White House gossip

by Edna M. Colman

Although each war has hatched its own brood of scandals and given birth to its own tribe of financial and political vampires to wreck parties and ruin leaders, yet at no period of our national history have there been more gigantic, hydra-headed monsters of graft unloosed upon the head of a nation than the series of financial scandals exposed during the two administrations of Ulysses S. Grant. The fact that all of these had their inception years before and, like a vast canker, had slowly and steadily spread their virus and corruption through a constantly widening area until an eruption was inevitable did not lessen the embarrassment or mitigate the actual suffering they brought to the Executive. His own character and simple plan of life had kept him so far removed from contact with such schemes and their perpetrators as virtually to render him incapable of understanding a stress of conditions and circumstances that could ensnare a private individual, much less a man pledged to the service of his country, in any entanglement for gain, through which his disgrace would inevitably reflect discredit upon his country. But President Grant’s own integrity, which was never besmirched in the slightest degree, despite many efforts to implicate him in one scandal or another, did not spare him the humiliation of seeing his two Vice Presidents and a large group of friends in the Senate and the House entangled in the exposure of the Crédit Mobilier swindle of the government. The gold panic and the Whisky Fraud investigation also brought low the pride of a group high in honour and power. Not only among family connections, but in the Cabinet and even the august precincts of the Supreme Court, the accusing finger of suspicion pointed to the guilty.

All writers of the period dwell more or less at length upon the bold schemes of speculators to enrich themselves at the expense of the government. One of the first to come to light, and one of the most daring, was the attempt to corner the gold market in New York in 1869, when the gold dollar was forced to 162 on the Stock Exchange. Ben Perley Poore, noted correspondent of the day, gives the following account of this transaction, which threatened to create a financial eruption that would rock the entire country. In his “Reminiscences,” Mr. Poore says:

“General Grant was much embarrassed early in his presidential career by the attempts of those around him to engage in speculations for their private benefit. Always willing to bestow offices, or to dispense profitable favours to his numerous relatives by blood and marriage, and to advance the interests of those who had served him faithfully during the war, he could not understand the desperate intrigues which speculation led some of them into. Among his protégés was Abel R. Corbin, who had been known at Washington as the clerk of a House committee, a correspondent, and a lobbyist, and who afterward had removed to New York, where he had added to his means by successful speculation. Marrying General Grant’s sister, who was somewhat advanced in years, he conceived the idea of using his brother-in-law for a gigantic speculation in gold, and in order to obtain the requisite capital entered into partnership with Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr. By adroit management, these operators held, on the first of September, 1869, ‘calls’ for one hundred millions of dollars of gold, and as there were not more than fifteen millions of the precious metal in New York outside of the Sub-Treasury, they were masters of the situation. The only obstacle in the way of their triumphant success would be the sale of gold from the Sub-Treasury at a moderate price, by direction of General Grant. Corbin assured his co-conspirators that he could prevent this interference, and wrote a letter to the President urging him not to order or permit sales from the Sub-Treasury. He ostensibly sent this letter by a special messenger, but, in fact, substituted for it an ordinary letter on family matters. General Grant’s suspicions were aroused by the receipt of this unimportant epistle, and at his request Mrs. Grant wrote to Mrs. Corbin, saying that the General had learned with regret that her husband was engaged in gold speculations, and he had better give them up.

“General Grant returned to Washington on the 23d of September, 1869. The next day, ‘Black Friday,’ the conspirators put up the price of gold, and a wild panic ensued. Leading men of all parties in the city of New York telegraphed the President and the Secretary of the Treasury, urging their interference as the only way of preventing a financial crash, which would have extended over the whole country. About eleven o’clock, Secretary Boutwell went to the White House, and after a brief conference, General Grant expressed his wish that the desired relief should be given. Secretary Boutwell promptly telegraphed to Sub-Treasurer Butterfield, at New York, to give notice that he would sell four millions of gold. This collapsed the speculation. ‘I knew,’ said Jim Fisk, afterward, ‘that somebody had run a sword right into us.’ It was not without difficulty that Corbin, Gould, and Fisk escaped from the fury of their victims. The conspiracy was subsequently investigated by a committee of the House of Representatives, and a report was made by James A. Garfield, completely exonerating General Grant, and declaring that, by laying the strong hand of government on the conspirators and breaking their power, he had treated them as enemies of the credit and business of the Union.”

Great satisfaction came to the country when Congress convened in December, and it was manifest that the reconstruction of all of the Southern states was accomplished, and with the opening of the New Year, all the states of the Union were represented in Congress for the first time since December, 1860. Vice President Colfax presided over fifty-one Republican and thirteen Democratic Senators, while James G. Blaine, Speaker of the House, held his gavel over one hundred and seventy-two Republicans and seventy-one Democratic Representatives.

Meanwhile, Congress had established the Weather Bureau, with headquarters at Washington. Its object was to secure and issue information of approaching changes of weather and impending storms. The butt of many jokes in the beginning of its career, it has saved the people of the country from heavy losses both by land and by sea. Branches were located in all of the principal cities. As time has passed, the importance of the work of this Bureau brought measures for the extension of its operations.

As the administration drew to a close, the effect of the financial scandals was shown in the opposition that seemed to spring up in all directions to President Grant. Rumour and query were already directed toward the Pennsylvania Courts, where a Crédit Mobilier scandal was impending and the money panic threatening.

Charles Sumner and the President, through a series of misunderstandings that might in the early stages have been easily explained and completely adjusted, were bitterly antagonistic. The President’s San Domingo annexation theory and certain actions and policies followed in the arrangement for the English treaty were contrary to Senator Sumner’s ideas. In addition, one of the contributing causes to the strained relations and widening breach was the fact that the Senator disapproved of the President’s receiving valuable gifts. He believed that all such gifts were made with the idea that especial consideration could be expected by the donor in return. He considered it the duty of every public man to set his face resolutely against the acceptance of all presents and courtesies that could embarrass him in his official duty in any respect. To President Grant such a course would have been exceedingly difficult, owing to his extreme popularity with both the military and the civilians. Refusal of tributes of appreciation under such conditions would also have caused embarrassment. However, this cause for criticism, added to the other points of dispute between these two sterling leaders and statesmen, gave sufficient tinder to the spark of Sumner’s growing antagonism to send him energetically to work to rally the indifferent or disgruntled Republicans into a clique to prevent the reëlection of the President.

The importance attached to Senator Sumner’s opposition may be gathered from the fact that it called forth a protest from Henry Wilson, slated for the nomination as Vice President to succeed Colfax, who was already too thoroughly enmeshed in the Crédit Mobilier entanglement to be considered. Part of Mr. Wilson’s letter to the President is as follows:

“Your administration is menaced by great opposition, and it must needs possess a unity among the people and in Congress. The Head of a great party, the President of the United States, has much to forget and forgive, but he can afford to be magnanimous and forgiving. I want to see the President and Congress in harmony, the Republican Party united and victorious. To accomplish this, we must all be just, careful, and forgiving.”