CHAPTER VIII
ADMINISTRATION OF BENJAMIN
HARRISON
March 4, 1889, to March 4, 1893
MARCH 4, 1889, found Washington City dismal and bedraggled. Her gay decorations were soggy and discoloured, and under the steady downpour of a heavy rainstorm, driven at times by a high chill wind, were either drooping or whipping about, scattering spurts of icy water. All of the elaborate features of the display planned so energetically to exceed those of the Cleveland inauguration ceremonies were ruined or had to be abandoned. Only one idea prevailed—to do what was necessary and escape to shelter from the elements. An inauguration crowd, however, is not easily discouraged. Long experience with March weather at the Capital City has taught the merchant and the tourist to prepare for the unexpected. Rubbers, raincoats, and umbrellas were in such demand that the stock was literally sold out early in the morning, for the great assemblage of visitors turned out, in spite of the pouring rain, to do honour to the first Chief Magistrate who had the distinction of succeeding to the office once held by his grandfather. Benjamin Harrison, grandson of “Old Tippecanoe,” the ninth in the line of the nation’s Presidents, had been elected the people’s choice as twenty-third President.
President Cleveland and President-elect Harrison concluded to brave the weather, dressed accordingly, and rode in an open carriage to the Capitol. In the struggle with the wind-driven rain, one of the umbrellas became disabled and another was borrowed from Secretary Fairchild of the Cabinet, the retiring President calling out reassuringly, “We are honest folk, we will return it.” The presidential party was escorted by the Seventieth Indiana Regiment, which had been recruited and commanded by Colonel Harrison in the Civil War.
The inauguration ceremonies were not exactly on schedule time at the Capitol, and as the hands of the clock were about to indicate the noon hour, Captain Bassett, nicknamed by the pages “Old Father Time,” appeared with his long pole and pushed the hands back ten minutes. After another wait, he again set them back, this time six minutes. Two minutes after, President Cleveland entered with the President-elect. Vice President Morton was sworn in, and the regular procedure followed on the East Portico, where the oath was administered by Chief Justice Fuller. So much had been said of President Harrison’s oratory and clever speech-making that the concourse about the Capitol was packed with people so anxious to hear his words as to disregard the discomforts of the long wait in the rain. To a sea of black umbrellas, President Harrison delivered a twenty-minute address.
The return trip to the White House was uneventful. The street crowd, enthusiastic and faithful, drenched and bedraggled, sustained their interest until the last marchers had passed.
President and Mrs. Cleveland had arranged the luncheon for their successors, immediately after which came the review of the parade of men that again occupied the time until dark in passing the President’s stand.
Once more the Pension Office was used for the inaugural ball, where twelve thousand people gave the new presidential party a royal welcome.
A notable feature in the decoration was a huge ship of state made entirely of flowers, suspended from the ceiling and so constructed as to shower the presidential party with blossoms as they entered. This floral piece was thirty feet long and was the largest design ever made of natural flowers.
Mrs. Harrison’s beautiful pearl brocade gown with its elaborate gold embroidery and long train was much admired. It was of especial interest to the women of the land, as there had been such an effort put forth to induce her to wear décolleté. She emphatically refused, and her ball gown, open a little at the throat, filled in with old point lace, with its elbow sleeves, was sufficiently rich and elegant to please the most critical.
So much had been said to her on the question of her dress for this event that, in making her decision against the low-cut and sleeveless gown, she said, in an interview on February 22, 1889:
“If there is one thing above another I detest and have detested all my days it is being made a circus of, and that is what has come to me in my old age, as it were. I’ve been a show, the whole family’s been a show since Mr. Harrison was elected. All last fall I sat in my sewing room and watched the procession of feet pass across the parlour floor wearing their path into the nap, and disappear like the trail of a caravan into the General’s room beyond. Day by day, I watched the path grow wider and deeper, and at last the caravan spread out and engulfed us all. But I don’t propose to be made a circus of forever! If there’s any privacy to be found in the White House, I propose to find it and preserve it.”
