On May 17, 1877, General Grant, with his wife and youngest son, Jesse, bade farewell to the United States to begin what was in reality his very first real vacation. He had long wanted to visit the Old World, see its social customs, conditions, study its armies, its civilizations, its governments and their workings.
Everywhere he met friendliness and cordiality, and no man, American or of any other nationality, ever received such a continuous and unabating demonstration of appreciation and popularity as kept step with his travels. The Occident and the Orient entered into an active contest in extending proofs of the homage which his life as a soldier, a president, and the first citizen of the great nation he represented inspired. Kings, queens, emperors, Indian princes, and Egyptian potentates, sages, prophets, great chieftains, plain soldiers, and great statesmen, joined in greeting this man, as did the masses.
He returned to America two years later, reaching San Francisco in the autumn of 1879, the greatest traveller of the world, possessed of enduring fame, quantities of beautiful and valuable gifts from admiring hosts, and not sufficient money to maintain his family in the unpretentious New York house he had purchased for a home. How to employ his time—he was but fifty-six—both pleasantly and profitably was a real problem.
He was induced to allow his name to be used as a candidate for nomination for the Presidency in 1880. Failing to secure his third-term honour, he turned his attention to business projects. Shortly, he was persuaded that the question of income could best be met by investment, and hence, after much delay and consultation in the family, he invested all of his capital in the banking business of Grant and Ward. In making the connection, the General had stipulated that there should be no government contracts, since he would not permit his name to be used in such connection. For a while, everything seemed smooth sailing; the firm rating was of the best, the dividends came regularly and plentifully. In May, 1884, without a word of warning or a hint that difficulties were brewing, the General learned that his firm had failed. He and his sons were stripped to pauperism through most stupendous speculations.
Once more the silent General squared his shoulders to meet duty, and every bit of real estate and personal property of his and Mrs. Grant’s was turned over for security for a previous loan; not even his trophies did he withhold. The same trumpet call of duty set him to writing articles for Century Magazine to provide a means of income. Then came the suggestion that he set himself to the task of writing his recollections of the war. Finding it an agreeable task rather than a boresome tax, he was persuaded to write the story of his life. His son, Frederick Dent Grant, assisted him.
Stricken with the cancerous condition in his throat while he was at the beginning of this, he faced the knowledge that he must work with unremitting zeal to provide a source of income for his family. Only those close to him had a real understanding of the physical suffering when his voice was finally gone and the agonizing struggle to keep on writing when too weak to move about his room. Nothing in medical knowledge offered any release from his pains, and he struggled valiantly, completing his task four days before his death at Mt. McGregor, on July 23, 1885.
CHAPTER IV
THE ADMINISTRATION OF RUTHERFORD
B. HAYES
March 4, 1877, to March 4, 1881
RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES the nineteenth President of the United States, was the only Chief Executive of the nation to be kept in suspense regarding his victory in the election until the eve of inauguration, and the only one to be the storm centre of an after-election contest of such bitterness and scope that a commission had to be appointed by Congress to determine whether the Governor of Ohio or the Governor of New York should be installed in the White House on March 4, 1877.