-X I B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
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 OF ILLINOIS 
 
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 ILLINOIS HIS JOftY SURVEY 
 
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WILLIAM BOYD ALLISON 
 
 A Study in Practical Politics 
 
 By LELAND L. SAGE 
 
 STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF IOWA 
 IOWA CITY 1956 
 
Copyright 1956 by the State Historical Society of Iowa 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS NO. 56-63186 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 BY THE TORCH PRESS, CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA 
 

 To 
 
 MARGARET 
 
 CAROLYN 
 
 AND ALL OUR FAMILIES 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/williamboydallisOOsage 
 
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 Editor's Foreword 
 
 This life of one of Iowa's most distinguished citizens is the eighteenth 
 full-length volume published by the State Historical Society of Iowa 
 in its Biographical Series. It is the story of a man who represented 
 Iowa longer in the halls of Congress than any other Iowan. It is the 
 story of a long legislative career rarely equaled in the annals of Ameri- 
 can congressional history. 
 
 William Boyd Allison represented Iowa for forty-three years in 
 Washington — eight years in the House of Representatives (1863- 
 1871) and thirty-five years in the United States Senate (1873-1908). 
 He was nominated for an unprecedented seventh term in the Senate 
 and, had he lived, his service would have extended over forty-two 
 years. His career ended an era which had seen a handful of Senators 
 (Allison, Aldrich, Hale, Piatt, and Spooner) virtually write the laws 
 of this Nation. Such men as Robert M. La Follette, Charles Curtis, 
 William E. Borah, and John H. Bankhead, were just beginning their 
 senatorial careers when Allison died in 1908. 
 
 Only a man of magnetic personality and unimpeachable integrity 
 could have endeared himself for so many years to Iowans. Although 
 quiet, dignified, and unassuming, Allison commanded attention and 
 respect whenever he appeared on an Iowa political platform or on the 
 floor of the United States Senate. His audience invariably listened, 
 learned, and went away impressed. The "capricious moods" of the 
 Senate never baffled him. "His patience was never exhausted, the 
 serenity of his temper never ruffled. He could grant to an adversary 
 an amendment with such grace and deference to superior judgment 
 
 vn 
 
viii William Boyd Allison 
 
 that the flattered enemy accepted a few suggestions from the master 
 as a tribute to his talents. The post-mortem revealed his mistake." 
 
 Allison liked people and people liked him. He was elected a mem- 
 ber of Alpha Delta Phi at Western Reserve. He was a charter member 
 of Mosaic Lodge No. 125, A.F. & A.M. at Dubuque and was present 
 when his young secretary, Lee McNeely, received his Third Degree. 
 When Dubuque high school won the state football championship in 
 1906, Senator Allison was invited to attend and respond to the toast 
 "Our Boys." His great interest in young people probably endeared 
 him to older ones. A young man once came to thank him for a posi- 
 tion he had received through Allison and asked what he could do in 
 return. Allison's reply was characteristic: "Yes, my boy, you can do 
 much for me by doing well for yourself; be industrious and be honest." 
 This advice epitomized Allison's own life: "Start right, keep right, end 
 right." 
 
 Although Allison was deeply immersed in national politics for over 
 forty years, he never lost contact with the home folks. His neighbors 
 in Dubuque always rejoiced when Allison returned home and resumed 
 his favorite post on the side porch at 1134 Locust Street. Looking 
 back over a vista of ninety years, Mrs. Harriett Tredway Peaslee, who 
 lived next door to Allison as a girl, remembers vividly that Senator 
 Allison would call out "How's Hattie this morning," whenever she 
 appeared in her garden. And when Hattie's husband returned from 
 his Cascade lumber yards Allison would always inquire "How are the 
 pigs coming." According to Mrs. Peaslee, Allison felt every Iowan 
 ought to be concerned with crops and livestock. 
 
 Although austere in appearance, Allison was never severe. A cor- 
 respondent of the Boston Daily Advertiser wrote in 18 87 that Allison 
 was "very approachable" in his comfortable Washington home. 
 
 It is a house which newspaper man, clerk, or searcher after aid or informa- 
 tion never fears to enter. The reception is always frank, unaffected and 
 thoroughly sincere. The visitor is sure to learn the first time just what can 
 and just what cannot be done. He is made to feel at once that whatever is 
 said is meant, that he has done right in speaking frankly and will be answered 
 in that way. The man he faces carries the stamp of thorough fairness and 
 honesty, even in the smallest things, in his face and eyes. 
 
 Allison could generally be found in one of two places — his home 
 at 1124 Vermont Avenue, or his committee room. His favorite room 
 at home was his sitting room and study, just back of the parlor and 
 
editor's FOREWORD IX 
 
 separated from it only by folding doors and portiers. Here, surrounded 
 by his books, magazines, and Congressional Directories, and well 
 supplied with long slender dark cigars "quite as likely to be chewed 
 to pieces as smoked," Allison spent the hours from five to eleven o'clock 
 at night poring over the work of Congress for that day and pre- 
 paring for the morrow. He could always be found in his committee 
 room at 9 a. m. "as owlish as Beck, Hoar or McMillan, and often more 
 so than they. He is a very rapid writer, and in his correspondence he 
 establishes the rule that every letter he receives shall be answered." 
 
 Despite his prodigious labors, Allison always found time to greet 
 young people. "The small boy who ventures into the room when Mr. 
 Allison is at liberty is sure to enjoy himself. For, while Mr. Allison 
 has no children of his own, he has a great admiration for those of 
 others, and especially for boys." 
 
 The high regard with which Allison was held in the Senate is re- 
 called by his secretary — Lee McNeely of Dubuque. In 1907 all 
 Senators were requested to send in their nominations for a new Read- 
 ing Clerk to Senator Nelson W. Aldrich. Allison accepted McNeely 's 
 suggestion of John C. Crockett, a young man with a rich bass voice 
 who had thrilled all attending the Republican state convention in 
 Des Moines. After gaining the approval of Congressman Benjamin P. 
 Birdsall of the Third District and the entire Iowa delegation, Allison 
 recommended him. Competition for Reading Clerk finally narrowed 
 down to John C. Crockett of Iowa and William Tyler Page of Vir- 
 ginia, who had served in the House Clerk's office since 1881. At this 
 point Senator Aldrich called on McNeely and told him the choice lay 
 between his own candidate (Page) and Crockett, but that he would 
 defer in favor of Allison's candidate if it would help the elder states- 
 man in Iowa. McNeely said Crockett's appointment would be highly 
 beneficial to Allison, and John C. Crockett received the appointment, 
 which he held for forty years, retiring to Eldora in 1947 at the age of 
 eighty-three. 
 
 Allison's library of approximately fifteen hundred volumes is 
 housed in the Allison Room in the Dubuque Public Library. In ad- 
 dition to hundreds of books on government, economics, history, 
 banking, finance, and the tariff, the library contained volumes of 
 American and English literature. An omnivorous reader, Allison 
 doubtless read most of these volumes, if only for relaxation from the 
 strain that accompanied his efforts to solve the many problems facing 
 
x William Boyd Allison 
 
 the Nation. Alexander Hamilton was his guidepost in finance, Robert 
 Burns his favorite poet, and "The Cotter's Saturday Night" his favorite 
 poem. The Allison Room and the Allison-Henderson Memorial Park 
 in Dubuque pay tribute to this great statesman. 
 
 Seventeen Senators and thirteen Representatives eulogized Allison 
 in memorial services in Washington. Senator Hale declared Allison 
 brought to the task of legislation "unbounded good sense, fidelity of 
 purpose," and a matchless "capacity for sustained labor." Senator 
 Aldrich extolled him as an "acknowledged leader" whose "irresistible 
 charm" made him unique in the Senate, where he was the "oldest in 
 service, wisest in counsel, the friend and mentor of all." Champ 
 Clark asserted Allison had achieved the "widest and most enduring 
 fame" of any Iowan. Chauncey Depew closed his eulogy as follows: 
 
 If, as I believe, those who meet in the activities of this life are reunited 
 hereafter, it was a wonderful band of immortals who greeted Allison. . . . 
 When he first obtained the floor in Congress, he addressed Speaker Schuyler 
 Colfax, and when he spoke last, forty-five years afterwards, Vice-President 
 Fairbanks in the chair recognized the Senator from Iowa. Seward, Chase, 
 and Stanton, John Sherman, James G. Blaine, and Thaddeus Stevens were his 
 associates and intimates. When the future historian writes the story of this 
 remarkable period and portrays the actors in that great national drama who 
 contributed to its distinction, he will place among the few in the front rank 
 the name of William B. Allison. 
 
 In the following pages Professor Leland Sage has faithfully covered 
 the highlights of Allison's career, his many political battles, and his 
 services to Iowa and to the Nation. Representing a dozen years of 
 painstaking research, the book will stand as a monument to the memory 
 of perhaps the greatest statesman ever to serve Iowa in the Nation's 
 capitol. As the "Sage of Dubuque" was laid to rest in Dubuque an 
 admirer declared: "Like the majestic river, bluff and forest crowned, 
 that washes her eastern border, the influence of his life will flow on and 
 on, a blessing to all mankind." 
 
 William J. Petersen 
 
 Office of the Superintendent 
 State Historical Society of Iowa 
 Iowa City, Iowa 
 
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 Acknowledgments 
 
 My debt to many scholars is great. Edward Younger of the Univer- 
 sity of Virginia, author of the biography, John A. Kasson, published 
 by the State Historical Society in 1955, has been a never-failing source 
 of information, guidance, and friendly encouragement. Ralph M. 
 Sayre, formerly of Parsons College, now dean of the College of Idaho, 
 who is writing a biography of Albert B. Cummins, has been most 
 generous in sharing his notes and his ideas with me. The Reverend 
 Harry J. Sievers, S.J., whose exhaustive study of Benjamin Harrison 
 is far advanced, has kindly furnished many pertinent items. My col- 
 league, Wallace D. Farnham, read the manuscript in rough draft. 
 
 I am especially grateful to officials of the Newberry Library, Chi- 
 cago, for a Fellowship in Midwestern Studies, and to President James 
 W. Maucker and Dean Martin J. Nelson of Iowa State Teachers Col- 
 lege for grants from the faculty research funds. 
 
 Curators of manuscript collections have been most kind and gen- 
 erous. Claude R. Cook and Emory H. English of the Iowa State 
 Department of History and Archives at Des Moines have assisted me 
 in more ways than I can enumerate here. I have been privileged to 
 draw on their personal knowledge of Iowa political history as well as 
 on the archival riches in their keeping. David C. Mearns, Chief, and 
 C. Percy Powell of the Division of Manuscripts, Library of Congress; 
 Stanley Pargellis of the Newberry Library; Jay Monaghan and the 
 late Harry E. Pratt, Illinois State Historical Library; Richard C. 
 Overton, trustee of the Cunningham-Overton Collection of Charles 
 E. Perkins Letterbooks; Watt P. Marchman, Rutherford B. Hayes 
 
 XI 
 
xii William Boyd Allison 
 
 Memorial Library, Fremont, Ohio; and Stephen T. Riley, Massachu- 
 setts Historical Society, Boston, gave access to their materials. 
 
 Librarians in many places have complied with my requests for 
 assistance: Marybelle McClelland and Donald O. Rod, and staff mem- 
 bers Evelyn Mullins and Mary Dieterich, at Iowa State Teachers 
 College; the librarians of the State University of Iowa, Indiana Uni- 
 versity, Ohio State Museum, Western Reserve Historical Society, 
 Princeton University, New York Public Library; at the municipal 
 public libraries at Wooster, Ashland, and Hudson, Ohio, and at Cedar 
 Falls, Burlington, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Charles City, and Du- 
 buque, Iowa. The Waterloo Courier allowed the use of its volumes. 
 
 Abram Garfield granted the use of certain restricted papers of 
 President James A. Garfield; Winthrop W. Aldrich made a similar 
 dispensation for a portion of the Nelson W. Aldrich papers; Fred- 
 erick Sheffield of New York City, Mrs. Donald Metcalf (Elizabeth 
 Clarkson Zwart) of Des Moines, Mrs. L. L. J. Howe of Highland 
 Park, Illinois, and Fred H. Allison of Belmond, Iowa, kindly allowed 
 me the use of family papers in their possession. Lee McNeely of 
 Dubuque, Allison's last secretary, has been helpful in supplying in- 
 formation and reminiscences; so have been F. E. Bissell, John R. 
 Wallis, Martha Baker, Elsie Datisman, and Ethel Linehan. 
 
 Others whom I wish to thank for various forms of assistance are 
 Carolyn S. Robinson, Mary Gantt Stinnett, Patricia Sage, William 
 C. Lang, Irving H. Hart, Alison Aitchison, James Hearst, Wal- 
 lace Anderson, Edward Nehls, Fred and Lois Wellborn, Frances P. 
 Dolliver, Mrs. Adelaide Seemuth, George S. May, Ardis S. Mork, and 
 Carolyn S. Rowray. 
 
 William J. Petersen, genial superintendent of the State Historical 
 Society of Iowa, has encouraged me steadily from the day I first 
 broached the subject of a biography of Senator Allison. Mildred 
 Throne, associate editor for the Society, who was particularly charged 
 with the oversight of this book and the tedious details of seeing the 
 manuscript through the press, will always be gratefully remembered 
 for her contributions toward its improvement and its completion. 
 
 Finally, I am grateful to my wife, Margaret Pearson Sage, for her 
 long hours of library work, note-taking, and discerning criticism. 
 
 Leland L. Sage 
 Iowa State Teachers College, 
 Cedar Falls, Iowa 
 
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 Contents 
 
 1 THE OHIO YEARS 1 
 
 2 FROM BUCKEYE TO HAWKEY E 19 
 
 3 ALLISON JOINS "DODGE tf CO." 37 
 
 4 ALLISON AND THE CIVIL WAR 46 
 
 5 CONGRESSMAN ALLISON JOINS THE RADICALS 60 
 
 6 POLITICS, LEGISLATION, AND BUSINESS 76 
 
 7 A TIME OF DECISION 91 
 
 8 THE MANTLE OF GRIMES 105 
 
 9 ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 119 
 
 10 ALLISON AND SILVER . 143 
 
 11 A GARFIELD REPUBLICAN 158 
 
 12 IOWA POLITICS, 1881-1882 177 
 
 13 A MAN OF INFLUENCE 187 
 
 14 THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 204 
 
 15 A PARTY WHEEL HORSE 230 
 
 16 ALLISON FINDS HIS LEVEL 248 
 
 17 CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 269 
 
 18 ALLISON AND ROOSEVELT 294 
 
 19 EXIT IN TRIUMPH 313 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY: MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS 333 
 
 FOOTNOTES 335 
 
 7ND£X 387 
 
 Xlll 
 
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 Illustrations 
 
 Facing 
 
 WILLIAM BOYD ALLISON — MARY NE ALLEY ALLISON . . . .130 
 
 JAMES HARLAN — JAMES W. GRIMES — JAMES F. WILSON — 
 
 GRENVILLE M. DODGE 131 
 
 SAMUEL J. KIRKWOOD — JACOB RICH — D. B. HENDERSON — 
 
 JAMES S. CLARKSON 146 
 
 SENATORS JONATHAN P. DOLLIVER AND WILLIAM B. ALLISON . .147 
 
 "THE FOUR" — ORVILLE H. PL ATT t JOHN C. SPOONER, 
 
 WILLIAM B. ALLISON, NELSON W. ALDRICH 274 
 
 WILLIAM B. ALLISON 275 
 
 WILLIAM B. ALLISON — ALBERT B. CUMMINS 290 
 
 THE FUNERAL CORTEGE LEAVES DUBUQUE HOME . . . . .291 
 
 THE REGISTER ANNOUNCES ALLISON'S DEATH 331 
 
 XIV 
 
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 a * 
 
 i 
 
 The Ohio Years 
 
 On a hot August day in 1908 they brought the old man home to 
 die. For more than a year he had suffered from a glandular trouble 
 common to advanced age — he good-naturedly referred to it as his 
 "local trouble" — but only recently had the disease become acute, 
 weakening him in body and mind. Two months before, on the as- 
 sumption that he could serve another term, the Conservative Repub- 
 licans of Iowa had fought off the challenge of a brilliant spokesman 
 of the younger Progressives and had nominated the venerable states- 
 man for a seventh term in the United States Senate. But now the 
 hand of death could no longer be stayed. So they brought him in 
 from the country estate of an old friend, whence he had been taken 
 to escape the intense heat of Dubuque, to let him die in the familiar 
 surroundings of the modest home that had been his for half a cen- 
 tury. The long public career of William Boyd Allison had come to 
 a close. 
 
 As a lawyer-politician, transplanted from Ohio, Allison had bought 
 that home shortly before Lincoln's first inaugural. As one of the 
 faithful, he had been present in Washington to hear Lincoln say: 
 "A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limita- 
 tions, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular 
 opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a people." By 
 this principle, implemented as it was in his day, Allison had been 
 willing to live his life. By it he had lost several bids for office, includ- 
 ing one that furnished a vision of the White House; by it he had won 
 
 1 
 
2 William Boyd Allison 
 
 ten elections and was in line for an inevitable eleventh victory when 
 the end came. 
 
 In 1863 William Boyd Allison had been sworn in as a Republican 
 member of the lower house of Congress. Now, in 1908, not one man 
 who had held high national office in that year was still serving his 
 nation — he had outlived and outrun most of his early rivals in the 
 intervening races for place, power, and fame. But at last he was 
 ready to join them in final retirement. Never a professing believer, 
 he had made his peace with his God. He slept. 
 
 From far and wide they came to do him honor. For a day the roll 
 call of the political leaders of Washington would have to be made in 
 Dubuque. President Theodore Roosevelt, whom Allison had served 
 so well, could not come, but Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks was 
 there. Senators, Representatives, Governor Albert B. Cummins of 
 Iowa (whose effort to unseat him he had recently repulsed), state 
 legislators by the score, friends from the worlds of politics, business, 
 journalism, agriculture, education, labor — all were there, so many 
 that it would be hopeless to attempt a definitive enumeration. At the 
 hour of his funeral all Iowa paused in silent tribute; in Dubuque 
 businessmen closed their doors. A few days later an old friend wrote 
 of him: "Iowa is nearly an orphan in these days. ... It seems as though 
 we had lost a point of the compass." Later he would be honored by 
 a monument erected on the grounds of the State Capitol, the only 
 one of her citizens that Iowa has honored in this fashion. 
 
 Such, in brief, was the career of Senator William Boyd Allison of 
 Iowa. We would like to know as much of his origins, but only a few 
 forebears can be named. This would be a matter of greater regret 
 but for the fact that he himself did not make much of his family — 
 he was not a "family man" by profession. Allison was born March 2, 
 1829, the second son of John and Margaret (Williams) Allison, in 
 Perry Township, Wayne (now Ashland) County, Ohio. His father 
 was born in 1798 near Belief onte, Pennsylvania, the son of a certain 
 Matthew Allison, born in the north of Ireland in 1750. There are no 
 records of this Matthew Allison, but he is referred to as a veteran of 
 the Revolutionary War who settled in Centre County, Pennsylvania. 
 His wife's name is not known. 
 
 John's wife and her family are likewise shrouded in obscurity. A 
 propertied family by the name of Williams, presumably hers, lived 
 in Bellefonte in 1824, the year of the marriage of John and Margaret. 
 
THE OHIO YEARS 3 
 
 The Book of Marriages of Wayne County, Ohio, gives December 2, 
 1824, as the date of the marriage; the inference is that John Allison 
 preceded Margaret Williams to the Ohio frontier and that she fol- 
 lowed later for the wedding. According to the headstone over her 
 grave in the cemetery of the hamlet of Rowsburg, Ohio, Margaret 
 died on October 10, 1861, aged sixty-two years, two months, and two 
 days. This would make her birth date August 8, 1799. 
 
 Allison told friends in later years that his middle name, Boyd, came 
 from his mother's relatives and that the forebears on both sides of his 
 family were Scotch-Irish. One of Allison's friends, in a short sketch 
 of his life, wrote of Margaret Allison: "She was a fine specimen of 
 the matrons of those days, and her strong mind, quick apprehension, 
 and executive capacity was inherited by her son." x 
 
 John Allison acquired a farm in Wayne County and settled down 
 to the frontiersman's life of clearing the forest. The farm was on 
 good level land of at least average fertility. 2 The Allisons seem to 
 have lived a life comparable to that of their neighbors. Three chil- 
 dren were born to them: Matthew, born October 20, 1827; William 
 Boyd, born March 2, 1829; James Harrison, born July 27, 1835. 3 
 Father John was for many terms a justice of the peace, a staunch 
 Whig, 4 and a member of the Mount Hope Presbyterian Church, where 
 the family attended services regularly. 5 In short, the Allisons were 
 typically honest, God-fearing people who were inconspicuous mem- 
 bers of the great migratory forces that quickly transformed the state 
 of Ohio from the wilderness of the 1790's to the well-developed, 
 widely populated state of 1850. 6 
 
 Three separate waves of migrants swept across Ohio almost simul- 
 taneously, initiating historical forces which still exert their influence. 
 A New England wave washed across New York and northwestern 
 Pennsylvania, finally depositing its burden in the northeast corner of 
 Ohio. Many of the pioneers came from Connecticut and settled down 
 in the lands reserved by that state — the famous "Western Reserve." 
 Bringing with them their ideas on religion, education, and architec- 
 ture, they stamped the whole region with the New England char- 
 acter. 7 Up to 1850 the Industrial Revolution had not affected this 
 area extensively. "As Quebec was, in a sense, more like Old France 
 than France itself, the Western Reserve was in some respects more 
 like the land of the old-time Puritan than the region east of the 
 Hudson." 8 
 
4 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Another wave of migration was mostly made up of Scotch-Irish 
 settlers who came to Ohio by way of Pennsylvania, New York, New 
 Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. 9 Very obviously, the Allisons be- 
 longed to this wave. These migrants settled in the central and south- 
 ern tiers of counties and tended to move farther west than had the 
 New Englanders, who waited some time before they sent settlers on 
 to the other western states. It has been claimed that these Scotch- 
 Irish were the most valuable element in the make-up of the American 
 people. 10 "The Irish who came to Ohio before 1825 were largely 
 Scotch-Irish, many of whom had lived for a time in the Middle 
 States or in Virginia or Kentucky. Most of them were Ulster Prot- 
 estants like James Wilson, who became a Steubenville editor, and was 
 destined to be the grandfather of [Woodrow "Wilson]." X1 By virtue 
 of his family connections and residence in Wayne and Ashland coun- 
 ties, William Boyd Allison enjoyed to the highest degree the legacy 
 of these people. At the same time, because of proximity to the West- 
 ern Reserve and by schooling in that area, he benefited from the New 
 England influence. 
 
 A third wave of settlers came from the South, principally from the 
 vast state of Virginia, as it was then organized, and from Kentucky. 
 These people, too, brought their culture with them — their manners, 
 their architecture, their ideas pro and con slavery. A few of them 
 were abolitionists, many of them were voluntary emancipators of 
 their slaves, some believed in gradual emancipation and colonization 
 of the Negro, and many, especially in and near Cincinnati, were still 
 proslavery or at least states' rights people. The Allisons were far 
 removed from them both in residence and in ideas. 
 
 William Boyd Allison left virtually no accounts of his boyhood 
 and early manhood. 12 The story has to be pieced together from many 
 widely divergent sources. A few facts and impressions can be gained 
 by a study of the career of one of his well-known boyhood com- 
 panions and schoolmates, Clement (Clem) Studebaker, of wagon and 
 automobile fame. Clem and his four brothers and their father, John, 
 lived only a mile or so from the Allison farm. 13 In 1897, on the occa- 
 sion of a civic reunion, Studebaker returned to Ashland as a hero of 
 the Industrial Revolution. He made a rather affecting reminiscent 
 speech and then toured the surrounding country to revisit the scenes 
 of his childhood, in his remarks coupling himself in memory with 
 Senator William B. Allison, then at the height of his fame and power. 
 
THE OHIO YEARS 5 
 
 The Studebakers, like the Allisons, had come from Pennsylvania; 
 hard times forced their father to put some of the boys out to work. 
 Young Allison, who also "worked out," doubtless knew the same peo- 
 ple and had the same boyhood experiences as young Clem Studebaker. 
 Two items stand out in Clem's reminiscences. While driving through 
 the Ohio countryside, he pointed out the site of the schoolhouse, where 
 he and Allison had first attended school. The next stop was at the 
 Daniel Carter farm on the Wooster road, where he had worked fifty 
 years before at $4.00 a month. "He helped the girls churn butter, 
 milked the cows, helped with the washing, did all kinds of work on 
 the farm, and spent some of the happiest days of his life at this place. 
 Mrs. Carter was a remarkable woman. Daniel Carter was one of the 
 active movers in getting the new county, Ashland, formed." 14 This 
 family was important in the life of Bill Allison also; he married one 
 of the Carter girls. 
 
 Young William had better than average cultural opportunities for 
 his day. In his home, as in most of the other Presbyterian homes of 
 the frontier, churchgoing was virtually as much an educational pro- 
 gram as a religious interest. The Presbyterians, like the Congrega- 
 tionalists and Episcopalians, were more concerned over an educated 
 ministry than some other denominations of the developing frontier; 
 they also were concerned over the education of the rank-and-file mem- 
 bership. "The net result of this emphasis was to make almost every 
 Presbyterian preacher in the West, a school master." 15 
 
 After attendance in the country school, Allison went to the village 
 of Wooster, some twenty miles away, for tuition in Professor Parrot's 
 Academy. Diligent inquiry and research have turned up no informa- 
 tion regarding such an academy, but Allison mentioned it prominently 
 and apparently with pride in the short biographical sketches written 
 or authorized by him. The farm boy did not cut a very fine figure 
 among his friends, judging from a description written by a former 
 schoolmate: 
 
 At school he was somewhat familiarly known as "Big-Eyed Bill," and the 
 girls of those days about Wooster, Ohio, used to laugh at the awkward and 
 overgrown youngster, who took it good humoredly, however, and soon 
 showed that he had good stuff in him. A lady who was in school with him 
 says: 
 
 "Little did any of us think that boy would ever amount to anything. He 
 was at the foot of our class and the butt of all, he was such a greenhorn. He 
 lived on a farm, and walked into Wooster every day to school. He never 
 
6 William Boyd Allison 
 
 wore any suspenders, and was always hitching up his trousers like a sailor. 
 When we girls made fun of him he would run after us, and if he caught one 
 that girl was sure to be kissed. And he had a horrible tobacco breath. I be- 
 lieve that boy chewed tobacco from the time he put on boy's clothes. But he 
 was kind hearted and would never tell the teacher, no matter what we put on 
 him. Yes, 'Big-Eyed Bill' was patient as an ox." 16 
 
 Following his schooling at Wooster, Allison was persuaded by 
 Wooster friends to attend Allegheny College at Meadville, Pennsyl- 
 vania. The centennial history of the college refers to him as a mem- 
 ber of the class of 1852, coming from "Perry, Ohio" in 1848. Ac- 
 tually he was enrolled in the preparatory academy that was con- 
 ducted in conjunction with the college. 17 Among Allison's contem- 
 poraries at Allegheny was Cyrus K. Holliday, with whom he kept 
 house and "got up" meals. Holliday later helped found the city of 
 Topeka and organize the Republican party in Kansas and was the 
 first president of the Santa Fe Railway. 
 
 The effect of the Allegheny experience on Allison can only be a 
 subject of speculation. His attendance there fell during the thirteen- 
 year regime of President John Barker, one of the brighter periods dur- 
 ing the early days of struggle for survival so common to all frontier 
 or "fresh-water" colleges. The academy and college students were 
 treated much alike. As one of approximately 175 academy students, 
 the young Ohioan could have joined with the others to hear the 
 sparkling debates between Allegheny's professor of mathematics, 
 Calvin Kingsley (later a Methodist bishop), and President Rufus 
 P. Stebbins of the newly founded rival, the Meadville Theological 
 Seminary — champions, respectively, of orthodox Trinitarianism and 
 questionable Unitarianism. If these debates did not attract Allison's 
 Presbyterian ears, surely there were hot discussions of the issues 
 arising from the war with Mexico. The all-important literary soci- 
 eties would also furnish ample outlets for his interests and energies. 18 
 
 Allegheny College, founded in 1817 by a Presbyterian minister 
 who hoped to reproduce his beloved alma mater, Harvard College, 
 in the West, had been lost by the Presbyterians to the Methodists, 
 who took over the institution in 1833; yet the school was not narrowly 
 sectarian. "Boys of many creeds came freely to the halls of Bentley 
 [the original college building]." 19 Allison himself left no record of 
 his own religious convictions; he was never the kind to talk freely 
 about a thing so personal. 
 
THE OHIO YEARS 7 
 
 The record is furthermore blank as to Allison's failure to return 
 to the halls of Bentley after only one year of attendance. Perhaps a 
 lack of funds affected the decision, although the outlay was small 
 in view of the housekeeping arrangements he shared with Cyrus 
 Holliday. It seems to have been a common experience for many boys 
 to attend only a brief period. 20 Allison interrupted his course to fol- 
 low the familiar pattern of so many lawyer-politicians in the mak- 
 ing — he became a schoolteacher. The fact is mentioned only casually 
 in the biographical sketches and in but a few letters of all the thou- 
 sands he preserved. In January, 1866, Sadie A. Cook of Coupeville 
 in Washington Territory wrote to ask him if he were her "well be- 
 loved teacher of early childhood days . . . the W. B. Allison who 
 taught school in Cambridge, Ohio." 21 A letter from Rev. David A. 
 Cunningham asserts that both he and Allison taught school in the 
 Perry Township neighborhood and that they attended old-fashioned 
 spelling bees together. "When you and I were young school teachers 
 I never forget [sic] the spelling school or match we had one night 
 at the Jones School house." 22 
 
 After this interlude of schoolteaching came what was surely the 
 most exciting year of Allison's life to that date — a year at Western 
 Reserve College at Hudson in the very heart of the New England of 
 the West. Twenty-one years old and out in the world more than the 
 average young man of his community, he was in a fair way toward 
 learning something of real importance. The issues of the day, cul- 
 minating in the Compromise of 1850, were very much in the air. 
 The Allisons were Whigs, and Father John was something of a local 
 leader, so it is quite reasonable to assume that a young man with a 
 normal interest in public affairs would be alive to the question of the 
 extension and expansion of the South's "peculiar institution." In 
 going to Western Reserve, Allison was entering a hotbed of interest 
 in the subject. 
 
 It was Allison's misfortune to matriculate in this "Yale of the 
 West" at a time when the college's affairs were in a state of crisis and 
 its very continuance doubtful. Financial difficulties, the bane of the 
 existence of all such small denominational colleges, were no less 
 present at Western Reserve than anywhere else. Allison, one of but 
 fifty-three students, was admitted to membership in the Alpha Delta 
 Phi fraternity, a group well known for its high scholastic standing. 
 
8 William Boyd Allison 
 
 The faculty consisted of President George Edward Pierce, one pro- 
 fessor, and one tutor. 23 
 
 Allison lived and studied only one year among the Presbyterians 
 of the Western Reserve in their educational capital at Hudson. This 
 year put him into close contact with the most pronounced religious 
 background for antislavery agitation 24 and gave him a chance to 
 learn to work with people of this persuasion, even though his own 
 personal traits would never allow him to express himself in their 
 manner. 25 Most of this antislavery feeling and action eventually came 
 to be channeled into the Republican party, whose early history owed 
 much to the leadership of the churches and the church colleges. 26 A 
 short time later the people of the Reserve became famous for their 
 thoroughgoing Republicanism, so much so that when an Iowan want- 
 ed to report to an Ohioan on the enthusiastic Republicanism of 
 northern Iowa, he knowingly compared it to the Western Reserve. 27 
 A Democratic editor in Cleveland, suffering under Republican zeal 
 and recognizing its true source, broke out with a veritable rage: 
 "These old blue law, blue bellied Presbyterians that hung the witches 
 and banished the Quakers, are determined to convert the people of 
 this region into a race of psalm singers, using the degenerate dregs of 
 the old puritans remaining here to drive the Democracy out." 28 
 
 Sometime in 1850 or 1851 Allison returned to Wooster, the scene 
 of his previous study in Professor Parrot's Academy, this time to read 
 law in the office of Hemphill and Turner. 29 The fact that his older 
 brother Matthew had located there as a drygoods merchant may have 
 influenced William's choice of Wooster. 30 His law study probably 
 followed the usual custom of acting as office boy and messenger, all 
 the while absorbing scraps of legal learning more by osmosis than by 
 cerebration. He was admitted to the bar after less than a year's study, 
 a much less significant accomplishment at that time than would now 
 be the case. 31 
 
 Allison chose Ashland as the place to hang out his first shingle. 
 There would seem to be several good reasons for this move. In 1846 
 his township, Perry, and three others in the same range had been 
 joined to other townships for the creation of Ashland County. Ash- 
 land, a new and growing county seat, might offer legal business to 
 the young lawyer back from his travels and his studies. It was a 
 nourishing small town, only three or four miles from the scenes of 
 his boyhood and from his father's home. Old family friends and 
 
THE OHIO YEARS 9 
 
 neighbors would be potential clients. Furthermore, a friend of the 
 family, Jacob O. Jennings, the county clerk, could offer clerical work 
 on conveyancing and other legal routines which would add to his 
 legal learning and at the same time eke out his purse. 32 Since Allison's 
 practice was admittedly small, he spent most of his time in reading 
 works on government, economics, and history. There were three 
 partnerships in four years: first with a J. W. Smith; second, with 
 Bolivar W. Kellogg; and finally with one William Osborn. 33 In 1852 
 Allison took a small local part in the losing Whig campaign for 
 Winfield Scott against Franklin Pierce. 
 
 In spite of partnership troubles and a meager income, Allison made 
 a secure place for himself in his community in a remarkably short 
 time. He acquired property in a good section of the town, joined 
 the Masonic Lodge, and quickly became an officer in it. 34 In 1854 
 he married into the county's first family, the Daniel Carters, who 
 were from Maryland and Pennsylvania. Daniel Carter, who built 
 the first cabin in the township that contains the present city of Ash- 
 land, 35 was the employer of Clem Studebaker and, most likely, of 
 William ("Big-Eyed Bill") Allison. Anna Carter was the lady's 
 name, although it was frequently written as Anne or Ann. The one 
 printed enumeration of the members of the Carter family would 
 indicate that the bride was sixteen years older than the groom, 36 a 
 statement that may have been an error. Even so, it surely was a stroke 
 of good fortune for an impecunious young lawyer to contract a mar- 
 riage alliance with the first family of the town and county. 
 
 William B. Allison, now attorney at law and solicitor in chancery, 
 came into the professional arena at a momentous time. A fledgling 
 lawyer could not have begun his career when state and national 
 politics were in a greater state of flux. The Compromise of 1850 had 
 provided a temporary pacification of the basic quarrel between pro- 
 slavery and antislavery groups; but slowly and surely the forces that 
 were leading up to a crisis were doing their work. Eventually a man 
 would have to take his stand. Several years later Lincoln would say 
 unequivocally that the nation could not survive half-free and half- 
 slave, but already men were beginning to make up their minds and 
 announce their decisions, pro and con. Some drifted into one camp 
 or the other as the years went by, while others could not decide 
 finally and definitely until forced to do so by the opening of hostil- 
 ities in 1861. 
 
10 William Boyd Allison 
 
 In later life Allison acquired the reputation of a cautious and non- 
 controversial man, but in these early days of decision and action he 
 was among the first to line up with the men who eventually made 
 up the Republican party. There was no compromise here, unless one 
 regards the entire Republican position itself as a compromise between 
 abolitionism and tolerance. Regardless of what later uses this party 
 was put to, and regardless of Allison's motivation then or later, the 
 credit for helping form an antislavery party is his and cannot be 
 denied him. The antislavery influence encountered at Western Re- 
 serve College undoubtedly was one explanation for his attitude. His 
 was a modest part, for there is not a single known copy of any burn- 
 ing message or stirring appeal from him, but he made his way from 
 Whiggism into Republicanism, with only a slight and possibly cal- 
 culated detour into Know-Nothingism, and never left the slightest 
 doubt as to his basic decision to go along with the new movement — 
 all of this in the face of the fact that the two counties he drew busi- 
 ness from were Democratic. 
 
 Many diverse elements had to be brought together to form the 
 political amalgamation which within two years of its first formal 
 meetings would take its place as a major party and within six years 
 win a presidential contest. In the words of John R. Commons, "Its 
 members came together by a magic attraction, as crystals appear in a 
 chilled solution. Not one man nor one set of men formed the party. 
 . . . The fluid solution was there, and when the chill came the crystals 
 formed." 37 
 
 Every state had its own story and its own leaders. In Allison's 
 home state, the blending of the various elements is most importantly 
 shown in the series of events that led to the formation at Columbus 
 in 1855 of a Fusion (Republican) party which nominated and later 
 elected Salmon Portland Chase as Governor of the state on an anti- 
 slavery platform. In fact, the story of this formative stage of Ohio 
 Republican politics almost takes the form of a biography of Chase. 
 This is fortunate, because Allison was a Chase man at the time and 
 also at the 1860 convention in Chicago. Thus, in studying Chase, we 
 indirectly study Allison. 
 
 Chase well illustrates the difficulties which beset the politicians of 
 his time. He began his career as a Whig, but in 1849 went over to 
 the Free Soilers. As such, he was elected to the United States Senate 
 in 1 849 by an Ohio legislature that was a mixture of uncertain Dem- 
 
THE OHIO YEARS 1 1 
 
 ocrats, Whig remnants, and Free Soilers. In 1851 Chase deserted the 
 Free Soilers for the Democrats, but he continued to classify himself 
 along with Senator Benjamin F. Wade, a Whig, as an antislavery man. 
 Chase's purpose in going over to the old party was to work for its 
 conversion into a Free Democratic party, but his efforts were a de- 
 cided failure. In 1852 the proslavery Franklin Pierce was elected 
 President, and in 1856 Chase's own state elected a state legislature 
 with a clear Democratic majority which would in time replace him 
 as Senator with George E. Pugh, a proslavery man. 38 In spite of this, 
 Chase remained firm in his antislavery convictions. In 1854 he be- 
 came a recognized leader of the opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska 
 Act, and his "Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to 
 the People of the United States," which was endorsed by Senator 
 Charles Sumner and four abolitionists in the House, "set off the ex- 
 plosion" that produced the Republican party. 39 
 
 All over the Midwest and in scattered places elsewhere men were 
 meeting to discuss the issue brought up by the passage of the Kansas- 
 Nebraska Act. Their sacred purpose was the prevention of the exten- 
 sion of slavery into the territories; many of them approached the 
 problem with Christian consciences and Christian determination to 
 stamp out the whole institution of slavery. It was distinctly not an 
 abolitionist movement in the Garrisonian sense, but there were many 
 abolitionists in it, and the antislavery impulse owes much to them. 
 Congregationalists, Methodists, and Baptists from New England, 
 Presbyterians of New York and Pennsylvania, Quakers of Pennsyl- 
 vania, and their children of the frontier states, a myriad of people 
 such as the Allisons, furnished the backbone of the new and rapidly 
 growing movement. 40 It was not a movement of people of great 
 wealth or high social station. Small farmers like the Allisons and 
 laboring people and small merchants in the cities formed the rank 
 and file of the party. 41 
 
 Many towns vie for the the honor of being the birthplace of the 
 Republican party. Ripon in Wisconsin, Jackson in Michigan, and 
 other places claim the distinction. As one historian has put it, "Many 
 a Republican has made his pilgrimage and stood in devout reverence 
 on the spot pointed out to him as the birthplace of his party. Not 
 all of them, however, have stood at the same place." 42 There were 
 dozens of birthplaces because everywhere throughout the Middle 
 West and in many places in the East, in schools, churches, public 
 
12 William Boyd Allison 
 
 buildings, and shaded groves, under a variety of titles, people were 
 meeting to form an opposition to Stephen A. Douglas and the De- 
 mocracy. 
 
 Such a meeting was held in Ashland, Ohio, on May 11, 1854, and 
 three Allisons — John, J. B. [W. B.?], and Alexander — were pres- 
 ent and prominent enough to warrant special notice. 43 The Allisons 
 had been staunch Whigs, but many a Whig now cast in his lot with 
 the new movement. These anti-Nebraska meetings were taking place 
 all over the Midwest. In Iowa they were held under the leadership of 
 James W. Grimes, the father of Republicanism in that state, and 
 Allison's future mentor. Others active in Iowa were James Harlan, 
 educator, politician, Methodist leader, and Allison's great rival in days 
 yet to come; Josiah B. Grinnell, who would later be Allison's col- 
 league in the convention of 1860 and in the House of Representatives; 
 James F. Wilson, ex-Ohioan and colleague-to-be in both houses of the 
 national legislature and also a business associate. Some day Allison 
 would meet these men and others such as Samuel J. Kirkwood, 
 William Peters Hepburn, Aylett R. Cotton, and William Loughridge, 
 all Ohio-Iowans, and be able to compare the Iowa and Ohio stories. 
 
 In Ohio the supreme leader was Salmon Portland Chase. Anti- 
 Nebraska Democrats, ex-Whigs, Free Soilers, Know-Nothings, and 
 Independents must all be fused into one united party. The leaders, 
 practical politicians who were aware of the need for a vote-getting 
 organization, knew all the tricks of building one. The first and most 
 important job was to bring about a victory for the antislavery over 
 the antiforeigner element of the Know-Nothing party. No less a 
 man than Chase himself cooperated with the Know-Nothings. 44 In 
 view of Allison's devotion to Chase it is not surprising to find that 
 the young Ashland lawyer at one time "carried a dark lantern." 45 
 
 Months went by while personal and political forces were at work 
 to bring about fusion. To change the figure, the ordeal of birth was 
 long drawn out, and there were many moments of uncertainty over 
 the outcome. On July 13, 1854, a fusion convention met in Colum- 
 bus in the City Hall but had to move into a larger building, because 
 a thousand delegates had swarmed into the city for this meeting. 
 Among the thousand was William Boyd Allison, a delegate from 
 Ashland County. 46 
 
 The convention adopted seven resolutions as a platform, the main 
 plank being one that promised to nullify the Kansas-Nebraska Act 
 
THE OHIO YEARS 13 
 
 wherever it affected territory that had been made free by the Mis- 
 souri Compromise. The platform further promised to oppose by law- 
 ful means any additional increase in either slave states or slave ter- 
 ritory. 47 This momentous action was followed by the nomination of 
 candidates for state offices. An illustration of the confusion of the 
 times is seen in the uncertainty over a name for the new group. One 
 paper called them the "Republicans," but names such as "People's 
 Movement" and "Anti-Nebraska Movement" also appeared. Some 
 used the name "Know-Nothings" because of the close affiliation. 
 Whatever its name, the ticket was victorious, but the fight was not 
 over. 
 
 After much persuasion, the antislavery, anti-Douglas forces took 
 another long step forward on July 13, 1855, the exact anniversary of 
 the first meeting, a date originally chosen on sentimental grounds as 
 the anniversary of the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787. 
 Allison was there to take a part. "On Friday, the thirteenth of July, 
 in the Town Street Methodist Church at Columbus, the Ohio Repub- 
 lican party shed the outworn garments of fusion." 48 John Sherman, 
 the permanent chairman of the convention, has left his own descrip- 
 tion of the meeting and of Allison's official part in it. The conven- 
 tion, Sherman wrote, was "composed of heterogeneous elements, every 
 shade of political opinion being represented." The first problem, that 
 of choosing a chairman who had not been "offensively conspicuous 
 in one of the old parties," was resolved by the election of Sherman 
 himself. His comment, "I was selected, much to my surprise, and, 
 for a time, much to my chagrin," is understandable: at this time 
 Lincoln himself would not have publicly joined in a meeting with 
 such a party. "Mr. Allison, since a distinguished Member of the 
 United States Senate," Sherman concluded, "was elected secretary of 
 the convention." 49 
 
 If John Sherman, the Mansfield lawyer and Congressman, had 
 not been found "offensively conspicuous," it is pretty safe to assume 
 that young William B. Allison, the Ashland attorney of some three 
 years' standing, also escaped this characterization. But if not offen- 
 sively conspicuous, nevertheless he was there as a founder and an 
 officer. Since this was one of the major events of his early life, it 
 would be interesting to know in detail the alignment of forces that 
 made him secretary of the convention. In politics even a minor office 
 such as this has some significance. To bestow it on someone is to win 
 
14 William Boyd Allison 
 
 that person's influence and support and maybe that of a faction to 
 which he belongs. Of more importance to Allison himself, however, 
 would be the friendships and acquaintances to be followed up in years 
 to come. To be able to boast in the future that one had been a charter 
 member of the Republican party, especially in a key state such as 
 Ohio, would mean a favored position in the small and select group 
 that initiated and won a revolution and received as their reward the 
 power to run the country for many years to come. 
 
 But it is not enough to account for Allison as a Republican, even 
 as a founder, in 1855. In the confused politics of the times, that new 
 party had as yet no national organization and, indeed, none at all in 
 some of the states — Iowa, for example. Even the name was not yet 
 a certain one, and survival was only a probability. Like a new re- 
 ligion, it had to draw off both members and doctrine from some of 
 its predecessors and its current rivals if it were to endure and prosper. 
 Specifically, it must replace the old Whig party in the North and it 
 must contain its rival of almost identical age, the American party, 
 better known as the "Know-Nothings. " 50 There was a real doubt 
 as to which party would absorb the other. Some of the Northern 
 state branches of the Know-Nothing party had antislavery sentiments 
 similar to the Republicans, while the Southern branches were strongly 
 proslavery. 
 
 A prolonged period of doubtful relationships between the Repub- 
 licans and the Know-Nothings marks the political history of 1855- 
 1856. Some men found it possible, probably expedient, to join both 
 groups and wait to see which one triumphed. For instance, Lieu- 
 tenant Governor Thomas H. Ford of Ohio, who led that state's dele- 
 gation to the Know-Nothing convention in February of 1856, was 
 one of the candidates for Vice President on the Fremont ticket at 
 the Republican convention in June of the same year. 51 There was 
 nothing inconsistent in such a dual membership, in the one supporting 
 the Republican gospel of opposition to the extension of slavery into 
 the territories, in the other the Know-Nothing "nativist" doctrine of 
 "America for Americans." But the Republicans could not absorb the 
 anti-Catholic and antiforeign doctrines of the Know-Nothings with- 
 out antagonizing some of the very groups they hoped to attract to 
 their banner, such as the German immigrants. Conversely, the Know- 
 Nothings thought of themselves as a safe, unionist, middle group 
 
THE OHIO YEARS 15 
 
 between the extremists on the slavery question, both of whom were 
 dis-unionist in tendency. 52 
 
 Like many other ex-Whigs, Allison played along with both groups. 
 He was one of the twenty-three Ohio delegates to the Know-Nothing 
 convention at Philadelphia in February, 1856. This implies that he 
 had previously been a leader of that party on the local level in his 
 home state, as charged by an opposition newspaper when it asserted 
 that he was a charter member of the first Know-Nothing lodge in 
 Ashland County. Very likely this was true. 
 
 The Philadelphia meeting of the Know-Nothings took place on 
 February 19-21, 1856. 53 The delegates were torn by battles over the 
 platform, over the admission of certain delegations — especially those 
 from Louisiana and Pennsylvania — and by mutual recriminations. 54 
 Governor Ford of Ohio was accused at least twice on the floor of 
 being a "Black Republican" trying to disrupt the convention — an 
 accusation which was promptly denied but would seem to have had 
 some basis in fact. Ford led the Northern bolters who left the con- 
 vention when the proslavery members seemed to be gaining the upper 
 hand, and, as already mentioned, was later considered for the vice- 
 presidential nomination by the Republicans in June. After the bolt 
 of the Northern, antislavery men — including Allison — the remain- 
 ing members of the convention nominated Millard Fillmore and 
 Andrew Jackson Donelson as the Know-Nothing standard-bearers. 55 
 But the split caused by the Ohio men had damaged the party beyond 
 repair. 
 
 Nothing daunted, the proslavery Know-Nothings met again at 
 Philadelphia on June 12 and made a public announcement of Fill- 
 more's acceptance. On the same day the antislavery "North Ameri- 
 cans" — the seceders of the February meeting — met in New York. 
 After a hard fight on the part of some for John C. Fremont, the con- 
 vention nominated Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts to head their 
 ticket. This strategy was dictated by those who favored cooperation 
 with the Republicans in their forthcoming convention and was based 
 on a desire not to give Fremont the "kiss of death" by an endorse- 
 ment, but to nominate a pro-Fremont man such as Banks, who would 
 easily defer to the California hero at the proper time. To make con- 
 fusion confounded, certain dissenters among the bolters now bolted 
 the New York meeting and nominated Admiral Robert Field 
 
16 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Stockton, another hero with a glamorous reputation based on Cali- 
 fornia exploits. 56 
 
 The published list of the delegates at the New York meeting of 
 Know-Nothings does not include Allison's name, although he may- 
 well have been present; he was entitled to be there. Nor was he a 
 member of the Ohio delegation to the Republican national conven- 
 tion that met at. Philadelphia on June 17 and nominated John C. 
 Fremont and William L. Dayton as the first ticket of the infant 
 party. This move reduced the intraparty tensions in Ohio and else- 
 where, since now all factions could unite behind Fremont against the 
 Democratic nominee, James Buchanan. 
 
 Back in Ohio, Allison sought the office most suited to his situation. 
 He became the Republican candidate for prosecuting attorney in 
 Ashland County and made a good fight. Not only was he up against 
 an able opponent but also an opposition newspaper that spared him 
 not in the least. Consider the following as a sample of the journalistic 
 style and ethics of the times. The piece is about a Fourth of July 
 Republican meeting held in a "grove west of town" to ratify the 
 nominees of the Philadelphia convention. After belittling the presid- 
 ing officers and even the minister who prayed, the writer treated 
 Allison in this vein: 
 
 Wm. B. Allison, Esq., a Charter member of the first Know-Nothing lodge 
 ever organized in Ashland County, had the hardihood to read the Declaration 
 of Independence. We suppose mother earth never flew up and struck William 
 a harder lick in the face while in any of his mellow moods than did the fol- 
 lowing passage from this same Declaration, which was one of the gravest 
 charges preferred against George the Third, the father of Know Nothingism 
 in America: "He has endeavored to prevent the Population of these States; 
 for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners. . . ." 
 A live Know Nothing, reading the Declaration of Independence to a crowd 
 of Black Republican Sectionalists, on the 4th of July! Oh Liberty, how many 
 crimes are committed in thy name. 57 
 
 Some six weeks later the satirical editor indulged in another great 
 display of lampooning the candidates, again ending up with Allison: 
 
 For Prosecuting Attorney we have Wm. B. Allison, Esq. William is rather 
 a singular specimen of humanity — a sort of political joker — a kind of 
 "now you see him and now you don't" sort of man. At first it was hard for 
 him to support the nomination of Fremont. Whether this nomination [his 
 own] will increase his ardor remains to be seen. He was a charter member 
 of the first Know Nothing lodge in Ashland, and was a delegate to the 
 
THE OHIO YEARS 17 
 
 Philadelphia Convention which nominated Fillmore!!! He was born and 
 raised a Whig, and stumped this county for Scott in 18 52. We presume he 
 has no hopes of being elected. The Democracy have a little "mustang" in 
 reserve who will surely distance him in the race. 58 
 
 The "Little Mustang,'' who opposed Allison, was the very able 
 Thomas J. Kenny of Ashland. The Ashland Times reported that 
 Allison made "able speeches" and that the "cause ... is onward," 59 but 
 the final result was a bitter disappointment. The opposition paper car- 
 ried banner headlines on October 15, reporting a "glorious victory in 
 Ashland County! . . . Thomas J. Kenny, the fearless young Dem- 
 ocratic orator whose efforts during the campaign have been so effec- 
 tive, leads his Know Nothing opponent, Mr. Allison by 188 votes. 
 Verily, William, 'Jordan am a hard road to trabble.' " 
 
 Defeat by a margin of 188 votes — 2,056 to 1,868 — was not bad 
 for one's first race against a strong opponent in a county habitually 
 Democratic. How large were these 188 votes? Did they send the 
 young attorney westward in search of greener fields? Perhaps so. 
 Not only did his county go Democratic in 1856, but the prospect 
 looked no better for the future. If this were his prediction, Allison 
 proved himself a good prophet. The next year Chase barely carried 
 the state for Governor and did not carry Ashland County. In 1859 
 the Republican candidate, William Dennison, did better in the state 
 but lost both Ashland and Wayne counties. 60 Allison's congressional 
 district, the Fourteenth, elected Philemon Bliss as a Republican in 
 1856 and likewise Cyrus Spink of Wooster in 1858, and, after Spink's 
 death, Harrison Gray Otis Blake of Medina, 61 but the margins were 
 small and due to the inclusion of Western Reserve precincts in the 
 district. Even in the crucial election of 1860, Wayne County went 
 for Douglas rather than Lincoln. 
 
 All these facts seem to support the theory that Allison left Ashland 
 County in search of a new location both politically and professionally. 
 Truly his lines had fallen in unpleasant places. Only moderately suc- 
 cessful at the law, with three different partners in four years; mem- 
 ber of a struggling party whose leader, Chase, was involved in many 
 factional disputes; who could blame Allison for wanting a change of 
 location? Ben: Perley Poore explained it this way: in the campaign 
 of 18 56 Allison strongly supported Fremont. "He saw, however, 
 that if he remained at Ashland there was not much prospect of his 
 realizing more than a competency, and having married a daughter of 
 
1 8 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Daniel Carter, in 1854, he made up his mind to go "West." 62 The 
 author of the Campaign Biography of 1896 explained it a little more 
 romantically: Allison was not very prosperous in Ashland but in 
 spite of this he married Anna Carter. "It was this extra responsibility 
 which soon thereafter turned his thoughts westward." 
 
 There is not much point in making Allison's decision a complex 
 matter. His story illustrates the winning of the West as well as any 
 other in the sagas of the millions of people who migrated from the 
 East and the South to find new beginnings in a country that was not 
 quite all staked out and nailed down. 63 From time immemorial men 
 have gone out into the great wide world in search of fame and fortune 
 which have eluded them at home. Nothing could be more common- 
 place; nothing could be more exciting. 
 
iWMWMWw w tifWtiWV^^ 
 
 * * 
 
 II 
 
 From Buckeye to Hawkeye 
 
 Allison was now a young man in search of a home. Any one who 
 has ever been through the trying experience of choosing a location for 
 his life's work can well imagine the soul-searching and the cautious 
 investigations that occupied the young lawyer in looking for a spot 
 where he could send down his roots, build up a practice, and make 
 his permanent home. Allison gave this problem all the attention and 
 care that one would expect of a cautious and conservative man of 
 Scotch-Irish lineage. Now twenty-eight years of age, with three years 
 of married life behind him, and five years of legal practice to his 
 credit, the choice was for him a critical one. He could hardly afford 
 to make a mistake. 
 
 Late in 1856 or early in 1857, Allison spent a week examining the 
 possibilities of Chicago. Apparently not satisfied with the prospects, 
 he followed the new Rock Island Railroad out to Davenport but soon 
 rejected it as a potential location and returned to Chicago for further 
 investigation. But something was lacking in the charms of the lake 
 city which then had about fifty thousand inhabitants. Next he 
 visited Galena, Illinois. Still he was not satisfied. 
 
 At last, in January or February of 1857, he rode the Dubuque 
 ferry, or perhaps a cutter or bobsled, across the Mississippi from Dun- 
 leith, a name that must have pleased his Scotch tastes. His mind was 
 filled with the facts, figures, and impressions he had just gained from 
 a comparative study of the merits and demerits of Chicago, Daven- 
 port, and Galena. How would Dubuque compare with them? 
 
 19 
 
20 William Boyd Allison 
 
 After a short stay in Dubuque, Allison made up his mind to settle 
 in that booming Iowa town. He returned to Ohio, closed out his 
 affairs, brought his wife out to live among the alien corn, and plunged 
 at once into professional practice, business, and politics. 1 Referring 
 many years later to his fortunate choice of Iowa, he made the typical 
 politician's gesture. He had chosen Iowa, he said, because it was one 
 of the empire states of the West. Then, more candidly, he added: 
 "It was largely accidental but I like to think that there is Providence 
 even in accidents." 2 
 
 As usual, Providence was assisted by good hardheaded business 
 sense. Dubuque was well located. It was the best traffic point on the 
 Mississippi between St. Louis and St. Paul. East and west rail traffic 
 to and from Chicago crossed the river there (by ferry) and unloaded 
 cargoes for shipment on the river north and south, in areas where as 
 yet the rails had not been laid. For a long time to come Dubuque 
 would be a great milling center, devouring the logs that were rafted 
 down the Mississippi. 3 But the basic and all-important reason for 
 Allison's choice of Dubuque was not in his analysis of its business 
 prospects. Providential or otherwise, there was another reason. 
 
 In the Dubuque Daily Express and Herald for May 1, 1857, an 
 advertisement appears for "M. Allison's Insurance Agency." This 
 "M. Allison" of the advertisement was none other than William's 
 older brother, Matthew, the very same who had lived in Wooster at 
 the time of William's law study there. Matthew, already well estab- 
 lished in business in Dubuque, would be able to tide the younger 
 brother over a few lean months and at the same time introduce him 
 into the business and political circles of a booming little city. He had 
 come to Dubuque in 1855 and by his own advertised admission had 
 done well in these two years. In 1856 the local newspaper listed him 
 as a "leader" in the newly founded Republican party, along with 
 many of the prominent businessmen of the city. 4 A helpful brother 
 under these circumstances was an asset beyond price which Allison 
 gratefully acknowledged many years later. 5 
 
 Within the year the younger Allison moved to a rented house, 
 where he lived until 1861, when he was able to purchase a home of his 
 own. The City Directory of 1857-1858 lists him as a "boarder" on 
 Julien Avenue; there is no mention of his wife. The next year's 
 Directory again listed him as a boarder at the corner of 11th and 
 Locust (near the site of the home he later purchased at 1134 Locust 
 
FROM BUCKEYE TO HAWKEYE 21 
 
 Street). One possible inference from these references to him as a 
 boarder is that Mrs. Allison was spending much of her time elsewhere, 
 very likely in Ohio with relatives. 
 
 Dubuque, as Allison found it in April of 1857, was in an era of 
 great expansion. The farsighted hinted at a panic, but it had not 
 come as yet. The city was beginning to draw away from its hearty 
 rival, Galena. Sprawling along the Mississippi, the business district 
 was forced into a longitudinal rather than a lateral growth by a mag- 
 nificent bluff that runs parallel to the river. Dubuque's leaders were 
 awake to the possibilities, but time and capital were necessary before 
 full realization of these possibilities could be attained. To capitalize 
 on the arterial advantages of the great river, considerable dredging of 
 sloughs was necessary, and docking and warehouse facilities must be 
 provided. The local taxpayer did not as yet have the vision to see that 
 these things should come out of the municipal purse, and no serious 
 effort had been made to secure federal largess for such projects. 
 Dubuque needed a Congressman who could get federal funds for river 
 and harbor improvements and for a bridge over the Mississippi. In 
 1855 the rails from Chicago had reached Dunleith, just across the 
 river, and some day a railroad bridge must replace the ferry (or bob- 
 sled) that had brought Allison across the river on his first visit. 
 Railroads were already pushing westward from Dubuque, and the two 
 sets of rails must be linked by a bridge. But these things would re- 
 quire time. 
 
 Meanwhile, the city did well. Originally settled by Julien Dubuque, 
 the site early attracted notice because of its trade and its favorable 
 setting on the river. 6 Its permanent settlement as a village and its 
 growth date from 1833. Prominent among Dubuque's first settlers 
 were many people of Southern background, but Ohio, Pennsylvania, 
 New York, and the New England states contributed more, just as they 
 did to the state of Iowa as a whole, with Ohio in the lead. 7 
 
 Most pronounced of all in positive and enduring but rather localized 
 influence on Dubuque were the settlers from Germany and Ireland. 
 The Germans, coming in great numbers after the revolutionary days 
 of 1848, 8 had settled all over the "Old Northwest"; just why so many 
 came to Dubuque and its hinterland would make an interesting study. 
 Their numerical and group importance in the affairs of Dubuque was 
 such that in the hectic days of rallying support for the Union in 
 April, 1861, all mass meetings had to be addressed twice — once in 
 
22 William Boyd Allison 
 
 English and once in German. The Irish were perhaps not so distinc- 
 tive, but they were just as positive an element in the heterogeneous 
 population of the city. In religion as well as in politics they made a 
 powerful impression on the life of the city as they helped some of the 
 Germans to swell the membership of the Catholic churches. These 
 Irish and German people so regularly gave their votes to the Dem- 
 ocrats that Dubuque earned the title of the "Gibraltar of Iowa De- 
 mocracy." 
 
 Allison's permanent residence in Dubuque began in April, 1857, 
 luckily at a time when the city seemed to be at a peak of its progress. 
 Its boosters were almost ecstatic over the prospects for growth. In 
 April, 1855, one newspaper had said: "It Opens Well. — The spring 
 business never before opened with such flattering prospects as it does 
 this season. Dubuque is unmistakably going ahead. It is as much as 
 we can do to keep posted on the progress of the place." Some two 
 years later, just two months before Allison's arrival, the same news- 
 paper asserted that the once small village had undergone such a re- 
 markable development in real estate values that 64-foot lots that had 
 sold in 1844 for $100 or $200 would now bring $400 a front foot, 9 
 a positive though not spectacular increase in value. 
 
 To be sure, there were those who foresaw trouble. Horace Greeley, 
 on an observation trip in Iowa in February, 1857, "feared that spec- 
 ulation was rife and that disaster was inevitable. In Iowa City he 
 observed that 'almost every one here who isn't drunk is getting rich, 
 or thinks he is'." 10 A little later, on May 19, the Dubuque Daily 
 Express and Herald published an editorial warning that rents were 
 too high and must come down or businessmen would leave the city. 
 But two days later confidence returned. Taking note of a piece in the 
 Albany, New York, Journal, which said that a panic was impending 
 and that the West would suffer more than the East, the editor reas- 
 sured his readers: "Now there never was less prospect of a 'crash' in 
 the west than at the present time. . . . Such a thing as a general crash 
 at the West is simply ridiculous." Within three months the crash had 
 come. 
 
 Neither Allison nor the editor could be expected to foresee the 
 panic that would break in August and temporarily set business back. 
 Even so, what other city would not surfer in the same way? By all 
 known standards, Allison made a good choice when he decided to 
 settle in Dubuque. With a well-established older brother to introduce 
 
FROM BUCKEYE TO HAWKEYE 23 
 
 him and help him along with bed and board, what could look more 
 promising? The City Directory of 1858, which credited Dubuque 
 with a population of 15,957 people, promised a field for both business 
 and politics. Although Allison was probably more interested in busi- 
 ness opportunities than in the political picture at that time, the official 
 voting figures showed that Dubuque had the largest urban vote in all 
 of Iowa, an important factor for a prospective politician. Among 
 the counties, Dubuque had 4,005 votes, a close second to Lee County 
 (containing Keokuk and Fort Madison) with 4,58s. 11 
 
 As April was the date of Allison's arrival, the new citizen must be 
 congratulated on the speed with which he entered a business partner- 
 ship. The matter had probably been arranged during his visit of 
 inspection. On May 1, 1857, a new card appeared in the Dubuque 
 Daily Express and Herald, at the top of the column devoted to ad- 
 vertisements of the legal firms of the city: 
 
 Ben M. Samuels D. N. Cooley ¥m. B. Landerson [sic] 
 
 SAMUELS, COOLEY AND ALLISON 
 
 Attorneys at Law 
 
 Solicitors in Chancery 
 
 Will give their undivided attention to the practice of their profession in 
 Dubuque and adjoining counties. Office Nos. 1 and 2, Rebman's Block, 
 corner of 8 th and Main Streets. 
 
 It was unfortunate that Allison's name should have been misspelled the 
 first time it appeared professionally in the paper. The next day the 
 advertisement was printed with the correct spelling, however, and 
 ran steadily for several months. Since the personnel of the partner- 
 ship shows men of a rather queer juxtaposition of views, illustrating 
 the political difficulties of the times, it is important to become ac- 
 quainted with each of Allison's partners. 
 
 Benjamin M. Samuels was Dubuque's leading Democrat of the late 
 fifties, and Iowa's also, as proved by his frequent nomination for 
 United States Senator, Representative, and Governor. He was a shin- 
 ing example of the Southern influence projected into Dubuque and 
 Iowa. A native of Parkersburg, Virginia (now West Virginia) , where 
 he was born on December 20, 1823, he had been trained by his father, 
 one of the most eminent lawyers of his day in Virginia. He came to 
 
24 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Dubuque in 1848 for the practice of law; in 1849 he was elected city 
 attorney; in 1850 he became a member of the county central com- 
 mittee of his party; and in 1854 he successfully ran for the lower 
 house of the Iowa General Assembly. By this time Samuels had 
 gained local fame as an orator. When the great Whig-Republican 
 candidate for Governor, James W. Grimes, spoke in Dubuque in 1854, 
 it was Allison V future partner who was put up to answer him. Al- 
 though Samuels carried Dubuque County by about 450 votes on a 
 platform endorsing the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the state as a whole 
 went to Grimes and the Whig-Republicans. In later years Samuels 
 became almost a perennial candidate for the Democrats whenever a 
 high office was to be filled. 12 
 
 Dennis N. Cooley represents the other extreme of background and 
 beliefs. Born in Lisbon, New Hampshire, in 1825, educated there 
 and in Vermont, he came to Iowa in 1854, after finishing his law 
 studies. In 1855 he and Samuels formed a partnership. Cooley, who 
 achieved great success as lawyer, businessman, and public servant, 
 was the sort of man who makes money in his law practice, becomes 
 president of the First National Bank and president of the Board of 
 Trustees of a college (Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa), is a 
 prominent churchman (Methodist), and whose wife is the inevitable 
 president of the women's club of the city. 13 One need hardly add that 
 he was a Republican. A leading Republican editor later testified that 
 Cooley's campaign oratory matched that of the "brilliant and fasci- 
 nating Samuels." 14 
 
 This strangely matched firm of Samuels and Cooley now admitted 
 the lawyer from Ohio. This partnership, being just two years old, 
 hardly deserved the description later given by Ben: Perley Poore, "an 
 old, established law firm, ,, unless this be an indication of the raw 
 youthfulness and fluidity of a boom town on the Mississippi. Now 
 Allison, a Republican, joined Cooley to make it two against one in 
 the firm; what would be the effect? 
 
 The answer was not long in coming. The newly made threesome 
 lasted less than four months. This must have grieved Allison's brother 
 and alarmed his wife; was this the herald of a repetition of his pro- 
 fessional experience at Ashland? Would there be three partnerships 
 made and broken in the next four years in Dubuque? 
 
 At the time of Allison's admission to the firm of Samuels and 
 Cooley, both men had publicly taken different stands and were ac- 
 
FROM BUCKEYE TO HAWKEYE 25 
 
 tually opponents pitted against each other in the mounting political 
 combat. For once Allison did not play the role of peacemaker. 
 Cooley broke with Samuels; the one remaining question is about 
 Allison. Did he stay with Samuels or go with Cooley? 
 
 Somewhat surprisingly, Allison stayed with the Democrat, prob- 
 ably because he had no other choice. He and Cooley had clashed from 
 the very first; their incompatability, both personal and political in 
 nature, would assert itself repeatedly for many years to come. 15 
 
 Allison had arrived in Dubuque pretty much as a soldier of for- 
 tune, a man on the make, with two roads to success opening before 
 him. One was the road of steady, unremitting application to his 
 chosen profession, accompanied by a frugal, careful type of living in 
 which venturesome business risks would be avoided and a strictly 
 local mark would be made by becoming the servant and counselor of 
 others. Such a career does not seem out of reason to expect from one 
 of Allison's rather limited background and achievements. It was the 
 kind of career he would later preach to others, as his younger brother 
 and nephews could well testify. The other road began with an easy 
 and casual law practice, gradually leading to business associations 
 with large risks involved, and simultaneously branching off into 
 politics. If successful in politics he could serve and promote the busi- 
 ness ventures of himself and his associates. This, of course, was the 
 road that he chose. 
 
 The most striking fact about Allison at this stage is the rapidity 
 with which he impressed himself upon his new fellow-citizens at 
 Dubuque and upon the Republican party of Iowa. He was a man of 
 fairly good education and of somewhat more than average intellectual 
 ability but certainly not brilliant. His success seemed to be due to his 
 ability to impress people with his "safeness." Somehow he inspired a 
 sense of confidence in his judgment. There is hardly any other avail- 
 able explanation for his choice as a director of the Dubuque Branch 
 of the Iowa State Bank less than two years after settling in the city. 16 
 He was not yet a property owner and almost certainly not a large 
 stockholder, 17 but he measured up to his opportunity. The friends he 
 made now remained his for years to come. Among the directors was 
 Rufus E. Graves, a successful banker and promoter, a loyal friend to 
 Allison and, with his brother Julius K. Graves, long dependent upon 
 him for business counsel and political favors. Other acquaintances 
 who almost overnight developed into close business associates were 
 
26 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Henry L. Stout, C. H. Booth, J. L. Waller, and P. B. Bradley, leading 
 businessmen of Dubuque. Stout and J. K. Graves were especially out- 
 standing, and Allison was soon on as intimate terms with them as if 
 he had been a long-time resident of the city instead of a newcomer. 
 
 In Allison's law practice, the story is much the same. In his first 
 three years at Dubuque, he enjoyed some success as a practicing at- 
 torney. All the manuscript biographies for which he furnished the 
 facts stress his devotion to a successful legal business during these 
 years. 18 Part of this business was no doubt due to the Panic of 1857 
 and its aftermath. In fiduciary cases involving financial embarrass- 
 ment, a lawyer who can inspire trust and who can extend friendship 
 as well as legal advice enjoys a great advantage. Undoubtedly much 
 of his practice consisted in serving as legal adviser and personal repre- 
 sentative for his business associates. His most notable retainer as a 
 lawyer was as counsel in the case of Gelpcke v. The City of Du- 
 buque, 19 well known to all students of constitutional law. 
 
 In the area of politics there is the greatest amount of evidence 
 demonstrating the ex-Ohioan's rapid advancement. He was soon ac- 
 cepted as a member in full standing of the Republican party of Iowa. 
 After barely two years of residence Allison served as delegate to the 
 state convention held in Des Moines on June 22, 1859, where he 
 helped to nominate the former Ohioan, Samuel Jordan Kirkwood, for 
 Governor. A year later Allison was a delegate to the national con- 
 vention that nominated Lincoln, and still a year after that he was 
 chairman of the resolutions committee at the state convention. 
 
 To understand Allison's rapid development, it is helpful to assay 
 some factors other than his personality. Most important of all was the 
 newness of the party in Iowa. Allison did not have to edge his way 
 into an old and well-established party and elbow aside veteran place- 
 holders or spokesmen for vested interests. The party was less than a 
 year old when Allison made his first visit to the state. As a charter 
 member of the Ohio branch, he would have heard with the greatest 
 interest the brief history of the Iowa party in which fellow immi- 
 grants from Ohio had played such a prominent part. 
 
 In general the stories in Ohio and Iowa run along the same lines. 
 There was the same multiplicity of splinter-parties — Seward Whigs, 
 strongly antislavery; Silver Grey Whigs, who did not want to inter- 
 fere with slavery; Free Soilers and Free Democrats; "Hunkers," the 
 Democrats who favored the Southern views on slavery; and Know- 
 
FROM BUCKEYE TO HAWKEYE 27 
 
 Nothings. 20 On the side of the opposition, Allison's new home town, 
 Dubuque, was the capital of Iowa Democracy; quite logically, many 
 of the leaders of that party lived there. The Douglas Democrats de- 
 fended their doctrine of popular sovereignty under the leadership of 
 the very Ben M. Samuels who was Allison's law partner; the Buch- 
 anan Democrats or Hunkers were led by one Dennis A. Mahony, the 
 chief Democratic editor of the state, and eventually by Mahony's 
 partner and co-editor, Stilson Hutchins, both of whom were bitterly 
 opposed to the current developments in the formation of an anti- 
 slavery, nationalist party. 21 
 
 As in Ohio, the mechanics of decision in antislavery politics called 
 for a quick stab at the Whigs to put an end to a party already dying 
 a slow death, and a subtle absorption of the Know-Nothings, ar- 
 ranged in such a way as to get their votes without accepting their 
 principles. The other splinter parties did not pose a serious problem, 
 since they were all looking for a successful antislavery party to tie to. 
 The Iowa leader who played the role of Chase in Ohio was a Whig 
 lawyer turned politician, James Wilson Grimes of Burlington. A 
 New Hampshireman, he had come west in Iowa's territorial days, 
 gained experience as a civil service employee and amassed a comfort- 
 able fortune as a lawyer and real estate owner. In religion he was a 
 strong Congregationalist; in politics he was among the first in Iowa 
 to subscribe to the doctrine of nonextension of slavery into the ter- 
 ritories. 22 In August, 1854, he ran successfully for the governorship 
 of Iowa on a Whig ticket with a Free Soil endorsement, a combination 
 arranged at a convention held on March 28 at Crawfordsville, Iowa 
 — one of the many Midwestern towns that claim to have been the 
 birthplace of the Republican party. 23 
 
 The campaign was strenuous and exciting, and Grimes's opponent, 
 Curtis Bates, was a foe worthy of his best efforts. "The combination 
 supporting Grimes was in reality a Republican party though not so 
 named." 24 As Grimes himself later reported to Chase, "The southern 
 half of our State is strongly pro-slavery, but I think we will carry a 
 majority for free principles, and for a disconnection with slavery. . . . 
 The north third of our State will be to Iowa, politically, what the 
 Western Reserve is to the State of Ohio." 25 Grimes not only secured 
 the endorsement of the Free Soilers, but he personally persuaded the 
 leaders of the Abolitionists, Dr. Curtis Shedd, George F. Magoun, and 
 Rev. Asa Turner of Denmark, Iowa, to withdraw their ticket. 26 
 
28 William Boyd Allison 
 
 In his personal platform, contained in campaign literature, Grimes 
 announced on April 8, 1854, that he favored an amendment of the 
 state constitution to permit banks; that he supported prohibition laws 
 and a federal homestead act; and that he opposed the extension of 
 slavery. 27 For many years to come no Republican in the West would 
 improve on this platform, although it was issued by a nominal Whig. 
 Its author won by a statewide margin of 2,120 votes. Dubuque 
 County was sufficiently satisfied with Ben M. Samuels' rebuttal of 
 Grimes to give its customary Democratic majority to Bates and to 
 elect Democrats to both houses of the state legislature. 
 
 This was a "Republican" rather than a Whig campaign and victory. 
 So it seemed to Horace Greeley, who was watching the results closely. 
 The victory was achieved, said Greeley, "by a fusion of all honest 
 parties, — by the combination of men previously entertaining dif- 
 ferent or antagonistic sentiments on political questions, who came 
 together on the common ground of Slavery Restriction and Liquor 
 Prohibition, and fought the glorious battle of Freedom as one man." 
 Greeley was at pains to correct a sub-editor who had written in his 
 absence of the Grimes election as a Whig victory. 28 
 
 For some time after the 1854 campaign most of the energies of the 
 leaders of the new antislavery movement went into organizational 
 activities. An interesting coincidence and perhaps a significant one is 
 that Grimes of Iowa and young Allison of Ohio, completely unknown 
 to each other, were supporting the same man, Salmon P. Chase. In 
 April, 1855, Grimes wrote to Chase: "What is going to be done in 
 1856? How are we going to bring the antislavery forces into the 
 field, and under whose standard? I believe a very large part of the 
 friends of freedom in Iowa would be glad to see you a candidate for 
 the presidency. I am one of the number. How do you feel on the 
 subject, and are your aspirations that way inclined at present?" 29 A 
 few months later Grimes wrote Chase to congratulate him on his elec- 
 tion in October, 1855, as Governor of Ohio. 30 Allison had worked 
 for Chase in that campaign. 
 
 The first recorded effort to summon an Iowa convention of those 
 in the new movement was made by the Fairfield Ledger in Septem- 
 ber, 1855, when that paper proposed a meeting in conjunction with 
 their agricultural fair. 31 There seems no reason to doubt that James 
 Falconer Wilson, recently arrived from Newark, Ohio (in 1852 or 
 1853) , had a hand in this, as he was actively associated with the paper 
 
FROM BUCKEYE TO HAWKEYE 29 
 
 in the capacity of guest editorial writer/ 2 Wilson undoubtedly would 
 have been in close touch with the Ohio movement and under its in- 
 fluence. The Fairfield proposal was not carried out, but it led to other 
 suggestions for a Republican convention. 
 
 Finally came the "call" that brought results. Dated January 3, 
 1856, it appeared early in January in the Burlington Daily Hawk- 
 Eye and Telegraph and the Mount Pleasant Observer and was widely 
 copied. These locations were not accidental. Burlington was the home 
 of Governor Grimes; Mount Pleasant was the home of Senator James 
 Harlan, definitely a leader in the movement against the extension of 
 slavery. Probably in an effort to create a feeling of confidence, the 
 call was signed "Many Citizens." Grimes has been considered the 
 "probable author," but Harlan might well have had a hand in it. He 
 later claimed, in campaign speeches against Allison and others, that 
 he had been the first to editorialize in favor of a Republican party in 
 Iowa. 33 Samuel J. Kirkwood made the first "Republican" speech in 
 the state as early as 1855, according to a well-informed participant 
 in these early developments, 34 so he, too, should be credited with the 
 honor of being one of the founding fathers. 
 
 The convention met in Iowa City on February 22, 18 56, the same 
 day as one that met in Pittsburgh to arrange for a full national con- 
 vention. Four hundred delegates from thirty-nine counties were 
 present at Iowa City; others, such as William Penn Clarke, might 
 have been there but for the conflict with the Pittsburgh meeting. 
 The body of resolutions finally agreed upon contained thirty-nine 
 articles or paragraphs all on one subject: opposition to the extension 
 of slavery. Delegates were selected for the Republican national con- 
 vention already called for the following June, and nominees were 
 named for the various state offices. Governor Grimes headed the 
 Iowa delegation to the Philadelphia convention that chose John C. 
 Fremont as the first Republican presidential candidate. 35 In Dubuque, 
 Matthew Allison joined such men as Oliver P. Shiras, Lewis A. 
 Thomas, M. Mobley, and others in crying "free soil, free speech, free 
 schools and Fremont," or variations on that theme, 36 while his brother 
 William was, as we have seen, bolting from the Know-Nothing con- 
 vention in Philadelphia because of opposition to the proslavery dom- 
 ination of that gathering. 
 
 Iowa, as Allison found it in 1857, was only eleven years old as an 
 organized state, the twenty-ninth in order of admission to the Union, 
 
30 William Boyd Allison 
 
 having come in in 1 846 as the partner of Florida in the balancing of 
 free and slave states so vital to the politics of that day. The new 
 party, with logical consistency, now advocated a new constitution for 
 Iowa. A constitutional convention was called and sessions held in 
 Iowa City from January to April, 1857, the very months when 
 Allison was clearing up his affairs in Ohio and preparing for his new 
 location. Since it was a convention dominated by his own party and 
 since it was preparing a framework of government under which he 
 would have to live, it is very likely that he followed its sessions with 
 great interest. So it might be said that Allison arrived in Iowa in the 
 Year One of the present state government. It may well be that the 
 first political action witnessed by him in his newly adopted residence 
 was the vote of ratification which took place in August. 
 
 Years later an older friend wrote that he had supported Allison, not 
 for favors done, but because he believed that from his first days in 
 Dubuque he had always tried to do his duty. 37 This faithfulness to 
 the job set before him characterizes Allison's first years in Dubuque. 
 His political activities were first noticed by the newspapers in the 
 1859 campaign. In that year he was a delegate to the Republican 
 state convention, held in Des Moines on June 22, where he helped to 
 nominate for Governor one whom he may have known a few years 
 earlier in Ohio — Samuel Jordan Kirkwood. 38 
 
 In the campaign that followed Allison made his first formal ap- 
 pearance as a Republican party worker. As a warm supporter of 
 Kirkwood in this race against a distinguished opponent — Augustus 
 Caesar Dodge of Burlington, former Senator and former Minister to 
 Spain — Allison was in a good position to work in a critical area 
 where every vote taken away from the Democracy was a bonus for 
 the Republicans. Kirkwood won the race in which his plain exterior, 
 homespun virtues, and superiority at rough-and-tumble debating 
 were asserted at the expense of the aristocratic Dodge. Undoubtedly 
 the victorious Kirkwood was not only grateful to Allison but polit- 
 ically obligated as well. This is one of the truly important personal 
 and political associations in Allison's life. Years later a mutual friend 
 of the two men wrote to Allison: "The Grand Old 'War Governor' 
 of our noble State of Iowa claims the honor (to me personally) of 
 being the first one at the 'commencement of the War' and while or 
 when Governor, to have brought Senator Allison into public notice — 
 for which he says 'he has always been justly and personally proud 
 
FROM BUCKEYE TO HAWKEYE 31 
 
 of." 39 Indeed, Kirkwood's friendship and patronage were crucial 
 and invaluable factors in Allison's career. 
 
 The most outstanding evidence of Allison's rapid progress in win- 
 ning recognition and acceptance in his new state was his selection as 
 a delegate to the Republican national convention of 1860 in Chicago. 
 It was an honor which touched him deeply and which he gratefully 
 acknowledged on later occasions. Yet he came by the honor only be- 
 cause the state convention went to ridiculous lengths in passing out 
 the delegacies. The state was entitled to eight votes in the national 
 convention; the Iowa convention ultimately decided to send thirty- 
 two delegates, each with one-fourth vote, a manifestation of de- 
 mocracy which later brought forth snickers from the members of the 
 national convention when the Iowa delegation was presented. 40 The 
 delegates were selected at a state convention at Des Moines in January. 
 After choosing nine delegates-at-large, the convention yielded to 
 pressure for further recognition of the faithful and allowed each of 
 the eleven state judicial districts two delegates. After these district 
 delegates were elected the convention wound up the farce by choosing 
 two more delegates-at-large, making a grand total of thirty-three! 
 Since each delegate had only one-fourth vote, it is obvious that one of 
 the thirty-three would have to be content with a silent membership 
 in the delegation. 41 Luckily for Allison, he was one of the two men 
 selected by the Ninth Judicial District, the other being State Senator 
 A. J. Brown of Cedar Falls. 
 
 One more reason for Allison's quick success in Iowa must be men- 
 tioned. The keynote is given in Chase's letter wherein he refers to 
 Iowa as "our young sister." Both quality and quantity considered, 
 no state contributed so much to Iowa in these formative years as 
 Ohio. 42 The Buckeye State was the birthplace or the former residence 
 of a large number of Iowa's leading citizens. For example, in the 
 Senate of the Iowa General Assembly of 1858, Ohio was the state of 
 origin of nine members out of thirty-three. Kentucky and Pennsyl- 
 vania were in a tie for second place with six members each. When 
 an authority on Iowa drew up a list of the ten outstanding men in the 
 state's history, Ohio could claim three — Allison, Kirkwood, and 
 James B. Weaver — and the list had omitted James F. Wilson. 43 
 Colonel Grenville M. Dodge checked on the state of nativity of the 
 men in his regiment in 1861, a regiment recruited in western Iowa, 
 and found 261 were from Ohio, 243 from Indiana, 202 from Penn- 
 
32 William Boyd Allison 
 
 sylvania, 65 from New York, 45 from Virginia, and 35 from Ken- 
 tucky. 44 
 
 Thus the "old Ohio tie" eased the way for Allison's introduction 
 into Iowa politics and gave him a bond of union with many of the 
 state's leaders around I860. Samuel J. Kirkwood leads the list, of 
 course, if we pass lightly over his Maryland birth and Washington 
 youth and claini him as a Buckeye for his adult career in Ohio. He 
 had lived with relatives in Hanover Township, Ashland County, be- 
 fore moving to John Sherman's city of Mansfield, where he had risen 
 to considerable success as a lawyer. A member of the Ohio Constitu- 
 tional Convention of 1850, Kirkwood moved to Iowa in 1855 and 
 so quickly showed his ability that he was pressed into service in the 
 Iowa Constitutional Convention of 1857 and then elected Governor 
 in 1859. 45 
 
 Such a friend could work wonders in pushing along the political 
 progress of an apt pupil such as Allison. It is not possible to say ex- 
 actly how or when Allison met Kirkwood, but it is likely that the two 
 men had known each other in Ohio circles and in social gatherings of 
 lawyers on the circuit. 46 Tales of this able and straightforward bar- 
 rister, whose slight eccentricities and indifference to appearance and 
 toilet endeared him to his friends and provided talking points for his 
 superficial critics, were common in Ohio and followed him to Iowa and 
 dogged him for the remainder of his life. They had mostly to do 
 with a disinclination to a frequent change of linen and a refusal to 
 adopt the technique of the handkerchief. Apparently such things 
 made no difference in Allison's attitude. Early in 1861 we find an 
 exchange of letters between the two in terms of profound mutual 
 trust based on old friendship. The bonds of Masonic brotherhood 
 furnished another basis for their desire to aid each other. 
 
 Second place on the list would certainly go to James Falconer 
 Wilson of Fairfield, already referred to as one of the founding fathers 
 of Iowa Republicanism. Wilson has been shortchanged in the Iowa 
 hall of fame. Only a brief sketch here and there perpetuates his name, 
 while many others less deserving have been honored by full-length 
 biographies. 47 He and his bride came out from Newark, Ohio, where 
 he had studied law in the offices of Judge William Burnham Woods, 
 later a member of the Supreme Court of the United States. Wilson 
 helped to form the Iowa Republican party, represented his district in 
 the state senate, was a delegate to the convention that nominated 
 
FROM BUCKEYE TO HAWKEYE 33 
 
 Lincoln, and was elected to the national House of Representatives in 
 1861 when Samuel R. Curtis resigned to go off to war. The exact 
 moment of the beginning of the Wilson-Allison partnership has not 
 been found. Their acquaintance could well have begun at the Repub- 
 lican state convention in June, 1859, if not sooner. Whenever it was, 
 a political friendship was formed which would not end until Wilson's 
 death in 1895. 
 
 Other ex-Ohioans were now influential in Iowa. Aylett R. Cotton, 
 of Lyons, formerly of Austinburg, Ohio, and an alumnus of Alle- 
 gheny College, was a member of the Iowa Constitutional Convention. 
 William Peters Hepburn, once of Wellsville, Columbiana County, 
 now a lawyer at Marshalltown and sometime clerk of the Iowa House 
 of Representatives, was a prominent delegate at many political conven- 
 tions. 48 William Loughridge of Oskaloosa, formerly of Youngstown 
 and Mansfield, was a member of the state senate. Clark Dunham of 
 Burlington, editor of the Burlington Hawk-Eye, was probably the 
 most influential Republican journalist in the state just before and 
 after 1860. A Vermonter by birth, he had spent his boyhood and 
 young manhood in Ohio, where he studied at Granville College, now 
 Denison University. 49 Samuel Ryan Curtis, born in New York, but 
 soon taken to Ohio (eventually settling in Wooster where conceivably 
 he could have known Allison), came to Keokuk and was elected to 
 Congress in 18 56. He served until 1861, resigning to enter the Union 
 Army as a colonel, later becoming one of Lincoln's political major 
 generals. 50 Addison H. Sanders, a Cincinnatian, came to Davenport 
 in 1856 and soon established himself as a powerful Republican editor 
 of the Daily Gazette. Others who ought to be mentioned are William 
 F. Sapp of Council Bluffs; Sylvester Bagg of Waterloo; Frank T. 
 Campbell of Newton; Hoyt Sherman of Des Moines; Ralph P. Lowe 
 of Keokuk (from Warren County, Ohio; Governor of Iowa, 1857- 
 18 59) ; John H. Charles of Sioux City; Cyrus Bussey of Bloomfield; 
 John Teesdale of Iowa City and later Des Moines, a well-known 
 editor; John A. T. Hull; Jackson Orr; S. S. Farwell, and many more. 
 
 All of these men could help Allison's career; most of them did in 
 one way or another. As a founding father of their common party in 
 Ohio, he had a ready point of contact with them and a claim on their 
 political friendship and assistance. 51 He entered the lists later than 
 the men just mentioned, but in a few years he was their peer or su- 
 perior. 
 
34 William Boyd Allison 
 
 However true this may have been, it was not apparent in the year 
 1860 at the Chicago convention in the Wigwam. Here Allison was 
 just one among many; others in the delegation stood head and shoul- 
 ders above him in prominence and influence. Outstanding by any 
 kind of measurement was a gentleman from Des Moines by the name 
 of John Adam Kasson, as lately arrived in the state as was Allison, but 
 even more quickjy accepted and promoted. Originally from Vermont, 
 Kasson had moved first to Massachusetts, where he had attained some 
 success in the practice of law and had married into the famous Eliot 
 family, and then to St. Louis, where he was notably successful at the 
 bar, and where he became friendly with such notables as B. Gratz 
 Brown and Judge Edward Bates. For a variety of reasons Kasson de- 
 cided to abandon these lucrative professional connections and move 
 westward to Des Moines. 52 This village had just been chosen as the 
 state's capital, but had little else to recommend it at the time. Kasson 
 immediately joined forces with the infant Republican party, and his 
 abilities were recognized in his election to the chairmanship of the 
 state central committee in 1859. His managerial talents were quickly 
 and successfully demonstrated in his direction of the first campaign 
 of Samuel J. Kirkwood for Governor. 53 Tremendous energy and en- 
 thusiasm and much political know-how were poured into his work as 
 chairman. There were those, however, who dissented from the leader- 
 ship of this brilliant man despite his meteoric rise to power, thinking 
 him to be too urbane, impractical, and overly ambitious. 54 
 
 Such was the man who received the coveted honor of being Iowa's 
 representative on the Committee on Resolutions in I860. As others 
 milled around the Wigwam and bargained for votes in hotel rooms, 
 and as still others looked on as spectator-members of the convention, 
 Kasson was among those who stayed by the unspectacular job of re- 
 ducing to written English the steadfast convictions and vague aspira- 
 tions of the party. His yeoman labors in this matter were acknowl- 
 edged by no less an authority than Horace Greeley, the chairman of 
 the Resolutions Committee. 55 
 
 Aside from Kasson's service in helping to write the platform, the 
 Iowa delegation's part in the convention was not noteworthy. Allison 
 was given the post of assistant secretary, every state furnishing one 
 such official. 56 The delegation went into the convention without 
 official instructions but not without special favorites. Some were for 
 Seward, probably the favorite of more Iowa delegates than any other 
 
FROM BUCKEYE TO HAWKEYE 3 5 
 
 man; Kasson, partly because of his former St. Louis connections, was 
 in favor of Edward Bates; and Chase was preferred by some, includ- 
 ing Allison. 57 Lincoln's support from Iowa was at first very small, a 
 fact which was of course soon translated into a myth to the opposite 
 effect. The greatest Lincoln support among Iowans was furnished by 
 unofficial observers who took a great interest in the results. Out- 
 standing in this respect was Governor Kirkwood, who apparently was 
 in close alliance with Norman B. Judd and Henry Farnam of Illinois, 
 Nathaniel B. Baker of Clinton, and Grenville M. Dodge of Council 
 Bluffs, spokesmen for the railroad interests that did so much to make 
 Lincoln's victory possible. Among other contributions, Kirkwood 
 helped Greeley kill the Seward boom by the doubtful assertion that 
 Seward could not carry Iowa. 58 Coker F. Clarkson of Grundy Coun- 
 ty contributed a more obvious asset to the Lincoln cause by helping 
 to organize demonstrations of the rail-splitters. 59 
 
 Kirkwood had difficulty in lining up the Iowa delegation for Lincoln. 
 On the first ballot Iowa voted as follows, each delegate having one- 
 fourth of one vote: Seward, two; Bates, one; Chase, one; Lincoln, 
 two; Simon Cameron, one; John McLean, one. On the second ballot 
 the Iowa vote stood: Seward, two; McLean, one-half; Chase, one-half; 
 Lincoln, five. The third ballot produced two Iowa votes for Seward, 
 one-half vote for Chase, and five and one-half for Lincoln. It was on 
 this ballot that Lincoln came within one and one-half votes of victory. 
 As soon as this was discovered, but before the vote was announced, 
 David K. Cartter of Ohio arose, mounted a chair, secured recognition 
 ahead of all others and announced a change of four votes to Lincoln. 60 
 
 One can easily imagine the confusion which attended this develop- 
 ment, adding to an already tense situation. In the tumult that fol- 
 lowed, "one of the secretaries, with a tally sheet in his hands, shouted, 
 — Tire the salute! Abe Lincoln is nominated!' " 61 This announce- 
 ment to the convention chairman was also a cue to a watcher stationed 
 in the skylight, who was to pass the word to his assistants outside, 
 whereupon a cannon was fired as a signal to the waiting throngs. 62 
 No published account mentions the name of this secretary, but Ben: 
 Perley Poore asserted flatly that Allison was the "first" to announce to 
 the convention chairman that Lincoln had been nominated. Poore re- 
 ceived most of his data from Allison, and it fits in nicely with the 
 story as given by observers who tell all but the name of the secretary. 63 
 
 After the convention had finished its work, some five hundred 
 
36 William Boyd Allison 
 
 members took an excursion to Dubuque, undoubtedly a clever public 
 relations stunt by the railroads. The party was royally welcomed by 
 a committee which put aside all partisan politics and entertained the 
 visitors as guests of the city. A committee of eleven members was 
 set up by a mass meeting over which Allison presided. He was made 
 a member of the main committee and also of the subcommittee that 
 crossed the Mississippi to Dunleith and met the delegation. 84 During 
 their stay in Dubuque the Chicago Light Guard Band serenaded Mayor 
 Henry L. Stout and the city's honored citizen who had been a delegate 
 to the convention, William B. Allison, as gestures of recognition of 
 their official positions. 65 After an outing on the Mississippi the delegates 
 departed for Clinton on the Fanny Harris and the Alhambra.™ Such 
 activity on Allison's part in hastening home from the convention and 
 arranging the hospitality on such short notice indicates his talent for 
 getting things done, a talent that in a later day would have surely 
 earned for him the title of "expediter." 
 
 Allison was now thoroughly initiated as an Iowan. He had been 
 given a chance to serve the party and had succeeded as well as could 
 be expected. It seems valid to assume that a glow of satisfaction could 
 now come over him as he contemplated his position as a businessman, 
 lawyer, and politician of statewide and even nationwide connections 
 and acquaintances. From this time forward he could discount his 
 political failure at Ashland. It would be too much to call him a power 
 in Iowa politics, but he was a factor. Now a new problem confronted 
 him. Would politics or business claim his first allegiance? To phrase 
 it more accurately, would he be a businessman in politics or a poli- 
 tician in business? 
 
•ft»ff»t»tftfffftfr»fft»ff»ttff»»tfttt»f f »ftf t fftt l tt»f»fH»ff»tf(t»f»ti»»ff»ttt f tt»t t f»ttff»»f|f«ttt«f|tt»ft»«»»f»«tt» , »»t» , '»« 
 
 it « 
 
 III 
 Allison Joins "Dodge & Co." 
 
 However important the election of 1860 may appear in retrospect, 
 for Allison and for millions of others the slogans of the day were 
 "business as usual" and "politics as usual." The probable truth is that 
 people were far more concerned over hard times than over the issue of 
 slavery in 1860 — the long arm of the Panic of 1857 was still upon 
 them. The theme of hard times, poor crops, bad weather, and heavy 
 indebtedness runs constantly through the letters of that year. The 
 success of the Republican party in Iowa was in part due to the belief 
 that that party would do more than the Democrats in providing gov- 
 ernment assistance in pulling the economy out of the trough of the 
 great depression that had characterized most of the 1850's. 1 
 
 Allison was caught in this situation as much as any other average 
 man. During the late fifties he must be seen not only as a politician 
 but as a busy, hard working lawyer and family man. Furthermore, 
 his business and political life was complicated in 1860 by the death of 
 his wife. The exact date of her death has not been determined; a 
 conspiracy of silence seems to hang over the entire married life of 
 William B. and Anna Carter Allison. The cause of her death was a 
 pulmonary disease; 2 there is no evidence as to the length of her illness 
 or the inroads into her husband's time and resources. 
 
 In spite of personal tragedy, however, Allison took part in the ac- 
 tivities connected with the Republican campaign of 1860. His senior 
 partner, Benjamin M. Samuels, was even more prominently involved 
 in the presidential politics of the Democrats. In April the former 
 
 37 
 
38 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Virginian had been the leader of the Iowa delegation to the Charleston 
 convention that ended so disastrously in the disruption of the Demo- 
 cratic party. As a Douglas Democrat, Samuels had fought for the 
 adoption of the minority report of the resolutions committee as 
 against the majority report favored by William L. Yancey of Alabama. 
 The success of the Douglas group in securing the adoption of their 
 report, with its provision for endorsement of the Douglas theory of 
 popular sovereignty, drove Yancey, Robert Barnwell Rhett, and other 
 implacable proslavery men from the convention hall. And the man 
 who made the major speech introducing and championing the minority 
 report was Benjamin M. Samuels. 3 A few weeks later he again led the 
 Iowa Democrats to join with other Democrats at Baltimore in the 
 nomination of Stephen A. Douglas. The anti-Douglas members of 
 the party nominated John C. Breckinridge, while the remnants of 
 the Whig party nominated John Bell, thus ensuring the success of 
 the young Republican party at the polls in November. 
 
 Probably few law firms in America that year saw their business dis- 
 rupted as did the partnership of Samuels and Allison, with one mem- 
 ber a delegate to the Republican convention, the other to the Demo- 
 cratic. Fortunately, the firm had admitted a junior partner, George 
 B. Crane, who stayed on the job at home and attended to the firm's 
 affairs while Samuels and Allison were out politicking and looking after 
 personal business. Not only did the conventions take Allison and 
 Samuels away from their law office: Allison actively campaigned 
 for the Lincoln-Hamlin ticket and his fellow-townsman, William 
 Vandever, candidate for Congress, and in so doing worked for the de- 
 feat of his own law partner, Samuels, the perennial candidate for the 
 Democrats during these years, who was campaigning for Douglas and 
 for himself as Vandever's opponent. 4 
 
 As a campaigner, whether for himself or for others, Allison was 
 always a pessimist. He could never be accused of laziness or indif- 
 ference; with favorable majorities almost certain for his side, he still 
 advocated work, work, work. This attitude, combined with his will- 
 ingness to carry his share of the load of routine party management, 
 is well illustrated in a letter to William Penn Clarke. 
 
 I have had it in my mind many times to write you upon the subject of ex- 
 penses of our Delegation] at Chicago. You must have been at some expense 
 there, which should be shared by the Delegation. Please give me my propor- 
 tion of such expense and I will forward you [the amount] at once. Would 
 
ALLISON JOINS "DODGE & CO." 39 
 
 be glad to hear from you, how the skies look in your locality, the Democracy 
 of the State are making great efforts. I fear we are not sufficiently organized. 5 
 
 Allison's most conspicuous service during the campaign undoubt- 
 edly was membership on the committee that handled the arrangements 
 for the visit to Dubuque of Senator William H. Seward and party, 
 including the Charles Francis Adamses, Sr. and Jr. 6 The committee of 
 five members was headed by Edward C. David, a prominent insurance 
 man and politician; Allison's name came second; the final name on 
 the list was Oliver P. Shiras. An imposing printed circular was sent 
 far and wide announcing the meeting for September 20, 1860, in the 
 very "Gibraltar of Iowa Democracy." The committee hoped the 
 gathering would be the biggest political meeting ever held west of 
 the Mississippi. "If there is a Wide-Awake Company in your town, 
 we should be pleased to see all its members present in uniform. On 
 the evening of the 20th, there will be a grand Torch-Light Procession 
 of Wide-Awakes." Half-fare tickets were available on the Dubuque 
 & Sioux City and the Dubuque Western railroads. A covering letter 
 sent to Governor Kirkwood invited the chief executive of Iowa to be 
 present and emphasized that this was to be Seward's only speech in 
 Iowa. 7 The event proved to be as colorful and grand as the committee 
 had predicted. 
 
 The work of Allison and the Republicans was crowned with com- 
 plete success. Their efforts were facilitated by the national disruption 
 within the Democratic party, which was epitomized in Iowa, even in 
 Dubuque alone. Benjamin Samuels and the Douglas faction were op- 
 posed by another Dubuquer, General George Wallace Jones, whose 
 followers hotly favored Breckinridge. As if this were not enough, 
 Jones and Douglas had been enemies for years because of a trivial dis- 
 pute over a railroad matter. The intensity of the factionalism, which 
 was frequently compared to that between the Capulets and the Mon- 
 tagues, can be gauged by a letter from General Jones during the cam- 
 paign to Buchanan's Attorney General: 
 
 Mr. Samuels is the same gentleman who went to the Charleston Convention 
 from this State and as such drew up the minority report. Before and since 
 his return home from the Convention he has been the unscrupulous and bitter 
 reviler of Mr. Buchanan and his Adm. and is, besides, almost the idolizer of 
 the most corrupt of all politicians S. A. Douglas whose election to the Presi- 
 dency he is now warmly espousing as well as his own to Congress from this 
 District. 8 
 
40 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Even without the Democratic split, Lincoln and the Republi- 
 can ticket would have carried Iowa. The popular vote ran 70,118 
 for Lincoln, 55,639 for Douglas, 1,763 for Bell, and 1,034 for 
 Breckinridge. The Republican candidates for the state offices all won 
 handily, while Republicans Samuel R. Curtis and William Vandever 
 were returned to Congress. 
 
 Politicians, of course, are interested in power — in the appointments 
 that can be secured or in the business contracts that can be made by 
 virtue of influence with the winners in any given election. The men 
 who were the leaders of Iowa Republicanism were no exception to 
 this rule. Even Herbert M. Hoxie, one of the worst in this respect, 
 was shocked at the clamor for office: "I am in receipt of letters every 
 mail asking me to aid the writers in getting offices. Such a scramble 
 for place I had not dreamed of. I did suppose that some men were 
 working for principle and not for pay but I find that I am mis- 
 taken." 9 Leaders such as Grenville M. Dodge, Hoxie, and their friend, 
 P. R. Reed of Moline, Illinois, were interested in bigger game than 
 offices, however. They wanted contracts for supplying goods to the 
 Indian reservations, western forts, and railroad construction crews. 
 Their idea was to get the Iowa delegation in Congress to help them and 
 to make use of the "pull" that their associate, John A. Kasson, had 
 with Judge Edward Bates, the probable Attorney General in the in- 
 coming Lincoln administration. 10 
 
 Allison, who soon joined these men in their frantic search for busi- 
 ness favors from the government, was at the moment pulling all 
 possible wires in an effort to secure an appointment from Lincoln as 
 United States District Attorney for Iowa. The position would not be 
 filled until the new administration was well under way, but all the 
 recommendations had to be rounded up and filed with Judge Bates 
 before the inauguration of Lincoln as President on March 4. This was 
 the juiciest plum on the federal patronage tree in Iowa, and Allison 
 lost little time after the November election in going after it. On 
 December 1 6 he wrote to the influential William Penn Clarke of Iowa 
 City, who had been chairman of the state's delegation to the Chicago 
 convention, and disclosed his candidacy in a somewhat awkward state- 
 ment of his ambition: 
 
 I have it in mind to be an applicant for the office of U. S. D Atty for this 
 State under the adm of Mr. Lincoln & write you to know whether I can 
 rely upon the Chairman of the Iowa Del at Chicago & my friend^ for aid in 
 
ALLISON JOINS "DODGE & CO." 41 
 
 this laudable aspiration. If any Gentleman more prominent in the profession 
 or party is urged of course, my humble claims will be withdrawn. 
 
 I would be glad to hear from you on this or any other subject. I will say 
 to you that I have the encouragement from all the leading Republicans, 
 whose influence I care for in this part of the State. 11 
 
 On the back of this letter there is the endorsement, "ans. Dec. 25/60." 
 Unfortunately, Clarke's reply to Allison is not available. 
 
 The only person competing against Allison for the prize was "William 
 H. F. Gurley of Davenport. Apparently Allison did not consider him 
 to be "more prominent" in either the profession or the party, and he 
 battled him to the end for the position. Although Gurley had a claim 
 on Lincoln's affections going back to the time when he had been a page 
 boy for a committee on which Lincoln had served during his one term 
 in Congress, 12 this was not his only qualification for the office. He 
 had made a good record as a party worker since coming to Iowa in 
 1856, a year earlier than Allison; he had attained some prominence as 
 a member of the ways and means committee in the Iowa House of 
 Representatives; and he had gained fame as a stump speaker at party 
 rallies. His greatest assets, however, were strong endorsements 13 from 
 seventeen party leaders, including Senators Grimes and Harlan, Repre- 
 sentatives Curtis and Vandever, Judge John F. Dillon, 14 and John A. 
 Kasson. Judge Dillon's recommendation referred to Gurley as a man 
 of "high and unblemished character," devoted to Republican prin- 
 ciples. He was a "sound and able lawyer," wrote the Judge, and his 
 appointment would be "received by the people, the bar, and the party 
 of the State" with "signal favor." 15 Almost the only Republicans of 
 importance not on Gurley's list of references were Kirkwood, Dodge, 
 William Penn Clarke, and Fitz Henry Warren. Unfortunately, they 
 were not on Allison's list either. 
 
 Allison's one recommender, Timothy Davis, a former member of 
 Congress and a fellow-Dubuquer, gave Allison a letter of introduction 
 to Bates which did no more than damn him with faint praise. Allison 
 wanted to be appointed district attorney for Iowa, wrote Davis. "Mr. 
 A. is by profession a lawyer of high standing at the bar, of unexcep- 
 tional moral character, and was a delegate to the Chicago nominating 
 convention. I can but think his appointment would be highly grat- 
 tifying [sic] and satisfactory to the Republican party of the State — 
 Permit me to recommend him to your attention." 1C 
 
 The scene now shifted to Washington. At last Allison met the up- 
 
42 William Boyd Allison 
 
 and-coming Grenville M. Dodge. This brilliant young engineer, with 
 one railroad to his credit and others to come, had discovered some of 
 the possible connections between business and government, especially 
 the Interior Department's power to let contracts to furnish supplies 
 to the Indians, and the power of Congress to make land grants to 
 railroads. Massachusetts-born and Vermont-educated as an engineer 
 at Norwich University, Dodge already had had more business and pro- 
 fessional experience at the age of twenty-nine than most men would ac- 
 cumulate in a lifetime. After a brief apprenticeship served in Illinois, 
 he had moved on to Iowa, where he had surveyed the route for the 
 Iowa link in the Rock Island system from Davenport to Council Bluffs, 
 the Mississippi & Missouri Railroad, popularly known as the "M. & 
 M." Dodge had picked Council Bluffs for his home and the capital 
 of a financial empire that soon came to include rail stocks, real estate 
 holdings in many towns and future towns along the M. & M., a bank 
 in Council Bluffs, bank stock in Omaha, and a freighting and trading 
 business that ran all the way to Denver. His brother Nathan P. Dodge 
 and the firm of Baldwin and Pegram (made up of John T. Baldwin 
 and Benjamin P. Pegram) looked after the details but always under 
 the watchful eye and driving energy of te Gren." Partly due to the 
 Panic of 1857 and partly due to an overeager expansion of his far- 
 reaching activities, he was now on the verge of financial ruin. 
 
 No one could have had a keener interest than Dodge in the new ad- 
 ministration or more hopes that somehow there would be a new climate 
 for businessmen willing to undergo the real dangers and grueling 
 hardships of opening up and bringing about the settlement of the 
 vast areas beyond the wide Missouri. He was ready to pay the price 
 in terms of discomfort, exposure to the elements, fighting off Indian 
 raids, and risk of capital: all he asked from the government was a 
 beneficent Congress, an interested President, and friendly courts; 
 the same attitudes on the state level would be helpful. Besides his 
 brother and the firm of Baldwin and Pegram, Dodge's friends and 
 followers included Judge Caleb Baldwin of the Iowa Supreme Court, 
 a fellow-townsman and brother of his partner, John T. Baldwin; 
 Herbert M. Hoxie of Des Moines, energetic, faithful, knowing, a 
 perfect "front man," manager, and lobbyist; and John A. Kasson of 
 Des Moines, lawyer and politician, soon to be a statesman. Dodge had 
 worked with some of these men at the Chicago Republican conven- 
 tion, where he had been summoned by his superiors in the railroad 
 
ALLISON JOINS "DODGE & CO." 43 
 
 world who desperately wanted Lincoln as the Republican candidate. 
 He had worked to elect not only Lincoln but also Samuel R. Curtis of 
 Keokuk as Congressman from Iowa's First District. Soon it would be 
 true that Grenville M. Dodge was the man to know if you wanted to 
 get ahead in Iowa politics. 17 
 
 Allison's first contact with Dodge and his go-getting friends, who 
 may well be called "Dodge & Co.," came about under the most favor- 
 able circumstances. Nearly everyone who had come to Washington 
 was after something for himself or a friend, and the common ob- 
 jectives of job-hunting drew them together. Dodge and Hoxie took 
 charge of the campaign of the Iowans. For living quarters and a base 
 of operations, they rented half a house at 854 C Street, near the Na- 
 tional Hotel, one of the popular hostelries of the time, and they took 
 their meals at Gautier's, the most famous restaurant in the city. Be- 
 sides Dodge and Hoxie, the group included at least six others — 
 Allison; Kasson; E. C. David of Dubuque; Gurley, Allison's rival for 
 the district attorneyship; C. H. Eldridge of Davenport; and John I. 
 Blair of New Jersey, a railroad promoter largely instrumental in build- 
 ing the North Western lines through Iowa. 18 Hoxie's reward, as a 
 member of Dodge & Co., was the post of United States Marshal for 
 Iowa. 
 
 Many years later (1888), Allison recalled his first meeting with 
 Dodge and made the startling assertion that neither of them was in- 
 terested in getting an office for himself at the time. This was true 
 enough for Dodge, but obviously a convenient fiction in Allison's 
 case. 19 He wanted the district attorneyship, and he pulled every wire 
 he knew in the hopes of getting the plum. In spite of his extensive 
 efforts, however, he lost it to Gurley, who probably deserved it more 
 than did Allison. Unfortunately, Gurley soon was forced to resign 
 on account of ill health; he died a few years later, having made practi- 
 cally no ripple on the surface of Iowa politics after 1861. 
 
 The defeat was a bitter disappointment to Allison. In his own ex- 
 planation, which he poured out to Governor Kirkwood as his confi- 
 dant, Allison blamed it all on the "cupidity and treachery" of William 
 Vandever, who at first told Allison that the Iowa delegation was 
 unanimous for him, but "within 24 hours changed front and forced 
 Mr. Gurley upon the delegation." According to Allison's story, 
 Grimes and Harlan held out for a week, refusing to yield to Vandever's 
 "caprice"; at last, in order to avoid a rupture in the party, the Sen- 
 
44 William Boyd Allison 
 
 ators withdrew Allison's name. "Mr. Vandever aspires to the Senate," 
 Allison concluded, "& I think he became satisfied that I would not 
 further his ambitious pretensions in that direction & he therefore took 
 occasion to throttle me. Such however is the fate of many more de- 
 serving than myself, which enables me to endure it with the fortitude 
 of a Christian." 20 At the same time Allison wrote to John Sherman, 
 a friend of the old Ohio days, and congratulated him on his recent 
 election as United States Senator from Ohio as a just reward to a 
 faithful servant. "Republics are not so ungrateful as I supposed when 
 I was defeated for Dist. Atty." 21 
 
 Allison's natural chagrin at the time is understandable, but he hardly 
 looked the matter squarely in the face. Representative Vandever and 
 Senators Grimes and Harlan had all written strong recommendations 
 for Gurley before the state's delegation could have met and taken 
 action. Perhaps Grimes and Harlan changed their minds and held 
 out for Allison, as Allison says, but it seems unlikely that the two 
 powerful Senators would have surrendered to Vandever, a fledgling 
 Representative. 
 
 Still another disappointment was in store for Allison. In his letter 
 to Kirkwood, he made some very involved references to a possible 
 vacancy on the state supreme court. The main point of his remarks 
 was that he was interested in a place on the court but doubted his fit- 
 ness for the post; he had sounded out a possible appointee, F. E. Bissell 
 of Dubuque, who indicated no interest in such a place. In short, 
 Allison was hinting broadly to Kirkwood that he would like to be ap- 
 pointed if Judge George G. Wright should resign. 22 
 
 Attorney Bissell played his part in the little drama to perfection. On 
 March 26 he wrote to Governor Kirkwood that Judge John F. Dillon 
 had been recommended for the place, that he was "eminently quali- 
 fied," but that his appointment would "break up the courts in his 
 district." If Dillon were not appointed, Allison would do very well, 
 wrote Bissell. "He is a young man of promise in the profession, has 
 good habits, is willing to devote himself to hard labor, and he has a 
 good discriminating legal mind." 23 Kirkwood, however, did not fall 
 in with the scheme. His letter to Allison is not available, but Allison's 
 reply indicates that the Governor had spoken his mind freely. In an 
 outburst running nearly a thousand words, Allison gave assurance 
 after assurance that he had not really sought the place, that he knew 
 he was not fitted for it, that others were better fitted, especially Judge 
 
ALLISON JOINS "DODGE & CO." 45 
 
 Dillon. He had originally recommended F. E. Bissell mainly "to re- 
 move from competition a good lawyer." After reading the letter, one 
 is definitely ready to say that the gentleman "doth protest too much." 
 In his eagerness to get ahead, Allison had gone too far. As time went 
 on he would learn to be more subtle. 
 
 One interesting sidelight in the same letter is Allison's appraisal of 
 other possible appointees for the post. "We all have a high opinion of 
 Mr. Miller of Keokuk, but suppose from his locality he could not be 
 selected." (It would be only a matter of weeks before Samuel F. 
 Miller of Keokuk would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, where for many years he would serve with great dis- 
 tinction. 24 ) Also, in this letter Allison included further but incon- 
 clusive discussion of Vandever's motives in opposing him for the 
 district attorneyship and closed with an expression of the hope that 
 Kirkwood would run again in the fall; "we may need all the strength 
 possible if the administration continues in its present do-nothing 
 policy. . . . The dispatches . . . seem to indicate that our friends at 
 Washington will do nothing to Stem the tide of Dissolution & save 
 us if not from ruin, from demoralization in the Estimation of our 
 loyal people & from absolute disgrace in the eyes of the civilized world. 
 We must have a policy of some kind soon, or our party and our country 
 will go down together." 25 
 
 This letter was written on April 7; already President Lincoln had 
 settled upon a definite enough policy that in a few more days would 
 bring about the showdown at Fort Sumter. In the meantime, Allison 
 had almost guaranteed the success of his future by the friendship and 
 alliance he had established with Grenville M. Dodge of Council Bluffs. 
 The effectiveness of that alliance was demonstrated when Allison came 
 to the rescue of the sagging Dodge fortunes by persuading the Du- 
 buque Branch Bank, of which he was a director, to make a left-handed 
 loan to Dodge. On April 2 he wired Dodge: "Will let Bluff's Branch 
 have $5000 to loan you. Have written you & Branch." 26 Before the 
 matter could be closed, however, the country was thrown into the 
 long-dreaded but poorly-anticipated war, and the whole deal had to 
 be called off. 27 
 
 On April 12 came the first shot of the Civil War, and on the 14th 
 came the surrender of Fort Sumter. In the mix-up over the judgeship, 
 Allison had told Kirkwood, "I am well satisfied to bide my time," 
 He would not have to wait much longer. 
 
(JJMMM!^ 
 
 * V it 
 
 Allison and the Civil War 
 
 The news of Fort Sumter plunged Dubuque into feverish excite- 
 ment. People gathered in groups at street corners and elsewhere to 
 discuss the situation, while mass meetings stirred up enthusiasm and 
 support for the war. The first mass meeting in Dubuque was held at 
 the corner of Main and Eighth streets, near Allison's office, and speeches 
 were made by Oliver P. Shiras, D. N. Cooley, Benjamin M. Samuels, 
 Frank W. Palmer (the new editor of the Dubuque Times), S. P. 
 Adams, and others. 1 Under Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers, 
 Dubuque's social-military organizations of long standing, the Gover- 
 nor's Grays, the Washington Guards, and the Jackson Guards, hur- 
 riedly recruited up to maximum company strength and waited for 
 marching orders. 
 
 Allison took a prominent part in the promotion of war activities. 
 At one mass meeting a committee was set up on his motion for the 
 purpose of receiving and distributing funds for the families of volun- 
 teers. Henry L. Stout, Dubuque's wealthiest citizen and one of 
 Allison's closest friends, was made president of the committee, and 
 Allison's brother Matthew was named director for the Fourth Ward. 
 William Allison subscribed $50, the second largest amount reported. 2 
 On April 25 the Weekly Times reported that Allison had also donated 
 $50 to the Governor's Grays "to be spent by them as their pleasure 
 might dictate. It is needless to say that Mr. Allison stands high in the 
 estimation of the Grays." On May 1, Allison and a group visited the 
 Dubuque troops stationed at Davenport. 
 
 46 
 
ALLISON AND THE CIVIL WAR 47 
 
 Perhaps Allison, now thirty-two years of age, in the prime of life, 
 a childless widower with absolutely no family obligations, gave 
 some thought to enlistment. On this the record is bare, except for 
 sarcastic allusions to it in the opposition press. But the record is all 
 too complete that he and his new associates in "Dodge & Co." at first 
 regarded the war merely as a great opportunity for making some 
 money. Their letters speak for themselves. 
 
 Herbert M. Hoxie, temporarily sojourning in Dubuque because of 
 illness, wrote to Dodge excitedly, two days after the fall of Sumter: 
 "Now is the time for war contracts. Had you better not write Kasson 
 at once. . . . We ought to supply the Northwest forts with provisions, 
 etc. 'Bully' for Lincoln." 3 A few days later Allison wrote Dodge in 
 the same vein. "Can't we arrange together to make something out of 
 this rebellion or war. I will be in Davenport next week and will look 
 the field over. Hoxie and myself have had a talk on the subject. I 
 hope I may meet you at the rendezvous at Davenport. Business here 
 is substantially suspended and all are on the qui vive for the war." 4 
 A further example of opportunism came in another letter from Hoxie 
 to Dodge: 
 
 There must be money in this war some place and we ought to have our share. 
 How shall we go to work on it? That is the question. All other things 
 failing let not this golden opportunity slip through your hands. . . . Don't 
 you enlist or take command of a company. There will be plenty of men that 
 will want to go. Keep clear of that. 5 
 
 Since no one, in April of 1861, had any notion of the nature or the 
 duration of the war, it was only natural for businessmen to expect to 
 make a quick profit. But Dodge, whose patriotism was unassailable, 
 was immune to Hoxie's advice about enlistment; his friends were left 
 to fend for themselves for the time being. He utilized a mission to 
 St. Louis and Washington on behalf of Governor Kirkwood as a 
 chance to present his application for a commission in person. First 
 rejecting a captaincy in the regular army, he ultimately accepted a 
 colonelcy in the Fourth Iowa Infantry, to be mustered in at Council 
 Bluffs. 6 
 
 Allison did not have long to wait for a recognition of his abilities 
 as an expediter of public projects. Late in May the General Assembly, 
 meeting in special session, passed a new militia law that provided, 
 among other things, for a Governor's staff of four aides with the rank 
 of lieutenant colonel of cavalry. A day or so later another act pro- 
 
48 William Boyd Allison 
 
 vided for four additional "special aides" with the same rank. 7 Among 
 those appointed under these acts, Allison was Governor Kirkwood's 
 logical choice for Dubuque, and there can be no doubt as to the value 
 of his services. 8 The appointment came in June, but the greatest 
 activity in Dubuque, as everywhere else, came after the Confederate 
 victory at Bull Run on July 21. New calls for volunteers meant that 
 passes had to be issued on the railroads leading into Dubuque, a camp 
 with barracks erected as a receiving depot, blankets secured, and a 
 thousand and one details looked after. In August the wounded soldiers 
 who began to return from the fronts required assistance on their 
 leaves of absence or their return to civilian life. 
 
 Allison looked after all of these things efficiently. 9 On October 26 
 the Dubuque Herald, an anti-war newspaper, admitted that "Colonel 
 Allison is justly entitled to the praise of being the most energetic and 
 popular officer in this part of the State." 10 He gave valuable aid to 
 Colonel Addison H. Sanders of Davenport, one of Kirkwood's aides, 
 in getting a camp laid out in Dubuque. 11 As one of Kirkwood's special 
 aides, "Mr." Allison now became "Colonel" Allison, a title that clung 
 to him for many years. His closest friends and eventually a large public 
 seem to have been satisfied with his managerial-promotional con- 
 tribution to the war at Dubuque in lieu of active military service. 
 
 A post of civilian recruiting and enrolling officer gave Allison a 
 chance to meet a large number of people, and some of these cursory 
 meetings developed into permanent friendships. One such case was 
 that of his meeting with David Bremner Henderson of Fayette County. 
 This young man, until then a serious student at Upper Iowa University, 
 presented himself at Dubuque to offer his services and those of a 
 company he would raise if desired. Most accounts of Henderson's 
 life say he was encouraged by an unnamed "enrolling officer" to go 
 home and raise his company if he could. The enrolling officer was 
 Allison. In a short time Henderson returned with students from 
 the college and others from his county; he himself had been elected a 
 lieutenant after declining the captaincy. Soon Lieutenant David B. 
 Henderson and his men were formally enrolled as Company C of the 
 Twelfth Iowa Infantry, Colonel Joseph Jackson Woods command- 
 ing. 12 
 
 As the months of 1861 went by, the fortunes of battle and the 
 gradual clarification of the issues forced men to make up their minds 
 about the war. The first great wave of enthusiasm and its accompany- 
 
ALLISON AND THE CIVIL WAR 49 
 
 ing spirit of unity i:i gave way to sober reflection and to a bitter dis- 
 unity that produced lasting scars on Northern society. Americans have 
 never yet fought a war as a completely united people, never less so 
 than during the Civil War. The people of the North did not all agree 
 that preservation of the Union, the official reason for the war as de- 
 fined by Congress, was the real reason. 14 Likewise, the people of the 
 South were far from united in the belief that secession was justified 
 and that a war was necessary as a means of upholding the doctrine of 
 states' rights. Hence the efforts of the "war party" in each section 
 were impeded to some extent by the divisions among the people. 
 
 The minority party in the North made a very real effort to estab- 
 lish some kind of "Union" party. Certainly there could be no com- 
 plaint in Iowa during the early months of the war on the attitude of 
 such Democratic leaders as John F. Duncombe of Fort Dodge, W. W. 
 Belknap of Keokuk, W. H. M. Pusey of Council Bluffs, Benjamin M. 
 Samuels of Dubuque, or his notable fellow-townsman, Dennis A. 
 Mahony. 15 But all advances made by the Democrats were uncere- 
 moniously rejected by the Republicans and by none more so than by 
 Allison and his kind, who clustered around the second-term candidacy 
 of Samuel J. Kirkwood. 10 Allison worked hard for the renomination 
 of Kirkwood in 1861 and for the creation of a partisan platform with 
 a strong appeal to the voters. As chairman of the committee on reso- 
 lutions at the state convention, the highest post he had yet received 
 from his party, he helped to prepare a document which, though unani- 
 mously adopted, had no originality; it merely repeated the shibboleths 
 of the day. 17 
 
 Probably no one was more distressed by the sordid aspects of "poli- 
 tics as usual" than President Lincoln. Preoccupied as he was with the 
 war and the effort to prove that the unity of the country could not be 
 broken, he nevertheless could not escape from petty politicians who 
 could never rise to his exalted views. 18 He found that there was not 
 only disunity among the American people; there was even a division 
 within his own party, which soon developed radical and conservative 
 wings, and among the northern Democrats, who divided on the issue 
 of support of the war. 
 
 This disunity is dramatically illustrated in the political aspirations 
 and operations of Allison and his rivals in the congressional race of 
 1862. By virtue of the growth of population as revealed in the census 
 of 1860 and a certain amount of political jugglery, Iowa's quota in 
 
50 William Boyd Allison 
 
 the national House of Representatives was raised from two to six. 
 A mild gerrymander by the Republican General Assembly made it 
 possible for the Democratic votes in Dubuque County to be overcome 
 by a preponderance of Republican strength in several other counties 
 of the newly created Third District. 19 This quite naturally quickened 
 the interest of many potential Republican candidates. 
 
 As for Allison, it is impossible to say with finality just when he be- 
 gan to entertain the idea of running for Congress. One unsupported 
 story has it that when he was passed over for Gurley as District At- 
 torney, Mrs. Harlan, wife of the senior Senator from Iowa, comforted 
 the disappointed candidate with the advice to go home and run for 
 Congress. 20 The first solid evidence of his interest is found in a letter 
 to Governor Kirkwood in June of 1862, regarding a possible opponent, 
 Shubael P. Adams: 
 
 I write you today to ask you a special favor which if granted will be or may 
 be of much service, viz — That you will hold in abeyance until after our 
 Congressional nomination the appointment of Shubail [sic] P. Adams as 
 Swamp Land Agent. If you give him that appointment now it will wield a 
 power in my district that may defeat me for nomination. I think my chances 
 are now good, but if he has this appointment he can use it in some of the 
 northern counties to great advantage, as that is to them an important con- 
 sideration. As you have already indicated that you would probably appoint 
 him I cannot ask you to appoint another. But you will if you have any 
 interest in my success greatly serve me by allowing the matter to rest until 
 after the nomination. I beg of you to do this favor for me now. . . . The 
 interests of the State cannot suffer by postponement. Please answer me with 
 reference to this. 21 
 
 This plea for help against Adams was based on a well-founded fear. 
 The gentleman in question was able in every respect. During the 
 campaign of 1861, when both Adams and Allison were speaking for 
 Kirkwood, such a seasoned and expert judge as Jacob Rich, soon to 
 become the dean of Iowa politicians and political journalists, readily 
 praised Adams far more than Allison for the excellence of his ora- 
 tory and the value of his arguments. Kirkwood was under special 
 obligation to Adams for his assistance in that campaign, probably as 
 much as to Allison. The latter already had an appointment — the 
 post of special aide to the Governor; now it might be Adams' turn to 
 receive the Governor's favor. 22 Adams represented the abolitionist 
 element out of which would soon come a Radical wing of the party. 
 Such members were dissatisfied even as early as 1861-1862 with the 
 
ALLISON AND THE CIVIL WAR 51 
 
 pace of the war and with the reluctance to deal immediately with the 
 question of emancipation. The difference between Allison and Adams 
 was only a difference of degree; by his own later admission, Allison 
 was not as "radical" in 1862 as his party rival, 23 but he was closer to 
 this wing than to the other, soon to be known as "conservative" Re- 
 publicans. 
 
 Another strong aspirant for the congressional nomination was 
 Lieutenant Governor Oran Faville of Mitchell County. He was openly 
 favored by the New Hampton Courier and by one of the outstanding 
 editors in the state, the learned A. B. F. Hildreth of the Charles City 
 Intelligencer. The great point with these editors was their jealousy of 
 Dubuque, which was charged with wanting a "perpetual lease" on 
 the congressional position. Both William Vandever and Timothy 
 Davis, preceding Representatives, had been Dubuquers. In the opin- 
 ion of Hildreth, Adams and Allison had no merits for the position 
 other than being from Dubuque, a "secession-polluted city." 24 
 Faville's ability was attested by his selection as chairman of the com- 
 mittee on permanent organization and membership on the committee 
 on resolutions of the state convention held at Des Moines on July 30, 
 just a few days before the Third District convention met at West 
 Union on August 6. 
 
 When the great day finally came, the little town was alive with ex- 
 citement, and its hotel taxed to capacity by the visiting delegates. 
 Judging by their later editorials, both Hildreth and Rich seemed to 
 have been as much impressed by the surprisingly high "quality" of 
 the delegates, evidenced by the absence of drinking and brawling, as 
 they were by the virtues of the candidates and the principles of the 
 party. There were 13 3 delegates present. One informal and three 
 formal ballots were necessary to reach a decision. On the informal 
 ballot, the traditional test of strength in nominating conventions, five 
 candidates received votes: Allison and Adams were tied with 31 each; 
 F. A. Brush received 29; Oran Faville, 22; and S. Murdock, 16; four 
 delegates evidently not voting. Adams then withdrew, probably be- 
 cause the Dubuque delegation of 21 members was unanimously for 
 Allison. The first formal ballot gave Allison 49£ and Faville 48, while 
 the remainder was divided among Brush, Murdock, and a newcomer, 
 Reuben Noble. On the second formal ballot Allison climbed to 60, 
 Faville reached 53, and Brush, the remaining runnerup, 19. Brush 
 then withdrew, and the nomination went to Allison on the third ballot, 
 
 **IW 
 
52 William Boyd Allison 
 
 when he received 75 and Faville 58. 25 On the motion of an opponent, 
 Judge E. H. Williams of Elkader, the vote was made unanimous. 26 
 
 Jacob Rich, who saw the convention from his post as secretary, re- 
 ported to his paper the impressive fact that Allison came to the con- 
 vention supported by a unanimous Dubuque delegation. 
 
 Col. Allison has become well known throughout the district, by his con- 
 nection with the Governor's staff, and his indefatigable exertions to promote 
 the comfort and convenience of the soldiers have made for him a favorable 
 name. As a man he possesses superior social qualities; is courteous and affable, 
 and as a consequence very popular. As a lawyer he is greatly esteemed by the 
 Dubuque bar, and there occupies a promising position. He makes a good 
 argument, reasons closely, is analytical and logical. He talks readily, but 
 attacks the judgment, not the fancy, of his auditors. With practice, as was 
 the case with Col. Vandever, he will become a forcible and effective stumper. 27 
 
 The Dubuque Herald, a Democratic paper, gave the opposition 
 point of view: 
 
 Abolitionists and Republicans of this the Third Congressional District, after 
 considerable travail, nominated Wm. B. Allison, Esq. as their candidate for 
 Congress. Mr. Allison, it is fair to presume, was thought by his political 
 friends to be their strongest candidate, although a large minority of them 
 thought otherwise, and so do we. From our point of view, Mr. Allison is the 
 very man for us to beat the easiest. ... As a neighbor and fellow-citizen we 
 respect Mr. Allison, but as a politician, we look upon him as one of those 
 who have brought our country to its perilous condition. 28 
 
 The author of this rather moderate appraisal — the Herald's editor 
 — was Allison's probable opponent in the contest, Dennis Aloysius 
 Mahony, better known as D. A. Mahony. If not the Democrats' 
 nominee, certainly Mahony would at least be their outstanding spokes- 
 man. Through the editorials in his paper, he spoke for the whole party 
 in the "Northwest," not for Dubuque or Iowa alone. And by 1862 
 he had come to be recognized as the keenest, sharpest, most damaging 
 critic of the "war party" in the region. His paper deserves to be classed 
 with the Chicago Times, the St. Louis Times, and the Columbus 
 Crisis as a medium for the point of view of the "Peace Democrats." 
 