Photo. by Brady
MRS. BENJAMIN HARRISON
Showing her pin of the Daughters of the American Revolution, of which she
was the first President General
With the inauguration festivities over, President Harrison gave first attention to those who were to be his immediate advisers in his administration.
He was fortunate in his running mate, Levi P. Morton, a Vermonter by birth, who had risen from a position as country store clerk to that of partner in a Boston firm. Later, he founded banks in New York and abroad in England, heading Morton Bros. and Company, later the Morton Trust Company. He served with credit in Congress during 1878 and 1880, and from 1885 to 1887 rendered valued service as Minister to France. His influence and prestige counted for much.
President Harrison chose the following as his official family: James G. Blaine, of Maine, was named Secretary of State, the same post he had filled in Garfield’s Cabinet. Mr. William Windom, of Minnesota, Secretary of the Treasury, was another Garfield cabineteer. Redfield Proctor, of Vermont, as Secretary of War; William H. H. Miller, of Indiana, for Attorney General; John Wanamaker, of Pennsylvania, for Postmaster General; Benjamin F. Tracy, of New York, for Secretary of the Navy; John W. Noble, of Missouri, for Secretary of the Interior; and Jeremiah M. Rusk, of Wisconsin, for Secretary of Agriculture, gave general satisfaction.
Although the President was reserved to a marked degree—so much so that he was accused of haughtiness—those who knew him in his home life, or as a soldier or a legal adviser, saw another side to his nature. He was a man who had always had before him the example of distinguished forbears, that served to inspire him with the ambition to achieve and curbed any tendency toward letting his life run along with the tide of least resistance.
He was born at North Bend, Ohio, in the old Harrison family homestead, established and defended by his pioneer grandfather. His boyhood was like that of the average farm boy, with its round of chores and farm pleasures.
The traditions of the Harrison family were of a high order. They demanded education for their children, and so, on the farm, two miles from the house, a small school was early built for the boys of the vicinity. No regular district schools were within a distance possible for their attendance. A log cabin with a dirt floor, rude benches without backs, slabs and blocks of wood for desks, walls sans paint or plaster—this little temple of learning was in its severe primitive rudeness a real school.
In church matters, too, young Harrison had a thorough training in the Presbyterian faith of his fathers. His father considered it his parental duty and responsibility to supervise his children’s religious training.
Sundays frequently brought visits and dinners with his grandmother, and from babyhood he heard tales of his grandfather President and, what he loved most, the tales of the wild, untamed wilderness and brilliant military achievements.
Harrison was graduated from the Miami University fourth in a group of sixteen on June 24, 1852.
Greek legends and mathematical problems did not fill his entire time. With the habit of youth, he had fallen deeply and seriously in love with his first sweetheart, the charming dark-eyed daughter, Caroline Lavinia, of Dr. John Scott, of a near-by academy. To the amazement and the chagrin of a host of young men students, she became engaged to eighteen-year-old Ben Harrison. Some of his mates were astonished and wondered and commented on the queer ways of love and girls. They asked each other, how could she—Caroline Scott—fall in love with a chap small and insignificant in appearance, plain of feature and of dress, afflicted with unusual diffidence and reserve, whose only claim to pretensions of any sort was the possession of an ancestor who had been a signer of the Declaration of Independence and another a President of the United States. True, Ben Harrison also claimed a descent from John Rolfe and Pocahontas. But Miss Caroline was content. The two were married in the autumn of 1853 and started out in an Indianapolis boarding house with a total cash asset of $800, a sum which the young man had borrowed on a lot which he had inherited from a relative.
Harrison studied law and was admitted to the bar. Soon clients flocked to him. There was nothing aggressive or dominant about him; but the shyness or reserve, which at first was diffidence, wore away, leaving a quiet assurance that bespoke power of mind. In 1860, he began his political career as a candidate before the Republican Convention for the position of Reporter of the Supreme Court, to which he was elected by a substantial majority.
