Page images
PDF
EPUB

cised. It may be doubted, however, if any Indiana Republican who has been confronted with the type of Democrats which have dominated that party for the last thirty years is to be censured for standing by his own party.

The Republican party leaders saw in 1888 that the only hope of winning against Cleveland was to put up a candidate who could carry some of the doubtful States. Early in the year the Republican leaders in Indiana and almost the entire Republican press of the State pronounced in favor of Harrison, and his name was presented by the solid delegation to the convention at Chicago. On the first ballot he received 83 votes, standing fifth on the list, John Sherman standing first with 225. Seven more ballots were taken, during which Chauncey M. Depew withdrew and his supporters went to Harrison, giving him the nomination on the eighth ballot by a vote of 544. There was great rejoicing on the part of his friends in Indiana, and as soon as the result was known there began a series of demonstrations which are without parallel in the history of presidential campaigns. On the day of the nomination a large delegation came to Indianapolis from Hendricks county in a special train and proceeded at once to Gen. Harrison's residence and called him out for a speech, and from that day until the election delegations kept coming from different parts of Indiana, from Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, and other States, all of which were received and welcomed by him in impromptu speeches which, by their appropriateness, variety, force, and elegance of style, won the approval of our best literary critics as well as of the public. In these ninety-four speeches he made no slip. He said nothing that needed apology or explanation from his friends. Verbatim reports of the addresses were printed from day to day in all the leading papers of the country, and he never in anything he said gave his political opponents ground for unfriendly criticism. It is an open secret that some of the members of the National Republican committee were terrified when they learned that the "Hoosier" candidate had commenced the campaign by these free-spoken, off-hand talks with his neighbors. They proposed that some one should go to Indianapolis and put a stop to the business. A gentleman who knew Gen. Harrison's ability told them not to be alarmed, and at the end of a week the fearful gentlemen had changed their

minds and said that if they would allow Gen. Harrison to go on in that way he would elect himself in spite of any blundering of the committee or campaign managers.

A few extracts from some of these speeches may give an idea of their quality. To the California delegation the day after the nomination he said: "I feel sure, too, my fellowcitizens, that we have joined now a contest of great principles, and that the armies which are to fight out this great contest before the American people will encamp upon the high plains. of principle and not in the low swamps of personal defamation or detraction." To a number of veterans of the Union army: "We went not as partisans but patriots into the strife which involved the national life. . . . The army was great in its

assembling. It came with an
impulse that was majestic and
terrible. It was as great in its
muster out as in the brilliant
work which it had done in the
field.
When the war was

[graphic]

.

over... every man had in some humble place a chair by some fireside where he was loved and toward which his heart went forward with a quick step." To

the Tippecanoe club, composed of men who had voted for his grandfather in 1840: "I came among you with the heritage, I trust, of a good name, such as all of you enjoy. It is the only inheritance that has been transmitted in our family." Gen. Harrison was not in the habit of boasting of his lineage, of which he had reason to be proud. If it was ever the subject of conversation in his presence he never introduced it. To a delegation of farmers: "The law throws the ægis of its protection over us all. It stands sentinel about your country homes; . . . it comes into our more thickly populated community and speaks. its mandate for individual security and public order. There is an open avenue through the ballot for the modification or repeal of laws which are unjust or oppressive. To the law we bow with reverence. It is the one king that commands our allegiance." To a delegation of railway employees: "Heroism has been found at the throttle and brake as well as upon the battlefield, and as well worthy of song and marble. The train

man crushed between the platforms, who used his last breath not for prayer or messages of love, but to say to the panicstricken who gathered around him, 'Put out the red light for the other train,' inscribed his name very high upon the shaft where the names of the faithful and brave are written." To an Illinois delegation: "It was on the soil of Illinois that Lovejoy died, a martyr to free speech. . . . Another great epoch in the march of liberty found on the soil of Illinois the theatre of its most influential event. I refer to that high debate in the presence of your people, but before the world in which Douglas won the senatorship and Lincoln the presidency and immortal fame. . . . The wise work of our fathers in constituting this Government will stand all tests of internal dissension and revolution and all tests of external assault, if we can only preserve a pure, free ballot." To a delegation of coal-miners: "I do not care now to deal with statistics. One fact is enough for me. The tide of emigration from all European countries has been and is toward our shores. The gates of Castle Garden swing inward; they do not swing outward to any American laborer seeking a better country than this. . . . Here there are better conditions, wider and more hopeful prospects for workmen than in any other land. . . . The more work there is to do in this country the higher the wages that will be paid for the doing of it. . . . A policy which will transfer work from our mines and our factories to foreign mines and foreign factories inevitably tends to a depression of wages here. These are truths that do not require profound study." To an Indiana delegation: "I hope the time is coming, and has even now arrived, when the great sense of justice which possesses our people will teach men of all parties that party success is not to be promoted at the expense of an injustice to any of our citizens." As early as 31 July, 1888, he said: "But we do not mean to be content with our own market; we should seek to promote closer and more friendly commercial relations with the Central and South American states, . . . those friendly political and commercial relations which shall promote their interests equally with ours." Addressing a company of survivors of his own regiment, he said: "It is no time now to use an apothecary's scale to weigh the rewards of the men who saved the country." To a club of railroad employees: "The laboring men of this land.

