Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1

by Andrew Dickson White

Mr. Fassett was nominated, and I do not know that I have ever received a message which gave me a greater sense of relief than the telegram which announced this fact to me.

As regards the inside history of the convention, Professor Jenks of Cornell University, a very thoughtful student of practical politics, who had gone to Rochester to see the working of a New York State convention, told me some time afterward that he had circulated very freely among the delegates from various rural districts; that they had no acquaintance with him, and therefore talked freely in his presence regarding the best policy of the convention. As a rule, the prevailing feeling among them was expressed as follows: ``White don't know the boys; he don't know the men who do the work of the party; he supports civil-service reform, and that means that after doing the work of the campaign we shall have no better chance for the offices than men who have done nothing—in fact, not so good, perhaps, as those who have opposed us.'' No doubt this feeling entered into the minds of a large number of delegates and conduced to the result.

A few weeks afterward Mr. Fassett came to Ithaca. I had the pleasure of presiding and speaking at the public meeting which he addressed, and of entertaining him at my house. He was in every way worthy of the position to which he had been nominated, but, unfortunately, was not elected.

Having made one or two speeches in this campaign, I turned to more congenial work, and in the early spring of the following year (February 12 to May 16, 1892) accepted an election as non-resident professor at Stanford University in California, my duty being to deliver a course of twenty lectures upon ``The Causes of the French Revolution.'' Just as I was about to start, Mr. Andrew Carnegie very kindly invited me to go as his guest in his own car and with a delightful party. There were eight of us—four ladies and four gentlemen. We went by way of Washington, Chattanooga, and New Orleans, stopping at each place, and meeting many leading men; then to the city of Mexico, where we were presented to Porfirio Diaz, the president of that republic, who seemed to be a man of great shrewdness and strength. I recall here the fact that the room in which he received us was hung round with satin coverings, on which, as the only ornament, were the crown and cipher of Diaz' unfortunate predecessor, the Emperor Maximilian. Thence we went to California, and zigzag along the Pacific coast to Tacoma and Seattle; then through the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City meeting everywhere interesting men and things, until at Denver I left the party and went back to give my lectures at Stanford.

Returning to Cornell University in the early summer I found myself in the midst of my books and happy in resuming my work. But now, July 21, 1892, came my nomination by President Harrison to the position of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at St. Petersburg. On thinking the matter over, it seemed to me that it would be instructive and agreeable to have a second diplomatic experience in Russia after my absence of nearly forty years. I therefore accepted, and in the autumn of 1892 left America for St. Petersburg.

While in Washington to receive my instructions before leaving, I again met Mr. Harrison, and must say that he showed a much more kindly and genial side than that which had formerly been revealed to me, when I had discussed shortcomings of his administration as regarded the civil service.

My occupancy of this new position lasted until the autumn of 1894, and there was one thing in it which I have always regarded as a great honor. Mr. Harrison had appointed me at about the close of the third year of his term of office; I therefore naturally looked forward to a stay of but one year in Russia, and, when I left America, certainly desired no more. A little of Russian life goes very far. It is brilliant and attractive in many ways; but for a man who feels that he has duties and interests in America it soon becomes a sort of exile. At the close of Mr. Harrison's administration, therefore, I tendered my resignation, as is customary with ministers abroad at such times, so that it would arrive in Washington on the fourth day of March, and then come under the hand of the new President, Mr. Cleveland. I had taken its acceptance as a matter of course, and had made all my arrangements to leave Russia on the arrival of my successor. But soon I heard that President Cleveland preferred that I should remain, and that so long as I would consent to remain no new appointment would be made. In view of the fact that I had steadily voted against him, and that he knew this, I felt his conduct to be a mark of confidence for which I ought to be grateful, and the result was that I continued at the post another year, toward the close of which I wrote a private letter to him, stating that under no circumstances could I remain longer than the 1st of October, 1894. The fact was that the book which I considered the main work of my life was very nearly finished. I was anxious to have leisure to give it thorough revision, and this leisure I could not have in a diplomatic position. Therefore it was that I insisted on terminating my career at St. Petersburg, and that the President finally accepted my declination in a letter which I shall always prize.

During the following winter (1894-1895), at Florence Sorrento, and Palermo, my time was steadily given to my historical work; and having returned home and seen it through the press, I turned to another historical treatise which had been long deferred, and never did a man more thoroughly enjoy his leisure. I was at last apparently my own master, and could work in the midst of my books and in the library of the university to my heart's content.

But this fair dream was soon brought to naught. In December, 1895, I was appointed by President Cleveland a member of the commission to decide upon the boundary line between the British possessions in South America and Venezuela. The circumstances of the case, with the manner in which he tendered me the position, forbade me to decline it, and I saw no more literary leisure during the following year.

As the presidential campaign of 1896 approached I had given up all thoughts of politics, and had again resumed the historical work to which I proposed to devote, mainly, the rest of my life—the preparation of a biographical history of modern Germany, for which I had brought together a large amount of material and had prepared much manuscript. I also hoped to live long enough to put into shape for publication a series of lectures, on which I had obtained a mass of original material in France, upon ``The Causes of the French Revolution''; and had the new campaign been like any of those during the previous twenty years, it would not have interested me. But suddenly news came of the nomination by the Democrats of Mr. Bryan. The circumstances attending this showed clearly that the coming contest involved, distinctly, the question between the forces of virtual repudiation, supporting a policy which meant not merely national disaster but generations of dishonor on the one side, and, on the other, Mr. McKinley, supporting a policy of financial honesty. Having then been called upon to preside over a Republican meeting at Ithaca, I made a speech which was published and widely circulated, giving the reasons why all thinking men of both parties ought to rally in support of the Republican candidate, and this I followed with an open letter to many leading Democrats in the State. It was begun as a private letter to a valued Democratic friend, Mr. Oscar S. Straus, who has twice proved himself a most useful and patriotic minister of the United States at Constantinople. But, as my pen was moving, another Democratic friend came into my mind, then another, and again another, until finally my views were given in an open letter to them all; and this having been submitted to a friend in New York, with permission to use it as he thought best, he published it. The result seemed fortunate. It was at once caught up by the press and republished in all parts of the country. I cannot claim that the gentlemen to whom I wrote were influenced by it, but certain it is that in spite of their earnest differences from President McKinley on very important questions, their feeling that this campaign involved issues superior to any of those which had hitherto existed, led all of them, either directly or indirectly, to support him.