Two children soon came to more than fill Mrs. Harrison’s time. So the young couple found themselves a tiny cottage, where Mrs. Harrison did all of her housework, aided before breakfast, at midday, and at night by her husband. He chopped wood, filled the wood box and water buckets, and did all of the outside home chores.
This was their situation when the guns of Sumter sounded the tocsin of war and sent the blood of revolutionary ancestry bounding in Ben Harrison’s veins. However, he had a family dependent on him, and he gave the matter serious consideration. Meanwhile, he made a call upon Governor O. Morton, of Indiana, who settled for him the paramount matter of his place in the war. Mr. Harrison had said to his friend: “If I can be of service, I’ll go.” Without a moment’s hesitation, the Governor replied, “Raise a regiment in this congressional district, and you can command it!”
Harrison regarded this as a command as well as a promise. He went straight home, found Mrs. Harrison in full sympathy with his anxiety to do his part for his country. The Stars and Stripes were hung from the humble law office window, and Lawyer Harrison started recruiting, quickly assembling Company A, the nucleus foundation for the Seventieth Indiana Volunteers. Soon a regiment was assembled, for the Harrison name held a magic sound.
Thrilling stories from the Seventieth Indiana Volunteer Infantry in one of the most severe of the battles—that at Resaca, Ga., May 14 and 15, 1864—told that “Little Ben” fought like a demon in the hand-to-hand encounter. More stories of gallantry came from New Hope Church, Golgotha Church, and Kenesaw Mountain. But the crowning exploit that sent Harrison’s name ringing over the country as a true son of a race of military chieftains was that of Peach Tree Creek.
The victory of Peach Tree Creek has been accredited to Harrison’s initiative and fearless leadership. Major General Joseph Hooker rode up to him after the battle and exclaimed, “By God, I’ll make you a Brigadier General for this fight.” The General wrote a letter to the Secretary of War asking for Colonel Harrison’s promotion, and the promised commission came as Brevet Brigadier General, signed by Abraham Lincoln, and countersigned by Secretary of War Stanton in acknowledgment of “ability and manifest energy and gallantry in command of brigade.”
At the end of the war, he returned to Indianapolis, resumed his office of Supreme Court Reporter, and devoted his energies to building up his practice.
He took the stump through Indiana in behalf of General Grant in 1868, and repeated this service in the interest of the hero of Appomattox again in 1872.
General Harrison’s activity in the Garfield campaign brought him the offer of a Cabinet portfolio, which he declined, preferring to serve his term as Senator. While in the Senate, he opposed President Cleveland’s policy of pension vetoes.
Although the President sought a renomination and hoped his policies would receive the endorsement of the American public in the fall elections, it was evident that the Republicans would make a determined effort to retrieve their power. While many of the Democratic leaders were disgruntled over President Cleveland’s methods and practices, there was no opposition to him as the standard bearer for the Democratic party for another term, and the convention was devoid of excitement as it renominated him by acclamation, with Allen G. Thurman for Vice President.
For a time, it seemed that James G. Blaine’s political star was again in the ascendancy, but the “Plumed Knight” was in Europe and was not receptive. He had tried and failed so continuously for sixteen years that he was convinced the Presidency was not for him, and refused to permit his name to be used in the Republican Convention, though besought by cables from hosts of admiring friends and supporters. Senator Harrison’s steadily growing popularity prophesied his selection, and he received the nomination on the eighth ballot. It was made unanimous, and Levi P. Morton, of New York, was nominated for Vice President.
The tariff was the vital issue of the hour which drew the leaders of both parties into the arena of debate during the campaign, and upon it were hurled volumes of argument and oratory from platform and stump. Here was where the lucid exposition of the great lawyer made a profound impression through his clear speeches and charm of expression. The campaign was lively; banners, processions, and songs added zest to the rallies and political meetings.
The long score of complaints against President Cleveland due to his independence of party direction had antagonized Tammany Hall. His stand on the tariff robbed him of the strong support of the big manufacturing industries. His wholesale vetoes of pensions had antagonized the soldier vote. These sins, added to the fact that the incoming Governor of New York, David B. Hill, though a Democrat, was not an adherent of the Cleveland policy, contributed to his defeat. With New York’s powerful and decisive vote thrown to the Republican candidate, Benjamin Harrison, President Cleveland was eclipsed.
One of the important assets of Harrison’s administration was the new mistress of the White House, whose cordial friendliness and natural graciousness offset her husband’s formality.
Mrs. Harrison brought to her position as chatelaine of the mansion a splendid equipment for her important duties, through a lifetime of activity in social, philanthropic, and patriotic service. Always a church worker, she had the ready sympathy and understanding of welfare matters that were of the greatest help in meeting the many demands made upon her in Washington. Her charity and constant aid to people in every sort of difficulty were extended so quietly that little or nothing was known of it during her lifetime.
Both she and the President were deeply religious, and the Sabbath observance was punctiliously followed, even to the point of the President’s securing additional clerical help for necessary Sunday correspondence, so that the regular staff might have the day for rest after the week of work. Morning prayers were continued, regardless of the change of residence. During Harrison’s senatorship, he and Mrs. Harrison had established their religious attendance in the Church of the Covenant, where they continued to worship during their years at the White House.
President Harrison was possessed of an aristocratic manner and great natural dignity. To this he added a high regard for his office. He regulated his daily life and all public appearances while Chief Executive to command the utmost respect from the public. In this, he was much like General Grant, who demanded little for himself but for the President of the United States all possible honour. It is claimed that he carried this attitude into his churchgoing, making his arrival just at the opening moment of the service, and entering from a side door near the pulpit. This stately progress to his pew made the congregation aware that the President of the United States and the First Lady were attendants at worship.
With their installation in the Executive Mansion, the Harrisons were naturally accompanied by their son and daughter and grandchildren. They made a lively group to brighten up the big house. The son, Russell Harrison, and his wife, had one little daughter, while the son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. James Robert McKee, brought with them the already famous youngster “Baby McKee,” two years old, properly known as Benjamin Harrison McKee, and his infant sister, Mary Dodge, of less than a year. This little lady was christened in the Blue Room by her venerable grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Scott, with water from the River Jordan.
Mrs. Harrison was horrified when she discovered the basement floor of the White House to be overrun with rats, and when, a few days later, the President observed a large gray rodent helping himself from the side table in the family dining room, a campaign of extermination was arranged. Every kind of trap and poison having been tried and ignored by the pests, a professional rat catcher, with his dog and ferrets, was installed. He discovered the grounds about the house to be honeycombed with rat holes, and after several hundred had been killed by the ferrets, Mrs. Harrison decided to improve the conditions of the entire basement. She had the floors taken up and was amazed to find that the kitchen floor contained a number of layers, new boards having been laid upon the old whenever repairs had been made in the past. In accordance with her wish, these were all torn out and the entire basement covered with concrete, this being covered, in the kitchen, with tiling. All of the walls of these lower rooms were tiled shoulder high. The repairs changed the dark, unattractive, and unsanitary rooms into wholesome, cheery places, easy to keep clean.
The condition of the kitchen and the vast improvement brought about by the repairs there furnished Mrs. Harrison with further incentive to put the entire mansion through an overhauling. With her daughter and daughter-in-law to aid her, this trio of accomplished housekeepers proceeded to supervise the renovation and refurnishing from the attic to the cellar, and as this work progressed, Mrs. Harrison began to have visions of what the President’s house should be and how it might be vastly improved by remodelling. The more she studied the possibilities of rearrangement of the offices, the more convinced she became that a practical solution was feasible. To enlarge the living quarters, to give the family more privacy and the Executive more space for the daily work of his staff was her dream. The repairs she had made had cost $50,000 and there was no possibility of extensive remodelling, much as she would have liked it done. But she consulted the Commissioner of Public Buildings and Grounds, various architects, discussed the advantages of her proposed changes with many of the members of Congress, and planted the seeds of her very fine and thoroughly practical plan, which was carried out later but not until ten years after her death.