 Mahony, an Irishman who had come to Iowa by way of Phila- 
 delphia, where he was educated, was a man of deep convictions. A 
 devout Catholic, he came to the West to serve as a teacher and lay 
 missionary; for some years he taught school at a small Irish community 
 named Garry Owen in Jackson County. Then he moved to Dubuque 
 and became a successful real estate and insurance man; later he added 
 newspaper work to his busy career. His depth of feeling and his sense 
 
ALLISON AND THE CIVIL WAR 53 
 
 of self-assurance are proved by his courage in occasionally standing 
 against the famous Bishop Loras."'* Before the war he had become one 
 of Dubuque's, even Iowa's, first citizens. 
 
 At the first of the war Mahony appears to have been as loyal as 
 anyone else; he added to his editorials and his attendance at mass meet- 
 ings by offering to raise a company of Irishmen if authorized by 
 Governor Kirkwood, an offer that was not accepted. On April 30, 
 1861, Mahony wrote to Kirkwood, whom he had known as a member 
 of the state legislature, criticizing the Governor's choice for recruit- 
 ing agents in Dubuque and offering the constructive advice that 
 Kirkwood should have a military aide and a staff "so that some system 
 and order would be observed in the military organization." 3 " But 
 gradually Mahony turned from constructive criticism to fierce de- 
 nunciation of the motives of the supporters of the war and to dire 
 predictions of the ultimate results. It was an abolitionist's war, said he, 
 not a war to preserve the Union. The war would create far more 
 problems than it would solve, especially in the field of race relations; 
 in his view, it was an "unnecessary" war, a costly, wasteful war. His 
 motto was, "The Constitution as it is and the Union as it was." 31 
 
 Such views drove Radical Republican editors to frenzied attacks; 
 Jacob Rich wrote of Mahony: 
 
 The Dubuque Herald, edited by that old sinner D. A. Mahony, is daily filled 
 with articles intended to cast odium upon the government authorities from 
 the President down, and with others directly intended to give aid and com- 
 fort to the Southern Rebels. The Herald while it is not as bold and manly 
 as the Charleston Mercury, is filled with treason as rank and vile in every 
 issue. Out upon the hoary-headed old Traitor, and let not Iowa be longer 
 disgraced with his miserable carcass. 32 
 
 Thus can be seen the emergence of the point of view that led to the 
 labeling, and libeling, of the Democratic party as the "party of trea- 
 son." Many Democrats, who supported the war as loyally as the Re- 
 publicans and who earned for themselves the title of "War Democrats," 
 hated the Peace Democrats as fiercely as did the Radicals, but when 
 election time came around the Republicans conveniently forgot this, 
 and all Iowa Democrats became "Secesh" or "Copperheads." 
 
 Therefore, there seems to be something more than casual coincidence 
 in the fact that on August 14, just eight days after Allison's nomina- 
 tion and six days before the Democrats were scheduled to hold their 
 district convention, Allison's friend, United States Marshal Herbert 
 
54 William Boyd Allison 
 
 M. ("Hub") Hoxie, appeared in Dubuque and with his deputies 
 awakened Mahony from his slumbers, arrested him, put him on a 
 steamboat for Burlington, and from there took him to Washington, 
 where he was lodged in Old Capitol Prison and thus effectively re- 
 moved from personal participation in the campaign. 34 Allison did not, 
 so far as we know, request the arrest of the Democratic leader, but it 
 is hard to believe that he did not know of the plan. 
 
 Mahony later asserted that the arrest was made without warrant, in- 
 asmuch as Marshal Hoxie refused to show him an alleged order from 
 Secretary of War Stanton, and that he was never given the trial to 
 which he was entitled. 35 The Republican newspapers that briefly re- 
 ported the incident merely said that the charge was interference with 
 enlistments. 36 It is certainly true that Mahony 's editorials could have 
 discouraged enlistments, and recent writers have accepted this as the 
 "charge." 37 As a matter of fact, a Republican editor and historian, a 
 contemporary of the event, later wrote: "He was never brought to 
 trial, which he repeatedly demanded, and it is not known what the 
 charges were upon which he was arrested." 38 Mahony himself wrote 
 two friendly letters to Governor Kirkwood while the party was resting 
 in Davenport, contending that he had never intended to embarrass 
 the government but rather to admonish it for its error. 39 
 
 Editor Jacob Rich, who may be depended upon to give the fairest 
 statement of any of Mahony 's opponents, said he believed the arrest 
 to be in accordance with the wishes of the soldiers, the people, and the 
 loyal press, and that the government was justified in seeing that 
 Mahony's work was stopped. Still, Rich felt not "exaltation but re- 
 gret" at the necessity of the action. Mahony he conceded to be a man 
 of talent and potentially of great service to the government, possess- 
 ing much influence over the Irish Catholics in the state; unfortunately, 
 instead of serving his government he had merely helped to sow dis- 
 loyalty. 40 
 
 Allison and other opponents of Mahony were not interested in 
 splitting hairs over constitutional arguments. They had the power to 
 have Mahony put away for the time being, and they used it. The same 
 thing was done to other opponents of the war: David Sheward of 
 Fairfield, editor of the Constitution and Union-, Dr. Edson B. Olds of 
 Ohio; and many others. 41 Hoxie was again the "law" in the Sheward 
 case; someone furnished a special train for the trip from Burlington to 
 Fairfield, and Sheward was taken to Washington as a companion 
 
ALLISON AND THE CIVIL WAR 55 
 
 prisoner with Mahony. After his departure, Sheward's work was car- 
 ried on with impunity by the banker, Charles Negus, while Mahony 's 
 successor was Stilson Hutchins, a man whose pen was dipped in a 
 more venomous brand of poison than had ever been Mahony 's. 42 
 
 As to Mahony, the sequel reads like a storybook rather than sober 
 history. As a "prisoner of state," as he called himself, languishing on 
 the third floor of Old Capitol Prison in Washington, the unfortunate 
 editor was somehow able to send messages to the faithful at home in 
 the Third District. 43 On August 20 the Democrats met at West Union 
 and defied the captors of their hero by nominating him to be Allison's 
 opponent, not however without a struggle with the milder wing of 
 the party; Mahony won over Senator G. W. Gray of Allamakee County 
 by the narrowest of margins: 52-2/3 to 51-1/3. 44 
 
 To Stilson Hutchins, the nomination of his colleague was more im- 
 portant as a "vindication of a principle than as a personal triumph, " 45 
 but to the Republican papers it was an act both infamous and suicidal. 
 "The Democrats . . . have placed the capsheaf to their infamy and 
 consigned their party in Iowa to perdition," wrote one editor. "These 
 fellows seem to be determined to show the people of Iowa how low in 
 infamy they can sink," wrote another. "They are lost to all sense of 
 shame or decency." 46 
 
 The Cedar Falls Gazette was even more vehement: 
 
 The Democratic party of this State cut its own throat when it nominated 
 D. A. Mahony . . . for Congress. . . . Nothing that its opponents could say, 
 will as fully and conclusively prove to the masses that treason lurks in Iowa 
 Democracy, as the nominating of a man who for a long time has openly and 
 boldly acted the part of a traitor, and who, at the time he was nominated, 
 was under arrest on the charge of treason. . . . Think of it, a traitor under 
 arrest for his openly displayed hostility to the Government, nominated for 
 one of the highest and most important offices in the gift of the people. Such 
 loyalty is a cheat and a lie, and every honest man will repudiate it. 47 
 
 So now the people of Iowa and the nation were treated to the strange 
 spectacle of two gentlemen from Dubuque running for the same seat 
 in Congress, each one claiming a monopoly on the title of patriot; 
 one, Mahony, prematurely patriarchal in appearance, manner, and 
 tone; the other, Allison, young and energetic, with bristling hair and 
 beard, hopeful that at last he was on the way to political success. 
 
 As a nominee of the war party, Allison took full advantage of his 
 party's claims to patriotism, and he smeared his opponent without 
 mercy. In this he was aided by the best speaking talent that the party 
 
56 William Boyd Allison 
 
 could produce. Probably the most pretentious meeting held during 
 the campaign was one at Independence, then the largest town in the 
 district west of Dubuque. Editor Jacob Rich in the Buchanan County 
 Guardian of September 23, 1862, urged the friends of the Union to 
 attend. 
 
 Let every hater of treason and rebellion come to Independence on Wednes- 
 day, September 24, at 2 o'clock P. M. and hear Iowa's distinguished Senator, 
 James W. Grimes, discuss the great issues of the hour. Col. W. B. Allison 
 and S. P. Adams, Esq., of Dubuque will also be present and address the 
 meeting. 
 
 This will be a great occasion. Let every man and woman be present and 
 listen to loyalty and truth as expounded by eloquent tongues. 
 
 The same paper, on the 30th, gave a full report of the meeting, 
 which had proved to be a gala occasion with hundreds in attendance. 
 Allison opened the afternoon with a speech of three quarters of an 
 hour, wherein he asserted that although there used to be several great 
 party questions — slavery, the tariff, public lands — now there was 
 only one — the preservation of the Union and the Constitution. Un- 
 fortunately, said Allison, with heavy sarcasm, his opponent could not 
 discuss this question in person, but his views could be found day after 
 day in the columns of the Dubuque Herald. Allison then read a 
 number of excerpts showing that Mahony had "labored for recog- 
 nition of the Southern Confederacy, declared for the right of rebel- 
 lion, argued that the interests of the West were with the South, 
 denounced the measures of the government for its own protection, 
 defended rebellion, and justified the South." He showed that Mahony 
 as a Vallandigham follower could not be counted on to vote support 
 for the government. As for himself, said Allison, he would use any 
 measures for crushing rebellion; the provisions, the horses and cattle, 
 the slaves of the rebels should be seized; Negroes should not be exempt 
 from service. "Mr. Allison spoke effectively, and was listened to 
 attentively, and greeted repeatedly with applause." The speeches of 
 the other orators were reviewed, the one by Shubael P. Adams receiv- 
 ing even more space than the speech of Senator Grimes. 
 
 Hutchins, Mahony's substitute in the editorial chair of his news- 
 paper, did not fail to strike out for him and against Allison at every 
 opportunity. Mahony had merely correctly prophesied the horrors 
 and expense of war to suppress the rebellion, Hutchins averred, and he 
 wanted the President to use constitutional means. He declared that 
 
 
ALLISON AND THE CIVIL WAR 57 
 
 after force was determined upon, Mahony had offered to raise a full 
 regiment of Irishmen, but the offer had been refused by the Gov- 
 ernor, "through the interference of William B. Allison" on the ground 
 that the political effect would damage the Republican cause. 48 
 
 The same issue carried an editorial that demonstrated the feeling of 
 the time: 
 
 We understand that W. B. Allison with well affected horror, is in the habit 
 of asking Democrats if they intend to vote for D. A. Mahony, "the traitor." 
 We can tell Mr. Allison one thing which though it may be wounding to his 
 self-pride, is nevertheless about as true as anything he is in the habit of utter- 
 ing, that when he is known only on war claim reports, and possibly upon 
 the lists of Congressional Delegations, Mr. Mahony's name, rising higher in 
 the esteem of the people as the years go by, shall be known as that of a man 
 who dared to go to a political bastile [sic] in penalty of holding opinions 
 which could neither be bought by gold nor silenced by threats. He may be a 
 traitor, as Mr. Allison generously and felicitously declares, but it is a treachery 
 to those sentiments, and to that creed which ten years hence it will be the 
 shame of any decent man to have ever holden. As for us, we would sooner 
 be Mr. Mahony, in prison, with his consciousness of duty well performed, 
 than Mr. Allison in Congress, the representative of a party which has effected 
 the ruin of the country. 
 
 Hutchins returned to the charge on October 1, asserting that 
 Allison used his expense money while serving as Governor's aide partly 
 in traveling around the district and getting acquainted politically. 
 He had not been in the state long and would not be so far advanced 
 in politics if he had not used this military method for building up 
 friendships in the right places. 
 
 On leaving his native State of Ohio, it is said he abandoned the dark lantern 
 party, whose proscriptive principles aimed at disfranchising a large portion 
 of good American citizens; and on becoming a resident of this State, he 
 affiliated with the Abolitionists, whose standard-bearer he now is in this 
 Congressional District. He is a fortunate man, so far as being a political 
 adventurer is concerned; for there are many older men in the District, longer 
 residents of the State, men of ability and large experience, who have enter- 
 tained conservative principles and uniform political tenets, any one of whom 
 in ordinary times would have been nominated over him. But will the con- 
 servative people of the district allow him to be elected?" 
 
 The answer was in the affirmative. Iowa won for herself a place 
 in the vanguard of the Republican party by her staunch support of 
 the Lincoln ticket in 1862, a place which assured recognition for years 
 to come in the distribution of Cabinet honors and other places at the 
 
58 William Boyd Allison 
 
 disposal of the party leaders. While other states were giving distress 
 to the Republicans, Iowa was rolling up majorities for all six of the 
 congressional candidates of that year. 
 
 Allison's victory would not have been impressive if only the "home" 
 vote had been counted. His margin over Mahony was only 1,357 in 
 a vote of 9,684 to 8,327. But in addition, he won 2,248 votes from the 
 soldiers in the field, with only 125 from the boys in blue for Mahony. 50 
 No other Iowa Democratic candidate received so few soldier votes, 
 although Mahony had predicted several days before the election that 
 he would receive a heavy soldier vote because the "Abolitionists 
 brought on the war and left the Democrats to fight it out." 51 
 
 The soldier vote having proved to be of so much importance, a 
 considerable contest developed among those seeking credit for the in- 
 novation of sending ballots to the men at the front. Allison later 
 definitely claimed a part in urging the idea upon Governor Kirkwood, 
 first having secured the endorsement of Senator Grimes. A year later 
 a man in a good position to know about such things gave the credit 
 for authorship to Judge John F. Dillon of Davenport, but he may 
 have been referring only to the legal drafting of the bill. 52 The en- 
 abling act was passed in a special session of the legislature called by 
 Governor Kirkwood in September, 1862. The method of voting pro- 
 vided for was complex, but the principal agents in the matter were 
 voting commissioners who went to the camps to distribute the ballots 
 to the men in service and to supervise the voting. The party leaders 
 were almost frantic in their desire to secure a favorable return from 
 this source. More than one letter from officers to the political leaders 
 back home testifies to the pressure brought to bear to get them to use 
 their influence on their men. 53 
 
 At long last Allison could breathe the sweet air of victory. Now he 
 had thirteen months to prepare for his duties in Washington. How 
 did a Congressman-elect spend his time in the long interval between 
 election and induction into office? Allison is on record for only one 
 action of any note. In March, 1863, he joined with others to put some 
 fear into the hearts of the local opponents of the war. Mahony, after 
 his release, had not moderated the tone of his writing; the pages of the 
 Herald demonstrate the reason for that paper's popularity among the 
 anti-war people of the Northwest. For example, on January 6, 1863, 
 Lincoln was described as "a brainless tyrant, a perjured public servant, 
 a blundering partisan, a buffoon President." The answer of men like 
 
ALLISON AND THE CIVIL WAR 59 
 
 Allison was to organize a chapter of the Loyal League, or Union League 
 as it came to be known, a newly instituted movement to build up 
 Northern morale and to further the interests of the Republican party. 
 A reporter for the Herald wrote that one night he saw "Bissell, Conger, 
 Allison, Blocklinger, Shiras, Adams, and others" steal out one by one 
 from a secret meeting in the old Turner Hall. The Herald editor 
 added that "these midnight gatherings of a lawless confraternity have 
 no worthy object for a stimulus." 54 
 
 Meanwhile, the Iowa political pot was boiling. Merit was the last 
 thing looked for; the object was to win the elections. Iowa during 
 these years followed the practice of electing the Governor, certain 
 lesser state officers, and members of the General Assembly in the odd- 
 numbered years. Representatives in Congress and certain other state 
 officers were elected in the even-numbered years, while United States 
 Senators were elected by the state legislature in January of the even- 
 numbered years. Consequently, what with annual county, district, 
 and state nominating conventions in addition to these elections, Iowa 
 politicians and voters were hardly ever free from the shadow of some 
 impending political event. As a seasoned campaigner of later years 
 described it, "We work through one campaign, take a bath and start 
 in on the next." 55 Politics was a full-time occupation, and one won- 
 ders at the hardihood of the campaigners of that day, canvassing by 
 horseback or buggy, with only an occasional trip by train. 
 
 Allison, now a professional politician, undoubtedly assisted in the 
 campaign of 1863, but apparently not as a speaker. His name does 
 not appear in the lists of the advertised spellbinders. He was not an 
 effective man on the hustings, and he had not yet acquired the prestige 
 that guaranteed him a hearing for his calm and rational approach to 
 the problems of the day. 
 
 His party hardly needed him, however. Relying on their reputation 
 as the "party of patriotism," they named a wounded soldier, Colonel 
 William Milo Stone of Knoxville, for Governor. 56 The Democrats 
 lived up to expectations and put at the head of their ticket another 
 soldier, Democratic General James M. Tuttle of Des Moines, a man with 
 an excellent war record and an unassailable reputation. The Re- 
 publican ticket came through nicely, and the politicians could now 
 relax for a few weeks until the General Assembly would 'meet in 
 January, 1864, and begin the session by electing, inevitably, Senator 
 Grimes to succeed himself. 
 
fflfiBWS!^ 
 
 * \f * 
 
 Congressman Allison Joins the 
 Radicals 
 
 When William Boyd Allison took his seat in the Thirty-eighth 
 Congress on December 7, 1863, he was thirty-four years of age, a 
 widower without children or home cares to absorb his attention and 
 give him solace. He could devote his entire time to his own interests 
 and the causes of his friends, his party, and his country. He was 
 ambitious and obviously enjoyed and sought out the company of in- 
 fluential people; he aggressively looked for opportunities to work with 
 and serve people who were doing things. Bankers, railroad builders, 
 political leaders, and editors made up the circle of his friends and 
 associates. 
 
 A discerning journalist from Iowa, whose articles from Washington 
 appeared in several Hawkeye newspapers under the pseudonym of 
 "Linkensale," had this to say about Allison shortly after the new ses- 
 sion began: 
 
 Mr. Allison of the Third District is the youngest man of the Delegation. He 
 looks like a man of brain, energy and backbone. If he be not a clever fellow, 
 in the best and highest sense of that phrase, there is no sense in looks. He 
 has so much of the milk of human kindness in his nature that if one had lost 
 his reckoning in a great city and should see Allison in a crowd of a dozen 
 men, he would walk straight up to him and tell him of his perplexity — so 
 good natured is the very phiz of the member from the Dubuque District. 
 He is almost always smoking, and evidently enjoys his Havana hugely. The 
 only unmarried man of the delegation, he is, of course, the best dressed man. 
 
 60 
 
ALLISON JOINS THE RADICALS 61 
 
 He is a good speaker, a fine lawyer, an entertaining conversationalist, an 
 indefatigable worker, and an adroit politician. He will do honor to his 
 District, and the State. 1 
 
 There would be plenty for the "indefatigable worker" to do in his 
 freshman term. With Gettysburg and Vicksburg behind and the 
 emancipation policy established, the Union forces might safely antici- 
 pate eventual victory, if only the will to win were not weakened. 
 The Congress which Allison entered was first of all obligated to put 
 through the necessary supply bills in support of the men in service. 
 This was mostly routine business by this time, however; the major 
 attention of the members was soon absorbed by a fight between the 
 executive and legislative branches of the government for control of 
 readmission of the defeated Southern states, some of which had already 
 been brought under federal military control. This issue had not been 
 before the people when they voted for members of the Congress in 
 1862, but it became the dominant subject of debate and decision be- 
 fore the term was up. 
 
 The lower house of this Congress was made up of 186 members: 102 
 Republicans, 75 Democrats, and 9 Border State men. 2 There were 50 
 members in the Senate, of whom 37 were Republicans, 12 Democrats, 
 and one an old-line Whig. Something of the spirit of an exclusive 
 club prevailed in each house. The personnel of the lower house was 
 indeed outstanding, perhaps more so than its members realized at the 
 time. For many of them it was the beginning of a sweepstakes in 
 which the prizes sometimes would go to unexpected places. Among 
 the members was a future President: but who, on that December day 
 or for many a year to come, would have put his money on James A. 
 Garfield? One would be a Vice President, and seventeen would ad- 
 vance to the Senate; five would be Cabinet members; any number 
 would aspire to a presidential nomination, including Allison; and one 
 would be an "also ran" in a presidential race — James Gillespie Blaine. 3 
 Truly this was a better than average assemblage of men thrown to- 
 gether by the chances of American politics. Add the names of such 
 distinguished Senators as Iowa's own Grimes and Harlan, and one can 
 see that Allison was privileged to rub shoulders with the best. He 
 could always look back with pride and say that his freshman term of 
 Congress was a training school with excellent instructors and bril- 
 liant fellow-students. 
 
 The Iowa delegation itself was a notable one. James F. Wilson of 
 
62 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Fairfield and John A. Kasson of Des Moines were by far the ablest 
 members of the group and also the most experienced. Wilson had a 
 small running start on the others, since he had been selected in 1861 
 to fill out the term of Samuel R. Curtis, who had resigned to enter 
 the army. 4 Wilson was already the chairman of the Committee on the 
 Judiciary. Kasson had been rewarded for his work in the convention 
 of 1860 with the post of First Assistant Postmaster General and now 
 had the prestige of having completed a successful mission to Paris, 
 where he had been the American delegate at the first international 
 postal conference. 5 Through his acquaintance with Attorney Gen- 
 eral Edward Bates and the influential Blair family of St. Louis, 6 Kasson 
 had a more direct contact with President Lincoln than any of the 
 others. As Herbert M. Hoxie commented significantly to Grenville 
 M. Dodge in regard to efforts to secure the latter's promotion: "Kasson 
 has been indefatigable, worked every day, and he is a tower of strength. 
 He is about the only Lincoln man in our delegation and could do 
 therefore more than all else." A few months later Hoxie wrote again 
 on the subject of the promotion and made this acute observation, at 
 Allison's expense to be sure: "Grimes, Kasson and Allison all promised 
 to look after the matter and I believe Grimes is in earnest. Kasson will 
 do everything in his power for you. Allison also — but he don't 
 amount to much in that way." 7 Allison's other three colleagues were 
 Hiram Price, a man of considerable wealth and distinction in his home 
 city of Davenport; Josiah Bushnell ("J. B." to all concerned) Grinnell 
 of Grinnell, minister, educator, real estate and railroad promoter; and 
 Judge Asahel W. Hubbard, soon to return to the practice of law and 
 the promotion of railroads at Sioux City. 8 In such company as this 
 Allison was neither the best nor the worst, neither first nor last, and 
 the phenomenal thing is that he soon outran the whole group in the 
 game of politics. 
 
 Iowa's Senators at the time were truly outstanding. James Wilson 
 Grimes was without doubt Iowa's most powerful and acceptable 
 spokesman, from the year of his election as Governor in 1854 until 
 his vote against the conviction of Andrew Johnson in the impeach- 
 ment proceedings of 1868. It is hardly to be doubted that he is the 
 greatest statesman in Iowa's history. His influence on Allison was 
 beyond measure. Their close association is attested by the fact that 
 during some part of Allison's eight years in the House he roomed at 
 the home of Senator and Mrs. Grimes, 9 where he undoubtedly met 
 
ALLISON JOINS THE RADICALS 63 
 
 Mary Nealley, Mrs. Grimes's beautiful and charming niece, whom 
 Senator Grimes had legally adopted as his daughter. Allison's in- 
 debtedness to and gratitude for the great Senator's influence were ex- 
 pressed in a letter to Mrs. Grimes a short time after Grimes's death in 
 1872: 
 
 I feel more indebted to Mr. Grimes than any one for the little success I have 
 achieved. His early friendly recognition of me at Washington gave me a 
 position and companionship that would otherwise have required years of 
 patient labor [to achieve]. To enjoy his friendship was to secure the con- 
 fidence of the truest and best men of the country. The inducements to temp- 
 tation and folly are so great at Washington that, but for his friendly counsel 
 and guidance, I might have yielded to them. In his death the State and the 
 country have suffered a great loss, and the young men who enjoyed his con- 
 fidence, and looked to him for guidance in the future, will look in vain to 
 find one suited to take his place. 10 
 
 Allison's dependence upon Grimes appeared one thing to a friendly 
 observer, another to a hostile critic. Jacob Rich's letters indicate ap- 
 provingly that Allison had become a member of the Grimes-Kirkwood 
 political camp with Rich himself as a kind of manager and clerk who 
 maintained harmony. By contrast, a cynical and unfriendly Iowa 
 Republican, after a period of observation in Washington, summed up 
 his feelings toward Allison bluntly in these words: "I found that what 
 Grimes told him to do he did." Whatever the correctness of these ap- 
 praisals, each one clearly indicates that Allison had made a place for 
 himself in the entourage of the great and powerful Senator from 
 Burlington, evidence of Allison's genius for quickly ingratiating 
 himself with men of influence and power. 11 
 
 Iowa's other Senator was the redoubtable James Harlan of Mount 
 Pleasant, the erstwhile president of Iowa Wesleyan College in that 
 city and so much a leader, spokesman, and defender of the Methodist 
 Church that he was frequently referred to as the "Reverend James 
 Harlan," perhaps sometimes in irony but often in honest error. 12 He 
 could make as much claim upon the sentiments of Iowa Republicans 
 as Grimes. As a young teacher he had come to Iowa in 1846 after ex- 
 posure to the antislavery beliefs of President Matthew Simpson of 
 Indiana Asbury College at Greencastle. He wrote editorials for an 
 Iowa City newspaper called the Kepublican eight years before the 
 Republican party was organized in Iowa. 13 He surely must be counted 
 among the founders of the party, even though not present at the 
 
64 William Boyd Allison 
 
 meeting at Iowa City on February 22, 1856, when formal organiza- 
 tion took place. In Allison's first two terms in Congress, Harlan was 
 at the peak of his power as a Senator, as a Cabinet member, and as an 
 intimate friend of the Lincoln family. 14 He was a great booster for 
 railroad construction, and his name is attached to many pieces of rail- 
 road legislation. 15 Only the exigencies of intraparty politics could 
 ever make Allison and Harlan rivals. 
 
 It would be rewarding to find evidence to sustain the claims of 
 Allison's eulogists that he received rapid recognition in Congress and 
 made valuable contributions to the war when translated to this 
 "higher realm" of activity. It has not been found. Allison could be 
 counted upon for a regular vote, but in the main his record was un- 
 distinguished. Speaker Schuyler Colfax assigned him to the Committee 
 on Public Lands and the Committee on Roads and Canals. 16 His 
 first public act in Congress occurred on December 17, 1863, when 
 he voted for a resolution sponsored by his colleague, Hiram Price, 
 calling for a canal connecting the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes, 
 and the Hudson River. 17 On the same day he made his first legisla- 
 tive proposal, a resolution "That the Committee on Roads and Canals 
 be instructed to inquire into the expediency and necessity of im- 
 proving the upper rapids of the Mississippi River by a canal commenc- 
 ing at Davenport, at the foot of such rapids, with leave to report by 
 bill or otherwise." 18 Nothing came of this resolution during this ses- 
 sion of Congress, but Allison's career as a legislator was fully launched 
 with an effort to do something for all those interested in river com 
 merce, including Dubuquers. 
 
 A more important phase of his career — that of a "railroad" Con- 
 gressman — began a short time later when, on January 20, 1864, he 
 introduced a bill for a grant of land to aid in the construction of 
 two new railroads in Iowa — the McGregor Western and the Cedar 
 Falls & Minnesota. 19 Senator Harlan introduced and guided a simi- 
 lar bill through the Senate. On referral to Allison's committee in 
 the House, a Sioux City-Minnesota road replaced the Cedar Falls- 
 Minnesota line in the terms of the bill. In this form it passed the 
 House and won acceptance from Harlan — who again guided it 
 through the Senate. 20 
 
 Allison's own opinion on his bill is seen in a letter to Editor Hildreth 
 of Charles City, a town on the projected route of the McGregor 
 Western. 
 
 
ALLISON JOINS THE RADICALS 65 
 
 I have succeeded in getting through the House for you my McGregor land 
 grant bill. It will also pass the Senate; probably to-day. . . . Mr. Harlan 
 will accept the proposition. Judge Hubbard, from Sioux City, has faithfully 
 stood by me in the matter, although seemingly against his interest. But he 
 believes with me that it is better to give the Company immediate aid so as 
 to insure the completion of the road, at least to the Cedar river valley, with- 
 out delay. 21 
 
 The road from McGregor westward, provided for in Allison's and 
 Harlan's combined bill, eventually became a link in the "Milwaukee 
 System" serving northeastern Iowa, with Mason City as its head- 
 quarters. Allison frequently made political capital out of his part in 
 the undertaking, more than once citing it as an example of service 
 when asked "What has Allison done for Iowa?" " 
 
 Meanwhile, Allison had been serving the railroad interests with 
 another bill, introduced on February 17, 1864. This was an amend- 
 ment to the original Iowa railroad land grant act of May 15, 18 56, 
 and incorporated, among other things, a provision sponsored by James 
 F. Wilson that the Mississippi & Missouri Railroad must run through 
 the cities of Des Moines and Council Bluffs. General Dodge, not too 
 busy winning the war to keep up with the proceedings in Washington 
 when railroads were at stake, sent an inquiry to Kasson, asking why 
 Allison, and not Wilson, had introduced the bill. His query was an- 
 swered by the ubiquitous Herbert M. Hoxie, who had come to Wash- 
 ington in connection with this legislation. Hoxie explained to Dodge 
 that "Allison introduced the bill for two reasons. One that he was 
 on the Land Committee, the other that we wanted to commit him by 
 its provisions." Hoxie also gave a hint as to the reason for Dodge's 
 interest in the bill by explaining that Cedar Rapids promoters were 
 trying to bypass both Des Moines and Council Bluffs and to build 
 the road westward across the Missouri at De Soto, Nebraska, rather 
 than at Council Bluffs. 23 Rumors of a possible merger of the Missis- 
 sippi & Missouri, building through central Iowa, with the Cedar Rapids 
 & Missouri River, located one tier of counties to the north, may have 
 speeded passage of this legislation. 21 Whatever the motivation, an 
 act of service had been performed for General Dodge and Council 
 Bluffs by William Boyd Allison, and the ties of partnership were 
 strengthened. 
 
 Further actions of Allison in the area of railroad interests in the 
 Thirty-eighth Congress were rather limited. He secured an amendment 
 
66 William Boyd Allison 
 
 to H. R. No. 438 which was itself an effort to amend the Union 
 Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 giving aid to a railroad from the Mis- 
 souri River to the Pacific. Allison's amendment, obviously designed 
 to protect the interests of Iowa and of his Iowa friends, read: "Pro- 
 vided, that no bonds shall be issued or land certified by the United 
 States to any person or company for the construction of any part of 
 the main trunk line of said railroad west of the hundredth meridian of 
 longitude and east of the Rocky mountains until said road shall be 
 completed from or near Omaha [italics added] ... to the said one 
 hundredth meridian of longitude." 25 
 
 But such matters as river improvements and aid to railroads were 
 mere routine. The great issue of the times was the question of control 
 of the restoration of the seceded states to the Union, a process known as 
 "Reconstruction." This important issue was formally opened on 
 December 8, 1863, just one day after Allison began his service in 
 Congress, when the President issued a proclamation announcing his 
 plan for use in Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and part of Virginia 
 — in short, those areas which had already been brought under control 
 by Union troops. 26 Lincoln here acted under authority assumed to 
 be his by virtue of his powers as commander-in-chief of all military 
 forces. Presumably Allison at first approved of this presidential move, 
 and practically everyone else also accepted it without protest. For 
 example, both the outgoing and incoming Governors of Iowa en- 
 dorsed it in their messages to the General Assembly, and editorial 
 opinion was generally favorable. 27 
 
 A division of sentiment among Republicans in Congress was not long 
 in showing up, however. Those Republicans who were most relentless 
 in the prosecution of the war (and who regarded this as a virtue which 
 must be self -advertised) ; those who were most contemptuous of 
 their fellow-Republicans whose measures were cautious and consid- 
 erate of the rights of others, even the enemy ; and those who were most 
 certain that all truth and virtue were on the side of the Union op- 
 posed the President. These have come down in history as the "Radical 
 Republicans," also known as "Vindictives," "Unconditional," and 
 "Jacobins." After the President's proclamation of December 8, this 
 group gradually advanced into open conflict with him and with any- 
 one who differed with them. They heaped their sneers of "treason" on 
 War and Peace Democrats alike and on opponents within their own 
 party, whom they called "Conservatives" as a badge of shame. 
 
ALLISON JOINS THE RADICALS 67 
 
 The Radicals have been described recently as follows: 
 
 A more unlovely knot of politicians would be hard to find. Self important, 
 humorless, itching for power, and scornful of ethical scruple, they sold their 
 wares at their own valuation and paraded behind a front of crusading zeal. 
 Unmerciful in their pressure upon Lincoln, they used the stratagems of 
 patronage, party trickery, and propaganda to impose their pattern upon all 
 phases of war effort. With a technique of intimidation that moderates found 
 hard to resist, they made it their business to take over problems of army 
 command, conduct of campaigns, composition of the Cabinet, formulation of 
 war aims, and reconstruction of a shattered nation in proscriptive and puni- 
 tive terms. 28 
 
 Who were some of these Radical Republicans with whom Allison 
 now joined and to whom he gave an increasing allegiance? Thaddeus 
 Stevens was the acknowledged leader; Henry Winter Davis of Mary- 
 land, Schuyler Colfax and George W. Julian of Indiana, James M. 
 Ashley and John A. Bingham of Ohio, Roscoe Conkling of New York, 
 and John Covode of Pennsylvania were prominent examples of the 
 species in the House; all except Stevens were overshadowed by the 
 brilliancy of Charles Sumner, Zachariah Chandler, Lyman Trumbull, 
 and Benjamin ("Old Ben") Wade in the Senate. 29 There were also 
 great figures out of Congress who expressed the Radical point of 
 view: Edwin M. Stanton in the Cabinet, Benjamin F. ("Stormy Ben") 
 Butler in the Army, and Horace Greeley and Joseph Medill of the 
 press. 
 
 To all these names can be added those of the entire Iowa delegation, 
 both Senators and Representatives, 30 although certain reservations 
 mast be made about Senator Grimes and Congressmen Kasson and 
 Grinnell. The conservatism of these three developed slowly and 
 cautiously; this is understandable when it is remembered that they 
 were going against a strong current of opinion in Iowa, an over- 
 whelmingly Radical state. It is impossible to imagine stronger ex- 
 pressions of the Radical point of view than those found consistently in 
 the leading Republican journals of Iowa in late 1864 and after, or 
 those in the campaign speeches of most of the candidates. 31 
 
 The first great test regarding Reconstruction came on the proposal 
 to confiscate the lands of those in rebellion. The bill, subsequently 
 known as the "Homesteads on Forfeited Estates Act," was chiefly the 
 handiwork of Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois. Nothing could 
 better illustrate the extremities to which the war as a revolution, not 
 as a conflict to restore the Union, had been driven. By the terms of 
 
68 William Boyd Allison 
 
 this proposal, confiscated estates in the insurrectionary areas would be 
 awarded as homesteads to those who had been in the military or naval 
 service of the United States. Allison passed this first test of Radical- 
 ism with flying colors by voting for it twice, once as H. R. No. 18 and 
 again as H. R. No. 276, his speech for the latter being his maiden effort 
 and one that was long remembered by his friends as a strong statement 
 worthy of use as campaign literature. 32 N. C. Deering of Osage, an 
 Iowan of some standing and not many years later a Congressman in 
 his own right, reported on Allison's speech: "Our Representative Col. 
 Allison, made an able and appropriate speech in the House last evening. 
 I happened to be present and heard it. The speech and the manner of 
 delivery were creditable both to himself and to our District. When 
 will our Congressional Convention be held, and will there be any op- 
 position to Mr. Allison's renomination?" 33 
 
 But it was too early to ask about Allison's renomination. Other 
 matters of greater importance had to be settled first. Republican party 
 fortunes seemed at a low ebb in 1864. In spite of the victories of 
 1863, the war continued to make vast demands, and there was a great 
 deal of dissatisfaction within the party over President Lincoln's policies. 
 Without waiting to see what the Republican convention at Baltimore 
 would do, some of the more Radical members went off on a tangent 
 and nominated General John C. Fremont for President in a meeting 
 at Cleveland on May 3 1 ; others flirted strongly with the idea of nomi- 
 nating the Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase. It would be 
 interesting to know how much attention Allison gave to this idea; 
 as an old Chase man, he probably favored Chase, as did others, in- 
 cluding Senator Grimes. 34 As for the Democrats, their leaders were in 
 favor of cessation of hostilities, but they nominated General George B. 
 McClellan, who was strongly in favor of going on with the war. 
 
 The great majority of the Republicans never seriously considered 
 the possibility of nominating anyone except Lincoln, however. To do 
 so would have been to confess both failure and insincerity of purpose. 
 This is not to say that he was a popular candidate in 1864. Iowa sup- 
 ported him, and Governor William M. Stone was one of the nomina- 
 tors. Allison was not a delegate to the national convention at Balti- 
 more that dutifully but unenthusiastically renominated Lincoln. 
 As least one if not more of the Iowa delegation called on Allison at 
 Washington en route to Baltimore, and the entire delegation, accom- 
 panied by the Iowa members of Congress, visited Secretary Chase, a 
 
ALLISON JOINS THE RADICALS 69 
 
 not altogether insignificant fact. 15 Shortly after the convention, 
 Allison joined Senator Grimes and Representatives Grinnell and 
 Hubbard in urging ex-Governor Kirkwood to allow himself to be 
 placed at the head of the state ticket as a presidential elector, not only 
 because it would help the party, but because it would also fit in with 
 their plans to keep Kirkwood before the people as a prospect for the 
 Senate race in 1866. Allison was particularly interested in Kirkwood's 
 senatorial candidacy. 30 
 
 The Republican leaders' enthusiasm for Lincoln dimmed almost 
 to the point of invisibility in July and early August. In spite of the 
 convention's endorsement of the President, his enemies invented a 
 much greater test of Radicalism than the Trumbull bill on confiscation 
 of estates: this was the Wade-Davis bill, under consideration since 
 March 22 and finally passed on July 2, 1864. On this measure, which 
 completely and harshly denied the executive's right to a part in the 
 Reconstruction process, the Iowa delegation, with Allison near the top 
 of the alphabet heading the list, was one vote short of unanimity. 
 John A. Kasson chose not to vote and thus dared to resist the ortho- 
 dox point of view. Congressmen Grinnell and Hubbard voted with 
 the majority but "under protest." Senators Grimes and Harlan added 
 their votes and their prestige in support of the bill in the Senate. 
 Lincoln used a pocket veto on the measure, and the sponsors had to 
 content themselves with a public manifesto restating the Radical 
 position. Now the fat was in the fire; "Old Ben" Wade was the anti- 
 thesis of Lincoln, and there seemed to be no compromise between their 
 views. Many Republicans who up to this time had cautiously avoided 
 a decision between the President and the Radicals now crossed the line 
 into the Radical camp; others drew back as they contemplated the 
 extremities of the Radical position. 
 
 The air was thick with rumors; it is impossible to track down all 
 of them and assay their real truth and meaning. The only valid con- 
 clusion is that they indicate the unpopularity of the President with 
 the Radical majority of his own party. In this readiness to pillory 
 Lincoln, Allison is not on record beyond the fact that his reputation 
 was that of an undeviating Radical. If he subscribed to the plan to 
 call on Lincoln to resign the nomination in favor of some one else, the 
 fact is not known; if any other Iowan was positively implicated in that 
 dangerous stratagem, the fact is equally well hidden from history.' 7 
 Fortunately for Lincoln and for the country, a turn in the military 
 
70 William Boyd Allison 
 
 fortunes of the Union forces temporarily lessened the Radical pres- 
 sure on the President. 
 
 Allison's own renomination in 1864 was a foregone conclusion. At 
 the district nominating convention held at West Union on August 24, 
 he was nominated by acclamation and accepted the honor in a "neat 
 and pertinent speech. ,, 38 His Democratic opponent was Benjamin 
 Billings Richards, a Dubuquer of more patriotic sentiments than his 
 predecessor of 1862. It seems impossible that the Union men should 
 have felt any qualms about the results, but Allison displayed here the 
 caution that marked his entire career, as witness the following appeal 
 to Kirkwood: 
 
 I have been renominated and the Peace Men have presented their candidates 
 and platform. My own judgment is from what I have seen that the present 
 condition of affairs requires a vigorous canvass on our part. The Copper- 
 heads here & most of the War Democrats here are jubilant for McLellan 
 [sic], I mean those War Democrats who have never formally acted with us. 
 At the Congressional Convention most of the leading men in my District 
 expressed an earnest desire that you should canvass this part of the State. I 
 think owing to the local prejudices in the North against some men in the 
 South & Central, that you are one of the few who can satisfy all, and do 
 good. ... I therefore wish . . . that you can spend at least two weeks in my 
 District. I think it will be not only bread cast upon the waters, but result 
 in immediate good to us all, & our cause. I am quite anxious on this subject. 
 
 Kirkwood sent this letter to Hiram Price, with a pencil notation on 
 the back: "Please read the enclosed — I must go up and help Allison. 
 So you must go on without me." Price replied: "All right Gov. I am 
 glad you can & will help Allison. My competitor is Geo. H. Parker, 
 as bitter a Cop, as they make these days." 39 
 
 Allison's campaign was not an exciting one. Even the Dubuque 
 Herald, the Democratic organ, paid little attention to the race. There 
 was some joshing of Allison to the effect that he had promised to 
 volunteer for military service but had backed down and employed a 
 substitute. 40 All this may have amused the readers, but it changed 
 nothing as to the final results. True to form, Democrat Richards car- 
 ried Dubuque by 3,316 to 1,753, almost identical with the figures 
 on the presidential race (McClellan, 3,317, Lincoln, 1,742). Even 
 Allison's own township went to Richards, 1,345 to 1,007. But the 
 other counties in the district easily overcame this disadvantage, and 
 Allison triumphed, along with all the other Republican members of 
 the Iowa delegation. Lincoln carried the state and enough of the 
 
ALLISON JOINS THE RADICALS 71 
 
 country to win, partly due to the heroic work of Senator Zachariah 
 Chandler of Michigan in securing the withdrawal of Fremont as a 
 rival candidate and in placating the Radicals by obtaining the dismis- 
 sal of Montgomery Blair from the Cabinet. 41 
 
 The remainder of Allison's first congressional term was uneventful 
 as far as his own activity was concerned. He sponsored resolutions, 
 introduced amendments to various bills, some of which were accepted, 
 some rejected. When Congress adjourned on March 3, 1865, he re- 
 turned to Iowa. The final victory and tragedy of the Civil War were 
 near at hand. 
 
 Allison reached Dubuque in good time to take part in the celebra- 
 tion of the glorious news from Appomattox and to make a "most 
 eloquent" speech at the victory rally, but in less than a week rejoicing 
 turned to mourning over the assassination of President Lincoln. At 
 the memorial services held by the clergy on April 19, Allison was the 
 only layman to speak, and he made a moving and effective speech in 
 which he eulogized Lincoln and urged the people to "sustain the new 
 President. . . . He is a man of ability, he is honest, he is a patriot." 42 
 These were the first and probably the last kind words Allison would 
 have to say about Andrew Johnson. 
 
 As a freshman Congressman, Allison had had little occasion to 
 know Lincoln well. His growing Radicalism had forced him to oppose 
 the President on many issues, but the two had been on good terms. In 
 an interview given many years later, Allison told of his first meeting 
 with Lincoln. The President asked him if he had read Petroleum V. 
 Nasby's book. Allison, unaware that Nasby's "Confederit X Roads" 
 letters, serialized in many newspapers, had been published in book 
 form, replied in the negative. Lincoln, whose admiration for such 
 humorists as Nasby and Artemus Ward was well known, promptly 
 declared, "Not to have read Nasby proclaims a man an ignoramus." 
 Allison explained that he had read Nasby's letters in the newspapers; 
 Lincoln was pleased, and Allison was at once "acquitted of being an 
 ignoramus." 43 Following Lincoln's death, Allison took no part in 
 the efforts to apotheosize the martyred President, nor did he try to 
 make capital out of some presumed special friendship with him. 
 
 After the climactic events of April, Allison plunged into a summer 
 filled with politics. The political pot had begun to boil in Iowa just 
 before the war ended, which may explain Allison's haste in returning 
 home as soon as Congress adjourned. In March of 1865 Senator Harlan, 
 
72 William Boyd Allison 
 
 whose term would expire in 1867, had announced that he would re- 
 sign from the Senate to accept appointment by President Lincoln as 
 Secretary of the Interior. 44 The obvious sequel would have been for 
 Governor William M. Stone to appoint Samuel J. Kirkwood to serve 
 until the January, 1866, session of the General Assembly could elect 
 a successor. This would have given Kirkwood an advantage in the 
 contest for the remainder of the "short term," as the unfinished period 
 was always called, and for the succeeding full term as well. Gov- 
 ernor Stone at first gave every indication that the appointment would 
 be forthcoming as a matter of course, but days lengthened into weeks, 
 and the long-expected announcement did not materialize. 
 
 Kirkwood was not alone in the field by any means. Harlan's an- 
 nouncement in March was followed immediately by suggestions for 
 many possible successors. Allison's name was mentioned almost at 
 once by his home town paper, the Dubuque Times, and by several 
 other Iowa papers, including Senator Grimes's editorial spokesman, 
 the Burlington Hatvk-Eye. 45 John A. Kasson also had support for 
 the office, and William Vandever, a prewar Congressman, informed his 
 friends that he was willing to be a Senator. Fitz Henry Warren of 
 Burlington, Grenville M. Dodge of Council Bluffs, and others were 
 mentioned as the contest grew hotter. 46 
 
 The whole picture of Iowa Republican factional politics in the 
 postwar period comes into focus during this senatorial contest. Grimes, 
 Kirkwood, Wilson, Allison, Dodge, and Rich went into one camp of 
 Republicanism and were soon joined by new men whose names would 
 become prominent. David B. Henderson, who had emerged from the 
 war as a colonel, now began his career as a lawyer-politician by re- 
 porting to Kirkwood on one of his minor rivals, F. A. Brush. 47 Ken- 
 tucky-born George Cartie Tichenor of Des Moines, another Civil 
 War colonel, had been a War Democrat who had come over into the 
 Republican party "with flaming sword," to use his own flamboyant 
 phrase that so perfectly fits his personality. He now appeared as the 
 special champion of General Dodge, on whose staff he had served, and 
 in so doing began his long career as a scout, reporter, and manager for 
 the Grimes-Kirkwood-Allison wing of the party — the wing soon to 
 be taken over by Dodge. 
 
 For a while, after the victory at Appomattox and the tragedy at 
 Washington, the senatorial fight was pushed into the background, 
 only to resume in intensity through the summer months. Fortunately 
 
ALLISON JOINS THE RADICALS 73 
 
 for Allison's future career, any senatorial ambitions he might have had 
 in 1865 were restrained by his mentor, Jacob Rich, recently retired 
 editor of the Independence Buchanan County Guardian, and now 
 chief strategist for Kirkwood and his faction of the Radical Republi- 
 cans. Rich assured Kirkwood in several letters that Allison had no 
 intention of allowing his name to be used in the contest. Azro B. F. 
 Hildreth, editor of the Charles City Intelligencer ', also talked to Allison 
 and then assured Kirkwood that he need fear no opposition from the 
 Dubuque Congressman. 48 
 
 Rich, who was loyal both to Kirkwood and to Allison, wrote to the 
 former in April, assuring him of support and also indirectly describ- 
 ing Allison. Kirkwood had suggested that he might concede the short 
 term to Allison; Rich disagreed with him. 
 
 I did not see, Governor, how we could concede the short term without con- 
 ceding away all our arguments. We did not argue your claims because you 
 were a cleverer, more social, more companionable fellow than Allison, for we 
 dont think you are. Nor because we liked you personally any better than 
 the Colonel [Allison], for we dont. Nor because our interests, disconnected 
 with the general interest, would be better served by you than him. You 
 know the Colonel's social characteristics, and know, also, that we could de- 
 pend upon him for having our local interests subserved. But the ground we 
 took, the only ground that we could take, the ground that it was our pride 
 and strength to take, was that your selection was best for the public interest, 
 for the State, and for the Nation. 
 
 The "prompt and active efforts made by your friends," said Rich, had 
 kept Allison "out of the field," thus simplifying the contest and en- 
 suring Kirkwood's success. 49 
 
 On June 2, Governor Stone wrote his famous "virtual promise" 
 letter to Kirkwood. He would make the appointment, he claimed, 
 but not until after the gubernatorial convention at which Stone hoped 
 to be renominated. "I do not think it advisable for you to be at the 
 State convention, as it would help to give color to the assumption that 
 there is a bargain and sale between us, and sway the friends of other 
 gentlemen against me. . . . You will be Senator, and I Governor again, 
 if our friends understand each other, and are prudent and discreet in 
 their management." 50 
 
 But soon a new factor entered the picture. Rumors were rife that 
 Harlan, unhappy in Johnson's Cabinet, might want to return to the 
 Senate." 1 In July he wrote candidly to Kirkwood, giving a guarded 
 assurance of support but not specifying whether for the long or short 
 
74 William Boyd Allison 
 
 term. He then jocularly proposed a swap of offices, after Kirkwood 
 had tired of the Senate. 52 
 
 In September, Rich reported to Kirkwood that he and Allison had 
 seen Harlan and that both now believed that Harlan wanted the long 
 term. Senator Grimes wrote to the same effect a few days later. 53 
 Meanwhile, Stone had won renomination at the June convention but 
 had not lived up to his promise of appointing Kirkwood. Even after 
 his re-election in October, Stone made no move in the senatorial con- 
 test, and it became apparent that both the short and long terms would 
 be left to the General Assembly. As early as November, Allison ex- 
 pressed the belief that Harlan was Kirkwood's only formidable rival. 
 Harlan himself was not idle during these months. He even turned to 
 his patron, Bishop Matthew Simpson, and asked for a word from him 
 to two Methodist preachers then active in Iowa politics on the grounds 
 that such intervention might well bring him the nomination for the 
 long term. 54 
 
 Kirkwood's chances for the long term now declined. In spite of 
 this, however, he received assurances from no less a person than Sena- 
 tor Grimes himself. In a series of letters from Washington, Grimes 
 reported on the pro-Harlan efforts being made there and furnished 
 some damaging facts for use in the campaign. Coming from such a 
 source as the incorruptible Senator Grimes, the charges against Harlan 
 cannot be lightly dismissed. They boil down to two main points: 
 Harlan had been spending large sums — more than his salary would 
 justify — for a new house in Washington, a fact which aroused sus- 
 picions as to the source of Harlan's wealth; and, secondly, he was 
 working heavily on the Methodists to secure their votes. Grimes 
 ridiculed the efforts made to have Harlan appear as an unambitious 
 man being drafted for office by his friends, and he asserted flatly that 
 the entire Iowa delegation in Congress preferred Kirkwood. 55 
 
 The Harlan faction, as opposed to the Kirkwood-Grimes-Allison 
 group, included Fitz Henry Warren, William Penn Clarke, D. N. 
 Cooley, Elijah Sells, and others. Kasson, in many ways the ablest of 
 the Iowa Republicans at this time, was never wholly accepted by 
 either faction, but usually was forced to favor the Harlan group be- 
 cause ultimately he was totally repudiated by the other camp, now 
 gradually coming under the control of Grenville M. Dodge. 56 
 
 On the eve of the election in January, 1866, the anti-Harlan people 
 still hoped for some turn of fortune that would enable Kirkwood or 
 
 
ALLISON JOINS THE RADICALS 75 
 
 a pro-Kirkwood man to emerge as the winner, 57 but such was not to 
 be the case. After two ballots, Harlan was chosen by a majority of 
 the members of the Republican caucus for the long term; Kirkwood 
 and his friends had to be consoled with the short term. 58 
 
 The important thing about this Harlan-Kirkwood contest was its 
 role as a divisive factor in Iowa Republicanism. From this time for- 
 ward there was to be a struggle unto the death, politically speaking, 
 until one faction or the other had triumphed. Kirkwood was only a 
 symbol; the real contest was between the Harlan men and the group 
 that will have to be called the Grimes-Kirkwood-Allison-Dodge fac- 
 tion, with Dodge quickly developing as the "boss," with Jacob Rich 
 and George C. Tichenor as the managers, and with William B. Allison 
 as the standard-bearer. The contest was not a Conservative-Radical 
 fight within the Republican party, for the Conservatives counted for 
 little in Iowa politics, but rather a struggle for power within the Radi- 
 cal ranks themselves. Allison's future, unclouded by a struggle with 
 Kirkwood for the senatorship in this year, was now assured. 
 
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 VI 
 
 ■& 
 
 Politics, Legislation, and Business 
 
 When the Thirty-ninth Congress opened its session in December, 
 1865, Allison received a rich reward: he was appointed to a post on 
 the Committee on Ways and Means, by common consent the highest 
 ranking committee in the House. The chairman, Justin S. Morrill, 
 was already well established as one of the leading members of the 
 House, for whom a long tenure could be predicted, hailing as he did 
 from the safe Republican state of Vermont. Others on the committee 
 were Samuel Hooper of Massachusetts, a wealthy Boston banker and 
 investor in railroad stocks, who was a helpful friend to Allison; 
 James Brooks of New York; James A. Garfield of Ohio, with whom 
 Allison developed an intimate friendship; John Wentworth of Illinois; 
 Roscoe Conkling of New York, a redoubtable figure, brilliant, elo- 
 quent, dominating; James K. Moorhead of Pennsylvania; and John 
 Hogan of Missouri. Allison was also put on the Committee on the 
 Audit of Expenditures of the Department of the Interior, an assign- 
 ment that would give him the duty of checking the accounts of 
 Secretary James Harlan. Allison's colleagues from Iowa also fared 
 well: James F. "Wilson was made chairman of the Committee on the 
 Judiciary; John A. Kasson, chairman of the Committee on Coinage, 
 Weights, and Measures; and Hiram Price, chairman of the Committee 
 on the Pacific Railroad. 1 
 
 America was now entering the postwar era of "moral collapse" in 
 which the ethical standards of both business and government reached 
 their lowest ebb. George Alfred Townsend, whose pen name was 
 
 76 
 
 
POLITICS, LEGISLATION, AND BUSINESS 77 
 
 "Gath," was an acute observer and reporter of the Washington scene 
 of these years, and he wrote some biting comments on the "organic 
 evils" of the congressional system of the time. In his judgment the 
 "system" brought down the honest member, who gradually fell into 
 corruption, and the honest client, who found himself paying for the 
 passage of a bill because he was in a hurry. This seemed to be the 
 only way to get action; everyone else was doing the same thing. Clerks 
 and pages were often able to smooth the passage of a bill, and of 
 course they were always receptive to tokens of appreciation. The 
 real business of Congress was not that which appeared in the Congres- 
 sional Globe and which was conducted according to the rules con- 
 tained in the 500-page Speaker's Manual. "Very few members," 
 wrote Gath, "have studied the manual: some have never looked into 
 it." A "large proportion of those who know it best, have mastered it 
 for the purpose of taking advantage of it," he continued. "The Ways 
 and Means and the Appropriations Committee, and two or three other 
 important committees are esquired by men who know the full value 
 of a wink or a word, and of whom it will be impossible to expect any- 
 thing better." 2 
 
 Well illustrating Townsend's assertion that the real business of 
 Congress did not appear in the pages of the Congressional Globe are 
 certain letters showing the role of Allison as the agent of Piatt Smith, 
 a Dubuquer who was vice-president and attorney for the Dubuque & 
 Sioux City Railroad in which Allison was a small stockholder. Smith's 
 letters document perfectly the "system" whereby the railroads could 
 use a member of Congress or of a state legislature to secure or forward 
 the things wanted. The voracious demands of the expanding railroads 
 and the low ethical standards of the time made this a heyday for the 
 politician who was willing to go along, and Allison was willing. 
 
 A few of Smith's letters demonstrate the tie-up. In January, 1866, 
 he sent Allison a bill for extending the time for construction of the 
 Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad and asked that it be put through, 
 adding that "your friend" Oakes Ames would give "all the assistance 
 in his power." 3 In February, Smith wanted Allison to make a court 
 motion for him to intervene in two cases before the Supreme Court, 
 and he enclosed "fifty dollars so that you may not forget to make the 
 motion." 4 In a letter in March to Oakes Ames, Smith complained 
 that he had heard nothing from certain bills he had drawn up while in 
 Washington and discussed other actions that Ames and Allison were 
 
78 William Boyd Allison 
 
 taking on his behalf. 5 To Smith and his like, Congressmen were 
 nothing more than legislative agents to be used as intermediaries be- 
 tween the railroads and the Eastern financial interests. 
 
 In spite of these many instructions from Smith, Allison does not 
 seem to have been as active on the floor of the House in speaking on 
 railroad bills as were some of the other Iowa members — Price, Kasson, 
 and Wilson in particular. One proposal that Allison made, the origins 
 of which are obscure, was an amendment to a House bill on bridges 
 across the Mississippi River, which provided for the construction of a 
 bridge between Dubuque and Dunleith. 6 Since it developed that Allison 
 later became president of the company formed to build this bridge, 
 it would be interesting to know whether such a company was in the 
 formative stage when he made the legislative request. In other words, 
 was he a legislative agent for his own company? 
 
 More important for Allison's future, however, and for his reputation 
 as a legislator rather than as a "fixer" for the railroad interests, was the 
 fact that in this term he began to emerge as the champion of the West 
 and as an expert in the fields he would make his own — transportation, 
 tariff, and revenue. His political and economic views appear in the 
 records of his bills and in his remarks in this session of Congress. 
 
 One of Allison's most significant speeches as a Western man came 
 on May 1, 1 866, in support of the Niagara ship-canal as a boon to the 
 West. New York interests had been collecting a tribute from the 
 West by charging a tariff on goods going through the Erie Canal or 
 over the railroads of that state, Allison claimed. The proposed Niagara 
 canal would open up a new avenue, and by law the new avenue could 
 be made duty-free. In fact, Allison's only objection to the bill was that 
 it provided for construction by private interests; he thought the 
 federal government should do the work. In his opinion, the Supreme 
 Court decision in McCulloch v. Maryland indicated that the central 
 government had the power to do this. 7 Such views, apparently, were 
 not the heresy in that time that they would later become. 
 
 Allison's role as a Westerner affected his tariff views. On March 9, 
 1866, he made his longest speech to date, a rather sharp defense of the 
 West against the East. Speaking as a moderate on the tariff question, 
 Allison argued the subject of the regulation of trade with British 
 North America with William ("Pig-Iron") Kelley of Pennsylvania. 
 In the heat of the debate the Iowan showed a good command of 
 statistics and was always ready with a retort to his opponent's argu- 
 
POLITICS, LEGISLATION, AND BUSINESS 79 
 
 ment, proving that he was not easily flustered. The farmers were as 
 much entitled to consideration as the coal interests, Allison insisted. 
 He reminded his listeners that in the previous session certain interests 
 had defeated a needed Niagara ship-canal bill: "If we do not ob- 
 tain such facilities the productive industries of New England and 
 all the great central States must not expect us to join in giving them 
 that protection which they enjoyed the last few years," he threatened. 
 "Legislation on these questions must be mutual and reciprocal." 8 
 
 Another statement of Allison's tariff views came in June, 1866. 
 James F. Wilson was asking for a revision downward of the rates on 
 railroad iron, and Allison supported him, firmly denying that the 
 iron manufacturers deserved any protection added to the relief they 
 had already received in the internal taxes bill. 9 
 
 Taxation was also becoming an Allisonian specialty in these years. 
 He gave indication of a new source of economic knowledge in his 
 remarks on a motion to strike out an entire section of a tax bill which 
 provided a "drawback" (refund) on a tax on cotton. In his arguments 
 he cited evidence given by his friend Edward Atkinson of Boston, 
 a distinguished manufacturer who claimed that American industry 
 could compete with any other country's on equal terms. 10 Atkinson, 
 with whom Allison kept up a friendly correspondence for years, 
 played the role of tutor to the legislator: in this period Allison was a 
 pronounced moderate on the tariff question and leaned heavily on 
 Atkinson and David A. Wells, another tariff reformer, for advice 
 and statistical evidence. 11 
 
 On taxation, Allison joined hands with his colleague James F. Wilson 
 in a contest with Justin S. Morrill in defense of the small manufac- 
 turers of the West, and perhaps of the East as well. Morrill wanted to 
 tax equally the entire production of a company that exceeded $1,000; 
 Wilson and Allison wanted to make a lower rate for production be- 
 tween $1,000 and $3,000, and they won their point. 12 In general, it 
 could be said that in the consideration of the tax bill, Allison took a 
 full part in the running debate and frequently supplied the exact in- 
 formation needed in short, terse speeches. 
 
 When the House and Senate disagreed on the tax bill, Allison was 
 appointed as one of the three House members on the conference com- 
 mittee. Their report was adopted by a vote of 71 to 57. About the 
 same time Allison proposed a reduction on the import tax on tea, ad- 
 mitting that the revenue would be cut in half from the nine million 
 
82 William Boyd Allison 
 
 high tariff bill. The delegates in the Radical-controlled convention 
 at West Union on August 22 followed this advice and nominated 
 Allison by acclamation. The candidate accepted the nomination in a 
 "short but eloquent" speech in which he emphasized the need for 
 control of the government by none but loyal men and asked for the 
 enfranchisement of the Negro and the disfranchisement of all who had 
 taken part in the rebellion. 18 All this was good, orthodox Radicalism. 
 
 The nomination had not been easily procured, however. Shortly 
 after the convention, in a spirit of "now it can be told," the Dubuque 
 Times published a letter from one of Allison's colleagues in the House, 
 J. W. Welker of Ohio, who had read of opposition to Allison and 
 wanted to endorse him for re-election as an able man. The Times 
 added the hope that the rift would soon be closed and the party united 
 in Allison's support. 19 The cause of this rift was disclosed as a fight 
 between Radicals and Conservatives over the postmastership in Du- 
 buque. The incumbent in 1866 was Colonel E. C. David, a man of 
 good war record but now the leading Johnson Republican in the area. 
 David, who had been removed in favor of Captain V. J. Williams, 
 presumably at Allison's request, had made a trip to Washington just 
 before the West Union convention and had secured reappointment 
 on a promise to support the administration. 20 To some the reappoint- 
 ment made it appear that Allison could not control the machinery of 
 the party in his district, but his renomination disproved this. 
 
 In September, Colonel David emphasized his conversion to Con- 
 servatism by attending the convention of Johnsonites held at West 
 Union. The meeting, held under the name of the "National Union 
 Party," was described by the Democratic Dubuque Herald as a "Demo- 
 cratic Mass Convention." Colonel L. L. Ainsworth of West Union, 
 a man of excellent war record, presided, and David was the chairman 
 of the resolutions committee. The group chose Reuben Noble of 
 McGregor, a man of heretofore impeccable Republican standing, as 
 their nominee to oppose Allison. On September 1 3 the Democrats met 
 at Independence and accepted the same nominee, thus enabling the 
 Johnson men to draw votes from the Democrats as well as from their 
 own wing of the Republican party. 21 
 
 As the campaign moved on, Allison, needing a sure medium for the 
 defense of his record, now under heavy attack from the Herald, bought 
 an interest in the Dubuque Times, the party organ of his city; but 
 he had to share ownership with his rivals in the party, D. N. Cooley, 
 
POLITICS, LEGISLATION, AND BUSINESS 83 
 
 now a mild Johnsonite, and Julius K. Graves." The Herald's charges 
 against Allison were many. When he entered Congress he had but a 
 "small competence," according to the Herald, but "now he pitches his 
 yearly income well into the thousands." This was a charge that would 
 be repeated against Allison for the rest of his public life. Allison's 
 principal activity, continued the Herald, was the handling of patron- 
 age, a patently false statement in view of the work Allison had been 
 doing in legislative matters during the last session of Congress." ; 
 
 The Dubuque Times ignored most of the charges against Allison, but 
 now and then consented to issue categorical denials. Its columns were 
 devoted more to attacks on President Johnson and to glowing accounts 
 of Allison's campaign speeches throughout the district. After some 
 prodding, according to the Times, Noble had agreed to engage in a 
 series of joint debates with Allison, a series in which Allison, as re- 
 ported by his own newspaper, came off the winner each time. 24 In 
 short, Allison was up to his ears in a political fight of the hardest sort. 
 
 Allison's was not a lone struggle, however, for all the districts in 
 Iowa had shown intense factionalism before ever the fighting against 
 the Democrats could begin. But in Allison's case the fight was be- 
 tween Conservative and Radical, whereas in most of the other districts 
 it was a raw struggle for power between the Harlanites and "Dodge & 
 Co.," neither camp being able to complain of the other's Radicalism. 
 
 Four of the six members of the Iowa congressional delegation were 
 considered sufficiently Radical to be acceptable to Dodge & Co. — 
 James F. Wilson, Hiram Price, Allison, and Asahel W. Hubbard. 
 Only John A. Kasson, for all his amenability to Dodge, was con- 
 sidered insufficiently Radical, and yet no less an opponent than Dodge 
 himself was required to deprive him of renomination. 25 
 
 The other Congressman who was denied a renomination was Josiah 
 B. Grinnell of the Fourth District. Whatever the reason or reasons, 
 it was definitely not the refusal of Grinnell to fight back when caned 
 by a Kentucky Congressman, General Lovell H. Rousseau, in Wash- 
 ington,'^ because the attack did not take place until several days after 
 the district nominating convention had rejected Grinnell and nomi- 
 nated Judge William Loughridge of Oskaloosa. Loughridge's speech 
 of acceptance emphasized his own intense Radicalism and his readi- 
 ness to resign whenever anyone found fault with his policies, 27 a hint 
 that perhaps Grinnell's Radicalism had not been strong enough to 
 suit his constituents. 
 
84 William Boyd Allison 
 
 All six of the Iowa Radicals were returned victoriously. Allison 
 lost Dubuque County as usual, although the city of Dubuque itself 
 "went Republican at last" by the slim margin of 32 out of a total of 
 2,500 votes, a cause for banner headlines in the October 12 issue of the 
 Dubuque Times. Even with the loss of his home county, Allison won 
 the race against Reuben Noble by virtue of his ample margins in the 
 other counties of his district. In the country at large the Radicals 
 won a resounding victory over President Johnson. The nation could 
 now look forward to a furious effort to defeat the entire program of 
 that luckless individual. 
 
 In the short session closing out the Thirty-ninth Congress (De- 
 cember 3, 1866, to March 3, 1867), Allison made an important state- 
 ment of his own personal beliefs. It is a good example of the Radical 
 Republican views for which he was by that time well known. 28 The 
 subject was the government of the "insurrectionary states." Thaddeus 
 Stevens, probably the most implacable Radical in the House, was a 
 firm believer in the policy of treating the defeated Southern states as 
 "conquered provinces." Johnson, by contrast, had adopted the states- 
 manlike Lincolnian policy favoring a quick restoration of the Southern 
 states to the Union. 
 
 Allison, in his speech on February 12, 1867, endorsed the Radical 
 belief in the power of Congress to legislate for the seceded states. The 
 President's plan, said Allison, had been defeated by the people at the 
 polls. He disagreed with Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts who 
 said that for two and one-half years Congress could not "restore these 
 States upon a loyal basis against the will of the President." This could 
 be done, said Allison, by "treating as utterly void the governments 
 organized by the President in those States." Congress had done this 
 with respect to the "existing pretended government of Louisiana," he 
 continued. "I so voted to-day and shall continue so to vote as often as 
 opportunity is presented." New governments should now be organized 
 "without distinction of race or color," said Allison, voicing another 
 of the strong tenets of Radicalism. 
 
 I want no property qualification, no qualification of intelligence in the enjoy- 
 ment of the elective franchise. Let intelligence follow, as it surely will, the 
 enjoyment of this great privilege of voting for those who shall govern. . . . 
 I have no fear but that now there can be found intelligence among the blacks 
 to prudently and properly exercise the franchise. 
 
 I believe the hope of restoration of republican governments in those States 
 
POLITICS, LEGISLATION, AND BUSINESS 85 
 
 rests in the masses of the people, the uneducated, the poor, and now powerless 
 masses. Certainly not in the aristocratic few, who, though vanquished by our 
 arms, are still wedded to the idea that the strong should govern the weak at 
 their own pleasure and will without the consent of the governed. Therefore I 
 believe to stop short of manhood suffrage in our legislation is to trifle with 
 the great subject, and render us ridiculous in the eyes of all those who respect 
 popular government based on the will and judgment of the people. 29 
 
 This speech helped further to establish Allison's position as one of the 
 Radical elite. 
 
 Allison took no other notable part in the debate on the bill, which 
 became the famous Reconstruction Act of March, 1867, except that he 
 joined his Iowa colleagues Price, Wilson, and Grinnell in voting for it. 
 Hubbard and Kasson did not vote. On the successful motion to over- 
 ride the President's veto of the bill, all the Iowans voted yea except 
 A. W. Hubbard, who again did not vote. 30 
 
 A measure giving Allison another chance to show his Radical at- 
 titude was a proposal by George W. Julian of Indiana to extend the 
 homesteading plan to certain Southern states. Kasson severely at- 
 tacked Julian's plan and proposed instead to let "disloyal" men have 
 access to the lands only if "loyal" men did not apply. Julian opposed 
 the idea and was upheld, 97 to 30, Allison voting with the majority 
 along with Hiram Price. The other four Iowans did not vote on this 
 issue. 31 
 
 On the tariff question, however, Allison deserted many of his Radi- 
 cal colleagues. A measure increasing tariff rates, sponsored by Justin 
 S. Morrill, passed the House; in the Senate certain reductions were 
 made at the suggestion of an independent tariff expert, David Ames 
 Wells, then Special Commissioner of the Revenue. The Senate version 
 was returned to the House and subjected to a lively debate, but was 
 rejected through the technicality of failure to receive the two-thirds 
 majority vote necessary for the suspension of the rules to bring it up 
 for a formal vote. Allison was a leading critic of the bill even in its 
 Wellsian version and voted against suspension of the rules on the 
 ground that only a short time remained in the session and passage of 
 the bill would give too much power to the inevitable joint conference 
 committee; no harm would be done by letting it go over to the next 
 session, reasoned Allison. A leading modern authority on tariff history 
 has asserted that failure to pass the Wells amendments in this bill of 
 1867 was most unfortunate for the cause of future tariff reform. Thus 
 
S6 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Allison, an anti-protectionist at this time, helped to defeat his own 
 cause. In response to a reproof from Edward Atkinson, Allison made 
 the reply that probably characterized his congressional voting policy 
 for many years: "I always like to vote, if I can, so as to not be called 
 upon to explain too much at home." 32 
 
 In March, 1867, Allison entered the long session of the Fortieth 
 Congress which had been arranged by the Radicals, instead of the 
 normal December meeting, so as to keep guard over President Johnson. 
 General Dodge, Kasson's successor in the House, wrote to Mrs. Dodge: 
 "Mr. Allison, Mr. Wilson and myself have been looking for a home to 
 live in next winter and we think we have found a place that will suit 
 us at Wormleys, the finest place for eating in the city, where we can 
 get our meals as we like and have a house to ourselves." 33 But when 
 winter arrived something happened to these plans, and Allison did 
 not join the others. It is most likely that he continued as a member of 
 the Grimes household. 34 
 
 These associations with Grimes, Dodge, and Wilson are of the ut- 
 most importance in an understanding of the development of Allison's 
 career and of his position of influence. Dodge made it plain that 
 Wilson was his first lieutenant and Allison his second, but it would 
 not be long before Allison replaced Wilson in the triumvirate. And 
 eventually, he would himself succeed to Dodge's position of "boss" 
 of Iowa politics. In these years Dodge, as a friend of General John A. 
 Rawlins, Grant's old chief of staff and closest friend, was close to 
 the seat of forthcoming power. Grant wanted Dodge and Wilson to 
 look after his interests in the convention of 1868. 35 
 
 Allison steadily took a good part in the work of the Fortieth Con- 
 gress. When in February of 1868 the Radicals in the House at last 
 succeeded in voting impeachment of the President, Allison and the 
 rest of the Iowa delegation favored the measure, and James F. Wilson 
 was appointed one of the seven House managers of the impeachment 
 trial before the Senate. The long trial was the sensation of the day. 
 When rumors spread that a few Republicans, heretofore classified as 
 Radicals, might vote against the impeachment, and when these rumors 
 carried the name of James W. Grimes, the Iowans in Washington and 
 at home were shocked, since the trial was frankly considered a politi- 
 cal and not a judicial proceeding. On May 1 1 Grimes confirmed these 
 rumors when he spoke in the Senate, announcing his belief that Johnson 
 was not guilty of an "impeachable offense." Two days later Iowa's 
 
POLITICS, LEGISLATION, AND BUSINESS 87 
 
 great Senator suffered a stroke of paralysis while in the Senate chamber. 
 Since the vote on impeachment was very close, many Radicals must 
 have breathed a sigh of relief. However, when the crucial vote came on 
 May 16, an enfeebled Grimes appeared to cast his vote against im- 
 peachment. 36 
 
 As a staunch Radical, Allison must have been pained by Grimes's 
 vote; as a virtual member of the Grimes household, he must have found 
 it embarrassing and difficult to know what to do or say. The only 
 known evidence is a statement from Dodge that all the Iowa dele- 
 gation except Wilson and himself were "down on" Grimes. 37 Most 
 Iowa Republicans joined in the fierce Radical denunciation of their 
 once idolized leader, and it would have been political suicide for Allison 
 to attempt a defense of him at that time. It may be assumed that he 
 discreetly said as little as possible either way and simply waited for the 
 storm to blow over, a none too manly course of action in view of his 
 obligations to the senior Senator. 
 
 After the failure of the Johnson impeachment, Congress con- 
 tinued in session until July 27. Meanwhile, even while the impeach- 
 ment trial proceeded, the Republicans had met at Chicago and nomi- 
 nated the Radical's choice, U. S. Grant, for their presidential candidate. 
 On July 4 the Democrats met at New York and named Horatio 
 Seymour as their choice in a contest that was a foregone conclusion 
 from the start. Of more interest to Allison even than the presidential 
 contest, however, was his own campaign for a fourth term in the 
 House. This time he had a close call, his difficulties coming from 
 several sources. 
 
 By his own admission, Allison was under fire from early in 1868 
 until the election because of his known connections with the Dubuque 
 & Sioux City Railroad, whose promotional program was much criti- 
 cized. 38 Furthermore, he was troubled by an anti-urban complex in 
 the hinterland counties which had a natural jealousy of Dubuque and 
 Dubuque County. According to them, Dubuque County had almost 
 all the offices, although it never gave the party a plurality. In ad- 
 dition, the charge was made against Allison that in 1866 he had 
 promised that that would be the last time he would ask for renomi- 
 nation. Nothing has been found in the way of concrete evidence to 
 uphold this charge, but it was made by one who was in good standing 
 in the party, J. H. Powers of Chickasaw County. 39 
 
 Allison faced opposition not only in the rural counties of his dis- 
 
88 William Boyd Allison 
 
 trict, but at home as well. The rebellion in Dubuque County was led 
 by the prominent and capable banker, Julius K. Graves, ably supported 
 by Dr. Lewis A. Thomas. Up to this time, and for years after this 
 rebellion was over, Graves was a most friendly and devoted follower 
 and business associate of Allison's, and Dr. Thomas had been a loyal 
 supporter in 1866. Just why they strayed off the reservation on this 
 occasion has not been revealed. Perhaps it could be set down just to 
 plain ambition. Two rival delegations were chosen in the county, 
 and both made their way to West Union for the district convention. 
 Among the twenty-one men in the Allison camp were Colonel David 
 B. Henderson, Oliver P. Shiras, Henry L. Stout, S. M. Langworthy 
 (a member of one of the oldest families in the city and holder of a 
 fortune made in lead mining), George Crane (Allison's law partner 
 and local business manager), and Captain V. J. Williams, Allison's 
 choice for postmaster over David in 1866, and others. In the Graves 
 camp there were General William Vandever and Shubael P. Adams, 
 both old rivals whom Allison had out-distanced; their opposition was 
 easily understandable. The others in the Graves group were prominent 
 in local affairs only. 40 
 
 The real contest was before the committee on credentials which 
 heard arguments from both the Allison and Graves delegates and chose 
 to seat the former. General Vandever then called off the fight in the 
 interest of party harmony, and the convention proceeded to nominate 
 Allison by a large margin over John E. Burke of Bremer County and 
 others. Allison went on to win easily in October against the "whisky- 
 ring and the devil," as he later expressed it. 41 His Democratic rival, 
 Williams Mills, received only 14,120 votes as compared to 20,119 for 
 Allison. Dr. L. A. Thomas received 149 votes; Graves, one solitary 
 ballot. 
 
 Allison's victory was a part of the larger party triumph in which 
 Grant defeated Seymour. Through his friend and supporter, General 
 Dodge, Allison now had a contact with the new President which 
 might prove to be helpful. Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, Grant's 
 political mentor, was one of Allison's good friends and could be 
 looked to for help if the occasion called for it. 42 
 
 After three terms in Congress, Allison would still have to be classed 
 as a "leg man" for others, but he was rapidly approaching the point 
 where he would also have to be called a man of power in his own 
 right. He was busy promoting and managing enterprises that were 
 
POLITICS, LEGISLATION, AND BUSINESS 89 
 
 partly his own, as well as looking after the interests of others. Among 
 his closest associates were Henry L. Stout, Piatt Smith, F. W. H. 
 Sheffield, R. A. Babbage, Rufus E. and Julius K. Graves, all bankers 
 and railroad promoters of Dubuque; Samuel Hooper of Boston; Oakes 
 Ames, a railroad Congressman; Morris K. Jesup, a heavy investor in 
 the roads that ultimately were merged into the Illinois Central Rail- 
 road from Dubuque to Sioux City; and John I. Blair of the North 
 Western. 43 Allison is said to have been offered the presidency of the 
 Illinois Central at one time, and on another occasion he was recom- 
 mended for the managership of the Jay Cooke interests in Washing- 
 ton. 44 In only one area was he at odds with the majority of his party: 
 he was definitely a moderate in his tariff views. In these years began 
 the friendship and intimate correspondence with such independent 
 thinkers as David A. Wells, Edward Atkinson, Horace White, and 
 Whitelaw Reid, economic and political liberals who attacked the 
 doctrines and ethics of the Radicals. Somehow Allison was able to win 
 and keep friends in both camps of Republicanism while maintaining 
 his own Radicalism beyond doubt. 
 
 In the short session of the Fortieth Congress, 1868-1869, Allison and 
 his colleagues, James F. Wilson and Judge Asahel W. Hubbard, came 
 dangerously near real trouble in their mixture of business and politics. 
 The charge was that the trio used their influence to secure a change in 
 the route of the Sioux City & Pacific Railroad. The original charter- 
 ing act had called for a continuation of the road into Nebraska in a 
 westerly direction from Sioux City, until it would intersect the Pacific 
 Railroad running west from Council Bluffs. By their activity, Allison 
 and Wilson (Hubbard seems to have been inactive) secured per- 
 mission to run the line south and southeasterly from Sioux City, on 
 the Iowa side of the Missouri River, until it intersected the John I. 
 Blair road at California Junction, just west of the town of Missouri 
 Valley. Thus, the Sioux City road would act as a feeder to the Blair 
 road instead of developing the country beyond Sioux City, as the 
 original route would have done if used, and the road would not follow 
 the most direct route to the point of intersection with the main line of 
 the Pacific, as the original law specified. 
 
 At first glance this may seem to have been an act of service to Iowa 
 as against Nebraska and therefore deserving of gratitude from Iowans. 
 But the key question was, why did Allison and Wilson work to secure 
 the change of route? Were they unselfishly serving Iowa or were 
 
90 William Boyd Allison 
 
 they serving someone else — for a price? Both men were stockholders 
 in the Blair road; had they been given the stock by John I. Blair in re- 
 turn for their services? Circumstantial evidence was certainly against 
 them, but they indignantly denied the charge, Allison going so far as to 
 name his assailant as Lewis A. Thomas of Dubuque, whom he con- 
 temptuously dismissed as the Independent Republican candidate 
 against him in 1868 who had received only 149 votes. 45 Blair was 
 quoted with great finality, as if he were an impartial witness, to the 
 effect that each man had regularly subscribed to stock purchases and 
 had paid the installments due. The famous contemporary journalist, 
 Gath, fulminated against Allison and Wilson, especially Wilson, whom 
 he called the "singed cat." 46 
 
 But it was too late. Allison had already been safely re-elected to 
 Congress for his fourth term, and Wilson had voluntarily made way 
 for a new candidate in his district. 
 
-»»f?ffr»»ff»»ff?»»rffffff?»»?f?»»fftt»ffff»fff»fff?ff?fffTfffftfffffffttf?ffff?fff^fftv??ffffff?fffffffff?ff?ffff?fttffffffffff??| 
 
 VII 
 
 A Time of Decision 
 
 By 1869 a new situation had arisen in Iowa politics. Senator Grimes 
 had gone to Europe in search of health. His vote against the con- 
 viction of Andrew Johnson had destroyed his position of leadership 
 in Iowa and had brought down upon his head attacks which reached 
 their climax in the epithet of "Judas." The paralytic stroke that had 
 sent him abroad for rest and convalescence made it almost certain that 
 he would not be a candidate in January, 1870, for the next senatorial 
 term beginning in 1871. If Grimes should send in his resignation be- 
 fore his term expired, this would mean that the lawmakers would 
 again have the task of choosing both for the unexpired and for the 
 regular term. Thus the short and long term contest of 1866 was 
 about to be repeated. Most likely two men would be selected, one for 
 each opening; the real contest would be for the regular or "long" 
 term. 
 
 Iowa politicians did not wait for definite word on Grimes's in- 
 tentions. That restless soul, Colonel Tichenor, was the first to raise the 
 question of the succession. In his most forthright style he sent to his 
 chief, General Dodge, a letter which was at once an invitation and a 
 challenge. 
 
 Is Jim [James F.] Wilson going to make a fight for Senator I see your name 
 mentioned in a number of papers. . . . Judge Wright [George Grover Wright 
 of Des Moines] is a very anxious candidate and as our [county] nominating 
 convention meets in a few days I want to know your wishes. We can control 
 the legislative nominations in this county if necessary but I don't care to 
 
 91 
 
92 William Boyd Allison 
 
 make a fight against Wright unless you or Jim Wilson are interested. I can 
 also do something in the matter of legislative nominations in Guthrie, Dallas, 
 Greene, Adair & several other counties but have no relish for the work unless 
 it be to serve you or Wilson. 1 
 
 Thus prodded by Tichenor, Dodge wrote two letters to Wilson. 2 
 From the wording of Wilson's reply, it is obvious that the powerful 
 Dodge had asked Wilson to run for the Senate and that Wilson had 
 declined. "I have a taste now of the independence of private life and 
 I don't think I will give it up soon," Wilson wrote. "I will not be a 
 candidate for the Senate. Can you get Tichenor to stick a few pins 
 for Allison I don't think we ought to send an inexperienced man to 
 succeed Grimes." 3 Allison might well have thought this letter the 
 most important ever written about himself. 
 
 In view of the tenor of the entire Dodge- Wilson-Allison-Tichenor 
 correspondence, it is easy to supply the line of reasoning running 
 through Wilson's mind. The term "inexperienced man" meant one 
 who knew nothing about putting through Congress the plans and 
 projects of Iowans and their friends; one who had no contacts with 
 the Chief Executive and the Departments and no facility at making 
 them; one who knew nothing about keeping a watchful eye on the 
 Supreme Court. 
 
 Wilson was the perfect man for such work and was the natural 
 choice for senatorial spokesman for Dodge & Co. He had had a dis- 
 tinguished career in the House since 1861, and he easily stood first 
 in the Iowa delegation, head and shoulders above all except John A. 
 Kasson. A brilliant lawyer, he had risen to the chairmanship of the 
 Judiciary Committee and had helped to draft the Thirteenth Amend- 
 ment. He had also helped to draw up the articles of impeachment of 
 President Johnson and had served on the House Board of Managers 
 during the trial. He had had much experience as a railroad promoter 
 and investor and was one of the government directors of the Union 
 Pacific Railroad; he was a bank president and a large buyer of se- 
 curities; he was an effective writer and a forceful stump speaker. All 
 in all, there was not an abler man in Iowa politics. 4 But he did not 
 want to be a Senator in IS 69. 
 
 Following the normal party practice and the constitutional rules 
 of the time, Senators were nominated by party caucuses and elected 
 by the General Assembly, each house voting separately. Both nomi- 
 nation and election usually took place early in the session of the As- 
 
A TIME OF DECISION 93 
 
 sembly; in the case of Iowa, this was in January. In a one-party state, 
 such as Iowa happened to be by an overwhelming margin, nomination 
 by the Republican party caucus was equivalent to election. Therefore, 
 the real contest was within the party, and this usually brought out 
 the worst aspects of factional fighting. In their zeal to win, men 
 would stop at nothing to do or say, regardless of the fact that such 
 words might later boomerang on the party if proved to be true or on 
 the maker of the statements if proved to be untrue. 
 
 The management of a senatorial contest was something akin to the 
 science of conducting a military campaign. There was a definite set 
 of procedures that must be followed in proper and delicately timed 
 sequence. First, each candidate must write letters feeling out the 
 prominent local leaders of his party. In such letters the prospective 
 candidate would not openly declare himself to be in the race but would 
 ask for an expression of attitude toward himself if later he should de- 
 cide to make the contest. One who received a satisfactory number of 
 favorable replies or who was not otherwise discouraged would finally 
 begin the active effort to have state legislators favorable to him elected 
 in October. The candidate and his manager would have to write hun- 
 dreds of personal letters in their efforts to get the right men chosen. 
 Key leaders had to be cultivated, from the precinct caucuses to the 
 county conventions that chose the party nominees for the legislative 
 positions. After the October elections a furious fight would follow 
 until the January session began, each candidate trying to win and 
 hold the votes of as many legislators as possible. What went on during 
 this period was usually known only to God and the men directly 
 approached. Outright bribes were no doubt rare, but there were many 
 forms of indirect assistance: business favors, loans on easy terms, 
 promises of patronage. Every member needed something. 
 
 An unfavorable feature of this business was that a powerful can- 
 didate for the Senate could fill the legislature with a large body of 
 unfit or disinterested members who had been chosen and assisted more 
 for their loyalty to their leader than for their qualities as lawmakers 
 for the state. On coming into the session, the senatorial election was 
 the first item of business; that disposed of, the legislators must stay 
 on for the remainder of their terms, performing duties for which they 
 might have neither fitness nor inclination. 
 
 In April, 1869, the popular Iowa correspondent, "Linkensale," 
 wrote that if the senatorial election were held then, the choice would 
 
94 William Boyd Allison 
 
 be made from four possibilities: Allison, Judge E. H. Williams of 
 Clayton County, George G. Wright, or James F. Wilson. 5 It seems to 
 have been taken for granted, even this early, that Grimes would not 
 run for another term, although his formal resignation did not come un- 
 til August. Jacob Rich, who was closer to the scene and to the men than 
 Linkensale, sized the situation up in a letter to Kirkwood, who was now 
 "unavailable" as a candidate because of his residence in the southern 
 part of the state, near Harlan's home. 
 
 I suppose [Governor Samuel] Merrill will be renominated without opposition. 
 The Senatorial fight will be the most exciting, and just how it will turn out 
 I do not pretend to be able to fathom. I shall be where I shall not be able to 
 take part in it. I think the North will be pretty well united for Allison, if 
 he should be in the field. Are you not playing into the hands of Mr. Harlan 
 and his friends and your enemies, in going for Wright? It looks a little that 
 way to me at this time. 6 
 
 Thus it seemed early in May to this acute observer. It is well to note 
 that Kirkwood was not backing Allison. Rich, speaking for the 
 Dodge-Kirkwood-Wilson-Allison wing of the party, clearly recog- 
 nized and indicated that the Harlan faction was the real enemy. About 
 the same time Tichenor pointed out to Dodge that John A. Kasson 
 was another enemy who must be undermined. 7 
 
 But the real worry for Tichenor was the fear that Dodge had not 
 picked the right man in accepting Allison upon Wilson's recommenda- 
 tion. That he had done this is ascertainable from Tichenor's letter a 
 fortnight after Wilson's boost of Allison as a man of experience to 
 succeed Grimes. Tichenor began to bombard Dodge with a series 
 of letters in this vein: 
 
 Wilson says he will not be a candidate for Senator. He must change his mind 
 or you must run. I feel sure either of you can be elected, but we had all 
 fixed on Wilson. I don't think it is in "the papers" to elect Allison and the 
 result I fear will be that Judge Wright or some other inexperienced and unfit 
 man will be selected. We can come nearer electing Palmer [Frank W. 
 Palmer], I think, than Allison although I can and will stick every pin I can 
 for Allison if you say so. 8 
 
 Tichenor's doubts and fears continued to mount rather than subside 
 as the weeks went by. On July 14 he wrote Dodge a long letter, warn- 
 ing him of John A. Kasson's candidacy. It was a masterpiece of de- 
 nunciation in which Kasson was virtually accused of being a Copper- 
 head. Tichenor was all for fighting Kasson to the death even if in the 
 
A TIME OF DECISION 95 
 
 process a Democrat slipped in as one of the Polk County representa- 
 tives — this would be better than a victory for Kasson as United 
 States Senator. Either through coincidence or through concerted 
 planning, Frank W. Palmer, now Representative for the Fifth Dis- 
 trict in Congress, reported to Dodge on the very same day that Kasson 
 was working hard, Judge Wright was overconfident, and Wilson 
 should run and save them all from a Kasson victory. 
 
 Tichenor continued to blow hot and blow cold. In one and the 
 same letter he expressed his desire to see Dodge succeed the late Sec- 
 retary of War Rawlins in President Grant's Cabinet, and thus help 
 Grant, and yet he added: "I am dissatisfied with the existing state of 
 affairs concerning the matter of U. S. Senator I tell you Wright is not 
 the man. Can't he be appointed to that U. S. Judgeship and you or 
 Wilson or some good man take the Senatorship?" 9 This from the man 
 who was supposed to be "sticking pins" for Allison, with the legisla- 
 tive elections just a few days away! 
 
 By contrast, Allison himself was confident, almost overconfident. 
 During the hubbub over the War Department vacancy, he wrote to 
 Dodge, offering to go to Washington in his behalf if Dodge desired it. 
 At the same time Allison reported that his canvass was going well. 
 Publicly, he managed to give an appearance of resignation to fate. A 
 friendly newspaper wrote that Allison would like the senatorship but 
 only if it came to him "naturally and spontaneously"; the office would 
 have to "seek the man rather than the man the office." 10 
 
 George Grover Wright, the leading contender, belonged to that 
 class of pioneers who might well be called the "aristocrats of the 
 frontier." He came from a prominent family in Indiana, where his 
 brother had been a leading citizen, a former United States Senator, and 
 a Minister to Prussia. After finishing his course of studies at Indiana 
 University with high honors, and a brief period as a lawyer in that 
 state, Wright came out to Iowa in 1840 and settled in the interior 
 town of Keosauqua, then the center of land sales and a "lawyer's 
 town." Here he made an enviable reputation at the bar, and by 1855 
 he had risen to be chief justice of the state supreme court. In the 
 fourteen years since, he had established himself as a jurist and made his 
 fame secure by the quality of his opinions. 11 Wright was well known 
 as a Harlan man, and Harlan was on excellent terms with the Grant 
 administration. So it is easy to see that General Dodge had challenged 
 a formidable man when he insisted on putting Allison into the race 
 
96 William Boyd Allison 
 
 against Wright. Further support came to the Judge when the rising 
 power among the editors of the state, young, able James S. ("Ret") 
 Clarkson, of the Des Moines Iowa State Register, threw his weight be- 
 hind him, with Governor Samuel Merrill as a possible compromise 
 candidate. 
 
 As the end of the year came on, Allison expressed conflicting senti- 
 ments to different people. Writing from Washington, where he was 
 on duty in the House of Representatives, he told Edward Atkinson 
 "I think it very doubtful whether I shall be able to make the Senator- 
 ship," but to Dodge he was confident of victory "if we work hard." 
 His hopes rested on the theory that Merrill would detach enough votes 
 from Wright to keep Wright from winning on the first ballot, and 
 that would defeat Wright in the end. Allison also expressed great 
 confidence in the power of Dodge and Wilson to control the matter. 12 
 
 The year and the campaign closed with a long letter to Dodge, in 
 which Allison reported to his field commander. The situation was 
 paradoxical in that Allison, who as the candidate should have been 
 commander-in-chief, was actually subordinate to Dodge. Allison 
 listed ten points on which he accepted Dodge's view or on which he 
 had executed Dodge's instructions. 13 It could hardly be said of Allison 
 that he was letting the office seek the man. 
 
 There is no point in making a great mystery of the victory of an 
 able and popular jurist, with excellent political connections, over a 
 Congressman with only an average record and with the question mark 
 of his railroad activities hanging over him. When the Republicans 
 gathered on January 1 3 in the House of Representatives in the capitol 
 building at Des Moines, Wright received 63 votes on the first ballot, 
 Allison 39, and Merrill 24. Sixty-four votes were needed to secure 
 the nomination. On the second try the votes were 66, 47, and 13 
 respectively, and Judge Wright was the victor. 14 
 
 Almost an anticlimax was the vote for the short term, although it 
 took three ballots to choose a candidate. The honor went to James B. 
 Howell, editor of the Keokuk Gate City. Eleven men had been named 
 for the post, with Howell and J. B. Grinnell leading. Grinnell had 
 made a good showing, but he did not have the strength to overcome 
 Howell. 15 
 
 In retrospect, the learned and politically informed editor-corres- 
 pondent of the Cedar Falls Gazette asserted that Allison had worked 
 hard and that the Third District had proposed to win at all costs. Al- 
 
 
A TIME OF DECISION 97 
 
 though he did not know whether this famous "Newell Letter" were 
 true or not, wrote the Cedar Falls editor, he did know positively that 
 Allison had used "every known means" to manipulate the Assembly. 
 The fight had been tremendous, and there were "wild and uproarious 
 performances when it was known that Judge Wright had won. . . . 
 Allison is a badly used up man, and will never recover from the 
 stunning blow." 16 In early January, State Senator Homer V. Newell 
 of Clayton County had written a letter that was published in the 
 Davenport Gazette and the Dubuque Herald, charging that Allison 
 had been supported by a subsidized press, the whisky ring, the railroad 
 lobbies, federal appointees, and others. 17 
 
 Only the actions of the anti-Allison wing of the Dubuque Re- 
 publicans require explanation. There is good reason to believe that 
 Allison's own fellow-Dubuquers contributed largely to his defeat. 
 This was the belief of Democratic editors in both Des Moines and 
 Dubuque, and they could better afford to tell the truth than the Re- 
 publican editors. The Dubuque delegation to Des Moines for the leg- 
 islative fight was far from unanimous in its preferences. Describing 
 Allison's contingent as the Radical element of the city's Republicans, 
 the hostile Herald wrote: "It is the Allison crew on the wing. They 
 are going down to lobby for Allison as Senator, and whew how the 
 whiskey will fly!" Among those listed were General M. M. Trumbull, 
 recently appointed as successor to Colonel David B. Henderson as 
 Collector of Internal Revenue; Willis Drummond, an inspector in 
 the Revenue office; V. J. Williams, the postmaster; Colonel Henderson, 
 now assistant United States district attorney; O. P. Shiras, Henderson's 
 senior partner; George Crane, Allison's law partner; F. W. H. Sheffield, 
 president of the Merchants National Bank of which Allison was a 
 director and in which Allison's nephew, James Emerson Allison, 
 worked as a bookkeeper; and John T. Hancock, vice-president of the 
 same bank and a prominent merchant. The list concludes with the 
 vague expression, "and many others." Almost as an afterthought the 
 article named three others as also going to Des Moines: D. N. Cooley, 
 S. P. Adams, and L. A. Thomas. These three might well have been 
 given more attention; perhaps it was only the art of the writer who 
 was thus casually drawing attention to the principal actors in the 
 drama, for these three men were the leaders of the anti-Allison faction 
 in Dubuque. The names of E. C. David and Julius K. Graves, the 
 
98 William Boyd Allison 
 
 latter temporarily estranged from the Allison wing of the party, were 
 also added to the list. 18 
 
 The Democratic Des Moines Statesman gave the full explanation of 
 the defeat. According to its reporter, Allison, a very confident man, 
 "moves among the Savery [Hotel] lobbyists with graceful mien, and 
 accepts the situation as his." But "last night," Cooley "came as 
 Banquo's ghost," accompanied by Graves. 
 
 Everybody knows Graves. He trotted out Allison for Congress years ago, 
 gave him money to buy the nomination, carried him on his shoulders into the 
 representative's hall, made Allison's political history. Railroad complications 
 [sic. combinations] made Allison rich and Graves tried to oust his protege 
 and go to Washington in his stead. Alack! Allison counted noses among 
 Graves' retainers and bought them up in a lump! So Graves is on the war 
 path. So is Cooley. 
 
 The reference was to Graves's defeat by Allison in the congressional 
 convention of 1868. There is no proof of the vote-buying charges, 
 but otherwise the story runs close to the known facts about the con- 
 vention. The Dubuque Herald editor added that Graves was now 
 "avenged for West Union" (the site of his 1868 defeat), and the 
 victory supper that Allison had ordered for three hundred was turned 
 into a wake. 19 
 
 Allison's bete noire in the case, however, was not Graves but Dr. 
 Lewis A. Thomas. He had been the chief accuser of Allison and 
 Wilson in 1868 for what he termed their services to John I. Blair. 
 This man wielded a barbed pen which was always well informed. A 
 long letter, anonymous but nonetheless preserved by Allison, written 
 by someone well placed in or around the legislature, later informed 
 Allison of the tremendous influence in the lobby enjoyed by Dr. 
 Thomas and the great effect of his letters to the Dubuque Times, 
 written under the pseudonym of "Jov." The anonymous writer at- 
 tributed Allison's defeat to the effectiveness of Thomas' letters and 
 his work around the legislature, saying that Allison had no idea how 
 bitter the feeling had been in some quarters. Anonymous though the 
 letter might be, it was clearly written by someone who had a vast 
 knowledge of the inside manipulation of the legislature. The con- 
 cluding point of the writer, and his asserted reason for writing the 
 letter, was a warning that if Allison wanted to win in 1872, he must 
 take steps to prevent this kind of opposition from originating again 
 right in his home town. 20 
 
A TIME OF DECISION 99 
 
 Dodge, Allison, and Wilson remained in Des Moines for a con- 
 ference in regard to the forthcoming senatorial election in 1872 in 
 which Harlan's seat would be at stake." 1 Their decision, if any were 
 made, was not announced. It is safe to assume, however, that the de- 
 feat of Harlan was the chief topic, but later developments in the story 
 prove that they made no irrevocable decisions at this conference. 
 
 In later years Dodge said that he had picked Allison and had run 
 him in 1870 in a trial heat in order to advertise him and build up al- 
 liances for the 1872 race against Harlan. For example, Dodge re- 
 corded with great satisfaction that both Judge Caleb Baldwin and 
 John T. Baldwin, Dodge's own business partner, were for Wright in 
 1870 but were surprised at Allison's good showing and promised to 
 support him in 1872." This is a facile explanation very likely derived 
 from Dodge's habit of always seeing things more clearly in retrospect 
 and more favorably to himself than at the time of the deed. In 1869- 
 1870 Dodge & Co. were out to win and failed. 
 
 The important fact to remember is that Dodge and his business as- 
 sociates wanted to oust James Harlan from the Senate and from the 
 No. 1 place in Iowa politics. The use of Allison was only incidental in 
 this struggle for control of the party. Dodge's vast business interests 
 and railroad engineering activities demanded too much time to allow 
 him to replace Harlan in person, as he had replaced Kasson in 1866. 
 James F. Wilson was well suited to his purposes but was not available. 
 Samuel J. Kirkwood was a possibility, but he lacked pliability and 
 geographical availability. Allison was both available and pliable; he 
 had "experience"; he was eager and willing. The only practical course 
 for Dodge was to take another chance on Allison and to hope that the 
 work already done for him would be helpful. 
 
 In the meantime Allison went about his own business as usual, quite 
 uncertain of his future. There were times when the prospects of a busi- 
 ness career looked brighter than those for a continuation in politics. He 
 was still a member of the House and had work to do for his con- 
 stituents and his special friends. Dodge, who had many projects that 
 had to be looked after, was using James F. Wilson as his personal agent 
 in Washington. Wilson in turn looked to Allison for help and advice 
 on the spot, inasmuch as Wilson had to divide his time between his 
 banking and law business in Fairfield and his duties as a government 
 director of the Union Pacific Railroad, which frequently took him on 
 trips to the West or to Boston, New York, and Washington. Frank 
 
100 William Boyd Allison 
 
 W. Palmer, the member in Congress from Dodge's home district, was 
 willing and eager to be helpful, but he did not have the flair for this 
 work that Allison had. 23 
 
 Dodge was primarily interested in three matters at this time: a 
 bill to reorganize the company which then had a bridge under con- 
 struction across the Missouri River between Council Bluffs and Omaha 
 for the use of the Union Pacific Railroad; a land grant bill; and a 
 reapportionment bill that would award three new Congressmen to 
 Iowa. Of these, the bridge bill was seemingly the most important to 
 him. At the same time, Dodge was having a fight with an element in- 
 side the Union Pacific crowd that was unfriendly to him; his friends 
 Palmer, Allison, and Wilson were cooperating with Congressman 
 Oakes Ames to improve that situation. 24 As if these manifold interests 
 were not enough, a move was on foot in Iowa to set up a Capitol Com- 
 mission to supervise the building of the proposed new capitol building. 
 Tichenor wanted Dodge and Wilson to get places on this commission 
 in order to use the leverage it would give them in state politics. In 
 one letter to Dodge, Tichenor blithely reported, "we can hold about 
 20 votes for or against the bill as we please," and in another, "Let me 
 tell you — we are forming a most powerful Allison-Dodge-Wilson 
 organization. We can sweep the state clean." 25 
 
 In the midst of all this, Allison had to think of his own immediate 
 political future. He had four choices, one a fairly sure thing and three 
 definitely involving a risk. He could run for re-election from the 
 Third District and be pretty certain of victory, although he might 
 court a fight with those who had so nearly embarrassed him in 1868. 
 He might wait and see whether Iowa received the three proposed new 
 Congressmen-at-large seats, and run for one of them. Thirdly, he 
 might drop out of the House and take the big gamble on election as 
 Senator over Harlan in 1872. And fourthly, he could follow a business 
 career by making himself useful to General Dodge, to the Illinois 
 Central people, and to his Dubuque friend, Henry L. Stout, and per- 
 haps to a widening clientele as the years went by. 
 
 First, true to the office-hunter's technique, Allison sent out letters 
 of inquiry to sound out the feeling about his seat in Congress, ap- 
 parently writing as one who would not run again. Only two letters 
 of response have been found; undoubtedly there were others. An 
 editor in Waukon was rather noncommittal — "As to your successoi 
 — I had not contemplated any such event, and don't like to now. But 
 
A TIME OF DECISION 101 
 
 if it be so, can't as yet say whom to choose." The editor-postmaster at 
 Cresco was more explicit. "While you say you are not a candidate 
 for re-election I infer that you would accept if nomination was 
 tendered you." He expressed both the hope that Allison would run 
 again and confidence that if he did he would win. 26 From these letters 
 it is a fair inference that Allison was keeping a watchful eye on the 
 succession to his place as a member from the Third District. After 
 four successive terms one may be pardoned for a certain air of pos- 
 sessiveness. It was only natural that he should want to keep this place 
 as an ace in the hole, pending the decisions about other possibilities. 
 
 The ever watchful Tichenor reported to Dodge on June 20 that he 
 was planting articles in the papers suggesting Dodge and Wilson for 
 Congressmen-at-large and either Allison or Hiram Price if a third 
 place should become available. 27 A more positive suggestion came to 
 Allison from Dodge's friend, Judge Caleb Baldwin of Council Bluffs. 
 
 It is now generally understood that Iowa will have three additional con- 
 gressmen to elect in the state at large, and of course, that is bringing out a 
 good many men that are anxious to go to Washington. ... I also understand 
 you will be a candidate. If so, I wish to assure you of my wishes for your 
 success (and my support). I know that I can bring General Dodge's friends 
 to your aid, and that you can also aid the General. Your respective locations 
 and the positions you occupy, as former members, will by mutual work 
 secure beyond a doubt your nomination and election. If you favor the Gen- 
 erals nomination, you need not hesitate one moment on account of any doubt 
 as to his acceptance, as he will not decline, unless by being a candidate he 
 should cross the path of such a strong personal friend as yourself. 
 
 I will be glad to hear from you, and while I done [sic] all that I could 
 to secure Judge Wright's election last winter, allow me to assure you that 
 it was not because I did not esteem you highly, but because of my friendship 
 for the judge. 28 
 
 As it happended, the "at-large" vacancies never occurred, for the 
 additional seats were not added until April 17, 1872, and then on the 
 basis of a redistricting of the state. 29 Meanwhile, in 1870 Allison's 
 place as Third District Representative went to William G. Donnan 
 of Independence, Buchanan County, but only after the convention 
 had fought through 107 ballots.''' Donnan was supported by Allison's 
 friend and Grimes's protege, Jacob Rich, who had once published a 
 paper in Independence and was now editor of the Dubuque Times; 
 it was probably Rich's influence that finally swung the victory to 
 Donnan. 
 
102 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Thus, two of Allison's choices had been removed. There remained 
 the possibility of succeeding to Harlan's Senate seat in 1872. Dodge's 
 official biographer has cited the Council Bluffs "bridge imbroglio" of 
 1870-1871 in explanation of the Dodge-Harlan enmity that played 
 so great a part in Allison's future. The biographer explains that Dodge 
 urged and warned the Union Pacific people to remember that their 
 eastern terminus was on the east or Council Bluffs side of the river, 
 whereas the company was emphasizing its Omaha terminal. The 
 Council Bluffs people, he avers, played into the hands of ex-Governor 
 Alvin Saunders of Nebraska, blindly taking the Omaha side and de- 
 nouncing Dodge in a mass meeting just three blocks from his own 
 home. Afterwards they wired to Senator Harlan for help which he 
 gave, and which provoked Dodge to favor Allison in the Senate con- 
 test, thus helping to give "Senator Allison to the nation." 31 
 
 Unfortunately, all this is rather loosely dated in the biography. 
 Some offsetting facts are these: Allison was chosen, as we have seen, 
 as the Dodge candidate in lieu of Wilson early in 1869. This was well 
 before any bridge controversy had arisen. Then came the defeat in 
 1870. While not a certain candidate for 1872, Allison was always the 
 logical choice as the one to continue the race in an effort to get a 
 "Dodge Senator" into the Senate. But more important is the fact that 
 Harlan actually did not oppose Dodge in the quarrel as far as it can 
 be traced in the printed debates in the Congressional Globe. The fight 
 had been begun for Dodge by the Representative from his district, 
 Frank W. Palmer, when he introduced a bill on February 14, 1870, to 
 authorize a bridge over the Missouri between Omaha and Council 
 Bluffs. A few days later Palmer explained that a previous bridge com- 
 pany had been authorized and work had been started, but that they 
 had discovered that Union Pacific mortgages stood in the way. His 
 bill was for a reorganized company that could resume work free of 
 all financial and legal barriers. This was what Dodge and all Council 
 Bluffs promoters wanted, but Omaha interests opposed. Senator 
 Harlan aided the cause mightily by seeing the Palmer bill through the 
 Senate over the opposition of Senators John M. Thayer of Nebraska 
 and Samuel C. Pomeroy of Kansas. The bill received the presidential 
 signature on February 24, 1871. 32 Harlan had made it plain that he 
 was representing Iowa interests against all others in his support of the 
 bill. He was not so politically blind as to work against his own state 
 and against a political boss of Dodge's standing in that state. Thus 
 
A TIME OF DECISION 103 
 
 it can be seen that there was no conflict between Harlan and Dodge 
 over this particular bridge. Such an explanation, even if true, would 
 not account of itself for the Dodge efforts to defeat Harlan. 
 
 The contest in 1872 was in the future, however. In 1870 Allison's 
 career in the House was closing rather uneventfully. His reputation 
 as a tariff moderate had been made. Although inclined toward com- 
 promise, as illustrated in the making of a book tariff rate that pleased 
 the eminent Philadelphia publisher and historian, Henry C. Lea, 33 
 Allison was not always a compromiser. In making up the Tariff Act 
 of 1870, he reminded the defenders of protection that many of the 
 wartime tariffs were meant to be only temporary measures. "But I 
 may be asked how this reduction shall be made. I think it should be 
 made upon all leading articles, or nearly all. ... I shall move that the 
 pending bill be recommitted to the Committee on Ways and Means 
 with instructions to report a reduction upon existing rates of duty 
 equivalent to twenty per cent." His efforts against this bill later 
 brought praise from a leading authority on tariff history. 34 
 
 Perhaps the most striking thing about Allison in these years is the 
 seeming contradiction in his friendships, both personal and political. 
 Along with James F. Wilson and Dodge, he was up to his ears in 
 railroad politics and railroad promotion, sometimes a shady business, 
 nearly always a "high-pressure" type of promotion. His Dubuque 
 friends relied on him implicitly as the man to take hold of a new rail- 
 road company, the Iowa Pacific, and get it under way. 35 Morris K. 
 Jesup, the great New York financier, with heavy investments in 
 Iowa railroads, wrote to him in a peremptory manner. In one cryptic 
 letter he urged Allison to visit John Crerar, the Chicago capitalist, and 
 John M. Douglas, president of the Illinois Central Railroad; in another 
 he virtually ordered Allison to "take up the business without delay" 
 of arranging for the "St. Paul Extension from Dubuque to Minnesota, 
 a matter of such importance as to demand your personal immediate 
 attention." Another road, from Cedar Rapids to Ottumwa, would 
 not "require your personal care," he added. 36 
 
 At the same time, Allison was on the most cordial terms with the 
 liberals, Edward Atkinson and David A. Wells, and with such a 
 Puritan in politics as Horace White, editor of the Chicago Tribune^ 
 a tariff reformer, monetary expert, and soon to be a leader of the 
 Liberal Republicans. 37 
 
 Was Allison running with both the hare and the hounds? Was he 
 
104 William Boyd Allison 
 
 being all things to all men? Not at all. A considered answer is that 
 he seemed to have a positive talent for securing and maintaining friend- 
 ships with men of all types; Radicals and Conservatives, realists from 
 the world of business and theoreticians from the world of ideas. Yet 
 his versatility of talent and his social amiability presented him with a 
 problem. The time for a great and final decision was at hand. His 
 loss to Judge Wright had closed one door just when it seemed that 
 elevation to the Senate would be easy; the delay in creating additional 
 congressional districts for Iowa had precluded the hope for an im- 
 mediate place as a Congressman-at-large; the decision to let the Third 
 District seat go to someone else was now beyond recall. This left only 
 two clear possibilities: the pursuit of a business career or the gamble 
 of a political campaign against the redoubtable senior Senator from 
 Iowa, James Harlan. 
 
itttiitfttiit»iit«iiitiiti»itifWt|tmit"!|itiftt«t|fnt|i»»f|!nfttMt|tnt|i»ii|iii»|i(!i|»iH|mt|tntffnt|i»HiiiH|»nt| 
 
 * \/ 4 
 
 VIII 
 
 The Mantle of Grimes 
 
 Perhaps the day would come when Allison would wonder why he 
 had ever had his doubts about making a second try for the Senate. 
 However that may have been, his friends seem to have been more 
 active and more concerned than he was. Just before the close of the 
 year 1870 Allison heard from Jacob Rich, the guardian of his Dubuque 
 and Iowa interests, that he had seen William Larrabee, a state senator 
 from Clermont and a new star in the Iowa political firmament, who 
 had indicated his support. Rich confidently assured Allison that he 
 had widely planted two ideas: Allison's ability was equal to Harlan's; 
 Allison was the man north Iowa could unite upon. 1 
 
 Even the slightest and seemingly most remote matters had their 
 points of relationship to the senatorial question. O. P. Shiras, of the 
 law firm of Shiras, Henderson and Van Duzee, all strong Allisonians, 
 was eager to have the state divided into two federal court districts, 
 for not wholly unselfish reasons. He counted on Allison's support, 
 but out of consideration for Allison's interests he warned him not to 
 consent to an east-west division as desired by Pottawattamie County 
 (Council Bluffs) . "The charge would be made at once that the north 
 part of the state had been sold out and a trade made on the senatorial 
 question." 2 (It would be ten years before this court division could 
 be settled.) 
 
 Another instance involved Dodge's man Friday, Tichenor, who was 
 about to be ousted (through Senator-elect Wright's influence) as 
 postmaster at Des Moines. It automatically followed that Dodge & 
 
 105 
 
106 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Co. must not only get Tichenor a new berth somewhere, where he 
 could be helpful, but they must also have a hand in the new Des Moines 
 appointment so as to reap the benefit from the disposal of the favor. 
 The "programme" was to get Tichenor in as State Supervisor of Pen- 
 sions, a post of increasing political influence due to the power of the 
 G. A. R., 3 and to throw the Des Moines plum to some one of political 
 importance. Both aims were accomplished. Tichenor received the 
 coveted supervisorship, and the postmastership, by suggestion of 
 Dodge's friend, Frank Palmer, went to Ret Clarkson. 4 
 
 James Sullivan ("Ret") Clarkson was now the rising star in Iowa 
 journalism. Not yet thirty years old and of limited formal education, 
 he had in four years risen to a place of prominence on the staff of the 
 Des Moines Iowa State Register. His older brother, Richard, had come 
 with him from a Grundy County farm to Des Moines in 1866 as a 
 fellow- worker on the Register, and the two brothers and their father, 
 Coker Fifield Clarkson, himself once a prominent Indiana newspaper- 
 man at Brookville, had bought the paper in 1870. James S. soon came 
 to be known far and wide by his nickname, "Ret," a pen name origi- 
 nating in his custom of marking his copy with "Ret. Clarkson" (Re- 
 turn to Clarkson) so that all his editorials and articles, dashed off in a 
 wretched handwriting, would be returned to him for proofreading be- 
 fore he would allow them to go to final press. But Ret and Dick and 
 "Father" Clarkson, who later became famous for the agricultural 
 columns he conducted in the Register, had something more to offer 
 than catchy nicknames. They were men of positive views: staunch 
 Methodists, once virtual Abolitionists who had operated a station on 
 the Underground Railroad, they were now strong believers in Prohi- 
 bition, Protection, and the Republican party as the divinely appointed 
 agent of Progress. Their paper soon became the Bible of Radical 
 Republicanism in Iowa and much of the Middle West. Ret dominated 
 the editorial policy of the paper and therefore was the man who must 
 be won by Dodge & Co. 5 
 
 Another part of the program of Dodge & Co. was the selection of 
 suitable candidates for the state legislature and the right man to be 
 supported for Governor, one who, even if not pro-Allison, at least 
 would not be pro-Harlan. As might be expected, it was the ubiqui- 
 tous Tichenor, whom Dodge referred to as his "monitor," who made 
 the first suggestion to Dodge along this line. "We must fix upon our 
 men for Gov and Lieut Gov at once. Harlan is looking to these matters 
 
 
THE MANTLE OF GRIMES 107 
 
 already. . . . Allen [B. F. Allen, Des Moines banker and state senator] 
 will not be in the field indeed we cant spare him from the Senate. I 
 think you are the man. Baldwin would be my next choice. . . . Who 
 is your man for Lieut. Gov. That is important on account of Com- 
 mitteeships." 3 Dodge merely wrote a note on the back of Tichenor's 
 letter and sent it on to Allison: "Cale Baldwin dont want to run. 7 
 cant. Suppose we put forth C. C. Carpenter of 6th Dist. We have 
 no time to lose." Allison was not enthusiastic in his reply and neither 
 was Tichenor when consulted, but Carpenter made a tactful reply 
 when Dodge sounded him out on the senatorial question, and soon 
 Tichenor fell into line. 7 
 
 An important angle to the game of politics was the lining up of 
 friendly newspapers. Since the Republicans had risen to power in 
 Iowa they had managed to bring about an almost invariable association 
 between editorships and postmasterships. Certainly it would be a 
 rare Republican publisher-editor who at one time or another was 
 not a postmaster. If such a man could also be put into the legislature, 
 so much the better, especially at the time of a crucial senatorial elec- 
 tion. If a friendly editor of an important paper were not available, 
 then the paper must be bought, if possible, and put into loyal hands. 
 Such a transaction as this can be traced out in detail in the purchase 
 of the Glenwood Opinion by John Y. Stone, with assistance from 
 Dodge and Allison. At least $1,000 in cash was put up by Allison as his 
 part of the deal, perhaps more; whether it came out of his own pocket 
 or from friendly sources in the East will never be known. Overnight a 
 strong Harlan paper was converted into a strong Allison paper, and 
 Stone's vote in the legislative election was assured. 8 
 
 Allison was up against tremendous odds in his fight to unseat Sena- 
 tor Harlan. The veteran Senator from Mount Pleasant was not merely 
 a power in the state because of an army of supporters built up by 
 years of rich patronage disposals; he was a national figure and had a 
 position of recognized leadership in the Senate. Only recently he had 
 gone far to rescue the hapless Grant administration from embarrass- 
 ment over its Santo Domingo policy. The President, blindly following 
 the lead of his overly zealous but not overly scrupulous secretary, 
 General Orville E. Babcock, had submitted to the Senate a treaty pro- 
 viding for the annexation of Santo Domingo, agreeing to guarantee 
 that island in the meanwhile against foreign intervention. To this 
 end Grant had dispatched a naval squadron to protect the pliant Presi- 
 
108 William Boyd Allison 
 
 dent Baez. But the military minded President soon found that he 
 could not order or even maneuver Senators as he had armies. His 
 policy aroused a hornet's nest of opposition led by Senators Charles 
 Sumner and Carl Schurz. In a tremendous oratorical effort, Harlan 
 answered their criticism with one of the most extravagant claims 
 ever made for the power of the Chief Executive to determine day-to- 
 day foreign policy, independent of Congress. Naturally this endeared 
 him to the feckless President, and Harlan could expect the full support 
 of the Grant administration in his fight to save his seat. Allison warned 
 Dodge that Harlan had strengthened himself by his speech and that 
 Grant had finally extricated himself from his difficulties by a skill- 
 fully written message to Congress. "You ought to write him a con- 
 gratulatory letter," Allison suggested, probably relying on Dodge to 
 use his military friendship with Grant to limit the President's favors 
 to Harlan. 9 James F. Wilson, who was giving his wholehearted sup- 
 port to Allison's campaign, used strong language as he requested Dodge 
 to call on Grant "and make him pull out of our senatorial fight. Make 
 him give the Reps, of the several districts their rights in matters of 
 appointments in their districts." 10 
 
 In all the maneuvering for support or for actual votes, it is sur- 
 prising to find a letter from Harlan to Dodge, asking or at least hinting 
 for his help in the senatorial race. "I am frank to say I would feel 
 disappointed should you feel compelled to throw your influence in the 
 adverse scale. I would be gratified to hear from you." xl This letter 
 seems terribly naive or else a deliberate effort to play on Dodge's senti- 
 ments of gratitude for favors of the past. It was public knowledge that 
 Dodge had been Allison's principal backer in 1870; how could Harlan 
 expect him to desert Allison in 1872? One can only speculate whether 
 Dodge's answer was a frank statement of his pledge to Allison or a 
 meaningless evasion. 
 
 The preliminary fight in Iowa was for members of the legislature. 
 The individual voter must be convinced that if he wanted Allison (or 
 Harlan), the "proper time to understand that is previous to the Rep- 
 resentative and Senatorial contests," to quote advice given by Jacob 
 Rich in an earlier contest. 12 In this kind of dogfight, Allison had a 
 great advantage in the fact that George C. Tichenor was filling the 
 double role of chairman of the Republican state central committee 
 and director of the Allison campaign. Dodge's aide-de-camp was in- 
 defatigable in this kind of work; many others contributed their bits. 
 
THE MANTLE OF GRIMES 109 
 
 William Larrabee gave notable help; John H. Leavitt, the pioneer 
 Waterloo banker, won a state senate seat in order to vote for Allison. 
 Former Governor Kirkwood tried to do the same thing in Johnson 
 County but lost to the Democratic incumbent, S. H. Fairall. In the 
 October elections the Republicans walked off with their usual over- 
 whelming victory. The 1872 legislature would have 120 Republicans 
 in a total membership of 150. The successful candidate would have 
 to win a majority of those 120 Republicans. 
 
 The interval between the October election and the meeting of the 
 General Assembly in January might be called the "desperation period." 
 Dodge & Co. were the aggressors in this particular war; they took the 
 fight to Harlan with a ruthlessness that has seldom been equaled in 
 any political contest. The Harlanites were put on the defensive and 
 could only fight back by saying that their man was "not guilty" and 
 neither was Allison a spotless lamb. The nearest thing to a special 
 charge against Allison was the accusation that he and James F. Wilson 
 had made a deal with John I. Blair to change the route of the Sioux 
 City & Pacific Railroad. The Burlington Hawk-Eye rang the changes 
 on this theme day after day; the Sioux City Journal under George D. 
 Perkins, and Harlan's home newspaper, the Mount Pleasant Journal 
 under Frank Hatton, seconded with enthusiasm. The assertion, made 
 many years later, that involvement in railroad construction company 
 scandals hurt Allison does not hold up. His defeat in 1870 was not 
 due to this factor; the worst scandal, the Credit Mobilier affair, did 
 not break into the news until nine months after the election of 1872. 13 
 
 The charges against Allison were puny in comparison with those 
 hurled at Harlan. Harlan's long years in the Senate, plus his months 
 in the Department most notorious for corruption, the Interior, left 
 him in a vulnerable position. The charges involving his acts as a 
 Cabinet officer did far more damage than those arising from the 
 "Newman Letter." In the latter case John P. Newman, a prominent 
 Methodist minister of Washington, D. C, was supposedly Harlan's 
 tool in sending out a letter to Methodist ministers in Iowa, urging 
 them to use their influence in behalf of Harlan, probably the best- 
 known Methodist layman in the nation. 11 Harlan had been in office 
 so long that his sense of propriety may have been blunted. Matt 
 Parrott, one of the fairest editors in the state, thought that Harlan 
 admitted complicity in the letter while trying to explain away its 
 importance. It could easily be true that Harlan would not have 
 
110 William Boyd Allison 
 
 thought in advance that this kind of "pressure" would be objected 
 to; for years he had benefited from the friendly attitude of the mem- 
 bers of the largest church group in the state, a group that was hardly 
 distinguishable from the Republican party in its personnel and in 
 Civil War and Reconstruction psychology. 15 
 
 The influence of the Newman Letter was literally meteoric; it 
 flashed across the political skies and soon disappeared. Not so with 
 the charges of Harlan's misfeasance in office as Secretary of the In- 
 terior. For years the public prints had carried stories of Harlan's ap- 
 proval of a sale of Kansas lands belonging to the Cherokee Indians at 
 an illegal price to the Connecticut Land Company. This contract was 
 canceled by Harlan's successor, who then sold the lands to a railroad 
 combination headed by the Detroit lawyer-capitalist, James F. Joy. 16 
 Under the treaty which regulated the Indians, their lands were not to 
 be sold for less than a minimum of $1.25 an acre; also they were not 
 to be sold without the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, in 
 whose department all Indian affairs were located. Harlan, it was 
 charged, had approved a price of $1.00 per acre. The Commissioner 
 of Indian Affairs at the time was Allison's former partner, D. N. 
 Cooley; J. B. Grinnell, who was said to have acted as the agent of the 
 Connecticut Land Company in carrying out the transactions, was 
 another Iowan brought into the story. 
 
 The general newspaper account was turned into an expose by one 
 of the foremost journalists of the day, General Henry V. Boynton, 
 in a series of articles published in the Cincinnati Gazette in January, 
 1869; George Alfred Townsend added his strictures. 17 From time to 
 time Harlan and his friends wrote letters of denial and explanation 
 which appeared in friendly papers throughout Iowa, but no great con- 
 cern was shown by him and his friends until the end of the race with 
 Allison drew near. Then the Harlan forces frantically filled column 
 after column with defensive letters and articles: 18 Harlan had used 
 his discretion, so the accounts read, in accepting a bid of $1.00 per 
 acre after finding that $1.25 was a price that no one would pay; the 
 deal had only been approved by Harlan and was actually consummated 
 by his successor, Orville Hickman Browning of Illinois, who first re- 
 jected the contract and later approved a substitute. 
 
 The question of guilt or innocence, however important for Harlan's 
 place in history, is of no importance for the present study. The Allison 
 forces were not interested in truth: they were interested in votes. 
 
 
THE MANTLE OF GRIMES 111 
 
 Very likely they were able to persuade themselves for the moment 
 that their charges were true. Additional evidence for their case was 
 furnished by material supplied by a colorful character, Hawkins 
 Taylor, once a mayor of Keokuk and a member of the first territorial 
 legislature of Iowa, now a government worker in Washington who 
 made a business of running errands for his friends. He delved into 
 the records at Washington and with the assistance of John Allison, 
 the Register of the Treasury l9 (unrelated to William B. Allison) , dug 
 out a mass of items that seemed to support charges that had been 
 bandied about for years. These were that Harlan had enriched him- 
 self by collusion with Perry Fuller and with Elijah Sells, Sr., and his 
 son, Elijah, Jr., in fraudulent contracts for supplies for the Indians; 
 that he had used horses and carriages, furniture and stationery be- 
 longing to the Department of the Interior, that he had put his son 
 on the payroll even though the son was still in school. Taylor's letters 
 were not published verbatim, but their contents were whispered about 
 and shown to some of the members by W. G. Donnan of Independence, 
 Allison's successor in the House. 20 
 
 A serious blow to the Harlan cause was the open espousal of Allison 
 by the Des Moines Register. All through the year this paper had been 
 rather coy in its refusal to take a positive stand for any candidate, al- 
 though it had seemed to lean toward the Harlan candidacy; certainly 
 it had warmly defended Harlan against the charges in the Cherokee 
 Land cases. It had also shown favor toward General Dodge. On De- 
 cember 13, 1871, came the first editorial positively favoring Allison; 
 each day thereafter the paper became more violently anti-Harlan. 
 The defense of Harlan's Cherokee policy was completely reversed, and 
 the Hawkins Taylor material was used, although not credited to him. 
 What happened to bring about this switch? 
 
 In later years it was revealed that Father Clarkson and his sons had 
 split over this senatorial race, the former persevering in his favor of 
 Harlan, a fellow-Methodist who in his eyes could do no wrong, and the 
 sons veering toward Allison. Thereupon, the father had sold out to his 
 sons and relegated himself to a politically innocuous position as "agri- 
 cultural editor" of the paper, while Ret took over the editorial columns 
 and Dick the business management." 1 Harlan later privately charged 
 that Allison had furnished $5,000 to help Ret swing the deal; many 
 years later a venerable figure in Iowa history, Ora Williams, was 
 quoted to the effect that Ret had secured $30,000 through Jacob Rich 
 
112 William Boyd Allison 
 
 in order to buy his father's interest, a story subject to serious doubt. 22 
 Although there is no proof that Allison owned stock in the Register, 
 there is evidence that on one occasion he had the power to determine 
 the paper's policy. 23 
 
 As the race neared its end, the position of James F. Wilson became 
 somewhat enigmatical. By September he was an acknowledged 
 candidate and was receiving some support. Allison reported to 
 Kirkwood in November: "I expected to meet you at Des Moines. . . . 
 I met Wilson there and on the whole am satisfied with what he pro- 
 poses, viz., to do nothing for himself, by himself or friends. But let 
 the matter rest where it is in good faith." Allison added a powerful 
 plea to Kirkwood to come to Des Moines and act as the "Gen'l in 
 Chief of my forces. I will provide you with skillful subordinate officers 
 who will under your guidance conduct the battle. I will see that your 
 army is well equipped & supplied with all proper things to conduct a 
 campaign." 24 But only a few days later Jacob Rich, Allison's alter ego 
 in politics, wrote to Kirkwood: 
 
 
 I note what you say about the contest, and fully agree with you that w 
 must not have a general fight in the Senatorial contest. It must be made 
 straight between Allison and Harlan, and I have full faith that it will be. I 
 believe that it is so coming [sic] as to make that imperative. I feel sure that 
 Wilson is only a candidate to defeat Harlan, and will take his friends where 
 they ought to be, to Allison. We have already had positive evidence in one 
 case that he is already doing so. 25 
 
 Kirkwood was now in a position to appear aloof. In one letter he 
 adopted a casual attitude that must have been both baffling and ir- 
 ritating to Allison, but he ended by advising Allison to stay in the 
 race against both Harlan and Wilson or else Harlan would win. 26 
 
 The last few days of 1871 and the first few of 1872 were hectic be- 
 yond description. George Tichenor reported, "I fear my nervous sys- 
 tem is prostrated. Dont be alarmed however. If I find that I cant keep 
 up I will telegraph you and will go to bed and rest so as to be in fight- 
 ing trim when the members come. Dont be alarmed if I cease writing 
 you for a few days." Ret Clarkson, having started later, managed to 
 hold up until the election was over but then wrote: "The over-work 
 and excitement of the Senatorial fight have prostrated my nervous 
 system so badly that I must take a rest in order to avert rheuma- 
 tism." 27 
 
 There were 120 votes to be worked for in the party caucus, where 
 
 . 
 
THE MANTLE OF GRIMES 1 1 3 
 
 the real election would take place. The questionable methods used 
 were later described by one of the participants, George D. Perkins, 
 when, after three years of meditation, he remonstrated against the 
 tendency to pursue Harlan "with the ghosts of a past that Iowa Re- 
 publicans should be willing to put so far as may be out of sight — for 
 the Allison-Harlan campaign was one to be ashamed of." As a Des 
 Moines observer saw it, "the canvass here by the friends of the differ- 
 ent candidates was active, earnest, and upon the part of some, we are 
 sorry to say, vindictive and bitter." ~ 8 Harlan's biographer was never 
 more mistaken than when he wrote: "But it should be remembered that 
 the candidates took no part in the war of personalities which followed, 
 except to answer some of the most violent accusations, nor were they 
 responsible for the bitterness of the campaign conducted by their ad- 
 mirers." " J Each of the three candidates was on the ground directing 
 his forces and furnishing material for his followers to use in confer- 
 ences, letters, and newspapers. For several days the lobbies of the hotels 
 were full of milling partisans, Allison's outnumbering those of Harlan 
 and Wilson combined. 30 On the Sunday before the caucus on Wednes- 
 day, Governor-elect Carpenter and his wife attended the Fifth Street 
 Methodist Church. "The House was full of politicians & preachers 
 here from different parts of the State, in attendance at the Senatorial 
 fight." 31 
 
 The very last blow against Harlan seems to have been struck by 
 Al Swalm, currently editor of the Jefferson Bee. A special pre-election 
 issue of his paper appeared with all the charges repeated, summarized, 
 and emphasized, and the colorful Swalm, whose partial Indian blood 
 excused him for affecting an Indian-style hairdress, took copies to 
 Des Moines and personally distributed them among the legislators. 3 '" 
 
 The Republican caucus met at seven-thirty on the evening of Jan- 
 uary 10, 1872, in the chamber of the House of Representatives in the 
 State House. The excitement of the drama in the caucus room has 
 been portrayed by journalist-politicians who were on the scene. One 
 especially vivid account tells of the high-pressure lobbying that pre- 
 ceded the caucus, and the last-minute conferences between the prin- 
 cipals and their lieutenants just before the members filed into the House 
 chamber. On the first ballot, which was informal, the vote stood: 
 Allison, 60; Harlan, 38; and Wilson, 22 — one short of victory for 
 the candidate of Dodge & Co. The first formal ballot stood 59, 42, 
 and 20, respectively, a total of 121 votes, indicating that one man had 
 
114 William Boyd Allison 
 
 cast an extra ballot in order to invalidate this vote, whoever the winner 
 — a clever but desperate tactic. 
 