may safely trust every just reform in which they are interested to public discussion and to the tests of reason; they may surely hope upon these lines, which are open to them, to accomplish, under our American institutions, all those right things they have conceived to be necessary to their highest success and well-being." Addressing a meeting on the day of Sheridan's funeral: "He was one of those great commanders who, upon the field of battle, towered a very god of war. . . . He rested and refreshed his command with the wine of victory, and found recuperation in the dispersion of the enemy that confronted him." To a delegation of farmers: "I congratulate you not so much upon the rich farms of your country as upon your virtuous and happy homes. The home is the best, as it is the first, school of citizenship.'

All these campaign speeches, with a description of the circumstances of their delivery, are collected in a volume published by Lovell & Co., of New York. But more remarkable than these are the one hundred and forty addresses delivered during his trip to the Pacific coast and back-a journey of 10,000 miles, which was accomplished in thirty-one days, from 15 April to 15 May, 1890, without the variation of one minute from the prearranged schedule for arriving and departing from the hundreds of stations on the way. These addresses were non-political, and breathe throughout a spirit of high patriotism and a call to the high responsibilities of citizenship. In a letter to an American friend who had sent him the volume containing these speeches, the late Lord Coleridge says: "The speeches give me a very high idea of Mr. Harrison. We know very little here of your politicians, and it is pleasant to be brought face to face with any one so manly and high-minded as Mr. Harrison shows himself in the book you sent me. The perpetual demand which American customs make upon anyone of the least position in the way of speech-making must be very trying. In a degree (not within 1,000 miles of the president) I found it so myself when I was in America. But a private foreigner may say what he likes; a president, of course, must watch his words."

It was assumed that with Mr. Blaine in the cabinet President Harrison would be a very inconspicuous and unimportant person in the administration. It is one of the marked characteristics of the man that when he is assigned to a place

he assumes all its responsibilities. As a lawyer he never shouldered himself to the front, but when placed in the lead he was the leader. The simple fact is, he was not for a moment overshadowed by any member of his cabinet. He insisted upon knowing what was going on in each department and maintained an intelligent supervision of them all. Nor is it detracting from the just fame of Mr. Blaine to say that by reason of that gentleman's failing health the work of the State Department was much more than usual the work of the president. Those who have known him long did not fail to see his hand in the discussion of the legal rights of aliens domiciled here, contained in the dignified note to the Italian government concerning the New Orleans massacre. The statement of the basis of our liability for wrong inflicted upon the subjects of friendly nations when they are the result of dereliction of duty by the local authorities was masterly, and the dignified manner in which that government was informed that the United States would be just, but would not be forced to a hasty decision, was admirable. In the Chile affair, in which that government denied its responsibility for the assaults upon our sailors at Santiago and refused safe conduct to some of the members of the Balmaceda administration who had taken refuge at the United States legation, President Harrison was earnest and persistent in his demands, and, as the correspondence shows, after waiting patiently for a response, and becoming weary at last of the vacillating conduct of the Chilian government, made a peremptory request, which was promptly and satisfactorily answered, It is due to the republic of Chile to say that during the whole of the controversy the rival parties in that country kept it in a state of constant revolution. The evidence in the case showed that our sailors were outraged because they belonged to the U. S. navy, and that the authorities of Chile permitted, if they did not connive at it. In such a case it would have been pusillanimous on the part of the Government to have failed to demand reparation. The Bering sea controversy, now happily in settlement by arbitration, was full of difficulty when Mr. Blaine's sudden illness threw the burden of the matter for a time upon President Harrison. Lord Salisbury was delaying, the season for pelagic sealing was coming on, no modus vivendi had been agreed upon. President Harrison took measures for inter

[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »