indescribable desolation. Great 
 numbers of Confederates came home to 
 find their farms sold for unpaid taxes, 
 perhaps mortgaged to ex-slaves. The 
 best Southern land, after the war, was 
 worth but a trifle of its old value. Their 
 ruin rendered many insane ; in multi 
 tudes more it broke down all energy. 
 The braver spirits men to whom till 
 now all toil had been strange set to 
 work as clerks, depot-masters and agents of various business 
 enterprises. High-born ladies, widowed by Northern bullets, 
 became teachers or governesses. In the comparatively few 
 cases where families retained their estates, their effort to keep 
 up appearances was pathetic. One by one domestics were 
 dismissed ; dinner parties grew rare ; stately coaches lost their 
 paint and became rickety ; carriage and saddle-horses were 
 worn out at the plough and replaced by mules. At last the 
 master learned to open his own gates, the mistress to do her 
 own cooking. 
 
 In a majority of the Southern cities owners of real estate 
 found it for years after hostilities closed a source of poverty 
 instead of profit. In the heart of Charleston charred ruins 
 of huge blocks or stately churches long lingered as reminders 
 of the horrid past. Many mansions were vacant, vainly flaunt 
 ing each its placard " for rent." Most of the smaller towns, 
 like Beaufort, threatened permanent decay, their streets silent 
 and empty save for negro policemen here and there in shiny 
 blue uniforms. The cotton plantations were at first largely 
 abandoned owing to the severe foreign competition in cotton- 
 growing occasioned by the war. It was difficult to get help on 
 the plantation, so immersed in politics and so lazy had the 
 field-hands become. 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Upon the whites in many communities a kind of moral 
 and social stagnation settled down, an unhealthy, hopeless 
 acquiescence in the worst that might come. Politics they long 
 regarded with abhorrence, as the accursed thing that had 
 brought on the war. Whites, as well as negroes, drank reck 
 lessly. Few of any class cared much for education. In 1874 
 Alabama had 380,000 citizens who could neither read nor 
 write, of whom nearly 100,000 were white. Yet the year 
 before the public schools in that State, except in the larger 
 cities, had been closed because the State could not pay the 
 teachers. If, to the Africans, education was freer after the war 
 than before, turmoil and poverty left the young Southerners 
 of paler skin little time or disposition for schooling. The 
 determination, when it came, of the Southern whites to rule, 
 sad as were the atrocities to which it led, was a good sign, 
 marking the end of a lethargy which boded naught save ill to 
 any. 
 
 But the end of trouble was not yet. Mere courage 
 would not bring prosperity to a people undergoing a social 
 and political upheaval which amounted to anarchy and prom 
 ised indefinite continuance. How angry the conflict was 
 will appear when we see that it brought the " scalawag," the 
 " carpet-bagger," and the negro, partly each by himself and 
 partly together, into radical collision with all that was most 
 solid, intelligent and moral in Southern society. " Whatever 
 were the designs or motives of the authors of the reconstruc 
 tion measures, the work of carrying them out was of necessity 
 committed to those who lived at the South. It is a mild state 
 ment to say that those on whom this responsibility fell were 
 not generally well suited or qualified for such work. Sweeping 
 denunciations are seldom just. Those who took part in re 
 construction at the South were not all, or nearly all, c North 
 ern adventurers, Southern renegades and depraved negroes/ 
 Among all the classes so described were worthy and able men ; 
 but the crude forces with which they dealt were temporarily 
 
 114 
 
THE "SCALAWAG" 
 
 too strong for their control or resistance. Corruption ran riot ; 
 dishonesty flourished in shameless effrontery ; incompetency 
 became the rule in public offices."* 
 
 The South had still, as always, a class of swaggering 
 whites, the kind who earlier said that " the Yankees would 
 back up against the North Pole before they would fight." 
 Once, previous to the war, Hon. John C. Breckenridge, of 
 Kentucky, journeying from New Orleans to Washington, 
 passed through South Carolina. He subsequently related his 
 experience. " But one man," he said, " boarded the cars on 
 the route through that unpopulous piny-wooded land. He 
 was dressed in full regimentals, and entered the smoking-car 
 
 with the mien of a 
 \{ t iV/,, /?/,, itft.W/f, (^ n/r, n'/ttffi Cambyses or aMurat. 
 
 1 j ined this s p lendid 
 
 soldier in the smok- 
 ing-car. I offered him 
 a fresh cigar to en- 
 
 . . ? 
 
 S a S e hlm m conver - 
 sation, and began to 
 
 question him. c May 
 ? , i T ,1 
 
 J ask ? sald J 5 meekly, 
 
 c what is going on in 
 this State ? J Tossing 
 
 K^' i i i 
 
 P his head in proud 
 
 Summary of the Amount paid to one Firm for Furniture HlQrluitl \\ P 
 
 by the South Carolina Legislature of 1872-74 lll > 
 
 From the Report of the Investigating Committee CjOing On, SUh P We 
 
 won't stand it no mo,' 
 
 suh ! The Governor has sent for his staff to meet with him and 
 consult about it in Columbia, suh ! I am one of his staff, suh ! 
 We won't stand it any longer, suh ! No, suh ! It is intolerable, 
 suh ! No, suh ! ' ' Stand what ? ' I asked, in surprise, not 
 unmixed with dread. c What is going on ? ' He answered : 
 Stand the encroachments on our Southern institutions, suh ! 
 
 ^Governor Chamberlain's Administration in South Carolina, Preface, vi. 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 The abolitionists must be crushed, suh ! We will do it, suh ! 
 South Carolina is ready, suh ! ' "* 
 
 In reconstruction times Southern heroes of this stamp 
 turned up as " scalawags." Most of the scalawags so hated after 
 the war were the fire-eaters, old slave-traders, and plantation 
 overseers whom decent society had tabooed before the war. 
 They had no social position to lose, and it was but natural, 
 their social superiors being Democrats, that they themselves 
 should become ardent Republicans. Negro voters they now 
 bought and sold, or shot, just as formerly they had bought 
 and sold, or shot, negro slaves. These same men, who, under 
 Republican rule, sought, with too much success, to lead the 
 blacks, reappeared with the restoration of the Democracy in 
 their original character as negro-baiters, hunting and killing 
 their poor victims whenever this met party exigencies better 
 than bribery did. A few old Whigs and perhaps some others 
 joined the Republicans on principle. In the heat of political 
 controversy these might be denounced as scalawags, but they 
 were of a different spirit. 
 
 Soon after the reconstruction of his State, at a public 
 meeting in celebration of the event, Wade Hampton advised 
 
 THE STA 
 
 Will pay to the Order of M 
 
 For amount of acccu.i 
 
 ecl by the, HOUSE OF R 
 
 Facsimile of a " Gratuity " Voted to Governor Moses by the South Carolina Legisla 
 ture in 1871 
 
 the blacks to seek political affiliation with the best native 
 whites, as both races equally wished order and prosperity 
 
 *S. S. Cox, "Three Decades of Federal Legislation." 
 116 
 
THE "CARPET-BAGGER" 
 
 restored. Beverly Nash, colored, addressed the meeting, urg 
 ing the same. "His people," he said, "recognized the 
 Southern white man as their c true friend,' and he wished all 
 the Confederates re-enfranchised. In this temper colored 
 men formed the Union Republican party of South Carolina, 
 and adopted a platform free from rancor. 
 
 Unfortunately, such chance for affiliation was lost. Causes 
 were at work which soon lessened Sambo's respect for " Old 
 Massa," and " Old Massa's " for Sambo. Republicans from 
 the North flocked to the South, whom the blacks, viewing 
 them as representing the emancipation party, naturally wel 
 comed and followed. These cc carpet-baggers/' as they were 
 called, were made up, in the main, of military officers still or 
 formerly in service, Freedmen's Bureau agents, old Union 
 soldiers who had bought Southern farms, and people who had 
 settled at the South for purposes of trade. 
 
 There were, no doubt, many perfectly honest carpet-bag 
 gers, and the fullest justice should be done to such. They 
 considered themselves as true missionaries in partibus, commis 
 sioned by the great Republican party to complete the regime 
 of righteousness which the war and the emancipation proclam 
 ation had begun. A prominent Democratic politician, describ 
 ing a reconstruction Governor of his State, whom he had done 
 his best to overthrow, said : " I regard him as a thoroughly 
 honest man and opposed to corruption and extravagance in 
 office. I think his desire was to make a good Executive and 
 to administer the affairs of the State in the interest of the 
 people, but the want of sympathy between him and the white 
 people of the State, and his failure to appreciate the relations 
 and prejudices of the two races, made it next to impossible for 
 him to succeed." 
 
 In the States where the worst evils were suffered the really 
 guilty parties were usually few, the great body of legislators 
 being innocently inspired by some loud and ringing watchword 
 like " internal improvements," or " the development of the 
 
 117 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 State," to vote for measures devised to enrich cunning sharks 
 and speculators. What history will condemn in connection with 
 the reconstruction governments is not so much individuals as 
 the system which permitted a few individuals to be so bane- 
 fully influential, not only in spite of their well-meaning asso 
 ciates but by means of these. Moreover, carpet-bagger 
 character differed somewhat with locality. Perhaps the recon- 
 structionists of Mississippi were the best. We have evidence 
 that the majority of the white leaders there were honest, being 
 moved in their public acts by strong convictions of right and 
 justice, which cost many of them their lives. 
 
 But even of the honest carpet-baggers many were idealists, 
 little likely to help reconcile the races, nearly certain to be 
 misled by their shrewd but unprincipled colleagues. All were 
 disliked and mistrusted by the local whites, as aliens, as late 
 foes in arms, as champions of an order intolerable to the dom 
 inant Anglo-Saxon. The sons of Dixie had been educated to 
 believe in the negro as an inferior being. The Confederacy 
 had been, in a way, based on this principle. To establish a 
 government so founded they had ventured everything and had 
 lost. A power unjust and tyrannical, as they conceived, had 
 filled their States with mourning, beggared them, freed their 
 slaves, and, as a last injury and insult, done its best to make 
 the negro their political equal. They resisted, some passively, 
 others actively. The best of them could not but acquiesce 
 with a certain joy when the younger and more lawless 
 used violence and ven murder to remove the curse. The 
 powerful hand of the Federal Government, sometimes itself 
 perpetrating outrages in effort to suppress such, was evaded 
 by excuses and devices of all sorts. When it was withdrawn, 
 the Southerners announced boldly that theirs was a white 
 man's government and that the ex-slaves should never take 
 part in it. 
 
 On the race issue the North, including no few Republi 
 cans and even carpet-baggers themselves, gradually sided with 
 
 118 
 
BEGINNINGS OF NEGRO SUFFRAGE 
 
 CHILDREN S CABRIACES, WACUJ1S. ie. 
 M.in S.reel. Nexl Door lo R. A W. C. Swaffiel, 
 
 the South. Northern 
 Republicans, especially 
 such as had travelled in 
 the South, not seldom 
 regretted that the suf- 
 rage had ever been 
 given to the blacks. It 
 is interesting to notice 
 that the idea of colored 
 men's voting did not 
 originate at the North. 
 Till 1 834 and 183 5 free 
 men of color voted in 
 Tennessee and North 
 Carolina. In some sec 
 tions " the opposing 
 candidates, for the nonce 
 oblivious of social dis- 
 tinctionsand intent only 
 on catching votes, hob 
 nobbed with the men and swung corners all with the dusky 
 damsels at election balls/' In 1867 General Wade Hampton, 
 being invited by the colored people to address them at Co 
 lumbia, S. C., did so, advocating a qualified suffrage for them. 
 After the war Mississippi whites voted unanimously for the 
 Fifteenth Amendment. On the other hand, in the North, at 
 first only Stevens and Sum ner were for negro suffrage. So late 
 as 1865 Oliver P. Morton was strenuous against it,* foretel 
 ling most of the evils which the system actually brought forth. 
 In 1865 Connecticut rejected a negro suffrage amendment by 
 6,272 majority; in 1867 Ohio, Kansas and Minnesota did 
 the same by the respective majorities of 50,620, 8,923 and 
 1,298. In 1868 New York followed their example with a 
 majority of 32,601. 
 
 *See North American Review, Vol. 12,3, p. 259 et seq. 
 119 
 
 Facsimile of a Bill for Furnishing the State House at Columbia, 
 S. C., in 1872. 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 The experiment being tried, all interests, not least those 
 of the blacks themselves, were found to require that the supe 
 rior race should rule. It seemed strange that any were ever 
 so dull as to expect the success of the opposite polity. One 
 perfectly honest carpet-bag Governor confessed that while he 
 could give the people of his State "a pretty tolerable govern 
 ment," he could not possibly give them one that would satisfy 
 " the feelings, sentiments, prejudices or what not of the white 
 people generally in that State." 
 
 The good carpet-baggers and the bad alike somehow 
 exerted an influence which had the effect of morbidly inflam 
 ing the negro's sense of independence and of engaging him 
 in politics. His former wrongs were dwelt upon and the bal 
 lot held up as a providential means of righting them. The 
 negro was too apt a pupil, not in the higher politics of prin 
 ciple but in the politics of office and "swag." In 1872 the 
 National Colored Republican Convention adopted a resolution 
 " earnestly praying that the colored Republicans of States 
 where no federal positions were given to colored men might 
 no longer be ignored, but be stimulated by some recognition 
 of federal patronage." The average negro expressed his views 
 on public affairs by the South Carolina catch : " De bottom 
 rail am on de top, and we's gwineter keep it dar." " The 
 reformers complain of taxes being too high," said Beverly 
 Nash in 1874, after he had become State Senator ; " I tell you 
 that they are not high enough. I want them taxed until they 
 put those lands back where they belong, into the hands of 
 those who worked for them. You worked for them ; you 
 labored for them and were sold to pay for them, and you 
 ought to have them." 
 
 The tendency of such exhortation was most vicious. In 
 their days of serfdom the negroes' besetting sin had been 
 thievery. Now that the opportunities for this were multiplied, 
 the fear of punishment gone, and many a carpet-bagger at 
 hand to encourage it, the prevalence of public and private 
 
BEVERLY NASH 
 
 NEGRO VICES 
 
 stealing was not strange. Larceny was nearly 
 universal, burglary painfully common. At 
 night watch had to be kept over property 
 with dogs and guns. It was part, or at 
 least an effect, of the carpet-bag policy to 
 aggravate race jealousies and sectional mis 
 understandings. The duello, still good form 
 all over the South, induced disregard of law 
 and of human life. " The readiness of 
 white men to use the pistol kept the colored 
 people respectful to some extent, though they fearfully 
 avenged any grievances from whites by applying the torch to 
 out-buildings, gin-houses, and often dwellings. To white 
 children they were at times extremely insolent and threatening. 
 White ladies had to be very prudent with their tongues, for 
 colored domestics gave back word for word, and even followed 
 up words with blows if reprimanded too cuttingly. It was 
 also, after emancipation, notoriously unsafe for white ladies to 
 venture from home without an escort. . . If a white man 
 shot a colored man, an excited mob of blacks would try 
 to lynch him. His friends rallied to the rescue, and a riot 
 often resulted. The conditions were reversed if a white man 
 was shot by a negro." Negro militia at the governors' beck 
 and call alarmed the whites. White companies formed and 
 offered themselves for service, swearing to keep the peace, but 
 were made to disband. To the Union and Loyal Leagues 
 on the reconstructionists' side answered the Ku-Klux Klan, al 
 ready described, on the other. 
 
 Colored men were quite too unintelligent to make laws 
 or even to elect those who were to do so. At one time doz 
 ens of engrossed bills were passed back and forth between the 
 two Houses of the Alabama Legislature that errors in them 
 might be corrected. According to contemporary reports the 
 Lower House expelled one of its clerks for bad orthography 
 and appointed a specialist to rectify the errors. Upon 
 
 121 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 exposure of clerical mistakes the Upper House could not fix 
 the blame, some Senators being unable to write three lines 
 correctly, others wholly ignorant even of reading. One 
 easily imagines how intolerable the doings of such public ser 
 vants must have been. 
 
 The colored legislators of South Carolina furnished the 
 State House with gorgeous clocks at $480 each, mirrors at 
 ^750, and chandeliers at #650. Their own apartments were 
 a barbaric display of gewgaws, carpets and upholstery. The 
 minority of a congressional committee recited that " these 
 ebony statesmen " purchased a lot of imported china cuspi 
 dors at 1 8 apiece, while Senators and representatives " at the 
 glorious capital of the nation " had to be " content with a 
 plain earthenware article of domestic manufacture." 
 
 Of the Palmetto State Solons in 1873 an eye-witness 
 wrote : cc They are as quick as lightning at points of order, 
 and they certainly make incessant and extraordinary use of 
 their knowledge. No one is allowed to talk five minutes 
 without interruption, and one interruption is the signal for 
 another and another, until the original speaker is smothered 
 under an avalanche of them. Forty questions of privilege 
 will be raised in a day. At times nothing goes on but alter 
 nating questions of order and of privilege. The inefficient 
 colored friend who sits in the Speaker's chair can not suppress 
 this extraordinary element in the debate. Some of the black 
 est members exhibit a pertinacity in raising these points of 
 order and questions of privilege that few white men can 
 equal. Their struggles to get the floor, their bellowings and 
 physical contortions, baffle description. The Speaker's ham 
 mer plays a perpetual tattoo, all to no purpose. The talking 
 and interruptions from all quarters go on with the utmost 
 license. Everyone esteems himself as good as his neighbor 
 and puts in his oar, apparently as often for love of riot and 
 confusion as for anything else." 
 
 Around the State-house, during the session of a Legis- 
 
FREEDMEN AS LEGISLATORS 
 
 THE SOUTH CAROLINA LEGISLATURE OF 1873 PASSING AN APPROPRIATION BILL 
 
 lature in which were colored representatives, a dense crowd of 
 open-mouthed negroes would stand, rain or shine, and stare 
 at the walls from hour to hour, day after day. In one State 
 election in South Carolina Judge Carpenter, an old South 
 Carolinian and a Republican, ran in opposition to the carpet- 
 
 123 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 bag candidate. Against him it was charged that if he were 
 elected he would re-enslave the blacks, or that, failing in this, 
 he would not allow their wives and daughters to wear hoop- 
 skirts. Another judge was threatened with impeachment and 
 summoned before the Legislature above described, because he 
 had " made improper reflections on a colored woman of doubt 
 ful character." 
 
 There were said to be in South Carolina alone, in Novem 
 ber, 1874, two hundred negro trial justices who could neither 
 read nor write, also negro school commissioners equally igno 
 rant, receiving a thousand a year each, while negro juries, decid 
 ing delicate points of legal evidence, settled questions involving 
 lives and property. Property, which had to bear the burden 
 of taxation, had no voice, for the colored man had no property. 
 Taxes were levied ruinously, and money was appropriated with 
 a lavish hand. 
 
 The public debt of Alabama was increased between 1868 
 and 1874 from $8,356,083. 51 to 125,503,593.30, including 
 straight and endorsed railroad bonds.* A large part of this 
 went for illegitimate expenses of the Legislature ; much more 
 was in the form of help to railroads ; much went into the 
 hands of legislators and officials ; little was returned to the 
 people in any form. In 1860 the expenses of the Florida 
 Legislature were $17,000; in 1869 they were $67,000.*}* Bonds 
 to the amount of $4,000,000, which this State issued to sub 
 sidize railroads, were marketed with difficulty. For some 
 the best terms obtainable were fifty cents on the dollar.J 
 In less than four months the Legislature of North Carolina 
 authorized the issue of more than $25,000,000 in bonds, princi 
 pally for railroads, $14,000,000 being issued and sold at from 
 nine to forty-five cents on the dollar. The counties began to 
 exploit their credit in the same way, and some of the wealthier 
 
 *Hilary A. Herbert, "Why the Solid South," p. 62. 
 
 (-Samuel Pasco, " Why the Solid South, p. 150. 
 
 JIbid. 
 
 124 
 
EXTRAVAGANT EXPENDITURES 
 
 had their scrip hawked about at ten cents on the dollar.* In 
 1871 the Louisiana Legislature made an over-issue of State 
 warrants to the extent of $200,000, some of which were sold 
 at two and a half cents on the dollar and funded at par/j~ In 
 1873 the tax levy in New Orleans was three per cent. 
 Four and a half years of Republican rule cost Louisiana 106 
 millions, to say nothing of privileges and franchises given 
 away.J Clark County, Arkansas, was left with a debt of 
 $300,000 and $500 worth of improvements. ^[ Chicot County 
 spent $400,000 with nothing in return ; and Pulaski County, 
 including Little Rock, nearly a million. Town, county and 
 school scrip was worth ten to thirty cents on the dollar, and 
 State scrip with five per cent, interest brought only twenty-five 
 cents. The bonded debt of Tennessee, most of it created in 
 aid of railroads and turnpikes, was increased by $16,000,000, 
 and the bonds were sold at from seventeen to forty cents on 
 the dollar for greenbacks. In Nashville,** when there 
 was no currency in the treasury, checks were drawn, often 
 in the name of fictitious persons, made payable to bearer, 
 and sold by the ring to note-shavers for what they would 
 bring. Warrants on the Texas treasury brought forty-five 
 cents a dollar, and the bonds of the State were practically val- 
 ueless.ff 
 
 In Mississippi during 1875, including $374,119.80, 
 vouchers, etc., not charged on the books, $2,164,928.22 
 were expended. In 1893 the expenditures were only $1,249,- 
 193.91. In 1870 the State tax rate was $5 on the $1,000. 
 In 1871 it was $4; in 1872, $8.50; in 1873, $12.50; in 
 
 *S. B. Weeks, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. IX., p. 686 et seq. Cf. " Why the 
 Solid South," pp. 80, 82. Mr. Weeks vouches for the truth of ail the above statements relating 
 to North Carolina. 
 
 fB. J. Sage, " Why the Solid South," p. 403. JIbid., 406. 
 
 ^|W. M. Fishback, "Why the Solid South," p. 309. See ibid, for the other references to 
 Arkansas. 
 
 |J. P. Jones, " Why the Solid South," p. 214. **Ibid, 199. 
 
 ffChas. Stewart, "Why the Solid South," p. 378. On all the foregoing debt state 
 ments see also S. B. Weeks in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. IX., p. 68 1 et seq. 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 1874, $14. In 1875 ^ fe^ to $9' 2 5* The Democrats came 
 in in 1876, whereupon the rate fell to $6, decreasing contin 
 ually until it reached $2.50 (1882-1885), a ^ ter which time it 
 rose once more in, 1894 standing at $6. The average county 
 tax rate also fell from $13.39, m l %74> to 17-68, in 1894. 
 Comparing the average rate between the years 1870 and 1875, 
 inclusive, with that between 1876 and 1894, inclusive, we find 
 that the State tax rate under Republican rule was two and a 
 third times higher than under the Democrats afterward. The 
 county tax rate for the same six years averaged about an eighth 
 higher than for the nineteen years after 1875. 
 
 Under the Republicans the annual average of auditor's 
 warrants issued for common schools was $56,184.39. To 
 September, 1895, the Democrats issued an average nearly six 
 times as large. Mississippi's total payable and interest-bearing 
 debt on January i, 1876, when the Democratic administration 
 succeeded the Republican, amounted to $984,200, besides 
 $414,958.31 in unpaid auditor's warrants. The Republicans' 
 expenditures were as in the following table : 
 
 1870 (Beginning March n) . . $ 975*455-65 
 
 1871 (For the whole year) . 1,729,046.34 
 
 1872 ..... 1,596,828.64 
 
 1873 . 1,450,632.80 
 
 1874 '..... 1,319,281.60 
 
 1875 ...... 1,430,192.83 
 
 Total ... . v $8,501,437.86 
 
 Average per annum . . $1,464,480.00 
 
 After the downfall of the Republican order the heaviest 
 expenditures were in 1894 $1,378,752.70; the lightest, 
 $518,709.03, in 1876. The average annual expenditure from 
 1876 to 1894 was between sixty and seventy per cent, of the 
 average for reconstruction times.* 
 
 *The Mississippi figures are vouched for by J. J. Evans, State Treasurer in October, 1895, 
 as from the Mississippi State Treasurer's and Auditor's books and reports. The author begs his 
 readers' pardon for using in the Magazine draft of this History a table of Southern State recon 
 struction debts which enormously exaggerated the Mississippi and also the Georgia debt. 
 
 126 
 
CORRUPTION IN GEORGIA 
 
 When, in July, 1868, Rufus B. Bullock became Gov 
 ernor of Georgia, the debt of that State stood at $5, 8 27,000. 
 All had been created since the war except the Brunswick and 
 Albany debt about to be mentioned. $429,000 of the debt, 
 perhaps more, was paid during Governor Bullock's three years, 
 but the bonded indebtedness of the State was meantime in 
 creased by the issue of $3,000,000 in gold bonds for the 
 State's own behoof, and of $1,800,000 gold bonds in pay 
 ment of a State war debt to the Brunswick and Albany Rail 
 road Company. Considering this sum the State's debt at the 
 end of the war, its actual debt on January i, 1874, being 
 $8,343,000, we may place the debt incurred during recon 
 struction at about six and a half millions. The outstanding 
 bonds of defaulted railroads the validity of which was acknowl 
 edged by the State, are not included in this amount. 
 
 The contingent liabilities of the State were also increased 
 during the Bullock administration by the endorsement of rail 
 road bonds to a total of $6,923,400. The Georgia Air Line 
 returned $240,000, which should be deducted from the above 
 total. On the other hand, the total must be enlarged by $400,- 
 ooo in bonds of the Macon and Brunswick Railroad Com 
 pany, endorsed, as it would seem, though no official record 
 was made, by Governor Jenkins. It was charged and almost 
 universally believed, but not proved, that State endorsement 
 was often, if not regularly, secured before the beneficiary roads 
 had built and equipped the required number of miles. The 
 Cartersville and Van Wert secured $275,000 of endorsed 
 bonds ; then, changing its name to the Cherokee Railroad and 
 agreeing to withdraw these bonds, obtained a new issue of 
 endorsed bonds to the amount of $300,000. The first issue 
 was not, after all, withdrawn, and color was thus given to insin 
 uations against Governor Bullock's integrity. Such insin 
 uations were also made in the case of the Bainbridge and 
 Columbus road, but fell flat. $240,000 in bonds for this road 
 the Governor endorsed before leaving the State on a temporary 
 
 127 
 
CHARLES HATES 
 OF ALABAMA 
 
 THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 visit, but the guarantee could not be valid 
 without the State seal. The Secretary of 
 State was to affix this in case the road com 
 plied with the conditions, which was not 
 done, and the bonds were never issued. 
 
 The Georgia railroad bonds were bought 
 partly by Northerners, partly by a German 
 syndicate. At home they were ceaselessly 
 denounced as " bogus " and " fraudulent," 
 on the- ground that they had been issued con 
 trary to the conditions of the authorizing statutes, as well as, 
 in some cases, to the Constitution of the State. The State, how 
 ever, refused to submit the question to her courts, but re 
 pudiated the bonds, and, to assure herself against payment, in 
 1877 embodied the repudiation in her Constitution.* 
 
 The first South Carolina Legislature under the recon 
 structed Constitution, an excellent instrument, by the way, 
 consisted of seventy-two white and eighty-five colored mem 
 bers, containing only twenty-one white Democrats. At that 
 date the State's funded debt amounted to $5,407,306. 27. At 
 the close of the four years of Governor R. K. Scott's admin 
 istration, December, 1872, though no public works of appreci 
 able importance had been begun or completed, that debt, 
 with past-due interest, amounted to $ 18,5 15,033.91. This 
 increase represented " only increased, extravagant and prof 
 ligate current expenditures." In December, 1873, an Act 
 was passed declaring invalid $5, 965,000 of the bonds known 
 as "conversion" bonds, recognizing as valid $11,480,033.91 
 in principal and accrued interest, and providing for refunding 
 the debt in new bonds at 50 per cent, of the par value of 
 the old. Between 1868 and December, 1874, the total cost 
 of sessions of the Legislature, six regular and two special, 
 
 *The direct gold bonds to the Brunswick and Albany were among the repudiated. The 
 only railroad bonds recognized as valid amounted to $2,688,000 to four different roads, one of 
 which was paying its interest. Tenth Census, Vol. VII., p. 585. 
 
 128 
 
EXAGGERATED STORIES OF VIOLENCE 
 
 was $2,147, 43-97> to Sa 7 nothing of bills payable for legis 
 lative expenses, amounting to $192,275.15.* The total cost 
 of State printing and advertising during the period named was 
 $1,104,569.91, and during the last three years thereof $9 1 8,- 
 629.86. Running deficiencies were simply enormous. For 
 the single fiscal year ending October 31, 1874, they were 
 $472,619.54. Warrants, orders and certificates for public 
 money were issued when no funds were on hand to pay them. 
 There was thus, in addition to the bonded debt, a floating 
 indebtedness of nearly or quite a million dollars.f 
 
 By 1874, in most of the Southern States, the carpet-bag 
 governments had succumbed. Such States were well on the 
 way to order and prosperity, though breaches of the peace 
 still occurred there with distressing frequency. From Ala 
 bama, in particular, came startling reports of terrorism. 
 They had some foundation, but were greatly exaggerated by 
 interested or ill-informed persons. In a letter to Hon. 
 Joseph R. Hawley, Hon. Charles Hayes wrote of one Allen 
 as having been beaten by ruffians and threatened with death 
 
 if he " didn't keep his mouth shut about that d d Yankee, 
 
 Billings/' who had been assassinated. To a New York 'Tribune 
 correspondent Allen said he had been assaulted by a solitary 
 gentleman, armed only with the weapons of nature, who 
 scratched his face. Some " massacred " persons denied that 
 they had been hurt at all. Such violence as did occur by no 
 means always proceeded from whites. It is well authenticated 
 that colored Democrats were maltreated by colored Republi 
 cans. The blacks were often unfriendly to whites even when 
 these were Republicans. It is quite true that where negroes 
 were thought to be politically dangerous or were otherwise 
 obnoxious to the whites they received little consideration. 
 Sixteen were taken from a jail in Tennessee and shot by a 
 band of masked horsemen, their bodies being left in the road. 
 
 ^Governor Chamberlain's Administration in South Carolina, p. 17. 
 flbid., p. 1 8 et seq. 
 
 129 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 The Governor offered a reward for the apprehension of the 
 murderers, when one turned State's evidence and told every 
 thing. The others were at once arrested ; whether punished 
 does not appear. 
 
 130 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 DECLINE OF THE TRANSITIONAL GOV 
 ERNMENTS IN SOUTH CAROLINA, 
 ARKANSAS, MISSISSIPPI, AND 
 LOUISIANA 
 
 GEN. SHERMAN ON THE SOUTHERN PROBLEM. RECKLESS LEGIS 
 LATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. APPEAL OF THE TAXPAYERS' 
 
 UNION. GOV. CHAMBERLAIN'S REFORMS. THE CONFLICT IN AR 
 KANSAS. FACTIONS. THE STAKE FOUGHT FOR. A NEW CON 
 STITUTION. GOV. GARLAND ELECTED. REPORT OF THE POLAND 
 
 COMMITTEE. THE VICKSBURG "WAR." MAYOR VERSUS GOVER 
 NOR. PRESIDENT GRANT WILL NOT INTERFERE. SENATOR REVELS 
 
 ON THE SITUATION. THE MISSISSIPPI RECONSTRUCTIONISTS. THE 
 
 KELLOGG-MCENERY IMBROGLIO IN LOUISIANA METROPOLITANS 
 
 AND WHITE LEAGUERS FIGHT. THE KELLOGG GOVERNMENT 
 
 OVERTHROWN BUT RE-ESTABLISHED BY FEDERAL ARMS. PRO 
 TESTS. THE ELECTION OF NOV. 2, 1874. METHODS OF THE 
 
 RETURNING BOARD. GEN. SHERIDAN IN COMMAND. LEGISLATURE 
 
 ORGANIZED AMID BAYONETS. MEMBERS REMOVED BY FEDERAL 
 
 SOLDIERS. SHERIDAN'S VIEWS. ALLEGATIONS CONTRA. PUBLIC 
 OPINION AT THE NORTH. THE "WHEELER ADJUSTMENT." 
 
 SOUTH Carolina, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana 
 were in 1874 still under carpet-bag sway. Their nearly 
 complete deliverance therefrom during this year and the next 
 forms an interesting chapter in the recent history of our 
 country. 
 
 In a letter written so early as 1869, after an extended 
 Southern trip, General Sherman said : " I do think some po 
 litical power might be given to the young men who served in 
 the rebel army, for they are a better class than the adventurers 
 who have gone South purely for office." Again, in 1871, he 
 wrote : " I told Grant plainly that the South would go against 
 him en masse, though he counts on South Carolina, Louisiana, 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 and Arkansas. I repeated my conviction that all that was 
 vital in the South was against him ; that negroes were gene 
 rally quiescent and could not be relied on as voters when local 
 questions became mixed up with political matters." This was 
 an exact forecast of the actual event in all the States named. 
 In each a reform faction of white Republicans grew up, dis 
 gusted with carpet-bag corruption and unwilling longer to 
 limit their political creed to the single article of negro rights. 
 In the face of this quarrel negroes became bewildered, so that 
 they either scattered, withheld or traded their votes, in a way to 
 replace political power in the hands of the Democrats. 
 
 The carpet-bag legislature of South Carolina guaranteed 
 $6,000,000 in railroad bonds to subsidize the Greenville & 
 Columbia and the Blue Ridge Railroads, taking mortgages on 
 the roads to cover the amount. Rings of carpet-baggers and 
 native speculators obtained legislation releasing the mortgages 
 but continuing the State's liabilities. Seven hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars or more in fraudulent State bank-notes were 
 approved and assumed by the State. Though property in 
 general had lost two-thirds of its ante-bellum value, it paid on 
 the average fiye times heavier taxes. In 1872, 288,000 acres 
 of land with buildings were said to have been forfeited for the 
 tax of twelve cents an acre. As in Arkansas and in Louisiana, 
 the Governor had dangerously great patronage. Negro felons 
 were pardoned by wholesale for political purposes. Undeserv 
 ing white convicts could be ransomed for money. Of the 
 three justices on the Supreme Bench one was a carpet-bagger 
 and one a negro. Juries were composed of illiterate and de 
 graded men. 
 
 In March, 1874, a committee of the South Carolina Tax 
 payers' Union waited on President Grant with complaints. 
 He expressed regret at the anarchic condition of South Caro 
 lina, but said that as the State government was in complete 
 working order the federal authority was powerless. This ap 
 peal, however, favorably affected public opinion. " It shows," 
 
 132 
 
Painted by W. R. Leigh 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT IN FRONT OF THE ANTHONY HOUSE, LITTLE 
 ROCK, SUBSEQUENT TO BAXTER'S SPEECH TO THE COLORED REGIMENT 
 
CHAMBERLAIN IN SOUTH CAROLINA 
 
 ELISHA BAXTER 
 
 said one journal, " that the South cherishes 
 no sullen hostility." Antipathy toward South 
 erners slowly changed to sympathy. The 
 doings of the South Carolina Republicans 
 could not but be disapproved by the party in 
 the Nation. Democrats and non-partisans de 
 nounced them as travestying free institutions. 
 In 1 874 the South Carolina Republicans 
 quarrelled. After a hot contest the regular 
 convention nominated Hon. D. H. Cham 
 berlain for Governor, Moses, his predecessor 
 being set aside. Chamberlain was a native of 
 Massachusetts, a graduate of Yale and of the 
 Harvard Law School. He was a polished 
 gentleman- and an able lawyer. During the 
 War he had been First Lieutenant and then 
 Captain in the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry. 
 His principal service in the army was in the 
 way of staff duty as Judge- Advocate and as 
 Assistant Adjutant-General. War ended, he 
 became a citizen of South Carolina in time to 
 sit in its Constitutional Convention. The 
 Independent Republicans bolted Chamber 
 lain's nomination and put up for Governor 
 Judge John T. Green, a native South Caro 
 linian, to whose standard rallied the entire "reform 
 
 JOSEPH BROOKS 
 
 CHIEF- JUSTICE 
 JOHN Me C LURE 
 
 ele 
 
 ment of the State, whether Conservative or Republican. 
 
 The Chamberlain ticket was elected. In his inaugural 
 address Governor Chamberlain marked out an able scheme of 
 retrenchment and reform, soon showing, to the astonishment 
 of many and to the dismay of some among his leading support 
 ers that he was in earnest with it. The enormous power given 
 the Executive, apparently that he might abuse it, enabled 
 Chamberlain, spite of his party allies, to effect sweeping im 
 provements. He supplanted dishonest officials with men of 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 integrity. Republicans if such were available, if not, Demo 
 crats. He vetoed corrupt jobs and firmly withheld pardons. 
 Ex-Governor Moses and the infamous Whipper, elected by 
 the legislature to the Circuit Bench, he refused to commis 
 sion. Good jurors were selected, and crime and race hatred 
 wonderfully diminished. Like the English in Ireland, Gov 
 ernor Chamberlain learned that an abstractly good govern 
 ment over a community may fit the community very ill. 
 Carpet-bagger, scalawag, and negro, however well intentioned 
 and wisely led, could not in the nature of the case rule South 
 Carolina well. Nevertheless his praiseworthy effort hastened 
 the advent of order by revealing the nature of the evils which 
 needed reforming. 
 
 Arkansas was another of the States where exotic govern 
 ment died extremely hard. Its persistence there was due to 
 the strong Union sentiment which had always existed north of 
 the Arkansas River. The State's colored vote was only a 
 quarter of the whole, but was potent in combination with the 
 large white vote which remained Republican till shamed into 
 change. In this State, so stubborn were the traditions and 
 temper of its citizens, neither faction readily gave way. 
 
 The conflict in Arkansas was between the Liberal- 
 Republicans, called " brindle-tails," led by James Brooks, and 
 the Radical-Republicans, headed by Baxter. Chief Justice 
 McClure, nicknamed " Poker Jack," and the United States 
 Senators, Clayton and Dorsey, sided with Baxter. The re 
 turns of the 1872 election seemed to make Baxter Governor, 
 but Brooks alleged fraud and sought by every means to change 
 the result. He appealed to the United States Court for a 
 quo warranto against Baxter, but it declined to assume juris 
 diction in the case. The State Supreme Court also declined. 
 The legislature could have authorized a contest, but refused to 
 do so. Not disheartened, Brooks sued for and secured from 
 the Circuit Court of Pulaski County, April 15, 1874, a judg 
 ment of "ouster" against Baxter, took forcible possession of 
 
 136 
 
Painted by Howard P 
 THE BROOKS FORCES EVACUATING THE STATE-HOUSE AT LITTLE ROCK 
 
BROOKS AND BAXTER IN ARKANSAS 
 
 the State-house, and held it with cannon 
 
 and some hundred and fifty men. Next 
 
 day Baxter proclaimed martial law, marched 
 
 two hundred partisans of his into Little 
 
 Rock and surrounded the State-house. 
 
 The federal forces, while neutral, enjoined 
 
 both parties from precipitating an armed 
 
 collision. Re-inforcements from both sides 
 
 constantly came in, making Little Rock AUGUSTUS H. 
 
 for the time a military camp. 
 
 A body of Baxter's colored supporters, applauding some 
 utterance of his, were fired into accidentally, as was said. 
 Indiscriminate shooting ensued, with sanguinary results. 
 Federal forces had to quell the disturbance. Excitement 
 was undiminished until the end of April, breaches of the 
 peace being frequent, though no general engagement occur 
 red. On April joth took place an action in which Brooks 
 suffered the loss of twenty-five men killed and wounded ; some 
 accounts say seventy-one. A week later, and again two days 
 later still, there were sharp skirmishes. The streets of Little 
 Rock were barricaded, and communication with the outside 
 world much impeded. Meantime the agents of the two parties 
 in Washington were engaged in legal and diplomatic fencing, 
 but effort after effort at compromise proved abortive. 
 
 Neither side had an inspiring cause. In that poverty- 
 stricken State offices were perhaps more numerous and fat 
 than in any other commonwealth of the Union. Each side 
 hungered for these. A cartoon of the period figured Arkansas 
 as a woman gripped between two remorseless brigands with 
 pistols levelled at each other. By the Constitution of 1868 
 the Governor appointed to five hundred and twenty-six sal 
 aried posts, besides creating all the justices of the peace 
 and constables. Public expenditures, which, in six years, 
 had amounted to $ 17,000,000, might, if properly looked 
 after, be made a rich source of revenue to many. The 
 
 139 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 following instance is well authenticated and where there 
 can be one such there are certain to be many : In Fort 
 Smith in 1873 a widow who made a living by sewing was 
 taxed $60 on a lot fronting in a back alley and a house 
 which could be built for from $300 to $400. It was more 
 money than she ever had at one time in her life. Moved to 
 tears over this woman's deep distress at the prospective loss 
 of her home, a benevolent lady persuaded her husband to pay 
 the taxes as an act of charity.* 
 
 The legislature, convened by Baxter on the nth of 
 May, telegraphed for federal interposition. Grant at once 
 recognized Baxter and his legislature, and ordered " all turbu 
 lent and disorderly persons to disperse." But the end was 
 yet remote. The Poland Committee on Arkansas Affairs, 
 appointed by the National House of Representatives, elicited 
 the fact that Baxter and the leaders of his party, notably 
 Clayton and Dorsey, were no longer on good terms. His 
 disappointing integrity had lost Baxter his " pull " with the 
 Senators and with the Arkansas Supreme Court, presided over 
 by McClure. The following is from the evidence laid before 
 the committee during the summer of 1874: 
 
 " Q. State what you know in regard to the origin of the 
 difficulties between Governor Baxter and the leaders of the 
 party that elected him. 
 
 " A. As I understood it, in the time of it, it originated 
 with an effort made on the part of the Republican party 
 proper to carry through the railroad bill. It originated with 
 his opposition to this bill, or with his declaring that he would 
 defeat the bill. 
 
 " Q. What was the nature of the bill? 
 
 "A. There had been $5, 200,000 State-aid bonds issued, 
 and the object of the bill was for the State to assume that 
 indebtedness and take in lieu of it railroad bonds. 
 
 " Q- Was that considered as any fair equivalent? 
 
 *W. M. Fishback. " Why the Solid South," p. 308. 
 
 140 
 
ARKANSAS CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 
 
 "A. It was considered that that would be of no value 
 at all. 
 
 " Q- What was the general opinion in relation to those 
 bonds ; was it that the State had any benefit from them, or 
 the roads, or individuals who pocketed the bonds ? 
 
 " A. The impression on the public mind is that the 
 bonds were divided up between the managers of the different 
 roads."* 
 
 Baxter's new attitude surprisingly quickened the Supreme 
 Court's sense of jurisdiction. Two of its judges were kid 
 napped, but escaped, and four days before the legislature con 
 vened, four of the five, though " feeling some delicacy " in 
 doing so, reversed the former denial of jurisdiction, and on 
 May 7, 1874, affirmed the decision of the Circuit Court- in 
 Brooks's favor. 
 
 The legislature provided for a Constitutional Convention 
 to convene on July 14, 1874, an action overwhelmingly in 
 dorsed by the people at the next election. The new Consti 
 tution, ratified 78,000 to 24,000 in October, swept the Gov 
 ernor's enormous patronage away, as also his power to declare 
 martial law and to suspend habeas corpus. The tax-levying 
 and debt-contracting functions of the legislature were strictly 
 hedged about. The number of offices was to be diminished 
 and all were to be elective. Disfranchisements were abol 
 ished. The most important of all the changes related to 
 the Returning Board. The old Constitution had vested 
 in this body extraordinary authority, like that given it by 
 statute in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana. It desig 
 nated three officers who were to receive all election returns, 
 compile and count them, reject fraudulent and illegal votes, 
 and in case of irregularities in the election, occasioned by 
 fraud or fear in any county or precinct, to correct the return 
 
 *House Committee Reports, ist Session 43d Congress, Vol. V., Report No. 771, 
 p. 149 ; Testimony of Ex-Circuit Judge Liberty Bartlett. 
 
 141 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 
 % 
 
 or to reject it and order a new election. 
 The judicial part of this fearful sov 
 ereignty was now annulled. 
 
 The State Democracy endorsed these 
 changes as "just, liberal, and wise," and 
 offered Baxter the nomination for Gov 
 ernor, which he refused. The opposition 
 cried out that the State was betrayed into 
 AMES tne hands of the Ku-klux and White 
 Xeagues, that Brooks was the true Governor, and that the new 
 Constitution was revolutionary and void. They made no nom 
 inations under it, so that at the election Garland, the Demo 
 cratic nominee, was elected by a majority of 75,000 votes. 
 
 Early in 1875 the Poland Committee submitted to the 
 House its report upon the Arkansas imbroglio. It stated 
 that the new Arkansas Constitution was Republican in form 
 and recommended non-interference, saying that while negro 
 citizenship was not relished by the Southern people, few, ex 
 cept certain lawless youths, who should be sternly dealt with, 
 would do aught to disturb it. A minority report was signed 
 by Jasper D. Ward, of Illinois, who had gone to Little Rock 
 in company with Dorsey, and had during his entire stay re 
 mained at Dorsey's house, where he met few but Brooksites. 
 The President took issue with the Poland Committee. In a 
 special message, two days after its report, he expressed the 
 opinion that Brooks was the legal Governor of Arkansas and 
 the new Constitution revolutionary. Spite of this, however, 
 the House adopted the Poland report, thus, in effect, ending 
 the long broil and suspense. Governor Garland at once pro 
 claimed Thursday, March 25, 1875, a day of thanksgiving. 
 
 Before light one morning in the winter of 187475, the 
 white citizens of Vicksburg, Miss., were roused by the news 
 that armed negroes were approaching the city. They sprang 
 to arms and organized. Just outside the city limits a detach 
 ment of whites met a body of two hundred negroes and soon 
 
RACE HOSTILITIES IN MISSISSIPPI 
 
 /\\.y-,/ 
 
 THE SCENE OF THE CONFLICT AT THE PEMBERTON MONUMENT, NEAR 
 
 riCKSBURG, DECEMBER 7,1874 
 The negroes were entrenched in the old federal breastworks at the top of the hill 
 
 put them to rout, killing six, wounding several, and taking 
 some prisoners. Almost at the same, time a similar engagement 
 was in progress near the monument where Pemberton surren 
 dered to Grant in 1863. The man who headed the citizens 
 said that the conflict lasted only a few minutes. The negroes 
 fled in wild disorder, leaving behind twenty killed and 
 wounded. At still other points negro bands were charged 
 upon and routed. Three whites were killed and three 
 wounded, while of the colored about seventy-five were killed 
 and wounded and thirty or forty made prisoners. By noon 
 the war was over, and on the following day business was 
 resumed amid quiet and order. 
 
 The causes of this bloody affair were differently recited. 
 An address published by the citizens of Vicksburg a few days 
 later alleged a series of frauds by certain colored county 
 
 H3 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 officials. Some of these had been indicted by a grand jury 
 composed of ten colored and seven white men. Among the 
 accused was George W. Davenport, Clerk of the Court of 
 Chancery and a member of the Board of Supervisors. The 
 citizens further declared that the bonds of Sheriff and Tax 
 Collector Crosby were worthless, and also that he had made 
 away with incriminating records to save comrades of his who 
 were under indictment. A mass-meeting was held, and the 
 accused officials asked to resign. Davenport fled the county ; 
 Crosby yielded. Soon, however, by an inflammatory hand 
 bill, over Crosby's name, in which the " Taxpayers " were 
 named a mob of ruffians, barbarians and political banditti, the 
 colored people of the county were called upon to support him. 
 It was rumored that a rising of blacks was imminent, though 
 Crosby had disowned the pamphlet and promised to bid his 
 adherents disperse. Governor Ames proclaimed a state of 
 riot and disorder, and invoked the aid of all citizens in up 
 holding the laws. Upon receipt of the Governor's proclama 
 tion the Mayor of Vicksburg issued a counter-manifesto 
 asserting that the mass-meeting, which the Governor had 
 denounced as riotous and as having driven the sheriff from his 
 office, was a quiet and orderly gathering of taxpayers who, 
 without arms or violence, had " requested the resignation of 
 irresponsible officials." His Honor con 
 tinued : " Whereas the Governor's pro 
 clamation has excited the citizens of the 
 county, and I have this moment received 
 information that armed bodies of colored 
 men have organized and are now marching 
 on the city," I command such "unlawful 
 assemblages and armed bodies of men to 
 disperse." 
 
 Spite of his Honor's denial, Gover 
 nor Ames ascribed the trouble to violence 
 and intimidation against blacks by whites, 
 
 RICHARD O'LEJRY 
 Mayor of fichburg in 1874 
 
 144 
 
vn by B. W. Llinedinst 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE PASSING A RESOLUTION ASKING FOR FEDERAL AID 
 
 AFTER THE ATTACK ON riCKSBURG 
 
 Scene in the Senate Chamber 
 
FEDERAL INTERVENTION REFUSED 
 
 constituting a reign of terror, and convened the legislature in 
 extra session. This body called upon President Grant to 
 awaken what Sumner called "the sleeping giant of the Con 
 stitution" and protect the State against domestic violence. 
 Grant was reluctant to interpose. In his annual message hardly 
 a fortnight before he had said : " The whole subject of execu 
 tive interference with the affairs of a State is repugnant to public 
 opinion." " Unless most clearly on the side of law such 
 interference becomes a crime." He therefore merely is 
 sued a proclamation commanding all disorderly bands in 
 Mississippi to disperse. But breaches of the peace con 
 tinued. At a public meeting in Yazoo City one man was 
 killed and three or four wounded. The speaker of the even 
 ing, a Republican office-holder, left the county, professing to 
 believe his life in danger. In Clinton, three days later, at a 
 Republican barbecue, where there was a discussion between a 
 Republican and a Democrat, a personal quarrel sprang up, 
 during which two negroes were shot. This was the signal for 
 a general attack by blacks upon whites, in the course of 
 which three white men were killed and several wounded. 
 Later in the night seven or eight negroes were killed, when 
 the armed men dispersed and quiet was restored. Another 
 outbreak at Friar's Point, a month afterward, was clearly in 
 cited by a colored sheriff, who had called together a body of 
 armed negroes to support him in the County Convention. 
 
 Ames now renewed his petition for United States 
 troops, but met with a chilling response from the new Attor 
 ney-General, Edwards Pierrepont, a Democrat till Seymour's 
 nomination, thereafter a conservative Republican. He de 
 clared that the General Government could aid Mississippi only 
 when all the resources of the State Executive had been ex 
 hausted. He accompanied this utterance with words from 
 Grant's despatches : "The whole public are tired out with these 
 annual autumnal outbreaks in the South, and the great majority 
 now are ready to condemn any interference on the part of the 
 
 147 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Government/' Failing to secure assistance from Washington, 
 Governor Ames's party finally made an arrangement with the 
 Conservatives, which assured a peaceable election. 
 
 This resulted in Republican defeat, whereupon Mr. 
 Revels, the colored Senator from Mississippi, wrote to the 
 President the following : " Since reconstruction the masses of 
 people have been, as it were, enslaved in mind by unprincipled 
 adventurers. A great portion of them have learned that they 
 were being used as mere tools, and determined, by casting 
 their ballots against these unprincipled adventurers, to over 
 throw them. The bitterness and hate created by the late civil 
 strife have, in my opinion, been obliterated in this State, 
 except, perhaps, in some localities, and would have long since 
 been entirely effaced were it not for some unprincipled men 
 who would keep alive the bitterness of the past and inculcate 
 a hatred between the races in order that they may aggrandize 
 themselves by office and its emoluments to control my people, 
 the effect of which is to degrade them. If the State admin 
 istration had advanced patriotic measures, appointed only 
 honest and competent men to office, and sought to restore 
 confidence between the races, bloodshed would have been 
 unknown, peace would have prevailed, federal interference 
 been unthought of, and harmony, friendship, and mutual con 
 fidence would have taken the place of the bayonet." This 
 " Yea, yea," as it was called, " of a colored brother who never 
 said nay," was corroborated by testimony from other promi 
 nent Republicans, white and black. 
 
 On the other hand, it was warmly urged that, as a 
 class, the Northern men in Mississippi were noble ex-sol 
 diers, possessing virtues equal to those of their old associates, 
 worthy sons of the fathers who founded this republic, and that 
 they went to Mississippi with the same commendable motives 
 under which their kinsmen have populated the continent from 
 ocean to ocean to establish homes and to improve society 
 taking all their capital and urging others to follow them. 
 
 148 
 
Drawn by C. K. Linson 
 GENERAL BADGER IN FRONT OF THE GEM S4LOON, NElf ORLEANS 
 
 On January /o, 1872, General A. S. Badger, under orde 
 Saloon in Royal Street, and demanded the surrender of the Ca\ 
 there. 
 
 's from Governor ffarmoth, marched to the Gem 
 ter Legislature which had made its headquarters 
 
GOVERNOR AMES'S VIEWS 
 
 " The Southern man had a motive in slandering the 
 reconstructionists. He committed crimes upon crimes to 
 prevent the political equality of the negro, and found his jus 
 tification, before the world, in the conduct of those who were 
 obeying the laws of the land. The debts of South Carolina 
 were made to do duty in Mississippi, where there were no 
 debts. In fact violence began at once, before there was time 
 to contract debts in any of the States. 
 
 " At first there was no political question. At first the 
 enmity of a conquered people did not manifest itself. It was 
 left for the Union soldiers practically to solve the problem of 
 reconstruction put upon them by a Union Congress a Con 
 gress whose laws they had always obeyed and the wisdom of 
 whose decisions it never occurred to them to doubt. Their 
 only offense against the State of Mississippi was an honest 
 effort to obey the laws of the United States. They incor 
 porated into the organic laws of the State, to its great benefit, 
 some of the best features found in the constitutions of North 
 ern States. They especially sought to build up, or rehabilitate 
 educational and eleemosynary institutions. They would have 
 liked to help by legislation the material condition of the State 
 in its railroads and levees, but wiser counsels prevailed and 
 the errors of other reconstructed States were avoided. 
 
 "The offense of the Northern soldier was in reconstructing 
 at all in giving (under the law) the negro the ballot. Political 
 equality for the negro meant, to the whites, negro supremacy. 
 Physical resistance followed. The few Union soldiers and 
 their allies in Mississippi soon fell before the Mississippians 
 and their re-info rcements from Louisiana and Alabama."* 
 
 Whatever the faults of Republican administration in the 
 State, the only serious assault on the finances of Mississippi 
 during the stormy era of reconstruction was an effort to repay 
 some of the millions which Mississippi had repudiated years 
 before. But this effort was not made by Union soldiers or by 
 
 *Ex-Governor Adelbert Ames. 
 
THE LAST QUARTER- CENTURY 
 
 Southern unionists, or by freedmen, but by an old Confederate; 
 and the scheme was defeated by a carpet-bagger official. It is 
 well known that while Governor of Mississippi General Ames 
 saved that State in the case of the Confederate General Tuck 
 er's railroad about one million dollars, and in the case of the 
 Vicksburg and Ship Island road some seven or eight hun 
 dred thousand dollars more. But for General Ames's timely 
 antagonism and the use of counsel to resist the diversion of 
 the State's funds, the State would have lost largely over a mil 
 lion dollars. The intelligent people of Mississippi to this 
 day appreciate Governor Ames's action in this matter. 
 
 In Louisiana, because of the peculiarity of its social struc 
 ture, the color-line was drawn even more sharply than in South 
 Carolina. In South Carolina there were three distinct castes 
 of whites the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, and the poor whites 
 or " sand-hillers," while the Louisiana white people were a 
 thorough democracy, the only caste division in the State being 
 founded on color. The best families used no coats-of-arms ; 
 their coachmen and servants wore no livery. The splendors 
 attending vulgar wealth were eschewed. "There was a nobility 
 in the white skin more sacred and more respected than the one 
 derived from the letters-patent of kings." Such solidarity 
 among the whites rendered the feud precipitated by the negro's 
 enfranchisement peculiarly bitter. White and black children 
 no longer played together as of yore. To avoid seeming in 
 feriority colored servants refused to sleep under the same roofs 
 with their old masters. 
 
 It will be remembered that in November, 1872, Kellogg 
 and McEnery each claimed to be elected Governor of Lou 
 isiana, that President Grant recognized Kellogg, but that 
 McEnery and his supporters energetically protested. This 
 contest had never been quieted. McEnery's government 
 retained its organization though deprived of all power. Near 
 the close of August, 1874, the troubles grew menacing. The 
 two parties had met in convention, when the country was 
 
 152 
 
THE MASS-MEETTNG OF SEPTEMBER 74, 1874, A 
 
 Drawn by C. K. Linson 
 THE CLAY STATUE, NEW ORLEANS 
 
KELLOGG AND McENERY IN LOUISIANA 
 
 startled by the news of the arrest and deliberate shooting of 
 six Republican officials. As in all such cases the reports were 
 conflicting, one side declaring it a merciless war of whites upon 
 blacks, the other an uprising of the blacks themselves. 
 
 The wealth of Louisiana made the State a special tempta 
 tion to carpet-baggers. Between 1866 and 1872 taxes had 
 risen five hundred per cent. Before the war a session of the 
 legislature cost from $100,000 to $ 200,000; in 1871 the reg 
 ular session cost between $800,000 and $900,000. Judge 
 Black considered it "safe to say that a general conflagration, 
 sweeping over all the State from one end to the other and 
 destroying every building and every article of personal property, 
 would have been a visitation of mercy in comparison to the 
 curse of such a government." This statement is not extravagant 
 if his other assertion is correct, that, during the ten years pre 
 ceding 1 876 New Orleans paid, in the form of direct taxes, more 
 than the estimated value of all the property within her limits in 
 the year named, and still had a debt of equal amount unpaid. 
 
 Kellogg had a body of Metropolitan Police, mostly col 
 ored, paid for by the city of New Orleans but under his per 
 sonal command, which formed a part of his militia. Over 
 against this was the New Orleans White League, which again 
 is to be distinguished from the White League of the State. 
 On September I4th a mass-meeting was called in New Orleans 
 to protest against the Governor's seizure of arms shipped to 
 private parties. By 1 1 A. M. the broad sidewalks were filled 
 for several squares, and there was a general suspension of 
 business. A committee was appointed to wait upon the Gov 
 ernor and request him to abdicate. He had fled from the 
 Executive Office to the Custom-house, a great citadel, gar 
 risoned at that time by United States troops. From his 
 retreat he sent word declining to entertain any communication. 
 Their leaders advised the people to get arms and return to 
 assist the White League in executing plans that would be 
 arranged. A large number formed in procession and marched 
 
 '55 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 up Poydras Street. By 3 p. M. armed men were posted at 
 street-crossings south of Canal Street. Soon a strong position 
 was taken in Poydras Street, the streets between Poydras and 
 Canal being barricaded with cars turned sideways. General 
 Ogden commanded the citizens and superintended these 
 arrangements. Five hundred Metropolitans, with cavalry and 
 artillery, took their station at the head of Canal Street, while 
 General Longstreet, their leader, rode up and down Canal 
 Street calling upon the armed citizens to disperse. About 4 
 p. M. the Metropolitans assaulted the citizens' position. A 
 sharp fight ensued. General Ogden's horse was shot under him, 
 as was General Badger's, on the Kellogg side. The colored 
 Metropolitans broke at the first fire, deserting their white com 
 rades. The citizens' victory was soon complete, General Long- 
 street and others seeking refuge in the Custom-house. Next 
 morning, at seven, the State-house was in the citizens' hands ; 
 two hours later the whole Metropolitan force surrendered. The 
 barricades were torn down and street-cars resumed their trips. 
 
 Lieutenant-Governor Penn hastened to assure the blacks 
 that no harm was meant toward them, their property or their 
 rights. " We war," said he, " only against the thieves, plun 
 derers and spoilers of the State." All the morning Penn's 
 residence was filled with congratulatory crowds. Throughout 
 Louisiana the coup-d'etat roused delirious enthusiasm. At the 
 
 same time leading citizens counseled 
 moderation, especially urging that no 
 violence toward colored people should 
 be permitted. Penn, in a speech, said : 
 " If you have any affection for me, if 
 you have any regard for me, if you 
 have any respect for me, as I believe 
 you have, for God's sake and my sake 
 do nothing to tarnish the fair fame of 
 the State of Louisiana or to diminish 
 WILLIAM. PITT KELLOGG the victory you have achieved." The 
 
 156 
 
FEDERAL AID FOR KELLOGG 
 
 JOHN McENERT 
 
 Mayor's proclamation ran : " Let me 
 advise extreme moderation ; resume 
 your vocations as soon as dismissed. 
 Seek no revenge for past injuries, but 
 leave your fallen enemies to the tor 
 ture of their own consciences and to the 
 lasting infamy which their acts have 
 wrought for them." No deeds of vio 
 lence were reported, though McEnery's 
 officials were installed all over the State. 
 About 2 P. M., as three thousand of 
 General Ogden's militia marched past 
 the Custom-house, the United States troops gathered in the 
 windows, took off their hats and gave the citizens three hearty 
 cheers, which were returned. At 3 p. M. ten thousand un 
 armed citizens, preceded by a band of music, escorted Penn to 
 the State-house. 
 
 The triumph was short-lived. The resort to arms dis 
 pleased President Grant. He commanded the insurgents to 
 disperse in five days half the time he had allowed in Arkan 
 sas and one-fourth the time he had allowed in his Louisiana 
 proclamation of 1873. Troops and men-of-war were ordered 
 to New Orleans, and General Emory was instructed under no 
 circumstances to recognize the Penn government. A Cabinet 
 meeting concluded that " it was important to adopt measures 
 for maintaining, if not the de jure, at least 
 the de facto government in Louisiana." 
 Attorney-General Williams compared the 
 case with that of Arkansas, where, he con 
 fessed, he always believed Brooks had a 
 majority, but said : " The question is not 
 wht) ought to be Governor, but who is." 
 E r mory received positive directions to rec 
 ognize the Kellogg government, and on 
 the next day Kellogg was induced to venture 
 
 GENERAL DE TRO- 
 BRJAND 
 
 '57 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 from his asylum and resume his office. Not all the Mc- 
 Enery officials were turned out, as several of the Kellogg 
 placemen had fled upon the news of Penn's success and could 
 not be found. The new city police, under Mr. Boylan, a 
 well-known detective, were retained, owing to the demoraliza 
 tion of the Metropolitans. For a time United States soldiers 
 were employed on police duty. On an election day as much 
 as six weeks later, to remove apprehension caused by the in 
 efficiency of the Metropolitans, a detail of the McEnery 
 militia was made to preserve the peace at each polling-place. 
 
 McEnery and Penn advised cheerful submission, and 
 while surrendering the State-house to Colonel Brooks showed 
 him every courtesy. The only excess reported was an unsuc 
 cessful attack by negroes upon Bayou Sara. In answer to 
 Attorney-General Williams's pronunciamento Penn asserted 
 that the McEnery government had been organized ever since 
 1872 ; that McEnery's armed supporters were not insurgents, 
 but militia ; that the sole reason why the McEnery govern 
 ment was not de facto in function in the whole State was that it 
 was overpowered by the United States forces, but for which it 
 could assert its authority and would be universally obeyed. 
 The Kellogg government, he said, could be placed and kept 
 in power by the United States army, but in no other way 
 whatever. " Is this," he asked, " the Republican form of 
 government guaranteed to every State under the Constitu 
 tion ?'" 
 
 Happily the army had no command to repress free speech, 
 which was usefully employed in appeals to the country. Some 
 of these papers were written with unusual clearness and force. 
 Besides describing anew the corruptions already alluded to, 
 they accused the Kellogg faction of altering the registration laws 
 in its own interest. " Many white citizens clearly entitled to 
 registry were refused arbitrarily, while the colored people were 
 furnished registration papers on which, in many instances, they 
 could vote in different wards ; and colored crews of steamboats 
 
 158 
 
BREAK IN THE COLORED VOTE 
 
 GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN 
 
 From a photograph in the historical collection of 
 
 H. W. Fay 
 
 transiently visiting this port were 
 permitted to swell the number of 
 voters." The White League, 
 which, outside New Orleans, 
 seems not to have been an armed 
 body, was declared a necessary 
 measure of defence against a 
 formidable oath-bound order of 
 blacks. 
 
 Governor Kellogg sought to 
 explain the uprising. He said : 
 "They first want the offices, 
 and that is the meaning of this 
 outburst. The Governor of 
 Louisiana wields an enormous 
 amount of patronage, for which 
 McEnery and his friends hun 
 ger." However, at his instance an Advisory Board, con 
 sisting of two men from each party and an umpire chosen 
 by them, was arranged to supervise and carry on the registra 
 tion for the next election. Though perhaps honestly con 
 ceived, this plan amounted to little. About the middle of 
 October the umpire resigned,and the functions of the Board vir 
 tually came to an end. Further, the Conservatives were to cause 
 all violence to cease, and were permitted to fill two vacancies on 
 the Returning Board created by resignation for this purpose. 
 
 The election of November, 1^74, was quiet. Indica 
 tions seemed to point to Democratic success. A' break in the 
 colored vote was foreshadowed, among other things, by an 
 address of leading colored men in New Orleans, setting forth 
 that the Republican party in the State had, since reconstruc 
 tion, been managed and controlled by men in all respects as 
 bad as " the most rampant White Leaguer," that they had 
 shut out the colored wealth and intelligence and put in office 
 " illiterate and unworthy colored men." The colored people, 
 
 159 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 it said, " are ready to adopt any honorable adjustment tending 
 to harmonize the races," to further law and order and a higher 
 standard of administration in public offices. 
 
 Of course the Returning Board played an important part 
 in this election. One example will illustrate its methods. 
 The parish of Rapides chose three legislators. The United 
 States Supervisor certified that the election was in all respects 
 full, fair, and free. In the parish itself no one knew that any 
 contest existed. At one of its last sittings the Board, upon an 
 affidavit of its President, Wells, alleging intimidation, counted 
 in all three Republicans. This, like other acts of the kind, 
 was done in secret or " executive " session. The Counsel of 
 the Democratic Committee declared that they had no chance 
 to answer. It came out that Wells was not present at Rap- 
 ides, and he declined, though given the opportunity, to explain 
 to the Congressional Committee his action. The Rapides 
 change alone sufficed to determine the complexion of the 
 lower house. 
 
 After recounting instances of illegal action and fraud on 
 the part of the Returning Board, the Inspecting Committee 
 appealed to the nation : " We, the down-trodden people of 
 once free Louisiana, now call upon the people of the free 
 States of America, if you would yourselves remain free and 
 retain the right of self-government, to demand in tones that 
 cannot be misunderstood or disregarded, that the shackles be 
 stricken from Louisiana, and that the power of the United 
 States army may no longer be used to keep a horde of adven 
 turers in power." 
 
 Toward the end of 1874, the Returning Board completed 
 its labors. It gave the treasury to the Republicans, and al 
 lowed them a majority of two in the Legislature, five seats 
 being left open. These changes from the face of the returns 
 were made on the ground of alleged fraud, intimidation, or 
 other irregularity at the polls, or in making the returns. The 
 Board dismissed as preposterous all complaints of intimidation 
 
 1 60 
 
MEETING OF THE LEGISLATURE 
 
 by United States soldiery, though at least one case is reported 
 of a federal officer making out affidavits against citizens, and 
 arresting them upon these affidavits. He was stopped later 
 by orders from his superior. 
 
 The Congressional Investigating Committee, composed 
 of two Republicans and one Democrat, after citing three or 
 four instances of fraud on the part of the Returning Board, 
 unanimously found itself " constrained to declare that the ac 
 tion of the Returning Board on the whole, was arbitrary, un 
 just, and illegal ; and that this arbitrary, unjust, and illegal 
 action alone prevented the return of a majority of the Con 
 servative members to the lower house." 
 
 A few days before the assembling of the legislature one 
 of the Republican members was arrested and confined till 
 after the opening. The Conservatives alleged that this was 
 for embezzlement ; the Republicans charged that it was for 
 political purposes, and that their opponents were attempting 
 to kidnap and even threatening to assassinate Republican leg 
 islators to wipe out the majority. So threatening an aspect of 
 affairs induced Grant to give Sheridan command of the Mili 
 tary Department of the Gulf in addition to his own. Sheri 
 dan started on telegraphic notice. 
 
 The legislature convened on January 4th. Suppressed 
 excitement could be seen in every eye. Of the memorable 
 and unprecedented events of this day there are four varying 
 accounts General Sheridan's statement, two reports to Con 
 gress by committees of the two political parties in the Louis 
 iana House of Representatives, and a recital incorporated in 
 the Congressional Committee's report above referred to. The 
 last, of which we give a resume, is the most trustworthy. 
 
 The State-house was filled and surrounded by Metro 
 politans and federal soldiers, and no one permitted to enter 
 save by Governor Kellogg's orders. At noon the clerk of the 
 preceding House, Mr. Vigers, called the Assembly to order 
 and proceeded to call the roll. Fifty Democrats and fifty-two 
 
 161 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Republicans answered to their names. Instantly a Conserva 
 tive member, Mr. Billieu, nominated L. A. Wiltz as tempo 
 rary chairman. The clerk interposed some objection, but 
 Mr. Billieu, disregarding him, hurriedly put the motion and 
 declared it carried upon a viva voce vote. Wiltz sprang to 
 the platform, pushed the clerk aside, and seized the gavel. 
 Justice Houston then swore in the members en bloc. In the 
 same hurried fashion a new clerk was elected, also a sergeant- 
 at-arms ; then, from among gentlemen who had secured en 
 trance under one pretext or another, a number of assistant 
 sergeants-at-arms were appointed. These gentlemen at once 
 opened their coats and discovered each his badge bearing the 
 words " Assistant Sergeant-at-Arms." Protests, points of or 
 der, calls for the yeas and nays, were overridden. The five 
 contesting Democrats were admitted and sworn in. The Re 
 publicans now adopted their opponents' tactics. Someone 
 nominated Mr. Lowell for temporary chairman, and amid 
 great confusion declared him elected, but he declined to serve. 
 The organization of the House was completed by the election 
 of Wiltz as Speaker. Several Republican members attempt 
 ing to leave were prevented by the assistant sergeants-at-arms. 
 Pistols were displayed, and the disorder grew so great that the 
 House requested Colonel de Trobriand, commanding the 
 forces at the State-house, to insist upon order in the lobby. 
 This he did, and the House proceeded with the election of 
 minor officers, uninterrupted for an hour. At length de Tro 
 briand received word from Governor Kellogg, which his gen 
 eral orders bound him to obey, to remove the five members 
 sworn in who had not been returned by the Board. Speaker 
 Wiltz refusing to point them out, General Campbell did .so, and 
 in spite of protest they were removed by federal soldiers. Wiltz 
 then left the hall at the head of the Conservative members. 
 The Republicans, remaining, organized to suit themselves. 
 
 General Sheridan reported the matter somewhat differ 
 ently. He reached Louisiana in no judicial frame of mind. 
 
 162 
 
Drawn by W. R. Leig 
 
 L. A. WILTZ TAKING POSSESSION OF THE SPEAKER'S CHAIR IN THE LOUISIANA STATE- 
 HOUSE, JANUARY 4, 1875 
 
SHERIDAN'S ASSERTIONS DENIED 
 
 Conservative chagrin and humiliation often took form in foolish 
 threats, which were at once seized upon by the carpet-baggers 
 and scalawags to fan his wrath. The very air seemed to him 
 impregnated with assassination. He suggested that Congress 
 or the President should declare the " ringleaders of the armed 
 White Leagues " banditti ; he could then try them by military 
 commission and put an end to such scenes as had occurred. 
 The New Orleans Cotton Exchange, a meeting of Northern 
 and Western residents of New Orleans, and other bodies 
 passed resolutions denying the correctness of Sheridan's im 
 pressions. In an appeal to the American people a number of 
 New Orleans clergymen condemned the charges lodged by 
 Sheridan with the Secretary of War as "unmerited, unfounded, 
 and erroneous." General Sheridan reiterated them, and ac 
 cused Bishop Wilmer, one of the signers of the appeal, of 
 having admitted before the Congressional Committee " that 
 the condition of affairs was substantially as bad as reported." 
 The Bishop agreed that Louisianians were more prone than 
 others to acts of violence, saying " there is a feeling of inse 
 curity here," an expression which he interpreted as meaning, 
 " no security in the courts against theft." 
 
 General Sherman commented on the case as follows : " I 
 have all along tried to save our officers and soldiers from the 
 dirty work imposed on them by the city authorities of the 
 South ; and may thereby have incurred the suspicion of the 
 President that I did not cordially sustain his forces. . . I 
 have always thought it wrong to bolster up weak State gov 
 ernments by our troops. We should keep the peace always ; 
 but not act as bailiff constables and catch-thieves ; that should 
 be beneath a soldier's vocation. I know that our soldiers hate 
 that kind of duty terribly, and not one of those officers but 
 would prefer to go to the plains against the Indians, rather 
 than encounter a street mob or serve a civil process. But in 
 our government it is too hard to stand up in the face of what 
 is apparent, that the present government of Louisiana is not 
 
 165 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 S. 5. Marshall G. F. Hoar William A. Wheeler William P. Fry 
 
 THE COMMITTEE WHICH FORMULATED THE " WHEELER ADJUSTMENT" 
 
 the choice of the people, though in strict technical law it is the 
 State government." 
 
 Public opinion at the North sided with the appellants. 
 The press gave a cry of alarm at such military interference in 
 civil affairs. A staunch Republican sheet uttered the senti 
 ment of many when it said, cc Unless the Republican party is 
 content to be swept out of existence by the storm of indignant 
 protest arising against the wrongs of Louisiana from all por 
 tions of the country, it will see that this most shameful outrage 
 is redressed wholly and at once." Numerous indignation 
 meetings were held in Northern cities. Republicans like Wil 
 liam Cullen Bryant, William M. Evarts, Joseph R. Hawley 
 and Carl Schurz openly condemned the use which had been 
 made of the troops. Legislatures passed resolutions denounc 
 ing it, and it was understood that Fish, Bristow and Jewell, of 
 the Cabinet, disapproved. Yet patience was urged upon the 
 people of Louisiana. " Whatever injustice," said Carl Schurz, 
 " you may have to suffer, let not a hand of yours be lifted, let 
 no provocation of insolent power, nor any tempting oppor 
 tunity seduce you into the least demonstration of violence. 
 As your cause is just, trust to its justice, for surely the time 
 cannot be far when every American who truly loves his liberty 
 will recognize the cause of his own rights and liberties in the 
 cause of constitutional government in Louisiana." 
 
 166 
 
THE WHEELER ADJUSTMENT 
 
 Under a resolution introduced by Mr. Thurman the 
 Senate called upon President Grant for explanation. A special 
 message was the response, defending the end which had been 
 had in view but really leaving undefended the means em 
 ployed. Early in 1875 a second committee, George F. Hoar, 
 Chairman, was appointed to investigate Louisiana affairs. The 
 result of their labors was known as the "Wheeler Adjustment," 
 which embraced on the one hand submission to the Kellogg 
 government, and on the other arbitration by the committee 
 of contested seats in the legislature. This arbitration seated 
 twelve of the contestants excluded by the Returning Board. 
 Mr. Hahn vacated the Speaker's chair, Mr. Wiltz withdrew 
 as a candidate therefor, and Mr. Estilette, a Conservative, was 
 elected. This settlement marked the beginning of the end of 
 carpet-baggery in Louisiana. 
 
 167 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 INDIAN WARS AND THE CUSTER DEATH 
 
 CIVILIZED INDIANS IN 1874. GRANT'S POLICY FOR THE WILD 
 
 TRIBES. DIFFICULTIES OF THE INDIAN COMMISSIONERS. INDIANS' 
 
 WRONGS AND DISCONTENT. TROUBLES IN ARIZONA. GOV. SAF- 
 
 FORD'S DECLARATION. MASSACRE OF APACHES IN 1871. REPORT 
 
 OF FEDERAL GRAND JURY. THE APACHES SUBDUED. GRIEVANCES 
 
 OF THE SIOUX. THE MODOC WAR AND GEN. CANBY'S DEATH. 
 
 TROUBLES IN 1874. THE MILL RIVER DISASTER IN MASSACHU 
 SETTS. THE SIOUX REBELLION. THE ARMY'S PLAN OF CAM 
 PAIGN. CUSTER' s PART. HIS DEATH. HOW THE BATTLE WENT. 
 
 REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE." CUSTER CRITICISED. AND 
 
 DEFENDED. 
 
 EARNESTLY as President Grant strove to improve the 
 Indian service it was no credit to the nation during his 
 term. In 1874 the Indian Territory contained not far from 
 90,000 civilized Indians. The Cherokees, 17,000 strong and 
 increasing, who had moved hither from Alabama, Tennessee, 
 and Georgia, now possessed their own written language, con 
 stitution, laws, judges, courts, churches, schools, and academ 
 ies, including three schools for their former negro slaves. 
 They had 500 frame and 3,500 log-houses. They yearly 
 raised much live-stock, 3,000,000 bushels of corn, with enor 
 mous crops of wheat, potatoes and oats an agricultural 
 roduct greater than New Mexico's and Utah's combined. 
 Similarly advanced were the Choctaws, with 17,000 people 
 and forty-eight schools; the Creeks, with 13,000 people 
 and thirty schools ; and the Seminoles, General Jackson's 
 old foes, having 2,500 people and four schools. 
 
 These facts inspired the President with a desire to im 
 prove the wilder tribes. Deeming clemency and justice, with 
 firmness, certain to effect this, he proposed to transfer the 
 
 169 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Indian bureau to the War Department ; but Congress, army 
 officers, and the Indians themselves, opposed. He then gave 
 the supervision of Indian affairs to a Commission made up 
 from certain religious bodies. This kindly policy being an 
 nounced, two powerful Indian delegations, one of them headed 
 by Red Cloud, the Sioux chief, visited the Great Father at 
 Washington, evidently determined henceforth to keep the 
 peace. 
 
 Few of the wild Indians did this, however. Perhaps only 
 the Apaches, always our most troublesome wards, have ever 
 pursued murder and rapine out of pure wantonness ; yet most 
 of the red men still remained savages, ready for the war-path 
 on slight provocation. If the frontier view no good Indian 
 but a dead one is severe, many Eastern people were hardly 
 less extreme in the degree of nobility with which their imagin 
 ation invested the aborigines. Moreover, despite the Commis 
 sion's exertions, the Indian service, though its cost increased 
 from three and a quarter million in 1866 to nearly seven mil 
 lion in 1874, sank in character. The Commissioners were 
 partly ignored, partly subjected to needless embarrassment in 
 their work. Members of the Indian Ring secured positions 
 and contracts in preference to people recommended by the 
 Commission, and the Interior Department often paid bills ex 
 pressly disallowed by the Commission, which was charged with 
 the auditing. 
 
 Contractors systematically swindled the Indians. Pro 
 fessor Marsh, of Yale University, wishing to engage in scien 
 tific research upon Red Cloud's Reservation, that chief, while 
 protecting his life, forbade him to trespass till he promised to 
 show the Great Father samples of the wretched rations fur 
 nished his tribe. " I thought/' naively confessed the chief, 
 Cf that he would throw them away before he got there." But 
 the " man who came to pick up bones " was better than his 
 word. He exhibited the specimens to the President, who was 
 deeply incensed and declared that justice should be done. 
 
 170 
 
DISCONTENT OF THE INDIANS 
 
 RED CLOUD 
 
 After a photograph by Bell 
 
 Marsh drew up ten specific charges, 
 to the effect that the agent was incom 
 petent and guilty of gross frauds, 
 that the number of Indians was over 
 stated to the Department, and that 
 the amount of food and clothing 
 actually furnished them was insuffi 
 cient and of wretched quality. , Army 
 testimony was of like tenor. " The 
 poor wretches," said one officer, 
 "have been several times this winter 
 on the verge of starvation owing to 
 the rascality of the Indian Ring. 
 They have been compelled to eat 
 dogs, wolves, and ponies." It was urged in excuse that the 
 supply-wagons had been delayed by snow. March 18, 1875, 
 General Sherman wrote from St. Louis : cc To-morrow Gene 
 rals Sheridan and Pope will meet here to discuss the Indian 
 troubles. We could settle them in an hour, but Congress 
 wants the patronage of the Indian bureau, and the bureau 
 wants the appropriations without any of the trouble of the 
 Indians themselves." 
 
 The Indians' discontent was intensified by the progress 
 ive invasion of their preserves by white men, often as lawless 
 as the worst Indians, and invariably bringing intemperance 
 and licentiousness. Frontiersmen looked jealously at the un 
 improved acres of the reservations as an Eden which they were 
 forbidden to enter, while a horde of thriftless savages were in 
 idle possession. Violence against the red men seemed justifi 
 able and was frequent. 
 
 The first troubles were in Arizona. In 1871 the legis 
 lature of the Territory, seconded by the California legislature, 
 prayed Congress for protection. Affidavits were submitted 
 declaring that within two years 166 persons had been killed, 
 80 1 horses and mules and 2,437 cattle killed or stolen. In 
 
 171 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 November Governor A. P. K. Safford gave out an impas 
 sioned letter, of which we reproduce the substance. He said 
 that with natural resources unsurpassed, with gold and silver 
 mines that ought to be yielding annually $20,000,000, the 
 people of his Territory were in poverty, and had undergone 
 for years scenes of death and torture unparalleled in the settle 
 ment of our new countries. Instead of receiving sympathy and 
 encouragement from their countrymen they were denounced 
 as border ruffians, though nowhere were the laws more faith 
 fully obeyed or executed than in Arizona. In but one in 
 stance had the people taken the law into their own hands. 
 That, as the facts showed, was done under the most aggravat 
 ing circumstances. In the possession of the Indians killed 
 was found property belonging to men and women who had 
 been murdered while the Indians were fed at Camp Grant. 
 For this attack on the red men the whites were indicted by a 
 grand jury, showing that Arizona courts and judges did not 
 screen any. The Territory was out of debt, and was soon to 
 have a free school in every district, indicating the law-abiding 
 character of the population ; yet men who were making money 
 at the cost of the lives and property of the Arizona peo 
 ple denounced them as everything bad, and represented the 
 Apache Indians, who had for four hundred years lived by 
 murder and robbery, as paragons of moral excellence The 
 people of Arizona wanted peace and cared not how it was ob 
 tained ; but they knew by years of experience that to feed In 
 dians and let them roam over large tracts of lands simply placed 
 them in a secure position to raid the settlers and return to 
 their reservations for safety and rest. Though possessing 
 one of the richest Territories, all the Arizonians felt dis 
 couraged. At least five hundred had been killed, a large 
 number of these horribly tortured. Those left, after fighting 
 for years to hold the country, found themselves in poverty and 
 looked upon as barbarians. General Crook struck the key 
 note when he enlisted Indians against Indians. It threw con- 
 
 172 
 
THE APACHE MASSACRE AND ITS CAUSES 
 
 sternation among them such as was never seen before. Had 
 he been allowed to pursue this policy it would have taken but 
 a few months to conquer a lasting peace. But Peace Commis 
 sioner Colyer had countermanded the order and millions would 
 have to be expended and hundreds of lives lost before the end 
 could be reached. 
 
 The massacre of Indians referred to by Governor Saf- 
 ford occurred in April, 1871. A few hundred Apaches had 
 been gathered at Camp Grant, being fed on condition of keep 
 ing the peace, which condition seemed to have been broken. 
 A party of whites with a hundred Papago Indians fell upon 
 the Indian camp, killed eighty-five men and women, and car 
 ried away twenty-eight children as prisoners. A Federal grand 
 jury which found indictments against several of the attacking 
 party reported upon a number of important points. They 
 found that the hostile Indians in the Territory, led by many 
 different chiefs, generally adopted the policy of making the 
 point where the Indians were fed the base of their supplies of 
 ammunition, guns, and recruits for their raids, each hostile 
 chief usually drawing warriors from other bands when he un 
 dertook an important raid, whether upon Arizona citizens or 
 upon the neighboring state of Sonora, where they were contin 
 ually making depredations. With few marked exceptions the 
 habit of drunkenness prevailed among the officers at Camps 
 Grant, Goodwin, and Apache, where the Apache Indians 
 were fed. The rations issued to the Indians at these camps 
 were frequently insufficient for their support ; also unjustly 
 distributed. Bones were sometimes issued instead of meat. 
 One United States quartermaster acknowledged that he had 
 made a surplus of twelve thousand pounds of corn in issuing 
 rations to the Indians at Camp Goodwin. An officer com 
 manding at Camp Apache, besides giving liquor to the Apache 
 Indians, got beastly drunk with them from whiskey belonging 
 to the United States Hospital Department. Another United 
 States Army officer gave liquor to Indians at the same camp. 
 
 173 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 The Region Occupied by the Modocs, showing the ''Lava Beds " 
 
 United States Army officers at those camps where the In 
 dians were fed habitually used their official position to break 
 the chastity of the Indian women. The regulations of Camp 
 Grant, with the Apache Indians on the reservation, were such 
 that the whole body of Indians might leave the reservation 
 and be gone many days without the knowledge of the com 
 manding officer. In conclusion this United States grand jury 
 reported that five hundred of their neighbors, friends, and fel 
 low-citizens had fallen by the murdering hand of the Apache 
 Indians, clothing in the garb of mourning family circles in many 
 hamlets, towns and cities of different States. " This blood," 
 they said, " cried from the ground to the American people for 
 justice justice to all men." 
 
 Pacific overtures and presents were made to the Indians 
 by Peace Commissioner Colyer, but his efforts were unpopular 
 and proved futile. By the severer policy which the whites 
 urged and by pitting friendly Indians against them, the Apa 
 ches were at last subdued and kept thenceforth under strict reg 
 istry and surveillance. 
 
 During the autumn of 1 874 gold was found in the Black 
 Hills Sioux Reservation, between Wyoming and what is now 
 South Dakota. General Sheridan prohibited exploration, but 
 gold-seekers continually evaded his order. Said Red Cloud : 
 " The people from the States who have gone to the Black 
 Hills are stealing gold, digging it out and taking it away, and 
 I don't see why the Great Father don't bring them back. 
 Our Great Father has a great many soldiers, and I never knew 
 
 174 
 
SAVAGES GO UPON THE WARPATH 
 
 him, when he wanted to stop anything with his soldiers but he 
 succeeded in it." A still worse grievance was the destruc 
 tion of buffaloes by hunters and excursionists. Thousands of 
 the animals were slaughtered for their hides, which fell in price 
 from three dollars each to a dollar. In one locality were to 
 be counted six or seven thousand putrefying carcasses. Hunt 
 ers boasted of having killed two thousand head apiece in one 
 season. Railroads ran excursion trains of amateur hunters, 
 who shot their victims from the car Windows. The creatures 
 were at last well-nigh exterminated, so that in 1894 buffalo 
 robes cost in New York from $75 to $175 each. 
 
 Rasped to frenzy in so many ways, tribe after tribe of 
 savages resolutely took up arms. The Klamath Indians and 
 the Modocs, hereditary enemies, were shortly after the civil 
 war placed upon a common reservation in Oregon. The 
 Modocs, suffering many annoyances from the Klamaths, and 
 indulging in some retaliation, were at last permitted, leaving 
 their uncongenial corral, to roam abroad. Captain Jack headed 
 the seceders, who were believed by many to have been for the 
 most part inoffensive. Among them, however, eight or ten 
 turbulent spirits, led by Curly-headed Doctor, were accused of 
 such depredations that a new superintendent, appearing in 
 1872, made unfavorable report of the whole wandering tribe, 
 and recommended what General E. R. S. Canby, commanding 
 the Department of the Columbia, deprecated, a resort to force 
 to bring them back to their reservation. Surprised in camp at 
 gray dawn of November 29, 1872, the chiefs refused to sur 
 render and escaped, leaving eight or nine dead warriors, and 
 killing or wounding about the same number of soldiers, besides 
 three citizen auxiliaries. Curly-headed Doctor's band now 
 went upon the war-path, killing eighteen men, though sparing 
 all women and children. While Captain Jack and his faction 
 had no hand in this, the two chiefs, with about 50 warriors and 
 175 camp followers, united for defence in the Lava Beds, or 
 " pedregal," of northern California, over which rocks of all 
 
 '75 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 shapes and sizes lay where the last ancient volcanic eruption 
 left them, presenting crevices, chasms, and subterranean pas 
 sages innumerable, with occasional verdant patches of an acre 
 or two. Against these hostiles were sent 400 soldiers and a 
 battery of howitzers. After nearly a month of preparation 
 and skirmishes, on the iyth of January, 1873, 300 soldiers with 
 twenty scouts entered the " pedregal." The stumbling ad 
 vance exposed not a redskin, but man after man fell as the 
 cracks and crannies of the gray rocks above them kept spit 
 ting spiteful puffs of smoke. At night, thirty having been 
 wounded and ten killed, they retreated, and Colonel Wheaton, 
 commanding, asked for 300 more men and four mortars. 
 Meantime the Modocs, by capture or otherwise, secured 
 guns, ammunition, and perhaps some reinforcements. 
 
 Now two Peace Commissioners, succeeding each other, 
 endeavored in vain to induce the Indians to remove to a reser 
 vation in Arizona or the Indian Territory, far from the perse 
 cutions of the Klamaths and from the vengeance of Oregon 
 whites. The eight or ten most desperate Modocs, known as 
 " the murderers," urged the continuance of the war. Lest his 
 tribal kindred should be betrayed to the hangman or some 
 other treachery practiced, Captain Jack wished the soldiers 
 sent away and the Lava Beds made a reservation. Finding 
 that neither of these dangerous boons could be granted, he 
 began to lend ear to his tempters, who surrounded him 
 as he sat despondent on a rock. Hooker Jim said: "You 
 are like an old squaw ; you have never done any fight 
 ing. You are not fit to be a chief." In like strain George : 
 " What do you want with a gun ? You don't shoot anything 
 with it. You don't go any place or do anything. You are sitting 
 around on the rocks." Scar-faced Charley took up the taunt: 
 " I am going with Hooker Jim. I can fight with him. You 
 are nothing but an old squaw." They decked him with a 
 squaw's dress and bonnet and further jeered him. Thus stirred, 
 the savage in Captain Jack triumphed. He turned on them 
 
 176 
 
GEN. CANDY'S CONFERENCE WITH MODOCS 
 
 and cried : " I will show you that I am no squaw. We will 
 have war, and Keint-poos will not be the one to ask for peace." 
 It is recorded of Captain Jack that subsequently, with Scar- 
 faced Charley, he all night watched over a white emissary, an 
 old-time friend of the tribe, to prevent his murder by the In 
 dians. Upon returning he assured the Commissioners that the 
 Modocs meant treachery. The interpreters squaw wife, Toby, 
 also warned them, being herself told by Modoc " Whim " 
 to keep away and to keep the Commissioners away. A parley 
 appointed for April 8th fell through because of the timely 
 discovery of an Indian ambush. Nevertheless, when Bogus 
 Charley came and proposed at the council tent near the edge 
 of the " pedregal " an unarmed conference of the Commission 
 ers and General Canby with an equal number of Modocs, say 
 ing that after this they would surrender, General Canby and Dr. 
 Thomas, of the Commission, thought that the importance of 
 the object justified the risk. The scout Riddle, as well as 
 Meacham and Dyar, the other Peace Commissioners, urged 
 that it was a hazardous enterprise, but all three said they 
 would go rather than be chargeable with cowardice. Before 
 starting, Meacham and Dyar provided themselves with pocket 
 pistols, gave up their valuables to a friend, and indicated their 
 last wishes. 
 
 The embassy took seats on stones around a small fire 
 of brush. Only Dr. Thomas reclined 
 on the ground. Captain Jack made 
 a speech. As he closed, Hooker 
 Jim took Meacham's overcoat and 
 put it on, insolently remarking, " I 
 am Meacham." Meacham said : 
 " Take my hat, too." " I will, pres 
 ently," was the response, in Modoc. 
 Perceiving that treachery was con 
 templated, General Canby told how 
 he had earned the name of " the 
 
 GENERAL E. R. S. CANBY 
 
 177 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Indian's friend," expressing hope that the Modocs, as others 
 had done, would some day thank him for getting them 
 happy homes. He could not send away the Great Father's 
 soldiers, but what the Commissioners promised should be 
 done, and the citizens should not interfere. Dr. Thomas, 
 too, rising to his knees, with head uncovered and with his 
 hand on Meacham's shoulder, said : " I believe the Great 
 Spirit put it into the heart of the President to send us here 
 to make peace. I have known General Canby fourteen years, 
 Mr. Meacham eighteen years, and Mr. Dyar four years. 
 I know their hearts are good, and I know my own heart. We 
 want no more war. I believe that God sees what we do ; that 
 he wishes us all to be at peace ; that no more blood should be 
 
 THE LAVA BEDS 
 
 Looking east, showing the Soldiers' Cemetery in the foreground 
 From a photograph by Taker 
 
 shed." Captain Jack said he did not wish to leave that coun 
 try for a strange one. " Jack," said Meacham, " let us talk 
 like men and not like children. You are a man that has com- 
 
 178 
 
GEN. CANBY KILLED 
 
 mon-sense ; isn't there any other place that will do you except 
 Willow Creek and Cottonwood ? " Here, while Jack stepped 
 back to the horses, Sconchin broke in : " Give us Hot Creek 
 for a home, and take away your soldiers," repeating, excitedly, 
 "Take away the soldiers and give us Hot Creek, or stop talk 
 ing." Just then two Indians with three guns apiece came run 
 ning from their hiding place not far off. Steamboat Frank and 
 a third brave also soon appeared. "What does this mean, 
 Captain Jack ? " said some one. The chief, close to Canby, 
 levelled his revolver, said " Atwe" " all ready," and pressed 
 the trigger. The cap snapped. In an instant he cocked it 
 again and fired. Canby fell, struck under the eye. Boston 
 Charley shot Dr. Thomas in the left breast. He rose and ran, 
 but Bogus Charley finished the work with a rifle ball. 
 
 SCENE OF THE CANBT MASSACRE 
 The cross indicates the sfot where General Canby sat when Captain Jack 
 
 fired the first shot 
 From a f holograph by T"aber 
 
 chin missed Meacham, who ran, drew his pistol and fired 
 back, but soon fell senseless with a bullet in his head. Gen 
 eral Canby recovered his footing and sought to flee. Ellen's 
 
 179 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Man brought him to the earth, while Jack dispatched him 
 with a stab in the neck. Pressed by Hooker Jim, Dyar faced 
 about with his pistol and the redskin fled. Riddle, the inter 
 preter, hounded by three, managed to escape with a mere 
 scratch. His wife, Toby, was struck down, but her life was 
 spared. As the murderers proceeded to the usual savage con 
 summation of their deed, she cried out : " Soldiers ! soldiers ! " 
 whereat they fled. By this ruse did the faithful squaw save the 
 bodies from mutilation. 
 
 At another place Lieutenants Doyle and Sherwood had 
 just before been attacked under a flag of truce, and Sherwood 
 mortally wounded. The camp force, thus apprised of treach 
 ery, hastened, too late, to the scene of Canby's death. Only 
 Riddle and Dyar reached their advancing lines. The stripped 
 bodies of Canby and Thomas were first found. Near by lay 
 Meacham, also stripped, shot under his right eye, in the side 
 of the head, and through the right arm. A temple was 
 grazed, a finger lost, an ear cut, while a long gash gaped 
 where Boston Charley had begun to scalp his victim. Mea 
 cham still breathed, however, and, after the bullets had been 
 extracted, rapidly recovered. 
 
 Attack upon the Indians was now begun in earnest, and 
 their stronghold shelled, but in vain. Not till early summer, 
 when the " murderers " had rebelled and both factions left 
 the lava beds, Jack making for the 
 coveted Willow Creek, seeking, per 
 haps, a union with disaffected Sho- 
 shones, did General Jefferson C. Davis, 
 who took Canby's place, scatter and 
 capture the bloody pack. The Mo- 
 docs lost a few warriors, besides wom 
 en and children. Of citizens and the 
 military and Indian allies, sixty-five 
 were killed, sixty-three wounded. The 
 war cost half a million dollars. Captain LR CUSTER 
 
 180 
 
 GENERAL GEORGE A. 
 
TWO VIEWS OF THE MODOC WAR 
 
 SITTING BULL 
 After a photograph by Notman 
 
 GALL 
 After a photograph by Barry 
 
 FAMOUS SIOUX CHIEFS 
 
 Jack, Sconchin, Black Jim, Boston Charley, One-Eyed Jim, 
 and Slolox were tried by a military commission for murder. 
 The first four were hanged, the other two imprisoned for life 
 on Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Harbor. 
 
 The above account of the Modoc War is substantially 
 that of those inclined to lay the main guilt of the uprising to 
 the whites and to think well of the Indians. What may in a 
 sense be called the Oregon view differs from it in certain more 
 or less important particulars, mainly (i) in ascribing the pro 
 vocation to war to the Modocs rather than to the Klamaths or 
 the whites, and to the whole of Jack's band rather than to a 
 turbulent part of it ; (2) in setting down as foolish the efforts 
 of peace men to deal with savages, considering these as, prac 
 tically without exception, heartless and treacherous. 
 
 The Cheyennes and allied tribes, in reprisal for the loss 
 of their buffaloes, made many cattle raids. In 1874 the set 
 tlers retaliated, but were soon flying from their farms in panic. 
 The Indians, as the papers had it, were at once " handed over 
 to the secular arm," the army being set to deal with them in 
 stead of the Peace Commission. Resistance was brief, en- 
 
 ili 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 tirely collapsing when at one stroke sixty-nine warriors and 
 two thousand ponies were captured on Elk Creek. In 1874 a 
 massacre by the Sioux was barely averted. The agent at the 
 Red Cloud agency erected a staff, and, on Sunday, unfurled 
 the national flag " to let the Indians know what day it was." 
 Viewing the emblem as meaning hostility, the Sioux belea 
 guered the agency, and, but for Sitting Bull, would have mas 
 sacred all the whites there as well as the handful of soldiers 
 sent to their rescue. 
 
 While the catastrophes just narrated were occurring a 
 worse horror withdrew public attention for a moment from the 
 Indian hostilities at the remote West to a far Eastern locality 
 over which King Philip's own braves had ranged in the first 
 great Indian war of American history. 
 
 GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER 
 After a photograph by Gardner at Falmoutk, Va., in f86j 
 
 182 
 
THE WILLIAMSBURG, MASS., FLOOD 
 
 On May 16, 1874, the rupture of a reservoir dam in the 
 town of Williamsburg, Mass., caused a disastrous flood, cost 
 ing 140 lives and the loss of $1,500,000 in property. The 
 basin which collapsed was 300 feet above the level of Wil 
 liamsburg village, and from three to four miles farther up 
 Mill River. It covered 109 acres to a depth averaging 24 
 feet, its 650,000,000 gallons of water forming a reserve supply 
 for the factories of Williamsburg, Skinnerville, Haydenville, 
 Leeds, and Florence. The gate-keeper, one George Cheney, 
 made the tour of the premises as usual, early on the fatal morn 
 ing, but discovered nothing out of order. He went home to 
 breakfast. The meal was just ending when Cheney's father, 
 happening to glance through a window, exclaimed : " For 
 God's sake, George, look there ! " A vast block, fifty feet 
 long, was shooting out from the bottom of the dam. Cheney 
 was an old soldier and had presence of mind. Rushing to 
 the gate he opened it to its full width, hoping thus to re 
 lieve the pressure at the break. He then made for the barn. 
 Bridling his horse while his father cut him a stick, he 
 mounted, just as the whole dam gave way, and dashed head 
 long down the valley, warning the population below. He 
 covered the distance to Spellman's button factory, three miles 
 away, in fifteen minutes, the thundering avalanche of waters 
 close behind. 
 
 It was about half after seven when the brave herald 
 reached Spellman's, himself spent with excitement and shout 
 ing, his horse worsted in the unequal race. D. Collins Graves, 
 a milkman, here took up the news. Saying " If the dam 
 is breaking the folks must know it," he lashed his horse 
 at a breakneck pace to Haydenville, shouting : " The reser 
 voir is right here ! Run ! It's all you can do ! " Spell 
 man's factory, the first building to test the torrent's power, 
 was tossed from its base and dashed in pieces like a child's 
 block-house. The help, heeding Cheney's warning, sped to 
 the hills too late, for many were caught and borne down to 
 
 183 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 death. The Skinnerville silk operatives had just begun the 
 day's work. When the warning reached them the superin 
 tendent was incredulous, and only the roar of the waters, 
 drowning the courier's cry, wrung from him the order to quit. 
 All hands dashed toward the high land, and but three were 
 lost. Of these one had hurried home to save his family, ar 
 riving just in time to perish with them. Many other families 
 were hurried to death together, amid noble efforts of the 
 strong to save the weak, whose groans and cries formed an 
 agonizing appeal for aid. The loss of life must have been far 
 greater but for Cheney's and Graves's brave riding. 
 
 Many hair-breadth escapes occurred, accounts of which, 
 related afterward, sounded like miracle stories. One man 
 sailed half a mile on the very crest of the deluge, borne upon 
 a raft of debris, saving himself at last by grasping a limb of 
 one of the few trees stout enough to stem the flood. Large 
 parts of Williamsburg and Skinnerville, including several 
 mills and factories, were laid in hopeless ruin. The great 
 brass works at Haydenville were totally demolished. A 
 couple of mill-stones, weighing a ton each, were wafted a dis 
 tance of half a mile. Almost the entire village of Leeds was 
 destroyed. Much damage was done so far down as Florence, 
 
 where vast fertile tracks were covered 
 beneath feet of sand. 
 
 Relief work for the hundreds left 
 homeless and destitute was at once 
 begun and nobly prosecuted. Sup 
 plies came from nearly all parts of 
 Massachusetts and from other States. 
 The Massachusetts legislature was 
 in session and instituted a competent 
 and searching investigation of the 
 accident. Public sorrow turned to 
 public indignation when the calamity 
 was discovered to be due entirely to 
 184 
 
 RAIN-IN-? 'HE-FACE 
 After a p holograph by Barry 
 
BAD CONSTRUCTION OF THE RESERVOIR 
 
 THE INDIAN TRADERS' STORE AT STANDING ROCK, DAKOTA* 
 After a pbotografh by Barry 
 
 culpable negligence on the part of those originating, planning, 
 constructing and approving the reservoir. The wall of the 
 dam was too weak. It was built mainly of irregular instead 
 of cut stone. Save at the middle, where it was re-enforced by 
 about a foot, it was not over 5^ feet thick. Also the earth 
 above the stone was not properly placed or rammed. 
 
 *It was here, in the spring of 1875, that Rain-in-the-Face was arrested by Captain Tom 
 Custer, in revenge for which he threatened to eat the latter's heart a threat said to have been ful 
 filled at the fight on the Little Big Horn. 
 
 185 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 In 1875 there was pretence of investigating affairs at the 
 Red Cloud post, but with scant result. Much of the testi 
 mony was by casual observers or interested parties, and none 
 of it under oath. The Indians did not testify freely, and con 
 tradicted each other ; Sitting Bull told one story, Red Cloud 
 another. What became clear was that, in Red Cloud's phrase, 
 the Indians were " succeeding backward." 
 
 A large portion of the Sioux, under Sitting Bull, had re 
 fused to enter into a treaty surrendering certain lands and con 
 senting to confine themselves within a new reservation. Notice 
 was served upon these non-treaty Sioux that, unless they moved 
 to the reservation before January i, 1876, they would be treated 
 as hostiles. Sitting Bull refused to stir, and early in the spring 
 the army assumed the offensive. The chief chose his position 
 with rare skill, in the wild hunting country of southern Mon 
 tana, now Custer County, near a quarter-circle of agencies, 
 whence would join him next summer a great troop of discon 
 tented and ambitious young " Reservation " braves. The Bad 
 Lands around made defense easy and attack most arduous. 
 
 It was determined to close upon the hostiles in three col 
 umns, General Gibbon from the west, General Crook from 
 the south, and General Terry, with a somewhat larger body 
 of troops, including the Seventh United States Cavalry, six 
 hundred strong, under Lieutenant-Colonel Custer, from the 
 east. Crook was delayed by unexpected attacks. The other 
 two columns met without interference. Terry followed the 
 Yellowstone up as far as the Rosebud, where he established a 
 supply camp. Here Custer with his cavalry left him, June 
 22d, to make a detour south, up the Rosebud, get above the 
 Indians, and drive them down the Little Big Horn into the 
 army's slowly closing grip. Three days later, June 25th, 
 Custer struck Sitting Bull's main trail, and eagerly pursued it 
 across the divide into the Little Big Horn Valley. Expecting 
 battle, he detached Major Reno with seven of his twelve com 
 panies, to cross the Little Big Horn, descend it, and strike the 
 
 186 
 
THE CUSTER MASSACRE 
 
 foe from the west ; but Reno was soon attacked and held at 
 bay, being besieged in all more than twenty-four hours. Mean 
 time, suddenly coming upon the lower end of the Indians' im 
 mense camp, the gallant Custer and his braves, without an 
 instant's hesitation, advanced into the jaws of death. That 
 death awaited every man was at once evident, but at the awful 
 sensation, the sickening horror attending the realization of 
 that fact, not a soul wavered. Balaklava was pastime to this, 
 for here not one " rode back." " All that was left of them," 
 after perhaps twenty-five minutes, was so many mostly unre 
 cognizable corpses. 
 
 " Two hundred and sixty-two were with Custer, and two 
 hundred and sixty-two died overwhelmed. With the last shot 
 was silence. The report might have been written : c None 
 wounded ; none missing ; all dead.' No living tongue of all 
 that heroic band was left to tell the story. The miserable 
 half-breed scout, Curley, who might years later be seen hang 
 ing around Fort Custer, claimed to have been with Custer when 
 the engagement began, but he pulled a Sioux blanket over his 
 head, mingled with the enemy, and ran away at the first fire. 
 He could only tell that there had been a battle." " Near the 
 high ground and not far from where the Custer monument 
 was erected, the body of Kellogg, special correspondent of the 
 New York Herald, was found. He was 
 bravely following the gallant Custer. The 
 guide points out the little wooden slab 
 which marks the spot, for he died like a 
 hero, too, in the line of his duty." 
 
 After harrassing Reno, the Indians 
 slipped ofF under cover of night. As 
 cending the Big Horn and the Little Big 
 Horn, Gibbon and Terry, on the 2yth, 
 discovered the bodies of Custer and his 
 five devoted companies. Custer alone 
 was not mutilated. He had been shot 
 
 CAPTAINE. S. GODFREY 
 After a photograph by Barry 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 THE ONLY SURVIVORS OF 
 After a p holograph 
 
 in the left temple, 
 the remainder of 
 his face wearing 
 in death a natural 
 look. Years sub 
 sequently a care 
 ful survey of the 
 field and talks with 
 savages enabled 
 Captain Godfrey, 
 who was with Re 
 no on the fatal 
 day, to see what 
 course the Custer 
 fight had taken 
 
 Finding himself outnumbered twelve or more to one 
 the Indians mustered about 2,500 warriors, besides a caravan 
 of boys and squaws Custer had dismounted his heroes, who, 
 planting themselves mainly on two hills some way apart, the 
 advance one held by Custer, the other by Captains Keogh 
 and Calhoun, prepared to sell their lives dearly. The red 
 skins say that had Reno maintained the offensive they should 
 have fled, the chiefs having, at the first sight of Custer, or 
 dered camp broken for this purpose. But when Reno drew 
 back this order was countermanded, and the entire army of 
 the savages was concentrated against the doomed Custer. By 
 waving blankets and uttering their hellish yells, they stam 
 peded many of the cavalry horses, which carried off precious 
 ammunition in their saddle-bags. Lining up just behind a 
 ridge, they would rise quickly, fire at the soldiers, and drop, 
 exposing themselves little, but drawing Custer's fire, so caus- 
 
 *Comanche was the horse ridden by Captain Keogh, and was afterward found with seven 
 wounds at a distance of several miles from the battle-field. The Secretary of War subsequently 
 issued an order forbidding any one to ride him, and detailing a soldier to take care of him as long 
 as he lived. Curley, a Crow Indian, was Custer's scout, and is said to have made his escape by 
 wrapping himself in a Sioux blanket when the battle began. 
 
 188 
 
THE REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE 
 
 Curley, the Scout 
 THE CUSTER MASSACRE 
 by Barry 
 
 ing additional loss of sorely needed 
 bullets. The whites' ammunition 
 spent, the dismounted savages rose, 
 fired, and whooped like the demons 
 they were; while the mounted ones, 
 lashing their ponies, charged with 
 infinite venom, overwhelming Cal- 
 houn and Keogh, and lastly Custer 
 himself. Indian boys then pranced 
 over the fields on ponies, scalping 
 and re-shooting the dead and dy 
 ing. At the burial many a stark 
 visage wore a look of horror. 
 " Rain-in-the-Face," who mainly 
 inspired and directed the battle on 
 the Indian side, boasted that he cut out and ate Captain Tom 
 Custer's heart. Most believe that he did so. "Rain-in-the- 
 Face" was badly wounded, and used crutches ever after. Brave 
 Sergeant Butler's body was found by itself, lying on a heap of 
 empty cartridge shells which told what he had been about. 
 
 Sergeant Mike Madden had a leg mangled while fight 
 ing, tiger-like, near Reno, and for his bravery was promoted 
 on the field. He was always over-fond of grog, but long ab 
 stinence had now intensified his thirst. He submitted to am 
 putation without anaesthesia. After the operation the surgeon 
 gave him a stiff horn of brandy. Emptying it eagerly and smack 
 ing his lips, he said : " M-eh, Doctor, cut off the other leg." 
 
 This distressing catastrophe, which whelmed the country 
 in grief many days, called forth Longfellow's poem, " The 
 Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face," ending with the stanza : 
 
 Whose was the right and the wrong ? 
 Sing it, O funeral song, 
 With a voice that is full of tears, 
 And say that our broken faith 
 Wrought all this ruin and scathe 
 In the Year of a Hundred Years. 
 
 189 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 This poem mistakenly represents " Rain-in-the-Face " as 
 having mutilated General Custer instead of his brother, the 
 Captain. Also it is based on the " ambush " theory of the 
 battle, which at first all shared. We now know, however, 
 that Custer fought in the open, from high ground, not in a 
 ravine. His surprise lay not in finding Indians before him, 
 but in finding them so fatally numerous. Some of General 
 Terry's friends charged Custer with transgressing his orders 
 in fighting as he did. That he was somewhat careless, almost 
 
 rash, in his prepara 
 tions to attack can 
 perhaps be main 
 tained, though good 
 authority declares the 
 " battle fought tacti 
 cally and with intel 
 ligence on Custer's 
 part/' and calls it 
 unjust "to say that 
 he was reckless or 
 foolish." Bravest of 
 the brave, Custer 
 was always anxious 
 to fight, and, just 
 now in ill favor with 
 President Grant, he was eager to make a record ; but that 
 he was guilty of disobedience to his orders is not shown. 
 
 It, indeed, came quite directly from General Terry that 
 had Custer lived to return " he would at once have been put 
 under arrest and court-martialled for disobedience." This 
 might have been the best way to elicit all the facts, and does 
 not prove that even General Terry would have been sure of 
 Custer's conviction. 
 
 The present head of the army, General Miles, is strongly 
 of the opinion that Custer was not guilty of disobeying any 
 
 190 
 
 
 THE CUSTER MONUMENT 
 
 ERECTED ON THE BATTLEFIELD 
 
 After a photograph by Barry 
 
DID CUSTER DISOBEY ORDERS ? 
 
 orders. The late General Fry expressed himself with equal 
 emphasis in the same tenor. Colonel R. P. Hughes, how 
 ever, who was General Terry's chief of staff during the Sioux 
 campaign, sought, in an able article in the Journal of the Mili 
 tary Service Institution for January, 1896, to defend the 
 contrary proposition. He adduced many interesting consid 
 erations, but seemed to the present writer not at all to justify 
 his view. 
 
 Custer's expressed hope to " swing clear " of Terry is 
 worked too hard when made to bear the meaning that he de 
 liberately purposed to disregard Terry's orders. To have a 
 superior at his elbow seemed to him queer and unpleasant; he 
 liked, especially in fighting Indians, to be trusted. Had he 
 been minded disobediently to meet the Indians without Gib 
 bon, getting a victory and all its glory for himself alone, he 
 would have marched faster during his first days out from the 
 Rosebud mouth. He in fact moved but 108 miles in four 
 days. 
 
 Much turns on the force of Custer's written orders, 
 which, judged by usual military documents of the kind, cer 
 tainly gave Custer a much larger liberty than Colonel Hughes 
 supposed. There is an affidavit of a witness who heard 
 Terry's and Custer's last conversation together at the mouth 
 of the Rosebud, just before Custer began his fatal ride. 
 Terry said : " Use your own judgment and do what you 
 think best if you strike the trail ; and whatever you do, Cus 
 ter, hold on to your wounded." Even his written orders gave 
 Custer leave to depart from his written orders if he saw 
 reason for doing so, i. e., if, in his judgment, the end of the 
 campaign could be best attained in that way. Hughes argues 
 that because he, Hughes, can see no reason for any such de 
 parture, Custer could have seen none. But how can we know 
 this ? Custer, who alone could tell, cannot be interrogated ; 
 and the purposes and plans that governed his course during 
 his eventful last days men can only surmise. 
 
 191 
 
THE LAST QUARTER- CENTURY 
 
 Hughes's contention, in opposition to General Fry, that 
 Terry had and had communicated to Custer a perfectly definite 
 plan of campaign, explicitly involving Gibbon's co-operation 
 in the attack, seems still to lack proof; but the observations 
 here made are little dependent on the decision of that point. A 
 remark or two, however. Colonel Hughes, it seems, wishes us 
 to think that Terry all along knew the exceeding strength of 
 the Indian force, accounting it much too numerous for Custer 
 safely to attack alone. Was it not, then, rash and cruel to send 
 Custer out on that far detour, crowding him so well to the 
 south, where, let Gibbon hurry as he might, the savages would 
 have Custer at their mercy ! He could not hope to conceal 
 his march very long. " It is folly to suppose that either a 
 small or a large band of Indians would remain stationary 
 and allow one body of troops to come up on one side of it 
 while another body came up on the other side and engaged it 
 in battle. . . . When Custer's command was ordered to move 
 out as it did it _left the Indians, who were acting on interior 
 lines, absolutely free to attack either one of the commands 
 thus separated, or fight them in detail, as might be preferred." 
 
 Hughes makes the point that Custer did not report to 
 Gibbon whether he found Indians in Tulloch Creek Valley. 
 General Fry seems justified in calling this a purely formal and 
 immaterial neglect. The valley up and down was completely 
 empty of Indians, and Custer doubtless considered it a needless 
 diminution of his scout force to detach a man to report this. 
 That he did not send word to Gibbon at any later time may 
 seem strange, but he certainly was not commanded to do so. 
 
 Hughes charges it as disobedience that Custer did not 
 ride southward when he ascertained that the Indian trail turned 
 toward the Little Big Horn. But his orders did not command 
 him to go southward the moment he ascertained the course of 
 the trail, or at any cfther particular moment. Moreover, what 
 Hughes does not observe, the purpose of veering southward 
 was simply to see that the hostiles did not escape around his 
 
 192 
 
HAD RENO PRESSED FORWARD! 
 
 left. The configuration of the country, as Custer saw it, must 
 have assured him that when the hostiles made for the Little 
 Big Horn Valley they gave up all purpose of marching south 
 and were bent upon going down that valley. It would have 
 been foolish for him to have proceeded south after he felt ab 
 solutely convinced of the enemy's purpose. He would simply 
 have wasted the strength of his command. 
 
 Hughes deems it blameworthy that from the moment 
 when Custer found the trail leading toward the Little Big 
 Horn he quickened his speed. In this he seems to overlook 
 the fact that Custer's discovery may well have led him to fear 
 for Gibbon's command. The redskins had gone to the Little 
 Big Horn on purpose to go down that stream. Custer could 
 not know how far down it they by this time were, or how far 
 up it Gibbon might possibly have come. Had he not made 
 the best of his way on he would certainly have been censur 
 able. At the same time, it obviously would not do for him 
 when he came upon the foe to wait before attacking to ascer 
 tain Gibbon's whereabouts. As General Fry observes, had 
 he hesitated, either he would have been attacked himself, or 
 else his foe would have withdrawn to attack Gibbon or to get 
 away entirely. 
 
 Small as was Custer's total force, yet had Reno sup 
 ported him as had been expected, the fight would have been 
 a victory, the enemy killed, captured, driven down upon Gib 
 bon, or so cut to pieces as never to have reappeared as a 
 formidable force. In either of these cases Custer, living or 
 dead, would have emerged from the campaign with undying 
 glory and there would have been no thought of a court- 
 martial or of censure. 
 
 i 93 
 
OLD SWEDES' CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, BUILT IN 7700 
 After a photograph byRau 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 "THE YEAR OF A HUNDRED YEARS "- 
 THE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION AND 
 THE HAYES-TILDEN IMBROGLIO 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION. PHILADELPHIA LAND 
 MARKS. THE EXPOSITION BUILDINGS. THE OPENING. THE VARI 
 OUS EXHIBITS. ATTENDANCE. A POLITICAL CRISIS. GRANT AND 
 
 JEWELL. THE BELKNAP DISGRACE. ANOTHER REFORM MOVEMENT. 
 
 FEAR OF A THIRD TERM FOR GRANT. ISSUES BETWEEN THE 
 
 PARTIES. HAYES AND TILDEN NOMINATED. THEIR LETTERS OF 
 
 ACCEPTANCE THE CAMPAIGN. PROPHECY OF TROUBLE OVER 
 
 THE PRESIDENTIAL COUNT. THE TWENTY-SECOND JOINT RULE. 
 
 RESULT OF THE ELECTION IN DOUBT. CIPHER DESPATCHES. 
 
 QUEER WAYS OF RETURNING BOARDS FEARS AND HOPES. THE 
 
 ELECTORAL COMMISSION. THE CASE OF FLORIDA, OF LOUISIANA, 
 
 OF OREGON, OF SOUTH CAROLINA. HAYES DECLARED ELECTED. 
 
 AN ELECTORAL COUNT LAW. 
 
 READERS will rejoice that racial feuds at the South and 
 the West during President Grant's second term did 
 not make up the entire history of these years. Despite those 
 and all its other troubles, the American body politic was 
 
 195 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 about to round the first century of its life in satisfactory and 
 increasing vigor. 
 
 What could be more fitting than that the hundredth 
 anniversary of the world's greatest Republic should be kept 
 by a monster celebration ? Such a question was publicly 
 raised in 1870 by an association of Philadelphia citizens, and 
 it set the entire nation thinking. At first only a United 
 States celebration was proposed, but reflection developed the 
 idea of a Mammoth Fair where the arts and industries of the 
 whole world should be represented. Congress took up the 
 design in 18712. In 1873 President Grant formally pro 
 claimed the Exposition, and in 1874 foreign governments 
 were invited to participate in it. Thirty-three cordially re 
 sponded, including all the civilized nations except Greece, a 
 larger number than had ever before taken part in an event 
 like this. 
 
 Philadelphia was naturally chosen as the seat of the Ex 
 position. Here the nation was born, a fact of which much 
 remained to testify. Among the ancient buildings were the 
 "Old Swedes' " Church, built in 1700, Christ Church, begun 
 only twenty-seven years later, still in perfect preservation, 
 St. Peter's, built in 1758-1761, and the sequestered Friends' 
 Meeting-house, built in 1808. The Penn Treaty Monu 
 ment, unimpressive in appearance, marked the site of the elm 
 under which Penn made his famous treaty with the Indians. 
 Carpenters' Hall, still owned by the Carpenters' Company 
 which built it, had been made to resume the appearance it 
 bore when, in 1774, the first Continental Congress assembled 
 under its roof. In the centre of a line of antique edifices 
 known as State-house Row, stood Independence Hall, 
 erected 1732-1735. The name specifically applied to the 
 large first-floor east room, in which the second Continental 
 Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. In 
 1824 Lafayette held a great reception here, and six years 
 later it was consecrated to the past. Revolutionary portraits 
 
 196 
 
THE EXPOSITION BUILDINGS 
 
 and relics were placed in it, and the building restored to its 
 original condition. In 1854 the old Liberty Bell was taken 
 down from the tower into the hall and the walls enriched 
 by a large number of portraits from the Peale Gallery. A 
 keeper was then appointed and the hall opened to visitors. 
 In Fairmount Park, beyond the Schuylkill, a level plat 
 of over 200 acres was inclosed, and appropriate buildings 
 erected. Five enormous structures, the Main Building, with 
 Machinery, Agricultural, Horticultural, and Memorial Halls, 
 towered above all the rest. Several foreign governments 
 built structures of their own. Twenty-six States did the 
 same. Thirty or more buildings were put up by private 
 enterprise in order the better to present industrial processes 
 
 STATE-HOUSE ROW, PHILADELPHIA 
 
 After a photograph by Rau 
 
 and products. In all more than two hundred edifices stood 
 within the inclosure. 
 
 The Exposition opened on May loth, with public exer 
 cises, a hundred thousand people being present. Wagner had 
 
 197 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 composed a march for the occasion. Whittier's Centennial 
 Hymn, a noble piece, was sung by a chorus of one thousand 
 voices. 
 
 Our fathers' God ! from out whose hand 
 The centuries fall like grains of sand, 
 We meet to-day, united, free, 
 And loyal to our land and Thee, 
 To thank Thee for the era done, 
 And trust Thee for the opening one. 
 
 Here, where of old, by Thy design, 
 The fathers spake that word of Thine, 
 Whose echo is the glad refrain 
 Of rended bolt and fallen chain, 
 To grace our festal time, from all 
 The zones of earth our guests we call. 
 
 The restored South chanted the praises of the Union in 
 the words of Sidney Lanier, the Georgia poet. President 
 Grant then declared the Exposition open. Further simple 
 but impressive ceremonies were held on July 4th, in the pub 
 lic square at the rear of Independence Hall. On temporary 
 platforms sat 5,000 distinguished guests, and a chorus of 1,000 
 singers. The square and the neighboring streets were rilled 
 with a dense throng. Richard Henry Lee, grandson of the 
 mover of the Declaration of Independence, came to the front 
 with the original document in his hands. At sight of that 
 yellow and wrinkled paper the vast throng burst into pro 
 longed cheering. Mr. Lee read the Declaration, Bayard Tay 
 lor recited an ode, and Hon. William M. Evarts delivered an 
 oration. 
 
 In the Main Building, erected in a year, at a cost of 
 $1,700,000, manufactures were exhibited, also products of the 
 mine, along with innumerable other evidences of scientific and 
 educational progress. More than a third of the space was re 
 served for the United States, the rest being divided among 
 foreign countries. The products of all climates, tribes, and 
 times, were here. Great Britain, France, and Germany exhib- 
 
 198 
 
THE VARIOUS EXHIBITS 
 
 exhibited the work of their 
 myriad roaring looms side by 
 side with the wares of the 
 Hawaiian Islands and the 
 little Orange Free State. 
 Here were the furs of Rus 
 sia, with other articles from the frozen North ; there the flash 
 ing diamonds of Brazil, and the rich shawls and waving 
 plumes of India. At a step one passed from old Egypt to 
 the latest born South American republic. Chinese conser 
 vatism and Yankee enterprise confronted each other across 
 the aisle. 
 
 From the novelty of the foreign display the American 
 visitor turned proudly to the handiwork of his own land. 
 Textiles, arms, tools, musical instruments, watches, carriages, 
 cutlery, books, furniture a bewildering display of all things 
 useful and ornamental made him realize as never before the 
 wealth, intelligence, and enterprise of his native country, and 
 the proud station to which she had risen among the nations of 
 the earth. Three-fourths of the space in Machinery Hall 
 was taken up with American machinery. 
 
 i 99 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 GENERAL JOSEPH R. 
 
 HAWLET 
 President of the Centennial Com- 
 
 Memorial Hall, a beautiful perma 
 nent building of granite, erected by 
 Pennsylvania and Philadelphia at a cost 
 of 11,500,000, was given up to art. 
 This was the poorest feature of the Ex 
 position, though the collection was the 
 largest and most notable ever till then 
 seen this side the Atlantic. America 
 had few art works of the first order to 
 show, while foreign nations, with the 
 exception of England, which contri 
 buted a noble lot of paintings, including 
 works by Gainsborough and Reynolds, 
 feared to send their choicest products across the sea. All 
 through the summer and early autumn, spite of the unusual 
 heat that year, thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the 
 country and the world filled the fair grounds and the city. 
 Amid the crowds of visitors Philadelphians became strang 
 ers in their own streets. On September 28th, Pennsylvania 
 day, 275,000 persons passed the gates. During October the 
 visitors numbered over two and a half millions. From 
 May loth to November loth, the closing day, the total 
 admissions were 9,900,000. The aggregate attendance was 
 larger than at any previous international exhibition, except 
 that of Paris in 1867. The admissions there reached 10,200,- 
 ooo, but the gates were open fifty-one days longer than in 
 Philadelphia. At Vienna, in 1873, there were but 7,255,000 
 admissions in 186 days, against 159 days at Philadelphia. 
 
 Full of peace and promise as was this Philadelphia pag 
 eant, in politics these same months saw the United States at 
 a serious crisis. The best interests of the country seemed to 
 depend on the party in power, yet a large and influential sec 
 tion of that party was in all but open revolt. Many base men 
 to whom honest and enterprising public servants were unwel 
 come were tolerated near the President. Secretary Bristow's 
 
JEWELL AND THE POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 noble fight against the Whiskey Ring, his victory, and his 
 resignation from the Cabinet are described in another Chapter. 
 Ex-Governor Marshall Jewell, of Connecticut, was a most effi 
 cient Postmaster-General. Upon taking his office he avowed 
 the purpose to conduct it on business principles. He at once 
 began to attack the notorious " straw bids " and other corrupt 
 practices connected with carrying the mails in Texas and Ala 
 bama. It was he who introduced the Railway Post-office Sys 
 tem, by which the postal matter for a State, instead of first 
 going to the capital or to one or two central cities and being 
 slowly distributed thence, was sent to its destination directly, 
 by the shortest routes and in the most expeditious manner. 
 Yet in 1876, two years from the time of his appointment, 
 much to the surprise of the public, Jewell left the Cabinet. 
 An officeholder explained that " they didn't care much for 
 Jewell in Washington ; why, he ran the Post-office as though 
 it was a factory ! " The ring politicians were a unit against 
 him, and finally succeeded in displacing him. In a speech 
 before the Senate during the impeachment trial of Belknap, 
 Grant's War Secretary, Hon. George F. Hoar declared that 
 he had heard the taunt from friendliest lips that " the only 
 product of the United States' institutions in which she sur 
 passed all other nations beyond question was her corruption." 
 The Sherman Letters threw much light on the Belknap 
 disgrace. July 8, 1871, General Sherman wrote : " My office 
 has been by law stript of all the influence and prestige it 
 possessed under Grant (as General), and even in matters of 
 discipline and army control I am neglected, overlooked, or 
 snubbed." Later, Sherman wrote : " Belknap has acted badly 
 by me ever since he reached Washington. General Grant 
 promised me often to arrange and divide our functions, but 
 he never did, but left the Secretary to do all those things of 
 which he himself, as General, had complained to Stanton." 
 " The President and Belknap both gradually withdrew from 
 me all the powers which Grant had exercised in the same 
 
 aoi 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 office, and Congress capped the climax by repealing that law 
 which required all orders to the army to go through the Gen 
 eral." " I have no hesitation in saying that if the Secretary 
 of War has the right to command the army through the Ad 
 jutant-General, then my office is a sinecure and should be abol 
 ished." 
 
 Why the General of the Army had been thus extruded 
 from the authority and functions properly attending his office, 
 was clear when, on February 29th, 1876, Caleb P. Marsh, 
 one of a firm of contractors in New York City, testified before 
 a Congressional Committee that, in 1870, Belknap had 
 offered him the control of the post-tradership at Fort Sill, In 
 dian Territory, for the purpose of enabling him to extort 
 from the actual holder of the place, one John S. Evans, 
 $3,000 four times a year as the price of continuing in it. 
 The Secretary and his family appeared to have received 
 1 24,450 in this way. Belknap's resignation was offered and 
 accepted a few hours before the House passed a unanimous 
 vote to impeach him. Other dubious acts of Belknap's came 
 to light, notably a contract for erecting tombstones in national 
 cemeteries, from which, as was charged, he realized $90,000. 
 In the fall of 1874, General Sherman actually transferred his 
 headquarters to St. Louis, to remove himself from official con 
 tact with Belknap, who was issuing orders and making ap 
 pointments without Sherman's knowledge. Two years later, 
 after Belknap's resignation, the office of General of the Army 
 was re-invested with the powers which had formerly belonged 
 to it. Then the General moved back to Washington. 
 
 Belknap demurred to the Senate's jurisdiction, but on 
 May 29th the Senate affirmed this, 37 to 29, Morton and 
 Conkling voting nay, Cameron, Edmunds, Morrill and Sher 
 man aye. Thurman moved the resolution of impeachment. 
 Belknap's counsel refused to let him plead, urging that the 
 vote to assume jurisdiction, not being a two-thirds vote, was 
 equivalent to an acquittal. The Senate, however, proceeded, 
 
 202 
 
-._. __ 
 
THE NEW REFORM MOVEMENT 
 
 as on a plea of " not guilty," to try him, He was acquitted, 
 one Democrat voting for acquittal. Morton was among the 
 Republicans who voted for conviction. 
 
 After the above recitals one is not surprised that in 
 April, 1876, over the signatures of William Cullen Bryant, 
 Theodore D. Woolsey, Alexander H. Bullock, Horace White, 
 and Carl Schurz, was issued a circular call for a conference of 
 Republicans dissatisfied at the " wide-spread corruption " 
 with which machine politics had infected our public service. 
 The conference organized about five weeks later, electing 
 Theodore D. Woolsey for president, and for secretaries, 
 among others, Henry Cabot Lodge, Francis A. Walker and 
 Henry Armitt Brown. A Committee on Business next re 
 ported "An Address to the American people," by which the 
 assemblage, after recounting the threatening growth of official 
 corruption hand in hand with the spoils system, invoked all 
 good citizens to join them in a pledge to support no presi 
 dential aspirant not known " to possess the moral courage and 
 sturdy resolution to grapple with abuses which had acquired 
 the strength of established customs, and to this end firmly to 
 resist the pressure even of his party friends." 
 
 The New York Herald had in 1874 started a cry that 
 Grant would not be averse to breaking the canon set by 
 Washington against a third presidential term. Democratic 
 journals took up the alarm and soon the press all over the 
 land was vocal with denunciations of " Grantism," " Caesar- 
 ism," " Third Termism ! " So nervous did the din make Re 
 publicans, that in 1875 tne Pennsylvania Republican Conven 
 tion passed a resolution of unalterable " opposition to the 
 election to the presidency of any person for a third term." 
 Grant had thus far been almost alone in keeping silence, but 
 he at last felt called to express himself. He wrote a letter 
 to the chairman of the convention. " Now for the third 
 term," said he, " I do not want it any more than I did the 
 first." Yet he remarked that the Constitution did not re- 
 
 205 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 VIEWS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 CENTENNIAL 
 
 strict a President 
 to two terms, and 
 that it might some 
 time be unfortunate to dismiss one so soon. However, he 
 would not accept a nomination unless " under such circum 
 stances as to make it an imperative duty circumstances not 
 likely to arise." This was too equivocal. The National 
 House of Representatives therefore passed a resolution, 234 
 to 1 8, seventy Republicans voting for it: 
 
 "That in the opinion of this House the precedent estab 
 lished by Washington and other Presidents of the United 
 
 206 
 
PARTY PLATFORiMS IN 1876 
 
 States after their second term, has become, by universal con 
 currence, a part of our Republican system of government, 
 and that any departure from this time-honored custom would 
 be unwise, unpatriotic, and fraught with peril to our free in 
 stitutions." 
 
 The issues with a view to which, in 1876, the two great 
 parties constructed their platforms, were mainly three : The 
 " Southern question," specie resumption, and civil service re 
 form. The Republican party endorsed its own civil rights 
 and force legislation, but called for better administration. The 
 Democracy had at last, to use J. Q. Adams's phrase, "sneaked 
 up to its inevitable position." It reaffirmed its faith in the 
 Union, and its devotion to the Constitution, with its amend 
 ments, universally accepted, as a final settlement of the contro 
 versy which engendered civil war. This was a re-emergence 
 of Vallandigham's New Departure for the party. The Demo 
 cratic platform rang with the cry of " Reform," which had 
 been so effectual in New York State in the election of Tilden 
 
 as Governor. The 
 catalogue of shocking 
 Republican scandals 
 was gone over to 
 prove the futility of 
 attempting " reform 
 within party lines." 
 " President, Vice- 
 President, Judges, 
 Senators, Represen 
 tatives, Cabinet Offi 
 cers these and all 
 others in authority 
 are the people's ser 
 vants. Their offices 
 are not a private per 
 quisite ; they are a 
 
 Horticu't 
 
 207 
 
THE LAST QUARTER- CENTURY 
 
 public trust." This was the origin of an expression, afterward 
 usually referred to President Cleveland, which bade fair to be 
 immortal. 
 
 While the Republicans favored a " continuous and steady 
 progress to specie payments," the hard-money men failed to 
 get the Convention to endorse the Resumption Clause of the 
 Act of 1875. The Democrats denounced that clause as a 
 hindrance to resumption, but their Convention would not com 
 mit itself to a condemnation of the resumption policy. The 
 Republicans favored a revenue tariff with incidental protection. 
 The Democrats repudiated protection, and demanded cc that all 
 custom-house taxation should be only for revenue." 
 
 The Republican Convention met in Cincinnati on June 
 1 4th. "Third-termers" saw no hope for Grant. James G. 
 Elaine was thought the man most likely to receive the nomina 
 tion. His name was placed before the Convention by Colonel 
 Robert G. Ingersoll, in one of the most eloquent addresses 
 ever heard on such an occasion. When in the roll-call of 
 States Maine was reached, boundless enthusiasm reigned, 
 with cheering that died away only to be renewed, closing with 
 three cheers for James G. Elaine. Mr. Ingersoll mounted the 
 platform. As he was then comparatively unknown, the epi 
 grammatic force and the fervor of his words took his hearers 
 by surprise. His concluding periods were not soon forgotten, 
 and the title of " Plumed Knight " with which he dubbed his 
 hero adhered to Mr. Elaine through life. 
 
 " This is a grand year," he said : " a year filled with the 
 recollections of the Revolution ; filled with proud and tender 
 memories of the sacred past ; . . the span is too long filled 
 with legends of liberty ; a year in which the sons of freedom 
 will drink from the fountain of enthusiasm ; a year in which the 
 people call for the man who has preserved in Congress what 
 their soldiers won upon the field ; a year in which they call for 
 the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of 
 slander ; the man who has snatched the mask of Democracy 
 
 208 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 from the hideous face of the rebellion ; the 
 
 man who, like the intellectual athlete, has 
 
 stood in the arena of debate, challenging 
 
 all comers, and who, up to the present 
 
 moment, is a total stranger to defeat. 
 
 Like an armed warrior, like a plumed 
 
 knight, James G. Elaine marched down 
 
 the halls of the American Congress, and 
 
 threw his shining lance full and fair against ^- *r. BELKNAP 
 
 the brazen forehead of every traitor to his country and every 
 
 maligner of his fair reputation. For the Republican party to 
 
 desert that gallant man now is as though an army should 
 
 desert its general upon the field of battle. . . James G. 
 
 Blaine is now and has been for years the bearer of the 
 
 sacred standard of the Republican party. I call it sacred 
 
 because no human being can stand beneath its folds without 
 
 becoming and without remaining free. 
 
 " Gentlemen of the Convention : In the name of the 
 great Republic, the only Republic that ever existed upon the 
 face of the earth ; in the name of all her defenders and of all 
 her supporters ; in the name of all her soldiers living ; in the 
 name of all her soldiers that died upon the field of battle ; and 
 in the name of those that perished in the skeleton clutch of 
 famine at Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings he so 
 vividly remembers Illinois Illinois nominates for the next 
 President of this country that prince of parliamentarians, that 
 leader of leaders, James G. Blaine." 
 
 Blaine was indeed a brilliant parliamentarian, but his pros 
 pects were weakened by alleged questionable proceedings, the 
 nature of which we shall exhibit later. Most of the Southern 
 delegates were for Oliver P. Morton, of Indiana. Conkling, 
 of New York, in addition to the potent support of his State, 
 enjoyed the favor of the Administration. The reform and anti- 
 Grant delegates were enthusiastic for the gallant destroyer 
 of the Whiskey Ring, ex-Secretary Bristow, of Kentucky. 
 
GOVERNOR HAYES 
 
 George William Curtis said that at the 
 Attorney-General's table he asked Jewell 
 whom the party not the managers 
 would make the candidate, and that 
 Jewell instantly answered, " Bristow." 
 Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Ohio all 
 appeared with favorite sons in their arms: 
 Hartranft, Jewell and Hayes, respect- 
 MARSHALL JEWELL ively. The names familiar enough to 
 evoke cheers from one faction drew " curses not loud but 
 deep " from other cliques. Upon the seventh ballot, there 
 fore, the Convention united upon Governor Rutherford B. 
 Hayes, of Ohio, a man who, though little known, awakened 
 no antagonism and had no embarrassing past, while he had 
 made a most creditable record both as a soldier and as the 
 chief magistrate of his State. 
 
 When Hayes was nominated for Governor in 1875 m ~ 
 Ration was popular all over the West. Both parties were 
 infected, though the Democrats the worse. The Ohio Democ 
 racy was led that year by William Allen and Samuel F. Carey, 
 two of the ablest campaigners ever heard upon the stump in 
 this country. Hayes dared them to the issue. Spite of pro 
 tests from timid Republicans, he came out boldly for resump 
 tion and the re-establishment of the specie standard, turned the 
 tide against the inflationist hosts, and carried the State. From 
 that moment the Ohio Governor was seen by many to be of 
 presidential stature. John Sherman was the first to name him 
 for the higher office. In a letter dated January 21, 1876, he 
 had written : " Considering all things I believe the nomination 
 of Governor Hayes would give us more strength, taking the 
 whole country at large, than that of any other man." 
 
 The Democratic Convention convened at St. Louis on 
 June 28th, nominating Samuel J. Tilden on the second ballot. 
 Tilden was born in New Lebanon, N. Y., February 9, 1814, 
 In 1 845 he was elected to the New York Assembly ; in 1 846 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 and again in 1867 to the State Constitutional Convention. 
 He was a keen lawyer. By his famous analysis of the Broad 
 way Bank accounts during the prosecution of the Tammany 
 Ring he rendered an invaluable service to the cause of reform. 
 As Governor, in 1875, ne wa g e d relentless and triumphant 
 war against the Canal Ring, " the country thieves," as they 
 were called to distinguish them from Tweed and his coterie. 
 
 In accepting the nomination Tilden reiterated his pro 
 tests against " the magnificent and oppressive centralism into 
 which our government was being converted." He also com 
 mended reform in the Civil Service, deprecating the notion 
 that this service existed for office-holders, and bewailing the or 
 ganization of the official class into a body of political merce 
 naries. Hayes's letter emphasized Civil Service reform even 
 more strongly. He zealously descanted upon the evils of the 
 spoils system, and pledged himself, if elected, to employ all the 
 constitutional powers vested in the President to secure reform, 
 returning to the " old rule, the true rule, that honesty, capacity 
 and fidelity constitute the only real qualifications for office." 
 Both candidates wished the Executive to be relieved of the 
 temptation to use patronage for his own re-election. Mr. 
 Hayes made " the noble pledge " that in no case would he be 
 a candidate again. Mr. Tilden disparaged self-imposed re 
 strictions, but recommended that the chief magistrate be con 
 stitutionally disqualified for re-election. 
 
 Hayes's ambiguity touching the Southern question gave 
 hope that, even if the Republicans succeeded, a milder South 
 ern policy would be introduced. Tilden, while crying out 
 against the insupportable misgovernment imposed upon recon 
 structed States, frankly accepted the Democrats' new departure. 
 Before the end of the canvass he published a pledge that, if 
 elected, he would enforce the constitutional amendments and 
 resist Southern claims. 
 
 The campaign was tame. The fact that both candidates 
 were of blameless character muffled partisan eloquence. Great 
 
MORTON A PROPHET 
 
 efforts were made to discredit Tilden for connection with cer 
 tain railroad enterprises, and he was sued for an income tax 
 alleged to be due. Retorting, the Democrats sneered at Hayes 
 as an " obscure " man, and roundly denounced the extortion 
 practiced upon office-holders under Secretary Chandler's eye. 
 This chatter amounted to little. All signs pointed to a close 
 election. 
 