Soon after Mrs. Harrison’s arrival she engaged for the culinary department of the White House at a wage of fifty dollars per month a Frenchwoman formerly in the service of Lord Sackville West of the British Embassy. This plan was for the summer months.
The climate of the Capital City or the atmosphere of the then draughty mansion failed to agree with the Harrison grandchildren, as they all became ill, to the great distress of the President and his wife. Early in the summer, the physician ordered them to be taken to the seashore. Owing to this sudden change in the family living arrangements, Mrs. Harrison, to economize, thought she would dispense with her French cook of vast experience and high wage, and, during the absence of the bulk of the family, avail herself of the service of a coloured woman at fifteen dollars monthly. She forthwith discharged her cook, only to discover that, although First Lady of the Land, mistress of the White House, and leader of millions of women, there were limitations to her authority when she tried to dismiss her cook. The cook refused to be discharged, preferring to remain the genius of the White House kitchen; she most emphatically refused to leave unless paid for the entire season. She considered her dismissal cause for a suit for damages, and before the matter was adjusted satisfactorily to both sides, a lawyer had been engaged, the matter put before Marquis de Chambrun, law representative of the French Government in the city, and the usual attorney’s letter for settlement sent to the President.
In planning her social programme, the First Lady had the efficient aid of both Mrs. McKee and Mrs. Russell Harrison. Each made frequent and lengthy visits to the White House, and each assumed the rôle of hostess occasionally to her own large circle of friends in and near Washington. The state dinners, receptions, luncheons, balls, and parties were charming and delighted the society that so loved the gaiety of Mrs. Cleveland’s youthful régime.
The Harrison family were highly complimented upon their handsome horses and carriages. For his use on March 4th, General Harrison purchased an elegant landau for which he paid $2,000. This the family called the “state coach.” For Mrs. Harrison’s use he selected a family carriage at $1,000. Six spirited horses, cherry bay in colour, all sixteen hands and a half, took possession of the stables. While President Harrison was the most consistent pedestrian in White House history, he also loved to handle the reins and took the greatest pride in his equipages.
Among the many budding projects to which Mrs. Harrison gave the support and encouragement of her active interest and the prestige of her name was that of the newly formed national society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which now numbers more than a quarter of a million women, and which is the most potent factor in the preservation of American patriotic traditions and the greatest existing force in directing the education of the children of the country toward an understanding and an appreciation of the principles and standards formulated by their forefathers.
Mrs. Harrison accepted the leadership of this patriotic society, serving as its first National President General. Her influence went far toward giving its growth the needed impetus. Patriotic societies were not plentiful, and in the East, no organization of descendants of the Revolution save that of the Sons of the Revolution existed. This association, meeting in Louisville, Ky., in April of 1890, cast a vote excluding women from membership, although the original organization formed in California in 1875 had both men and women on its roster.
When the news of this action was broadcast through the press, Miss Eugenia Washington, great-grandniece of General George Washington, decided that it was time for women to form a society of Daughters. With the aid of Mrs. Ellen Hardin Walworth and Miss Mary Desha, of Washington, D. C., the Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in August of 1890. Meanwhile, Mrs. Mary Lockwood, member of the National Press Association, aroused to protest against the action of the “Sons” in Louisville, published in the Washington Post the story of a Revolutionary War heroine, Hannah Arnett, as an illustration of the fact that women were worthy of honour for their service in that conflict as well as men. Mrs. Lockwood, not being in the city at the time of the meeting, could not be a founder but was given an especial honour for her service through the press.
After a time, when Mrs. Harrison’s health began to decline, Mrs. McKee made the White House her home and relieved her mother of the greater part of the routine, particularly that of correspondence.
But it is not so much for the pleasant and important official functions that the twenty-sixth administration is remembered as for the picture of delightful home life presented by these doting grandparents and their little folks.
