Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1

by Andrew Dickson White

While it was announced as pending, I was urged by various friends to speak of the subject to Mr. Platt, who as the only Republican senator from New York and the head of the Republican organization, was supposed to have large rights in the matter. It was hinted to me that some statement to Mr. Platt on the subject was required by political etiquette and would smooth the President's way. My answer was that I felt respect and friendship for Mr. Platt; that I called at his rooms from time to time socially, and discussed various public matters with him; but that I could never make a request to him in the premises; that I could not put myself in the attitude of a suppliant, even in the slightest degree, to him or even to the President.

The result was that the President himself spoke to Mr. Platt on the subject, and, as I was afterward informed, the senator replied that he would make no objection, but that the appointment ought not to be charged against the claims of the State of New York.

The presidential campaign of 1900, in which Mr. McKinley was presented for re<e:>lection, touched me but slightly. There came various letters urging me to become a candidate for the Vice-Presidency, and sundry newspapers presented reasons for my nomination, the main argument being the same which had been formerly used as regarded the governorship of New York—that the German-Americans were estranged from the Republican party by the high tariff, and that I was the only Republican who could draw them to the ticket. All this I deprecated, and refused to take any part in the matter, meantime writing my nephew, who had become my successor in the State Senate, my friend Dr. Holls, and others, to urge the, name of Theodore Roosevelt. I had known him for many years and greatly admired him. His integrity was proof against all attack, his courage undoubted, and his vigor amazing. It was clear that he desired renomination for the place he already held—the governorship of New York—partly because he was devoted to certain reforms, which he could carry out only in that position, and partly because he preferred activity as governor of a great State to the usually passive condition of a Vice-President of the United States. Moreover, he undoubtedly had aspirations to the Presidency. These were perfectly legitimate, and indeed hon- orable, in him, as they are in any man who feels that he has the qualities needed in that high office. He and his friends clearly felt that the transition from the governorship of New York to the Presidency four years later would be more natural than that from the Vice-Presidency; but in my letters I insisted that his name would greatly strengthen the national ticket, and that his road to the Presidency seemed to me more easy from the Vice-Presidency than from the governorship; that, although during recent years Vice-Presidents had not been nominated to the higher office, during former years they had been; and that I could see no reason why he might not bring about a return to the earlier custom. As to myself, at my age, I greatly preferred the duties of ambassador to those of Vice-President. The Republican party was wise enough to take this view, and at the National Convention he was nominated by acclamation.

Early in August, having taken a leave of absence for sixty days, I arrived in New York, and on landing received an invitation from Mr. Roosevelt to pass the day with him at his house in the country. I found him the same earnest, energetic, straightforward man as of old. Though nominated to the Vice-Presidency against his will, he had thrown himself heartily into the campaign; and the discussion at his house turned mainly on the securing of a proper candidate for the governorship of the State of New York. I recommended Charles Andrews, who, although in the fullest vigor of mind and body, had been retired from the chief-justiceship of the State on his arrival at the age of seventy years. This recommendation Mr. Roosevelt received favorably; but later it was found impossible to carry it out, the Republican organization in the State having decided in favor of Mr. Odell.

During my entire stay in the United States I was constantly occupied with arrears of personal business which had been too long neglected; but, at the request of various friends, wrote sundry open letters and articles, which were widely circulated among German-Americans, showing the injustice of the charge so constantly made against President McKinley, of hostility to Germany and German interests. Nothing could be more absurd than such an imputation. The very opposite was the case.