 So early as May, 1874, Mr. Morton of Indiana had pro 
 posed in the Senate an amendment to the Constitution making 
 the President eligible by the people directly. The proposal 
 was committed and, the next January, debated. Each State was 
 to have as many presidential as congressional districts. The 
 presidential candidate successful in any district would receive 
 therefrom one presidential vote, while two special presidential 
 votes would fall to the candidate receiving the greatest num 
 ber of district votes in the State. 
 
 In reviewing the need of some such change Morton 
 spoke like a prophet. " No State," he declared " has pro 
 vided any method of contesting the election of electors. 
 Though this election may be distinguished by fraud, notorious 
 
 fraud, by violence, by tumult, yet 
 
 there is no method of contesting 
 it." Again, c< It seems never to 
 have occurred to the members of 
 the Convention that there could 
 be two sets of electors ; it seems 
 never to have occurred to them 
 that there would be fraud and cor 
 ruption, or any reason why the 
 votes of electors should be set 
 aside. It is clearly a casus omissus, 
 a thing overlooked by the framers 
 of the Constitution." The subject 
 was, however, laid aside, and never 
 taken up again till the dangers 
 213 
 
 SAMUEL 7. TILDEN 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 which Morton had so faithfully foretold were actually shak 
 ing the pillars of our government. 
 
 Morton also sought to amend and render of service the 
 twenty-second joint rule, the substance of which was that in 
 counting the electoral votes no question should be decided 
 affirmatively and no vote objected to be counted, " except by 
 the concurrent votes of the two houses." This rule had been 
 passed in 1865, being meant to enable the radicals to reject 
 electoral votes from Mr. Lincoln's " ten per cent. States," 
 viz., those reconstructed on the presidential plan. Morton 
 proposed to modify this rule so that no vote could be rejected 
 save by concurrent vote of the two houses. A bill providing 
 for such change passed the Senate, six Republicans opposing. 
 It was never taken up in the House. Morton introduced 
 the bill again in the next Congress, only to see it killed by 
 delays. 
 
 The election of 1876 passed off quietly, troops being sta 
 tioned at the polls in turbulent quarters. " The result was 
 doubtful up to the day of election ; it was doubtful after the 
 election was over, and to this day the question, Was Tilden or 
 Hayes duly elected ? is an open one. The first reports re 
 ceived in New York were so decidedly in favor of the Demo 
 cratic ticket that the leading Republican journals admitted its 
 success." The Times alone stood out, persistently declaring 
 that Hayes was elected, which caused intense excitement among 
 the huge crowd gathered in the square fronting the Times office. 
 "1 DONT KNOW." The next day different reports were received, 
 and both sides claimed the victory. Hon. 
 Hugh McCulloch, a Republican, but emi 
 nently free from partisan bias, was of the 
 opinion at the time, and so long as he lived, 
 that if the distinguished Northern men who 
 1900! visited those States had stayed at home, and 
 
 u-Kiu* Notic* Po^d up there had been no outside pressure upon the 
 
 in Mississiffi During the , 
 
 EMU 1/7876 . returning boards, their certificates would 
 
 214 
 
THE CIPHER DESPATCHES 
 
 have been in favor of the Democratic electors. This opin 
 ion was confirmed by a remark of the President of the Union 
 Telegraph Company at the annual meeting of the Union 
 League Club of New York, in 1878. In a conversation with 
 that gentleman Mr. McCulloch happened to speak of the 
 election of Mr. Hayes, when he interrupted by saying: " c But 
 he was not elected/ c If he was not, the emanations of your 
 office failed to show it/ McCulloch replied. c Oh, yes,' he re 
 joined ; c but that was because the examiners did not know 
 where to look/ . . Mr. Tilden,' said a prominent Repub 
 lican, c was, I suppose, legally elected, but not fairly/ ' This 
 was doubtless the conclusion of a great many other Republi 
 cans, as well as of practically all the Democrats. 
 
 Pending the meeting of the State electoral colleges, some 
 of Tilden's warmest supporters undertook negotiations to se 
 cure for him one or more electoral votes from South Caro 
 lina or Florida. As their apologists put it, " they seem to 
 have feared that the corrupt canvassers would declare " those 
 States for Hayes, " and being convinced that the popular vote 
 had been cast for Tilden, to have been willing to submit to 
 the payment of moneys which they were informed some of 
 the canvassers demanded by way of blackmail." One Hardy 
 Solomon, pretending to represent the South Carolina Canvass 
 ing Board, went to Baltimore expecting to receive $60,000 or 
 $80,000 in this interest; but, upon applying to Mr. Tilden 
 for the sum, he was peremptorily refused. These negotiations 
 were authorized neither by Mr. Tilden, who, under oath, 
 denied all knowledge of them, nor by the Democratic National 
 Committee. The Republican members of the Clarkson inves 
 tigating committee thought them traceable to Tilden's secretary, 
 Colonel Pelton, with Smith M. Weed and Manton Marble ; 
 but the responsibility for them was never really fixed upon any 
 one. The despatches went back and forth in cipher. Under 
 a subpoena from the Senate Committee on Privileges and 
 Elections, the Western Union Telegraph Company delivered 
 
 215 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 them to that Committee, and on January 25, 1877, they were 
 locked in a trunk in its room. When this trunk was returned 
 to New York City on the following March ijth it was dis 
 covered that a large number of the cipher despatches had 
 been abstracted. Of those missing, some seven hundred 
 were, in May, 1878, in possession of G. E. Bullock, messen 
 ger of the committee last named. Part of these subsequently 
 found their way into the office of the New York tribune, 
 where they were translated and published, causing much ex 
 citement and comment. There is some evidence that Repub 
 lican cipher despatches no less compromising than these and 
 used for the same purpose, had been filched from the trunk 
 and destroyed. 
 
 Tilden carried New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and 
 Connecticut. With a solid South he had won the day. But 
 the returning boards of Louisiana, Florida, and South Caro 
 lina, throwing out the votes of several Democratic districts on 
 the ground of fraud or intimidation, decided that those States 
 had gone Republican, giving Hayes a majority of one in the 
 electoral college. The Democrats raised the cry of fraud. 
 Threats were muttered that Hayes would never be inaugurted. 
 Excitement thrilled the country. Grant strengthened the mili 
 tary force in and about Washington. However, the people 
 looked to Congress for a peaceful solution, and not in vain. 
 
 The Constitution provides that the " President of the 
 Senate shall, in presence of the Senate and House of Repre 
 sentatives, open all the (electoral) certificates, and the votes 
 shall then be counted." Attending to the most obvious 
 meaning of these words, a good many Republicans held that 
 the power to count the votes lay with the President of the 
 Senate, the House and Senate being mere spectators. The 
 Democrats objected to this construction, since, according to it, 
 Mr. Ferry, the Republican President of the Senate, could 
 count the votes of the disputed States for Hayes, and was 
 practically certain to do so. 
 
 216 
 
THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION 
 
 THE WESTERltt UMIOItf TELEGRAPH COMPACT. 
 
 ALL MESSAGES TAKEN BY THIS COMPA5Y SUBJECT TO THE FOLLOWING TERMS : 
 
 --^ y 
 
 JAS. GAMBLE, General Snp't, San Francisco. WILLIAM ORTON, PMrtdent. 
 
 Srf the foUowinff 3fesaffe^tityect to the Move terms, which are agreed tor 7 3 
 
 
 u I shall decide every point in the case of post-office elector in favor of the highest democratic 
 elector, and grant the certificate accordingly on morning of the 6th inst. Confidential." CON 
 GRESSIONAL RECORD. 
 
 One oftbt ''Cipher Despatches" sent During the Election Deadlock, -with Translation, at Put in Evi 
 dence Before the Congressional Committee 
 
 The twenty-second joint rule had, when passed, been 
 attacked as grossly unconstitutional. Republicans now ad 
 mitted that it was so, and the Senate, since the House was 
 Democratic, voted to rescind it. As it stood, electoral certi 
 ficates were liable to be thrown out on the most frivolous 
 objections, as that of Arkansas had once been, simply because 
 it bore the wrong seal. But now the Democrats insisted that 
 Congress should enforce this old rule. That done, the House, 
 rejecting the vote of one State, would elect Tilden. 
 
 Only a compromise could break the deadlock. A joint 
 committee reported the famous Electoral Commission Bill, 
 which passed House and Senate by large majorities. The 
 main faith in the plan was on the Democratic side. In a Sen 
 ate speech, February 2, 1881, Blaine spoke of the commis 
 sion as " a rickety makeshift." One hundred and eighty-six 
 Democrats voted for it and eighteen against, while the Re 
 publican vote stood fifty-two for, seventy-five against. With 
 regard to single returns the bill reversed the Rule of 1865, 
 suffering none to be rejected save by concurrent action of the 
 
 217 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 two houses. Double or multiple returns were, in cases of 
 dispute, to be referred to a commission of five Senators, five 
 Representatives, and five Justices of the United States Su 
 preme Court, the fifth justice being selected by the four 
 appointed in the bill. Previous to this choice the Commis 
 sion contained seven Democrats and seven Republicans. The 
 five Senators on the Commission were George F. Edmunds, 
 Oliver P. Morton, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Republicans ; 
 and Allan G. Thurman and Thomas F. Bayard, Democrats. 
 The members of the House were Henry B. Payne, Eppa 
 Hunton and Josiah G. Abbott, Democrats; and James A. 
 Garfield and George F. Hoar, Republicans. Four Justices 
 of the Supreme Court were designated in the Act by the cir 
 cuits to which they belonged. These were Nathan Clifford 
 and Stephen J. Field, Democrats, and William Strong and 
 Samuel F. Miller, Republicans. These four Justices were by 
 the Act to select the fifth. It was expected that the fifth 
 Justice would be Hon. David Davis, of Illinois, a neutral 
 with Democratic leanings, who had been a warm friend of 
 President Lincoln's but an opponent of Grant. Mr. Davis's 
 unexpected election as Senator from his State made Justice 
 Bradley the decisive umpire. 
 
 The Commission met on the last day of January, 1877. 
 The cases of Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina 
 were in succession submitted to it, eminent counsel appearing 
 for each side. There were double or multiple sets of returns 
 from each State named. Three returns from Florida were 
 passed in. One contained four votes for Hayes, certified by 
 the late Republican Governor, Stearns. One return gave four 
 votes for Tilden, bearing the certificate of the Attorney-Gen 
 eral, a member of the returning board. Third was the same 
 return reinforced with the certificate of the new Democratic 
 Governor, Drew, under a State law passed a few days before, 
 directing a re-canvass of the votes. Democratic counsel urged 
 that the first return should be rejected as the result of fraud 
 
 218 
 
THE FLORIDA CASE 
 
 RUTHERFORD B. H4TES 
 
 and conspiracy by the returning board, 
 whose action the State Supreme Court 
 had held to be ultra vires and illegal. 
 
 In Baker County, which was de 
 cisive of the result in Florida, the 
 canvassers were the county judge, the 
 county clerk, and a justice of the peace 
 to be called in by them. The judge 
 refusing to join the clerk in the can 
 vass, the latter summoned a justice 
 and with him made the canvass, which 
 all admitted to be a true one. The 
 same night the judge called in the 
 
 sheriff and another justice, and together they surrepti 
 tiously entered the clerk's office, lit it up, and took out the 
 returns from a drawer in his desk. There were only four pre 
 cincts in the county, and of the four returns from these, con 
 fessedly without the slightest evidence of fraud or intimidation, 
 they threw out two. The other two they certified. 
 
 The Republican counsel maintained that the issue was 
 not which set of Florida electors received an actual majority, 
 but which had received the legal sanction of State authority ; 
 in short, that the business of the Commission was not to go 
 behind the returns, which, they argued, would be physically, 
 legally and constitutionally impossible. This view the Com 
 mission espoused, which sufficed to decide not only the case 
 of Florida, but also that of Louisiana, whence came three sets 
 of certificates, and that of South Carolina, whence came two. 
 The first and third Louisiana returns were duplicates, signed 
 by Governor Kellogg, in favor of the Hayes electors. The 
 second was certified by McEnery, who claimed to be Gov 
 ernor, and was based not upon the return as made by 
 the board, but upon the popular vote. The return of 
 the Tilden electors in South Carolina was not certified. 
 They alleged that they had been counted out by the State 
 
 219 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Board in defiance of the State Supreme Court and of the 
 popular will. 
 
 In Oregon the Democratic Governor declared one of the 
 Hayes electors ineligible because an office-holder, giving a 
 certificate to Cronin, the highest Tilden elector, instead. The 
 other two Hayes electors refused to recognize Cronin, and, 
 associating with them the rejected Republican elector, pre 
 sented a certificate signed by the Secretary of State. Cronin, 
 as the Republican papers had it, " flocked all by himself," 
 appointed two new electors to act with him, and cast his vote 
 for Tilden, though his associates voted for Hayes. The Cro 
 nin certificate was signed by the Governor and attested by the 
 Secretary of State. 
 
 After deciding not to go behind any returns that were 
 formally lawful the Commission, by a strict party vote of 
 eight to seven, decided for the Hayes electors in every case. 
 Whether the result would have been different if Justice Davis 
 had been the fifth justice in the Commission is a question that 
 must always remain open. By no utterance of Mr. Davis was 
 there ever an indication of what his action would have been, 
 but he had a high opinion of Mr. Tilden, and his political 
 sympathies were known by his intimate friends to have been 
 on the side of the Democrats. The Commission adjourned 
 March id. The same day, " the counting of the votes having 
 been concluded, Senator William B. Allison, one of the tellers 
 on the part of the Senate, in the presence of both Houses of 
 Congress, announced, as a result of the footings, that Ruther 
 ford B. Hayes had received 185 votes for President, and 
 William A. Wheeler 185 votes for Vice-President ; and there 
 upon the presiding officer of the Convention of the two 
 Houses declared Rutherford B. Hayes to have been elected 
 President, and William A. Wheeler Vice-President of the 
 United States for four years from the 4th day of March, 
 1877." Hayes was inaugurated without disturbance. 
 
 For this outcome, owing to the determining position 
 
AN ELECTORAL COUNT ACT 
 
 which he held on the Commission, Mr. Justice Bradley was 
 made to bear wholly unmerited censure. The fault lay not in 
 him but elsewhere. Vicious State laws were to blame for giv 
 ing judicial powers to partisan returning boards, and for 
 otherwise opening the door to confusion and fraud ; but Con 
 gress was the worst sinner, failing to pass a law to forestall the 
 difficulty of rival certificates. 
 
 The Commission having decided, the whole country 
 heaved a sigh of relief; but all agreed that provision must 
 be made against such peril in the future. An Electoral Count 
 Bill was passed late in 1886, and signed by the President, 
 February 3, 1 887. ' It aimed to throw upon each State, so far as 
 possible, the responsibility of determining its own vote. The 
 President of the Senate opens the electoral certificates in the 
 presence of both houses, and hands them to tellers, two from 
 each House, who read them aloud and record the votes. If 
 there is no dispute touching the list of electors from a State, 
 such list, being certified in due form, is accepted as a matter of 
 course. In case of dispute, the procedure is somewhat com 
 plex, but quite thorough. It will be set forth with some de 
 tail in Chapter XIII. 
 
 221 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 HAYES AND THE CIVIL SERVICE 
 
 HAYES'S CHARACTER. HIS CABINET. END OF BAYONET RULEATTHE 
 
 SOUTH. THIS THE RESULT OF A " DEAL." "VISITING STATESMEN " 
 
 AT THE LOUISIANA COUNT. HAYES FAVORS HONESTY. HIS RECORD. 
 
 HAYES AND GARFIELD COMPARED. THE SPOILS SYSTEM. EARLY 
 
 PROTESTS. A CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION. ITS RULES. RETRO 
 GRESSION UNDER GRANT. JEWELL'S EXIT FROM THE CABINET. 
 HOAR'S. BUTLER'S "PULL" ON GRANT. COLLECTOR SIMMONS. 
 
 THE SANBORN CONTRACTS.- BRISTOW A REFORMER. THE WHISKEY 
 
 RING. MYRON COLONY'S WORK PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT. 
 
 "LET NO GUILTY MAN ESCAPE." REFORMERS OUSTED. GOOD 
 
 WORK BY THE PRESS. THE "PRESS-GAG." FIRST DEMOCRATIC 
 
 HOUSE SINCE THE WAR. HAYES RENEWS REFORM. OPPOSED BY 
 
 CONKLING. FIGHT OVER THE NEW YORK COLLECTORSHIP. THE 
 
 PRESIDENT FIRM AND VICTORIOUS. 
 
 PARTLY the mode of his accession to office and partly 
 the rage of selfish placemen who could no longer have 
 their way, made it fashionable for a time to speak of President 
 Hayes as a " weak man." This was an entire error. His admin 
 istration was in every way one of the most creditable in all 
 our history. He had a resolute will, irreproachable integrity, 
 and a comprehensive and remarkably healthy view of public 
 affairs. Moreover, he was free from that " last infirmity," the 
 consuming ambition which has snared so many able statesmen. 
 He voluntarily banished the alluring prospect of a second 
 term, and rose above all jealousy of his distinguished associ 
 ates. Never have our foreign affairs been more ably handled 
 than by his State Secretary. His Secretary of the Treasury tri 
 umphantly steered our bark into the safe harbor of resumption, 
 breakers roaring this side and that, near at hand. In his ap 
 pointments as well as his other official duties Hayes acted for 
 himself, with becoming independence even of his Cabinet. On 
 
 223 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 one occasion, as he was announcing certain appointments con 
 nected with the State Department, Secretary Evarts looked up 
 in surprise, evidently hearing the names for the first time. 
 " Mr. President," said he, with veiled irony, " I have never had 
 the good fortune to see the c great western reserve ' of Ohio, of 
 which we have heard so much." That Hayes was such men's 
 real and not their mere nominal chief, in naught dims their fame, 
 though heightening his. 
 
 True to his avowed principles, President Hayes had made 
 up his Cabinet of the ablest men, disregarding party so far as to 
 select for Postmaster-General a Democrat, David M. Key, of 
 Tennessee. William M. Evarts was Secretary of State ; 
 John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury ; Carl Schurz, Sec 
 retary of the Interior. The first important act of his admini 
 stration was to invite the rival Governors of South Carolina, 
 Hampton and Chamberlain, to a conference at Washington. 
 It will be remembered that when Chamberlain became Gover 
 nor his integrity awakened the hate of his old supporters, 
 while his former antagonists smothered him with embraces. 
 The hate was more enduring than the love. Good govern 
 ment was restored, but this was purely an executive reform, 
 which the vulgar majority ridiculed as a weakness. Race anti 
 pathy still rankled, for Governor 
 Chamberlain would not yield an inch 
 as a defender of the negro's political 
 and civil rights. The Democratic suc 
 cesses of 1874 in the country at large 
 inspired the South Carolina Demo 
 crats with the wildest zeal. Wade 
 Hampton, " the Murat of the Con 
 federacy," dashing, fervid, eloquent, 
 the Confederate veterans' idol, was 
 nominated for Governor. The party 
 which elected Chamberlain was forced 
 to re-nominate him. The pressure of 
 
 WADE HAMPTON 
 
 224 
 
CHAMBERLAIN AND HAMPTON 
 
 official patronage was used to this end, and it was known 
 that he alone among Republicans could preserve the State 
 from a reign of terror. 
 
 The whites rallied to Hampton with delirious enthu 
 siasm. "South Carolina for South Carolinians !" was their cry. 
 White rifle clubs were organized in many localities, but the 
 Governor disbanded them 'as unsafe and called in United 
 States troops to preserve order. In the white counties the 
 negroes were cowed, but elsewhere they displayed fanatical 
 activity. If the white could shoot, the black could set fire to 
 property. Thus crime and race hostility increased once more 
 to an appalling extent. The Hamburg massacre, where help 
 less negro prisoners were murdered, was offset by the Charles 
 ton riot, where black savages shot or beat every white man 
 who appeared on the streets. The course of events in Loui 
 siana had been similar, though marked by less violence. 
 Nichols was the Democratic aspirant, and S. B. Packard the 
 Republican. Both were in earnest, and, if federal forces 
 were to be kept in use as a Southern police, the conflict bade 
 fair to last forever. But this was not to be. Even President 
 Grant had now changed his view of the Southern situation, 
 stating frankly " that he did not believe public opinion would 
 longer support the maintenance of State governments in 
 Louisiana by the use of the military, and that he must concur 
 in this manifest feeling." 
 
 President Hayes withdrew federal support from the 
 South Carolina and Louisiana governments, and they at once 
 fell. Many Republicans fiercely criticised this policy. Some 
 said that by failing to support the governments based upon 
 the canvass of the very returning boards that gave him the 
 electoral delegations in the two States named, he impeached 
 his own title. This was untrue. With regard to State offi 
 cers, the judicial powers of the returning boards were clearly 
 usurpations, contrary to the State constitutions, while, as to 
 federal officers, such as electors, the power of the boards to 
 
 225 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 modify or reject returns was independent of 
 the State constitutions, yet not forbidden by 
 any federal law. .. 
 
 As the old Cincinnati Commercial once 
 expressed it, Hayes was " good, but not 
 goody-good." He was no mere idealist, 
 no doctrinaire, but a practical though honor 
 able man of affairs. The new "deal" in 
 FRANCIS r. NICHOLS the g^^ was probably due to an under 
 standing arrived at before the electoral count, and shared by 
 the President-elect, though F. H. Wines and others among 
 Hayes's warmest friends denied that he was privy to it. In the 
 Charleston News and Courier under date of June 20, 1893, 
 Hon. D. H. Chamberlain showed that, while the proceeding 
 was not necessarily corrupt, and was probably the part of good 
 politics and even of statesmanship, Hayes was certainly party 
 to a "bargain," agreeing to remove troops from South Carolina 
 in case he was permitted to be seated. Chamberlain said : 
 "While Hayes did not expressly promise to remove the troops, 
 he did by speech or by failing to speak give sufficient assur 
 ance to the 'shrewd, long-headed men ' with whom he was deal 
 ing to warrant them in supporting his claim to the Presidency 
 on so tremendous an issue to the South." " Hayes's friends 
 assembled, met the ( shrewd, long-headed men ' of the South, 
 negotiated, winked and nodded, and finally gave the express 
 promise which the South demanded. Hayes knew it all. He 
 did not contradict his friends. He accepted his seat, secured 
 to him by the attitude of the South. He removed the troops. 
 Here was a bargain in all its elements." 
 
 Unless this understanding may be considered such, Mr. 
 Hayes had no part in any of the devices by which he was placed 
 in the presidential chair. When Senator Edmunds introduced 
 the Electoral Commission Bill, Hayes viewed it with no favor. 
 He did not regard the Commission as constitutional, but 
 considered. the duty of Congress in reference to counting the 
 
HAYES DEPRECATES FRAUD 
 
 electoral ballots to be purely ministerial. The same as to post 
 election proceedings in the South. The prominent Republi 
 cans who visited New Orleans to witness the canvass of the 
 Louisiana presidential vote did so solely at the instance of 
 President Grant. From Ohio went John Sherman, Stanley 
 Matthews, J. A. Garfield and Job E. Stevenson. From Iowa 
 went J. M. Tuttle, J. W. Chapman, W. R. Smith and W. A. 
 McGrew ; from Illinois, C. B. Farwell, Abner Taylor, S. R. 
 Haven and J. M. Beardsley ; from New York, E. W. Stough- 
 ton and J. H. Van Alen ; from Indiana, John Coburn and 
 Will Cumback ; from Pennsylvania, William D. Kelley ; from 
 Kansas, Sidney Clarke ; from Maryland, C. Irving Ditty ; from 
 Maine, Eugene Hale. 
 
 Not only had Governor Hayes nothing to do with the 
 origination of this ambassage, but when it was in function he 
 urged that it should be guilty of no abuse. From Columbus, 
 O., November 27, 1876, he wrote: "A fair election would 
 have given us about forty electoral votes at the South at 
 least that many. But we are not to allow our friends to de 
 feat one outrage and fraud by another. There must be noth 
 ing crooked on our part. Let Mr. Tilden have the place 
 by violence, intimidation and fraud, rather than undertake to 
 prevent it by means that will not bear the severest scrutiny." 
 Even had Mr. Hayes wished fraud it is hard to see how, under 
 the circumstances, he could have procured 
 or induced such; for watchers for the 
 Democratic party were also at the count : 
 from Indiana, J. E. McDonald, George 
 W. Julian, M. D. Manson and John 
 Love; from Illinois, John M. Palmer, 
 Lyman Trumbull and William R. Mor 
 rison ; from Pennsylvania, Samuel J. Ran 
 dall, A. G. Curtin and William Bigler ; 
 
 from Kentucky, Henry Watterson, J. S.B.PACKARD 
 
 W. Stevenson and Henry D. McHenry ; 
 
 227 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 from Wisconsin, J. R. Doolittle and George B. Smith ; from 
 Ohio, J. B. Stallo and P. H. Watson; from New York, 
 Oswald Ottendorfer and F. R. Coudert ; from Missouri, Louis 
 V. Bogy, James O. Brodhead and C. Gibson ; from Mary 
 land, John Lee Carroll and William T. Hamilton; from Con 
 necticut, Professor W. G. Sumner. Upon invitation of the 
 Returning Board, five of the Democratic "visitors," as well 
 as a like number of the Republicans, attended the several 
 sessions of the Board to watch. The proceedings were thrice 
 reported, once for the Board itself and once for each body of 
 the Northern guests. The evidence taken and the acts per 
 formed were published by Congress. Senator Sherman felt 
 " bound, after a long lapse of time, to repeat what was reported 
 to General Grant by the Republican visitors, that the Return 
 ing Board in Louisiana made a fair, honest and impartial re 
 turn of the result of the election." Sherman wrote Hayes at 
 the time : " That you would have received, at a fair election, a 
 large majority in Louisiana, no honest man can question ; that 
 you did not receive a majority is equally clear."* Some pre 
 tended to think that if Hayes had the slightest doubt touching 
 the legitimacy of any proceedings resorted to for the purpose 
 of seating him he ought not to have accepted the presidency. 
 Such failed to bear in mind that the country was then at a 
 crisis, and that Mr. Hayes's refusal of the presidency would 
 in all probability have resulted in anarchy and war. His 
 acceptance, under the circumstances, was therefore clearly his 
 duty, whatever he thought of antecedent procedure. 
 
 Mr. Sherman believed " that the nomination of Hayes 
 was not only the safest, but the strongest that could be made. 
 The long possession of power by the Republicans naturally 
 produced rivalries that greatly affected the election of any one 
 who had been constantly prominent in public life, like Blaine, 
 Conkling and Morton. Hayes had growing qualities, and in 
 every respect was worthy of the high position of President. He 
 
 *John Sherman's Recollections, p. 557. 
 
HAYES'S RECORD 
 
 cy 
 
 t^ h fk*, h*<^<~ SJivu <*/ 
 
 had been a soldier, 
 a member of Con 
 gress, thrice elected 
 as Governor of Ohio, 
 an admirable execu 
 tive officer, and his 
 public and private 
 record was beyond 
 question. He was 
 not an aggressive 
 man, although firm 
 in his opinions and 
 faithful in his friend 
 ships. Among all 
 the public men with 
 whom I have been 
 brought in contact, 
 I have known none 
 who was freer from 
 personal objection, 
 whose character was 
 more stainless, who 
 was better adapted 
 for a high executive 
 office." 
 
 " There was a 
 striking contrast be 
 tween the personal 
 qualities of Garfield 
 and Hayes. Hayes 
 was a modest man, 
 but a very able one. 
 He had none of 
 
 An Incident of the State Election of 7876 in South Carolina, when tllC brilliant quall- 
 
 both Hampton and Chamberlain claimed to have been elected / i 
 
 Governor. ties of his successor, 
 
 229 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 but his judgment was always sound, and his opinion, when 
 once formed, was stable and consistent. . . During his 
 entire term, our official and personal relations were not only 
 cordial, but as close and intimate as those of brothers could 
 be. I never took an important step in the process of 
 resumption and refunding . . without consulting him. . . 
 Early in his administration we formed the habit of taking 
 long drives on each Sunday afternoon in the environs of 
 Washington. He was a regular attendant with Mrs. Hayes, 
 every Sunday morning, at the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 of which she was a member. This duty being done, we felt 
 justified in seeking the seclusion of the country for long 
 talks about current measures and policy."* 
 
 Mr. Hayes came to the presidency at a very critical time. 
 The financial situation of the country, the still unsettled state 
 of affairs at the South, faction, rebellion, and greed for official 
 spoils within his own party, called upon the new Chief Magis 
 trate for skill and resolution such as few men in his place 
 could have supplied. Mr. Hayes responded nobly and suc 
 cessfully. He triumphed in a task which ablest and purest 
 political leaders have always found so hard : he repressed cor 
 ruption in his own party. Under President Hayes the syste 
 matic prostitution of our public offices for partisan and private 
 purposes was, if not definitively ended, so discouraged that it 
 has never since recovered its old shamelessness. In this those 
 years form an epoch in the Nation's history. 
 
 Ever since the days of President Jackson, in 1829, 
 appointments to the minor federal offices had been used for 
 the payment of party debts and to keep up partisan interest. 
 Though this practice had incurred the deep condemnation of 
 Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and all the best men in public life, it 
 did not cease, but prevailed more and more. So early as 
 1853 pass examinations had been made prerequisite to enter 
 ing the civil service, but the regulation had amounted to 
 
 *John Sherman's Recollections, pp. 550, 551, 807. 
 230 
 
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 
 
 nothing. President Lincoln once inquired where he could get 
 the small-pox. "For," said he, "then I should have something 
 I could give to everybody." The honor of being the first to 
 make a systematic endeavor against the spoils abuse belongs 
 to the Hon. Thomas A. Jenckes, a representative in Congress 
 from Rhode Island between March, 1863, and March, 1871. 
 Beginning in 1865, Mr. Jenckes, so long as he continued in 
 Congress, annually introduced in the House a bill " to regu 
 late the civil service of the United States." Early in 1866 
 Senator B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, also undertook to get 
 the " spoils system " superseded by the " merit system." No 
 success attended these efforts. 
 
 In 1870-1871 reform in the civil service almost became 
 an issue. It was one of the three cardinal principles of the 
 Liberal Republicans, was an item in the " New Departure " 
 made by the Democrats that year, received compliments, more 
 or less sincere, from politicians of all stripes, and in 1872 was 
 recognized for the first time in all the party platforms. On 
 March 3, 1871, an act was passed authorizing the President, 
 through a commission to be appointed by himself, to ascer 
 tain " the fitness of candidates as to age, health, character, 
 knowledge and ability, by examination," and to prescribe reg 
 ulations for the conduct of appointees. The President that 
 year appointed a commission, George William Curtis its chair 
 man. On December i9th he sent a message to Congress, 
 transmitting the report of the commissioners, together with 
 the rules submitted by them in relation to the appointment, 
 promotion and conduct of persons filling the offices covered 
 by the law. 
 
 These rules provided that each applicant should furnish 
 evidence as to his character, health and age, and should pass a 
 satisfactory examination in speaking, reading and writing the 
 English language. Positions were to be grouped and graded 
 according to the nature of the work, admission to the civil 
 service always introducing the candidate to the lowest group. 
 
 231 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Public competitive examinations were to be instituted, and a 
 list of examinees made up and kept on record, with the order 
 of their excellence. Each appointment was to be made from 
 the three leading eligibles. Admission to a group above the 
 lowest could be had only by one of three candidates from the 
 next lower grade who stood highest in a competitive exami 
 nation. An applicant for a place of trust where another 
 officer was responsible for his fidelity could not be appointed 
 without the approval of such officer; and postmasterships 
 yielding less than two hundred dollars a year were not placed 
 under the rule. With some exceptions, notably of postmas 
 ters and consuls, appointments were to be probationary for a 
 term of six months. Best of all the regulations presented 
 was the following : " No head of a department or any subor 
 dinate officer of the Government shall, as such officer, author 
 ize or assist in levying any assessment of money for political 
 purposes, under the form of voluntary contributions or other 
 wise, upon any person employed under his control, nor shall 
 any such person pay any money so assessed." Higher offi 
 cials and some others were, however, excepted from the oper 
 ation of this rule. 
 
 President Grant reported that the new methods " had 
 given persons of superior capacity to the service " ; yet Con 
 gress, always niggardly in its appropriations for the Commis 
 sion's work, in 1875 ma de no appropriation at all, so that the 
 rules were perforce suspended. Ardor for spoils was not the 
 sole cause of this. Many friends of reform thought the new 
 system, as it had been begun, too stiff and bookish, too little 
 practical ; nor could such a view be declared wholly mistaken. 
 Intelligent labor-leaders, it was found, usually opposed the re 
 form in that shape, as it would exclude .themselves and all but 
 the most favored of their children from public office. 
 
 Unfortunately, the President cared as little as Congress 
 for a pure civil service. This was everywhere apparent. It 
 cannot be ignored that Grant's second administration was 
 
 232 
 

 
GRANT'S SECOND TERM 
 
 BENJAMIN F. BUTLER 
 
 shamefully weak and corrupt. 
 " The very obstinacy of temper 
 which made him so formidable 
 in the field, now, when combined 
 with the self-confidence bred by 
 his re-election and the flattery of 
 his adherents, not only made him 
 impervious to public opinion but 
 made all criticism of him seem 
 an act of insolent hostility, to be 
 punished or defied." Charles 
 Francis Adams quoted it as the 
 opinion of a Republican, he 
 thought Evarts, during Grant's 
 second four years, that " the 
 Republican party was like an 
 army the term of enlistment of which had expired." It was a 
 happy simile. Straggling was common, complaints were 
 numerous, and mutiny had begun. Summary, worse than 
 military methods of appointment and dismissal were employed. 
 In respect to the manner of Jewell's resignation, the story 
 went believed to be on the authority of Vice-President 
 Wilson that Grant and Jewell were alone together, talking 
 over matters, when, without any previous suggestion of the 
 subject, the President said : "Jewell, how do you suppose your 
 resignation would look written out ? " Thinking or affecting 
 to think the question a joke of Grant's, Jewell said he would 
 write it and see. " All right," said Grant, " you just take some 
 paper and write it down and see how it looks." Jewell 
 wrote and handed the paper to Grant. The President eyed it a 
 moment and then remarked : " That looks well. I will accept 
 that." He was in earnest, and on July n, 1876, Jewell was 
 out of the Cabinet. Verisimilitude is lent this account by the 
 known abruptness with which Judge Hoar was ejected from 
 the office of Attorney-General. He was sitting in his room, 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 bent upon the business of his office, absolutely without a hint 
 of what was coming, when a messenger entered with a letter 
 from Grant. It contained the naked statement that the 
 President found himself under the necessity of asking for Mr. 
 Hoar's resignation. " No explanation of any kind was given, 
 nor reason assigned. The request was as curt and as direct as 
 possible. A thunderclap could not have been more startling." 
 
 Benjamin F. Butler obtained great power with Grant, 
 which immensely aided him in " capturing " the Massachu 
 setts governorship. Patronage was liberally accorded him. 
 "In every town and village a circle was formed round the 
 postmaster, the collector, or some other government officer, 
 who was moved by the hope of personal gain. Not a man 
 who wished for place or had a job on hand but added to their 
 numbers." Foiled at two elections, Butler was not in the 
 least daunted, but spurred to renewed exertion, sure that the 
 powers at Washington would deny him nothing. At last 
 " Mr. Simmons, who, in a subordinate position, had particu 
 larly distinguished himself in the management of the last can 
 vass, was promoted by the President to the Collectors hip of 
 Boston, in the hope that the most important national office in 
 New England might offer a fitting sphere of action for his 
 peculiar abilities." Even a Republican Convention had re 
 buked this man for his unendurable officiousness as a political 
 boss. Harpers Weekly for March 21, 1874, said: "No re 
 cent political event is comparable in the excitement it has 
 caused to the appointment of the Boston Collector. The 
 situation every day forces upon the most unwavering Repub 
 licans the question, When will it be necessary for our honor 
 as men and patriots to oppose the party ? " 
 
 In 1874 public wrath was aroused by the exposure of the 
 " Sanborn Contracts," made in 1872, between the Hon. Wil 
 liam A. Richardson, then Acting Secretary of the Treasury, 
 subsequently promoted to Mr. Boutwell's seat in the Cabinet, 
 and Mr. John D. Sanborn, giving Sanborn the right to collect 
 
 z 3 6 
 
BRISTOW IN THE TREASURY 
 
 for the Treasury, " share and share alike," taxes which were 
 already collected by regular officers of the Government. Such 
 officers were not only directed not to interfere with Mr. San- 
 born, but bidden to co-operate with him. By March, 1874, 
 less than two years, this profitable arrangement had paid San- 
 born over $200,000. Morally indefensible as it was, it seems 
 to have been legal. The House Committee of Ways and 
 Means examined into the case. Unable, on the evidence 
 adduced, exactly to fix the responsibility of making the con 
 tracts, the committee could not " in justice to itself ignore the 
 fact" that three persons, Richardson, Secretary of the Treas 
 ury, the Assistant Secretary, and the Solicitor of the Treasury, 
 " deserved severe condemnation for the manner in which they 
 permitted this law to be administered." The committee, 
 however, found no fact on which to base a belief that any of 
 these officers had acted from wrong motives. It recommended 
 repealing the law and the annulment of all contracts made under 
 it. Mr. Richardson's resignation was soon after reluctantly 
 accepted by the President, and his nomination to the Court of 
 Claims confirmed with equal reluctance by the Senate. Hon. 
 B. H. Bristow, of Kentucky, succeeded him in the Treasury. 
 
 The new Secretary at once bent his attention to reorgan 
 izing and improving the customs and internal revenue service. 
 His fearless removals and searching investigations soon stirred 
 the venomous hostility of various corrupt cliques which 
 had been basking on the sunny side of the Treasury. 
 There were the instigators of the Safe-Burglary frauds, of 
 the Seal- Lock frauds, and of the Subsidy frauds, besides jeal 
 ous, chagrined and corrupt officials ; but most formidable of all, 
 and in a sense, at the head of all, was the Whiskey Ring. It 
 was patent from statistics that the United States had, by 1874, 
 in St. Louis alone, lost at least $1,200,000 of the revenue 
 which it should have received from whiskey, yet special agents 
 of the Treasury set to work from time to time had failed to do 
 more than cause an occasional flurry among the thieves. The 
 
 237 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 ORFILLE E. BIBCOCK 
 
 guilty parties were somehow always 
 effectively forewarned and forearmed 
 against any effort to punish or identify 
 them. The Ring seemed to have eyes, 
 ears and hands in every room of the 
 Internal Revenue Department, in the 
 Secretary's office, and even in the Ex 
 ecutive Mansion. 
 
 The Whiskey Ring was organized 
 in St. Louis, when the Liberal Repub 
 licans there achieved their first success. 
 It occurred to certain politicians to 
 have the revenue officers raise a cam 
 paign fund among the distillers. This idea the officers 
 modified later, raising money in the same way for themselves, 
 and in return conniving at the grossest thievery. As it be 
 came necessary to hide the frauds, newspapers and higher offi 
 cials were hushed, till the Ring assumed national dimensions. 
 Its headquarters were at St. Louis, but it had branches at 
 Milwaukee, Chicago, Peoria, Cincinnati, and New Orleans. 
 It had an agent at Washington. A huge corruption fund was 
 distributed among gaugers, storekeepers, collectors, and other 
 officials, according to a fixed schedule of prices. Subordinate 
 officers were not merely tempted to become parties, but were 
 even obliged to do so on penalty of losing their places. Honest 
 distillers and rectifiers were hounded with false accusations and 
 caught in technical frauds, till their choice seemed to lie be 
 tween ruin and alliance with the Ring. One or two inquirers 
 peculiarly persistent were assaulted and left for dead. They 
 besought the Government for speedy relief, threatening, unless 
 it was granted them, to expose the corrupt intimacy between 
 the Internal Revenue Bureau and the Ring. So potent had the 
 organization grown that the politicians persuaded Grant, " for 
 the party's sake," to countermand, though he had at first ap 
 proved, Bristow's order directing a general transfer of super- 
 
MYRON COLONY'S WORK 
 
 visors, as such transfer would have thrown the thieves* ma 
 chine out of adjustment. 
 
 At length, upon the recommendation of Mr. George 
 Fishback, editor of the St. Louis Democrat, the reform Secre 
 tary appointed Mr. Myron Colony, of St. Louis, a special 
 agent to unearth the frauds, with the co-operation of Bluford 
 Wilson, the Solicitor of the Treasury. One of the conditions 
 upon which Mr. Colony accepted his grave and difficult 
 charge was that of perfect secrecy. The first plan was to 
 ascertain by means of detectives the amount of grain carted 
 into the distilleries, with the amount of whiskey shipped to 
 rectifying-houses or elsewhere, and to establish the fact of ille 
 gal nocturnal distillation for the law allowed but one distilla 
 tion every seventy-two hours. This effort the guilty parties 
 discovered and opposed, midnight combats taking place be 
 tween the burly detectives and ruffians hired to fight them. 
 That line of attack was finally abandoned, but not till val 
 uable evidence had been secured. 
 
 The next move was as follows : Under pretext of gather 
 ing commercial statistics, a work which, as financial editor of 
 the Democrat and as Secretary of the St. Louis Board of 
 Trade, Mr. Colony had often done, and could, of course, do 
 without suspicion, he obtained, at landings and freight depots, 
 copies of bills of lading that showed all the shipments of sta 
 ple articles, including whiskey, to or from St. Louis, Chicago, 
 and Milwaukee. The record gave the names of the shippers 
 and the consignees, the number of gallons and the serial num 
 ber never duplicated of the revenue stamps on each and 
 every package. The discrepancies between these way-bills 
 and the official records furnished to the Internal Revenue Office 
 showed conclusively the extent of the frauds and the identity of 
 the culprits. From July i, 1874, to May i, 1875, no ^ ess tnan 
 $1,650,000 had been diverted from the government till. 
 
 The illicit distillers lay quite still while the toils were 
 woven around them. They were aware of the Secretary's 
 
 239 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 enmity and cordially reciprocated it, but their suspicions had 
 been lulled by his first retreat. Moreover, they felt that news 
 of any proposed investigation would be sure to reach them 
 from their official correspondents. They were not prepared 
 for an investigation conducted in the main by private citizens, 
 and kept secret from the Department, which was in more inti 
 mate alliance with them than with its own chief or with the 
 people whom he was serving. When little remained but to 
 unmask the batteries, a vague sense of uneasiness began to 
 express itself in Congressional and other queries at the Inter 
 nal Revenue Office which was as blissfully ignorant as the 
 Ring itself and later at the White House, where it was learned 
 that investigation was indeed on foot. The investigators, too, 
 were startled, after they had fixed Monday, May loth, as the 
 date for the coup, by learning of a telegram to St. Louis run 
 ning, " Lightning will strike Monday ! Warn your friends in 
 the country ! " It turned out that this telegram was from a 
 gentleman who had been informed of the purpose to strike on 
 that day, and had communicated it to a distilling firm in St. 
 Louis hostile to the Ring. 
 
 Its torpid writhings availed the monster naught. Equally 
 vain the pious preparations at once made against a mere 
 raid. The traps set with secrecy and patience were sprung 
 simultaneously in St. Louis, Chicago and Milwaukee. Rec 
 ords seized justified numerous arrests in nearly every leading 
 city. Indictments were found against one hundred and fifty- 
 two liquor men and other private parties, and against eighty-six 
 Government officials, among them the chief clerk in the Treas 
 ury Department, and President Grant's Private Secretary, Gen 
 eral O. E. Babcock. On the back of a letter from St. Louis, 
 making a charge or suggestion against Babcock, Grant had in 
 dorsed, " Let no guilty man escape." Five or six times in the 
 progress of the case he said: " If Babcock is guilty there is no 
 man who wants him proven guilty as I do, for it is the greatest 
 piece of trajtorism to me that a man could possibly practise." 
 
 24.0 
 
THE REFORMERS OUT 
 
 Still, Babcock's prosecutors complained that efforts were 
 made to transfer the case to a military court, to deprive them 
 of papers incriminating the Private Secretary, and to prevent 
 important testimony being given by informers on promise of 
 immunity. All the prominent defendants were convicted save 
 Babcock, but three of them were pardoned six months later. 
 After his acquittal Babcock was dismissed by the President. 
 
 In the spring of 1876 the dauntless Secretary Bristow as 
 saulted the California Whiskey Ring, but here at last he was 
 foiled. When the temperature rose to an uncomfortable de 
 gree a Senator demanded, and in spite of the Secretary se 
 cured, the removal of the more active government prosecutors 
 in that section. The retirement of Secretary Bristow followed 
 soon after. With him went Solicitor Wilson, Commissioner 
 Pratt, Mr. Yaryan, chief of revenue agents, and District- 
 Attorney Dyer. The Treasurer and the First and Fifth 
 Auditors of the Treasury also resigned. The whole course 
 of proceedings was embarrassed by misunderstandings with the 
 President, who was misled into the belief that his own ruin 
 and that of his family was sought by the investigators, 
 especially by Bristow, who, it was whispered, had designs upon 
 the Presidency. The President broke from these maligners 
 
 more than once, but there was enough 
 in the press, in the popular applause 
 with which the prosecution was hailed, 
 and in the conduct of the trials, to 
 renew his suspicions, to hinder the 
 prosecution of the St. Louis Ring, 
 and finally to unseat the anti-machine 
 Secretary himself. This officer's re 
 tirement occurred not quite a month 
 before that of Postmaster -General 
 Jewell. 
 
 Great credit was due to the press 
 for its assistance in discovering and 
 
 A. B. CORNELL 
 
 241 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 exposing the whiskey frauds. Notwithstanding exaggerations 
 and errors here and there, laying faults at wrong doors, 
 its work was praiseworthy in the extreme. As the New 
 York 'Times had exposed the " Tweed Ring," so to the St. 
 Louis newspaper men was due, in large part, the glory of 
 bringing to light the whiskey iniquity. As in so many other 
 instances, the press proved the terror of unclean politicians 
 and the reliance of the people. In those times and in the 
 course of such complicated investigations, it was inevitable that 
 libels should occur and do harm. Naturally, and perhaps jus 
 tifiably, Congress undertook to remedy this ill by amending 
 the law of libel. The debate over the measure was in great 
 part composed of philippics against " the licentious news 
 paper." The licentious newspaper retorted in the teeth of 
 the law, which was christened the " Press-Gag Law." The 
 enactment, too much resembling the old "Sedition Law," was 
 universally unpopular, contributing not a little to the Demo 
 cratic victories of 1874. Judge Poland, of Vermont, the chief 
 sponsor for it, was defeated in this election. As a further 
 consequence of it, in the Forty-fourth Congress, first session, 
 meeting in 1875, tne National House of Representatives, for 
 the first time since the Civil War, had a Democratic majority. 
 It was seventy strong, and elected Hon. Michael C. Kerr 
 Speaker. 
 