Their first grandson, Benjamin Harrison McKee, was the autocrat of the White House, around whose daily performances and schedule of living volumes were written, and this publicity was shared by his baby sister and his little cousin Marthena Harrison. From the time young Benjamin smiled and cooed at the crowds at the Harrison home in Indianapolis, where he got the name of “Baby McKee,” until the little Cleveland lassie usurped his Washington residence, he held the centre of the stage. Idolized by his grandparents, the chum and special playfellow of the dignified President, he became a national figure as much discussed as his elders.
With all of the President’s dignity and conventionality, he did not hesitate an instant in giving chase in all of the inappropriateness of frock coat and silk hat when, one day, the goat team elected to run away with Baby McKee, dashing directly out of the grounds and into the street. However, young Benjamin sat tight, and the anxious grandfather reached him in time to prevent a real catastrophe.
The critics who accused Benjamin Harrison of being “an iceberg” should have seen him romping with the children of the family.
The presence of these little folk was the incentive for many delightful children’s parties, particularly during the holidays, and Colonel W. H. Crook, so long attached to the White House, has claimed that the first White House Christmas tree in his memory was the very large, gorgeous one put up in the library the first Christmas of the Harrison administration, in the trimming of which the President, all of the family, and the staff assisted. It carried toys not only for the children of the family but for everyone attached to the White House and their families. Around it, too, were piled the hundreds of gifts and remembrances sent by friends and presidential admirers.
Mrs. Harrison’s social plans had many unhappy interruptions through the unusual number of deaths in their immediate and official family. The first of these, about at the beginning of their administration, was that of Mrs. Lord, Mrs. Harrison’s sister, a resident of Washington and an employee of one of the government departments, who had also kept house for their aged father, Dr. John Scott. Mrs. Harrison was untiring in her devotion to her sister, and after Mrs. Lord’s death, took her father and Mrs. Mary Lord Dimmick, Mrs. Lord’s widowed daughter, to the White House to live.
Early in 1890, on February 2d, society was grieved over the death of Secretary Blaine’s daughter, Mrs. Coppinger, and on the following day the city was inexpressibly shocked by the terrible bereavement and tragedy that came to Secretary Tracy in the fire that destroyed his home on Farragut Square, causing the deaths of Mrs. Tracy, a daughter, and a maid. Mrs. Tracy, in her terror of suffering, had jumped from the window. The President was among the first to arrive on the scene and at once took the Secretary and the other daughter, Mrs. Wilmerding, to the White House, where Mrs. Harrison did her utmost to comfort them. Later in the day, the bodies of the Secretary’s wife and daughter were brought to the White House and the coffins placed side by side in the East Room. The tragedy to this gracious matron and charming girl affected his Cabinet group as an individual and personal affliction.
Those who attended the funeral in the East Room will never forget the pathos of that service, so poignant in its atmosphere of sorrow that even one of the little boy choristers was overcome and carried fainting from the room.
“Baby McKee’s” fourth birthday was an occasion for a great family celebration. The President and little Benjamin led the way to the small dining room, where the round table was surrounded by fifteen high chairs. The table was gaily decked with flags and flowers to please childish eyes, and a luncheon was served consisting of bouillon, beaten biscuits cut in the form of chickens with their wings outstretched, ice cream, and cakes. Mothers and nurses attended and enjoyed the Virginia reel which concluded the affair.
President Harrison had long been of the opinion that he himself would gain much in the way of understanding his manifold problems and that the people of the land would get a clearer grasp of his efforts in administering his high office if he were to make a tour of the country. Accordingly, he made his arrangements for a swing around a circle that embraced practically one half of the United States. About twenty persons outside of his immediate family accompanied him. Those most important in the group were Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. McKee, Mr. and Mrs. Russell Harrison, and Mrs. Dimmick of the family, and Secretary Rusk and Postmaster General Wanamaker of the Cabinet.
They left on the night of April 14th and stopped at Roanoke, where the President made his first speech. From there the itinerary took them through Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. In California, Harrison delivered more than forty speeches. He then proceeded to Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Everywhere, at his arrival, there was an enthusiastic ovation. In New Mexico, at one stop he was presented with a beautiful case of silver made from ore mined in the vicinity.