 On the second formal ballot the Allison vote reached 60 with one 
 more vote to be counted. Every eye was on the teller as he reached into 
 the hat for that precious slip of paper. If it were marked "Harlan" 
 or "Wilson" a third ballot would be necessary; if it were marked 
 "Allison" the prospect was lifelong power for him and oblivion for 
 Harlan. "Allison" it was, and suddenly all was pandemonium both 
 inside and outside the hall. Finally order was restored enough to allow 
 for some shifting of votes, and the count was announced as 63, 40, and 
 17. Harlan's manager, Dr. Charles Beardsley of Burlington, then 
 offered the customary motion that the nomination be made unani- 
 mous. 
 
 Kirkwood was waiting for the members to emerge. "He is wild and 
 goes rapidly from hand shaking to dancing, and finally I see him 
 catching frantic young men and pressing them to his voluptuous 
 vitals." Allison and his forces gathered at the Savery for a victory 
 celebration that went on far into the night, while Harlan returned to 
 his darkened room. "This ends my political life," he said to a friend, 
 with more truth than he knew. Later he manfully controlled himself 
 and called on Allison to deliver his congratulations in person. 33 
 
 Governor Carpenter's laconic comment well expressed the mood of 
 many: "Tonight the Senatorial caucus took place. Allison was nomi- 
 nated and the long agony was over." 3 * But for some others the occa- 
 sion could not be so briefly dismissed. For some who were able to take 
 the long view, this was the climax of a fight that had been going on 
 since the far-off days of 1865 when Harlan insisted on returning to 
 the Senate, capriciously so his opponents thought, thus blocking the 
 election of Kirkwood. Now the day of reckoning had arrived. Vic- 
 tory for Allison was not the one and only goal; revenge for Kirkwood 
 and power for Dodge & Co. were the real ends in view. Control of 
 the future of the Republican party in Iowa was the supreme prize at 
 stake in this election. 
 
 After the first frenzy of jubilation had spent itself at Des Moines, 
 the enthusiasm of Allison's supporters subsided into a proper modesty 
 in victory. In Dubuque a reception was held at the Lorimier House 
 with Christian Wullweber, leader of the German community and a 
 strong Allison supporter, as the principal speaker. Allison responded 
 with timely remarks followed by handshaking, feasting, and dancing. 
 
THE MANTLE OF GRIMES 115 
 
 No political party lines were drawn on this occasion. 35 The pro- 
 Allison newspapers did not gloat over their victory, nor did Allison 
 himself. The only comment of his own that has been found is in a 
 note to his friend James A. Garfield. "I thank you sincerely for your 
 congratulations. I had a severe contest and achieved a great victory. 
 I hope in a humble way to be of some service to my country in the 
 direction of lifting some burdens from the people, without laying on 
 others more grievous. I shall hope to see you before the Ides of 
 March." To Dodge he wrote in a quite different vein, dutifully 
 acknowledging his obligations and asking for an accounting so that he 
 might at once place the money to Dodge's credit. 37 
 
 President Grant's advisers were happy to acquire another friend in 
 the Senate. General Horace Porter, Grant's personal secretary, com- 
 mented pleasantly to Dodge about Allison: "He has always been one 
 of our intimate friends here and we shall get along swimmingly with 
 him. He is able and will make a valuable member of the Senate." 38 
 Knowing what we now know about the Grant administration, it is a 
 doubtful compliment to Allison to be counted as one of Grant's "in- 
 timate friends" with whom the administration would "get along 
 swimmingly." A "valuable member of the Senate" could mean more 
 than one thing to a Grant operator. 
 
 Although Harlan was publicly gracious and courageous in the 
 days following his defeat, privately he vented his disappointment with 
 considerable vigor. He wrote Azro B. F. Hildreth of the Charles City 
 Intelligencer: 
 
 I am grateful for your manifestation of friendship for me. The "Register" 
 was indebted to B. F. Allen $2 5,000.00 on purchase price of the establish- 
 ment. It was understood at Des Moines that Mr. Allison advanced $5,000.00 
 which had matured on the debt, at about the date of its first onslaught on 
 me. Perhaps this was a loan to be repaid out of the profits of public printing. 
 The management of the campaign, on their part, was, as I think, most dis- 
 reputable. The fruit thus gathered ought to turn to ashes! But we must 
 acquiesce and wait, and work, for a redemption, which will certainly come 
 sooner or later. 39 
 
 Harlan was perhaps nearer the truth than he realized, in view of 
 Allison's influence over the policy of the Des Moines Register. A few 
 days after Allison's election, Ret Clarkson's brother-partner Richard 
 was elected to the profitable post of state printer. Members of Dodge & 
 Co. regarded the fight as one for Ret's benefit as well as Allison's. 40 
 
116 William Boyd Allison 
 
 The Burlington Hawk-Eye could not be as gracious in defeat as 
 Harlan had been. It bitterly charged that "The man who has done 
 most for the Republicans of Iowa must give place to one who has done 
 nothing, and whose genius and purposes are not in accord with those 
 of a very large majority of the people, even if his abilities and character 
 were at all comparable with those of Mr. Harlan. . . . We do not pro- 
 pose, or desire to conceal our regret at what we deem a misfortune to 
 the republicans of Iowa. We are not only dissatisfied but disgusted." A 
 few days later this paper's correspondent at Des Moines, "X. Y. Z.," 
 sent in his postmortem report. He attributed the defeat of Harlan to 
 the railroads and to the use of money; not that votes were actually 
 bought for cash but by "loans, promises of future assistance, or chances 
 in profitable undertakings." The charges against Harlan were not the 
 reason for his defeat but merely good excuses, he claimed. This writer 
 praised the bearing and conduct of both Allison and Harlan, but ob- 
 served that Wilson was a bad loser. 41 
 
 George D. Perkins of the Sioux City Journal was equally bitter. 
 He accused Allison flatly of having used cash and promises of office 
 in order to win. He asserted that Allison could not win in a fair con- 
 test or in an election "left to the people." 42 The methods used would 
 encourage "pothouse politicians" of the future. Perkins raised a more 
 serious point by asking, "Shall the odium rest upon the party?" In 
 an editorial on this subject he said it was up to the Dubuque Times and 
 the Des Moines Register to carry on and either reform the party or 
 else admit that all the charges of corruption made against the Harlan 
 wing had been claptrap. 43 And John P. Irish, a fiery Democrat, tried 
 to force the Republicans' hand by introducing a resolution into the 
 General Assembly, calling for an investigation by the Senate of the 
 United States of the charges against Harlan, with impeachment to 
 follow if found true. The resolution was quickly tabled on motion of 
 John A. Kasson, now a member of the Iowa House. 44 Only the future 
 would tell whether the Allisonians, in a spirit of liberal reform, would 
 purge the party of the corruption charged to the Harlanites. 
 
 In addition to the forty legislators who had shown their faith in 
 Harlan by voting for him, there were others in Iowa who looked with 
 distaste on the tactics used. Although not taking an active part in the 
 contest, Governor Cyrus C. Carpenter, the choice of Dodge & Co., 
 wrote in his diary: "I have no belief in the stories told about Mr. 
 Harlan. If he was guilty of anything wrong it arose from his good 
 
 
THE MANTLE OF GRIMES 117 
 
 heartedness and dislike to shake off shysters who hung around him." 45 
 Nationally, Allison's moderate views on the tariff led some liberals 
 to favor his election. James McDill wrote to his friend, Lyman 
 Trumbull, a Senator from Illinois, that the Liberal Republicans of 
 Iowa were "rejoicing just now over the defeat of Harlan and the 
 election of Allison. If I have not misread your record you too will be 
 pleased at the result. Allison is not a protectionist." u ' The Nation 
 spoke out in all its righteous pleasure, now that Harlan had been de- 
 feated, rehearsing at length all the charges against him and asserting 
 that "Civil-service reform, tariff reform, and all other reforms will 
 gain by the election of Mr. Allison ... in place of Mr. Harlan." iT 
 
 Sixteen years later both Allison and Dodge reflected on the circum- 
 stances of this campaign and gave their remembered versions of how 
 the election had been brought off. These are interesting examples of 
 the softening effects of time and preoccupation with other business. 
 Allison recalled meeting Grenville M. Dodge on the fateful trip to 
 Washington in 1861, Dodge's successful army career, his entrance into 
 politics, and his connection with the Union Pacific Railway. As for 
 Dodge's part in the senatorial election of 1872, Allison could recall 
 only the great energy with which Dodge had taken hold of the Des 
 Moines electioneering. As to Dodge's motivation, "I think Dodge went 
 for me quite largely because we were personal friends." 4S Dodge's 
 account is valuable largely because of his attempted explanation of 
 his pro-Allison, anti-Harlan position. He stressed Harlan's loss of 
 contact with Iowa people and their needs, due to long absence from 
 the state, whereas Allison was strong on this very point. Dodge made 
 contradictory statements as to Harlan's policy toward Nebraska. All 
 in all, his statement does not impress one as being forthright. 49 
 
 One might ask what was the sequel of the election for James F. 
 Wilson, whose original refusal to run in 1869 made him the sacrificial 
 victim in this contest. Perhaps it was all a meaningless gesture, but the 
 Chicago Tribune, edited by Horace White, bosom friend of both 
 Dodge and Allison, now began a campaign to draw attention to 
 Wilson as a potential presidential candidate. '" Surely this could not 
 have been anything more than a sop thrown to Wilson to assuage his 
 feelings. A few days later Tichenor had reduced this campaign on 
 Wilson's behalf to an effort for the second place on the ticket. H. M. 
 Hoxie, now railroading for Dodge in Texas, assured Dodge that he 
 would get the Texas state convention and the newspapers down there 
 
118 William Boyd Allison 
 
 started on the task of building up Wilson for Vice President. 51 This 
 was an even more fantastic idea. Politicians as a rule do not nominate 
 men from "safe" states for President and Vice President, and Iowa 
 was certainly "safe." Nor do they often nominate those who are from 
 adjacent states. Since Grant's renomination was inevitable, Wilson's 
 prospects for either post were illusory. 
 
 The Burlington Haii/k-Eye noted the Wilson boom with scorn: 
 
 Western railroad interests, identified with the great lines from Chicago 
 through Iowa, to Omaha, and probably the Union Pacific interest, also, are 
 hard at work putting one of their attorneys, james f. wilson, of Iowa, 
 through his paces, so as to trot him out as a Presidential candidate. . . . We 
 of the West have understood for a long time past [the existence of railroad 
 influences in our national and local politics]. . . . We point out this new 
 development of railroad insolence, and we speak of it plainly, that it may 
 be known and thwarted by the people. This interest has made our judges, 
 has given us a Senator and now seeks to foist upon the people a President. 52 
 
 So far as Allison is concerned, the records amply confirm the judg- 
 ment of the historian who said: "To fortify their privileged position, 
 the railways . . . chose governors and sent their picked servants, like 
 W. B. Allison of Iowa, to the Senate." 53 Allison had been and was to 
 be a faithful servant of the railroads in Congress. Shortly after his 
 election he wrote to Dodge: "Your news about U. P. [Union Pacific] 
 surprises me. I suppose that accounts for the advance in the stock. 
 I will do everything I can in the matter. I think in view of that you 
 had better hurry along East as soon as you can so as to direct me." 
 
 Less than a month after Allison had been elected to the Senate, death 
 at last released James W. Grimes from the sufferings which had racked 
 his body for so many years and for which the medicinal waters of 
 Europe had proved useless. Most Iowans had long ago forgiven him 
 for his vote on behalf of Andrew Johnson, and his funeral was an oc- 
 casion for widespread public mourning. Allison was in the East on 
 business at the time and, strangely enough, did not return to attend 
 the last rites of his great friend, but he wrote to Mrs. Grimes, acknowl- 
 edging his debt to her husband. 55 
 
 Now, in 1872, it remained to be seen whether William Boyd 
 Allison had really won "the mantle of Grimes," and, if so, with what 
 grace he would wear it. 
 
»t»ffftf»ffff?ff?f»t»fffttfffff»»ftf»f?fff*Tf»f»fff»t?ff»f»fftf?ff»ffffttf f t»?f f fftf f ffff T fftf T ff?f T ff?f f tfff f ff?f f ffff f ff?ffffff( 
 
 I 
 
 Elections and Scandals 
 
 Troubles soon invaded Allison's enjoyment of his new-found suc- 
 cess. Perhaps none disturbed his peace of mind any more than the 
 crusade of the disaffected members of the Republican party known as 
 the "Liberals." Some of Allison's best friends were leaders of this 
 movement, and it was no easy matter for him to steer a course be- 
 tween loyalty to the Radical Republicans and offense to his Liberal 
 friends, especially when the Radicals carried their factionalism to 
 such extremes. Well before his election, Allison had been taken to task 
 by one of his Radical friends for consorting with Liberals and giving 
 rise to the rumor that he was helping to plan the formation of a 
 third party; the friend appeared to be greatly relieved when Allison 
 sent assurances of his loyalty to Radicalism. 1 
 
 The original Liberal Republicans were apparently truly scandalized 
 by the methods and policies of the Radicals. Although only minor 
 revelations of Radical misfeasance and malfeasance had yet been made, 
 it is significant that even before the worst scandals had been exposed 
 a large segment of the party had come to the point of secession. 
 
 The first positive move in this direction came in Missouri. Carl 
 Schurz and B. Gratz Brown were the originators of the movement, 
 but national leadership was soon taken over by Allison's good friends, 
 Horace White, editor of the Chicago Tribune; Whitelaw Reid of the 
 New York Herald; David A. Wells, the economist who earlier had 
 been the victim of Grantism; Edward Atkinson, Boston banker and 
 economic philosopher, who, like Wells, was one of Allison's intimate 
 
 119 
 
120 William Boyd Allison 
 
 correspondents; and Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois. 2 In Iowa 
 the Liberals had a fair representation of respected names in Iowa 
 history, but they were men who were only on the edge of political 
 success: Josiah B. Grinnell; William Peters Hepburn; General Fitz 
 Henry Warren; W. W. Merritt of Red Oak; Colonel J. H. Keatley of 
 Council Bluffs. The Dubuque Liberals included Dr. E. A. Guilbert, 
 distinguished Masonic leader; Joseph A. Rhomberg, distillery magnate; 
 F. Hinds, banker; and Allison's old rivals, Shubael P. Adams and 
 Julius K. Graves. 3 
 
 The national convention of the new party had been called for 
 Cincinnati, and some Liberals looked hopefully to Senator-elect Allison 
 for support. Whitelaw Reid wrote to him with confidence in April: 
 "The Cincinnati movement looks brighter than it did when you were 
 here. Our people who are inside are all confident; the Administration, 
 on the other hand, seems to be equally confident, and indeed pooh 
 poohs the Cincinnati movement, though with a nervousness which 
 indicates the reverse of satisfaction at the prospect. The only move- 
 ment gaining strength is the Cincinnati movement. The Grant force 
 has developed long ago." 4 
 
 Reid's letter, with its mixture of enticement and warning, has 
 the ring of a plea to join the movement. The remarkable thing about 
 Allison's performance here is that he rejected the new party com- 
 pletely but at the same time retained the friendship and trust of his 
 Liberal friends. Fortunately for him, the issue had not reached the 
 crucial point at the time of his contest in January; now, as one safely 
 elected, he could cling to the old rather than gamble on the new. The 
 Liberals seemed to have been satisfied with his election; either they 
 did not know their man or else they regarded him as the lesser of two 
 evils. Harlan was definitely known to be a Grant man and a Radical 
 wheel horse, as illustrated in the "great debate" of 1871 over Santo 
 Domingo. 5 James McDill's letter to Lyman Trumbull is worth re- 
 peating: "We are rejoicing just now over the defeat of Harlan and the 
 election of Allison. If I have not misread your record you too will be 
 pleased at the result. Allison is not a protectionist." 6 
 
 But protection was not the only issue. If the Liberals had only re- 
 flected a moment they would have known that the man who was the 
 protege of Grenville M. Dodge and the ally of James F. Wilson could 
 not, if pressed, be other than an irrevocable Grant-Radical Republican. 
 Fortunately, Allison could be himself and still satisfy both camps. 
 
ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 121 
 
 He was on record as "vindictive" toward the South, but nothing new 
 was demanded on that subject. On civil service reform, he had said 
 little but always acted with those who despised the subject and ridi- 
 culed it as "snivel service" reform. By his actions he approved the 
 principle that the government should be the servant of business, 
 especially of the railroads. These things pleased the Radicals. On the 
 other hand, the Liberals liked his moderation on the tariff and cur- 
 rency questions. 
 
 A course of reading in the newspapers, speeches, and letters of the 
 period is an excellent school for cynicism. The times cried out for 
 Republicans to do something about the corruption that had been 
 charged against Harlan — and all the other Harlans in the party. As 
 George D. Perkins had said after the Allison victory, now it was up 
 to the Des Moines Register and the Dubuque Times to reform the 
 party or else admit that the cry of corruption known as "Harlanism" 
 was all a game designed to bring victory to those who were themselves 
 corrupt. The sequel demonstrates how well Perkins had divined the 
 situation and how little disposed was the Dodge faction to purge the 
 party of corrupt members, once victory was theirs. Dodge, Wilson, 
 and Allison did not waver in their fealty to Grant and his regime, no 
 matter what exposures were made. Meanwhile, their editorial spokes- 
 men Ret Clarkson and Al Swalm ridiculed the Liberal movement in- 
 cessantly. 
 
 Even Harlan now intensified his associations with the dominant 
 wing of the party. Despite his rejection by Iowa Republicans, he 
 icrved his party faithfully in the 1872 campaign. In June he ac- 
 quired the vulgarly partisan Washington (D. C.) Chronicle. Hence- 
 forth his paper served as the apologist and defender of all things done 
 by the Grant followers. 7 Moreover, Harlan served as chairman of the 
 congressional campaign committee for the 1872 campaign. The man 
 who was not worthy of re-election in Iowa after sixteen years as 
 Senator and a year in the Cabinet was apparently quite acceptable as 
 i manager for the election of others. On the morrow of his defeat, 
 Harlan began to experience the bitter truth of his new political situ- 
 ation: he was acceptable enough as a party worker and civic and 
 church leader but not as a Republican officeholder. Dodge & Co. de- 
 manded a more pliable agent in Washington than a man who, ac- 
 customed to the honors of leadership, expected allegiance from others. 
 In May the Liberal Republicans proceeded to turn their promising 
 
122 William Boyd Allison 
 
 outlook into a gigantic joke at Cincinnati. They passed over many 
 good men, Charles Francis Adams notably, and finally settled on that 
 "extinct volcano," Horace Greeley, as their candidate for President. 
 Several months later the North American Review summed up the 
 situation: 
 
 The honor, to the utter surprise and merriment of the people, fell upon 
 Horace Greeley. Precisely how this result was brought about is not known to 
 this day, — whether it came from previous negotiations or understandings 
 with Democratic leaders, of which there are some evidences extant, or was 
 achieved through the skillful tactics of General Blair and Governor Brown 
 of Missouri, in the convention itself, or is to be accepted as the last case of 
 political spontaneous combustion, originating in the inflammable materials of 
 a miscellaneous gathering. 8 
 
 To make matters worse, the Liberals supplied Greeley with a low tariff 
 platform, which he repudiated, and then asked the Democrats to 
 accept him as their candidate as well. And the leaderless Democrats 
 had to swallow him at the cost of becoming the laughing stock of 
 the country. Small wonder that the Cincinnati movement, which 
 Whitelaw Reid had thought so promising in April, became a lost 
 cause by August. 
 
 Meanwhile, Allison and others continued to boost James F. Wilson 
 for the second place on the ticket with Grant, instead of the top place 
 as some had once foolishly suggested. This could hardly have been 
 more than a gesture, however. "His locality if anything will prevent 
 his nomination," Governor Carpenter recorded in his diary. Never- 
 theless, the correspondence about Wilson's chances was deadly serious 
 in tone, even Wilson's own letters. If nothing else, Dodge's lieu- 
 tenants were faithfully carrying out his orders to boom Wilson. Dodge 
 himself reached out into all the states where he had a crony, a de- 
 pendent, or a former staff man from the war days to call on. Allison 
 reported to Dodge: "I believe we can nominate Wilson if we work 
 heartily. How can we reach the Ohio delegates. ... I know two or 
 three of these delegates personally & will write to them." 9 
 
 The Iowa Republican state convention had met in March, elected 
 Dodge as one of the delegates-at-large to the national convention 
 and passed resolutions endorsing Wilson for the vice-presidency. The 
 Burlington Hawk-Eye, which seemed to have sworn eternal enmity to 
 Wilson, cleverly wrote up this endorsement so as to give the impression 
 to Grant that Wilson was a rival. Wilson, very much perturbed, 
 
ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 123 
 
 begged Dodge to take the matter up with Grant and General Horace 
 Porter and to assure them that he was strongly in favor of Grant's 
 renomination. 1 " In April, Dodge ordered Allison to intensify the 
 drive for Wilson. Allison should go into Wisconsin and Minnesota, 
 Wilson into Illinois, and Christian Slagle of Fairfield into Missouri. 
 "Work alone will now pull Wilson through and we must give the 
 next two or three months to it. Keep me posted on what you do." 1X 
 
 The Republican national convention met at Philadelphia on June 
 5 and made quick work of showing how practical politicians could 
 run off the business of putting safe men on the ticket. Grant was 
 renominated without difficulty. James F. Wilson's name was not even 
 placed in nomination for the second place; for Grant's running mate 
 the convention struck a blow at his nemesis, Senator Charles Sumner, 
 by nominating Sumner's colleague from Massachusetts, Henry Wilson. 
 Iowa, on the first and only ballot for Vice President, gave 19 votes to 
 Henry Wilson and 3 to Schuyler Colfax. Evidently Dodge & Co. 
 had found the Henry Wilson boom too strong for their man and had 
 saved him embarrassment by not naming him at all. Governor 
 Carpenter, who was in Philadelphia, had correctly predicted the re- 
 sult on the eve of the convention, "It now looks very much as though 
 Henry Wilson would be nominated for the vice Presidency." 12 So 
 much for this episode in the annals of Dodge & Co. 
 
 While the campaign was in the September doldrums, Charles A. 
 Dana, dynamic editor of the New York Sun, exploded a bombshell. 
 On September 4, 1872, he published the first accusation of the in- 
 volvement of several Congressmen in the Credit Mobilier Company. 
 The burden of Dana's story was that Oakes Ames, a Representative 
 from Massachusetts, and a vice-president and dominant force in the 
 Credit Mobilier, had put out shares "where they would do the most 
 good." This contracting company for the construction of the Union 
 Pacific Railroad was largely owned by the stockholders of that railroad. 
 It had been working on the construction since 1864 and had completed 
 the job by the junction of the Union Pacific rails with those of the 
 Central Pacific Railway at Promontory Point, Utah, on Sunday, May 
 10, 1869. Among those accused of receiving stock under fraudulent 
 terms was William Boyd Allison, Senator-elect from Iowa. Others 
 were Senator Henry Wilson, the vice-presidential nominee; Repre- 
 sentative James A. Garfield of Ohio; Speaker James G. Blaine; Sena- 
 tor James W. Patterson of New Hampshire; Vice President Schuyler 
 
124 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Colfax; James Brooks of New York; James F. Wilson; and Grenville 
 M. Dodge. In addition, as a corollary charge, Senator James Harlan 
 was accused of having received $10,000 from Dr. Thomas C. Durant 
 of the Union Pacific as a contribution to his 1866 campaign for the 
 Senate against Governor Kirkwood. 
 
 For some weeks the country refused to become excited over the 
 charges and the denials. The Nation said that the charges "amount 
 to little." 13 The matter then began to drift, and, but for the question- 
 able zeal of one of those accused, the whole business might have passed 
 into obscurity. But James G. Blaine, eager to parade his innocence, 
 stepped down from the Speaker's chair with a great show of virtue, 
 turned the gavel over to S. S. ("Sunset") Cox, and moved the appoint- 
 ment of a special select committee to make an investigation of the 
 charges. This led to the naming of the Poland Committee in the 
 House, later supplemented by the Wilson Committee. On the first 
 committee, besides Luke P. Poland of Vermont, 14 there were Nathaniel 
 P. Banks of Massachusetts, 15 George W. McCrary of Iowa, 16 W. E. 
 Niblack of Indiana, and W. M. Merrick of Maryland. The latter two 
 were Democrats; their presence, plus the recognized integrity of 
 McCrary and Judge Poland, was later described as a "guarantee that 
 the inquiry would not result in a whitewashing report." 17 James 
 Ford Rhodes, the eminent historian who wrote those words, did not 
 take notice that four of those accused were from Iowa; that one of 
 those four was James F. Wilson, McCrary 's immediate predecessor in 
 the House and a man to whom he owed a great deal; 18 and that 
 McCrary had senatorial ambitions of his own which he must not seem 
 to advance by too much zeal at the expense of his own party colleagues. 
 This is not to say that McCrary did not make a "fair" committee 
 member; but it does help to explain why he was not a bloodhound 
 in the long hours of cross-examination of the accused. 19 
 
 The committee brought out the fact that the Credit Mobilier was 
 a mere front for the Union Pacific Railway, and that there had been 
 a series of contracts let for the construction of the road and its ap- 
 purtenances, the first one going to Herbert M. Hoxie in 1864 for a 
 portion of the line. 20 What the committee did not bring out was the 
 relationship between Dodge (and therefore Allison and Wilson) and 
 Hoxie, or the fact that Hoxie could not finance such an operation. He 
 was set up as a "dummy" who would accommodatingly sublet the 
 contract to the very company that had given it to him. Furthermore, 
 
ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 125 
 
 the committee did not disclose that Dodge, as commander of the 
 military Department of Missouri, had managed to combine a tour of 
 duty as the leader of expeditionary forces against the Indians in 1865 
 with the congenial task of selecting a route for the Union Pacific." 1 
 The committee did not succeed in discovering these things, partly be- 
 cause Dodge avoided the service of a subpoena and dashed away from 
 Texas, the current scene of his railway building, to a hideout in St. 
 Louis. Even his henchmen, Wilson and Allison, criticized Dodge for 
 this, but he brazenly defended his course on the grounds that he could 
 not spare the time from his business. He told Allison that everyone con- 
 nected with the Credit Mobilier affair, except James F. Wilson, had 
 "played the fool" by admission of guilt." 2 (Wilson had denied guilt 
 and regretted only that he could not have bought more stock.) 
 
 In its cross-examination of Allison, the Committee leaned over back- 
 ward to avoid the conclusion that he deserved some degree of censure 
 for his relations with Oakes Ames. Much has been made of the point 
 that Allison made a clean breast of his dealing with Ames; and that 
 he expressed regret over the matter and insisted that he had withdrawn 
 so soon as he discovered the nature of the deal. James Ford Rhodes and 
 others have followed that interpretation; apparently it was also ac- 
 cepted by contemporaries, inasmuch as the subject was soon forgotten. 
 
 But Allison escaped more lightly that he deserved. A person hear- 
 ing or reading his testimony, who did not know his background of 
 years of experience in the sharp game of railroad promotion and his 
 intimate dealings with Oakes Ames ever since he entered Congress in 
 1863, would suppose that Allison was an innocent making his first 
 venture into the realm where finance and politics meet. His story was 
 that he had bought ten shares each of Credit Mobilier and Union 
 Pacific stock, coming to $1,047; that they had almost been paid for 
 before delivery by a stock dividend amounting to $776; this left a 
 balance of $271 which presumably he had paid. "How this balance 
 was paid, I do not now remember," said Allison. Later he received a 
 dividend check for $600 which was deposited to his credit with the 
 Sergeant-at-Arms of the House. This gave him an equity of $1,647 
 with an outlay of only $271, a neat profit of $1,376. Some time later 
 Allison decided to return the stock and the dividend voluntarily; 
 he did so after deducting the $271. According to Oakes Ames's testi- 
 mony, the stock certificates were returned from Dubuque in an 
 envelope without the sender's name or any covering letter; he could 
 
126 William Boyd Allison 
 
 only assume that they were from Allison because there were no other 
 stockholders of record in Dubuque. 
 
 The natural question is, of course, why did Allison return the 
 stock? Did he hear the rumors that were in the air, the vague criti- 
 cism that was springing up? Not by his own account. He said that 
 it was because he was being criticized during the campaign of 1868 
 for his part in the shifting of the route of the Sioux City branch of 
 the Pacific railroad; he wanted to prevent further criticism that 
 might come from a revelation of his connection with the Credit 
 Mobilier. Oakes Ames insisted that Allison's alarm had been due to 
 his fear that a lawsuit by Henry L. McComb of the Credit Mobilier 
 might have embarrassing results, and therefore he would not want 
 the stocks to be found in his name. Ames further testified that he had 
 "bought" back the stocks from Allison for a consideration, the 
 amount being five cents, as a cover for the transaction, and that the 
 stocks were to be returned to Allison if the outcome of the suit were 
 favorable. Under questioning, Allison denied that the whole matter 
 was a "ruse" to allow him to keep the stock under some conditions or 
 not to keep it under others. The Committee made no effort to choose 
 between the conflicting stories. 23 About all one can say is that Allison 
 was not censured, and that Oakes Ames and James Brooks, of New 
 York, were strongly censured by the House. 
 
 Most of those who were accused managed to come out unharmed 
 and suffered no political damage. Allison was the beneficiary of very 
 lucky timing throughout the whole episode. He had been elected to 
 the Senate on January 10, 1872; the story of the scandal did not 
 break until September 4. He gave his testimony before the Poland 
 Committee in January, 1873; the report was submitted in February. 
 On March 4 Allison was sworn in as a Senator, and the matter was 
 never officially referred to again. 24 There was much criticism in the 
 pro-Harlan papers of Allison's acts and of his air of innocence, but 
 all to no avail. 25 
 
 When he entered the Senate, Allison had reached the prime of life. 
 Of average height — five feet, eight inches — he carried his two 
 hundred pounds well. His head was set well upon broad and sturdy 
 shoulders; his dark eyes had a piercing intensity, and his mouth was 
 firm. His brownish hair was profuse but well ordered, and his beard 
 and mustache were neatly trimmed, almost pointed. In a group picture 
 of the Senate not a man cut a finer figure than Allison. He was al- 
 
ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 127 
 
 ways elegantly tailored; from New York and Washington haberdash- 
 ers came the best of everything. He enjoyed cigars and was considered a 
 prodigious smoker; otherwise, he was notably temperate in food and 
 drink. In manner the soul of courtesy to colleagues and constituents 
 and business associates, this is clearly an Allison capable of holding 
 his own in senatorial combat. 
 
 Allison's senatorial career began quietly and without fanfare. He 
 took the oath of office on March 4, 1873,"° in a special session of the 
 Senate called by President Grant, whose second inauguration he wit- 
 nessed on the same day. The session was uneventful for Allison ex- 
 cept for the negative fact that his credentials were not challenged 
 in any way, the Credit Mobilier scandal notwithstanding. Among his 
 colleagues in the Senate were such notable men as Justin S. Morrill 
 of Vermont, an old friend of the House days; Roscoe Conkling of 
 New York, whose "turkey gobbler strut" was one of the jokes of the 
 day, an able but vain and pompous man who might have caused ob- 
 servers to wonder "whether this was an actor burlesquing a senator 
 or a senator burlesquing an actor"; 27 Simon Cameron of Pennsyl- 
 vania, who had left Lincoln's Cabinet under a cloud; John Sherman of 
 Ohio; General Richard J. Oglesby of Illinois; Oliver P. Morton, the 
 strongly Radical war Governor of Indiana; the carpetbaggers Stephen 
 W. Dorsey of Arkansas and General Dodge's old staffer George E. 
 Spencer of Alabama; General John B. Gordon of Georgia, a Con- 
 federate hero; the ultra-Radical John J. Ingalls of Kansas; A. A. 
 Sargent of California; and John P. Jones of Nevada, of silver bonanza 
 fame. The competition offered by this group was not threatening to 
 a man of Allison's talents and industry; only Morrill and Sherman 
 combined ability, character, and prestige in the highest degree. Hap- 
 pily, these were the ones to whom Allison was most closely attached, 
 and with them his friendship proved to be most enduring. 28 
 
 Allison's committee assignments offered uneven attractions. 29 A 
 place even though near the bottom of the list on the Committee on 
 Appropriations was much to his liking and was a suitable recognition 
 of his years of experience on the House Committee on Ways and 
 Means. In addition, Allison was put on the committees on Indian 
 Affairs, for what good reason it would be hard to discover, and the 
 Congressional Library. Years later his colleague Blaine recalled 
 Allison's "enviable reputation" for "industry, good judgment, strong 
 common sense, and fidelity to every trust, both personal and public." 
 
128 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Allison, wrote Blaine, "devoted himself to financial questions and 
 soon acquired in the Senate the position of influence which he had 
 long had in the House." 30 
 
 The special session lasted only twenty-two days. The following 
 months are unaccounted for in the record but easily lend themselves 
 to the imagination. In June a brief item appeared inconspicuously in 
 the Burlington Hawk-Eye \ 
 
 Honorable Wm. B. Allison of Dubuque, and Miss Mary Neally [Nealley] of 
 this city, were married at 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon. The wedding, which 
 was strictly a private one, took place at the residence of Mrs. Grimes, the 
 bride being a niece of that lady, long an intimate of the family and practically 
 an adopted daughter of the Senator and Mrs. Grimes. Mr. and Mrs. Allison 
 left on the eastbound train last evening, intending to go directly to New 
 York, and to sail on the 18 th inst. for Europe, to be absent four months. 
 Many friends will wish them a pleasant tour and a safe return. 31 
 
 The ceremony was performed by the distinguished Congregational 
 minister and author, Dr. William Salter, a long-time friend of the 
 Grimes family, who had officiated at a similar service in 1846 for 
 James Wilson Grimes, a pioneering young lawyer from New Hamp- 
 shire, and a little school teacher from Bangor, Maine, named Elizabeth 
 Nealley. 32 At the time of his marriage, Allison was forty-four years 
 of age, his bride twenty-four. The young lady was mature in mind 
 and manner, even when Allison first met her. She had enjoyed ad- 
 vantages far above the ordinary — wealth, social prestige, and as- 
 sociations at home and abroad with the great and the near great because 
 of her doting uncle's position. She was perfectly equipped by nature 
 and training to carry out all the duties and to realize upon all the 
 opportunities of a Senator's wife. This opinion was expressed by many; 
 for example, Mrs. James A. Garfield "considered Mrs. Senator Allison 
 one of the most cultured and loveliest women of Washington." 33 
 
 After a pleasant tour of Europe, the Allisons returned in October 
 to Dubuque, where the Senator was caught up in the backwash of the 
 Panic of '73 that had broken in September. Among the countless 
 institutions that had gone down in the crash was the Merchants 
 National Bank of Dubuque. Probably no single event of his private 
 business career ever disturbed Allison so much as this or placed more 
 burdens upon him. As a director, he had both moral and financial 
 responsibilities and so did his friends. President F. W. H. Sheffield and 
 Mrs. Sheffield were intimate companions; R. A. Babbage, the highly 
 
ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 129 
 
 trusted cashier, was a close business associate. Babbage escaped to 
 Europe after hiding for a month; the Sheffields eventually moved to 
 Utica, New York.' 4 The solid financial pillar left to sustain the de- 
 funct bank was Henry L. Stout, the lumber magnate. The role of 
 Allison was to furnish advice at Stout's request and to act as senior 
 counselor. Their correspondence shows that Stout had great faith 
 in Allison's advice and in his ability to get things done. 35 
 
 The first Monday in December, 1873, found Allison answering the 
 roll call on the opening day of the first regular session of the Forty- 
 third Congress. His committee assignments were unchanged, but he 
 moved up one notch on the Indian Affairs roster, due to the departure 
 of Senator Alexander Caldwell of Kansas. A few days later he was 
 appointed to the Committee on Pensions to take the place of Senator 
 Orris S. Ferry of Connecticut, excused. 30 
 
 At the moment there seemed to be a lull in politics as well as in 
 business. One item in which Allison was particularly interested was 
 a bill to divide Iowa into two federal judicial districts instead of one. 
 Years of backstage maneuvering were necessary before this bill could 
 be passed. The principal proponent of the measure was Oliver P. 
 Shiras of Dubuque, senior member of the firm of Shiras, Henderson and 
 Van Duzee. He prodded Allison and Henderson mercilessly and gave 
 no one a moment's rest until the matter had been finally consummated. 
 Colonel Henderson had to make it his chief interest for years. Part 
 of the difficulty was in agreeing on the geographical division of the 
 proposed two districts; a north-south line was illogical because of 
 transportation difficulties, and an east-west line was hard to agree upon 
 because of the rivalries of so many cities. General Dodge pushed his 
 favorite, Judge Caleb Baldwin, for the judgeship and insisted that 
 Shiras should be withdrawn. For once it seemed that Dodge and 
 Allison were about to have a serious difference of opinion. 37 This 
 bill finally passed in 1882, and Shiras received the appointment. 
 
 Little action of great moment came from the Forty-third Congress, 
 yet the session gave Allison several chances to keep his name before 
 the public. A committee had been appointed to investigate charges 
 made against Alexander R. Shepherd, Governor of the District of 
 Columbia — "Boss" Shepherd of questionable reputation. Opinion 
 is still divided on this figure: was he a crook or a benefactor? There 
 is no doubt that he took Washington out of the mud; did he do so 
 at an unfair profit? Did he use the method known as "the purchase of 
 
130 William Boyd Allison 
 
 influence," or was he falsely accused? Allison was chairman of the 
 select committee that investigated Shepherd; others on the committee 
 were Senators Allen G. Thurman of Ohio and William M. Stewart of 
 Nevada, plus five members from the House. 38 
 
 The committee heard many witnesses. The testimony ran to some 
 2,500 pages; the report and its exhibits, to about 700 pages. 39 The 
 comment of The Nation was typical of the critical journals. In its 
 opinion, the report sent in by Allison and his colleagues was an im- 
 provement over the whitewashing verdict of a committee that had car- 
 ried out a similar investigation in 1872. A later judgment of the 
 report described it as being "as friendly in its tone as the circumstances 
 would permit, [but] it clearly declared that Shepherd had assumed 
 complete control of the government [of the District] and had exer- 
 cised it in an entirely arbitrary manner." 40 The general assumption 
 from that day to this has been that Shepherd was guilty of both 
 malfeasance and misfeasance. 41 However that may be, he wrote to 
 Allison on friendly terms, offering helpful and concrete suggestions 
 for the improvement of the government of the District. 42 
 
 The Allison Committee, in its report, made some constructive rec- 
 ommendations. From the language of the debate it is certain that 
 Allison and his colleagues did not know that they were building so 
 well. The committee proposed creation of a commission to govern the 
 District pending the development of a more suitable method, not 
 realizing, of course, that the commission itself would endure. Congress 
 jumped for the idea, however, and the system has not been changed to 
 this day. 43 Thus was the basic plan of municipal government known 
 universally as the "commission plan" born, a plan that has been adopted 
 by many cities since Galveston chose it in 190 1. 44 
 
 Far more important in the history of the times, although apparent- 
 ly not disturbing to Allison, was the wave of protest politics that 
 swept over the nation, particularly the Midwest, in the trough of 
 the Panic of 1873. The term "agrarian radicalism" has been used so 
 long that it is now too late to suggest a new name for the politics of 
 the period. Actually the movement was not confined to the agrarian 
 elements of the population, and its radicalism, in the popular present- 
 day sense of that word, was very mild. 
 
 Organizationally, the protest was channeled through the Order of 
 the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange, hence the 
 terms "Granger Movement" and "Granger Laws," not altogether 
 
Historical Society, Iowa City 
 
 James Harlan 
 
 Historical Society, Iowa City 
 
 James W. Grimes 
 
 Historical Dept., Des Moines 
 
 James F. Wilson 
 
 i ■ "' 
 
 Grenville M. Dodge 
 
 
ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 131 
 
 satisfactory labels. The protest did not originate with the Grange, and 
 often the higher spokesmen of the organization repudiated the pro- 
 posals and methods of some of the protestors. But the protest took 
 the form of a drive for economic relief for farmers; many farmers 
 were members of the Grange; many local Granges passed resolutions 
 on the subject; hence popular logic easily associated the two. 
 
 Politically, the protest found two outlets. The constitution of the 
 Grange forbade participation in politics, but this did not stop all 
 political action. Many participants followed the counsel of those who 
 advocated staying with the Republican party as the only wise course. 
 This solution to the conflict of loyalties between present needs and 
 past sentiments could be successfully resolved for agricultural relief 
 only by converting the Republican party into a farmers' party, a 
 thing impossible to do. The other outlet was a curious thing called 
 the Anti-Monopoly party, an invention of the times which absorbed 
 the Democrats, the Liberal Republicans, and the reforming element. 
 This definitely was not a Grange party, although it enrolled some 
 Grangers. It was more Democratic in leadership and composition than 
 anything else. In the Iowa election of 1873 the Anti-Monopolists won 
 fifty out of the one hundred seats in the House and ten out of the 
 twenty-three seats in the Senate at stake that year. 
 
 The protest movement focused itself on the current demand for 
 more equitable railroad freight rates, by law if necessary. This raised 
 the constitutional question of the state's power to regulate the rail- 
 roads. The state legislature, elected in 1873, proceeded to pass the 
 Railroad Act of 1874, providing maximum freight tariffs for each 
 of four classes of railroads, and left the question of constitutionality 
 up to the courts. The overwhelming vote for the bill was 93 to 4 in 
 the House and 39 to 9 in the Senate. The Iowa law was approved by 
 a United States Circuit Court decision handed down in May, 1875, 
 by Judge John F. Dillon, whose ruling was upheld by the United 
 States Supreme Court in Chief Justice Morrison R. Wake's famous 
 opinion in the case of Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad 
 Company v. Iowa. 
 
 Allison seemingly was little concerned with these events. The best 
 explanation for this indifference lies in his political and social calendar 
 and in his personality. His senatorial career began in March, 1873; 
 from June to October he was in Europe on his honeymoon. Thus his 
 participation in the legislative election campaign of 1873 was neg- 
 
132 William Boyd Allison 
 
 ligible. After Congress convened in December, he was chiefly in- 
 terested in the political and social life of Washington and with issues 
 of national rather than local implication. He would not have to con- 
 cern himself specifically with re-election until the campaign of 1877. 
 In the meantime, he could leave his local interests to trusted lieutenants 
 such as Jacob Rich and Colonel Henderson and work quietly in the 
 interests of moderation. Allison was never one to go out on a crusade. 
 It would be unfair, however, to assume that he was totally oblivious 
 to Iowa's internal affairs and uninformed and without convictions on 
 the questions of railroad regulation. The subsequent story will show 
 his participation in Iowa politics and also his attitude toward the 
 railroad question. 45 
 
 The panic-ridden politics of the time brought Allison chances for 
 service and publicity without participation in the questions raised by 
 the Grangers. The congressional elections of 1874 proved a stunning 
 rebuke to the Republican party nationally. In Iowa the Republicans 
 did not fare so badly, losing only one House seat out of nine, and 
 that to an able opponent, Colonel L. L. Ainsworth of West Union, 
 who ran as an Anti-Monopoly candidate with Democratic support. 
 Even so, this was the first time since 1854 that an "enemy" had been 
 elected to the House from Iowa. The only consolation for regulars 
 was that they had been able to defeat General James B. Weaver's bid 
 for the Sixth District congressional nomination, even if only by one 
 vote. Weaver, a man of independent views, was out of favor with the 
 Radical leadership. 46 Nationally, the party losses were a turning point 
 in the history of Reconstruction politics. 
 
 The net result of this defeat was to force the Republicans to do 
 something about the depression. Because of the deflation that had set 
 in even before the end of the war, the topic of greatest urgency had 
 become the monetary problem. A demand arose for an increase in 
 the quantity of greenbacks in circulation. "Greenbacks" were simply 
 fiat money, printed paper notes worth whatever the holder thought 
 of the government's credit. Since the close of the war the demand for 
 greenbacks had fluctuated, but Congress had never even closely ap- 
 proached the mark advocated by the extremists. In 1868 the Demo- 
 crats had made a bow to the inflationists by writing into their plat- 
 form George H. Pendleton's "Ohio Idea" for the redemption of gov- 
 ernment bonds, whenever possible, in greenbacks. 
 
 The failure of Congress in 1873 to continue silver dollars on the 
 
ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 133 
 
 list of mintable coins was soon followed by the discovery of new lodes 
 of the white metal in the West. By 1875 a cry of the "Crime of 73" 
 was added to the demand for more greenbacks. Not many people 
 understood the intricacies of the economics involved. They simply 
 knew that times were hard and that there was a shortage of money. 
 They knew that silver was plentiful, and they could not understand 
 its sudden undesirability as money when only recently it had brought 
 a premium; they could not understand that the greenbacks which 
 had been suitable for bank capital in Salmon Chase's national banks 
 were now unsound money. Clearly, something had to be done to 
 appease the discontented. Allison's mail from his Iowa constituents was 
 full of suggestions, advice, and urgent pleas for action. Not all of it 
 was on the side of inflation, however. Two of his banker-politician 
 friends wrote letters that surely would have matched any that could 
 have been written by Eastern bankers in favor of caution, moderation, 
 and soundness. 47 
 
 In December, Congress met for the short session, the last chance it 
 would have to deal with the currency situation before turning the 
 problem over to the newly elected majority of Democrats and Anti- 
 Monopolists. It is in this light that the work and the achievement of 
 Allison and his colleagues should be considered. The Republican high 
 command set up a committee of eleven to work out new financial legis- 
 lation, with John Sherman of Ohio as chairman. The rest of the com- 
 mittee consisted of Morton, Logan, Edmunds, Ferry, Frelinghuysen, 
 Howe, Boutwell, Conkling, Sargent, and Allison. After disputes that 
 threatened more than once to break up their work, they finally reached 
 agreement on a bill known to history as the Resumption Act of 1875. 
 Allison had come a long way since the currency debates earlier in the 
 year, when Sherman had been forced to make some pointed remarks to 
 him. At that time Allison had not believed that the issue of more 
 paper money would take the country further away from the resump- 
 tion of specie payments. Sherman had retaliated sharply, although 
 acknowledging Allison's "intelligence and ability." 18 Now Allison 
 was "accepted" on the committee as an acknowledged leader. 
 
 The Resumption Bill, a caucus job through and through, passed 
 both houses of Congress with a minimum of debate and was signed 
 by the President only after he had attached a message pointing out 
 its defects. It perfectly illustrates the spirit and method of compromise 
 with which Congress has to do most of its work. The principal pro- 
 
134 William Boyd Allison 
 
 visions were that the amount of greenbacks in circulation was to be 
 reduced gradually to $300,000,000, with an expansion of national 
 bank notes as an off -setting factor, and the redemption of greenbacks 
 in specie beginning in 1879. 49 No one could be quite certain what 
 changes would be made in the intervening four years or what would 
 be the effects of the act if it were left intact. Greenbackers everywhere 
 deplored the reduction in volume and later secured an act "freezing" 
 the amount at whatever the volume outstanding might be when re- 
 sumption became effective. 50 
 
 A few months later a new scandal barely missed Allison's political 
 household. On May 10 federal agents swooped down on the revenue 
 office in St. Louis and arrested General John McDonald, chief col- 
 lector of the St. Louis district, and his secretary-assistant and handy 
 man, Colonel John A. Joyce, on charges of defrauding the govern- 
 ment by permitting distilleries to market some of their products 
 without buying the required revenue stamps. For years there had been 
 suspicion and some public discussion about a "Whiskey Ring," but 
 always some one in Washington had tipped off the operators of the 
 game, and they had been able to put their houses in order before the 
 arrival of the inspectors. President Grant's latest appointee, Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury Benjamin Helm Bristow, had outwitted the 
 suspected men and had successfully put his inspectors in St. Louis be- 
 fore the operators could doctor up their accounts. McDonald and 
 Joyce were tried and found guilty. 
 
 Fortunately for Allison, few people knew that Colonel Joyce was 
 his protege. The Colonel was somewhat of a wandering minstrel 
 whose career was well described by the title of his autobiography, A 
 Checkered Life. According to his own story, Joyce was born in Ire- 
 land, and he seems to have inherited the gift of song and words 
 traditionally associated with the sons of that isle. After being brought 
 to America, he had lived in various states, principally Kentucky, and 
 had served in the Union Army until discharged because of wounds in 
 1864. Somewhat by chance he came to Allamakee County in Iowa to 
 visit with an uncle and remained to eke out a living as a teacher and 
 tax collector's assistant. In Waukon in 1865 he happened to be in 
 Congressman Allison's audience, and an acquaintance began which 
 led to an invitation to call on Allison in Dubuque. In due time the 
 invitation was followed up, and Allison made good by assisting Joyce 
 to find a clerkship in a good office in Dubuque, at the same time al- 
 
ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 135 
 
 lowing him use of the offices of Allison, Crane and Rood for reading 
 law. After a few months of this, Joyce went to Washington, where 
 Allison found him a minor clerkship in the office of the Collector of 
 Internal Revenue after getting him past a Civil Service Examination 
 Board. Promotions followed, and after a few years Joyce went into 
 the field and served in a number of places before catching on at St. 
 Louis, where he acted as secretary and manager for McDonald, a man 
 of ability but little formal education. In addition, Joyce's facility 
 with words helped him to write editorials and speeches which were 
 fed out to papers and politicians who needed them. 51 
 
 Both men later wrote autobiographies in which they presented their 
 versions of what had happened and their apologies for their actions. 
 McDonald's book, called Secrets of the Great Whiskey Ring, 52 is much 
 more convincing than Joyce's. McDonald admits the crime and makes 
 a good case that he and Joyce were shielding President Grant's secre- 
 tary, Orville E. Babcock, and behind him, Grant himself. McDonald 
 describes vividly the visit of Grant and Babcock to St. Louis in Septem- 
 ber, 1875, on their way to an army reunion in Des Moines and the 
 promises made by Babcock to secure pardons from Grant for the two 
 men before they had served long in prison. But Babcock was unable 
 to deliver on these promises because of various embarrassments that 
 kept arising for the Grant administration, and McDonald's conclu- 
 sion was that he and Joyce found themselves unwilling martyrs for the 
 good of the Republican party and the Grant regime. McDonald was 
 finally released after threatening to expose those whom he considered 
 to be the real offenders. 
 
 Letters of a personal nature from the other culprit, Colonel Joyce, 
 and Mrs. Joyce to Allison indicate their closeness to him and their 
 dependence upon his help. They also reveal that Allison had once 
 borrowed money from Joyce on a note. 53 The kindest thing that can 
 be said of Allison is that he was a poor judge of character on this 
 occasion; the worst, that he should have wondered how a poorly paid 
 government clerk would be able to accumulate money to lend to a 
 Senator of the United States. Nevertheless, when Joyce was pardoned 
 by President Hayes on December 19, 1877, it was done on the per- 
 sonal intervention of none other than Senator Allison.' 4 It is impos- 
 sible to avoid the feeling that Allison had narrowly missed serious 
 involvement in the operations of the shady crowd headed up by Grant's 
 secretary, General Babcock. 56 Nor can one forget the comment of 
 
136 William Boyd Allison 
 
 General Horace Porter, another of Grant's secretaries, when informed 
 of Allison's election to the Senate: "He has always been one of our in- 
 timate friends here and we shall get along swimmingly with him." 56 
 
 Allison had other problems than the Whiskey Ring in early 1875, 
 however. He and his lieutenants were thinking of the state convention 
 in Iowa and the nomination of a candidate for Governor. C. C. 
 Carpenter was completing his second term; it was time for a new man. 
 Kirkwood had been mentioned by many as the best candidate, but 
 the ex-Governor preferred a term in the United States Senate to 
 another two years as Iowa's Governor. A United States Senator would 
 be elected in January, 1876, and almost a year before that date Sena- 
 tor Wright had let it be known that he did not intend to seek another 
 term. "I am tired," he wrote to Kirkwood in February. "Want to get 
 home. Sick of this life. Dont you want my place? Come & take it. 
 As I now feel, & believe I shall, you or any other man can have it two 
 years from now, for all that I care." 57 
 
 A few days before receiving this letter, Kirkwood had rejected a 
 flattering diplomatic offer. With the assistance of "Tama Jim" Wilson 
 of the Fourth District (not to be confused with James F. "Jefferson 
 Jim" Wilson), Allison had secured an appointment as Minister to 
 Turkey for Kirkwood. 58 Allison's actions in this matter raise the 
 question of his real attitude toward Kirkwood. Was he genuinely in- 
 terested in an honor for his friend, or did he want to remove him from 
 the political scene? Whom did Allison want for Governor and whom 
 did he want as his partner in the Senate? Answers to those questions 
 would have to be given before the year was out. The effort to "ship" 
 Kirkwood to Turkey definitely conflicts with Allison's later use of 
 that gentleman; either he had not thought the matter through or 
 else there were later developments that could not be foreseen at this 
 time. The problem was partly resolved for Allison by Kirkwood's 
 rejection of the Turkish post. 
 
 Jacob Rich, now generally recognized as Allison's manager and 
 mentor, wrote Kirkwood a strong letter in April, 1875, urging him 
 to run for the governorship because he was the one man who could 
 assure the party success in carrying the legislative ticket, so necessary 
 in winning the Senate seat. Rich told Kirkwood that election to 
 the governorship would not remove him from the list of possible sen- 
 atorial candidates. On the contrary, it would enhance his chances. 
 Allison's wise mentor then said that George W. McCrary, the bril- 
 
ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 137 
 
 liant Representative from the First District, would be the second 
 best man for the party to put up for Governor, but that he could not 
 be spared from Congress/' 1 ' A few days later M. C. Woodruff, the 
 able editor of the Dubuque Times, wrote to Kirkwood, giving him 
 the same arguments in even more forceful style. Rich repeated his 
 plea some ten days later. Thus it is evident that a group of politicians 
 no less important than Allison's own circle had decided that Kirkwood 
 should be their candidate for Governor. Assuming success in this, if 
 later he wanted to try for the senatorial honor in the election to be 
 held in the very month of his inauguration, that would be quite all 
 right. ''One thing at a time" seemed to be their motto: control must 
 be maintained at any cost. 
 
 But Kirkwood would have nothing to do with this game; he re- 
 fused to make any kind of announcement for the office. There were 
 several other names up for consideration, among them John Russell, 
 W. B. Fairfield, James Harlan, and General James B. Weaver. The 
 convention was clearly headed for the nomination of the gallant 
 Weaver, who was considered by many of the rank-and-file Republi- 
 cans to be a party man in good standing and deserving of recognition 
 for his long service to the party and the nation. But to the Allisonians, 
 Weaver was persona non grata because he was a strong Harlan man; 
 to political leaders of the "safe" type, he was undependable: he was 
 too emotional in his championship of prohibition and too outspoken 
 in his friendship for the masses. Weaver had been defeated in his bid 
 for a nomination to Congress; now he must be defeated at any price 
 in his bid for the governorship. 
 
 When the convention met at Des Moines, the strategy was to de- 
 lay the nomination until Kirkwood's consent could be gained for 
 the use of his name."" Telegrams to Iowa City did not produce the de- 
 sired result; in desperation, the Kirkwood men resorted to a "strong 
 arm" scheme. At a critical moment in the proceedings, just when it 
 appeared that the nomination of General Weaver was inevitable, the 
 voice of the gigantic Dr. S. M. Ballard of Audubon County roared 
 out the name of the old war Governor, Samuel J. Kirkwood. A dele- 
 gate from Allison's county then came to the front of the platform and 
 asked the crucial question, "By what authority do you give his name?" 
 Dr. Ballard answered, "The authority of the people of the State of 
 Iowa." 
 
 The convention was thrown into an uproar, and the result was ad- 
 
138 William Boyd Allison 
 
 journment to the next day to give time for communication with 
 Kirkwood. In this emergency an engine and coach were secured from 
 the Rock Island Railroad, and Jacob Rich and Joseph Morgan, the 
 latter now beginning his long service as Allison's secretary, made the 
 trip to Iowa City to work their personal persuasions on the reluctant 
 nominee. 61 Finally securing his grudging and half-hearted assent, they 
 telegraphed the good news to Des Moines. The next day the con- 
 vention met, proceeded to scuttle the Weaver candidacy, and formally 
 selected Kirkwood. 
 
 Thus the day was saved for the Old Guard. R. S. Finkbine, a 
 former Iowa Citian living in Des Moines and superintending the con- 
 struction of the new capitol building, wrote Kirkwood the next day to 
 explain how it happened. Very astutely he played on Kirkwood's 
 prejudices by first asserting that D. N. Cooley had led a movement 
 of some preachers and temperance men to put Weaver to the front. 
 Something had to be done to head this off, and so Kirkwood's friends 
 held a conference. Other candidates were nominated by counties; 
 hence the decision was made to have Dr. Ballard nominate Kirkwood 
 in the name of the whole state. Finkbine then explained the many tele- 
 grams that were sent to Kirkwood and ended forcefully: "Had that 
 answer not come you would have had a delegation of at least 100 there 
 this morning. . . . Now do not buck the inevitable. Get some one 
 else to take care of your little bank. Canvass the State." 62 
 
 The simple truth is that the Allison people were using the governor- 
 ship, which of course Kirkwood would win over any Democratic op- 
 ponent, and its influence over the legislative elections as a means of 
 holding off the Harlan people in the senatorial election of January, 
 1876. There is ample proof in the correspondence within the Allison- 
 Kirkwood circle that the motivation for Kirkwood's forced nomina- 
 tion was the fear of Harlan's return to power. 63 The most convincing 
 evidence comes from Kirkwood himself. Worried over the pos- 
 sibility that the governorship might be used to knock him out of the 
 coveted senatorship, he wrote to James S. Clarkson after his election 
 in October: 
 
 I notice in your paper articles from some two or three other papers in the 
 State, opposing my election to the U. S. Senate for the reason that I have 
 been elected to the office of governor. . . . Now you know (perhaps better 
 than I do) how I came to be nominated for Governor — you know as well 
 as I do that I did not seek that nomination, on the contrary that I did all I 
 
ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 139 
 
 could to avoid it and only accepted it when it was in a manner forced upon 
 me. You know also that the controlling reason for nominating mc was the 
 fear that if someone else were nominated such nomination might result in 
 the loss of the General Assembly and the consequent loss of the Senatorship. 
 Well the nomination was made and accepted — I made as good a canvass as 
 I could and we have the General Assembly by an overwhelming majority and 
 the Senatorship is secure to our party. Under these circumstances is it fair 
 that my name must be ruled out as a candidate for the Senatorship because I 
 did the very thing that many of our most clear headed men deemed ab- 
 solutely essential to prevent the loss of the office to our party? 64 
 
 There was only one possible answer to a letter such as this. The 
 way must be prepared for a Kirkwood victory in the coming senatorial 
 election, whatever the opposition. In addition to the ever present 
 threat of James Harlan, eager for a return to power, there was a mild 
 boom for the modest and self-sacrificing George W. McCrary of 
 Keokuk and a very menacing challenge from his fellow-townsman, 
 General William Worth Belknap, Grant's Secretary of War. McCrary 
 wanted the honor but recognized the futility of a contest between 
 two residents of the same city. 65 It would be hard to imagine two men 
 of greater contrast. McCrary was quiet, dignified, reserved, intel- 
 lectual, judicial; Belknap was ebullient, scintillating, mawkishly sen- 
 timental, in short, the complete extrovert. At the time Belknap was 
 riding a wave of popularity, and Iowa rather narrowly missed finding 
 herself saddled with a Senator-elect who would shortly afterward be 
 plunged into disgrace over the sale of army post traderships. But this 
 was apparently undreamed of in 1875. 66 Belknap was supported in 
 his try for the Senate by such powers as Ret Clarkson of the Register, 
 Al Swalm of the Fort Dodge Messenger, J. Fred Meyers of the Denison 
 Review, and by the Ottumwa Courier. So shrewd a judge of men as 
 Colonel D. B. Henderson ranked Belknap second only to McCrary and 
 ahead of Kirkwood; Swalm thought that Allison preferred Belknap 
 to Kirkwood as a young man who would be more serviceable to him 
 than the old war Governor. 87 
 
 If Allison did not favor Belknap, he certainly did not oppose him. 
 While the informal canvass was going on, the two men were brought 
 into close cooperation; Belknap wanted Allison, a member of the 
 Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, to be one of a group he was or- 
 ganizing to go on a junket to Yellowstone Park that summer. Allison 
 regretfully rejected this invitation but accepted appointment as chair- 
 man of a presidential commission that went out in September to 
 
140 William Boyd Allison 
 
 negotiate with the Sioux Indians over the rights of white settlers to go 
 into the Black Hills and engage in gold mining. Allison might have 
 used this mission to the Sioux to make a name for himself by working 
 out some kind of constructive treaty that could have been a step 
 toward the solution of the higher problem of relations between the 
 races, but perhaps this was expecting too much from Allison or anyone 
 else at that time. Few were interested in anything but driving a hard 
 bargain at the Indians' expense. 
 
 The commission actually underwent some danger as well as hard- 
 ship. On one occasion the young braves of the tribe surrounded the 
 President's agents in menacing fashion and were restrained only by the 
 older men of the tribe and by a show of strength by the soldiers 
 guarding the commissioners. One smiles a bit at this picture of Allison, 
 the most peaceful of men, who had escaped military service during the 
 Civil War, now faced with the possibility of dying for a mob of gold- 
 seekers straining against the restrictions of the treaty rights of the 
 Indians, with the mob all too readily backed up by military men 
 itching for a fight. The Indians were not to be persuaded to sell out 
 for the trivial sum that Allison was authorized to offer, and the mission 
 ended in failure. The white men pressed on into the restricted ter- 
 ritory, however; Indian resistance gave the soldiers an excuse to use 
 force; the episode came to an end — a very bitter end — with the 
 massacre of Custer's forces at the Little Big Horn in 1876. 68 
 
 A small by-product of the expedition was the securing of a clerk- 
 ship to the commission for Al Swalm. Allison had interceded with 
 Belknap in behalf of Swalm after the post had first been offered to 
 and refused by the eminent economist, David A. Wells. Perhaps this 
 accounts in part for the enthusiasm shown by Swalm for Belknap's 
 candidacy for the Senate. Belknap carried on a lively correspondence 
 with Allison all during the summer and fall regarding their western 
 trip and the Senate race, seemingly quite confident of Allison's favor. 
 It is unlikely that Clarkson or Swalm would have supported Belknap 
 so strongly if Allison had objected. Allison apparently was playing 
 it safe with two pro-Allison candidates, Kirkwood and Belknap, 
 either of whom would most likely defeat Harlan. 
 
 The conventional account of the senatorial election of 1876, in a 
 sentimental history of Iowa politics, is that the victory of Kirkwood 
 over Harlan (such history seems to be unaware of the great threat 
 posed by Belknap) was made possible by the dramatic withdrawal of 
 
ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 141 
 
 Harlan due to the emergency of his son's illness and a trip to his bed- 
 side in the West. This explanation will not hold up, however. Harlan 
 had first tried a form of political blackmail on Allison, writing him 
 in November: "I am curious to know whether your friends under- 
 stand that one feature of the warfare likely to be made against me . . . 
 would weigh as heavily against you. . . such as the 'Credit Mobilier' 
 nonsense." Allison did not fall into this trap; his answer was non- 
 committal.* 8 Shortly after this, Harlan was called West by the illness 
 of his son in Wyoming, but he returned to Iowa before Christmas day. 70 
 
 The senatorial fight came to its climax in the Republican caucus on 
 January 12, 1876. In the afternoon Harlan received word that his 
 son had taken a turn for the worse; he sent a letter to the caucus, with- 
 drawing his name, and the next day left for the West again. Kirkwood 
 was chosen on the first formal ballot. If enough Republicans had been 
 inclined to vote for Harlan to elect him, this second departure to his 
 son's bedside would not have deterred them; rather it should have in- 
 creased their affection for him. Had Harlan been sure of victory, he 
 would not have withdrawn. In other words, his son's illness was 
 used as an alibi for defeat. It is quite understandable that, after the 
 distinguished career he had earlier enjoyed, Harlan would find it gall- 
 ing to be defeated again and would want a story to hand out for 
 public consumption. 
 
 Rich wrote a full report of the battle, ending with the observation 
 that Allison's situation now was better than he had any right to ex- 
 pect: his friend and benefactor, Kirkwood, had been elected; Harlan, 
 Belknap, and Hiram Price of Davenport had all been squelched. "There 
 is no one to contest with you in 1878 but George McCrary, and if 
 you can't keep him out of the field, with the certainty of succession 
 four years from the time of your reelection, you are not the man I 
 take you for." 71 So many wrote to Allison about the effect of this 
 race on the prospective one of 1878, when Allison's own seat would be 
 at stake, that it is impossible not to believe that this was a strong factor 
 in Allison's thinking. James F. Wilson revealed this line of thought 
 when he asserted his lack of fear of Harlan two years hence, saying 
 in his best Lincolnesque manner, "We will take care of that pig when 
 it gets fat." 72 
 
 Belknap's friends were bitterly disappointed and charged his de- 
 feat to ungrateful people who had forgotten their debts to him for 
 political appointments. But a few weeks later these same friends could 
 
142 William Boyd Allison 
 
 breathe a sigh of relief that Belknap had not been elected. On February 
 3, 1876, the Fort Dodge Messenger reported that stories were being 
 circulated about Secretary Belknap by a certain man named Armes, a 
 relative of Senator-elect Kirkwood. The man had been discharged 
 from the army, so the story ran, for an outrage against some ladies and 
 was now against Belknap because he refused to reinstate him. A few 
 days later the paper reported that serious charges were being brought 
 against the Secretary but that it would refuse to believe them until 
 they were fully confirmed. 
 
 The full story broke on March 2, 1876. Disclosures were made by 
 the Committee on Expenditures of the War Department showing that 
 army post traderships had been sold to those who would "kick back" 
 into the Secretary's private purse. Belknap's recently deceased wife 
 and her sister, whom the Secretary had married, were both accused as 
 accomplices to whom some of the money had been paid. Rumors 
 spread that Belknap had committed suicide after the disclosures, but 
 these were unfounded. 73 The House of Representatives rushed through 
 articles of impeachment but not until President Grant had with un- 
 seemly haste accepted the accused man's resignation. Not one mem- 
 ber of the Iowa delegation made any kind of public statement on the 
 subject of their fellow-Iowan's actions. 
 
 The House persisted in its efforts to secure a conviction on its im- 
 peachment charges but failed because a sufficient number of Senators, 
 including Allison and Wright of Iowa, refused to vote for a verdict 
 of guilty, claiming that Belknap's resignation had removed him from 
 their jurisdiction. Most of those who so voted admitted that they 
 thought him guilty. 7 * Belknap dropped out of sight for a short time 
 and then re-entered the practice of law in Washington and Phila- 
 delphia. 75 Eventually the scandal was forgotten, the ex-Secretary 
 came to be respected and admired both in the East and in Iowa, and 
 when he died in 1890 he was buried in Arlington Cemetery. 76 
 
ititiim|iitt|t«t|iiM|ii»i|mi|ini|(Ni(tni|iW!|iM!|imit«»|ini|Mii|»ni|iiii|»i!i|i«t|ii»i|(ni|ini|ini|W|mi 
 
 v Y v 
 
 Allison and Silver 
 
 While the Belknap scandal was still before the country, the politi- 
 cal calendar brought on the quadrennial drama of a presidential 
 election. Little did anyone suspect that the election of 1876 was to 
 prove one of the most exciting in American history. But first there 
 came the madness known as political conventions. General Grant was 
 finishing his second term of office, and the field was wide open as the 
 Republican party began its search for a successor. The leading aspirant 
 was James G. Blaine of Maine, Allison's congressional colleague since 
 1863; other contenders were Roscoe Conkling of New York, Oliver 
 P. Morton of Indiana, Benjamin H. Bristow of Kentucky, and 
 Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. As his most recent biographer points 
 out, Hayes was a conspicuous candidate throughout the campaign, 
 rather than a last-minute entrant. 1 
 
 All of Allison's closest friends were enthusiastic Blaine men, but 
 Allison's own sentiments were well concealed. Just as the race was 
 getting under way, Blaine was implicated in a shady piece of railroad 
 finance that would have completely destroyed a man of lesser abilities. 
 He had acquired some worthless bonds of an Arkansas railroad; these 
 later turned up in the possession of the Union Pacific Railroad that 
 had reputedly bought them for $64,000. Blaine bullied an investigating 
 committee and the House with questionable justification for his actions 
 and with half-explanations of some of his own letters held by a 
 James Mulligan. 
 
 Such was Blaine's popularity with orthodox Republicans like 
 
 143 
 
144 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Kirkwood that they remained skeptical of the charges against him. 
 They certainly preferred him to Bristow of Kentucky, who, although 
 a strong Union man during the war, had stayed aloof from the Vin- 
 dictives, or Hayes, who seemed little known outside of Ohio even 
 though he would answer the need for a "clean handed man." Kirkwood 
 pondered the rivalry of Blaine and Hayes. "I am still for Blaine," 
 he wrote to Allison. "Of course if there is reasonable ground to fear 
 that this nomination would bring defeat we should take someone else. 
 But I do not like the idea of taking Hays [sic]. This thing of taking a 
 man who has not a national reputation always has to me a flavor of 
 humiliation. Besides it destroys measurably the laudable ambition of 
 public men to earn a national reputation." 2 
 
 As the time for the Republican national convention approached, 
 every eye was turned toward Cincinnati, and every expert had his 
 own guess as to the winner. Most of them were sure that it would be 
 Blaine. "He has completely vanquished the enemy, the country is 
 disgusted with these investigations," wrote J. K. Graves of Dubuque, 
 who predicted a sure victory for Blaine and hinted that Blaine should 
 then call Allison to his Cabinet. 
 
 Ret Clarkson wired Allison on May 29 that the Iowa delegation to 
 the national convention would be "solid for Blaine" but asked if the 
 delegates should be instructed. Allison replied: "Cannot advise from 
 this distance as to what would be wise." A few days later Ret was 
 not so sure; Blaine, his favorite, was ruining his chances by his testi- 
 mony before the House committee, and this left the Iowa delegation 
 free to move to someone else. Clarkson expressed confidence that he 
 could swing many votes at will and asked Allison to name his choice. 3 
 
 Although Allison almost certainly supported Blaine, neither he nor 
 his Iowa friends appeared ready with a positive alternative policy, 
 should Blaine be rejected. 4 And rejected he was, although only after 
 six ballots and then for expediency's sake; on the seventh ballot the 
 relatively obscure Hayes emerged as the winner. Iowans supported 
 Blaine consistently, but changed to Hayes when the band wagon rolled. 
 
 Allison sent a perfunctory message of congratulations to Hayes, 
 but Kirkwood was unable to cover up his real feelings of disappoint- 
 ment. "When I can do so without swearing I may write you again" 
 was one of his milder comments on the action of the convention. 5 
 James F. Wilson was equally disappointed but more rational in his 
 remarks. First asserting that the ticket was not what Iowans wanted, 
 
ALLISON AND SILVER 145 
 
 but that it would win, Wilson went on to say: "Blaine was beaten by 
 bad management in the Penna. delegation, aided largely by the fact 
 that Edward McPherson could not control the convention. A presi- 
 dent who could have held the convention in hand would have brought 
 on a ballot on Thursday and Blaine would have been nominated." 
 Blaine's chances were at their peak just after Robert G. Ingersoll made 
 his great speech on Thursday, calling Blaine the "Plumed Knight." 7 
 
 The Democrats at St. Louis a week later had no such difficulties in 
 choosing their nominee. The brilliant New York lawyer and reformer, 
 the recent conqueror of Tammany Hall, Governor Samuel J. Tilden, 
 was chosen for the head of the ticket. Thomas A. Hendricks of In- 
 diana, a "soft-money" man, was put in for the second place, acting as 
 an offset to Tilden's known financial conservatism. The Independent, 
 or "Greenback," party nominated Peter Cooper of New York and 
 Samuel J. Cary of Ohio as their standard-bearers. 
 
 The closing act of the drama was more exciting than the first. When 
 the first election count was made, Tilden had 184 electoral votes un- 
 disputed with only 185 needed for victory, and Oregon, South Caroli- 
 na, Florida, and Louisiana were still uncounted. Hayes went to bed 
 resigned to defeat and by his own statement relieved at the prospect. 
 Not so those two hardy battlers for Radical Reconstruction, Zachariah 
 Chandler of Michigan and William E. Chandler of New Hampshire, 
 unrelated by blood but kindred spirits in politics. Old Zach hurriedly 
 sent off telegrams to the local Republican leaders in the four states, 
 telling them to hold fast, claim everything, and concede nothing. If 
 every vote from these states could be secured for Hayes, he would be 
 elected. Oregon was later conceded to Hayes, but visiting statesmen 
 were soon on their way to the three Southern states to assist the re- 
 turning boards in making out their reports. The vital question of the 
 day was the method of deciding the award of the contested votes. 
 Congress was badly divided on the question, and practically every 
 local politician in the country had his own notion of the solution and 
 his own idea of the best way to enforce the decision. 
 
 Major A. R. Anderson of Sidney, a lightweight but extremely 
 voluble politician of southwest Iowa, expressed to Allison the typical 
 Radical Republican viewpoint: "What we want now is no yielding. A 
 firm hand and we are all right. . . . We have played the coward for 
 four years and have well nigh frittered away our birthright. . . . 
 Civil Service and all kindred part-your-hair-in-the-middle Geo. 
 
146 William Boyd Allison 
 
 William Curtis frauds must be put aside till the Rebellion is over and 
 all such meddlers with frauds must incontinently be kicked out of the 
 party." 8 The chairman of Iowa's Republican state central committee, 
 H. C. Leighton of Oskaloosa, took the same position in answer to 
 Allison's query. "You ask as to the temper of the Iowa people on 
 general questions. I think they are unanimous in our party, in stick- 
 ing up and standing firm for everything our own. If the Senate be- 
 lieves Hayes elected, and so declares him, Iowa will back it up with 
 100,000 men if necessary." 9 
 
 The great controversy over the election commanded wide attention 
 during the early months of 1 877. Allison's mail was full of suggestions 
 from friends and interested parties who offered plans for settling the 
 dispute. Governor Kirkwood, soon to be sworn in as Iowa's junior 
 Senator, wrote a five-page letter which was a good essay on the sub- 
 ject, although he did not have a plan for which any favor could be 
 found. More important than his proposal was the expression of 
 Kirkwood's attitude: "I would regard the accession of Mr. Tilden to 
 the Presidency as a great public misfortune but not so great as another 
 civil war or a dual presidency." 10 
 
 On January 18, 1877, a joint congressional committee introduced 
 a proposal, soon to be known as the "Compromise Bill," providing 
 for an Electoral Commission of fifteen members, five each from the 
 Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court. 11 Credit for being the 
 chief architect of this plan has been accorded to Senator George F. 
 Edmunds of Vermont, but to Representative George W. McCrary of 
 Iowa should go credit for originating the idea that a joint conference 
 committee should prepare a measure "best calculated to accomplish 
 the desired end" of getting the votes counted. 12 There were to be three 
 Republican and two Democratic Senators, three Democratic and two 
 Republican Representatives, and four Supreme Court Justices named 
 by circuits. The four justices were then to name a fifth, to make 
 the fifteenth man on the Commission. The bill passed the Senate, 
 47 to 17; the House, 191 to 86. 13 The remarkable thing about the 
 bill was that fewer Republicans voted for it than Democrats. 
 
 James F. Wilson, close to the grass roots opinion in Iowa, sent this 
 advice to Allison: "If the Senate comes to a vote today I believe your 
 safest course is to vote No. ... If it passes and Tilden is elected, it 
 will ruin any man in the Western states that voted for it." A more 
 powerful protest came from the eccentric but able Al Swalm of the 
 
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 Historical Society, loua City 
 
 Samuel J. Kirkwood 
 
 Nat'l Cyclopaedia of Amer. Biog. 
 
 Jacob Rich 
 
 Historical Society, loua City 
 
 David B. Henderson 
 
 Historical Society, loua City 
 
 James S. Clarkson 
 
Carnegie-Stout Free Library, Dubuque 
 
 Senators Jonathan P. Dolliver and William B. Allison 
 
ALLISON AND SILVER 147 
 
 Fort Dodge Messenger. "Three hundred Republicans of Fort Dodge 
 ask that you oppose the Compromise measure. Count us in or out but 
 no compromise with threatening bull dozers." There were those, how- 
 ever, who took the other side. The Burlington Chamber of Commerce 
 sent Allison a copy of their resolutions favoring the plan; Kirkwood 
 wrote that Republican politicians were afraid of the bill but the non- 
 politicians were for it. 14 
 
 In spite of the warnings, some more violently phrased than others, 
 Allison summoned up his courage and voted for the Compromise 
 Bill, as did George Wright, whose senatorial career was closing; in the 
 House, the nine Iowans divided six to three on the bill. In later years 
 Allison testified that he was fully aware of the risk that he was taking. 15 
 He anxiously watched the fight before the Electoral Commission as 
 the votes were counted. 
 
 The work that went on secretly to bring about a Hayes victory and 
 the acceptance of that victory by the South was not known to many 
 people in 1876-1 877. 16 Certain Northern Republicans saw a chance 
 to deal with certain Southern businessmen of former Whig associa- 
 tions who were ready to bargain Southern support of Hayes in re- 
 turn for Republican votes for federal assistance to internal improve- 
 ments in the South, especially harbor clearance and grants to rail- 
 roads. Deep in the plot was General Grenville M. Dodge of Iowa, 
 who stood to gain by a grant to one of his interests, the Texas & Pacific 
 Railroad. While these leaders worked quietly, excitement ran high, 
 and there was much talk of "war" on both sides. It is hard to believe 
 that Dodge's good friend Allison did not know what was going on. 
 
 Early in February, Allison and his friends, apparently assuming that 
 a victory for Hayes was a sure thing, began to work for an Iowa man 
 in the Cabinet. Their special candidate for this honor was, quite 
 naturally, George W. McCrary of Keokuk, not only because of his 
 brilliance and his service to Hayes as part-author of the Electoral 
 Commission Bill (assuming a victory for Hayes), but also with some 
 thought of removing him from the senatorial scene in 1878. As the 
 Commission's hearings drew to a close, and all the contests were being 
 decided in Hayes's favor, the pressure on him to name his Cabinet in- 
 creased. Wilson and others urged McCrary for Attorney General in 
 view of his pre-eminence as a lawyer. 17 McCrary received his reward, 
 but it was for the War Department rather than the Attorney Gen- 
 eral's office. 
 
148 William Boyd Allison 
 
 At long last the Electoral Commission finished its work. By a strict 
 party vote of eight to seven, the Commission gave every contested 
 vote to Hayes. At four o'clock on the morning of March 2, 1877, 
 Allison, acting as teller for the Senate, announced the electoral vote as 
 185 for Hayes, 184 for Tilden. 18 Thanks to the work of General 
 Dodge and his companions, and to others who helped to arrange com- 
 promises at the very last, the way had been prepared for Southern 
 acceptance of Hayes, and the inauguration went off without a hitch. 
 Certain people had taken a long chance by their determined inter- 
 ference with the democratic processes in this affair; fortunately, the 
 country had enough reserves of political resilience to survive the ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Hayes proceeded to give the country an excellent example of en- 
 lightened statesmanship by policies and actions designed to heal the 
 breach between the North and the South. He has been called a medi- 
 ocre President, but something should be said for the moral courage 
 he displayed in insisting upon the return of the South to the Union. 
 However much this may have been a part of a plan incorporated 
 in the bargain between Northern Republicans such as Dodge and 
 Southern Conservatives of the old Whig strain, this plot was not 
 known publicly then. Hayes had to bear the burden of a raging 
 criticism within his own party. Apparently Dodge did not tell his 
 Iowa friends that Hayes was in office because of the machinations of 
 a handful of Republicans, for no one attacked Hayes more violently 
 than James F. Wilson and Ret Clarkson. Both spoke for a large wing 
 of the party that seemed to forget that Hayes was their own alterna- 
 tive to Tilden. 
 
 The bitterness of their unreasonable feelings can be gathered from 
 some of their statements. After Hayes had helped to bring about 
 the ouster of S. B. Packard as Governor of Louisiana and Daniel 
 Chamberlain in South Carolina, Wilson wrote to Allison: "Be care- 
 ful not to give a shade of belief that you approve of Hayes' Louisiana 
 blunder — if not crime. . . . Even Jacob Rich is under suspicion as 
 being too much so." 19 Wilson's aversion to any but the Old Guard 
 Republicans is colorfully set forth in his letter to Allison concerning 
 the confirmation of John Marshall Harlan of Kentucky for the Su- 
 preme Court. "I hope you will not vote to confirm Harlan for the 
 Supreme Court. He is unfit for the place. He is not a first class lawyer 
 and is a mere politician. For God's sake give us no more of that kind 
 
ALLISON AND SILVER 149 
 
 of cattle on the Supreme bench. If he is confirmed we will all live to 
 regret it. Tell Kirkwood so." 20 
 
 Other things occupied Allison's mind during 1877, especially his 
 role as friend, adviser, and sometimes agent for Charles E. Perkins of 
 the Burlington Railroad. "Railroad politics" put Allison in a delicate 
 position just at this time. Perkins wanted him to support a Pro Rata 
 bill, so called, which would compel the Union Pacific to share its 
 business with the Burlington from Kearney, Nebraska, eastward. 
 The presidents of other roads, particularly the North Western and the 
 Rock Island, also good friends of Allison, objected violently to the 
 plan and urged him to work against it, as did others who lived along 
 these lines. A reading of these letters brings out the difficulties of a 
 politician when caught between two forces, both friendly to him but 
 rivals to each other. The preponderance of numbers and therefore 
 potential votes seems to have been against Perkins, but Allison serenely 
 stayed on his side. 21 
 
 Perkins also put Allison on the spot by asking him to exert control 
 over the policies and actions of the editor of the Dubuque Times, 
 Mark C. Woodruff, a leading opponent of the railroads' drive to se- 
 cure repeal of the Iowa Railroad Act of 1874. To do justice to 
 Perkins, it must be said that he was not seeking repeal of the Act but 
 modification only. In this he probably resembled Allison more and his 
 brother railroad presidents less. Both men seemed to realize the in- 
 evitability of some degree of regulation of the carriers. Even so, 
 Perkins wanted the newspapers to be friendly, and he repeatedly com- 
 plained of Woodruff's editorials. In addition, Perkins wanted Allison 
 to have Woodruff use his power in Republican circles by getting a 
 plank in the 1877 platform in favor of modification. 22 In the light 
 of Woodruff's position in opposition to repeal or even modification — 
 a reflection of the desires of the merchants of Dubuque — such a 
 request by Perkins was ridiculous. No such plank appeared in the 
 Republican platform. Any effort to change Woodruff's attitude 
 might have harmed Allison's chances in the forthcoming senatorial 
 election. 
 
 Allison's seat in the Senate would be on the block in January, 1878; 
 he must see to it that a safe majority of Allison men were elected to 
 the General Assembly in 1877. The number of major interests that 
 he had to carry along at this time is impressive. He was in the midst 
 of debate in the Senate on the silver bill which would become the 
 
150 William Boyd Allison 
 
 famous Bland- Allison Act. In addition, there was the Iowa election; 
 the fight over Hayes's Southern policy; railroad matters, especially the 
 movement for repeal of Iowa's Railroad Act of 1874; the struggle 
 to divide Iowa into two federal court districts; Mrs. Allison's failing 
 health; and many other matters, large and small. Any one of these 
 would have been enough to occupy all his time. 
 
 Fortunately, Allison had able lieutenants who helped him in the 
 work of electing the right men to the Iowa legislature and in delivering 
 their votes according to plan. His trusted Dubuque manager, Jacob 
 Rich, checked his speeches and arranged meetings; Colonel D. B. 
 Henderson sent many letters of advice, some of them critical of 
 Allison's neglect of important party leaders throughout the state; 
 General Dodge saw to his own district; Edgar Pickett, a young lawyer 
 of Waterloo, began his political career at this time by working to 
 carry Black Hawk County; John A. Hoffman and H. C. Leigh ton of 
 Oskaloosa helped to suppress a movement to throw Marsena E. Cutts 
 of that city into the race, a project that Cutts himself disowned. A. 
 H. Neidig of the Marshalltown Republican was a valiant worker. 
 Matt F. Parrott of the Iowa State Reporter of Waterloo wrote that he 
 wanted to work for Allison for Senator without having to drag the 
 senatorial issue into the fight for state printer, a hope that was not 
 realized. Judge Nathaniel M. Hubbard of Cedar Rapids, chief counsel 
 for the North Western Railroad in Iowa, worked steadily for Allison 
 and secured the cooperation of other railroad officials. 23 Charles E. 
 Perkins of the Burlington added his influence. 
 
 Above all, Allison enjoyed the powerful support of Ret Clarkson, 
 who was still fiercely Radical on the Southern issue and who rang all the 
 changes in his condemnation of the Hayes policy. Actually, the Reg- 
 ister had little time and space for the silver fight then going on; a casual 
 reader would not have known that anything was before the people ex- 
 cept the Hayes "Policy," the word currently used in sneering fashion 
 by Radicals when referring to Hayes's program of restoration of the 
 South to the Union. One issue of the paper carried a long editorial 
 letter from Washington, reassuring the people of Iowa that their 
 delegation in Congress was safely "anti-Policy." The next week the 
 people were told that Allison was the man to vote for because he was 
 the leading spokesman for Western Republicanism and the first to 
 have spoken out against Hayes's "Policy." 24 
 
 When the appointed night for the Republican senatorial caucus 
 
ALLISON AND SILVER 151 
 
 came around, there was the usual excitement, but it was a waste of 
 emotion. State Senator William Larrabee of Clermont nominated 
 Allison; Representative John Y. Stone of Glenwood made the seconding 
 speech. A motion was then presented by Representative William Allen 
 of Henry County, heretofore a strong Harlan man and leader of a 
 "stop-Allison" group, asking for the unanimous nomination of 
 Allison; a seconding speech to that motion was made by Senator 
 Alfred Hebard of Montgomery County. The motion carried, and 
 Allison's name was put before the two houses with as much unanimity 
 as anyone could ever claim. 25 In the formal election, Allison received 
 104 out of 142 possible votes, the Democrats giving the compliment 
 of their minority vote to Daniel F. Miller. 26 C. C. Carpenter had 
 written Allison that it would not be necessary for him to be there in 
 person, a prediction amply upheld by the event. 
 
 Among the many letters and messages of congratulations that 
 Allison received, surely none could have been more deeply appreciated 
 than one from his boyhood friend, now a successful businessman: 
 
 I avail myself of the present opportunity of congratulating you upon being 
 your own successor to the United States Senate. Ever since your election to 
 the House of Congress, and also the Senate, I have always watched your 
 course with interest, and now it gives me great pleasure to see you so highly 
 endorsed by your constituents, and I feel sure they will have no cause to 
 regret the confidence they have reposed in you. Wishing you success in the 
 future and hoping you may live to reach the highest position in the gift of 
 the people of this nation, I remain your old friend and school mate, Clem 
 Studebaker. 27 
 
 During the 1877 campaign the great currency question came up in 
 Congress. Allison had observed a rising clamor over the so-called 
 "Crime of '73" for some time. In 1873 Congress had innocently 
 dropped the silver dollar from the coinage lists, recognizing the fact 
 that silver, then scarce, was seldom offered for coinage owing to its 
 higher value in the open market than at the Treasury. But in the 
 mid-1870's new mines in the Mountain West began pouring out fresh 
 silver in vast quantities. Meanwhile, the Panic of 1873 and the 
 agricultural crisis brought demands for an expanding money supply. 
 The frustration of the Greenbackers in 1875 by the Resumption Act 
 had only served to add vigor to the movement. Inflationists now de- 
 veloped an affection for silver and urged that Congress provide for 
 its coinage in unlimited quantity. 
 
152 William Boyd Allison 
 
 The greatest enthusiasm and the most urgent demand for silver were 
 naturally found in the West. Wherever debtors outnumbered credi- 
 tors, wherever mortgagors were having difficulty in making their 
 payments, and wherever silver was produced as a commodity, there 
 you would find believers in the possibility of the use of silver as a 
 monetary medium regardless of its price on the market in comparison 
 with gold. Western politicians were made or broken by their response 
 to this sentiment. The most complete embodiment of a favorable 
 response was Richard Parks ("Silver Dick") Bland, a Democratic 
 Congressman from Missouri. Bland combined real ability with an 
 evangelical and self-denying temperament. He fought for free silver 
 because he honestly believed in it, not because it was politically ex- 
 pedient. Term after term he had introduced bills on this subject and 
 had frightened the moneyed men of both the West and the East. In 
 October, 1877, he introduced a far-reaching bill calling for the free 
 coinage of silver at a ratio of sixteen to one. This bill passed the 
 House on November 5 by a vote of 163 to 34, with 93 not voting. 
 Every one of Iowa's nine Representatives voted for the bill. 28 
 
 On November 21, 1877, Allison reported the Bland Bill out of the 
 Senate Committee on Finance with amendments that not only changed 
 the intent of the bill, but its name as well — henceforth it would be 
 known as the Bland-Allison Act. The principal alteration placed a 
 brake on the unlimited coinage for which Bland's bill had provided. 
 The Senate committee now proposed coinage of silver dollars, with 
 the Secretary of the Treasury authorized to buy not less than $2,000,- 
 000 and not more than $4,000,000 per month. 29 (The word "worth" 
 was not inserted until later.) Another provision was for an interna- 
 tional conference on the subject of bimetallism. 
 
 The exact date of the submission of these amending clauses is of 
 vital importance. It has been suggested that Allison was moved to 
 the use of his influence on this occasion by his friend, John Sherman, 
 now Secretary of the Treasury and presumably the spokesman of 
 the conservative financial interests of the East. 30 
 
 Now it is true that Sherman wrote to Allison on December 10, 
 1877, saying: 
 
 Permit me to make an earnest appeal to you to so amend the silver bill that 
 it will not arrest the refunding of our debt or prevent the sale of our four 
 per cent, bonds. I know that upon you must mainly rest the responsibility 
 of this measure, and I believe that you would not do anything that you did 
 
ALLISON AND SILVER 153 
 
 not think would advance the public service, whatever pressure might be 
 brought to bear upon you. 
 
 Sherman then went on to explain the problem of the existence of a 
 surplus then facing the Treasury Department. This surplus not only 
 invited raids on the Treasury for high pensions and needlessly high 
 appropriations; it excited the taxpayers, who felt that they were over- 
 taxed and that such overtaxation was a deflationary force at a time 
 when some inflation was needed. More technically, the surplus was 
 harmful, because it could not be effectively used for the retirement of 
 the nation's debt, which was largely held in the form of long-term non- 
 callable bonds. 
 
 It was this latter problem that particularly worried Sherman. He 
 feared that a decision for the free coinage of silver would create such 
 a shock to the national credit that United States bonds held abroad 
 would come back to this country, and "our people will then have a 
 chance to buy the existing bonds and we cannot sell the four per cent, 
 bonds. This will be a grievous loss and damage to the administration 
 and to our party, for which we must not be held responsible." 31 
 
 But Allison had reported his limiting amendments from the Finance 
 Committee on November 21, well before this letter was written by 
 Sherman. Unless the letter was merely a confirmation of previous 
 conversations, it seems fair to give Allison credit for making up his 
 own mind. In Poore's memoir no reference is made to the influence of 
 Secretary Sherman; Allison is presented as the odd man on an other- 
 wise evenly divided committee, and it seems that by common con- 
 sent the committee turned to him for leadership. 32 He had known 
 Sherman since 1855 or perhaps a little earlier, and of course would 
 know his views even had they never been expressed in a letter. On 
 December 13 Allison gave strong prosilver arguments for the amended 
 bill on the grounds that the country could stand a limited amount 
 of silver per year, an amount that he predicted would not exceed 
 $30,000,000, and that with such a limitation both silver and gold 
 would circulate side by side without discrimination. He also put 
 great store by the necessity of securing an international agreement 
 for the use of silver, hence his insistence on the amendment for an 
 international conference. 33 
 
 No cause in which Allison had enlisted up to this time drew from 
 him such complete devotion and such spirited and unwavering defense. 
 The full record of this fight in the Senate for a fair recognition of 
 
154 William Boyd Allison 
 
 silver belies the picture of him as a weak, spineless, noncommittal com- 
 promiser. Beginning with his speech on December 13, which drew 
 many contemporary compliments, Allison bore the brunt of the fight- 
 ing against such able opponents as George F. Edmunds of Vermont, 
 James G. Blaine of Maine, Thomas A. Bayard of Delaware, A. A. 
 Sargent of California, and finally President Hayes himself. He had 
 to carry the handicap of working for amendments to a bill that had 
 been introduced by a Democrat and the added handicap of the Stanley 
 Matthews Resolution, which declared that payment of government 
 bonds in silver would not be an act of bad faith or an invasion of the 
 bondholders' rights. 34 Allison had to vote for this resolution, although 
 he would have greatly preferred to postpone consideration of it until 
 the main fight for silver was over. 
 
 After a long Christmas recess, the debate on silver raged on through 
 late January and into February, 1878. Conservative journals such as 
 Harper's Weekly and The Nation criticized Allison or anyone who 
 offered the least concession to the silver interests. In Iowa, the Daven- 
 port Gazette, almost alone in opposing silver, attacked him for his 
 admission that "the chief cause for the depreciation in value of silver 
 has been the action of other nations in adopting the single standard" 
 and for his assertion that the adoption of the silver dollar as a standard 
 depended on international agreement. The Gazette thought this a 
 damaging admission to make. 35 
 
 In mid-February the course of the Bland-Allison Bill was nearing 
 its end. The climax of the debate, with the Senators at their best in a 
 battle of wits and knowledge, came in the all-night session which be- 
 gan on Friday afternoon, February 15, and did not close until five 
 o'clock on the morning of the 16th. 36 In such a marathon session 
 every one had his chance to say his piece. Several speakers seemed eager 
 to ascribe to Allison the authorship of the two million- four million 
 limiting clause, but he was always prompt to attribute it to the entire 
 Committee on Finance. He made one prepared speech, summing up 
 the case for the bill, and in the course of the running debate he held 
 his own against such doughty opponents as Edmunds and Justin S. 
 Morrill. He was the soul of courtesy, but he could not be sidetracked 
 or tricked in any manner. 
 
 Near the close of the debate Allison rose: 
 
 Mr. President, it seems now, at twenty minutes of five o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, by the action of the Senator from New York (Kernan) we have had 
 
ALLISON AND SILVER 155 
 
 thrust upon this bill not only the question of the remonetization of silver, 
 but the whole question of the resumption of specie payments and the volume 
 of the paper circulating medium. If that question is to be opened up again 
 and added to this bill, I think the motion of my friend from Vermont (Mr. 
 Morrill) would be quite opportune, namely, that this bill should take effect 
 on the 1st of July, 1878, because we shall not probably finish it until about 
 that time. Therefore I beg the friends of this bill not to lumber it up with 
 questions of paper money. Let us settle the silver question now and the ques- 
 tion of paper issues afterward. 
 
 The vote was at last called for, and the amended bill passed by a vote 
 of 48 to 21, with 7 absent. In an editorial on February 22, Ret 
 Clarkson announced triumphantly that the Senate had passed the bill 
 and reminded his readers that the Iowa Republican convention of 
 June, 1877, had been the first to endorse the remonetization of silver. 
 He pointed out that the Iowa delegation in the House had supported 
 the proposition unanimously and that Allison had led the fight in the 
 Senate. Pointing out that 999 out of every 1,000 Iowans wanted the 
 silver bill as passed, Clarkson derided the Davenport Gazette for its 
 opposition. 37 On the Monday after the Saturday passage of the bill, 
 according to the Register, Sherman and Allison had had a talk, and 
 Sherman had promised to enforce the act to the letter, agreeing that it 
 would help him to prepare for resumption in 1879. C. C. Carpenter 
 wrote from Fort Dodge and congratulated Allison on his speech and 
 on his leading position in the contest and expressed his pleasure with 
 the law: "I wish now the men of money and enterprise could be as- 
 sured that the financial question will be let alone as I believe it would 
 help more than anything else to restore confidence and business ac- 
 tivity." 3S 
 
 Meanwhile, the amended bill had passed the House by a whopping 
 vote of 196 to 71. 39 The Iowa delegation did not take part in the de- 
 bate, but they voted unanimously for the bill. The separate amend- 
 ments all carried easily, but none by as large a vote as the one for a 
 limited ($2,000,000 to $4,000,000 worth monthly) coinage. On this 
 the vote was 203 to 71. Representative James Abram Garfield ex- 
 pressed perfectly the mood of the country when he wrote in his diary 
 on February 17, 1878: "If there were any temper in Congress or the 
 country which would tolerate or listen to discussion, I should be glad 
 to debate this case fully — but it is an epoch of madness." 
 
 Nothing daunted, President Hayes sent the bill back with a short 
 but forceful veto message. Without debate the Senate passed it over 
 
156 William Boyd Allison 
 
 the veto by a vote of 46 to 19, with 11 members absent. Allison and 
 Kirkwood naturally voted with the majority. 40 In the House the 
 Speaker's announcement that the bill had carried over the President's 
 veto by a vote of 196 to 73, with 23 not voting, was greeted with great 
 applause. 41 Again, the entire Iowa delegation voted for the bill. 
 Garfield noted in his diary that "The President was not only unable 
 to influence a single vote but lost some in each House. He has pur- 
 sued a suicidal policy towards Congress — and is almost without a 
 friend." Again the Des Moines Register, which is to say, Ret Clarkson, 
 exulted, and the editors of Harper's Weekly lamented. 42 The latter 
 stood by their contention that the bill was largely a Democratic 
 achievement by pointing out that of the 73 votes in the House to 
 sustain the veto, only 20 were Democratic; of the 19 on Hayes's side 
 in the Senate, only 9 were from that party. Furthermore, of the ten 
 Republicans who wanted to sustain the veto, all but three were from 
 New England. Clearly Allison was not acting with the "regulars" on 
 this occasion. 
 
 Allison received some criticism. Charles E. Perkins, sharply dis- 
 agreeing on this question in spite of his friendship for Allison, ended 
 up a rambling letter with the warning, "There is a future in store for 
 you Silver men!" A more positive denunciation came from another 
 friend from the world of railroad finance, Morris K. Jesup. The fight 
 that Allison had made for his ideas about silver, in the face of the 
 opposition of some of his best personal friends, helps further to dis- 
 prove the belief that he was a man of no opinions of his own, even if 
 it be granted that he had popular support in Iowa for his stand. 43 
 
 Nothing has been found to show that there was the slightest con- 
 tact or collaboration between Bland and Allison on the act that bears 
 their names. One was a Democrat, the other a Republican; the only 
 thing they had in common was their residence in Western states that 
 wanted free silver. Bland introduced his bill and put it through the 
 House; Allison had a key part in getting it amended in the Senate, 
 although he made no extensive claims for honor here, merely saying 
 that he was the odd man on the Finance Committee and had the 
 power to throw the vote of the committee either for an unfavorable 
 report or for passage with amendments. He chose the latter course. 
 
 Thus Allison helped to write another chapter in the long history of 
 American experimentation with silver as a money. "His" act was des- 
 tined to survive for twelve years. It is easy to pass judgment on his 
 
ALLISON AND SILVER 157 
 
 policy, if one remembers one thing above all else: Allison was a politi- 
 cian, not an economist. He was on the side of the debtors of the West 
 and South, with his own state party organization safely on record in 
 favor of silver before he acted. He was enough of a neutral to help 
 the extremists in each group to find a point of agreement. In effect, 
 Allison was saying, "a little inflation will not hurt us; this country 
 is big enough to stand a little bad economics in return for political 
 peace in the West." He had predicted that the amount of silver 
 dollars going into circulation would be about $30,000,000 per year; 
 at the end of twelve years the total figure was $378,000,000, a re- 
 markably close estimate. 
 
 If the techniques of quality control could be applied to legislation, 
 Allison's bill would rate well. It gave the Westerners enough to ap- 
 pease them temporarily and a hope that silver would soon return to 
 a favorable price. By its limiting clauses, the bill relieved the East- 
 erners of the fear of something much worse — the bugbear of un- 
 limited coinage of silver. It satisfied John Sherman, Secretary of the 
 Treasury, because it destroyed the threat to his plans for carrying out 
 resumption of specie payments in 1879 and his plans for the sale of 
 new bonds. If the act "both disappointed its friends and failed to 
 effect the dismal results foretold by its enemies," which is the judg- 
 ment passed on it by a leading economic historian, 44 it rather well met 
 the utilitarian test of providing the greatest satisfaction possible to 
 the greatest possible number of people. 
 
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 & 
 
 I 
 
 A Garfield Republican 
 
 Allison settled down to his usual routine of personal and public 
 business after the excitement of winning a second term election and 
 the passage of the Bland-Allison Act. As a Senator he had definitely 
 "arrived." Safely elected for a second term, a member of important 
 committees, possessed of a charming wife, and occupying a home in 
 which Mrs. Grimes shared the expenses and contributed her prestige 
 and intellectual prowess, life was now about as full and rich as Allison 
 could ask for. 
 
 Countless invitations to dinners, teas, and receptions, and frequent 
 requests to stop in and see the President, a Cabinet member, or a 
 fellow-Senator show that Allison was in his element. There is no in- 
 dication that he ever let any of this "go to his head"; he was approach- 
 able, he was attentive to his constituents when they came to Washing- 
 ton, and he ran countless errands for Civil War soldiers or their 
 relatives wanting pensions, inventors wanting patents, homesteaders 
 wanting titles to land, and so on almost ad infinitum. But the real 
 pleasure came from both social and political recognition. William 
 Boyd Allison had come a long way since those days in the small farm- 
 house near Ashland, Ohio, or even those days when he came to Du- 
 buque as an almost penniless young lawyer and camped on his brother's 
 hospitality until he could get started on his own. Possibly the rewards 
 of social recognition resulting from Allison's services to Big Business 
 were more highly prized by him than any others he may have received. 
 
 Washington was no longer the overgrown and muddy town that 
 
 158 
 
A GARFIELD REPUBLICAN 159 
 
 Allison first saw in 1861 when he attended Lincoln's inauguration or 
 in 1863 when he came for his first term in Congress. The city had 
 been rescued from the mud by "Boss" Shepherd; the housing situation 
 had caught up with the influx of population; and a number of people 
 of wealth, including some Senators, had established residences there. 
 Washington at last was beginning to have some of the advantages of 
 a large city and a world capital as well as the convenience, the charm, 
 and the intimacy of a small Southern town. 
 
 Senators kept open house one afternoon a week to receive their con- 
 stituents and others who came to Washington for business or social 
 reasons. Such visitors, usually under the escort of a Congressman's 
 wife, called on the President and other high officials. 1 Allison would 
 have only limited obligations and demands made upon him compared 
 to certain Cabinet members and the older and wealthier Senators, but 
 he and his wife and Mrs. Grimes combined their resources sufficiently 
 to make a place for themselves in a small circle of official society and 
 to extend their hospitality to their closest out-of-town friends. 
 
 In addition to his social life and his senatorial duties, Allison had 
 personal business enterprises to keep him occupied during 1878. He 
 enjoyed an annual retainer from the Illinois Central Railroad; when 
 it began or for what purposes it was paid it is impossible to say. 2 He 
 was deeply involved in a scheme whereby his Dubuque friends, H. L. 
 Stout, General C. H. Booth, and the Graves brothers, and his New York 
 boss, M. K. Jesup, were trying to sell a "paper" railroad — called the 
 Iowa Pacific — to some Boston capitalists. It is impossible to piece 
 together the whole story, but the fragmentary correspondence avail- 
 able is quite intriguing. Allison's potential reward seems to have been 
 some farm land near Belmond, presumably to be carved out of the 
 lands the road would receive. 
 
 In this scheme, Allison is revealed as the leg-man running between 
 interested parties. R. E. Graves wrote in March, 1878, that "in Boston 
 this week they will decide to buy the I. P. [Iowa Pacific] or drop it 
 entirely." Stout planned to build the line, then lease it. "Stout, 
 Booth and I want you to be a Director and help us in our negotiations 
 for the purchase of rails, etc." 3 After some months of fruitless negoti- 
 ations, Stout became anxious. R. E. Graves wrote Allison that Stout 
 had instructed him to "write the Senator that his big farm out West 
 has vanished and that I say he hasn't done anything yet, and he is 
 going to be paid accordingly to the work he does. . . . He smiled as 
 
160 William Boyd Allison 
 
 he said it but the foregoing is a scene from real life. Give us a ray of 
 sunshine if you can" 4 The next day Graves wrote Allison again: 
 "I enclose copy of letter from M. K. Jesup. . . . You know all the 
 particulars of the situation and our anxiety to have the business con- 
 cluded as agreed. Also the bearing on other Cos . . . your fertile brain 
 is equal to the emergency. We depend on you, and if any modification 
 becomes necessary you will see it, and put it in train. We are anxious 
 not to appear anxious." But Stout was more imperious. After ex- 
 pressing annoyance and fear over the delay, he wrote Allison: "Now 
 I think you should look up that old cotton umbrella [and] go to 
 New York and stay there until you get this matter settled. ... I am 
 still [a] doubting Thomas and need to be comforted in some way. 
 This unfortunate delay is killing our project by inches." The matter 
 seems to have come to a close with a letter from Stout: "The unac- 
 countable delays of the New York parties in carrying out the con- 
 tract for constructing the D. & D. Road [Dubuque & Dakota, 
 successor to the Iowa Pacific] renders it impossible for us to place 
 anything to your credit here, but if they ever do . . . you will be 
 remembered accordingly." 5 From the demands made by these friends 
 on his time, one would never know that Allison's real business was that 
 of a Senator representing Iowa in the Congress of the United States. 
 
 There always seemed to be things to do for Allison's railroad associ- 
 ates. His correspondence with Charles E. Perkins, the managing genius 
 of the Burlington, reveals the opposition of the roads to the early 
 efforts to secure government regulation of railroads. To be sure, 
 opponents of Iowa's Railroad Act of 1874 had secured repeal of that 
 legislation; it had been replaced by an act of 1878 that created a 
 commission pretty much controlled by the railroads. But the mag- 
 nates were not even satisfied with this, and they kept up a running 
 fire on the idea of regulation. Their protest was well expressed by 
 Perkins in 1879: 
 
 A word about Iowa politics. A prominent politician remarked lately that an 
 anti-railroad cloud was gathering in the political atmosphere, and that the 
 marked difference between the present impending storm and the storm of 
 1872 [sic. 1874] was that it came from the country, from among the farm- 
 ers, while this year it seems to take its rise "in the cities." Now this gentle- 
 man came a good deal nearer the truth than perhaps he thought. The 
 truth is that a few Republican politicians, who live in cities, are making the 
 serious political mistake of trying to raise an anti-Railroad wind. 6 
 
A GARFIELD REPUBLICAN 161 
 
 A long series of letters followed in April, May, and June, 1879, in 
 which Perkins continued to complain of the antirailroad spirit of the 
 Republicans and to urge Allison to use his influence to get it stopped. 
 The fact that the groundswell of antirailroad sentiment was not 
 political but economic, and that it was a part of the whole protest 
 sentiment of these years, seems to have escaped the business mind of 
 Charles E. Perkins. Neither Allison nor any other politician could 
 have stopped it, and certainly Allison was too astute a politician to 
 have tried. 
 
 In addition to railroad affairs, personal business took up much of 
 Allison's time in these years. One small but significant matter was 
 the creation in 1879 of a corporation made up of some of his friends 
 who bought a section of land in Butler County and marked it out 
 as a townsite. They named the town after Allison on the condition 
 that he buy a one-sixth share in the corporation and also use his in- 
 fluence with the Post Office Department in arranging the use of his 
 name for the new town. He met these conditions, and thus originated 
 the pleasant little county-seat town whose name honors the public 
 servant with the longest tenure in Iowa's history. 7 
 
 Legislative affairs were not neglected by Allison, however. Be- 
 cause of his part in the writing of the Resumption Act and his joint 
 authorship of the Bland-Allison Act, he had a great interest in the 
 monetary situation. As the time drew near for the resumption of 
 specie payments, he was on the alert for all signs of success or failure. 
 The act had provided that "on and after January 1, 1879, the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury shall redeem, in coin, the United States legal- 
 tender notes then outstanding on their presentation for redemption." 
 An article in the Chicago Tribune advocating the free coinage of 
 silver drew Allison's ire and served as a text for a letter of advice to 
 his friend, John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 As to how you will manage Silver, if redemption grows apace, I would throw 
 out [pay out] the Silver. If people only present G. B.'s [greenbacks] for 
 legitimate purposes & not to exhaust you or make a corner on you, I would 
 pay out gold. You have more of it than Silver. But without promises, 
 pledges or complications I would reserve the right to pay out either. If the 
 New York banks want to discredit silver they will do so only to their injury, 
 as it is certain in my judt [judgment] if what is called the Single Standard 
 people press their views as they now seem to be doing, they will have a 
 Single Standard but not the one they want. We are too near success in 18 80 
 to divide our people on the mere question of a metallic Standard. The 
 
162 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Tribune article was written by [Joseph] Medill and he thinks that is the 
 sentiment of the West and I fear he is too near right for a good state of 
 public health & morals. 8 
 
 Here again, as in dealing with the Bland-Allison Act, Allison is more 
 the politician than the economist. A sound monetary system is not 
 his primary interest: the people, the voters, must not be divided "on 
 the mere question of a metallic Standard." What counts is to win in 
 1880. 9 It would have been easier for Allison to go along with the 
 West without reservations; this he would not do. 
 
 Sherman passed Allison's letter on to President Hayes, who wrote a 
 note of approval. Allison replied with a restrained note of thanks and 
 expressed the belief "that our party will be strong in 1880 & with its 
 strength the country will be safe." This was the best he could manage 
 in view of the unhappiness with the Hayes administration which he 
 had already expressed to one of former President Grant's advisers. 10 
 It turned out that Allison's concern over Resumption was needless: 
 the process went forward without a hitch. 
 
 The year 1880 is notable in Allison's career for the interest he and 
 his close friends took in the presidential election of that year. It 
 had long been known that Hayes would not seek a second term. Even 
 those best qualified to predict the Republican presidential nominee 
 were in a quandary, but the names of James G. Blaine and Ulysses S. 
 Grant were most frequently heard. James F. Wilson was strongly for 
 Blaine. "I want a candidate of deep, earnest convictions (i. e., a Rad- 
 ical) , whether it be Blaine or Grant. ... If the convention should 
 say Blaine, I should give him my cordial support as I did in 1 876. 
 I want our party held together in harmony, and I dont want any more 
 dark horse performances." General Dodge was for Grant, if he would 
 run again: "He is the strongest man in the party, no matter what they 
 think." His second choice was Blaine. Ret Clarkson, as usual, was a 
 Blaine enthusiast, but he also worshipped General Grant. 11 The can- 
 didacy of Grant, who had just returned from his European tour, was 
 the result of the zeal of certain bosses in the party, notably the mal- 
 odorous Thomas C. Piatt of New York. 
 
 The Iowa members of the convention were led by four delegates-at- 
 large of strong character, personal ability, and unusual political 
 acumen: James S. Clarkson, Samuel M. Clark, David B. Henderson, 
 and George D. Perkins. Under Clarkson's leadership Iowa voted for 
 Blaine on thirty-five successive ballots, as the deadlock between the 
 
A GARFIELD REPUBLICAN 163 
 
 man from Maine and Grant continued to tie up the convention. 
 Totally ignoring the scandals of Grant's previous terms in office, his 
 supporters now urged his name upon the convention and corraled 306 
 votes for him, making up a group that fought unflinchingly to the 
 bitter end of the voting and then went on to order medals for them- 
 selves as mementos of their work. Not a delegate from Iowa was in 
 this list. 
 
 The delegates at last selected a dark horse, in spite of the wishes of 
 James F. Wilson. After Blaine and Grant, the third man in the bal- 
 loting had been John Sherman, whose floor manager was James A. 
 Garfield, a Senator-elect from Ohio whom Allison as an old friend 
 had welcomed into "the companionship of the Saints on the right 
 wing of the Capitol." After many wearisome ballots a few delegates 
 threw their votes to Garfield, and his strength quickly developed. 
 When the stampede came on the thirty-sixth ballot, Iowa climbed on 
 the band wagon in approved style, and Garfield was nominated. 1 " For 
 Vice President the convention threw a sop to the Eastern machine by 
 nominating Chester A. Arthur of New York. 
 
 The Democrats tried a scheme to overcome their Copperhead repu- 
 tation by nominating a Civil War hero of unassailable reputation, 
 General Winfield Scott Hancock; for his running mate they chose 
 William H. English of Indiana. To complete the picture, the Green- 
 backers nominated Iowa's own General James B. Weaver as their 
 candidate. 
 
 From the viewpoint of Allison and Iowa, the Republican choice 
 was most fortunate. Garfield and Allison had been friends and col- 
 leagues and coadjutors through good times and bad, through palmy 
 days and the dark ones, when both were grilled for their parts in the 
 Credit Mobilier scandals. With Garfield as President, Allison would 
 have a close friend in the White House, one who knew him well and 
 who would accept him as an adviser. Allison's telegram of congratu- 
 lations was soon followed by an intimate letter full of advice: 
 
 Hancocks nomination is strong & weak. His patriotism & his soldierly qual- 
 ities cannot be assailed. His utter want of experience in civil affairs, at a 
 most critical time for the wisest & most enlightened statesmanship make him 
 weak with the voters. ... I feel uneasy about the chmanship [of the national 
 committee] you must have somebody that can raise money & the Cong 
 Committee & Nat'l must work in complete harmony. John M. Forbes or 
 Don Cameron can raise all the money needed. The Comitee [sic] should feel 
 that it is Garfield & Arthur that we are fighting for, not the battles of the 
 
164 William Boyd Allison 
 
 past or the one to come four years hence. That will take care of itself if the 
 campaign is not frittered away. If I can be of any service in any way com- 
 mand me. 13 
 
 Allison took a full share of the work of campaigning. Apparently 
 he was in close consultation with Garfield and in a position to give 
 advice. On September 27 ex-Senator Simon Cameron, Levi P. Morton 
 of New York, Allison, and others stopped over at Mentor, Garfield's 
 home, to discuss the campaign. "Had a full conversation on the 
 political situation in Indiana. Allison and Morton spent the night with 
 us . . . the campaign was quite fully discussed," Garfield reported. 14 
 
 Allison later wrote to Garfield from Indianapolis about his travels 
 and findings in the pivotal states of Indiana, Ohio, and New York. 
 Everywhere he found the party leaders hopeful but alert against 
 "Democratic fraud." His usual pessimism was overcome: "I think I 
 am naturally conservative and not disposed to take rose colored views 
 of things. But I predict a victory here, unless some reverse shall come 
 unexpectedly at the last moment." He made the same report to his 
 friend Whitelaw Reid, publisher of the New York Tribune, and 
 praised the work done in that state. 15 
 
 The "last moment" moves were made by his own party, however, 
 carrying Indiana and other necessary states into the victory column. 
 The secretary of the Republican national committee, Stephen W. 
 Dorsey, an Arkansas carpetbagger of questionable reputation, saved 
 the day for his party by sending out agents who could outbid the 
 Democrats. For this feat of wholesale vote-buying he was roundly de- 
 nounced by press and pulpit, but many leaders of his party feted him 
 with a great dinner at Delmonico's. 
 
 Allison and Garfield circumspectly avoided attendance at the dinner 
 and maintained complete silence. Yet the correspondence as quoted by 
 Garfield's biographer and a letter from Allison to Garfield, hitherto un- 
 noticed, show that both men were well aware of Dorsey 's methods. 
 Garfield had interceded with Levi P. Morton, the New York banker, 
 to get funds for Dorsey's use. On November 3, the day after the 
 election, Allison wrote to Garfield: "After leaving you I made the 
 journey as contemplated. . . . While in Harrisburg I telegraphed 
 Dorsey & he answered that all required would go to Ind. starting from 
 New York on Thursday night. With this information I thought it 
 not wise for me to go to New York & I returned home." 16 It must 
 
A GARFIELD REPUBLICAN 165 
 
 be said, with benefit of hindsight, that both Allison and Garfield knew 
 more than they wanted to tell. 
 
 On election day Allison sent a telegram to Garfield: "Iowa sends 
 you cordial greetings with sixty thousand majority and full Republi- 
 can delegation in the new house." 17 This message was based on a rapid 
 and tentative calculation of the vote and was actually under the 
 mark. The final count showed that Garfield's plurality over Hancock 
 was 78,000, but the 32,000 Iowa votes for James B. Weaver cut 
 Garfield's over-all majority to 46,000. 
 
 Hardly had the votes been counted when men began the second 
 battle, the battle over the make-up of Garfield's Cabinet. As Garfield's 
 ablest biographer puts it: "The presidential term of James A. Garfield 
 practically began the day after his election." 18 The President-elect 
 ensconced himself in his farm home near Mentor, Ohio, a few miles 
 from Painesville, and from this refuge conducted a heavy corre- 
 spondence, meeting and sometimes entertaining the visitors who came 
 to seek favors or to give advice as to the membership of his official 
 family. In this way Garfield could carry on business, keep a balanced 
 view of national problems, and at the same time stay in close touch 
 with his family and home. 
 
 Two impressions about Allison have been given in the literature 
 on this subject, both false. One, found especially in writings on 
 James G. Blaine and in his own letters, conveys the impression that 
 Blaine, who had been chosen for Secretary of State, virtually forced 
 Allison on Garfield as first choice for Secretary of the Treasury, even 
 implying that Allison was little known to Garfield and that it was 
 necessary for Blaine to describe Allison's virtues before the Presi- 
 dent-elect could be brought to accept the Senator from Iowa. The 
 second impression, that Allison accepted a place in the Cabinet and 
 then inconsiderately "broke down" on Garfield's hands on the very 
 morning of the inaugural, needs more extensive examination. 19 
 
 Nothing could be further from the truth than the idea of Allison's 
 dependence on Blaine. Garfield and Allison were much more nearly 
 two of a kind than Garfield and the brilliant but domineering Blaine. 
 Their acquaintance had begun at least as far back as that December 
 day in 1863 when the two men began their service in the Thirty- 
 eighth Congress. They had served together on the Committee on 
 Ways and Means, and they had been through the fire of the Credit 
 Mobilier investigation together. In fact, it is hard to imagine any two 
 
166 William Boyd Allison 
 
 men in congressional life whose careers had run more nearly parallel. 
 The letters cited above in regard to the presidential campaign illustrate 
 their friendship and their brotherly feeling, and, specifically, that 
 Allison had acted as confidential agent for Garfield. On one occasion 
 he had even acted as ambassador to old Simon Cameron and his son 
 Don, in Pennsylvania, to iron out any prospective difficulties there 
 with regard to Cabinet claims. 
 
 One of the first to begin action designed to put Allison into 
 Garfield's Cabinet was that man of action, James S. Clarkson, who 
 wrote to Kirkwood just a month after the election: "You and I agree 
 perfectly as to Iowa & the Cabinet. We want a man there, & that 
 man should be either Allison or Wilson. I believe Garfield will prefer 
 Allison. If he does he ought to take it, and then the Lord have mercy 
 on us in Iowa next year with two Senators to elect. I should feel like 
 taking my long contemplated trip to Europe." 20 Clarkson, not un- 
 wittingly, had put his finger on the real problem. Kirkwood's seat 
 would be up for election in January, 1882. If Allison should resign 
 from the Senate in order to accept a Cabinet post, the same legislature 
 would have to elect someone to fill out the remaining two years of 
 his term, as well as choose a man for Kirkwood's seat, presumably but 
 not necessarily by the re-election of Kirkwood himself. The agonies 
 of decision suffered by a number of men in the next three months 
 would never have been experienced if the senatorial fates of three men 
 — Allison, Kirkwood, and Wilson — had not been involved. Since 
 only two could go to the Senate, the little drama became a game of 
 "odd man out." Which two would be given the security of six years 
 (or more) in the Senate, and which would be given a Cabinet mem- 
 bership with all its honor but also its hazards? 
 
 Allison made the first move among the Iowans by writing to 
 Garfield on December 10; the letter has not been found, but in reply 
 Garfield said rather cautiously: "I am anxious to oblige the friends to 
 whom you refer but I do not think the position could go in that 
 direction. A good place can be found however which I hope will be 
 satisfactory. Dont fail to call & see me on your way to or from 
 Iowa." 21 The "friends" Allison had referred to were undoubtedly 
 Wilson and Kirkwood. Before Garfield's letter had been received, 
 Allison headed a list of petitioners recommending James F. Wilson 
 for a place in the Cabinet. Senator Kirkwood joined Allison on the 
 petition, along with £\e members of Iowa's delegation in the House. 22 
 
A GARFIELD REPUBLICAN 167 
 
 The first important letter in the series from Blaine to Garfield, 
 which gained for Blaine the ultimate reputation of being Garfield's 
 Cabinet-maker, is of double interest because it is largely a special plea 
 for Allison. Asserting it to be self-evident that the Secretary of the 
 Treasury must come from the West, Blaine ruled out Senator William 
 Windom of Minnesota as "profoundly and absolutely ignorant of 
 finance except as appropriation bills teach," and James F. Wilson as 
 one who had been too long out of public life. He then came to the 
 Dame of Allison. After managing to throw himself a bouquet by 
 citing John Sherman's opinion "that he thought Allison better posted 
 in financial legislation than any man in Congress, except Garfield and 
 Blaine," he described Allison as "true, kind, reasonable, fair, honest, 
 and good. He is methodical, industrious, and intelligent. ... In the 
 whole United States I do not believe you could do so well." Blaine 
 closed rhapsodically by picturing a triumvirate of Garfield, himself, 
 and Allison — a "picture without precedent — poetic as well as 
 political." 23 
 
 Day after day this business of Cabinet-making went on. For some 
 it was hardly more than an intellectual exercise. For others it was a 
 matter of political success or failure, perhaps political life or death. 
 For Garfield, as for any President-elect, it was a gigantic problem of 
 satisfying sectional, state, and sometimes personal claims, and at the 
 same time finding personalities who would make up an agreeable 
 official circle. Callers came by the dozens, and an immense corre- 
 spondence had to be handled. 
 
 Allison's stock went up and down, as did that of many others. 
 Major William McKinley, an Ohio Congressman, boomed Allison, but 
 Kirkwood came along and offset this by realistically expressing his 
 fears that Eastern interests would not accept Allison because of his 
 record on silver. 24 John Sherman, who knew the strength and weak- 
 nesses of all the prospective appointees as well as anybody, recom- 
 mended William Windom as his first choice and Allison as his second, 
 but he also warmed to Garfield's suggestion of John Jay Knox of 
 New York. 25 
 
 On January 16, 1881, Allison, in response to an insistent telegram, 
 came to the country home that had become the political capital of the 
 country, and Garfield, apparently full of doubts, put the burden of 
 decision on him by telling him that there were objections to him for 
 the Treasury and asking him for his own opinion of them. The 
 
168 William Boyd Allison 
 
 objections were that Allison was unsound on four points: the silver 
 question, currency, the tariff, and deference to the "machine." Allison 
 said he was ready to stop the coinage of silver, was not bound on the 
 tariff, and thought the last point not well taken. He would be satis- 
 fied, Allison added, if Iowa had either Wilson or Kirkwood in the 
 Cabinet. 26 Garfield was far from a decision on that mid-January day, 
 and on February 3 he was still debating among six men for the Treas- 
 ury, including Allison and Wilson. 27 
 
 Factional struggles within the Republican party made Garfield's 
 decisions even more difficult. The "Stalwarts" led by Roscoe Conkling 
 were opposed by the "Half-Breeds" led by James G. Blaine, and 
 Garfield must try to appease both men. Blaine and Whitelaw Reid, 
 publisher of the New York Tribune, were beside themselves in their 
 fears that a deal would be made between Garfield and Conkling, and 
 Blaine was getting desperate in his determination to keep out Conkling 
 and Windom at any price. 28 Of the former, Blaine said: "His ap- 
 pointment would act like strychnine upon your administration — 
 first, bring contortions and then be followed by death." As to 
 Windom, Blaine thought that he was not only incompetent but "has 
 the Presidential bee in his bonnet terribly. My bee is dead or has 
 ceased to sting, but Windom's is just fully hatched and is very active, 
 buzzing all the time." 29 On February 3 Garfield drew up another 
 tentative list for his Cabinet, with no less than six possibilities for the 
 Treasury: Charles J. Folger, Edwards Pierrepont, Knox, Wilson, 
 Allison, and Windom. 
 
 Meanwhile, Allison was having troubles in other ways. Mrs. 
 Allison was in very poor health. For some time the beautiful and 
 charming young wife had suffered from nervous and mental strain 
 over which she could establish no control. In one letter she quotes her 
 doctor at the sanatarium as saying that her trouble was "hysteria." 
 In a great many rambling letters to her husband, most of them ad- 
 dressed to him as "Dear Boy," although he was twenty years her 
 senior, she reveals quite clearly even to one not learned in the science 
 of psychiatry the extent of her derangement. 30 One of the consulting 
 physicians was the eminent Philadelphia specialist, Dr. S. Weir 
 Mitchell. 31 Mrs. Allison avoided the strain of life in Washington by 
 spending the winter of 1880-1881 at Atlantic City. 32 Her trouble was 
 later speculatively traced to an illness called "Roman fever" that she 
 
A GARFIELD REPUBLICAN 169 
 
 had contracted while in Europe with her foster father, Senator Grimes, 
 on his search for health in 1869. 
 
 Then there were troubles connected with the shifts in political 
 positions in Iowa, if Allison were to go into the Cabinet. These 
 were complicated by the fact that his lieutenants, who owned and ran 
 the Dubuque Times, were about to sell that enterprise to his former 
 partner D. N. Cooley. This paper was the natural medium for 
 Allison's political releases. He had once held a small block of its 
 stock and could virtually dictate its policies; now it appeared likely 
 to get away from him. Indeed, there were probably times when 
 Allison must have thought that the gods had conspired against him. 
 Seemingly at the top of his career, acting as adviser to a President-elect, 
 and with his name on everyone's tongue as a possible Cabinet member, 
 he was nevertheless unable to control the comparatively petty affairs 
 of his own little feudal principality. 
 
 The first to break the news to him of the possible sale of the Du- 
 buque paper was the most trusted of all his vassals, Colonel David B. 
 Henderson, who was well aware of the need for a dependable and 
 efficient staff for the Dubuque headquarters of Allison's machine. 
 Henderson worked hard in an effort to keep the paper in the hands 
 of its able editor, Mark Woodruff. George Crane, Allison's former 
 law partner, was now the postmaster at Dubuque. Henderson re- 
 minded Allison that he had once said that if he should go into the 
 Cabinet he must have Crane with him as adviser. If Allison would 
 let him know his plans for accepting the Cabinet place, suggested 
 Henderson, then he could notify Woodruff that he would succeed 
 Crane as postmaster and thus be able to keep the Times as well. Un- 
 fortunately Allison did not like this audacious display of initiative on 
 Henderson's part and showed his pettiness by rebuking the faithful 
 manager, and Henderson had to swallow this rebuff and make an 
 humble apology. 33 The sale of the paper went through in spite of all 
 the efforts to save it. 
 
 Meanwhile, Allison and his lieutenants untangled the knotty prob- 
 lem of Iowa's claims upon the Garfield Cabinet. Allison approached 
 both Wilson and Kirkwood. Wilson, he learned, was more confident 
 of his ability to win Kirkwood's seat than Allison's, and Kirkwood 
 seemed happy enough to have Wilson replace him. Allison and "the 
 boys" thereupon gathered in Chicago to endorse a scheme that would 
 leave Allison in the Senate, place Kirkwood in the Cabinet, and elevate 
 
170 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Wilson to the vacant Senate seat. Allison undertook to gain Garfield's 
 assent. He wrote unfavorably about other proposed Cabinet mem- 
 bers; Kirkwood, he assured Garfield, "likes you so well that he like 
 Barkis would be willin' if the fates & your judgment point that way. 
 ... So now you see how to make of Iowa a happy family." 34 Allison's 
 personal supporters were delighted with the decision, for they recog- 
 nized the insecurities of a Cabinet appointment. They rejoiced that 
 Kirkwood would sacrifice himself for the good of Iowa Republicanism. 
 Jacob Rich prepared Kirkwood: "I have hinted to some of them the 
 possibility that you may be selected, and every one approves the plan 
 under the idea that Wilson will succeed [to your place in the Senate], 
 and we shall have all three of you in influential places/' 35 
 
 Thus again the main point in the game is clearly set forth by one of 
 the principal players. The irony in this plan is that Kirkwood had 
 been prevailed upon to agree to his own sacrifice. Looked at under 
 these circumstances it is not possible to agree with the pronouncement 
 that the ultimate selection of Kirkwood for the Cabinet was an "in- 
 significant non-political appointment." 36 In later years Kirkwood 
 could look back on 1875, when he had been pressured into the race for 
 Governor, and 1881, when he had been "kicked upstairs" to the Cabi- 
 net, and think of himself as a badly used man. 
 
 Garfield did not readily accept the plan of Iowa's strategists, how- 
 ever. Indeed, he startled Allison with a quite contrary proposal: "I 
 have gone over the ground thoroughly, and have reached a point 
 where I must have your help — I want you to take the Interior De- 
 partment — and I earnestly hope you will do so — Please let me know 
 soon after I reach Washington." 3T Allison's answer was prompt and 
 decisive: "I regret to say that my obligations to others are such that I 
 cannot honorably accept the place." 38 
 
 So now Allison could boast that he belonged to that relatively small 
 group that had been offered places in the official family of a President 
 of the United States, his invitation being for a place then considered 
 more important than it is today. 39 One by one he had checked off as 
 his the items on the list of political honors available to citizens of the 
 United States: delegacy to both state and national party conventions, 
 membership in both houses of Congress, and now Cabinet member- 
 ship if he so desired. 
 
 On March 1, 1881, Garfield arrived in Washington, still undecided 
 about several places on the Cabinet. He was at once besieged by callers 
 
A GARFIELD REPUBLICAN 171 
 
 with advice, suggestions, and demands. Allison wrote him a note that 
 day which shows him in the role he graced so well: 
 
 Don Cameron says to me he called before six & Swaim [G. G. Swaim, 
 Garfield's secretary] told him to come at half -past six and you would see him. 
 He called at 6:3 5 & you sent word that you were engaged, & then again 
 after seven you sent him the same word. He feels sore. I told him you could 
 not have seen his message. You should send for him so I think. He feels very 
 sore. 40 
 
 This is Allison, ever the peacemaker, trying to prevent Garfield from 
 angering Conkling's Stalwarts, of whom Cameron was one. Allison's 
 role was useful to Garfield, who noted at the end of that day: "The 
 rush and swirl of callers was too much to be remembered without 
 discomfort. Interviews with Blaine and several leading men — Slate 
 generally approved — but Allison is pressed in place of Windom — 
 Morton [Levi P. Morton of New York] pleased with his new place 
 but his New York friends not." 41 
 
 Thus, on Tuesday, March 1, Allison was "pressed in place of 
 Windom." On Wednesday, March 2, late in the day, Garfield wrote in 
 his diary: 
 
 Only four hours of sleep, last night. Morton broke down on my hands under 
 the pressure of his N. Y. friends who called him out of bed at four this 
 morning to prevent him taking the Navy Dept — I told him he must ask 
 to be released if he wanted to go — which he did by letter in the afternoon. 
 The N. Y. delegation are in a great row because I do not give the Treasury 
 to that State. ... It seems important to get a volunteer soldier into the cast 
 if possible and I am discussing Judge Gresham of Indiana — and that would 
 require a change in the Treasury — Allison instead of Windom. On some 
 accounts this change will be more agreeable — I had James of N. Y. tele- 
 graphed for. I want to measure him for P. M. G. 42 
 
 But there is a contradiction that must be reckoned with. An Allison 
 letter to Garfield, dated "Mch. 2, 1881" and obviously written in the 
 morning of that day, reveals an offer, hitherto unnoticed in any dis- 
 cussion of this subject, of the Treasury to Allison on March 1, pos- 
 sibly after he had refused the Interior Department. The fact of a 
 conference between Garfield and Allison on that date is on record. 43 
 Allison wrote: 
 
 A full night's reflection, I regret to say, has led me to see it to be my duty 
 to withdraw the hasty promise I made yesterday regarding the Treasury, 
 and I must be considered as out of the way wholly and irrevocably. I feel 
 this to be my duty to myself & those about me. I hope the way will be clear 
 
172 William Boyd Allison 
 
 for my colleague or Mr. Wilson. I write this hopeful for your success in 
 your great office — & in every other way. 
 
 I would say this & more in person but am so unwell this morning that I 
 fear I cannot be out today. 44 
 
 Meanwhile, Garfield finally dodged the New York roadblock by 
 selecting T. L. James of that state as Postmaster General. 45 This 
 provoked an amusing though trying scene when Conkling, Piatt, and 
 Arthur called on Garfield, and Conkling dressed down the President- 
 elect in his best oratorical style, 46 a proceeding which Garfield lightly 
 dismissed in his diary for March 3, concluding with the statement 
 usually thought of whenever mention is made of Garfield's proffer of 
 the Treasury to Allison: "In the evening I offered the Treasury to 
 Allison and he accepted." 47 
 
 There is evidence in the Garfield Papers that Garfield had not given 
 up on Allison, in spite of his first refusal of the Treasury on March 2. 
 It is in the form of a note from Allison on that date, saying "I will 
 come to see you at 3 p. m. or about that time/' The note is endorsed 
 "March 2/81. In ans to note requesting him to come." 48 The vital 
 point is that Garfield has now, apparently for the second time, offered 
 the Treasury post to Allison and has received his acceptance. Whether 
 we are entitled, in view of the above, to say "again has offered" is of 
 interest only in that it might reveal Garfield's resoluteness or his be- 
 lief that Allison could be broken down. In passing one wonders a 
 little about the unfortunate fate of Windom and also about Allison's 
 carefully nurtured plans for Kirkwood's elevation and the easy suc- 
 cession of Wilson to the Senate. 
 
 But the story has a quick turn. Early on the morning of March 4, 
 only a few hours before the inaugural ceremonies, Allison again "re- 
 signed." On the slender evidence given in Garfield's diary, the story 
 has been built up in such a way that Allison gets none of the benefit 
 of the preceding exchanges. Here are Garfield's words: "Friday, 
 March 4, 1881. ... At 8:30 a. m. Allison broke down on my hands and 
 absolutely declined the Treasury, partly for family reasons, but mainly 
 from unwillingness to face the opposition of certain forces. Though 
 this disconcerts me, the break had better come now than later." 
 
 There is another story of the incident of Allison's last-minute re- 
 jection of the offer. It was written many years later by James Rockwell 
 Sheffield who, in the seventies and eighties, was Allison's protege, and 
 who received from Allison part of the tutelage which enabled him to 
 
A GARFIELD REPUBLICAN 173 
 
 become a distinguished lawyer and Republican leader in New York 
 City and to serve with distinction as Minister to Mexico. As a boy 
 Jimmie Sheffield spent many holidays with Allison in Washington, and 
 be happened to be there on this occasion. Allison sent him to Garfield 
 it 6:30 on the morning of the inauguration with a message. Jimmie 
 gained admission to the Garfield suite, delivered his message, and was 
 so cordially invited to remain for breakfast with the family that he 
 did so. On returning to Allison's home, Jimmie found him closeted in 
 serious conference with Blaine. 49 
 
 The inaugural went off as planned, few in the audience knowing of 
 the little drama that had taken place earlier in the day. The dark and 
 gloomy skies and icy streets of early morning were conquered by a 
 persistent sun, 50 and the pageant of the inaugural ran its course. Any 
 plans that Garfield might have had for announcing the Cabinet were 
 completely upset. Whitelaw Reid wrote: "We are in a turmoil over 
 Allison's action in refusing the Treasury. The Blaine people have now 
 been urging Gresham . . . but not with much success." 51 Very late 
 that night President Garfield made the diary entry regarding Allison's 
 "breakdown" and then added: "Met Windom by appointment [at 
 eleven] and, after a full hour's talk with him, offered him the Treas- 
 ury. Retired at twelve-thirty, very weary." 
 
 The entry for the next day shows the resolution of the difficulty. 
 Noting that Windom had accepted at 10 o'clock that morning, 
 Garfield says he then sent him and Blaine to make inquiries about 
 Gresham, Hunt, and Kirkwood for the Interior post. On their return 
 they agreed with Garfield that Kirkwood was the "safest suggestion." 
 At 2:30 that afternoon Kirkwood was appointed, and the full list 
 sent to the Senate. Thus the scheme of Allison & Co. was carried out. 
 
 Whether or not Allison had a final hand in this choice of Kirkwood, 
 or whether he even attended the inaugural ceremonies, cannot be 
 said. When the Senate roll was called that day, Allison was reported 
 confined to his room by an indisposition. 52 All that we know is con- 
 tained in a polite and expressive note from Allison to Garfield: 
 
 I have not words to express to you my gratitude for your kindness to me 
 throughout this whole affair of the Cabinet. I assure you that Iowa is 
 satisfied & grateful and you may rely upon her & her representatives alwas 
 [sic] to be yours for the work you have in hand. Your Cabinet is a good 
 one, a strong one, and your inaugural splendid in thought — tone & spirit. 
 No one could have done better. 63 
 
174 William Boyd Allison 
 
 The new Cabinet was only fairly well received. One can merely 
 speculate as to the reception that might have been given to Allison's 
 name, had he been in Windom's place. Their views had not been far 
 apart, so anything said of Windom might generally be said of Allison. 
 While The Nation was especially critical of Windom's record, Harper's 
 Weekly was more kindly disposed and more optimistic about his pos- 
 sibilities, relying upon Garfield's "financial rectitude" and Sherman's 
 recommendation of Windom's ability. 54 Well might the editors have 
 taken comfort in these assurances regarding Windom. If Allison had 
 been the choice for the Treasury post, it is doubtful if either editor 
 could have changed a single statement in his appraisal. 
 
 Allison and his friends had wanted "all three" — Allison, Kirkwood, 
 and Wilson — to be in prominent places. This may be accepted, along 
 with Mrs. Allison's precarious health, as the obvious reason for Allison's 
 final refusal of the Treasury. But one other reason should not be 
 overlooked. Allison undoubtedly knew that the next man in line for 
 the Treasury was Windom; he also knew very well that if Windom 
 accepted, his claim on the chairmanship of the Committee on Ap- 
 propriations would be vacated. Nothing would please Allison more 
 than succession to that spot. He was well trained for it by virtue of 
 his experience on the House Committee on Ways and Means and more 
 recently as ranking member on Windom's committee. Allison suc- 
 ceeded to this very spot in the Forty-seventh Congress and remained 
 there (except for the first two years of Grover Cleveland's second term, 
 when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress) until his 
 death in 1908, surely one of the longest of such tenures in the history 
 of Congress. 55 
 
 These reasons combine to deliver a blow to the thesis that Allison 
 refused the Cabinet offer because of reluctance or fear to oppose the 
 powerful Roscoe Conkling. This point has been argued on the basis 
 of Garfield's statement that Allison "declined . . . mainly from un- 
 willingness to face certain forces." The proponents of this theory 
 base their beliefs on Allison's seeming support of Conkling in the 
 affair of the Robertson appointment which embroiled the Garfield 
 administration early in its career. 56 
 
 Late in March, 1881, President Garfield flew in the face of many 
 of his closest and most powerful Republican advisers and gave the 
 choice political plum — Collector of the Port of New York — to the 
 anti-Conkling Independent Republican, W. H. Robertson. The in- 
 
A GARFIELD REPUBLICAN 175 
 
 cumbent, General E. A. Merritt, was transferred to a foreign post. 
 Merritt was not a Conkling man, having been appointed by Hayes in 
 place of the Conkling vassal, Chester A. Arthur, when Arthur's opera- 
 tions in favor of the "machine" and his opposition to reform in his 
 office had been exposed some years earlier. But in 1881 Conkling 
 preferred to stay by Merritt rather than fly to the ills of a known op- 
 ponent such as Robertson. " 7 Eventually the fight took on the character 
 of a duel between Conkling, who was head of the powerful Republican 
 organization based on control of the New York patronage, and 
 Garfield, who sought to reform the civil service and to save his own 
 prestige by showing that Conkling could not run the national govern- 
 ment as he did the state of New York. 
 
 In such a fight it is easy enough to applaud the victory of the re- 
 former and to impugn the motives of all who resisted reform by sup- 
 porting Conkling. It may seem that all merit in the dispute was on 
 Garfield's side, but many of his best friends told him he had made a 
 mistake, " s and Senators Allison, Logan, and Frye urged him to with- 
 draw Robertson's name before the issue was fully drawn. ,9 Garfield 
 had gone along with Conkling to the extent of giving his men nine 
 posts, and now the President's friends might well wonder why he had 
 chosen to fight the brilliant but domineering New York boss on this 
 unnecessary appointment — unnecessary at this time, since Merritt's 
 term had not yet expired. 
 
 Under these circumstances the fight became, at least to some, a 
 simple contest between the executive and legislative branches, with 
 some Senators — among them Allison, Edmunds, Dawes, Frye, and 
 T. C. Piatt — standing on the rule of "senatorial courtesy," G0 at 
 least until their colleague had had a chance to present his case. It 
 certainly was not fear that prompted them to act; with the possible 
 exception of Piatt, these men were not afraid of Roscoe Conkling. 
 Allison, for one, was fully aware of Conkling's pompousness; Sherman 
 had only recently described Conkling for Garfield's benefit in language 
 that probably many Senators would have endorsed, admitting his 
 great ability but stressing his petulance, his personal pettiness, and his 
 political power based only on control of the patronage. 01 
 
 It is unnecessary, therefore, to read fear of Conkling into Allison's 
 intercession with Garfield when he presented Conkling's complaint 
 that he had not been consulted about the appointment of Robertson. 
 To this Garfield replied, "I stand joyfully on that issue. Let him who 
 
176 William Boyd Allison 
 
 will fight me!" 62 Allison's role was that of mediator and peacemaker 
 when he wrote to Garfield: "I had a long confidential talk with R. C. 
 yesterday on New York politics. This was not of my seeking but 
 I am at liberty to unfold it to you if agreeable to you. So if you care 
 to occupy a half hour in that way & will name the time I will be at 
 your service." 63 
 
 In short, Allison's case has been considered in too narrow a context. 
 Not only has the rule of senatorial courtesy been overlooked by most 
 writers, bur also the fact that each Senator might have had his own 
 private reasons for appearing to support Conkling. For example, 
 Senator Edmunds opposed Garfield and therefore seemingly supported 
 Conkling, largely because he believed the nomination of Robertson had 
 been dictated by his hated enemy, Blaine. 64 Furthermore, those who 
 seek to condemn Allison do not seem to be aware that he had run many 
 errands for Garfield between November and March and had investi- 
 gated many people for him. Proof that a majority of the Senators 
 finally swung over to the side of Garfield, and gave up their insistence 
 on senatorial courtesy, came when Conkling and Piatt resigned at the 
 prospect of an adverse vote on the Robertson appointment. Robertson 
 was confirmed by a vote in executive session without the formality of 
 a roll call. 65 
 
 Allison's position was now secure. He entered the Forty-seventh 
 Congress as a friend of the President, as chairman of the powerful 
 Appropriations Committee, and with political affairs at home fairly 
 quiet. This peace would not continue for long. 
 
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 XII 
 
 t: 
 
 Iowa Politics, 1881-1882 
 
 For Allison the remainder of the year 1881 was mostly taken up 
 with the twists and turns of Iowa politics, senatorial and gubernatorial. 
 As soon as Kirkwood's appointment to the Cabinet had been confirmed, 
 James F. Wilson came out with an announcement of his candidacy for 
 the Senate. If there were any doubt that Allison had manipulated 
 events so as to give Wilson a clear field, Wilson's letters to Allison and 
 Kirkwood would remove it. To Allison he wrote: "I reed your dis- 
 patch announcing Kirkwood's appointment. ... I suppose Henderson 
 is in Washington, at least so the papers say, and of course you have 
 had him to understand the situation. Please see that all your friends 
 in the North are posted. Give me any suggestions you deem proper. . . . 
 I am greatly obliged to you for your entire line of action in the mat- 
 ter." 
 
 Wilson's letter to Kirkwood, written the same day, is either utterly 
 selfish or else a cold discussion of a plot in which Kirkwood was as 
 deeply involved as anyone else. Without even the grace to offer con- 
 gratulations to the old War Governor on his selection for the Cabinet, 
 Wilson began fishing for Kirkwood's assistance: "So things have 
 turned out! And now I have a job on my hands. I have written to a 
 number of persons today. ... It is important now to fix your friends 
 as soon as possible, and I wish you would give this matter a little 
 attention." x 
 
 James F. Wilson proved to be a most indefatigable campaigner for 
 the senatorship. His principal opponent in the early stages was Gov- 
 
 177 
 
178 William Boyd Allison 
 
 ernor John H. Gear of Burlington, although John A. Kasson developed 
 some support, and James Harlan's name was frequently mentioned. 
 Wilson's main concern was with the attitude of the railroads: to whom 
 would they throw their great influence? The general assumption was 
 that they favored Gear. As early as March, Jacob Rich reported to 
 Kirk wood on this subject: 
 
 Ret spoke to Hughitt and Potter of the N. W. and CB & Q, respectively, 
 and I have written Ackerman and Duncombe of 111. Cent, and Merrill of St. 
 Paul R. R., as well as Withrow [of the Rock Island]. The two first repu- 
 diate all affiliation with Gear as I wrote you. I have not heard from Merrill 
 yet. Hughitt and Potter told Ret they wanted to keep aloof from the fight. 
 The only danger is Perkins. We must have Allison see him sometime in 
 New York. He can do more with him than any one else. The CB & Q 
 mixes more in politics than any other Co. and has the most power. We must 
 spike them. 2 
 
 On his own part, Wilson first took notice of the question of rail- 
 road support in a letter to Allison on March 11: "I am writing all 
 around the board. I am going to keep this thing going. I have got 
 to make the fight without the R. R. peoples help. I think they are all 
 Gearish. He is trying to revive the Granger issue on me but if he does, 
 and the R. R. people let him go you will see fur fly before that card 
 takes a trick." Apparently Wilson was harking back to the days of 
 1876-1878 when an effort was being made to repeal the Iowa Railroad 
 Act of 1874. At that time Wilson helped the railroads, but so did Gear 
 when, as Governor, he signed the repeal act of 1878. Wilson did not 
 mean to let Gear appear to be "the people's friend" when actually he 
 had been for the railroads. 3 
 
 A few days later Wilson wrote to Allison again, reporting that he 
 had a meeting with such party leaders as J. H. Easton and Captain 
 Theodore Burdick, the Decorah bankers, and Henry L. Stout and J. 
 K. Graves, the financial leaders of Dubuque. All gave him good re- 
 ports. In this letter Wilson indicates that Kirkwood had been well 
 aware of the "deal" to put Wilson in the Senate. The revealing sen- 
 tences are: "I find many are anxious to know how you and Kirkwood 
 stand. If it can be understood that both you« and he favor me it will 
 help mightily. This is our fight — your future and mine." 4 
 
 On March 23 Wilson, in his most forceful style, wrote Allison that 
 Gear had cleverly taken Henderson out of the fight by having offered 
 to appoint him to the Senate, in case Allison had accepted the Treasury 
 
iowa politics, 1881-1882 179 
 
 post, thereby neutralizing Henderson toward Gear's candidacy if not 
 actually winning him over to his camp. Now Henderson would not 
 be able to help Wilson in the northern part of the state as he had 
 hoped. Wilson also repeated the allusion to Gear's tactics of raising 
 questions about Wilson's relations with the railroads, although Gear 
 himself was vulnerable on that point. 5 
 
 Wilson's next report to Allison consisted of a complaint against 
 James G. Blaine's rumored interference in Iowa politics, with the ob- 
 ject of defeating Wilson. "Now I dont want this thing to drift, and 
 I want you to ascertain definitely about this. If he is to meddle in 
 Iowa politics let us know about it, but I want no stroking of the beard 
 and stabbing under the fifth rib at the same time by Mr. Blaine." 
 Allison promptly replied that Blaine would not interfere in Iowa 
 politics. Evidently without noticing the contradiction, Wilson then 
 asked Allison to get Blaine to write to Ret Clarkson, Blaine's great 
 friend in Iowa, and tell him that he was for Wilson. Instead of writing 
 Blaine, Allison wrote directly to Ret, stating his preference for Wilson 
 and asking Ret for his support. Four days later Ret reported that 
 although his brother Richard was for Gear, he himself favored Wilson 
 but had no objections to Gear; therefore, neither he nor the Register 
 would get in too deeply. 7 Wilson next urged Allison to work with 
 Kirkwood and Robert T. Lincoln, now Secretary of War, to get a 
 foreign appointment for Harlan and thus remove one of his rivals 
 from the race. 8 
 
 Late in May, James F. Wilson antagonized Charles E. Perkins. 
 Both Gear and Wilson spoke before the Northwestern River Improve- 
 ment Convention in Davenport on May 25 and 26. ° Gear's address 
 lauded a system of water transportation, reviewed the efforts at state 
 control of railroad freight rates, and concluded by tossing the whole 
 problem into the lap of Congress. Wilson advocated the improvement 
 of water transportation in order to compete with the railroads. He at- 
 tacked the railroads for stock watering and pooling and insisted on the 
 public character of transportation. The Register praised both speeches 
 and printed them in full, Wilson's under the heading, "A Masterly 
 Exposition of the Whole Question." Clarkson prefaced the Wilson 
 speech with a paragraph complimenting Wilson on his "intelligent and 
 statesmanlike" effort. What Wilson said would win applause and 
 votes from the people, but it brought a furious letter from Charles E. 
 Perkins, who exhibited the railroad man's confusion of his own wishes 
 
180 William Boyd Allison 
 
 with the good of the public. Even the imperturbable Allison must 
 have reeled a bit when he read the letter from Perkins, the man with 
 whom he was supposed to be able to "do more than anyone else." 
 
 I am greatly astonished to read in the Register of yesterday a strong en- 
 dorsement of Wilson's Davenport speech which is so distinctly opposed not 
 only to good sense, but also to the interests which I have & represent in Iowa. 
 
 I feel that the time has come when I must ask you to carry out fully the 
 agreement which we made in 1877 in consideration of the purchase by me of 
 an interest in the Register and the payment of $15,000. In that agreement 
 you undertake that the Register shall not occupy ground antagonistic to my 
 interests. Mr. Wilson has experienced a change of heart which will surprise 
 and disappoint all right minded men. He has enunciated doctrines which no 
 one knows better than he does are utterly false. He has taken a position 
 opposed not only to his own previous record and to my interests, but equally 
 opposed to the interests of all property rights. Take what he says about the 
 surplus earnings of Railroads and apply it to your newspaper or his own 
 bank! How can you endorse such absurd communistic theories which are far 
 worse than absurd coming from Wilson. 
 
 He has at the crisis shown himself not only the cold and selfish man you 
 always said he was, but an arrant demagogue and a shorter sighted one than 
 I had supposed possible. . . . Whoever may be the next Senator I cannot be- 
 lieve the people of Iowa want a man who has proved untrue to his friends 
 and to himself. 10 
 
 There is no evidence that Allison was in any way affected by this 
 ultimatum from Perkins. He went right on with his support of 
 Wilson, again proving that he was no rubber-stamp for a powerful 
 railroad president, even when that president was his good friend and 
 staunch ally. 
 
 Whether Allison passed on Perkins' demands to Clarkson is not 
 known, but the Register's attitude during the rest of the campaign 
 was one of wary neutrality until the assassination of Garfield gave it a 
 way out. Following Garfield's death in September, 1881, all Cabinet 
 members went through the traditional practice of handing in their 
 resignations, Kirkwood along with the others. While the new Presi- 
 dent, Chester A. Arthur, did not immediately accept their tenders, 
 it soon became well understood that there would be a general shuffle 
 of the Cabinet. Kirkwood's retirement did not come until the follow- 
 ing April, but his resignation permitted the introduction of his name 
 into the list of available prospects for the senatorial seat, actually 
 the one from which he had resigned to enter the Cabinet as a con- 
 venience to the plans of Allison and Wilson. Gradually, the Register 
 
iowa politics, 1881-1882 181 
 
 made its way over to the support of Kirkwood, and thus came about 
 the strange spectacle of Allison and Ret Clarkson in separate political 
 camps. The fact that Kirkwood was not working for a return to the 
 Senate, and that he was writing his friends that he positively would 
 not allow his name to be used against Wilson, did not deter the 
 Register. 11 
 
 Meanwhile, Allison & Co. had let the gubernatorial politics of 1881 
 get out of hand. Their choice was State Senator William Larrabee of 
 Clermont. Larrabee was a Connecticut Yankee who had come out to 
 the West and settled in northeastern Iowa, where he had gradually 
 accumulated a fortune as farmer, miller, timber man, and railroad 
 promoter. His greatest asset at the moment was the friendship and 
 support of Colonel David B. Henderson; his greatest handicap was 
 that he had gone into the race too late. The advantage had been seized 
 by State Auditor Buren R. Sherman of Vinton, who had come up 
 through the political ranks and had worked with the Allison machine 
 in 1877 when he ran for auditor. Now he was the first to announce 
 for the governorship and the first to campaign for delegates to the 
 party convention. Larrabee entered the race in a cautious way, and 
 only gradually did his candidacy pick up momentum. 12 Harlan, 
 "available" for either Governor or Senator, was another contender. 
 
 The attitude of the Allison men is shown by two letters; first, one 
 from Jacob Rich to Kirkwood in March: 
 
 Our friend Larrabee is quite anxious, naturally, to have an early solution 
 of the question as to whether Sherman is to have a place in the Territories, 
 or somewhere else, that will take him out of the Gubernatorial fight, and asks 
 me to drop you a line on the subject. 
 
 I hope sincerely that it may be done, for it will give Larrabee a fine start 
 of all other racers that may be entered, Harlan not excepted. I have no 
 particular fear of Sherman, but he has some strength that Larrabee ought to 
 have. 13 
 
 The other letter, written in May, is from Colonel Henderson to his 
 good friend, I. M. Fisher, superintendent of H. L. Stout's vast stock 
 farm in Butler County, out of which the townsite of Allison had been 
 formed: 
 
 My old & intimate friend, Senator Larrabee of Fayette Co. is a candidate 
 for Governor. He is one of the soundest of Republicans & one of the truest 
 of men. I know him & will stand by what I say. All our interests as business 
 men & as Republicans will be safe in his hands. . . . But Sherman who "is 
 all things to all men" to get support, has worked up considerable support. . . . 
 
182 William Boyd Allison 
 
 If you can aid in this matter you will support a true man and place me 
 under personal obligations, as my friendship for Larrabee dates back to early 
 days when we worked side-by-side on neighboring farms in Fayette Co. 14 
 
 All these efforts to capture the nomination for Larrabee were in vain, 
 however. The party convention met in Des Moines on June 29 and 
 gave the prize to Sherman. 15 
 
 While the campaign was at its height Allison had new cause to be 
 thankful for his decision not to go into Garfield's Cabinet. Shortly 
 after the tragedy of the assassination, Allison's own home was struck 
 by near-disaster. In September his wife, still suffering from mental 
 disorders, made an unsuccessful attempt to take her own life. The 
 matter was not greatly publicized at the time, but it was freely men- 
 tioned later. The nervous strain and the expense of the nursing care 
 now required must have been great for Allison. At the time there was 
 no proved method for the treatment of such cases; the only solution 
 seemed to be rest and care. 16 
 
 Politics went on in spite of personal tragedy. The fate of Wilson's 
 candidacy depended, of course, on the outcome of the October elec- 
 tions. Under these trying circumstances, Allison had to do what he 
 could to influence the vote. The preponderance of Republican strength 
 in Iowa made the result certain; the only question was one of factional 
 distribution. Buren R. Sherman easily won the race for Governor, 
 and a safe Republican majority was carried for the General Assembly. 
 In January, 1882, this Assembly met at Des Moines, and the Re- 
 publican caucus proceeded to nominate James F. Wilson by acclama- 
 tion, in spite of the favoritism of the Register and the Sioux City 
 Journal for Kirkwood right down to the eve of the meeting. Kirkwood 
 did the handsome thing for Wilson by having his name withdrawn 
 from consideration; Governor Gear and the backers of John A. Kasson 
 followed suit. Wilson's brief report to Allison made light of the Regis- 
 ter's opposition and expressed "everlasting gratitude" to Kirkwood, 
 "for he has acted magnificently." 17 Of course Wilson went on to 
 win in the formal election held by the General Assembly, and James 
 W. McDill of Union County was elected to fill out the remainder of 
 Kirkwood's term. One is a little puzzled by the display of unanimity 
 for Wilson. Surely there were unknown and unseen forces at work; 
 if so, they were well covered up. It does not seem unreasonable to 
 suppose that Allison had made known his desire for Wilson as his 
 colleague and that his wishes were carried out. Little did the public 
 
iowa politics, 1881-1882 183 
 
 dream of all the correspondence that had gone on behind the scenes; 
 of such a letter for example, as Charles E. Perkins had written to 
 Allison, demanding the repudiation of James F. Wilson's speech, or 
 the letters relating to the original Allison-Wilson plan to have 
 Kirkwood eased out of the Senate and into Garfield's Cabinet. 18 Allison 
 had now repaid in full his debt for Wilson's favor of 1869. 
 
 The large and small affairs that filled the year 1882 have little to 
 do with the Allison story except that they illustrate the kind of mat- 
 ters that occupy the life of the boss of a state political machine (who 
 was all the more a boss because he never put on the appearance of one) 
 and a leader in the Senate, where he was a conscientious and inde- 
 fatigable committee member. Above all things else Allison performed 
 faithfully and promptly the hack work that makes up the life of the 
 dutiful and efficient legislator. Most people think of it as deadening 
 and boring, a necessary evil to be endured if one is to have the other 
 more attractive features of the role. Not so, Allison. He had always 
 been a good committee man and a leader in the congressional debates 
 which eliminate the flaws in the routine legislation that keeps the 
 wheels of government rolling. Now that he was chairman of the Ap- 
 propriations Committee, he seemed to find new interest and new 
 strength for this kind of work. It became his life; it supported him 
 when all other things seemed to have gone against him. 
 
 In spite of the terrible heat of a Washington summer in those days 
 of Nature's air-conditioning, the Forty-seventh Congress stayed in 
 session until August 8. Allison's hard work attracted attention. 
 Henry Villard, the railroad magnate, wrote a friendly warning: "I 
 am sorry to infer from the scarcity of your visits to New York that 
 you are worked too hard in Washington. Don't overdo it." 19 On 
 one occasion Allison wrote to his wife that he had entertained two of 
 his colleagues at dinner, after which they had returned to the Capitol 
 and worked until after midnight on sundry bills; there was no telling 
 when they could get away from Washington, he added. 20 
 
 One particular matter caused Allison a vast amount of trouble 
 and threatened to weaken his political empire just at the moment when 
 he could least afford it. For years the O. P. Shiras scheme for the 
 division of Iowa into two federal court districts had been grinding its 
 way through the legislative mill and now was nearing fruition. The 
 earlier opposition of Council Bluffs forces to the plan had been al- 
 layed; now it was Burlington that objected to the latest plan because 
 
184 William Boyd Allison 
 
 that city wanted a court session, and this was not in the provisions of 
 the bill. Allison's friend Charles E. Perkins proved to be a powerful 
 spokesman for the Burlingtonians, ably aided and abetted by Frank 
 Hatton, the editor of the Hawk-Eye and a one-time ardent supporter 
 of James Harlan. Sam Clark, editor of the Keokuk Gate City, pre- 
 dicted the loss of his county to the Democrats if Keokuk were passed 
 over. 21 Allison was so certain that some sort of bill could be passed 
 that he promised the district attorneyship to a brilliant young Des 
 Moines lawyer, John S. Runnells, the state chairman of the party. 22 
 Colonel D. B. Henderson gave up all other interests for a time in 
 order to direct the fight. Finally, a bill was passed that offended the 
 least number of people. 23 Burlington was the loser, and Perkins philo- 
 sophically bowed to the result. A few weeks later Shiras was nominated 
 and confirmed for the district judgeship that he had all along planned 
 for himself. 24 Frank Hatton, the other complainant in the court 
 matter, was finally appeased by an appointment as First Assistant 
 Postmaster General in the Arthur administration. His case had been 
 complicated by the fact that he owed a sum of money to Senator 
 Wilson's First National Bank of Fairfield — a debt about which he 
 appeared singularly indifferent — and about which Wilson harassed 
 Allison with correspondence on the topic as if it were Allison's prob- 
 able loss instead of his own. 25 From the vantage point of his new 
 position, Hatton went into publishing and, as the owner of the Wash- 
 ington Post, became a wealthy man. It is to be presumed that the 
 debt to Wilson's bank was retired and that everybody emerged happily 
 from the once embarrassing affair of the court division. 
 
 In 1882 the outstanding question before the people of Iowa was 
 prohibition. The state legislature had proposed an amendment which 
 would make possible the adoption of such a law. This was truly a 
 "hot potato" for the politicians of the day. The Democrats as a 
 party solidly lined up against the idea, since the large German and 
 Irish populations in the river counties were the center of most of their 
 strength. A good many Republicans were also against prohibition, 
 most of them from the same cities where the Democrats were strong. 
 For example, Samuel J. Kirkwood from Iowa City, J. K. Graves from 
 Dubuque, and John H. Gear of Burlington opposed prohibition. 
 Allison was no more inclined than many another leader to make his 
 position known until the drift of opinion could be safely determined. 
 Illustrative of the challenge put up to Allison is a letter from the 
 
iowa politics, 1881-1882 185 
 
 editor of the Democratic newspaper in Dubuque: "Your neighbors 
 here, and undoubtedly the people throughout the state as well, would 
 like to know whether you are in favor of or opposed to the proposed 
 prohibition amendment." 26 The editor offered to publish Allison's 
 reply or keep it confidential as he preferred. Allison managed to 
 keep out of a public decision on the matter by making a noncommittal 
 statement. The prohibitory amendment was approved in a special 
 election in June by a vote of 155,436 in favor to 125,677 opposed. 27 
 
 Before that time, however, Allison's good friend and political 
 lieutenant, David B. Henderson, had announced himself as a candidate 
 for the Republican nomination for Representative in Congress from 
 the Third District. In May, Henderson was selected to serve as the 
 secretary of the Congressional Election Committee of the Republican 
 party, an honor that Allison probably managed to send his way. 
 Henderson won his party's nomination in June and stepped into the 
 unusual role of manager of his own campaign while assisting in the 
 election of his future colleagues from almost every state in the Union. 
 These activities entailed a heavy correspondence with Allison and 
 frequent appeals for advice or for the use of influence in the con- 
 firmation of appointments which Henderson wanted to bring about 
 for political purposes. 28 
 
 As the November elections approached, Henderson registered his 
 own concern and that of many others. 29 His fears were well founded. 
 The Iowa Republicans gained 15,721 votes over their 1881 totals, but 
 the Democrats gained 28,931 and the Greenbackers, 2,705. The dis- 
 tribution was such that the Republicans elected only eight of the 
 state's eleven members of the House — including Henderson. The 
 Democrats took two of the remaining seats, and the Greenbackers one, 
 that much abused but really admirable humanitarian, Luman H. 
 ("Calamity") Weller, being their candidate. 30 The Republicans lost 
 one of their eight seats almost at once by the death of Marsena E. 
 Cutts in August of 1883, before the Forty-eighth Congress met. 
 Cutts was succeeded by a Democrat, John C. Cook of Newton. To 
 add to the Republican woes, "Tama Jim" Wilson's election was suc- 
 cessfully contested by a Democrat, Benjamin T. Frederick, but Wilson 
 managed to serve during the whole of the Forty-eighth Congress be- 
 fore the decision was made. 
 
 In Republican circles this election was interpreted much as was 
 that of 1874: the people had merely suffered a temporary aberration. 
 
186 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Pathetically unable to fathom the revolt of the people against the hard 
 times, even so liberal a Republican as Secretary of the Interior Henry 
 Moore Teller, whom his biographer calls "Defender of the West," 
 could see nothing more than a passing perversity. "I think the people 
 occasionally get wild," he wrote to Kirkwood, "and this time they 
 were wild sure. Burrows [of Michigan] was beaten by a 'fiat money 
 man' of no character whatever; nearly as bad as 'Calamity Weller.' 
 Kansas, Michigan, Massachusetts and Colorado, all with Democratic 
 Governors — - it beats the d — 1." 31 Kirkwood's comment to Allison 
 was: "How do our Republican friends feel since the deluge in Nov.? 
 I think I was lucky in getting away from Washington when I did." 32 
 Well might Kirkwood congratulate himself on escaping from 
 Washington and from the political scene forever, although the mood 
 did not last. Allison, by contrast, had long since put aside any doubts 
 about his political life. In one of his rare moods of frank expression, he 
 confided his inner feeling to Mrs. Allison. Late in 1882, in describing 
 a gathering of prominent people of Iowa, he referred to Kirkwood, 
 who "did not seem to be in a very amiable mood politically. I think 
 he likes well to be in public place. I am afraid I will feel the same way 
 when the fates decree that I shall retire, although I often feel that 
 I have had more than my share of the blessings & burdens." 33 He 
 little knew how prophetically he wrote. 
 
iiffffmffWfWffw^^ 
 
 * XIII * 
 
 A Man of Influence 
 
 Very likely Allison looked back later on 1883 as the worst year 
 of his life. The politics of the time were nightmarish. His party was 
 not at all chastened by the defeats in the congressional elections of 
 1882. "Prohibition" was the great divider of the times, and nothing 
 else seemed to be of any importance in the thinking of many Re- 
 publican leaders in Iowa. Their fanatical zeal approached that of the 
 prewar Abolitionists. The Republican party was not officially a 
 prohibition party, but popular opinion regularly tended to pair the 
 two. At the same time, it was generally known that most Democrats 
 were strongly against any effort to control the liquor traffic. Allison, 
 a man of reason, was pained to see his good party friends throw caution 
 to the winds and dash headlong into a local fight that threatened to 
 do the party great harm in national politics. 
 
 The year opened with keenest anticipation of a forthcoming verdict 
 from the Iowa supreme court in the case contesting the validity of the 
 prohibition amendment that had been approved at the polls in a 
 special election the preceding June. In October the amendment had 
 been declared invalid by a Scott County district court decision given 
 by Judge Walter I. Hayes, who happened to be a Democrat. In De- 
 cember opposing batteries of the outstanding attorneys of the state 
 argued the case before the state supreme court. Counsel for the state, 
 pleading for the validity of the amendment, was headed by Attorney 
 General Smith McPherson of Red Oak, assisted by William E. Miller of 
 Iowa City, J. A. Harvey of Fremont County, Senator-elect James F. 
 
 187 
 
188 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Wilson, and C. C. Nourse of Des Moines, veteran politician and Re- 
 publican leader, the most rabid of all the prohibitionists. Finally, 
 there was John F. Buncombe of Fort Dodge, the near-Copperhead of 
 Civil War days, attorney for the Illinois Central Railroad in Iowa, and 
 undoubtedly one of the best lawyers in the state. Although not a 
 prohibitionist by conviction and not a Republican, as were all the 
 other attorneys for the state, Duncombe had been brought into this 
 fight by James S. Clarkson in frank recognition of the value of his 
 ability. George G. Wright, Allison's nemesis in 1870, and John C. 
 Bills of Davenport represented the forces opposing the amendment. 
 
 On January 18, 1883, the court's answer was given. In an opinion 
 by Justice William H. Seevers the amendment was declared invalid. 
 Justice Joseph M. Beck dissented at length. Not satisfied with this 
 decision, by which the proposal had been thrown out on a technicality, 
 the prohibition forces petitioned in March for a rehearing. This time 
 the court's decision was handed down in an opinion by Chief Justice 
 James G. Day: the petition was denied. Again Justice Beck dis- 
 sented. 1 A great wave of indignation swept down over Justice Day, 
 a Republican. The prohibitionists inconsiderately denounced him for 
 not rendering a decision favorable to their cause, seemingly expecting 
 him to construe the law in their favor regardless of his judgment. In 
 the meanwhile, Governor Buren R. Sherman, a prohibitionist, refused 
 the demands of his colleagues to call a special session of the legislature 
 to re-enact the amendment and to pass a total prohibitory statute. 2 
 
 All this happened at a time when the party was on the defensive 
 following the defeats of 1882. The temper of the times on corruption, 
 prohibition, and great corporations was well illustrated by a letter 
 to Allison from Major Albert R. Anderson of Sidney, heretofore a 
 violent Radical Republican but now veering toward another kind of 
 radicalism. 
 
 I could understand the widespread distemper that prevailed in last fall's 
 election and could well feel the effects of the scratching itch that the many 
 wrongful acts of the party had produced. . . . The truth is that many people 
 have for many years been voting the Republican ticket under protest. I have 
 been in that class largely myself. The past good record of the one party and 
 the past bad one of the other has done the work. But this will do it no 
 longer. Our party must convince the masses that it is not in the hands of 
 the corporations of the country. To this end two prime things would be to 
 declare against all [railroad] pools and in favor of the abridgement of the 
 jurisdiction of the U. S. Courts. Allison, you are perhaps not aware of how 
 
A MAN OF INFLUENCE 189 
 
 much demoralization grows out of this last matter. You do not hear it. 
 There is no one to tell it. The people do not itemize and formulate but they 
 bear these grievances as long as they can then smash things. They are now 
 in the smashing mood. The temperance question may absorb all things else. 
 There is no telling where it may land us . . . there must be a bold prompt 
 step forward in some such direction as I have indicated or there is nothing 
 but trouble ahead. 3 
 
 Kirkwood, a strong antiprohibitionist, wrote to Allison, suggesting 
 some kind of action at the party's state convention and asking his 
 views and advice on the prohibition issue. In his reply, Allison ex- 
 pressed himself with a mixture of evasion and positive advice. He 
 left no doubt of his own adherence to the Kirkwood view that it would 
 be a mistake for the party to try to carry a prohibition amendment and 
 also to advocate legislative prohibition in the party platform; he 
 feared the radical prohibitionists would dominate the state conven- 
 tion; and he expressed a strong hope that Kirkwood and others "taking 
 more conservative ground" would go to the convention and help to 
 make the platform. 4 
 
 If Kirkwood attended the state convention, he had no success in 
 stemming the prohibition tide. From the keynote speech on, it was a 
 triumph for the amendment forces. Lieutenant Governor O. H. 
 Manning of Carroll County coined the sentence which became famous 
 as the slogan for their movement: "A school house on every hill and 
 no saloon in the valley." Colonel Henderson, notoriously loyal to his 
 Scotch ancestors, accepted the chairmanship of the convention with 
 these words: "The wife and child of the drunkard are raising their 
 hands to you for aid. . . . Every Republican accepts the idea that we 
 will help them." 5 Riding roughshod over all opposition, the "drys" 
 nominated Joseph R. Reed of Council Bluffs for the place on the 
 supreme court held by Justice Day, defeating Day, Senator McDill, 
 and others for the place. 
 
 Kirkwood now went so far as to advocate scratching the ticket so 
 as to elect antiprohibitionists. It thus became obvious that the pro- 
 hibition fight was jeopardizing the Republican chances for success in 
 1883 and 1884. No one recognized this more clearly than Allison. 
 In a long letter to Kirkwood in July of 1883 he remonstrated with 
 the old war horse who was in the strange role of trouble-maker within 
 his own party, although Allison was careful not to make the advice 
 too personal. Admitting that there was much dissatisfaction in the 
 state, Allison argued against local ticket-scratching by appealing to 
 
190 William Boyd Allison 
 
 loyalty to the national party. The next year would bring a presidential 
 election; a victory "by a scratch" in Iowa in 1883 would give hope to 
 the Democrats for victory in 1884, so he said. Furthermore, the Senate 
 was now in a tie; the Republican party needed victories in both Iowa 
 and Ohio in order to preserve its national position. 6 Thus Allison used 
 one of the most effective but questionable devices of political leader- 
 ship: loyal party members must give up a chance to deal with a local 
 issue in order to win on the higher level of national politics. 
 
 Kirkwood was pelted from both sides. The eminent C. C. Nourse sent 
 two letters in defense of the moves that the majority had made; others 
 wrote letters of approval of Kirkwood's position. Carl W. Snyder, an 
 editor and party leader of Cedar Falls, wrote that "we have some 
 here who are intemperately insane on the prohibition question," but 
 that most people would remember the great record that Kirkwood 
 had made and would think of him now accordingly, although not all 
 would follow his extreme advice and scratch the ticket and vote for 
 the Democrat, Walter I. Hayes, in place of Reed. The best letter in 
 the series is one from Justice Day in which he expressed a fear of the 
 reflex action of this affair on the supreme court, the defeated jurist 
 giving an excellent statement of the evil of punishing a court for an 
 unpopular opinion. 7 The feeling of crisis was just as real as if the issue 
 had been war or peace; it illustrates the trials of a democracy when 
 honest men must make up their minds between party and principle. 
 
 A few weeks went by, and Allison joined all the faithful for a party 
 celebration at Clarinda. The Republicans were torn as never before, 
 with the prohibition issue and the tariff issue driving good men from 
 the party fold, with Kirkwood counseling a scratched ticket, and 
 Horace Boies of Waterloo announcing his intention to support the 
 Democrats. 8 The regulars met at Clarinda, William P. Hepburn's 
 home town, to provide a sounding board for speeches by Allison, 
 James F. Wilson, and Governor Buren R. Sherman. All the newspapers 
 edited by the orthodox gave the speeches in full, some printing special 
 supplements for distribution, and readers were reminded that the 
 Democrats were the party of treason and that only the Republicans 
 were fit to govern the country. 
 
 Allison had left Dubuque for Clarinda and the party gathering on 
 Thursday, August 9, 1883, planning to spend the following week 
 speaking throughout the state. Mrs. Allison, who remained in Du- 
 buque, had been ill but was improving when Allison left. On Sun- 
 
A MAN OF INFLUENCE 191 
 
 day, August 12, she told her nurses that she was going to make a 
 short call on Mrs. D. B. Henderson and was allowed to leave the house 
 unattended. Carrying two "gossamers" filled with sewing, she made 
 her way to a slough of the Mississippi River, weighted down the gos- 
 samers with stones, waded into the water, and sank below the surface. 9 
 Upon hearing the terrible news, Allison's railroad friends provided 
 a special train for a fast trip all the way across the state, but the grief- 
 stricken husband could only join the throngs of mourners. 10 
 
 Friends were exceedingly kind and considerate in this hour of grief 
 and distress. Ex-Governor Kirkwood sent condolences and an offer to 
 fill Allison's speaking engagements; an intermediary reported, "I 
 delivered your kind message to Senator Allison, whom I found very 
 much depressed over his terrible affliction. He would be glad indeed 
 to have you make a few speeches in this section." X1 Mrs. Grimes 
 packaged up Allison's letters which Mrs. Allison had preserved and 
 sent a picture of Mrs. Allison dated "Heidelberg, 1873," taken during 
 the couple's honeymoon tour of Europe. Mrs. Grimes pronounced it 
 "very beautiful," a judgment in which one can readily join. For the 
 next year or so, many letters from old friends made some allusion to 
 Mrs. Allison's charm and beauty and expressed sympathy for the 
 bereaved husband. Ret Clarkson later wrote Cyrenus Cole of Mrs. 
 Allison: "She was a beautiful, splendid woman, one of the loveliest I 
 have ever known, refined, high spirited, and gentle and lovable in 
 every way." 12 
 
 Allison's Washington neighbor and colleague, Senator Justin S. 
 Morrill, wrote from Vermont, expressing deepest sympathy. "Permit 
 me to hope that you and Mrs. Grimes will return to your Washington 
 home and keep its memories bright. Mrs. Allison loved and was justly 
 proud of you. I cannot think she would want you to shirk any duty 
 that may concern your continuance in public service." 13 Morrill 
 must have known how his friend would react to this tragedy, for 
 Allison wrote him, "I am broken up. I realize how vain a thing is 
 ambition. I shall try to do my duty, but this is a warning[?] to me, to 
 be prepared to join my wife in a better world as I am sure she is where 
 pain does not come." He had no plans for the future, he added, "as 
 Mrs. Grimes is in deep grief." 14 
 
 Mrs. Allison's inheritance from Senator Grimes had been well 
 managed, and she was able to leave a considerable estate to her husband 
 and to members of her own family. To Allison she gave $30,000 out- 
 
192 William Boyd Allison 
 
 right and a fifth of all remaining after certain specific provisions had 
 been carried out. In later days it was asserted that his share of the 
 estate came to about $50,000. A most harmonious relationship existed 
 between Allison and the other heirs. He continued to share the home 
 with Mrs. Grimes and carried on a lively and stimulating corre- 
 spondence with her during his absences. As co-executor with Edward 
 B. Nealley of Bangor, Maine, he was deferred to in every matter that 
 came up; not a step was ever taken without his advice. 15 
 
 Although bowed down by grief, Allison had no choice but to work 
 at his business of politics. The prohibition question had so badly 
 divided the party that the possibility of defeat in October was openly 
 discussed. With such a leader as Kirkwood advocating a scratched 
 ticket, and with General Weaver's Greenback party pulling other 
 votes away, it actually seemed possible that the Democrats might elect 
 enough legislators to enable them to choose the Senator in January, 
 1884, when Allison would be up for re-election. "Success in that 
 direction would be a national calamity, and tend to throw the balance 
 of legislation forever into their hands. Let every Republican be fore- 
 warned and cast his ballot accordingly," wrote the Dubuque Times. 16 
 Allison decided not to have Kirkwood speak in Dubuque, for fear that 
 a strong antiprohibition speech to please the people there would antago- 
 nize the "dry" forces in southwestern Iowa. He also dissuaded J. K. 
 Graves from publishing an article favoring local option. 17 
 
 All through the summer Allison was concerned over the forth- 
 coming senatorial election. It is hard to believe that he could have been 
 seriously and sincerely worried about the outcome, but he wrote to 
 Kirkwood as early as May: "Some say I must be a candidate for re- 
 election & that I will have no trouble if the legislature is Republican 
 but I know this cannot be so unless I shall have the cordial support of 
 all or most of the leading Republicans in the State. If I have such 
 support I am willing to take the chances. Without it I do not wish to 
 be set up merely for the pleasure to other people of knocking me 
 down." 18 Kirkwood was ready with advice which Allison accepted 
 readily; his answer was more confident. "Carpenter expressed himself 
 warmly for me," Allison wrote a month later, "& is ready to aid me in 
 any way possible. I think Kasson will not appear on the stage as a 
 candidate. He told me [he] had received many letters asking him to 
 run but that he had answered them all saying I ought to be re- 
 turned." 19 
 
A MAN OF INFLUENCE 193 
 
 As part of the campaign against Allison, General James B. Weaver 
 resurrected some of the "dead cats" of the years 1869-1872. To do 
 this, he had only to quote the earlier charges made by the Harlan 
 faction of the Republicans. Allison's lieutenants fought back val- 
 iantly, and Ret Clarkson used the columns of the Des Moines Register 
 for fierce denunciations of General Weaver. First charging that the 
 General and the Greenbackers had made a trade with the Democrats 
 to help the latter by attacking Allison and Wilson, Clarkson then 
 repeatedly called Weaver a liar. He took up the charges and disposed of 
 them one by one. That Allison had voted for the subsidy of railroad 
 lands and bonds for the Sioux City branch of the Union Pacific Rail- 
 road could not have been true, because this was done in 1862, a year 
 before Allison took his seat in Congress. That Allison was connected 
 with the company that was prosecuting suits against the settlers in 
 southwestern Iowa was not so, because Allison was not connected with 
 the Cedar Rapids & Missouri Railroad Company, the plaintiff in these 
 suits. That Allison and James F. Wilson, as Congressmen, voted in 
 1864 to double the volume of government bonds loaned to railroads 
 in 1862 was called a barefaced lie, because it was the railroad lands 
 that were doubled, not the bonds. That Allison and Wilson had helped 
 to get the route of the Sioux City & Pacific Railroad changed was 
 denied by passing the responsibility to John I. Blair and Secretary 
 Harlan, who should have rejected it if it were not proper. The route 
 was defended as one dictated by engineering requirements. That 
 Allison and Wilson had made millions out of these actions was denied; 
 the company itself had not made millions, and Allison's and Wilson's 
 shares were small. 20 Of all these charges, those concerning the change 
 of route of the Sioux City road were the most valid. Certainly the 
 answers differed from those given in 1868, when Allison was on the 
 defensive in his campaign for re-election, or in 1873 when testifying 
 before the Credit Mobilier inquiry. 
 
 At last the campaign ended, but not until Senator Benjamin 
 Harrison of Indiana and others had been imported to help the cause. 
 Hard work plus the traditional beliefs of the party carried the day; 
 Governor Buren R. Sherman was re-elected by a vote of 164,182 to 
 139,093 for his Democratic opponent, L. G. Kinne of Toledo, while 
 Weaver, the Greenbacker, received only 23,089 votes. Dubuque 
 County returned a Democratic majority of 3,597, by far the largest 
 of any county. The Republicans carried the legislature, but only the 
 
194 William Boyd Allison 
 
 holdover vote in the Senate gave them a confortable margin. The new 
 General Assembly would have 39 Republicans in the Senate and 11 
 Democrats; in the House there would be 52 Republicans against 42 
 Democrats and 6 Greenbackers. 21 
 
 A loyal supporter of Allison, who was also his cousin, reported that 
 "Republican speakers whom I have heard during the canvass have all 
 defended you against the slanders of Mr. Weaver; H. J. Budd, of 
 Knoxville, spoke of you as the grandest and noblest man that had 
 ever represented Iowa." 22 Even so, Allison continued to worry about 
 the outcome, perhaps fearing that some members of his badly divided 
 party might vote against him. Writing to Kirkwood a few weeks be- 
 fore the election, he said: "Do you hear of any opposition to my return, 
 or do you believe that any such opposition will develop among Re- 
 publicans. If so, I would like to have your aid at Des Moines." 23 
 
 While waiting for the General Assembly to meet, a second visitation 
 of sorrow came to Allison. His father's health had been failing for 
 some time: the end came on January 5, 1884. The old gentleman had 
 made his home with his youngest son, James H. Allison, called by 
 his middle name "Harrison," who had a comfortable farm home near 
 Peosta, about ten miles from Dubuque. The Senator had come from 
 Washington in order to be with his father during his last illness. 24 
 
 A few days later Allison made his triumphal trip to Des Moines to 
 direct his own re-election as Senator. On January 15 the Republican 
 caucus proved his worries groundless by unanimously renominating 
 him for the position. One of the nominating speeches was by ex- 
 Governor, now Representative, C. C. Carpenter of Webster County; 
 John A. Kasson, a former rival, openly supported Allison for re- 
 election, probably in the hope of winning the Senator's favor in a 
 ministerial appointment Kasson wanted. A committee made up of 
 Senator William Larrabee and Representative Benjamin F. Clayton 
 notified Allison of his success, and he responded with a "short grace- 
 ful speech" in which he promised to do his best. On January 22 the 
 houses voted separately, after the House had suppressed a small revolu- 
 tion led by Representative Joel Stewart aimed at investigating the 
 charges made against Allison during the campaign. On the 23 rd the 
 houses compared their journals and found that Allison had received 
 90 votes; B. J. Hall of Burlington, 48; D. M. Clark, 10; and L. J. 
 Kinne, l. 25 
 
 Jacob Rich's report to Allison was not the customary outpouring 
 
A MAN OF INFLUENCE 195 
 
 of six or eight pages but a short letter reporting a glorious victory and 
 blaming Weaver for the abortive investigation. Perhaps the thrill of 
 an Allison election was dwindling, now that it was becoming so 
 commonplace. At Ret Clarkson's invitation, Rich wrote the editorial 
 for the Register the day after the victory. In searching for material 
 for his paean of praise for Allison, Rich could not seem to rise above 
 the thought that Allison had been offered a Cabinet place in 1881 and, 
 had he accepted, could have served a useful purpose by acting as 
 mediator between the President and the dissident Senators. 26 
 
 Allison and the Republicans had won in Iowa, but the fate of the 
 party nationally hung in the balance in 1884. The state convention 
 in May, 1884, would be of more than customary importance, since 
 it would have a chance to express a preference for President and would 
 elect the delegates to the national convention. Jacob Rich, as usual, 
 gave Allison the inside report. He wrote that the convention had been 
 held down with difficulty to the expression of a preference for Blaine 
 without instructing the delegation in his favor; actually many were 
 heard to say that they would like to go for William B. Allison. 27 So 
 far as is known, this is the first time that Allison's name had been 
 seriously discussed for the presidential office. 
 
 Iowa sent twenty-six delegates, headed by Clarkson, to the Re- 
 publican national convention at Chicago in June. The contest was 
 between James G. Blaine and President Arthur, with George F. 
 Edmunds running a poor third. Four ballots were necessary for the 
 nomination, with Iowa casting her twenty-six votes for Blaine for 
 three ballots. On the fourth, when Blaine was nominated, two Iowans, 
 W. G. Donnan and Dennis Morrison, broke from the others and 
 voted for Arthur. A hue and cry went up, as if they had betrayed 
 their country in time of war. Morrison was an inconspicuous man, 
 but Donnan had been fairly prominent, a former member of Congress 
 as Allison's successor in 1871, and a former state chairman of the 
 party. The enthusiatic Blaine men hounded him out of the ranks, 
 never again to be heard from politically. 28 
 
 In spite of the Iowa delegation's loyalty to Blaine, there was some 
 sentiment at the convention for Allison. John S. Runnells, a loyal 
 Allison man and one of the delegates, wrote to Allison that many had 
 been waiting for the right moment to leave Blaine and come out for 
 him; among them, he said, was Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island. 29 
 
 The Democratic party nominated Grover Cleveland as their stand- 
 
196 William Boyd Allison 
 
 ard-bearer. The story of the campaign, probably the most unsavory 
 in American history, is a familiar one: the accusations of moral lapses 
 on the part of both candidates; the emotionalized attacks on both men; 
 the tactless remarks of Dr. Samuel D. Burchard about the Democrats 
 as the party of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion"; the closeness of the 
 vote in New York; and Cleveland's victory by a margin of 1,149 in 
 that key state. 
 
 Perhaps it was time for a change. The Republicans had had their 
 way pretty much since 1860; a new day was at hand. Allison's close 
 friend, the liberal Edward Atkinson of Boston, viewed the changing 
 situation in this light: 
 
 You are right in assuming that I was greatly opposed to the Democratic 
 Party, so long as it sustained slavery, but a transmutation is in progress. 
 The Republican Party has become corrupt and has become the chief support 
 of an exorbitant tariff and of an intolerant system of protection, while the 
 new South, permeated by new industries and new interests, is becoming 
 truly Democratic, and therefore entitled to full consideration. . . . Philo- 
 sophically speaking, I am a radical Democrat, and therefore welcome the 
 reconstruction of the Democratic Party on right principles. 30 
 
 The year after Cleveland's election proved to be comparatively un- 
 eventful in the Allison calendar. He was now secure in his Senate 
 position and had only to wield the power that was his. The Senate of 
 1885 has been pictured as follows: "Half of the seventy-six Senators 
 were wealthy and respresented large vested interests, among them 
 such men as Dolph, Jones, Brown, Allison, Cameron, Aldrich, Sewell, 
 Spooner, and Sawyer." 31 The name of William M. Evarts might well 
 have been included in this list, which was made up by his biographer, 
 but Allison's name should not have been included. He was, to be 
 sure, a friendly worker for large "vested interests," but he was by no 
 stretch of the imagination a wealthy man. He was not in a class, fi- 
 nancially, with the Senators listed here. Allison could not possibly have 
 kept up an estate such as Senator Evarts maintained at "Runnymede" 
 in Vermont; only by careful management was he able to maintain his 
 home at Dubuque and to keep up his half of the Washington home that 
 he shared with Mrs. Grimes. 
 
 Modest as were his resources, when compared with some other 
 Senators, Allison launched a new venture in February, 1884, when the 
 Iowa Trust & Savings Bank of Dubuque began its operations. G. L. 
 Torbert was the president, Frank D. Stout, the vice-president, Allison's 
 
A MAN OF INFLUENCE 197 
 
 nephew James E. Allison was the cashier, and the Senator was elected 
 as a director. It was a small institution, with only $50,000 in capital 
 stock, but with the Stout family supporting it, the bank was sure to 
 grow. Above all else, from Allison's point of view, it gave a secure 
 berth for his nephew and provided an effective agency for the handling 
 of his own financial affairs. 
 
 In the management of his personal business, Allison does not measure 
 up to what one expects from a man who was an authority on national 
 finance and the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, 
 the "housekeeper" of the nation in those times when Uncle Sam did 
 not operate on a budget. Many of Allison's letters about his personal 
 affairs give the impression of a little man, somewhat spoiled by the 
 adulation showered on him in Washington by self-seeking people who 
 needed his favor for their projects. He could be penny-pinching and 
 grasping on occasion; he often overdrew his account at the bank; and 
 he was a hard man to deal with because of his procrastination and his 
 tendency to use figurative and indefinite language. 
 
 Examples of these traits are numerous. One remembers the tedious 
 correspondence with his man Friday in Dubuque, George Crane, rep- 
 resenting Allison in a deal to sell the Dubuque Times-, at last, pro- 
 voked beyond endurance, Crane asserted flatly that Allison ought to 
 come home and attend to his own business, where so much money was 
 involved. Then there was the case of William L. Bradley, a banker, 
 who handled the sale of some lots for Allison. The amount of money 
 at stake was not large; Allison was vague and indefinite but said enough 
 that Bradley felt authorized to go ahead with the sale; when Allison 
 tried to block the completion of the deal, Bradley was much cha- 
 grined and deeply hurt. At last, he deferred in a cringing manner, 
 as he had to do on another occasion when Allison complained about 
 the collection charges on a draft paid through Bradley's bank. After 
 several letters of patient explanation, Bradley gave up in disgust and 
 refunded the amount. One cannot escape the conclusion that Allison 
 was acting the bully toward these lesser men; toward Bradley he was 
 especially unreasonable and overbearing. 32 
 
 Meanwhile, in the Senate, Allison helped to shape up a bill to regu- 
 late interstate commerce. The demand for some degree or form of 
 congressional action had been growing, and the air was full of specu- 
 lation on the subject. Nearly everybody in public life had some plan 
 or portion of a plan to propose. In this somewhat bewildering situa- 
 
198 William Boyd Allison 
 
 tion, after Senator Shelby M. Cullom of Illinois had reported his bill 
 from the Committee on Interstate Commerce, and the debate had 
 proceeded a short time, Allison came to Cullom and said: "Cullom, 
 we know nothing about this question; we are groping in the dark; and 
 I believe that there ought to be a select committee of the Senate ap- 
 pointed to investigate the question, to go out among the people, take 
 testimony, and find out what they know about it, — what the experts 
 know, what the railroad officials know, what public opinion generally 
 is, and report their conclusion to the Senate at the beginning of the 
 next session. I am willing to help you secure the passage of a resolution 
 with that end in view." This was done, and the resolution was adopted 
 on March 17, 1885. These ideas were the same as those expressed by 
 Charles E. Perkins in a letter to Allison of December 15, 1882, 33 and 
 which Allison had then ignored, probably because he felt that the 
 time was not right. 
 
 During the summer of 1885 Allison put the problems of interstate 
 commerce and currency behind him and enjoyed a carefree trip to 
 Europe. He loved travel; it was his only effective means of escape 
 from his slavish devotion to committee work. As companions he took 
 along his able young secretary, Joseph Morgan of Dubuque, who for 
 some fifteen years was to be his eyes, ears, and hands, and Jimmie 
 Sheffield, now a student at Yale University. 
 
 While Allison enjoyed the sights of Europe, his lieutenants in Iowa 
 carried on his political work for him. Allison men saw to it that 
 State Senator William Larrabee of Clermont was properly announced 
 for Governor early in the campaign, now that Governor Buren R. 
 Sherman, the victor of 1881, had finished his inevitable second term. 
 They carried Larrabee to an easy victory in the nominating con- 
 vention and in the fall election. After service in the state senate since 
 1868, Larrabee had come to be known as a man of strong views but 
 eminently "safe" judgment. He was probably the largest landholder 
 in the state, and additional banking, brick and tile, and grain-milling 
 interests made him one of the state's wealthiest men. From his first 
 session in the legislature, he had consistently supported the idea of 
 regulation of the railroads by the state, yet he was not thought of as a 
 radical on the subject. He had voted against the Railroad Act of 1874 
 because he thought it inadequate; perhaps some people mistakenly in- 
 terpreted this vote as one of opposition to regulation. 34 He and Colonel 
 Henderson were friends of long standing, and Larrabee's nomination 
 
A MAN OF INFLUENCE 199 
 
 and election might be regarded as a personal triumph for the old 
 soldier who had become the guiding genius of the Allison machine. 
 
 Allison and his railroad friends found nothing alarming in the 1886 
 inaugural address of Governor Larrabee. 35 Further railroad regulation 
 was generally regarded as a sure thing — better to have it in the hands 
 of friends than enemies. The drive for federal legislation drew more 
 attention just then than the possibilty of more state action. On May 
 12, 1886, the Senate passed Senator Cullom's interstate commerce bill, 
 providing a modicum of regulation and differing somewhat from a 
 bill piloted through the House by John H. Reagan of Texas. A joint 
 conference committee was set up to work out the differences, and 
 this committee spent the remainder of the year over into 1887 in 
 study and in search of a workable compromise. 36 
 
 Meanwhile, Allison had probably given more thought to the money 
 question than to the Cullom bill. His reputation as a bimetallist 
 brought him many letters pro and con, plus one speaking invitation 
 from an unusual source. Jimmie Sheffield was importuned by the 
 Yale chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society to secure Allison as a 
 speaker in a series of public lectures sponsored by the society. "They 
 wish a lecture on the silver question by some one who takes a dif- 
 ferent ground from Prof. William Graham Sumner who lectures in 
 the recitation room daily." 37 Correspondence with regard to the pro- 
 posed lecture went on from February to November. As late as No- 
 vember 12, Allison wrote that he would come, the date to be agreed 
 upon later. No record has been found to show that he ever gave the 
 lecture, however. 
 
 In spite of national issues, Allison was more interested in the 1886 
 congressional race in Iowa. This campaign aroused feelings that dis- 
 prove the easy assumption that these were "the good old days" when 
 ideologies did not matter. Much of the discontent that had been 
 smoldering in the Republican party for years now exploded. Perhaps it 
 was not surprising that General James B. Weaver was re-elected to 
 Congress; the surprise was that those stalwarts of the party, Samuel J. 
 Kirkwood and William Peters Hepburn, were defeated. 
 
 The Republicans could blame themselves for their defeat. In this 
 year of all years, they needed to maintain an unbroken front. In the 
 Second District the Democratic opposition was led by the very able 
 Judge Walter I. Hayes of Clinton, a strong candidate in his own right. 
 In spite of this, the Republicans allowed themselves to be split in the 
 
200 William Boyd Allison 
 
 district over a choice of candidate. The old Civil War Governor, who 
 had been a United States Senator and a Cabinet member, accepted the 
 congressional nomination from the Republicans, but one faction of 
 the party, reflecting the widespread industrial conflict of 1886, notably 
 in the eastern River Cities, broke away and supported T. J. O'Meara, 
 the candidate of the Knights of Labor. Hayes, of course, was elected. 
 The loss was a galling one for Kirkwood, who had probably forgotten 
 his ticket-scratching ideas of 1883. He had the comforting alibi, 
 however, that the Iowa City-Clinton district that he was trying to 
 redeem had always been a stronghold of the enemy and for the past 
 two terms had elected a Democrat. 38 He could also say that he had 
 received little help from friends outside the district. David B. 
 Henderson reported that he was too hard-pressed in his own district, 
 where there were 3,000 members of the Knights of Labor, to be able 
 to help. 39 He offered to try to send Allison, after the latter's return 
 from Maine, where he was campaigning for Eugene Hale, a senatorial 
 colleague and close friend, but Allison never appeared in behalf of 
 Kirkwood. 
 
 Hepburn, who represented the Eighth District, was the victim of 
 the agrarian discontent that was so strong in the southwestern corner 
 of the state. He claimed to be the true friend of the farmer and the 
 "little man" but had the handicap of being known as a "railroad 
 lawyer." The more discontented members of the party brought out 
 the fiery Major Albert R. Anderson of Sidney as an independent 
 candidate, and he was endorsed by the Democratic-Greenback fusion. 
 For some reason Allison would not come into Hepburn's district and 
 speak for him; Senator James F. Wilson also turned tail and ran, 
 actually canceling five dates that had been made for him. 40 Only 
 "Tama Jim" Wilson stood by Hepburn in what proved to be a 
 losing fight. Allison's desertion seems hard to explain in view of the 
 valiant blows that Hepburn had struck for him in 1883 when Weaver 
 was reviving the charges of Allison's complicity in the Credit Mobilier 
 affair. 
 
 Many years later David Brant, editor of the Iowa City Republican, 
 published a series of political memoirs in which he gave the following 
 explanation of Allison's reaction to Anderson's candidacy: 
 
 Clarkson urged Allison to get an appointment for . . . Anderson, who was a 
 decided populist and greenbacker in the bargain, in order to get him out of 
 the way and where he could not make trouble. Senator Allison declined. He 
 
A MAN OF INFLUENCE 201 
 
 said that Anderson represented a condition, that if he was removed, somebody 
 would take his place. The senator said that what was good in the Anderson 
 proposals should be adopted and what was bad should be met in debate and 
 in the press, so that the people could be educated in what was for the best. 
 He said that while Anderson might win that year, he could not make his 
 success permanent unless founded upon the right. 41 
 
 If this story is true, it shows that Allison had the political wisdom and 
 foresight not to associate himself with a certain defeat of his candidate. 
 As it turned out, Anderson's success was not permanent. He served 
 only one term in Congress and was replaced by a Republican, James P. 
 Flick, for two terms, after which Hepburn returned to his seat in the 
 House, where he remained until 1909. 42 In this same campaign Allison 
 also ran out on a current promise to help Senator Benjamin Harrison 
 in the Indiana campaign, on the plea that he must help out in three 
 Iowa districts, where the fight was close and where he was "under 
 great obligation to the people in many ways." 43 
 
 But in spite of the loss of Kirkwood and Hepburn, Allison's party 
 did pretty well. The First and Fifth Districts were recovered from the 
 Democrats, and Anderson, Hepburn's conqueror, was nominally a 
 Republican. Party regulars took no comfort in Anderson's victory, 
 however. 
 
 Once the election was over, Congressmen could again turn their 
 attention to the needs of the time. The dying days of the lame-duck 
 session of the Forty-ninth Congress in 1887 were memorable for one 
 thing above all else — the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act. 
 The joint conference committee that had been holding sessions since 
 June, 1886, had been unable to resolve a conflict over an antipooling 
 clause. The House spokesman on this question was John H. Reagan, 
 a Texan who had been a Confederate brigadier and a member of 
 Jefferson Davis' Cabinet. He was adamant in his insistence on such 
 a clause; Allison's close friend, Senator Orville H. Piatt of Connecticut, 
 was equally insistent that pooling should be permitted. After long 
 delay, Senator Cullom, the nominal sponsor of the bill, which was 
 actually the brain child of many people, asked advice from Allison 
 and other Senators. They urged him to yield to Reagan on this point. 
 This he did, although uncertain as to the wisdom of his course, and 
 the bill was finally put through on the theory that some bill was 
 better than none at all. 44 Allison, of course, was among those voting 
 for the bill. 
 
202 William Boyd Allison 
 
 The year did not close without its share of troubles, giving Allison 
 a chance to demonstrate his political power and also his ability to put 
 his political house in order after a minor revolution had threatened it. 
 It was a year for the election of a Governor and a legislature in Iowa; 
 both elections would affect directly the results of the senatorial elec- 
 tion in 1888 when James F. Wilson's seat would be on the block. 
 For the governorship there was no good reason not to support William 
 Larrabee for re-election. The full revelation of Larrabee as a reformer 
 had not been made during his first term, and it was only natural that 
 Allison should support his bid for a second inning in office; the selec- 
 tion of a legislature that would re-elect Wilson was a matter of more 
 concern at the moment. 
 
 A difference of opinion within the Allison camp, however, came to 
 light at the annual state convention held in August. Ret Clarkson, 
 presumably Allison's principal reliance in editorial circles, strongly 
 opposed Wilson's re-election and suggested that Larrabee should be 
 elevated to the Senate in Wilson's place. Charles E. Perkins, on the 
 contrary, had seen enough of Larrabee's theories to make him distrust- 
 ful of another term for the man from Clermont, and he was equally 
 distrustful of Wilson. This was indeed a strange and confusing de- 
 velopment. Only the need for harmony in the party, and a growing 
 enthusiasm for the idea of "Allison for President," prevented an open 
 break. 45 
 
 During the campaign Wilson diverted attention from himself by 
 reviving the bloody-shirt tactics of Reconstruction days. By de- 
 nouncing President Cleveland's pension bill vetoes, alleged abuse of 
 the pardoning power, and subservience to the Solid South, Wilson 
 made a strong appeal to the lingering elements of Radical Republi- 
 canism. The results of the canvass were not startling, however. 
 Larrabee was re-elected, but his margin of votes was smaller, per- 
 centage-wise, than in 1885. 46 This letdown in Larrabee's popular sup- 
 port, and the Register's dislike of Wilson, encouraged Charles E. 
 Perkins to support ex-Congressman Hepburn for the Senate. Thus 
 a three-cornered fight developed in which Iowa was furnished with 
 the strange spectacle of Allison, Clarkson, and Perkins, ordinarily a 
 close corporation in politics, working against each other. Allison was 
 not a "Railroad Senator" on this occasion. 
 
 It was a campaign of much name calling. Perkins could not for- 
 give either Larrabee or Wilson for what he considered a betrayal of 
 
A MAN OF INFLUENCE 203 
 
 their former views toward the railroads. He wrote to Clarkson: 
 "Larrabee & his friends naturally lay his small majority to the Rail- 
 roads which is all nonsense — The real reason is that his course like 
 that of Wilson has not been honest & the people feel it. Both Wilson 
 and Larrabee have gone back on themselves." 47 The Wilsonites ridi- 
 culed Hepburn for his loss to Major Albert R. Anderson in 1886, in 
 spite of a normal majority of 3,000 in the district; the Hepburnites 
 sought to injure Wilson by linking him with Credit Mobilier memories, 
 forgetting that in Allison's previous campaign Hepburn had accepted 
 a commission from the state central committee to absolve both Allison 
 and Wilson of this very charge. Wilson was joshed for dragging out 
 his old shiny black suit, much too short, and his slouch hat, his "cam- 
 paign uniform . . . which always comes out when the Senator is run- 
 ning for office." 48 
 
 Amidst charges of trickery and refusal to postpone the caucus so 
 as to give the Hepburn men a fair chance to build up their candidate, 
 the caucus was held on January 10, 1888, and Wilson was nominated. 
 The triangular fight thus ended abruptly, and all Republicans rallied 
 to support Wilson. The more remarkable thing is that Clarkson and 
 Perkins returned to the Allison fold without a whimper or a sign of 
 punishment, as did Hepburn also. A casual observer would never 
 have known that a revolution had just been squelched. 
 
 The victory for Wilson clinched Allison's place as the dominant 
 political leader in Iowa. Although preferring to work through others 
 most of the time, he nonetheless directly controlled the selection of 
 all men for the key positions and was consulted on many lesser ones. 
 The object lesson of his victory over the leading editor and the biggest 
 railroad man in the state would not be lost on the rank and file of the 
 party. As for national affairs, after fourteen years in the Senate, 
 Allison was a recognized leader of that body, where, besides being 
 chairman of the Appropriations Committee, he was a member of the 
 Finance Committee along with Morrill and Sherman. 49 It is not sur- 
 prising then to find his name on practically everyone's list of presi- 
 dential possibilities in the forthcoming contest of 1888. 
 
iimiMttmiimttHtimfitmit^ 
 
 * V \ * 
 
 The Great Prize Eludes Allison 
 
 Iowans in 1888 believed that Allison was cheated out of the Republi- 
 can presidential nomination in that year by Chauncey Depew, a Sen- 
 ator from New York and the guiding genius of the New York Central 
 Railroad. He unfairly blackballed Allison, they thought, because of 
 his residence in Iowa, a state that had just passed legislation providing 
 stringent regulation of railroad freight rates. As in many other good 
 stories, there is a large element of truth in this one, but it is not the 
 whole truth by any means. The opposition of Chauncey Depew was 
 not the only obstacle Allison had to overcome. The New Yorker's 
 objections to the Iowan certainly deprived Allison of a quick nomina- 
 tion early in the convention, but on the last day of balloting he still 
 seemed to have a fighting chance. Then this fighting chance evapo- 
 rated. What happened? The answer can hardly be given in anything 
 less than a full account of the events of 1888. 
 
 The American national nominating convention 1 is sometimes an 
 inspiring example of a party's delegates conscientiously and freely 
 selecting a candidate for the highest office in the land. Unfortunately, 
 this it not always the case; often a convention is a form of madness in 
 which irresponsible delegates collectively perform deeds which no 
 one of them would ever perform individually. Boss-ridden, they vote 
 blindly under orders and deliver their votes in execution of a deal that 
 has been made in the traditional "smoke-filled room." This is especially 
 true in the convention where circumstances have combined to create 
 a wide-open race. 
 
 204 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 205 
 
 One of those who fought in the Republican national convention 
 held at Chicago in 1888 2 was William B. Allison. According to the 
 custom of that time, he had not made a formal announcement, but 
 his cause had been taken up by his friends. A year before the Chicago 
 meeting, people were aware that he was an avowed candidate. The 
 first letter in which Allison's interest in the nomination was dicussed 
 in businesslike terms was one from James S. Clarkson. Dated April 1, 
 1887, the letter is couched in vague language and would be meaning- 
 less unless interpreted as part of a series. James G. Blaine was scheduled 
 to make a trip west, and Clarkson planned to persuade him to visit 
 the Clarkson home in Des Moines, where they could meet and "talk 
 over the situation. I think it is better that I should see him and gain 
 some information as to the future before he goes abroad. ... I shall 
 have this interview hoping we may learn something definite, and 
 which may be something of advantage to us all." 3 But Ret's hopes 
 for a Blaine tour of Iowa were disappointed, and he had to be content 
 with correspondence and second-hand reports. 
 
 Other bits of evidence can be pieced together to show the build-up 
 of Allison's presidential effort. In April, 1887, he had commissioned 
 that master of congressional biographies, Ben: Perley Poore, to do a 
 campaign biography of him for The Magazine of Western History. 
 Poore wrote: "I . . . thank you sincerely for the generous enclosure. I 
 am not certain that you have not overpaid me for my services, but I 
 don't consider them ended, and hope you will find me a lot more 
 material, to be worked in where it belongs." 4 
 
 There were many little ways in which the presidential topic could 
 be kept before the public and a forum provided for the expression of 
 Allison's views. During commencement week of 1887 Allison spoke 
 before the six literary societies at Cornell College in Iowa and was 
 rewarded with a gold-headed cane. The presiding officer felicitously 
 remarked that they hoped the cane would in the near future help him 
 up the steps of the White House. Allison, taken by surprise, replied 
 haltingly: tc I assure — I assure you, that like David Davis said in his 
 letter — that would be something neither to be sought nor declined." 
 In June, 1887, the State University of Iowa sought out Iowa's leading 
 political figures, Governor Larrabee and Senator Allison, to grace the 
 occasion of the inauguration of a new president, Dr. Charles Ashmead 
 Schaeffer. 6 In introducing Allison to the throng that packed the Iowa 
 City Opera House, retiring President Josiah L. Pickard alluded to the 
 
206 William Boyd Allison 
 
 possibility that the Senator might be "called to the Presidency of the 
 United States." Allison replied, after the applause that greeted this 
 statement, that "Dr. Pickard's most intimate friends knew that he 
 would occasionally joke." 7 
 
 Only the enthusiasm for "Allison for President" prevented a bad 
 rift in the party's annual state convention in August, 1887, torn as 
 it was by the bitter senatorial fight between Wilson, Hepburn, and 
 Larrabee. On Allison's own advice, and Colonel Henderson's as well, 
 the convention contented itself with going on record as being in favor 
 of the party's interest alone; if this called for Allison for President, 
 good; if not, Iowa Republicans would support the party's choice. 8 
 
 Following the convention, Allison made an appearance at a reunion 
 of the surviving members of Crocker's Brigade, practically the 
 same thing as a Republican rally. The other speakers were Samuel J. 
 Kirkwood, now nearing the end of his life, John H. Gear, and General 
 William W. Belknap, who seems to have suffered no loss of prestige 
 because of his impeachment and near conviction in 1876. 9 Allison's 
 invitation to appear was a personal one from Colonel Addison Sanders, 
 whom he had assisted in the hectic days of 1861 when recruitment was 
 so great a problem. Sanders tried hard to create the impression that 
 Allison was a bona fide veteran, entitled to all the honors of the oc- 
 casion, 10 since status as a veteran was a political asset beyond price at 
 that time. 
 
 The question that Clarkson had raised and that he hoped to have 
 directly answered, concerning Blaine's availability, was the first ques- 
 tion in the minds of everybody. Admittedly, Blaine was the most 
 popular man in the party and a certain winner of the nomination if 
 he would only give the word that he would accept. He had been 
 narrowly defeated in 1884 in spite of the embarrassing disclosures of 
 his business dealings. However vain, pompous, and erratically brilliant 
 he may appear today, in 1888 Blaine was a god in the Republican 
 Pantheon. It is hard to believe that Allison shared this idolatry of 
 Blaine — he had been too close to the man since 1863 — but with Ret 
 Clarkson leading the chorus he could not help but know of its 
 existence. 
 
 Clarkson was unable to get a definite answer before Blaine departed 
 for Europe. Evidently Blaine himself had not made up his mind. As 
 late as October 11, 1887, he wrote from Paris, not very prophetically: 
 ". . . although I think it probable that I could be nominated there will 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 207 
 
 be a contest, serious with Sherman and incidental and irritating with 
 Allison, Lincoln, possibly Harrison and some other favorite sons." 
 But in January, 1888, he wrote to a friend from Florence: "I am going 
 to withdraw my name from the list of candidates for the Republican 
 nomination. . . . Sherman is a determined candidate from Ohio, 
 Harrison will be equally so from Indiana, and Hawley will have the 
 delegation from Connecticut. Indiana and Connecticut are pivotal 
 states, and the candidate should not be one that they are unwilling to 
 . . . support." n He also sent a letter to the chairman of the Republi- 
 can national committee, withdrawing his name. 
 
 Blaine, a hypochondriac, was depressed at the time of the second 
 letter by a cold caught on the train going to Italy. 12 But in 1888 
 voters were not concerned over his health or psychological reasons for 
 his attitude. Their only questions were: was he sincere in writing that 
 he would not compete again for the nomination; and, if so, to whom 
 would the Blaine blessing and the Blaine support go? 13 These ques- 
 tions were not to be definitely answered for many months to come. 
 
 Allison was only one of many seekers after the nomination. A 
 clever quip in the Chicago Inter-Ocean neatly illustrates the con- 
 fusion. Asking "Who will it be?" the answer was arranged as follows: 14 
 
 Gresham 
 AllisOn 
 Depew 
 
 CullOm 
 BlaiNe 
 
 ALger 
 JerrY Rusk 
 
 ForaKer 
 LincolN 
 Harris On 
 HaWley 
 Sherman 
 
 More seriously, it has been convincingly demonstrated that the con- 
 test of 1888 was the first Republican convention since 1860 that would 
 be truly free-for-all in nature. 15 In 1864 Lincoln's renomination was 
 never in doubt; in 1868 and 1872 Grant was the only logical choice; 
 in 1876 and 1880, James G. Blaine had been the man to beat; at 
 last, in 1884, he had won the coveted nomination only to lose the 
 election. Now, in 1888, there were at least four men to whom the 
 
208 William Boyd Allison 
 
 convention might give the nomination, assuming the unavailability 
 of Blaine — Judge Walter Q. Gresham and General Benjamin Harrison 
 of Indiana, John Sherman of Ohio, and William B. Allison of Iowa. 
 There were others, but they can be dismissed as able men whose fol- 
 lowing was local or regional at best or dependent upon the exigencies 
 of a deadlocked convention to bring them to the fore. 
 
 John Sherman of Mansfield, Ohio, was undoubtedly the front- 
 running candidate. Since 1855 Sherman had been in the public eye 
 as a member of Congress, first in the House (1855-1861) and then 
 the Senate (1861-1877). In 1877 he became Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury under President Hayes, and at the end of Hayes's term he re- 
 turned to the Senate, where he stood next to Justin S. Morrill on the 
 Finance Committee. As already indicated, his paths and Allison's 
 had frequently run closely parallel. They were now friendly rivals, 
 although there is no doubt that Sherman considered himself more de- 
 serving of the prize than Allison or anyone else in the race. A keen 
 student of the period regards Sherman, Allison, and Shelby M. Cullom 
 as "fence-sitters" — a peculiar product of the period of 1865-1900 
 when many politicians tried to maintain a balance between the older 
 conservatism and the rising progressivism. 16 Sherman was definitely 
 at the peak of his career at the age of sixty-five, six years older than 
 Allison; this would probably be his last chance at the nomination. 
 
 General Benjamin Harrison of Indiana was the dark horse of the 
 convention. In view of his limited experience it is difficult to ac- 
 count for his strength, and it is small wonder that many people dis- 
 counted his chances well in advance. He had been moderately 
 successful as a corporation lawyer and had had one colorless term in 
 the Senate but had been denied a second by the Indiana legislature. 
 His lineage and his title of "Brigadier General" were probably less 
 valuable assets than his residence in the doubtful state of Indiana; the 
 Hoosier preference for him over his rival, Walter Q. Gresham; and 
 the astuteness of Louis T. Michener and W. W. Dudley, his cam- 
 paign managers. 17 
 
 Judge Walter Quintin Gresham had a name and a record that ap- 
 pealed to men of liberal spirit and to men favorable to one who 
 ruggedly opposed his views to those of the "machine" — a man who 
 truly would rather be right than President. He had risen to the rank 
 of major general during the war and had been a federal district judge 
 since 1869. 18 His cause had suffered at the hands of the Indiana Re- 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 209 
 
 publican state convention, which favored Harrison; but this blow was 
 partly offset by his strength in Illinois, where he was favored by 
 Joseph Medill's Tribune and the Chicago Inter-Ocean. He also had 
 general support among the rank and file of the Western states. James 
 S. Clarkson reported that it was difficult to keep the state convention 
 in Colorado from giving Gresham its endorsement; that he found 
 Nebraska strongly inclined to Gresham; and that all Gresham people 
 were strongly anti-Blaine. 19 
 
 Against these formidable rivals, Allison had such assets as "safe- 
 ness"; reliability as a party wheel horse; a general reputation as a 
 Senator well versed in the intricacies of finance and the tariff; and 
 the assumption that he could be trusted by both the East and the West. 
 Close observers might have noted that he was from a state temporarily 
 "doubtful" due to the growth of agrarian unrest. Possible liabilities 
 were the activities in railroad promotion that had led to his link with 
 the Credit Mobilier affair; the fear that he might be subject to the 
 pressures of agrarian radicalism; and the fact that he had not been 
 a soldier. His moderate views on the tariff were an asset or a liability, 
 according to one's views. In short, it must be remembered that this 
 is the story of 1888, when memories of the war, of railroad politics, 
 of the tariff debates of 1870, of the fight for silver in 1877-1878, 
 and of Iowa's pre-eminence in railroad regulation were still green; 
 Allison would profit or suffer according to the views of politicians on 
 these subjects. 
 
 Perhaps as judicious a summary as could be found in the current 
 literature of 1888 was the appraisal of Allison given in Harper's 
 Weekly of March 17, 1888. This dignified and sometimes pontifical 
 journal, edited by the reformer George William Curtis, began a 
 series of articles on Republican presidential possibilities with this 
 issue, leading off with Allison. The cover drawing was an excellent 
 likeness that caught something of Allison's rugged physical strength 
 at the peak of his career. The essay praised his freedom from the 
 passions of the moment, his industry, and his knowledge of all legis- 
 lative matters, especially fiscal problems. "Men like him are oftener 
 found in the British Parliament. . . . He is as familiar with his work 
 as a British undersecretary would be." Such things as financial de- 
 ficiency and urgency bills would be unknown, said the article, if 
 the Appropriations Committee had heeded Allison's pleas for system- 
 atic appropriations. The concluding statement was surely a pleasing 
 
210 William Boyd Allison 
 
 compliment: "His fortune is ample, his tastes are refined, and those 
 who know him best like him most." 
 
 If a fifth name were to be added to this quartet, it would surely be 
 that of Chauncey Depew of New York. Such was the opinion of 
 former President Rutherford B. Hayes, who wrote in his diary on 
 June 22, 1888: "I am interested in the success of Sherman at Chicago. 
 A noble President he would make. It is probable he would prove also 
 available as a candidate because he is the fittest. The other names are 
 good men. -Harrison, Depew, Allison especially." 20 In a wide-open 
 convention each favorite son has a certain importance as a trader, and 
 of these Depew was by far the most important. As one of Allison's 
 friends expressed it: "It looks to me now very probable that Mr. 
 Depew will be the expediency man of our party because of alleged 
 ability to carry New York but I should fear the effect of his being 
 identified with the R. R. interests more especially with the Western 
 voters." 21 But any man able to command New York's seventy-two 
 votes plus others scattered here and there was not to be ignored. And 
 this Depew could do, as he proved on the first ballot. 
 
 One of the most cheering letters received by Allison came from that 
 highly intellectual man of honor who was the editor of the Keokuk 
 Gate City, Sam M. Clark. Now president of the Iowa Press Associa- 
 tion, which was virtually a club of Republican editors, Clark was in a 
 position to wield great influence in the state. He assured Allison as 
 early as January, 1888, that the time had passed when Iowa's delega- 
 tion should go to the convention bound and consigned to Blaine. He 
 then proceeded to dispose of the argument that Iowa was a "safe" 
 state and that therefore no Iowan was available. Taking his theme 
 from a statement by Governor Dennison of Ohio that Iowa was a 
 "nursery" state like Virginia and Ohio, he argued that Iowa had great 
 influence with the younger states to the West because so many Iowa 
 men had gone to them. An Iowan who could carry their votes would 
 be a distinct asset to the party. Therefore Iowa's delegation should go 
 to the convention for Allison, as the Illinois delegation had gone in 
 1860 for Lincoln, with every intention of fighting for victory. 22 
 
 This letter, so full of cheer and determination, was soon offset by 
 disturbing news from Des Moines. Here Governor Larrabee's bi- 
 ennial message of January 1 and his inaugural address two days later 
 had just sounded a declaration of war against the railroads. 23 Larrabee's 
 specific legislative proposals called for the fixing of maximum freight 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 211 
 
 and passenger rates and for control of such rates by the Board of 
 Railroad Commissioners. The tenor of his remarks in his inaugural, 
 in which he reviewed the history of railroad legislation in Iowa and 
 the railroad efforts to block enforcement, was strongly provocative 
 to nearly everyone who had a direct interest in railroads. There has 
 been much speculation as to why this man of property, a faithful 
 party regular since his first election to the Iowa senate in 1867, and 
 the choice of the Allisonians for Governor in 1881 and again in 1885 
 and 1887, had gone "off the reservation." The simple fact is that 
 Allison's candidacy happened to coincide with a growing demand for 
 railroad regulation, as was clearly set forth in both the Republican 
 and Democratic platforms in Iowa in 1887. 24 The question was 
 bigger than either Larrabee or Allison. The people — the masses of 
 the voters — were not thinking of Allison's presidential possibilities 
 when they voiced their complaints of many years' standing and de- 
 manded more effective regulation of the railroads. Nor is it fair to 
 make Larrabee the villain of the piece. A modern observer is more 
 likely to be impressed with the reasonableness of Larrabee's statements 
 than with their extremeness. 25 Contemporary reaction was immediate. 
 The Des Moines Register commented caustically: "The whole color 
 and tone of the message . . . are intense and exceedingly radical, and 
 show more than public feeling and suggest a sense of personal ani- 
 mosity, based on fancied personal grievances." 26 
 
 Ret's private remarks in a letter to Allison were even more 
 vehement: 
 
 Governor Larrabee's biennial message was bad enough, but his inaugural . . . 
 is absolutely unaccountable. Weaver and his demogoguism [sic] has never 
 equalled this. It is bound to hurt the party very much. . . . He cares nothing 
 for the party, and says ... he will never be a candidate again, and seemingly 
 does not care what may happen to others or the party. His conduct as com- 
 pared with his long record as Senator, is unfathomable. I very much regret 
 it, and sincere long friendship for him makes it as much to be regretted as 
 anything else. . . . This will alienate many friends. 27 
 
 Charles E. Perkins seconded this with an even stronger denunciation 
 of Larrabee: 
 
 The situation in Iowa looks to me pretty threatening, and something ought 
 to be done to hold Larrabee and his followers — Cant you come out here 
 and make the Jackasses see the harm they will do if they carry out Larrabee's 
 insane notions — Rates are so low now that Railroad property is in serious 
 danger and the State will be greatly damaged. 28 
 
212 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Perkins was not on sound ground here, because the roads had been 
 forced to admit that their profits had been greater under the rates 
 used since regulation began. His basic position was that government 
 regulation simply would not work. 
 
 A month later (February 17) Perkins renewed his condemnation 
 of the legislature and Governor Larrabee for interference with the 
 railroads. He regretted that a Senate committee had reported favor- 
 ably on two bills, one for an elective Railroad Commission of five and 
 one requiring the Commissioners to fix freight rates. Of more direct 
 concern to Allison were these two sentences: "Blaine's letter about 
 the Presidency has it seems to me largely helped your chances if Iowa 
 does not frighten the East by some extreme Granger legislation. I 
 believe nothing but political consideration will hold them out there 
 now and you and Henderson and others in Washington from Iowa are 
 the only ones who can have any influence." He closed with the sup- 
 position that Jacob Rich was on the ground as a railroad lobbyist in 
 Des Moines and the belief that the party might be spared "from 
 blindly following so blinded a leader as Larrabee." 29 
 
 Such fulminations from Perkins were of no avail. It seems never 
 to have occurred to him that he could be wrong and Larrabee right 
 in this matter. The philosophy that the railroads could be regulated 
 in the public interest had apparently made no impression on him. At 
 any rate, Larrabee and the legislature went right on with their re- 
 forming efforts, and if Allison and Henderson exerted any influence 
 from Washington it is not on record, other than a claim that Allison's 
 friends helped to "check" the tendency toward "wild legislation." 30 
 Allison could no more have controlled the Iowa legislature against 
 the expressed wishes of the people of Iowa in 1888 than could Canute 
 have restrained the waves. As admitted by Dr. Charles Beardsley of 
 Burlington, Republican state chairman, there was a strong antirailroad 
 feeling in both houses of the General Assembly. 31 
 
 The Iowa state Republican convention, meeting in Des Moines on 
 March 21, drew a larger attendance than usual, in spite of a blizzard 
 in the extreme northern counties that made travel difficult. Hundreds 
 of the men with whom Allison had been associated over the years 
 since he came to the state in 1857, joined by others whose associations 
 had been briefer and less intimate, met in Des Moines and paid him 
 the supreme tribute of endorsement for the presidential nomination 
 by the national convention scheduled to meet in Chicago in June. 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 213 
 
 Under the magic of the oratory of young Jonathan Prentiss Dolliver, 
 the West Virginia circuit rider's son who was now a rising lawyer in 
 Fort Dodge and whose oratorical gifts had been discovered by C. C. 
 Carpenter and James S. Clarkson, 32 the delegates were brought to a 
 frenzy of enthusiasm. If Allison had been present he would surely 
 have found it difficult to suppress his emotions. 
 
 A month earlier Jonathan Dolliver had written three long pages to 
 Allison, pledging his support and devotion, a pledge which he was to 
 honor to the end of Allison's life. At the convention he let himself go 
 in an orgy of flag-waving, appeals to the memory of Lincoln, de- 
 nunciation of the Democracy, and glorification of Republicanism, all 
 delivered in a style combining the zeal of an old-fashioned Methodist 
 "spouter" with the polish of a trained rhetorician. The man was a 
 genius at this business, and his role as keynoter for practically every 
 state convention from 1884 until 1910 is proof of his ability to carry 
 a political audience with him. 33 
 
 A lively contest ensued for places on the delegation, in spite of the 
 spirit of enthusiasm and unanimity that had been created. The chief 
 troublemakers were Governor Larrabee and Colonel Hepburn, those 
 very men who a few months earlier had challenged Allison's wishes in 
 the senatorial matter and now were fighting for prominent places in 
 the delegation of Allison boosters to be sent to the Chicago conven- 
 tion. Larrabee was beaten for delegate-at-large by Colonel D. B. 
 Henderson, but Hepburn won a place on the delegation from the 
 Eighth District. The other delegates-at-large besides Henderson were 
 Dolliver, Clarkson, and George D. Perkins, the editor of the Sioux 
 City Journal, who had been so staunch for Harlan in 1872. The only 
 district delegate of note besides Hepburn was James F. Wilson. Rich 
 reported to Allison that the delegation was "not all that he had de- 
 sired — quite a few mediocre men got in." 34 
 
 Allison could count himself fortunate in the managers who served 
 him in his campaign for the nomination. It is doubtful if official 
 appointments were ever made — rather, James S. Clarkson was by 
 common consent of all concerned the active, full-time manager, with 
 Colonel Henderson a close second in authority, and Jacob Rich the 
 third man in the triumvirate. All three men worked in complete 
 harmony and mutual trust. Nor should General Grenville M. Dodge's 
 help be forgotten. Since 1872 Dodge had been content to let Allison 
 run his own team, but his advice was always welcome because of his 
 
214 William Boyd Allison 
 
 role as Allison's sponsor in 1870 and 1872 and also because of his fi- 
 nancial support. These men were not neophytes. Clarkson was Iowa's 
 member on the Republican national committee and had friends 
 throughout the country with whom he carried on an immense corre- 
 spondence on behalf of Allison. He also made numerous trips through 
 the West and South in the interests of his candidate. 
 
 Shortly after the Iowa state convention Clarkson, who was in 
 Washington at the time, came down with a sudden illness in which he 
 narrowly missed "snapping a blood vessel of the brain" and was 
 ordered by his doctor to lay off work for a year, an order that he 
 refused to carry out. He reported to Dolliver: "The outlook for 
 Allison, from this standpoint, is more than good. It is generally con- 
 ceded that the nominee will be Blaine or Allison." 35 
 
 In many ways there were points of contact between the Harrison 
 and the Allison campaigns. There were straws in the wind indicating 
 that the Harrison strength might have gone to Allison in case of its 
 own lack of success; but there was little to indicate that the Sherman 
 forces felt that way about Allison. What can be stated more positively 
 is that the Blaine men preferred Harrison as a vicarious choice. The 
 spokesman for this point of view was Senator Stephen B. Elkins of 
 West Virginia, and there is proof that Clarkson knew of such an 
 understanding well before the convention opened. 36 To say this is 
 not, however, to argue that Clarkson was insincere in his promotion 
 of the Allison candidacy. In a race such as the one in 1888, anything 
 might happen. The wise thing to do was to work for one's own can- 
 didate as long as there seemed to be any chance of victory; if that 
 appeared impossible of attainment, one switched to the man who con- 
 stituted the second choice. 
 
 Questions about the sincerity of Blaine's self-denying letters and 
 the identity of his heir would not cease. The Chicago Inter-Ocean, 
 for example, ran a lengthy feature article in February, made up of 
 these questions and its own answers and also those of many others, 
 including Allison himself, Clarkson, Jacob Rich, and Governor 
 Larrabee. 37 The paper thought that both Allison and Sherman were in 
 a position to profit from Blaine's decision, each man having a number 
 of virtues that appealed to the voters, but it leaned strongly toward 
 Allison as the candidate to be preferred for two reasons: Iowa was a 
 more doubtful state than Ohio; and Allison was more of a revisionist 
 on the tariff question than Sherman, therefore more appealing to the 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 215 
 
 farmers of his state. The unexpressed inference was that Allison would 
 make more of an appeal throughout the whole agricultural West. 
 
 The paper quoted Allison and Clarkson as believing firmly in 
 Blaine's sincerity. Clarkson said that Blaine was "all for the party in 
 1888" and that Iowa, which had supported him in three successive 
 national conventions "believes in him now more than ever, now that 
 he is out of the field." Clarkson apparently was so much interested 
 in defending the sincerity of his hero that he omitted an opinion as 
 to the probable heir of Blaine's strength. Of course he would have 
 named Allison, if pressed on this point. Larrabee, Rich, and other 
 Iowans spoke strongly in favor of Allison. Congressman Nelson 
 Dingley of far-off Maine said that Blaine had not committed himself 
 to any second choice, "but he had said that Allison was the most 
 available," but did not say when or where Blaine had made such a 
 statement. 
 
 Every such comment favorable and encouraging to Allison could 
 be matched by one received by Harrison or Sherman. Certainly 
 Harrison was not without strong support. A letter from Blaine to 
 Elkins, probably received in January, 1888, named Harrison as the 
 most eligible candidate. 38 Such news was undoubtedly passed along 
 to the right parties. A letter which listed a number of Harrison's 
 advantages came from James M. Tyner of Brookville, Indiana, a 
 strong leader and spokesman for a large segment of the party. "I can 
 think of no one so likely to inherit Blaine's strength as you and 
 Allison, and your chances are the better in two respects — your public 
 record is not so long as his, nor are there chapters in it that might be 
 revived (such as supposed warm friendship for Pacific Railroad 
 capitalists, etc.), and you were a soldier. Other things being equal 
 the soldier record is an important element." 39 
 
 Another example of good news passed on to Harrison was a letter 
 from Elkins to Louis T. Michener, Harrison's astute manager. Elkins 
 believed that Harrison's residence in Indiana, a doubtful state, gave 
 him a real advantage over Allison, Sherman, Cullom of Illinois, and 
 General Alger of Michigan, all of whom came from certain states. 
 This was a rather arbitrary opinion of these states in view of the 
 temper of the times, but it was the traditional view of Iowa's politics 
 in the light of her record since 1854. Elkins admitted that the trend 
 toward Blaine was increasing, but that if he were not nominated, 
 "Harrison is bound to be and it is the wisest and safest thing to do." 40 
 
216 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Harrison received even more encouragement from Elkins in a 
 letter written from New York on May 2: "Things look fairly well in 
 the East. I have seen and talked with a great many leading Republi- 
 cans on the situation. . . . Clarkson of Iowa (Allison's friend) has 
 been here for a week. He goes home a wiser man as to the situation. I 
 told him I thought Harrison and Allison ought to make an alliance — 
 he agreed with me." 41 This letter has cryptic overtones, but when 
 coupled with another of later date, all doubts are removed. Years 
 later Clarkson wrote to Michener, reviewing the events of 1888. 
 "Yes," he wrote, "I remember the conference you and I had in New 
 York in 1888, a few weeks before the Repn Natl Convention of that 
 year, and when we practically reached an understanding that my 
 second choice would be Harrison and that your second choice would 
 be Allison, although we made no positive agreement; but I always felt 
 that after that if we could not nominate Allison we would be for 
 Harrison." 42 
 
 Corroboration of the potential tie-in between the Harrison and 
 Allison forces is given in a letter to Russell Harrison, the candidate's 
 son, from R. C. Kerens, an influential national committeeman from 
 Missouri: 
 
 Depew is constant and persistent for Blaine to be nominated. . . . While I 
 was in New York we had a big conference with some of the old time workers 
 and I can say to you confidentially that we decided so far as we were con- 
 cerned that there were but two men to be considered, that is Harrison & 
 Allison. Clarkson was present . . . and of course was urging Allison. This 
 was leaving Blaine out entirely. Still I feel that when the Convention as- 
 sembles the delegation from New York will likely demand the Blaine nomina- 
 tion. Elkins and I shall work together in the matter and you know what our 
 desires are. 43 
 
 Clarkson revealed his deference to Elkins in a letter to Henderson 
 from New York, virtually summoning Henderson there at Elkins' 
 request, a summons that the doughty colonel rejected by finding an 
 excuse in the pressure of business in Washington. 44 It is not quite fair 
 to Clarkson to impute that he was disloyal to Allison when he "con- 
 ferred" with the enemy Elkins. Clarkson had never made a secret of 
 his loyalty to Blaine and of his love for Indiana, his native state. But 
 nothing has been found to throw any doubt on Clarkson's zeal as long 
 as Allison had a fighting chance to attain the nomination. 45 
 
 The city of Chicago had made elaborate provisions for the con- 
 vention. Sensing the widespread complaints about the inadequate 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 217 
 
 facilities and the poor acoustics of its old Exposition Hall, Chicago 
 had arranged for the convention to use its still incomplete Civic 
 Auditorium, which had the advantages of better visibility, much 
 better acoustical qualities, and — something so new that it aroused 
 the awe-struck admiration of at least one journalist — artificial 
 lighting of the building by several thousand electric lights. "No day- 
 light enters the hall" was his proud discovery (deponent sayeth nothing 
 as to how the building was ventilated) . The structure was oblong in 
 form, with the stage in the center, and seats for the delegates and 
 their alternates on the main floor. There were three great galleries 
 and spacious boxes for the observers. 
 
 The Allison headquarters, along with those of all the principal 
 candidates, were located in the Grand Pacific Hotel, another building 
 that excited the admiration of the Iowa correspondent. Sleeping 
 quarters were available for 1,500 people; 3,000 could be fed in one 
 day; its halls and parlors could hold 8,000. The Sherman and Gresham 
 headquarters were on the first floor; those of Allison, Harrison, Depew, 
 and others were on the corridor of the second floor, Allison's being 
 the spacious corner room that had been used by Blaine in 1884. In 
 charge of hospitality in the Allison rooms was Sidney A. Foster, a 
 prominent insurance company official of Des Moines. The candidates, 
 as was traditional, did not attend the convention but kept in touch 
 with developments by telegraph. 
 
 Estimates of the number of Iowans in Chicago, brought there mainly 
 by the desire to boost Allison's cause, ran up to 3,000. They even 
 included many Democrats from Dubuque who were enthusiastically 
 wearing Allison buttons and talking up his merits. On the night of 
 June 19 an Allison parade of 1,200 men, attired in the Allison uni- 
 form of blue Middlesex flannel suits and high brown hats, formed 
 at the Grand Pacific and toured the district that contained the other 
 leading hotels such as the Palmer House and the Tremont. Four 
 hundred members of the Allison Club of Dubuque, 200 from the 
 Corn Palace Club of Sioux City, and 200 from the Des Moines Club 
 made up the principal contingents, with brass bands from Dubuque, 
 Sioux City, and Decorah marking the cadence. 
 
 The pre-convention arrangements at the Auditorium were in the 
 hands of a subcommittee headed by James S. Clarkson, a fact that 
 rather automatically assured that good care would be taken of the 
 Iowa crowd. Clarkson delegated the Iowa assignment to a Grinnell 
 
2 1 8 William Boyd Allison 
 
 manufacturer and capitalist, George M. Christian, who procured a 
 life-sized crayon drawing of the Senator for display in the Iowa sector 
 and had medallions struck which set forth a front view of Allison's 
 face. Certainly nothing had been left undone in the effort to make 
 Chicago aware of Iowa's pride in her favorite son. 46 
 
 Numbered among the unofficial visitors and observers were several 
 people with a special interest in Allison's success. Former Governor 
 Kirkwood and his wife were there, thanks to the intercession of an 
 Iowa City friend who called Allison's attention to the old man's de- 
 sire to witness the proceedings and his claims on Allison's gratitude; 47 
 the Senator's nephew, William Boyd Allison, Jr., son of his brother 
 Harrison, a student at Grinnell College; 48 three granddaughters of 
 Joseph Medill, daughters of Robert W. Patterson, who regretted very 
 much that the Chicago Tribune was supporting Judge Gresham in- 
 stead of Allison; 49 Miss Nina L. Gillett, member of a socially promi- 
 nent family in Illinois; 50 Mrs. James S. Clarkson and Mrs. David B. 
 Henderson, sincere admirers of Allison and keen observers of their 
 husbands' strategic moves on the convention floor; and Mrs. Annette 
 Hicks-Lord, a feather-brained but vastly wealthy widow whose efforts 
 at engaging in politics were tolerated by Allison and Clarkson, it is 
 feared, only because of the financial contributions she could make to 
 the Allison campaign fund. 51 
 
 Iowa journalists did their part in trying to keep up the hopes of 
 Iowans that Allison had a good chance for the nomination. Ret 
 Clarkson served as chief correspondent of the Des Moines Register 
 as well as Allison's manager; Jacob Rich was the source of news for 
 the Dubuque Times; the Council Bluffs Nonpareil, generally amena- 
 ble to General Dodge, supplied southwestern Iowa with a favorable 
 version; and the Fairfield Ledger, a James F. Wilson organ, was the 
 best Allison booster in the southeast, along with the Keokuk Gate 
 City under the erudite Sam M. Clark. 
 
 The Register kept up a running fire of comment stressing Allison's 
 hold on the second choice position in many delegations and their 
 readiness to vote for him as soon as they had paid their compliments 
 to their favorite sons. The Nonpareil echoed this sentiment and 
 prophesied that the real contest would be between Allison and Gov- 
 ernor Russell A. Alger of Michigan. A few days later the Nonpareil 
 joined those who held Iowa to be a "safe" state, noting Allison's handi- 
 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 219 
 
 cap in coming from a state that could be counted on for a Republican 
 majority of 30,000. Many papers carried a brief Allison biography 
 which was prepared by a New York Herald writer on the basis of 
 quick interviews secured in Dubuque. Even Allison's brother Masons 
 tried to help by electing him to honorary membership in the Grand 
 Lodge of Iowa. 52 
 
 A short time before the convention met, railroad men held their 
 annual meeting at Chicago. There they received word of the schedule 
 of rates drawn up by the Iowa Railroad Commissioners. The Iowa 
 legislature, in spite of the editorials by Ret Clarkson and the lobbying 
 of Jacob Rich, had passed a bill providing for a stronger Railroad 
 Commission with power to set maximum freight rates, to forbid re- 
 bates, pooling agreements, and other special arrangements for certain 
 shippers, and to require the posting of rates. An additional bill had 
 changed the Board of Railroad Commissioners from appointive to 
 elective, and from railroad-supported to state-supported. 53 The rail 
 leaders meeting in Chicago were given information on the schedule of 
 rates before it was made public. Clarkson saw a good deal of them 
 and knew and reported to Allison their true thoughts. "I never saw 
 so angry a lot of men," was his pronouncement on their reaction to the 
 new schedule. All of them, including Clarkson, who should have 
 known better, tended to blame Larrabee. Strangely enough, some of 
 them, most notably John I. Blair of the North Western, also blamed 
 Allison and threatened to take revenge on him, calling him a Granger 
 and promising to throw all their power against him in the conven- 
 tion. These men could not understand that Allison and Rich and 
 other former lieutenants of General Grenville M. Dodge could no 
 longer dictate the actions of the Iowa legislature in the face of a 
 rising tide of popular opinion. Clarkson, aided by Thomas Withrow, 
 Marvin Hughitt, and other Westerners, tried to counteract the East- 
 erners' tendency to blame Allison, warning them, without much 
 success, that it would be "madness & suicide" to fight "the very people" 
 who stood for fair play for the roads. 54 
 
 At the same time, unknown to Allison, Charles E. Perkins wrote to 
 his father-in-law, John Murray Forbes, the great Boston capitalist 
 and dominant stockholder in the Burlington road, asking him if he 
 would support Allison if nominated, calling Allison the "safest" man 
 on the list of prospects, but suggesting that if Forbes's answer were 
 in the negative, he should announce that it was because he could not 
 
220 William Boyd Allison 
 
 support any man from a state that was "confiscating property" as the 
 Iowa Railroad Commissioners were doing. 55 Thus relentlessly did 
 Perkins insist on the pursuit of Larrabee and all others who were 
 carrying out the wishes of the majority of the people of Iowa. 
 
 The convention opened on Wednesday, June 20, with John M. 
 Thurston, a Union Pacific attorney, as temporary chairman and key- 
 note speaker; and with California's Morris M. Estee, leader of a 
 diehard Blaine element, as the permanent chairman. The nominating 
 speeches ran true to form. Sherman was put forward by General 
 D. H. Hastings of Pennsylvania and seconded by one of the greatest 
 of the wavers of the bloody shirt, Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio. 
 Harrison's name was put up by Albert G. Porter; Gresham's by 
 Leonard Swett; and so on around the circle. For reasons not alto- 
 gether clear, Colonel William P. Hepburn made the principal nomi- 
 nating speech for Allison. Hepburn was an able man and a better 
 than average speaker, but still one wonders at his selection, especially 
 with the magnetic Dolliver available. Possibly Hepburn's wider na- 
 tional acquaintance may have been the explanation. Only recently 
 Hepburn had opposed Allison's man, Wilson, for the Senate, and 
 many bitter things had been said; now his words of praise sounded 
 hypocritical to those who knew of that campaign. Allison had been 
 warned specifically against his treachery, 56 but still he invited him to 
 do the honors. Perhaps it was a gesture of peace. 
 
 The Chicago Inter-Ocean gave elaborate critiques of each orator's 
 nominating speech but had little that was good to say about Hepburn's 
 efforts. He spoke too long; "an eloquent speech became tedious from 
 iteration and prolixity," His gestures were awkward, and he had to 
 look at his manuscript too closely. The seconding speech was made by 
 a total stranger to national politics, Benjamin M. Bosworth, an obscure 
 Rhode Islander, "young, handsome, well dressed, slow and deliberate 
 of speech. . . . He had the commencement-day oratory." 57 Was 
 his selection a bid to the powerful Rhode Island leader, Nelson W. 
 Aldrich, a rising force in the Senate? Certainly it is inconceivable 
 that Bosworth would have acted contrary to the wishes of Aldrich, 
 whose biographer asserts that his support for Allison was purely com- 
 plimentary in the early stages of the convention while waiting for 
 the swing to Harrison to develop. 58 
 
 At last, at 11:30 on Friday morning, the balloting began, with the 
 general understanding that several tests of strength would be re- 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 221 
 
 quired before a definite trend could be established. The first ballot 
 produced this result: 
 
 John Sherman 229 
 
 Walter Q. Gresham 107 
 
 Chauncey Depew 99 
 
 Benjamin Harrison 85 
 
 Russell A. Alger 84 
 
 William B. Allison 72 
 
 James G. Blaine 35 
 
 A few scattered votes for minor figures completed the total of 830 
 votes cast. The minimum necessary to win the nomination would be 
 416. Allison's 72 votes included the solid Iowa block of 26, plus 8 
 from Rhode Island and 7 from Texas; the remaining 31 came in 
 driblets of one to three from sixteen widely scattered sources. Louisi- 
 ana, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, and Virginia gave him three each; 
 Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Utah, and Wyoming, two each; 
 Dakota, Idaho, Montana, and Washington territories, Colorado, and 
 Tennessee, one each. 59 Thus nineteen states or territories contributed 
 to his total, but there were no great possibilities of increase here; only 
 Massachusetts had a sizable block of votes. John Sherman had almost 
 a monopoly of the hand-picked delegations from the South. Either 
 Allison's managers had fumbled or else the drawing power simply was 
 not there. Harrison's vote, while only thirteen more than Allison's 
 on this first ballot, was much better distributed. 
 
 The second and third ballots saw some shifting, and Allison's vote 
 grew slightly to 88, Sherman's rose to 244, and Harrison's to 94. 
 After the first three ballots on Friday, the convention recessed until 
 evening. No ballots were taken at the night session; the main fea- 
 ture was the withdrawal of Chauncey Depew. Admitting his inability 
 to command the Western votes needed for victory because of his 
 position as president of the New York Central Railroad, he withdrew 
 in the party interest. 60 
 
 It was during the Friday recess that the conference took place at 
 which victory was placed in Allison's hands, only to be snatched away 
 by the vengeful Depew. There are several versions of the story: the 
 most familiar is the one made public in 1899 by the venerable Senator 
 George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts and published in Scribner's Mag- 
 azine and later repeated in his Autobiography of Seventy Years. 61 Sen- 
 
222 William Boyd Allison 
 
 ator Hoar tells the story of a meeting of delegates from Massachusetts, 
 New York, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, California, and Missouri, at which 
 they agreed to vote for Allison, the New York delegates qualifying 
 their promise by saying that it was subject to the approval of their 
 leader, Chauncey Depew. When informed of this conference and 
 asked for his approval, Depew haughtily refused to go along with 
 the plan. Having been forced to withdraw his own name by reason 
 of objections from the Western states, where railroads were under 
 attack, Depew refused to "submit to such an unreasonable and social- 
 istic sentiment" and permit that region to name the party's candidate. 
 Thus the plan to switch to Allison on the fourth ballot fell through. 
 "I think no other person ever came so near the Presidency of the 
 United States, and missed it," commented Hoar. 
 
 The same story in essence appeared in the friendly-to-Allison 
 Chicago Tribune of Saturday morning, June 23, thus indicating that 
 the conference and its results were in no way secret. A condensed ac- 
 count appeared in Clarkson's Register on Sunday, June 24. The 
 Tribune article was outspoken in its designation of Depew as the 
 villain in the story. The paper further attributed Depew's action to 
 his pique over the deflation of his own boom and asserted that Iowa 
 delegates had let it be known that the nomination of Depew would 
 make Iowa a doubtful state. 62 
 
 Direct testimony on the incident from Depew himself was not 
 given until thirty-four years later. In his memoirs, published in 1922, 
 he had not mentioned the decisive conference. 63 Cyrenus Cole, the 
 well-known Iowa editor-politician-historian, wrote to Depew saying 
 that he had heard that the real reason for his veto of Allison was the 
 offensive nature of some remarks by Colonel Henderson, who, as 
 Cole tried to put it delicately, "liked to take a drink of Scotch." He 
 asked for Depew's own version of New York's switch to Harrison. 
 
 Depew answered cordially and at some length, emphasizing several 
 points. He acknowledged that it was the Iowa delegation's hostility, 
 to which other Western states contributed, that had led to his with- 
 drawal from the race. His own delegation responded by giving the 
 disposition of their full vote to the four delegates-at-large: Depew, 
 Thomas C. Piatt, Warner Miller, and Frank Hiscock. John Sherman 
 was absolutely unacceptable to Piatt but just as strongly preferred by 
 Warner Miller. Piatt's second choice was Allison. In this impasse, 
 Frank Hiscock, the fourth man, deferred to Depew to make known 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 223 
 
 his choice. Depew said that he then explained that "Allison's friends" 
 had been "most unfair and bitter" in attacking him, that New York 
 as a "capitalistic state" could not be carried even by Senator Allison 
 because of Iowa's antirailroad legislation. Depew's own candidate was 
 General Harrison because of his war record, his family name, and his 
 lack of corporate associations. He closed with a brief but misleading 
 paragraph indicating that his designation of Harrison led to an im- 
 mediate action in which Pennsylvania and other great states followed 
 New York into the Harrison column and victory. 64 
 
 The question as to whether his feelings had been antagonized by the 
 exaggerated remarks of a drunken Iowa delegate was neatly side- 
 stepped by Depew. That rumor was a persistent one, however, and is 
 met more than once in the history of this incident. If true, however, 
 it would have been only a tiny factor in a great struggle which had 
 gone far beyond personalities. Even so, it is one of the ironies of this 
 chapter in Allison's life that his cause was being hurt to some extent 
 by the necessary political course of one friend, Larrabee, whose place 
 as Governor had been made possible by the support of the Allison 
 faction, and by a trivial story involving another friend, Colonel 
 Henderson, whose devotion to Allison was unsurpassed. 
 
 On the night of Friday, June 22 — "Black Friday" Allison might 
 have called it later had he been inclined to moroseness — the Allison 
 cause might be described as "damaged but not ruined." His managers 
 could fall back on the copybook maxim, "while there is life there is 
 hope," but one can easily believe that they were a glum lot. A tele- 
 gram from Clarkson to Allison in Washington shows that he was 
 fully aware of developments. "New York has just decided to go to 
 Harrison. We are going to fight for immediate adjournment." 65 
 
 On Saturday the convention held a brief session, took the fourth and 
 fifth ballots with little change in the totals, and then adjourned until 
 Monday morning. One Iowa correspondent reported that this move 
 would be in Allison's favor if taken, 66 but another was nearer the 
 truth when he wrote: 
 
 The members of the Allison brigade are returning to their homes . . . and 
 some . . . say that it is conceded by all of them that there is no show for 
 Allison. They took away the magnificent large crayon portrait of the Sena- 
 tor last night. Much interest is manifested here [Cedar Rapids] over the 
 probable outcome. Fully four-fifths of the Republicans of this city and 
 vicinity are for Gresham, and the old soldiers, of whom there are fifteen 
 hundred in this county, are anxious that a soldier shall be nominated. 67 
 
224 William Boyd Allison 
 
 The Des Moines Register had a number of convention stories in 
 its Sunday issue, but the principal one declared that the "experts" had 
 counted out Sherman, Gresham, Alger, and Harrison, that there was 
 much speculation on Allison for Monday. The Depew boycott of 
 Allison might well boomerang on the New Yorker, according to the 
 Register, because many "resented" this effort to punish the Granger 
 states, although some were of the opinion that Depew's action had 
 effectively disposed of the nomination. The Council Bluffs Nonpareil 
 of Sunday reported that Gresham had lost out and the fight now 
 seemed to be between Allison and Harrison. Senator Cameron of 
 Pennsylvania had persuaded Senator Matthew S. Quay to support 
 Allison, but New York was leaning toward Harrison. McKinley was 
 now the dark horse. 68 
 
 While Allison and Sherman were sweating it out in Washington, 
 Harrison was undoubtedly having his own anxious moments in 
 Indianapolis. There were the embarrassing importunities of Thomas 
 Collier Piatt for the Treasury Department, the slightly depressing 
 effect of a declining vote from 217 on the fourth ballot to 213 on the 
 fifth, and the sure knowledge that if ever selected he would be be- 
 holden to Elkins and the Blaine crowd, whose strength was greater 
 than the 32 to 46 votes they had so far cast. On Saturday came an 
 offer from a prominent New York newspaper publisher and politician, 
 Elliott F. Shepard, to unite with Alger and Sherman in support of 
 Depew. Depew could surely then be elected, he thought, and Harrison, 
 Alger, and Sherman could "have the government" to themselves. 69 
 The Shepard telegram was probably ignored or passed on to 
 Harrison's managers for acknowledgement. One very important 
 negotiation had to be handled by Harrison personally, however. This 
 was carried on in a meeting at Indianapolis. The story is a round- 
 about one. On Saturday night Senator Aldrich, Nicholas Murray 
 Butler of Columbia University, and other pro-Harrison men met to 
 try to win over certain uncommitted delegates. The Harrison strength 
 was already shored up by a block of one hundred Negro delegates' 
 votes that had been bought at fifty dollars per head, by way of Gen- 
 eral Alger who first owned them. Other wavering delegates were al- 
 most ready to come to Harrison, but they wanted positive answers to 
 certain questions, answers which only Harrison himself could give. 
 Consequently an envoy was sent off to Indianapolis for a personal 
 interview. Not until morning church services had been properly at- 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 225 
 
 tended would Harrison permit his Calvinist meditations to be dis- 
 turbed by the vulgarities of politics. The questions and answers are 
 not on record, but it took no seventh son of a prophet to sense a 
 change for the better for Harrison when the convention resumed its 
 sessions on Monday morning. 70 
 
 Another trip, not so well publicized in later days, undoubtedly had 
 some effect on the result. The envoy in this case was self-appointed — 
 Wharton Barker of Philadelphia, publisher and essayist on public 
 questions, particularly finance, and a strong Harrison backer since 
 1883. Having been convinced by Senator Elkins that the nomination 
 of Blaine on the following Monday was inevitable unless both 
 Harrison and Sherman remained in the field to hold their respective 
 votes, Barker first wired Sherman an entreaty to stay by his guns until 
 he could talk to him, then made the trip from Chicago to Washing- 
 ton to add his personal persuasions. "I think you will consider my 
 work at Washington so necessary that you will approve my going 
 from Chicago," was his boastful report to Harrison. 71 According to 
 one student of these proceedings, Barker persuaded Sherman, and 
 later Allison, to agree that any candidate showing a decided gain on 
 the first ballot on Monday would get full help from the one who 
 showed a loss. 72 This same student points out that Colonel Henderson 
 was afraid to tell Clarkson of this arrangement, knowing that Clarkson 
 would be opposed to it. 73 One cannot condemn too harshly this act 
 of deception which kept Clarkson in the dark. 
 
 The Monday session was dramatically opened by the reading of a 
 cablegram from Blaine, asking his friends to respect his wishes and 
 "refrain from voting" for him. 74 Andrew Carnegie, in Europe with 
 Blaine, wired a confirmation: "Too late. Blaine immovable. Take 
 Harrison and Phelps." 75 Blaine's act of self-denial, however moti- 
 vated, was his last effective move in presidential politics. 
 
 When the convention proceeded to the first ballot of the day, the 
 sixth of the convention, Allison's vote came to 73; on the next, it 
 rose slightly to 76. Conversely, Harrison's had grown to 231 and 278, 
 respectively, and Sherman's had dropped from 244 to 23 1. Allison and 
 Sherman — the two friends at the end of the telegraph wire in Wash- 
 ington — now fought a little battle of their own. 
 
 Sherman, obviously, could not win. He could throw his votes to 
 Allison or to Harrison, as the Wharton Barker plan would have re- 
 quired, or he could stand fast and let matters seek their own course. 
 
226 William Boyd Allison 
 
 The "stand-fast" policy was his choice, even if it meant Harrison's 
 victory, and it cannot be interpreted other than an indication that 
 Sherman preferred Harrison to Allison. 76 
 
 But this coin had two sides. Allison too had some choices. His 
 seventy-odd votes were not enough by themselves to give the victory 
 to either Sherman or Harrison, but they might start a break for their 
 recipient. Thus it was that Allison in defeat really won the privilege 
 of naming the next President. The decision was not made by Allison 
 himself, but by his managers, Clarkson and Henderson. The latter 
 acted as the messenger and spokesman; a superficial observer might 
 have thought him to be the leader. 77 
 
 Beyond doubt, however, the active lead had been taken by Ret 
 Clarkson. Ret's loyalties ran in this order: James G. Blaine, William B. 
 Allison, and Benjamin Harrison — Blaine, Iowa, Indiana. Blaine had 
 taken himself out of the contest; Allison had had his "run" and had 
 lost; now the contest was between Harrison and Sherman. Con- 
 fronted with these choices, there was no contest in Clarkson's mind. 
 
 It still remains to be seen how Ret engineered the shift to Harrison 
 and put him across. The best possible description would be one by 
 Ret himself, a newspaperman of the old school and a fascinating letter- 
 writer. Fortunately, such a personal document is available. Here, 
 in a long, reminiscent letter written in 1915 to Louis T. Michener, 
 is Clarkson's own move-by-move account of his shift to Harrison and 
 the strategy employed by him to give Harrison the victory. Re- 
 calling their New York meeting in the spring, a meeting that saved 
 the final day for Harrison, Clarkson wrote: 
 
 ... I always felt that after [that meeting] if we could not nominate Allison 
 I would be with you for Harrison. . . . For, with my liking for you and other 
 Hoosiers, and my father's desire to have me support Harrison . . . [I] 
 kept the way open for that. . . . On Monday, Senator Hoar, of Massa- 
 chusetts came to me and said "I think it is time some one gave way for 
 the good of the party." I said I thought so too, and that I had a letter in my 
 pocket from Allison authorizing me to withdraw his name whenever I 
 thought it should be done, but that I would not do that unless we could get 
 a majority of delegates pledged to some one before we made the new move. 
 He asked me who I thought was the best man to unite upon, and I told him 
 Harrison, and went on to tell why I thought so, and told him how much I 
 believed you and Dudley and other Hoosiers had told me of Harrison that I 
 believed, and then referred to my father's friendship for the Harrisons, and 
 spoke of how my father had gone on horseback from Brookville over the 
 Alleghenies to Harrisburg, Pa. in 1839 to help nominate the elder Harrison 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 227 
 
 for 1840, and he exclaimed, "Why my father was a member of that Con- 
 vention too, and if the Harrisons were good enough for the elder Clarksons 
 and Hoars they were certainly good enough for the later ones." So we finally 
 agreed — although the Senator at first was pretty strongly inclined to 
 Sherman, as they were kinsmen in some degree, and Sherman was very strong 
 in New England, but we finally agreed we would go together. Then I said 
 "if you will canvass the Eastern delegations I will canvass the Western ones, 
 and if we get a majority of votes pledged I will withdraw Allison's name at 
 the close of the next ballot, and announce that Iowa was going to support 
 Harrison." We made the canvass and after that and after consulting you 
 and Dudley and finding how many votes you had pledged, found we had a 
 majority for Harrison, and then proceeded to carry out our programme. 
 My effective plea with the other delegates was that if we could get a majority 
 of the delegates to go with us, Iowa would withdraw Allison and cast its 
 vote for Harrison. As I was going back to my seat with the Iowa delegation 
 Senator Quay, who had seen us at work among the delegations over-took me 
 and asked, "What are you and old man Hoar up to?" I told him, and he 
 said it was impossible, and that we hadn't had time to get such an agree- 
 ment with so many men. I told him that we had, and added, "We have 18 
 votes pledged from your own State, headed by Oliver, and you had better 
 get on the wagon." But he wouldn't and stuck to Sherman. 78 
 
 All this evidence would certainly seem to clear the air of any sus- 
 picion of treason on Clarkson's part. It lay in his power to make the 
 decision as to Allison's ability to go forward or backward after the 
 seventh ballot. It was a fearful responsibility, but it is obvious that 
 Henderson, Dolliver, and the others accepted his decision as correct. 
 There was no revolution within the Iowa delegation. Allison had 
 given Clarkson authority to withdraw his name whenever he saw 
 fit. Nothing has been discovered to indicate that Allison had a prefer- 
 ence as between Harrison and Sherman or that he tried in any way to 
 steer Clarkson's choice. Clarkson chose Harrison instead of Sherman 
 or Gresham. At least he had the later consolation of knowing that 
 he had picked a man who could win, a man who would divide the 
 party less than Sherman. 
 
 Letters poured in from Allison's friends and supporters expressing 
 their grief over his defeat; practically all those written by "insiders" 
 at the convention blamed his rejection on Chauncey Depew. Not a 
 one has been found who blamed or censored Clarkson and Henderson 
 for their decision to give up the fight after the seventh ballot. 
 
 Charles E. Perkins wasted no time on sympathy but took one last 
 fling at Larrabee and the reformers. It is hard to realize that this 
 letter is a criticism of the Republican party as the party of reform: 
 
228 William Boyd Allison 
 
 I was in Chicago all last week. Henderson & Clarkson made no mistakes. 
 They managed things as well as possible. But when New York & Penna got 
 together on Harrison that seemed to settle it unless Blaine could be agreed 
 upon by all concerned which I feared might be the result. 
 
 Now I think our danger is that the spirit embodied in Larrabee & Al 
 Anderson, which had more to do with your defeat than anything else, will 
 break up the party. 
 
 We can not go on confiscating railroads & telling people what they shall 
 eat & drink — ^and the successful party of the future has got to go back to 
 first principles & stop interfering with individual liberty either by giving or 
 taking away without proper consideration. It's as bad or worse to pension 
 everybody as to confiscate railroads — I go to Des Moines in the morning to 
 see if anything can be saved from the threatened wreck of the Commis- 
 sioners. 79 
 
 Another approach to the problem in hand is to study the content of 
 the post-convention statements on the Harrison side. One very 
 pointed message was telegraphed to Harrison by Elliott F. Shepard, 
 who knew the story from the inside. "You are greatly indebted to 
 Chauncey M. Depew who opposed Allison's nomination in the New 
 York delegation proposed you in his stead as against Platts effort to 
 carry Allison and got you first 5 5 votes & then seventy two when the 
 latter fact became known this morning before the convention as- 
 sembled it could be felt in the air Hurrah for Tippecanoe & victory 
 too." 80 
 
 Senator T. C. Piatt later claimed much of the credit for Harrison's 
 victory. In his Autobiography, well described by one able authority 
 as an "erratic work," Piatt sings the praises of his own deeds for the 
 Republican party, citing James S. Clarkson as an authority who had 
 vouched for the importance of Piatt's services. As to the convention 
 of 1888, Piatt quotes Clarkson: "In 1888, it was the New York dele- 
 gation that, choosing in the final decision between Allison and 
 Harrison, nominated Harrison; and it was Piatt that took the New 
 York delegation to this choice." 81 Of course this is claiming much too 
 much in view of the well-attested facts about Depew's role; in part 
 Piatt is "compensating" for his own disappointment in failing to 
 receive the Department of the Treasury that had been promised to 
 him, as he always claimed, by John C. New of Indiana on behalf of 
 Harrison, in return for Piatt's delivery of the New York votes. 
 
 James G. Blaine cabled his congratulations from Scotland, and 
 Harrison answered in this revealing fashion: 
 
THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 229 
 
 Your cablegram was so prompt, so generous, and so stirring that I could not 
 refrain from giving it to the press. . . . 
 