 These paragraphs perhaps afford the reader sufficient 
 insight into the condition of Republican politics when Mr. 
 Hayes became President ; they indicate the strength of the 
 evil tide which he so resolutely set himself to turn. Even 
 from a party point of view the plunder system of party politics 
 had failed to justify itself. Yet, while his efforts for reform were 
 endorsed by thousands of the rank and file Hayes found him 
 self strenuously opposed by a large and powerful Republican 
 faction. As the head and front of this, championing all that 
 Grant had stood for, his sins of omission and his sins of 
 commission- alike, towered Senator Roscoe Conkling, of New 
 
 242 
 
HAYES AND THE NEW YORK CUSTOM-HOUSE 
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 York, one of the most formidable per 
 sonal leaders in the grand old party 
 Though knowing of this gentleman's 
 sure and potent antagonism, the Presi 
 dent did not hesitate, but early and 
 firmly took the bull by the horns. 
 
 He touched the danger-line in 
 removing Chester A. Arthur from the 
 office of Collector of the Port of New 
 York, A. B. Cornell from that of Naval 
 Officer, and George H. Sharpe from 
 that of Surveyor. Over two-thirds of 
 the nation's customs revenue was received at that port, and its 
 administration could not but be important. Numerous com 
 plaints having been made concerning affairs and methods at 
 the port, a Commission was appointed in April, 1877, to make 
 an examination. Its first report, dwelling on the evils of 
 appointments for political reasons without due regard to effi 
 ciency, was rendered May 24th, and it recommended consid 
 erably sweeping changes. President Hayes concurred in these 
 recommendations. He wrote Secretary Sherman : " It is my 
 wish that the collection of the revenues should be free from 
 partisan control, and organized on a strictly business basis, with 
 the same guarantees 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 in 
 fluence in appointments than other equally respectable citizens. 
 No assessments for political purposes on officers or subordi 
 nates should be allowed. No useless officer or employe 
 should be retained. No officer should be required or per 
 mitted to take part in the management of political organiza 
 tions, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns. Their 
 right to vote, and to express their views on public questions, 
 either orally or through the press, is not denied, provided it- 
 does not interfere with the discharge of their official duties." 
 
 243 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Five more reports were made, exhibiting in all their 
 gravity the evils then prevalent in the business of the port. 
 Twenty per cent, of the persons employed needed to be 
 dropped. Ignorance, inefficiency, neglect of duty, dishonesty, 
 inebriety, bribery, and various other forms of improper con 
 duct were all common. At first there was no thought of re 
 moving Arthur or Cornell, but they were seen to be so bound 
 up with the unbusiness-like system that they must fall with it. 
 The Commissioners " found that for many years past the 
 view had obtained with some political leaders that the friends 
 of the Administration in power had a right to control the cus 
 toms appointments; and this view, which seemed to have been 
 acquiesced in by successive administrations, had of late been 
 recognized to what the commission deemed an undue extent 
 by the chief officer of the service. These gentlemen, on the 
 ground that they were compelled to surrender to personal and 
 partisan dictation, appeared to have assumed that they were 
 relieved, in part at least, from the responsibilities that belonged 
 to the appointing power." The Administration became con 
 vinced " that new officers would be more likely to make the 
 radical reforms required," that in order to accomplish any 
 thorough reform of the Government's business methods at the 
 New York port, the Collector, the Naval Officer and the 
 Surveyor must either resign or be removed. On September 
 6, 1877, Secretary Sherman wrote his Assistant Secretary: 
 
 " After a very full consideration and a very kindly one, 
 the President, with the cordial assent of his Cabinet, came to 
 the conclusion that the public interests demanded a change in 
 the three leading offices in New York, and a public announce 
 ment of that character was authorized. I am quite sure that 
 this will, on the whole, be considered to be a wise result. 
 The manner of making the changes and the persons to be 
 appointed will be a subject of careful and full consideration, 
 but it is better to know that it is determined upon and ended. 
 This made .it unnecessary to consider the telegrams in regard. 
 
 244 
 
ARTHUR, CORNELL, AND SHARPE REMOVED 
 
 JUSTIN S. MORRILL 
 of Vermont 
 
 to Mr. Cornell. It is probable that 
 no special point would have been 
 made upon his holding his position 
 as Chairman of the State Committee 
 for a limited time, but even that was 
 not the thing, the real question being 
 that, whether he resigned or not, it 
 was better that he and Arthur and 
 Sharpe should all give way to new 
 men, to try definitely a new policy in 
 the conduct of the New York Cus 
 tom-house. I have no doubt, unless 
 these gentlemen should make it im 
 possible by their conduct hereafter, that they will be treated 
 with the utmost consideration, and, for one, I have no hesita 
 tion in saying that I hope General Arthur will be recognized 
 in a most complimentary way." 
 
 A great fight was now on. Arthur was offered the 
 eligible post of Consul-General at Paris, thought likely to be 
 highly agreeable to him, but he declined it. None of the 
 officials would resign. On the contrary, pushed by Senator 
 Conkling, all three preferred to make an issue against the pro 
 posed reform. On October 24, 1877, the President nomi 
 nated for Collector Theodore Roosevelt, for Surveyor Edward 
 A. Merritt, and for Naval Officer L. B. Prince. Five days 
 later the Senate rejected them. Conkling was in high feather. 
 On December 6th, during the following session, the three 
 were again nominated, but only the last, ten days later, 
 confirmed. "No doubt," said Sherman, "the Democratic 
 majority in the Senate might defend themselves with political 
 reasons, but the motive of Mr. Conkling was hostility to 
 President Hayes and his inborn desire to domineer." After 
 the session closed, in 1878, the President temporarily placed 
 Edwin A. Merritt in the office of Collector, and Silas W. 
 Burt in that of Naval Officer. With the opening of the next 
 
 245 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Senate it became necessary to submit the nominations to that 
 body for confirmation. The Secretary of the Treasury, so 
 interested in the case that he had determined to resign should 
 the Senate reject again, wrote Senator Allison : 
 
 " I would not bother you with this personal matter, but 
 that I feel the deepest interest in the confirmation of General 
 Merritt, which I know will be beneficial to us as a party, and 
 still more so to the public service. Personally I have the 
 deepest interest in it because I have been unjustly assailed in 
 regard to it in the most offensive manner. I feel free to 
 appeal to you and Windom, representing as you do Western 
 States, and being old friends and acquaintances, to take into 
 consideration this personal aspect of the case. If the restora 
 tion of Arthur is insisted upon, the whole liberal element will 
 be against us and it will lose us tens of thousands of votes 
 without doing a particle of good. No man could be a more 
 earnest Republican than I, and I feel this political loss as 
 much as anyone can. It will be a personal reproach to me, 
 and merely to gratify the insane hate of Conkling, who in this 
 respect disregards the express wishes of the Republican mem 
 bers from New York, of the great body of Republicans, and 
 as I personally know, runs in antagonism to his nearest and 
 best friends in the Senate." 
 
 To Senator Justin S. Morrill Sherman wrote a much 
 longer letter, giving reasons in detail in favor of confirming 
 the new men, and containing specific charges of neglect of 
 duty on the part of Arthur and Cornell. After seven hours 
 of struggle in the Senate Conkling was decisively defeated, 
 Merritt being confirmed 33 to 24, and Burt 31 to 19. Four- 
 fifths of the Democrats and two-fifths of the Republicans 
 voted for confirmation. 
 
 While temper over this controversy was at its hottest 
 George William Curtis supported in the New York State 
 Republican Convention a resolution commending Hayes's 
 Administration, and especially his course with regard to the 
 
 246 
 
HAYES AND HIS PARTY 
 
 civil service. This aroused Conkling to make a fierce personal 
 attack upon Curtis. Curtis wrote : " It was the saddest sight 
 I ever knew, that man glaring at me in a fury of hate and 
 storming out his foolish blackguardism. It was all pity. I 
 had not thought him great, but I had not suspected how small 
 he was. His friends, the best, were confounded. One of 
 them said to me next day, c It was not amazement that I felt, 
 but consternation/ Conkling's speech was carefully written 
 out, and therefore you do not get all the venom, and no one 
 can imagine the Mephistophelian leer and spite." 
 
 After all, strange as it may seem, Hayes's bold independ 
 ence did not seriously divide his party. Few stalwarts dared 
 call him a traitor. Democratic opposition fortified him against 
 this. The House, Democratic throughout his term, fought 
 nearly all his wishes, as did the Senate, now also Democratic, 
 during his last two years. To balk him, appropriation bills 
 were laden with riders involving legislation which he could not 
 approve, but he firmly applied the veto. The futile attempt 
 to "right" the alleged "fraud of 1877" by ripping up the 
 Electoral Commission's work, kept Hayes before the country 
 as the Republicans' man, incidentally doing much to adver 
 tise his sterling character. Refreshing decency marked all of 
 Mr. Hayes's public doings. The men placed in office by him 
 were as a rule the best available, chosen with the least possible 
 regard to political influence, and, like all others in the civil 
 service, they were required to abstain from active participation 
 in political affairs. This policy enraged politicians, but, by 
 immensely relieving the party from the odium into which it 
 had fallen, aided to put it in condition for the campaign of 
 1880. 
 
 247 
 
CHAPTER X 
 "THE UNITED STATES WILL PAY" 
 
 BACK TO HARD MONEY. ACT TO STRENGTHEN THE PUBLIC CREDIT. 
 
 DIFFICULTY OF CONTRACTION. IGNORANCE OF FINANCE. DEBT 
 ORS PINCHED. THE PANIC OF 1873. CAUSES. FAILURE OF JAY 
 
 COOKE & CO., AND OF FISKE & HATCH. BLACK FRIDAY NO. 2. ON 
 
 CHANGE AND ON THE STREET. BULLS, BEARS AND BANKS. CRITI 
 CISM OF SECRETARY RICHARDSON. FIRST USE OF CLEARING-HOUSE 
 
 CERTIFICATES. EFFECTS AND DURATION OF THE PANIC. AN IMPOR 
 TANT GOOD RESULT. RESUMPTION AND POLITICS. THE RESUMP 
 TION ACT. SHERMAN'S QUALIFICATIONS FOR EXECUTING IT. HIS 
 
 FIRMNESS. RESUMPTION ACTUALLY BEGUN. MAGNITUDE AND 
 
 MEANING OF THIS POLICY. OUR BONDED DEBT RAPIDLY REDUCED. 
 
 LEGAL TENDER QUESTIONS AND DECISIONS. JUILLIARD VS. GREEN- 
 MAN. THE "FIAT-GREENBACK' 1 HERESY. " DOLLAR OF THE FATH 
 ERS " DEMONETIZED. NOT BY FRAUD BUT WITHOUT DUE REFLEC 
 TION. THE BLAND BILL AND THE "ALLISON TIP." THE AMENDED 
 
 BILL VETOED, BUT PASSED. SUBSEQUENT SILVER LEGISLATION. 
 
 THE most momentous single deed of Mr. Hayes's 
 Administration was the restoration of the country's 
 finances, public and private, to a hard-money basis. On Jan 
 uary i, 1879, the United States began again the payment, sus 
 pended for more than sixteen years, of specie in liquidation of 
 its greenback promises. The familiar legend upon our Treas 
 ury notes, " The United States will pay," became true at last. 
 Our paper dollar had begun to sink below par so early as De 
 cember 28, 1 86 1, after which date it underwent the most pain 
 ful fluctuations. On July n, 1864, it was sixty-five per cent, 
 below par, thenceforward sinking and rising fitfully, but never 
 reaching gold value again till the month of December, 1 878. 
 
 The difficulties of replacing the country's business on a 
 solid monetary platform had been foreseen as soon as the sub 
 ject loomed into view. Senator Sherman, upon whom finally 
 fell the main burden of carrying the operation through, wrote 
 
 249 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 in 1868 : " I am in real embarrassment about questions that I 
 must now act upon. My conviction is that specie payments 
 must be resumed, and I have my own theories as to the mode 
 of resumption, but the process is a very hard one and will en 
 danger the popularity of any man or administration that is 
 compelled to adopt it." 
 
 The very first act of the Forty-first Congress was one 
 entitled " An Act to strengthen the public credit." Intro 
 duced in the House by General Schenck on March 12, 1869, it 
 there passed on that day, reaching the Senate on the I5th, 
 where also it speedily passed. On the I9th this memorable 
 bill became law. It ran : 
 
 " That, in order to remove any doubt as to the purpose 
 of the Government to discharge all just obligations to the pub 
 lic creditors, and to settle conflicting questions and interpreta 
 tions of the laws by virtue of which said obligations have been 
 contracted, it is hereby provided and declared that the faith of 
 the United States is solemnly pledged to the payment in coin, 
 or its equivalent, of all obligations of the United States not 
 bearing interest, known as United States notes, and of all 
 interest-bearing obligations of the United States, except in 
 cases where the law authorizing the issue of such obligations 
 has expressly provided that the same may be paid in lawful 
 money or other currency than gold or silver. . . And the 
 United States also solemnly pledges its faith to make provis 
 ion, at the earliest practicable period, for the redemption of 
 the United States notes in coin." 
 
 However necessary to final prosperity, the contraction of 
 our currency was a sore process, and it encountered at every 
 stage the most bitter opposition. The war left us, as it found 
 us, with painfully little grasp on the principles of money. 
 Men of one type felt that low or falling prices, however 
 caused, meant prosperity; another class attached this meaning 
 to high prices, however caused. Few reflected enough to see 
 that great and solid prosperity may attend rising prices, as 
 
 250 
 
G. F. Edmunds 
 0. P. Morton 
 
 John Shermat 
 
 B. Allison 
 
 John A, Logan 
 
 . tf. Ferry 
 Roscie Conkling 
 
 F. r. Frelinghuyien 
 
 Painted by IT. R, Leig 
 r. 0. Howe 
 
 G. S. Boutwell 
 
 A. A. Sargent 
 
 THE REPUBLICAN CAUCUS COMMITTEE WHICH FORMULATED THE RESUMPTION ACT 
 
 IN DECEMBER, 1874 
 
ANTI-CONTRACTION 
 
 between 1850 and 1870, or that, on the other hand, prices may 
 be going down and yet greater and greater effort be required 
 to obtain the necessaries of life. The generally conceded de 
 sirableness of replacing business upon a precious-metal basis, 
 whatever hardship in lowered values this might cost those 
 whose property consisted of goods or lands and not of money, 
 misled many, even after the gold platform was reached, to hail 
 each drop in general prices with hallelujahs. Eastern people 
 and the creditor class elsewhere were usually in this frame of 
 mind. 
 
 Far different felt those, so numerous throughout the 
 West, who had run in debt when rank inflation was on, and 
 who, tied to their mortgaged farms, were compelled to produce 
 against a constantly falling market. They writhed under the 
 pinch, and more or less correctly understood the philosophy of 
 it. A Montgomery County, Pa., farmer once went into a store 
 in Norristown and bought a suit of clothes. The storekeeper 
 said : " That is the cheapest suit of clothes you ever bought." 
 " Oh, no," said the farmer, " this suit cost me twenty bush 
 els of wheat. I have never paid over fifteen bushels of wheat 
 for a suit of clothes before." 
 
 The panic of 1873, so far as it resulted from contraction, had 
 its main origin abroad, not in America, so that its subordinate 
 causes were generally looked upon as its sole occasion ; yet 
 these bye causes were important. The shocking destruction 
 of wealth by fires and by reckless speculation, of course had a 
 baneful effect. During 1872 the balance of trade was strongly 
 against the United States. The circulation of depreciated 
 paper money had brought to many an apparent prosperity 
 which was not real, leading to the free creation of debts by in 
 dividuals, corporations, towns, cities and States. An unpre 
 cedented mileage of railways had been constructed. Much 
 supposed wealth consisted in the bonds of these railroads and 
 of other new concerns, like mining and manufacturing corpo 
 rations. Thus the entire business of the country was on a 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 basis of inflation, and when contraction carne disaster was in 
 evitable. 
 
 In the course of the summer solid values began to be 
 hoarded and interest rates consequently to rise. In August 
 there was a partial corner in gold, broken by a government 
 sale of $6,000,000. In September panic came, with suspen 
 sion of several large banking-houses in New York. Jay Cooke 
 & Co., who had invested heavily in the construction of the 
 Northern Pacific Railway, suspended on September i8th. 
 When authoritative news of this event was made known in the 
 Stock Exchange a perfect stampede of the brokers ensued. 
 They surged out of the Exchange, tumbling pell-mell over 
 each other in the general confusion, hastening to notify their 
 respective houses. Next day, September I9th, Fiske & 
 Hatch, very conservative people, went down. 
 
 September 1 9th was a second Black Friday. Never since 
 the original Black Friday had the street and the Stock Ex 
 change been so frantic. The weather, dark and rainy, seemed 
 to sympathize with the gloom which clouded the financial situ 
 ation. Wall, Broad and Nassau Streets were thronged with 
 people. From the corner of Wall Street and Broadway down 
 to the corner of Hanover Street a solid mass of men filled 
 both sidewalks. From the Post-office along Nassau Street 
 down Broad Street to Exchange Place another dense throng 
 moved slowly, aimlessly, hither and thither. Sections of 
 Broadway itself were packed. Weaving in and out like the 
 shuttles in a loom were brokers and brokers' clerks making 
 the best speed they could from point to point. All faces wore 
 a bewildered and foreboding look. To help them seem cool, 
 moneyed men talked about the weather, but their incoherent 
 words and nervous motions betrayed their anxiety. The part 
 of Wall Street at the corner of Broad Street held a specially 
 interested mass of men. They seemed like an assemblage anx 
 iously awaiting the appearance of a great spectacle. High up 
 on the stone balustrade of the Sub-Treasury were numerous 
 
 254 
 
Painted by Howard Pyle 
 THE RUSH FROM THE NEW TORK STOCK EXCHANGE ON SEPTEMBER 18, I&73 
 
SECOND BLACK FRIDAY 
 
 spectators, umbrellas sheltering them from the pelting rain as 
 they gazed with rapt attention on the scene below. All the 
 brokers' offices were filled. In each, at the first click of the 
 indicator, everybody present was breathless, showing an inter 
 est more and more intense as the figures telegraphed were read 
 off. 
 
 It was half-past ten in the morning when the Fiske & 
 Hatch failure was announced in the Stock Exchange. For a 
 moment there was silence ; then a hoarse murmur broke out 
 from bulls and bears alike, followed by yells and cries inde 
 scribable, clearly audible on the street. Even the heartless 
 bear, in glee over the havoc he was making, paused to utter a 
 growl of sorrow that gentlemen so honorable should become 
 ursine prey. The news of the failure ran like a prairie fire, 
 spreading dismay that showed itself on all faces. Annotators 
 of values in the various offices made known in doleful ticks 
 the depreciation of stocks and securities. Old habitues of the 
 exchanges, each usually placid as a moonlit lake, were wrought 
 up till they acted like wild men. 
 
 At the corner of Broad Street and Exchange Place a de 
 lirious crowd of money-lenders and borrowers collected and 
 tried to fix a rate for loans. The matter hung in the balance 
 for some time until the extent of the panic became known. 
 Then they bid until the price of money touched one-half of 
 one per cent, a day and legal interest. One man, after lending 
 $30,000 at three-eighths per cent., said that he had $20,000 
 left, but that he thought he would not lend it. As he said 
 this, he turned toward his office, but was immediately sur 
 rounded by about twenty borrowers who hung on to his arms 
 and coat-tails till he had agreed to lend the $20,000. 
 
 The Stock Exchange witnessed the chief tragedy and the 
 chief farce of the day. Such tumult, push and bellowing had 
 never been known there even in the wildest moments of the 
 war. The interior of the Exchange was of noble altitude, with 
 a vaulting top, brilliantly colored in Renaissance design, that 
 
 257 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 sprang upward with a strength and grace seldom so happily 
 united. A cluster of gas-jets, hanging high, well illuminated 
 the enclosure. On the capacious floor, unobstructed by pillars 
 or by furniture, save one small table whereon a large basket of 
 flowers rested, a mob of brokers and brokers' clerks surged 
 back and forth, filling the immense space above with roars and 
 screams. The floor was portioned off to some twenty differ 
 ent groups. Here was one tossing " New York Central " up 
 and down ; near by another playing ball with " Wabash ; " 
 " Northwestern " jumped and sank as if afflicted with St. 
 Vitus's dance. In the middle of the floor " Rock Island " 
 cut up similar capers. In a remote corner " Pacific Mail " 
 was beaten with clubs, while " Harlem " rose like a balloon 
 filled with pure hydrogen. The uninitiated expected every 
 instant to see the mob fight. Jobbers squared off at each 
 other and screamed and yelled violently, flinging their arms 
 around and producing a scene which Bedlam itself could not 
 equal. 
 
 Behind the raised desk, in snowy shirt-front and necktie, 
 stood the President of the Exchange, his strong tenor voice 
 every now and then ringing out over the Babel of sounds be 
 neath. The gallery opposite him contained an eager throng 
 of spectators bending forward and craning their necks to view 
 the pandemonium on the floor. The rush for this gallery was 
 fearful, and apparently, but for the utmost effort of the police, 
 must have proved fatal to some. Excitement in Wall Street 
 not infrequently drew crowds to the main front of the Ex 
 change ; but hardly ever, if ever before, had the vicinity been 
 so packed as now. Two large blackboards exhibited in chalk 
 figures the incessantly fluctuating quotations. Telegraph wires 
 connected the Exchange with a thousand indicators through 
 out the city, whence the quotations, big with meaning to many, 
 were flashed over the land. 
 
 The first Black Friday was a bull Friday ; the second 
 was a bear Friday. Early in the panic powerful brokers began 
 
 258 
 
STOCK EXCHANGE CLOSED 
 
 to sell short, and they succeeded in hammering down from ten 
 to forty per cent, many of the finest stocks like " New York 
 Central," Erie/' " Wabash," Northwestern," "Rock Island" 
 and " Western Union." They then bought to cover their sales. 
 Bull brokers, unable to pay their contracts, shrieked for mar 
 gin money, which their principals would not or could not put 
 up. They also sought relief from the banks, but in vain. It 
 had long been the practice of certain banks, though contrary 
 to law, early each day to certify checks to enormous amounts 
 in favor of brokers who had not a cent on deposit to their 
 credit, the understanding in each case being that before three 
 o'clock the broker would hand in enough cash or securities to 
 cancel his debt. The banks now refused this accommodation. 
 In the Exchange, eighteen names were read offof brokers who 
 could not fulfill their contracts. As fast as the failures were 
 announced the news was carried out on to the street. In spite 
 of the rain hundreds of people gathered about the offices of 
 fallen reputation, and gazed curiously through the windows 
 trying to make out how the broken brokers were behaving. 
 Toward evening, as the clouds lifted over Trinity spire, show 
 ing a ruddy flush in the west, everybody, save some reluctant 
 bears, said, " The worst is over," and breathed a sigh of relief. 
 The crowd melted, one by one the tiny little Broadway coupes 
 rattled off, one by one the newsboys ceased shrieking, and 
 night closed over the wet street. 
 
 In deference to a general wish that dealings in stocks should 
 cease, the Exchange was shut on Saturday, September 2Oth, 
 and not opened again till the joth. Such closure had never 
 occurred before. On Sunday morning President Grant and 
 Secretary Richardson, of the Treasury, came to New York, 
 spending the day in anxious consultation with Vanderbilt, 
 Clews, and other prominent business men. 
 
 Had the Secretary of the Treasury acted promptly and 
 firmly he might have relieved the situation much ; but he 
 vacillated. Some $ 13, 500,000 in five-twenty bonds were 
 
 259 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 bought, and a few millions of the greenbacks which Secretary 
 McCulloch had called in for cancellation were set free. But 
 as Mr. Richardson announced no policy on which the public 
 could depend, most of the cash let loose was instantly hoarded 
 in vaults or used in the purchase of other bonds then tempo 
 rarily depressed, so doing nothing whatever to allay the dis 
 tress. On the 25th the Treasury ceased buying bonds. The 
 person who, at the worst, sustained the market and kept it 
 from breaking to a point where half of the street would have 
 been inevitably ruined, was Jay Gould, mischief itself on the 
 first Black Friday, but on this one a blessing. He bought 
 during the low prices several hundred thousand shares of rail 
 road stocks, principally of the Vanderbilt stripe, and in this 
 way put a check on the ruinous decline. 
 
 The national banks of New York weathered this cyclone 
 by a novel device of the Clearing-house or associated banks. 
 These pooled their cash and collaterals into a common fund, 
 placed this in the hands of a trusty committee, and issued 
 against it loan certificates that were receivable at the Clearing 
 house, just like cash, in payment of debit balances. Ten mil 
 lion dollars worth of these certificates was issued at first, a sum 
 subsequently doubled. This Clearing-house paper served its 
 purpose admirably. By October jd confidence was so restored 
 that $ i, 000,000 of it was called in and cancelled, followed next 
 day by $ 1,500,000 more. None of it was long outstanding. 
 The Clearing-house febrifuge was successfully applied also in 
 Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburg and other cities, but not in 
 Chicago. 
 
 The panic overspread the country. Credit in business 
 was refused, debtors were pressed for payment, securities were 
 rushed into the market and fell greatly in price. Even United 
 States bonds went down from five to ten per cent. There 
 was a run upon savings banks, many of which succumbed. 
 Manufactured goods were little salable, and the prices of agri 
 cultural products painfully sank. Factories began to run on 
 
 260 
 
B. H. Bristow, Kentucky, 
 June 2, 1874- June 21, 1876 
 
 L. M. Merrill, Maine, 
 June 21, i87b-March 8, 1877 
 
 W.A. Richardson, Massachuset 
 March 17, 1873- June 2, 1874 
 
 John Sherman, Ohio, 
 March 8, /877-March J, l88f 
 
 William Windom, Minnesota, C. J. Folger, New York, 
 
 March J, 1881- October 27, 1881 October 27, 1881- October 24, 1884 
 
 W. 3-Gresham, Indiana, Hugh McCulloch, Indiana, Daniel Manning, New York, 
 
 October 24", 1884- October 28, 1884 October 28, l884~Marcb 6, 1885 March b, 1885- April I, 1887 
 
 C. S. Fairchild, New York, 
 Afril i, i887-March J-, 75^9 
 
 Charles Foster, Ohio, James G. Carlisle, Kentucky, 
 
 February 24, fSpf-March b, 1893 March b, 1893- 
 
 THE SECRETARIES OF THE TREASURY DURING THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY* 
 *For G. S. Boutwell, March n, i869~March 17, i8yj, see page 35. 
 
RESUMPTION AND THE POLITICAL PARTIES 
 
 short time, many closed entirely, many corporations failed. 
 The peculiarity of this crisis was the slowness with which it 
 abated, though fortunately its acute phase was of brief dura 
 tion. No date could be set as its term, its evil effects dragging 
 on through years. 
 
 In convincing multitudes, as it did, of the imperative ne 
 cessity of replacing our national finances on a coin foundation, 
 this panic was worth all it cost. It was influential in uniting 
 the friends of sound finance and of national honesty upon the 
 resumption policy. Men saw that this policy, however hard 
 to enter upon, however disastrous in the execution, however 
 sure of terrible opposition at every step, must succeed, and 
 could not but bring lasting credit to the political party bold 
 enough to espouse and push it. At first the resumption plan 
 divided both parties ; but, little by little, the Republicans 
 came generally to favor it, the Democrats, some in one way 
 and some in another, to gainsay. 
 
 The policy and the details of resumption were hotly de 
 bated all through the presidential campaign of 1876. Many 
 opposed return to specie from ignorance of its meaning. Some 
 thought that after resumption no paper money of any kind 
 would be in circulation, or at least that all greenbacks would 
 be gone. Most, even of such as favored it, probably ex 
 pected that resumption would involve paying out by the Gov 
 ernment of almost unlimited sums in gold. Few, compara 
 tively, could see that it consisted merely in bringing United 
 States notes to gold par and keeping them there. Mr. Til- 
 den would assign this work to the domain of " practical admin 
 istrative statesmanship." Like all other Democrats, he urged 
 " a system of preparation " for resumption in place of the Re 
 publican Resumption Act. " A system of preparation without 
 the promise of a day, for the worthless promise of a day with 
 out a system of preparation would be the gain of the substance 
 of resumption in exchange for its shadow." In reply it was 
 maintained that " the way to resume was to resume." This 
 
 263 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 thought fortunately determined the policy of the country and 
 was justified by the event. 
 
 The Resumption Act, passed January 14, 1875, nac ^ set 
 a date for resumption four years ahead, January i ? 1879. 
 The first section provided for the immediate coinage of sub 
 sidiary silver to redeem the fractional currency. This was 
 practicable, as the now low gold price of that metal rendered 
 possible its circulation concurrently with greenbacks. The 
 master-clause of the act authorized the Secretary to buy "coin" 
 with any of his surplus revenues, and for the same purpose 
 " to issue, sell, and dispose of bonds of the United States." 
 It was fortunate for the country that Mr. Sherman, who, as 
 Senator, had drafted the measure, was, as Secretary of the 
 Treasury in the Hayes Cabinet, called to execute it. 
 
 Ever since 1859 his connection with the Committee of 
 Ways and Means in the House and with the Committee on 
 Finance in the Senate had brought him into close official rela 
 tions with the Treasury Department. This legislative train 
 ing gave him a full knowledge of the several laws that were to 
 be executed in relation to public revenue, to all forms of tax 
 ation, to coinage and currency and to the public debt. The 
 entire system of national finance then existing grew out of the 
 Civil War, and Mr. Sherman had participated in the passage 
 of all the laws relating to this subject. His intimate association 
 with Secretaries Chase, Fessenden, and McCulloch, and his 
 friendly relations with Secretaries Boutwell and Richardson, 
 led him, as Chairman of the Senate committee on finance, to 
 have free and confidential intercourse with them as to legisla 
 tion affecting the Treasury. Though a good lawyer and an 
 able man, Secretary Bristow had not had the benefit of exper 
 ience either in Congress or in the Department. He doubted 
 whether resumption would be effective without a gradual re 
 tirement of United States notes, a measure to which Congress 
 would not agree, repealing even the limited retirement of such 
 notes provided for by the resumption act. Secretary Morrill, 
 
 264 
 
SHERMAN AND RESUMPTION 
 
 Sherman's immediate predecessor, was in hearty sympathy 
 with the policy of resumption, but his failing health had kept 
 him from that efficiency as Secretary which he would otherwise 
 have displayed. For some time before the end of his term in 
 the Treasury, illness had confined him to his lodgings. The 
 Treasury Department was, however, well organized, most of 
 its chief officers having been long in service. But few changes 
 here were made under Hayes, and only as vacancies occurred 
 or incompetency was demonstrated.* 
 
 In resolutely preparing for Resumption, spite of cries that 
 it was impossible, or, if possible, certain to be ruinous and 
 deadly, Sherman, whom many had thought timid and vacillat 
 ing, evinced the utmost strength of will. The Democracy was 
 for the most part adverse to all effort for immediate resumption, 
 favoring, rather, an enlarged issue of Treasury notes. The 
 elections of 1877 and 1878, generally either Democratic or 
 Republican by lowered majorities, would have made many an 
 administration retreat or pause. Opposition to the party in 
 power was of course due in part to the wide belief that Hayes 
 had been jockeyed into the presidency, and in part to the 
 great railway strikes, where the President had promptly sup 
 pressed criminal disorder by the use of federal arms. Clearly, 
 however, very much of it arose from the Administration's 
 avowal that the resumption act " could be, ought to be, and 
 would be executed if not repealed." 
 
 In the advertising and placing of his loans, Mr. Sherman 
 showed himself a master in big finance. By the sale of four- 
 and-a-half per cent, bonds, callable in 1891, he had, before the 
 appointed day, accumulated an aggregate of $140,000,000 gold 
 coin and bullion, being forty per cent, of the then outstand 
 ing greenbacks. Partly owing to several abundant harvests, 
 throwing the balance of European trade in our favor and 
 crowding gold this way, resumption proved easier than any 
 anticipated. The greenbacks rose to par thirteen days before 
 
 *John Sherman's Recollections, pp. 565, 566. 
 265 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 TERN UHTIOItf TELEGRAPH COMPAIffY. 
 
 
 NORVTO fJREEN, 
 
 ~ READ THE NOTICE AND AGREEMENT AT THE TOP. 
 
 TAe Telegram Announcing the Result of the First Oafs ''Resumption " a/ *A New Tori 
 SttA-TVvajMr^ 
 
 the date fixed for beginning gold payments. Rumors were 
 rife of a conspiracy to " corner " gold, and to make a run on 
 the Sub-Treasury New Year's day, 1879, tne ^ a 7 f r beginning 
 resumption. On the joth of December, 1878, the president 
 of the National Bank of Commerce and chairman of the Clear 
 ing-house committee, begged for $ 5, 000,000 in gold in 
 exchange for a like amount of United States notes on the 
 following day, a proposition which was forthwith declined. 
 " The year closed with no unpleasant excitement, but with un 
 pleasant forebodings. The first day of January was Sunday 
 and no business was transacted. On Monday anxiety reigned 
 in the office of the Secretary. Hour after hour passed ; no 
 news came from New York. Inquiry by wire showed that all 
 was quiet. At the close of business came this message : 
 ' $135,000 of notes presented for coin $400,000 of gold for 
 notes/ That was all. Resumption was accomplished with no 
 disturbance. By five o'clock the news was all over the land, 
 and the New York bankers were sipping their tea in absolute 
 safety. The prediction of the Secretary had become history. 
 When gold could with certainty be obtained for notes, nobody 
 wanted it. .The experiment of maintaining a limited amount 
 
 266 
 
RESUMPTION BEGUN 
 
 of United States notes in circulation, based upon a reasonable 
 reserve in the Treasury pledged for that purpose, and sup 
 ported also by the credit of the Government, proved generally 
 satisfactory, and the exclusive use of these notes for circulation 
 may become, in time, the fixed financial policy of the Govern 
 ment."* 
 
 The straggling applications for coin made when resumption 
 day arrived were less in amount than was asked for in green 
 backs by bondholders, who could in any event have demanded 
 coin. During the entire year 1879 on \Y $ 11 A$6>536 m 
 greenbacks were offered for redemption, while over $250,000,- 
 ooo were paid out in coin obligations. It was found that 
 people preferred paper to metal money, and had no wish for 
 gold instead of notes when assured that the exchange could be 
 made at their option. Notwithstanding our acceptance of 
 greenbacks for customs $109,467,456 during 1879 the 
 Treasury at the end of that year experienced a dearth of these 
 and a plethora of coin, having actually to force debtors to re 
 ceive hard money. 
 
 The magnitude and meaning of the financial policy thus 
 launched can hardly be over-estimated. The Nation had piled 
 up a war debt amounting to the enormous sum of $2,844,649,- 
 626. This figure, the highest which the debt ever attained, 
 was reached in August, 1865. Many people at home and in 
 other countries thought that amounts so vast as were called 
 for could never possibly be paid. When we began borrow 
 ing, the London Economist declared it " utterly out of the 
 question for the Americans to obtain the extravagant sums 
 they asked," saying : " Europe wont lend them ; Americans 
 cannot." The Washington agent of the London bankers 
 through whom our Government did foreign business, after 
 the battle of Bull Run called at the Treasury on Sunday to 
 get his " little bill " settled, having the effrontery to ask the 
 acting Secretary, Mr. George Harrington, to give security 
 
 *J. K. Upton, in Scribner's Magazine, July, 1892. 
 267 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 that the balance, about $40,000, would be paid. Mr. Har 
 rington directed the anxious Englishman to wait, as the Gov 
 ernment would probably not break up before business hours 
 next day. The London 'Times declared : " No pressure that 
 ever threatened is equal to that which now hangs over the 
 United States, and it may safely be said that if in future gen 
 erations they faithfully meet their liabilities, they will fairly 
 earn a fame which will shine throughout the world." In 
 March, 1863, concluding an article on Secretary Chase's stu 
 pendous operations, the same newspaper exclaimed : " What 
 strength, what resources, what vitality, what energy there must 
 be in a nation that is able to ruin itself on a scale so tran 
 scendent ! "* 
 
 No nation ever took a braver course than did the United 
 States in deliberately beginning the reduction of that enormous 
 war debt. The will to reduce it opened the way, and the 
 payment went on by leaps and bounds. The policy was 
 to call in high-rate bonds as soon as callable, and replace 
 them by others bearing lower rates. So immense was the 
 Government's income that to have set so late a date as 1891 
 for the time when the four-and-a-halfs could be cancelled 
 proved unfortunate. To fix for the maturity of the fours so 
 remote a date as 1907 was worse still. The three-per-cents 
 of 1882, which supplanted earlier issues, were wisely made 
 payable at the Government's option. For the twenty-three 
 years beginning with August, 1865, the reduction proceeded 
 at an average rate of a little under $63,000,000 yearly, which 
 would be $5,250,000 each month, $175,000 each day, $7,291 
 each hour, and $121 each minute. 
 
 An act of Congress passed February 25, 1862, had au 
 thorized the issue of $150,000,000 in non-interest-bearing 
 Treasury notes. These notes had no precedent with us since 
 colonial times. Neither receivable for duties nor payable for 
 interest on the public debt, they were yet legal tender for all 
 
 *Shuckers, Life of S. P. Chase, pp. 225, 226. 
 268 
 
CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE GREENBACK 
 
 ELBRIDGE G. SPAULDING* 
 
 other payments, public and private. 
 As the Government paid its own 
 debts with them they amounted to a 
 forced loan. 
 
 The legal-tender clause of the 
 1862 law roused bitterest antago 
 nism. The press ridiculed it, in 
 some cases being refused the use of 
 the mails for that reason. " The 
 financial fabric of the Union totters 
 to its base," said a leading journal. 
 Secretary Chase himself, the father of 
 the greenback, afterward, as Chief-Justice, pronounced the law 
 unconstitutional. This was his judgment from the first, and he 
 overrode it, after painful deliberation, only because such a 
 course seemed absolutely necessary to save the nation. Mr. 
 Lincoln is said to have aided his Secretary at this crisis by 
 the parable of the captain who, his ship aleak, worse and 
 worse in spite of his prayers to the Virgin, threw her image 
 overboard, and, having successfully made port and docked his 
 vessel for repairs, found the image neatly filling the hole where 
 the water had come in. Both deemed it patriotic to make jetsam 
 of the Constitution if thereby they might bring safe into port 
 the leaky ship of state, in danger of being engulfed in the mad 
 ocean of civil war. 
 
 Thus the issue of legal-tenders began under the pressure 
 of urgent necessity. From first to last $450,000,000 of this 
 paper had been voted, whereof, on January 3, 1864, $449>~ 
 338,902 was outstanding. Specie payments were suspended 
 two days before the introduction of the legal-tender act. Gold 
 went to a premium while that act was under discussion, remain 
 ing so till just before resumption, January i, 1879. Even the 
 subsidiary silver coinage disappeared, and Congress was obliged 
 to issue fractional paper currency, " shin-plasters," in its stead. 
 
 *One of the chief promoters of the Legal Tender Act 
 269 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Several constitutional questions were connected with the 
 greenback. In Hepburn vs. Griswold (8 Wall., 603) the 
 Court held, four* Justices against three, that, while the act of 
 February 25, 1862, might, as a war measure, be valid, making 
 greenbacks legal tender for debts contracted after its passage, 
 yet, so far as its provisions related to pre-existing debts, it was 
 inconsistent with the Constitution, not being a " necessary " 
 or " proper "means to any end therein authorized. In Parker 
 vs. Davis (12 Wall., 457), the personnel of the Court having 
 been changed by the resignation of Justice Grier and the 
 appointment of Justices Bradley and Strong, though Chase, 
 Clifford, and Field strenuously maintained their former views, 
 the Hepburn vs. Griswold decision was reversed. That case, 
 the Court now said, " was decided by a divided Court," hav 
 ing fewer Judges " than the law then in existence provided 
 that this Court shall have. These cases have been heard 
 before a full Court, and they have received our most careful 
 consideration." Justice Bradley, whom in the judgment of 
 Senator Hoar, cc the general voice of the profession and of his 
 brethren of the bench would place at the head of all then living 
 American jurists," concurred with the majority in a separate 
 opinion of his own, at once elaborate and emphatic. In the 
 famous case of Juilliard vs. Greenman (i 10 U. S. Reports, 421) 
 a third question was tried out, namely, whether Congress has 
 the constitutional power to make United States Treasury notes 
 legal tender for private debts in peace as well as in war. The 
 decision was again in favor of the greenback, Field being the 
 only Justice to register dissent. 
 
 Though this was the first decision of the question arrived 
 at by strictly legal reasoning, it evoked much hostile criti 
 cism. The Financial Chronicle said : " All reliance upon 
 constitutional inhibition to do anything with the currency 
 which Congress may have a whim to do must be aban- 
 
 *Or five if Grier be counted. He agreed with the majority, but resigned before the 
 opinion was announced. 
 
 270 
 
JUILLIARD VS. GREENMAN 
 
 doned henceforth and forever." The historian Bancroft 
 vented a formidable brochure, richer in learning than in law, 
 entitled " The Constitution Wounded in the House of its 
 Friends." The Court's logic, however, was not easily contro 
 verted. It closely followed John Marshall's reasoning in 
 McCulloch vs. Maryland.* An enactment by Congress the 
 Supreme Court presumes to be constitutional unless it is cer 
 tainly unconstitutional. If there is doubt upon the point 
 there is no doubt. Congress is right. The authority " to emit 
 bills of credit " as legal tender was not expressly delegated to 
 the Federal Government, but it may well claim place in the 
 goodly family of " implied powers," apparently being implied 
 by its prohibition to the States, or involved in the power to 
 borrow money, or in that to regulate commerce. Again, if 
 Congress could pass such a law to meet an exigency, as held in 
 Parker vs. Davis, Congress must be left to determine when 
 the exigency exists. The intention of the Fathers to inhibit 
 bills of credit cannot be conclusively shown. Even if it were 
 certain it would be inconclusive; the question being not what 
 they intended to do, but what they actually did in framing and 
 ratifying the Constitution. 
 
 The wisdom of the legal tender law is a different ques 
 tion, but, like the other, should not be pronounced upon with 
 out reflection. It was easy to condemn it after the event. 
 No doubt, had conditions favored, more might have been 
 done, saving millions of debt and half the other financial evils 
 of war, to keep the dollar at gold par, as by not compelling 
 gold payment of the seven-thirty bonds, by heavier tax levies, 
 by earlier resort to large loans, even at high rates, instead of 
 emitting legal-tenders, and also by forcing national banks, cre 
 ated on purpose to help market bonds, to purchase new ones 
 directly from the Government. Yet, under the circumstances, 
 such defects in our policy early in the war could hardly have 
 been avoided, so uncertain were national spirit and credit then, 
 
 *4 Wheaton, p. 421. 
 273 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 and so little were the magnitude and duration of the war fore 
 seen. When the old demand notes were issued, more than 
 one professedly loyal railroad corporation refused them in 
 payment of fares and freight. Hotels were shy of them. A 
 leading New York bank refused to receive them save as a 
 special deposit, though these notes, being receivable for cus 
 toms, like coin, went to a premium along with gold. One 
 depositor in the bank just referred to found on withdrawing 
 his deposit that his notes as reckoned in legal tender* had 
 advanced in value nearly or quite one hundred and fifty per 
 cent. People being so shy of the demand notes, what wonder 
 that the greenbacks, which bore no interest, were long in ill 
 repute. 
 
 The Nation's resolute purpose to reduce its debt changed 
 this. When equal to gold, greenbacks were glorified, and all 
 thoughts of retiring them gave way. In 1865 Secretary Mc- 
 Culloch had boldly recommended the calling in of greenback 
 notes in preparation for the restoration of specie. The people 
 were then willing to submit to this. The act of March 12, 
 1866, authorized the cancellation of $ 1 0,000,000 or less within 
 six months, and thereafter of $4,000,000 or less each month. 
 By this method the amount was by the end of 1867 cut down 
 to $356,000,000, but the act of February 4, 1868, forbade any 
 further decrease. Between March 17, 1872, and January 15, 
 1874, the amount was raised some $25,000,000, but a bill 
 passed in 1874, known as the "inflation bill," still further to 
 increase it, was vetoed by President Grant. June 20, 1874, 
 the maximum greenback circulation was placed at $382,000,- 
 ooo, which the operation of the Resumption Act in 1875 
 brought down to $346,681,000, letting the gap be filled by 
 national bank notes. All further retirement or cancellation of 
 legal-tenders was forbidden by the act approved May 31, 1878, 
 which provided, in part, that " it shall not be lawful . . to 
 cancel or retire any more of the United States legal-tender 
 
 *Shuckers, Life of S. P. Chase, p. 225. 
 274 
 
THE "FIAT-GREENBACK" THEORY 
 
 notes. And when . . redeemed or received into the Treasury 
 . . they shall be reissued and paid out again and kept in cir 
 culation." Secretary Sherman recommended the passage of 
 this law, as he believed that the retirement of greenbacks 
 pending the preparation for resumption, by reducing the 
 volume of the currency, increased the difficulties of resump 
 tion. 
 
 This popularity of the greenbacks stimulated to fresh 
 life the "fiat-greenback" theory, whose pith lay in the pro 
 position that money requires in its material na- labor-cost 
 value, its purchasing power coming from the decree of the 
 public authority issuing it, so that paper money put forth by 
 a financially responsible government, though involving no 
 promise whatever, will be the peer of gold. People who 
 held this view opposed all resumption, proximate or remote, 
 wishing to print United States dollar notes each bearing the 
 legend " This is a Dollar," and notes of other denominations 
 similarly, not allowing any of them to promise payment or to 
 have any other relation whatever to coin. This idea was long 
 very influential throughout States so conservative as Illinois, 
 Indiana, and Ohio, where, in several campaigns, the able stump 
 addresses of men like Garfield, Schurz, and Stanley Matthews 
 laid it pretty well to rest. It was, however, the rallying thought 
 of the National Labor Greenback Party, organized at Indian 
 apolis, May 17, 1876, when it nominated Peter Cooper for the 
 Presidency. On the very day that resumption went into effect 
 a Greenbacker Convention in New England declared it the 
 paramount issue of their party to substitue greenbacks for na 
 tional bank notes. 
 
 The old silver dollar, " the Dollar of the Fathers," had 
 never ceased to be full legal tender until 1873, although it 
 had since 1853 been, as compared with the gold dollar, too 
 valuable to circulate much. In 1873 a law was unobservedly 
 passed demonetizing it, and making gold the exclusive form 
 of United States full-tender hard money. 
 
 275 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 RICHARD P. BLAND 
 
 That legislation of such impor 
 tance should have passed without 
 general debate, either in Congress 
 or by the public, was unfortunate ; 
 but, contrary to a very prevalent view, 
 there is no evidence that a single 
 Congressional vote for it was se 
 cured by fraud. Little silver had 
 been coined by the United States 
 since 1834. The monetary problem 
 of 1873 was not that of subsequent 
 years. Then, simplicity of monetary 
 system was considered the great de 
 sideratum, whereas, with discussion, 
 authorities came to agree that ade 
 quacy in volume is the most important 
 trait in a hard-money system. In 
 1873 gold had been for twenty years 
 pouring out of the earth in immense 
 sums, rendering not unnatural the 
 expectation that it alone, without 
 silver, would soon suffice for the 
 world's hard-money stock. Such 
 was then the judgment of the leaders 
 of public opinion in all lands. It was the view of the Paris 
 Conference in 1867, which recommended the general demone 
 tization of silver a recommendation extremely influential in 
 determining to a gold policy the German Empire, whose 
 course toward silver in 1873 was identical with ours. 
 