On this trip, the President made one hundred and forty-two speeches, most of them extemporaneous, built upon the issues of the hour and around the problems of particular interest to the various sections of the country through which he was travelling.
One of the prettiest Christmas incidents in which a President ever figured occurred during this trip and shows that Harrison’s love of children was not reserved entirely for his own grandchildren. While passing through Richmond, Ind., the President was surprised in his car by the visit of a tiny girl of four who, when he took her upon his knee, threw her arms about his neck, kissed him impulsively, and thrust a new penknife into his hand.
When the next holiday time came near, the President sent a letter and a beautiful doll, both to be delivered to that same little girl on Christmas Eve. And here is a copy of that letter:
My dear little Friend:
When you came into my car at Richmond I did not see you until you stood at my feet looking up to me so sweetly that I did not know but a little fairy had come in through the window. But when I picked you up and you gave me a kiss, then I knew it was a real little girl. The pretty knife you handed me I will keep till you are a big girl, and when I go back to Indiana to live you must come to see me and I will show you that I have not forgotten you. The little doll which you will find in the box with this letter is for you, and I hope you will think it is pretty. If the doll could talk she would tell you how much I love to be loved by the little children.
Affectionately yours,
Benjamin Harrison.
The Tracy tragedies, coming so close upon the other griefs, had given Mrs. Harrison’s already depleted strength a severe shock, from which she really never entirely rallied. This exhaustion, or fatigue, increased, but Mrs. Harrison would not admit being ill—“only tired.”
She loved the conservatory. She had always been interested in china painting and had taken lessons in art. She spent much time there, after she began to fail, in painting orchids, the odd blossoms that appeared for the first time during her régime, and for the first time on a White House table at a diplomatic dinner. She had also started collecting relics of her predecessors. In her plans for enlarging and improving the White House, she had arranged for their display.
In the spring of 1892, every member of the family save the President contracted grippe. Mrs. Harrison supervised the nursing of all, even doing a great deal of the actual work herself. Finally, she also succumbed to the malady, which left her with a serious lung trouble, and while she was pleased and proud of her husband’s renomination, she could not participate personally in the rejoicings and celebrations. She continued to fail, and early in the summer her family took her to Loon Lake, in the Adirondacks, in the hope that the change of air would create an improvement. This was a vain hope, and in October she was brought back to the White House in the last stages of the disease. Too worn and exhausted to rally, she never left her room after her return. She passed her thirty-ninth marriage anniversary with her husband at the White House five days before she died, on October 24, 1892, after eight months of suffering. She did not live to know that he was defeated by Cleveland, whom he had succeeded. Her death occurred in the same room that had been occupied by President Garfield after he had been wounded by Guiteau.
The funeral was exceedingly simple and was attended only by the family, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court, and a little group of personal friends. Orchids, her favourite flower, and roses completely covered the casket. After the services, her body was taken to Indianapolis for interment.
About a month later, Dr. John W. H. Scott, Mrs. Harrison’s father, died at the age of ninety-three. His funeral service was held in the East Room. Although of such advanced years, he had discharged the duties of his calling efficiently until President Harrison’s inauguration.
The closing days of President Harrison’s régime were dreary. In the death of his wife, he had lost his lifetime companion, whose sweet graciousness and womanly sympathy did so much to offset his own seeming coldness and austerity. Many of Mrs. Harrison’s admirers believed that, had she lived and kept her health, he would not have failed of a second term.
The illness and death of their beloved President General who had won the love of the membership was a personal sorrow to her associates in the Daughters of the Revolution. At the Congress of 1894, two years after her death, the beautiful portrait of her by Daniel Huntington was unveiled and then presented to the White House as the gift of the society to the nation.
In President Harrison’s administration there was a complete reversal of policy on the tariff and pensions. A liberal pension policy was adopted—so liberal that it was charged that the Commissioner of Pensions hunted up groups to whom pensions might be extended. Finally, an act was passed giving a pension to every soldier who had served ninety days and was not able to be self-supporting, regardless of whether or not the disability was due to his war service. Thus, many thousands of pensioners were added to the roster in Harrison’s four years, with the enormous increase of annual expenditure from $89,000,000 to $159,000,000.