 From your most intimate and trusted friends I had the assurance that in a 
 possible contingency you and they might regard my nomination with favor. 
 It was only such assurances that made my Indiana friends hopeful of success, 
 and only the help of your friends made success possible. 82 
 
 And what of Allison's reactions? First he wrote a handsome letter 
 of congratulations to his successful rival. te I heartily approve of your 
 nomination and sincerely congratulate you. I believe we can succeed. 
 But it will require great vigilance & activity on our part. We have a 
 wily foe with a leader strong in will & firm in purpose & not over 
 scrupulous as to methods. After adjt I am ready to enlist under your 
 banner & fight until victory comes to us." 83 Harrison replied in a 
 holograph letter: "I need not tell you that the early and hearty offer 
 of your congratulations, and the hearty and timely aid the [Iowa] 
 delegation gave me are very highly appreciated by me." 84 
 
 Thus closes the story of Allison's hard try for the Republican presi- 
 dential nomination in 1888. Never a whimper came from him nor a 
 sigh as to what might have been. He was a good enough card-player 
 to know that games are not won by retrospective playbacks of the 
 hands. As a realist he would know that he had not held the right cards 
 to be a winner in the tournament of 1888. There was no vindictive- 
 ness toward his managers or his rivals. He might have written a bitter 
 note to John Sherman — but he wrote no such note. He might have 
 questioned the skill of Clarkson and Henderson and their lesser allies 
 — but he did not. A reporter for the Chicago Inter-Ocean found 
 him soon after the bad news had been received and gave a picture of 
 Allison in defeat: 
 
 Mr. Allison was seen in his Committee-room immersed in appropriations. He 
 simply said "Bully," that all was well. In answer to questions at to whether 
 he had ordered the withdrawal of his name he said that his friends had full 
 authority to act and had no doubt done so without instructions from him. 
 And he reminded the Inter-Ocean correspondent that four years or more ago 
 he had told him he would rather be Senator from Iowa during good behavior 
 (which he hoped would be for life) than hold any other position. 85 
 
 And a Senator for life he would be! 
 
fflWffif^ 
 
 * 
 
 A Party Wheel Horse 
 
 The Allison story does not end with his defeat at Chicago. How- 
 ever disappointed he might have been over his own failure, and 
 however little enthusiasm he might have for Harrison as a standard- 
 bearer, Allison played an important part in the fight for a party 
 victory in 1888. It had been hard for Harrison's friends to secure his 
 nomination; it now became even more difficult to secure his election. 
 He was not a glamorous man who could charm or persuade a great 
 popular following. He was merely the candidate on whom a majority 
 could agree after the withdrawal of Blaine; the one candidate, ap- 
 parently, who was acceptable to the delegations from New York, 
 Indiana, Connecticut, and New Jersey — states that had been lost in 
 1884 and whose recovery was deemed essential for a Republican victory 
 in 1888. 
 
 Allison was certainly one of the first to see that Harrison was run- 
 ning under the twofold handicap of President Cleveland's hold upon 
 the independent vote and the weakness of the high tariff plank in the 
 Republican platform. To almost everyone except certain Republicans 
 it seemed completely obvious that there was an inconsistency in asking 
 for a high tariff at a time when there was a surplus in the Treasury. 
 Yet this was what the Republican platform called for. Democrats in 
 the House, where they had a majority, at once saw their golden op- 
 portunity to make capital out of this situation, especially since 
 Cleveland had devoted his annual message in December, 1887, to this 
 subject. In reality, Cleveland had used the message as a medium for 
 
 230 
 
A PARTY WHEEL HORSE 231 
 
 the education of the people on this topic. Why pile up money in the 
 Treasury by collecting tariff revenues? The surplus could not be used 
 to any advantage. If used to buy bonds, the government would have 
 to pay a heavy premium, and speculation would be encouraged; if 
 used in lieu of excise taxes on whisky, beer, and tobacco, the moral 
 sense of some people would be offended; if deposited in banks, it 
 would seem that the government and business were in partnership. 
 
 Under the leadership of Roger Q. Mills of Texas, chairman of the 
 House Committee on Ways and Means, and long an advocate of 
 lower taxes, economy in government, and a tariff for revenue only, 
 the House passed a bill in July, 1888, bearing his name. The measure 
 forthrightly called for a reduction of duties on manufactured articles 
 and a free list for lumber, wool, salt, and certain other raw materials. 1 
 Although the purposes of such a bill were to lower taxes on imports 
 and bring about a reduction of the Treasury surplus, the bill also had 
 definite political overtones. 
 
 Allison was not slow to perceive the Democratic strategy and to 
 suggest counteracting tactics for Republican use. In reply to an in- 
 quiry from Harrison about the prospects for adjournment, Allison 
 had predicted that the Mills Bill would be passed late in July and then 
 the Republicans must pass some kind of countermeasure. If the House 
 should adjourn without passing a bill, the Senate could afford to do 
 likewise, but a Democratic House bill must be matched by a Republi- 
 can Senate bill that would reduce taxes. "To do this will require about 
 three weeks after we get the bill." 2 
 
 George William Curtis pointed out the same truth in almost every 
 issue of Harper's Weekly 3 during July and August, namely, that the 
 Republican party stood to lose much of the independent vote and the 
 pro-reform Republican vote unless something were done to rectify the 
 situation created by the Republican tariff plank and by the failure 
 of House Republicans to develop a substitute for the Mills Bill. Almost 
 every day brought announcements from prominent Republicans who 
 said they were going to vote for Cleveland. As one man put it, so 
 many others doubtless thought: he was not leaving his party; his 
 party had left him by putting up an immoral candidate in 1884 and 
 an unsupportable tariff plank in 1888. 
 
 The Mills Bill, finished on July 21, was passed on to the Senate. 
 With Allison the practical politician urging his party colleagues on, 
 it was but natural that they should put upon him, a moderate in all 
 
232 William Boyd Allison 
 
 things, the main burden of framing an alternative or substitute. 
 What was really needed was not a tariff bill to substitute for the Mills 
 proposals; what was desired was a campaign document to replace the 
 tariff plank of the platform. 4 The Republicans did not expect to 
 pass the bill; they merely wanted to use debate on it for campaign 
 purposes. And in providing the bill, Allison made his great contri- 
 bution to Harrison's victory. 
 
 Allison was^ just the man for this kind of job, and he worked at it 
 manfully from August to October. After weeks of hard committee 
 work, the Senate bill was introduced on October 3 in the form of an 
 amendment to the Mills Bill, Allison reporting the new version from 
 the Committee on Finance. 5 Printed in fine type, it filled over eighteen 
 pages in the Congressional Record. Appearing in the daily press on 
 September 25, it met with instant favor, judging from Allison's 
 correspondence. 
 
 An analysis of the bill, which showed how much Allison and his 
 colleagues had accomplished, was given in Harper's Weekly, a journal 
 that could be depended upon to be critical of anything that smacked 
 of protection. Editor Curtis found that the bill proposed a reduction 
 of 50 per cent in the protective tax on sugar, abolition of the internal 
 tax on tobacco, an increase of the free list by a remission of about 
 $6,500,000 in various taxes, and the freeing of alcohol used in the 
 arts — a cut of about $74,000,000 in all. "The real question of the 
 campaign is not free-trade, but reduction of the surplus by tariff re- 
 vision," wrote Curtis. He thought that Allison must have "chafed 
 under the necessity of calling a moderate diminution of the duties 
 free-trade," as most Republicans had referred to the Democratic pro- 
 gram under the Mills Bill; "his wise counsels have prevailed" and the 
 only question is whether his or the Mills method was the better way of 
 reducing the surplus. 6 
 
 Gardner Cowles, prominent Algona banker, wrote for a copy of 
 the bill and the majority and minority reports, adding a postscript: 
 "Iowa is all right. The more the matter is discussed, the stronger the 
 Republican position becomes with the people. As to the question 
 whether the surplus income shall be reduced by cutting off internal 
 taxes or abandoning the protective system, Republicans as a unit are 
 for the former." 7 Another influential Iowan wrote his praises of 
 the bill and expressed the hope that it would pass just as it came from 
 the Committee. "If we had free lumber provided for in your Sub- 
 
A PARTY WHEEL HORSE 233 
 
 stitute we would be a little stronger in Iowa, but we can get along 
 and the party is strengthened in other States by the protection you 
 afford lumber interests," he added, thus illustrating the truth of the 
 assertion that the tariff was often a "local" question. 8 
 
 Both Allison and Nelson W. Aldrich took prominent parts in the 
 running debate that went on in the Senate for days, Allison making 
 his principal speech on October 8. 9 He received requests from James 
 G. Blaine, just then on a stumping tour of Indiana, and from Nicholas 
 Murray Butler and others for copies of his remarks; James S. Clarkson 
 sent congratulations. 10 Even Harrison, famous for the "ice-water 
 in his veins," sent almost unreserved compliments to Allison and 
 Aldrich: as to Allison's speech, "the exposition you gave ... is emi- 
 nently satisfactory"; as for the report of the Committee, "I have been 
 told by those who have read it that it is the best tariff document that 
 has ever been issued." X1 
 
 The Senate adjourned on October 20 without a vote on the measure 
 but with thousands of words in the Record; the entire period from 
 late July to October had been virtually a Republican committee 
 meeting at public expense. Perhaps a faint smile came to Allison's 
 lips as President-pro-tem John J. Ingalls of Kansas thanked all the 
 members for their faithful service in what had been the longest con- 
 tinuous session in the history of the Senate. 12 Surely no one deserved 
 such thanks more than Allison and the members of the Finance Com- 
 mittee, more especially his own subcommittee members, Nelson W. 
 Aldrich of Rhode Island and Frank Hiscock of New York. 13 Allison 
 and his colleagues in the debate had carried the responsibility of party 
 success or failure. "If the Senate does not spoil the situation by a 
 blunder in dealing with the Mills bill I believe we will win," Clarkson 
 had written to Harrison in July. 14 The Senate had not blundered. 
 
 Although Harrison had asked Allison to come to Indiana after the 
 adjournment, he did not stop on his way West, and when the time 
 came to fulfill his promised speaking engagements in Indiana, he sent 
 his regrets. One cannot escape the conclusion that Allison simply 
 reneged on his promise to come into Indiana to speak. His plea was 
 that he was needed in the campaign at home — a plea of doubtful 
 validity since he had received assurances from Gardner Cowles and 
 Maurice D. O'Connell that Iowa was perfectly safe. Harrison gra- 
 ciously excused him, and Allison proceeded to meet the engagements 
 made for him by Dr. Charles Beardsley of Burlington, the Iowa state 
 
234 William Boyd Allison 
 
 chairman, who assessed Allison $300 as his share of the expenses of 
 the campaign. 
 
 The ticket of Harrison and Morton pulled through by methods that 
 should have mortified those devout souls. Harrison ran behind the 
 rest of the ticket in his own precinct and did not carry his own 
 county; 15 Indiana was saved only by the device invented, ordered, 
 and described by Colonel William W. Dudley, treasurer of the Re- 
 publican national comittee, as "blocks of fives/' This consisted of 
 putting four "floaters" or uncertain voters under the care of one safe 
 and financially fortified party member whose orders were to deliver 
 the four votes under his supervision without fail. Although Harrison 
 won in the electoral college, 233 to 168, the voters preferred Cleveland, 
 5,540,050 to 5,444,337. 
 
 The results in Iowa were heartening to the G. O. P. One jubilant 
 Republican expressed the sentiment in this outburst: "Hurrah for 
 Harrison and Morton. It is too glorious. Weaver and Anderson and 
 Cleveland all gone. There is yet a God in Israel." 16 Ten out of the 
 eleven Iowa members elected to the House were Republicans, among 
 them Jonathan P. Dolliver of Fort Dodge for his first term. The lone 
 Democrat was Judge Walter I. Hayes of Clinton. 
 
 Immediately after Harrison's nomination, an undercurrent of 
 questioning had begun as to the men who would direct his campaign 
 strategy; as soon as he had been elected, the rumor mills began to 
 grind out the names of probable and possible Cabinet members. Such 
 speculation frequently referred to both Allison and Clarkson. 
 
 Clarkson had been a busy man following the convention, where his 
 role had been so decisive. But the hard-working and ever-thoughtful 
 political manager had left the convention in no mood of elation in 
 spite of his role of king-maker. His first act had been to write his 
 tender of congratulations to Harrison, and with it he offered the in- 
 formation that he had remained in Chicago a few days to try to mollify 
 the powerful Joseph Medill's disappointment over the defeat of 
 Gresham. Shortly after that, Clarkson confided in Allison his own dis- 
 appointment over Harrison's failure to offer him any position of 
 definite responsibility in the campaign. 17 
 
 An even keener disappointment was yet to come to the Des Moines 
 editor. In July the national committee had met for purposes of or- 
 ganization. Senator Matthew S. Quay of Pennsylvania had been made 
 national chairman a short while before the convention, but because of 
 
A PARTY WHEEL HORSE 235 
 
 his vulnerability to charges of "bossism" a majority of the committee 
 wanted to replace him with Clarkson. Quay was admittedly a master 
 politician but a late-comer to the Harrison cause, having first sup- 
 ported Allison and then Sherman; he could now help greatly in swing- 
 ing the big Pennsylvania vote. Clarkson, on the other hand, was 
 not so well known and not yet tested as a manager on a national scale. 
 Although the Harrison forces were singularly obligated to Clarkson, 
 realism triumphed over sentiment, and the Harrison influence was 
 thrown to Quay. Clarkson was asked to take the vice-chairmanship, 
 which meant that he would receive far more work than honor and 
 fame. It was only after much persuasion and much consultation with 
 his own conscientious sense of obligation as Iowa's member of the 
 national committee that Ret finally consented to serve under Quay. 18 
 
 Clarkson established his headquarters in New York City, and grad- 
 ually his fighting spirit rallied under the heat of the battle and the 
 responsibility and privilege of the full direction of the campaign which 
 Quay placed in his hands. In addition to the public headquarters of 
 the committee, he maintained a "hide-out" at the apartment of the 
 wealthy and eccentric Mrs. Hicks-Lord for secret conferences and 
 for periods of uninterrupted recuperation from his strenuous labors, 
 which went on day and night at great risk to his health. 19 
 
 After the election of Harrison, Allison and his friends worked for 
 a place for Clarkson, not Allison, in Harrison's official family. In 
 one friendly letter Harrison, apparently in response to a statement by 
 Allison, reassured him: "I have been perhaps more in correspondence 
 with Mr. Clarkson than any other member of the National Committee 
 and I am assured of his personal friendliness and of his great efficiency 
 as a member of the Committee." 20 A much stronger assurance came 
 from Jonathan P. Dolliver, the new Congressman-elect from Fort 
 Dodge and a grateful protege of both men. He informed Allison that 
 he had written a strong letter to Harrison for Clarkson. 
 
 As for Allison's chances for a Cabinet post, his friends advised 
 against it. J. Fred Meyers, a keen observer of the Iowa political scene, 
 wrote Allison and urged him not to accept such a post. First, Allison 
 could not afford to become Harrison's clerk; second, too many political 
 implications would arise in Iowa; and third, Larrabee and Hepburn 
 would aspire to Allison's place, and the "organization" would be 
 broken up. Allison's best course would be to wait until 1892, when 
 Harrison might not be renominated. 21 Still another good friend, 
 
236 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Maurice D. O'Connell, urged Allison to stay out of the Cabinet and 
 told him not to let any fears about his re-election in 1890 cause him 
 to take the Cabinet place as a substitute. "Don't allow yourself to be 
 influenced by any doubt as to your strength at home. You can be your 
 own successor." 22 A letter from Dolliver, dated December 28, in- 
 dicates that Allison had notified his friends that he had already de- 
 clined a Cabinet offer. This would suggest that Harrison had made an 
 offer or at least a "feeler" earlier than is commonly supposed. Dolliver 
 expressed his pleasure over Allison's rejection of a place in the Cabinet 
 for himself; the only step up for Allison was to the presidency, and 
 the Cabinet was not a steppingstone to that. 23 
 
 As George William Curtis saw it, the selection of the Cabinet had 
 resolved itself into a "contest." Blaine was taken for granted as the 
 new Secretary of State and was credited with the statement that he 
 would accept the place if offered, a situation that appealed to Curtis 
 as being preposterous and, if carried through, equivalent to a clear 
 surrender by Harrison. Even the Union League Club of New York 
 City passed a resolution aimed against Blaine, as well as against John 
 Wanamaker of Philadelphia and Thomas C. Piatt, the notorious New 
 York boss. 24 In spite of these objections, Blaine became Harrison's 
 Secretary of State. 
 
 It seems safe to assume that Allison had sure knowledge all the 
 way through late December and all of January that the Treasury post 
 was his if he would only accept it. But what effect would acceptance 
 or rejection have on the chances of Clarkson? That gentleman was 
 suffering, very justifiably so, from a bad case of injured pride. On 
 January 25, 1889, he wrote to Allison that he had had a conversation 
 with a man from Philadelphia, a prospective member of the Cabinet 
 (undoubtedly John Wanamaker), who had assured him that Iowa 
 would not necessarily be limited to one place in Harrison's Cabinet. 
 Another man close to Harrison was even more certain that Clarkson 
 still had a chance. Therefore, Allison had been all wrong in telling 
 Clarkson that he had no chance in the race. Ret said that he felt it 
 was his duty to inform Allison of this, "yet I do not want to affect 
 or influence your decision in the matter." His principal grievance was 
 that after all his labors he had not been called into a conference. 25 
 
 The country was tormented by rumors. Even so experienced a 
 politician as Joseph H. Manley of Augusta, Maine, one of Blaine's 
 most trusted lieutenants, allowed himself to be taken in on one oc- 
 
A PARTY WHEEL HORSE 237 
 
 casion by a baseless report. On January 29 he wrote to Michener: 
 "Saturday the W. U. T. Co. placed a bulletin on its board in this city 
 saying 'President Harrison has tendered to Mr. Blaine Secretary of 
 State and Mr. Blaine has accepted. Allison Treasury and Wanamaker 
 P. M. G.' The news instantly spread over the city. Every one ac- 
 cepted it as an authoritative announcement and were wild with joy. . . . 
 Supposing it to be authentic I telegraphed Genl. Harrison. It now 
 turns out to be a newspaper story." 26 
 
 At that, the bulletin was not far wide of the mark. Late in Jan- 
 uary, Allison had finally made the journey to headquarters at In- 
 dianapolis; the trip occurred at approximately the time referred to 
 in Manley's letter. He was closeted with the President-elect for a large 
 share of the time during the twenty-seven-hour visit, even moving 
 his baggage from the New Denison Hotel to the Harrison home. 
 Reporters could get nothing from him except the trite remark that 
 he had had a pleasant visit and that something had happened to cause 
 him to return to Washington instead of going on to Dubuque as 
 planned. 27 Everyone believed that he had been offered a Cabinet post, 
 and of course everyone expected him to accept. The well-informed 
 George William Curtis wrote that the reports from Indianapolis were 
 to the effect that Blaine and Allison had been "called" to the State 
 and Treasury departments. Fully assuming that both men would 
 accept, Curtis expressed approval of Allison's appointment, although 
 his "present views on the tariff are not those which he formerly ex- 
 pressed, but he had doubtless felt constrained by the exigencies of 
 political life to keep step with his party." Curtis felt that the appoint- 
 ment would be generally regarded with favor. 28 
 
 But Curtis' dictum, dated February 1, was obsolete before it reached 
 his readers on February 9. On February 1, 1889, Harrison had writ- 
 ten to Blaine: 
 
 I thought I had nearly everything [settled] in my own mind that required 
 attention before I reached Washington. If the newspaper reports today as to 
 Mr. Allison's position is [sic] correct, it may unsettle some of my own plans. 
 I said to a friend today that if all of the seven Cabinet officers could have been 
 found in Alaska it would have promoted harmony in the party in the states. 
 Maine, I believe, is the only state that has no interests to offer. 29 
 
 Thus, strange as it may seem, Harrison learned through the papers 
 of Allison's possible declination before he received the formal letter 
 
238 William Boyd Allison 
 
 of regret. Allison must surely have been pleased with the President- 
 elect's reply: 
 
 You know that your letter was very disappointing to me, but after our 
 very full conversation I do not think of any further consideration that I 
 can urge. 
 
 It seemed to me that I could not take the responsibility for not offering 
 you the Treasury, and urging it upon you by those public and party con- 
 siderations which so closely and so strongly pointed to you as the right 
 choice. Added to this, there were general considerations that would have 
 made your acceptance of the place very agreeable to me. I shall probably take 
 no further step in this matter until next week and if anything should occur 
 in the meantime I will be glad to hear from you. 30 
 
 Allison's sorry handling of Garfield's invitation to join his Cabinet 
 in 1881, and this rejection of Harrison's offer in 1889, make one think 
 that he is seeing the same show twice. And for the second time, the 
 Treasury went instead to William Windom. 31 But this time there 
 was an unfortunate element in the story that was not present in 1881. 
 At that time Allison had managed his end of the negotiations in such 
 a way as to assist his friend, Samuel J. Kirkwood, to step into the 
 Cabinet, and another friend, James F. Wilson, into the Senate. This 
 time his ineptness had disastrous results for his friend, James S. 
 Clarkson, who was eager for a Cabinet position, but who had sub- 
 ordinated his claims while waiting to see what Allison would do. By 
 the time Allison had made up his mind to say "no," it was too late 
 for Clarkson to push his own case. The full effect of this contretemps 
 on the personal relations of the two men did not show up for some 
 time, but Clarkson and his friends were keenly aware of the results 
 of Allison's hesitancy on Clarkson's chances for the Cabinet, even 
 while the "contest" was in full swing. 
 
 Clarkson was for the time being in Chicago, investigating the po- 
 sibilities of purchasing a newspaper there, and at the same time hope- 
 fully watching the situation. On January 30 he received a telegram 
 saying: "I just saw Senator Wilson he says he thinks Allison will not go 
 in the cabinet"; shortly afterward Clarkson received a letter from 
 General Dodge, in response to his complaint at Allison's delay: 
 
 You know how our friend is; his timidity would make him seem to be doing 
 what you say. ... I am satisfied from a letter I got today from Washington 
 that [Allison] will not accept. I saw Vice-President Morton last night, and 
 he was very positive in his declaration that it would be the mistake of his 
 life if he did. If he should, there is going to be a general scramble; and in 
 my opinion the succession will go to Central Iowa or Western Iowa, , , , I 
 
A PARTY WHEEL HORSE 239 
 
 want to say to you that I think your course in this matter is so high and so 
 straight, that no matter what anybody says, they cannot criticise it. 32 
 
 But by February 2 it was known that Allison would not accept. 
 One of Allison's fellow-townsmen, J. K. Graves, tried to console 
 Clarkson with a copy of a letter that he had sent to Harrison, boosting 
 Clarkson for a Cabinet post, and with the well-intended but probably 
 galling words: "I believe if the Senator had been decided and positive 
 at his two interviews with Harrison you would now be one of the 
 coming members of the cabinet." 33 
 
 As matters turned out, Clarkson's natural place, the Postmaster 
 Generalship, was given to John Wanamaker, the merchant prince of 
 Philadelphia, and Ret was persuaded to take over as First Assistant. 
 To at least one keen observer this seemed a promising solution. Charles 
 E. Perkins wrote to Clarkson: 
 
 For the sake of the party in and out of Iowa I am glad you have been in- 
 duced to become the 1st Asst. P. M. General — but of course its hard work, 
 and I don't suppose you want it. You ought to have been P. M. General and 
 I suppose it will end in your being there — I trust it does not mean that you 
 are going to give up the general direction of the Register. If you and 
 Allison work together I don't see why you can't have things pretty much 
 your own way in Iowa and let Larrabee permanently retire. If I can do 
 anything to be of service let me know. 34 
 
 Why did Allison reject the Cabinet honor? There were all the 
 usual reasons: the comparative security of his Senate seat as against 
 the uncertainty of the length of tenure in the Cabinet; the greater 
 expense involved in Cabinet social obligations; the vast amount of 
 petty desk work. But the real reason was the possibility that his suc- 
 cessor might be the hated William Larrabee, the man whose ideas on 
 railroad regulation were now anathema to Allison's best friends and 
 supporters, General Dodge and Charles E. Perkins. These men would 
 never have forgiven Allison had he made Larrabee's succession pos- 
 sible. 35 The only good prospect for holding the seat against Larrabee 
 was for Allison to run again; even that would be no guarantee of 
 success against the great crusader for railroad regulation. But this 
 was all crystal clear from the first; it should not have been necessary 
 to play along for weeks before making a negative decision. It was 
 unfair to President-elect Harrison and to Clarkson or any other Iowan 
 whose political future was hanging in the balance. 
 
 With the new administration in office, the Republicans turned their 
 
240 William Boyd Allison 
 
 attention to local politics, and the elections of 1889 revealed how hard- 
 pressed they were. Even a party of such overwhelming basic strength 
 in Iowa found that it could not afford the indulgence of losing some 
 voters because of a continuing fight for prohibition, some others 
 because of Larrabee's antirailroad fight, and still others because of the 
 general feeling that the party belonged to big business rather than to 
 the small farmer. 
 
 Dozens of letters from Gilbert B. Pray of Fort Dodge, Charles 
 Pickett of Waterloo, and the "old reliable," Jacob Rich, testify to 
 the strenuousness of the campaign and the difficulty in getting pledges 
 from the candidates for the General Assembly. 36 Allison himself was 
 well aware of his situation. In a report to President Harrison he said: 
 "I have had rather a pleasant summer but have been obliged to keep 
 my mind on the matter of my re-election, and am not yet 'out of the 
 woods' as it were but think I see the opening beyond. ... I think we 
 will do well this year, as our people are feeling well. We have an un- 
 precedented crop of everything that grows in a temperate climate." 37 
 
 The election results of 1889 and the even more significant upcom- 
 ing Republican defeat of 1890 proved that the Republican party of 
 Abraham Lincoln and, more important, the party of Thaddeus 
 Stevens, James F. Wilson, James S. Clarkson, and William Boyd 
 Allison, the Radical Republicans, could no longer win by a wave of 
 the bloody shirt. For the first time since the term of Governor Stephen 
 Hempstead (1850-1854), the Democrats put their man in the Iowa 
 Governor's seat: Horace Boies of Waterloo. 38 They secured 45 out of 
 the 100 seats in the lower house and 20 out of the 28 senatorial togas 
 that were up for election. This gave them 65 votes out of a total of 
 150 in the combined houses — not enough to defeat the Republican 
 senatorial nominee, however. 
 
 But the Democratic strength made it absolutely necessary for the 
 Republicans to bury their factional differences. There could be no 
 permanent doubt that Allison would be the party's nominee. The 
 only question was whether essential Republican votes would be cast 
 independently for Larrabee, flouting the caucus decision. Thus the 
 success of Allison finally depended on Larrabee and his followers. 
 When confronted with this situation, Larrabee adopted a policy of 
 nonaggression, and Allison squeezed by with a vote of 79 to 63 for 
 S. T. Bestow, his Democratic opponent. Larrabee te die-hards" cast 
 eight votes for their hero. 39 
 
A PARTY WHEEL HORSE 241 
 
 According to David Brant, in attendance in Des Moines as a re- 
 porter for Fred Faulkes of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, a few malcon- 
 tents in the Republican party had done their best to defeat Allison by 
 putting up Larrabee, but the Governor had refused to be their "cats- 
 paw," as he expressed it, and the rebellion had collapsed. During the 
 campaign Allison had at last answered the stories circulated by Weaver 
 and others as to his great wealth: in an interview with Brant he gave 
 an accounting of his finances, and Brant persuaded him to agree to 
 publication of the facts. Thus the story that Allison was one of the 
 "Senate millionaires" was at last scotched. When the people of Iowa 
 learned that "for several years [Allison] had borne with personal 
 attacks without giving them the dignity of a denial," Brant wrote, 
 "they loved the man more than ever. In fact it was in his later years 
 that the people had real affection for their great senator." 40 
 
 The year 1890 opened auspiciously for Allison. This was the fourth 
 time in a row that he had been given endorsement by his party. The 
 election by the legislature did not occur until March because of a fight 
 over the speakership, a fact that in no way threatened Allison's 
 certainty of victory. 41 It was a good thing that Allison was not tied 
 down to a hard campaign for re-election: his full time and all his 
 talents for the arrangement of compromises were needed in Wash- 
 ington. The Fifty-first Congress, famous as the first "billion-dollar 
 Congress" in American history, convened on December 3, 1889. 
 Three great issues concurrently occupied the attention of the solons: 
 amendment of the Bland- Allison Act; revision of the tariff; and an 
 elections bill. The issues were quite diverse but were made to relate 
 to each other by the clever maneuvers of the members of the Silver Re- 
 publican bloc mostly from the newly admitted states of the West, who 
 permitted one of the three measures to get by only at the price of a 
 favorable compromise on one of the others and a crippling action that 
 killed the third. Specifically, they permitted a tariff act to be passed 
 as the "regular" Republicans wanted it only at the price of a silver 
 purchase act that the regulars did not want and the ultimate defeat of 
 an elections bill that they very much wanted. 42 
 
 Neither President Harrison nor Secretary Windom could be classi- 
 fied as an expert on the currency question. In a report made on De- 
 cember 2, 1889, Windom advocated the purchase of all silver bullion 
 as offered, this to be stored and only enough of it coined to redeem the 
 treasury notes that were used to pay for it originally. Harrison cut 
 
242 William Boyd Allison 
 
 the ground from under this suggestion by admitting in his first annual 
 message, delivered the next day, that he had given the plan but little 
 study. 43 Congress droned away on the subject for many months be- 
 fore approaching the serious stages of debate and final decision. The 
 state of mind of Congress can be judged by a letter from Allison to 
 his old friend and mentor, Samuel J. Kirkwood, in June of 1890. "I 
 think your view about silver the correct one. There will be no com- 
 pulsory coinage, but a purchase of bullion and the Treasury notes 
 therefore made a legal tender to the extent of about four million and 
 a half of money. You are right about things being muddled here. 
 What the outcome will be with the tariff and other questions, I do 
 not know." 44 
 
 This prophecy was based upon three test votes that had been taken: 
 one in the House, where a silver purchase bill had been passed on June 
 7 by a vote of 135 to 119, with Iowa's ten Republican Representatives 
 voting for it; one in the Senate, where a free coinage amendment by 
 Senator Preston B. Plumb of Kansas had been adopted (Allison, of 
 course, voting no) by a vote of 44 to 25 but promptly killed in the 
 House. 45 Eventually a conference committee was appointed and its 
 report adopted in the form known to history as the Sherman Silver 
 Purchase Act. 46 This provided for the monthly purchase of four and 
 one-half million ounces of silver, to be paid for by treasury notes re- 
 deemable in gold or silver at the discretion of the Secretary of the 
 Treasury. There were to be no silver dollars coined, as the Bland- 
 Allison Act had provided, but the metal was to be stored and certifi- 
 cates issued against it. 
 
 As a convinced bimetallist, Allison could not object to this slight 
 increase in the use of silver. Joined by many whose names show Allison 
 to have been in good company, whatever might have been said about 
 "dishonest money," he supported the Sherman measure. Representa- 
 tive Henry Cabot Lodge explained his vote to his friends: "You may 
 say that it is economically unsound to make the government a buyer 
 of vast quantities of silver bullion. But it is better for the government 
 to issue notes on silver bullion bought on a gold basis than it is to 
 issue even two million depreciated dollars monthly." 47 
 
 As for the tariff, the measure sponsored by William McKinley re- 
 ceived the President's signature on June 12, 1890, not to become 
 effective until October l. 48 This tariff act is probably the best known, 
 at least by name, of all tariff legislation. Its general reputation is that 
 
A PARTY WHEEL HORSE 243 
 
 of a "high" or protective act that boomeranged on its creators by 
 bringing about their resounding defeat in the congressional elections 
 that soon followed. This generalization needs a guarded interpre- 
 tation. Actually, the defeat would have to be assigned to the probable 
 oncoming effects of the act, not its actual results. The American 
 economy is not supersensitive enough to register the effects of a tariff 
 act within one month of its effective date — but the American 
 political party balance can be upset in five months of hard cam- 
 paigning against a vulnerable opponent. The Republicans had left 
 themselves open to an attack based on fear, and the Democrats cleverly 
 seized the opportunity. The inevitable increase in prices of goods was 
 harped upon; John Wanamaker the merchant ran far ahead of 
 Wanamaker the Cabinet member by advertising from his Philadelphia 
 store: "Buy now — don't wait for higher prices." Then, too, the 
 Democratic and Populist gains of 1890 continued the state legislative 
 gains they had made in 1889. 
 
 Allison is personally credited with responsibility for one famous 
 provision of the act: the protection of an infant tin-plate industry. 
 Probably no portion of the act was more severely criticized at the time 
 or more effectively utilized by the Democrats in their campaign. 
 Peddlers were sent up and down the country offering tin cups at 
 twenty-five cents and tin pails at one dollar. 
 
 Yet Allison's own generation soon came to think of the tin-plate 
 provision as a good thing and praised him for it, 49 although no monu- 
 ments have been built to his memory in Wales, whose rolling mills were 
 put out of business. It is clear that Allison and his colleagues know- 
 ingly undertook to create an American production of this commodity 
 by putting in a barrier against the importation of tin plate, with the 
 provision that American production must reach certain proportions 
 within two years or the protection would cease. 50 American producers 
 were equal to their opportunity. Capital, labor, and "know how" 
 migrated from South Wales to America, and by 1914 the United 
 States was the leading producer and consumer of tin plate in the 
 world. 
 
 Allison was unable to see the virtues of reciprocity as set forth by 
 James G. Blaine and written into the McKinley Act. It was Blaine 
 who reputedly "smashed his hat in anger in the Finance Committee 
 room because such men as Morrill, Aldrich, Sherman, and Allison could 
 not appreciate the glories of reciprocity." 51 All in all, it seems that 
 
244 William Boyd Allison 
 
 the Allison of 1890 is quite a different Allison from the tariff moderate 
 of 1870. 52 
 
 In 1890 Republican strength in Iowa reached the lowest point in 
 the party's history between 1854 and 1932. Six out of eleven seats 
 in the national House of Representatives were lost. Jonathan P. 
 Dolliver must have blushed over the good-natured boast that he had 
 made earlier that "Hell would go Methodist before Iowa would go 
 Democratic. "^ The Democrats nearly won three additional seats, 
 failing by only narrow margins in the Third, Eighth, and Eleventh 
 Districts. An analysis of the voting in all eleven districts shows that 
 the total Democratic vote was 194,832, the Republican, 185,783, a 
 margin of 9,049, to which should be added a protest vote of several 
 thousand cast for the minor parties. 53 
 
 Yet Iowa was probably not as "radical'' as many of her neighbors. 
 First, one should point out that many of Iowa's so-called "radicals" 
 were not really very radical. A roll call of the Democratic and Popu- 
 list leaders, closely associated in the public mind, reveals such names 
 as Governor Boies, millionaire farm owner and lawyer; John F. 
 Duncombe, chief counsel for the Illinois Central Railroad and one 
 of the leading attorneys of the state; Martin H. Moore, a well-to-do 
 lumber man of Dubuque but a strong advocate of a larger per capita 
 circulation; Luman H. ("Calamity") Weller, dealer in lands and 
 publisher of a small protest journal in Nashua; E. H. Gillette of Des 
 Moines; and General James B. Weaver. These people were often prone 
 to defeat their own cause by refusal to work together in a close party 
 manner following the discipline of a recognized leader. For example, 
 a prominent labor leader in Dubuque wrote to Weller expressing 
 general approval of the success of the "opposition" candidates but re- 
 joicing that "still we have saved Henderson by a closely contested 
 fight. I worked for the Col. but not for the party. I am not among 
 those that weep. The Col. is my friend. He is sound and educated." 54 
 One can easily detect the fallacy in the gentleman's reasoning in not 
 equating Colonel Henderson with the Republican party which he 
 completely personified but can also admire the Colonel's ability to 
 draw men to him by sheer magnetism. 
 
 Early in 1891 Allison had another chance, or was at least favorably 
 mentioned in some circles, for the Treasury post. Secretary William 
 Windom died on January 29, 1891, and there was the usual specula- 
 tion as to his successor. Allison's brother-in-law, Bowd Nealley of 
 
A PARTY WHEEL HORSE 245 
 
 Bangor, Maine, expressed the sentiments held by Allison's best friends: 
 "Of course your friends need not fear that you would exchange the 
 comfortable position of senator for six years for the Treasury for 
 two. I am almost rejoiced that Iowa has got a Democratic governor 
 so that they will not persecute you to take this place." 55 
 
 Undoubtedly the most important event of early 1891 was the de- 
 feat of the Federal Elections Bill, better known as the "Force Bill," 
 because of its provision for boards of overseers under judicial super- 
 vision which would certify federal elections in the South. The Presi- 
 dent was empowered to use the army and navy if necessary in the 
 enforcement of the law. The bill was part of Harrison's effort to 
 build a Republican party in the South by safeguarding the Negro 
 vote rather than by trying to build a white man's party there. 56 The 
 emotional aspects of politics could never be better illustrated than in 
 this effort to force the election bill on the South. James S. Clarkson 
 resurrected the bloody shirt that had never been very deeply buried, 
 and his brother Richard editorially pictured a national calamity if 
 the bill were not passed. Ret equated Republicanism with the "duty" 
 to protect the Republicans of the South "at the polls and in their 
 homes." "There is no other real question in present politics but this. 
 . . . Civil service [reform] is the toy of a child, the trifling thing of 
 hobby riders, thrust in to keep the Republican party away from its 
 duty under conscience of settling this great overshadowing ques- 
 tion." 57 
 
 As the issue neared a final vote, Ret Clarkson, now living in Phila- 
 delphia, wired frantically to his brother Richard: 
 
 Can't you telegraph Allison saying that all earnest Republicans in Iowa are 
 anxious to know whether it is he or Ingalls who is against the election bill 
 and Republican party. His pair with Ingalls makes Ingalls treachery count 
 two votes against the bill. It is important Allison should break the pair and 
 vote for the bill to save it. 
 
 Allison's answer was clear and decisive and laid the Clarksons' fears 
 to rest. He was paired with Ingalls only on questions on which they 
 were in disagreement. "I have power to transfer my pair to any absent 
 Republican who agrees with me," he assured them. 58 
 
 Allison's part in the debates was a minor one and makes evident the 
 deterioration of his once flaming Radicalism of the 1860's. The most 
 that can be said for him is that he voted for the bill; he did not work 
 for it in spite of pleas from the Clarksons, General Dodge, and Dr. 
 
246 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Charles Beardsley, the Republican state chairman of Iowa. The bill 
 was defeated according to plan by Northern and Southern Democrats. 
 For several weeks, through December and January, with only a brief 
 Christmas recess, the Senate was treated to a clever exhibition of 
 Democratic delaying tactics managed by Senator Arthur Pue Gorman 
 of Maryland — tactics that amounted to a filibuster, although the 
 word was never used. Just when it appeared that the short session 
 would end without any action whatsoever, Senator Wolcott of Colora- 
 do, a Silver Republican, moved the consideration of another bill. 
 Aldrich admitted his defeat, and the Elections Bill was never heard 
 from again. 59 
 
 The greater significance of the defeat of the Elections Bill is not 
 often pointed out, but it has been thoroughly analyzed and described 
 as a turning point in post-Civil War Republican party history. 60 
 It was the last link in a chain of events made up of Cleveland's elec- 
 tion in 1884, the admission of the "Omnibus States" (four Western 
 states admitted by a "lame duck" Democratic Congress in 1889), 
 and the Republican defeat in 1890. Never again would this party 
 make a major effort, in the post-Civil War sense, to inject the warmed- 
 over issue of Negro suffrage into national politics. There would be no 
 more Radical Republicanism, although there might still be a few Radi- 
 cal Republicans. Of those who had entered Congress during the war, 
 yea, even of those who before the war had helped to bring Radical 
 Republicanism into being, Allison was now nearly alone. The "last 
 of the Radical Republicans" we might call him, along with Justin S. 
 Morrill of Vermont and John Sherman of Ohio, who were the only 
 other members who could look back over a congressional career that 
 actually began during the war. Shelby M. Cullom of Illinois came 
 nearest to these in vintage: he had entered the House in December, 
 1865, as a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress. To be sure, there 
 were younger Radicals, such as Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio and 
 Clarkson of Iowa who were just as "Radical" as their elders, but their 
 status in the party was not the same ; they, too, now went on to other 
 interests. 
 
 The new leadership in Congress, especially in the Senate which was 
 now to enjoy a distinct pre-eminence in government, belonged to men 
 for whom the Civil War and its offspring, the Negro question, as 
 issues had little interest. More and more would the power of decision 
 pass into the hands of men who spoke for big business. 01 Nelson W. 
 
A PARTY WHEEL HORSE 247 
 
 Aldrich, the traction and textile magnate, to whom Rhode Island was 
 as truly a pocket borough as any ever owned by the Duke of Nor- 
 folk; 62 John Coit Spooner, the constitutional law authority from 
 Wisconsin; Eugene Hale of Maine; General Joseph R. Hawley of Con- 
 necticut; Orville H. Piatt of Connecticut; and James McMillan, multi- 
 millionaire shipping magnate and investment holder of Michigan 63 
 — such were the men who now dominated the Senate. McMillan was 
 host to an exclusive group known as the "School of Philosophy Club," 
 whose members settled many an issue over dinner and the card table. 
 Allison, a poor man compared to most of these leaders, was a 
 charter member of McMillan's little club, very much one of the "boys," 
 and apparently a regular in their friendly little poker games. Other 
 Senators and Cabinet members felt themselves fortunate when they 
 were occasionally invited as extras to share the conviviality of the 
 group. Although the picture of the Senate as a millionaires' club has 
 been overdrawn, it is easy to see where the idea came from. No one 
 has yet demonstrated that a poor man's patriotism is any more sincere 
 than a rich man's love for his country, or that a poor man is any more 
 blessed with a spirit of industry than a rich man when it comes to 
 willingness to hack away at a committee assignment. Allison might 
 well have testified on this score: he knew equally well both the rich 
 and the poor. On this, as on so many things, he was safely "in the 
 middle" but definitely leaning toward the right. 
 
ffijffifjSM 
 
 * 
 
 Allison Finds His Level 
 
 The great legislative battles of 1890-1891 were followed by years 
 of seesaw politics in which each party was harassed almost as much 
 by internal factionalism as by the opposition. Academic arguments 
 over the tariff and free silver took on realistic tones as economic hard 
 times came to a climax in the Panic of 1 893 and its resulting depression. 
 Probably never did party workers appeal to the American people with 
 more intensity and earnestness, as many factions tried to convince the 
 voters that truth was on their side. 
 
 In all of this, Iowa was a battleground, and Allison was directly in- 
 volved. The odd-year politics of 1891 brought up the prospect of 
 the re-election of Governor Horace Boies of Waterloo, a bitter pill 
 for Republicans to swallow. As an Iowa Democrat, Boies opposed 
 prohibition and the protective tariff and mildly favored free coinage 
 of silver. As for the Republicans, a majority favored prohibition, 
 protective tariffs, and bimetallism; a small minority, led by Albert 
 B. Cummins, 1 strongly opposed prohibition, spoke moderately on the 
 silver question, and challenged the need for high tariffs. Allison's 
 strategy, that of a wary politician rather than a dynamic leader, 
 called for alignment with the majority Republicans but enough friend- 
 liness toward the minority to keep them loyal to him personally and, 
 to avoid a clean break within the party. 
 
 As a party standard-bearer to throw into the battle against Boies 
 in 1891, the Republicans had chosen Hiram C. Wheeler of Odebolt. 
 Not many had sought the almost certain martyrdom of the role. 
 
 248 
 
ALLISON FINDS HIS LEVEL 249 
 
 Everywhere there was a tendency to rely on the party's record. Per- 
 haps the attitude of a party wheel horse, Major John F. Lacey of 
 Oskaloosa, was typical. Availing himself of his wife's illness as an 
 excuse to avoid a hard campaign, he cultivated a false optimism. 
 Admitting that the party was split over prohibition, he went on to 
 say: "I think we will make a better showing in Mahaska county than 
 we did in 1889 or 1890. Our town and county are very prosperous 
 and ours is the party of prosperity and the good business outlook will 
 surely help us." 2 
 
 Allison rallied to the cause by speaking extensively throughout the 
 state, as did Colonel Henderson and others of the delegation at Wash- 
 ington, but all to no avail. Boies was again elected. Many were the 
 post-mortem efforts at explanation. One member attributed the de- 
 feat to the revival of Know-Nothingism in the party. In his opinion, 
 foreign elements in the party were being persecuted, and such people 
 were going over to the other side. 3 A more expert observer, Colonel 
 Henderson, writing in privacy to Richard P. Clarkson of th? Register, 
 thought that the railroad influence had not been properly directed into 
 the usual Republican channels: "I am not prepared to say that the 
 railroad organization, through their management, fought Wheeler, 
 but I am clear on one point that Boies is a very satisfactory Governor 
 to the railroad interests, while Wheeler was an untried force." 4 
 
 Internal difficulties among the Republicans continued to beset the 
 party nationally in 1892. There was little enthusiasm anywhere for 
 the renomination of Harrison, and, indeed, he himself was indifferent 
 to the idea in the early part of the year. His cold and austere manner, 
 his indifference to political machines as built and used by such men as 
 T. C. Piatt and Matthew Quay, his capacity for inspiring grudges 
 in such men as Piatt, Quay, and Ret Clarkson made him a most un- 
 likely possibility for renomination. Clarkson and W. W. Dudley, 
 two great pillars of support in 1888, were now among his enemies. 
 This raised the question of an alternative and inevitably revived the 
 hopes of those who wanted James G. Blaine as their candidate. Of 
 these, no one was more enthusiastic than James S. Clarkson. Early in 
 the year he wrote to Blaine of the successful results coming from the 
 reciprocity features of the tariff of 1890, for which Blaine had been 
 responsible, and then gave a long list of reasons why Blaine could win 
 in 1892. 5 In March a capable observer in Iowa, B. F. Gue, wrote to 
 Ret's brother and agreed with him on Blaine's chances. "You are 
 
250 William Boyd Allison 
 
 sound on Blaine. He can carry Iowa by our old time Republican 
 majorities and be elected without doubt. With Harrison both are 
 doubtful. Blaine is infinitely stronger than ever before. He can save 
 the Republican party from defeat. With any other candidate there is 
 doubt." 6 The evidence could be multiplied. The Register came out 
 with a strong editorial for Blaine on February 28. Asserting Blaine to 
 be the strong man of the administration, who had made it popular 
 throughout the world by his policies as Secretary of State, the Register 
 urged the party to choose its strongest man regardless of sentiment, 
 and that man was Blaine. 
 
 But there were those who shied away from Blaine, even though 
 they did not like Harrison. This division of sentiment brought other 
 names into the field, including the familiar ones of Russell A. Alger and 
 William McKinley from the 1888 list, and, among several new pros- 
 pects, James S. Clarkson, who deserved consideration in his own right 
 after years of service to others. Carl Snyder, a former Iowan now a 
 journalist in New York, wrote that Ret was considered by political 
 leaders in that city to be a serious contender for the nomination at 
 the coming convention at Minneapolis. 7 
 
 About this time and under these circumstances, an event happened 
 which nearly destroyed the Allison-Clarkson friendship and political 
 alliance, and which put a black mark on the Senator's personal record 
 that is hard to forget. In an interview given to "Gath" Townsend 
 about February 22, 1892, Allison discussed a number of subjects, in- 
 cluding the chances of Governor Boies for the Democratic nomination 
 for President, but his principal remarks were about Clarkson's effort 
 to secure a Cabinet appointment under Benjamin Harrison. In a 
 wholly gratuitous manner, Allison belittled Clarkson's chances of ever 
 having been called to Harrison's Cabinet, boasted of his own chances 
 by contrast, and inferred that Clarkson had expected Allison to use 
 his influence in securing a place for him. 8 
 
 The contents and the tone of the interview must have been shocking 
 to Allison's friends as well as to Ret, his wife, and their friends. 
 Everything about the incident was so unlike Allison that it is an almost 
 unbelievable story. Clarkson's letter to Allison, on the other hand, 
 demanding a retraction of the statements and presenting his own ver- 
 sion of the Cabinet negotiations, is a masterpiece of its kind. Many 
 a lesser man would have resorted to abusive name-calling, and to 
 unsupported assertions of innocence. Not so James S. Clarkson. The 
 
ALLISON FINDS HIS LEVEL 251 
 
 fact that the letter was dictated from Clarkson's bed of pain in 
 Asheville, North Carolina, where he was undergoing treatment for a 
 severe case of rheumatism, only adds to one's amazement at the man's 
 self-control. Undoubtedly driven on by white-hot anger, the ag- 
 grieved man remained calm and cold on the surface, the better to 
 express his indignation and his conviction that Allison had been 
 guilty of base ingratitude. In some three thousand words he re- 
 viewed the history of their long association, summarized the involved 
 story of the negotiations whereby he had been deprived of the fullest 
 possible consideration for a Cabinet position because of the wavering 
 uncertainties of Allison's own course, and finally discussed the ap- 
 pointment of John Wanamaker in such detail as to throw some light 
 on that point. 
 
 Surely Allison had never been called on to read such sentences as 
 these about himself: 
 
 . . . this testimony you are made to give to history is about as complete a 
 perversion of facts as could well be made. ... I never believed that you would 
 urge me seriously and sincerely for a Cabinet place. For I knew that you 
 did not want a division of power in Iowa. ... I may say it to you now that 
 I did think then and believe now that you did more at Indianapolis ... to 
 try and weaken General Harrison's faith in me than to strengthen it. As I 
 did not care for a place, and as I was philosopher enough to know that a man 
 who like yourself devotes his whole life to a career in politics develops that 
 remarkable instinct of self preservation which in common people is called 
 selfishness, I did not resent it then and bear no resentment now. . . . 
 
 So far as I can remember, I have never asked a personal favor of you. After 
 twenty-five years of intimate association, it is late perhaps to make such a 
 request. But I do now ask, and feel that I have good and honorable reasons 
 for insisting upon it, that you shall publicly correct these false statements 
 to which the currency of your powerful name has been given in a wide 
 circuit of the American press. 9 
 
 It is a fair assumption that Allison's belittling remarks about 
 Clarkson were made in an effort to squelch or at least minimize the at- 
 tention being given to Clarkson for the presidential nomination. At 
 the time it was generally believed that Harrison would not run for a 
 second term, and Clarkson was being mentioned freely as one de- 
 serving the honor. It may be assumed that in Allison's eyes this was 
 little short of preposterous. Allison had known Clarkson for years as 
 a faithful manager, and now the two were being mentioned in the 
 same breath as equals! 
 
252 William Boyd Allison 
 
 This analysis is not wholly conjectural. On March 6, a few days 
 after the interview, the Des Moines Register carried a story from 
 Washington quoting both Allison and Jonathan P. Dolliver on 
 Clarkson's chances. Allison was curt, almost disdainful: "I have not, 
 up to date, received any intimation from Mr. Clarkson that he will 
 be or has any desire to be a candidate for the presidency." Dolliver, 
 who had a greater capacity for warm friendship, was more generous. 
 He said that dlarkson had never given him any authority to use his 
 name, indeed he had reproved him for using it in that connection. 
 Even so, said Dolliver, "I am impressed with the belief that he is the 
 best available presidential timber, and I believe that he could be 
 nominated and elected. ,, 
 
 The next day, March 7, Mrs. Clarkson wrote a stinging letter to 
 Allison: 
 
 Brother Richard telegraphs that you perf er waiting — until you hear by 
 letter from my husband — before correcting the impressions given to the 
 public in your interview with Mr. Townsend. I do not think that you can be 
 too prompt in rectifying that damaging and most unkind criticism upon one 
 who has served you so patiently and well. 
 
 I write you because Mr. Clarkson is very ill, and will not for some time be 
 able, to either write or read letters. 
 
 I believe that your interview has had much to do with his sickness, as I 
 have never known him so distressed and hurt before, and your judgment and 
 kind heart will tell you that the sooner you set it right, the sooner it will 
 be over. . . . 
 
 I trust you are well and I know you will sleep better nights if you get that 
 interview off your mind — and I may add so will the undersigned. 10 
 
 On March 12 Mrs. Clarkson must have received word of some sort 
 from Allison as to a forthcoming correction. She telegraphed him as 
 follows: "Thank you I am glad. Mr. Clarkson is improving slowly 
 but surely. Still bedfast." 11 On the 13th the Register published a 
 long article in which Allison made restitution of Ret's good name as 
 well as he could without abjectly confessing his mistake. Clarkson 
 was generous enough to forgive Allison. Aside from the telegram 
 from Mrs. Clarkson, the proof rests upon the course of their later 
 relations. But surely there could never again be the same warm friend- 
 ship, the same unhesitating support that Clarkson had always given 
 since those hectic days of the senatorial election of January, 1872. 
 
 In spite of his illness, Clarkson corresponded voluminously and 
 discussed presidential politics with many who came to his recuperative 
 
ALLISON FINDS HIS LEVEL 253 
 
 retreat at Hot Springs, Arkansas. At the Republican national con- 
 vention in Minneapolis in June, he opposed the Harrison forces. 12 
 His tactic was to try to win the Iowa delegation away from Harrison 
 and commit it to Allison; in short to do anything in order to start a 
 movement against the President, whose early reluctance to seek re- 
 nomination had been overcome. Clarkson's efforts failed, however, 
 because Allison and James F. Wilson were going along as "regulars" 
 in support of Harrison. This clash put further strain on the Allison- 
 Clarkson friendship, whatever appearances the two men managed to 
 display in public. On June 5 Clarkson sent Allison four telegrams, 
 three of them long and urgent appeals for help; the fourth simply 
 read: "I am waiting at the wire to talk with you." 13 Apparently 
 Allison ignored the entire effort to switch from Harrison. 
 
 After Clarkson's stratagem had failed, Dolliver tried to swing the 
 nomination to McKinley. From Washington he wired Clarkson that a 
 canvass of Republicans in Congress showed that the younger element 
 wanted McKinley, and that he had asked Foraker of Ohio to forget 
 the past and help put McKinley over. Foraker yielded to this appeal 
 and to Mark Hanna's pleas for McKinley, but all in vain. 14 The con- 
 vention went ahead with the renomination of Harrison, a result 
 cleverly manipulated by Harrison's astute manager, Louis T. Michener, 
 but the delegates made a real mistake when they rejected the incum- 
 bent, Levi P. Morton, for Vice President in favor of another New 
 Yorker, Whitelaw Reid. The excuse was that Morton had not declared 
 himself. Allison wrote to the Vice President: "There continues to be 
 deep regret respecting the action at Minneapolis towards you, no 
 hostility that I know of to Mr. Reid, but a feeling that your interests 
 were not thoroughly cared for." 15 Clarkson was much more out- 
 spoken in his letter to Morton and blamed the defeat on two unnamed 
 members of the New York delegation who were trying to win the 
 friendship of Reid's newspaper, the Tribune. 16 
 
 Factionalism was as prevalent among the Democrats as among the 
 Republicans. In the end the antisilver group led by Grover Cleveland 
 triumphed and nominated him rather than Iowa's Horace Boies or 
 any other candidate nearer the protest groups of the Midwest or the 
 South. These dissatisfied agrarian elements met at Omaha and, under 
 the name of People's, or Populist, party, made James B. Weaver of 
 Iowa their nominee, after Judge Walter Q. Gresham had rejected the 
 honor. 17 
 
254 William Boyd Allison 
 
 In spite of his antipathy toward Harrison at Minneapolis, Ret was 
 persuaded to accept the second place in command and actually to take 
 charge of all the details of the campaign, much as he had had in 1888. 
 As the heat of the battle increased, he threw himself into the work 
 without reservation. He told Morton: "Our work is heavy & the 
 result by no means assured. Still I think that our chances, plus the 
 work we shall do between now and November, will pull us through 
 if no accident shall intervene." 18 Allison did what he could for the 
 cause. He toured Iowa and delivered a speech which was a cleverly 
 planned defense of the McKinley Tariff Act, basing his remarks 
 largely on the Aldrich report on "Retail Prices and Wages.*' 19 In 
 addition, he cited comment by his friend, Edward Atkinson, who was 
 "more of a Democrat than a Republican," that prices were low, 
 wages high, and the workman never better off. Allison was at his 
 oratorical best when he stood before the people and spoke as their agent 
 or trustee, gladly giving an accounting to his employers. 
 
 His efforts were not in vain as far as Iowa was concerned, even 
 though the nation as a whole turned to Cleveland. In Iowa only one 
 Democrat, Walter I. Hayes of Clinton in the Second District, was 
 elected to Congress, instead of the six of 1890. Allison was of direct 
 help to William Peters Hepburn 20 and perhaps to others. The Re- 
 publicans were also aided by the fact that the Populists were badly 
 divided amongst themselves; some concentrated their attention on 
 free silver while others fought "corporate aggression." Populists and 
 Democrats should have maintained perfect unity in their separate 
 parties and worked together in support of a common ticket if they 
 hoped to enjoy any success whatever. This they did not do in 1892 
 in Iowa or elsewhere. 21 
 
 Allison spent the remainder of the year pleasantly as a member of 
 the American delegation to the International Monetary Conference 
 at Brussels, which began its sessions in November. As one whose in- 
 sistence had ever been on international bimetallism, going back to his 
 amendments to the Bland Bill of 1877, Allison had more than a 
 casual interest in the success of the conference. He found himself 
 helpless, however, as did all the others present, in the face of a world 
 economic situation that simply could not be manipulated by con- 
 ference edicts. "It was an empty farce, as its predecessors had been, 
 devised as they too, for the most part, had been to make the West 
 think the Republican Party was 'doing something for silver,' " was 
 
ALLISON FINDS HIS LEVEL 255 
 
 the harsh judgment of a leading historian of the period. 22 It proved 
 to be an interesting social experience for Allison but hardly anything 
 more. 23 
 
 Heretofore, when Congress had attempted to guarantee a place for 
 silver by providing for purchases of stated amounts, Allison had 
 played a prominent role; by contrast, it would seem that he took little 
 part in the great debates of early 1893 on the subject. He did not 
 seem to be very excited about the matter, in spite of the fact that the 
 business situation had been deteriorating steadily in 1892. Early in 
 1893 he wrote his close friend and confidant, Richard P. Clarkson: 
 "I note what you say about repealing laws. I am in thorough sym- 
 pathy with you in your view upon the subject. There is not such hot 
 haste as is suggested in many Republican quarters nor is there the 
 slightest chance that the Sherman law will be repealed during this 
 session." 24 He was speaking, of course, of the short session that 
 would end on March 4, 1893. To some extent the statement forecasts 
 the Republican strategy to lay the crisis on the Democratic doorstep 
 with the advent of Cleveland's second administration. 
 
 This crisis had been building up for a long time — since 1890 at 
 the very least. In part the trouble was due to the inexorable workings 
 of the business cycle, which the statesmen of that day did little to 
 control or modify. For example, the banking system was open to 
 the criticism that it shut down on credit at the very time that credit 
 was most needed; a crying need of the times was for a more elastic 
 currency system rather than inflation through the injection of more 
 cheap silver into the monetary stream. The slightest difficulties in 
 European financial circles reacted on the American economy by 
 forcing the return of securities from abroad as Europeans scrambled 
 to build up their gold reserves by resale, thus automatically draining 
 American sources and causing the markets to collapse. 
 
 The impending disaster had somehow been staved off during 1890- 
 1892, but it was imminent throughout the winter of 1892-1893. 
 The rumor that the gold standard would have to be abandoned would 
 not down and, in fact, was nourished by each new report of purchases 
 of silver made under the Sherman Act of 1890. The failure of the 
 Reading Railroad in February, 1893, was an indication that the end 
 had been reached; the failure of the National Cordage Company in 
 May actually precipitated the panic. The Erie, Northern Pacific, 
 Union Pacific, and Santa Fe roads soon joined the Reading in the list 
 
256 William Boyd Allison 
 
 of bankrupts; banks, especially in the West and South, failed or sus- 
 pended in great numbers; unemployment figures mounted to four 
 million or more. 25 
 
 Allison was understandably in a difficult position. There were many 
 pressures bearing down upon him. Iowa was not unaffected by its 
 proximity to the Western states that made a fetish out of support for 
 silver. The Democrats, most of whom were for free silver, were an 
 ever present threat to Republican supremacy. The strongest Demo- 
 cratic leader in Iowa, Governor Horace Boies, was aligned with the 
 silver forces, although not vociferously so, and he was a likely candidate 
 for a third term as Governor. Republicans, under Allison's leader- 
 ship, must not allow him to make too much capital out of his friendli- 
 ness for the agrarian-labor interests that wanted free silver coinage. 
 With Philip E. Studebaker writing him, on the one hand, a strong letter 
 critical of his monetary views and advocating free silver with a legal 
 tender of $10,000, and Charles E. Perkins, on the other hand, ad- 
 vocating bimetallism, not to mention the pleas of the masses for re- 
 lief for their distresses, Allison indeed might have wondered which 
 way to turn. 26 
 
 Even James S. Clarkson, full of strange sentiments for an old-line 
 Republican, came up with a speech in which he went far beyond the 
 usual pleas for bimetallism and urged extensive and sincere considera- 
 tion of the needs of the small farmer. Accusing his own party of a 
 lack of interest in the welfare of the masses, he advocated specific 
 remedies such as small banks "near enough to the people of the small 
 communities to give them confidence in them. ... If the Farmers' 
 Alliance shall help to bring this about, it will not have existed in vain. 
 A million of honest men do not rise up in revolt unless they have some 
 actual grievance. The republican party may well adopt the policy of 
 remedy rather than repression towards all discontented elements among 
 the people." True enough, this speech was a valedictory from a dis- 
 illusioned Clarkson laying down the presidency of the National Re- 
 publican League, but it was not a speech to be ignored, especially when 
 there were those who were urging Clarkson to Come back to Iowa and 
 make the race for the Senate. 27 
 
 Even foreign affairs had to be reckoned with. Taking a very long 
 view, Allison's colleague, Senator Anthony Higgins of Delaware, 
 called his attention to a threat to Republican prospects in the German 
 situation of June, 1893. The government of Chancellor Caprivi was 
 
ALLISON FINDS HIS LEVEL 257 
 
 in jeopardy over an army bill. "Should it come about that Germany 
 abandons the gold standard and adopts bi-metallism, England will 
 likely follow, and whether England should or not, France and the 
 continent I think will, and the question would be settled for us, 
 Cleveland would get the glory, we would be thrown back on the 
 tariff for an issue, we would probably come into a long course of 
 Democratic control, or maybe something else would happen." 28 
 
 President Cleveland, applying his conservative financial views to 
 depression problems, called an extra session of the Fifty-third Congress 
 to meet on August 7, 1893, to consider repeal of the Sherman Silver 
 Purchase Act, an action much needed because of the flow of United 
 States gold to Europe. The episode makes up a chapter in a long, long 
 American story that began with Shays' Rebellion. Party lines meant 
 little or nothing in this fight between spokesmen for the creditors and 
 the debtors. The President's forces beat down an attempted filibuster, 
 all offers of compromise, and an effort to apply cloture. The editor of 
 Harper's Weekly called such men as Bland of Missouri, Teller and 
 Wolcott of Colorado, John P. Jones and "William M. Stewart of 
 Nevada "enemies of the public welfare." 29 These gentlemen in 
 turn could only tug at the heartstrings of the public by picturing the 
 pathetic poverty of a silverless West and give off rumblings that clearly 
 foretold the class war of 1896. 30 On October 30 the Senate finally 
 gave the coup de grace to the Sherman Act by a vote of 43 to 32. 
 Allison was paired with Mitchell of Oregon; the former would have 
 voted "yea" if present, the latter, "nay." 31 Such action and such 
 circumstances lend point to the oft-quoted statement attributed to 
 Allison, which a mutual friend passed on to Cleveland, that "it was 
 God's mercy that you were elected President in 1892 instead of 
 Harrison or any Republican because no Republican President could 
 have procured the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, however 
 strongly he might have tried. . . . No other Democrat than yourself 
 would have done it." 32 This was hindsight on Allison's part; he 
 certainly did not oppose Harrison in 1892. 
 
 Allison and other Republicans kept up an interest in bimetallism, 
 even though the Sherman Act had been repealed. It is hard to see 
 anything in this except the preservation of a talking point for use in 
 the West. In May, 1894, Allison joined Aldrich, Hoar, O. H. Piatt, 
 and others in sending a cablegram to the London Conference on Inter- 
 national Bimetallism, to which the United States had sent Brooks 
 
258 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Adams and Senator Edward O. Wolcott of Colorado as delegates. 
 "We believe that the free coinage of both gold and silver by interna- 
 tional agreement at a fixed ratio would secure to mankind the blessing 
 of a sufficient volume of metallic money, and, what is hardly less im- 
 portant, secure to the world trade immunity from violent exchange 
 fluctuations." 33 
 
 From this distance of time it is hard to see how bimetallism, as a 
 practical prospect rather than as a theory, could have attracted so 
 many and such outstanding devotees, but it did so in great numbers 
 and from both parties. Cleveland's Secretary of the Navy, the great 
 New York traction and utilities magnate, William C. Whitney, was 
 converted and tried to convert Cleveland, but without success. "If 
 Whitney ever approached fanaticism on any subject, it was over bi- 
 metallism, " is his biographer's comment. 34 Henry Cabot Lodge, a 
 new Senator now, was another who would not let the subject drop. 
 He was severely criticized by a Republican editor, who deplored not 
 only Lodge's "idiotic" scheme to force Great Britain into bimetallism 
 by means of a tariff war, but also deplored the number of Republican 
 conventions in Eastern states which were currently passing resolutions 
 favorable to silver, after the issue had presumably been killed. 35 
 
 The great battle of 1894 was not over silver, however, but over 
 the tariff. All through 1892 and 1893 the Democrats had been 
 making studies which looked toward revision of the McKinley Act. 
 A leader in this work was a brilliant scholar and statesman from West 
 Virginia, Representative William Lyne Wilson. 36 A bill could have 
 been ready for presentation at a special session of Congress, but Presi- 
 dent Cleveland could not be persuaded to call one for this purpose. 
 Therefore, the Wilson Bill had to wait until the regular session opened 
 in December. It was briefly debated and then passed by the House on 
 February 1, 1894, by a vote of 204 to 140. Of Iowa's delegation of 
 eleven members, only the lone Democrat, Walter I. Hayes, voted 
 "yea." 37 
 
 The bill now went to the Senate, where it was taken over by the 
 badly divided Democrats. Some, such as Roger Q. Mills of Texas and 
 George G. Vest of Missouri, were outright free traders on principle; 
 some, such as David B. Hill and Edward Murphy, Jr., of New York, 
 and Calvin S. Brice of Ohio, were inclined toward protection, especially 
 on certain products in which they were personally interested. Murphy, 
 for example, was from Troy, New York, and was always cartooned 
 
ALLISON FINDS HIS LEVEL 259 
 
 with collars and cuffs, his "pets," sticking out of his pockets. Others, 
 such as Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland, were inclined to com- 
 promise. As the months dragged by, Gorman emerged as the one 
 whose amendments were cutting the heart out of the Wilson Bill, so 
 much so that it came to be known as the Wilson-Gorman Bill, al- 
 though Wilson and Gorman were poles apart in their views. 38 
 
 Allison's role was that of a watchdog. "I wish you & I could be 
 empowered to make a tariff," David A. Wells wrote to Allison, with 
 nostalgic sentiment. "I think we could as of old, agree, & make a 
 better job than has been done of late." 39 Allison drew on his long 
 experience as he hacked away at the thousands of details contained in 
 the bill. He made only one major speech and saw to it that it was 
 well distributed in Iowa. 40 In this speech he began with the premise 
 (which would have pleased many of his Democratic opponents) that 
 "in time of peace we should in the main, carry on the Government by 
 means of duties upon imports." This had been true from the be- 
 ginnings of the government up to now, he said, and on this all citizens 
 were agreed. If this premise were accepted as true, then the only im- 
 portant question was: "How the duties upon imports are to be 
 levied." Allison then proceeded to show the superiority of Republi- 
 can proposals over those made by the Democrats. He was frequently 
 interrupted, often by leading questions seemingly designed to help 
 him bring out the strongest points for his cause. 
 
 The vote was at last taken on July 3, 1894, and the bill passed, 39 
 to 34, and was immediately referred to a conference committee. 
 Allison strongly protested against such referral before the House had 
 had a chance to vote on the Senate amendments. 41 One of the most 
 contentious points in the bill had been the one providing for an in- 
 come tax. Charles E. Perkins bombarded Allison with objections and 
 arguments, 42 but without avail. The tax was included in the bill, and 
 there is no indication that Allison used Perkins' material by way of 
 argument against the provision. After the adoption of the conference 
 committee's report, President Cleveland resignedly allowed the bill 
 to become law without his signature. 
 
 In the meantime, Allison had had his hands full in rescuing Iowa 
 from the Democrats. The 1893 Republican standard-bearer against 
 Governor Boies was Frank D. Jackson of Greene County. Unfortu- 
 nately Jackson's involvement in a heavy debt and in a near pension 
 scandal in August threatened to ruin him and leave the party without 
 
260 William Boyd Allison 
 
 a candidate. Only some firm action by Gilbert B. Pray, the state 
 chairman, and a New York draft which Allison procured from some 
 source, enabled the party leaders to cover up the mess and permit 
 the campaign to go on. 43 Probably very few Iowans knew how closely 
 the party came to disaster. All they knew was that the Republican 
 split over prohibition was sufficiently healed to permit Jackson to 
 beat down Horace Boies's attempt to gain a third term. 44 
 
 The next thing on the Iowa schedule was the election of a Senator 
 to succeed James F. Wilson, who was seriously ill and would not be in 
 the race. There were a number of aspirants for the vacancy, notably 
 John H. Gear of Burlington and Albert B. Cummins of Des Moines. 
 Gear was the choice of his fellow-townsman and son-in-law, Joseph W. 
 Blythe, counsel for the Burlington Railroad and a rising boss of Iowa 
 Republicanism. 45 Cummins was a brilliant lawyer whose promise of 
 a great career was being fulfilled. He had courage and ability, as 
 shown by his stand against prohibition and his victory over the Barbed 
 Wire Trust when he brought suit on behalf of the Iowa Grange. He 
 was obviously shooting over his head at this time, although he re- 
 ceived strong backing from Des Moines interests spoken for by 
 Richard P. Clarkson and the Register. 46 George D. Perkins of Sioux 
 City was another possible nominee. Whether Allison remained neutral 
 toward all the contenders, as Perkins hopefully supposed, would be 
 hard to prove. Most of his closest friends were pro-Gear. He was 
 warned against making a combination with Gear, because that would 
 give both Senators to the strongly Democratic River Counties, a deal 
 that was manifestly unfair to the counties that delivered the big votes 
 for the Republicans. 47 But such men as Blythe and Charles E. Perkins, 
 and the power of the railroads, were not to be denied. They took the 
 long chance that the election of their man in 1894 would not operate 
 against the election of Allison in 1896, and they put in Gear as his 
 colleague. 
 
 In the remaining months of 1894 Allison not only campaigned 
 effectively in Iowa but in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota as 
 well. Illinois Republican managers also pleaded for his assistance. He 
 was now beginning to receive letters from all over the country, en- 
 couraging him to consider a campaign for the presidential nomination 
 in 1896. Perhaps the one that gave him the most pleasure was from 
 James S. Clarkson, who told of his travels and work in twelve states, 
 all with a long view of 1896. George M. Reynolds, cashier of the Des 
 
ALLISON FINDS HIS LEVEL 261 
 
 Moines National Bank, wrote of the recent convention of the American 
 Bankers Association at Baltimore, where he found bankers from all 
 sections strong for Allison as the party nominee in 1896. 48 
 
 It is of paramount interest that the first known letter urging Allison 
 to look ahead to the presidential contest of 1896 was written by- 
 Albert B. Cummins in the early spring of 1894. Cummins, however 
 ambitious and independent-minded he might be, was wise enough at 
 this stage to keep a foot firmly planted in the Allison camp. In this 
 letter he wrote of his belief that Allison was superior to McKinley for 
 1896 because of his greater ability to speak authoritatively on the 
 currency question. Cummins asked for permission to present Allison's 
 case at a coming meeting of the National Republican League in Den- 
 ver. Allison replied that he did not want the nomination, but if the 
 party insisted on choosing him, he would accept as a matter of duty. 49 
 
 The great theme of the Allison story of 1895, then, was the in- 
 creasing attention being paid to him as a presidential possibility. 
 Stronger men than Allison might have been pardoned if their heads 
 had been turned by the flattering attention given to him by President- 
 makers far and wide, especially by able businessmen of the East. For 
 that matter, Iowans could be proud that not only Allison but James 
 S. Clarkson and Colonel David B. Henderson were mentioned as 
 possibilities for the nomination. 50 Allison's name was bracketed with 
 men of the highest standing. John Hay wrote to Henry Adams, then 
 sojourning in Europe: "If you don't hurry back, there won't be a 
 silver man in America except you and Peffer [the Populist Senator 
 from Kansas], and even Peffer said in an interview the other day that 
 the jig was up. I think Reid and McKinley and Allison and Harrison 
 and Morton are good gold-bugs now." 51 
 
 During these months of possibly premature agitation of the presi- 
 dential question, Allison lost two old friends. In September, 1894, 
 Samuel Jordan Kirkwood died at his home in Iowa City, at the age of 
 eighty-one. In the following spring, just a month after he had com- 
 pleted his second term in the Senate, James F. Wilson died at Fairfield. 
 The passing of two colleagues who had been with him from the start 
 of his career must have saddened Allison at a time when the future 
 looked so bright. 
 
 Allison took part in the Iowa campaign of 1895 with special at- 
 tention to the legislative elections, in view of the forthcoming sena- 
 torial election of January, 1896, when his own seat would be at stake. 
 
262 William Boyd Allison 
 
 He permitted himself a rare burst of confidence in a letter to another 
 old rival, John A. Kasson, now safely left far behind in the great 
 game of politics: "I made a full campaign this fall, and our victory 
 exceeded my expectations. I expect to be returned to the Senate this 
 winter. We have ninety majority on first ballot 36 in the Senate and 
 54 in the House." 52 
 
 It almost goes without saying that Allison was re-elected. Even he 
 had come to look upon such an event as inevitable. This time, how- 
 ever, re-election carried with it a special significance. As a part of 
 the developing campaign for the presidency, the event had to be 
 given a dramatic setting so that publicity values would accrue. This 
 was done in a very effective way. The Republicans in the General 
 Assembly of Iowa made a public ceremony out of their caucus and 
 gave Allison a unanimous nomination. A number of high ranking 
 dignitaries of the party were present: former Governor and Mrs. 
 William Larrabee, Governor and Mrs. Frank D. Jackson, Governor- 
 elect Francis M. Drake, Lieutenant Governor-elect and Mrs. Matt 
 Parrott, and other state officers. James S. Clarkson and Gilbert B. 
 Pray, now ranging far and wide to build up an interest in Allison, 
 came in from their travels and joined the effort to impress the nation 
 with the devotion of Iowa to Allison's cause. After the rising vote of all 
 those present, a committee waited on Allison and ushered him in, to 
 the accompaniment of an ovation. 53 
 
 Clarkson, a well informed and influential political manager, was 
 counted as a great asset by those who were watching Allison's second 
 trial for the prize. His first concern was to secure some one to write 
 an adequate campaign biography that would make Allison seem as at- 
 tractive and colorful as his rivals, McKinley or Thomas B. Reed. For 
 this work Clarkson called on the star reporter of the Des Moines Reg- 
 ister, Cyrenus Cole, a product of the Dutch settlement of Pella. Many 
 letters were required before Clarkson succeeded in conveying his ideas 
 to Cole. 54 It would have taken less time and effort if he had done the 
 job himself, and he could have done it better. Cole had put in long 
 years under Clarkson's editorial supervision; now Clarkson coaxed 
 and wheedled and drove his former employee on until the job was done. 
 The finished essay was ready early in 1896 and appeared in various pa- 
 pers throughout the country in February; in the Register, for example, 
 on February 12. 
 
 Allison's candidacy was formally launched at the Iowa Republican 
 
ALLISON FINDS HIS LEVEL 263 
 
 state convention on March 11, where he was given an enthusiastic 
 endorsement after the convention had listened to an impassioned ad- 
 dress by Congressman Jonathan P. Dolliver. 55 Clarkson's strategy was 
 to pledge delegates far and wide to give Allison their second votes after 
 they had given their favorite sons the first ballot as a matter of 
 courtesy. He sent out a story from St. Louis, the site of the national 
 convention, where he had gone to make arrangements, that Allison 
 was sure to win because McKinley did not have enough second-choice 
 votes pledged to him. 58 An incentive to hard work was the belief 
 that nomination was equivalent to victory, because the opposition was 
 split into Silver Democrats, Gold Democrats, and Populists. 57 
 
 Walter Wellman, the outstanding Washington correspondent of 
 the time, had warm praise for Allison's virtues as a candidate. Con- 
 ceding Thomas B. Reed to be the brainiest of all the known candidates, 
 Wellman asserted that Allison was the Washington favorite for Presi- 
 dent. His skill and his diplomacy as chairman of the Appropriations 
 Committee had won friends in all walks of life. Democratic Senators 
 "without exception" liked him, and as for Republican Senators, they 
 were almost unanimously in favor of Allison for President. Reed 
 and McKinley had a few friends, but the remainder were all for the 
 Iowa Senator. "A large number of states are preparing to cast their 
 votes for McKinley at St. Louis which would go for the Iowa man if 
 the senators from those commonwealths could have their way. The 
 senators feel that if Allison were in the White House they would be 
 able to get along without friction or trouble. He would understand 
 them, and they him." 58 
 
 But as convention time approached, Allison himself seemed to 
 realize that the fight had been in vain. Writing in confidence and 
 perfect candor to a close friend and warm supporter, General James H. 
 Wilson of Wilmington, Delaware, Allison admitted as much as early 
 as May 4. 59 He and the other condidates could see that none of them 
 had a manager with the skill and resources of McKinley 's guiding 
 genius, Marcus Alonzo Hanna. Other managers might have as much 
 personal devotion to their chiefs, but none had the singleness of pur- 
 pose, the ruthless, cold-blooded efficiency, and the amplitude of fi- 
 nancial resources of this successful businessman from Cleveland, Ohio. 
 For years Hanna had studied the game of politics and observed other 
 masters of its rules and methods. Now it was his turn to enter the field 
 as a full-fledged participant/ 
 
 60 
 
264 William Boyd Allison 
 
 The futility of the work of Allison and Clarkson must have been 
 sensed by others. Well before the convention the editor of the Water- 
 loo Courier urged Iowans to remain loyal to Allison to the end; 
 Lincoln was quoted to the effect that every political race had its high 
 and low points; Allison's race was now at a low point, but courage 
 could yet win the day. 61 Clarkson had earlier appealed to his old 
 friend, Louis T. Michener, to remember Iowa's assistance to Benjamin 
 Harrison in 1888. John H. Gear importuned Harrison directly for 
 aid, but Harrison replied that he was helpless to do anything, because 
 any interference by him in Indiana politics would have the effect of 
 bringing himself into the field. He went on to say: 
 
 I have said to a good many personal friends that I believe Mr. Allison's nomi- 
 nation and election would give us a safe and conservative administration that 
 would not be followed by an ebb tide. . . . The favorite son business has been 
 sadly overworked. The bringing into the field of some persons whose can- 
 didacy was not regarded as sincere and the apparent attempt to take large 
 blocks of delegates to the convention for the purpose of transferring to 
 somebody else very naturally excited popular resentment and the benefit has 
 accrued to Mr. McKinley. I think Mr. Allison's managers have been too 
 cautious. There were three or four Ohio men here at our convention for 
 Mr. McKinley. 62 
 
 The managers for the various candidates assembled in St. Louis about 
 June 7, although the convention would not formally begin until June 
 16. In spite of discouragement, Allison's friends still planned to put 
 up his name. His lieutenants stole a march on the others by arranging 
 for the posting of his pictures before any others were put up, thus 
 pre-empting the best spots. The Iowa delegation was led by Colonel 
 D. B. Henderson, with National Committeeman Albert B. Cummins, 
 Senator John H. Gear, a member of the resolutions committee, and 
 Congressman William P. Hepburn, a member of the credentials com- 
 mittee, in good position to serve Allison's cause. 
 
 The editor of the Waterloo Courier admitted on June 8 that for 
 weeks "it has been apparent" that nothing but an earthquake could 
 stop McKinley. If by a miracle something should happen to him, 
 then Allison would have a chance. The Iowans tried to keep up a 
 brave front, however, an effort that reached its climax with a banner 
 headline on page one of the Council Bluffs Nonpareil on June 12: 
 "Bright for Allison." But the real news was to be found on an inside 
 page, where Senator Gear was reported as saying that Allison had a 
 
ALLISON FINDS HIS LEVEL 265 
 
 chance if McKinley were not nominated on the first ballot. More 
 ominous was the report that the Allison Club of Dubuque had decided 
 to give up the trip to St. Louis. On the 15th the Council Bluffs 
 paper announced that the special trains chartered by the Allison 
 boosters to go from Des Moines to St. Louis via the Wabash Railway 
 had been cancelled. 
 
 Nevertheless, the drama was played out to the end as if it still had 
 some meaning. All the avowed candidates went through with their 
 set plans of nominating speeches: Allison was the first to be named, 
 his sponsor being a political unknown by the name of John N. 
 Baldwin of Council Bluffs, son of the famous Judge Caleb Baldwin. 
 Reed was named by Henry Cabot Lodge; Morton by Chauncey 
 Depew, Allison's nemesis of 1888; and McKinley by Joseph B. Foraker. 
 
 Baldwin, an attorney for the Union Pacific Railway and probably 
 General Dodge's choice for this assignment, was a man of ample girth 
 though not a rival to his father's heroic proportions; his large and 
 pontifical voice dwelt on Allison's virtues by indirection. Most of 
 his speech consisted of an invocation of the memory of James G. 
 Blaine and a long quotation from Blaine's letter to Garfield recom- 
 mending Allison for a place in the Cabinet: "Then comes Allison. He 
 is true, kind, reasonable, fair, honest, and good. He is methodical, 
 industrious, and intelligent — and would be a splendid man to sail 
 along with smoothly and successfully." 63 But it was too late to derive 
 any benefit from a claim on James G. Blaine's blessing, even if genuine, 
 and this one was not. Baldwin's home town paper, the Nonpareil, 
 ruefully reported on the 19th: "The speech elicited very little en- 
 thusiasm, although it was applauded at some points." 
 
 Only one ballot was necessary for a verdict: Clarkson's strategy of 
 pledging the most second-choice votes was never given a chance to 
 work. McKinley 's vote was 661 J; Reed's, 84i; Quay's, 6\\\ Morton's, 
 58; while Allison brought up the rear with 35J made up of 26 from 
 Iowa, 3 from Texas, 3 from Utah, one each from Arizona, Oklahoma, 
 and the District of Columbia, and one-half a vote from Louisiana. 64 
 Reed had secured most of his votes from his native New England, 
 but Morton and Quay could not even garner all of their own state 
 votes. McKinley received all that remained. Small wonder that Albert 
 B. Cummins wrote to Clarkson, who was prevented from attending 
 the convention, probably by illness: 
 
266 William Boyd Allison 
 
 I regret very much that you were not at St. Louis, although the proceedings 
 of the convention could not have been a source of much pleasure to you or 
 to any of Allison's friends. I think now, as I have thought for twenty or 
 thirty days past, that it would have been better if Allison had withdrawn. 
 While the delegates from Iowa were absolutely loyal to him, and had no 
 disposition whatever to get into the bandwagon, it yet seemed to me that to 
 receive so small a vote would be humiliating to a man who had twice before 
 been a candidate, and who had occupied so eminent a position in the affairs of 
 the United States during the last twenty years. 65 
 
 The real drama of the convention had been staged in connection 
 with the fight over the adoption of a gold plank in the platform, with 
 Senator Henry Cabot Lodge one of the foremost proponents of this 
 plank, and Senator Henry Moore Teller of Colorado its chief opponent. 
 Teller's efforts to keep the plank out of the platform led to his bolt 
 from the party in which he was followed by approximately one 
 hundred Silver Republicans. Lodge then secured the usual innocuous 
 clause calling for international bimetallism. 66 
 
 When interviewed, Allison ignored his own defeat but commented 
 at length on the platform: 
 
 The platform is a fair reflex of the will and judgment of the Republican 
 party, and of great numbers not hitherto members of it. . . . The financial 
 plank leaves no doubt as to its meaning and purpose. It pledges the party to 
 the existing standard of gold until an international agreement is secured; it 
 opposes free coinage of silver by the United States alone; it favors true bi- 
 metallism through international agreement between the leading commercial 
 nations, the only way it can be accomplished; it promises the necessary 
 legislation and administrative action to maintain the parity in value of all 
 our currency or money standard. The platform is equally explicit as re- 
 gards the policy of protection, and other topics of national interest. 67 
 
 Thus ended any dreams that William Boyd Allison might ever 
 have had about the presidency. If nothing else, his age was against him. 
 It was very likely that McKinley would be elected in 1896; he would 
 then be the candidate again in 1900. Forced to wait until 1904, 
 Allison would then be seventy-five years of age, far beyond the life 
 expectancy of the times and certainly too old for the office. His de- 
 feat was nothing to be ashamed of, however, and apparently he wasted 
 not a second in grief or in remorse. Ironically, the presidential aspira- 
 tions of another Iowan, the gifted Horace Boies, 68 were defeated in 
 the same year by William Jennings Bryan, who swept to victory in 
 the Democratic convention on the strength of his "Cross of Gold" 
 
ALLISON FINDS HIS LEVEL 267 
 
 speech. This was not Iowa's year. A race between two men from the 
 same state would have been somewhat unique but probably lacking in 
 "fireworks" from the principals. Fundamentally, the two men were 
 very much alike in spite of Boies's endorsement of free silver. Each man 
 was conservative by nature, but Boies was more willing to risk a 
 positive judgment without regard to the consequences. 
 
 Republicans were soon given plenty of work to do if they were to 
 save the country from that "dangerous radical," William Jennings 
 Bryan. Allison contributed his full share of work to the campaign, 
 speaking widely and helping to counteract the free silver views of the 
 Silver Democrats and Silver Republicans. Earlier Allison had been con- 
 tent to describe the pamphlet, Coin's Financial School by W. H. 
 Harvey, as a "cloudy book," 69 but he now had to use stronger language 
 in this "battle of the standards." Probably neither before nor since has 
 America come so close to the Marxian "class struggle" as in this cam- 
 paign. A September check-up by Mark Hanna and the Republican 
 national committee showed even rock-ribbed Iowa in danger, and a 
 complement of special speakers was rushed into the state to save the 
 day. Allison even urged, without success, that former President 
 Harrison come to Dubuque for a speech. 
 
 In July, Senator Gear had written to Louis T. Michener: "Well, 
 we are having and we are going to have, a regular 'monkey and parrot 
 time.' We shall lose rafts of Republicans in Iowa, and possibly two 
 or three congressmen; but we will gain, especially in the old portion of 
 the state, a large number of Germans who left the party a few years 
 ago, but will come back this year." 70 Gear's gloomy prophecy was 
 not realized, however. After a campaign in which his managers re- 
 sorted openly to such pressures as threats of closing factories if Bryan 
 were elected, McKinley carried the state and the nation handily. 
 Every one of the eleven Republican members of the "all-star" con- 
 gressional delegation from Iowa was returned, some with handsome 
 majorities. One eminent Iowan stated later that he had voted for 
 McKinley on the money question after voting the Democratic ticket 
 fifty-eight times previously. 71 
 
 Allison received a warm letter of congratulations from Richard P. 
 Clarkson for his part in helping to carry Iowa for McKinley, noting 
 that Iowa had done better than Ohio. Allison was entitled to recog- 
 nition from McKinley and the party, and it is good to record that 
 he received it. It seems absolutely certain that McKinley either sounded 
 
268 William Boyd Allison 
 
 him out for or definitely offered him the portfolio of the State Depart- 
 ment. The possibility of such an offer was recorded in his diary by a 
 contemporary, Charles G. Dawes, and it was later asserted categorical- 
 ly in the Memorial Resolutions offered by the Joint Committee of the 
 General Assembly of Iowa in 1908. 72 
 
 One of Allison's letters at the time gives pretty good proof that 
 some sort of Cabinet offer was made to him. He wrote to his good 
 friend General James H. Wilson in January of 1897: "I note what 
 you say about Cabinet place. My situation is such that I could not 
 afford to accept either the State or Treasury Department." In 
 addition, there is a strong statement from Senator O. H. Piatt of 
 Connecticut, a man high in party circles and close to McKinley: "Con- 
 fidentially, I will say to you I think Mr. McKinley did not indicate 
 to Allison that he would be glad to have him take the Treasury, but 
 did want him to become Secretary of State. Now the talk is that he 
 will offer the Secretaryship of State to Mr. Sherman." 73 
 
 One can readily believe that Allison would have had less interest in 
 the State Department than in the Treasury. Certainly he had far 
 less equipment for the position. With his defeat in 1896 and his pre- 
 sumable rejection of a place in the Cabinet, Allison could now philo- 
 sophically content himself with his leadership in the Senate, assuredly 
 his for life. Who was more fitted for the role of "elder statesman"? 
 
JJtM^MjlM^ 
 
 * XVII * 
 
 Conservatives and Progressives: The 
 Clashing Generations 
 
 The defeat of Allison's presidential aspirations in 1896, followed 
 by his refusal of a place in the Cabinet, truly marked a turning point 
 in his career. Henceforth he would be a Senator "for life or good 
 behavior"; no higher place was available, no lesser place would attract 
 him. Sixty-seven years old, he had found his level; from now on 
 there would be only the legislative routine. Outwardly, of course, 
 there was no difference in his manner or policies. Observers in the 
 Senate visitors' gallery could still see the same faithful and efficient 
 leadership, quiet and unobtrusive, yet alert at all times. His position 
 was further enhanced by formal elevation to the chairmanship of 
 the Republican caucus when his long-time friend, John Sherman, re- 
 signed to accept the first place in McKinley's Cabinet, 1 the place that 
 very likely might have been Allison's. He had again permitted a 
 colleague to go upstairs into the President's official family, as in 
 Windom's case, and had succeeded to one of that colleague's honors in 
 the Senate. 
 
 Allison's emergence as party leader and elder statesman was made 
 more noticeable by two somewhat fortuitous circumstances: the 
 calling of a special session of Congress to consider a tariff bill to re- 
 place the botched-up Wilson-Gorman Act; and the illness of Nelson 
 W. Aldrich, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance. Allison, 
 as the ranking member after Aldrich, fell heir to the leadership of 
 this committee, so powerful in tariff making. 2 From this point in 
 Allison's career, one can discern a little more clearly the drift toward 
 
 269 
 
270 William Boyd Allison 
 
 those actions that made him known as a "Western man with Eastern 
 principles. " 
 
 The extraordinary session of the Fifty-fifth Congress, which met 
 on March 15 and adjourned on July 24, 1897, was a strenuous one, 
 almost defying complete and orderly description. The fights were 
 over two great and inseparable issues: tariff reform and currency. 
 The election of 1896 had definitely not guaranteed the triumph of 
 gold monometallism, as so many people had easily concluded from 
 the victory of McKinley. There was still a strong bloc of Silver 
 Senators whose strength could not be ignored, and some kind of deal 
 would have to be made. Since the Western Senators demanded free 
 silver and tariff protection on wool, hides, and lead, the logical move 
 for the protectionists was to try to wean some of these Westerners 
 away from free silver or else to make concessions to them. 
 
 A far-flung plan, really a plot, was thought up whereby the tariff 
 advocates sent Colorado's Senator Edward O. Wolcott, who was ready 
 to desert the free silver cause, to Europe as a negotiator to secure an 
 agreement on international bimetallism in return for tariff conces- 
 sions from the United States. The Western Senator carried out his 
 part, well knowing that his desertion of free silver would probably 
 end his political career, but the strategy ran aground when the rank- 
 and-file Senators from the West refused to vote for the tariff con- 
 cessions that Wolcott had optimistically advanced to the French as 
 bait. 3 
 
 The House then quickly passed a tariff bill named after Nelson 
 Dingley of Maine and sent it to the Senate. In the midst of the 
 furious Senate debates and cloakroom negotiations that followed, 
 Aldrich's illness removed him from Washington's inhospitable climate, 
 and Allison took over the leadership. Eventually a tariff bill, the 
 highest yet enacted, was put together in the Senate and passed by a 
 vote of 3 8 to 28. The promises of concessions that Wolcott had made 
 to the French were scornfully brushed aside by spokesmen for home 
 interests. Senator William E. Chandler of New Hampshire, one of 
 the few bona fide Republican bimetallists, exerted strong pressures 
 on Allison and McKinley, but to no avail. "Both made assertions that 
 they were entirely sympathetic and ready to do anything in their 
 power, but either their promises were not entirely candid or their 
 power did not extend very far" 4 is the verdict of Chandler's bi- 
 ographer. The Senate version of the Dingley Bill was now submitted 
 
CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 271 
 
 to a joint conference committee that "completed the work in the 
 familiar star chamber fashion." 5 The House passed the bill on July 
 19, the Senate on July 24, and the President signed it on the same day. 6 
 
 It would be hard to say whether Allison's reputation was enhanced 
 or harmed by his performance in this tariff fight. In general, he was 
 both praised and blamed. Chandler was critical, saying that Allison's 
 intentions were excellent but that he had "neither the knowledge of 
 tariff matters nor the force of character of the Rhode Island senator." 
 But Allison was very much in step with the great majority of his 
 fellow Republicans in 1897. One has only to read the speeches of 
 Iowa's greatest orator of this era, Robert G. Cousins of Tipton, to see 
 the classic expression of a blind faith in the protective tariff and to 
 sense what Allison would have been up against if he had tried to 
 work for a reduced tariff. 7 James S. Clarkson, Jonathan P. Dolliver, 
 Cyrenus Cole, and all the other party wheel horses were equally strong 
 in their devotion to this shibboleth of Republicans (and Pennsylvania 
 Democrats) . 
 
 The tariff issue, so important in 1897, was pushed into the back- 
 ground in 1898 by outside events. For years America had been watch- 
 ing the growing seriousness of the plight of the Cubans under Spain's 
 harsh rule. The sinking of th? Maine on February 15, 1898, awoke 
 the indifferent and the casual lookers on and converted many of them, 
 temporarily at least, into firebrands, 8 while others retained their 
 equanimity and opposed intervention as unnecessary and unjustified. 
 Allison and most of his friends were definitely ranked on the side of 
 the antiexpansionists, the isolationists of the day. Chief among these 
 were Allison's colleague, John Henry Gear of Burlington, bitterly 
 opposed to the annexation of Hawaii, a collateral issue of the Cuban 
 question; Richard P. Clarkson of the Register; General Grenville M. 
 Dodge; and, more notably and positively, Allison's great friend, 
 Colonel David B. Henderson. 9 
 
 The bluff, genial Colonel was outspoken in stating his position. 
 On March 8, 1898, he delivered a brief but pointed speech on the 
 subject in Congress, the heart of which is in this passage: 
 
 I have had letters from my people wanting us to take Cuba, to punish Spain. 
 I simply write back that no international law makes the United States the 
 regulator of the wrongs of the earth. God has written no motto on the ban- 
 ner of our country that demands of us the regulating of the wrongs of other 
 countries to their people, We all sympathize with the liberty-loving and 
 
272 William Boyd Allison 
 
 fighting Cubans, but they are citizens of another Government. So long as 
 that question is before us, I follow the advice of Washington, recommending 
 that we mind strictly our own business. 10 
 
 The Chicago Tribune under Joseph Medill took sharp issue with 
 Henderson, whereupon the Colonel sent a clipping of Medill's editorial 
 to his close friend, Richard P. Clarkson, with instructions as to its 
 use in the Register. He added in strict confidence a story from a 
 friend to whom President McKinley had read the speech, "comment- 
 ing on it and approving it. Of course this must not get into the 
 papers, at least not in any way from me." X1 
 
 However much Allison and other important leaders such as Aldrich, 
 Hanna, Fairbanks, Eugene Hale, O. H. Piatt, and Spooner in the 
 Senate, and "Czar" Thomas B. Reed and Colonel Henderson in the 
 House, opposed the decision to intervene, and however much Presi- 
 dent McKinley may have approved Henderson's nonintervention 
 speech, the decision was made, the fateful step was taken, 12 and the 
 United States found herself engaged in a war with Spain. No charges 
 of treason have been leveled at the provocators of this war, but it is 
 pretty well agreed that certain special groups and individuals, inflamed 
 with "the martial spirit," led the country into an unnecessary con- 
 flict. 13 
 
 Regardless of their opposition to the war, Allison and Henderson 
 had to take a real interest in the conflict and help to support it. In 
 his capacity as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, 
 Allison played a leading role in seeing to it that the necessities of war 
 were provided. In addition, he had a personal interest due to the fact 
 that his nephew and namesake, W. B. Allison, Jr., volunteered for 
 service. The young man, who had been acting as assistant clerk of 
 his uncle's committee, now was given the rank of captain and duty as 
 an assistant adjutant general. 14 
 
 The victory was soon won, and in August the President busied him- 
 self with the task of selecting a peace commission to represent the 
 United States at the Paris Conference. Allison rejected a place on the 
 commission which was offered to him. 15 What excuses he made to 
 McKinley are not known, but among his friends a pretty story was 
 later circulated that he preferred to stay in Washington and help in 
 the fight for the confirmation of Richard P. Clarkson's son-in-law, 
 Edward R. Meek of Fort Worth, as a federal judge for the Northern 
 District of Texas. 16 
 
 
CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 273 
 
 It seems never to have occurred to Jonathan Dolliver, who is the 
 source of this story, that Allison owed a greater obligation to his 
 country than to the Clarksons and the Meeks; very likely the point 
 was exaggerated by Dolliver in his great-hearted manner. There may 
 also have been other reasons for Allison's declination. For one thing, 
 confirmation was by no means certain. Some would have opposed his 
 appointment over the heads of members of the Foreign Relations 
 Committee; the ultra-expansionists who regarded him as an inveterate 
 compromiser might have objected. 17 Nothing in Allison's background 
 especially fitted him for membership on the Commission; one thinks 
 of the occasion in 1897 when McKinley wanted to appoint him as 
 Secretary of State and wonders why the President so persistently 
 thought of Allison for this kind of service. There is nothing any- 
 where else in the evidence to indicate that Allison was long or 
 seriously considered for this assignment in Paris. 
 
 The Peace Commission had its troubles but finally signed a treaty 
 with Spain, the terms providing for the relinquishment of Cuba and 
 title to the Philippine Islands and to Puerto Rico as well, the United 
 States to pay a round sum of twenty million dollars. The Treaty of 
 Paris was signed on December 10, 1898; the fight for ratification be- 
 gan in January, 1899; the final vote came on February 6. Ardent 
 imperialists, such as Henry Cabot Lodge and Nelson W. Aldrich, had 
 converted most of the reluctant Republicans except the venerable 
 Senator Hoar; and William Jennings Bryan, the titular Democratic 
 leader, had convinced himself and about a dozen Democratic Senators 
 that a vote for ratification was correct. According to his reasoning, 
 this would close up the war and put the issue of imperialism before 
 the people in the coming presidential election. 18 Allison gave his 
 vote to the ratificationists. 19 
 
 In fact, Allison now completely changed his attitude on the issue 
 of imperialism. Once the war which he had opposed had been fought 
 and won, he came out in favor of holding all the Philippines, then a 
 moot question. 20 He became a good friend of that brilliant leader of 
 the expansionist forces, the new Senator from Indiana, Albert J. 
 Beveridge, who put himself under Allison's wing and in return re- 
 ceived warm support for his efforts to interest the country in the new 
 spirit. On arriving in Washington in 1899, Beveridge reported that 
 he found the Senate dominated by a "marvelous combination" com- 
 posed of Aldrich as manager, Allison as "conciliator and adjustor," 
 
274 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Spooner as "floor leader and debater," and Piatt as "designer and 
 builder" — "The Four" as they have been called. 
 
 A friendship quickly developed between Allison and Beveridge; on 
 one occasion, after Beveridge had made an impassioned speech pleading 
 for rank imperialism in the Philippines, Allison was the first to shake 
 his hand. A few months later Beveridge, while touring the Islands, 
 wrote to Allison: "I trust you will keep in mind the matter of com- 
 mitteeships. I hope I have somewhat qualified myself for Foreign 
 Relations. As I told you I am ready to sacrifice all other committees 
 for that although I am earnestly desirous of Judiciary and Finance as 
 well as Foreign Relations." 
 
 The ambitious Beveridge had to accept defeat on these aspirations, 
 however, but he found solace in other recognition he received. On one 
 occasion he sat in on the session of the Foreign Relations Committee 
 while it drew up a statement of American policy; he must have looked 
 on approvingly as Allison joined O. H. Piatt, Lodge, and Cushman K. 
 Davis in a declaration that the Philippine Islands were now terri- 
 tory belonging to the United States, that it was America's intention 
 to "retain them as such" and to "establish and maintain such govern- 
 mental control throughout the archipelago as the situation may 
 demand." 21 
 
 Beveridge's letter regarding committee assignments is only one in- 
 dication of the prestige and power that Allison had acquired. John 
 Sherman had been transferred to the Cabinet, and the eminent Sena- 
 tor Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, whose service in both houses totaled 
 almost forty-four years, had died. The passing of this grand old man, 
 who was Allison's friend and next door neighbor on Vermont Avenue, 
 left Allison as the "Father of the Senate," 22 truly a Nestorian figure 
 to whom both high and low appealed for advice and help. In ad- 
 dition to being chairman of the caucus, he was chairman of the 
 steering committee and of the committe on committees. 23 
 
 In April, 1899, word came that "Czar" Reed might retire from the 
 Speakership and from Congress. Allison's faithful aide, Colonel David 
 B. Henderson, immediately announced his intention to try for the 
 place. 24 Richard Clarkson and the Register led the fight for the 
 Henderson cause, ably aided by other Iowa newspapers, while Allison 
 wrote to Aldrich in Henderson's behalf and, it is a safe guess, to many 
 others. 25 The first stage of the struggle for support ended in June; 26 
 the formal vote did not take place until the beginning of the session 
 
 
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CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 275 
 
 of the Fifty-sixth Congress on December 4, 1899. Henderson's only 
 serious rival was Joseph G. Cannon; fortunately for Henderson, 
 Cannon was blocked by a fellow-Illinoisan, Albert J. Hopkins, 
 but since neither Cannon nor Hopkins would defer to the other, 
 Henderson's selection by the caucus was virtually assured. 27 One 
 observer laconically recorded the event in his diary: "Went to the 
 House where I saw Henderson elected Speaker." 28 
 
 Before taking leave of the last year of the nineteenth century, 
 where we find Allison and Henderson at the peak of their power, it 
 is fitting that some notice should be taken of the death of Allison's 
 rival of 1872 — James Harlan. The intervening years had had their 
 moments of personal recognition for Harlan: membership on the com- 
 mission to negotiate a settlement of the Alabama claims; keynote 
 speeches and dedication addresses almost without number — any 
 gracious honor could be his, so long as it was empty of political power. 
 Beaten back in his aspirations for Governor in 1875 and for Senator 
 in 1876, he had been a possible selection as the nominee for Governor 
 in 1895 and again in 1897, in the late evening of his life. During 
 the 1897 convention preliminaries, Albert B. Cummins wrote to a 
 friend: "Look out for Harlan. I do not think it at all unlikely that 
 he will be nominated. If he goes to Cedar Rapids and is in fair health 
 and vigor, there will be a tremendous inclination to put him in." 29 
 
 Cummins proved to be a poor prophet, however. The honor went 
 to Leslie M. Shaw, the Denison banker (as it did again in 1899), and 
 James Harlan trudged away from his last convention, unwept and 
 unsung, totally forgotten by the party for which he had done so much 
 in its founding years. The older party members could remember only 
 the Cherokee Affair; 30 the younger ones probably ignored him. Two 
 years later, on October 5, 1899, the first citizen of Mount Pleasant was 
 dead. 
 
 For some time now — in fact ever since the "battle of the standards" 
 in 1896 — the political scene had been fairly calm in Iowa. In 1899, 
 however, the Allison "machine" — a machine that was all the more 
 powerful for never calling itself a machine — faced a severe test. 
 Allison's aged and mediocre colleague, John Henry Gear, was ap- 
 proaching the end of his term of office; the senatorial election would 
 take place early in the forthcoming session of the legislature in 1900. 
 A number of aspirants for the seat hoped that Gear would not make 
 the race or that he could be beaten if he insisted in asking for re- 
 
276 William Boyd Allison 
 
 election in spite of his age. Chief among these was Albert Baird 
 Cummins, the brilliant Des Moines lawyer who still counted himself 
 a loyal supporter of Allison, but who wanted to win Iowa's other 
 seat in the Senate, whether Allison approved or not. 
 
 The prospect of a victory for the elegant reformer from Des Moines 
 was not pleasing to the Allison leaders, whom Iowans of that day 
 openly referred to as "The Regency." Besides the Senator himself, 
 the "Regents" were Joseph W. Blythe of Burlington, chief counsel 
 for the Burlington Railroad; his brother, James E. Blythe of Mason 
 City; and Judge Nathaniel M. Hubbard of Cedar Rapids, counsel for 
 the Chicago & North Western Railroad. James S. Clarkson still had a 
 voice in their councils, even though he now lived in New York; so 
 did Grenville M. Dodge; while men from Council Bluffs, Sioux City, 
 and other places were called on as circumstances dictated. 31 
 
 The seriousness with which the political leaders of that day re- 
 garded the Cummins threat is indicated in their letters. For example, 
 Ret Clarkson complained about brother Richard's support of the 
 Cummins candidacy instead of the Gear cause. Very patiently Richard 
 explained to Ret that since the Register had supported Cummins six 
 years earlier, it could not very well now reverse itself and support 
 another candidate. As for Gear, Richard assured Ret of his gratitude 
 for Gear's help in the Judge Meek matter, but insisted he could not 
 desert Cummins for this reason alone. As for Allison, "All the 
 Cummins men are Allison men, and The Register will be for Allison 
 as long as he lives. . . . Allison has made both the State and the Nation 
 greater. He ought to have been president in place of Ben Harrison, 
 and if he had been, there would have been no second term for 
 Cleveland." 32 
 
 The Iowa election campaign for members of the legislature to meet 
 in 1900 increased in heat if not light as the months went by. Cyrenus 
 Cole, now part-owner and editor in his own right of the Cedar Rapids 
 Republican, and a Cummins man in 1893-1894, tried to be neutral. 
 He wrote to Allison of the difficulties created by Gear's age. 33 Earlier, 
 the pro-Gear, anti-Cummins railroad spokesman, "Regent" Joseph W. 
 Blythe, had tried hard to overcome Cole's neutrality. 
 
 I wish you could see your way clear to help us bring this fight to a finish now. 
 It is approaching its last round, and if we could have a little active help from 
 you, I feel sure that the end would be much hastened. I think you know that 
 I do not want to unduly press this, and I recognize fully your situation and 
 
CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 277 
 
 the obligations growing out of your personal relations with Mr. Cummins; 
 but when, in your own time and in your way, you can see an opportunity to 
 help us, we shall be very grateful. 34 
 
 The entrenched power of the Allison wing of the party was not to 
 be denied. On January 8, 1900, when the Twenty-eighth General 
 Assembly began its sessions, the first test of power went against the 
 Cummins people when their candidate for Speaker of the House was 
 beaten, and at the senatorial caucus that night a Cummins spokesman 
 asked that Cummins' name be withdrawn from consideration. Gear's 
 nomination followed by acclamation. In the legislature, he won handi- 
 ly over the Democratic nominee, Fred E. White, by a vote of 111 to 
 32. 35 The verdict of the Register was that Cummins had made a fine 
 showing, but that he had had against him tc a railroad with millions 
 backing the biggest 'boss' the state ever knew." 36 This reference to 
 Joseph W. Blythe and the Burlington was not the reaction of a radi- 
 cal but the calm judgment of the editor of the state's largest and most 
 influential Republican newspaper. 
 
 There is no escaping the conclusion that the determination to put 
 up Senator Gear for re-election in this contest was a decision born of 
 desperation. The bosses had wanted to prevent the election of 
 Cummins at any price. Now if Gear should die, his replacement would 
 be in the hands of Governor Leslie M. Shaw, who was friendly to the 
 Allison-Blythe-Hubbard wing of the party. 37 At seventy-five Gear 
 was too old and feeble to perform the duties of the office, even if he 
 might be granted a few more years of life. In less than a month after 
 the election, one of the bosses of Iowa, Judge Hubbard of the Regency, 
 wrote Cyrenus Cole: "No Gear man can now vote for Cummins for 
 Senator, if Senator Gear should die, — which I hope he will not." 
 Then, facing reality, Hubbard added, "I greatly fear the crisis is 
 close at hand, and that Senator Gear will not survive many days. 
 This is for your eyes . . . and no t)ther." 38 
 
 With the Cummins threat apparently safely scotched, the Allison 
 group could now turn its attention to other matters. It so happened 
 that just at this time a move was on foot to give James S. Clarkson, for 
 some years out of the political limelight, 39 a richly deserved reward 
 for his long party service. This was to be the political plum of elec- 
 tion as Secretary of the Senate, a prize that had been dangled before 
 him in 1897. The matter seems to have been one that could have been 
 managed easily enough by such leaders as Allison, Aldrich, and many 
 
278 William Boyd Allison 
 
 others who were indebted to Clarkson. Just why the plan fell through 
 can not be fully determined, but the important point for this story is 
 that Clarkson blamed Allison as one of a small group that failed to 
 stand by him when the chips were down. 40 Clarkson wrote a power- 
 ful letter of denunciation to Cyrenus Cole, blaming three Senators 
 who withheld their aid because he would not pledge his support to 
 certain interests, and blaming another Senator "whom I had supposed 
 to be my friend for 30 years" for withholding his voice in caucus and 
 also holding back four proxies that he carried in his pocket. 41 This 
 could have been no other than Allison, who protested his innocence to 
 Clarkson: "I am deeply pained to hear . . . that you blame your truest 
 and best friends, and among them myself. . . . Some scoundrel must 
 have told you untruths, as many untruths were told during the con- 
 troversy." 42 Apparently Clarkson was overly sensitive in this case 
 and really defeated himself by abruptly withdrawing his name because 
 he could not have the undivided vote of all the Republican Senators. 
 
 Thus the year 1900 had opened with trouble for Allison over the 
 senatorship and the Clarkson appointment. Hardly had these prob- 
 lems been solved when a difficult decision faced Allison. There was 
 no doubt about the renomination of McKinley that year, but the 
 second place on the ticket was available because of the death of Vice 
 President Garret A. Hobart in November, 1899. The one person who 
 could dare to dispute with the President over the choice for a running 
 mate was Marcus Alonzo Hanna, now a Senator in his own right. 
 Hanna wanted Cornelius N. Bliss for the spot, but McKinley was not 
 enthusastic about him. Allison and many others were considered, 
 among them John D. Long, John Hay, Elihu Root, and Charles W. 
 Fairbanks. Allison refused the place outright, suggested Jonathan 
 Dolliver, and worked hard for him. But Boss Piatt of New York 
 wanted to get rid of Governor Theodore Roosevelt and was able to 
 secure his nomination, even though Roosevelt did not want the honor. 43 
 
 The McKinley-Roosevelt ticket for 1900 had hardly been decided 
 upon when in July, 1900, the long expected death of Senator Gear 
 occurred, and Governor Leslie M. Shaw promptly obliged the Allison 
 forces by appointing Dolliver to the vacant seat. 44 There could be 
 no objection to the Fort Dodge man on the score of ability, character, 
 and industry; the only resentment would be in the Cummins ranks. 
 Well might Cummins have said that the Allisonians had been able 
 to eat their cake and have it too. By using Gear in the election a few 
 
CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 279 
 
 months earlier they had been able to forestall Cummins from the 
 chance of victory in an open, competitive race, where the people's 
 choice could at least be indirectly asserted. Now Gear was dead, as 
 expected; the "ins" could extend their control by appointing a man 
 who had never run for the office instead of one who had twice put up 
 a good fight. Little wonder if the affair rankled in Cummins' heart 
 and if deep resolves were made as to plans and methods to be used in 
 future contests. As yet, however, Cummins made no open moves; on 
 the surface he remained loyal to Allison and the party. 
 
 The presidential election of 1900 was a routine affair. The ticket 
 of McKinley and Roosevelt swept over Bryan's second try for the 
 White House, this time with imperialism the chief issue rather than 
 free silver. McKinley 's vote ran higher than in 1896, and America 
 settled down to enjoy a spell of prosperity and peace. There had been 
 a full recovery from the depression brought on by the Panic of 1893; 
 prices were generally higher due to a larger supply of gold made avail- 
 able by discoveries of new fields and to the cyanide process of re- 
 fining; the gold standard had been adopted officially; agriculture was 
 prosperous for the first time since 1865. 
 
 The first few months of the new McKinley term were uneventful, 
 the inauguration in March being followed by the long summer va- 
 cation, but the calm was rudely shattered on September 6 by a bullet 
 from the gun of the anarchist, Leon Czolgosz. The President lingered 
 between life and death for a week, but the end came on September 
 14. The assassin, who had accomplished nothing for his cause, made 
 possible the elevation of Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency, the 
 youngest and one of the most dynamic men ever to hold that office. 
 
 The new President, mindful of his accidental succession, did not 
 immediately launch a drive for personal control. Shrewd politician 
 that he was, he recognized the power of the party organization and 
 its agents in Congress, and he gladly worked with it. As a student of 
 government and politics, and as Governor of New York, he had 
 learned that a chief executive must be a chief legislator as well, if he 
 is to be a successful and memorable President. The only way for him 
 to get a legislative program adopted would be through tactful co- 
 operation with Congress. His meteoric and fortuitous rise to the top 
 had not yet allowed him to build up a great nationwide popular fol- 
 lowing to which he could appeal or an organization devoted to him 
 personally. 
 
280 William Boyd Allison 
 
 In turning to Congress, the youthful, vigorous Roosevelt met 
 Iowans in almost every important and strategic post. In the Senate, 
 of course, there was Allison, member of "The Four," the totally un- 
 official group that had acquired a power so great that even a Presi- 
 dent had to consult them if senatorial action were desired. 45 In ad- 
 dition to Allison, there were Aldrich of Rhode Island, Orville H. Piatt 
 of Connecticut, and John Coit Spooner of Wisconsin, all chairmen or 
 members of important committees. 46 Close to "The Four" and some- 
 times more powerful with regard to specific matters and causes were 
 Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts and Eugene Hale of Maine, both 
 good friends of Allison. And then there was the new junior Senator 
 from Iowa, Dolliver, who regarded Allison with filial devotion and 
 who soon became a favorite with Roosevelt. 
 
 In the House Roosevelt found Allison's faithful friend Henderson 
 as Speaker, heading an Iowa delegation of eleven Republicans who were 
 virtually under Allison's orders because of their regard for him and 
 their partial dependence on his favor. Four of them were chairmen of 
 important committees: John A. T. Hull, Military Affairs; William P. 
 Hepburn, Interstate and Foreign Commerce; John F. Lacey, Public 
 Lands; and Robert G. Cousins, Expenditures in the Treasury Depart- 
 ment. In addition, all of the delegation held high ranking assign- 
 ments on these and other committees. 47 
 
 But the political calm in Iowa and in the nation was soon to be 
 broken. The year 1901 can be classified as one of the most important 
 years in Iowa politics and, in a negative sense, one of the most im- 
 portant in Allison's career. In this year came the first triumph of his 
 rival, Albert Baird Cummins, and the first definite and formal di- 
 vision of Iowa Republicans into Conservative (Standpat) and Pro- 
 gressive factions. 
 
 This split had been in the making for several years. In some ways, 
 Progressivism was akin to the Liberal Republicanism of 1872 and the 
 Mugwumpery in the Republican ranks in 1884. More directly, it was 
 a descendant of the Populist movement of the 1890's. It is possible 
 to list a number of criteria that set off the Progressives from the 
 Standpatters, but such a list is of value only if one remembers that 
 very few men even approached wholehearted adherence to every point 
 in the catalog. There were many shades of belief, and while the labels 
 were most often applied to Republicans, there were actually the same 
 distinctions among the Democrats. 
 
CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 281 
 
 Progressives wanted tariff reform downward and they wanted 
 reciprocity; they wanted legislation to curb the great business in- 
 terests, especially to guard against the formation of trusts with mon- 
 opolistic power; they wanted regulation of the railroads, the grain 
 elevator companies, the insurance companies, the meat-packing com- 
 panies, the stock market ("Wall Street") ;• they wanted reforms to 
 wipe out "the shame of the cities," and they wanted more democracy 
 in state government, hence their support of the direct primary, the 
 initiative and referendum, and the recall. Standpatters opposed some 
 or all of these objectives, in varying degrees. 48 
 
 The "Big Three" in the Standpat-Progressive struggle in Iowa, 
 and close to the top in national politics, were Allison, Cummins, and 
 Dolliver. There was almost nothing of the doctrinaire about these 
 men. The "Standpatter" Allison was not a champion of the rights of 
 any privileged class; the "Progressive" Cummins was not the champion 
 of an oppressed lower class, much less of a proletariat. Dolliver, 
 nominally a Standpatter, was actually a Progressive at heart, but for 
 years he remained loyal to Allison out of personal gratitude for 
 Allison's political assistance and out of sheer affection for the grand 
 old man who treated him like a son. As for wealth, Allison was a pro- 
 fessional politician whose small fortune consisted of his inheritance 
 from his second wife and the profits from investments in safe stocks. 
 Dolliver had little money besides his income as a member of Congress 
 and his fees as a public speaker. Cummins was one of the leading 
 lawyers of the state and probably had earned far more money than 
 Allison had ever collected as a member of Congress. He was known 
 as a man of elegant tastes and discriminating judgment, and he moved 
 in the highest ranks of Iowa business and society. As associates and 
 supporters, he could number such men as F. M. Hubbell of Des Moines, 
 banker, real estate baron, insurance company owner and executive; 49 
 Fred L. Maytag, wealthy manufacturer of Newton; 50 John H. 
 Hartman, newspaper publisher of Waterloo; A. B. Funk, publisher of 
 the Spirit Lake Beacon; and Thomas A. Way, banker and farm land 
 magnate of Iowa and Minnesota. 
 
 Cummins bowled over all opposition in the state convention held 
 at Cedar Rapids in August. He openly asserted that Joe Blythe and 
 N. M. Hubbard had challenged him and that he had accepted the 
 challenge; he wanted the convention to decide between them. The 
 result was a resounding victory for Cummins, his 860| votes more 
 
282 William Boyd Allison 
 
 than double the 369J for James H. Trewin and the 3 59 for W. F. 
 Harriman, his chief rivals. When Cummins returned to Des Moines 
 after the convention, the reception was fit for a conquering hero. The 
 Grant Club, made up of the pillars of the party, and the Cummins 
 Convention Club met his train; he was taken to the Grant Club House 
 in a procession, riding in F. M. Hubbell's carriage with Governor 
 Leslie M. Shaw as a fellow passenger. And surely no one wrote a more 
 gratifying letter to him than Senator William Boyd Allison: 
 
 Allow me to extend to you my hearty congratulations upon your nomination 
 yesterday. I wish to cooperate with you in the campaign. I have planned to 
 be absent from the state about three weeks leaving [Dubuque] on Saturday. 
 I will take an early occasion after my return to see you and consult with you 
 as to organization of the work. By that time the committee will be in working 
 order. Your nomination will be well received in the state and I have no doubt 
 you will receive a large majority when the votes are counted. 51 
 
 The convention that had nominated Cummins had also taken a 
 significant step in the writing of its platform. The tariff plank, 
 written by George Evan Roberts, soon came to enjoy national fame. 
 Indeed, this convention had builded better than it knew. The tariff 
 plank asserted in clear though not revolutionary language "the sov- 
 ereignty of the people over all corporations and aggregations of capi- 
 tal and the right residing in the people to enforce such regulations, 
 restrictions or prohibitions upon corporate management as will 
 protect the individual and society from abuse of the power which 
 great combinations of capital wield." It then concluded: "We favor 
 such amendments of the interstate commerce act as will more fully 
 carry out its prohibition of discrimination in rate making and any 
 modifications of the tariff schedules that may be required to prevent 
 their affording a shelter to monopoly." The whole plank was adopted 
 as proposed by Roberts without objection or debate in the resolutions 
 committee and by the unanimous vote of the full convention. This 
 was the tariff revision proposal that gained fame and attention under 
 the name of the "Iowa Idea"; 52 actually, the other clauses came nearer 
 to realization and are worthy of more attention. Roberts gave Walter 
 Wellman, a famous correspondent of the era, credit for the title. 
 
 The large majority for Cummins that Allison had predicted was 
 realized. The Democrats helped to insure Republican victory by 
 breaking up into factions, one led by Thomas J. Phillips, the winner 
 of the nomination for Governor; the other by the brilliant young 
 
CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 283 
 
 lawyer, Horace J. Stiger of Toledo. Richard Clarkson reported to his 
 brother that "the Cummins political juggernaut is as relentless as 
 the juggernaut of ancient times," and that Cummins was still a 
 candidate for the United States Senate. 53 
 
 But the Cummins juggernaut, however relentless, was not powerful 
 enough to roll over the Allison machine. Both Allison and Dolliver 
 were up for re-election in 1902. Allison's campaign for re-election 
 was conducted by his friends. James S. Clarkson, finding the capacity 
 to forgive and forget Allison's treatment of him and the grace to 
 serve his political ambitions, offered to write an article for the Register, 
 favoring the re-election of Allison by the unanimous action of the 
 legislature. Ret's brother accepted the offer promptly and with ap- 
 proval, adding his belief that the Davenport Democrat and other 
 Democratic papers generally would see the justice of "non-partisan 
 recognition of a man who has never been offensive in his partisan- 
 ship." M The article appeared in the Register on Tuesday, December 
 10, 1901, under the title "Allison and Iowa — Noblesse Oblige." On 
 reading it one would never know that there had been any difficult 
 moments in the relationships of these two men. The essay consisted of 
 a sober review of the record that Allison had compiled, and then gave 
 reasons why the state could honor herself by honoring Allison with the 
 compliment of a unanimous vote. 
 
 Despite Ret's bold and eloquent plea for a nonpartisan vote for 
 Allison, the Democrats did not cooperate. They put up a distin- 
 guished Clinton publisher-editor whose public career, like Allison's, 
 ran all the way back to pre-Civil War days — Judge E. H. Thayer. 
 Against Dolliver, running for the remainder of Gear's term, the Dem- 
 ocrats nominated John J. Seerley of Burlington. Party lines held fast, 
 and each Republican received 119 votes; each Democrat, 20. 55 In 
 his acceptance speech Dolliver endorsed the ideas on the tariff adopted 
 at the previous state convention of his party and boldly asserted that 
 the Dingley Tariff of 1897 was already unnecessary on many items, 
 on some, absurd. 56 Allison, having already returned to Washington, 
 was not present to make an acceptance speech at this, his last election 
 by the General Assembly. 
 
 Just before the close of the year 1901 Allison had assisted in se- 
 curing the Secretaryship of the Treasury for ex-Governor Leslie M. 
 Shaw, the Denison banker who had gone into politics largely in order 
 to fight what he considered the dangerous monetary policies of Bryan. 
 
284 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Shaw had favorably impressed Roosevelt with his sound-money 
 speeches during the campaign of 1900; when, through Allison and 
 Henderson, Shaw was asked to become Secretary, he accepted. 57 
 
 As Cyrenus Cole has noted, this was "the golden age" of Iowa's 
 strength in Washington; surely never before and perhaps never since 
 has the state possessed so much influence in American government. 
 Now, in addition to her power in Congress, two of Iowa's men, Tama 
 Jim Wilson and Leslie M. Shaw, were in the President's official family. 
 To these should be added George E. Roberts as Director of the Mint, 
 and Maurice D. O'Connell as Solicitor of the Treasury, giving Fort 
 Dodge two of the highest places in the government just short of the 
 Cabinet itself. Several Iowans were also in the diplomatic service. 
 
 And now at long last something was done for James S. Clarkson, 
 and Allison, along with Dolliver, had a hand in it. On April 12, 1902, 
 Dolliver wrote that he and Allison had fixed it up with Senator T. C. 
 Piatt of New York to secure the post of Surveyor of the Port of New 
 York City for Clarkson. Dolliver required three pages to give Ret 
 the necessary assurances that this time there would be no slip-up, no 
 shortage of a virtual unanimity in the vote. Two days later he wrote 
 again, addressing Ret as "Dear General" in memory of the days when 
 Clarkson was First Assistant Postmaster General, and assured him of 
 success. 58 The appointment was confirmed on April 17, 1902, and at 
 last the tension between Allison and Clarkson could cease. Not only 
 that, Clarkson would now be in an excellent "listening post," where 
 he could be of great service to Allison, Dolliver, and Shaw. As a 
 reactivated member of the high councils of the Republican party, he 
 could also be of real service to President Roosevelt. 59 
 
 During the remainder of the year things happened which showed 
 that a new day had arrived in Iowa politics. Governor Cummins saw 
 to it that the 1902 platform served his purposes. In urging one of 
 his trusted lieutenants, Nathan E. Kendall of Albia, to seek a place on 
 the platform committee of the state convention of 1902, he wrote: 
 "I would like to see a platform written as you can write it, expressing 
 the progressive ideas of this generation. I do not want to have any- 
 thing said that is not fundamentally sound or which goes beyond our 
 expressions of last year." 60 The Cummins program was carried out 
 completely. The platform of 1901 was reaffirmed, even to the point 
 of repeating the clause that held that the tariff must not be allowed to 
 serve as a shelter to monopolies. 61 
 
CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 285 
 
 A second sign of the passing of the old order was the sale of the 
 Des Moines Register by Richard P. Clarkson. The principal purchaser 
 was George E. Roberts, a good Allisonian but a man with a forward 
 look, as his authorship of the "Iowa Idea" shows. The retirement of 
 the Clarksons from the Register was the significant thing. The de- 
 tails of the negotiations were handled on the Eastern end by Ret and 
 Senator Dolliver. 62 
 
 But the most dramatic act, marking 1902 as a watershed in Iowa 
 political history, was one that threw the Allison wing of the party into 
 the greatest confusion. It so happened that in September of 1902 
 President Roosevelt had summoned Allison, Aldrich, Spooner, Hanna, 
 and Lodge to his summer home at Oyster Bay for a secretive but not 
 secret conference on party policy; 63 in a larger sense the object was 
 to reach an agreement on a division of power between the President 
 and the leaders of the Senate. 
 
 In spite of poor health, Allison had left Iowa, where the congres- 
 sional campaign was in full swing, and where his good friend David 
 B. Henderson was engaged in a bitter fight for re-election, and had 
 gone to Oyster Bay. Imagine the consternation among the party 
 leaders at this meeting when Allison received a telegram from Hender- 
 son on September 16: 
 
 Being satisfied that I am not in harmony with many of our party who be- 
 lieve that free trade in whole or in part [is the] remedy [for] the trust evil 
 I have withdrawn from the congressional race. 64 
 
 Roosevelt, Allison, officers of the Republican national committee, and 
 others sent urgent wires to the bluff old soldier, urging him to re- 
 consider. These pleas disturbed him, Henderson confessed to Allison 
 in a long telegram the next day, but he was adamant in his decision 
 not to run. He gave Allison many reasons: his inability to swallow 
 "free trade" as a medicine to "cure the trusts"; the drain on his 
 savings — "everybody is bleeding me"; the charges that he was a 
 drunkard; complaints from Waterloo — "at my age, and holding my 
 position, I ought to be exempt from the dirty mud slinging of Water- 
 loo Republicans, and have no disposition to longer submit to it." He 
 asked Allison to "take pains" to explain to all concerned: "I could 
 spend all my time straightening out Republicans. ... I have neither 
 the time nor the strength for such work. Can fight Democrats and 
 Populists, but not the other class." 65 
 
 Evidently Henderson had come to his decision suddenly, after 
 
286 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Allison had left for the East. "I wanted you [the] last few days very 
 much," he wrote, "but you had gone when I returned from Waterloo." 
 Allison was greatly distressed, but Henderson would not change his 
 mind. His explanations to Allison, in the long telegram, were not made 
 public; for some strange reason, Allison even denied having heard 
 from his distressed colleague. From that day to this a certain amount 
 of mystery has hung over the episode. 66 
 
 This mystery was deepened and compounded when one of 
 Henderson's closest friends, Cyrenus Cole, later wrote such words as 
 these: "In 1902 . . . [Henderson] announced unexpectedly that he 
 would not be a candidate for renomination. . . . His own explanation 
 was that he wanted to practice law in New York to provide better for 
 his family. He had other and more personal reasons which have never 
 been written into history. Nor will I write them into it now. It is too 
 late." 6T Perhaps there were personal reasons known only to Cole and 
 other intimate friends; even so, the act can be stripped of some of its 
 mystery. To begin with, Cole's premise is incorrect: Henderson did not 
 announce that he would not be a candidate for renomination, with all 
 that that implies. He had already been renominated by his district 
 and had made plans for his campaign when suddenly, on September 
 16, he announced his withdrawal. 
 
 A bitter campaign was being waged against the man who was 
 Allison's first lieutenant and who had been a party leader since the 
 1860's. Such a man might well feel justified in turning with disgust 
 from the game of politics with the remark, "Let the new light shine." 
 This fight on Henderson, which began with an attack on his czaristic 
 tactics as Speaker, was really due to his position on the tariff. The 
 criticism began as early as February, 1902; perhaps it encouraged the 
 Cummins crowd to think they could replace him. O. B. Courtright 
 was mentioned as a rival. Henderson's friends retaliated by arranging 
 to hold the district nominating convention in May, instead of in July 
 or August as was customary. Courtright withdrew in a huff, and 
 Henderson won the nomination. But the criticism continued, and in 
 mid-July, Allison wrote to Richard Clarkson: "I agree with you, 
 however, as to the importance of making a clear, plain declaration of 
 the Republican view on the tariff. This is important in view of the 
 fact that Iowa's declaration will be looked to with interest because of 
 the interest taken in our Speaker." 69 The state convention of the 
 party, meeting on July 30, made no direct reference to Henderson's 
 
CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 287 
 
 policies, but it did adopt a tariff plank that he could accept with only 
 slight enthusiasm. As noted above, the plank was the work of the 
 Cummins people; it endorsed protection in principle but favored such 
 changes as might become advisable, inveighed against tariffs used to 
 shelter monopolies, and frankly endorsed reciprocity. 
 
 Another natural assumption could be that Henderson's decision was 
 due to anger at not being included among the guests at the conference 
 at Oyster Bay. Henderson, as Speaker of the House, might well have 
 thought himself entitled to inclusion in such a conference on leg- 
 islative policy. There is surely some significance in the fact that he 
 chose the day of the Oyster Bay meeting to send the telegram to 
 Allison. 
 