 European opinion on the subject was known and concurred 
 in here. At intervals ever since 1 8 1 6 representative Americans 
 had suggested that we should adopt Great Britain's metallic 
 money system. In his report of November 29, 1851, the 
 Director of our Mint declared the " main features " of that 
 system " eminently worthy of adoption into the monetary 
 
 276 
 
 WILLIAM B. ALLISON 
 
RASHNESS OF DEMONETIZING SILVER 
 
 policy of our own country." Hon. Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, 
 then Secretary of the Treasury, whom no one will charge with 
 obsequiousness to England or to the Money Power at home, 
 in his Report of January 6, 1852, seconded the recommenda 
 tion of the Director of the Mint, carefully setting forth the 
 argument for adopting it. To the Act of 1 873 the Senators 
 from Oregon, California, and Nevada unanimously agreed. 
 At the 1867 Paris Conference the United States was (by del 
 egates) present as a gold country, Mr. Seward, then Secretary 
 of State, being responsible for this, though no one protested. 
 Inspired by such example and by the recommendation of the 
 Conference, the Secretary of our Treasury, in 1870, drafted 
 the bill discontinuing the silver dollar, which passed the Senate 
 early in 1871 and became a law in 1873. 
 
 But, while one must thus discredit the allegation of fraud 
 and of sinister motive in this legislation, it nevertheless seems 
 clear that the silver people and the entire country had a griev 
 ance in connection with it. <c No man in a position of trust 
 has a right to allow a measure of such importance to pass with 
 out calling attention sharply to it, and making sure that its 
 bearings are fully comprehended. And no man who did not 
 know that the demonetization of silver by the United States 
 was a measure of transcendent importance had any right to be 
 on such a committee or to put his hand to a bill which touched 
 the coinage of a great country. Everyone knows that but 
 few members upon the floor of Congress read the text of one 
 in twenty of the bills they have to pass upon ; and it is the 
 duty of the committees dealing with any class of subjects to 
 see to it that every proposed change is fully explained, and that 
 the attention of the House and of the country is fairly called 
 to it. They are not discharged of their obligations simply by 
 giving members an opportunity to find it out for themselves. 
 If this be a requirement of ordinary political honesty, much 
 more is it the dictate of political prudence. An important 
 change in the money or in the industrial system of a nation, 
 
 ^ 77 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 if effected without full and free and thorough discussion, even 
 though no surprise or concealment be used, is almost certain 
 to be subsequently challenged. c Things,' says Bacon, ' will 
 have their first or second agitation : If they be not tossed upon 
 the waves of counsel, they will be tossed upon the waves of 
 fortune, and be full of inconstancy, doing and undoing, like 
 the reeling of a drunken man/ The unwisdom of a few peo 
 ple assuming to be wise for the whole of a great people, was 
 never more conspicuously shown than in the demonetization 
 of the silver dollar." * 
 
 An increased value attaching to gold was soon apparent, 
 or, what is the same thing, a general fall in prices. This be 
 gan so soon as silver full money had been laid aside, silver 
 falling in gold price almost exactly as products at large fell. 
 In view of this movement, since all Government bonds out 
 standing in 1873 were payable in "coin," it was a nearly 
 universal belief in most sections of the country that the 
 annulment of the right to pay debts in silver would, if per 
 sisted in, be very unjust to taxpayers in liquidating the na 
 tional debt. The Bland Bill was therefore brought forward, 
 and in 1878 passed, restoring silver again to its ancient legal 
 equality with gold as debt-paying money. A clause of it read: 
 " Any owner of silver bullion may deposit the same at any 
 coinage mint or assay office to be coined into dollars, for his 
 benefit, upon the same terms and conditions as gold bullion is 
 deposited for coinage under existing laws." In the act as 
 finally passed, however, so great was now the disparity in 
 value between gold and silver at the ratio of 16 to i, Con 
 gress did not venture to give back to the white metal the right 
 of free coinage. In the Senate, at the urgent request of Secre 
 tary Sherman, the " Allison tip," as it was called, was incor 
 porated in the bill, requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to 
 purchase monthly not less than two million dollars' worth of 
 silver, or more than four million dollars' worth, and to coin 
 
 *Francis A. Walker. 
 278 
 
END OF SILVER PURCHASES 
 
 it into dollars. This amendment was concurred in by the 
 House. Spite of Secretary Sherman's attitude in favor of it 
 the Bland-Allison Act was disapproved by President Hayes, 
 but immediately passed over his veto by both Houses of Con 
 gress on the same day, February 28, 1878. The Senate vote 
 was 46 yeas to 19 nays ; that of the House 196 to 73. 
 
 The advocates of gold mono-metallism believed that the 
 issue of these dollars would speedily drive gold from the coun 
 try. Owing to the limitation of the new coinage no such ef 
 fect was experienced, and the silver dollars or the certificates 
 representing them floated at par with gold, which, indeed, far 
 from leaving the country, was imported in vast amounts nearly 
 every year. After 1880 the money in circulation in the 
 United States was gold coin, silver coin, gold certificates, 
 greenbacks or United States notes, and the notes of the na 
 tional banks. The so-called Sherman Law, of 1890, added a 
 new category, the Treasury notes issued in payment for silver 
 bullion. It stopped the compulsory coinage of full-tender sil 
 ver, though continuing and much increasing the purchase of 
 silver bullion by the Government. The repeal of the pur 
 chase clause of this law, in 1893, put an end to the acquisition 
 of silver by the United States. 
 
 279 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 AGRARIAN AND LABOR MOVEMENTS IN 
 THE SEVENTIES 
 
 THE " GRANGERS." THEIR AIMS. ORIGIN OF THE INTER-STATE 
 
 COMMERCE ACT. DEMAND FOR CHEAP TRANSPORTATION. ILLI 
 NOIS' S "THREE-CENT WAR." COURT DECISIONS. LAND-GRANT 
 
 COLLEGES. THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. VARIOUS LABOR CONGRESSES AND 
 
 PLATFORMS. RISE OF LABOR BUREAUS. THE NATIONAL DEPART 
 MENT OF LABOR. ITS WORK, METHODS, AND INFLUENCE. VALUE 
 
 OF THE STATE BUREAUS. CONTRACT-LABOR LAW. THE GREEN 
 BACK PARTY. PETER COOPER AND GEN. BUTLER. VIOLENCE IN 
 
 THE LABOR CONFLICT. CAUSES. COMBINATIONS OF CAPITAL. 
 
 OF LABORERS. BLACK LIST AND BOYCOTT. LABOR WAR IN PENN 
 SYLVANIA. METHODS OF INTIMIDATION. THE "MOLLY MA- 
 
 GUIRES." MURDER OF ALEXANDER REA. POWER AND IMMUNITY 
 
 OF THE MOLLIES. PLAN FOR EXPOSING THEM. GOWEN AND McPAR- 
 
 LAN. ASSASSINATION OF THOMAS SANGER. GOWEN' S TRIUMPH AND 
 
 THE COLLAPSE OF THE CONSPIRACY. GREAT RAILWAY STRIKE IN 
 
 1877. RIOT AT PITTSBURG. DEATH AND DESTRUCTION. SCENES 
 
 AT READING AND OTHER PLACES. STRIKES COMMOM FROM THIS 
 
 TIME ON. 
 
 THE complaints evoked by industrial depression were in 
 due time echoed in politics. Agrarian movements and 
 labor movements in great numbers social phenomena at first, 
 but rapidly evolving political significance marked the times. 
 One of these, the California Sand Lot Campaign, because of 
 its close connection with the Chinese question, is deferred for 
 discussion to Chapter XIII. The "Grangers/* or "Patrons 
 of Husbandry," was a secret organization for the promotion of 
 farmers' interests. It was founded at Washington, December 
 4, 1867, women as well as men being members. In 1868 
 there were but 1 1 granges. The total membership of the order 
 by 1875, s * x Y ears from the time when local granges began to 
 
 281 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 be formed, was 1,500,000, distributed throughout nearly all 
 the States, though most numerous in the West and South. 
 
 The central aim of Granger agitation at first was to 
 secure better transportation and lower freight rates, particu 
 larly from the West to the East. After waiting for railway 
 facilities to be developed the shippers of grain and beef found 
 themselves, when railways were at last supplied, hardly better 
 off than before. The vast demand for transportation sent 
 freight charges up to appalling figures. All sorts of relief 
 devices were considered, among them a project for opening 
 canal and slack-water navigation between the Mississippi and 
 the Atlantic coast. This was earnestly urged by the Southern 
 Commercial Convention at Cincinnati in 1870. 
 
 The difficulties of freight transportation between the 
 States was discussed at length by Congress, spite of railway 
 attorneys* insistence that the subject was beyond Congres 
 sional control. In the House of Representatives, during 
 January, 1874, Hon. G. W. McCrary, Chairman of the Com 
 mittee on Railroads and Canals, made an exhaustive report 
 affirming the constitutional power of Congress to regulate inter 
 state commerce. This valuable paper laid bare, in Section 8, 
 Article I., of the Constitution, a depth of meaning which, till 
 
 then, few had suspected, a discovery 
 that prepared the way for the Inter 
 state Commerce Act, passed on Feb 
 ruary 4, 1887. 
 
 A National Cheap Transportation 
 Association was organized in New 
 York on May 6, 1873, which also 
 demanded lower transportation rates 
 and an increase of avenues for com 
 merce by water and rail. Its mani 
 festo to the public asserted that cheap 
 transportation for persons and prop 
 erty is essential to the public welfare 
 
 McCR^RT 
 
 282 
 
AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL COLLEGES 
 
 and to the maintenance of a homogeneous and harmonious 
 population. Another Cheap Transportation Convention was 
 held in Richmond, December 1-4, 1874, which petitioned 
 Congress in this interest. 
 
 Discrimination in freight charges was a fruitful source of 
 discontent. In Illinois a dispute known as the " Three-Cent 
 War " intensified feeling against railroads. This particular 
 trouble was the outgrowth of the Illinois Central's disregard 
 of an order issued by the Illinois Railroad Commissioners, 
 limiting passenger fares to three cents per mile. The Com 
 missioners' decree having been found contrary to the State 
 Constitution, the legislature passed a law to limit fares. This 
 the railroads fought with all energy in both State and Federal 
 Courts. In November, 1875, m tne case f tne p eo pl e 
 against the Chicago and Alton Railroad Company, the United 
 States Circuit Court handed down a decision sustaining the 
 constitutionality of the law. Several " Granger " cases went 
 to the national Supreme Court, which affirmed a State's right 
 to fix maximum railway charges. 
 
 An interesting line of educational development, though 
 originating otherwise, at length became connected with the 
 general agrarian movement here under review. On July 2, 
 1862, President Lincoln put his signature to an act which 
 had just passed Congress, donating public land to the several 
 States and Territories which might provide colleges for in 
 struction in branches of learning bearing on agriculture and the 
 mechanic arts. By this act every State became entitled to 
 30,000 acres of government land for each senator and repre 
 sentative falling to it by the apportionment under the census 
 of 1860. States containing no United States land received 
 land scrip, entitling them, not directly but through their 
 assignees, to locate and sell the amounts of land respectively 
 due them. All the States and Territories in the Union, with 
 out a single exception, in the course of time, provided them 
 selves with educational institutions on this basis. Some States 
 
 283 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 sold the scrip early and realized little. Others carefully hus 
 banded the scrip and became possessed of large sums, found 
 ing and sustaining educational institutions of vast usefulness 
 and importance. 
 
 No State proceeded in this matter more discreetly than 
 New York. Her share amounted to a million acres less ten 
 thousand. Seventy-five thousand acres of this were sold at 
 about eighty-five cents an acre. In the fall of 1863 Ezra 
 Cornell purchased a hundred thousand acres for fifty thousand 
 dollars, upon condition that all the profits accruing from the 
 sale should be paid to Cornell University. Next year the rest 
 was purchased at thirty cents an acre, with thirty cents more 
 contingent upon Mr. Cornell's realizing that sum upon sale of 
 the land. In 1874 Cornell University was subrogated to Mr. 
 Cornell's place in dealing with the State, and from the lands 
 handed over by him the Board of Trustees had in 1894-95 
 realized a net return of nearly four million dollars. 
 
 On March 2, 1887, there was approved by the President 
 of the United States another piece of land-grant legislation, 
 known as the Hatch Act. This act was intended to diffuse 
 " useful and practical information on subjects connected with 
 agriculture, and to promote scientific investigation and experi 
 ment respecting the principles and applications of agricultural 
 science." For these purposes each State received from the 
 United States, by virtue of this act, the sum of $ 1 5,000 a year, 
 which was expended in connection with some agricultural ex 
 periment station or stations. The act presupposed that these 
 stations would, as a rule, be established in conjunction with 
 the institutions receiving the benefit of the act of 1862, and 
 most of them were so associated ; but the Hatch Act, in its 
 8th Section, provided that States electing so to do might join 
 their experiment stations to agricultural schools separate from 
 the colleges erected under the act of 1862, and this was done 
 in a few States. By a third act of Congress, approved August 
 30, 1890, entitled "An Act to apply a portion of the proceeds 
 
 284 
 
THE SECOND MORRILL ACT 
 
 of the public lands to the more complete endowment and 
 support of the colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the 
 mechanic arts established under the provisions of an act of 
 Congress approved July 2, 1862," each of the States became 
 entitled to $ 15,000 for the year ending June 30, 1890, $ 16,000 
 for the United States fiscal year 1890-91, $ 17,000 for the next 
 fiscal year, and so on, the sum increasing by $1,000 each year, 
 till it reached } 2 5,000 a year, which was the permanent annual 
 appropriation. A good endowment in itself! 
 
 In the more fortunate sections of the country these gov 
 ernment grants simply made welcome additions to the excel 
 lent educational facilities in existence already. In the South 
 and the far West they meant, educationally, life from the dead. 
 Good schools rose even upon the frontiers, where the children 
 of poorest farmers and mechanics might, at a nominal cost, fit 
 themselves for high stations in life. Large and fruitful experi 
 mentation, especially in agriculture, was made possible. In 
 turn these colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts became 
 rallying centres for agrarian and populist interest, which in 
 volved them in politics, and at least in certain instances much 
 hindered their usefulness. 
 
 In 1865 a Labor " Congress " was held at Louisville, with 
 but twenty-five or thirty delegates. A second sat at Baltimore 
 in August, the next year, whose proceedings attracted some 
 attention. Labor agitation had by this time assumed consid 
 erable proportions, most, perhaps, in Massachusetts, where the 
 Knights of St. Crispin throve so early as 1868. Able men 
 and influential newspapers began to espouse the labor cause. 
 The Congress of 1867 was held in Chicago, and it mooted a 
 scheme of labor unions, city, county and State. The Congress 
 of 1868 was in New York, that of 1869 in Philadelphia. 
 These marked little progress; but the National Labor Con 
 gress which met in Cincinnati August 15, 1870, was said 
 to represent four hundred thousand people. It demanded 
 Treasury notes not based on coin, an eight-hour work-day, 
 
 285 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 the exclusion of Chinese laborers from 
 the country, and the creation of a 
 National Department of Labor. 
 
 Till now the movement was non- 
 political, but the Chicago Congress, by 
 a close vote, adopted a resolution creat 
 ing an independent political organiza 
 tion to be known as the National 
 Labor Reform Party. The party at 
 once began to have influence. In the 
 Massachusetts election of 1 870 it fused 
 with the Prohibitionists, making Wen 
 dell Phillips the candidate for Gov 
 ernor, who received nearly twenty-two thousand of the about 
 one hundred and fifty-two thousand votes which were cast. 
 One labor reformer was elected to the Massachusetts Senate, 
 and eleven to the House. In 1871 the Congress met at St. 
 Louis, August loth. Little was done here beyond adopting 
 a platform on which it was proposed to appeal to the country 
 in the presidential election of 1872. 
 
 This platform, slightly modified, was launched at the 
 Columbus Convention, which met on February 21, 1872. 
 Twelve States were represented. The Convention demanded 
 as the nation's money, greenbacks not based on coin. A tariff 
 taxing luxuries and protecting home industries, a law for an 
 eight-hour labor-day, and the governmental control of railways 
 and telegraphs were also insisted on. Hon. David Davis was 
 nominated for the Presidency, but declined to run. Subse 
 quently Charles O' Conor was named. The Forty-Second 
 Congress, second session, discussed at length some of the 
 Labor Party's proposals, but did nothing to realize any of 
 them. An attempt was made to erect a Labor Commission, 
 but for the present in vain. The first State Bureau of Labor 
 Statistics had been established in 1869 in Massachusetts, where, 
 as we have seen, the Labor Party showed exceptional strength. 
 
 286 
 
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 
 
 Pennsylvania followed in 1872, Connecticut in 1873-75. By 
 the end of 1884 eleven other States had bureaus. From 1884 
 to 1894 thirteen more were erected. At last, by an Act of 
 Congress, approved June 13, 1888, an independent Depart 
 ment of Labor was established by the Federal Government, a 
 bureau with similar functions having existed in connection with 
 the Interior Department since 1884. 
 
 The act of 1888 provided that the design and duty of the 
 new department should be " to acquire and diffuse among the 
 people of the United States useful information on subjects 
 connected with labor, in the most general and comprehensive 
 sense of that word, and especially upon its relation to capital, 
 the hours of labor, the earnings of laboring men and women, 
 and the means of promoting their material, social, intellectual, 
 and moral prosperity/'* 
 
 Clothed with these powers the Commissioner undertook 
 investigations into such matters as industrial depressions, con 
 vict labor, strikes and lockouts, the condition of working 
 women in large cities, railroad labor, cost of production, wages 
 
 * Section 7 of the act provides more specifically, that the Commissioner "is specially 
 charged to ascertain, at as early a date as possible, and whenever industrial changes shall make 
 it essential, the cost of producing articles at the time dutiable in the United States, in leading 
 countries where such articles are produced, by fully specified units of production, and under a 
 classification showing the different elements of cost, or approximate cost, of such articles of 
 production, including the wages paid in such industries per day, week, month or year, or by 
 the piece ; and hours employed per day 5 and the profits of the manufacturers and producers of 
 such articles ; and the comparative cost of living, and the kind of living. f It shall be the 
 duty of the Commissioner also to ascertain and report as to the effect of the customs laws, and 
 the effect thereon of the state of the currency in the United States, on the agricultural indus 
 try, especially as to its effects on mortgage indebtedness on farmers ; ' and what articles are 
 controlled by trusts, or other combinations of capital, business operations or labor, and what 
 effect said trusts or other combinations of capital, business operations or labor have on produc 
 tion and prices. He shall also establish a system of reports by which, at intervals of not less 
 than two years, he can report the general condition, so far as production is concerned, of the 
 leading industries of the country. The Commissioner of Labor is also specially charged to 
 investigate the causes of, and facts relating to, all controversies and disputes between employers 
 and employes as they may occur, and which may tend to interfere with the welfare of the 
 people of the different States, and report thereon to Congress. The Commissioner of Labor 
 shall also obtain such information upon the various subjects committed to him as he may deem 
 desirable from different foreign nations, and what, if any, convict-made goods are imported 
 into this country, and if so, from whence." 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 and cost of living abroad and in this country, prices, marriage 
 and divorce. The results of these investigations were rigidly 
 verified both in copy and in proof, and scrutinized for internal 
 discrepancies. The information was collected through personal 
 interviews and statements directly from parties cognizant of 
 the ultimate facts. The Department's special agents were 
 generally accorded a kind reception, and more and more as it 
 appeared that no person's name was betrayed, were by manu 
 facturers in this and in other countries given access to books 
 and accounts. Estimates, hearsay and opinions were wholly 
 excluded from consideration, and the returns made upon care 
 fully prepared schedules of inquiry in the hands of experts. 
 
 The American Department of Labor established its stand 
 ing by its first report upon " Industrial Depressions," made 
 with experienced help and in face of many difficulties. After 
 experience, the Department maintaining a non-partisan and a 
 non-propagandist attitude, its reports came to be looked upon 
 at home and abroad as the highest attainable evidence in their 
 line. They were quoted in Parliament, in the Reichstag, and 
 in the Chamber of Deputies. Foreign countries, notably 
 England, France, Germany and Belgium, established similar 
 bureaus. 
 
 The State Labor Bureaus also well served the public, 
 though the spoils system and the changeable gusts of local 
 public opinion hindered their usefulness. One New York 
 Commissioner was at one time thought to have used his 
 office for partisan ends, but no other functionary of his class 
 fell under such suspicion. On the contrary, practical good of 
 the most pronounced sort was traceable in greater or less de 
 gree to these bureaus. The tenement-house evil and the 
 sweat-shop, if not banished, were thoroughly advertised by 
 them. Child labor laws, laws prescribing maximum hours of 
 labor, and employers' liability laws were placed upon many 
 statute books mainly through the bureaus' influence. Though 
 not banished, the " truck " or " pluck-me " store, whereby 
 
 288 
 
THE CONTRACT-LABOR LAW . 
 
 the employer-store-owner, forcing his employes' patronage, left 
 them hardly a driblet of wages, was rendered far less common 
 than it had been. Weekly in place of monthly wage pay 
 ments were made more common. Frauds upon laboring men 
 and false labor statistics were exposed. Thus when in 1878 
 complaint was made that Massachusetts had from 200,000 to 
 300,000 unemployed in her borders, the State bureau showed 
 this estimate to be exaggerated from seven to ten times. 
 Similarly State labor statistics, subsequently corroborated by 
 the census, in effect bisected certain wild estimates of mortgage 
 indebtedness, pointing out that nine-tenths of this indebted 
 ness indicated prosperity rather than poverty. 
 
 All welcomed the Act of Congress, approved August 3, 
 1882, forbidding convicts, lunatics, idiots and paupers to enter 
 the United States from other lands. Under this act, up to 
 January 30, 1893, an average of about eleven hundred per 
 sons per annum, mostly paupers, were shipped back across the 
 ocean. February 18, 1885, a stringent contract-labor law was 
 passed, making it unlawful for any person, company or cor 
 poration to assist or encourage the immigration into the 
 United States of any alien under contract or agreement pre 
 viously made, every such contract to be void, and each viola 
 tion of the law finable in the sum of $1,000. An amendment 
 passed in 1885 excepted professional actors, artists, lecturers, 
 singers, persons employed strictly as domestic servants, and 
 even skilled workmen for a new industry which could not be 
 established without such. Also the law did not forbid a per 
 son from assisting to this country members of his or her fam 
 ily intending to settle here. The amendment referred to pro 
 vided for the return of persons who had come to the United 
 States on labor contracts before the law was passed. Under 
 this provision nearly eight thousand persons had been up to 
 1888 sent back to Europe. During the fiscal year ending 
 June 30, 1893, 464 persons were thus returned. New York 
 State having voted a tax of fifty cents upon each immigrant 
 
 289 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 landing in its ports, the money to be for the maintenance of 
 an Immigration Commission, the United States Supreme Court 
 declared the act unconstitutional, whereupon Congress passed 
 an act levying the same impost as a federal tax, its proceeds to 
 go for the support of State Immigration Commissions in the 
 States where most immigrants arrived. The New York Com 
 mission wrought incalculable good in preventing frauds upon 
 immigrants, and in assisting them to their destination. 
 
 After the passage of the Resumption Act, January 14, 
 1875, the f rces of labor reform were quite generally direct 
 
 ed against the 
 traction. A con 
 contractionists 
 on August 23, 
 ing that they 
 tionists, they yet 
 
 ' 
 
 policy of con 
 vention of anti- 
 met in Detroit, 
 1875. Protest- 
 were not infla- 
 earnestly depre- 
 
 SAMUEL F. CART 
 
 PETER COOPER 
 
 NEKTON BOOTH 
 
 cated any diminution in the volume of currency, which they 
 would maintain by greenbacks redeemable only in bonds, 
 these, in turn, being convertible into greenbacks. 
 
 The Independents, known as the National Greenback 
 Party, assembled at Indianapolis, Ind., on May 17, 1876. 
 Two hundred and thirty-nine delegates were present from 
 nineteen States. The platform was essentially a demand for 
 the immediate and unconditional repeal of the Resumption 
 
 290 
 
NATIONAL GREENBACK-LABOR PARTY 
 
 Act and for the issue of United States notes convertible on 
 demand into Government obligations bearing a low rate of 
 interest, such notes to form our circulating medium, and such 
 bonds, re-exchangeable for notes at the option of the holder, 
 to render needless any further sales of bonds payable in coin. 
 Peter Cooper was the nominee for President, Newton Booth 
 for Vice-President. Mr. Booth declining, Samuel F. Gary, of 
 Ohio, was chosen in his stead. Mr. Cooper accepted the 
 nomination conditionally, expressing the hope that the Inde 
 pendents might attain their aims through either the Repub 
 lican or the Democratic party, permitting him " to step aside 
 and remain in that quiet which was" he declared " most con 
 genial to his nature and time of life." Cooper ran, however, 
 receiving 82,640 votes. The next year his party polled 
 187,095 votes, and in 1878, 1,000,365. The Greenback or 
 National Greenback-Labor Party entered actively into the 
 canvass of 1880, running General J. B. Weaver for Pres 
 ident, who polled 307,740 votes. Four years later General 
 B. F. Butler was the presidential candidate both of this 
 party and of the " Anti-monopoly " party. He received 
 
 i33> 82 5 votes - 
 
 Happy had it been for the country could we have di 
 verted the entire force of the labor agitation into political 
 channels. But this was impossible. The worst labor troubles 
 of these years had to be settled not at the polls but by force. 
 This was mainly due to the large number of immigrants now 
 arriving, among them Hungarians, Poles, Italians and Portu 
 guese, usually ignorant clay for the hand of the first unscrupu 
 lous demagogue. Another cause of the labor wars was the 
 wide and sedulous inculcation in this country of the social- 
 democratic, communist and anarchist doctrines long prevalent 
 in Europe. Influences concurrent with both these were the 
 actual injustice and the haughty and overbearing manner of 
 many employers. Capital had been mismanaged and wasted. 
 The war had brought unearned fortunes to many, sudden 
 
 291 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 wealth to a much larger number, while the unexampled pros 
 perity of the country raised up in a perfectly normal manner a 
 wealthy class, the like of which, in number and power, our 
 country had never known before. As, therefore, immigra 
 tion, along with much else, multiplied the poor, the eter 
 nal angry strife of wealth with poverty, of high with low, of 
 classes with masses, crossed over from Europe and began on 
 our shores. 
 
 The rise of trusts and gigantic corporations was connected 
 with this struggle. Corporations worth nigh half a billion 
 dollars apiece were able to buy or defy legislatures and make 
 or break laws as they pleased ; and since such corporations, 
 instead of individuals, more and more became the employers of 
 labor, not only did the old-time kindliness between help and 
 hirers die out, but men the most cool and intelligent feared the 
 new power as a menace to democracy. Strikes, therefore, 
 commanded large public sympathy. Stock-watering and other 
 vicious practices, involving the ruin of corporators themselves 
 by the few holders of a majority of the shares in order to re 
 purchase the property for next to nothing, contributed to 
 this hostility. So did the presence, in many great corpora 
 tions, of foreign capital and capitalists, and also the mutual 
 favoritism of corporations, showing itself, for instance, in 
 special freight rates to privileged concerns. Minor interests, 
 and particularly employes, powerless against these Titan 
 agencies by any legal process, resorted to counter-organization. 
 Labor agitation was facilitated by the extraordinary increase of 
 urban population, it being mostly manufacturing and mechan 
 ical industry which brought the hordes of workmen together. 
 Trades-unions secured rank development. The Knights of 
 Labor, intended as a sort of union of them all, attained a mem 
 bership of a million. The manufacturers' " black list," to 
 prevent any " agitator " laborer from securing work, was 
 answered by the " boycott," to keep the products of obnoxious 
 establishments from rinding sale. Labor organizations so 
 
 292 
 
LABOR WAR IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 strong often tyran 
 nized over their own 
 members, and boy 
 cotting became a nui- 
 
 Notice you have Caried this as far as you can By cheating thy sanCC that had tO be 
 men you three Bosses Be Carefull if the Above dont Be your 
 
 home in A short Time. abated by law. 
 
 . . _Q From a Stranger T , i T-* i 
 
 r -^ henowesyou * the Pennsyl 
 
 vania mining districts 
 
 A "Molhe Magutre Notice 
 
 labor troubles early 
 
 became acute. The great coal barons, offending the public 
 by pricing their indispensable product extortionately high, 
 long received no sympathy and no aid in repressing em 
 ployes' crimes. During 1873, J ^74 an d ^75, these grew 
 frightfully common. Usually the motive seemed to be not so 
 much to injure employers* property as to scare " scab " help 
 from the mines during contests against " cuts " in wages. A 
 cut at the Ben Franklin Colliery had been accepted by the 
 men, who were peaceably at work, when the " breaker " was 
 burned, throwing them all out. Another " breaker " near by 
 a gang of strikers fired almost by daylight, first driving the 
 workmen away. 
 
 A common method of intimidation was for ten or twelve 
 roughs to form a gang, and, armed, to sweep through a mining 
 camp, forcing every man to join ; the numbers so collected 
 being soon sufficient to overawe any inclined to resist. June 3, 
 1875, one thousand men thus gathered stopped work at sev 
 eral mines near Mahanoy City, and a similar band did the 
 same at Shenandoah. At night there was an attempt to derail 
 a passenger train approaching Shenandoah, but the plot was 
 discovered in time. The same night a "breaker" near Mount 
 Carmel went up in smoke, and a few days later two contract 
 ors at the Oakdale mine were shot. 
 
 For a time every passenger train on the Reading Railroad 
 had to be preceded through the mining districts by a locomo 
 tive carrying an armed posse. Watchmen and station agents 
 
 293 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 were beaten ; loaded v - 
 
 j.i i (Notice found in yard of D. Patchen, Engineer, Cressona.) 
 
 cars and other ob- 
 
 from the gap Daniel Patch 
 
 StrUCt lOnS Were put remember you will be running in this coal ragion at 
 
 night you took an nother mans engin we will give you fair 
 
 upon mam tracks ; wa b rnin ' g in time and some more< v . L . 
 
 switches were mis- M.M.H.S.T. 
 
 placed and ware 
 
 houses plundered. At 
 
 every cut or forest 
 
 along the line lay vi. 
 
 armed aSSaSSinS tO we hear notify you to leave th Road for you took a nother 
 
 i i man chop take a warning to Save your live 
 
 shoot trainmen and to Yost 
 
 en- A Notice Put iw Evidence During the "MoIHe Maguire" 
 
 . . Prosecution 
 
 gineer ran his train, 
 
 his left hand on the throttle, his right clutching a revolver. 
 
 Bosses and " scabs " specially hated by the desperate 
 miners were served with notices denouncing vengeance on 
 them if they did not leave. Some of these are reproduced on 
 pp. 293, 294, 295. 
 
 One admonition ran : 
 
 " Now men i have warented ye before and i willnt warind 
 you no mor but i will gwrintee you the will be the report of 
 the revolver." 
 
 A rude drawing of a revolver was subjoined as the author's 
 sign manual. 
 
 Others were as follows : 
 
 " NOTICE 
 
 " Any blackleg that takes a Union Man's job While He 
 is standing for His Rights will have a hard Road to travel and 
 if He don't he will have to Suffer the Consequences." 
 
 This " Notice " was followed by a picture of a dead man 
 in his coffin, and signed " BEACHER AND TILTON." 
 
 294 
 
MURDER OF YOST 
 
 At Locust Summit, March 31, 1875, was posted the fol 
 lowing : 
 
 " NOTICE " 
 
 " Mr. Black-legs if you don't leave in 2 days time You 
 meet your doom there vill Be an Open war imeateatly " 
 
 Such threats, unless heeded, were nearly always executed. 
 Among others notified in these ways was one McCarron, a 
 policeman in Tamaqua, who had aroused the enmity of "Pow 
 der Keg " Carrigan. Two men were detailed to kill McCarron 
 late on a given night, and hid themselves for this purpose 
 near his beat. But on this night McCarron happened to have 
 changed beats with another policeman named Yost, an old 
 soldier, whom all, even the Mollies, liked. Climbing a lamp 
 post ladder early in the morning to turn out the gas, Yost 
 was fatally shot by the men who had heen lying low for Mc 
 Carron. 
 
 The chief source of these atrocities was a secret society 
 known as the " Mollie Maguires," their name and spirit both 
 
 imported from Ire- 
 
 " a " land. They terrorized 
 
 the entire Schuylkill 
 and Shamokin dis 
 tricts. A superinten 
 dent or a boss was 
 attacked, beaten or 
 shot down somewhere 
 almost every day. 
 Gangs of these thugs 
 would waylay a vic 
 tim in the field or by 
 the roadside if they 
 could, but, failing in 
 this, they surrounded 
 his house, forced him 
 
 Notice is here given to you men the first and the last Notice 
 that you will get for no man to go Down this slope After to 
 Night if yo Do you Can Bring your Coffion Along With you 
 for By the internal Crist We mean What this Notice says you 
 Drift man stop at home and Cut no more Coal let him go and 
 get Coal himself I Dont mean Engineer or firemans let them 
 mine there one Work now men the Next Notice you Will get I 
 Dont mean to Do it With my Pen I Will Do it With that there 
 Rolver I Dou't Want no more Black legs at this Collary. 
 
 (No signature) 
 
 A ''Mollie Maguire" Notice 
 
 2 95 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 out, and did him to death. Among the most brutal of 
 their murders was that of Alexander Rea, a mine superin 
 tendent, pounded and shot to death in October, 1868. Driv 
 ing along a lonely road between Mount Carmel and Centralia, 
 supposed to be going to pay off his men, and therefore 
 to have $19,000, more or less, in his buggy, he was set 
 upon by a gang of Mollies, among them Dooley (or Tully), 
 McHugh, and " Kelly the Bum." After filling themselves 
 with liquor, the squad, at dawn, hid in a piece of woods through 
 which their victim was to pass, and, upon his approach, rushed 
 at him, pistols in hand. " Kelly the Bum " fired first. Rea 
 piteously begged for his life. He happened on this occasion 
 to have only $60 with him, having paid at the colliery the day 
 previous, a day earlier than usual ; but he offered his assailants 
 all he had, as well as his watch, agreeing also to sign a check 
 for any amount if they would spare him. In vain. Having 
 fired several bullets into the wretched man, they made sure of 
 the work with clubs and the butts of their revolvers. The 
 bloody conspirators were subsequently tried, convicted, and 
 hung for this murder, save " Kelly the Bum," who got off by 
 turning State's evidence. 
 
 Law-abiding people feared to stir out after dark, or even 
 by day unless well armed. The Mollies had their signs and 
 passwords for use when necessary, but they grew so bold that 
 such devices were rarely needed. In case of arrest plenty of 
 perjurers were ready to swear an alibi ^ though not a witness 
 could be drummed up for the State. The Mollies nominated 
 officers and controlled elections. Members of the Order be 
 came chiefs of police, constables and county commissioners. 
 One of them came very near being elected to the Schuylkill 
 County bench. Superintendents of jobs had to hire and dis 
 charge men at the Mollies' behest, or be shot. At a certain 
 State election a high State official gave the Order large money 
 for casting its vote his way. Jack Kehoe, a leading Mollie, 
 when in prison for murder, boasted that if he were convicted 
 
 296 
 
THE TRIAL OF THOMAS MVNLET, THE " MOLLIE MAGUIRE," AT POTTSflLLE, PA. 
 
 Painted by W, R. Leigh, from photographs by George A. Bretx 
 
McPARLAN BECOMES A "MOLLIE 
 
 JAMES McPARLAN, THOMAS MUNLET "JIMMT" KERRIGAN, 
 
 the detective the " squealer " 
 
 From photographs by George A. Bretx 
 
 and sentenced "the old man up at Harrisburg" would never 
 let him swing. The entire power of the Catholic Church in 
 the region was used against the Order, but in vain. 
 
 The principal honor of exposing and suppressing this 
 Pennsylvania Mafia is due to Hon. Franklin B. Gowen, a law 
 yer, at the time President of the Pennsylvania and Reading 
 Coal and Iron Co. Knowing the uselessness of attempting 
 the work with the local police, he, in 1873, secured from Pink- 
 erton's Detective Agency in Chicago the services of one James 
 McParlan, a young Irishman of phenomenal tact and grit, to 
 go among the Mollies as a secret detective. No bolder, no 
 more dangerous, no more telling work was ever wrought by a 
 detective than that now undertaken by 
 McParlan. Calling himself McKenna, he 
 began operations in the autumn of 1873. 
 By stating that he had killed a man in 
 Buffalo and that his favorite business had 
 been " shoving the queer," he was at 
 once admitted to the Order, and soon be 
 came one of its prominent officers. He 
 seems, however, to have been from the first 
 the object of some suspicion, so that the 
 progress of his mission was slow. 
 
 FRANKLIN B. GOWEN 
 From a photograph by Gutekut 
 
 Z99 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 It was not till 1875 tnat McParlan's work began to tell. 
 Two murders to which he was privy he unfortunately could 
 not prevent, so closely was he watched. One of these was 
 that of Thomas Sanger, a young English boss miner. Early 
 on the morning of September ist Sanger started from his 
 house to his work. Hardly out of sight of his door a man 
 faced him and shot him through the arm. Running round a 
 house near by he was met by a second villain, pistol in hand. 
 Turning, he stumbled and fell, just as a third appeared, who 
 shot him fatally. A fourth deliberately turned the body over 
 so as to make sure of hitting a vital part, and shot him again. 
 Robert Heaton, an employer, heard the firing and rushed, 
 armed, to Sanger's aid. The murderers fled. Poor, brave 
 Sanger, bleeding to death, told Heaton : " Never mind me, 
 give it to them, Bob." Sanger's agonized wife, from whom 
 he had just parted, reached his prostrate form barely in time 
 to hear him gasp : " Kiss me, Sarah, for I am dying." 
 
 The assassins escaped Heaton, but went straight to the 
 house where McParlan was, acquainting him with every detail 
 of their bloody deed. Gowen had employed him on the ex 
 press condition that he should never be called as a witness or be 
 required in any way to show his hand, but when arrests were 
 made the Mollies suspected him, so that it appeared to be his 
 safest course to come out openly for the prosecution. Going 
 upon the witness stand he demolished the sham alibi which 
 the culprits sought to establish, and gave clews which led to 
 the extirpation of the entire gang. Schuylkill County, where 
 the worst crimes had occurred, rose in its might and stamped 
 out the conspiracy. A small army of alibi witnesses were 
 punished for perjury. Nine of the Mollies were sentenced 
 to death, and most of the other leaders imprisoned for long 
 terms. 
 
 " Then," said Mr. Gowen, who acted as counsel for the 
 prosecution, " we knew that we were free men. Then we 
 could go to Patsy Collins, the commissioner of this county, 
 
 3 oo 
 
THE ATTEMPT TO FIRE THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD ROUND-HOUSE IN 
 PlTTSBURG, AT DAYBREAK ON SUNDAY, JULY 22, 1877 
 
 Painted by W. R. Leigh, from photographs by Robinson 
 
COLLAPSE OF THE MOLLIE MAGUIRES 
 
 and say to him : c Build well the walls of the new addition to 
 the prison ; dig the foundations deep and make them strong ; 
 put in good masonry and iron bars ; for, as the Lord liveth, 
 the time will come when, side by side with William Love, the 
 murderer of Squire Gwither, you will enter the walls that you 
 are now building for others.' Then we could say to Jack 
 Kehoe, the high constable of a great borough in this county : 
 * We have no fear of you/ Then we could say to Ned Mon- 
 aghan, chief of police and murderer and assassin : c Behind 
 you the scaffold is prepared for your reception.' Then we 
 could say to Pat Conry, commissioner of this county : * The 
 time has ceased when a governor of this State dares to pardon 
 a Mollie Maguire you have had your last pardon.' Then 
 we could say to John Slattery, who was almost elected judge 
 of this court : c We know that of you that it were better you 
 had not been born than that it should be known/ Then all 
 of us looked up. Then, at last, we were free, and I came to 
 this county and walked through it as safely as in the most 
 crowded thoroughfares of Philadelphia." 
 
 The times evoked a specially bitter feeling against great 
 railway corporations, and a wide 
 spread desire to set legal limita 
 tions to their power. Their reck 
 less rivalries, their ruinous borrow 
 ing and extravagance were freely 
 criticised even by such as did not 
 deem themselves injured thereby ; 
 but their employes were rendered 
 frantic. 
 
 The most desperate and exten 
 sive strike that had yet occurred in 
 this country was that of 1877, by 
 
 *Owing to the general congestion of traffic, there 
 were miles of freight cars blocked at this point, which 
 the rioters burned as they stood. 
 
 33 
 
 BURNT FREIGHT CARS AT 
 PITTSBURG* 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Union Station Round-bouse 
 
 SCENES AFTER THE RAILWAY RIOT OF 1877 IN PIffSBURG 
 
 the employes of the principal railway trunk lines the Balti 
 more & Ohio, the Pennsylvania, the Erie, the New York Cen 
 tral, and their western prolongations. The immediate grievance 
 was a ten per cent. " wage cut," reinforced, however, by irregu 
 lar employment, irregular and tardy payment, forced patronage 
 of "ptuck-me " hotels, and the like. On some roads the train 
 men were assessed the cost of accidents. At a preconcerted 
 time junctions and other main points were seized. Freight traf 
 fic on the roads named was entirely suspended, and the passen 
 ger and mail service greatly impeded. When new employes 
 sought to work, militia had to be called out to preserve order. 
 Pittsburg was the scene of a bloody riot. At Martinsburg, 
 also at Pittsburg, a great part of the State troops sympathized 
 with the strikers and would not fire upon them. At Pitts 
 burg, where the mob was immense and most furious, the 
 Philadelphia militia were besieged in a round-house, which it 
 was then attempted to burn by lighting oil cars and pushing 
 them against it, until the soldiers were compelled to evacuate. 
 Fortunately they made good their retreat with only four 
 
 34 
 
RAILWAY STRIKE OF 1877 
 
 killed. The militia having had several bloody and doubtful 
 encounters on July 21, 22 and 23, at the request of the 
 Governors, President Hayes dispatched United States troops 
 to Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia. Faced by 
 these forces the rioters in every instance gave way without 
 bloodshed. 
 
 Scranton's mayor narrowly escaped death, but was rescued 
 by a posse of special police, who killed three of the mob ring 
 leaders. In disturbances at Chicago nineteen were killed, at 
 Baltimore nine. At Reading, endeavoring to recapture a rail 
 road train held by the mob in a cut near the city, the soldiers 
 were assailed with bricks and stones hurled from above, and 
 finally with pistol shots. One militiaman retorted, scattering 
 shots followed, and then a sustained volley. Only 50 of the 
 253 soldiers escaped unhurt, but none were seriously injured. 
 Of the crowd 1 1 were killed and over 50 wounded, two of the 
 killed and some of the wounded being mere on-lookers. 
 
 The torch was applied freely and with dreadful effect. 
 Machine-shops, ware-houses and two thousand freight-cars 
 were pillaged or burned. Firemen in Pittsburg were at first 
 threatened with death if they tried to stop the flames, and the 
 hoses were cut ; but, finally, permission was given to save 
 private property. In that city attacks did not cease till the 
 corporation property had been well-nigh destroyed. 1,600 cars 
 and 126 locomotives were burned or ruined in twenty-four 
 hours. Allegheny County alone became liable for about 
 $3,000,000. Men, women and children fell to thieving, car 
 rying off all sorts of goods kid ball-shoes, parasols, coffee- 
 mills, whips and gas-stoves. In one house the police found 
 seven great trunks full of clothes, in another eleven barrels of 
 flour. It is said that a wagon-load of sewing machines was 
 sold on the street, the machines bringing from ten cents to $i 
 apiece. The loss of property was estimated at $10,000,000. 
 
 One hundred thousand laborers are believed to have taken 
 part in the entire movement, and at one time or another 6,000 
 
 305 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 or 7,000 miles of road were in their power. The agitation 
 began on July i/j-th, and was serious till the 2yth, but had 
 mostly died away by the end of the month, the laborers nearly 
 all returning to their work. 
 
 Hosts of Pennsylvania miners went out along with the 
 railroad men. The railway strike itself was largely sympa 
 thetic, the ten per cent, reduction in wages assigned as its 
 cause applying to comparatively few. The next years wit 
 nessed continual troubles of this sort, though rarely, if in any 
 case, so serious, between wage-workers and their employers in 
 nearly all industries. The worst ones befell the manufacturing 
 portions of the country, where strikes and lock-outs were part 
 of the news almost every day. 
 
 306 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 ANYTHING TO BEAT GRANT 
 
 PRESIDENTIAL POSSIBILITIES IN l88o. GRANT THE LION. REPUB 
 LICAN CONVENTION. A POLITICAL BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS 
 
 GARFIELD THE DARK HORSE. GRANT'S OLD GUARD DEFEATED BUT 
 
 DEFIANT. DEMOCRATS NOMINATE HANCOCK. "THE INS AND THE 
 
 OUTS." PARTY DECLARATIONS. THE MOREY FORGERY. ELAINE 
 
 CAN'T SAVE MAINE. CONKLING'S STRIKE OFF. GARFIELD ELECTED. 
 
 "SOAP" VS. INTIMIDATION AND FRAUD. FROM MULE BOY TO 
 
 PRESIDENT. HANCOCK'S BRILLIANT CAREER. THE FIRST PRESI 
 DENTIAL APPOINTMENTS. CONKLING'S FRENZY AND HIS FALL. 
 
 THE CABINET. GARFIELD ASSASSINATED. GUITEAU TRIED AND 
 
 HANGED. STAR ROUTE FRAUDS. PENDLETON CIVIL SERVICE ACT. 
 
 MR. HAYES'S very honorable administration neared its 
 end and the presidential campaign of 1 880 approached. 
 Spite of the wide unpopularity of resumption, spite of the hard 
 times and the labor troubles, the party in power was now in far 
 better condition to win than it had been in 1 876. The Repub 
 licans therefore had no dearth of potential standard-bearers. 
 Returning from a remarkable tour around the world, General 
 Grant became, in 1880, a candidate for a third-term nomina 
 tion. There is reason to think that Grant himself did not 
 greatly desire this but was pushed forward by Senator Roscoe 
 Conkling, of New York, to insure the defeat of James G. 
 Elaine, of Maine, whom Conkling not merely disliked but 
 hated. Conkling was now in effect Republican dictator in his 
 State. Its delegation to the Convention was hence expected to 
 be a unit for Grant, in which case it would form a good nucleus 
 for the third-term forces. Don Cameron, of Pennsylvania, and 
 General John A. Logan, of Illinois, like Conkling, strongly 
 favored Grant, securing for him, not without some contest, the 
 delegations from their respective States and at the same time 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 securing control of the National Committee, which dictated the 
 time and place of holding the Convention. Mr. Elaine had 
 great strength in the West and considerable elsewhere. Senator 
 Edmunds was the cynosure of a knot of Independents, mostly 
 Eastern men. Sherman's masterly handling of the Treasury 
 brought him also into prominence, almost into popularity, as 
 a candidate. He was able, practically, to name the four Ohio 
 delegates-at-large, Warner M. Bateman, William Dennison, 
 Charles Foster and James A. Garfield. The last-named had 
 expressed his wish to be a delegate-at-large, in order that he 
 might more effectively aid the Sherman cause. 
 