Much important legislation was enacted. Great was the satisfaction over the admission of six new states, two of which, by the way, extended the ballot to women and equal business rights. The states were Montana, North Dakota, Idaho, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming.
The opening of Oklahoma marked another epoch in national progress. The tract which had formed part of the Indian Territory was purchased from the Indians in 1889. In the spring of that year, fully fifty thousand people were eagerly waiting the word to enter and take up lands in that region. President Harrison’s proclamation declared that no one who entered and occupied lands in Oklahoma before twelve noon of April 22, 1889, should be permitted to acquire rights to lands there by such entrance and occupation. Hence, on the stroke of twelve, the bugle announced that Oklahoma was open, and a vast multitude rushed across the line, each endeavouring to get in ahead of the rest. Almost overnight, towns of rough board shanties and tents sprang up like mushrooms. Oklahoma City and Guthrie started thus; but five months later, Guthrie was a real town, with several newspapers, banks, and a street railway under construction. Such was the spirit of progress!
To the delight of the navy enthusiasts, the ninety old wooden ships were being steadily replaced by battleships and steamers of steel construction.
Most important to the business interests of the country were the three acts passed by Congress in 1890: the new Pension Act, that added 400,000 names to the pension roster, the expense of which has already been given; the McKinley Tariff, the principal object of which was the protection of American products and American industries against foreign competition; and the Sherman Silver Purchase and Coinage Act, which provided that each month the treasurer should buy, if it were offered, 4,500,000 ounces, or more than 140 tons, of silver and coin it into dollars.
The centennial census showed the population of the United States to be more than 62,000,000, a gain over the first census of 1790 of 50,000,000 people. A centennial celebration was held by the Supreme Court, and another by the Patent Office. This latter was especially interesting because of the history it disclosed. The first patents issued were for potash and soap in 1790. During the hundred years that followed, 450,000 patents had been applied for and secured. Inventors had endeavoured to enter every field of human skill, with the result that America’s labour-saving machines led the world. A notable and everyday utilitarian invention that has given satisfaction in transportation to countless hundreds is the safety bicycle, which “Baby McKee” learned to ride with his mother.
It was during this administration that national politics was invaded by the Farmers’ Alliance. The immigration laws also came in for amendment. An incident worthy of note was the great Carnegie Steel Strike at Homestead, Pa., to which the governor finally had to send troops.
President Harrison could not fail to feel a satisfaction in the record of accomplishment of his four years, and when he prepared to turn the White House over to his successor, he resolved to go back to his law practice, knowing that his future was established. He need accept only such clients as appealed to him and would be able to meet his fees.
He went back to the lawyer’s office in Indianapolis where he had first practised his profession. He accepted his defeat for reëlection in 1892 as final, and thereupon retired permanently from party politics. His only reëntrance into national affairs was when he became a member of the board of arbitration for Venezuela, which settled the historic boundary dispute between Great Britain and the South American Republic.
After his presidential term General Harrison became less reserved. He used to spend his vacations out of doors, and was most devoted to his grandchildren, the McKees. He became a familiar figure at Cape May, where the beach crowds often saw him romping in the surf with them.
On April 6, 1896, he married Mrs. Mary Scott Lord Dimmick, the niece of his first wife, who had acted as Mrs. Harrison’s secretary during her stay in the White House. The wedding took place at St. Thomas’s Protestant Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue, New York City, in the presence of a small group of friends. Neither General Harrison’s son nor his daughter was present. He took his bride to his Indiana home, where a baby girl was born to them the following year. This marriage estranged his family, as it was not at all pleasing to the children of his first wife.
He died of acute pneumonia in Indianapolis, March 13, 1901, with his immediate family and a few old friends around him. Although en route to his side, neither Russell Harrison nor Mrs. McKee was with him at his death.
Benjamin Harrison’s rêgime was one of dignity. It reflected honour upon himself and the nation.