I also gave a farewell address to a great assemblage of students at Cornell University, my topic being ``The True Conduct of Student Life''; but in the course of my speech, having alluded to the importance of sobriety of judgment, I tested by it sundry political contentions which were strongly made on both sides, alluding especially to Goldwin Smith's very earnest declaration that one of the greatest dangers to our nation arises from plutocracy. I took pains to show that the whole spirit of our laws is in favor of the rapid dispersion of great properties, and that, within the remembrance of many present, a large number of the greatest fortunes in the United States had been widely dispersed. As to other declarations regarding dangers arising from the acquisition of foreign territory and the like, I insisted that all these dangers were as nothing compared to one of which we were then having a striking illustration—namely, demagogism; and I urged, what I have long deeply felt, that the main source of danger to republican institutions is now, and always has been, the demagogism which seeks to array labor against capital, employee against employer, profession against profession, class against class, section against section. I mentioned the name of no one; but it must have been clear to all present how deeply I felt regarding the issues which each party represented, and especially regarding the resort to the lowest form of demagogism which Mr. Bryan was then making, in the desperate attempt to save his falling fortunes.

During this stay in America I made two visits to Washington to confer with the President and the State Department. The first of these was during the hottest weather I have ever known. There were few people at the capital who could leave it, and at the Arlington Hotel there were not more than a dozen guests. All were distressed by the heat. Moreover, there was an amazing complication of political matters at this time, calculated to prostrate the Washington officials, even if the heat had not done so; and, among these, those relating to American control in the Philippine Islands; the bitter struggle then going on in China between the representatives of foreign powers, including our own, and the Chinese insurrectionists; the difficulties arising out of the successful result of the Spanish War in Cuba; complications in the new administration of Porto Rico; and the myriad of questions arising in a heated political campaign, which was then running fast and furious.

Arriving at the White House, I passed an hour with the President, and found him, of all men in Washington, the only one who seemed not at all troubled by the heat, by the complications in China, by the difficulties in Cuba and Porto Rico, or by the rush and whirl of the campaign. He calmly discussed with me the draft of a political note which was to be issued next day in answer to the Russian communications regarding the mode of procedure in China, which had started some very trying questions; and then showed me a letter from ex-President Cleveland declining a position on the International Arbitration Tribunal at the Hague, and accepted my suggestion not to consider it a final answer, but to make another effort for Mr. Cleveland's acceptance. During this first visit of mine, the Secretary of State and the First Assistant Secretary were both absent, having been almost prostrated by the extreme heat. At a second visit in October, I again saw the President, found him in the same equable frame of mind, not allowing anything to trouble him, quietly discharging his duties in the calm faith that all would turn out well. Dining with Secretary Hay, I mentioned this equanimity of the President, when he said: ``Yes; it is a source of perpetual amazement to us all. He allows no question, no matter how complicated or vexatious, to disturb him. Some time since, at a meeting of the cabinet, one of its members burst out into a bitter speech against some government official who had been guilty of gross rudeness, and said, `Mr. President, he has insulted you, and he has insulted me'; thereupon the President said calmly, `Mr. Secretary, if he has insulted ME, I forgive him; if he has insulted you, I shall remove him from office.' ''

Newspapers were teeming with misrepresentations of the President's course, but they failed to ruffle him. On his asking if I was taking any part in the campaign, I referred to a speech that I had made on the Fourth of July in Leipsic, and another to the Cornell University students just before my departure, with the remark that I felt that a foreign diplomatic representative coming home and throwing himself eagerly into the campaign might possibly do more harm than good. In this remark he acquiesced, and said: ``I shall not, myself, make any speeches whatever; nor shall I give any public receptions. My record is before the American people, and they must pass judgment upon it. In this respect I shall go back to what seems to me the better practice of the early Presidents.'' I was struck by the justice of this, and told him so, although I felt obliged to say that he would be under fearful temptation to speak before the campaign had gone much farther. He smiled, but held to his determination, despite the fact that his opponent invaded all parts of the Union in an oratorical frenzy, in one case making a speech at half-past two in the morning to a crowd assembled at a railway station, and making during one day thirty-one speeches, teeming with every kind of campaign misrepresentation; but the President was faithful to his promise, uttered no word in reply, and was re<e:>lected.

Not only at home, but abroad, as I can amply testify, the news of his re<e:>lection was received with general satisfaction, and most of all by those who wish well to our country and cherish hopes that government by the people and for the people may not be brought to naught by the wild demagogism which has wrecked all great republics thus far.