 General Grant was now more than ever a hero. He 
 had recently visited every prominent court and country on 
 the globe. The Emperors of Germany and Austria, the Czar, 
 the Queen of Great Britain, the Sultan, the Pope, the Kings of 
 Belgium, Italy, Holland, Sweden and Spain, the Khedive of 
 
 Egypt, the Emperor of 
 Siam, the Mikado of 
 Japan, the Viceroy of In 
 dia, and with them a host 
 of the world's most dis 
 tinguished statesmen, sol 
 diers and literary men, 
 had vied with one another 
 in rendering the ex-Pres 
 ident's progress from land 
 to land a continuous ova 
 tion. No human being 
 in all history had ever 
 received such honors. 
 The ex-President's self- 
 possession amid all this 
 pomp, his good sense and 
 sturdy maintenance of 
 simple, democratic man- 
 
 ROSCOE CON KLIN G 
 
 308 
 
"ANYTHING TO BEAT GRANT " 
 
 ners, impressed everyone. Some who had opposed him in 
 1876 now wished him elected, on the ground that four so 
 honorable years in private station justified renewed promotion, 
 while not transgressing the unwritten law against a third term. 
 
 So formidable did Conkling's movement for Grant be 
 come that the opponents of the two rallied to the war-cry, 
 " Anything to beat Grant.'* About this time the superstitious 
 were stirred by Mother Shipton's prophecy, 
 
 "The world to an end will come 
 In eighteen hundred and eighty-one." 
 
 An anecdote was told of a preacher who dwelt upon the 
 impending cataclysm, urging his hearers by all means to be 
 prepared. While he was describing the peril an earnest voice 
 from the congregation ejaculated, " Thank God ! " The min 
 ister sought out the possessor of the voice and asked why he 
 was thankful for a prospect at which most men shuddered. 
 " Anything to beat Grant/' was the answer. A determined 
 sentiment hostile to the ex-President's candidacy found ex 
 pression in the resolutions of the Republican Anti-third-term 
 Convention, held in St. Louis on May 6th. These resolu 
 tions declared against the Grant movement as likely to revive 
 the memory of old scandals, and certain, if successful, to intro 
 duce personal government and to hinder civil service reform. 
 
 After the revelations described in Chapter IX the 
 movement to elect Grant President for a third term was sure 
 to awaken bitter opposition in his own party. The story of 
 his second term, which might have been left for posterity to 
 extract from the records as best it could, was vividly recalled 
 to memories which had never fully lost it, being rehearsed 
 in a thousand newspapers, now piecemeal, now in whole chap 
 ters, till all intelligent people were perfectly familiar with it. 
 
 The Republican Convention met at Chicago on June 2d. 
 Conkling, who had charge of the Grant canvass, sanguine of 
 carrying the Convention but fearing a " bolt " afterward, intro- 
 
 309 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 duced the following disciplinary resolution, which was passed 
 by a vote of 7 1 9 to 3 : 
 
 " Resolved, As the sense of this Convention, that every 
 member of it is bound in honor to support its nominee, who 
 ever that nominee may be, and that no man should hold his 
 seat here who is not ready to so agree." 
 
 An effort was made to expel the three recalcitrants, but it 
 proved abortive. The rule requiring State delegations each to 
 vote as a unit, which had been assailed at the Cincinnati Con 
 vention of 1876, was now definitively abandoned. This gift 
 of a voice to minorities in State delegations lopped off ninety 
 votes from Grant's constituency, which was a great victory for 
 his opponents. It was in effect another blow against the 
 Grant cause when Mr. Flanagan, of Texas, uttered the 
 memorable query : " What are we here for if it isn't for the 
 offices ? " 
 
 The State of New York had seventy votes in the Con 
 vention. Knowing that they would all be needed if Grant 
 were to win, Conkling had gotten the New York Convention 
 to instruct the delegation to vote as a unit for the nominee 
 desired by the majority. But nineteen of them, led by Conk- 
 ling's opponent in New York Republican politics, William 
 H. Robertson, refused to obey this 
 mandate and voted for Elaine. Nine 
 of the Ohio delegation bolted from 
 Sherman to Elaine, a move which 
 solidified the rest of the Ohio dele 
 gation against Elaine, and thus "un 
 doubtedly," says Sherman, "led to 
 his defeat." The first ballot showed 
 Grant in the lead, with Elaine a close 
 second, and they maintained this rela 
 tive position through thirty-five con 
 secutive ballots. The thirty-fourth JAMES A. GARFIELD 
 
 ballot called attention to James A. ^* fl 3fftfk&^** tm 
 
 310 
 
GARFIELD NOMINATED 
 
 Garfield, who received seventeen votes, fifteen more than any 
 preceding ballot had given him. As a feeler Wisconsin, near 
 the foot of the list, bolted to him. Galleries and Convention 
 went wild. Garfield had been somewhat prominent in the Con 
 vention, having charge of Sherman's cause and being, in some 
 sense, the leader of all the forces opposed to Grant, but scarcely 
 anyone had dreamed of his being nominated. It having become 
 plain that the New York split must defeat Blaine and Grant 
 alike, the bulk of the Blaine and Sherman delegates, under in 
 structions from their chiefs at Washington, went over to Gar- 
 field. Conkling was confident till Maine cast her vote for Gar- 
 field, when he sent the word around for delay. In vain. Too 
 late. Conkling's old guard of 306 delegates, remaining steadfast 
 to the last,rendered him too confident, and he was outgeneralled. 
 That very morning some one asked Garfield : " Well, General, 
 who is going to win the battle of the Wilderness ? " " The 
 same little man that won the first will win it," he replied, de 
 liberately, " and I am afraid it will mean the destruction of the 
 Republican party/' The stampede gave Garfield 399 votes, 
 twenty-one more than were needed to make him the choice of 
 the Convention. While the State banners were seized and 
 waved in a circle above his head, while all was enthusiasm and 
 hubbub, Garfield himself sat, as if in a stupor, dazed and be 
 numbed. The second place on the ticket being conceded to a 
 Grant man, Conkling, as a stab at President Hayes, named 
 for Vice-President Chester A. Arthur, the same whom Hayes 
 had deposed from office. " Garfield and Arthur " was there 
 fore the ticket. 
 
 The country hailed the presidential nomination with ex 
 treme satisfaction. Blaine, in spite of his defeat, hastened 
 to send Garfield his congratulations. So did Sherman, who 
 blamed Governor Foster, and not the nominee, for perfidy. 
 But Conkling sulked, cursing the nineteen rebellious New 
 York delegates, and vowing eternal vengeance upon Robert 
 son in particular. Grant's phalanx, which had stood solid for 
 
 3" 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 him from the first, alone 
 failed to partake of the 
 general enthusiasm. 
 
 The Democratic Con 
 vention assembled at 
 Cincinnati on June 22d. 
 Mr. Tilden could, no 
 doubt, have had the nom 
 ination had he signified 
 his willingness to accept 
 it, but his friends were 
 wholly ignorant of his 
 wishes until just as the 
 Convention met, when 
 he wrote declining re- 
 nomination. On the third 
 ballot the delegates nom 
 inated the hero of Gettys 
 burg, the brave and re 
 nowned General Winfield S. Hancock, of Pennsylvania. 
 
 The two parties were at this time best classed as " the ins " 
 and " the outs." Though not exactly one upon the fading 
 issue of intervention at the South, or upon that of " incidental 
 protection " versus a " tariff for revenue only," neither these 
 issues nor any others were kept steadily in sight during the 
 campaign. The Republicans had not yet wearied of reminis 
 cences, while the Democrats nursed their party fealty by call 
 ing Hayes " the fraud President." On the people at large 
 the ceaseless repetition of this phrase had not the slightest 
 effect, particularly after the publication of the " cipher des 
 patches," which involved certain Democratic leaders in 
 attempts, pending the Hayes-Tilden controversy, to bribe 
 electors representing doubtful States. 
 
 The Republicans' platform charged Democrats with " a 
 supreme and insatiable lust of office," yet their own devoir 
 
 312 
 
 WINFIELD S. HANCOCK 
 
PLATFORMS AND ISSUES 
 
 to civil service reform they paid only as an afterthought, amid 
 the jeers of delegates. To detach the Republican reform vote, 
 the Democratic platform made three distinct allusions to that 
 subject, indorsing a general and thorough reform, "execrating" 
 the course of the Administration in using offices to reward 
 political crime, and promising " a genuine and lasting improve 
 ment in case of a change." The Republicans suspected the 
 other party of coquetting with the Roman Catholic Church, 
 and urged an amendment forbidding State appropriations for 
 sectarian schools ; but both parties applauded public education 
 and separation between Church and State. They were at one 
 also in decided opposition to Chinese immigration. The pen 
 sioner was becoming conspicuous. Republicans boasted of 
 paying annually more than thirty millions of dollars in pensions, 
 and promised the old soldiers sincerely, as events showed 
 undiminished gratitude in future. They further declared 
 against polygamy. The Democrats avowed themselves in favor 
 of " free ships and a chance for American commerce on the 
 seas and on the land ; " also for gold, silver and convertible 
 paper money. 
 
 Though living issues were little discussed in the campaign, 
 it was not wanting in warmth or movement. Republicans were 
 incessantly " waving the bloody shirt," a Democratic phrase 
 which became familiar at this time. The Democrats, as we 
 have said, harped upon the " fraud " that they ascribed to the 
 Electoral Commission which " counted out " Mr. Tilden. 
 Incidentally, as election-day grew near, protection to home 
 industry and restriction to Chinese immigration were more or 
 less discussed, with, perhaps, considerable local effect, but the 
 election was in no sense decided by either. Seizing upon a 
 luckless utterance of General Hancock's, to the effect that 
 the tariff was " a local issue," the Republicans took occasion 
 to ridicule his ignorance of economic and political affairs. 
 Garfield was accused of disreputable connection with the Credit 
 Mobilier, and with the Washington Ring back in the seventies, 
 
 313 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 but nothing worse than indiscretion was proved against him. 
 Shortly before election-day Democratic politicians sowed 
 broadcast facsimiles of a letter signed with Garfield's name, 
 and representing him as so lovingly attached to " our great 
 manufacturing and corporate interests " as to favor Chinese 
 immigration until laborers should be sufficiently abundant to 
 satisfy capital. This letter was proved to be a forgery, and 
 one of the authors of it was sentenced to prison for eight 
 years. 
 
 In 1878 Maine had surprised everyone by electing a 
 Democratic governor, through a fusion of Democrats with 
 Greenbackers. After the next annual election, acting as a 
 Canvassing Board, professedly under the law, this governor, 
 Garcelon, and his counsel declared a Democratic legislature 
 to be elected a proceeding denounced as a " counting 
 in" worthy of the most approved Louisiana model. This 
 course contravened the judgment of the State Supreme Court. 
 It was not upheld by public opinion either in the State or 
 elsewhere, not even by Democratic opinion, unless as a species 
 of " poetic justice." Most fatal of all, the new legislature 
 was unsupported by the State militia, upon which, as no fed 
 eral troops were at command, devolved, during the interreg 
 num, the charge of keeping order. The fusionists, therefore, 
 gave up in discouragement. But in the State election of the 
 presidential year, in September, renewed success came to them. 
 Their candidate, Harris M. Plaisted, was elected Governor, 
 spite of the Republicans' activity under the personal lead of 
 Mr. Blaine. 
 
 Until this reverse in Maine most supporters of Grant 
 had sulked, but they did so no longer. The " strike " was 
 now declared " off," and all the available resources of the party 
 called into requisition for the election of Garfield. Persuaded 
 by Grant, Conkling himself took the stump, working for the 
 nominees with all his might. Popular audiences found his 
 eloquence irresistible. No man did more than he to carry the 
 
 3*4 
 
TKITTH. AMD >IOTHtMC mJT THE TRtmf 
 
 GARFIELD'S POLITICAL DEATH WARRANT. 
 
 HIS INFAMOUS LETTER ADVOCATING THE INCREASED IM1 
 ORATION OF CHINESE CHEAP LABOK. ' 
 
 
 . ^ 
 
 Facsimile of the front page of the issue of " rrrA " containing the "Morey Letter" 
 
GARFIELD AND ARTHUR VICTORIOUS 
 
 important State of New York. He took Grant with him 
 throughout the State, exhibiting him for five-minute speeches, 
 while he himself made long orations. This occasioned much 
 comment, but probably " did good." Conkling and his sup 
 porters deemed his agency decisive of the result in the nation 
 as well as in New York, and considered President Garfield as 
 under the deepest obligation on this account. Hancock swept 
 every Southern State. Garfield carried every Northern one 
 except New Jersey, Nevada, and California. For the first 
 time in our history the presidential electors were all chosen by 
 popular vote, and for the first time their votes were counted 
 as cast. 
 
 Thus the victory was won for Garfield and Arthur. It 
 was not obtained, however, without employing, to some ex 
 tent, illegitimate means. At a dinner in honor of Hon. S. 
 W. Dorsey, Vice-President Arthur, in a vein of pleasan 
 try, remarked that the Republicans had been victorious in 
 Indiana by a liberal use of " soap." After the election 
 discreditable exposures were made respecting contributions 
 by government civil servants to the Republican campaign- 
 fund. 
 
 But if machine politics had much to do with Garfield's 
 election, machine politics no more determined it than intimi 
 dation and fraud solidified the South 
 for Hancock. Garfield had a highly 
 honorable record literary, military, 
 and civil. From a mule-boy on the 
 tow-path of the Ohio Canal between 
 Cleveland and Marietta which 
 rough life, it seems, bade fair for a 
 time injuriously to affect his char 
 acter he had risen to a college 
 presidency and to the Senate of 
 Ohio, all before the war. Entering 
 the service early, he rose rapidly in 
 
 HARRIS M. PLAISrED 
 
 317 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 rank as he deserved, for no civilian commander had proved a 
 better soldier. His martial quality came out at Middle Creek, 
 Shiloh, and pre-eminently at Chickamauga, where his gallant 
 and meritorious services made him a major-general. At 
 Chickamauga, when the right wing of Rosecrans's army was 
 in full retreat, leaving to its fate the left, under General 
 Thomas, Garfield, through a fiery storm of shot, fatal to most 
 of his escort, had ridden back to acquaint Thomas with the 
 state of affairs, encourage him, and arrange for the safe re-form 
 ation of the Union forces on a new line. Entering Congress 
 in December, 1863, he at once became a leader, serving with 
 distinction on the most important committees, a power in 
 debate and on the stump, eloquent, sensible, patriotic not, 
 indeed, an adroit politician, but no little of a statesman. While 
 in Congress he probably had a more thorough acquaintance 
 with important public questions than any other man in official 
 life. His firm and decisive stand for honest money when a 
 formidable faction in his party was for fiat greenbacks has 
 already been alluded to in this History. That his State made 
 him its Senator, and his country made him its President, were 
 in nowise mere accidents. 
 
 Hancock's record, too, was altogether spotless and proud. 
 A West Point graduate and a patriot to the backbone, bre- 
 vetted for gallantry at Contreras and Cherubusco, at the front 
 whenever he could possibly get there in any serious engage 
 ment of our army in Virginia during the entire Civil War, 
 always a fighter, the bravest of the brave, the cause of Union 
 victory at Gettysburg if any one man could be so called, Han 
 cock at the time of his nomination came before the public 
 as perhaps the most consummate specimen of a mere military 
 man in the whole history of the country. Grant said Han 
 cock's name "was never mentioned as having committed in 
 battle a blunder for which he was held responsible." Nor 
 can any well doubt that Hancock would have made a suc 
 cessful President. Few, in fact, questioned this. It was his 
 
ELAINE VERSUS CONKLING 
 
 party that was distrusted. Had the Democracy held the 
 place in public esteem which was accorded to the candidate, 
 Hancock would almost certainly have been elected. As it 
 was, Garfield's popular majority was trifling, though in the 
 Electoral College he had 214 votes to Hancock's 155. 
 
 If it was Garfield's wish, as he again and again declared, 
 to treat all stripes of the party alike, it is hard to understand 
 what led him to select Elaine as Secretary of State in his 
 Cabinet. The mere rumor of this purpose roused Conkling's 
 utmost ire. Blaine and Conkling had long been openly and 
 bitterly at feud. Their quarrel, beginning in empty trifles, 
 had grown by incessant fanning until it menaced the party with 
 fatal schism. Tried and wise friends of both besought Blaine 
 not to accept the offered portfolio. Senator Dawes was one of 
 these. He says : " I warned Mr. Blaine that if he entered 
 the Cabinet with the intent or hope of circumventing his rival, 
 it would be fatal to him and to the administation of Garfield, 
 and I expressed the opinion that it would be impossible for 
 him to keep the peace if he took the office. He replied with 
 frankness, and, I have no doubt, with entire sincerity, that it 
 would be his purpose if he accepted the office to ignore all 
 past differences, and so deport himself in it as to force recon 
 ciliation. He said also that he could not agree with me, even 
 if the effect should prove otherwise, that he should for that 
 reason be debarred from the great opportunity, for which he 
 felt himself qualified, to administer the Foreign Office on the 
 broad and grand scale he did afterward undertake but was not 
 permitted to perfect. I foresaw the rocks all too plainly, and 
 advised him to remain in the Senate. But he determined 
 otherwise and accepted the position." 
 
 Garfield and Blaine probably thought that Conkling's 
 influence against them might be safely ignored (in which they 
 proved not wholly right), considering him a very shallow man 
 (wherein they were not wholly wrong). It is among William 
 Winter's reminiscences that Conkling and George William 
 
 3*9 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Curtis once compared judgments touching poetry and ora 
 tory, each citing passages that seemed to him ideal. Conkling 
 named Mrs. Hemans's " Casablanca," " The boy stood on 
 the burning deck," etc., as his model poem, and some fine 
 sentences from Charles Sprague as what suited him best in 
 eloquence. It was Sprague, we recall, whose Fourth of July 
 oration at Boston, in 1825, contained the smart period be 
 ginning : u Not many generations ago, where you now sit, 
 circled by all that adorns and embellishes civilized life, the 
 rank thistle nodded in the wind and the wild fox dug his hole 
 unscared." Curtis, for eloquence, presented the following 
 from Emerson's Dartmouth College oration, delivered on 
 July 24, 1838: "You will hear every day the maxims of a 
 low prudence. You will hear that the first duty is to get land 
 and money, place and name. What is this Truth you seek ? 
 What is this Beauty ? ' men will ask, with derision. If nev 
 ertheless, God have called any of you to explore Truth and 
 Beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, c As 
 others do, so will I. I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early 
 visions ; I must eat the good of the land, and let learning and 
 romantic expectations go until a more convenient season ; ' 
 then dies the man in you ; then once more perish the buds of 
 Art and Poetry and Science, as they have died already in a 
 thousand thousand men." 
 
 This Conkling thought rather tame. 
 
 Conkling looked upon Blame's promotion as nothing but 
 a deliberate attempt to humiliate himself, and his friends con 
 curred in this view. " Garfield, of whose great brain-power 
 political sagacity formed no part, could not be made to see in 
 the opposition anything but an attempt by dictation to trench 
 upon his constitutional prerogatives in the choice of his own 
 councillors, and all Blaine men agreed with him." 
 
 Bad was made worse when Garfield offered the post of 
 Secretary of the Treasury to Charles J. Folger, of New York, 
 not only without consulting Conkling but against Conkling' s 
 
 320 
 
Arthur Conkling Garfield 
 
 THE INTERVIEW AT THE RIGGS HOUSE 
 
CONKLING DENOUNCES GARFIELD 
 
 warm recommendation of Mr. Morton. That Mr. Folger de 
 clined the portfolio did not pacify Conkling. No man in the 
 Cabinet represented Conkling, whereas he and his friends 
 thought that on account of his great service in the campaign 
 all New York appointments, at least, should be filled by him 
 from among his friends. Garfield, undoubtedly influenced by 
 Elaine, would not consent to this. He was willing to do what 
 he reasonably could to pacify Conkling, but he refused to re 
 nounce his constitutional privilege of personally selecting the 
 men who were to aid him in discharging his arduous duties. 
 
 Shortly before the inauguration, in the spring of 1881, 
 Senator Platt, who was politically and sympathetically in accord 
 with his colleague, received the information that Mr. James 
 had been selected for the position of Postmaster-General. Up 
 to this time the two New York Senators had received assur 
 ances from the President-elect that the Empire State was to be 
 favored with the portfolio of the Treasury Department, which 
 was regarded as a more dignified and more influential position 
 in every respect. As soon as Mr. Platt heard of the Presi 
 dent's change of mind, he repaired at once to Chamberlain's, 
 where he found Vice- President Arthur and Senator Conkling 
 at breakfast. He broke the news to them. Arthur and 
 Conkling at once left the table and all three repaired to the 
 Riggs House, where Garfield had rooms. They received an 
 audience without delay, and for over an hour Conkling stormed 
 up and down the room, charging Garfield with treachery to his 
 friends in New York and asserting that he was false to his 
 party. Garfield sitting on the side of the bed listened in 
 silence to the tirade, violent and unseemly as all thought it. 
 Both General Arthur and Senator Platt subsequently declared 
 that for invective, sarcasm and impassioned eloquence this was 
 the speech of Conkling's life. 
 
 On March 23, 1881, Conkling's dearest foe, Mr. Robert 
 son, was nominated by the President as Collector of Customs 
 at the Port of New York, the then incumbent, E. A. Merritt, 
 
 3*3 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 being nominated for the post of Consul-General at London. 
 Both appointments were opposed by Conkling and his col 
 league, Mr. Platt, but in spite of this they were subsequently 
 confirmed by the Senate. Conkling's ire grew into a frenzy. 
 Sober Republicans were aghast at the chasm widening in the 
 party. A committee of conciliation, consisting of five gen 
 tlemen representing different attitudes to the litigants, was 
 appointed to try and harmonize them. Conkling met these 
 gentlemen to recount his wrongs. Said Mr. Dawes, who was 
 chairman of the committee : " On that occasion he surpassed 
 himself in all those elements of oratorical power for which he 
 was so distinguished. . . He continued for two hours and a 
 half to play with consummate skill upon all the strings known 
 to the orator and through all the notes from the lowest to the 
 highest which the great masters command, and concluded in a 
 lofty apostrophe to the greatness and glory of the Republican 
 party and his own devotion to its highest welfare. c And,' said 
 he, c I trust that the exigency may never arise when I shall be 
 compelled to choose between self-respect and personal honor 
 on the one side and the temporary discomfiture of that party 
 on the other; but if that time shall ever come I shall not hesi 
 tate in the choice, and I now say to you, and through you to 
 those whom it most concerns, that I have in my pocket an 
 autograph letter of this President, who is now for the time 
 being its official head, which I pray God I may never be com 
 pelled in self-defence to make public ; but if that time shall 
 ever come, I declare to you, his friends, he will bite the dust/" 
 This letter proved to be one like the " My dear Hubbell" 
 epistle mentioned below. It had been written in the course 
 of the campaign to press collections from government officials 
 and clerks for campaign expenses. President Garfield had 
 retained a copy. His friends urged him to publish it forth 
 with, thus anticipating Conkling; and he, at first, consented, 
 but Mr. Elaine dissuaded him. True to his threat, Conkling 
 gave it out, but too late, so that it fell flat. The conciliation 
 
 3*4 
 
H. L. Dawes, Mass. J. P. Janes, Nevada Roscoe Conkline 
 
 E. H. Rollins, N. H. 
 
 "/ DECLARE TO YOU, HIS FRIENDS, HE WILL BITE THE DUST" 
 
 Conkling's speech before the " Committee of Conciliation " 
 
CONKLING AND PLATT OUT OF THE SENATE 
 
 committee waited on the President to see if there was not some 
 way by which he could consistently accord Conkling fuller 
 recognition. Nothing came of the effort, as Conkling would 
 be satisfied only by the President's utter neglect and humilia 
 tion of the Robertson faction in New York. Conkling was 
 labored with again and begged to be magnanimous, but he 
 would not yield a hair. Instead of placing the good of the 
 party before his personal spite, he proposed to rule or ruin. 
 " Should I do as I am urged," he said, " I should myself go 
 under, and should be burned in effigy from Buffalo to Mon- 
 tauk Point, and could not be elected a delegate to a county 
 convention in Oneida County." It is said that he did actually 
 seek, later, an election to a convention in that county, but 
 without success. 
 
 Republicans after the heart of Conkling and Arthur, con 
 stituting "the Prince of Wales's Party," now called themselves 
 " Stalwarts," a term invented by Mr. Elaine, at the same time 
 styling administration Republicans " Half-breeds." Those 
 declining to take sides either way they dubbed " Jelly-fish." 
 On May i6th, before Robertson's confirmation, the two New 
 York Senators, Conkling and Platt, resigned their places, 
 expecting the honor and indorsement of an immediate re-elec 
 tion. In this they were disappointed. They were defeated in 
 the New York Legislature by E. C. Lapham and Warner 
 Miller, administration or " Half-breed " Republicans. Mr. 
 Conkling never again reappeared in politics. Mr. Platt, on 
 the contrary, suffered only a temporary loss of influence. Dis 
 liked by a large section perhaps a majority of the New 
 York Republicans, he still did not cease to be the determining 
 factor of the fortunes of the party in his State. It is not 
 unlikely that Mr. Bryce had Conkling and Platt in mind when, 
 in his chapter upon " Rings and Bosses," he wrote : " There 
 have been brilliant instances of persons stepping at once to 
 the higher rungs of the ladder in virtue of their audacity and 
 energy, especially if coupled with oratorical power. However, 
 
 327 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 THE ANTI-CHINESE RIOT OF 1880, IN DENSER, COL.* 
 
 the position of the rhetorical boss is less firmly rooted than 
 that of the intriguing boss, and there have been instances of 
 his suddenly falling to rise no more." 
 
 Mr. James was well succeeded in the New York Post- 
 office by Mr. Pearson, who had been the Assistant Postmaster. 
 Robert T. Lincoln, of Illinois, Secretary of War, was not well 
 known, but the illustrious name of his father made the selec 
 tion a popular one. He had supported Grant in the conven 
 tion, and his appointment was an acknowledgment of the 
 Logan faction. Of Mr. Kirkwood, Secretary of the Interior, 
 it is sufficient to say that he was indorsed by Carl Schurz, his 
 predecessor in the department. Judge William H. Hunt was 
 placed in charge of the navy portfolio. He was an Old-Line 
 
 *The publication of the * ' Morey Letter ' ' ( see p. 315) stirred up a general anti- 
 Chinese feeling, particularly through the West. On October 31, 1880, a mob attacked the 
 Chinese quarter in Denver, and were only driven back when the firemen turned the stream 
 from their hose on them. 
 
 328 
 
GARFIELD'S CABINET 
 
 Whig, born in South Carolina, who had moved to Louisiana. 
 Throughout the war he was a staunch Union man, and after 
 ward a consistent Republican. He had been counsel for 
 Governor Kellogg against McEnery in the famous Durell 
 case, and also a candidate for the office of Attorney-General 
 on the Louisiana State ticket with Packard. President Hayes 
 made him a judge of the Court of Claims, a position which 
 he held till he received this promotion from Mr. Garfield. 
 
 Wayne MacVeagh, of Pennsylvania, Attorney-General in 
 Garfield's Cabinet, was universally respected for his high char 
 acter and ability. Though a son-in-law of Simon Cameron, 
 he was an Independent, and therefore, politically, no friend to 
 either of the Camerons. William Windom, of Minnesota, 
 Secretary of the Treasury, the East suspected of monetary 
 " unsoundness," but this occasioned little anxiety, as Garfield 
 was well known to be perfectly trustworthy in this regard. 
 Windom was immensely popular in the West because of his 
 antagonism to monopolies, some of which had already made 
 themselves formidable and odious. By this time telegraph 
 and railway lines had become consolidated and one or two 
 " Trusts " had arisen. 
 
 In the fall of 1880 a Mr. Hudson, of Detroit, confided 
 to Senator Sherman a fear that General Garfield would be 
 assassinated, giving particulars. Being at once apprised, Mr. 
 Garfield, under date of November 16, 1880, replied: "I do 
 not think there is any serious danger in the direction to which 
 he refers, though I am receiving what I suppose to be the 
 usual number of threatening letters on that subject. Assassi 
 nation can no more be guarded against than death by lightning; 
 and it is not best to worry about either." Hardly had President 
 Garfield entered upon his high duties when Mr. Hudson's 
 fears were realized. This was only six weeks after the mur 
 der of Czar Alexander II. The President had never been in 
 better spirits than on the morning of July i, 1881. Before he 
 was up one of his sons entered his room. Almost the boy's 
 
 3*9 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 first words were " There ! " taking a flying leap over his bed 
 " you are the President of the United States, but you can't 
 do that." Whereupon the Chief Magistrate arose and did it. 
 Later in the morning, thus healthy and jovial, he entered the 
 railway station at Washington, intending to take an Eastern 
 trip. Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed office-seeker, crept 
 up behind him and fired two bullets at him, one of which 
 lodged in his back. 
 
 The country already had a deep affection for Mr. Gar- 
 field, all except those immediately interested in party politics 
 and many of these, sympathizing with him against Conkling 
 in the struggle that had arisen over appointments. Demo 
 crats honored him for his course in this business. The terrible 
 misfortune now come upon him ostensibly in consequence of 
 his boldness in that matter wonderfully endeared him to the 
 popular heart. He was likened to Lincoln, as another " mar 
 tyr President." In all the churches throughout the North 
 often as the congregations met for worship, earnest prayers 
 were offered for the President's recovery. In every city crowds 
 watched the bulletin boards daily from morning till night to 
 learn from the despatches constantly appearing the disting 
 uished sufferer's condition. The bullet had pierced the tissues 
 by a long, angry and crooked course, leaving a wound that 
 could not be properly drained. Spite of treatment by the 
 most famous medical practitioners whom, however, high au 
 thorities deemed somewhat fussy and irresolute in handling 
 the case blood-poisoning set in, and at length proved fatal. 
 The President's hardy constitution enabled him to fight for 
 life as few could have done. He languished on and on 
 through weeks of dreadful suffering, till September 1 9th, when 
 he died. 
 
 On the 2 ist of December the Houses of Congress passed 
 resolutions for memorial services, to occur on February 27, 
 1882, to which were invited the President and ex- Presidents, 
 the heads of departments, Supreme Court Judges, Ministers of 
 
 33 
 
ELAINE'S ORATION ON GARFIELD 
 
 foreign countries, Gov 
 ernors of States, and 
 distinguished officers of 
 the army and the navy. 
 Upon that occasion 
 Mr. Elaine delivered an 
 oration on the life and 
 character of the dead 
 Chief Magistrate. The 
 closing periods ran : " As 
 the end drew near, his 
 early craving for the sea 
 returned. The stately 
 mansion of power had 
 been to him the weari 
 some hospital of pain, 
 and he begged to be 
 taken from its prison 
 walls, from its oppres 
 sive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. 
 Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer 
 to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God 
 should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound 
 of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted 
 to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the oceans 
 changing wonders ; on its far sails, whitening in the morning 
 light; on its restless waves rolling shoreward to break and die 
 beneath the noonday sun ; the red clouds of evening, arching 
 low to the horizon ; on the serene and shining pathway of 
 the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic 
 meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. 
 Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he 
 heard the great waves breaking on a further shore, and felt 
 already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morn- 
 ing." 
 
 333 
 
 JAMES A. GARFIELD 
 
 After a photograph by Bell the last picture made before 
 the assassination 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 The sorrow over President Garfield's death, said 
 George William Curtis, in another eulogy, was " more world 
 wide and pathetic than ever before lamented a human being. 
 In distant lands men bowed their heads. The courts of kings 
 were clad in mourning. The parish bells of rural England 
 tolled, and every American household was hushed with pain 
 as if its first-born lay dead." 
 
 It may be doubted whether posterity will give Mr. 
 Garfield quite the high place assigned him by contemporary 
 judgment; yet he was certainly among our greater men. 
 Somewhat vacillating and passive, and too much dominated 
 by Elaine's stronger nature, Garfield was a man of solid 
 character, no little personal magnetism, and great information. 
 In many respects he and Elaine were alike. In aptness for 
 personal intercourse with men, and in fc the power of will, he 
 was Elaine's inferior, while in logic, learning and breadth of 
 view he was in advance of Elaine. 
 
 Guiteau had been by spells a politician, lawyer, lecturer, 
 theologian and evangelist. He pretended to have been in 
 spired by Deity with the thought that the removal of Mr. 
 Garfield was necessary to the unity of the Republican party 
 and to the salvation of the country. He is said to have ex 
 claimed, on being arrested : " All right, I did it and will go to 
 jail for it. I am a Stalwart, and Arthur will be President." 
 His trial began in November and lasted over two months. 
 The defense was insanity. The prosecution showed that the 
 man had long been an unprincipled adventurer, greedy for no 
 toriety ; that he first conceived the project of killing the Presi 
 dent after his hopes of office were finally destroyed ; and that 
 he had planned the murder several weeks in advance. 
 
 The public rage against Guiteau knew no bounds. Only 
 by the utmost vigilance on the part of his keepers was his life 
 prolonged till the day of his execution. Sergeant Mason, a 
 soldier set to guard him, fired into Guiteau's cell with the 
 evident intention of applying to the assassin assassins' methods. 
 
 334 
 
GUITEAU IN COURT 
 
 The sergeant was tried by court-martial, dismissed from the 
 army, deprived of his back pay, and sentenced to eight years 
 in the Albany Penitentiary. Two months later, as they were 
 taking the wretched Guiteau from jail to court, a horseman, 
 dashing past, fired a pistol at him, the bullet grazing his wrist. 
 The prisoner's disorderly conduct and scurrilous inter 
 ruptions of the proceedings during his trial, apparently to aid 
 the plea of insanity, impaired the dignity of the occasion and 
 
 PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S REMAINS LYING IN STATE AT THE CAPITOL 
 
 elicited, both at home and abroad, comment disparaging to 
 the court. Judge Cox threatened to gag the prisoner or send 
 him out of court ; but as neither of these courses could be 
 taken without infringing Guiteau's right to confront his ac 
 cusers and to speak in his own behalf, the threats were of 
 no avail. 
 
 335 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Guiteau was found guilty in January, 1882. As the last 
 juror signified his assent to the verdict the condemned man 
 sprang to his feet and shrieked : " My blood will be upon 
 the heads of that jury. Don't you forget it ! God will avenge 
 this outrage ! " He was executed at Washington on June 30, 
 1882, and his skeleton is now in the Army Medical Museum 
 in that city. The autopsy showed no disease of the brain. 
 
 Although it had no logical connection with the spoils 
 system, the assassination of President Garfield called the atten 
 tion of the country to the crying need of reform in the civil 
 service. Through March, April, May and June, 1881, Wash 
 ington streets had been blockaded with office-seekers and politi 
 cal adventurers, bearing " testimonials " of their worth, seeking 
 indorsers and backers and awaiting chances to " interview " 
 the President himself. Contributors to the election fund were 
 especially forward in demanding positions. The President's 
 time and strength were wasted in weighing the deserts of this 
 or that politician or faction of r a State to control patronage 
 there. All who had known him in the army, in Congress or 
 at home now made the most of such acquaintance. 
 
 We have seen that Hayes's administration marked in 
 this respect, as in others, an immense improvement. Secretary 
 Schurz in the Interior Department enforced competitive ex 
 aminations. They were applied by Mr. James to the New 
 York Post-office, and, as a result, one-third more work was 
 done with less cost. Similar good results followed the adop 
 tion of the " merit system " in the New York Custom-house 
 after 1879. President Hayes also strongly condemned politi 
 cal assessments upon office-holders, but with small practical 
 effect, as his effort lacked full legislative sanction and sym 
 pathy. 
 
 But the corruption which had enjoyed immunity so long 
 could not be put down all at once. During Hayes's last 
 years, and thereafter, much public attention was drawn to the 
 " Star Route " frauds. The Star Routes were stage-lines for 
 
 33 6 
 
SCENE AT A STATION ON THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD AS THE GARFIELD AMBU 
 LANCE TRAIN PASSED ON ITS WAT TO ELBERON* 
 
 *0n September 6th, the President was removed to Elberon, N. J., in a specially designed car, the bed being arranged so as 
 to minimixe the jolting. It was an extremely hot day and the train went very fast, the President sending a mes 
 
 ge to the engineer to increase 
 
 passage of the train, instinctively removing their hats as it came into sight. 
 
 ed. At the stations and in the fields knots of people congregated to watch the 
 
THE STAR ROUTES 
 
 THE GARFIELD FUNERAL CAR ABOUT TO START FROM THE PUBLIC SQUARE, 
 
 CLEVELAND, 0., FOR THE CEMETERY 
 Drawn by T. L. Thulstrup from a photograph by Ryder 
 
 carrying the mails in sections of the West where railroads and 
 steamboats failed. In 1878 there were 9,225 of these Star 
 Routes, for the maintenance of which Congress in that year 
 appropriated $5,900,000. A Ring made up on the one hand 
 of Democratic and Republican public men, some of these 
 very prominent, and on the other hand of certain mail con 
 tractors, managed to increase the remuneration for service on 
 135 pet routes from $143,169 to $622,808. On twenty-six 
 of the routes the pay-roll was put up from $65,216 to $530,- 
 319. The method was, first, to get numerously signed peti 
 tions from the districts interested, praying for an increase in 
 the number of trips per week and shortening the schedule 
 
 339 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 time of each trip, get " estimates " from the contractors vastly 
 in excess of actual cost for the service, get these estimates 
 allowed at Washington, and then divide profits between the 
 " statesmen " and citizens interested in the " deal." Over 
 some of these lines, it was asserted, not more than three letters 
 a week were carried. 
 
 Attention was drawn to the Star Route matter before the 
 close of Hayes's term, but exposure was staved off until Mr. 
 James, "the model New York Postmaster," assumed the office 
 of Postmaster-General. On May 6, 1881, Mr. James wrote 
 Thurlow Weed : " Rest assured I shall do my whole duty in 
 the matter of the Star Route swindlers. It is a hard task y 
 but it shall be pushed fearlessly, regardless of whom it may 
 involve." 
 
 Thomas W. Brady, Second Assistant Postmaster-General, 
 was supposed to be a member of the Ring. At any rate, he 
 threatened, unless proceedings were stopped, to publish a let 
 ter of President Garfield's written during the campaign. This 
 he did. It was the famous "My dear Hubbell" epistle. The 
 writer, addressing " My dear Hubbell," hoped that " he " (re 
 ferring to Brady) " would give them all the assistance possible." 
 According to Brady, this meant that he should, among other 
 things, get money from the Star Route contractors. Garfield in 
 sisted that it was simply a call on 
 Brady to contribute from his own 
 pocket. In the next sentence of 
 the letter, however, the presidential 
 candidate asks : " Please tell me 
 how the departments generally are 
 doing." This will hardly bear any 
 other construction than that of party 
 extortion from the government em 
 ployes, especially since this same 
 Hubbell, as chairman of the Repub 
 lican Congressional Committee, was 
 
 GEORGE H. PENDLETON 
 
 340 
 
PENDLETON CIVIL SERVICE ACT 
 
 Dorman B. Eaton John M. Gregory Leroy D. Thoman 
 
 THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED BT PRESIDENT ARTHUR 
 
 later called to account by the reformers for levying two per 
 cent, assessments upon the clerks styled by him and his friends 
 " voluntary contributions." Whether Brady's tu quoque 
 availed him, or for some other reason, his trial was postponed 
 and he was never convicted. Senator Dorsey, of Arkansas, 
 was also arraigned, but, upon his second trial, in 1883, was 
 acquitted. Indeed, of those prosecuted for fraud in connec 
 tion with the Star Routes, only one was ever punished ; and 
 in this case the Government was in error, as the man was 
 innocent. 
 
 The tragic fate of President Garfield, taken in connection 
 with these and other revelations of continuing political corrup 
 tion, brought public sentiment on Civil Service Reform to a 
 head. A bill prepared by the Civil Service Reform League, 
 and in 1880 introduced in the Senate by Senator Pendleton, 
 of Ohio, passed Congress in January, 1883, and on the i6th 
 of that month received the signature of President Arthur. 
 
 Renewing, in the main, the provisions adopted under the 
 Act of 1 87 1, it authorized the President, with the consent of the 
 Senate, to appoint three Civil Service Commissioners, who were 
 to institute competitive examinations open to all persons desir- 
 
 341 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 ing to enter the employ of the Government. It provided that 
 the clerks in the departments at Washington, and in every 
 customs district or post-office where fifty or more were em 
 ployed, should be arranged in classes, and that in the future 
 only persons who had passed the examinations should be ap 
 pointed to service in these offices or promoted from a lower 
 class to a higher, preference being given according to rank in 
 the examinations. Candidates were to serve six months' pro 
 bation at practical work before receiving a final appointment. 
 The bill struck a heavy blow at political assessments, by 
 declaring that no official should be removed for refusing to 
 contribute to political funds. A Congressman or government 
 official convicted of soliciting or receiving political assessments 
 from government employes became liable to $5,000 fine or 
 three years* imprisonment, or both. Persons in the govern 
 ment service were forbidden to use their official authority or 
 influence to coerce the political action of anyone, or to inter 
 fere with elections. Dorman B. Eaton, Leroy D. Thoman, 
 and John M. Gregory were appointed commissioners by 
 President Arthur. By the end of the year the new system 
 was fairly in operation. Besides the departments at Wash 
 ington, it applied to eleven customs districts and twenty-three 
 post-offices where fifty or more officials were employed. 
 
 342 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 DOMESTIC EVENTS DURING MR. ARTHUR'S 
 ADMINISTRATION 
 
 MR. ARTHUR'S DILEMMA. HIS ACCESSION. RESPONSIBILITY EVOKES 
 
 HIS BEST. THE PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION QUESTION. SUCCESSION 
 
 ACT PASSED. ELECTORAL COUNT ACT PASSED. ARTHUR'S CABI 
 NET. CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY IN l88l. DECADENCE OF OUR 
 
 OCEAN CARRYING. TARIFF COMMISSION OF 1882 AND THE TARIFF 
 
 OF 1883. MAHONE AND THE VIRGINIA "READJUSTERS." MAHONE'S 
 
 RECORD. HIS ENTRY INTO THE SENATE. PRESIDENT ARTHUR AND 
 
 THE CHINESE. ORIGIN OF THE CHINESE QUESTION. ANSON 
 
 BURLINGAME. THE 1878 EMBASSY. CHINESE THRONG HITHER. 
 
 EARLY CALIFORNIA. THE STRIKE OF 1877 AFFECTS CALIFORNIA. 
 
 RISE AND CHARACTER OF DENIS KEARNEY. HIS PROGRAM. THE 
 
 "SAND-LOT" CAMPAIGN. KEARNEY'S MODERATION. HE is COURT 
 ED. AND OPPOSED. HIS CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. ITS 
 
 WORK. KEARNEYISM TO THE REAR. THE JAMES DESPERADOES. 
 
 THEIR CAPTURE. THE YORKTOWN CELEBRATION. MEMENTOES OF 
 
 OLD YORKTOWN. THE PAGEANT. "SURRENDER" DAY. THE 
 
 OTHER DAYS. CLOSE OF THE FETE. FLOOD AND RIOT IN CINCIN 
 NATI. 
 
 DURING Garfield's illness Mr. Arthur's predicament had 
 been most delicate. The second article of the Consti- 
 tion provides that " in case of the removal of the President 
 from office, or of his death, resignation or inability to dis 
 charge the powers and duties of said office, the same shall 
 devolve on the Vice-President." What is here meant by a 
 President's "inability," and how or by whom such inability 
 is in any case to be ascertained, had never been determined. 
 Was the question of " inability " to be decided by the Presi 
 dent himself, by the Vice-President, or by Congress ? Could 
 the Vice-President take up Presidential duties temporarily, 
 giving way again to the President in case the latter recovered, 
 or must he, having begun, serve through the remainder of 
 
 343 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 the four years, the once disabled President being permanently 
 out of office ? These problems doubtless weighed heavily 
 upon Mr. Arthur's mind while his chief lay languishing. 
 They were everywhere discussed daily. A popular view was 
 advocated by General Butler, to the effect that the Vice-Presi- 
 dent himself was charged with the duty of deciding when to 
 take up the higher functions. As Garfield's was a clear case 
 of " inability to discharge the powers and duties of the Presi 
 dency," Mr. Arthur may actually have felt it, from a techni 
 cally legal point of view, incumbent upon him to assume 
 these " powers and duties." In a Cabinet meeting Mr. Elaine 
 suggested that Mr. Arthur be summoned to do this, intimat 
 ing that the chief direction ought certainly to be devolved 
 on Arthur should an extraordinary emergency in administra 
 tion arise. It was fortunate that no such emergency occurred, 
 and that Mr. Arthur did not feel for any reason called upon 
 to grasp the reins of government. At this critical juncture he 
 might easily have acted, or even spoken, in a manner seriously 
 to compromise himself and his country. Far from doing any 
 thing of the sort, he was singularly discreet through the whole 
 trial. 
 
 Hardly had Garfield breathed his last, when, the same 
 night, in the small morning hours of September 20, 1881, 
 Mr. Arthur took oath as President. This occurred in his 
 house in New York City, Judge Brady, of the New York State 
 Supreme Court, officiating. The next day but one, the oath 
 was again administered by Chief Justice Waite in the Senate 
 Chamber at Washington. On this occasion Mr. Arthur 
 delivered a brief inaugural address. He said : " The mem 
 ory of the murdered President, his protracted sufferings, his 
 unyielding fortitude, the example and achievements of his 
 life and the pathos of his death, will forever illuminate the 
 pages of our history. Men may die, but the fabrics of our 
 free institutions remain unshaken. No higher or more assur 
 ing proof could exist of the strength and power of popular 
 
 344 
 
D. G. Rollins Elihu Root 
 
 President Arthui 
 
 Judge Brady 
 
 Drawn by W. R. Leigh 
 
 PRESIDENT ARTHUR TAKING THE INAUGURAL OATH AT HIS LEXINGTON AVENUE 
 
 RESIDENCE 
 
IMPORTANT LEGISLATION 
 
 government than the fact that, though the chosen of the 
 people be struck down, his constitutional successor is peace 
 fully installed without shock or strain." 
 
 Responsibility brought out the new President's best quali 
 ties. He had little special preparation for his exalted office. 
 Save among the New York Republicans, he was almost un 
 known till his nomination as Vice-President, and when he 
 succeeded Garfield there was much misgiving. Yet his admin 
 istration was distinguished as few have been for ability, fairness, 
 elevation of tone and freedom from mean partisanship. He 
 was extremely diligent, circumspect, considerate and firm. 
 That he had nerve men saw when, in 1882, he resolutely 
 vetoed a portentously large River and Harbor Bill. His 
 public papers were in admirable spirit, thoroughly considered, 
 and written in a style finer than those of any preceding Presi 
 dent since John Quincy Adams. 
 