 The best explanation, however, is that Speaker Henderson was the 
 first victim of the "Cummins juggernaut," even if by indirect means 
 only. Early in September, Governor Cummins had assured Henderson 
 that his friends were not refusing to support him, but this assurance 
 was not altogether truthful, inasmuch as the Governor was at the 
 same time openly and confidently leading the opposing faction of 
 the party. In June he had explained the split in the Iowa party to 
 President Roosevelt in a letter dealing with a patronage problem: 
 
 Republicans of Iowa act so unitedly after conventions that you have had no 
 opportunity to know the character of the fight that went on last year and 
 which is still in progress. It will not harm the party and its majorities will grow 
 but there are two grand divisions in our ranks, and I hope I am not egotisti- 
 cal when I say that I lead the larger one. Notwithstanding the action of the 
 delegation, the division of which I speak is entitled to recognition. Our boys 
 do not want it to be understood that the national administration is against 
 them. Knowing you as well as I do I feel sure that if you were in Iowa you 
 would be the leader of the men who are now following me. Having these 
 things in mind, it seems to me that the delegation ought not to complain if 
 you insist upon a reasonable division of the patronage. 70 
 
 In the light of this letter, it would seem to be impossible for 
 Cummins to carry on the kind of factional fight that he so well 
 describes and at the same time have his "boys" give support to 
 Henderson, the No. 2 man in the other faction. As a matter of fact, 
 Henderson discovered that the Cummins group in the Third District 
 was continuing to criticize his tariff views; he could not forget that 
 this faction thought once of putting up a candidate against him. 
 These blows to his pride were too much for a man of his seniority and 
 prestige. It should be added that this psychological situation was 
 
288 William Boyd Allison 
 
 worsened by a naturally choleric temper, aggravated by suffering due 
 to his ill-fitting artifical limb. His decision to withdraw followed. In 
 reply to a wire from Richard Clarkson, urging the Speaker to re- 
 consider, Henderson replied: " Thanks for your kind hearted telegram, 
 but I have got tired of the growing politics that are dominating Iowa, 
 and tired of the personal abuse coming from republican sources. I 
 have worked hard enough to entitle me to decent treatment con- 
 sidering the position that I hold." 71 
 
 The exact reactions of the Allison group can be seen from a letter 
 written the day after Henderson's withdrawal, from the very center 
 of their circle, by James S. Clarkson to M. S. Quay: 
 
 The only thing for Henderson who has acted in a moment of passion or 
 pique, to do is to allow the Convention to meet again and renominate him 
 and accept, calling that a new vote of confidence. The Republican Con- 
 gressional Committee has telegraphed him as a Committee, so has Hanna as 
 Chairman of the National Republican Committee, and in this action Allison, 
 Lodge, Spooner and Aldrich joined. We are bringing great pressure to bear 
 on Henderson today. His sudden freak has caused the National Republican 
 Committee a great deal of anxious concern. 72 
 
 The words "Henderson who has acted in a moment of passion or 
 pique" were written by a man who had known Henderson like a 
 brother for over thirty years. But the district convention did not 
 renominate the self-exiled hero. Instead, a distinguished lawyer and 
 jurist from Clarion, Judge Benjamin P. Birdsall, was chosen. Governor 
 Cummins wrote to the victor: "To tell you the truth, confidentially, 
 I did not expect the convention to do so wise a thing. I believe that 
 you will not only make a better representative in Congress than 
 Colonel Henderson would have made, but that you will be elected by 
 a much larger majority than he could have received." 73 Lese majeste! 
 Small wonder that Allison & Co. fought this man so hard and came 
 to distrust him, because be it remembered that all the while Cummins 
 was putting up an appearance of friendship with the Allisonians. A 
 few days later the Governor wrote to a protege: "Henderson, instead 
 of hurting us, as he intended to do, has killed himself. Everything 
 is going well, and the Towa Idea* is gathering adherents every day." 74 
 
 The fight between the Cummins Progressives and the Allison 
 Standpatters grew warmer as the new year went along. While Allison 
 did not take an open stand against Cummins, indeed ostensibly was on 
 the best of terms with him, as much could not be said for many others 
 
 
CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 289 
 
 who could be thought of as Allisonians. For example, in March, 
 1903, Secretary of the Treasury Leslie M. Shaw, Cummins' predeces- 
 sor as Governor and a man at the opposite pole of thought from him, 
 wrote to James S. Clarkson, now something of an interpreter of 
 Western political movements to the Republican leaders in the East, 
 urging him to solicit contributions to assist in the Iowa fight. "They 
 had better contribute fifty or a hundred thousand this year than a 
 half a million next. A bucket of water today will quench an in- 
 cipient fire that a well-organized fire department cannot extinguish 
 if allowed to get under way." 75 
 
 About a month later a secret meeting was held in Chicago between 
 the two factions of the party at which Allison, Joseph W. Blythe, and 
 Cummins came to an agreement about the wording of the platform 
 to be drawn up at the forthcoming state convention. Leslie M. Shaw, 
 not actually present at the conference, which ran from morning until 
 far into the night, stood by and received the details which he passed 
 on to Ret Clarkson. The main object on both sides was not a good 
 tariff plank but political advantage. Shaw and others thought that 
 Cummins had fallen into a trap that would finish him in Iowa politics. 
 If he accepted the national platform, which was in conflict with the 
 state document, he would stultify himself; if not, he would lose caste 
 both in and out of the state. Shaw added that there was to be no open 
 fight on Cummins, but that Captain John A. T. Hull had already 
 served notice that he would need financial help to hold his congres- 
 sional seat in 1904 against the Cummins man, Judge S. F. Prouty, a 
 "rampant tariff revisionist." Shaw wanted Clarkson to raise some 
 money for the anti-Cummins cause. Clarkson responded that "The 
 sooner such a man is retired from leadership in the party, much the 
 better for the party." 76 
 
 Well might they have decided not to wage an open fight against 
 Cummins. He had reached a stage in the growth of his power where 
 he could negotiate as an equal with Allison or Allison's strongest 
 lieutenants. His views on the Chicago meeting with Allison and his 
 resulting demands were set forth in a letter to the conservative George 
 D. Perkins, editor and publisher of the Sioux City Journal, in which 
 he insisted that the Chicago agreement be lived up to. Cummins wrote 
 to Allison in exactly the same vein, closing with the words: "It is of 
 the highest importance that you and I know precisely what we will 
 stand for in the convention." 77 
 
290 William Boyd Allison 
 
 In the light of these letters the words of George E. Roberts in his 
 historical account of the "Iowa Idea" become understandable, al- 
 though not completely candid in failing to reveal the pressure from 
 Cummins. As Roberts puts it, early in 1903, even before the next 
 state convention had been called, conferences of "recognized leaders" 
 were held to agree on the tariff and trust resolutions to be adopted. 
 The result of the conference was a general understanding that Sena- 
 tor Allison, after communicating with representative men from vari- 
 ous parts of the state, should submit a declaration, "the general 
 purport of which was agreed to with the language subject to his re- 
 vision." Senator Allison agreed to serve as a medium for the disagree- 
 ing forces to compose their differences, rather than as an arbitrator. 78 
 The Republicans of Iowa held their state convention in Des Moines 
 on July 1, 1903, and adopted this tariff and trusts plank as drawn 
 up by Allison: 
 
 We reiterate our faith in the historic principles of protection. Under its 
 influence our country, foremost in the bounties of nature, has become fore- 
 most in production. It has enabled laborers to successfully insist upon good 
 wages and induced capital to engage in production with reasonable hope of 
 fair reward. Its vindication is found in the history of its success and the 
 rapidity with which our natural resources have been developed and our in- 
 dustrial independence secured, and we heartily renew our pledge to maintain 
 it. The tariff rates enacted to carry this policy into effect should be just, 
 fair, and impartial, equally opposed to foreign control and domestic monopoly, 
 to sectional discrimination and individual favoritism, and must, from time to 
 time be changed to meet the varying conditions incident to the progress of 
 our industries and their changing relations in our foreign and domestic 
 commerce. Duties that are too low should be increased and duties that are 
 too high should be reduced. We endorse the policy of reciprocity as the 
 natural complement of protection. Reciprocity between nations is trade for 
 mutual advantage and both sides must give and take. We approve the treaty 
 with Cuba, recently ratified, as conferring substantial benefits upon both 
 countries, and urge that the remaining steps, necessary to make it effective, be 
 promptly taken. 
 
 On this plank George E. Roberts commented that the reciprocity 
 portion was more favorable to the policy contained in the "Iowa Idea" 
 and that the other portions contained all of the previous statements, 
 but the wording was more acceptable to those who regretted the 
 seeming admission that the tariff did afford shelter to monopoly. 79 
 Thus again, Allison had sucessfully played the role of a compromiser. 
 After an acrimonious campaign, in which Cummins received some 
 
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CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 291 
 
 blows from the Standpatters as well as from the Democrats, who were 
 conceded by Cummins to have an excellent candidate, he was able 
 to report triumphantly to his friend, Charles G. Dawes of Chicago: 
 "I cannot help but be a little proud of the fact that I was originally 
 elected and now re-elected by a plurality which is larger by twenty 
 thousand than any governor of Iowa ever received." He also wrote to 
 Allison: "I appreciate deeply your efficient assistance in bringing about 
 so harmonious a campaign." 80 
 
 Meanwhile, the Register and Leader, as the loiva State Register 
 had been rechristened, had been going through another shift in owner- 
 ship. For various reasons, mainly inability to give enough time and 
 personal direction to make the paper function as he knew it should, 
 George E. Roberts was eager to dispose of his recent investment. 
 This was known to some as early as July, 1903. Naturally, each politi- 
 cal faction was eager to get control of the paper, the greatest single 
 journalistic force in the state, but had to wait some time before the 
 matter was determined. "I want very much to see the paper continue 
 in friendly hands or fall into still more friendly hands," Cummins 
 wrote to his friend Thomas A. Way, "but there are some things I 
 cannot do even to secure that potent influence." 81 On November 2, 
 1903, the principal stockholder, Samuel Strauss, disposed of his hold- 
 ings to Harvey Ingham (the editor whom Roberts had brought in 
 from Algona), A. B. Funk of Spirit Lake, James A. Smith of Osage, 
 and F. L. Maytag of Newton; Roberts continued as president. If 
 this arrangement had held up, the Cummins wing would have been 
 amply served by the paper, but by November 7 the deal was off, for 
 personal reasons; the new stockholders were Harvey Ingham and 
 Gardner Cowles, the latter a long-time associate of Ingham at Algona. 
 Roberts still continued as president. 
 
 Regarding this announcement, Cummins wrote to Thomas A. Way: 
 
 1 feel just as badly about it as anyone can, but I am accustomed to these 
 things and take them philosophically. I feel sure that when it becomes 
 necessary, our boys will meet the emergency with the same courage and 
 zeal that they have always displayed. Immediately after Funk, Smith and 
 Maytag went out and Cowles came in, Harvey Ingham came to my office 
 and spent an hour or two with me, giving me every detail of the trouble and 
 assuring me that the attitude of the paper towards me would not change. 
 I think he is honest in his intention, but you and I know that Cowles will 
 be the dominant spirit. He has one half the stock of the paper, and no other 
 
292 William Boyd Allison 
 
 man has more than one-sixth, and aside from that he is the strongest character 
 now connected with the paper. I intend to have a talk with Senator Maytag 
 on Monday or Tuesday along the line of protection, and I will let you know 
 what the outcome is. 82 
 
 Cummins' uncertainty about Cowles's attitude was soon removed, 
 however. The Register and Leader almost immediately showed its 
 friendliness; one editorial by Harvey Ingham so staunchly and ably- 
 defended the Governor's program that Cummins wrote to him that he 
 thought the editorial "would do more to put the present contro- 
 versy upon its proper basis than anything that has yet appeared." 83 
 Allison had lost his most powerful editorial voice in Iowa. 
 
 For a time, after Cummins' re-election, Iowa politics was quiet. 
 The Republican national convention of 1904 did the natural thing, 
 indeed the only possible thing: it nominated Roosevelt for the presi- 
 dency in his own right. For Vice President the choice was Charles K. 
 Fairbanks; about the only real excitement of the convention was 
 furnished by the keynote speech of Representative Robert G. Cousins 
 of Tipton, Iowa, whose selection as speaker came about through the 
 good offices of Allison. Cousins was an orator of the old school, a 
 true spellbinder when before a cheering partisan audience. There was 
 not much reward for those who analyzed the content of his speeches; 
 they consisted mostly of praise for the Republican party and grati- 
 tude for the blessings of the protective tariff, which he held to be the 
 source of America's wealth and strength. 84 
 
 Allison took some part in the various campaigns of 1904, but his 
 activity was curtailed by a noticeable decline in his health. John A. 
 Kasson, now an elder statesman and far above the party strife of the 
 past, wrote from his home in Washington to Ora Williams, reporter 
 for the Register and Leader, to tip him off. "I am grieved to hear bad 
 news of Allison's health." 85 For years Allison had been conserving 
 his strength by declining all but the most necessary trips and speeches. 
 Because of this, President Roosevelt had hesitated to ask him to come 
 to the Oyster Bay conference in 1902. His principal trouble was an 
 enlargement of the prostate which necessitated painful treatments 
 twice daily. 86 
 
 In general, the election of 1904 went off with a pretty fair division 
 of the spoils between the two factions in Iowa. Roosevelt, in whom 
 both sides claimed a share, was an easy winner; the entire Republican 
 congressional slate won, with the Standpatters definitely able to 
 
 
CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 293 
 
 claim a majority of the eleven men in the delegation, led by Captain 
 John A. T. Hull, whose first victory dated back to 1890. ' 
 
 A feature of the election was the final ratification of the amendment 
 to the state constitution providing for biennial state elections and for 
 the holding of the sessions of the legislature in January of the odd- 
 numbered instead of the even-numbered years. Senators Allison and 
 Dolliver both strongly supported this amendment, which won by a 
 margin of 23,000. 8T Heretofore the Governor, the Lieutenant Gov- 
 ernor, a judge of the supreme court, and the superintendent of public 
 instruction, along with the members of the General Assembly, had 
 been elected in the odd-numbered years, the other state officers and 
 members of Congress in the even-numbered. It is hard to imagine any 
 intelligent person voting against the proposal that might well be 
 termed "an amendment to save the nerves and energies of politicians." 
 Now they would be freed from the necessity of doing annual battle 
 for some office or other. 
 
 For two years the Iowa political scene remained fairly calm, and 
 Allison could concentrate his energies on his work in the Senate. In 
 1906 he was saddened by the death of his long-time friend and politi- 
 cal lieutenant, Colonel Henderson. Their acquaintance had begun in 
 September, 1861, when Colonel William B. Allison had mustered the 
 young student into the Union army. "Our friendship was unin- 
 terrupted during his whole career from his entry into the military 
 service until his death," said Allison. 88 The grand old soldier and 
 perfect exemplifier of the Civil War veteran in politics had been 
 stricken with paralysis followed by blindness. For months he had 
 lingered in Mercy Hospital in Dubuque, but at last, on February 25, 
 1906, he was released from his suffering. Unfortunately, Allison was 
 not among those who were able to attend the funeral ceremonies at 
 Dubuque; chronic illness now forced him to conserve his energy to 
 the utmost, 89 and a hard trip to Iowa in the dead of winter would 
 probably have been suicidal. 
 
 A few days after the funeral of his old friend, Senator Allison 
 celebrated his seventy-seventh birthday, and the Register and Leader 
 pointed out that he would also mark another anniversary on March 
 4 — his forty-third year in Congress, with the exception of the two- 
 year interim between his service in the House and his elevation to the 
 Senate. "Still Hale and Hearty" read the caption over his current 
 picture in the paper. 90 Unhappily, this was not completely true. 
 

 fflWBf^ 
 
 * XVIII* 
 
 Allison and Roosevelt 
 
 One of the pleasanter aspects of the Allison story is the warm 
 personal relationship that developed between the youthful President 
 Roosevelt and the aging Nestor of the Senate. It almost seems as if 
 a playful trick of Fate had brought together this dynamic Chief Ex- 
 ecutive and the shuffling semi-invalid 1 who commanded the confi- 
 dence of so many colleagues and who was known as a genius at the 
 art of compromise. Allison was a budding politician with several con- 
 ventions behind him when Roosevelt was born in 1858; now the 
 young man was in the seat to which Allison had aspired and which a 
 kindlier fortune might have given to him. Their friendship had be- 
 gun almost immediately after Roosevelt's accession to power. Allison 
 was the first of The Four to write to the new President, who replied 
 warmly: "When do you come to Washington? I shall want to see 
 you before I write my message, because there are two or three points 
 upon which I do not desire to touch until after consultation with 
 you." 2 It required no false humility on Roosevelt's part to treat 
 Allison with respect and even affection; on his side, Allison could 
 well cherish the warmth of Roosevelt's friendship and admire the 
 boundless energy and the flair for success of the young President. 
 One of the first issues to face Roosevelt was that of reciprocity. The 
 Dingley Tariff Act of 1897, in the making of which Allison had 
 played so large a part, had provided for the appointment of a special 
 commissioner for the negotiation of reciprocal trade agreements. 
 McKinley's appointee had been none other than Allison's opponent in a 
 
 294 
 
ALLISON AND ROOSEVELT 295 
 
 long-forgotten rivalry, John A. Kasson, now living in semi-retirement 
 in Washington. That gentleman did his work well, and seventeen 
 "Kasson Treaties" were ultimately negotiated. 3 These treaties, pro- 
 viding only the mildest sort of reciprocal exchanges, now had to run 
 the gauntlet of the Senate, where the one implacable foe was Nelson 
 W. Aldrich, Allison's close friend in The Four. The pacts were not 
 ratified during the McKinley administration, which ostensibly fa- 
 vored them, and now Roosevelt proved to be indifferent. 
 
 Allison has been charged with being one of the group that helped 
 Roosevelt to quash these proposals, 4 but he would never have accepted 
 this indictment. As usual, he was careful about committing himself, 
 but to his credit it must be said that he worked hard to let the treaties 
 have their chance in open debate on the Senate floor. Aldrich, on the 
 other hand, was in favor of killing them in committee. In October, 
 1901, some weeks before Roosevelt would send his first message to 
 Congress, Allison made a fairly forthright speech at Tama, Iowa, 5 
 asserting his own attitude which he repeated in a letter to Roosevelt. 
 
 It seems to me that the Dingley law having specially provided for reciprocity 
 treaties, and the President [McKinley] having acted upon Section 4 of that 
 law and negotiated these treaties under it, that it is the duty of the Senate to 
 take them up and act upon them. If in [the] view of the Senate they are 
 not satisfactory, they can be amended or rejected. It seems to me that good 
 faith to other nations requires this. 6 
 
 Roosevelt forwarded Allison's letter to Aldrich, but the latter would 
 not budge. Forced to choose, Roosevelt followed the Rhode Islander 
 rather than the Iowan, and thus the Kasson Treaties were put away, 
 never to be resurrected. 
 
 In what might be called the formative years of the Roosevelt era, 
 the President cautiously felt his way into an ambitious program. 
 During the summer of 1902 a tremendous tension built up over such 
 issues as reciprocity, the tariff in its other aspects, and a strike among 
 the anthracite coal miners which was countered by an intransigent 
 and wholly unreasonable attitude among the mine owners. On Sep- 
 tember 1 6 the President held what was supposed to be a secret meeting 
 at his summer home at Oyster Bay with Senators Aldrich, Allison, 
 Hanna, Spooner, and Lodge. The conference was called, if one may 
 judge by the events that followed, for the purpose of fixing upon an 
 administration policy agreeable to The Four and to the master politi- 
 cian and chairman of the Republican national committee, Senator 
 
296 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Mark Hanna. 7 Only Piatt of The Four was unable to attend; perhaps 
 Lodge was there to help his close friend, the President, as he fenced 
 with the leaders of the Senate. (This was the meeting, incidentally, 
 that Henderson surprised with his telegram of resignation.) 
 
 During Roosevelt's first term he seemed quite willing to divide 
 power, allowing The Four to dominate the field of domestic legisla- 
 tion in return for clear rights of leadership in foreign affairs. These 
 were the years of speaking softly and carrying a big stick, according 
 to the Rooseveltian formula; of the assertion of supremacy in the 
 Caribbean and the evolution of the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe 
 Doctrine; of the substitution of Panama for Nicaragua as the route 
 for an isthmian canal connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific. 
 
 With these policies Allison was not greatly concerned. Of all The 
 Four, he was the least prepared by training or natural interest for 
 playing a major part in the making of foreign policy. This, plus the 
 factor of his constantly declining health, would account sufficiently 
 for his general acquiescence in the Roosevelt program. He made no 
 protest against the aggressive nationalism which Roosevelt preached 
 or the doubtful ethics employed. The highhanded tactics in ac- 
 quiring the Panama site by means of conspiracy, for example, drew 
 no comment from Allison, and as chairman of the Appropriations 
 Committee he helped to supply the necessary money by speeding the 
 passage of the supply bills. As has been well said, the Nicaraguan 
 route was available, and "working together, Roosevelt and Hay with 
 Hanna, Spooner, Cullom, and Aldrich, could have chosen it or could 
 have secured the Panama route honorably." 8 To this list the name of 
 Allison might well have been added. Instead, one can only say that he 
 and his clerks toiled away in the committee room and kept the 
 machinery oiled with the necessary financial lubricants. 
 
 After the endorsement furnished by the 1904 election, Roosevelt 
 turned more boldly toward the field of domestic legislation. Up to 
 this point he had acted as a referee between the Standpatters and Pro- 
 gressives, a role he now continued but with definite leanings toward 
 the Progressive point of view. He was uncertain in his own mind 
 whether he was a "conservative radical" or a "radical conservative." 9 
 Much the same could be said about Allison within the limits of Iowa 
 politics. Although usually thought of as a Conservative, he had, so 
 far, steered his course between the Cummins and anti-Cummins fac- 
 tions. His Tama speech of 1901 was a declaration of intention to 
 
ALLISON AND ROOSEVELT 297 
 
 listen to Iowa more and Aldrich less; and he had helped to make the 
 Iowa tariff plank of 1903 acceptable to both factions. 
 
 The issue that would bring forth a clearer declaration of attitude 
 from both men was not long in showing up. There was a growing 
 demand for legislation that would give the Interstate Commerce Com- 
 mission power to regulate more effectively the great carriers and to 
 eliminate abuses which had grown up over the years. Especially sought 
 after was the power to regulate the railroad rate structure. The 
 original Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 had been deliberately drawn 
 up as a weak and ineffective measure, more designed to hush the 
 voices of the "radicals" of that day than to provide real control. The 
 Elkins Rebate Act of 1903 was admittedly a failure. 10 From 1904 
 on President Roosevelt had talked and written of the need for a new 
 attack on the general problem. 
 
 When the Fifty-eighth Congress met in December, 1904, for its 
 short session, nearly every member of the House Committee on Inter- 
 state and Foreign Commerce had his own idea of a proper bill for meet- 
 ing the situation, and after some weeks of public hearings a number of 
 bills were ready for introduction. The principal ones were the Cooper- 
 Quarles Bill, the Esch Bill, the Townsend Bill, and one named after 
 Iowa's own William Peters Hepburn of Clarinda, the chairman of 
 the committee and a long-time student of the problem. It was no 
 secret that the Hepburn Bill had been drawn up with the assistance of 
 President Roosevelt, Attorney General William H. Moody, and many 
 spokesmen for the railroads, notably the Burlington counsel, Joseph 
 W. Blythe, who soon turned against the bill he had helped to prepare. 11 
 The Hepburn Bill was "vulnerable" from the moment it became 
 known that the Burlington attorney was behind it. Hepburn's resi- 
 dence in Clarinda, a town whose economic existence depended almost 
 wholly on the C. B. & Q., was too apparent to be missed by the critics. 
 Chief among the opponents of the bill was Governor Cummins, whose 
 voice was heard all the way to Washington. One of his talking points 
 was that the new "court of transportation" provided for in the bill 
 would require the appointment of many new judges. To a friend 
 Cummins wrote of the bill that "the good is so inseparably connected 
 with the bad that it cannot be made to meet the requirements of the 
 hour. It is difficult for me to believe that it was intended as a solution 
 of the problem." He had a good point when he noted that under the 
 law the railroads had the right of appeal but not the shippers. 12 
 
298 William Boyd Allison 
 
 This first Hepburn Bill was sidetracked, with the author's ap- 
 proval, and he gave his support to the passage of the combined bills 
 of Esch and Townsend, a result that was achieved by a vote of 326 
 to 17, indicating either a phenomenal degree of approval or a desire 
 to pass the problem on to the Senate. That body did nothing more 
 than to set up an investigating commission that required many months 
 for its researches, 13 which were not completed when Congress ad- 
 journed in March. Allison took advantage of this respite for another 
 trip to Europe. 14 
 
 The year 1905 was truly memorable for the revelations of mal- 
 practices in the life insurance business as brought out by a searching 
 inquiry made under the direction of Charles Evans Hughes. 15 By the 
 end of the year any informed observer knew that Congress would 
 have to take some action to curb those whom Roosevelt characterized 
 as "malefactors of great wealth." The only question was whether the 
 action would be taken by the federal and state governments, with 
 the advice and assistance of the business interests, or without and in 
 spite of those interests. Not only had the insurance scandals in New 
 York been exposed, but others as well. The Pennsylvania Railroad 
 coal car scandal, the Atchison rebates, and the publicity methods 
 used by the railroads had "brought public opinion to the boiling point 
 on the transportation question." 16 These sickening disclosures opened 
 the eyes of the people to the need for action, and thus a definitely new 
 spirit was abroad in the land as 1906 opened. 
 
 Against this new spirit, the Standpatters had to fight without the 
 benefit of many good troopers of the past. David B. Henderson was 
 no longer on hand. Matthew Quay, the very symbol of rock-ribbed 
 Pennsylvania Republicanism, had died in 1904; Allison's congenial 
 partner in The Four, Orville H. Piatt of Connecticut, had passed away 
 in 1905; "Fighting Bob" La Follette had taken the place of Joseph V. 
 Quarles in the Senate; and La Follette's antithesis, John Coit Spooner, 
 was soon to refuse to make the fight for re-election, actually re- 
 signing his seat in 1907. Allison and Aldrich remained, but Allison 
 and Aldrich were not as compatible as formerly. Jonathan P. 
 Dolliver, Allison's junior partner, worked with the Standpatters only 
 out of personal loyalty to Allison. Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana 
 was beginning to lead the way toward the victory for the direct pri- 
 mary system and the inheritance tax. 17 
 
 Worst of all for the Standpatters, President Roosevelt, in his annual 
 
ALLISON AND ROOSEVELT 299 
 
 message to Congress on December 5, 1905, showed that he was in full 
 sympathy with the new spirit. He asserted that there must be a grant 
 of power to an agency that could decide upon reasonable maximum 
 railroad rates, subject to review by the courts. Evils such as passes, 
 cuts in passenger rates, and fictitious damages (damage claims paid so 
 as to serve as a discrimination in favor of certain shippers) must be 
 outlawed. Only rate agreements that were favorable to the public 
 must be allowed, if such agreements were to be made between rail- 
 roads. Other points minor in nature were also advanced. 
 
 Shortly after the Christmas recess Congressman Hepburn of Iowa 
 was ready with a new bill cast in the form of amendments to the 
 Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. This "second" Hepburn Bill 
 empowered the Interstate Commerce Commission, among other things, 
 to establish maximum freight rates subject to court review. After 
 study it went through his Committee on Interstate and Foreign Com- 
 merce and was rewritten as a new bill. After this bill had been de- 
 bated in Committee, still another version, the third, was introduced 
 and became the Hepburn Act of history. 18 
 
 Now ensued a most involved and dramatic legislative battle. 19 The 
 possibility that the Chief Executive may be the Chief Legislator as 
 well was never more clearly demonstrated than in the fight for legisla- 
 tion that would put teeth into the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 
 and bring the railroads under effective regulation. President Roosevelt 
 virtually took over the management of the fight to put the Hepburn 
 Bill through Congress, so much so that it might well be called the 
 "Roosevelt Bill." 20 He was the one who, more than anyone else, 
 fought for a remedial act, using every resource and never relenting 
 until a measure of relief had been enacted. In waging this fight 
 Roosevelt called on Allison to be his captain in the Senate, a great 
 honor, perhaps, but a heavy responsibility as well for a man of Allison's 
 years. His colleague, Dolliver, now a favorite with Roosevelt, would 
 be an able assistant. 
 
 There was never much doubt that the bill would go through the 
 House. The hard fight would take place in the Senate, where Nelson 
 W. Aldrich was commander of the forces opposed to the bill. What a 
 spectacle this afforded! What a puzzle for those who must have their 
 history in solid black and white! Aldrich, one type of Republican, 
 opposed Roosevelt, also a Republican, but one who was much in- 
 clined to experimentalism; Aldrich, an unashamed believer in a system 
 
300 William Boyd Allison 
 
 of government that put Business at the top, opposed to a man who 
 could say that he was trying to save Business by saving it from itself. 
 
 Aldrich's tactic was to delay and postpone, apparently in the hope 
 that something would happen to weaken or kill the whole effort. For 
 this reason he favored reporting the bill from committee in an un- 
 amended form, thus depriving Dolliver, who was also a member of the 
 committee, of any chance to make capital for the bill or himself by in- 
 fluencing the committee to amend the bill as he desired. In getting the 
 bill out of committee, Aldrich also secured the passage of a motion to 
 allow each committee member the right to propose amendments from 
 the floor. Thus the battleground would be the Senate floor, where 
 Aldrich had many powerful allies, and not the committee room, 
 where Dolliver had more friends than Aldrich. At the same time 
 Aldrich took advantage of the desire of the Democrats to share in the 
 credit for the reform bill by craftily arranging for one of their mem- 
 bers, Benjamin M. Tillman, to be the floor leader of the fight for the 
 bill. Tillman, a brilliant but radical and eccentric Senator from South 
 Carolina, known to his day and to history as "Pitchfork Ben," was a 
 bitter personal enemy of Roosevelt. The two men had not spoken for 
 years, and now Tillman was to be the floor leader for the President's 
 bill! But Roosevelt was equal to this emergency; he arranged to 
 communicate with Tillman through the good offices of ex-Senator 
 William E. Chandler of New Hampshire. 21 
 
 The matter dragged on from January to May, 1906, by which time 
 the principal obstacle seemed to be the inability to agree on the powers 
 of the courts to review the rulings of the Interstate Commerce Com- 
 mission. Should they be broad or narrow? This seemed to be the im- 
 passable road block. Aldrich and his allies, the "railroad Senators," 
 wanted to keep the traditional broad powers. In this way the orders 
 of the Commission might be subjected to endless litigation and delay, 
 and the railroads could gain their point by indirection. Attorney Gen- 
 eral Moody drafted an amendment affirming the right of the railroads 
 to ask for a court review of the Commission's decisions. Senator 
 Philander C. Knox of Pennsylvania rejected this and offered one as- 
 serting the right of the courts to pass on the "lawfulness" of the 
 orders of the Commission. Moody, as Roosevelt's adviser, in turn re- 
 jected this on grounds of vagueness and the prospect it offered of 
 endless litigation. Senator Chester I. Long of Kansas presented an 
 amendment which, if adopted, would have ruled out any judicial 
 
ALLISON AND ROOSEVELT 301 
 
 review of the facts of a case whatsoever, since the court could only 
 determine whether, on any given order, the Commission had exceeded 
 its power or violated the constitutional rights of the carrier. Roosevelt 
 endorsed this, 22 but now Senator Joseph W. Bailey of Texas and his 
 wing rose up to oppose it, because it seemed to be giving too much 
 power to the administrative agency. Bailey countered with an amend- 
 ment concerning the injunction power, one depriving the courts of the 
 authority to issue temporary writs suspending rate orders. 
 
 Roosevelt and Allison, fearing that Aldrich might go along with 
 the Bailey suggestions, quickly countered with an amendment thought 
 up by Spooner, the expert constitutional lawyer, which would force 
 the roads to put into escrow, pending a decision, whatever amount 
 was in dispute if the roads had secured a suspension of the rates. This 
 would protect all parties, but at the same time it would prevent mere 
 delaying tactics by the roads; they could not afford to put millions of 
 dollars in escrow unless they were really sincere in their requests for 
 a review. 
 
 The next move was made by the Democrats, who caucused and de- 
 cided not to go along with Bailey and Tillman, their own men. 
 Roosevelt then had two choices: to come up with something more ex- 
 treme or to return to the simpler provisions of the original Hepburn 
 Bill supplemented with acceptable amendments. He chose the latter 
 course and embarked upon it, but only with the help of William Boyd 
 Allison as his principal agent in interviewing Senators for his cause. 
 Allison performed efficient and valiant service, as Roosevelt acknowl- 
 edged. 23 Not only that, he offered and carried through, partly be- 
 cause of the magic of his name and the trust and esteem in which he 
 was held, the key amendment that insured passage of the bill. 
 
 The debate had been brought to the point where passage absolutely 
 depended on some agreement as to the powers of the courts to review 
 the orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission. How far could 
 Congress go in limiting or defining the judicial power? There were 
 two obvious courses of action: ignore the matter and let the courts 
 decide for themselves when future suits would necessitate construction 
 of the statute; or define the power in precise terms. The railroad 
 spokesmen would not agree to the former, and those who favored 
 regulation could not object to the latter. What was needed was a 
 formula that would please the Standpatters and enable enough others 
 to vote for it to insure passage. This formula was brought forth by 
 
302 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Allison, but, due to illness, his good friend Cullom acted as his agent in 
 putting it before the Senate. It was long and technical; the separate 
 points were adopted one by one after a lengthy and serious debate, 
 lofty in tone. By its principal provisions, the circuit courts were 
 given power to "enjoin, set aside, annul or suspend" the orders of 
 the Commission; the latter must be given five days' notice to allow 
 time for the preparation of a protest; the hearing must then go before 
 a three-judgcTcourt. 24 
 
 Although this is known as the "Allison Amendment," a moot ques- 
 tion is the identity of the real author. The chances are that this piece 
 of legislation, like most, was the work of a whole battery of lawyers and 
 transportation experts. Let him who doubts this read the Congres- 
 sional Record, 59th Congress, 1st Session, containing the brilliant and 
 highly involved debate that followed between Aldrich, Tillman, 
 Bailey, Charles W. Fulton of Oregon, Augustus O. Bacon of Georgia, 
 and other able constitutional lawyers. 
 
 Yet a considerable controversy has arisen over the question of 
 authorship. Aldrich's biographer has claimed for him and the "astute 
 lawyers" behind him the major share of the credit. The "amend- 
 ments" should be named after Aldrich, he writes; "it is fanciful to 
 call them the 'Allison Amendments' [5/(7]." Later, a story was 
 told that Allison had not heard of "his" amendment until he was 
 asked by reporters as he was boarding a train to explain his brain 
 child. 25 But more important than these ex post facto assertions is the 
 fact that Allison himself greeted the first public announcement of 
 the clauses bearing his name with a denial of paternity! 
 
 How could this happen? The chronology is as follows: the "Allison" 
 amendment was first publicly announced on May 4, not by Allison 
 but by President Roosevelt, who called in the reporters and told them 
 he had accepted the Allison formula. The next day it was reported 
 that the Iowa Senator had disclaimed the full authorship; he had 
 merely suggested it; Senator Charles W. Fulton of Oregon was the 
 principal author. The next few days were complicated by Allison's 
 illness. He attended the Senate on the morning of the 8th but remained 
 in his room in the afternoon, hence the role of Senator Cullom as his 
 agent and spokesman. Allison reappeared in the Senate on May 11, 
 looking well. In the days that followed he took a full part in the run- 
 ning debate and ably defended his proposals, item by item, winning 
 special praise from Senator Dolliver for his common-sense explana- 
 
 
ALLISON AND ROOSEVELT 303 
 
 tions, unclouded by the intricacies of constitutional law. 26 As in the 
 case of the amendments to the Bland Bill of a long departed day, 
 Allison did not claim sole authorship but warmly defended the pro- 
 posals that now bore his name. 
 
 The key question that naturally suggests itself is: what happened 
 between the 5 th, when Allison's denial was reported, and the 8th, when 
 Cullom introduced his amendment for him? The natural assumption 
 would be that somebody went to Allison and persuaded him to let 
 the President use his name because of the weight that it would carry 
 with doubtful members and with the public. This charge has been 
 made by one student of the period, but it cannot be so; the origins 
 of the amendment go back of these dates. 27 
 
 President Roosevelt is his own best defendant in this case. Almost a 
 month earlier, he had written to Senator Knute Nelson of Minnesota, 
 outlining the strategy to be used. He clearly alluded to "Allison's 
 amendment," also to the partnership of Roosevelt and Allison in 
 working for the bill, and counseled breaking up the amendment into 
 two parts. This would seem to prove that Allison had at least heard 
 of his amendment before the reporters made it known to him. More 
 importantly, Roosevelt wrote to Allison on May 5 : 
 
 I am informed by ex-Senator Chandler that Senator Dolliver denies today on 
 your authority, that the so-called "Allison amendment" is yours. This is 
 the amendment which you brought to me the other day. I told you that the 
 amendment was absolutely unobjectionable, and in my judgment no one 
 who chose to exercise an intelligent judgment could in good faith object to 
 it, because it leaves the Hepburn bill, as regards the court review, absolutely 
 unchanged. . . . 
 
 I write this because I do not wish there to be any misunderstanding. I ex- 
 pressed my hearty acquiescence in the amendment when you presented it 
 to me, and I remain heartily acquiescent in it. 28 
 
 In a letter written a few days later to one Edward Payson Bacon, 
 the President strongly defended the Allison amendment; 29 perhaps 
 he did so in letters to others. Some six days later he wrote Allison, 
 giving a long summary of the history of the fight for the Hepburn 
 Bill to date. One vital sentence reads as follows: "Shortly after this 
 you in company with Senator Cullom called upon me with the amend- 
 ment which is now commonly called the Allison amendment." 30 Years 
 later Roosevelt wrote: "Finally both sides reluctantly agreed to accept 
 the so-called Allison amendment which did not, as a matter of fact, 
 work any change in the bill at all. The amendment was drawn by 
 
304 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Attorney-General Moody after consultation with the Inter-State 
 Commerce Commission, and was forwarded by me to Senator Dolliver; 
 it was accepted, and the bill became law." 31 
 
 Allison in a certain mood might very well have denied authorship, 
 either in disgust at seeing himself so handily used by the aggressive 
 Roosevelt or in honest deference to the fact that the President had had 
 so large a part in the construction not only of the amendment but of 
 the entire bill. Allison had been Roosevelt's agent to work the cloak- 
 rooms and persuade the doubtful members on this bill. All of these 
 comments seem to indicate that there was without doubt an "Allison 
 Amendment," whether or not the title is an accurate one. If it is 
 reasonable to call the "Hepburn" bill a "Roosevelt" bill, then by the 
 same logic it is reasonable to call the "Allison" amendment the 
 "Roosevelt" amendment. 
 
 By way of final judgment in the light of the above evidence, it 
 seems that one may well agree with the conclusion: "The authorship 
 of the amendment . . . remains obscure. Whoever wrote it, Allison 
 guided it." 32 Perhaps this is honor enough. Certainly it is difficult 
 to think of any other Senator in that session who could have served 
 the President so well and at the same time retained the confidence of 
 all the other members of the body and at last secured the necessary 
 votes for the key clause of the bill. Every deliberative body needs a 
 genius of this sort; fortunate is the group that possesses a William Boyd 
 Allison. This trait moved W. R. Boyd, the Cedar Rapids publisher 
 who knew him so well, to emphasize Senator Hoar's verdict: Allison 
 has a genius for attaining the unattainable. 33 
 
 Who won in this battle of wits and politics between the President 
 and the Senator from Rhode Island? A variety of opinions have been 
 expressed. An argument can be and has been made in favor of a 
 complete victory for Aldrich. This argument cites debates to show 
 that the "narrow-review" people blunderingly admitted their defeat. 
 Another point of view sees a victory for Roosevelt, who got just what 
 he wanted: a bill that did not specifically state the terms of review 
 but left this question to the courts themselves. This is what the 
 Allison measure provided. 34 Still another claim has been made that 
 the amendment was brought about by a "combination of the con- 
 servatives and the waverers; it was the final outcome of the maneuvers 
 of Aldrich; it was so worded as to allow the progressives, by sophisti- 
 cated arguments, to save their faces; and it entirely defeated the pri- 
 
ALLISON AND ROOSEVELT 305 
 
 mary purpose of the bill to which the President apparently had been 
 committed." 35 
 
 The verdict might well be left to neutral observers of a later date. 
 By one it is seen as a divided victory; the "reformers" won in so far as 
 they prevented the railroads from turning the courts into a delaying 
 agency. The Commission was now to be a "really competent ad- 
 ministrative board" as long as it stayed within the Constitution. 
 Secondly, the burden of proof was now put upon the railroads, not the 
 Commission. The railroads won on one point, however; any rate or 
 any practice that was complained of was left in force until a decision 
 had been made. 36 The "Allison Amendment" was "extremely vague" 
 in phraseology in the opinion of one eminent authority, who finds that 
 the courts "virtually sustained" the constitutional arguments of the 
 proponents of "narrow review" and the validity of the Commission 
 principle. In other words, the courts upheld the ideas contained in the 
 amendment attributed to Senator Long of Kansas. 37 
 
 Allison's work was not done when he presented the saving amend- 
 ment and secured its passage. As part of the furious maneuvering that 
 had made up the fight, the President had deserted the coalition he had 
 made with Senators Tillman and Bailey. Several days later Tillman 
 good-naturedly confessed to the Senate that he had been "taken in" 
 when he agreed to play his part. In the course of his remarks he as- 
 serted that the President had accused Senators Knox, Foraker, and 
 Spooner of chicanery. When Roosevelt heard of this he impetuously 
 called the remark "a deliberate and unqualified falsehood." Both 
 Tillman and Chandler produced evidence to prove the point; then 
 Roosevelt compounded the trouble by saying that Tillman had in- 
 itiated the use of Chandler as an agent in the negotiations. Now it 
 was the turn of Chandler and Tillman to call the President a liar. 
 Roosevelt retaliated by imputing double-dealings to Senator Bailey 
 of Texas. The Texan now joined the game of name-calling by ac- 
 cusing Roosevelt of being "an unqualified, deliberate, and malicious 
 liar." 38 At this point Roosevelt again used Allison's reputation as 
 the "grand old man" of the Senate. He wrote Allison a long letter, 
 giving a full history of the whole episode; the letter was released to 
 the newspapers, and Allison accommodated Roosevelt by having it 
 inserted in the Congressional Record.' 69 All in all, it seems clear that 
 the President again had relied on Allison as his "front," and that the 
 Iowa Senator had played the role faithfully and well to the end. 
 
306 William Boyd Allison 
 
 The passage of the Hepburn Act was in part a concession to the 
 forces that were demanding reform. For years a spirit of unrest had 
 been growing, a spirit fed by a literature of exposure that was a 
 feature of the time. Originating as far back as 1894 with the revela- 
 tion of certain malpractices of the Standard Oil Company by Henry 
 Demarest Lloyd, and continued by Ida M. Tarbell in the early 1900's, 
 the popularity of this type of literature increased noticeably with the 
 shocking disclosures made by Lincoln Steffens, Charles Edward Russell, 
 Upton Sinclair, and others. In a soundly documented and unspectacu- 
 lar fashion, exposure was made of acts and practices that ran all the 
 way from unethical procedures that were barely within the law to 
 outright crime. Disregarding his own indebtedness to these writers 
 for their aid to his reform program, President Roosevelt unfairly gave 
 them the label of "muckrakers." 
 
 Up to 1906 the output of the muckrakers had been virtually im- 
 peccable in both taste and scholarship. Unfortunately, that year 
 brought a change in this type of literature. A tendency toward sen- 
 sationalism crept in, and by 1908 "muckraking" had degenerated into 
 yellow-sheet journalism of the worst sort. 40 
 
 The turning point might well be indentified with the appearance 
 in William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan Magazine of a series 
 of articles by the well-known novelist, David Graham Phillips, en- 
 titled "The Treason of the Senate." 41 Nelson W. Aldrich, Stephen B. 
 Elkins, Chauncey Depew, Boies Penrose, James Kean, Joseph B. 
 Foraker, Joseph W. Bailey, John C. Spooner, Arthur P. Gorman, and 
 many others, including Allison, were subjects of the muckraking pen 
 of the Indiana author. Phillips was not a political reporter; he was a 
 novelist and short-story writer who had been persuaded to undertake 
 the assignment by Bailey Millard, the Cosmopolitan's editor, who 
 wanted him because of his vitriolic pen. At the most only a few 
 months were spent in gathering and writing up the material for the 
 articles. In his search for material, Phillips was assisted by Gustavus 
 Myers, later the author of The History of Great American Fortunes, 
 and Harrison Phillips, a kinsman. 42 
 
 The articles made no effort to present a balanced view of the 
 careers of the subjects. In a sensational manner the author endeavored 
 to demonstrate that Aldrich and Gorman were not honest leaders of 
 the Senate, Republican and Democratic respectively, but merely cor- 
 rupt politicians who had entered into a "merger" to act together in 
 
ALLISON AND ROOSEVELT 307 
 
 the service of Big Business and themselves. Many other Senators had 
 joined in this conspiracy, according to Phillips, hence the "treason" 
 of the Senate, treason to the American people and to the principle of 
 representative government. 
 
 As for Allison, there is little that needs to be said, because Phillips 
 said so little about him. If Allison paid any attention to the article, he 
 must have smiled at the small space accorded to him in spite of his posi- 
 tion as chairman of the Republican conference and of the steering com- 
 mittee, and his prominence in all the deliberations in the areas of 
 finance, appropriations, and interstate commerce. The principal 
 charges leveled against him were two: he was a millionaire (along with 
 Aldrich, Elkins, and others) ; and he had had a hand in some shady 
 railroad promotion in Iowa in the 1860's. 
 
 The first charge was a familiar one, entirely without basis; ever 
 since his early congressional years opponents and critics had harped 
 on Allison's "wealth." There was some good-natured joking among 
 his close friends about his "millions." No one would have been happier 
 than Allison to be a millionaire, but he had not even distantly ap- 
 proached that mark, in spite of all his good connections with railroad 
 presidents, bankers, politicians, and others who were on the inside of 
 big deals. He had played the market in a small way early in his public 
 career, along with General Dodge and James F. Wilson. He had re- 
 ceived frequent tips from David A. Wells and Edward Atkinson, the 
 liberal economists and reformers. But had it not been for the legacy 
 from his second wife it is doubtful if Allison's holdings would have 
 totalled more than a few thousand dollars in cash and securities, his 
 modest home in Dubuque, and the small place in Washington that 
 he had shared with Mrs. Grimes until her death in 1890, and which he 
 had lately rented furnished to George E. Roberts to save himself the 
 upkeep. 
 
 As for the shady railroad dealings, it has been shown in this study 
 that he is subject to criticism for his close approach to the borderline 
 of propriety for his questionable services to John I. Blair in 1868-1869 
 and his subservience to Morris K. Jesup. Those actions were all a part 
 of the era of low standards in political and business morality. Like 
 many others, Allison had put this behind him. Phillips had nothing 
 to say of the railroad reforms then in progress and Allison's effective 
 part in them, not to mention his role in the passage of the first great 
 reform of 1887. The novelist turned muckraker should have had 
 
308 William Boyd Allison 
 
 more to say against Allison or he should have omitted him altogether 
 from his list of "traitors." 
 
 While Allison maintained his power and prestige in Washington, 
 trouble loomed on the Iowa political scene. His rule there was being 
 challenged more seriously than ever before, as the war between the 
 Standpatters and the Progressives grew in fury. Allison and Cummins 
 had not yet come to an open break in their personal relations, but 
 Cummins, now-seeking a third nomination for the governorship, had 
 thrown off all pretense that he could ever make peace with the Blythe- 
 managed pro-railroad forces; on their side, they returned the com- 
 pliment with interest. 
 
 Early in 1906 Cummins wrote to Robert M. La Follette, who had 
 just won election to the Senate in Wisconsin and who was the acknowl- 
 edged leader of the Progressives: 
 
 In this state we are in the midst of another struggle which bids fair to be a 
 cyclone as compared with the zephyrs that have gone before. While I am 
 more reluctant than it is possible for me to express to again lead the fight, it 
 is more than probable that I will have to do it, or allow our forces to dis- 
 integrate, and our movement for better things to be checked. All the rail- 
 roads, and all the vicious, evil influences of politics will be arrayed against 
 us. 43 
 
 It soon became clear that the man who had been chosen to oppose 
 Cummins for the Republican gubernatorial nomination was George D. 
 Perkins, editor and publisher of the Sioux City Journal, a former 
 Harlanite who had long since made his way into the Allison camp, a 
 man who might well be described as an "enlightened conservative. " 
 Cummins, who knew that the fight would be a hard one, felt justi- 
 fied in trying for a third consecutive term, the first man in Iowa 
 history to do this. "I believe Mr. Perkins' nomination and election 
 would be a complete surrender to the very worst elements in Iowa 
 politics," Cummins wrote to a friend. "I have no doubt that he is, 
 personally, an honest man, but I know that his candidacy is inspired 
 by Mr. Blythe, and that he must win, if he wins at all, through the 
 help of the combined and united railway strength." 44 
 
 The struggle for delegates in the nominating convention went on 
 for months. Smith W. Brookhart, then in the early stages of his 
 colorful career, was one who received commendation from Cummins 
 for his good work in the pre-convention campaign: "You must be 
 omnipresent, for I hear of your work everywhere. I did not believe 
 
ALLISON AND ROOSEVELT 309 
 
 it was possible for you or anyone to infuse such energy into the cam- 
 paign as is now manifest in your part of the state." 45 Many other 
 loyal and enthusiastic disciples carried the Cummins doctrine through- 
 out the state, while the Register and Leader waged relentless war 
 against Blythe and Perkins, especially the former. 
 
 It was in connection with his campaign for the third-term nomi- 
 nation that Cummins made the statement denying his intention to run 
 against Allison for the Senate, a statement that was soon to become 
 famous as the "Torbert Letter" which would rise to haunt him 
 two years hence. The politics of the times dictated that Cummins 
 must not antagonize those Allison supporters who were willing to go 
 along with the new Progressive ideas while remaining personally 
 loyal to Allison. This was the position occupied by Major W. H. 
 Torbert, a friend and neighbor of the Senator since Allison's early 
 years in Dubuque. Seemingly designed to reassure Major Torbert and 
 others of similar position, the letter of April 19, 1906, was a clear 
 expression of Cummins' current attitude toward Allison: 
 
 I note what you say with respect to Senator Allison. I am not a candidate for 
 Senator Allison's place, nor have I ever suggested such a thing to mortal man. 
 It is simply abominable, the way my enemies lie about me. I am a candidate 
 for governor — nothing else — and it would be just as appropriate for me 
 to deny that I was a candidate for President of the United States or appoint- 
 ment to some vacancy upon the Supreme Court of the United States as to 
 deny a candidacy against Senator Allison. It is unmitigated rot, and should 
 not deceive any man. 46 
 
 The letter to Torbert, which was not made public at this time, 
 probably contributed some strength to the Cummins cause in the 
 Dubuque area, where Major Torbert could circulate its contents, but 
 it could hardly have been a determining factor in the persuasion of 
 delegates from the state as a whole. The bitterly fought cam- 
 paign ended with an even more bitterly fought convention in which 
 Cummins added another victory to his list by a vote of 933 to 603 
 for Perkins and 104 for S. W. Rathbun. 47 In all of these proceedings, 
 Allison was publicly neutral, however much his usual allies took the 
 side of Perkins. 
 
 Now the party must try to heal its self-inflicted wounds and to 
 present as solid a front as possible to the voters. This proved to be an 
 impossibility in spite of the appeals made by Cummins to Allison and 
 Tama Jim Wilson for their meliorating influence. Taking note of 
 
310 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Allison's poor health, Cummins offered to come to Dubuque and 
 talk politics whenever Allison was sufficiently recovered to see him; 
 he also suggested that Allison issue a statement in the form of a public 
 letter instead of the customary speech opening the canvass to which 
 his seniority entitled him. From Wilson, Cummins hoped for a speech 
 or at least a letter. 48 
 
 In spite of Cummins' best efforts at closing the breach in the party, 
 he was not successful. In a rash of ticket-scratching, voters left the 
 party in frightening numbers. Cummins' vote was 215,995, a bare 
 fraction over 50 per cent of the total; his Democratic opponent, 
 Claude R. Porter, received 196,123, and the four minor party can- 
 didates a total of 19,287. This left Cummins a dangerously small 
 margin of 1,585 over his combined opposition. It is a safe speculation 
 that there were many thrown-away Republican votes among those 
 19,287 ballots garnered by the minor parties, just as there had been in 
 1901 and 1903, when their returns were almost identical. In 1901 
 Cummins' share of the total had reached 58 per cent; in 1903, 57 per 
 cent; now it had fallen to a bare 50 per cent. Well might a bitter 
 Standpat Republican have wished that he had been able to bring 
 himself to vote for a Democrat and thus cook the Cummins goose 
 once and for all. 
 
 Cummins' victory enabled him to go ahead with efforts to secure 
 enactment of the Progressive proposal, taken over from the Populists, 
 for the popular election of United States Senators. It would have been 
 completely natural for him to think that he might successfully take 
 his senatorial case to the people, thus circumventing the Conservative 
 majority in the legislature which had balked him on two occasions and 
 which always threatened to do so as long as the railroads and other 
 large business interests had political power. Of course there were other 
 factors that helped to account for the growing support for the pro- 
 posal. For one thing, the Cosmopolitan series on "The Treason of the 
 Senate" had had its effect. 49 Popular election of Senators was one part 
 of the growing creed of those who believed in the efficacy of direct 
 elections as a cure for the current ills of representative government. 
 
 An earlier General Assembly had authorized a call for a national 
 conference of Governors to consider a constitutional amendment pro- 
 viding for popular senatorial elections. Governor Cummins followed 
 up his 1906 victory by issuing the call for this conference, to meet in 
 Des Moines on December 5. Thirty delegates from eleven states ac- 
 
ALLISON AND ROOSEVELT 311 
 
 tually attended, and many Governors sent encouraging messages; the 
 result was the passage of a resolution strongly urging Congress to 
 submit such an amendment. 
 
 Partly as a result of this, and certainly in furtherance of the 
 Cummins-Progressive program for greater participation by the people 
 in their own government, the General Assembly of 1907 passed a 
 direct primary law providing for the nomination of state officers by 
 party primaries and for the choice of a party senatorial candidate 
 at the same election. This was the same type of legislation that 
 Cummins had requested in his inaugural message. 50 
 
 The workings of the direct primary law, as applied to senatorial 
 elections, were intended to serve as a bypass of the old system of 
 legislative elections until the national plan for direct elections could 
 be secured by a constitutional amendment. Presumably, the party 
 caucuses in the legislature would be required to name the candidate 
 chosen by the voters in the primary, although there was no such 
 stipulation in the law. 
 
 Meanwhile, the General Assembly had followed the old plan in 
 the re-election of Senator Jonathan P. Dolliver on January 21, 1907, 
 thus providing for the continuation of the teamwork between Allison 
 and the junior Senator, now recognized as one of the most brilliant 
 orators in the Senate. There had been some grumbling among the ex- 
 treme Standpatters about Dolliver's liberalism and his inclinations 
 toward Progressivism, but the only alternative was Cummins. Of 
 course, they preferred to stand by Dolliver with his known allegiance 
 to Allison. Bad feeling between Dolliver and Cummins, due to 
 Dolliver's support of George D. Perkins in 1906, added fuel to these 
 fires of intraparty conflict. 51 
 
 An inventory of the political situation in both Iowa and the nation 
 reveals the stalemate that had been reached in the fight between the 
 factions. The challenges of the Progressives had been met by com- 
 promise; the formula of the "Iowa Idea" had been adopted as an 
 answer to the tariff problem; railroad reform had become a reality; 
 nationally, the exposures of the muckrakers had been followed up with 
 beneficial results. Only the most reactionary could in good conscience 
 object to the changes made to date. And yet a certain malaise lingered 
 among the leaders. 
 
 Perhaps the "bankers' panic" of 1907 contributed to this feeling. 
 "The country is in a very nervous condition," General Dodge wrote 
 
312 William Boyd Allison 
 
 to Allison, "not for anything that has occurred [in Wall Street], or 
 in my opinion, that will occur, but the attacks of the States, & the 
 fear of what the President is going to do, & then the foolish talk of 
 the railroad presidents about going into bankruptcy, 2c fares, etc. 
 has created a disturbance in the country that is unnatural and uncalled 
 for." 52 James S. Clarkson showed how far he had gone in imbibing 
 the Rooseveltian doctrine of "malefactors of great wealth" by de- 
 claring in a letter to Louis T. Michener: "These are times to make the 
 old-timers hold their breath. I can imagine how you feel about the 
 attempt of the one per cent of Americans who have been seeking to 
 make all the profit in this country and to lay the other ninety-nine per 
 cent under tribute and slavery, attempting now to automobile the 
 President off the track." 53 George E. Roberts, safely out of the battle 
 after almost getting caught in the thick of it before selling the Des 
 Moines Register, analyzed the public state of mind as follows: "There 
 is more pleasure in the memories of Iowa politics of twenty years ago 
 than in mixing in Iowa politics of the present. Jealousy, suspicion 
 of public men, hatred & bitterness poison the air out there. I think 
 there will be a fight on Allison if he lives & is a candidate for re- 
 election. The state is fat with prosperity but strangely discon- 
 tented." 54 
 
 Truly a new day had come in Iowa senatorial politics. The era of 
 easy Allison victories was a thing of the past. Now the aging leader 
 was faced with a contest in which very conceivably he could be beaten. 
 George Roberts, with true analytical skill, had put his finger on the 
 trouble. 
 
 The issue was reform (Progressivism) versus maintenance of the 
 status quo (Conservatism) , but it would be fought in terms of persons 
 and personalities. In the eyes of the people, "reform" and "Albert B. 
 Cummins" were synonymous terms; the question was, would Allison 
 lend his name to the Conservatives? George Roberts had said: "there 
 will be a fight on Allison if he lives & is a candidate for re-election." 
 
 "If he lives." The date of his conjecture was April 4, 1907. 
 
gfwj&f^ 
 
 ti 
 
 XIX* 
 
 Exit in Triumph 
 
 When the Fifty-ninth Congress adjourned on March 4, 1907, 
 Allison was only twenty-five days short of his seventy-eighth birth- 
 day. The time was rapidly approaching when a decision would have 
 to be made as to his candidacy for a seventh term. Yet a positive 
 action was difficult for him to take; either the state of his health or a 
 disposition to assume that the office should naturally be his without a 
 party contest seemed to hold him back. Perhaps it was a combination 
 of both. 
 
 There is no doubt that Allison's health had declined, even if the 
 critical stage had not yet been reached. Almost every letter to or from 
 him makes some reference to his condition; his most devoted friends 
 commented on it to each other. Shortly after adjournment General 
 Dodge wrote to Allison that he had received a good report through 
 Allison's nephew and urged him to come out to Council Bluffs for a 
 visit, "if you feel able. . . . Perhaps you may not feel like leaving home 
 with your troubles." Allison did not accept the invitation, but he 
 responded: "I think you and I are both fortunate in being as well as 
 we are, taking into acc't our advanced years. . . . My own health is 
 very good now excepting my local trouble which seems to be improv- 
 ing. General health is good and I am able to do considerable work 
 during the day." * In May, Thomas P. Cleaves, clerk of the Senate 
 Appropriations Committee, wrote to Lee McNeely, Allison's private 
 secretary: "I am extremely gratified to hear such a favorable report on 
 the Senator's improvement and progress and sincerely hope he will . . . 
 
 313 
 
314 William Boyd Allison 
 
 fully regain his former excellent health." Probably no other people 
 on earth knew Allison as well as these two men, or were less inclined 
 to deceive each other with insincere optimism about his health. 2 
 
 Although the Iowa primary election would not be held until June 
 of 1908, Allison's friends were already pressing him to make an an- 
 nouncement of his candidacy. As early as April, 1907, Congressman 
 Benjamin P. Birdsall wrote to Dolliver that Governor Cummins had 
 told him he expected to run for the Senate and was debating the date 
 of his formal announcement. Birdsall hoped that Allison would soon 
 make his own announcement, yea or nay; a negative decision, however 
 sincerely made on account of failing health, would appear to be a 
 surrender if made after Cummins' declaration. 3 This intervention 
 brought no response, however. Allison might be pardoned for a 
 certain apathy concerning an election that would not take place for 
 almost a year. It had been so long since he had had to make a contest 
 in a popular election that perhaps he did not realize the amount of 
 time needed to arouse public opinion. Moreover, he seemed to think 
 it beneath his dignity to scramble for the office so far in advance, and 
 it took considerable pressure from certain sources to extract a formal 
 announcement from him. 
 
 The spokesman of the "force Allison to announce" movement was 
 Ernest E. Hart, a prominent attorney of Council Bluffs and a member 
 of the Republican national committee. Hart talked with Allison in 
 Chicago and later confirmed their conversation in a series of letters, 
 the first on June 22. He had reported to some of the Allison backers 
 in Iowa, Hart wrote, and "they are still more insistent than before I 
 left [for Chicago] on definite information as to your being a can- 
 didate." Admitting that it was humiliating for Allison to have to 
 make an announcement so early, Hart added that it was generally as- 
 sumed in Iowa that Cummins would announce for the senatorship, 
 and if Allison did not make a formal announcement it would give 
 the opposition a chance to say that he considered the senatorial place 
 as his private property. "In fact, my dear Senator," Hart continued, 
 "I have some doubts as to whether or not you realize the state of 
 mind which these ardent advocates of the Governor get into. It 
 seems a species of insanity." 
 
 As to organization and procedure, Hart suggested a manager who 
 was "quick and alert, and one of large acquaintance in the state. The 
 clerical work of course could be taken care of by such a bright young 
 
 
EXIT IN TRIUMPH 315 
 
 man as your secretary, and others whom he could call about him." 
 Hart then recommended that Allison make his announcement through 
 the Associated Press. "Your long experience however in political mat- 
 ters will enable you to see more clearly than I can the best course to 
 be pursued." Allison replied to this appeal: "I wish of course so far 
 as I can, to meet the wishes of yourself and the friends you name, but 
 it seems to me that a public proclamation from me is not necessary, 
 at least at the present time." 4 
 
 Not satisfied with this prospect of delay, Hart again insisted on a 
 definite announcement. He reported that a Cummins enthusiast, H. 
 W. Byers of Harlan, had recently been in Council Bluffs and had left 
 the impression that a "systematic and strenuous campaign of oppo- 
 sition" would be conducted by the Cummins forces. Then, as his 
 closing argument, Hart quoted a letter just received from Joseph W. 
 Blythe, the recognized leader of the Standpat wing of the party in 
 Iowa, urging an explicit announcement. "I do not think that ought 
 to be postponed," Blythe had written, "or that it ought to be left 
 entirely for Mr. Allison to decide." In spite of this strong letter, 
 Allison still stubbornly refused to announce, replying on July 11: 
 "I do not feel that at this time I should make public confirmation of 
 my candidacy." 5 
 
 The Senator was not entirely inactive, however, and there was not 
 the least doubt that he intended to run. He and the "bright young 
 man" who served as his secretary were going ahead on their own to 
 solicit from all the Republican members of the Iowa delegation in 
 Congress lists of voters and other data on the Republicans in their 
 respective districts. Several of them replied favorably; one sent a 
 list in which every name was marked "C" or "P" for Conservative 
 or Progressive. 6 
 
 More important, Allison arranged for his junior colleague, Jonathan 
 P. Dolliver, to make a speech in his behalf. On August 23 Allison 
 wrote Dolliver the first of many letters in which he furnished am- 
 munition for Dolliver's use. This particular letter reviewed Allison's 
 position on the Hepburn Act and compared it favorably to a stand 
 taken by Secretary of War William Howard Taft. 7 
 
 At last, on August 26, 1907, Allison made the long awaited an- 
 nouncement, in an interview with reporters: 
 
 Senator Allison in response to an inquiry as to his candidacy for re-election 
 to the Senate, said: "The Associated Press is authorized to announce that I 
 
316 William Boyd Allison 
 
 will be a candidate before the primaries for the Republican nomination . . . 
 to succeed myself. I have invariably so indicated to friends when spoken to 
 on the subject & supposed it was generally understood throughout the state 
 that I was a candidate for re-election, but it having been intimated in certain 
 quarters that there was some doubt on the subject, & that probably I would 
 not again be a candidate, I feel that justice to all requires this definite 
 statement." 8 
 
 So now theLfat was in the fire. General Dodge followed up at once 
 with urgent advice that Allison's physical stamina should be exhibited. 
 "It would be well for you to attend some function away from home, 
 the State Fair or some such gathering. An object lesson does more than 
 anything else and it would stop the prattle of those who pretend you 
 are not well." Dodge added that he had seen Ret Clarkson, who had 
 sent assurances of readiness to help. Although in better health than 
 he had been for the last two years, Allison did not follow Dodge's 
 advice to appear at functions "away from home." Rather, he re- 
 mained in Dubuque during the fall months, made a number of public 
 speeches, and received visitors. In late September members of the 
 Inland Waterways Commission, en route to Keokuk by boat to meet 
 President Roosevelt, stopped at Dubuque and called on the Senator, 
 all reporting that they were delighted to find him in such good health. 9 
 
 Ernest E. Hart quickly organized an Allison Club in Council Bluffs; 
 soon there would be five hundred members, he wrote. "Many of the 
 people who were for Mr. Cummins for governor are against him on 
 this proposition. By this I mean people of standing and influence. The 
 net result will be [that] a great body of voters in this section will 
 follow such leadership." 10 
 
 In Washington, Ret Clarkson and Dodge met for luncheon and 
 talked over what they could do for Allison. Perkins of the Sioux City 
 Journal had sent a reporter to Clarkson for an interview, but Ret, 
 because of his official position, hesitated to give it to him until he had 
 consulted President Roosevelt. The President "will not allow me 
 to go to political conventions nor to write for the press on public 
 matters," Ret reported to Allison, "because he says whatever I say 
 would be taken as having been done by his direction." However, Ret 
 felt sure that Roosevelt would not interfere in the requested inter- 
 view, because of his "fervent friendship & . . . complete trust" in 
 Allison. "I can't understand how any man in Iowa can have an 
 ambition so vaulting as to think that he can get the Iowa people to 
 send him to the Senate in your place," Clarkson continued. He assured 
 
EXIT IN TRIUMPH 317 
 
 Allison that he would "go back to the tap-roots & call attention to 
 the great service you have rendered to Iowa, as well as to the nation, & 
 shall try to ring the old bells of lifelong friendship loudly enough to 
 call up the conscience of Iowa, if it needs reviving." This might be 
 called the classic statement of the feelings of the pro-Allisonians at 
 that time. Illinois had just re-elected Shelby M. Cullom, "of similar 
 age," Clarkson continued, and "Iowa cannot afford to demean itself 
 by not re-electing you." Nor, he concluded, could Iowa ignore the 
 claims of the nation to "the great service from you which it has been 
 receiving for so many years." Ret had struck the keynote; the Allison 
 papers throughout the campaign played upon the emotions of the 
 voters, with sentimental stories of Iowa's "Grand Old Man" and 
 with quotations from his colleagues in Congress as to the high position 
 he held among them. 11 
 
 Since the governorship was also up for election in 1908, Allison and 
 Dolliver for a time thought it would be good strategy to get Congress- 
 man Gilbert N. Haugen of Northwood to run for that office. 12 As a 
 banker and large landowner, Haugen might have proved to be a 
 magnet for Conservative votes if his name could have been coupled 
 with Allison's on the ticket. This idea was soon given up, however, 
 when it was discovered that Beryl F. Carroll of Bloomfield was already 
 well out in front as a Conservative candidate. A Carroll-Haugen con- 
 test would merely have enhanced the chances of the Progressive can- 
 didate, Lieutenant Governor Warren Garst. 13 
 
 For the record, it might be added that James S. Clarkson sent his 
 advice, as requested by General Dodge, but his suggestions reveal that 
 he was still living in the era of post-Civil War politics. 14 In a cam- 
 paign plan of eleven points, not one showed a full awareness of the 
 appeal of the reforming zeal of the Progressives. The only point Ret 
 offered applicable to the twentieth century was that stress should 
 be laid on Allison as one of the creators of the protective tariff system, 
 and this was a point not upheld by sound history and lacking popular 
 appeal compared to the "Iowa Idea." Moreover, it ran counter to the 
 current belief that the tariff was in need of revision downward. 
 
 Of more importance, historically, was Clarkson's effort to per- 
 suade Roosevelt that during his anticipated visit to Iowa he should 
 use his good offices to secure Governor Cummins' withdrawal from 
 the race. Actually, Cummins had not yet formally announced his 
 candidacy, but there was no doubt that he would be a candidate. If 
 

 3 1 8 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Cummins were to make it known that he would not contest Allison's 
 claims on the office, he would simply be deferring "his just ambition 
 and would put the whole State back of him when his time shall have 
 come," Clarkson wrote to Roosevelt. "You are sure to be consulted on 
 this in Iowa, and I believe you can bring about that which . . . will be 
 best for Cummins as for Allison, and far away best for the State and 
 the nation." 15 But President Roosevelt preferred the role of neutral 
 in this contest and very cleverly managed to avoid offense to either side. 
 
 In October the Allison campaign began to take on more drive. 
 First, Allison put himself on record as a party regular by publicly an- 
 nouncing that if in the coming primary in June, 1908, the voters 
 should express "preference for another," he would abide loyally by the 
 result. 16 This statement was probably elicited by the fact that many 
 Republicans claimed that the actions of the voters would not be 
 binding on the members of the General Assembly, some even threat- 
 ening to support the Democratic candidate, should their choice for 
 Senator not be chosen in the primary. To scotch this movement, 
 Allison, and later Cummins, both asserted that they meant to accept 
 the results of the primary. 
 
 Far more important is the beginning of a new series of letters, con- 
 tinuing those begun in August, which reveal the details of a well 
 thought out plan for firing the opening gun in Allison's campaign. 
 Briefly stated, the plan called for a dinner and public meeting in 
 Council Bluffs at which Jonathan Dolliver would deliver an address 
 in praise of Allison. 
 
 On October 8 Allison wrote to Dolliver, giving him a memorandum 
 on certain legislation involving the war with Spain and the policy in 
 Cuba and the Philippines, all of which had been considered in ap- 
 propriation bills and which he had helped to forward. He continued: 
 
 I have communicated with the Council Bluffs people and I have no doubt 
 they will extend to you an invitation to address the Club early in November, 
 I think it is of the utmost importance that you should do this and of course 
 what you say there will be widely disseminated. I cannot express to you my 
 appreciation of the service this will be to me to have this address made as you 
 propose. 17 
 
 Dolliver's reply reveals the spirit behind his service to Allison: "I 
 will make the speech as smooth as possible and will let you see it be- 
 fore I fire it off. I will make [it] short so that we can circulate it 
 through the Press and in pamphlet form. I wish I could make [it] 
 
EXIT IN TRIUMPH 319 
 
 equal to my affection for you and your claims on the good will of the 
 people of Iowa." 18 In reply Allison suggested that he make "a special 
 appeal to the young men of Iowa in my behalf. So many of them are 
 not personally acquainted with me who are personally acquainted with 
 you, & an appeal from you, a young man to the young men, I think 
 would be greatly appreciated." 19 
 
 The invitation from Council Bluffs to Dolliver was soon forth- 
 coming, exactly as Allison had assured him. Charles M. Harl of that 
 city sent Allison a copy of the letter that had been sent to Dolliver, 
 adding: "As you are aware, the first Allison Club organized for your 
 re-election was the Pottawattamie County Allison Club. We felt by 
 reason of his position as a junior senator from Iowa, his great ability, 
 his familiarity with your candidacy that an address from him would 
 be of great value not only locally but throughout the state." 20 Gen- 
 eral Dodge at once corroborated this information. 21 
 
 Allison took his cues promptly and wrote to Harl: "I have no doubt 
 Sen. Dolliver will accept the invitation and that he will be glad to 
 respond favorably. ... I especially appreciate your willingness to 
 accept the presidency of the Club and I am sure it is wise to enter upon 
 the campaign in the spirit expressed by you in your letter to Sen. 
 Dolliver. I am sure that this method of conducting a campaign will 
 have a tendency to promote harmony in the Republican party, which 
 is very much needed if we are to maintain the ascendancy of the party 
 in this state." 22 
 
 Still trying to help Dolliver in making the best possible case, Allison 
 sent him more data, this time about the rate bill, a topic which earlier 
 he had been willing to leave to Dolliver's own familiarity with the 
 facts. "I suggest that you look over the letter of the President to me, 
 found on Page 7098, Congressional Record, of date of May 15, 1906, 
 relating to the rate bill, if you shall discuss that. ... It may not be 
 wise to use this, but I merely call your attention to it that you may 
 think of it." 23 
 
 In reply, Dolliver asked Allison about the use of Cummins' letter 
 to W. H. Torbert in 1906 — the letter in which Cummins disclaimed 
 any intention of running for the Senate against Allison. Allison's reply 
 is worth noting in full because it reveals his disinclination to make use 
 of this controversial document. 
 
 Since receiving yours respecting the letter written by Gov. Cummins I 
 have thought the matter over carefully and have also ascertained as near as I 
 
320 William Boyd Allison 
 
 could the feeling of the person to whom the letter was written, respecting 
 the publication of the letter. It was written under such circumstances and in 
 such way as that I think the person to whom it was written wants himself 
 at the proper time to make it public and make it public here in this city and 
 the arguments used in favor of this method have so much weight with me 
 that I think it is better for you not to insert it in your speech at Council Bluffs, 
 and I think it would weaken the speech and lead to personalities that may 
 not be agreeable in any way. You know what the Governor said to you and 
 I have no doubt many others could testify likewise, but this particular letter 
 has surrounding it certain circumstances that make it important that it 
 should be published here. 24 
 
 Allison's last letter of counsel to Dolliver before the big Council 
 Bluffs meeting was concerned mainly with publicity methods. He 
 suggested that copies of the speech should be sent to the Fort Dodge 
 Messenger ( Dolliver 's home town paper, owned by George E. Roberts) 
 and copies run off as proofs and sent to the daily papers of Iowa. In 
 addition, a "skilled shorthand reporter" should take the speech down 
 "as you are likely to put some things into it that will not be from your 
 written speech." Allison offered to take care of this latter detail by 
 writing to Judge Walter I. Smith of Council Bluffs. "I think ar- 
 rangements will surely have to be made to have it printed in pamphlet 
 form and widely circulated," he concluded. 25 
 
 At last the big day arrived. The Nonpareil of November 25, 1907, 
 carried a picture of Allison on the first page and an account of the 
 meeting to be held that evening. A special point was made that 
 ladies would be welcome. The same paper for the next day was almost 
 an "Allison special." "all honor allison" was the banner head- 
 line; "Large Audience Hears Senator Dolliver's Eulogy of Col- 
 league's Work" was the next headline below, followed by the state- 
 ment that an audience of more than one thousand heard Dolliver as 
 he spoke for more than two hours. An inside page carried a picture 
 of Dolliver and a complete text of his speech. The Dubuque Times- 
 Journal had a lead story on the event, as did the Des Moines Register 
 and Leader, now an out-and-out Cummins paper. The latter said: 
 "In a notable address tonight, United States Senator J. P. Dolliver 
 made an eloquent plea to the citizens of Iowa to give his distinguished 
 colleague, William B. Allison, a re-election to his seat in the Senate," 
 and added that a large crowd was there from all over the state, actually 
 more than his backers had expected. This paper reprinted Dolliver's 
 text in full but without comment. 26 
 
EXIT IN TRIUMPH 321 
 
 Harl's report to Allison was ecstatic. 
 
 The members of the Club here had very high expectations with reference to 
 the character of the meeting, but they were all surpassed. . . . No such tribute 
 has ever before been paid to any citizen of Iowa. . . . The speech of Sen. 
 Dolliver left absolutely nothing to be desired. Lofty in its tone, eloquent in 
 its expression and uncompromising in its attitude, it was a speech which read 
 in cold type will have a profound influence throughout the state and yet it 
 loses much when separated from Dolliver's great personality. 
 
 Allison's reply was a simple but complete and sincere expression of 
 his gratitude to Harl and the Pottawattamie Allison Club for what 
 they had done. 27 
 
 An examination of Dolliver's speech, 28 which "in cold type" cer- 
 tainly does lose much "when separated from Dolliver's great person- 
 ality," reveals that Dolliver used a portion of the Torbert Letter, in 
 spite of Allison's advice to the contrary. Two months before the 
 Dolliver speech, he and Cummins had corresponded on the meaning of 
 this letter. Cummins had made the first move, prompted by rumors 
 coming to him that Dolliver had said that the Governor had promised 
 not to run against Allison. Cummins patiently explained that he had 
 once told Dolliver himself that he did not expect to run against Allison 
 and that he had been assured by both Allison and Dolliver that Allison 
 would not be likely to run again because his working days were over. 
 Now, wrote Cummins, he felt free to run because obviously Allison 
 was in poor health, could not do the work called for, and that the men 
 who were pressing Allison to run were doing so only to control the 
 office and somehow keep Cummins from attaining it. It was not too 
 late yet for Allison to withdraw with honor, Cummins concluded. 29 
 
 Dolliver's answer was a long restatement of various understandings 
 that he had received from Cummins as to the postponement of his 
 candidacy until Allison had voluntarily withdrawn from the race. 
 He reminded the Governor that they had talked about his senatorial 
 ambitions just before Christmas of 1906, while both were in Chicago, 
 and that Cummins had then assured him that "if when the time came 
 [Allison] presented himself for re-election, you would under no cir- 
 cumstances antagonize him." Allison himself should be the judge as 
 to his ability to perform the duties of the office, wrote Dolliver, and 
 he appealed to Cummins to let Allison have the office, to which he was 
 wedded, without a contest. 30 Cummins' refusal to comply with this 
 
322 William Boyd Allison 
 
 idea had led Dolliver to bring the subject, if not the name, of the 
 Torbert Letter into his Council Bluffs speech. 
 
 There was considerable difficulty in arriving at the exact meaning 
 of the words that Cummins had used in his letter to Major Torbert. 
 Indicative of the passionate feelings aroused by the contest is the fact 
 that this letter became one of the great talking points of the whole 
 campaign, completely overshadowing the basic issues between Con- 
 servatism anch Progressivism. Throughout the campaign the Allison 
 headquarters used letterheads with the Torbert Letter printed on the 
 back; it was also featured in the widely circulated pamphlet con- 
 taining Dolliver's Council Bluffs speech. 
 
 One result of Dolliver's use of the letter was to force the hand of 
 Governor Cummins, who had not yet made a formal announcement 
 of his candidacy. On December 4 he denied that he had ever promised 
 never to run against Allison, and offered to give $1,000 to charity if 
 anyone could prove that he had. At last, on December 16, the Regi- 
 ster and Leader published the long awaited formal declaration of 
 Cummins' intention to contest the nomination with Senator Allison. 31 
 
 In the meantime, Torbert himself had had some misgivings about 
 the use that had been made of the letter by Dolliver. On December 
 11 he had called in his lawyers, prepared a letter to Dolliver which 
 would "fully and fairly present the case"; two days later he sent an 
 additional letter to Dolliver, making it clear that Dolliver had used 
 only a portion of the original letter from Cummins. 32 
 
 In January, 1908, Governor Cummins, writing "off the record," 
 explained his version of the letter to A. B. Funk, perhaps his closest 
 political ally, making a complete statement about the Torbert Letter 
 and a frank declaration of his political ambitions: 
 
 The letter simply stated to Torbert the argument that we were making 
 everywhere; namely that I was not a candidate for the Senate, not a candidate 
 for the Allison succession, but was a candidate for Governor, and nothing 
 else; and I called to his attention that it would be as inappropriate for me 
 to publicly pledge myself against a candidacy for the Allison succession as 
 it would be to pledge myself against any other candidacy to arise in the 
 future. The letter was not used to bring me any support in Dubuque County. 
 It did not change, by a hair's breadth, the character of the campaign made 
 against me. I believe that I have as keen a sense of honor as any living man, 
 but I marvel over and over again how any honest man could torture this 
 letter into a pledge that I would never be a candidate against Allison, or into 
 any attempt to deceive. 
 
 
EXIT IN TRIUMPH 323 
 
 You know, and I know, that it would be little short of a crime against good 
 government to re-elect Senator Allison. His working days are over, and you 
 have too high and true a perception of public duty to believe that, in these 
 times especially, a Senator should be elected simply to allow him to die in 
 office. I started out in public life with the ambition to be Senator and I feel 
 that this is the only opportunity that remains for me. If I fail now, it is 
 very unlikely that I will ever again be a candidate for public office. I feel 
 sure of winning, and I know the temper of the people of Iowa as well as any 
 man can know it. 33 
 
 The sentence, "The letter was not used to bring me any support in 
 Dubuque County," raises the question as to whether Cummins was 
 referring to the intention of the letter or to the result. The intention 
 had almost certainly been to exert some degree of influence on Major 
 Torbert and his friends — otherwise the letter is meaningless. 
 
 Twelve years later (1920), after he had enjoyed years of success in 
 the Senate and could certainly afford to tell the truth, Cummins wrote 
 to Cyrenus Cole, giving essentially the same explanation. Denying 
 that he had ever had any discussion of the matter with Senator Allison 
 or had ever made any bargain with Senator Dolliver, he explained that 
 he had told Dolliver he would not be a candidate if Allison intended 
 to run and "somewhere along about that time I wrote Torbert to 
 substantially the same effect." Cummins further asserted that Dolliver 
 "at a later time" assured him that Allison would not run, for "reasons 
 with which you are perfectly familiar and which need not be men- 
 tioned"; that these reasons were known to hundreds and that he was 
 "never more astonished" than when he learned later that Allison had 
 changed his mind, or "some one had changed it for him"; and that 
 he learned after Allison's death and his own election the "whole in- 
 side story" of the conference where it was "determined that Allison 
 would be a candidate," information which he did not intend to publish 
 now as it was "ancient history" and not "very creditable to several 
 of the men who were at the meeting." 34 
 
 Four years after this letter to Cole, Cummins received a "Memo- 
 randum" from Smith D. Fry, a distinguished Washington journalist, 
 purporting to give the full story of 1907-1908. According to Fry, 
 Dolliver had told him at "Christmas time," 1906, that Allison had 
 decided not to run. (This certainly conflicts with Dolliver's letter to 
 Cummins in 1907.) Fry visited Allison and asked for a comment. 
 Admitting that his kidneys were affected, Allison told Fry that he 
 would abide by his doctor's decision as to whether he should quit or 
 
324 William Boyd Allison 
 
 not. "I've run down from 203 pounds to 181 pounds," he said, "and 
 you know that's not my fighting weight." Fry's next point was that 
 Allison sent Dolliver to Cummins in January of 1907 to tell the 
 Governor that he would not be a candidate in 1908, although the 
 Senator refused to let Fry publish this story at the time. A few months 
 later, in April, 1907, Allison changed his mind and decided to run. 
 Fry closed his memorandum with a story that weakens his whole ac- 
 count, in which the dates "1907" and "1908" are completely con- 
 fused. He claimed that because of Allison's emaciated appearance he 
 did not dare return to Iowa before the election, and for that reason 
 Congress stayed in session arguing over a battleship bill for forty extra 
 days. It is true that Congress did not adjourn until May 30, 1908, 
 but the naval appropriation bill was passed on May 12. The main 
 reason for the long session was not Allison's political chances at home 
 but a protracted debate over the currency bill which eventually 
 became the Aldrich-Vreeland Act. 35 
 
 Whatever rationalizations Cummins may have made later, in 1908 
 he entered into the campaign for Allison's seat with vigor. He asked 
 his supporters for a campaign pitched upon a high plane and asserted 
 that he wanted election on his merits as a fighter for good govern- 
 ment. Yet he endorsed an editorial in the Odebolt Chronicle as "al- 
 together the best presentation of the case" that had appeared. The 
 points made by the Chronicle were several: Allison's extreme age 
 and his well-known disease would make it impossible for him to live 
 through another term. Even if in the prime of life, he should not be 
 re-elected because he was a follower, not a leader. He had never been 
 associated with any reform. His closest friends were Aldrich, Hale, 
 and Foraker, all notorious servants of the great corporations. Allison 
 never protested against the "system" whereby the Senate bosses blocked 
 reforms by invoking senatorial courtesy against good appointees; 
 never protested against the smothering of good legislation such as the 
 pure food bills which were buried for fifteen years. He was supported 
 by the very forces which in Iowa opposed the primary law, the maxi- 
 mum freight rate law, and the 2 -cent law. Allison was not corrupt; 
 his vote could not be bought — but he was conservative by nature, 
 careful and cautious, always consulted his personal interests rather 
 than the country's good; permitted wrongs by others when his inter- 
 ference would bring retaliation; refused to take the initiative unless 
 his own future was involved. Most of the sins of omission and com- 
 
EXIT IN TRIUMPH 325 
 
 mission by the Senate were partly his responsibility. He was still un- 
 changed in any way. He and Aldrich and Hale and Lodge controlled 
 the committee appointments, and thus they could block the reporting 
 of any corporation control laws or any good farm legislation. "He 
 belongs to a past generation and clings to old things." 36 
 
 These were hard blows but the stuff of which politics is made. 
 Meanwhile Allison's friends were not idle. Professional writers, such 
 as Julian Richards of Waterloo and Washington, and the regular 
 party workers who ran the Des Moines headquarters harped on 
 Allison's great prestige, his long devotion to duty, and the debt of 
 gratitude that Iowa owed him. George E. Roberts wrote an extended 
 eulogy of "Allison's Life Work." As much capital as possible was 
 made out of Allison's Civil War activities, his committee memberships 
 in the House and Senate, and his interest in the old soldiers, Mississippi 
 River improvements, transcontinental railroads, the farmers' welfare, 
 and educational advantages for Negroes. The charges that he was in 
 critically poor health were met by official denials or by simple as- 
 sertions that he was fully ready to carry the load of his duties. Pri- 
 vately, there were many confessions of his sufferings and disability 
 mixed up with occasional assertions from trustworthy sources that 
 his health was much better than it had been, presumably in 1906, 
 although no dates were mentioned. In June of 1907, Ernest E. Hart 
 of Council Bluffs, who had just returned from a visit to Allison at 
 Dubuque, reported him in excellent health and spirits, "just as strong 
 and vigorous as he was before his illness last year." 37 
 
 A series of letters from John T. Adams to Dolliver not only reveals 
 the capably managed details of the Allison campaign but also the 
 flair for the game of politics possessed by this "local Mark Hanna." 
 Adams, a lumber and milling magnate of Dubuque, wrote to Dolliver 
 that he had accepted the chairmanship of the Allison campaign be- 
 cause no one else seemed willing to take the job. Adams was highly 
 successful both in the recruitment of speakers and the procurement of 
 finances. "This is really the most fun I ever had," Adams wrote early 
 in 1908. "The Governor is thoroughly beaten already . . . there will 
 not be any part of his machine left large enough for a post mortem." 
 
 The Republicans of Iowa held their annual state convention in 
 Des Moines in March, 1908. The senatorship was in no way an item 
 on the agenda of the meeting, but nevertheless the partisans of both 
 men maintained official headquarters at the Hotel Savery and fiercely 
 
326 William Boyd Allison 
 
 contended for the favor of the delegates, most of whom were leaders 
 in their respective localities and able to command many votes therein. 
 The Allison headquarters were in Parlors A and D and were staffed by 
 Adams and a local committee under ex-Adjutant General Melvin H. 
 Byers. The Cummins workers were A. B. Funk, H. W. Byers, James A. 
 Smith of Osage, and Emory H. English. 39 
 
 A leading Cummins paper prophesied that the convention would 
 "name four delegates at large to the national convention, instruct for 
 Taft, eulogize Senator Allison, and adopt a platform calling for a 
 revision of the tariff." 40 The first two points of the prophecy were 
 completely fulfilled; on the last the convention exceeded expectations 
 and actually favored the tariff revision plan then known as the "Ohio 
 Idea." On the third point, the convention did not stop at the mere 
 eulogizing of Allison, but adopted a plank asking for his re-election. 
 
 Resolved, That we favor the retention of Senator William B. Allison in his 
 place; that we do this because he has brought great distinction to the state, 
 because he has served the whole party of the whole country, with singular 
 fidelity and ability, because of his present commanding position in the senate 
 and in the councils of the nation, and because he has strength in all situations 
 and in all emergencies. He is recognized as the master legislative architect of 
 his time. The nation, almost without regard to party, admonished the people 
 of Iowa of its interest in this great statesman. Therefore, we stand for his 
 re-election, the continuation of his wise counsel, and the retention of his 
 services to the country at large. 
 
 This plank was not adopted without a hard fight, however. The vote 
 in the resolutions committee was split, 7 to 4 in favor of the pro- 
 Allison plank; in the convention as a whole the vote was 678 to 510. 41 
 Major John F. Lacey of Oskaloosa, George D. Perkins of Sioux City, 
 and Congressman B. P. Birdsall of Clarion spoke in favor of Allison; 
 while State Senator Thomas Cheshire of Des Moines led the Cummins 
 forces in their unsuccessful effort to defeat the resolution. 42 
 
 The endorsement of the Ohio Idea on tariff revision was a victory 
 for the Cummins forces, and one suspects that anti-Cummins men ac- 
 cepted this as a relatively unimportant matter, a mere statement of 
 an idea, in order to get on to their victory in the kind of politics that 
 professional politicians understand best, the politics of naming men 
 for office. By instructing for William Howard Taft for President and 
 by endorsing William Boyd Allison for Senator, the Conservatives had 
 won a victory that any man in the street could understand. The pro- 
 test of the Cummins men that the whole thing was outside the realm 
 
EXIT IN TRIUMPH 327 
 
 of proper convention action gave them little satisfaction. One of 
 them, John W. Hartman of the Waterloo Courier, commented: 
 "Turning to the matter of minor consideration, matters pertaining to 
 mere men, the convention performed ignobly. It usurped prerogatives 
 to which it was not entitled. It is open to just and severe criticism for 
 endorsing Senator Allison. It is not believed the Senator himself 
 would approve of such behaviour." 43 The Butler County Tribune 
 quoted Senator Cheshire as saying that the convention action was an 
 effort to "repudiate the primary system and return to the caucus," 
 to which Major Lacey retorted, "If we are not here to endorse Senator 
 Allison, what are we here for?" 44 
 
 The heat of the campaign now increased. The Waterloo Courier 
 asserted that Iowa had taken a national lead in reform because of the 
 inspiration of Cummins and that he now had a perfect right to aspire 
 to the Senate. Joseph W. Blythe, who had been saluted at the con- 
 vention, became the bogey man of the Progressives. "Is not the same 
 Joseph W. Blythe the Morgan, the Hill, the Harriman of the state of 
 Iowa? . . . Would not the return of the standpatters to control in the 
 state, mean domination by Blythe and the railroad interests the same 
 as they did dominate for years?" 45 Cummins justified his race in 
 1906 for a third term as Governor, a sore point with many voters, as 
 necessary to block the control of the state by Blythe and his associates. 
 "I know there were and are a great many honest men among them, 
 but they do not make themselves felt, and I know and you know that 
 for years the little coterie of men of which he was the center were 
 able to prevent any legislation which they did not favor." As for 
 Allison, "every corporate interest that is to be regulated by the law, 
 both in the state and out of it, is exerting all its influence for the re- 
 tention of Senator Allison. Every railroad company in the state, and 
 all their managers and general attorneys, are moving heaven and earth 
 to defeat me." 46 
 
 One of the less attractive features of the Cummins campaign was 
 the use of Allison's last photograph, taken in 1907. According to 
 the Des Moines Tribune, the Cummins campaign committee "doc- 
 tored" the photograph to make the Senator look even older than he 
 was. Both pictures appeared on the front page of the Tribune on 
 May 27, 1908, under an angry heading: "Infamous Outrage." The 
 paper accused the Cummins headquarters staff of handing out the 
 fake picture and of circulating it through the state. The Allison 
 
328 William Boyd Allison 
 
 managers were, meanwhile, using a picture taken about 1902 in their 
 literature. 
 
 The Allison forces fought back furiously. Two Allison papers made 
 an effort to show that the Senator was a true friend of labor. The 
 Council Bluffs Nonpareil had an article claiming that Allison was the 
 first Congressman to work for an eight-hour bill, citing April, 1866, 
 as the time of this action; the Cedar Rapids Evening Times reprinted 
 an editorial from The Labor Leader, the recognized labor paper of 
 the state, in which a good word was said for Allison, and several in- 
 stances cited in which he had voted or worked in favor of labor. Among 
 these were the amendment to appropriate $150,000 for investigation of 
 mine explosions and safety appliances; $10,000 for the relief of 
 Pembroke Banton of Waterloo, who had been injured in Panama; and 
 a child labor bill for the District of Columbia. Allison was also 
 credited with being one of the authors of the safety appliance (car 
 coupler) act of 1895, a supporter of the employers' liability act, 
 and in favor of the eight-hour law for workers in the District of 
 Columbia. 47 
 
 While his campaign managers fought the good fight in Iowa, Allison 
 had returned to Washington for the first session of the Sixtieth Con- 
 gress, which convened on December 2, 1907. There, while charges 
 and accusations flew back and forth at home, he resumed his regular 
 legislative routine. On May 29, 1908, one day before adjournment, 
 he answered his last roll call in Congress, 48 and he and his secretary 
 returned to Iowa for the election. Plans had been laid for him to re- 
 turn later to Johns Hopkins University Hospital for an operation for 
 the removal of his prostate gland. Just before the hour of adjourn- 
 ment on May 30, Vice President Fairbanks announced the appoint- 
 ment of the National Monetary Commission, established by the 
 Aldrich-Vreeland Act, to carry out a sweeping investigation of the 
 currency problem. Allison was naturally one of the members, along 
 with Aldrich, Hale, Knox, Teller, Bailey, and others. This was the 
 last honor William Boyd Allison would receive from the body he had 
 served so long. 49 
 
 One of the most eloquent pleas made for Allison before the election 
 was by Irving H. Hart, the brilliant young editor of the small but 
 influential Clarksville paper, the Butler County Tribune. This sheet 
 had formerly been one of the strongest supporters of Cummins, but 
 in May, 1908, it came under new ownership and the editorial super- 
 
EXIT IN TRIUMPH 329 
 
 vision of Hart. Completely reversing the policy of the previous editor 
 overnight, Hart delivered telling blows in favor of Allison. Asserting, 
 mistakenly, that Allison and General Baker of Minnesota were the 
 only survivors of the first Republican national convention, 50 the plea 
 was made that if Allison were pushed aside for age alone, it would 
 be to say that Iowa had "no sentiment for the past, no care for the 
 present, and no lofty hopes for the future." 51 The Council Bluffs 
 Nonpareil of June 1 closed the campaign by saying that "Allison is 
 Stronger" and that the recent session of Congress had given him more 
 prestige than ever; he was now "more than ever able to serve the 
 state and nation." A large picture accompanied the article, and 
 mention was made that Allison had stopped over in Chicago on his 
 way back to Iowa. 
 
 While in Chicago, Allison stayed at the Auditorium Annex, where 
 the Republicans were already gathering for the national convention. 
 A reporter talked to the "Nestor of the Senate," who appeared to be 
 in the "best of health and spirits" and in an optimistic frame of mind. 
 The tariff must be revised, he told the reporter, and recommended that 
 a special session of Congress be called immediately after the election 
 to deal with the problem. 52 
 
 The eventful election on June 2 proved to be a great victory for 
 Allison and the Conservatives. His total vote was 105,891 compared 
 with 95,256 amassed by Cummins. Not only that, B. F. Carroll of 
 Bloomfield won out over Warren Garst of Coon Rapids for the gov- 
 ernorship by a vote of 88,834 to 63,737; John G. Hamilton, the 
 prohibitionist, received 29,292 votes. Nine of the eleven Republican 
 nominees for Congress — Charles A. Kennedy, Albert F. Dawson 
 (Allison's former secretary), Charles E. Pickett, Gilbert Haugen, 
 James W. Good, John A. T. Hull, W. P. Hepburn, Walter I. Smith, 
 and Elbert H. Hubbard — were considered Standpatters; Nathan E. 
 Kendall of Albia and Frank P. Woods of Estherville were the only 
 Progressives who were victorious. 
 
 This was the only state-wide popular election Allison ever partici- 
 pated in, and it was an intraparty affair. Even so, there was great satis- 
 faction in the victory. It was at least a partial answer to those who had 
 said Allison could not win in an appeal to the rank and file. An 
 analysis of the vote, county by county, shows an interesting pattern. 53 
 Allison's greatest strength was in the southern half of the state, where 
 he lost only six counties. Of these, only Polk County, Cummins' 
 
330 William Boyd Allison 
 
 home, had an appreciably large vote against Allison. A possible ex- 
 planation is that the influence of the four great railroad systems in that 
 region had a lot to do with the result. The Burlington, Blythe's own 
 line; the Rock Island from Davenport to Council Bluffs; the North 
 Western, the line of the late Judge N. M. Hubbard; and the Mil- 
 waukee, all traverse the southern half of the state. Undoubtedly there 
 were other factors: the influence of strong newspapers, effective work 
 by local leaders, the power of tradition. To many voters, Allison had 
 become a well-beloved figure in whom they took great pride, and the 
 Allison campaign managers and editors had played up this theme to 
 great effect. In the northern part of the state Allison carried only 
 fifteen counties, and only two of these were in the northwestern 
 quarter; the other thirteen were in the eastern counties which had 
 been settled much earlier. 
 
 As soon as the results of the election were known, the spotlight 
 swung away from Allison and came to rest on his valiant aide, 
 Jonathan Dolliver. With the Republican national convention only a 
 few days away, Dolliver 's name was freely mentioned as a possibility 
 for the second place on the ticket, even occasionally for the first place. 
 'But this interest in the Fort Dodge man did not have an unmixed 
 motivation. On the part of some it was a sincere compliment: Jonathan 
 Prentiss Dolliver was their idea of a man well suited for a place on the 
 national ticket. 54 On the part of others, however, it was a supposedly 
 clever move, readily transparent to the Allisonians, to remove Dolliver 
 from his senatorship, thus opening a new avenue for Cummins to 
 reach the Senate. The Cummins forces denounced the Standpatters 
 for selfishly blocking Dolliver's chances. 56 
 
 But with all such matters Allison was little concerned. He did 
 not attend the national convention, but it was reported that he had 
 written to Dolliver concerning the vice-presidency, although his 
 message was not made public. 57 Nor did Allison attend the Iowa Re- 
 publican convention in Waterloo which soon followed. No doubt 
 he was pleased at the reports of harmony which emanated from the 
 meeting. 58 
 
 The old man was entitled to a period of peace and rest, now that 
 his own victory in the primary was out of the way. The manipula- 
 tion of conventions, the drudgery of political campaigns, the alloca- 
 tion of patronage — these things could now be left to the younger 
 men. From the obscurity and the disappointment of a defeated can- 
 
fill 
 
 I IE 
 
 II 
 
 If 
 
 53 
 
 
 3lI|S#ilI=JH-Iilf;pi!IHlil!i!tlli!l1i i MiHiIlI 
 
 
332 William Boyd Allison 
 
 dictate for county office in Ohio to the official leadership of the majority 
 in the Senate; from being a leg-man for others to turning down 
 Cabinet offers and vice-presidential feelers, and being twice a presi- 
 dential possibility — these memories could fill his mind as he leisurely 
 contemplated his return to Congress in December. 
 
 When his close friends visited him they found him physically run 
 down but mentally alert and highly pleased over his primary victory. 
 He unaffectedly referred to the President as "Theodore" and shrewdly 
 prophesied that in four years Roosevelt might ask Taft to step aside. 59 
 But time was growing short. 
 
 Before long, bad news came from Dubuque. Allison's secretary, 
 Lee McNeely, on his return from the Chicago convention noticed a 
 critical worsening of the Senator's condition. 60 Others also saw the 
 change, 61 and McNeely passed some of Allison's appointment matters 
 over to Senator Dolliver. 62 In order to escape the intense heat of 
 Dubuque, Allison was taken out to the farm home of Mrs. Fannie 
 Stout O'Donnell, daughter of his long-time friend, H. L. Stout. 
 Rumors spread fast throughout the state. On July 29 Governor 
 Cummins wrote to one of his followers: "I believe that the chances 
 are that the Senatorial matter will be again considered, because the 
 reports I have from Dubuque indicate that Senator Allison is very 
 feeble." 63 
 
 His reports were correct. Hope was abandoned for prolonging the 
 invalid's life, and on August 1 he was brought back to the familiar 
 surroundings of his home on Locust Street. This gesture of love was 
 of no avail, however. The poor man had lost his mental faculties and 
 was in a coma most of the time. Surgery had long ago been ruled out 
 as a means of relief. The end came at 1:33 on Tuesday afternoon, 
 August 4, 1908. 
 
 A few days later two old men sat together at lunch in Washington 
 — James S. Clarkson and Grenville M. Dodge. The General was so 
 moved he could hardly speak of his old friend. It remained for the 
 more articulate Clarkson, in a letter to Al Swalm, to write almost an 
 epitaph for William Boyd Allison: 
 
 Our beloved Iowa is nearly an orphan these days, and an unhappy one at 
 that. The death of Allison, although we knew that it might come at any 
 minute, was still a great shock to us all. He had lived so long and been power- 
 ful so long and we had all turned to him whenever we needed help . . . and 
 now that he is gone it seems as though we had lost a point of the compass. 64 
 
iiftii»tii»t(i»t|i«»|i»t|ftii|t«iimi|t»itniftni!(»»ttt»t|!»itt)it|ttit|i"i|titi|iiti(m(|itit|)ttf|tit!|tttt|imi 
 
 Bibliography: 
 Manuscript Collections 
 
 The William Boyd Allison Papers, located at the Iowa State De- 
 partment of History and Archives at Des Moines, are contained in 
 some 550 boxes, each holding approximately 200 letters. The papers 
 include only a few scattered items dated before 1870, but they become 
 richer in numbers and content as Allison's career developed and he 
 became a famous national figure. This collection was preserved 
 through the intercession of General Grenville M. Dodge. 
 
 Other collections of papers at Des Moines which added much to 
 the Allison story are: the extensive Grenville M. Dodge Papers, the 
 Samuel J. Kirkwood Correspondence, the James S. Clarkson Papers 
 (supplemented by a larger collection in the Library of Congress), 
 the Albert Baird Cummins Papers, and the William Penn Clarke, 
 John A. T. Hull, and John A. Kasson collections. The papers of 
 James Harlan have apparently been lost; therefore, his role in this 
 story is obtained from letters to and from him found in these and 
 other collections. The same applies to the papers of James F. Wilson, 
 a few of which have recently been located in the Fairfield Public 
 Library and not yet made available. At the State Historical Society 
 of Iowa at Iowa City, the papers of Jonathan P. Dolliver were the 
 most valuable. Other collections consulted there were the Cyrus Clay 
 Carpenter Papers, the Cyrenus Cole Papers, and the Albert F. Dawson 
 Scrapbooks. 
 
 Small collections in private hands in Iowa are: the David B. 
 Henderson Papers, owned by Mr. Donald M. Peaslee of Laurens; the 
 
 333 
 
334 William Boyd Allison 
 
 I. M. Fisher Papers, owned by Mr. Irving H. Hart of Cedar Falls; the 
 F. E. Bissell Scrapbook, owned by Mr. F. E. Bissell of Dubuque; and 
 the R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook, owned by Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart 
 (Mrs. Donald Metcalf ) of Des Moines. 
 
 Of great value and interest are the letters of Charles E. Perkins, 
 some in the Burlington Archives at the Newberry Library in Chicago, 
 and some in the possession of Richard C. Overton, Manchester, 
 Vermont, ^== 
 
 Many other collections of manuscripts have yielded information, 
 although not all in the quantity of those mentioned above. Library 
 of Congress: the papers of Nelson W. Aldrich (unrestricted portion) , 
 Benjamin Helm Bristow, Andrew Carnegie, Grover Cleveland, 
 William M. Evarts, Hamilton Fish, James A. Garfield, Benjamin 
 Harrison, Andrew Johnson, Robert T. Lincoln, William McKinley, 
 Louis T. Michener, Justin S. Morrill, Whitelaw Reid, Theodore 
 Roosevelt, Edwin M. Stanton, Elihu Washburne, and James H. Wilson. 
 Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield: the papers of Lyman 
 Trumbull, Horace White, and Joseph G. Cannon. Massachusetts 
 Historical Society, Boston: Edward Atkinson Papers. Princeton Uni- 
 versity: William Worth Belknap Papers. New York Public Library: 
 Levi P. Morton Papers. Hayes Memorial Library, Fremont, Ohio: 
 Rutherford B. Hayes Papers. Newberry Library, Chicago: Burling- 
 ton and Illinois Central Papers, and the Orville E. Babcock Papers. 
 State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison: Luman H. Weller 
 Papers. University of Chicago: Stephen A. Douglas Papers. Yale 
 University Library: Chauncey M. Depew Papers. West Virginia Uni- 
 versity, Morgantown: Stephen B. Elkins Papers. 
 
i!W|t»ty»WtmttmttmttMtm^ 
 
 Footnotes 
 
 CHAPTER I — THE OHIO YEARS 
 
 1 For this genealogical information, I have used the Dubuque Daily Times, Jan. 7, 1884, 
 containing an obituary of John Allison; data supplied to me by Attorney J. Thomas Mitchell 
 of Bellefonte, Pa., June 26, 1950, and by Mrs. Emma B. Hawley of the Western Reserve 
 Historical Society Library, Cleveland, Ohio; and Ben: Perley Poore, a typewritten manu- 
 script biography in Box 1, William Boyd Allison Papers (Iowa State Dept. of History and 
 Archives, Des Moines), the basis for an article published in The Magazine of Western His- 
 tory, 6:65-85 (May, 1887). Poore, a Washington journalist, was a personal friend of 
 Allison's. (This manuscript will hereafter be referred to as Poore MS.) Mrs. Allison's tomb- 
 stone was seen and noted by me on a personal tour of Perry Township, April 27, 1947, in 
 company with Mr. Ed. M. Dunner, a venerable citizen of Rowsburg familiar with the 
 Allison family history. 
 
 2 The author made a personal visit to the old Allison homestead on April 27, 1947. 
 
 3 Data supplied by Fred H. Allison, Belmond, Iowa, a grandnephew of William B. Allison. 
 
 4 H. S. Knapp, A History of the Pioneer and Modern Times of Ashland County (Phila- 
 delphia, 1863), 428-9. The dates of his commissions are given as March 1, 1830; March 1, 
 1833; March 25, 1836; March 19, 1839. Also see biography of Allison by Jeannette P. 
 Nichols in Dictionary of American Biography, 1:220-22 (hereafter listed as DAB). 
 
 5 Many years later a friend of Allison's boyhood days wrote to him: "The early teachings 
 we received when boys in the homes of our good parents and from the pulpit of Old Mount 
 Hope Meeting House, laid the foundations for what you are as a statesman and for what I 
 am as a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ." Rev. David A. Cunningham to Allison, Feb. 
 27, 1884, Box 37, Allison Papers. Cunningham was at the time pastor of the First Presby- 
 terian Church, Wheeling, W. Va. 
 
 6 Ohio is fortunate in its possession of scholars who have produced a magnificent six- 
 volume work edited by Carl Wittke, The History of the State of Ohio (Columbus, 1940- 
 1944). Of this series, Vol. Ill, The Passing of the Frontier, 1825-1850 (1941) by Francis 
 P. Weisenburger, and Vol. IV, The Civil War Era, 1850-1875 (1944) by Eugene H. 
 Roseboom are excellent background for the years of the Allison family residence in Ohio. 
 A briefer work is Roseboom and Weisenburger, A History of Ohio (New York, 1934; 2nd 
 ed., Columbus, 1953). 
 
 7 Weisenburger, Passing of the Frontier, 10. See Works Progress Administration, The 
 Ohio Guide (New York, 1940), for evidence of the carryover of the New England influence 
 
 335 
 
336 William Boyd Allison 
 
 to the present day. Also see Harlan Hatcher, The Western Reserve (Indianapolis, 1949); 
 Stewart H. Holbrook, The Yankee Exodus (New York, 1950); Rexford Newcomb, 
 Architecture of the Old Northwest Territory (Chicago, 1950). 
 
 8 Weisenburger, Passing of the Frontier, 81. 
 
 9 Ibid., 53; Robert E. Chaddock, Ohio Before 1850: A Study of the Early Influence of 
 Pennsylvania and Southern Populations in Ohio (New York, 1908), 31-4; History of 
 Wayne County, Ohio (2 vols., Indianapolis, 1910), 1:108. 
 
 10 William Warren Sweet, Religion on the American Frontier: Vol. II, The Presbyterians, 
 1783-1 S40 (New York, 1936), 21-2, discusses this point. See also Charles A. Hanna, The 
 Scotch-Irish (2 vols., New York, 1902); William L. Fisk, Jr., "The Scotch-Irish in Central 
 Ohio," Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, 57:111-25 (April, 1948). 
 
 11 Weisenburger, Passing of the Frontier, 53-4; Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The Road to the 
 White House (Princeton, 1947), 1. 
 
 12 The Allison Papers have only a few scattered items before 1870. 
 
 13 Allison to C. A. Carlisle, Sept. 14, 1906, Box 13, ibid., expresses his regret at his 
 inability to attend a cornerstone-laying ceremony of the South Bend, Indiana, Y. M. C. A., 
 named in honor of the Studebaker brothers. He tells Carlisle that he knew them well as 
 boys. See DAB, 18:180-81, for Studebaker biography. 
 
 14 Ashland (Ohio) Times, Oct. 13, 1897. 
 
 15 Sweet, Religion on the American Frontier, 2:9. 
 
 16 Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio ... (2 vols., Cincinnati, 1902), 2:841. 
 The sentence, "He lived on a farm, and walked into Wooster every day to school," suggests 
 that he boarded with relatives or friends. 
 
 17 Campaign Biography, Des Moines Iowa State Register, Feb. 9, 1896. (This newspaper, 
 to which frequent reference will be made, will be listed hereafter as Des Moines Register.) 
 E. A. Smith, Allegheny, A Century of Education (Meadville, Pa., 1916), 446; letter to the 
 author from C. S. Miller, director of Alumni Relations, July 9, 1945. 
 
 18 This paragraph based on Smith, Allegheny, passim. On Kingsley as a theological con- 
 troversialist, see DAB, 10:410-11; on Stebbins, see ibid., 17:550-51. 
 
 19 Donald G. Tewksbury, The Founding of American Colleges and Universities Before the 
 Civil War (New York, 1932), 70-71, 71n, 109; Smith, Allegheny, 140, Chap. 3. 
 
 20 Smith, Allegheny, 137. 
 
 21 Sadie A. Cook to Allison, Jan. 5, 1886, Box 37, Allison Papers. 
 
 22 Cunningham to Allison, Feb. 27, 1884, Box 37, ibid. 
 
 23 See Carroll Cutler, A History of Western Reserve College (Cleveland, 1876); Helen 
 Kitzmiller, One Hundred Years of Western Reserve (Hudson, 1926). 
 
 24 G. H. Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse (New York, 1933); G. H. Barnes and D. L. 
 Dumond (eds.), The Weld-Grimke Letters (New York, 1934); Sweet, Religion on the 
 American Frontier: Vol. II, The Presbyterians; Vol. Ill, The Congregationalists; G. G. 
 Atkins and F. L. Fagley, History of American Congregationalism (Boston, 1942); Robert 
 S. Fletcher, A History of Oberlin College (2 vols., Oberlin, 1943); Frederick W. Waite, 
 A History of Western Reserve College. The Hudson Era (Cleveland, 1941); C. Bruce 
 Staiger, "Abolitionism and the Presbyterian Schism of 1837-183 8," Mississippi Valley His- 
 torical Review, 36:391-414 (December, 1949). 
 
 25 Allison became a pewholder in the Second Presbyterian Church at Dubuque but never 
 a full-fledged member. Rev. Gaylord Couchman to the author, Oct. 21, 1947. 
 
 26 John R. Commons, "Horace Greeley and the Working Class Origins of the Republican 
 Party," Political Science Quarterly, 24:468-88 (September, 1909); W. E. Binkley, American 
 Political Parties: Their Natural History (New York, 1943), Chaps. 8 and 9. Binkley makes 
 many references to the religious backgrounds and their eventual effects on the Republican 
 party. 
 
FOOTNOTES 337 
 
 27 James W. Grimes to Salmon P. Chase, Oct. 3, 1854, quoted in William Salter, The Life 
 of James W. Grimes . . . (New York, 1876), 54. 
 
 28 Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dec. 3, 1856, quoted in Roseboom, Civil War Era, 323. 
 
 29 There is a possibility that he studied for some time with a lawyer named Eugene 
 Pardee. Allison received a letter from a close friend, N. E. Dawson of Burlington, Sept. 19, 
 1894, saying he had met Pardee's son, who claimed this honor for his father. If so, Allison 
 was studying with a leader of the Wooster bar and a staunch antislavery man. See Ben 
 Douglas, History of the Lawyers of Wayne County, Ohio (Wooster, Ohio, 1900), 256-7. 
 
 30 Obituary notice of Matthew Allison in the Dubuque Times, Apr. 17, 1874. 
 
 31 Judge Lyman R. Critchfield, Wooster, Ohio, to the author, Aug. 7, 1947. 
 
 32 Poore MS, Allison Papers. The name of Jennings as clerk of courts was furnished to 
 the author through the kindness of C. O. McGuire, clerk of courts, Ashland, Ohio, Sept. 
 10, 1947. 
 
 33 The advertisements of these three law partnerships can be followed in the columns of 
 the Ashland Times and the Ashland Union, 185 3 to 1857. In 1870 Allison received this 
 letter from Smith: "I am still trudging along — practicing law. You see my boy stands in 
 the place [partner] where you once did. Turning to our old Book Record of cases, I read 
 thus — 'Here commences the Record of Smith & Allison copartnership of business dating 
 from Sept. 15, 1851.'" J. W. Smith to Allison, Nov. 3, 1870, Box 2, Allison Papers. An- 
 other bit of testimony is found in the following letter from Mrs. Henry Wallace, wife of 
 the first Henry Wallace of Iowa, mother of Henry C, and grandmother of Henry A. 
 Wallace: "The 'spirit' moves me to write you and I obey, hoping you will pardon the 
 liberty as we are natives of the same State of Ohio, and same County; while a little school- 
 girl at College I was under the care of 'Mrs. Bolivar Kellogg' with whose husband you 
 studied law, and my honored Father (Col. Cantwell) often spoke of you as a rising man 
 also my uncle Dr. Cantwell who met you in Dubuque several years ago, therefore because of 
 this — your having been an honor to both our native and adopted State — I write you." 
 Mrs. Henry Wallace to Allison, Sept. 20, 1887, Box 41, Allison Papers. 
 
 34 Robert W. Shultz, Secretary, Ashland Lodge, No. 151, F. & A. M., Ashland, Ohio, to 
 the author, July 27, Aug. 18, 1948. 
 
 35 Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio, 1:252. 
 
 36 George William Hill, History of Ashland County, Ohio (Ashland, 1880), 149, and 
 unnumbered page opposite. 
 
 37 Commons, "Horace Greeley and the Working Class Origins of the Republican Party," 
 469. See also Binkley, American Political Parties, Chaps. 8-9; William Starr Myers, The 
 Republican Party: A History (New York, 1928); Jeter A. Isely, Horace Greeley and the 
 Republican Party, 1853-1861 . . . (Princeton, 1947); A. W. Crandall, The Early History of 
 the Republican Party, 1854-1856 (Boston, 1930); Francis Curtis, The Republican Party . . . 
 (2 vols., New York, 1904); Glyndon G. Van Deusen, Thurlow Weed: Wizard of the Lobby 
 (New York, 1947); James A. Rawley, Edwin D. Morgan, 1811-1881 (New York, 1955); 
 Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union (2 vols., New York, 1947), 2:398-404, 466-70. 
 
 38 Albert Bushnell Hart, Salmon Portland Chase (Boston, 1899), 112ff., 132-3; Rose- 
 boom, Civil War Era, 279. 
 
 39 Binkley, American Political Parties, 207-208; Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 
 1808-1858 (2 vols., Boston, 1928), 2:184-96. 
 
 40 Philip Kinsley, The Chicago Tribune: Its First Hundred Years (New York, 1943), 
 for a reference to this religious influence on Joseph Medill, an Ohioan before he went to 
 Chicago to join the Tribune. This instance is cited as a reminder that the religious impulse 
 was not confined to the clergy. 
 
 41 Commons, "Horace Greeley and the Working Class Origins of the Republican Party"; 
 Barnes, Antislavery Impulse, 197; Philip S. Foner, Business and Slavery: The New York 
 Merchants and the Irrepressible Conflict (Chapel Hill, N. C, 1941), passim, especially Chap. 
 17; A. M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston, 1945). Lloyd Lewis, It Takes All 
 
338 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Kinds (New York, 1948), 168-9, makes the point very strongly. A Chicago meeting, ad- 
 dressed by James H. Lane, was held on "a Saturday night when the workingmen would be 
 free, and the sailors in from the lakes and the longshoremen up from the docks, and the 
 farmers across from the field. For, make no mistake about it, the Republican Party was a 
 radical, almost a New Deal party in 1856. It was the masses attacking the classes." 
 
 42 Binkley, American Political Parties, 207. Also see the judicious remarks by James G. 
 Randall, Lincoln the President: Springfield to Gettysburg (2 vols., New York, 1945), 
 l:82-3n. 
 
 43 Ashland Times, May 11, 1854. The "J. B. Allison" has not been identified. Perhaps 
 "W. B." was intended. Alexander Allison was a cousin of "William B. Allison. 
 
 44 Robert B. Warden, An Account of the Private Life and Public Services of Salmon Port- 
 land Chase (Cincinnati, 1874), 345; Hart, Chase, 152-4; DAB, 4:29; Eugene H. Roseboom, 
 "Salmon P. Chase and the Know Nothings," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 25:3 3 5-50 
 (December, 193 8). 
 
 45 Ashland Union, July 9, Oct. 15, 1856; Stilson Hutchins in the Dubuque Herald, Oct. 
 1, 1862. In Iowa, William Penn Clarke and James Thorington were important members of 
 the Know-Nothing party. See Vol. I of the William Penn Clarke Correspondence (Iowa 
 State Dept. of History and Archives, Des Moines). 
 
 46 Ashland Times, July 13, 1854. Allison was on the committee on resolutions at the 
 county convention that elected him a delegate to the state convention. 
 
 47 Roseboom, Civil War Era, 284-5. 
 
 48 Ibid., 303. 
 
 49 John Sherman, Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet (2 vols., 
 Chicago, 1895), 1:105; Joseph P. Smith (ed.), History of the Republican Party in Ohio 
 (2 vols., Chicago, 1898), 1:33, 35. 
 
 50 See R. A. Billington, The Protestant Crusade (New York, 1938); Harry J. Carman 
 and Reinhard Luthin, "Some Aspects of the Know Nothing Movement Reconsidered," 
 South Atlantic Quarterly, 39:213-34 (April, 1940); Binkley, American Political Parties, 
 209-210; Roseboom, "Salmon P. Chase and the Know Nothings," 3 3 5-50. 
 
 51 New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, Feb. 22, 1856; Proceedings of the Republican Na- 
 tional Convention . . . 1 856, 73-6. 
 
 52 Crandall, Early History of the Republican Party, 28-9. 
 
 53 New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, Feb. 22, 26, 1856. 
 
 54 Ibid., Feb. 22, 1856; New York Daily Times, Feb. 26, 1856. 
 
 55 New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, Feb. 26, 1856; Crandall, Early History of the Re- 
 publican Party, 141. 
 
 56 Crandall, Early History of the Republican Party, 179-81. 
 
 57 Ashland Union, July 9, 1856. 
 
 58 Ibid., Aug. 20, 1856. 
 
 59 Ashland Times, Aug. 21, 28, 1856. A letter to the author from Judge William T. 
 Devor of Ashland describes Kenny as a vivacious, convivial, energetic, and altogether like- 
 able Irishman who enjoyed a wide popularity and left a legend of good fellowship behind 
 him. He was elected a state senator from his county in 1861. 
 
 60 George H. Porter, Ohio Politics During the Civil War Period (New York, 1911), 18, 
 26, and map facing 26. 
 
 61 See The Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1927 (Washington, 
 1928), for data on these men. 
 
 ' 62 Poore MS., Allison Papers. 
 
 63 For a discussion of this phase of history see the essay by William O. Lynch, "The 
 Advance into the Middle West," in Jeannette P. Nichols and James G. Randall (eds.), 
 Democracy in the Middle West, 1840-1940 (New York, 1941). See also Stephen Vincent 
 Benet, Westward Star (New York, 1943). 
 
FOOTNOTES 339 
 
 CHAPTER II — FROM BUCKEYE TO HAWKEYE 
 
 1 Poore MS., Allison Papers. 
 
 2 "The Campaign Biography of 1896," Des Moines Register, Feb. 9, 1896. 
 
 3 William J. Petersen, Iowa, The Rivers of Her Valleys (Iowa City, 1941), 42-3; Mar- 
 quis Childs, "River Town," Harper's Magazine (November, 1932), reprinted in John T. 
 Flanagan, America is West (Minneapolis, 1945). 
 
 4 Franklin Oldt (ed.), History of Dubuque County, Iowa . . . (Chicago, n. d.), 337-9. 
 
 5 See "The Campaign Biography of 1896." 
 
 6 M. M. Hoffmann, Antique Dubuque, 1673-1833 (Dubuque, 1930), passim. 
 
 7 F. I. Herriott, "Whence Came the Pioneers of Iowa?" Annals of Iowa (third series), 
 7:464 (July, 1906). See also William J. Petersen, "Population Advance to the Upper Missis- 
 sippi Valley, 1830-1860," Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 32:335-6 (October, 1934), 
 for a tabular study of the nativity of the Iowa population in 1860, which shows Ohio far 
 ahead of any other state. 
 
 8 W. W. Hamilton of Dubuque to Kirkwood, Apr. 29, 1859, on the need to solicit the Ger- 
 man vote: "Germans are as thick as bees up here." Samuel J. Kirkwood Correspondence (Iowa 
 State Dept. of History and Archives, Des Moines). 
 
 9 Oldt (ed.), History of Dubuque County, 107, quoting the Dubuque Express and Herald, 
 Apr. 12, 1855; ibid., 117, quoting same paper for Feb. 4, 1857. 
 
 10 Isley, Horace Greeley and the Republican Party, 216, referring to and quoting from 
 the New York Daily Tribune, Feb. 20, 1857. 
 
 11 Oldt (ed.), History of Dubuque County, 340. 
 
 12 Ibid., 63 5, and passim. The Stephen A. Douglas Papers (University of Chicago) con- 
 tain no important letters from Samuels. This is difficult to explain, because Iowa was not 
 yet the Democratic cipher that it came to be. See David S. Sparks, "The Decline of the 
 Democratic Party in Iowa, 1850-1860," Iowa Journal of History, 53:1-30 (January, 1955). 
 
 13 The History of Dubuque County, Iowa . . . (Chicago, 1880), 778-9; and oral state- 
 ment by Miss Martha Baker, Dubuque, Iowa, to the author. 
 
 14 Oldt (ed.), History of Dttbuqne County, 337-8. Azro B. F. Hildreth in Charles City 
 Intelligencer, May 27, 1869. On Samuels as an orator, see Owen Peterson, "Ben Samuels in 
 the Democratic National Convention of 1860," Iowa Journal of History, 50:22 5-3 8 (July, 
 1952). 
 
 15 For example, see Allison to Kirkwood, Apr. 7, 1861, No. 3 56, Kirkwood Correspond- 
 ence, where Allison writes: "I have never had any sympathy with Cooley & that class of 
 malcontents here. I have been an humble instrument in thwarting many of their schemes." 
 
 16 The election was held Jan. 3, 1859. The Iowa State Bank was a frontier financial 
 institution of that day, modeled after those set up by Ohio and Indiana. A central office or 
 parent bank served as headquarters for a system of functioning branch banks. A maximum 
 of thirty branches was allowed for the whole state. See Howard H. Preston, A History of 
 Banking in Iowa (Iowa City, 1922), 85. 
 
 17 Allison was listed in a contemporary city directory as a "boarder." 
 
 18 Box 1, Allison Papers. 
 
 19 68 U. S. Reports (1 Wallace), 175. In this case before the Supreme Court he was 
 associated with a prominent attorney from Des Moines, S. V. White, who later became a 
 businessman in New York City. For sketch of White, see DAB, 20:119-20. The temptation 
 is to believe that White did most of the legal work on the case while Allison supplied the 
 footwork in Washington. On the case of Gelpcke v. The City of Dubuque, see Charles 
 Fairman, Mr. Justice Miller and the Supreme Court, 1862-1890 (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), 
 213-21; Ethan P. Allen, "Gelpcke v. The City of Dubuque," Iowa Journal of History and 
 Politics, 28:177-93 (April, 1930). 
 
 20 Louis Pelzer, "The Origin and Organization of the Republican Party in Iowa," Iowa 
 
340 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Journal of History and Politics, 4:487-525 (October, 1906); David S. Sparks, "The Birth 
 of the Republican Party in Iowa, 1854-1856," ibid., 54:1-34 (January, 1956). 
 
 21 The political situation in Dubuque will be discussed in detail below. 
 
 22 Salter, Grimes, a work that stands up remarkably well; DAB, 7:631-2. 
 
 23 Pelzer, "Origin and Organization of the Republican Party in Iowa," 489, says the Free 
 Soilers withdrew their nomination of Simeon "Waters and endorsed Grimes. Recently a claim 
 has been made on behalf of Crawfordsville as the real birthplace of the Republican party. 
 Actually, a very good argument can be made for Crawfordsville if one allows for the spirit 
 of the convention rather than the use of the word "Republican." For a contrary view, see 
 Emory H. English, "Iowa Republicans Organized in 1856," Annals of Iowa (third series), 
 32:43-6 (July, T953). 
 
 24 Crandall, Early History of the Republican Party, 22. 
 
 25 Grimes to Chase, Oct. 3, 1854, quoted in Salter, Grimes, 54. 
 
 26 H. W. Lathrop, The Life and Times of Samuel J. Kirkwood . . . (Iowa City, 1893), 
 42; Sparks, "Birth of the Republican Party in Iowa," 6-7. 
 
 27 Pelzer, "Origin and Organization of the Republican Party in Iowa," 490. 
 
 28 Isely, Greeley and the Republican Party, 97-%, quoting the New York Daily Tribune, 
 Aug. 23, 1854. 
 
 29 Grimes to Chase, Apr. 8, 1855, quoted in Salter, Grimes, 68. See Reinhard H. Luthin, 
 "Salmon P. Chase's Political Career Before the Civil War," Mississippi Valley Historical 
 Review, 29:517-40 (March, 1943). 
 
 30 Grimes to Chase, Oct. 14, 1855, in Salter, Grimes, 78. 
 
 31 Pelzer, "Origin and Organization of the Republican Party in Iowa," 498-9. 
 
 32 Obituary of James F. Wilson, Fairfield Daily Ledger, Apr. 23, 1895. Also see sketch in 
 DAB, 20:331-3. 
 
 33 See comment on Harlan in a letter by John Y. Stone of Glenwood, Iowa, to Grenville 
 M. Dodge, Jan. 31, 1871, Box 18, Grenville M. Dodge Papers (Iowa State Dept. of History 
 and Archives, Des Moines). 
 
 34 Nathaniel M. Hubbard to Kirkwood, Nov. 11, 1865, No. 1056, Kirkwood Corre- 
 spondence. Sparks, "The Birth of the Republican Party in Iowa," 22, points out that al- 
 though Kirkwood had left the Democratic party in 1854, "he did not find a new party to 
 his liking until 1855." This was after he came to Iowa. 
 
 35 Crandall, Early History of the Republican Party, 166. 
 36 Oldt (ed.), History of Dubuque County, 338-9. 
 
 37 J. Fred Myers to Allison, Jan. 19, 1888, Box 264, Allison Papers. 
 
 38 William Vandever to Kirkwood, May 19, 1859, No. 87, Box 1, Kirkwood Corre- 
 spondence. "I think that the delegation from Dubuque may be counted among your friends." 
 Vandever was at the time one of Iowa's two Representatives in Congress. 
 
 39 Ira J. Alder to Allison, May 14, 1888, Box 41, Allison Papers. Alder was an attorney 
 in Iowa City. 
 
 40 Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions of 1856, 1860, 1864 
 (Minneapolis, 1892), 110. 
 
 41 Des Moines Register, Jan. 19, 20, 1869; F. I. Herriott, "Iowa and the First Nomination 
 of Abraham Lincoln," Annals of Iowa (third series), 8:81-115, 186-220, 444-66 (July, 
 October, 1907; July, 1908); 9:186-228 (October, 1909), deals exhaustively with many 
 aspects of the campaign of 1860 and has pictures of 29 of the Iowa delegates. 
 
 42 Petersen, "Population Advance to the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1830-1860," 335. 
 
 43 Ora Williams. The list was published in a syndicated news story. See Cedar Falls 
 Daily Record, Dec. 8, 1945. 
 
 44 Grenville M. Dodge, "Personal Biography" (typewritten MS), Dodge Papers. 
 
FOOTNOTES 341 
 
 45 Dan Elbert Clark, Samuel Jordan Kirkwood (Iowa City, 1917), passim; Lathrop, 
 Kirkwood, passim. 
 
 46 There are unsupported statements that Kirkwood and Allison knew each other as boys. 
 This could not be, because Kirkwood was sixteen years older than Allison. One good 
 authority says that they knew each other in Ohio before coming to Iowa. This was very 
 likely. See George O. Seilhamer, Leslie's History of the Republican Party (2 vols., New 
 York, n. d.), 2:8. 
 
 47 The loss or destruction of most of his papers might account for the reluctance of 
 writers to tackle the subject. See sketch in DAB, 20:331-3; Earle D. Ross, "James F. Wilson, 
 Legalistic Free-Soiler," Annals of Iowa (third series), 32:365-75 (July, 1954). The 
 Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1949 (Washington, 1950), 2028, 
 corrects many errors that were in the entry on Wilson in the 1928 edition of that work. 
 
 48 John E. Briggs, William Peters Hepburn (Iowa City, 1919), passim; DAB, 8:568-9. 
 
 49 George Frazee, "Clark Dunham," Annals of Iowa (third series), 4:209-218 (October, 
 1899); Benjamin F. Gue, History of Iowa ... (4 vols., New York, 1903), 4:82. 
 
 50 DAB, 4:619-20. Harry J. Carman and Reinhard Luthin, Lincoln and the Patronage 
 (New York, 1943), 156, erroneously credits him to Illinois. 
 
 51 The following letter from Loughridge to Kirkwood is an example of the "old Ohio tie" 
 at work: ". . . saying nothing about feelings of friendship, on account of old associations, 
 on nothing but purely political considerations I could advocate your nomination. But when 
 I unite with these considerations, feelings of personal friendship founded on a long and 
 pleasant acquaintance and friendship, I shall certainly favor your nomination and will do 
 what I can to secure it." Loughridge to Kirkwood, May 15, 1859, No. 77, Box 1, Kirkwood 
 Correspondence. 
 
 52 Edward Younger, John A. Kasson: Politics and Diplomacy from Lincoln to McKinley 
 (Iowa City, 1955), passim. 
 
 53 Kasson to Kirkwood, July 18, 1859, No. 137, Box 1, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 54 J. C. Savery to Kirkwood, July 3, Nov. 26, 1859, ibid. 
 
 55 Younger, Kasson, 105. 
 
 56 Proceedings . . . First Three Republican Conventions, 170. 
 
 57 This summary follows the account given in Herriott, "Iowa and the First Nomination 
 of Lincoln," 81-115, 186-220. 
 
 58 William E. Baringer, Lincoln's Rise to Power (Boston, 1937), 224. 
 
 59 James S. Clarkson to Louis T. Michener, May 19, 1915, Louis T. Michener Papers 
 (Library of Congress). 
 
 60 Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie Years and the War Years (New York, 
 1954), 173-4. Cartter was later appointed Chief Justice of the District of Columbia, ibid., 
 715. See also Roseboom, Civil War Era, 3 62-3. 
 
 6l Murat Halstead, The Caucuses of 1860 . . . (Columbus, 1860). The Halstead ac- 
 count is reprinted in Paul Angle (ed.), The Lincoln Reader (New Brunswick, 1947), 
 265-76. 
 
 62 P. Orman Ray, The Convention That Nominated Lincoln . . . (Chicago, 1916), 32-3. 
 
 63 See Poore MS., Allison Papers. 
 
 64 Dubuque Weekly Times, May 24, 1860. 
 
 65 01dt (ed.), History of Dubuque County, 346. 
 
 66 William J. Petersen, Steamboating on the Upper Mississippi . . . (Iowa City, 1937), 
 295, citing the Dubuque Herald, May 22, 23, 31, 1860. 
 
342 William Boyd Allison 
 
 CHAPTER III — ALLISON JOINS "DODGE & CO." 
 
 1 See David S. Sparks, "The Birth of the Republican Party in Iowa, 1848 to 1860" 
 (typewritten Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 1951). 
 
 2 In 1896 Jacob Rich, perhaps Allison's closest friend, wrote a letter defending the 
 character of the second Mrs. Allison and in the course of the letter referred to the fact that 
 the first Mrs. Allison had died in 1860 of a "pulmonary affection." See Jacob Rich to 
 "William Ripley, March 29, 1896, R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook (in the possession of Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart Metcalf, Des Moines). The mystery of the silence surrounding 
 the death of the first Mrs. Allison is provocative of speculation. A simple headstone in the 
 family plot in "Linwood Cemetery, Dubuque, is her only memorial. 
 
 3 See Roy F. Nichols, The Disruption of American Democracy (New York, 1948), 303- 
 305; George Fort Milton, The Eve of Conflict: Stephen A. Douglas and the Needless War 
 (Boston, 1934), 437-8, 444, 447; Halstead, Caucuses of 1860, 16, 55-6, for references to 
 Samuels' part in 1860. The Charleston (South Carolina) Mercury, Apr. 30, May 1, 1860, 
 refers specifically to Samuels' speech. This paper was kindly checked for me by David 
 Allen Turner. See also Peterson, "Ben Samuels in the Democratic Convention of 1860," 
 232-4. 
 
 4 Allison to Kirkwood, Apr. 7, 1861, No. 3 56, Box 1, Kirkwood Correspondence. As to 
 Crane, he played the role of Allison's Man Friday for many years to come. His reward was 
 an appointment as postmaster at Dubuque during the Benjamin Harrison administration. 
 
 5 Allison to William Penn Clarke, Aug. 26, 1860, Vol. II, Clarke Papers. The punctu- 
 ation in this letter illustrates Allison's inability to make proper use of commas and periods. 
 The comma after "locality" should be a period. This is the earliest-dated letter from Allison's 
 own pen that has been found. 
 
 6 Dubuque was included in the itinerary of Seward's tour of the Northwest that was 
 designed to win the vote of that region for Lincoln. The tour is described in Theodore C. 
 Blegen (ed.), "Campaigning with Seward in 1860," Minnesota History, 8:150-71 (June, 
 1927); also in Blegen, Grass Roots History (Minneapolis, 1947), 232ff. 
 
 7 A circular which was sent to Governor Kirkwood is preserved in the Kirkwood Corre- 
 spondence. 
 
 8 George W. Jones to J. S. Black, Attorney General of the United States, Aug. 18, 1860, 
 re John F. Duncombe, General Records Office, Dept. of Justice, Appointment Papers, Iowa 
 (National Archives). See John C. Parish, George Wallace Jones (Iowa City, 1912), 42-4, 
 189-205, for evidence of the feud between Jones and Douglas. 
 
 9 Herbert M. Hoxie to Grenville M. Dodge, Nov. 25, 1860, Box 1, Dodge Papers. 
 
 10 Hoxie to Dodge, Nov. 16, 1860, Jan. 5, 1861, ibid. These and other letters discussing 
 politics and business run from October, 1860, to April, 1861, in Boxes 1 and 2, ibid. Also 
 see Younger, Kasson, 116. 
 
 11 Allison to Clarke, Dec. 16, 1860, Vol. II, Clarke Papers. To make good sense out of 
 the last sentence of the first paragraph, it is necessary to shift the comma after "course" 
 by putting it after "urged." 
 
 12 Sandburg, Lincoln, 94-104, deals with Lincoln's one term in Congress, 1847-1849. 
 
 13 General Records Office, Dept. of Justice (RG60), Appointment Papers, W. H. F. 
 Gurley (National Archives). 
 
 14 For Dillon, see Clyde E. Jacobs, Law Writers and the Courts: The Influence of Thomas 
 M. Cooley, Christopher G. Tiedeman, John F. Dillon Upon American Constitutional Law 
 (Berkeley, Calif., 1954). 
 
 15 See footnote 1 3 . 
 
 16 Timothy Davis to Bates, Feb. 7, 1861, re Allison, General Records Office, Dept. of 
 Justice (RG60), Appointment Papers (National Archives). Actually, Allison may have had at 
 least two other recommenders. The Davis letter is marked "3" on the back, indicating two 
 preceding letters from other sources, according to the system used in filing these letters. 
 
FOOTNOTES 343 
 
 However, the "Abstract," a final summary of the credentials, lists only the one for Allison 
 and fourteen for Gurley. Grimes, Harlan, Vandever, and Curtis signed one letter as the 
 Iowa delegation to Congress. 
 
 17 This description is based on material found in the Dodge Papers. Younger, Kasson, 
 110-12, has an excellent summary of Dodge's life. 
 
 18 Dodge Personal Biography, 1:3 3-4, Dodge Papers; C. H. Eldridge to Allison, Feb. 4, 
 1884, Allison Papers. J. R. Perkins, Trails, Rails and War: The Life of General G. M. Dodge 
 (Indianapolis, 1929), 64 (hereafter referred to as Perkins, Dodge), refers to Gurley as 
 "Curley." For a description of Washington as a city, a habitat, and a center of government 
 in 1861, see Margaret Leech, Reveille in Washington, 1860-1865 (New York, 1941). 
 
 19 Dodge Personal Biography, 1:43 8-41, Dodge Papers, consists of a report given by 
 Allison to N. E. Dawson, March 11, 1888. Dawson, an Iowa journalist, was gathering 
 historical materials for General Dodge at the time. 
 
 20 Allison to Kirkwood, March 24, 1861, No. 347, Box 1, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 21 Sherman, Recollections of Party Years, 1:23 3-4. A facsimile copy of the letter is re- 
 produced, facing p. 234. Just why this particular letter was chosen for illustration is hard 
 to discover. Both Vernom Cooper, "The Public Career of William Boyd Allison" (type- 
 written Ph.D. thesis, State University of Iowa, 1927), and Jeannette P. Nichols in her 
 biography of Allison in DAB, 1:220-22, refer to Allison's defeat for "District Attorney" as 
 a cause of his leaving Ohio, whereas his race there had been for "Prosecuting Attorney." 
 The timing of the letter to Sherman as well as the terminology clearly indicate that the 
 reference was to the more recent case. 
 
 22 See Allison to Kirkwood, March 24, 1861, Kirkwood Correspondence, cited in foot- 
 note 20. 
 
 23 F. E. Bissell to Kirkwood, March 26, 1861, No. 3 5 3, ibid. 
 
 24 See Fairman, Mr. Justice Miller and the Supreme Court, 40-52. 
 
 25 Allison to Kirkwood, Apr. 7, 1861, No. 3 56, Box 1, ibid. 
 
 26 Allison to Dodge, telegram, Apr. 2, 1861, Box 2, Dodge Papers. 
 
 27 Allison to Baldwin & Dodge, Apr. 9, 1861, ibid. 
 
 CHAPTER IV — ALLISON AND THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 ^History of Dubuque County, 416. 
 
 2 Dubuque Times, Apr. 21, 1861. 
 
 3 Hoxie to Dodge, Apr. 16, 1861, Box 2, Dodge Papers. 
 
 4 Allison to Dodge, Apr. 19, 1861, ibid. 
 
 5 Hoxie to Dodge, Apr. 20, 1861, ibid. 
 
 6 See Kirkwood to Dodge, May 25, 1861, and Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, to 
 Dodge, June 17, 1861, ibid. 
 
 7 Laws of Iowa, 1861 (Extra Session), Chaps. 17, 22; Cyril B. Upham, "Historical Survey 
 of the Militia in Iowa, 183 8-1865," Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 17:393 (July, 
 1919). 
 
 8 Allison's commission was dated June 29, 1861. Report of the Adjutant General . . . of 
 Iowa . . . 1863 (2 vols., Des Moines, 1863), 1:1. 
 
 9 See Oldt (ed.), History of Dubuque County, 268-9. Box 470, Allison Papers, contains 
 receipts for passes issued by Allison. Davenport Gazette, Aug. 19, 20, 1861; S. H. M. 
 Byers, Iowa in War Times (Des Moines, 1888), 59-60. 
 
 10 Quoted in Oldt (ed.), History of Dubuque County, 271. 
 
 11 Sanders to Allison, n. d. [1887], Box 13, Allison Papers. For Sanders, see Gue, History 
 of Iowa, 4:230-31. 
 
344 William Boyd Allison 
 
 12 The David B. Henderson story as given here is reconstructed from the Henderson 
 Papers, kindly loaned to me by his grandson, Don M. Peaslee, Laurens, Iowa; statement by 
 Allison in tribute to Henderson, Dubuque Times, Feb. 27, 1906, at the time of Henderson's 
 death. See also Seilhamer, Leslie's History of the Republican Party, 2:12-16. 
 
 13 Kenneth M. Stampp, And the War Came (Baton Rouge, La., 1950), 287-93. 
 
 14 Congressman William S. Holman of Indiana, a tough-minded Democrat, succeeded in 
 forcing the House of Representatives to go on record in reaffirmation of the Crittenden 
 Resolution that the war was a war to preserve the Union. See Randall, Lincoln, the Presi- 
 dent, 2:225; Congressional Globe, 37 Cong., 2 Sess., 15. 
 
 15 Democratic politics can be followed in Olynthus B. Clark, The Politics of Iowa Dur- 
 ing the Civil War and Reconstruction (Iowa City, 1911), 74-83, 111-14, 120, 174-5. A 
 new study of this subject is badly needed. 
 
 16 See Clark, Politics of Iowa During Civil War and Reconstruction, 123-6; many 
 letters in the Dodge Papers and the Kirkwood Correspondence refer to this subject. For a 
 comparable situation in another state, see Richard N. Current, Old Thad Stevens (Madison, 
 Wise, 1942), Chap. IX, entitled "Peace — or the Party?" 
 
 17 For the platform, see Herbert S. Fairall, Manual of Iowa Politics (Iowa City, 1884), 
 57-8. 
 
 18 Randall, Lincoln, the President, 2:204. 
 
 19 Paul S. Peirce, "Congressional Districting in Iowa," Iowa Journal of History and 
 Politics, 1:3 3 9-43 (July, 1903). 
 
 20 Earl B. Delzell, "William Boyd Allison, an Iowa Statesman and Mason," Grand Lodge 
 Bulletin (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), 32:No. 8 (October, 1931). 
 
 21 Allison to Kirkwood, June 10, 1862, Box 1, No. 515, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 22 On Shubael P. Adams, see Oldt (ed.), History of Dubuque County, 773. 
 
 23 "Allison the Statesman," an interview with Allison by Frank G. Carpenter, June 11, 
 1895. Clipping in R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook. 
 
 24 Charles City Intelligencer, June 26, July 3, 7, 31, 1862. 
 
 25 Independence Buchanan County Guardian, Aug. 12, 1862. 
 
 26 Idem. Also see Charles City Intelligencer, Aug. 14, 1862; Davenport Gazette, Aug. 
 9, 1862. 
 
 27 Independence Buchanan County Guardian, Aug. 12, 1862. 
 
 28 Dubuque Herald, Aug. 8, 1862. 
 
 29 M. M. Hoffmann, The Church Founders of the Northwest, Loras and Cretin and Other 
 Captains of Christ (Milwaukee, 1937), 318-19. 
 
 30 D. A. Mahony to Kirkwood, Apr. 30, 1861, Box 7, Kirkwood Correspondence. The 
 appointees criticized were D. N. Cooley, whom Allison would soon replace, much to 
 Mahony 's ultimate sorrow, and Captain Francis J. Herron, who soon went into active 
 service and became a major general at the age of twenty-five. 
 
 31 This summary of the life of Dennis A. Mahony is my own synthesis based on a con- 
 siderable study of many sources. 
 
 32 Jacob Rich in the Independence Buchanan County Guardian, June 11, 1861. George 
 D. Perkins in the Cedar Falls Gazette, May 31, 1861, said that if Mahony lived in the South 
 he would be a real secessionist. 
 
 33 Some prominent War Democrats were: W. W. Belknap of Keokuk, John M. Corse, 
 Cyrus Bussey, M. M. Crocker, J. A. Williamson, George Tichenor, C. C. Cole, Judge E. H. 
 Thayer, several of whom later became Republicans. For a balanced treatment of the charges 
 of "treason," see William F. Zornow, "Treason as a Campaign Issue in the Re-election of 
 Lincoln," Abraham Lincoln Quarterly, 5:348-63 (June, 1949). Also, see Robert Rutland, 
 "The Copperheads of Iowa: A Re-examination," loiva Journal of History, 52:1-30 (January, 
 1954). 
 
FOOTNOTES 345 
 
 34 D. A. Mahony, The Prisoner of State (New York, 1863), passim; Wood Gray, The 
 Hidden Civil War: The Story of the Copperheads (New York, 1942), 88; John A. Marshall, 
 American Bastile . . . (Philadelphia, 1874), 403-416; Davenport Gazette, Aug. 15, 1862; 
 Independence Buchanan County Guardian, Aug. 19, 1862. Robert S. Harper, Lincoln and 
 the Press (New York, 1951), 150, errs in accepting the statement of Franc B. Wilkie, Pen 
 and Powder (Boston, 1888), 9-10, that Mahony had been nominated prior to his incar- 
 ceration. In fact, Harper contradicts his own statement made two paragraphs previously, 
 where he says that Wilkie carried the news of Mahony's nomination to him in the prison at 
 Washington. 
 
 35 Mahony, Prisoner of State, 392-4. 
 
 36 Davenport Gazette, Aug. 15, 20, 1862; Iowa City Republican, Aug. 27, 1862. 
 
 37 Gray, Hidden Civil War, 97; Henry Clyde Hubbart, The Older Middle West, 1840- 
 1880 . . . (New York, 1936), 184. 
 
 38 Gue, History of Iowa, 2:86. 
 
 39 Mahony to Kirkwood, Aug. 15, 1862, Nos. 547, 548, Box 7, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 Earlier, on Jan. 13, Mahony had written to Kirkwood that he was sending him the Herald, 
 saying that he feared Kirkwood had permitted his mind to become prejudiced against him, 
 but he hoped to continue on good terms, politics apart. 
 
 40 Independence Buchanan County Guardian, Aug. 19, 1862. The Iowa City Republican, 
 Aug. 27, 1862, was much more outspoken: "Dennis A. Mahony, Dubuque's unenvied treason 
 monger, has been arrested by the U. S. Marshall [sic] for Iowa, on a charge of discouraging 
 enlistments. His arrest was demanded by the highest considerations known to the country. 
 Any man in a loyal portion of the country, who will so write and speak and act as to give 
 aid and comfort to the sworn and banded enemies of the Union, and thus increase the 
 hazards of life and limb of the Union men who have volunteered themselves to their coun- 
 try, deserves not only to be arrested but deserves the fate of a traitor. . . . His pestilent 
 course has been arrested, and other miserable copyists and lick spittels of Mahony will do 
 well to take warning from his example." 
 
 41 Fairfield Weekly Ledger, Aug. 21, 1862. Gray, Hidden Civil War, 88, refers to 
 Sheward as "Dana." All other sources use "David." See also Hubbart, Older Middle West, 
 185; Randall, Lincoln, the President, 2:232. Mahony, Prisoner of State, passim, gives many 
 details about others who were arrested and imprisoned. 
 
 42 See Fairfield Weekly Ledger, Apr. 21, 1862, and succeeding issues for references to 
 Negus. See Oldt (ed.), History of Dubuque County, 144, for Hutchins. 
 
 43 See Leech, Reveille in Washington, Chap. 8; Marshall, American Bastile, 403-416. 
 
 44 Dubuque Herald, Aug. 23, 1862. 
 
 45 Ibid., Aug. 22, 1862. 
 
 46 Iowa City Republican, Aug. 27, 1862; Fairfield Weekly Ledger, Sept. 4, 1862. 
 
 47 Cedar Falls Gazette, Aug. 29, 1862. 
 
 48 Dubuque Herald, Sept. 24, 1862. 
 
 49 Ibid., Sept. 24, Oct. 1, 1862. The "dark-lantern party" is a veiled reference to the 
 American, or Know-Nothing, party. 
 
 50 Davenport Gazette, Oct. 29, 1862; Josiah Henry Benton, Voting in the Field . . . 
 (Boston, 1915), 51-2; Fairfield Weekly Ledger, Oct. 23, 1862. 
 
 51 Independence Buchanan County Guardian, Dec. 2, 1862. Most of Mahony's votes had 
 come from Dubuque County voters who expressed themselves then as on many later occa- 
 sions as believers in his views and his character. A few days after the election, Mahony 
 was given his release from Old Capitol Prison on the ground that his health was being im- 
 paired, since he was suffering from an incipient paralysis, a rather phenomenal diagnosis in 
 the light of Mahony's subsequent career of seventeen active years. Gray, Hidden Civil War, 
 184, 220, dismisses Mahony and Henry Clay Dean, Iowa's other great Copperhead leader, 
 all too lightly. Mahony received the most complete endorsement of his fellow-citizens, who 
 
346 William Boyd Allison 
 
 elected him to the oflice of sheriff in 1863 and 1865. In later years he was a trusted citizen 
 and fearless leader of the people, and incidentally, a frequent correspondent of Allison's, 
 apparently on very cordial terms. He appeared as a stalwart Greenbacker in a Detroit con- 
 vention, and he announced his support of Hayes in 1876. He died in 1879. 
 
 52 Allison made the claim in the interview with Frank G. Carpenter noted in footnote 23. 
 On the claim for Dillon, see Thomas Withrow to Dodge, Aug. 12, 1863, Box 5, Dodge 
 Papers. 
 
 53 Benton, Voting in the Field, 47-52. 
 
 54 Oldt (ed.), History of Dubuque County, 290, 292-3. The prominent Republican 
 leaders referred_to were: F. E. Bissell, P. H. Conger, "William B. Allison, O. P. Shiras, 
 Shubael P. Adams, and B. F. Blocklinger. All except Blocklinger were later men of some 
 prominence in Iowa politics. 
 
 55 George M. Titus, "The Battle for Biennial Elections," Annals of Iowa (third series), 
 29:163-75 (January, 1948), tells from personal experience the story of the conditions and 
 attitudes that prevailed during the days of annual elections. 
 
 56 Two observers reported to Dodge on the convention. See Herbert M. Hoxie to Dodge, 
 July 1, 1863; M. M. Crocker to Dodge, July 2, 1863, Box 5, Dodge Papers. 
 
 CHAPTER V — ALLISON JOINS THE RADICALS 
 
 1 "Linkensale" (Lurton D. Ingersoll) in the Muscatine Journal, reprinted in Cedar Falls 
 Gazette, Jan. 15, 1864. 
 
 2 A. Lawrence Lowell, "The Influence of Party upon Legislation in England and America," 
 Annual Report, American Historical Association (1901), is a profound statistical study of 
 the votes of the Thirty-eighth Congress, also the Twenty-ninth, Fifty-fifth, and Fifty- 
 sixth. Also, see Frederick "W. Moore, "Representation in the National Congress from the 
 Seceding States, 1861-65," American Historical Review, 2:461 (April, 1897). 
 
 3 For literature on the Thirty-eighth Congress and its members, see James G. Blaine, 
 Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln to Garfield ... (2 vols., Norwich, Conn., 1884- 
 1886); George S. Boutwell, Reminiscences of Sixty Years ... (2 vols., New York, 1902), 
 2:1-16; Younger, Kasson, 157-76. 
 
 4 Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1949 (Washington, 1950), 274. 
 Curtis resigned on August 4; Wilson filled the vacancy and took his seat on Dec. 2, 1861. 
 
 5 Younger, Kasson, Chap. IX; Edward Younger, "John A. Kasson and the Beginnings of 
 the Universal Postal Union, 1863, 1867," Annals of Iowa (third series), 28:3-27 (July, 
 1946); DAB, 10:260-61. 
 
 6 Kasson to Dodge, Jan. 10, 1860, Dodge Papers; William E. Smith, The Francis Preston 
 Blair Family in Politics (2 vols., New York, 1933); Younger, Kasson, 100. 
 
 7 Hoxie to Dodge, Apr. 5, Dec. 6, 1864, Boxes 6, 8, Dodge Papers. 
 
 8 For Price and Hubbard, see Gue, History of Iowa, 4:157, 216-17. See also Charles E. 
 Payne, Josiah Bushnell Grinnell (Iowa City, 193 8), passim. Louella M. Wright, Peter 
 Melendy . . . (Iowa City, 1943), is a study of one of Grinnell's colleagues in railroad pro- 
 motion and a partner in frustration. 
 
 9 Poore (ed.), Congressional Directory . . . 1869, 110-11. This is the first Directory in 
 the form that we know it. 
 
 10 Quoted in Salter, Grimes, 388-9. 
 
 11 Judge Jedediah Brown of Fort Atkinson, Iowa, to Azro B. F. Hildreth, Apr. 14, 1867, 
 cited in Charles Aldrich, The Life and Times of Azro B. F. Hildreth . . . (Des Moines, 
 1891), 399; Rich to Kirk wood, Nov. 22, 1865, No. 1081, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 12 Harlan's biographer makes no mention of his status as a minister. See Johnson 
 Brigham, James Harlan (Iowa City, 1913). Aaron W. Haines, The Makers of Iowa 
 Methodism . . . (Cincinnati, 1900), 78-81, stresses Harlan's lay leadership in the church. 
 
FOOTNOTES 347 
 
 13 This statement is based on evidence found in a letter from John Y. Stone, Glenwood, 
 Iowa, to Dodge, Jan. 31, 1871, Box 18, Dodge Papers. 
 
 14 His daughter married Robert Todd Lincoln in 1868. 
 
 15 R. R. Russel, Improvement of Communication with the Pacific Coast as a Factor in 
 American Politics, 1783-1 864 (Cedar Rapids, 1948), has many allusions to Harlan's activity 
 in sponsoring railway legislation. 
 
 16 Cong. Globe, 3 8 Cong., 1 Sess., 18. 
 
 17 Ibid., 44. 
 
 18 Ibid., 44-5. 
 
 19 Ibid., 281. Also see Wright, Melendy, 215-23. 
 
 20 Cong. Globe, 38 Cong., 1 Sess., 1344, 1559, 1886; 13 U. S. Statutes at Large, 71. 
 
 21 Allison to Hildreth, May 5, 1864, in Aldrich, Hildreth, 3 80. 
 
 22 Even as late as 1907-1908, when Allison was making his last race for office and was 
 being pushed mightily by Albert B. Cummins for the Republican nomination for Senator, 
 he used this item. See Box 3 62, Allison Papers. 
 
 23 Cong. Globe, 38 Cong., 1 Sess., 706; Hoxie to Dodge, Feb. 27, 1864, Box 6, Dodge 
 Papers. 
 
 24 Dwight Agnew, "The Rock Island Railroad in Iowa," Iowa Journal of History, 52:207 
 (July, 1954). 
 
 25 Cong. Globe, 3 8 Cong., 1 Sess., 3244. 
 
 26 James Daniel Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 
 1780-1891 (Washington, 1896-1899), 6:179, 191. 
 
 27 Benjamin F. Shambaugh (ed.), The Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of 
 Iowa (7 vols., Iowa City, 1903-1905), 2:353; 3:28. 
 
 28 Randall, Lincoln, the President, 2:204-205. Also see definition of "Radical Repub- 
 lican" as given in The Dictionary of American History (5 vols., New York, 1940), 4:395; 
 T. Harry "Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals (Madison, Wise, 1941), passim. William F. 
 Zornow, Lincoln &■ The Party Divided (Norman, Okla., 1954), 15, calls the Radicals by a 
 new name, "Unconditionals," which he attributes to usage of the times in some states. 
 
 29 Randall, Lincoln, the President, 2:207-211. Lyman Trumbull later became a Conserva- 
 tive Republican. 
 
 30 It is necessary to take exception to the unsupported statement by Randall in his 
 Lincoln, the President, 2:217, that Grimes and Harlan should be grouped with Cowan of 
 Pennsylvania, Browning of Illinois, Collamer of Vermont, Henderson of Missouri, and 
 Doolittle of Wisconsin as Conservative Republicans. Proof of their Radicalism will be given 
 here as the story of 1864-1865 unfolds. Harlan was pro-Lincoln for personal reasons if 
 none other, but he was not with the Conservatives. Grimes gradually drew apart from the 
 Radicals and became highly critical of their politics and actions, during 1866-1871. It is 
 an interesting speculation that he might have become a Liberal Republican in 1872 and 
 possibly a Democrat later if more years and better health had been granted him. Compare 
 the actual career of Lyman Trumbull of Illinois with this speculative thought about Grimes. 
 
 31 Specific citation will be given below. 
 
 32 Cong. Globe, 38 Cong., 1 Sess., 519, 2113-17. 
 
 33 N. C. Deering to Hildreth, May 5, 1864, quoted in Aldrich, Hildreth, 381. It is easy 
 to believe that Deering was asking this question at Allison's suggestion. 
 
 34 Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals, 306-333, summarizes a mass of evidence on this 
 subject, covering the years 1863-1864. So does Zornow, Lincoln &~ the Party Divided, 
 passim. 
 
 35 Peter Melendy, letter to Cedar Falls Gazette, June 17, 1864. 
 
 36 Jacob Rich to Kirkwood, June 27, 1864, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
348 William Boyd Allison 
 
 37 On the plot to force Lincoln's resignation from the ticket, see Zornow, Lincoln &■ the 
 Party Divided, 110-18; Benjamin P. Thomas, Abraham Lincoln (New York, 1952), 441-4. 
 I must acknowledge an error in a statement about Allison's attitude toward President 
 Lincoln made in my article entitled "William B. Allison's First Term in Congress, 1863- 
 1865," Iowa Journal of History, 50:342 (October, 1952). My statement, based on a letter 
 from Allison to Secretary of "War E. M. Stanton, in the Edwin M. Stanton Papers (Library of 
 Congress), dated Atig. 11, and with the year "1864" penciled in, quoted Allison as writing 
 of Lincoln as "the obstinate and unjust man who holds the executive power of the Nation." 
 This letter was actually written August 11, 1867, and it referred not to Lincoln but to 
 President Johnson. The error came about through uncritical acceptance of the date "1864." 
 The error was discovered and kindly called to my attention by Mr. Benjamin P. Thomas. 
 
 38 Charles City Intelligencer, Sept. 1, 1864. 
 
 39 Allison to Kirkwood, Sept. 2, 1864, No. 949, Box 2, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 40 Oldt (ed.), History of Dubuque County, 308, quotes the Dubuque Herald to the 
 effect that Allison secured a substitute for $150. As to a promise to volunteer, nothing has 
 been discovered. Allison was seriously ill for several months in 1861-1862, due to exposure in 
 connection with his duties as special aide to the Governor. 
 
 41 Winfred A. Harbison (ed.), "Zachariah Chandler's Part in the Re-election of Abraham 
 Lincoln," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 22:267-76 (September, 1935). 
 
 42 Dubuque Times, Apr. 14, 21, 1865. 
 
 43 See A. W. Dunn, "Senator Allison's Recollections of Public Men," American Review 
 of Reviews, May, 1909. 
 
 44 The resignation from the Senate was effective May 17, 1865. Shelby M. Cullom, Fifty 
 Years of Public Service (Chicago, 1911), 13 5, says Harlan's appointment was due to the 
 intercession of Bishop Matthew Simpson of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Robert D. 
 Clark, The Life of Matthew Simpson (New York, 1956), 229, gives documentary proof for 
 the same statement. Harlan had been a student at Indiana Asbury (now DePauw) University 
 at the time that Simpson had been president. See ibid., 92-4; Brigham, Harlan, 17, 30, 33, 
 3 6. Carman and Luthin, Lincoln and the Patronage, 311, say that Elijah Sells, auditor of 
 the Treasury Department, gave "powerful backing" to Harlan. They also say that President 
 Lincoln conferred with Governor Yates and Senator Trumbull of Illinois "and others" re- 
 garding Harlan. They further point out that Harlan had come to have very close relations 
 with the President: at the second inaugural he was Mrs. Lincoln's escort; Harlan's daughter, 
 Mary, was often escorted by Robert Todd Lincoln (whom she later married) ; Harlan was 
 at Lincoln's side when he made his last public address from the White House on April 11, 
 1865. Elijah Sells, an Iowan and a prominent Methodist, either for help now or because of 
 past friendship, was rewarded by Harlan with an appointment as Superintendent of Indian 
 Affairs in the Southern Agency. 
 
 45 See Dubuque Times, March 12, 17, 21, 1865. 
 
 46 For a detailed account of this senatorial contest, see Sage, "William B. Allison and 
 Iowa Senatorial Politics, 1865-1870." 
 
 47 Henderson to Kirkwood, Dec. 12, 1865, No. 1121, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 48 Rich to Kirkwood, March 12, 1865, No. 958, ibid. Concerning Rich, see George E. 
 Roberts, "The Career of Jacob Rich," Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 13:165-74 
 (April, 1915). Aldrich, Hildreth, 394; Hildreth to Kirkwood, Apr. 1, 1865, No. 961, 
 Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 49 Rich to Kirkwood, Apr. 4, 1865, No. 964, Kirkwood Correspondence. A short excerpt 
 from this letter is given in Clark, Kirkwood, 307. 
 
 50 Stone to Kirkwood, June 2, 1865, No. 979, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 51 Howard K. Beale, The Critical Year, A Study of Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction 
 (New York, 1930), 64, 99-106, analyzes Harlan's dubious ethics in remaining as a member 
 of Johnson's official family long after a difference of viewpoint had developed. Beale's inter- 
 
FOOTNOTES 349 
 
 pretation of Harlan is strengthened by a consideration of the Iowa senatorial politics in- 
 volved in his actions. 
 
 52 Harlan to Kirkwood, July 18, 1865, No. 995, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 53 Rich to Kirkwood, Sept. 3, 1865, No. 1014; Grimes to Kirkwood, Sept. 27, 1865, ibid. 
 
 54 Allison to Kirkwood, Nov. 4, 1865, No. 2477, ibid.; Clark, Simpson, 257-8. 
 
 55 Grimes to Kirkwood, Oct. 4, 12, 28, Dec. 2, 1865; Jan. 2, 7, 1866, Kirkwood Cor- 
 respondence. All of these letters are printed in "Letters of James W. Grimes," Annals of 
 Iowa (third series), 22:469-503, 556-88 (October, 1941, January, 1942). The editing of 
 the published letters is inadequate, especially as to the spelling of names. For fuller quota- 
 tions from these letters, see Sage, "William B. Allison and Iowa Senatorial Politics, 1865- 
 1870," 107-110. 
 
 56 Statement to the author by Edward Younger. See also his Kasson, 177-200. 
 
 57 Caleb Baldwin to N. P. Dodge, Jan. 11, 1866, Dodge Papers. 
 
 58 Cedar Falls Gazette, Jan. 19, 1866; Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 142. 
 
 CHAPTER VI — POLITICS, LEGISLATION, AND BUSINESS 
 
 1 Cong. Globe, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., 21-2. 
 
 2 George Alfred Townsend, Washington Outside and Inside (Hartford, Conn., 1873), 
 149-59, 478. On Townsend, see DAB, 18:616-17. For "moral collapse" see Allan Nevins, 
 The Emergence of Modern America, 1865-1878 (New York, 1927), Chap. VII. 
 
 3 Piatt Smith to Allison, Jan. 5, 1866, 8 D8.16, Vol. 2, Illinois Central Papers (Newberry 
 Library, Chicago). 
 
 4 Smith to Allison, Feb. 2, 1866, ibid. 
 
 5 Smith to Oakes Ames, March 13, 1866, ibid. 
 G Cong. Globe, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., 3811. 
 
 7 Ibid., 2320-21. 
 
 8 Ibid., 1297-8. 
 
 9 Ibid., 3 517. 
 
 10 Ibid., 2480; Allison to Edward Atkinson, May 20 [1866], Edward Atkinson Papers 
 (Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston). A search for the letters from Allison in this 
 collection was made for me by Mr. Stephen T. Riley, Curator, who also made arrangements 
 for their photostatic reproduction. The author wishes to express his gratitude to Mr. Riley 
 for this kindness. 
 
 11 Allison to Atkinson, Nov. 27, 1867; Oct. 14, 29, 1869, Atkinson Papers. For Atkinson, 
 see DAB, 1:406-407; Harold F. Williamson, Edward Atkinson: The Biography of an Ameri- 
 can Liberal, 1827-1905 (Boston, 1934). On Wells, see note 32 below. 
 
 12 Cong. Globe, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., 2680. 
 
 13 Ibid., 1611-7, 3657. 
 
 14 Ibid., 3142, 3164-6. 
 
 15 Ibid., 1456-63. 
 
 16 Ibid., 3063-4. 
 
 17 Ibid., 1167, 1861, 2545, 3849-50. 
 
 18 Charles City Intelligencer, Aug. 16, 30, 1866; Chicago Tribune, quoted in Dubuque 
 Times, July 31, 1866; Dubuque Times, Aug. 24, 1866; Dubuque Herald, Aug. 23, 24, 1866. 
 
 19 Dubuque Times, Aug. 28, 1866. 
 
 20 Dubuque Herald, Aug. 19, 1866. 
 
 21 Ibid., Sept. 14, 1866. 
 
 22 Ibid., Sept. 2, 1866. 
 
350 William Boyd Allison 
 
 23 Ibid., Sept. 6, 1866. 
 
 24 See Dubuque Times, issues during Sept. and Oct., 1866. 
 
 25 Younger, Kasson, 199-206. 
 
 26 Payne, Grinnell, 231. See also Cyrenus Cole, A History of the People of Iowa (Cedar 
 Rapids, 1921), 380, and his Iowa Through the Years (Iowa City, 1940), 315, where this 
 error is repeated. Oskaloosa Herald, June 14, 1866, tells of the convention; the succeeding 
 weekly issue tells of Rousseau's attack. L. F. Parker, "Josiah Bushnell Grinnell," Annals of 
 Iowa (third series), 2:249-59 (January, 1896), refers to the Rousseau assault on Grinnell 
 but does not relate it to the loss of the nomination. Parker was GrinnelPs floor manager at 
 the convention. Allison joined in the oratorical attack on Rousseau and helped to close up 
 the case by demanding that Speaker Schuyler Colfax execute the order of the House and 
 deliver a reprimand to Rousseau. Cong. Globe, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., 4014-17. 
 
 27 Oskaloosa Herald, June 14, 1866. 
 28 Cullom, Fifty Years of Public Service, 128-9. 
 
 29 Cong. Globe, 39 Cong., 2 Sess., 1180-82. 
 
 30 Ibid., 1215, 1733. 
 
 31 Ibid., 1660-61. 
 
 32 Ibid., 1656-8; F. W. Taussig, The Tariff History of the United States (7th ed., New 
 York, 1923), 175-8; Fred B. Joyner, David Ames Wells, Champion of Free Trade (Cedar 
 Rapids, 1939), 51-6. Both Taussig and Joyner point out that Wells was not yet a free 
 trader but merely a tariff reformer. In his vote against suspension of the rules, Allison was 
 joined by Kasson and James F. Wilson; he was opposed by Grinnell and Price; Hubbard did 
 not vote. Allison to Atkinson, Mar. 8, 1867, Atkinson Papers. 
 
 33 Dodge Personal Biography, 4:1141, Dodge Papers. 
 
 34 Ibid., 1148; Rich to William Ripley, Aug. 9, 1897, R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook. Another 
 indication of Allison's proximity to the family is found in a letter from Grimes to his wife, 
 Apr. 16, 1866. In a casual way he writes: "Allison and I went to hear Mr. Hale preach." 
 Salter, Grimes, 291. 
 
 35 Dodge Personal Biography, 4:1139, 1158, Dodge Papers. 
 
 36 Salter, Grimes, 117-57. 
 
 37 Dodge to Horace White, Oct. 22, 1913, Horace White Papers (Illinois State Hist. 
 Society, Springfield). 
 
 38 Testimony before the Poland Committee, "Poland Report," House Report No. 77, 42 
 Cong., 3 Sess., 304-308. 
 
 39 Dubuque Herald, Sept. 4, 1868. It will be recalled that the party had been badly 
 divided in 1866. 
 
 40 Charles City Intelligencer, Aug. 20, 1868. 
 
 41 Allison to Atkinson, Nov. 9, 1868, Atkinson Papers. 
 
 42 Gaillard Hunt, Isaac, Elihu, and Cadwallader Washburne (New York, 1925), 241-2; 
 there are many letters in the Washburne Papers (Library of Congress) attesting to the 
 friendship between Allison and Washburne. 
 
 43 Allison's association with these men is also indicated in many letters in Box 5, Allison 
 Papers. 
 
 44 James R. Sheffield Autobiographical Memoir, in the possession of Frederick Sheffield, 
 New York City, who kindly made it available to me. The recommendation for the man- 
 agership of the Cooke interests came from Allison's colleague and fellow committee member 
 on Ways and Means, General Robert C. Schenck of Ohio. Cooke had offered the place to 
 John Sherman, who declined; then to Schenck, who accepted but resigned in order to 
 accept the appointment as Minister to England; he recommended Allison. Cooke begged 
 Schuyler Colfax to take the place temporarily, saying he knew nothing of Allison. Colfax 
 
FOOTNOTES 351 
 
 refused; the place later went to ex-Senator Benjamin F. Wade. See Ellis P. Oberholtzer, 
 Jay Cooke, Financier of the Civil War (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1907), 2:231. 
 
 45 Neither man ever denied that he had used his influence to get the route changed. 
 Cong. Globe, 40 Cong., 3 Sess., 1466-7. 
 
 46 Townsend, Washington Outside and Inside, 437, 491-2. "Wilson later exultingly re- 
 ported to Dodge that he had complained to Horace "White, editor of the Tribune, and that 
 Townsend's contract which would soon expire would not be renewed. 
 
 CHAPTER VII — A TIME OF DECISION 
 
 1 Tichenor to Dodge, Apr. 14, 1869, Box 16, Dodge Papers. 
 
 2 "Wilson left only a few papers, which are still not available to researchers. Therefore, 
 letters to him often have to be interpreted from his replies found in other collections. A 
 few Wilson papers have recently been discovered in the Fairfield Public Library. 
 
 3 James F. "Wilson to Dodge, Apr. 22, 1869, Box 16, Dodge Papers. 
 
 4 DAB, 20:331-3. Current, Old Thad Stevens, facing p. 289, has a Mathew Brady 
 photograph of "Wilson and the other members of the Board of Managers for the House in 
 the trial of President Andrew Johnson. 
 
 5 Cedar Falls Gazette, Apr. 23, 1869, reprint from the Chicago Post. 
 
 6 Jacob Rich to Kirkwood, May 10, 1869, Kirkwood Correspondence. See Wright to 
 Kirkwood, Apr. 16, 1865, No. 967, ibid. Samuel Merrill had been elected to succeed Stone 
 as Governor in 1867 and was renominated for a second term in 1869. Gue, History of 
 Iowa, 4:187-8. 
 
 7 Tichenor to Dodge, May 13, 1869, Box 16, Dodge Papers. 
 
 8 Tichenor to Dodge, May 19, 1869, Dodge Personal Biography, 4:1177, ibid. Frank W. 
 Palmer, editor of the Des Moines Register, had been elected to Congress to succeed Dodge in 
 
 1868. Gue, History of Iowa, 4:207. 
 
 9 Tichenor to Dodge, Sept. 28, 1869, Box 16, Dodge Papers. 
 
 10 Independence Bulletin, quoted in Cedar Falls Gazette, Sept. 10, 1869. 
 
 11 DAB, 20:551-2. 
 
 12 Allison to Atkinson, Dec, n. d., 1869, Atkinson Papers; Allison to Dodge, Dec. 16, 
 
 1869, Box 16, Dodge Papers. 
 
 13 Allison to Dodge, Dec. 26, 1869, Box 16, Allison Papers. 
 
 14 Dan Elbert Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa (Iowa City, 1912), 149. 
 
 15 Idem. 
 
 16 Cedar Falls Gazette, Jan. 14, 21, 1870. 
 
 17 Dubuque Herald, Jan. 6, 1870. 
 
 18 Idem. 
 
 19 Ibid., Jan. 16, 1870. 
 
 20 "A Friend" to Allison, Dec. 14, 1870, Box 219, Allison Papers. The letter was sent 
 from Fort Dodge. 
 
 21 Dubuque Herald, Jan. 19, 1870. 
 
 22 Dodge Personal Biography, 4:1192-4, Dodge Papers. 
 
 23 For example, see Wilson to Allison, Nov. 29, 1870, Box 219, Allison Papers. 
 
 24 F. W. Palmer to Dodge, Feb. 8, 11, 1870, Box 17, Dodge Papers. 
 
 25 Tichenor to Dodge, Feb. 10, 12, 1870, ibid.; Younger, Kasson, 229-37. 
 
 26 A. M. May, Waukon, to Allison, March 21, 1870; W. N. Burdick, Cresco, to Allison, 
 June 10, 1870, Box 219, Allison Papers. 
 
 27 Tichenor to Dodge, June 20, 1870, Box 19, Dodge Papers. 
 
352 William Boyd Allison 
 
 28 Caleb Baldwin to Allison, June 23, 1870, Box 219, Allison Papers. 
 
 29 Mildred Throne (comp.), "Iowans in Congress, 1847-1953," Iowa Journal of History, 
 51:338 (October, 1953); Peirce, "Congressional Districting in Iowa," 339-53. 
 
 30 Cedar Falls Gazette, Aug. 26, 1870. 
 
 31 Perkins, Dodge, 245-6. 
 
 32 Cong. Globe, 41 Cong., 2 Sess., 1262, 4665; 3 Sess., 922-4, 1614; Dodge to Mrs. 
 Dodge, Feb. 12, 1871, Dodge Papers; Homer H. Field and Joseph R. Reid, History of 
 Pottawattamie County, Iowa (2 vols., Chicago, 1907), 1:59-60. 
 
 33 Henry C. Lea to Allison, June 11, 1870, Box 219, Allison Papers. 
 
 34 See Cong. Globe, 41 Cong., 2 Sess., Appendix, 190-98 for Allison's remarks; Taussig, 
 Tariff History, 178n. 
 
 35 R. A. Babbage to Allison, Dec. 2, 3, 1870, Box 2, Allison Papers. 
 
 36 Morris K. Jesup to Allison, Dec. 6, 14, 1870, ibid. 
 
 37 White to Dodge, Nov. 18, 1870, Box 17, Dodge Papers; White to Allison, Dec. 18, 
 1870, Box 13, Allison Papers. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII — THE MANTLE OF GRIMES 
 
 1 Rich to Allison, Dec. 14, 1870, Box 2, Allison Papers. 
 
 2 0. P. Shiras to Allison, Dec. 15, 1870, Box 219, ibid. 
 
 3 See Mary R. Dearing, Veterans in Politics: The Story of the G. A. R. (Baton Rouge, 
 La., 1952), especially pp. 80-218 for the definitive history of the G. A. R.'s activities at this 
 time. Also, see Wallace E. Davies, Patriotism on Parade . . . (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), 
 Chap. IX. 
 
 4 F. W. Palmer to Dodge, Jan. 4, 1871; Tichenor to Dodge, Jan. 9, 1871; Allison to 
 Dodge, Jan. 14, 1871, Box 18, Dodge Papers. 
 
 5 Leland L. Sage, "The Clarksons of Indiana and Iowa," Indiana Magazine of History, 
 50:429-46 (December, 1954); Gue, History of Iowa, 4:53-5; George Mills, "The Fighting 
 Clarksons," The Palimpsest, 3 0:283-9 (September, 1949). 
 
 6 Tichenor to Dodge, Jan. 7, 1871, Box 18, Dodge Papers. 
 
 7 See Allison to Dodge, Jan. 14, 1871; Tichenor to Dodge, Jan. 18, 25, 1871; Carpenter 
 to Dodge, Jan. 31, 1871, ibid.; Tichenor to Carpenter, Apr. 5, 1871, Cyrus Clay Carpenter 
 Papers (Iowa State Historical Society, Iowa City). For the entire story in its full setting, 
 see Mildred Throne, "Electing an Iowa Governor, 1871: Cyrus Clay Carpenter," Iowa 
 Journal of History, 48:3 3 5-70 (October, 1950). 
 
 8 The entire transaction is traceable in a series of letters from Stone to Dodge, Jan. 14, 
 21, 28, 31, Apr. 3, 5, 1871, and Allison to Dodge, Apr. 8, 1871, Box 18, Dodge Papers. 
 
 9 For Harlan's speech, see Cong. Globe, 42 Cong., 1 Sess., Appendix, 62-7. Allison him- 
 self recognized the political value of Harlan's speech and praised it to Dodge. Allison to 
 Dodge, Apr. 8, 1871, Dodge Papers. Brigham, Harlan, 252-9, praises Harlan's speech but 
 does not say that the treaty Grant wanted was never obtained. Charles C. Tansill, The 
 United States and Santo Domingo, 1798-1873 (Baltimore, 1938), 459-60, calls Harlan's 
 speech "an able and cogent defense of the actions of President Grant" but also points out 
 that Harlan "could be adroit as well as direct." The fullest treatment of the Santo Domingo 
 episode, aside from Tansill's monograph, is to be found in Allan Nevins, Hamilton Fish: 
 The Inner History of the Grant Administration (New York, 1936), 316ff.; C. M. Fuess, 
 Carl Schurz (New York, 1932), 163-6, 173-5; Samuel F. Bemis, A Diplomatic History of 
 the United States (New York, 1950), 400-404. The form "San Domingo" was in vogue at 
 the time rather than the modern "Santo Domingo." 
 
 10 Wilson to Dodge, Apr. 20, 1871, Box 18, Dodge Papers; Wilson to Allison, Apr. 10, 
 1871, Box 2, Allison Papers. 
 
FOOTNOTES 353 
 
 11 Harlan to Dodge, May 27, 1871, Box 19, Dodge Papers. Brigham, Harlan, 262-3, 
 completely omits the element of Dodge's role in the senatorial politics of 1871-1872. 
 
 12 Independence Buchanan County Guardian, Aug. 25, 1863. 
 
 13 DAB, 1:220-22. 
 
 14 Brigham, Harlan, 260-62; Jefferson Bee, June 30, 1871; Dubuque Times, June 22, 
 1871; Iowa City State Press, July 5, 1871; Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, July 6, 1871; 
 Fort Dodge loiva Northwest, July 6, 1871. 
 
 15 Waterloo Iowa State Reporter, July 12, 26, 1871; William Warren Sweet, "The 
 Methodist Episcopal Church and Reconstruction," Transactions, Illinois State Historical 
 Society, 20:83-94 (1914); Willard R. Smith, Schuyler Colfax, The Changing Fortunes of a 
 Political Idol (Indianapolis, 1952), 283-5; Ralph E. Morrow, "Northern Methodism in the 
 South During Reconstruction," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 41:197-218 (Septem- 
 ber, 1954); Clark, Simpson, passim. 
 
 16 The first story of the Cherokee land sale known to this writer was one that appeared 
 in the Iowa City State Press, Oct. 10, 1866. See also the Dubuque Times, Nov. 6, 1866; a 
 full copy of Harlan's letter of defense, addressed to D. N. Cooley, appeared in the Nov. 9, 
 1866, issue. The story appeared spasmodically after this time; eventually a sizeable literature 
 grew up. The latest and probably most authentic discussion is by Paul W. Gates, Fifty 
 Million Acres: Conflicts over Kansas Land Policy, 1854-1890 (Ithaca, N. Y., 1954), 153ff. 
 See also Lula Lemmon Brown, Cherokee Neutral Lands Controversy (Pittsburg, Kans., 
 1930); James G. Randall (ed.), The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, Vol. 11, 1865- 
 1881 (Collections, Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. 22, 1933), 219, 239. 
 
 17 For data on Henry Van Ness Boynton and a picture, see C. Vann Woodward, Reunion 
 and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction (Boston, 1951), 
 29, and facing 34. "Gath" wrote: "The Indian business of the country in its worst form, 
 buying goods, making agencies, intriguing for Indian trust funds, land treaties, etc., has 
 long been handled by a Senator from Iowa and one from Kansas, Harlan and Pomeroy." 
 Townsend, Washington Outside and Inside, 534. 
 
 18 "Harlan is in Washington trying to cover up the developments in the Cherokee lands 
 cases. I suppose he will do it although if exposed it would alone defeat him. You should 
 have someone look into this." Dodge to Allison, Nov. 7, 1871, Box 219, Allison Papers. 
 Harlan could not "cover up," so he tried to explain away the charges. His letters were 
 printed in the Burlington Hawk-Eye, Des Moines Register, Sioux City Journal, Cedar Falls 
 Gazette, and, be it said to its credit, the Dubuque Times, an Allison paper. 
 
 19 Hawkins Taylor to Allison, Dec. 15, 1871, Box 220, Allison Papers. Ironically, John 
 Allison, the Register of the Treasury, had been assisted in getting his position by Harlan. 
 See Harlan to Secretary of the Treasury, May 13, 1861, Box 45, Robert Todd Lincoln 
 Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 20 Hawkins Taylor to Allison, Dec. 15, 1871, Box 220, Allison Papers; Fred Meyers of 
 Denison to Kirkwood, Oct. 29, 1875, Box 4, Kirkwood Correspondence', Meyers to Allison, 
 Nov. 29, 1875, Box 2 5, Allison Papers. 
 
 21 Cyrenus Cole, 7 Remember, I Remember: A Book of Recollections (Iowa City, 1936), 
 13 8-9; Brigham, Harlan, 262-3, errs grievously in saying that the Register deserted from 
 the Harlan cause on the day before the General Assembly met. 
 
 22 Harlan to Hildreth, Feb. 7, 1872, quoted in Aldrich, Hildreth, 410-11. See also Mills, 
 "The Fighting Clarksons," 2 83. A long study of the Clarkson Papers and a careful con- 
 sideration of the dates involved in the Register's change of attitude show that it is both 
 easy to exaggerate the influence of the Register of that time and to garble the story of the 
 rift in the Clarkson family. Ret was in his "freshman" year as editor; Des Moines did not 
 have the influence then that it later acquired. The all-important legislative elections had 
 been held in October; the Register's switch came on December 13. How many legislative 
 votes could the Register change between December 13 and January 10? On January 24, 
 1909, the Register published a letter from Ret to the then editor, Harvey Ingham, com- 
 plaining of a recent assertion that the Register of 1871-1872 had been neutral. Ret wrote 
 
354 William Boyd Allison 
 
 that the Register had "led and practically originated the fight for Allison," a preposterous 
 claim which all the evidence refutes, and which the writer in the Register, presumably 
 Ingham, disproves by citing the editorial of December 13, 1871, as the first to favor Allison. 
 
 23 Charles E. Perkins to Allison, May 28, 1881, Perkins Letterbook No. 5, Richard C. 
 Overton Collection (Perkins letters are in possession of Richard C. Overton, RFD, Man- 
 chester Depot, Vermont). 
 
 24 Allison to Kirkwood, Nov. 27, 1871, Box 4, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 25 Rich to Kirkwood, Dec. 17, 1871, ibid. 
 
 26 Kirkwood to Allison, Dec. 22, 1871, Box 220, Allison Papers. 
 
 27 Tichenor tcrAJlison, Dec. 22, 1871, ibid. ; Clarkson to Dodge, Feb. 1, 1872, Box 19, 
 Dodge Papers. 
 
 28 George D. Perkins in Sioux City Journal, Jan. 1, 1875, quoted in Clark, History of 
 Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 169; S. W. Rathbun, editor, in correspondence to his paper, 
 the Marion Weekly Register, Jan. 12, 1872. 
 
 29 Brigham, Harlan, 264. 
 
 30 Rathbun in Marion Weekly Register, Jan. 12, 1872. 
 
 31 Carpenter Diary, Jan. 7, 1872, Carpenter Papers. 
 
 32 Al Swalm to his partner, quoted in Jefferson Bee, Jan. 12, 1872. 
 
 33 This account based principally on L. F. Andrews, "Allison's First Notable Fight for 
 the Senate," Des Moines Register and Leader, March 1, 1908; Clark, History of Senatorial 
 Elections in Iowa, 166-7; John P. Irish, "Des Moines Letter," Iowa City Press, Jan. 10, 17, 
 1872. The author wishes to make special acknowledgment to Miss Mildred Throne in calling 
 the Irish letters to his attention. 
 
 34 Carpenter Diary, Jan. 10, 1872, Carpenter Papers. 
 
 35 Waterloo Iowa State Reporter, Jan. 24, 1872. 
 
 36 Allison to Garfield, Jan. 20, 1872, James A. Garfield Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 37 Allison to Dodge, Jan. 24, 1872, Box 19, Dodge Papers. 
 
 38 Horace Porter to Dodge, Jan. 26, 1872, Box 19, ibid. 
 
 39 Harlan to Hildreth, Feb. 7, 1872, in Aldrich, Hildreth, 410-11. 
 
 40 See Palmer to Dodge, Jan. 18, 1872, Box 19, Dodge Papers: "The fight for Allison and 
 Ret was made splendidly." 
 
 41 Burlington Hawk-Eye, Jan. 14, 1872. 
 
 42 The latter charge was one that would have to wait until 1908 for an answer. 
 
 43 Sioux City Weekly Journal, Jan. 18, 1872. 
 ^ House Journal, 1872, 87-8. 
 
 45 Carpenter Diary, Jan. 18, 19, 1872, Carpenter Papers. 
 
 46 James McDill of Afton, Iowa, to Lyman Trumbull, Jan. 19, 1872, Vol. 73, Lyman 
 Trumbull Papers (Library of Congress). This letter is cited in Earle D. Ross, The Liberal 
 Republican Movement (New York, 1919), 51. 
 
 47 The Nation, 14:34 (Jan. 18, 1872). 
 
 48 Dodge Records, 1:438-41, Dodge Papers. The interview was conducted on March 11, 
 1888, by N. E. Dawson, a former newspaperman with the Burlington Hawk-Eye. 
 
 49 Dodge Records, 8:299-305, Dodge Papers. 
 
 50 Waterloo Iowa State Reporter, Jan. 24, 1872. 
 
 51 Tichenor to Dodge, Feb. 1, 1872, Box 19, Dodge Papers; Hoxie to Dodge, Mar. 17, 
 1872, ibid. 
 
 52 Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Feb. 1, 1872. This item appears in Fred E. Haynes, 
 Third Party Movements Since the Civil War . . . (Iowa City, 1916), 23. The Burlington 
 editor appears to forget that his favorite was also a "railroad Senator." 
 
FOOTNOTES 355 
 
 53 Nevins, The Emergence of Modern America, 1865-1878, 163-4. 
 
 54 Allison to Dodge, Feb. 1, 1872, Box 19, Dodge Papers. 
 
 55 Salter, Grimes, 388-9. Allison's preoccupation with business matters in New York is 
 attested by his letters written from the Brevoort House to Whitelaw Reid in February, 
 March, April, 1872, Reid Papers. 
 
 CHAPTER IX — ELECTIONS AND SCANDALS 
 
 1 John A. Joyce to Allison, Dec. 2, 8, 1870, Box 219, Allison Papers. 
 
 2 Ross, Liberal Republican Movement, passim; DAB, 20:104-105; Kinsley, Chicago 
 Tribune, 2:147; Royal Cortissoz, The Life of Whitelaw Reid (2 vols., New York, 1921); 
 Joyner, David Ames Wells; Williamson, Atkinson; Glyndon G. Van Deusen, Horace Greeley, 
 Nineteenth-Century Crusader (Philadelphia, 1953), 400-421. 
 
 3 This list is based on newspaper articles of the era and on statements occurring in the 
 correspondence of Jacob Rich, James F. Wilson, S. J. Kirkwood, G. M. Dodge, Allison, and 
 others. The Mount Pleasant Henry County Press was an ably edited Liberal Republican 
 journal. See Mildred Throne, "The Liberal Republican Party in Iowa, 1872," Iowa Journal 
 of History, 53:121-52 (April, 1955). 
 
 4 Cortissoz, Reid, 1:208. Allison had written to Reid about business matters and had 
 given him a favorable though not glowing report on the Liberal Republican movement in 
 Iowa. Allison to Reid, April 4, 1872, Whitelaw Reid Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 5 See Helen Nicolay, Lincoln's Secretary (New York, 1949), 255, 267, for evidence of 
 her father's belief in Harlan's influence with Grant. 
 
 6 McDill to Trumbull, Jan. 19, 1872, Vol. 73, Trumbull Papers. 
 
 7 Townsend, Washington Outside and Inside, 231. 
 
 8 The North American Review, 115:407 (October, 1872); Van Deusen, Greeley, 400-407. 
 9 Hoxie to Dodge, Mar. 17, 1872; Allison to Dodge, Mar. 30, 1872, Box 19, Dodge 
 
 Papers; Carpenter Diary, Mar. 27, 1872, Carpenter Papers. 
 
 10 Wilson to Dodge, Apr. 2, 1872, Dodge Papers. 
 
 11 Dodge to Allison, Apr. 11, 1872, Box 220, Allison Papers. 
 
 12 William B. Hesseltine, Ulysses S. Grant (New York, 1935), 276-7, 277n.; Proceedings 
 of the National Union Republican Convention . . . 1872 (Washington, 1872), 44-54; 
 Carpenter Diary, June 4, 1872, Carpenter Papers. 
 
 13 The Nation, Sept. 26, 1872. Ross says the Liberals could not profit because "too many 
 groundless charges were afloat and the Sun in particular had 'cried wolf too often to have 
 the public very deeply impressed with news from that source." Ross, Liberal Republican 
 Movement, 162-3. 
 
 14 DAB, 15:33-4. 
 
 15 Fred H. Harrington, Fighting Politician, Major General N. P. Banks (Philadelphia, 
 1948). 
 
 16 DAB, 12:2-3. 
 
 17 James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to 
 the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896 (8 vols., New York, 1928), 7:66. 
 
 18 Rhodes could not have known this, but in 1877 Wilson wrote to Hayes, recommend- 
 ing McCrary for Attorney General, using these words: "a very able lawyer and a very 
 pure man. ... I selected him to be my successor in 1869 . . . because I knew his worth 
 and intellectual power." Wilson to R. B. Hayes, Feb. 7, 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes Papers 
 (Hayes Memorial Library, Fremont, Ohio). This note was kindly supplied to me by Mr. 
 Watt P. Marchman, curator. 
 
 19 Dennis T. Lynch, The Wild Seventies (New York, 1941), 221-4, definitely accepts 
 the idea of the guilt of the accused and says that no one knew how many other members 
 
356 William Boyd Allison 
 
 were involved because the friendly committee did not probe too deeply. Gustavus Myers, 
 History of the Great American Fortunes (3 vols., Chicago, 1910), 2:359-66, tells the whole 
 story. 
 
 20 J. B. Crawford, The Credit Mobilier of America (Boston, 1880), passim. 
 
 21 This fact emerges from a critical reading of John Debo Galloway, The First Trans- 
 continental Railroad: Central Pacific, Union Pacific (New York, 1950), 185-6; Perkins, 
 Dodge, 176ft. 
 
 22 Dodge to Wilson, Mar. 25, May 10, 1873, Dodge Letterbook, Box 382; Dodge to 
 Allison, Apr. 5, 1873, Dodge Papers. The defense of Dodge in Perkins, Dodge, 264-85, 
 seems to be an^example of special pleading. 
 
 23 "The Poland Report." The technical reference is H. JR.. No. 77, 42 Cong., 3 Sess., 
 289-93, 304-308, 356-7, 462. 
 
 24 The sequence of events in Allison's election to the Senate, as given in DAB, 1:220-22, 
 is inaccurate. 
 
 25 Burlington Hawk-Eye, for example. 
 
 26 Cong. Record, 43 Cong., Special Sess., 1:1. Blair Bolles, Tyrant from Illinois: Uncle 
 Joe Cannon's Experiment with Personal Power (New York, 1951), 147, errs in saying that 
 Cannon and Allison took their oaths of office on the same day. The House did not meet 
 until December. 
 
 27 Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It 
 (New York, 1948), 171. 
 
 28 William B. Parker, The Life and Public Services of Justin Smith Morrill (Boston, 
 1924), 221; letters from Morrill to Allison in Allison Papers, and Allison's letters to Morrill 
 in the Justin S. Morrill Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 29 Cong. Record, 43 Cong., Special Sess., 1:48. 
 
 30 Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, 2:539. 
 
 31 Burlington Hawk-Eye, June 6, 1873. 
 
 32 Council Bluffs Nonpareil, Aug. 6, 1908, cited Dr. Salter's pride in the fact that he had 
 performed the wedding ceremonies for three Iowa Senators: Grimes, Allison, Gear. 
 
 33 James R. Sheffield to Allison, Feb. 21, 1886, quoting Miss Mollie Garfield, Box 39, 
 Allison Papers. 
 
 34 History of Dubuque County, 622ft. 
 
 35 A long series of letters from Stout to Allison may be found in Box 2, Allison Papers. 
 Allison's answers are not available but are indicated in Stout's replies. 
 
 36 Cong. Record, 43 Cong., 1 Sess., 56, 57, 482. 
 
 37 See the correspondence in Boxes 2, 220, Allison Papers; for data on the Court Division 
 Bill, see 22 U. S. Statutes at Large, 172 (July 2 0, 18 82). 
 
 38 Cong. Record, 43 Cong., 1 Sess., 5273. 
 
 39 Senate Report 453, 43 Cong., 1 Sess., pts. 1, 2. 
 
 40 Ellis P. Oberholtzer, A History of the United States Since the Civil War (5 vols., 
 New York, 1922), 3:136. 
 
 41 DAB, 17:77-8. 
 
 42 E. g., Shepherd to Allison, June 1, 1874, Box 222, Allison Papers. 
 
 43 Senate Report 453, 43 Cong., 1 Sess. 
 
 44 A. F. MacDonald, State and Local Government in the United States (New York, 1955), 
 203. 
 
 45 The literature on "agrarian radicalism" is vast. The summary here is based on the 
 following articles: Mildred Throne, "The Grange in Iowa, 1868-1875," Iowa Journal of 
 History, 47:289-324 (October, 1949); "The Anti-Monopoly Party in Iowa, 1873-1874," 
 
FOOTNOTES 357 
 
 ibid., 52:289-326 (October, 1954); and "The Repeal of the Iowa Granger Law, 1878," 
 ibid., 51:97-130 (April, 1953). See also Earl S. Beard, "The Background of State Railroad 
 Regulation in Iowa," ibid., 51:1-36 (January, 1953). 
 
 46 Ross attributes Ainsworth's success to the Liberal Republican influence. See Ross, 
 Liberal Republican Movement, 210-13; also see Fred E. Haynes, James Baird Weaver (Iowa 
 City, 1919), 172. 
 
 47 Samuel Merrill to Allison, March 23, 1874, and Kirkwood to Allison, Apr. 24, 1875, 
 Box 222, Allison Papers. 
 
 48 Cong. Record, 43 Cong., 1 Sess., 1765-6. 
 
 49 Ibid., 43 Cong., 2 Sess., 208, 319, 459. 
 
 50 20 U. S. Statutes at Large, 87. Also see James A. Barnes, Wealth of the American 
 People (New York, 1949), 455-6; Fred A. Shannon, America's Economic Growth (New 
 York, 1940), 399-400. 
 
 51 See John A. Joyce, A Checkered Life (Chicago, 1883), Chap. IV and ff. 
 
 52 John McDonald, Secrets of the Great Whiskey Ring . . . (Chicago, 1880), passim. A 
 thorough explanation of the techniques used by the members of the Ring is given in Town- 
 send, Washington Outside and Inside, 242-5. 
 
 53 See John A. Joyce to Allison, Oct. 25, 1873, Box 224; Mrs. John A. Joyce to Allison, 
 May 21, Dec. 2, 1875, Allison Papers. 
 
 54 New York Times, Dec. 20, 1877; New York Tribune, Dec. 20, 1877; Joyce, A Check- 
 ered Life, 297. 
 
 55 After Babcock's resignation he was soon given an appointment as an engineer in the 
 Fifth Lighthouse District. See Oberholtzer, History of the United States, 3:343. 
 
 56 Horace Porter to Dodge, Jan. 26, 1872, Box 19, Dodge Papers. 
 
 57 Wright to Kirkwood, Feb. 14, 1875, Box 4, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 58 Wilson to Kirkwood, Jan. 4, 1875; Allison to Kirkwood, 3 telegrams, n. d., and one 
 letter, Jan. 8, 1875, ibid. 
 
 59 Rich to Kirkwood, Apr. 16, 1875, ibid. 
 
 60 The entire episode has been summarized in Leland Sage, "Weaver in Allison's Way," 
 Annals of Iowa (third series), 31:485-507 (January, 1953). 
 
 61 Joseph Morgan to Cyrenus Cole, Aug. 29, 1935, Cyrenus Cole Papers (State Historical 
 Society of Iowa, Iowa City). 
 
 62 R. S. Finkbine to Kirkwood, July 1, 1875, Box 4, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 63 Swalm to Allison, July 20, 1875, Box 25, Allison Papers; Swalm to Clarkson, Oct. 28, 
 1875, James S. Clarkson Papers (Library of Congress); J. Fred Meyers to Kirkwood, Oct. 
 28, 1875, Box 4, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 64 Kirkwood to Clarkson, Nov. 6, 1875, Clarkson Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 65 McCrary to Clarkson, Nov. 19, 1875, ibid. 
 
 66 "Undreamed of" unless this cryptic allusion of Dec. 29, 1873, has some meaning: 
 "Have you made any headway with Belknap in the Post Tradership matter?" Tichenor to 
 Allison, Box 220, Allison Papers. Belknap had been under fire since 1872 for corruption in 
 his Department, but the charges had been ignored by President Grant and his advisers. See 
 Oberholtzer, History of the United States, 3:165. 
 
 67 Henderson to Allison, Dec. 23, 1875, Box 224, Allison Papers. 
 
 68 This account is based on P. H. Sheridan to Belknap, Apr. 1, 1875; Belknap to Allison, 
 Apr. 3, 4, May 5, July 11, 1875; D. A. Wells to Allison, June 7, 20, July 9, 1875; Al 
 Swalm to Allison, July 20, 1875; Box 25, Allison Papers; Allison to E. P. Smith, Commis- 
 sioner of Indian Affairs, Sept. 21, 1875, Box 223, ibid.; Fort Dodge Messenger, July 29, 
 1875; Oberholtzer, History of the United States, 3:397-8; Stanley Vestal, Warpath and 
 Council Fire . . . 1851-1891 (New York, 1948), 205-208. 
 
 69 Brigham, Harlan, 286-8; Cole, Iowa Through the Years, 346; Harlan to Allison, Nov. 
 
358 William Boyd Allison 
 
 23, 1875, Box 224, Allison Papers; draft copy of letter from Allison to Harlan, Dec. 16, 
 1875, Box 223, ibid. 
 
 70 Harlan to Carpenter, Dec. 25, 1875, Carpenter Papers. 
 
 71 Rich to Allison, Jan. 14, 1876, Box 226, Allison Papers. "Cooley is completely crushed, 
 but takes it all good humoredly," added Rich with reference to Cooley's championship of 
 Harlan against the Allison candidate. 
 
 72 Wilson to Allison, Jan. 14, 1876, Box 227, ibid. 
 
 73 James A. Garfield Diary, March 2, 1876, Garfield Papers. Perhaps the rumors of 
 suicide account for the statement that is frequently met that Belknap ended his life at this 
 time. E. g., see_Roy Meredith, Mr. Lincoln's Camera Man: Mathew B. Brady (New York, 
 1946), 219. 
 
 74 "Trial of William W. Belknap," Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 1 Sess., Vol. IV, Part 7. 
 
 75 See William Worth Belknap Papers (Princeton University). For further light on 
 Belknap's finances, a very pertinent topic here, see Philip D. Jordan, "The Domestic 
 Finances of Secretary of War W. W. Belknap," Iowa Journal of History, 52:193-202 (July, 
 1954). 
 
 76 Gue, History of Iowa, 4:17-18. 
 
 CHAPTER X — ALLISON AND SILVER 
 
 1 Harry Barnard, Rutherford B. Hayes and His America (Indianapolis, 1954), 277. 
 
 2 Kirkwood to Allison, Apr. 17, May 5, 1876, Box 226, Allison Papers. 
 
 3 Clarkson to Allison, May 29, June 4, 1876, ibid. 
 
 4 Wilson to Allison, June 5, 9, 1876, ibid. 
 
 5 Allison to Hayes, June 17, 1876, Hayes Papers. (Copy kindly furnished by Mr. Watt P. 
 Marchman, curator.) Kirkwood to Allison, June 19, 1876, Box 227, Allison Papers. 
 
 6 Wilson to Kirkwood, June 23, 1876, Box 227, Allison Papers. 
 
 7 Clarence H. Cramer, Royal Bob: The Life of Robert G. Ingersoll (Indianapolis, 1952), 
 80-81, supports this idea. 
 
 8 Anderson to Allison, Nov. 29, 1876, Box 225, Allison Papers. 
 
 9 H. C. Leighton to Allison, Dec. 18, 1876, Box 226, ibid. See also Ora Williams, "Iowa 
 and the Making of a President," Annals of Iowa (third series), 32:507-514 (January, 1955). 
 
 10 Kirkwood to Allison, Jan. 2, 1877, Box 229, Allison Papers. 
 
 11 Cong. Record, 44 Cong,, 2 Sess., 713-14. 
 
 12 Ibid., 91-2; Joseph F. Wall, Henry Watterson, Reconstructed Rebel (New York, 1956), 
 153. 
 
 13 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., 913, 1050; Woodward, Reunion and Reaction, 150-54, 
 
 14 Wilson to Allison, Jan. 23, 1877, Box 231; Swalm to Allison, Jan. 24, 1877, Box 230; 
 Burlington Board of Trade Resolutions, Box 225; Kirkwood to Allison, Jan. 24, 1877, 
 Box 229, Allison Papers. 
 
 15 See Dunn, "Senator Allison's Recollections of Public Men." 
 
 16 The brilliant historical sleuthing of C. Vann Woodward in his Reunion and Reaction 
 has now revealed the full story of the Compromise of 1877. 
 
 17 Wilson to Hayes, Feb. 7, 12, 1877, Hayes Papers. 
 
 18 Cong. Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., 2068. 
 
 19 Wilson to Allison, Apr. 10, 1877, Box 231, Allison Papers. 
 
 20 Wilson to Allison, Oct. 31, 1877, Box 231, ibid. Interestingly enough, as recently 
 as 195 5 certain liberal groups referred to this same John Marshall Harlan in language quite 
 different from Wilson's; to them he was "Man of the Year 1896," an "iconoclast" and 
 
FOOTNOTES 359 
 
 "dissenter" who had maintained 59 years earlier that "The Constitution is not Color-blind!" 
 Saturday Review, Nov. 12, 1955, p. 27. See also, Loren P. Beth, "Justice Harlan and the 
 Uses of Dissent," American Political Science Review, 49:108 5-1104 (December, 1955). 
 
 21 The letters pro and con the Pro Rata Bill can be found in Boxes 227-230, Allison 
 Papers. 
 
 22 Perkins to Allison, June 16, Aug. 19, Nov. 3 [1877], Box 230, ibid.; Throne, "The 
 Repeal of the Iowa Granger Law, 1878," 97-13 0. See pp. 109, 112, 129 for references to 
 the role of M. C. Woodruff. 
 
 23 Allison Papers, especially Boxes 227-230. 
 24 Des Moines Register, Dec. 14, 21, 1877. 
 
 25 Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 180-86; Dubuque Weekly Times, Jan. 
 16, 1878; Davenport Gazette, Jan. 17, 1878. 
 
 26 Iowa House Journal, 1878, 39-40; Senate Journal, 1878, 30. 
 
 27 Clement Studebaker to Allison, Jan. 20, 1878, Box 231, Allison Papers. 
 
 28 DAB, 2:335-6; Cong. Record, 45 Cong., 1 (Special) Sess., 241. 
 
 29 Cong. Record, 45 Cong., 1 (Special) Sess., 581; New York Times, Nov. 22, 1877. 
 
 30 Jeannette P. Nichols, "Bland- Allison Act," Dictionary of American History (5 vols., 
 New York, 1940), 1:198. Oberholtzer, History of the United States, 4:30-31, charges 
 that "Allison's principles were lightly held" and that he listened to a "plea" to amend the 
 bill. Sherman himself strongly implies that it was his conversations with Allison and his 
 letter of December 10 that caused Allison to modify the bill. See Sherman, Recollections 
 of Forty Years, 2:620-21. 
 
 31 Sherman to Allison, Dec. 10, 1877, quoted in Sherman, Recollections of Forty Years, 
 2:620-21. 
 
 32 Poore MS, Box 1, Allison Papers. 
 
 33 Cong. Record, 45 Cong., 2 Sess., 173-5. His arguments were later held up to ridicule 
 by J. Laurence Laughlin, The History of Bimetallism in the United States (3rd ed., New 
 York, 1896), 228, note 2. 
 
 34 Cong. Record, 45 Cong., 2 Sess., 47, 87-94, 549-64. The motion was carried by a vote 
 of 42 to 20 in spite of a letter of denunciation of its provisions from Secretary John Sherman. 
 
 35 Davenport Gazette, Feb. 6, 1878. Allison had given an interview to the Chicago 
 Tribune, and it was to his remarks therein that the Gazette was alluding. 
 
 36 Cong. Record, 45 Cong., 2 Sess., 105 5-1112. 
 37 Des Moines Register, Feb. 22, 1878. 
 
 38 Carpenter to Allison, March 4, 1878, Box 27, Allison Papers. 
 
 39 Cong. Record, 45 Cong., 2 Sess., 1285. 
 
 40 Ibid., 1410. 
 
 41 Ibid., 1418-20. 
 
 42 Des Moines Register, Feb. 22, March 1, 8, 1878; Harper's Weekly, March 16, 1878, p. 
 206; Garfield Diary, Feb. 28, 1878, Garfield Papers. 
 
 43 Perkins to Allison, Feb. 9, 1878, Perkins Letterbook No. 4, Overton Collection', Jesup 
 to Allison, Feb. 13, 1878, Box 5, Allison Papers. 
 
 44 Shannon, America's Economic Growth, 402-403. 
 
 CHAPTER XI — A GARFIELD REPUBLICAN 
 
 x Mark D. Hirsch, William C. Whitney: Modern Warwick (New York, 1948), 322. 
 2 L. F. Randolph, Treasurer of Illinois Central Railroad, to Allison, Dec. 4, 1879, Box 5, 
 Allison Papers. 
 
 3 R. E, Graves to Allison, March 5, 1878, Box 5, ibid. 
 
360 William Boyd Allison 
 
 4 Graves to Allison, Dec. 18, 1878, ibid. 
 
 5 Graves to Allison, Dec. 19, 1878; H. L. Stout to Allison, Dec. 19, 1878, Apr. 11, 
 1879, ibid. 
 
 6 Charles E. Perkins to Allison, Apr. 2, 1879, Perkins Letterbook No. 4, Overton Col- 
 lection. 
 
 7 C. H. Booth to Allison, March 28, Apr. 4, 1879, Box 5, Allison Papers; Irving H. Hart, 
 History of Butler County, Iowa ... (2 vols., Chicago, 1914), 1:424-6. 
 
 8 Allison to Sherman, Nov. 10, 1878, Hayes Papers. 
 
 9 Years later an unfriendly newspaper, the Clinton Age, accused Allison of being a free 
 silver man in T878. This Allison indignantly denied in a letter to a good friend and sup- 
 porter: "Whatever may be said of my weakness on the money question I never was for free 
 silver." Allison to Cyrenus Cole, Aug. 22, n. d., but obviously some time after Cole went to 
 Cedar Rapids as an editor-publisher in 1898, Cole Papers. 
 
 10 Allison to Hayes, Nov. 22, 1878, Hayes Papers; Allison to Hamilton Fish, June 28, 
 1878, Vol. 121, Hamilton Fish Correspondence (Library of Congress). 
 
 11 "Wilson to Clarkson, Jan. 9, 1880, James S. Clarkson Papers (Iowa State Dept. of 
 History and Archives, Des Moines); Dodge to Wilson, Apr. 12, 1880, Dodge Letterbook, 
 No. 3 8 6, Dodge Papers. 
 
 12 Allison to Garfield, Jan. 7, 1880, Garfield Papers; Proceedings of the Republican Na- 
 tional Convention . . . 1880 (Chicago, 1881); DAB, 7:145-50; Robert G. Caldwell, James A. 
 Garfield, Party Chieftain (New York, 1931), 278-91; David S. Muzzey, James G. Blaine, 
 Political Idol of Other Days (New York, 1934), 15 8-72. 
 
 13 Allison to Garfield, June 1, 1880, Garfield Papers. The date is surely in error. Allison 
 to Garfield, June 2 5, 18 80, ibid. The uneasiness about the chairmanship which Allison refers 
 to was due to the fact that the national committee had no regular chairman; the campaign 
 was directed by Stephen W. Dorsey, Secretary of the Republican national committee. See 
 DAB, 5:3 87. 
 
 14 Theodore C. Smith, Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield (2 vols., New Haven, 
 1925), 2:1034, quoting from Garfield diary. 
 
 15 Allison to Garfield, Oct. 4, 1880, Garfield Papers; Allison to Reid, Oct. 4, 1880, 
 Reid Papers. 
 
 16 Allison to Garfield, Nov. 3, 18 80, ibid. Allison was on the best of terms with Dorsey 
 and a stockholder in a Dorsey-owned silver mine in Leadville, Colorado. See Dorsey to 
 Allison, Feb. 9, 1880, Box 13, Allison Papers; Memorandum by William Windom, June 17, 
 18 80, Box 6, ibid. 
 
 17 Allison to Garfield, telegram, Nov. 3, 1880, Allison Papers. 
 
 18 Caldwell, Garfield, 312. 
 
 19 Smith, Garfield, Vol. 2, Chap. 27, "Cabinet-making," has provided a long and master- 
 ful refutation of those who claim influence for Blaine over Garfield. He cites the following 
 as in error: Sherman, Recollections of Forty Years, 2:807; Gail Hamilton, Biography of 
 James G. Blaine (Norwich, Conn., 1895), 486-503; Rhodes, History of the United States, 
 8:142; Edward Stanwood, James Gillespie Blaine (Boston, 1905), 23 8. Surely a distinguished 
 list! Caldwell, Garfield, 313-31, by inference, and Muzzey, Blaine, 182-3, also refute the 
 claims for Blaine. The discovery of new data makes it possible to add light to the story as 
 given by Smith, Caldwell, and Muzzey. 
 
 20 Clarkson to Kirkwood, Dec. 6, 1880, Box 5, No. 2153, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 21 Garfield to Allison, Dec. 18, 1880, Garfield Papers. 
 
 22 Allison and others to Garfield, Dec. 16, 1880, ibid. James B. Weaver and E. H. 
 Gillette as Greenbackers would, of course, not sign. There is no apparent explanation why 
 the other members of the Iowa delegation — N. C. Deering and C. C. Carpenter — did 
 not sign. 
 
 23 This reconstruction is based on Blaine's letter as given in part by Smith, Garfield^ 
 
FOOTNOTES 361 
 
 2:1060-61, and Hamilton, Blaine, 495-6. Each author seems to have chosen those parts of 
 the letter which suited his or her thesis. Smith was trying to minimize Blaine's influence, 
 Gail Hamilton (Blaine's niece, Mary Abigail Dodge, who wrote under the pen name of 
 Gail Hamilton) to magnify it. 
 
 24 Smith, Garfield, 2:1061. 
 
 25 Ibid., 2:1061-2. 
 
 26 This account follows Smith closely. 
 
 27 Smith, Garfield, 2:1062, 1072-94; Robert McElroy, Levi P. Morton: Banker, Diplomat, 
 Statesman (New York, 193 0), 118-28; DAB, 6:486-7. 
 
 28 Material on Windom is scarce, but it perhaps is of some significance to read that in 
 1883 certain forces in Minnesota thought the same way about Windom's return to the 
 Senate. They were forced to vote for Dwight M. Sabin, a man of a questionable record as 
 an employer of prison labor, "but many legislators would have voted for a less agreeable 
 man than Sabin, if they could thus have been assured of "Windom's retirement to private 
 life." Frank H. Heck, The Civil War Veteran in Minnesota Life and Politics (Oxford, Ohio, 
 1941), 119. 
 
 29 Smith, Garfield, 2:1078-9. 
 
 30 Box 377, Allison Papers. 
 
 31 Box 6, ibid., includes a bill from Dr. Mitchell for $45 for services rendered. 
 
 32 Davenport Weekly Gazette, Oct. 19, 1881. 
 
 33 Henderson to Allison, Jan. 17, 26, 1881, Box 238, Allison Papers. 
 
 34 Allison to Garfield, Jan. 22, 23, 1881, Garfield Papers. 
 
 35 Rich to Kirkwood, Feb. 20, 1881, Box 5, No. 2180, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 36 Muzzey, Blaine, 183n. 
 
 37 Garfield to Allison, Feb. 28, 1881, Garfield Papers. 
 
 38 Allison to Garfield, March 1, 1881, ibid. 
 
 39 John A. Kasson puts the Treasury first in importance and adds the Interior and Post 
 Office Departments as "the other powerful agencies." Kasson to Garfield, Nov. 11, 18 80, ibid. 
 This item was supplied through the kindness of Edward Younger, biographer of Kasson. 
 
 40 Allison to Garfield, March 1, 1881, ibid. 
 
 41 Garfield Diary, March 1, 1881, ibid. 
 
 42 Garfield Diary, March 2, 1881, ibid. 
 
 43 Whitelaw Reid to Elizabeth Mills, March 1, 1881, quoted in Cortissoz, Reid, 2:54. 
 
 44 Allison to Garfield, March 2, 1881, Garfield Papers. 
 
 45 On James, see DAB, 9:589. 
 
 46 Smith, Garfield, 2:1092-4. 
 
 47 Considering all the data given above, it is not possible to agree fully with Muzzey, 
 Blaine, 182-3, when he says: "Furthermore, Garfield opposed Blaine's persistent recom- 
 mendations of William B. Allison for the Treasury until the eleventh hour." 
 
 48 Allison to Garfield, March 2, 1881, Garfield Papers. 
 
 49 Sheffield Memoir. For a brief summary of the career of James Rockwell Sheffield, see 
 Who Was Who in America (2 vols., Chicago, 1942, 1950), 1:1112. Also see Elting E. 
 Morison (ed.), The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (8 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1951-1954), 
 2:1034. 
 
 50 Harper's Weekly, March 19, 1881, p. 180. 
 
 51 Cortissoz, Reid, 2:56. 
 
 02 Cong. Record, 47 Cong., Special Session of Senate, 2-3. 
 
 53 Allison to Garfield, March 5, 1881, Garfield Papers. 
 
 5i The Nation, March 10, 1881, p. 159; Harper's Weekly, March 26, 1881, p. 194. John 
 
362 William Boyd Allison 
 
 A. Kasson had a low opinion of Garfield — "an oratorical schoolboy" — and all his Cabinet. 
 Windom he called "a well-disposed country man who will not spill his milk pail — till 
 somebody jostles him." Kasson to his sister, June 5, 1881, Wead Collection (Hartford, 
 Conn.). This item was given to me by Edward Younger. See his Kasson, 306. 
 
 55 This was the 53 rd Congress. Senator G. G. Vest of Missouri was the chairman of the 
 Appropriations Committee during that term. The Republicans had control of the Senate in 
 every term of Congress in the post-Civil War period with the exception of the 46th (1879- 
 1881) and the 53rd, until the Democratic sweep of 1912. In the 47th Congress they needed 
 the vote of the President of the Senate to break a tie. 
 
 56 Caldwell, Garfield, 330. 
 
 57 DAB, 16:78-9; George F. Howe, Chester A. Arthur, A Quarter Century of Machine 
 Politics (New York, 1934), 139. 
 
 58 Caldwell, Garfield, 343. 
 
 59 Howe, Arthur, 142. 
 
 60 Caldwell, Garfield, 345; Donald Barr Chidsey, Gentleman from New York, A Life of 
 Roscoe Conkling (New Haven, 193 5), 3 34-6. 
 
 61 Smith, Garfield, 2:1081-2. 
 
 62 Caldweli, Garfield, 146. 
 
 63 Allison to Garfield, March 27, 1881, Garfield Papers. 
 
 64 Selig Adler, "The Senatorial Career of George Franklin Edmunds, 1866-1891" (Ph. D. 
 thesis, University of Illinois, 193 6, used by permission of the author). Chidsey, Conkling, 
 Chap. 3 0, note 10, cites Joseph G. Cannon's testimony on the personal motivations that 
 operated in this cause celebre. 
 
 65 Oberholtzer, History of the United States, 4:114. 
 
 CHAPTER XII— IOWA POLITICS, 1881-1882 
 
 1 Wilson to Allison, March 7, 1881, Box 240, Allison Papers; Wilson to Kirkwood, March 
 7, 1881, Box 5, No. 2210, Kirkwood Correspondence. Governor Gear had planned to give 
 Allison's seat to Henderson, if Allison had gone into the Cabinet. See Wilson to Allison, 
 March 23, 1881, Box 240, Allison Papers. Gear awarded Kirkwood's vacant seat to an able 
 man from southern Iowa, James W. McDill of Afton, a former Congressman and member 
 of the Iowa Board of Railroad Commissioners. McDill's appointment would run until the 
 next meeting of the General Assembly. 
 
 2 Jacob Rich to Kirkwood, March 3 , 1881, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 3 Wilson to Allison, March 11, 1881, Box 240, Allison Papers. 
 
 4 Wilson to Allison, March 18, 1881, ibid. 
 
 5 Wilson to Allison, March 23, 1881, ibid. 
 
 6 Wilson to Allison, March 26, 1881, ibid. 
 
 7 Wilson to Allison, Apr. 4, 1881; Clarkson to Allison, Apr. 8, 1881, Box 238, ibid. 
 
 8 Wilson to Allison, Apr. 8, 1881, Box 240, ibid. 
 9 Des Moines Register, May 26, 27, 1881. 
 
 10 Charles E. Perkins to Allison, May 28, 1881, Perkins Letterbook No. 5, Overton 
 Collection. 
 
 11 See Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 196-7, for quotations of Kirkwood 
 to Rich, Oct. 31, 1881, and Kirkwood to E. R. Kirk, Oct. 20, 1881, from Letterbooks of 
 Samuel J. Kirkwood (State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City). Clark, History of Sena- 
 torial Elections in Iowa, 195-9, gives many quotations from the Des Moines Register, showing 
 its warm support of Kirkwood. 
 
 12 David Brant, "Iowa Political Sketches," Cedar Rapids Republican, March 12, 1926. 
 
FOOTNOTES 363 
 
 13 Rich to Kirkwood, March 23, 1881, Box 5, No. 2213, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 14 Henderson to I. M. Fisher, May 16, 1881, J. M. Fisher Papers (in possession of Irving H. 
 Hart, Cedar Falls, Iowa, who kindly made the Henderson letters in this collection avail- 
 able to me). 
 
 15 Des Moines Register, June 3 0, 1881; Davenport Weekly Gazette, July 6, 1881. 
 
 16 Dubuque Times, Aug. 12, 1883. Box 377 of the Allison Papers contains many letters 
 that amply demonstrate the state of hysteria from which Mrs. Allison suffered. It was just 
 about this time that Dr. Sigmund Freud and his associates first identified hysteria as a disease 
 of the nervous system. See Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (2 vols., 
 New York, 1953, 1955), l:221ff. See also Walter Bromberg, Man Above Humanity: A 
 History of Psychotherapy (Philadelphia, 1954), 152-5. 
 
 17 Des Moines Register, Jan. 11, 18 82; Wilson to Allison, Jan. 12, 1882, Box 244, Allison 
 Papers; Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 199. 
 
 18 How far off was the Iowa City editor who wrote that Kirkwood had "yetted to the 
 entreaties of the late Chief Magistrate to become one of his advisers"? Iowa City Republican, 
 quoted in Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 194. 
 
 19 Henry Villard to Allison, Apr. 18, 1882, Box 244, Allison Papers. 
 
 20 Allison to Mrs. Allison, July 18, 1882, Box 377, ibid. 
 
 21 Telegram, Frank Hatton to Senator James W. McDill, n. d., 1882, Box 242, Allison 
 Papers; Sam Clark to Allison, June 6, 1882, Box 241, ibid. 
 
 22 Telegrams Runnells to Allison, Feb. 1, June n. d., 1882, and letter, Feb. 14, 1882, 
 Box 243, ibid. 
 
 23 Henderson to Allison, Apr. 12, 24, 1882, and telegrams, May 5, June 19, 1882, Box 
 242, ibid.; Cong. Record, 47 Cong., 1 Sess., 3480, 4773, 6021, 6024, 6431. 
 
 24 Dubuque Times, Aug. 5, 1882. 
 
 25 Wilson to Allison, June 30, 1882, Box 244, Allison Papers, is only one of many on this 
 subject. 
 
 26 P. J. Quigley to Allison, May 30, 1882, Box 343, ibid. 
 
 27 Everett P. Wheeler, Sixty Years of American Life: Taylor to Roosevelt, 1850 to 1910 
 (New York, 1917), 271-6; Dan Elbert Clark, "History of Liquor Legislation in Iowa," 
 Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 6:525 (October, 1908). 
 
 28 Cedar Falls Gazette, Apr. 21, June 23, 1882; Henderson to Allison, July 2, 1882, 
 Box 242, Allison Papers; Walker Blaine to James G. Blaine, Aug. 8, 1882, quoted in 
 Hamilton, Blaine, 614. 
 
 29 Henderson to I. M. Fisher, Oct. 27, 1882, Fisher Papers. 
 
 30 Throne (corap.), "Iowans in Congress," 342-4. 
 
 31 Teller to Kirkwood, Dec. 5, 1882, Box 5, No. 2318, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 32 Kirkwood to Allison, Dec. 19, 1882, Box 242, Allison Papers. 
 
 33 Allison to Mrs. Allison, Sept. 10, 1882, Box 377, ibid. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII — A MAN OF INFLUENCE 
 
 1 Clark, "History of Liquor Legislation in Iowa," 503-608, gives the best outline of this 
 topic. The item about John F. Duncombe was found in two letters from Maurice D. 
 O'Connell to Clarkson, Feb. 17, 26, 1883, Clarkson Papers (Des Moines). O'Connell hap- 
 pened to meet Duncombe on the train; Duncombe volunteered his belief that the prohibition 
 case was weak on a certain point; O'Connell passed this information on to Clarkson, who 
 then secured Duncombe's assent to serve if invited by Wilson. 
 
 2 Fair all, Manual of Iowa Politics, 9. 
 
 3 Albert R, Anderson to Allison, Jan. 22, 1883, Box 244, Allison Papers. A few days 
 
364 William Boyd Allison 
 
 later Anderson wrote that the Republican party must support prohibition and the river 
 counties must concede this to the rest of the party. Feb. 13, 1883, ibid. 
 
 4 Allison to Kirkwood, May 16, 1883, Box 5, No. 2329, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 5 Cedar Falls Gazette, June 29, 1883. 
 
 6 Allison to Kirkwood, July 11, 1883, Box 5, No. 2340, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 7 All these letters are in Box 5, ibid. 
 
 8 Cedar Falls Gazette, Aug. 17, 1883. 
 
 9 Dubuque Times, Aug. 13, 1883. What was meant by "gossamers" is obscure. From the 
 newspaper story, it would seem to mean some sort of openwork sewing bag. 
 
 10 Ibid., Aug. 06, 18 83. 
 
 11 J. K. Graves to Kirkwood, Aug. 26, 1883, Box 5, No. 23 50, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 12 Mrs. Grimes's letter and one from Mrs. J. S. Morrill are in Box 377, Allison Papers; 
 one from Mrs. Aylett R. Cotton is in Box 34, ibid. Cole, 7 Remember, I Remember, 232. 
 
 13 J. S. Morrill to Allison, Aug. 22, 1883, Box 32, Item 8050, Morrill Papers. 
 
 14 Allison to Morrill, Aug. 27, 1883, Item 8054, ibid. 
 
 15 A copy of the will is in Box 1, Allison Papers. Senator Morrill's testimony that "for 
 the last year Mrs. Allison had appeared so bright and happy that we had in our family dis- 
 missed all apprehension as to her future" becomes very important in support of her right to 
 make a will. See Box 377, Allison Papers, for letters from Mrs. Grimes; Box 8 for letters 
 from Bowd Nealley, Bangor, Maine, thanking Allison for his promptness in sending out 
 checks to the heirs. 
 
 16 Dubuque Times, quoted in Cedar Falls Gazette, Aug. 31, 1883. 
 
 17 J. K. Graves to Kirkwood, Aug. 31, 1883, Box 5, No. 2353, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 18 Allison to Kirkwood, May 17, 1883, No. 23 3 0, ibid. 
 
 19 Allison to Kirkwood, June 7, 1883, No. 23 31, ibid. 
 
 20 The Register article was reprinted in the Cedar Falls Gazette, Sept. 21, 1883. 
 
 21 Ibid., Oct. 19, 1883. 
 
 22 T. J. Burns, Casey, Iowa, to Allison, Oct. 12, 1883, Box 244, Allison Papers. 
 
 23 Allison to Kirkwood, Dec. 17, 1883, Box 5, No. 2363, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 21 Dubuque Daily Herald, Jan. 6, 1884; Dubuque Times, Jan. 8, 1884. 
 
 25 Clark, History of Senatorial Electioits in Iowa, 205-207; Des Moines Register, Jan. 23, 
 1884; Edward Younger, Kasson's biographer, to the author, Sept. 13, 1955. 
 
 26 Rich to Allison, Jan. 24, 1884, Box 249, Allison Papers; Des Moines Register, Jan. 24, 
 1884. 
 
 27 Rich to Allison, May 15, 1884, Box 249, Allison Papers. 
 
 28 Chicago Tribune, March 22, 1888; Cedar Falls Gazette, June 13, 1884; Des Moines 
 Register, June 12, 1884. 
 
 29 John S. Runnells to Allison, June 29, 1884, Box 249, Allison Papers. 
 
 30 Williamson, Atkinson, 13 8. 
 
 31 Chester L. Barrows, William M. Evarts (Chapel Hill, N. C, 1941), 443. 
 
 32 Box 8, Allison Papers, has the letters from Crane and Bradley. In addition, the author 
 has received personal testimony from Miss Martha Baker of Dubuque, who knew Allison, 
 Crane, and Bradley well. 
 
 33 Cullom, Fifty Years of Public Life, 314. Perkins had written to Allison, Dec. 15, 1882, 
 Box 243, Allison Papers, suggesting a commission to study the railroad problem and report 
 its recommendations to Congress. He invited Allison to introduce the appropriate enabling 
 resolution, suggesting William Windom, Carl Schurz, Judge Thomas M. Cooley of Michigan, 
 Amasa Stone of Cleveland, Francis A. Walker, the economist, Henry Hitchcock of Missouri, 
 and a leading merchant of Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Louisville as members pf the com- 
 mission, Allison's reply tp thjs letter has not been fpund, 
 
FOOTNOTES 365 
 
 34 DAB, 11:6-7; J. Brooke Workman, "Governor William Larrabee and Railroad Reform 
 in Iowa" (M. A. thesis, Iowa State Teachers College, Cedar Falls, Iowa, 1955). 
 
 35 Shambaugh (ed.), Messages and Proclamations, 6:5-31. 
 
 36 The conference report is printed in the Cong. Record, 49 Cong., 2 Sess., 171-3. 
 
 37 James R. Sheffield to Allison, Feb. 15, 1886, Box 39, Allison Papers. 
 
 38 Clark, Kirkwood, 374-8; Throne (comp.), "Iowans in Congress," 342-5. 
 
 39 Henderson to Kirkwood, Sept. 18, 1886, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 40 Briggs, Hepburn, 138, 308, also note 433 on p. 424. 
 
 41 Brant, "Iowa Political Sketches," Iowa City Republican, Jan. 10, 1918. These sketches, 
 which ran for some time during 1917-1918, have been reprinted in the Iowa Journal of 
 History, 53:175-83, 341-66 (April, October, 1955). 
 
 42 Throne (comp.), "Iowans in Congress," 346-52 passim. 
 
 43 Harrison to Allison, Sept. 28, 18 86, and Allison to Harrison, Sept. 30, 18 86, Vol. 27, 
 Nos. 5 589, 5593, Benjamin Harrison Papers (Library of Congress). These letters were 
 kindly furnished to me by the Rev. Harry J. Sievers, S. J., Harrison's latest biographer. 
 
 44 Cullom, Fifty Years of Public Life, 321-2; Rhodes, History of the United States, 
 8:290; Cong. Record, 49 Cong., 2 Sess., 633, 881, 1435. 
 
 45 Des Moines Register, Aug. 16, 17, 25, 1887. 
 
 46 In 1885 Larrabee had beaten Whiting, 175,605 to 168,619; in 1887 he beat T. J. 
 Anderson, 169,595 to 153,706, but M. J. Cain, the Union Labor party candidate, polled 
 14,2 83 votes. If the Democrats and Union Labor men had not split their votes, Larrabee's 
 margin would have been the pencil-slim 169,595 to 167,989. 
 
 47 Perkins to Clarkson, Nov. 26, 1887, Overton Collection. 
 
 48 Chicago Tribune, Jan. 6, 1888, correspondence from Des Moines. These words have the 
 "ring" of Ret Clarkson, who frequently acted as correspondent for the Tribune. 
 
 49 Cong. Record, 50 Cong., 1 Sess., 16. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV — THE GREAT PRIZE ELUDES ALLISON 
 
 1 For example, see Sidney Hyman, The American President (New York, 1954), 139-50; 
 Dennis W. Brogan, Politics in America (New York, 1954), 193-234. 
 
 2 See note 15, below. 
 
 3 Clarkson to Allison, Apr. 1, 1887, Box 42, Allison Papers. 
 
 4 Ben: Parley Poore to Allison, Apr. 20, 1887, Box 8, ibid. See The Magazine of Western 
 History, 6:65-85 (May, 1887). A copy of one of the draft manuscripts for the article is 
 preserved in Box 1, Allison Papers. 
 
 5 W. F. King to Allison, May 21, 1887, Box 13, Allison Papers; Cedar Rapids Inter-Iowa, 
 June 23, 1887. A letter from S. H. Bauman of Mt. Vernon, Iowa, May 27, 1887, invited 
 Allison to stay in his home during his visit to Cornell, Box 39, Allison Papers. 
 
 6 John Springer, "Charles Ashmead Schaeffer," Iowa Historical Record, 15:499-540 (July, 
 1899), indicates that Allison was sought in order to lend the prestige of his presence, now 
 enhanced by his presidential aspirations, to the occasion, which "was a ceremonial of great 
 and unusual dignity." 
 
 7 Iowa City Republican, June 23, 1887; William Boyd Allison, "The Strength of Our 
 Government," published as a pamphlet by the State University of Iowa, 1887. An analysis of 
 the Senator's speech reveals that it is utterly lacking in originality; the student of political 
 philosophy might discern that Allison's Radical Republicanism of the 1860's had not di- 
 minished by 1887. 
 
 8 Des Moines Register, Aug. 16, 17, 25, 1887. 
 
 9 Iowa Historical Record^ 3;576 (October, 1887), 
 
566 William Boyd Allison 
 
 10 Sanders to Allison, n. d. [1887], Box 13, Allison Papers. 
 
 11 Blaine to Whitelaw Reid, Oct. 11, 1887, quoted in Cortissoz, Reid, 2:113; Blaine to 
 Patrick Ford, Jan. n. d., 1888, quoted in Hamilton, Blaine, 603-604. Blaine also wrote a 
 withdrawal letter to B. F. Jones, Jan. 25, 1888. Muzzey, Blaine, 367-8, calls this the 
 "Florence Letter" and says it was written after the letter to Ford. 
 
 12 Allan Nevins, Grower Cleveland, A Study in Courage (New York, 1932), 395-6. 
 
 13 Muzzey, Blaine, 370; Cortissoz, Reid, 2:113; Hamilton, Blaine, 603-604. 
 
 14 Chicago Inter-Ocean, June 22, 1887. 
 
 15 Edward A. White, "The Republican Party in National Politics, 1888-1891" (Ph. D. 
 thesis, University-of Wisconsin, 1941). 
 
 16 Jeannette P. Nichols, "Contradictory Trends in Middle Western Democracy, 1865- 
 1900," in Nichols and Randall (eds.), Democracy in the Middle West, 1840-1940, 84; 
 also see Sherman, Recollections of Forty Years, passim, but especially 2:1022-40; DAB, 
 17:84-8. 
 
 17 See Harry J. Sievers, S. J., Benjamin Harrison, Fighting Hoosier (Chicago, 1952), 
 179-87; DAB, 8:331-5; Harper's Weekly, Apr. 14, 1888, cover page picture and article on 
 p. 267. Harrison did not carry a solid delegation to Chicago. Crumpacker and others were 
 for Gresham. R. C. Buley, "The Campaign of 1888 in Indiana," Indiana Magazine of History, 
 10:34 (July, 1914). 
 
 18 DAB, 7:607-609; Martha Gresham, Life of Walter Quintin Gresham, 1832-1895 
 (2 vols., Chicago, 1919); Harper's Weekly, March 31, 1888, cover page picture and article 
 on pp. 226-7. 
 
 19 Clarkson to Elkins, May 18, 1888, Stephen B. Elkins Papers (West Virginia University, 
 Morgantown). In addition to his Western strength, Gresham was favored by Henry Cabot 
 Lodge. See John A. Garraty, Henry Cabot Lodge (New York, 1953), 103. 
 
 20 Charles R. Williams (ed.), Diary and Letters of R. B. Hayes (5 vols., Columbus, 1922- 
 1926), 2:392. 
 
 21 William C. Dodge, Washington, D. C, to Allison, June 1, 1888, Box 261, Allison Papers. 
 
 22 Sam M. Clark to Allison, Jan. 11, 1888, Box 260, ibid. 
 
 23 The inaugural address is printed in the Iowa Senate Journal, 1888, 54-65, and in 
 Shambaugh (ed.), Messages and Proclamations, 6:86-107 (Part dealing with railroads, pp. 
 92-107). The message is in ibid., 6:32-85 (railroads, 73-6). 
 
 24 For Republican platform, see Des Moines Register, Aug. 25, 1887; for Democratic plat- 
 form, see Fayette Fayette County Union, Sept. 20, 1887. 
 
 25 See Workman, "Governor William Larrabee of Iowa and Railroad Reform." 
 
 26 Des Moines Register, Jan. 13, 188 8. 
 
 27 Clarkson to Allison, Jan. 13, 1888, Box 260, Allison Papers. 
 
 28 Charles E. Perkins to Allison, Jan. 17, 1888, Box 264, ibid. There are many letters 
 from Larrabee to Perkins in the Burlington Papers (Newberry Library, Chicago). 
 
 29 Perkins to Allison, Feb. 17, 1888, Box 264, Allison Papers. 
 
 30 The personal papers of Governor Larrabee have been destroyed (letter to author from 
 Frederick Larrabee), so it is difficult if not impossible to ascertain his feelings on this 
 matter. See Clarkson to Allison, June 8, 1888, Box 260, Allison Papers. 
 
 31 Dr. Charles Beardsley to Allison, Jan. 31, 1888, Box 41, ibid. One wonders about 
 Beardsley's private thoughts as he recalled the days of 1871-1872 when on behalf of Harlan 
 he denounced Allison. Had he really changed his mind about Allison — or is this just 
 politics? 
 
 32 Gordon F. Hostettler, "Jonathan Prentiss Dolliver: The Formative Years," Iowa 
 Journal of History, 49:42 (January, 1951). 
 
 33 Dolliver's pledge to Allison, Feb. 19, 1888, Box 261, Allison Papers. On Dolliver as an 
 orator, see Hostettler, "Jonathan Prentiss Dolliver, The Formative Years," 23-50, also his 
 
FOOTNOTES 3 67 
 
 Ph. D. thesis, "Oratorical Career of Jonathan Prentiss Dolliver" (State University of Iowa, 
 1947). 
 
 34 This account of the convention is based on the Chicago Inter-Ocean, March 22, 1888, 
 which contains the speech as quoted; the Chicago Tribune, March 22, 1888; Jacob Rich to 
 Allison, March 22, 1888, Box 264, Allison Papers. 
 
 35 Clarkson to Dolliver, Apr. 19, 1888, Jonathan P. Dolliver Papers (State Historical 
 Society of Iowa, Iowa City). 
 
 36 Elkins to Harrison, May 2, 1888, Box 29, Harrison Papers. 
 
 37 Chicago Inter-Ocean, Feb. 14, 1888. 
 
 38 Hamilton, Blaine, 604. 
 
 39 James M. Tyner to Harrison, Feb. 20, 1888, Book 28, Harrison Papers. 
 
 40 Elkins to Michener, Apr. 7, 1888, Michener Papers. These papers were obtained for 
 the Library of Congress by the alertness of Albert T. Volwiler, and they are used by his 
 kind permission. 
 
 41 Elkins to Harrison, May 2, 1888, Book 29, Harrison Papers. O. D. Lambert, Stephen 
 Benton Elkins, American Foursquare (Pittsburgh, 1955), 114-21, is lamentably brief in his 
 analysis of the presidential politics of 1888. 
 
 42 Clarkson to Michener, May 19, 1915, Michener Papers. 
 
 43 R. C. Kerens to Russell Harrison, May 10, 1888, Harrison Papers. 
 
 44 Clarkson to Henderson, May 28, 1888, Box 42; Henderson to Clarkson, May 29, 1888, 
 Box 43, Allison Papers. 
 
 45 Edward A. White, "A Woman Promotes the Presidential Candidacy of Senator Allison, 
 1888," Iowa Journal of History, 48:224 (July, 1950). 
 
 46 This description is based largely on articles in the Iowa City Republican, June 15, 16, 
 20, 2 3, 1888; see also George M. Christian to Allison, May 11, 18 88, Box 42, Allison Papers. 
 
 47 Ira J. Alder to Allison, June 13, 1888, Box 43; Kirkwood to Allison, May 14, 1888, 
 Box 41, Allison Papers. 
 
 48 W. B. Allison, Jr., to Allison, May 23, 18 88, Box 41, ibid. 
 
 49 Eleanor Medill Patterson to Allison, n. d., Box 377, ibid. 
 
 50 Nina L. Gillett to Allison, June 1, 1888, Box 42, ibid. 
 
 51 See White, "A Woman Promotes the Presidential Candidacy of Senator Allison, 188 8," 
 221-46. This is my own appraisal of Mrs. Hicks-Lord, based on a careful study of her 
 letters in Boxes 263 and 43 of the Allison Papers, and allusions to her in the correspondence 
 of Allison and Clarkson. Mrs. Hicks-Lord was of English extraction, and it seems valid to 
 assume that she added her family name by hyphen after the death of her husband, Henry H. 
 Hicks of Ohio. One comes upon her name in the newspapers of the period, and she is 
 casually mentioned in Madeleine B. Stern, Purple Passage, The Life of Mrs. Frank Leslie 
 (Norman, Okla., 1953), 123. 
 
 52 Council Bluffs Nonpareil, June 16, 20, 1888; Des Moines Register, June 16, 17, 18, 
 19, 20, 1888; Chicago Inter-Ocean, June 16, 18 88. The Register of June 16 carried the 
 biography; so did the Inter-Ocean of the same date. Concerning the election to the Grand 
 Lodge of Iowa, A. F. & A. M., see Box 1, Allison Papers; also Delzell, "William Boyd Allison, 
 An Iowa Statesman and Mason." In Box 1 of Allison Papers there is a certificate of Allison's 
 election to the Grand Lodge of Iowa, F. & A. M., in "recognition of his interests in the 
 library." 
 
 53 Laws of Iowa, 1888, Chaps. 28, 29. 
 
 54 Clarkson to Allison, June 8, 1888, Box 260, Allison Papers. 
 
 55 Perkins to Allison, June 13, 1888, Box 44, ibid. A copy of the letter is in the Perkins 
 Letterbook No. 8, Overton Collection. Perkins to John Murray Forbes, June 13, 16, 1888, 
 ibid. 
 
 56 R. Root to Allison, n. d., Box 264, Allison Papers. 
 
368 William Boyd Allison 
 
 57 Chicago Inter-Ocean, June 22, 1888. 
 
 58 The obscure Mr. Bosworth had been a small town judge, assistant attorney general of 
 Rhode Island, and for two unconnected terms a member of the General Assembly. He died 
 on February 10, 1899, at which time he was serving as an associate justice of the Rhode 
 Island supreme court. Providence Journal, Feb. 11, 1899. These facts were very kindly 
 obtained for me by Miss Helen Kurtz of the Brown University Library. As to Aldrich's at- 
 titude, see N. W. Stephenson, Nelson W. Aldrich (New York, 1930), 434, note 8. 
 
 59 Official Proceedings of the Republican National Convention . . . 1888 (Minneapolis, 
 1903), 159-60. 
 
 *°Ibid., 168. ^ 
 
 61 George Frisbie Hoar, Autobiography of Seventy Years (2 vols., New York, 1903), 
 1:411-13. 
 
 62 The Tribune was for Gresham as its first choice, Allison second. Eleanor Medill 
 Patterson to Allison, n. d., Box 377, Allison Papers. 
 
 63 Chauncey Depew, My Memories of Eighty Years (New York, 1922). 
 
 64 Cyrenus Cole to Depew, Sept. 12, 1922, Chauncey M. Depew Papers (Yale University 
 Library, New Haven, Conn.). This and the following letter from Depew were kindly fur- 
 nished to me by Dr. C. Joseph Bernardo, whose doctoral thesis at Georgetown University 
 (1949) dealt with the convention of 1888. Cole, in his autobiography, / Remember, I 
 Remember, 167, gives an account of his request to Depew and a few brief extracts from 
 Depew 's reply. 
 
 65 Clarkson to Allison, June 22, 1888, Box 260, Allison Papers. 
 
 66 Dubuque Daily Times, June 23, 1888, clipping in Scrapbook of F. E. Bissell of 
 Dubuque. 
 
 67 Dispatch from Cedar Rapids, June 24, 1888, in Chicago Inter-Ocean, June 25, 1888. 
 68 Des Moines Register, June 24, 1888. 
 
 69 Elliott F. Shepard to Harrison, June 23, 1888, Book 29, Harrison Papers. Shepard was 
 publisher of the New York Mail and Express. 
 
 70 Stephenson, Aldrich, 71-2, and notes on p. 434; Charles Edward Russell, Blaine of 
 Maine, His Life and Times (New York, 1931), 410. 
 
 71 See Barker to Harrison, June 30, 1888, Book 31, Harrison Papers. 
 
 72 White, "The Republican Party in National Politics, 1888-1891," 38, who cites "Re- 
 marks of 'a gentleman . . . who had a good deal to do with the nomination of Harrison,' 
 Albany, Dec. 26, 1888, in New York Herald, Dec. 27, 1888." 
 
 73 Henderson to Allison, June 25, 1888, Box 262, Allison Papers. 
 
 74 Hamilton, Blaine, 607; Proceedings of the Republican National Convention . . . 1888, 
 186-7. 
 
 75 Muzzey, Blaine, 379. 
 
 76 John Sherman to Harrison, June 30, 1888, Book 32, Harrison Papers. 
 
 77 Chicago Inter-Ocean, June 26, 1888, almost gives the impression that Henderson was 
 the manager of the Iowa delegation. 
 
 78 Clarkson to Michener, Apr. 19, May 19, 1915, Michener Papers. 
 
 79 Perkins to Allison, June 25, 1888, Box 264, Allison Papers. 
 
 80 Elliott F. Shepard to Harrison, June 25, 1888, Book 29, Harrison Papers. 
 
 81 Louis J. Lang (ed.), The Autobiography of T. C. Piatt (New York, 1910), 218-19. 
 
 82 Harrison to Blaine, June 30, 1888, quoted in Hamilton, Blaine, 646. 
 
 83 Allison to Harrison, June 26, 1888, Book 29, Harrison Papers. 
 
 84 Harrison to Allison, June 28, 1888, Box 42, Allison Papers. 
 
 85 Chicago Inter-Ocean, June 26, 1888. 
 
FOOTNOTES 369 
 
 CHAPTER XV — A PARTY WHEEL HORSE 
 
 1 Cong. Record, 5 Cong., 1 Sess., 6660. Hayes, Weaver, and Albert R. Anderson voted 
 for the bill; the eight true Republicans against it. On Mills, see DAB, 13:14-15. 
 
 2 See Allison to Harrison, July 3, 188 8, Book 32, Harrison Papers. 
 
 3 See especially Harper's Weekly, July 21, Aug. 11, 1888. 
 
 4 John Sherman to Harrison, July 13, 1888, Book 34, Harrison Papers; G. M. Dodge to 
 Allison, July 16, 188 8, Box 261, Allison Papers. 
 
 5 Coitg. Record, 50 Cong., 1 Sess., 9109. The date was Oct. 3. On Oct. 4, Aldrich 
 brought up the bill and made the first major speech. Ibid., 9167-93. Some writers call the 
 Senate substitute the "Allison Bill," some the "Aldrich Bill." 
 
 6 Harper's Weekly, Oct. 13, 1888; Nevins, Cleveland, 3 8 8-94. 
 
 7 Gardner Cowles, Algona, Iowa, to Allison, Oct. 5, 1888, Box 42, Allison Papers. 
 
 8 Maurice D. O'Connell to Allison, Oct. 6, 1888, Box 264, ibid. 
 Q Cong. Record, 5 Cong., 1 Sess., 9283-91. 
 
 10 Blaine to Allison, telegram, Oct. 15, 1888; Butler to Allison, Oct. 10, 1888, Box 41; 
 Clarkson to Allison, Oct. 10, 1888, Box 42, Allison Papers. 
 
 11 Harrison to Allison, Oct. 9, 1888, Box 42, ibid. 
 
 12 Cong. Record, 50 Cong., 1 Sess., 9613-14. 
 
 13 Hiscock to Harrison, July 7, 12, 1888, Books 32, 33, Harrison Papers. Senator William 
 E. Chandler generously reported to Harrison: "Allison, Hiscock and Aldrich are doing a 
 difficult task with great industry, discretion and ability." Book 34, ibid. On Aldrich's 
 part, see Stephenson, Aldrich, 73-4. 
 
 14 Clarkson to Harrison, July 2 5, 188 8, Book 3 5, Harrison Papers; Joseph Medill to 
 Allison, Sept, 23, 1888, cited in Horace S. Merrill, Bourbon Democracy of the Middle West, 
 1865-1896 (Baton Rouge, 1953), 199. 
 
 15 Buley, "Campaign of 1888 in Indiana," 53. 
 
 16 J. E. Clark, Clarinda, Iowa, to Allison, Nov. 8, 1888, Box 9, Allison Papers. Weaver 
 was defeated by John F. Lacey of Oskaloosa; Anderson, by James P. Flick of Bedford. 
 
 17 Clarkson to Harrison, June 30, 1888, Book 31, Harrison Papers; Clarkson to Allison, 
 July 9, 1888, Box 260, Allison Papers. 
 
 18 White, "Republican Party in National Politics, 1888-1891," 172ff., deals effectively 
 with this topic, largely on the basis of the Michener Papers and the Allison Papers. 
 Michener explains that he did not want to carry out the distasteful assignment of arranging for 
 Quay's election, but did so at Harrison's insistence. The problem was to find a chairman 
 agreeable to Morton and the New York interests. See memorandum on "Organization of 
 National Committee in 188 8," Michener Papers. Clarkson found his worst fears realized; 
 he would do all the work and Quay would get all the credit. 
 
 19 Letters of Mrs. Hicks-Lord to Allison and Clarkson, Boxes 42-43, Allison Papers. 
 Clarkson had the misfortune to fall and sprain his ankle severely. This, in addition to his 
 chronic rheumatism, gave the poor man a bad summer. 
 
 20 Harrison to Allison, Nov. 13, 1888, ibid. 
 
 21 J. Fred Meyers, Denison, Iowa, to Allison, Dec. 8, 1888, ibid. 
 
 22 Maurice D. O'Connell to Allison, Dec. 9, 1888, ibid. 
 
 23 Dolliver to Allison, Dec. 28, 1888, Box 261, ibid. Dolliver's allusion is backed up by 
 one made a few days later by E. B. Nealley, Mrs. Allison's relative in Bangor, Maine. Nealley 
 to Allison, Jan. 7, 1889, Box 9, ibid. 
 
 21 Harper's Weekly, Jan. 15, 1889. 
 
 25 Clarkson to Allison, Jan. 25, 1889, Clarkson Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 26 Joseph H. Manley to Michener, Jan. 29, 1888, Michener Papers. 
 
370 William Boyd Allison 
 
 27 Chicago Tribune, Jan. 29, 1889. 
 
 28 Harper's Weekly, Feb. 9, 1889 (correspondence dated Feb. 1). 
 
 29 Harrison to Blaine, Feb. 1, 1889, Book 64, Harrison Papers. The letter may also be 
 found in A. T. Volwiler (ed.), Correspondence Between Harrison and Blaine, 1882-1893 
 (Philadelphia, 1940), 50-51. 
 
 30 Harrison to Allison, Feb. 4, 1889, Book 64, Harrison Papers. The copy as found here 
 seems to be in the handwriting of E. W. Halford, Harrison's secretary. Allison's letter of 
 declination has not been found. 
 
 31 George William Curtis was not at all enthusiastic about "Windom's qualities. See 
 Harper's Weekly, Tlvlarch 16, 18 89. 
 
 32 "W. E. M." to Clarkson, telegram, Box 4; Dodge to Clarkson, Jan. 31, 1889, Box 
 5, Clarkson Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 33 J. K. Graves to Clarkson, Feb. 2, 1889, Clarkson Papers (Des Moines). The letter to 
 Harrison is in Book 64, Harrison Papers. A Harrison adviser wrote, unbeknownst to 
 Clarkson, in advocacy of Windom "if Allison wont have it or you wont have Allison," 
 but added, "This ought not to interfere with anything you might feel inclined to do for 
 Iowa or Clarkson." Henry W. Blair, Senator from Maryland, to Harrison, Feb. 4, 1889, 
 ibid. 
 
 34 Perkins to Clarkson, March 18, 1889, Perkins Letterbook No. 8, Overton Collection. 
 
 35 Allison received dozens of letters from the faithful warning him about Larrabee's 
 activity and potentialities. See letters from R. Root, W. F. Sapp, Edgar Pickett, Box 270, 
 Allison Papers. 
 
 36 All in Box 270, ibid. 
 
 37 Allison to Harrison, Sept. 8, 18 89, Book 86, Harrison Papers. This letter was very 
 kindly furnished to me by the Rev. Harry J. Sievers, S. J. 
 
 38 See Jean B. Kern, "The Political Career of Horace Boies," Iowa Journal of History, 
 47:215-46 (July, 1949). 
 
 39 Iowa House Journal, 1890, 168. Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, Chap. 
 XVI, makes the election of Allison appear all too easy. Gue, History of Iowa, 3:161, gives 
 a misleading account of this contest. He says that Larrabee took no part in it, whereas 
 Larrabee and "Larrabeeans" worked hard in the 1889 campaign. Gue further says that 
 "many" legislators voted for Larrabee in spite of his official silence. The vote was 8 out 
 of a total of 150. It is of interest that Bestow, the only Democrat who ever amassed a 
 threatening vote against Allison, was a man of only average fame within the state. He hap- 
 pened to be the one who received his party's token vote at the time of its greatest post- 
 Civil "War strength. 
 
 40 Brant's reminiscent article on the 1889 election of Allison appeared in the Iowa City 
 Republican, July 19, 1917, and in the Cedar Rapids Republican, March 7, 1926. It was 
 also reprinted in the Iowa Journal of History, 53:175-83 (April, 1955). 
 
 41 Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 216-21; Clarkson to E. W. Halford, 
 March 4, 1890, Book 100, Harrison Papers. Jacob Rich sent a stream of letters to Allison 
 giving reports on the situation. See Boxes 264, 280, Allison Papers. He kept hands off, so he 
 said, but used his letters as opportunities to pepper Allison with requests for favorable tariff 
 provisions on linseed, linseed oil, and poppy oil. He was at this time president of a large 
 Dubuque linseed oil mill company. 
 
 42 Fred W. Wellborn, "The Influence of the Silver-Republican Senators, 1889-1891," 
 Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 14:462-80 (March, 1928). 
 
 43 Ibid., 465. 
 
 44 Allison to Kirkwood, June 30, 1890, Box 6, No. 2463, Kirkwood Correspondence. 
 
 45 Cong. Record, 51 Cong., 1 Sess., 5814, 6183, 6503. 
 
 46 26 U. S. Statutes at Large, 289. 
 
FOOTNOTES 371 
 
 47 Quoted in Garraty, Lodge, 112. 
 
 48 Cong. Record, 51 Cong., 1 Sess., 5990. 
 
 49 See Jonathan P. Dolliver's speech at Council Bluffs, Nov. 25, 1907, as printed in the 
 Council Bluffs Nonpareil, Nov. 26, 1907, and later reprinted in pamphlet form and dis- 
 tributed as a campaign document in 1908. 
 
 50 Arthur Cecil Bining, The Rise of American Economic Life (New York, 1943), 72, 
 366; Festus P. Summers, William L. Wilson and Tariff Reform (New Brunswick, 1953), 
 108-109. 
 
 51 Arthur Wallace Dunn, From Harrison to Harding (2 vols., New York, 1922), 1:44-5. 
 Also see Hamilton, Blaine, 682-91. 
 
 52 Rhodes, History of the United States, 8:3 50, does not mention Allison but credits 
 Senator Nelson W. Aldrich with most of the leadership that put across the McKinley Bill. 
 Many years later, Allison, apparently with great pride, credited John H. Gear of Burlington 
 with the provisions for extension of the sugar bounty to the beet sugar product for this 
 country. lie did not bother to explain that Iowa was a large producer of beet sugar. 
 
 53 The vote, distributed by district, was as follows: 
 
 District Republican Democratic 
 
 First 16,3 88 17,459 
 
 Second 11,73 8 20,748 
 
 Third 19,689 19,491 
 
 Fourth 16,023 17,972 
 
 Fifth 17,860 18,155 
 
 Sixth 16,572 17,092 
 
 Seventh 16,821 14,276 
 
 Eighth 19,003 18,887 
 
 Ninth 17,322 18,605 
 
 Tenth 18,395 17,084 
 
 Eleventh 15,972 15,065 
 
 185,783 194,832 
 
 54 E. H. Wicklin to Weller, Nov. 7, 1890, Luman H. Weller Papers (State Historical 
 Society of "Wisconsin, Madison, Wise). 
 
 55 Bowd Nealley to Allison, Feb. 10, 1891, Box 9, Allison Papers. 
 
 56 See Vincent P. De Santis, "Benjamin Harrison and the Republican Party in the South, 
 1889-1893," Indiana Magazine of History, 51:284-5 (December, 1955). 
 
 57 Clarkson to Michener, May 29, 1890, Michener Papers. 
 
 58 J. S. Clarkson to R. P. Clarkson, Jan. 24, 1891; Allison to R. P. Clarkson, Jan. 27, 
 1891, R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook. 
 
 59 Wellborn, "Influence of the Silver-Republican Senators, 1889-1891," 472-80; Garraty, 
 Lodge, 117-21; Stephenson, Aldrich, 88-90; W. A. Robinson, Thomas B. Reed, Parliamentarian 
 (New York, 1930), 23 5-40; John R. Lambert, Arthur Pue Gorman (Baton Rouge, La., 
 1953), 147-66. 
 
 60 White, "Republican Party in National Politics, 1888-1891," presents this point ex- 
 tremely well. 
 
 61 Thomas C. Cochran and William Miller, The Age of Enterprise (New York, 1942), 
 163-4. 
 
 62 Stephenson, Aldrich, 40-64, 97-8; DAB, 1:151-8, especially 153. 
 
 ™DAB, 17:465-6 (Spooner) ; 8:102-104 (Hale); 8:421-2 (Hawley) ; 15:2-4 (Piatt); 
 12:143-5 (McMillan); L. A. Coolidge, An Old-Fashioned Senator, Orville H. Piatt (New 
 York, 1910). 
 
372 William Boyd Allison 
 
 CHAPTER XVI — ALLISON FINDS HIS LEVEL 
 
 x For Cummins, see DAB, 4:597-9. 
 
 2 John F. Lacey to Allison, Sept. 2, 1891, Box 284, Allison Papers. 
 
 3 S. Monahan to Allison, Nov. 6, 1891, ibid. 
 
 4 D. B. Henderson to R. P. Clarkson, Nov. 22, 1891, R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook. 
 
 5 George H. Knoles, The Presidential Campaign and Election of 1892 (Stanford, Calif., 
 1942), 34-7; Donald M. Dozer, "Benjamin Harrison and the Presidential Campaign of 1892," 
 American Historical Review, 54:49-52 (October, 1948); Hamilton, Blaine, 698-9. John M. 
 Blum, The Republican Roosevelt (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), 14, errs in saying that Harrison's 
 renomination owed- much to Clarkson. See several letters in the Michener Papers, especially 
 Clarkson to Michener, May 19, 1915. 
 
 6 B. F. Gue to R. P. Clarkson, March 15, 1891, R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook. 
 
 7 "Iowans in Gotham," Des Moines Register, Feb. 28, 1892. 
 
 8 Washington Post, Feb. 22, 1892, carried part of the interview. Frank Hatton, the 
 former Iowan and former Postmaster General under Arthur, now publisher of the Washington 
 Post, wrote to Mrs. Clarkson, evidently in reply to a complaint, explaining that the article 
 was a news story, not an editorial, and therefore out of his province. Hatton to Mrs. Anna 
 H. Clarkson, March 8, 1892, Clarkson Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 9 Clarkson to Allison, Feb. 26, 1892, Box 285, Allison Papers. Herbert Gibbons, John 
 Wanamaker (2 vols., New York, 1926), deals very ineffectively with the Wanamaker- 
 Clarkson relations. 
 
 10 Mrs. Clarkson to Allison, March 7, 1892, Box 285, Allison Papers. 
 
 11 Telegram, Mrs. Clarkson to Allison, March 12, 1892, ibid. 
 
 12 Dozer, "Benjamin Harrison and the Campaign of 1892," 65. 
 
 13 Clarkson to Allison, four telegrams, June 5, 1892, Box 285, Allison Papers. 
 
 14 Dolliver to Clarkson, June 9, 1892, Clarkson Papers (Library of Congress); Everett 
 Walters, Joseph Benson Foraker, An Uncompromising Republican (Columbus, 1948), 106. 
 
 15 Allison to Morton, June 25, 1892, Levi P. Morton Papers (New York Public Library). 
 Photostatic copies of all Allison and Clarkson letters were furnished through the kindness 
 of Robert W. Hill, Keeper of the Manuscripts. 
 
 16 Clarkson to Morton, Sept. 28, 1892, ibid. Also see McElroy, Levi P. Morton, 197-202, 
 where it is made plain that one who opposed Morton was Boss Tom Piatt. No other 
 individual is singled out. Cortissoz, Reid, 2:178, conveniently ignores the story of Reid's 
 nomination. 
 
 17 Herman C. Nixon, "The Populist Movement in Iowa," Iowa Jotcrnal of History and 
 Politics, 24:3-107 (January, 1926), especially pp. 61-2; John D. Hicks, The Populist Revolt 
 (Minneapolis, 1931), 229-36. 
 
 18 Clarkson to Morton, Sept. 28, 1892, Morton Papers. 
 
 19 The Aldrich report was published as Senate Report 1004, 52 Cong., 1 Sess. 
 
 20 Briggs, Hepburn, 165. 
 
 21 C. Vann Woodward, Tom Watson, Agrarian Rebel (New York, 1938), 278-82; Weller 
 Papers; James C. Olson, History of Nebraska (Lincoln, 1955), 23 8; Hicks, Populist Revolt, 
 2 36ff.; Nixon, "Populist Movement in Iowa," 62-5. 
 
 22 Oberholtzer, History of the United States, 5:242. 
 
 23 See Henry B. Russell, International Monetary Conference (New York, 1895), 376-408. 
 
 24 Allison to R. P. Clarkson, Jan. 27, 1893, 21. P. Clarkson Scrapbook. 
 
 25 See Shannon, America's Economic Growth, 406. 
 
 26 P. E. Studebaker to Allison, Feb. 1, 1893; Perkins to Allison, July 14, 1893, Box 292, 
 Allison Papers. 
 
FOOTNOTES 373 
 
 27 James S. Clarkson, "The Party of Lincoln, Grant and Blaine," a speech delivered at 
 Louisville, Ky., May 10, 1893. Manuscript in Clarkson Papers (Library of Congress). 
 28 Higgins to Allison, June 13, 1893, Box 291, Allison Papers. 
 
 29 Harper's Weekly, Aug. 26, 1893, p. 806. Excellent pen and ink drawings of these men 
 were given on p. 808. 
 
 30 James A. Barnes, John G. Carlisle, Financial Statesman (New York, 1931), Chap. XII; 
 Lambert, Gorman, Chap. IX. 
 
 31 Cong. Record, 53 Cong., 1 Sess., 2957ff. 
 
 32 Nevins, Cleveland, 507, citing the New York Evening Post, June 24, 1908. 
 
 33 Cited in ibid., 608; and Arthur F. Beringause, Brooks Adams (New York, 1955), 113; 
 Joseph Benson Foraker, Notes of a Busy Life (2 vols., Cincinnati, 1916), 1:471. 
 
 34 Hirsch, Whitney, 475-7. 
 
 35 Harper's Weekly, July 14, 1895, p. 650. Strangely, Lodge's latest and best biographer, 
 John A. Garraty, entirely omits 1894 and 1895 from his study. 
 
 36 See Summers, Wilson and Tariff Reform, especially Chaps. X and XI. 
 
 37 Cong. Record, 53 Cong., 2 Sess., 1796-7. 
 
 38 Lambert, Gorman, Chap. X. 
 
 39 Wells to Allison, Feb. 18 [1894], Box 218, Allison Papers. 
 
 40 Cong. Record, 53 Cong., 2 Sess., Appendix, Part I, 691-706. Thomas Updegraff, 
 Representative from the Third Iowa District, assisted in the distribution. See Updegraff to 
 Allison, May 2, 1894, Box 295, Allison Papers. Allan Nevins' comment is questionable: 
 "Aldrich . . . Hoar. . . . These two were supported by Allison, a big rumbling fellow." 
 Cleveland, 576. Allison was never a "big rumbling fellow." 
 
 41 Cong. Record, 53 Cong., 2 Sess., 713 6. 
 
 42 Charles E. Perkins to Allison, May 9, 19, June 23, 1894, Box 295, Allison Papers. 
 
 43 Gilbert B. Pray to Allison, Aug. 25, Sept. 30, Oct. 8, 1893, Box 292, ibid. 
 
 44 Kern, "Political Career of Horace Boies," 215-46; Cole, 7 Remember, I Remember, 192ff. 
 
 45 Charles E. Perkins to Allison, March 14, 1893, Perkins Letterbook No. 10, Overton 
 Collection. 
 
 46 A. B. Cummins to R. P. Clarkson, Jan. 29, 1894, R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook. 
 
 47 H. J. Playter, Washington, Iowa, to Allison, Jan. 10, 1894, Box 295, Allison Papers. 
 
 48 Clarkson to Allison, Oct. 15, 1894, Box 293; George M. Reynolds to Allison, Oct. 24, 
 1895, Box 295, ibid. 
 
 49 A. B. Cummins to Allison, Apr. 5, 1894, and Allison to Cummins, Apr. 25, 1894, Box 
 295, ibid. Allison's letter was delayed, perhaps, by the illness and death of Mr. Brayton, his 
 friend and the caretaker of his house in Dubuque. See E. B. Nealley, Bangor, Maine, to 
 Allison, Apr. 19, 1894, Box 10, ibid. 
 
 50 Washington Post, cartoon by Coffin, reprinted in Dubuque Sunday Times, July 28, 1895. 
 
 51 John Hay to Henry Adams, Sept. 3, 1895, quoted in William R. Thayer, The Life 
 and Letters of John Hay (2 vols., Boston, 1915), 2:124-6. 
 
 52 Allison to Kasson, Nov. 24, 1895, Wead Collection. This letter was kindly furnished 
 to me by Edward Younger. 
 
 53 Chicago Tribune, Jan. 16, 1896; Des Moines Register, Jan. 22, 1896; Clark, History 
 of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 23 5-8. 
 
 54 James S. Clarkson to Cole, Dec. 9, 20, 23, 1895, Cole Papers. This and other letters 
 cited herein were furnished to me through the great kindness of Miss Mildred Throne. 
 
 55 Des Moines Register, March 12, 1896. The Philadelphia Press, March 8, 1896, had 
 a good story on Allison's prospects and the plans for launching the Allison candidacy at 
 
374 William Boyd Allison 
 
 this convention. This paper consistently gave Allison a "good press," as did the Chicago 
 Inter-Ocean. 
 
 56 Waterloo Daily Courier, Apr. 1, 1896. 
 
 57 Elmer E. Ellis, Henry M. Teller, Defender of the West (Caldwell, Idaho, 1941), 243. 
 
 58 Waterloo Daily Courier, Apr. 29, 1896. 
 
 59 Allison to James H. Wilson, May 4, 1896, Box 2 (a), James H. Wilson Papers (Library 
 of Congress). 
 
 60 See Herbert Croly, Marcus Alonzo Hanna, His Life and Work (New York, 1919), 
 166-89; Thomas Beer, Hanna (New York, 1929), 135-66; Philip D. Jordan, Ohio Comes 
 of Age (Vol. V ot^A History of Ohio), 206-212. 
 
 61 Waterloo Daily Courier, May 5, 1896. 
 
 62 Clarkson to Michener, Feb. 27, 1896, Box 2, Michener Papers; Gear to Harrison, 
 May 4, 1896; Harrison to Gear, May 8, 1896, Vol. 165, Harrison Papers. 
 
 63 Gue, History of Iowa, 4:13; Cedar Rapids Gazette, June 26, 1896. 
 
 64 Charles Olcott, The Life of William McKinley (2 vols., Boston, 1916), 1:315. 
 
 65 A. B. Cummins to J. S. Clarkson, June 20, 1896, Box 4, Clarkson Papers (Library of 
 Congress). Cummins must have included 1892 along with 1888, although this is hardly 
 fair to Allison. 
 
 66 Garraty, Lodge, 166-72; Ellis, Teller. 
 
 67 Waterloo Daily Courier, June 19, 1896. 
 
 68 Kern, "Political Career of Horace Boies," 215-46. 
 
 69 Allison to Kasson, Nov. 24, 1895, Wead Collection. Courtesy of Edward Younger. 
 
 70 Gear to Michener, July 20, 1896, Michener Papers. 
 
 71 T. S. Parvin to Kasson, Nov. 14, 1896, John A. Kasson Papers (State Dept. of History 
 and Archives, Des Moines). 
 
 72 Charles G. Dawes, A Journal of the McKinley Years (Chicago, 1950), 105; Iowa 
 Senate Journal, 1908, 55. 
 
 73 Allison to James H. Wilson, Jan. 18, 1897, Box 2 (a), Wilson Papers; O. H. Piatt to 
 John R. Buck, quoted in Coolidge, Piatt, 505-506. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII — CONSERVATIVES AND PROGRESSIVES 
 
 1 DAB, 1:220-22. 
 
 2 Dunn, From Harrison to Harding, 1:223-4; Stephenson, Aldrich, 142. 
 
 3 Stephenson, Aldrich, 140; Ellis, Teller, 249-50, describes Wolcott as a Clevelander, a 
 friend of Mark Hanna, before moving to Colorado. His Eastern connections made it difficult 
 for him to follow completely the free silver views of the Westerners. 
 
 4 Leon B. Richardson, William E. Chandler (New York, 1940), 555-6. 
 
 5 Oberholtzer, History of the United States, 5:462-3. 
 
 6 Cong. Record, 55 Cong., 1 Sess., 2750, 2909, 2962; Summers, Wilson and Tariff Reform, 
 261. Also see Edward Nelson Dingley, The Life and Times of Nelson Dinghy, Jr. (Kala- 
 mazoo, Mich., 1902), 43 3-4; Richardson, Chandler, 554ff.; Stephenson, Aldrich, Chap. X. 
 
 7 Jacob Swisher, Robert G. Cousins (Iowa City, 1938), 50-63. 
 
 8 Garraty, Lodge, 195-200; Richard W. Leopold, Elihu Root and the Conservative 
 Tradition (Boston, 1954), 22. 
 
 9 John H. Gear to Cyrenus Cole, Jan. 21, Feb. 10, 1898, Cole Papers; Des Moines Register, 
 Jan., Feb., March, 1898, passim; Perkins, Dodge, 313. 
 
 10 Cong. Record, 55 Cong., 2 Sess., 2618. 
 
FOOTNOTES 375 
 
 11 Chicago Tribune, March 10, 1898, clipping in R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook; D. B. 
 Henderson to R. P. Clarkson, March 12, 1898, ibid. 
 
 12 Cong. Record, 55 Cong., 2 Sess., 4244, 4252, 4288. 
 
 13 See Julius W. Pratt, The Expansionists of 1898 (Baltimore, 1936), Chaps. VI, VII; 
 Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People (New York, 1950), Chap. 
 XXX; Walter Millis, The Martial Spirit (Boston, 1931), passim. 
 
 14 F. B. Heitman (ed.), Historical Register and Directory of the United States Army . . . 
 (2 vols., Washington, 1903), 1:160; Obituary Records of Graduates, Yale University (New 
 Haven, 1939), 71. I am grateful to Miss Dorothy Harris of the Alumni Records Office for 
 data on W. B. Allison, Jr. 
 
 15 Dawes, Journal of the McKinley Years, 168, entry for Aug. 16, 1898. 
 
 16 J. P. Dolliver to R. P. Clarkson, March 15, 1899, R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook. Bi- 
 ographical data on Judge Edward R. Meek was kindly secured for me by Charles W. 
 Davidson, College of Law, State University of Iowa, to whom the author expresses sincere 
 gratitude. It is a pleasure to add that Meek was confirmed and that he served thirty-eight 
 years on the bench, retiring Jan. 1, 1936. He died April 10, 1939. 
 
 17 Richard W. Leopold, Northwestern University, to the author, March 18, 1950. 
 
 18 Bailey, Diplomatic History of the American People, 523; Garraty, Lodge, 201-202; 
 W. Stull Holt, Treaties Defeated by the American Senate (Baltimore, 1933), 177; Ellis, 
 Teller, 317. 
 
 19 Des Moines Register, Feb. 7, 1899. 
 
 20 Allison to Professor W. H. Norton, Cornell College, Aug. 24, 1898, Allison Papers; 
 William B. Allison, "Congress and the Philippines," The Independent, 51:293 (Nov. 2, 1899). 
 
 21 See Claude G. Bowers, Beveridge and the Progressive Era (Boston, 1932), 21, 122, 138, 
 289; Beveridge to Allison, June 5, 1899, Box 73, Allison Papers. 
 
 22 Clipping dated Dec. 31, 1898, Albert F. Dawson Scrapbook, Dawson Papers (State 
 Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City). Senator Morrill died on Dec. 28, 1898. 
 
 23 Des Moines Register, Dec. 6, 1899. 
 
 24 D. B. Henderson to R. P. Clarkson, Apr. 20, 1899, R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook. 
 
 25 Allison to Aldrich, May 11, 13, 1899, Nelson W. Aldrich Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 26 Henderson to Kasson, June 11, 1899, Kasson Papers. 
 
 27 New York Times, Dec. 3, 5, 1899. 
 
 28 Dawes, Journal of the McKinley Years, 208; Cong. Record, 56 Cong., 1 Sess., 4-5. 
 Henderson's official vote was 177; his Democratic rival, James D. Richardson of Illinois, re- 
 ceived 153; minor candidates received 6 votes. 
 
 29 Cummins to S. D. Cook, July 30, 1897, Albert Baird Cummins Papers (State Dept. of 
 History and Archives, Des Moines, Iowa). 
 
 30 W. R. Laughlin, College Springs, Iowa, to R. P. Clarkson, Aug. 9, 1897, R. P. Clarkson 
 Scrapbook. Laughlin had lived in Kansas at the time of the Cherokee affair and had been 
 sent to Washington as an agent for the settlers, so he says in his letter. For reference to his 
 work, see Gates, Fifty Million Acres, 173-7. 
 
 31 Oral statements to the author by Emory H. English and Ora Williams; J. W. Blythe 
 to Allison, Apr. 21, 1899, Box 73, Allison Papers; Blythe to Cyrenus Cole, June 27, 1899; 
 N. M. Hubbard to Cole, March 28, 1900, Cole Papers. 
 
 32 R. P. Clarkson to J. S. Clarkson, March 2, 1899, Box 1, Clarkson Papers (Library of 
 Congress). 
 
 33 Cole added: "When you come up again the old age argument will be raised. They are 
 all protesting that they want you returned — I think that they will have their desire." 
 Cyrenus Cole to Allison, Sept. 25, 1899, Box 73, Allison Papers; Cole, I Remember, I 
 Remember, 284-5. 
 
 34 J. W. Blythe to Cole, June 27, 1899, Cole Papers. 
 
376 William Boyd Allison 
 
 35 Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 2 39-45. 
 
 36 Des Moines Register, Jan. 19, 1900. This passage has been widely quoted, e. g., 
 Haynes, Third Party Movements, 450. 
 
 37 On Shaw, see DAB, 17:43-4. 
 
 38 N. M. Hubbard to Cole, Feb. 3, 1900, Cole Papers. 
 
 39 Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 43, attributes Clarkson's obscurity during these 
 years to Hanna. My own opinion is that after 1896 Ret tried to crash the business world in 
 preference to the game of politics and journalism. In reading hundreds of his letters I have 
 never come upon a complaint about Hanna — and Ret was a genius at complaining about 
 his enemies and opponents who conspired to hold him back. 
 
 40 This incident has never been described in public print. It is fully covered in a series 
 of letters and telegrams in the Clarkson Papers (Library of Congress). The successful can- 
 didate was Charles G. Bennett of Brooklyn, New York, a member of the House in the 54th 
 and 5 5th Congresses and an unsuccessful candidate for the 56th. See Cong. Directory, 57 
 Cong., 1 Sess. (3rd ed.), 194. 
 
 41 Clarkson to Cole, n. d., Cole Papers. 
 
 42 Allison to Clarkson, Feb. 4, 1900, Clarkson Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 43 Croly, Hanna, 309-318; Beer, Hanna, 223-7; Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 21-2; 
 G. Wallace Chessman, "Theodore Roosevelt Campaigns Against the Vice-Presidency," The 
 Historian, 14:185 (Spring, 1952); Julian W. Richards, "Stories on Dolliver," Waterloo 
 Evening Courier, Oct. 22, 1910. Roosevelt was placed in nomination by Lafayette Young of 
 Iowa. See Proceedings of the Republican National Convention . . . 1900, 131-2. Bowd 
 Nealley to Allison, Sept. 27, 1900, Box 11, Allison Papers, wrote: "We all watch your public 
 life with interest and were greatly pleased at the promptness with which the scheme to bottle 
 you up in the Vice Presidency was rejected. The Senator from Iowa has a longer head than 
 Teddy." 
 
 44 Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 246. 
 
 45 Stephenson, Aldrich, 134. 
 
 46 Cong. Record, 57 Cong., 1 Sess., 3 87-8. 
 
 47 Ibid., 242-5. 
 
 48 Arthur S. Link, American Epoch (New York, 1955), 68-91; Eric F. Goldman, 
 Rendezvous with Destiny, A History of Modern American Reform (New York, 1953), 
 75-83; George Mowry, Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement (Madison, Wise, 1946), 
 10-11; Russel B. Nye, Midwestern Progressive Politics (East Lansing, Mich., 1951), 195ff. 
 Kenneth W. Hechler, Insurgency, Personalities and Politics of the Taft Era (New York, 
 1940), 12, credits Judge Nathaniel M. Hubbard with the first use of the word "Insurgents" 
 to describe the Progressives. 
 
 49 George Mills, The Little Man with the Long Shadow: The Life of Frederick M. Hubbell 
 (Des Moines, 1955). 
 
 50 A. B. Funk, Fred L. Maytag, A Biography (Cedar Rapids, 1936). 
 
 51 Allison to Cummins, Aug. 8, 1901, Cummins Papers. 
 
 52 George E. Roberts, "The Origins of the 'Iowa Idea,' " Iowa Journal of History and 
 Politics, 2:69-73 (January, 1904). 
 
 53 R. P. Clarkson to J. S. Clarkson, Nov. 17, 1901, Clarkson Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 54 R. P. Clarkson to J. S. Clarkson, Nov. 24, 1901, ibid. 
 
 55 Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 246-7. 
 
 56 Roberts, "Origins of the 'Iowa Idea,'" 73-4. 
 
 57 Cole, Iowa Through the Years, 433-4; World Review, 11:451 (Dec. 28, 1901). Also 
 see H. H. Kohlsaat, From McKinley to Harding (New York, 1923), 123-4, who claims to 
 have planted the idea in Roosevelt's mind as a means of heading off any Shaw boom for the 
 
FOOTNOTES 377 
 
 presidency in 1904. It is preposterous to think that Roosevelt would have feared Shaw to 
 this extent. 
 
 58 J. P. Dolliver to J. S. Clarkson, Apr. 12, 1902, Box 1, Clarkson Papers (Library of 
 Congress). 
 
 59 In Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 43-8, the impression is given that President 
 Roosevelt took the initiative in recruiting Clarkson for his "team" in New York. The 
 evidence cited above would not uphold this interpretation. 
 
 60 Cummins to N. E. Kendall, June 7, 1902, Cummins Papers. 
 
 61 Roberts, "Origins of the 'Iowa Idea,' " 76-8. 
 
 62 This account of the sale is based on letters in the Clarkson Papers, some in the Library 
 of Congress and some in the Iowa State Dept. of History and Archives at Des Moines. 
 
 63 The conference was revealed in the columns of the Des Moines Register and Leader, 
 Sept. 17, 1902. Stephenson, Aldrich, 19 A, refers to the conference as a well-kept secret. 
 
 64 Henderson to Allison, Sept. 16, 1903, Box 346, Allison Papers; Stephenson, Aldrich, 
 454, note 53. 
 
 65 Henderson to Allison, Sept. 17, 1902, Allison Papers. 
 
 6(5 Willard Hoing, "Colonel David Bremner Henderson: Speaker of the House" (M. A. 
 thesis, Iowa State Teachers College, 1956), devotes several pages to this subject. 
 
 67 Cole, I Remember, I Remember, 329-30. See also Stephenson, Aldrich, 191, 195, and 
 454, note 53. 
 
 68 This quotation was frequently attributed to Speaker Henderson in the press of the day. 
 See Cedar Falls Semi-Weekly Gazette, Sept. 26, 1902; Des Moines Register and Leader, 
 Sept. 22, 1902. Henderson's announcement was given to the Dubuque newspaper by Lee 
 McNeely, who acted as his spokesman and press representative at the time. McNeely had 
 been private secretary to Col. Henderson and a clerk in the House; he was soon to become 
 secretary to Allison. 
 
 69 Allison to R. P. Clarkson, July 15, 1902, R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook. 
 
 70 Cummins to Henderson, Sept. 10, 1902; Cummins to Theodore Roosevelt, June 26, 
 1902, Cummins Papers. 
 
 71 Henderson to R. P. Clarkson, Sept. 17, 1902, R. P. Clarkson Scrapbook. 
 
 72 J. S. Clarkson to M. S. Quay, Sept. 17, 1902, Clarkson Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 73 Cummins to B. P. Birdsall, Sept. 27, 1902, Cummins Papers. 
 
 74 Cummins to John Kemble, Oct. 2, 1902, ibid. 
 
 75 Leslie M. Shaw to J. S. Clarkson, March 26, 1903, Clarkson Papers (Library of 
 Congress). 
 
 76 Shaw to Clarkson, Apr. 13, 1903; Clarkson to Shaw, Apr. 15, 1903, Clarkson Papers 
 (Des Moines); Shaw to Clarkson, Apr. 16, 1903, Clarkson Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 77 Cummins to George D. Perkins, Apr. 16, 1903; Cummins to Allison, Apr. 17, 1903, 
 Cummins Papers. 
 
 78 Roberts, "Origins of the Towa Idea,' " 78. 
 
 79 Ibid., 7S-9. 
 
 80 Cummins to Dawes, Nov. 5, 1903; Cummins to Allison, Nov. 9, 1903, Cummins Papers. 
 
 81 Cummins to Thomas A. Way, July 14, 1903, ibid. 
 
 82 Cummins to Way, Nov. 14, 1903, ibid. 
 
 83 Cummins to Harvey Ingham, Jan. 30, 1904, ibid. 
 
 84 Bowers, Beveridge, 205; Swisher, Cousins, passim; M. B. Smith, "A Theoretical Analysis 
 of the Speeches of Robert Gordon Cousins" (Ph. D. thesis, University of Minnesota, 1952). 
 
 85 Kasson to Ora Williams, Oct. 4, 1904, Vol. 6, Kasson Papers (Des Moines). 
 
 86 Lee McNeely to the author; this fact was admitted in the obituary articles in August, 
 1908. 
 
378 William Boyd Allison 
 
 87 Benj. F. Shambaugh, The Constitutions of Iowa (Iowa City, 1934), 291; Titus, "The 
 Battle for Biennial Elections," 163-75. 
 
 88 Dubuque Daily Times, Feb. 27, 1906. 
 
 89 Correspondence by "Raymond" in the Chicago Tribune, reprinted in the Des Moines 
 Register and Leader, July 4, 1906. "But last winter the Iowa senator began to break down 
 physically." 
 
 90 Des Moines Register and Leader, March 2, 3, 1906. 
 
 -CHAPTER XVIII ALLISON AND ROOSEVELT 
 
 1 The description is from Miss Martha Baker of Dubuque. Miss Baker, a most re- 
 markable nonagenarian of vivacious manner and clear memory, knew Allison well. As an 
 intimate friend of his three nieces, the daughters of Matthew Allison, she saw him often 
 over a long period of years. In her phrase, Allison never stepped out boldly but "shuffled 
 along, in a timid manner." Miss Martha Baker to the author in personal conversation, 
 August 1, 1954. 
 
 2 Roosevelt to Allison, Sept. 27, 1901, Allison Papers; Stephenson, Aldrich, 17 A. 
 
 3 Younger, Kasson, 3 64-79; J. Laurence Laughlin and Parker Willis, Reciprocity (New 
 York, 1903), 302; Mary Jane Thierman, "John Adam Kasson: His Reciprocity Treaties and 
 Their Fate" (M. A. thesis, Iowa State Teachers College, 1953). 
 
 4 Stephenson, History of the American People, 2:434. 
 
 5 Dubuque Times, Oct. 16, 1901. Allison made essentially the same speech in a number 
 of Iowa towns. 
 
 6 Allison to Roosevelt, Nov. 2, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt Papers (Library of Congress). 
 
 7 Stephenson, Aldrich, 194-9. 
 
 8 Tyler Dennett, John Hay: From Poetry to Politics (New York, 1933), 3 82-3. 
 
 9 Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 23; Des Moines Register and Leader, July 4, 1906. 
 
 10 Lambert, Elkins, 261-6, analyzes the workings of the Elkins Act, 1903-1905, and 
 quotes from President Roosevelt's annual message to Congress, December, 1905, asking for 
 better legislation to secure regulation of rates, including the sentence: "It must include 
 putting a complete stop to rebates in every shape and form." Richardson, Messages and 
 Papers of the Presidents, 16:6976. 
 
 11 Briggs, Hepburn, 252, 413, note 408; Cong. Record, 58 Cong., 3 Sess., 2198-9. 
 
 12 Cummins to William Larrabee, Feb. 15, 1905; Cummins to H. L. Spencer, Jan. 28, 
 1905, Cummins Papers; Des Moines Register and Leader, Jan. 26, 1906, cited in Briggs, 
 Hepburn, 406, note 360. 
 
 13 Cong. Record, 58 Cong., 3 Sess., 2205-2206, 2227. 
 
 14 Nicholas Murray Butler, Across the Busy Years (2 vols., New York, 1939-1940), 2:30. 
 15 Merlo J. Pusey, Charles Evans Hughes (2 vols., New York, 1951), 1:140-68. 
 
 16 Briggs, Hepburn, 262-3. 
 
 17 Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement, 25-6. 
 
 18 Briggs, Hepburn, 265-6; Cong. Record, 59 Cong., 1 Sess., 577, 712; H. R. Bill No. 
 10,099, ibid., 981, 1520; House Committee Reports, 59 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 591, pp. 1-2; 
 H. R. Bill No. 11,488. 
 
 19 See Stephenson, Aldrich, Chap. XIX; Richardson, Chandler, Chap. XXVIII; Francis B. 
 Simkins, Pitchfork Ben Tillman (Baton Rouge, La., 1944), Chap. XXVIII; Sam Acheson, 
 foe Bailey, The Last Democrat (New York, 1932), 188-200; Henry F. Pringle, Theodore 
 Roosevelt, A Biography (New York, 1931), 415-25; Morison (ed.), Letters of Theodore 
 Roosevelt, Vols. IV, V, VI, passim, especially Vol. VI, Appendix II, 1558-71, for an essay 
 by John M. Blum, "Theodore Roosevelt and the Hepburn Act: Toward an Orderly System of 
 
FOOTNOTES 379 
 
 Control." See also W. Z. Ripley, Railroads: Rates and Regulations (New York, 1912), 
 499-512; Alfred H. Kelley and Winfred A. Harbison, The American Constitution: Its 
 Origins and Its Development (New York, 1948), 600ff.; J. W. Bryan, "Aspects of the 
 Senatorial Debate Upon the Rate Bill," American Law Review, 41:801rr\ (1907). Ray 
 Stannard Baker, "The Railroad Rates, A Study in Commercial Autocracy," McClure's, 
 26:47-59 (November, 1905), provides excellent background for understanding the temper 
 of the times which made some sort of action by Congress imperative. 
 
 20 Blum, "Theodore Roosevelt and the Hepburn Act," 1561, flatly asserts, "Roosevelt had 
 constructed the Hepburn bill with practiced care." Blum has the most recent account of this 
 great battle; my account follows his closely. 
 
 21 Blum, ibid., 1564; Simkins, Tillman, 421-6; Richardson, Chandler, 659-61. 
 
 22 Roosevelt to Long, Jan. 31, May 5, 1906, Morison (ed.), Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 
 5:142, 258. 
 
 23 Roosevelt to Senator Knute Nelson, Apr. 11, 1906; Roosevelt to Allison, Apr. 12, 
 May 5, 10, 14, 1906, ibid., 5:209, 210, 258, 261, 270. 
 
 24 The amendment was introduced on the afternoon of May 8, 1906; see Cong. Record, 
 59 Cong., 1 Sess., 6501. The analysis given here follows closely that found in Ripley, 
 Railroads: Rates and Regulations, 501-507. 
 
 25 Stephenson, Aldrich, 310-11. Actually, there were seven parts to the proposal; the 
 term "Allison Amendments" is justifiable. Jeannette P. Nichols, "Contradictory Trends in 
 Middle Western Democracy, 1865-1900," in Nichols and Randall (eds.), Democracy in 
 the Middle West, 1840-1940, 87-8. Allison's illness and frequent confinement to his rooms 
 at the Portland Hotel throw some doubt on this story. Nothing has been discovered in the 
 evidence to indicate that he left Washington during this period. See Cong. Record, 59 Cong., 
 1 Sess., passim, especially all pages recording the Senate debates, May 4-14, 1906. 
 
 26 Des Moines Register and Leader, May 5-15, 1906, not only has its own full coverage 
 on this topic, but it ran copious quotations from leading newspapers in New York, Wash- 
 ington, St. Louis, and elsewhere. The Register and Leader, May 12, had a most amusing 
 cartoon, showing Allison looking out of his front door in great surprise at a baby on his 
 doorstep, labelled "Allison Amendment." The cartoon was captioned, "Mine?" 
 
 27 See footnote 25 above. 
 
 28 Roosevelt to Knute Nelson, Apr. 11, 1906, in Morison (ed.), Letters of Theodore 
 Roosevelt, 5:209-210; Roosevelt to Allison, May 5, 1906, ibid., 5:25 8-9. 
 
 29 Roosevelt to Edward Payson Bacon, May 8, 1906, ibid., 5:260. 
 
 30 Roosevelt to Allison, May 14, 1906, ibid., 5:270-72. 
 
 31 Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York, 1914), 437. 
 
 32 Blum, "Theodore Roosevelt and the Hepburn Act," 1567, 1569. 
 
 33 See T. V. Smith, The Legislative Way of Life (Chicago, 1940), 68-96, and Discipline 
 for Democracy (Chapel Hill, N. C, 1942), 93-116. 
 
 34 Stephenson, Aldrich, 3 09-313; Blum, "Theodore Roosevelt and the Hepburn Act," 
 1570-71; Allison to Dolliver, Aug. 23, 1907, Box 362, Allison Papers. 
 
 35 Richardson, Chandler, 664ff. 
 
 36 Ripley, Railroads: Rates and Regulations, 507-509. 
 
 37 Kelley and Harbison, American Constitution, 600-605. 
 
 38 Richardson, Chandler, 668-70; Simkins, Tillman, 437-9. 
 
 39 Cong. Record, 59 Cong., 1 Sess., 6886-7. This letter is cited in footnote 30 above. 
 
 40 On the general history of muckraking, see C. C. Regier, The Era of the Muckrakers 
 (Chapel Hill, N. C, 1932), passim. Probably no two writers would agree exactly as to the 
 date of the transformation from helpful, scholarly, scientific muckraking over to "yellow- 
 sheet" sensationalism. Link, American Epoch, 76-7, strongly asserts the date to be 1906. 
 
3 80 William Boyd Allison 
 
 41 Cosmopolitan Magazine, 41:627-32 (October, 1906). These articles were reprinted 
 in book form by Academic Reprints, Stanford, Calif. [1953]. 
 
 42 Louis Filler, Crusaders for American Liberalism (New York, 1939), 203-216. The 
 idea for such a series had originated with Charles Edward Russell in 1905 and rejected by 
 Everybody's as too risky. Then Millard, who had been employed by Hearst to increase the 
 circulation, came up with the same idea. Ibid., 247. An admirable example of refutation of 
 the Phillips attack is to be found in Lambert, Gorman, 3 63-73. 
 
 43 Cummins to La Follette, Jan. 30, 1906, Cummins Papers. 
 
 44 Cummins to E. C. Roach, Rock Rapids, Feb. 5, 1906, ibid. 
 15 Cummins to Brookhart, March 19, 1906, ibid. 
 
 46 Cummins to W. H. Torbert, Apr. 19, 1906, ibid. Also see Clark, History of Sena- 
 torial Elections in Iowa, 250-53, and Cyrenus Cole, J Remember, I Remember, 316-17. 
 Cole reasons that Cummins, alarmed over the factional fight that had developed because he 
 had come into the gubernatorial race for a third term after George D. Perkins had an- 
 nounced, made overtures to the Allison crowd. 
 
 47 Des Moines Register and Leader, Aug. 2, 1906. The Cummins machine even in- 
 vaded Dubuque. In May the Dubuque County convention voted unanimously to empower 
 one Fred Kretschmer to name the delegation to the state convention. Kretschmer announced 
 that he would select an unmixed Cummins slate. Allison leaders such as his former sec- 
 retary, now postmaster, Joseph Morgan, were attacked openly as examples of the "machine 
 bossism" of the past. An effort to drag Allison into the fight was made, but he sent word 
 that he would not take sides. Ibid., May 11, 1906. 
 
 48 Cummins to Allison, Aug. 25, 1906; Cummins to James Wilson, Aug. 25, 1906 
 Cummins Papers. 
 
 49 Link, American Epoch, 77: "Phillips combined truth, fiction, and outright prevari- 
 cation; but his indictment of the business domination of the Senate added a powerful 
 impetus to the movement for the direct election of senators." 
 
 50 Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 248-50; Laws of Iowa, 1907, 51; 
 Senate Journal, 1907, 57 (for Cummins' inaugural address); Emory H. English, "Evolution 
 in Iowa Voting Practices," Annals of Iowa (third series), 19:249-89 (April, 1948), gives 
 the background of the passage of the primary law of 1907 and adds comment as to its value. 
 
 51 Clark, History of Senatorial Elections in Iowa, 247-$; Cummins to G. M. Curtis, 
 Dec. 24, 1906, Cummins Papers. 
 
 52 Dodge to Allison, Mar. 15, 1907, Box 362, Allison Papers. 
 
 53 J. S. Clarkson to L. T. Michener, Apr. 6, 1907, Box 1, Clarkson Papers (Library of 
 Congress). 
 
 54 George E. Roberts to Clarkson, Apr. 4 [1907], Clarkson Papers (Des Moines). 
 
 CHAPTER XIX — EXIT IN TRIUMPH 
 
 1 Dodge to Allison, Mar. 15, 1907, Box 362, Allison Papers; Allison to Dodge, Apr. 15, 
 1907, Box 3 63, ibid. 
 
 2 Cleaves to McNeely, May 22, 1907, ibid. In a conversation on February 10, 1956, Mr. 
 McNeely gave me almost exactly these same words. A lapse of nearly forty-nine years had 
 not dimmed his memories or his opinions of 1907 concerning Allison's health. 
 
 3 B. P. Birdsall to Dolliver, Apr. 9, 1907, Dolliver Papers. 
 
 4 Ernest E. Hart to Allison, June 22, 1907, Box 363, Allison Papers; Allison to Hart, 
 June 24, 1907, ibid. The "backers" Hart referred to were Judge Walter I. Smith, Victor 
 Bender, and State Senator Charles G. Saunders, all of Council Bluffs. 
 
FOOTNOTES 381 
 
 5 Hart to Allison, June 26, 1907; Allison to Hart, July 11, 1907, ibid. 
 
 6 Assurances of assistance were received from Congressmen Haugen, Hull, Lacey, Kennedy, 
 and Conner. Robert G. Cousins reported that all his contacts were through a few influ- 
 ential leaders. Boxes 3 63, 364, ibid. 
 
 7 Allison to Dolliver, Aug. 23, 1907, Box 362, ibid. 
 
 8 A copy of this announcement, written on United States Senate stationery is in ibid. 
 It was generally published on Aug. 27, 1907. The next day Allison wrote to Congressman 
 Hull, repeating the explanation for the announcement. Box 363, ibid. 
 
 9 Dodge to Allison, Aug. 27, 1907, Box 362, ibid.; Dubuque Times-Journal, Sept. 15, 
 29, 1907. 
 
 10 Hart to Allison, Aug. 30, 1907, Box 363, ibid. 
 
 11 Clarkson to Allison, Aug. 31, 1907, Box 362, ibid. For a pro-Allison paper, see issues 
 of Dubuque Times-Journal during campaign. 
 
 12 Allison to Dolliver, Sept. 20, 1907; Dolliver to Allison, n. d., Allison Papers. 
 
 13 Emory H. English to the author, Dec. 3 0, 1954. Mr. English was editor of the 
 Mason City Daily Times in 1907-1908, in Haugen's district, and close to all the political 
 leaders of that day. 
 
 14 Clarkson to Dodge, Sept. 16, 1907, Clarkson Papers (Des Moines). 
 
 15 Clarkson to Theodore Roosevelt, Sept. 27, 1907, ibid. 
 
 16 Dubuque Times- Journal, Oct. 1, 1907. 
 
 17 Allison to Dolliver, Oct. 8, 1907, Dolliver Papers. A carbon copy is in Box 362, 
 Allison Papers. 
 
 18 Dolliver to Allison, Oct. 10, 1907, Allison Papers. 
 
 19 Allison to Dolliver, Oct. 12, 1907, ibid. 
 
 20 Charles M. Had to Allison, Oct. 17, 1907, Box 363, ibid. 
 
 21 Dodge to Allison, Oct. 18, 1907, Box 362, ibid. 
 
 22 Allison to Harl, Oct. 19, 1907, Box 363, ibid. 
 
 23 Allison to Dolliver, Oct. 23, 1907, Dolliver Papers. 
 
 24 Allison to Dolliver, Nov. 4, 1907, ibid. 
 
 25 Allison to Dolliver, Nov. 8, 1907, ibid. 
 
 26 Council Bluffs Nonpareil, Nov. 25, 26, 1907; Dubuque Times-Journal, Nov. 26, 1907; 
 Des Moines Register and Leader, Nov. 26, 1907, carrying dispatch from Council Bluffs dated 
 Nov. 25, 1907. 
 
 27 Harl to Allison, Nov. 26, 1907, Box 3 64, Allison Papers. 
 
 28 See Hostettler, "The Oratorical Career of Jonathan P. Dolliver." 
 
 29 Cummins to Dolliver, Sept. 12, 1907, Dolliver Papers. 
 
 30 Dolliver to Cummins, Sept. 19, 1907, ibid. 
 
 31 Des Moines Register and Leader, Dec. 4, 16, 1907. 
 
 32 B. W. Lacy to Allison, Dec. 11, 13, 1907, Box 364, Allison Papers; Torbert to 
 Dolliver, Dec. 11, 13, 1907, in Des Moines Register and Leader, Dec. 14, 1907. 
 
 33 Cummins to A. B. Funk, Jan. 11, 1908, Cummins Papers. 
 
 34 Cummins to Cyrenus Cole, Nov. 23, 1920, Cole Papers. 
 
 35 The Fry Memorandum of July 5, 1924, was found in the Cummins Papers by Professor 
 Ralph M. Sayre, who very generously placed it at my disposal. For Aldrich-Vreeland Act, see 
 Stephenson, Aldrich, 325-3 0. 
 
 36 Cummins to W. E. Hamilton, Jan. 11, 1908, Cummins Papers; Odebolt Chronicle, 
 Jan. 9, 1908. 
 
 37 The Roberts article is in the Dubuque Times-Journal, Mar. 19, 1908; the Hart inter- 
 view, in the Council Bluffs Nonpareil, June 23, 1907. The Allison Papers for the period 
 
382 William Boyd Allison 
 
 are replete with declinations of invitations to various functions, always using a plea of 
 illness and the necessity of conserving his strength. Even so good a friend as Leslie M. Shaw 
 was turned down on a request for an introduction to a book of speeches. See Allison to 
 Shaw, Feb. 8, 1908, Box 95, Allison Papers. 
 
 38 John T. Adams to Dolliver, Feb. 7, March 2, 1908, Dolliver Papers. There are 
 several other letters from Adams to Dolliver in this collection. 
 
 39 Waterloo Daily Courier, March 17, 1908. 
 
 40 Ibid., March 18, 1908. 
 
 41 Idem. — 
 
 42 Des Moines Register and Leader, March 19, 1908. This paper reports the vote as 
 673i to 5l0i. 
 
 43 Waterloo Daily Courier, March 20, 1908. 
 
 44 Clarksville Butler County Tribune, March 26, 1908. The convention selected the 
 following delegates-at-large to the national convention: George D. Perkins, Lafayette Young, 
 Joe R. Lane, and Frank Simmons. See Des Moines Register and Leader, March 19, 1908. 
 
 45 Waterloo Daily Courier, March 21, 1908. 
 
 46 Cummins to G. W. Cowden, Apr. 24, 1908, Cummins Papers. 
 
 47 Council Bluffs Nonpareil, May 20, 1908; Cedar Rapids Evening Times, June 1, 1908. 
 The action of Congress in the Banton case helped to establish the principle of liability for 
 injury incurred while in government service. See obituary of Pembroke Banton, Waterloo 
 Daily Courier, Jan. 16, 195 5. 
 
 48 Cong. Record, 60 Cong., 1 Sess., 7184, shows Allison's last answer to a roll-call on 
 May 29. The Senate went into an all-night session before adjournment on the 30th. 
 
 49 Lee McNeely to the author, in conversation, Feb. 10, 1956. Cong. Record, 60 Cong., 
 1 Sess., 7274. 
 
 50 Allison was not an official delegate to the Republican national convention of 1856. 
 
 51 Clarksville Butler County Tribune, May 21, 1908. 
 
 52 Des Moines Register and Leader, June 1, 1908. 
 
 53 This analysis was originated by Professor Samuel Hays of the department of history, 
 State University of Iowa, who very kindly made it available to me. 
 
 54 Roosevelt to Benjamin Ide Wheeler, June 22, 1908, in ibid., 6:1094; Taft to Charles 
 Nagel, June 1, 1908, quoted in H. F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft 
 
 (2 vols., New York, 1939), 1:354-5. 
 
 55 Charles G. Saunders (June 4), Charles S. Vrooman (June 5), G. M. Dodge (June 5), 
 Lafayette Young (June 5), I. S. Struble (June 4), James S. Clarkson (June 8), George E. 
 Roberts (June 12), Maurice D. O'Connell (June 12), James E. Blythe (June 14), 1908, to 
 Dolliver, Dolliver Papers. All these writers openly stressed the "fear of Cummins" motivation. 
 
 56 Des Moines Register and Leader was the principal medium for this point of view. It 
 first appeared in the issue of June 4, 1908, and followed in succeeding issues daily. Ding's 
 cleverest cartoon appeared in the issue of June 13. It pictured Dolliver looking out a 
 window at Roosevelt and Taft coming through the gate, Taft with a warrant entitled 
 "Search for Vice Presidential Candidate." In the yard were three men labeled "Lafe" 
 [Young], "Uncle George" [Roberts], and [John F.] "Lacey," busily posting the house with 
 signs reading "Measles, Bubonic Plague, Mumps," etc. Lafe was shouting, "You mustn't 
 come in here!" The caption of the cartoon was: "If there are any other reasons why Dolliver 
 should be kept at home the Standpatters haven't thought of them yet." 
 
 57 Des Moines Register and Leader, June 15, June 16-19, 1908. Allison made no attempt 
 
FOOTNOTES 383 
 
 to attend the Chicago convention but sent his secretary to represent his interests and to 
 perform such favors as the distribution of his allotment of tickets. 
 
 58 Waterloo Daily Courier, June 24, 25, 1908; Briggs, Hepburn, 330-31. 
 
 59 Cole, I Remember, I Remember, 321-2. 
 
 60 Lee McNeely to the author, May 20, 1956. 
 
 61 "Bill" [W. P. Hepburn?] to Dolliver, June 20, 1908, Dolliver Papers: "My reports 
 of Senator Allison's condition are discouraging but I hope he will recuperate in his home 
 surroundings." 
 
 62 Lee McNeely to Dolliver, June 28, 1908, ibid. For example, the decision as to the 
 nominee for the postmastership of Ottumwa. 
 
 83 Cummins to William Anderson of Jewell, Iowa, July 29, 1908, Cummins Papers. 
 
 64 Ret Clarkson to Al Swalm, Aug. 17, 1908, Clarkson Papers (Des Moines). 
 
Index 
 
mirtMhtmttm^timttm^^ 
 
 Index 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 39, 122 
 
 Adams, John T., manages Allison's 1908 
 campaign, 325 
 
 Adams, Shubael P., 46, 56; opposes Allison, 
 50-51, 88, 97; Union League and, 59; as 
 Liberal Republican, 120 
 
 Agrarian radicalism, in the 1870's, 13 0-3 3, 
 151; Hepburn victim of, 200 
 
 Ainsworth, L. L., 82, 132 
 
 Aldrich, Nelson W., 195, 196, 220, 272, 285, 
 295, 296; favors Harrison, 224; and 
 Mills Bill, 23 3; and "Force Bill," 246; 
 growing power of, 246-7; bimetallism and, 
 257-8; illness of, 269-70; as imperialist, 
 273; and "The Four," 273-4, 280; op- 
 poses reciprocity, 295; opposes Hepburn 
 Act, 299-305; and "Allison Amendment," 
 302; muckrakers and, 306, 3 07; Aldrich- 
 Vreeland Act, 324, 328 
 
 Aldrich-Vreeland Act, 324, 328 
 
 Alger, Russell A., 207, 215, 218, 221, 224, 
 250 
 
 Allegheny College, Allison at, 6 
 
 Allen, B. F., 107, 115 
 
 Allison, Anna Carter (Mrs. W. B.), 9, 18; 
 death of, 37 
 
 Allison, James Emerson, nephew of W. B. 
 Allison, 97, 197 
 
 Allison, James Harrison, brother of W. B. 
 Allison, 3, 194 
 
 Allison, John, father of W. B. Allison, 2-3, 
 7; as Whig, 3; as Republican, 12; death 
 of, 194 
 
 Allison, Margaret Williams, mother of W. 
 B. Allison, 2-3 
 
 Allison, Mary Nealley (Mrs. W. B.), adopted 
 by Grimes, 63; marriage of, 128; in poor 
 health, 168-9; attempts suicide, 182; su- 
 icide of, 190-91; will of, 191-2 
 
 Allison, Matthew, brother of W. B. Allison, 
 
 3, 8, 46; at Dubuque, 20; as Republican, 
 29 
 
 Allison, Matthew, grandfather of W. B. 
 Allison, 2 
 
 Allison, William Boyd, death of, 1, 3 32; 
 career of, 2; funeral of, 2; monument to, 
 2; ancestry of, 2; parents of, 2-3; birth 
 of, 3; youth and education of, 4-8; re- 
 ligion and, 5; appearance of, 5-6, 60-61, 
 126-7; as schoolteacher, 7; law studies of, 
 8; Ohio law practice of, 8-18; as Whig, 
 9; first marriage, 9; as Know-Nothing, 
 10, 12, 14-15, 16-17, 29; S. P. Chase and, 
 10, 12, 28, 68; Ohio Republican party 
 and, 10, 12-17; candidate for prose- 
 cuting attorney, 16-17; moves to Du- 
 buque, 19-20; Iowa law partners of, 23- 
 5; D. N. Cooley and, 24-5; as Dubuque 
 businessman, 25-6; at 1860 convention, 
 26, 31, 3 5-6; in early Iowa Republican 
 party, 26; in 1859 campaign, 30-31; 
 Kirkwood and, 30-31, 32, 43-4, 49, 50, 
 69, 70, 112; J. F. Wilson and, 33; joins 
 "Dodge & Co.," 42-5; death of first wife, 
 37; in 1860 campaign, 37-9; Geo. B. 
 Crane and, 38; seeks U. S. district at- 
 torneyship, 40-41, 43-4; at Lincoln in- 
 auguration, 41-3; seeks Iowa supreme 
 court post, 44-5; Civil War and, 46-59; 
 war contracts sought by, 47; appointed 
 Governor's aide, 47-8; D. B. Henderson 
 and, 48; 1862 campaign for Congress, 50- 
 58; soldier vote for, 58; joins Union 
 League, 59; as Radical Republican, 60-75, 
 81, 82, 83, 84-5, 120-21; seeks influential 
 friends, 60; in 3 8th Congress, 60-68; 
 lives with Grimes family, 62-3, 86; 
 Grimes and, 63, 86; committee assign- 
 ments of, 64, 76; first bills introduced by, 
 64; as "railroad" Congressman, 64-6, 77-8, 
 
 3 87 
 
388 
 
 103; vote on "Homesteads on Forfeited 
 Estates Act," 67-8; maiden speech in 
 Congress, 68; votes for Wade-Davis bill, 
 69; 1864 renomination and election, 70- 
 71; acquaintance with Lincoln, 71; con- 
 sidered for Senate, 1866, pp. 72-3; Jacob 
 Rich comment on, 73; supports Kirkwood 
 1866 candidacy, 74; standard-bearer of 
 Dodge faction of Republican party, 75; 
 in 39th Congress, 76-81, 84-6; on House 
 Committee on Ways and Means, 76; Piatt 
 Smith and, 77-8T Oakes Ames and, 77; 
 and bridge at Dubuque, 78; as champion 
 of Western interests, 78; favors Niagara 
 ship-canal, 78, 79; tariff views of, 78-9, 
 85-6, 89, 103, 117, 214-15; on taxation, 
 79-80; on government minting, 80; Thad- 
 deus Stevens and, 80; on greenbacks, 80; 
 defends Harlan, 80; Jesup and, 89, 156, 
 159; 1866 renomination and election, 81- 
 4; favors Negro suffrage, 82; buys in- 
 terest in Dubuque Times, 82-3; charged 
 with being rich, 83; joint debates with 
 Noble, 83; speech on Reconstruction, 84- 
 5; favors Julian's homestead plan, 85; 
 explains how he votes, 86; in 40th Con- 
 gress, 86-7, 89; Atkinson and, 86, 89, 96, 
 103; Dodge and, 86, 96; votes to im- 
 peach Johnson, 86; and Grimes vote on 
 impeachment, 87; 1868 election of, 87-8; 
 opposition to, 88; Thomas opposes, 88, 90, 
 97, 98; supporters of, 88; Grant and, 88; 
 increasing prominence of, 88-9; friends 
 of, 89; Jay Cooke and, 89; Sioux City & 
 Pacific RR and, 89-90, 109, 126, 193; 
 in 1870 senatorial contest, 91-8; Wilson 
 suggests, for Senate, 92; Tichenor and, 
 94-5, 108; confidence of, 95, 96; 1870 
 defeat of, 96, 98; "Newell Letter" and, 
 97; opponents and supporters of, 97-8; 
 "Jov" letter attacks, 98; plans for 1872 
 contest, 99, 100, 102; Illinois Central 
 RR and, 100, 159-60; Union Pacific RR 
 and, 100; four choices for his future, 100- 
 103; considers Congressman-at-large post, 
 101; 1870 Tariff Act, 103; Iowa Pacific 
 RR and, 103, 159-60; contrasting friend- 
 ships, 103-104; and judicial districts bill, 
 105, 129, 183-4; first election to Senate, 
 105-118; Carpenter supports, 107; and 
 Glenwood Opinion, 107; charges against, 
 109, 116; Credit Mobilier and, 109, 123-6; 
 Clarkson supports, 111; influence on Des 
 Moines Register, 111-12, 115; Rich sup- 
 port of, 105, 112; 1872 caucus vote for, 
 113-14; influence of Dodge, 114, 115; 
 Porter comment on, 115; considered a 
 tariff moderate, 117; Liberal Republicans 
 favor, 117, 120; comment on 1872 elec- 
 tion, 117; as "railroad" Senator, 118, 149, 
 202; Liberal Republicans and, 119-23; 
 supports Wilson for Vice President, 122, 
 
 William Boyd Allison 
 
 123; in 43rd Congress, 127, 129-30, 133- 
 4; senatorial colleagues of, 127; commit- 
 tee assignments, 127; Blaine's comment on, 
 127-8; second marriage of, 128; Panic 
 of 1873 and, 128-9; and Shepherd in- 
 vestigation, 129-30; commission plan of 
 city government, 130; Granger movement 
 and, 131-2; and Resumption Act, 13 3-4, 
 161-2; and Whiskey Ring, 134-6; Joyce 
 and, 134-6; and Kirkwood 1875 election, 
 13 6, 137; and Belknap, 139-40; mission 
 to Sioux Indians, 140; and 1876 sena- 
 torial contest, 140-41; and Belknap 
 scandal, 142; and 1876 election, 144-6; 
 and 1877 Compromise Bill, 146-8; Charles 
 E. Perkins and, 149, 150, 160-61; 1878 
 senatorial election of, 149-51; and Bland- 
 Allison Act, 150, 152-7; in 45th Con- 
 gress, 152-6; Sherman influence on, 152- 
 3, 155; criticism of, 154, 156; Washing- 
 ton social life of, 158-9; business affairs 
 of, 159; town named for, 161; opposes 
 free silver, 161-2; and 18 80 presidential 
 election, 162-5; in Garfield campaign, 
 163-5; and Garfield Cabinet offer, 165-8, 
 169-73; recommends Wilson or Kirkwood 
 for Garfield Cabinet, 166, 168, 170, 172; 
 objections to, as Cabinet member, 168; 
 loses control of Dubuque Times, 169; re- 
 fuses Interior, 170; refuses Treasury, 171- 
 3 ; succeeds to chairmanship of Appro- 
 priations Committee, 174; Conkling and, 
 174-6; and Iowa politics, 1881-1882, pp. 
 177-86; Wilson senatorial candidacy and, 
 178, 179, 180, 182-3; backs Larrabee for 
 governorship, 181-2; as Iowa political 
 boss, 183; as committee worker, 183; in 
 47th Congress, 183-4; prohibition issue 
 and, 184-5, 187, 188-9, 192; remonstrates 
 with Kirkwood, 189-90; suicide of wife, 
 190-91; inheritance from wife, 191-2; 
 1883 election and, 192-4; Weaver attacks, 
 193; Clarkson defends, 193; father's 
 death, 194; 1884 re-election of, 194-5; 
 first suggested for presidency, 195; con- 
 sidered wealthy, 196; director of bank, 
 196-7; poor management of his own 
 affairs, 197; and Interstate Commerce 
 Act, 197-8, 201; and Larrabee election, 
 199; as a bimetallism 199, 242; and Hep- 
 burn defeat, 199-201; and Larrabee re- 
 election, 202; and Wilson re-election, 202- 
 203; dominates Iowa politics, 203; as 
 presidential possibility, 202, 203; 18 88 
 presidential candidacy, 204-229; Clarkson 
 manages campaign, 205-229; Poore's bi- 
 ography of, 205; speeches by, at Cornell 
 and State University of Iowa, 205-206; 
 endorsed by state convention, 206, 212- 
 13; at Crocker's Brigade reunion, 206; 
 Harper's Weekly appraises, 209-210; Lar- 
 rabee's inaugural address hurts chances, 
 
INDEX 
 
 210-12; Perkins asks aid against railroad 
 legislation, 211-12; Dolliver praises, 213; 
 on Blaine withdrawal, 214-15; and Har- 
 rison candidacy, 216; headquarters of, 
 217; parade of backers, 217; Mrs. Hicks- 
 Lord and, 218; newspapers and, 218-19; 
 railroad men oppose, 219; nominated by 
 Hepburn, 220; votes for, on first ballot, 
 221; source of votes for, 221; succeeding 
 ballots, 221, 223, 225-6; nomination 
 blocked by Depew, 221-3, 224; Barker 
 and, 225; Clarkson throws strength to 
 Harrison, 226-7; reactions to defeat, 229; 
 Harrison campaign and, 230-34; Mills 
 Bill and, 231-3; and Harrison's Cabinet, 
 235-9, 244-5; rejects Treasury, 236-9; 
 fails to aid Clarkson, 23 8; reasons for re- 
 jecting Cabinet post, 239; 1889 Iowa 
 election and, 240; 1890 election of, 240- 
 41; denies stories of his wealth, 241; in 
 51st Congress, 241-4; and Sherman Silver 
 Purchase Act, 242; and McKinley Tariff, 
 242-4; tin-plate amendment, 243; opposes 
 reciprocity, 243-4; "Force Bill" and, 245- 
 6; as last of Radical Republicans, 246; a 
 member of "School of Philosophy Club," 
 247; Panic of 1893 and, 248, 256; in 
 1891 campaign, 249; criticizes Clarkson, 
 250-52; Clarkson letter to, 250-51; Mrs. 
 Clarkson letter to, 252; apologizes to 
 Clarkson, 252; 1892 presidential nomina- 
 tion urged, 253; in 1892 campaign, 254; 
 attends International Monetary Confer- 
 ence, 254-5; on repeal of Sherman Act, 
 255, 257; comment on Cleveland, 257; 
 telegram to London Conference on Bi- 
 metallism, 257-8; on "Wilson-Gorman Act, 
 2 59; 1893 election and, 260; and 1894 
 senatorial election, 260; in 1894 cam- 
 paign, 260-61; supported for 1896 presi- 
 dential nomination, 260-61; Cummins 
 favors, 261; in 1895 campaign, 261-2; 
 1896 re-election, 2 62; as 1896 presidential 
 candidate, 262-6; support for, 263; de- 
 cline of chances, 263-4; defeated, 265; 
 comment on 1896 platform, 266; in 1896 
 campaign, 267-8; McKinley Cabinet offer, 
 268; chairman of Republican caucus, 269; 
 chairman of Finance Committee, 269-70; 
 and Dingley Tariff Act, 270-71; and 
 Spanish-American War, 271-2; refuses 
 place on Peace Commission, 272-3; be- 
 comes imperialist, 273-4; and Beveridge, 
 273-4; as member of "The Four," 273-4, 
 280; prestige of, 274; Iowa "machine" of, 
 275-6; R. P. Clarkson on, 276; and 
 Clarkson appointment, 277-8; and 1900 
 vice-presidency, 278; Roosevelt and, 280, 
 285, 294-312; as Standpatter, 281; con- 
 gratulates Cummins, 282; 1902 re-elec- 
 tion, 283; and Shaw appointment, 283-4; 
 role in Clarkson surveyorship, 284; and 
 
 389 
 
 Flenderson withdrawal, 2 8 5-7; and Pro- 
 gressive-Standpat fight, 288-9, 308; 1903 
 platform meeting, 2 89; writes 1903 tariff 
 plank, 290; loses support of Register, 292; 
 decline in health, 292, 293, 313, 316; 
 favors biennial elections, 293; and rec- 
 iprocity, 295; Tama speech of, 295, 296- 
 7; Panama Canal and, 296; and Hepburn 
 Act, 299-3 04, 315; and Amendment to 
 Hepburn Act, 302-305; muckrakers and, 
 3 06-3 08; Cummins' "Torbert Letter" and, 
 309, 319-20, 321-3; 1907 Panic and, 312; 
 decision to run for Senate again, 313-16; 
 urged to announce, 314-15; Clarkson's 
 1908 help, 316-17; announces he will ac- 
 cept decision of primary, 318; Dolliver's 
 speech opens campaign, 318-21; Cummins' 
 announcement to oppoe, 322; Fry Mem- 
 orandum and, 323-4; Cummins' forces 
 attack, 324-5; 1908 support for, 325, 
 326, 32 8-9; poor health denied, 32 5; J. T. 
 Adams manages campaign for, 325; state 
 convention endorses, 32 5-6; picture of, 
 used by Cummins forces, 327-8; and labor, 
 328; in 60th Congress, 328; appointed to 
 National Monetary Commission, 328; 
 gives interview, 329; 1908 election of, 
 329; analysis of vote for, 329-30; last 
 days of, 3 32 
 
 Allison, William Boyd, Jr., nephew of 
 Allison, 218, 272 
 
 Allison, town named, 161 
 
 "Allison Amendment" to Hepburn Act, 
 302-305 
 
 Allison Committee report on Shepherd, 130 
 
 Allison-Dodge-Wilson faction, 100 
 
 Ames, Oakes, Allison and, 77, 89; Dodge 
 and, 100; Credit Mobilier scandal and, 
 123-6; censured by House, 126 
 
 Anderson, Albert R., on 1876 election, 145- 
 6; 18 82 letter to Allison on politics, 188- 
 9; defeats Hepburn, 200-201, 203; 1888 
 defeat of, 234 
 
 Anti-Monopoly party in Iowa, 131 
 
 Antirailroad sentiment in Iowa, 160-61 
 
 Antislavery sentiment, at Western Reserve, 
 8, 10; in Midwest, 11 
 
 Arthur, Chester A., 175, 195; nominated 
 for Vice President, 163; and Garfield 
 Cabinet, 172; becomes President, 180 
 
 Ashland (Ohio), Allison at, 8-9, 16-17, 26; 
 Republican meeting at, 12 
 
 Atkinson, Edward, 2 54, 307; Allison and, 
 86, 89, 96, 103; Liberal Republicans and, 
 119; on 1884 election, 196 
 
 Babbage, R. A., 89, 128-9 
 
 Babcock, Orville E., Grant and, 107; 
 
 Whiskey Ring and, 13 5 
 Bailey, Joseph W., 32 8; and Hepburn Act, 
 
 301, 302; muckrakers and, 306 
 Baldwin, Caleb, 265; Dodge and, 42, 129; 
 
390 
 
 supports Wright, 99; offers aid to Alli- 
 son, 101; and 1871 governorship, 107 
 
 Baldwin, John T., 42, 99 
 
 "Bankers' Panic," 311-12 
 
 Banks, Nathaniel P., 15, 84, 124 
 
 Banton, Pembroke, 32 8 
 
 Barbed Wire Trust, Cummins and, 260 
 
 Barker, Wharton, 225 
 
 Bates, Curtis, 27, 28 
 
 Bates, Edward, 40, 41; Kasson and, 34, 3 5 
 
 Beardsley, Dr. Charles, 114, 212, 233-4, 246 
 
 Belknap, William Worth, 206; as Democrat, 
 49; as senatorial possibility, 13 9, 141; 
 Allison and, 139-40; scandal, 141-2; re- 
 signs as Secretary of War, 142; burial 
 place of, 142 
 
 Beveridge, Albert J., 298; Allison and, 273- 
 4; as imperialist, 274 
 
 Bimetallism, Allison and, 199, 242, 257-8; 
 Iowa Republicans favor, 248; International 
 Monetary Conference and, 254-5; in 
 Europe, 257; London Conference on, 257- 
 8; supporters of, 258; in 1896 Republican 
 platform, 266 
 
 Birdsall, Benjamin P., 288, 314, 326 
 
 Bissell, F. E., Allison and, 44; Union League 
 and, 59 
 
 Blaine, James G., 61, 230, 233, 265; Credit 
 Mobilier scandal and, 123-4; comment on 
 Allison, 127-8; as 1876 presidential can- 
 didate, 143-4; supporters of, 144; Inger- 
 soll speech for, 145; opposes Bland-Alli- 
 son Act, 154; in 1880 presidential cam- 
 paign, 162-3; Iowa delegation supports, 
 162-3; recommends Allison for Garfield 
 Cabinet, 165-6, 167; leader of Half-Breed 
 Republicans, 168; recommends Gresham, 
 173; and Wilson senatorial candidacy, 179; 
 Iowa 1884 preference for, 195; nomina- 
 tion of, 195; defeat of, 196; as 1888 
 candidate, 205, 206, 207, 214, 225; with- 
 draws name from race, 207, 212, 214; 
 votes for, on first ballot, 221; Harrison 
 and, 224; throws strength to Harrison, 
 225; congratulates Harrison, 228-9; Har- 
 rison's Secretary of State, 236, 237; rec- 
 iprocity and, 243; 1892 nomination and, 
 249-50 
 
 Blair, John I., 219; Dodge and, 43; Allison 
 and, 89-90, 98, 109, 193, 307 
 
 Bland, Richard P., 257; and Bland-Allison 
 Act, 152-7 
 
 Bland-Allison Act, 150, 152-7; judgment of, 
 157; amended, 241 
 
 "Blocks of Five," used in 1888 election, 234 
 
 Blythe, Joseph W., 289; Iowa political boss, 
 260, 276; letter to Cole, 276-7; Cummins 
 and, 281, 309; and Hepburn Act, 297; 
 urges Allison to announce, 315; Cummins 
 attacks, 327 
 
 Boies, Horace, 190, 244, 250, 259; elected 
 as Iowa Governor, 240; 1891 election of, 
 
 William Boyd Allison 
 
 248-9; railroads favor, 249; as 1892 presi- 
 dential candidate, 253; and silver, 256; 
 defeat of, 260; fails to get 1896 Demo- 
 cratic nomination, 266, 267 
 
 Booth, C. H., 26, 159 
 
 Boutwell, George S., 81, 13 3 
 
 Brant, David, comment on 1886 Iowa elec- 
 tion, 200-201; on 1890 Allison election, 
 241 
 
 Bridge, Union Pacific RR, Dodge and, 100, 
 102; Harlan and, 102-103 
 
 Bridge company at Dubuque, Allison and, 78 
 
 Bristow, Benjamin H., 143; exposes Whiskey 
 Ring, 134 
 
 Brookhart, Smith W., 308-309 
 
 Brooks, James, 76, 124, 126 
 
 Brown, B. Gratz, Kasson and, 34; Liberal 
 Republicans and, 119 
 
 Brush, F. A., 51, 72 
 
 Bryan, William Jennings, 273, 279; 1896 
 nomination of, 266; in 1896 campaign, 
 267 
 
 Business interests, government and, 246-7; 
 favor Allison, 261, 327; Progressives and, 
 281 
 
 Butler, Nicholas Murray, 224, 23 3 
 
 Byers, H. W., 315, 326 
 
 Byers, Melvin H., 326 
 
 Cameron, Don, 163, 166, 171, 196, 224 
 Cameron, Simon, 35, 127, 164, 166 
 Capitol Commission, 100 
 Carpenter, Cyrus C, 113, 13 6, 151; backed 
 
 by Dodge, 106-107; comment on 1872 
 
 senatorial election, 114; comment on 
 
 Harlan, 116-17; on Wilson candidacy, 
 
 122, 123; favors Bland-Allison Act, 155; 
 
 supports Allison, 192, 194; Dolliver and, 
 
 314 
 Carroll, Beryl F., 317, 329 
 Carter, Anna. See Allison, Anna Carter 
 Carter, Daniel, 5, 9 
 
 Cedar Falls & Minnesota RR, Allison and, 64 
 Cedar Rapids & Missouri RR, Mississippi & 
 
 Missouri RR and, 65 
 Chandler, William E., 145, 270, 271, 300, 
 
 303, 305 
 Chandler, Zachariah, as Radical, 67; in 1864 
 
 election, 71; 1876 election and, 145 
 Chase, Salmon Portland, 31, 35; Allison and, 
 
 10, 12, 28; and Ohio Republican party, 
 
 10-11, 12; Know-Nothings and, 12; 
 
 elected Ohio Governor, 17; Grimes and, 
 
 27, 28; 1864 presidential boom for, 68 
 Cherokee land scandal, Harlan and, 110, 111 
 Cheshire, Thomas, 326, 327 
 Chicago, 1888 Republican convention at, 
 
 216-17 
 Chicago, Burlington & Quincy RR, Perkins 
 
 and, 149 
 Chicago, Burlington & Quincy RR v. Iowa, 
 
 131 
 
INDEX 
 
 391 
 
 Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific RR, Allison 
 and, 149 
 
 Civil Rights Bill, 81 
 
 Civil War, outbreak of, 45; Allison and, 46- 
 59; "Dodge & Co." and, 47; disunity of 
 country during, 49 
 
 Clark, Samuel M., 162, 184, 210, 218 
 
 Clarke, William Penn, Allison letters to, 3 8, 
 40-41; supports Harlan, 74 
 
 Clarkson, Coker F., 35; and Des Moines 
 Register, 106; supports Harlan, 111 
 
 Clarkson, James S. ("Ret"), 138, 271, 289; 
 supports Wright, 96; appointed Des Moines 
 postmaster, 106; and Des Moines Register, 
 106, 111; origin of nickname, 106; sup- 
 ports Allison, 111-12; Liberal Republicans 
 and, 121; supports Belknap, 139, 140; 
 favors Blaine, 144, 162, 249-50; attacks 
 Hayes, 148, 150; in Allison 1878 election, 
 150; on Bland-Allison Act, 155, 156; as 
 delegate to 1880 convention, 162-3; sug- 
 gests Allison for Garfield Cabinet, 166; 
 on Wilson senatorial candidacy, 178, 179; 
 praises Wilson speech, 179-80; backs Kirk- 
 wood for Senate, 180-81, 182; Duncombe 
 and, 188; on Mrs. Allison, 191; attacks 
 Weaver, 193; defends Allison, 193; dele- 
 gate to 1884 convention, 195; opposes 
 Wilson, 202, 203; manages Allison 1888 
 campaign, 205-229; Dolliver and, 213; 
 delegate to 18 88 convention, 213, 214; 
 illness of, 214; understanding with Elkins, 
 214, 216; on Blaine withdrawal, 214-15; 
 Harrison second choice of, 216; Mrs. 
 Hicks-Lord and, 218; reports convention, 
 218; reports on 1888 railroad convention, 
 219; throws Allison strength to Harrison, 
 226-7; letter of, to Michener, 226-7; 
 Piatt's comment on, 228; on Mills Bill, 
 233; and Harrison campaign, 234-5; and 
 Harrison's Cabinet, 23 5-9; Allison fails 
 to aid, 23 8; appointed First Assistant 
 Postmaster General, 239; "Force Bill" and, 
 245; as Radical Republican, 246; opposes 
 Harrison renomination, 249-50; Allison 
 criticizes, 250; letter to Allison of, 250- 
 51; mentioned for presidency, 251; Allison 
 apologizes to, 252; urges Allison for 1892 
 nomination, 253; in 1892 campaign, 254; 
 urges small banks, 256; supports Allison 
 for 1896 nomination, 260; mentioned for 
 nomination, 261; and 1896 Allison re- 
 election, 262; as Allison's 1896 campaign 
 manager, 262-5; unable to attend con- 
 vention, 265-6; in "Regency," 276; fails 
 to get appointment as Secretary of the 
 Senate, 277-8; appointed Surveyor of 
 Port of New York, 2 84; Roosevelt and, 
 284, 316-17; and Henderson withdrawal, 
 288; 1902 platform and, 289; on 1907 
 Panic, 312; in Allison 1908 campaign, 
 316-17; not aware of Progressive strength, 
 
 317; asks Roosevelt to get Cummins to 
 withdraw, 317-18; Allison's death and, 
 332 
 
 Clarkson, Mrs. James S., 218; letter to 
 Allison, 252 
 
 Clarkson, Richard P., 249, 267-8, 271, 272, 
 2 83; and Des Moines Register, 106, 111; 
 elected state printer, 115; "Force Bill" 
 and, 245; backs Cummins' 1894 bid for 
 Senate, 260; backs Henderson for Speaker- 
 ship, 274; supports Cummins, 276-7; sells 
 Register, 285; and Henderson withdrawal, 
 286, 288. 
 
 Cleveland, Grover, 174, 255; nomination of, 
 195-6; election of, 196; Wilson attacks, 
 202; on tariff, 230-31; 1888 defeat, 234; 
 1892 nomination, 253; 1892 election, 254; 
 calls for repeal of Sherman Act, 257; 
 Allison on, 257; Wilson-Gorman Act and, 
 259 
 
 Cole, Cyrenus, 191, 271, 278, 284; Depew 
 letter to, 222-3; writes Allison 1896 
 campaign biography, 262; favors Cum- 
 mins, 276; and Henerson withdrawal, 286; 
 Cummins explains "Torbert Letter" to, 
 323 
 
 Colfax, Schuyler, 64, 123; as Radical, 67; 
 Credit Mobilier scandal and, 123-4 
 
 Commission plan of city government, Allison 
 and, 130 
 
 Compromise Bill, 1877, pp. 146-7 
 
 Congress, 38th (1863-1865), 60-71; mem- 
 bers of, 61-4; Reconstruction measures in, 
 61, 66; Radicals in, 66-7; Wade-Davis 
 Bill, 69; adjournment, 71 
 
 Congress, 39th (1865-1867), first session, 
 76-81; second session, 84-6; Joint Com- 
 mittee on Reconstruction, 81; Freedmen's 
 Bureau Bill, 81; Civil Rights Bill, 81; 
 Fourteenth Amendment, 81; Reconstruc- 
 tion Act, 85 
 
 Congress, 40th (1867-1869), 86-7, 89-90 
 
 Congress, 43rd (1873-1875), Allison en- 
 ters Senate of, 127; leading members of, 
 127; extra session of, 127-8; regular 
 session, 129-30; Shepherd investigation, 
 129-30; second session of, 133-4; Re- 
 sumption Act, 13 3-4 
 
 Congress, 45th (1877-1879), Bland-Allison 
 Act, 152-7 
 
 Congress, 47th (1881-1883), 183-4 
 
 Congress, 48th (1883-1885), Iowa delega- 
 tion in, 185; wealth of Senators, 196 
 
 Congress, 49th (1885-1887), interstate com- 
 merce legislation in, 198, 199; passes In- 
 terstate Commerce Act, 201 
 
 Congress, 50th (1887-1889), Mills Bill and, 
 231-3 
 
 Congress, 51st (1889-1891), 241-4; tariff 
 and, 241; Sherman Silver Purchase Act, 
 242; McKinley Tariff, 242-3; Federal 
 Elections ("Force") Bill in, 245 
 
392 
 
 Congress, 53rd (1893-1895), silver debate 
 in, 255; extra session called, 257 
 
 Congress, 55th (1897-1899), extra session 
 of, 270; Dingley Tariff, 270-71; Treaty 
 of Paris ratified, 273 
 
 Congress, 56th (1899-1901), Henderson 
 elected Speaker, 275 
 
 Congress, 58th (1903-1905), interstate com- 
 merce legislation in, 297-8 
 
 Congress, 60th (1907-1909), Allison in, 328 
 
 Conkling, Roscoe, 81, 127, 133; as Radical, 
 67; supports Allison, 80; as 1876 presi- 
 dential candidate, 143; leader of Stal- 
 warts, 168; Garfield and, 168, 171, 172; 
 Allison and, 174-6; and Robertson ap- 
 pointment, 174-6; resignation of, 176 
 
 Connecticut Land Co., 110 
 
 Conervative Republicans. See Standpatters. 
 
 Conservatives vs. Progressives, 269-73, 308, 
 312 
 
 Cook, Sadie A., 7 
 
 Cooley, Dennis N., 46, 13 8; as Allison law 
 partner, 24; supports Harlan, 74; Com- 
 missioner of Indian Affairs, 80, 110; 
 Dubuque Times and, 82-3, 169; opposes 
 Allison, 97, 98 
 
 Cooper-Quarles Bill, 297 
 
 Copperheads, Mahony called, 52-3, 56-7; 
 Iowa Democrats called, 53; arrests of, 54 
 
 Cornell College, Allison speech at, 205 
 
 Corruption in politics, 76-7, 121 
 
 Cosmopolitan Magazine, muckraking articles 
 in, 3 06 
 
 Cotton, Aylett R., 12, 3 3 
 
 Cousins, Robert G., 271, 2 80, 292 
 
 Cowles, Gardner, 232, 23 3; buys Des Moines 
 Register, 291 
 
 Crane, George B., 88, 97, 197; becomes 
 Allison partner, 3 8; Dubuque postmaster, 
 169 
 
 Credit Mobilier, Allison and, 109, 123-6 
 
 "Crime of '73," 133, 151 
 
 Crocker's Brigade, Allison at reunion of, 206 
 
 "Cross of Gold" speech, 266-7 
 
 Cullom, Shelby M., 296, 3 02, 3 03; and In- 
 terstate Commerce Act, 198, 199, 201; 
 as 1888 presidential candidate, 207, 215; 
 as Radical Republican, 246 
 
 Cummins, Albert B., 2, 275, 278-9; 1894 
 senatorial candidate, 260; Barbed Wire 
 Trust and, 260; favors 1896 Allison can- 
 didacy, 261; at 1896 convention, 264; 
 report on convention, 265-6; as 1900 
 senatorial candidate, 276-7; R. P. Clark- 
 son supports, 276-7; as Progressive, 280, 
 281; elected Governor, 281-2; Allison 
 congratulates, 282; and 1902 platform, 
 284, 287, 289; Henderson and, 286-8; 
 explains Iowa situation to Roosevelt, 287; 
 1903 election of, 291; Register supports, 
 291-2; opposes Hepburn Act, 297; seeks 
 third term nomination, 308-309; G. D. 
 
 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Perkins opposes, 308; letter to Torbert, 
 309, 319-20, 321-3; election of, 310; 
 sponsors popular election of U. S. Senators, 
 310-11; rift with Dolliver, 311; and re- 
 form, 312; plans to oppose Allison in 
 1908, pp. 314, 315; announces he will 
 accept primary results, 318; denies he 
 promised not to oppose Allison, 321-3, 
 323; announces he will oppose Allison, 322; 
 Fry Memorandum to, 323-4; 1908 cam- 
 paign of, 324-30; attacks Blythe, 327; 
 uses Allison's picture, 327-8; defeat of, 
 329; analysis of vote for, 3 30; hears re- 
 port Allison not well, 3 32 
 
 Currency question, 133; in 1877 campaign, 
 151; Harrison and, 241-2 
 
 Curtis, George William, 145-6; Allison and, 
 209; on tariff, 231, 23 2; Harrison Cabinet 
 and, 236, 237 
 
 Curtis, Samuel R., 3 3, 40, 41, 62 
 
 Cutts, Marsena E., 150, 185 
 
 Czologsz, Leon, 279 
 
 Dana, Charles A., exposes Credit Mobilier 
 scandal, 123 
 
 David, E. C, 43, 82, 97 
 
 Davis, Henry Winter, as Radical, 67; Wade- 
 Davis Bill, 69 
 
 Davis, Timothy, 41, 51 
 
 Dawes, Charles G., 268, 291 
 
 Dawson, Albert F., 329 
 
 Day, James G., 188, 189 
 
 Democratic party, S. P. Chase and, 11; at 
 Dubuque, 22, 27; Civil War and Iowa 
 members of, 49; Copperhead label for, 53; 
 Anti-Monopoly party and, 131; 1876 
 ticket, 145, 146, 148; 1880 ticket, 163; 
 opposes prohibition, 184-5, 187; 1882 
 gains of, 185; nominates Cleveland, 195- 
 6; 1884 victory, 196; 1886 Iowa victories, 
 200; Mills Bill and, 231-3; 1889 victory 
 in Iowa, 240; 1890 congressional victories, 
 244; factionalism in, 2 53 
 
 Depew, Chauncey M., blocks Allison nomina- 
 tion, 204, 221-3, 224; as 1888 presi- 
 dential candidate, 207, 210, 228; Hayes's 
 comment on, 210; votes for, on first bal- 
 lot, 221; withdraws name, 221; explains 
 action to Cole, 222-3; blamed for Allison 
 defeat, 227; at 1896 convention, 265; 
 muckrakers and, 306 
 
 Des Moines Iowa State Register, Clarksons 
 and, 106; voice of Radical Republicanism, 
 106; supports Allison, 111; Harlan at- 
 tacks, 115; Clarksons sell, 285; becomes 
 Register and Leader, 291; Cummins and, 
 291-2; Cowles buys, 291 
 
 Dillon, John F., 41, 44, 45; soldier voting 
 and, 58; upholds Railroad Act of 1874, 
 p. 131 
 
 Dingley, Nelson, says Blaine favors Allison, 
 215; tariff bill of, 270-71, 283, 294 
 
INDEX 
 
 Dingley Tariff, 270-71, 283, 294 
 
 Dodge, Grenville M., 31, 41, 62, 219, 265, 
 271, 3 07; favors Lincoln, 3 5, 42-3; seeks 
 government contracts, 40, 42-3; meets 
 Allison, 42; early career of, 42; as head 
 of "Dodge & Co.," 42-3; commissioned 
 colonel, 47; railroad legislation and, 65; 
 suggested for Senate, 1864, p. 72; Iowa 
 factional politics and, 72; Tichenor and, 
 72, 94-5; assumes control of Republican 
 faction, 74, 75; and Grant, 86, 88, 108; 
 as Congressman, 86; on Grimes's vote on 
 impeachment, 87; backs Allison in 1870, 
 pp. 91-8; plans for 1872 contest, 99; ex- 
 plains 1870 defeat, 99; desires to defeat 
 Harlan, 99, 102; business interests of, 
 100; Union Pacific bridge and, 100, 102; 
 and Iowa reapportionment, 100; railroads 
 and, 100, 103, 118; suggested for Con- 
 gressman-at-large, 101; Harlan and bridge 
 plans, 102; and Allison's first election to 
 Senate, 106-118; picks Carpenter for Gov- 
 ernor, 107; Harlan asks support of, 108; 
 importance of Allison's election to, 114; 
 comment on 1872 election, 117; and 
 Wilson for Vice President, 117-18, 122-3; 
 Union Pacific RR and, 118, 125; 1872 
 delegate-at-large, 122-3; Credit Mobilier 
 and, 124-5; judicial districts bill, 129; 
 and 1876 disputed election, 147, 148; and 
 Allison's 1878 election, 150; favors 
 Grant, 162; supports Allison's 1888 bid, 
 213-14; characterizes Allison, 238-9; op- 
 position to Larrabee, 239; "Force Bill" 
 and, 245; in "Regency," 276; favors 
 Gear, 276; in Allison 1902 re-election, 
 283; on 1907 Panic, 311-12; on Allison's 
 health, 313, 316; Allison's death and, 3 32 
 
 "Dodge & Co.," Allison and, 42-5, 86; 
 Dodge and, 42-3; members of, 42-3; at- 
 titude toward Civil War, 47; Radicals 
 favored by, 83; Wilson and, 92; Tichenor 
 and, 105-106; and 1871 governorship, 
 106-107; attacks Harlan, 109; Allison 
 1872 election and, 115; booms Wilson for 
 Vice President, 122-3 
 
 Dodge-Kirkwood-Wilson-Allison faction, 94 
 
 Dolliver, Jonathan P., 214, 236, 244, 271, 
 273, 285, 293; as 1888 state keynote 
 speaker, 213; delegate to 1888 convention, 
 213, 220; accepts Clarkson's move, 227; 
 elected to Congress, 234; recommends 
 Clarkson, 23 5, 2 52; favors McKinley, 
 253; addresses 1896 state convention, 263; 
 suggested for 1900 vice-presidency, 278; 
 appointed to Senate, 278; Roosevelt and, 
 280; as Standpatter, 281, 298; 1902 
 election, 283; and Clarkson surveyorship, 
 284; and Hepburn Act, 300; and "Alli- 
 son Amendment," 3 02-3 03; 1907 re- 
 election, 311; liberalism of, 311; warned 
 of Cummins' plans, 314; speech opening 
 
 393 
 
 Allison campaign, 315, 318-21; Cum- 
 min' letters to, 321-2; denies bargain with 
 Cummins, 323; urged for 1908 vice-presi- 
 dential nomination, 3 30 
 Donnan, William G., Ill; succeeds Allison 
 in Congress, 101; votes against Blaine, 195 
 Dorsey, Stephen W., 127, 164 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 12, 3 8, 39, 40 
 Dubuque, Allison settles in, 19-20; business 
 of, 20, 21, 22; settlers of, 21; railroad 
 excursion to, 3 6; Seward at, 39; war 
 meetings at, 46; Third District jealousy 
 of, 51, 87; Radical-Conservative struggle 
 in, 82; celebrates Allison election, 114-15; 
 Panic of 1873 in, 12 8-9. 
 Dubuque & Dakota RR (successor to Iowa 
 
 Pacific), 160 
 Dubuque & Sioux City RR, 39, 77, 87 
 Dubuque Times, Allison buys interest in, 
 
 82-3; Cooley and, 169 
 Dubuque Western RR, 39 
 Dudley, W. W., 208, 234, 249 
 Duncombe, John F., 49, 178, 18 8, 244 
 
 Edmunds, George F., 13 3, 195; and 1877 
 Compromise Bill, 146; on Bland-Allison 
 Act, 154; on Robertson appointment, 175, 
 176 
 
 Electoral Commission, 1877, pp. 146-8 
 
 Elkins, Stephen B., and Harrison candidacy, 
 214, 215-16, 224, 225; muckrakers and, 
 306, 307 
 
 Elkins Rebate Act of 1903, p. 297 
 
 Esch-Townsend Bill, 297, 298 
 
 Factions in Iowa politics, growth of, 63, 72, 
 75 
 
 Fairbanks, Charles W., 2, 272, 278, 292, 328 
 
 Federal Elections Bill ("Force Bill"), 241, 
 245; Radicalism and, 246 
 
 Ferry, Orris S., 129, 133 
 
 Financial problems, Allison and, 128; Re- 
 sumption Bill, 13 3-4 
 
 Foraker, Joseph B., 207, 220, 246, 253, 265, 
 306 
 
 Forbes, John Murray, 163, 219-20 
 
 "Force Bill," 245 
 
 Ford, Thomas H., 14-15 
 
 Foreign affairs, Panic of 1893 and, 256-7; 
 Roosevelt and, 296 
 
 Free Silver. See Silver 
 
 Free Soilers, 11, 27 
 
 Freedmen's Bureau Bill, 81 
 
 Fremont, John C, 15, 16, 29, 68 
 
 Fry, Smith D., "Memorandum" of, 323-4 
 
 Funk, A. B., 281, 291, 322, 326 
 
 Garfield, James A., 61, 76, 115, 265; Credit 
 Mobilier scandal and, 123; comment on 
 Bland-Allison Act, 155, 156; 1880 nom- 
 ination of, 163; Allison and, 163-4; 
 campaign of, 164-5; Allison and Cabinet 
 
394 
 
 of, 165-8, 169-73; Conkling and, 168; 
 and Robertson appointment, 174-6; assas- 
 sination of, 180 
 
 "Gath." See George Alfred Townsend 
 
 Gear, John H., 206, 264, 267, 271; as sena- 
 torial candidate, 177-82; railroads and, 
 178; Henderson and, 178-9; speech on 
 railroads, 179-80; opposes prohibition, 
 184; elected Senator, 260; re-election of, 
 275-7; death of, 278 
 
 Gelpcke v. The City of Dubuque, 26 
 
 Germans, Know-Nothings and, 14; in Du- 
 buque, 21-2, 114; 1896 campaign and, 
 267 
 
 Gold Standard, 256, 257, 266 
 
 Gorman, Arthur Pue, 246; Wilson-Gorman 
 Act, 259; muckrakers and, 306 
 
 Grand Army of the Republic, political 
 power of, 106 
 
 Granger movement, 130-31 
 
 Grant, U. S., 95, 127; Dodge and, 86; 1868 
 nomination of, 87; election of, 88; Harlan 
 supports, 107-108; Santo Domingo and, 
 107-108; 1872 nomination of, 123; and 
 Whiskey Ring, 134-6; accepts Belknap 
 resignation, 142; as 18 80 presidential can- 
 didate, 162-3; supporters of, 162 
 
 Graves, Julius K., 25, 26, 89, 178, 239; 
 Dubuque Times and, 83; 1868 opposition 
 to Allison, 88; Allison and, 97, 98, 159; 
 as Liberal Republican, 120; favors Blaine, 
 144; opposes prohibition, 184 
 
 Graves, Rufus E., 25, 89, 159-60 
 
 Greeley, Horace, 22, 28; at 1860 Republican 
 convention, 34, 3 5; as Radical, 67; as 
 Liberal Republican candidate, 122 
 
 Greenback party, 1876 ticket, 145; Resump- 
 tion Act and, 151; nominates Weaver, 
 163; 1882 election and, 185; 1883 elec- 
 tion and, 192; in 1886 Iowa election, 200 
 
 Greenbacks, 132; Allison on, 80; and Re- 
 sumption Act, 134 
 
 Gresham, Walter Q., 223, 234; and Garfield 
 Cabinet, 171, 173; as 1888 presidential 
 candidate, 207, 208-209, 218, 220, 221, 
 224; refuses Populist nomination, 253 
 
 Grimes, James W., 12, 24, 61, 69, 94, 128; 
 and Iowa Republican party, 27-9; Chase 
 and, 27, 28, 68; elected Governor, 27-8; 
 recommends Gurley, 41, 43, 44; aids 
 Allison, 56; soldier voting and, 58; re- 
 elected, 59; influence of, 62-3; adopts 
 Mary Nealley, 63; Allison as friend of, 
 63, 86; Radicalism of, 67; Wade-Davis 
 Bill and, 69; Iowa factional politics, 72; 
 on Harlan, 74; on Joint Committee on 
 Reconstruction, 81; and Johnson impeach- 
 ment, 86-7; suffers stroke, 87; attacks on, 
 91; resignation of, 91; death of, 118; 
 legacy of, to Mrs. Allison, 191-2 
 
 Grimes, Elizabeth Nealley (Mrs. James W.), 
 62, 118, 128: Allison shares Washington 
 
 ^William Boyd Allison 
 
 home of, 15 8, 159, 192; and death of 
 Mrs. Allison, 191; death of, 3 07 
 Grimes-Kirkwood faction, 63 
 Grimes-Kirkwood-Allison faction, 72 
 Grimes-Kirkwood-Allison-Dodge faction, 75 
 Grinnell, Josiah B., 12, 69; in 38th Con- 
 gress, 62; as Radical, 67, 83; Wade-Davis 
 Bill, 69; Rousseau affair, 83; denied re- 
 nomination, 83; vote on Reconstruction 
 Act, 85; in 1870 short-term senatorial 
 contest, 96; as Liberal Republican, 120 
 Gurley, William H. F., 43, 50; Allison op- 
 posed by, 41, 43; Lincoln and, 41; death 
 of, 43 
 
 Hale, Eugene, 200, 247, 272, 280, 328 
 
 "Half-Breed" Republicans, 168 
 
 Hanna, Marcus A., 272, 285, 295-6; Mc- 
 Kinley and, 253, 263; techniques of 1896 
 campaign, 267; and 1900 vice-presidency, 
 278 
 
 Harlan, James, 12, 61, 76, 104, 179, 184, 193; 
 and birth of Iowa Republican party, 29, 
 63-4; recommends Gurley, 41, 43, 44; early 
 career of, 63-4; power of, 64; railroads and, 
 64; Wade-Davis Bill, 69; as Secretary of 
 Interior, 71-2, 73-4; 1866 candidate for 
 Senate, 73-4; heads faction of Republican 
 party, 74-5; Grimes's charges against, 74; 
 1866 election of, 75, 124; Allison defends, 
 80; Wright supports, 95; Dodge plans to 
 oust, 99, 102; and Dodge bridge plans, 
 102-103; defeated by Allison, 105-118; 
 and 1871 governorship, 106-107; political 
 power of, 107; speech in favor of Grant, 
 107-108, 120; asks Dodge for support, 
 108; attacks on, 109-111; "Newman Let- 
 ter" and, 109-110; Cherokee lands and, 
 110; C. F. Clarkson supports, 111; 1872 
 caucus vote for, 113-14; comment on de- 
 feat, 114; bitterness of, 115; accusations 
 against Des Moines Register, 115; as 
 Radical Republican, 120, 121; in 1872 
 campaign, 121; Durant contributes to, 
 124; and 1875 gubernatorial nomination, 
 137; fear of return to power of, 13 8, 139; 
 withdraws from 1876 senatorial race, 140- 
 41; 1881 governorship and, 181; death of, 
 275 
 
 Harlan, John Marshall, 148-9 
 
 Harlan-Kirkwood 1866 senatorial contest, 
 72-5; as divisive factor in Iowa politics, 
 75 
 
 Harrison, Benjamin, 201, 261; in Iowa 1883 
 campaign, 193; as 1888 presidential can- 
 didate, 207, 208, 214, 220, 224; El- 
 kins and, 214, 215-16; support for, 
 215; votes for, on first ballot, 221; dis- 
 tribution of vote, 221; Depew favors, 
 223; Negro vote and, 224; nomination of, 
 226-7; Allison congratulates, 229; Alli- 
 son's role in campaign of, 230-32; elec- 
 
INDEX 
 
 tion of 230-34; Clarkson and, 234-5; 
 Cabinet of, 23 5-9; on currency question, 
 241-2; "Force Bill" and, 245; renomina- 
 tion of, 249-50, 253; on Allison 1896 
 candidacy, 264 
 
 Hart, Ernest E., 314, 325 
 
 Haugen, Gilbert N., 317, 329 
 
 Hawley, Joseph R., 207, 247 
 
 Hay, John, 261, 278, 296 
 
 Hayes, Rutherford B., 175; pardons Joyce, 
 135; 1876 election of, 143-5; disputed 
 election, 145-8; appoints McCrary to 
 Cabinet, 147; as President, 148; "Policy" 
 of, 148, 150; vetoes Bland-Allison Act, 
 155-6; praises Allison, 162; favors Sher- 
 man, 210 
 
 Hayes, Walter I., 187, 190, 199, 234, 254, 
 258 
 
 Hayes-Tilden contested election, 145-8 
 
 Henderson, David B., 139, 177, 206, 212, 
 216, 244, 298; Allison and, 48, 88, 97, 
 132; enlistment of, 48; Iowa factional 
 politics and, 72; Iowa judicial district 
 bill, 129, 184; and Allison's 1878 elec- 
 tion, 150; delegate to 1880 convention, 
 162; and sale of Dubuque Times, 169; 
 and Wilson senatorial candidacy, 178-9; 
 backs Larrabee for governorship, 181-2; 
 elected to Congress, 185; prohibition and, 
 189; Larrabee and, 198-9; in 1886 elec- 
 tion, 200; delegate to 18 88 convention, 
 213; and Depew, 222, 223; and Allison 
 candidacy, 222, 223, 225, 227; on rail- 
 roads and 1891 election, 249; mentioned 
 for 1896 nomination, 261; at 1896 con- 
 vention, 264; opposes expansion, 271-2; 
 as Speaker of the House, 274-5, 280; and 
 Shaw appointment, 284; withdraws from 
 1902 congressional race, 285-8, 296; Cole 
 and, 286; Progressives attack, 286-8; death 
 of, 293 
 
 Hepburn, William P., 12, 33, 190, 206, 235, 
 280; as Liberal Republican, 120; 1886 
 defeat of, 199-201; agrarian radicalism 
 and, 200; regains seat in Congress, 201; 
 Perkins supports for Senate, 202; delegate 
 to 1888 convention, 213; nominates Alli- 
 son, 220; 1892 election of, 254; at 1896 
 convention, 264; first interstate commerce 
 bill of, 297; Hepburn Act of, 299-305; 
 1908 election of, 329 
 
 Hepburn Act, 299-305; court review ques- 
 tion and, 300-302; "Allison Amendment" 
 to, 302-305 
 
 Hepburn Bill, 297-8 
 
 Hicks-Lord, Mrs. Annette, 218, 23 5 
 
 Hildreth, A. B. F., 51; Allison letter on 
 railroad bill to, 64-5; Harlan letter to, 
 115 
 
 Hoar, George Frisbee, 221-2, 273, 304; 
 helps Clarkson swing convention to Har- 
 rison, 226-7; on bimetallism, 257-8 
 
 395 
 
 Holliday, Cyrus K., 6, 7 
 
 Homesteads on Forfeited Estates Act, 67-8 
 
 Hooper, Samuel, 76, 89 
 
 Hoxie, Herbert M., 62; comment on pa- 
 tronage seekers, 40; member of "Dodge & 
 Co.," 42-3; U. S. Marshal for Iowa, 43; 
 war contracts and, 47; arrests Mahony and 
 others, 53-4; railroad legislation and, 65; 
 booms Wilson for Vice President, 117-18; 
 Credit Mobilier and, 124 
 
 Hubbard, Asahel W., 69, 85; in 3 8th Con- 
 gress, 62; Wade-Davis Bill, 69; as Radical, 
 83; Sioux City & Pacific RR and, 89-90 
 
 Hubbard, Nathaniel M., 3 30; supports Alli- 
 son, 150; as Iowa political boss, 276; on 
 Gear's illness, 277; Cummins and, 281 
 
 Hubbell, F. M., 281, 282 
 
 Hull, John A. T., 33, 280, 289, 293, 329 
 
 Hutchins, Stilson, 27; succeeds Mahony, 
 5 5-6; attacks Allison, 57 
 
 Illinois Central RR, Allison and, 100, 159-60 
 
 Impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, 86-7 
 
 Imperialism, Allison and, 273-4 
 
 Income tax, in Wilson-Gorman Act, 259 
 
 Ingalls, John J., 127, 233, 245 
 
 Ingersoll, Lurton D. ("Linkensale"), de- 
 scribes Allison, 60-61; on 1870 senatorial 
 contest, 93-4 
 
 Ingersoll, Robert G., speech for Blaine, 145 
 
 Ingham, Harvey, supports Cummins, 291-2 
 
 Insurance scandals, 298 
 
 International Monetary Conference, Allison 
 at, 254-5 
 
 Interstate Commerce Act, 1887, pp. 201, 
 297; Hepburn Act and, 299-304 
 
 Interstate Commerce Commission, 297; court 
 review and, 301; Hepburn Act and, 304, 
 305 
 
 Interstate commerce legislation, Allison and, 
 197-8, 201; Cullom and, 198, 199, 201 
 
 Iowa, birth of Republican party in, 26-9; 
 delegation at 1860 Republican convention, 
 31, 34-5; number of Congressmen in- 
 creased, 49; Radicalism in, 67; Liberal 
 Republicans in, 119-23; antirailroad spirit 
 in, 160-61, 211; and Garfield Cabinet, 
 165-8, 169-73; politics of, 1881-1882, 
 pp. 177-86; 1884 support for Blaine, 195; 
 as doubtful state, 214; "radicals" in, 244; 
 direct primary law passed in, 311; 1908 
 primary in, 3 14 
 
 Iowa Constitution of 1857, Republicans and, 
 30 
 
 Iowa elections: 1854, 27-8; 1859, 30; 1860, 
 37-9; 1862, 57-8; 1863, 59; 1864, 69-71; 
 1866, 81-4; 1868, 87-8; 1871, 105-109; 
 1874, 132; 1875, 136-9; 1876, 145; 1877, 
 149-51; 1880, 164-5; 1881, 182; 1882, 
 185; 188), 192-4; 1886, 199; 1887, 202; 
 1888, 233-4; 1889, 240; 1890, 244; 
 1891, 249; 1892, 254; 1893, 259-60; 
 
396 
 
 1895, 261-2; 1896, 267-8; 1899, 276-7; 
 1900, 279; 1901, 282; 1904, 292-3; 
 1906, 309-310; 1908, 313-30. 
 
 Iowa elections, amendment for biennial, 293 
 
 Iowa General Assembly, 1872 membership of, 
 109; passes railroad regulation, 131; 1884 
 membership of, 194; antirailroad senti- 
 ment in, 212; passes primary law, 311 
 
 "Iowa Idea," tariff plank in 1901 platform, 
 282, 290 
 
 Iowa judicial districts, bill to divide, 105, 
 129, 183-4 ^= 
 
 Iowa Pacific RR, Allison and, 103, 159-60. 
 See also Dubuque & Dakota RR 
 
 Iowa Railroad Act of 1874, p. 131; move- 
 ment for repeal of, 150, 178; Larrabee 
 and, 198 
 
 Iowa Railroad Commission, Perkins opposes, 
 212; railroads oppose rates of, 219 
 
 Iowa railroad land grant, Allison amend- 
 ment to, 65 
 
 Iowa railroad regulation, 131; Larrabee and, 
 210-12; Perkins opposes, 211-12; affect 
 on Allison's nomination, 223 
 
 Iowa reapportionment, Dodge and, 100 
 
 Iowa "Regency" in 1890's, 276 
 
 Iowa senatorial elections: 1866, 71-5; 1870, 
 91-104; 1872, 105-118; 1876, 140-41; 
 1878, 149-51; 1880, 178, 179, 180, 182- 
 3; 1884, 194-5; 1886, 202-203; 1890, 
 240-41; 1894, 260; 1896, 262; 1900, 
 275-7; 1902, 283; 1907, 311; 1908, 313- 
 30 
 
 Irish, in Dubuque, 21 
 
 Irish, John P., calls for investigation of 
 charges against Harlan, 116 
 
 Jackson, Frank D., 262; elected Governor, 
 
 259-60 
 "Jacobins." See Radical Republicans 
 Jesup, Morris K., Allison and, 89, 159, 307; 
 Iowa Pacific RR and, 103, 159, 160; 
 opposes Bland-Allison Act, 156 
 Johnson, Andrew, 80; Grimes and impeach- 
 ment of, 62, 86-7, 118; Allison on, 71; 
 Reconstruction Proclamation of, 81; 
 vetoes Freedmen's Bureau Bill, 81; Radi- 
 cals and, 81, 84, 86; impeachment voted, 
 86-7 
 Joint Committee on Reconstruction. See 
 
 Reconstruction, Joint Committee on 
 Jones, John P., 127, 196, 257 
 "Jov," pseudonym for L. A. Thomas, 98 
 Joyce, John A., and Whiskey Ring, 134-6; 
 Allison and, 134-6; career of, 134; 
 pardoned by Hayes, 135 
 Julian, George W., 67, 85 
 
 Kansas-Nebraska Act, 11, 12-13 
 
 Kasson, John A., 35, 40, 41, 47, 85, 86, 92, 
 116, 192, 262; early career of, 34; 1860 
 Republican platform and, 34-5; Dodge 
 
 William Boyd Allison 
 
 and, 42; in 3 8th Congress, 62; railroad 
 bills and, 65; as Radical, 67; and "Wade- 
 Davis bill, 69; considered for Senate, 
 1864, p. 72; favors Harlan, 74; in 39th 
 Congress, 76, 78; opposes Julian home- 
 stead plan, 85; in 1870 senatorial contest, 
 94-5; in 1882 senatorial contest, 178, 
 182; supports Allison, 194; reports Allison 
 illness, 292 
 
 Kasson Treaties, 295 
 
 Kellogg, Bolivar W., Allison partner, 9 
 
 Kendall, Nathan E., 2 84, 329 
 
 Kenny, Thomas J., defeats Allison, 17 
 
 Kirkwood, Samuel J., 12, 26, 31, 39, 41, 99, 
 186, 206, 23 8; makes first Iowa Repub- 
 lican speech, 29; campaign for Governor, 
 30, 34; Allison and, 30-31, 32, 43-4, 49, 
 50, 69, 70, 112; early career of, 32; 
 favors Lincoln, 35; military aides pro- 
 vided for, 48; re-election of, 49; Ma- 
 hony and, 53, 54; soldier voting and, 
 58; as presidential elector, 69; desires to 
 succeed Harlan, 72-5; Stone fails to ap- 
 point, 72, 73; Iowa factional politics, 72; 
 Rich and, 73, 74; Harlan offers swap of 
 offices, 73-4; 1866 short term to, 75; 
 symbol of faction, 75; not an 1870 can- 
 didate, 94; 1871 defeat of, 109; and Alli- 
 son 1872 election, 114; third election as 
 Governor, 136-9; refuses diplomatic post, 
 136; Rich and 1875 nomination, 136-7; 
 nomination of, 137-8; desires to be Sena- 
 tor, 13 8-9; senatorial nomination, 140- 
 41; favors Blaine, 144; on 1876 disputed 
 election, 146; and Garfield Cabinet, 166, 
 167, 169, 170, 172; appointed Garfield's 
 Secretary of Interior, 173, 177; and Wil- 
 son senatorial candidacy, 177, 178; re- 
 signs from Cabinet, 180; refuses to run 
 for Senate, 181, 182; opposes prohibition, 
 184, 189; advocates ticket scratching, 
 189-90, 192; reassures Allison, 192; 1886 
 defeat of, 199-200; at 1888 convention, 
 218; silver and, 242; death of, 261 
 
 Knights of Labor, 200 
 
 Know -Nothing party, Allison and, 10, 14- 
 15; Republican party and, 12, 14-15; 
 1856 convention, 15-16; in Iowa, 26-7 
 
 Knox, Philander C, 300, 32 8 
 
 Labor, Allison and, 328 
 
 Lacey, John F., 249, 280, 326, 327 
 
 La Follette, Robert M., 298, 3 08 
 
 Larrabee, William, 205, 206, 213, 235, 262; 
 supports Allison for Senate, 105, 109, 151, 
 194; 1881 candidate for Governor, 181-2; 
 1885 election as Governor, 198-9; rail- 
 road regulation and, 198, 199; re-election 
 of, 202; as reformer, 202; opposition to, 
 202-203; 1888 inaugural and Allison can- 
 didacy, 210-12; Clarkson attacks, 211; 
 Perkins attacks, 211-12, 228; on Blaine 
 
INDEX 
 
 withdrawal, 214-15; railroads oppose, 219; 
 his influence on Allison's 1888 defeat, 223; 
 as cause of Allison's rejection of Cabinet 
 post, 239; antirailroad fight of, 239, 240; 
 senatorial possibility, 240, 241 
 
 Leighton, H. C, 146, 150 
 
 Liberal Republicans, 280; favor Allison, 117, 
 120; in Iowa, 119-23; leaders of, 119-20; 
 Radical attackers of, 121; and tariff, 120, 
 122 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 9, 26; first inaugural, 1, 
 40-41; Iowa 1860 support, 3 5, 40; Gurley 
 and, 41; and war disunity, 49; Mahony 
 attacks, 58-9; Reconstruction plans of, 
 66; Radical dissatisfaction with, 68-9; 
 1864 nomination and election, 68-71; 
 vetoes Wade-Davis Bill, 69; Iowa 1864 
 vote for, 70; assassination of, 71; Allison 
 and, 71; comment on Nasby, 71 
 
 Lincoln, Robert T., Secretary of War, 179; 
 18 88 presidential race, 207 
 
 "Linkensale." See Ingersoll, Lurton D. 
 
 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 274, 2 80, 295; Silver 
 Purchase Act and, 242; bimetallism and, 
 258; nominates Reed, 265; favors 1896 
 gold plank, 266; as imperialist, 273; 
 Roosevelt and, 285 
 
 Logan, John, 13 3, 175 
 
 London Conference on International Bi- 
 metallism, 257-8 
 
 Long, Chester I., 300, 305 
 
 Loughridge, William, 12, 33; succeeds Grin- 
 nell, 83 
 
 Loyal League. See Union League 
 
 McClellan, George B., 68, 70 
 
 McCrary, George W., 136; on Poland Com- 
 mittee, 124; as senatorial possibility, 13 9, 
 141; and 1877 Compromise Bill, 146; 
 appointed Hayes's Secretary of War, 147 
 
 McDill, James W., 117, 120, 189; elected 
 Senator for short term, 1882, p. 182 
 
 McDonald, John, and Whiskey Ring, 134-6 
 
 McGregor Western RR, Allison and, 64-5 
 
 McKinley, William, 224, 261; recommends 
 Allison for Garfield Cabinet, 167; Tariff 
 Act of, 242-4; favored for 1892 nomina- 
 tion, 2 50; Dolliver favors, 25 3; as 1896 
 presidential candidate, 262-5; nomination 
 of, 265; election of, 267; Spanish-Ameri- 
 can War and, 272; 1900 election of, 279; 
 assassination of, 279; reciprocity and, 295 
 
 McKinley Tariff, 242-4, 254 
 
 McNeely, Lee, Allison's secretary, 313-14, 
 332 
 
 Mahony, Dennis A., 49; as Democratic edi- 
 tor, 27; opposes Allison, 52; attacked as 
 Copperhead, 52-3, 56-7; arrest of, 53-5; 
 nomination of, 55; soldier vote for, 58; 
 attacks Lincoln, 58-9 
 
 Manley, Joseph H., 2 3 6-7 
 
 Masons, Allison and, 9, 219 
 
 397 
 
 Matthews, Stanley, Resolution of, 154 
 
 Maytag, Fred L., 281, 291 
 
 Medill, Joseph, 234, 272; as Radical, 67; 
 
 favors free silver, 161-2; favors Gresham, 
 
 209; granddaughter of, 218 
 Meek, Edward R., 272-3, 276 
 Merrill, Samuel, 94, 96 
 Methodist church, James Harlan and, 12, 
 
 74, 109-110; Clarksons and, 106 
 Meyers, J. Fred, 139, 23 5 
 Michener, Louis T., 237, 264, 267, 312; 
 
 and Harrison nomination, 208, 215; 
 
 Clarkson tells story of 1888 convention 
 
 to, 216, 226-7; and Harrison renomina- 
 
 tion, 253 
 Mills, Roger Q., 25 8; tariff bill of, 231-3 
 Mills Bill, 231-3 
 Minting, Allison on, 80 
 Mississippi & Missouri RR, Dodge and, 42; 
 
 Cedar Rapids & Missouri and, 65 
 Moody, William H., 297, 300, 304 
 Morgan, Joseph, 13 8, 198 
 Morrill, Justin S., 76, 79, 127, 191, 243; 
 
 tariff and, 85; as Radical Republican, 
 
 246; death of, 274 
 Morton, Levi P., 254, 265; in 1880 cam- 
 paign, 164; and Garfield Cabinet, 171; as 
 
 Vice President, 23 8, 2 53 
 Morion, Oliver P., 127, 133, 143 
 Muckraking, 306-3 07 
 Mugwumpery, 280 
 Murphy, Edward, Jr., 2 58-9 
 
 Nasby, Petroleum V., Lincoln on, 71 
 National Monetary Commission, 328 
 Nationalism, Roosevelt and, 296 
 Nealley, Edward B., 192, 244-5 
 Neallcy, Elizabeth. See Mrs. James W. Grimes 
 Nealley, Mary. See Mrs. W. B. Allison 
 Negroes, Allison on, 82, 325; and Radical 
 
 Republicans, 246 
 Newell, Homer V., letter of, regarding 
 
 Allison, 97 
 "Newell Letter," 97 
 
 "Newman Letter," Harlan and, 109-110 
 Niagara ship-canal, Allison favors, 78, 79 
 Noble, Reuben, 51, 82, 84; joint debates 
 
 with Allison, 83 
 North Western RR., Allison and, 149; Hub- 
 bard and, 150 
 Nourse, C. C, 18 8, 190 
 
 O'Connell, Maurice D., 23 3, 236, 284 
 Ohio, migration to, 3-4; Republican party 
 
 in, 10-17; Iowans from, 31-3 
 "Ohio Idea," 132, 326 
 Old Capitol Prison, Mahony at, 54 
 Osborn, William, Allison partner, 9 
 Oyster Bay, meeting at, 285, 287, 295-6 
 
 Palmer, Frank W., 46, 94, 95, 99-100, 106; 
 Dodge and, 100, 102 
 
398 
 
 Panama Canal, 296 
 
 Panic of 1857, pp. 22, 37; Dodge and, 42 
 
 Panic of 1873, Allison and, 128-9; agrarian 
 protest and, 13 0, 151 
 
 Panic of 1893, pp. 248, 255-6, 279 
 
 Panic of 1907, pp. 311-12 
 
 Parrot's Academy, 5, 8 
 
 Parrott, Matt, 109, 150, 262 
 
 Patrons of Husbandry. See Granger Move- 
 ment 
 
 Peace Democrats, Mahony and, 52-3; Radi- 
 cals and, 66 ^— 
 
 Perkins, Charles E., Allison and, 149, 150, 
 160-61; and Iowa Railroad Act, 149, 160; 
 opposes Bland- Allison Act, 156; opposes 
 antirailroad spirit, 160-61; and Wilson 
 senatorial candidacy, 178, 179-80, 183; 
 and judicial districts bill, 184; on inter- 
 state commerce, 198; opposes Larrabee, 
 202-203, 211-12, 239; supports Hepburn 
 for Senate, 202; opposes Wilson, 203; and 
 J. M. Forbes, 219-20; comments on 1888 
 convention, 227-8; to Clarkson on Cabinet, 
 239; advocates bimetallism, 256; opposes 
 Wilson-Gorman Act, 259; favors Gear, 
 260 
 
 Perkins, George D., 109, 311, 316, 326; on 
 1872 senatorial election, 113, 116, 121; 
 delegate to 1880 convention, 162; dele- 
 gate to 1888 convention, 213; 1894 sena- 
 torial candidate, 260; Cummins and, 289, 
 308, 309 
 
 Phillips, David Graham, "Treason of the 
 Senate" articles by, 306-308 
 
 Pickard, Josiah L., 205-206 
 
 Pickett, Charles E., 240, 329 
 
 Piatt, Orville H., 247, 268, 272, 274, 295; 
 Interstate Commerce Act and, 201; bi- 
 metallism and, 257-8; and "The Four," 
 273-4, 280; death of, 298 
 
 Piatt, Thomas C, 162, 172; and Robertson 
 appointment, 175; resignation of, 176; at 
 18 88 convention, 222; supports Harrison, 
 224, 249, claims credit for Harrison vic- 
 tory, 228; and Harrison Cabinet, 23 6; and 
 Clarkson appointment, 2 84 
 
 "Plumed Knight" speech, 145 
 
 Poland committee, investigates Credit Mo- 
 bilier, 124-6 
 
 Poore, Ben: Perley, writings of, on Allison, 
 17-18, 24, 35, 153, 205 
 
 Populist party, 243, 254, 263; nominates 
 Weaver, 253; forerunner of Progressives, 
 280 
 
 Porter, Horace, 115, 136 
 
 Pray, Gilbert B., 240, 260, 262 
 
 Presbyterians, Allisons and, 3, 5, 8 
 
 Price, Hiram, 70, 85, 101, 141; in 3 8th 
 Congress, 62, 64; in 39th Congress, 76, 
 78; as Radical, 83; vote on Reconstruc- 
 tion Act, 85 
 Primary law in Iowa, 311 
 
 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Pro Rata bill, 149 
 
 Progressives, in Iowa, 280, 308; program of, 
 281; Roosevelt and, 298-9 
 
 Progressives vs. Conservatives, 269-93, 308, 
 312 
 
 Prohibition, and Iowa politics, 184-5, 187, 
 188-9, 190, 240; Allison and, 184-5, 187, 
 188-9; amendment for, 185, 187; Repub- 
 licans favor, 248 
 
 Prohibitory amendment, passed, 185; de- 
 clared unconstitutional, 187-8; state coun- 
 sel for, 187-8; Republicans endorse, 189 
 
 Protective tariff, Republican belief in, 271 
 
 Quay, Matthew S., 224, 227, 234-5, 249, 
 265, 288, 298 
 
 Radical Republicans, Allison joins, 60-75; 
 in 3 8th Congress, 66-7; described, 66-7; 
 "Homesteads on Forfeited Estates" a test 
 of, 68; oppose Lincoln, 68; Wade-Davis 
 Bill and, 69; Johnson and, 81, 84; Alli- 
 son speech on, 84-5; impeach Johnson, 
 86; and newspapers, 107; oppose Hayes, 
 150; Perkins opposes antirailroad spirit 
 of, 160-61; Wilson and, 202; Elections 
 Bill and last of the, 246 
 Railroad land grants, Allison bill for, 64 
 Railroads, and Lincoln nomination, 3 5, 42-3; 
 Harlan and, 64; Allison and, 64, 77-8, 
 89-90, 103, 149, 159; Wilson and, 89- 
 90, 92, 118; Dodge and, 100; in 1872 
 senatorial election, 116; Credit Mobilier 
 and, 123-6; Blaine and, 143; Hayes's 
 election and, 147, 148; and Wilson's 
 senatorial candidacy, 178, 179-80; and 
 Gear, 178; Depew and, 210; Larrabee at- 
 tacks, 210-11; 1888 attitude toward, in 
 Iowa, 211; 1888 convention of, 219; block 
 Allison's nomination, 222; and Iowa 1891 
 election, 249; 1893 bankruptcies of, 255- 
 6; Progressives and, 281; Interstate Com- 
 merce Commission and, 297; and Hepburn 
 Bill, 297; and Hepburn Act, 300-304; 
 stalemate, 311; 1908 support for Allison, 
 327 
 Rawlins, John A., 86, 95 
 Reagan, John H., 199, 201 
 Reciprocity, Allison opposes, 243-4 
 Reconstruction, in 3 8th Congress, 61, 66; 
 Lincoln and, 66; "Homesteads on For- 
 feited Estates" and, 67-8; Wade-Davis 
 Bill, 69; Andrew Johnson and, 81, 84; 
 Joint Committee on, 81; Act of 1867, 
 p. 8 5 
 Reconstruction, Joint Committee on, forma- 
 tion and members of, 81 
 Reconstruction Act of 1867, p. 85 
 Reconstruction Proclamation of 1865, John- 
 son and, 81 
 Reed, Thomas B., 262, 263, 265, 272, 274 
 Reid, Whitelaw, 89, 164, 261; Liberal Re- 
 
INDEX 
 
 publicans and, 119, 120, 122; as Half- 
 Breed Republican, 168; on Allison refusal 
 of Cabinet post, 173; nominated for Vice 
 President, 25 3 
 
 "Regency," Allison and, 276 
 
 Republican National conventions: 1860, 26, 
 31, 34-5; 1864, 68-9; 1868, 87; 1872, 
 123; 1876, 144; 1880, 162-3; 1884, 195; 
 1888, 204-229; 1892, 253; 1896, 262-5; 
 1904, 292; 1908, 330 
 
 Republican party, Allison and formation of, 
 10, 12-17; birth of, 10, 11-12; birth- 
 places of, 11-12; Know-Nothings and, 12, 
 14-15; first national convention of, 16; 
 Ben Samuels and, 23-4; Allison and Iowa, 
 25-6; birth of, in Iowa, 26-9; 1856 Iowa 
 convention of, 29; Iowa 1857 Constitution 
 and, 30; Iowans in 1860 convention of, 
 31, 34-5; success in Iowa, 37; Union 
 League and, 59; 1864 convention of, 68- 
 9; 1864 Iowa factional struggle for 
 senatorship, 72-5; Dodge controls Iowa, 
 74, 75; Liberal revolt of, 119-23; favors 
 silver money, 157; "Stalwart" and "Half- 
 Breed" factions of, 168; prohibition and, 
 184-5, 187, 189, 190; 1882 election and, 
 185; Iowa 1884 convention of, prefers 
 Blaine, 195; 1884 defeat, 196; 1886 split 
 in Iowa, 199-201; 1888 tariff plank of, 
 230-31; 1890 losses of, 244; "Force Bill" 
 and, 245; 1893 Panic and, 248; factional- 
 ism, 248-50; Iowa 1896 convention of, 
 endorses Allison, 263; and 1896 conven- 
 tion, 262-5; 1896 gold plank, 266; Con- 
 servative and Progressive factions, 280; 
 and Henderson withdrawal, 288; 1908 
 victory of Standpatters in, 329 
 
 Resumption Act of 1875, pp. 133-4, 151, 
 161-2 
 
 Reynolds, George M., 260-61 
 
 Rhodes, James Ford, 124, 125 
 
 Rich, Jacob, 50, 51, 56, 108, 132, 240; re- 
 ports on Allison, 52, 63; attacks Mahony, 
 53, 54; Iowa factional politics, 72, 75; 
 Kirkwood and, 73; on 1870 senatorial 
 contest, 94; supports Donnan, 101; sup- 
 ports Allison for Senate, 105, 112; aids 
 Clarkson, 111-12; urges Kirkwood to 
 accept 1875 nomination for governorship, 
 136-7, 138; reports on 1876 senatorial 
 situation, 141; and Hayes "Policy," 148; 
 and Allison's 1878 election, 150; and 
 Kirkwood in Garfield Cabinet, 170; on 
 Wilson candidacy, 178; on Larrabee can- 
 didacy, 181; report of, on 1884 election, 
 194-5; as railroad lobbyist, 212, 219; on 
 Blaine withdrawal, 214-15; reports con- 
 vention, 218 
 
 Roberts, George E., 284, 307, 320; "Iowa 
 Idea" and, 282, 290; buys Des Moines 
 Register, 285; and 1903 tariff plank, 290; 
 on 1907 Panic, 312; praises Allison, 325 
 
 399 
 
 Robertson, W. H, Garfield appointment of, 
 174-6 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 2; nominated Vice 
 President, 278; becomes President, 279; 
 Allison and, 280, 285, 294-312, 331; ap- 
 points Shaw to Cabinet, 283-4; Clarkson 
 service to, 284, 316-17; and Henderson 
 withdrawal, 2 8 5-7; Oyster Bay meeting 
 and, 285, 287, 295-6; Lodge and, 285; 
 Cummins and, 2 87; 1904 nomination and 
 election, 292-3; and reciprocity issue, 294- 
 5; and "The Four," 296; foreign policy 
 of, 296; nationalism of, 296; leans 
 toward Progressives, 296, 298-9; and first 
 Hepburn Bill, 297; and Hepburn Act, 
 299-305; and "Allison Amendment," 302- 
 304; muckrakers and, 306; refuses to in- 
 terfere in Iowa Senate race, 318 
 
 Rousseau, Lovell H., Grinnell and, 83 
 
 "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion," 196 
 
 Runnells, John S., 184, 195 
 
 Samuels, Ben M., 46, 49; as Allison law 
 partner, 23-4; as Democrat, 23-4, 27, 28; 
 in 1860 Democratic convention, 3 8; as 
 congressional candidate, 3 8-9; G. W. 
 Jones's comment on, 39 
 
 Samuels, Cooley, and Allison, partnership of, 
 23-5 
 
 Sanders, Addison H., 3 3, 48, 206 
 
 Santo Domingo, Grant and, 107-108 
 
 Sargent, A. A., 127, 133, 154 
 
 "School of Philosophy Club," 247 
 
 Schurz, Carl, opposes Santo Domingo, 108; 
 Liberal Republicans and, 119 
 
 Scotch-Irish, Allisons and, 3 ; in Ohio, 4 
 
 Sells, Elijah, supports Harlan, 74; charges 
 against, 111 
 
 Senatorial campaigns, techniques of, 92-3, 
 108-109 
 
 Senatorial courtesy, Robertson appointment 
 and, 175-6 
 
 Senators, popular election of, 310-11 
 
 Seward, William H., 34, 3 5, 39 
 
 Seymour, Horatio, 87, 8 8 
 
 Shaw, Leslie M., 277, 282, 289; appointed 
 Secretary of the Treasury, 283-4 
 
 Sheffield, F. W. H., 89, 97, 128-9 
 
 Sheffield, James R., 172-3, 198, 199 
 
 Shepard, Elliott F., 224, 228 
 
 Shepherd, Alexander R., 159; investigation 
 of, 129-30 
 
 Sherman, Buren R., 190, 198; candidate for 
 Governor, 181-2; election of, 182; pro- 
 hibition and, 188; re-elected, 193 
 
 Sherman, John, 127, 167, 243; Ohio Repub- 
 lican party and, 13; Allison letter to, 44; 
 and Resumption Bill, 13 3-4, 161-2; and 
 Bland-Allison Act, 152-3, 155, 157; as 
 Secretary of the Treasury, 152-3; in 1880 
 convention, 163; and Garfield Cabinet, 
 167, 174; on Conkling, 175; as 1888 
 
400 
 
 presidential candidate, 207, 208, 215, 220, 
 224; tariff and, 214; votes for, on first 
 ballot. 221; source of votes for, 221; 
 Piatt opposes, 222; Barker and, 225; re- 
 fuses to withdraw, 225-6; Silver Purchase 
 Act of, 242; as Radical Republican, 246; 
 McKinley's Cabinet and, 268, 269, 274 
 
 Sherman Silver Purchase Act, 242, 255; re- 
 peal of, 257 
 
 Sheward, David, 54-5 
 
 Shiras, Oliver P., 29, 39, 46; Union League 
 and, 59; supports "Allison, 88, 97; and 
 Iowa federal court division, 105, 129, 
 183-4 
 
 Silver, new discoveries of, 133; demand for 
 more dollars, 13 3, 151; 1877 Senate de- 
 bate on, 149-50, 151; West and, 152, 156; 
 Bland-Allison Act and, 152-7; Sherman 
 and, 152-3; Medill favors free coinage of, 
 161-2; Allison Cabinet offer and, 168; 
 Allison and, 255; Panic of 1893 and, 
 255-6; 55th Congress and, 270 
 
 Silver Republicans, 241, 267; bolt 1896 
 convention, 266 
 
 Sioux City & Pacific RR, Allison and, 89- 
 90, 109, 126, 193 
 
 Sioux Indians, Allison mission to, 140 
 
 Smith, J. W., Allison partner, 9 
 
 Smith, James A., 291, 326 
 
 Smith, Piatt, Allison and, 77-8, 89 
 
 Smith, Walter L, 320, 329 
 
 Snyder, Carl W., 190, 250 
 
 Soldier voting in Civil War, 5 8 
 
 Spain, treaty with, 273 
 
 Spanish-American War, 271-3 
 
 Spooner, John Coit, 196, 247, 272, 2 85, 295, 
 296; and "The Four," 273-4, 280; resig- 
 nation of, 298; Hepburn Act and, 301; 
 muckrakers and, 306 
 
 "Stalwart" Republicans, 168, 171 
 
 Standpatters, in Iowa, 280, 292-3, 307; op- 
 pose Cummins, 291; weakened, 298; 1908 
 victory of, 329 
 
 Stanton, Edwin M., orders Mahony arrest, 
 54; as Radical, 67 
 
 State University of Iowa, Allison speech at, 
 205-206 
 
 Stevens, Thaddeus, leader of Radicals, 67, 
 84; Allison and, 80; on Joint Committee 
 on Reconstruction, 81 
 
 Stewart, William M., 130, 257 
 
 Stone, John Y., 107, 151 
 
 Stone, William M., elected Governor, 59; in 
 1864 convention, 68; fails to appoint 
 Kirkwood, 72, 73 
 
 Stout, Henry L., 36, 46, 129, 178, 181, 331; 
 Allison and, 26, 88, 89, 100; Iowa Pacific 
 RR and, 159 
 
 Studebaker, Clement, Allison and, 4-5, 9, 
 151 
 
 Sumner, Charles, 123; as Radical, 67; op- 
 poses Santo Domingo, 108 
 
 William Boyd Allison 
 
 Swalm, Al, 113, 3 32; Liberal Republicans 
 and, 121; supports Belknap, 139, 140; 
 opposes 1877 Compromise Bill, 146-7 
 
 Taft, William Howard, 315, 326 
 
 Tama, Allison reciprocity speech at, 295, 
 296-7 
 
 Tariff, Allison views on, 78-9, 85-6, 89, 
 103, 117, 214-15; 1867 tariff bill, 85-6; 
 1870 Act, 103; Liberal Republicans and, 
 120, 122; Allison Cabinet offer and, 168; 
 Sherman and, 214-15; 1888 Republican 
 plank on, 230-32; Mills Bill and, 231-3; 
 in 51st Congress, 241; McKinley Act, 
 242-4, 258; Republicans and protective, 
 248; Wilson-Gorman Act, 25 8-9; Ding- 
 ley Act, 270-71, 283, 294; Progressives 
 and, 281; "Iowa Idea" and, 282, 290; 
 "Ohio Idea" and, 326; Allison's last in- 
 terview on, 329 
 
 Taxation, Allison on, 79-80 
 
 Teller, Henry Moore, 186, 257, 328; op- 
 poses 1896 gold plank, 266 
 
 Thomas, Lewis A., 29; opposes Allison, 88, 
 90, 97, 98 
 
 Tichenor, George C, and Iowa factional 
 politics, 72, 75; in 1870 senatorial contest, 
 91-2, 94-5; and Capitol Commissioners, 
 100; appointed State Supervisor of Pen- 
 sions, 105-106; and 1871 governorship, 
 106-107; supports Allison for Senate, 108- 
 109, 112; booms Wilson for Vice Presi- 
 dent, 117 
 
 Tilden, Samuel J., 1876 election and, 145, 
 146, 148 
 
 Tillman, Benjamin M., and Hepburn Act, 
 300, 301, 302, 305 
 
 Tin-plate industry, Allison and, 243 
 
 Torbert, W. L., Cummins letter to, 309, 319- 
 20, 321-3 
 
 "Torbert Letter," 309; 1908 use of, 319-20, 
 321-3 
 
 Townsend, George Alfred ("Gath"), com- 
 ments on Washington social scene, 76-7; 
 and charges against Harlan, 110; Allison 
 interview with, 250 
 
 "Treason of the Senate" articles, 306-307, 
 310 
 
 Treaty of Paris, 1898, p. 273 
 
 Trumbull, Lyman, 117; as Radical, 67; 
 confiscation bill of, 67-8, 69; Liberal Re- 
 publicans and, 120 
 
 Trusts, Progressives and, 281 
 
 "Unconditional. " See Radical Republicans 
 Union League (or Loyal League), Allison 
 
 joins, 59 
 Union Pacific Railroad, Wilson and, 92, 99; 
 
 Allison and, 100; Missouri River bridge 
 
 of, 100, 102; Dodge and, 118, 125; 
 
 Credit Mobilier and, 123-6; Blaine and, 
 
 143; Pro Rata bill and, 149 
 
INDEX 
 
 Union Pacific RR Act, Allison amendment 
 to, 66 
 
 Vandever, William, 3 8, 41, 51; 1860 elec- 
 tion of, 40; and Gurley appointment, 43- 
 4; opposes Allison, 8 8 
 
 "Vindictives." Sec Radical Republicans 
 
 Wade, Benjamin F., as Radical, 67; and 
 Wade-Davis Bill, 69 
 
 Wade-Davis Bill, 69 
 
 Wanamaker, John, 251; on Harrison Cab- 
 inet, 236, 237, 239, 243 
 
 War Democrats, Radicals and, 66 
 
 Warren, Fitz Henry, 41; 1864 senatorial 
 ambitions, 72; supports Harlan, 74; as 
 Liberal Republican, 120 
 
 Washburne, Elihu B., 81; Grant and, 88 
 
 Washington, social life in, 158-9 
 
 Way, Thomas A., 281, 291 
 
 Weaver, James B., 31, 244; 1874 defeat of, 
 132; and 1875 gubernatorial nomination, 
 137, 138; 1880 Greenback candidate, 163; 
 in 1883 election, 192; attacks Allison, 
 193; Clarkson denounces, 193; defeat of, 
 193; 1886 election of, 199; 1888 defeat, 
 234; Populists nominate, 253 
 
 Weller, Luman H., 186, 244; elected to 
 Congress, 185 
 
 Wellman, Walter, 263, 282 
 
 Wells, David A., 140, 3 07; tariff views of, 
 85, 259; Allison and, 89, 103; Liberal 
 Republicans and, 119 
 
 West Union, Third District conventions at, 
 51-2, 70, 82, 88 
 
 Western Reserve College, Allison at, 7-8, 10 
 
 Wheeler, Hiram C, 248, 249 
 
 Whig party, Allison and, 9; Chase and, 10; 
 Grimes and, 2 8 
 
 "Whiskey Ring," Allison and, 134-6 
 
 White, Horace, 89, 103, 117; Liberal Re- 
 publicans and, 119 
 
 Williams, Judge E. H, 52, 94 
 
 Williams, Margaret. See Allison, Margaret 
 Williams 
 
 Williams, Ora, 111, 292 
 
 Williams, V. J., 82, 88, 97 
 
 Wilson, Henry, nomination of, 123; Credit 
 Mobilier scandal and, 123 
 
 Wilson, James ("Tama Jim"), 136; 1882 
 election contested, 185; in Cabinet, 284; 
 in Cummins 1906 campaign, 3 09-310 
 
 Wilson, James F., 12, 31, 86, 99, 190, 193, 
 220, 23 8, 307; and birth of Iowa Repub- 
 lican party, 2 8-9; early career of, 32-3; 
 
 401 
 
 Allison and, 33; in 3 8th Congress, 61-2; 
 railroad land grants and, 65; Iowa fac- 
 tional politics, 72; in 39th Congress, 76, 
 78; on tariff, 79; on taxation, 79; as 
 Radical, 83; vote on Reconstruction Act, 
 85; on impeachment board, 86, 92; Sioux 
 City & Pacific RR and, 89-90, 193; in 
 1870 senatorial contest, 91-2, 94, 95; 
 Thirteenth Amendment and, 92; as rail- 
 road promoter, 92, 103, 118; and Union 
 Pacific RR, 92, 99; plans for 1872 con- 
 test, 99; as Dodge's agent, 99, 100; and 
 Capitol Commissioners, 100; suggested 
 for Congressman-at-large, 101; supports 
 Allison, 108; charges against, 109; 1872 
 senatorial ambitions of, 112; 1872 caucus 
 vote for, 113-14; boomed for Vice Presi- 
 dent, 117-18, 122-3; Credit Mobilier 
 scandal and, 124, 125; on 1876 senatorial 
 situation, 141; on 1876 nomination, 144- 
 5; on 1877 Compromise Bill, 146; attacks 
 Hayes, 148; on John Marshall Harlan, 
 148-9; favors Blaine, 162, 163; and Gar- 
 field Cabinet, 166, 167, 172; wants Kirk- 
 wood's Senate seat, 169; campaigns for 
 Senate, 177-82; speech angers Perkins, 
 179-80; elected Senator, 182-3; judicial 
 districts bill, 184; prohibition and, 187-8; 
 in 1886 election, 200; 1888 re-election of, 
 202-203; opposition to, 202-203, 206; 
 delegate to 188 8 convention, 213; sup- 
 ports Harrison, 253; not candidate for 
 renomination, 260; death of, 261 
 
 Wilson, James H, 263, 268 
 
 Wilson, William Lyne, Wilson-Gorman Act, 
 258-9 
 
 Wilson Committee, investigates Credit Mo- 
 bilier, 124 
 
 Wilson-Gorman Tariff, 25 8-9, 269 
 
 Windom, William, and Garfield Cabinet, 
 167, 168, 171; appointed Garfield's Sec- 
 retary of the Treasury, 173, 174; on 
 Harrison Cabinet, 23 8; on currency ques- 
 tion, 241-2; death of, 244 
 
 Wolcott, Edward O., 246, 257, 258, 270 
 
 Woodruff, M. C, 137; and Iowa Railroad 
 Act, 149; and Dubuque Times, 169 
 
 Wright, George G., 44, 104, 188; 1870 
 senatorial candidate, 91, 94, 95; career of, 
 95-6; as Harlan supporter, 95; election 
 of, 96; Baldwin supports, 99; not a candi- 
 date for re-election, 136; and Belknap 
 scandal, 142; votes for 1877 Compromise 
 Bill, 147 
 
 Wooster (Ohio), Allison at, 5-6, 8