 The country's ordeal in connection with Garfield's death 
 led to an important piece of legislation. Few were then or 
 are now aware by what a slender thread the orderly govern 
 ment of our country hung between the shooting of Garfield 
 in July, 1 88 1, and the second special session of the Senate of 
 the Forty-seventh Congress the following October. Had Mr. 
 Arthur died at any moment during this period and it is said 
 that he was for a time in imminent danger of death or had 
 he become in any way unable to perform a President's duties, 
 there could have been no constitutional succession to the 
 Presidency. The law of March, 1792, declares that in case 
 the Vice-President as well as the President dies, is removed, 
 or is disqualified, "the President of the Senate pro tempore, or, if 
 there is none, then the Speaker of the House of Representa 
 tives for the time being, shall act as President until the disa 
 bility is removed or a President elected." But at the time of 
 Garfield's assassination, neither a President pro tempore of the 
 Senate nor a Speaker of the House existed. It had been cus 
 tomary for the Vice-President before the end of a session of 
 
 347 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 the Senate to retire, and so require the appointment of a Presi 
 dent ^>n? tempore who should continue as such during the re 
 cess ; but on this occasion the special session of the Senate in 
 May had adjourned without electing any such presiding offi 
 cer. On October loth Senator Bayard was made President 
 pro tempore of the Senate, followed on the ijth by Senator 
 David Davis. Of course there could be no Speaker at this 
 time, as the Forty-sixth Congress had ceased to exist in 
 March, and the House of the Forty-seventh did not convene 
 till December. 
 
 In his first annual message President Arthur commended 
 to the " early and thoughtful consideration of Congress " the 
 important questions touching the Presidential succession which 
 had so vividly emerged in consequence of his predecessor's 
 assassination. It had been a question whether the statute of 
 1792 was constitutional. The ground of the doubt was that, 
 according to the doctrine agreed to when, in 1798, an attempt 
 was made to impeach Senator Blount, of Tennessee, Speakers 
 of the House and temporary Presidents of the Senate are not, 
 technically, "officers of the United States." Hence, were 
 either a speaker or a temporary head of the Senate to take a 
 President's place, Presidential duties would be devolved on 
 an official who could not be impeached for malfeasance. The 
 law of 1792 was objectionable for other reasons. It originally 
 passed only by a narrow majority. Many then wished that 
 the Presidential succession should take the direction of the 
 Secretary of State, and had not Jefferson held this office at the 
 time the law would probably have so provided. 
 
 On the second day of its first regular session the Senate of 
 the Forty-seventh Congress ordered its Judiciary Committee 
 to consider the question of the Presidential succession, inquire 
 whether any, and if so, what, further legislation was necessary 
 in respect to the same, and to report by bill or otherwise. A 
 bill to meet the case was soon introduced by Senator Garland, 
 of Arkansas. The matter was briefly debated both then and 
 
 34 8 
 
PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION ACT 
 
 at intervals for a number of years ; but no legislation upon it 
 occurred till January, 1886, when the Forty-ninth Congress 
 passed a law based on Garland's draft. It provided that if the 
 Presidency and the Vice- Presidency are both vacant the Presi 
 dency passes to the members of the Cabinet in the historical 
 order of the establishment of their departments, beginning 
 with the Secretary of State. If he dies, is impeached or dis 
 abled, the Secretary of the Treasury becomes President, to be 
 followed in like crisis by the Secretary of War, he by the 
 Attorney-General, he by the Postmaster-General, he by the 
 Secretary of the Navy, and he by the Secretary of the Interior. 
 To be thus in the line of the Presidential succesion a Cabinet 
 officer must have been duly confirmed as such and must 
 be constitutionally eligible to the Presidency. If Congress is 
 not in session when one of these officers thus comes to the 
 Presidency, and is not to convene in twenty days, the new 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^_ President must issue a 
 
 proclamation convening 
 Congress after twenty 
 days, and Congress must 
 then order a new election 
 for President. 
 
 The Forty-ninth Con 
 gress also passed, on Feb 
 ruary 3, 1887, an act to 
 fix the day for the meet 
 ing of the electors of 
 President and Vice- Presi 
 dent, and to provide for 
 and regulate the counting 
 of the votes for President 
 and Vice-President and 
 the decision of questions 
 arising thereon. The as 
 certainment of the electors 
 
 - ,,_ 
 
 CHESTER A. ARTHUR 
 
 349 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 within and for any State is so far as possible made the busi 
 ness of that State, any judicial determination made for 
 this purpose within six days of the electors' meeting being 
 binding on Congress. In case of a single return fixing the 
 personnel of the electors the vote of any elector can be re 
 jected only by the two Houses concurrently agreeing that it 
 was not legally cast. In case of conflicting returns one of 
 which a State tribunal has adjudged to be legal, only those 
 votes denoted by this return can be counted. If there is ques 
 tion which of two or more authorities or tribunals had the right 
 to determine the legal electoral vote of the State, the votes, 
 being regularly cast, of the electors whose title the two Houses 
 acting separately concurrently decide to be the legal ones, are 
 counted. If there has been no determination of the question 
 of electors' legitimacy, those votes and those only are counted 
 which the two Houses concurrently decide to have been cast 
 by the lawful electors; unless the two Houses acting sep 
 arately concurrently decide that such votes were not the legal 
 votes of the legally elected electors. 
 
 We still have no legal or official criterion of a President's 
 " inability to discharge the powers and duties of his office," nor 
 has any tribunal been designated for the settlement of the ques 
 tion when it arises. We do not know whether, were another 
 President so ill as Garfield was, it would be proper for the 
 Cabinet to perform Presidential duties, as Garfield's did, or 
 whether the Vice-President would be bound to assume those 
 duties. Barring this chance for conflict, it is not easy to think 
 of an emergency in which the chief magistracy can now fall 
 vacant or the appropriate incumbent thereof be in doubt. 
 
 The only member of Garfield's Cabinet whom Arthur 
 permanently retained was Robert T. Lincoln, Secretary of 
 War. However, the old Cabinet did not dissolve at once. 
 Not till December 19, 1881, did Mr. Elaine, who had prac 
 tically been at the head of the Government from the Presi 
 dent's assassination till his death, surrender the State portfolio. 
 
 35 
 
CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY 
 
 Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, took his place. 
 Ex-Governor Edwin D. Morgan, of New York, had been 
 nominated and confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury, but 
 had declined on account of ill health. Judge Charles J. Folger 
 took the Treasury portfolio November 15, 1881. In April, 
 1882, William E. Chandler, of New Hampshire, and Henry 
 M. Teller, of Colorado, were called to the Navy and Inte 
 rior Departments respectively. January 5, 1882, Timothy O. 
 Howe, of Wisconsin, was confirmed as Postmaster-General, but 
 he died in March, 1883. Walter Q. Gresham succeeded him. 
 Benjamin H. Brewster, of Pennsylvania, was confirmed At 
 torney-General in December, 1881. Secretary Folger died in 
 1884. Gresham was then transferred to the Treasury, As 
 sistant Postmaster-General Frank Hatton being advanced to 
 the head of the Post-office Department. Mr. Gresham soon 
 resigned to accept a Circuit Judgeship on the Seventh Circuit. 
 His place as Secretary of the Treasury was filled by Hugh 
 McCulloch, who had administered most acceptably the same 
 office from 1865 to 1869. 
 
 In addressing Congress for the first time, President Ar 
 thur was able to represent the condition of the country as 
 excellent. Colorado had been admitted to the Union in 1876. 
 During the decade ending in 1880 our population had grown 
 somewhat over twenty-five per cent., that is, from thirty-eight 
 millions to fifty millions. The net public debt, December 31, 
 1880, was a trifle less than $1,900,000,000, a decrease in the 
 face of the debt of $600,000,000, in the ten years. Agricul 
 tural production was found to have advanced one hundred 
 per cent., while, according to the ninth census, the increase 
 from 1870 to 1880 had been but twelve per cent. The tenth 
 census corrected certain figures relating to our national area, 
 making the country eight hundred square miles smaller than 
 it had been supposed to be. 
 
 Americans thought it a serious matter that for the year 
 1879 the f re ig n trade of Great Britain exceeded $3,000,000,- 
 
 35 1 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 ooo, two and a half times the amount of ours. It was also a 
 source of solicitude that we were the only civilized country in 
 the world whose ocean-carrying had absolutely decreased since 
 1856. In that year American ships bore seventy-five per cent, 
 of all we exported and of all we imported. In 1878 American 
 ships bore twenty-five per cent.; in 1882 fifteen per cent. 
 Though our foreign commerce had increased seventy per 
 cent, in amount, the cargoes transported in American ships 
 were $200,000,000 less valuable in 1878 than in 1857. In 
 1856 foreign vessels entered at our ports had a tonnage of 
 3,117,034. By 1 88 1 it had increased 308 per cent, or to 
 12,711,392 tons, of which 8,457,797 sailed under the Union 
 Jack. On the other hand, American tonnage from foreign 
 ports, in the same period, increased from 1,891,453 to 2,919,- 
 149, or only 54 per cent. "The continuing decline of the 
 merchant marine of the United States," wrote President 
 Arthur, "is greatly to be deplored. In view of the fact that 
 we furnish so large a proportion of the freights of the com 
 mercial world, and that our shipments are steadily and rapidly 
 increasing, it is a cause of surprise that not only is our 
 navigation interest diminishing, but it is less than when our 
 exports and imports were not half so large as now either in 
 bulk or in value." 
 
 An Act of Congress passed May 15, 1882, created a 
 TarifT Commission consisting of prominent manufactures and 
 others, viz.: J. L. Hayes, H. W. Oliver, A. M. Garland^ 
 J. A. Ambler, Robert P. Porter, J. W. H. Underwood, A. R. 
 Boteler and Duncan F. Kennon. After long investigation 
 and deliberation, having examined many witnesses, these 
 gentlemen brought in in December an able, luminous and 
 comprehensive report of 2,500 printed pages, forming an 
 invaluable exhibit of our then customs laws, their merits and 
 defects. Part of it ran : "In the performance of the duty 
 devolved upon them, all the members of the Commission 
 have aimed,, and, as they believe, with success, to divest them- 
 
 35* 
 
TARIFF COMMISSION AND BILL 
 
 selves of political bias, sectional prejudice or considerations of 
 personal interest. It is their desire that their recommenda 
 tions shall serve no particular party, class, section or school 
 of political economy." 
 
 In this report the Commission recommended an average 
 reduction in tariff rates of not less than 20 per cent. In 
 certain rates a lowering of 50 per cent, was urged. The Sen 
 ate amended a House internal revenue measure by adding a 
 tariff bill calculated to effect some reduction, though less radi 
 cal and less impartial than that wished by the Commission. 
 " If the Senate Finance Committee had embodied in this bill 
 the recommendations of the Tariff Commission, including 
 the schedules, without amendment or change, the tariff would 
 have been settled for many years. Unfortunately, this was 
 not done, but the schedules prescribing the rates of duty and 
 their classification were so radically changed by the Commit 
 tee that the scheme of the Tariff Commission was practically 
 defeated. Many persons wishing to advance their particular 
 industries appeared before the Committee and succeeded in 
 having their views adopted."* 
 
 A two-thirds vote was required to bring this Senate bill 
 before the House. Wishing it referred to a conference com 
 mittee, which would be to their advantage, the high-protection 
 leaders in the House adroitly got the rules revised, enabling 
 a bare majority to non-concur in the Senate amendment, but 
 not to concur therein so as to pass the bill. The measure, 
 therefore, went to the Conference Committee. There it took 
 on features much more highly protectionist. The resulting 
 act, the tariff law of 1883, in some instances advanced customs 
 rates even over their former figures, making them higher than 
 either Commission, Senate or House had proposed, closely 
 approximating those of the old War tariff. The average 
 diminution from the tariff as it previously stood was, perhaps, 
 about four per cent. 
 
 *John Sherman, Recollections. 
 353 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 This Act paved the way for infinite trouble over the 
 tariff. It was full of irrational and contradictory provisions, 
 and, as a whole, pleased nobody. Each industry wished what 
 it purchased treated as raw material, to be tariffed low or not 
 at all, and what it sold considered as the finished article, to 
 receive the highest rates. Struggle over these conflicting 
 interests was apparent in the many incongruous features of 
 the Act. 
 
 It was significant that Mr. Arthur's first message made 
 no allusion to the Southern question. All felt, so well had 
 Mr. Hayes's policy worked, that that section might now be 
 safely left to itself. Meantime the " Readjuster " controversy 
 in Virginia bade fair to be the entering wedge for a split in the 
 solid South. The Readjusters were a Democratic faction tak 
 ing name from their desire to " readjust" the State debt on a 
 basis that meant partial repudiation. In 1879, ^Y a fusion 
 with the Republicans, the Readjusters controlled the State and 
 elected their leader, William Mahone, to the United States 
 Senate. Mahone had been a major-general in the Confeder 
 ate Army, and his bravery greatly endeared him to the South 
 ern heart. He it was who commanded the slender contingent 
 of Confederates at Petersburg on July 30, 1864, when the 
 mine on Burnside's front was exploded. He there fought like 
 a tiger, and made his dispositions with the utmost skill and 
 coolness. To him almost alone was due the credit that day 
 of keeping Petersburg from Union hands and of replacing the 
 Confederate lines by sunset exactly where they were at sun 
 rise. Had the Confederacy endured, he should have been 
 one of its presidents for his meritorious services in this battle. 
 The negro vote helped Mahone. He had always favored fair 
 treatment for the black man. In his county the blacks had 
 voted freely and their votes had been counted as cast. Good 
 provision for colored schools had also been made there. 
 
 The Virginian's entry into the Senate in 1881 was marked 
 by a dramatic passage at arms. His personal appearance drew 
 
 354 
 
MAHONE ENTERS THE SENATE 
 
 attention. He had been a striking figure in battle uniform, 
 and he was hardly less so in citizen's attire. He wore a close- 
 bodied suit of brown broadcloth, frilled cuffs extending beyond 
 the sleeves. He had a small head and spindle legs. His 
 hair and beard were long, his stature diminutive. One de 
 scribed him as " a spry midget, full of Irish fire, who enjoyed 
 cutting a national figure." As elected, the Senate of the 
 Forty-seventh Congress had a small Republican majority, but 
 Garfield's Cabinet appointments, calling away the three Repub 
 lican Senators Elaine, Kirkwood and Windom left the two 
 parties in the body equally divided. When the fight for 
 organization came on there were thirty-seven sure Republicans 
 and thirty-seven sure Democrats, not 
 counting David Davis or Mahone, both 
 of whom were expected to act more 
 or less independently of party. Davis, 
 favoring the status quo and evidently ex 
 pecting Mahone to vote with the Dem 
 ocrats in organizing, declared himself 
 resolved " to support the organization of 
 the Senate as it stood." It had till now 
 been Democratic. Had Mahone sided 
 with him, the committees as made up by WILLIAM MAHONE 
 the Democratic caucus would have been elected. But in 
 spite of Democtratic pleadings and denunciation, Mahone 
 concluded to support the Republicans. This tied the Sen 
 ate, even if Davis voted with the Democrats, and Vice- 
 President Arthur could of course be counted on to turn the 
 vote the Republican way. This he did in postponing indefi 
 nitely the motion to elect the Democratic committees and in 
 electing the Republican list. When it came to choosing ser- 
 geant-at-arms and clerks, Davis, now favoring the new status, 
 as before he had the old, voted with the Republicans. 
 
 Mahone's course aroused great wrath, especially among 
 the Southern Senators. " Who is that man ? " cried Senator 
 
 355 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Hill, of Georgia, amid laughter from the Republican side of 
 the Chamber : " Who is that man so ambitious to do what 
 no man in the history of this country has ever yet done 
 stand up in this high presence and proclaim from this proud 
 eminence that he disgraces the commission he holds ? Such 
 a man is not worthy to be a Democrat. Is he worthy to 
 be a Republican ? " In rejoinder Mahone, while declaring 
 himself a Democrat in principle, denied that he was indebted 
 to the Democratic party for his place in the Senate. He con 
 cluded : " I want that gentleman to know henceforth and 
 forever that here is a man who dares stand and defend his 
 right against you and your caucus." Senator Hill's query 
 was forthwith answered. Mahone was welcomed by the Re 
 publicans with open arms. A bouquet of flowers, said to be 
 from President Garfield, was sent to his desk, and Federal 
 patronage in Virginia was placed at his disposal. 
 
 A storm of indignation from the Pacific Coast fell upon 
 President Arthur's head when, in 1882, he vetoed a bill for 
 restricting Chinese immigration. To understand the reason 
 of his act and of his unpopularity, a brief review is necessary. 
 
 What originally brought the Chinaman to our shores 
 was the discovery of gold in California. At first he was not 
 unwelcome. Said the Alta California of May 12, 1851 : 
 " Quite a large number of Celestials have arrived among us 
 of late, enticed hither by the golden romance which has filled 
 the world. Scarcely a ship arrives that does not bring an 
 increase of this worthy integer of our population." The 
 " worthy integer " was soon engaged in an exciting though 
 not enviable part of the " golden romance," for the next year 
 we read that gangs of miners were " running out " Chinese 
 settlers. This race strife on the coast was incessant both 
 during and after the war. 
 
 Meantime, Anson Burlingame, our Minister to China, 
 who during an intercourse of some years had come to possess 
 the confidence of the Chinese in an unusual degree, had been 
 
 356 
 
RELATIONS WITH CHINA 
 
 entrusted by them with a mission which at first seemed as 
 though it might lead to new relations. On his return he 
 bore credentials constituting him China's ambassador to the 
 United States and to Europe. He proceeded to negotiate 
 with this country a treaty of amity, which was signed on July 
 4, 1 86,8. But anti-Chinese agitation did not cease. In 1871 
 occurred a riot in the streets of Los Angeles, when fifteen 
 Chinamen were hanged and six others shot, Chinamen having 
 murdered one police officer and wounded two others. In 
 1878 an anti-Chinese bill passed Congress, but was vetoed by 
 President Hayes as repugnant to the Burlingame treaty. 
 Rage against the Celestials, to which all forces in the Pacific 
 States had bent, being thus bafHed at Washington, grew more 
 clamorous than ever. 
 
 On September 28, 1878, a new Chinese embassy waited 
 upon President Hayes. The ambassador, Chen Lan Pin, 
 wore the regulation bowl-shaped hat, adorned with the scar 
 let button of the second order and with a depending pea 
 cock plume, caught by jeweled fastenings. His garments 
 were of finest silk. He had on a blouse with blue satin col 
 lar, a skirt of darker stuff, sandal-shaped shoes and leggings 
 of the richest kid. His letter of credence was drawn by an 
 attendant from a cylinder of bamboo embellished with gold. 
 In this document the Emperor expressed the hope that the 
 embassy would " eventually unite the East and the West under 
 an enlightened and progressive civilization." The indirect 
 issue of this embassage was a fresh treaty, ratified in March, 
 1 88 1, amending the Burlingame compact. 
 
 That compact, recognizing as inalienable the right of 
 every man to change his abode, had permitted the free immi 
 gration of Chinamen into the United States. The new treaty 
 of 1 88 1 so modified this feature that immigration might be 
 regulated, limited or suspended by us for no specified period 
 should it threaten to affect the interests of the United States 
 or to endanger their good order. A bill soon followed 
 
 359 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 OF THE OFFICIAL CLASS. THE CHINESE CONSULATE IN 
 IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 After a photograph by Taber 
 
 prohibiting Chinese immigration for a period of twenty years, 
 on the ground that the presence of the Mongolians caused dis 
 order in certain localities. This was the bill which President 
 Arthur vetoed as contravening the treaty, he objecting, among 
 much else, to the systems of passports and registration which 
 the bill would impose upon resident Chinese. But the advo 
 cates of the exclusion policy were in earnest, wrought up by 
 the growing hordes of Celestials pressing hither. 
 
 Only sixty-three thousand Chinese had been in the coun 
 try in 1870; in 1880 there were one hundred and five thou 
 sand. Another bill was at once introduced, substituting ten 
 for twenty years as the time of suspension, and it became a 
 law in 1882. China sent a protest, which availed naught. 
 
 Interwoven with the Chinese agitation, as well as with 
 
 360 
 
AFFAIRS IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 nearly all the national problems of that day and this, was the 
 movement known as Kearneyism, which took form in Cali 
 fornia in 1877 and found expression in the State Constitution 
 of 1 879. His habits of mental unrest engendered by speculation 
 and the gold fever, had marked California society since 1849. 
 A tendency existed to appeal to extra-legal measures for peace 
 and justice. The golden dream had faded. Although wages 
 were higher in California than in most parts of the coun 
 try, working people there showed much discontent. In no 
 State had land grants been more lavish or the immense size of 
 
 A " MIXED FAMILY" IN THE HIGHBINDERS' QUARTER, "CHINATOWN" 
 From a f holograph by Taber 
 
 3 6l 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 landed estates more in 
 jurious. Farming their 
 vast tracts by improved 
 machinery, the propri 
 etors each season hired 
 great throngs of labor 
 ers, who, when work 
 was over, betook them 
 selves to the cities and 
 swelled the ranks of the 
 
 GOD IN JOSS TEMPLE, " CHINATOWN" SAN FRANCISCO 
 After a photograph by Taker 
 
 unemployed. Worse yet, California was in the hands of a 
 railroad monopoly which by threats or blandishments con 
 trolled nearly every State official. Politics were corrupt and 
 political factions, with their selfish and distracting quarrels, 
 were numerous. The politician was hated next to the " Nob " 
 who owned him. 
 
 The immediate occasion of Kearneyism was the great rail 
 road strike at the East in 1877. The California lines, having 
 announced a reduction of wages, were threatened with a simi 
 lar strike, but took alarm at the burning and fighting in Pitts- 
 burg and rescinded the notice. Nevertheless a mass-meeting 
 was called to express svmpathy with the Eastern strikers. It 
 
THE "NOBS" IN TERROR 
 
 AN ALLEY IN " CHINATOWN" 
 
 After a photograph by Taker 
 
 was held on July 2jd. The new-rich grandees trembled. 
 Authorities took precautions, but at the meeting no disorder 
 occurred. During this and the two following evenings a num 
 ber of Chinese wash-houses were destroyed and some persons 
 killed. The violence was naturally ascribed to the working- 
 men. A Committee of Public Safety was organized under 
 William T. Coleman, President of the Vigilance Committee 
 
 365 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 DINING ROOM OF A CHINESE RESTAURANT IN WASHINGTON STREET, SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 After photographs by Taker 
 
 of 1856. The laboring men denied their alleged complicity 
 with the lawlessness, and a number enlisted in Mr. Coleman's 
 " pick-handle brigade/' which patrolled the city for a few days. 
 Among the pick-handle brigadiers was Denis Kearney, a man 
 at once extreme in theories and language and singularly temper 
 ate in personal habits. Born in 1847, at Oakmount, Ireland, 
 from eleven years of age to twenty-five he had followed the 
 sea, but since 1872 had prospered as a drayman in San Fran 
 cisco. He was short, well built, with a broad head, a light 
 mustache, a quick but lowering blue eye, ready utterance and 
 a pleasant voice. He was of nervous temperament, and had 
 the bluster and domineering way of a sailor, withal possessing 
 remarkable shrewdness, enterprise and initiative. For two 
 years he had spent part of each Sunday at a lyceum for self- 
 culture, where he had levelled denunciations at the laziness and 
 
 366 
 
A SAND LOT MEETING IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 The tforkingmen passing a Resolution by Acclamation 
 Composition of B. W. Clinedinst, with tbt assistance of photographs by Taker 
 
KEARNEY AN AGITATOR 
 
 extravagance of the working-classes, at the opponents of Chi 
 nese immigration, and at anti-capitalists in general. 
 
 For some reason, whether from a change of heart, or on 
 account of unlucky dabbling in stocks, or because rebuffed by 
 Senator Sargent, Kearney determined to turn about and agitate 
 against all that he had held dear. On September 12, 1877, a 
 company of the unemployed in San Francisco assembled and 
 organized " The Workingmen's Party of California." Its 
 salient principles were the establishment of a State Bureau of 
 Labor and Statistics and of a State Labor Commission, the 
 legal regulation of the hours of labor, the abolition of pov 
 erty along with all land and moneyed monopoly, and the 
 ejection of the Chinese. Kearney, conspicuous among the 
 extremists, was chosen president. His advanced ideas were 
 incorporated into the party's creed, as follows : 
 
 " We propose to wrest the government from the hands 
 of the rich and place it in those of the people. We propose 
 to rid the country of cheap Chinese labor. We propose to 
 destroy land monopoly in our State. We propose to destroy 
 the great money power of the rich by a system of taxation 
 that will make great wealth impossible. We propose to pro 
 vide decently for the poor and unfortunate, the weak, the 
 helpless and especially the young, because the country is rich 
 enough to do so, and religion, humanity 
 and patriotism demand that we should 
 do so. We propose to elect none but 
 competent workingmen and their friends 
 to any office. The rich have ruled us 
 till they have ruined us. We will now 
 take our own affairs into our own hands. 
 The republic must and shall be pre 
 served, and only workingmen will do it. 
 Our shoddy aristocrats want an emperor 
 and a standing army to shoot down the 
 people. When we have 1 0,000 members 
 
 369 
 
 DENIS KEARNEY 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 we shall have the sympathy and support of 20,000 other work- 
 ingmen. The party will then wait upon all who employ Chi 
 nese and ask for their discharge, and it will mark as public 
 enemies those who refuse to comply with their request. This 
 party will exhaust all peaceable means of attaining its ends, 
 but it will not be denied justice when it has power to enforce 
 it. It will encourage no riot or outrage, but it will not vol 
 unteer to repress, or put down, or arrest or prosecute the 
 hungry and impatient who manifest their hatred of the China 
 men by a crusade against John or those who employ him. 
 Let those who raise the storm by their selfishness suppress it 
 themselves. If they dare raise the devil, let them meet him 
 face to face/* 
 
 Soon began the memorable sand-lot meetings, made 
 famous by the San Francisco Chronicle, which sent its best re 
 porters to describe them. From his new eminence the agi 
 tator returned this favor by advising his hearers to boycott 
 the Morning Call and subscribe for its rival, the Chronicle. 
 His speeches were directed partly against the Chinese, but 
 chiefly against the " thieving politicians " and " blood-sucking 
 capitalists." At one gathering he suggested that every work- 
 ingman should get a gun, and that some judicious hanging of 
 aristocrats was needed. The sand-lot audiences were largely 
 composed of foreigners, Irishmen being the most numerous, 
 but even the Germans caught the infection. The orator could 
 cater to their prejudices with effect, as he did in an address 
 before the German Club in March, 1878 : " Pixley said to me 
 that the narrow-faced Yankees in California would clean us 
 out, but I just wish they would try it. I would drive them 
 into the sea or die." On the other hand, in the Kearneyites' 
 Thanksgiving-day parade, appealing to the whole people, none 
 but United States flags were carried and none but Union vet 
 erans carried them. The leader affected the integrity and 
 stoicism of a Cato. As Cato concluded every oration of his 
 with the impressive "Carthago delenda est" so Kearney intro- 
 
 370 
 
Drawn by G. W. Peters 
 
 CHINESE MUST GO/" 
 Denis Kearney Addressing the ff^orkingmen on the night of October 29, on Nob Hill, San Francisco 
 
KEARNEY'S MODERATION 
 
 duced each of his harangues with " The Chinese must go ! " 
 The contest against the Chinese, he said, would not be given 
 up till there was blood enough in Chinatown to float their 
 bodies to the bay. Still, on one occasion a poor Chinaman at 
 the mercy of hoodlums owed his rescue to the Kearneyites 
 alone. 
 
 Much as Kearney delighted in scaring the timid nabobs 
 of San Francisco, he was careful to keep within the law. 
 More than once, while himself breathing out threatenings and 
 slaughter, he tactfully restrained his devotees from excesses. 
 Shrewdly estimating the value of martyrdom, he once said : 
 " If I don't get killed I will do more than any reformer in the 
 world. But I hope I will be assassinated, for the success of 
 the movement depends upon that." The horns of this dilemma 
 crossed, but each pointed in a hopeful direction. The leader's 
 yearning for persecution was gratified. On October 29th 
 about two thousand workingmen collected at Nob Hill, where 
 the railway magnates lived. Bonfires being lighted, Kearney 
 launched his philippic. The " Nobs " heard the jeers at their 
 expense, and looked out upon the lurid scene in alarm. They 
 had Kearney and other leading spirits arrested on the charge 
 of using incendiary language. The city government passed a 
 sedition ordinance known as the Gibbs gag law, and the legis 
 lature enacted a ridiculously stringent riot act. 
 
 The two laws were still-born and harmless. The only 
 effect of the arrests and of the new legislation was to give 
 Kearney additional power. On his release from jail he was 
 hailed as a martyr, crowned with flowers and drawn in triumph 
 on his own dray. A Yorkshire shoemaker and evangelist 
 named Wellock "Parson Wellock " he was called preached 
 Kearneyism as a religion. He was tall, with a narrow head, 
 high forehead and a full, short beard. At each Sunday sand- 
 lot assembly he used to read a text and expound its latter-day 
 bearings. Speaking of the monopolists, he said : " These men 
 who are perverting the ways of truth must be destroyed. In 
 
 373 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 the Bible the Lord is called a consuming fire. When he com 
 mands we must obey. What are we to do with these people 
 that are starving our poor and degrading our wives, daughtersj 
 and sisters ? And the Lord said unto Moses, f Take all the 
 heads off the people and hang them up before the Lord/ 
 This is what we are commanded by the Supreme Being to do 
 with all that dare to tread down honesty, virtue and truth." 
 
 Both parties began to court Kearney. Aspirants for 
 office secretly visited him. Office-holders changed from hos 
 tility to servility. The railroad kings, if they failed to moder 
 ate his language, found ways to assuage his hatred. Hirelings 
 of corporate interests joined the Kearneyites and assisted them 
 to carry out their wishes. Even the better classes more and 
 more attended his harangues, partly from curiosity, partly from 
 sympathy, partly from disgust at the old parties. The enthu 
 siastic compared him with Napoleon and Caesar. The party 
 of the sand lots, Kearney nominally its president, really its 
 dictator, spread over and controlled the State. This result 
 assured, " reform " needed only that a new State constitution 
 should be adopted, properly safeguarding the people against 
 monopolies and the Chinese. Agitation for a Constitutional 
 Convention was at once begun and pushed till successful. 
 
 The very immensity of the new party's growth begot 
 reaction. The monopolists intensely hated Kearney at the 
 very moment when they most sought to use him. His chief 
 strength lay in the city populace. The Grangers sympathized 
 and in many measures co-operated with him, yet maintained a 
 becoming independence. In the city, too, there was a rival labor 
 organization, set on foot at that first mass-meeting held to 
 express sympathy for the Pittsburg strikers. Though Kear 
 ney's braggadocio " took " wonderfully with the people, this 
 body let slip no chance for denouncing the man's extreme 
 notions and assumption. Numerous and active enemies were 
 made by Kearney's inability to brook aught of opposition or 
 rivalry. By a motion of his hand he swept out of existence 
 
 374 
 
DENIS KEARNET BEING DRAWN THROUGH THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO AFTER 
 HIS RELEASE FROM THE HOUSE OF CORRECTION 
 
 The procession passing the Lotta Fountain in Market Street 
 Painted by Howard Pyle from photographs by Taber and a description by Kearney himself 
 
OPPOSITION TO KEARNEY 
 
 Ls^g8s- ;: , i. - ^ f . -A, 
 
 THE OLD CHRONICLE BUILDING IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 (It was here that Charles De Young was shot in 1880 by Isaac Kalloch, Jr., son of the 
 
 Workingmens Mayor) 
 After a photograph by Taker 
 
 the Central Committee of his party. He liked best his most 
 fulsome eulogists, and selected lieutenants whom he could 
 fling aside the instant they hampered or crossed him. Many 
 so treated beset him afterward like fleas. The Order of Cau 
 casians, a species of anti- Mongolian Ku-Klux, with head 
 quarters at Sacramento, was opposed to Kearney. Many men 
 of influence and apparent impartiality, notably Archbishop 
 Alemany, criticised his incendiary speeches, alienating some of 
 his supporters. 
 
 Democrats now felt that by " united action " the Consti 
 tutional Convention which the Kearneyites had succeeded in 
 getting called might be saved from their control. Accordingly 
 
 377 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 a non-partisan ticket was started, which, notwithstanding some 
 grumbling from the old " wheel-horses " of the two parties, 
 received pretty hearty support. Despite all, by coalescing 
 with the Grangers, the Kearney ites controlled the convention. 
 The new California Constitution which resulted was an odd 
 mixture of ignorance and good intentions. To hinder corrup 
 tion in public office it reduced the power of the legislature 
 almost to a shadow, and made the bribery of a legislator felony. 
 To lighten taxation, particularly where it bore unduly upon 
 the poor, the Constitution set a limit to State and local debts, 
 taxed uncultivated land equally with cultivated land, made 
 mortgage debts taxable where the mortgaged property lay, 
 and authorized an income tax. However, for the benefit of 
 the school fund, a poll tax was laid on every male inhabitant. 
 Corporations were dealt with in a special article, which restricted 
 them in many ways. Among other things it instituted a com 
 mission with extraordinary powers, enabling it to examine the 
 books and accounts of transportation companies and to fix 
 their rates for carriage. This commission, when placed in the 
 hands of any party, uniformly violated pre-election pledges, 
 and proceeded against the unanimous wish of Californians. 
 Only the Commission of 1895 seemed to have taken some 
 steps toward lowering freight rates. 
 
 After the adoption of the Constitu 
 tion a more powerful reaction set in and 
 Kearneyism soon became a thing of the 
 past. The Chronicle abandoned Kearney 
 and " exposed " him. He was called to 
 the East in the interest of labor agita 
 tion, but had little popularity or success. 
 He returned to San Francisco, but never 
 again became a leader. The most pro 
 nounced result, or sequel, which the Kear 
 ney movement left behind was a fixed 
 public opinion throughout California 
 378 
 
 ISAAC KALLOCH 
 
 Elected Mayor of San Francisco by 
 
 tbt Workingmtn 
 
FALL OF THE JAMES GANG 
 
 and all the Pacific States against any further immigration of the 
 Chinese. The new California Constitution devoted to these 
 people an entire article. In it they were cut off from employ 
 ment by the State or by corporations doing business therein. 
 " Asiatic coolieism " was prohibited as a form of human 
 slavery. This sentiment toward the Celestials spread eastward, 
 and, in spite of all opposition by interested capitalists and by 
 disinterested philanthropists, determined the subsequent course 
 of Chinese legislation in Congress itself. 
 
 During the years under survey Missouri as well as the 
 Pacific States had to contend with aggravated lawlessness. 
 When hardly a week passed without a train being " held up " 
 somewhere in the State, Governor Crittenden was driven to 
 the terrible expedient of using crime itself as a police power. 
 In the spring of 1882, Jesse James, the noted desperado, was 
 assassinated by former members of his gang, who then sur 
 rendered to the authorities and were lodged in jail none too 
 soon, as an angry populace, gathering in thousands, hotly beset 
 the slayers. Slayers and slain had been Confederate guerrillas 
 in the war. On the return of peace they became train-robbers 
 as easily as privateers turn pirates. James, at any rate, had 
 not been inspired by lust of gain, for in spite of robberies 
 amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars he died poor. 
 He had been a church member, concerned for " his wayward 
 brother " Frank's salvation. After his death his sect in Mis 
 souri repudiated him, while expressing strongest disapproval 
 of the treachery used in his taking off. For nearly twenty 
 years every effort to capture the fellow had proved futile. 
 The nature of the country aided him, but not so much as the 
 enthusiastic devotion of his neighbors. 
 
 This murderous chief, this ruthless man, 
 This head of a rebellious clan, 
 
 had made himself a hero. The Sedalia Democrat said : " It 
 was his country. The graves of his kindred were there. He 
 
 381 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 refused to be banished from his birthright, and when he was 
 hunted he turned savagely about and hunted his hunters. 
 Would to God he were alive to-day to make a righteous 
 butchery of a few more of them." 
 
 By thus fighting fire with fire, Governor Crittenden suc 
 ceeded in dispersing three other desperado bands. Upon 
 being arraigned the men-killers pleaded guilty and were sen 
 tenced to be hanged, but they were at once pardoned. The 
 Governor's policy, however, was most unpopular. Infinite 
 hate and scorn were visited upon the betrayers. James's wife 
 and mother cursed them bitterly; Dick Little, chief traitor, be 
 ing the object of their uttermost loathing. "If Timberlake or 
 Craig (the county sheriff and his deputy) had killed my poor 
 boy," cried the mother, " I would not say one word ; but, O 
 God ! the treachery of Dick Little and those boys ! Craig 
 and Timberlake are noble men, and they have done too much 
 for me. My poor boy who now lies there dead told me if 
 they killed him not to say one word." Craig and Timber- 
 lake were pail-bearers at James's funeral. The Hannibal & 
 St. Joseph Railroad extended courtesies to the bereaved widow 
 and mother, who were on all hands treated as the heroines of 
 the hour. 
 
 Close after President Garfield's funeral followed an event 
 which for some days attracted the world's attention the cen 
 tennial celebration of Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, Va. 
 The hamlet of Yorktown was seated on a sandy river-bank 
 among the vestiges of the two sieges it had sustained, that of 
 1781 and that of 1861, the Confederate works thrown up in 
 the last-named year not having completely erased the defences 
 erected by Cornwallis. The Confederate fortifications were 
 to be seen in 1881, as also some of McClellan's approaches. 
 The site of Washington's headquarters, still known as "Wash 
 ington's Lodge," was pointed out two and a half miles back 
 from the river. The buildings were burned during the civil 
 war, but the house had been rebuilt. The old Nelson House, 
 
MOORE HOUSE AT YORKTOWN 
 
 gray, ivy-grown, massive, was standing ; also the West House, 
 built by Governor Nelson for his daughter, Mrs. Major West, 
 midway between the Nelson House and the Monument; 
 while a mile away was the Moore House, Cornwallis's quar 
 ters at the time of his surrender. Its exterior was tricked out 
 with red, yellow and green paint, effects which, inside, aesthetic 
 wall-paper and fine carpets strove to match. 
 
 The Moore House was, in a very true sense, the central 
 spot of American History. It was historic sixty years before the 
 Revolution, when it was Governor Spottswood's residence. In 
 
 THE NELSON HOUSE IN 1881 
 (Showing boles made in bri:k wall by cannon shot) 
 
 the " Temple," near by, was presented the relic of a still older 
 strife, the tomb of Major William Gooch, who died in 1655. 
 In the chimney of the Moore House was a cannon-ball hole, 
 and in one of its corner rooms was still preserved the table 
 whereon the articles of Cornwallis's surrender had been drawn. 
 Its roof sheltered Lafayette and Rochambeau ; also Washing 
 ton in the proudest moment of his life. It was in 1896 the 
 residence of Mr. A. O. Mauck. Standing in the midst of 
 Temple Farm, it commanded a beautiful view of Chesapeake 
 
 383 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 THE WEST HOUSE AT TORKTOIfN 
 {Showing the shot holes) 
 
 Bay, of Yorktown Mon 
 ument and of quaint 
 old Yorktown. Near by 
 was a mill, built on the 
 very foundations of the 
 one where was fired the 
 first shot in the Corn- 
 wallis siege. A shaft fif 
 teen feet high, made of 
 brick taken from the 
 first court-house in York 
 County, laid in German 
 cement, has been erected 
 by the Superintendent of 
 the National Cemetery 
 on the spot where Corn- 
 wallis's sword was deli 
 vered to General Lincoln. This shaft was dedicated on Octo 
 ber 19, 1895, and placed in the care of the school children 
 of our country to preserve. 
 
 Once redeemed from the British and once from Confed 
 erate rule, Yorktown was now, for a few days, rescued from 
 its own loneliness. There was some complaint that locality 
 was not ignored and the anniversary celebrated where modern 
 conveniences were at hand. Such were the dust and heat at 
 and about the village on the first day of the fete that pilgrims 
 admired Cornwallis's good sense in surrendering as quickly as 
 decency allowed, that he might go elsewhere. The second 
 day was twenty degrees colder, and dusters gave way to ulsters. 
 Truly vast preparations had been originally planned, but so 
 obvious were the discomforts which could not but attend a 
 long sojourn at the place, that the programme was radically 
 docked. The events that were left, however, amply repaid 
 for their trouble all who saw them. 
 
 Arrangements had been making at Yorktown for a month, 
 
 384 
 
YORKTOWN DURING THE FETE 
 
 during which time the sandbanks all about were in a stir, such 
 as neither Cornwallis's nor Magruder's cannon-wheels had occa 
 sioned. When the day marking the anniversary of the Briton's 
 surrender arrived, a score of great war-ships, with other craft 
 of various sorts, lined the river up and down, while shanties 
 and tents covered the landscape in all directions. Wagons, 
 buggies and carriages by hundreds came and went, frequent 
 
 among them the two- 
 wheeled family vehicle of 
 the Virginia negro, at 
 tached by a rope harness 
 to a scrawny " scalawag/' 
 Strains of martial music, 
 the thunder of heavy 
 guns, throngs of civilians 
 and of soldiers, thieves 
 and gamblers plying their 
 art unmolested till a wel 
 come detachment of Rich 
 mond police arrived all 
 conspired to waken the 
 little place from the dead. 
 To the credit of the Post- 
 office Department, no 
 hitch occurred when mails 
 multiplied from three a 
 week to two a day, and 
 the daily delivery of let 
 ters mounted from fifty to 
 five thousand. 
 
 The celebration began 
 on October i8th, "Sur 
 render Day." Troops 
 had been pouring in all 
 night and the influx in- 
 
 THE MEMORIAL MONUMENT 
 Corner-stone laid Oct. iq,l88l 
 
 385 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 M. GLENNAN 
 The Virginia Commissioner of the 
 Yorktown Centennial Cele- 
 
 creased at dawn. Some had marched 
 far and swiftly. Captain Sinclair's 
 battery of the Third Artillery had 
 covered the distance from Fort Ham 
 ilton, New York Harbor, to York- 
 town, 470 miles, in twenty-one 
 marching days. At ten o'clock the 
 fallapoosa, bearing the President and 
 most of his Cabinet, came up the 
 river, being saluted as she passed the 
 batteries. At this notice " the yards 
 of the ships of war were manned " 
 the account read quaintly after the 
 lapse of but fourteen years. For ten 
 minutes smoke-clouds covered the 
 river and the boom of ponderous 
 cannon quenched all other sounds. 
 Behind the 'Tallapoosa were vessels 
 bringing the Secretary of the Navy, 
 the Secretary of War and General 
 Sherman. Distinguished foreign 
 guests came, too, descendants of de 
 Grasse, de Rochambeau, de Lafa 
 yette, and von Steuben, the heroes 
 who had shared with Washington the glory of humbling 
 England's pride a hundred years before. Each dignitary 
 being saluted according to his rank, the deafening cannonade 
 was kept up for a number of hours. 
 
 Wednesday, October I9th, was devoted to the ceremony 
 of laying the corner-stone of the Yorktown Centennial Monu 
 ment. Commemorative exercises formed the feature of 
 Thursday. President Arthur delivered an address, the Mar 
 quis de Rochambeau responded in French, and Baron von 
 Steuben in German, all three being loudly applauded. Hon. 
 Robert C. Winthrop pronounced the oration of the day. 
 
 3 86 
 
 R. C. WINTHROP 
 
CLOSE OF THE YORKTOWN CELEBRATION 
 
 The presence of Steuben and Rochambeau, of Generals Sher 
 man and Wade Hampton, of Hancock, the favorite and hero 
 of the festival, and FitzHugh Lee, hardly second to 
 him in receipt of applause, naturally suggested the themes 
 of concord and reunion. Among those who shook hands with 
 President Arthur was the widow of President John Tyler. At 
 the conclusion of these exercises all the troops passed in review 
 before the President. It was the most brilliant military pag 
 eant seen since the war. Northern visitors noticed with pleasure 
 that many of the Southern commands wore uniforms of blue. 
 On Thursday evening fireworks were displayed. All the war 
 vessels were illuminated. The steam corvette Vandalia, com 
 manded by Captain (subsequently Rear-Admiral) Meade, so 
 disposed her lights as to bring out the outlines of her hull and 
 rigging with charming effect. The splendor was produced by 
 the use of Chinese lanterns, which Captain Meade purchased 
 for the occasion. The celebration ended on Friday with a 
 naval review, embracing all the men-of-war in the harbor. A 
 graceful and handsome deed, acknowledged by the British 
 press, was the salute paid by the entire fleet to the Union 
 
 LAURENCEBURG, INDIANA, DURING THE FLOODS OF 1884 
 Copyright, 1884, by Rombach & Groene 
 
 387 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 Jack hoisted at the 
 foremast of each ves 
 sel. 
 
 Freshets in Feb 
 ruary, 1884, had in 
 duced an unprece 
 dented rise in the 
 Ohio River, sub 
 merging country and 
 city along the banks. 
 At Cincinnati houses 
 were wrecked, lives 
 lost, destitution and 
 suffering the lot of 
 thousands. To add 
 to the horrors, the 
 gas-works were under 
 
 water, and night whelmed the city in Cimmerian darkness. 
 As the news spread, practical responses came from all quar 
 ters, in the shape of food and clothing, which steamers 
 
 SECOND STREET, CINCINNATI, LOOKING EAST 
 
 THE GAS TANKS IN SECOND STREET, CINCINNATI 
 388 
 
RIOT AND FLOOD IN CINCINNATI 
 
 THE CINCINNATI RIOTS OF 1884 
 The Barricade in South Sycamore Street 
 
 From a Photograph by Rombach & Groene 
 
 distributed up and down the swollen stream. Highest water 
 was reached on February I4th, the highest ever recorded, the 
 river at Cincinnati standing on that date at seventy-one feet 
 and three-quarters of an inch. 
 
 Riot followed flood. In March two confessed murderers 
 had come off with a conviction for mere manslaughter. As 
 twenty other murderers were in prison, respectable citizens 
 assembled to demand reform in murder trials. Noisy leaders 
 of the mob element tried to capture the meeting, which was 
 adjourned to prevent mischief. A young man rushing out 
 shouted, " To the jail ! Come on ! Follow me and hang 
 Berner." The door was burst open, but Berner had been 
 smuggled to Columbus at the first alarm. Meantime the 
 militia were secretly introduced through the same tunnel which 
 afforded him exit. After a skirmish the rioters were driven 
 out, leaving some of their number prisoners. Partly from 
 chagrin, partly to secure the release of the captured leaders, 
 
 389 
 
THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 
 
 and partly to indulge their lawless humor, the hoodlums set 
 the court-house on fire, robbing an armory and two gun-stores 
 to provide themselves arms. Other shops were broken into 
 and sacked. They fired volley after volley of musketry at 
 the militia, and fiercely attacked barricades which these had 
 erected against them. After repeated warnings retaliation was 
 meted out with terrible effect. The disorders continued six 
 days, when the law was so far vindicated that business could be 
 resumed. The most authentic list put the killed in this riot 
 at forty-five, the wounded at one hundred and thirty-eight. 
 
 39 
 
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