James A. Garfield was a man of indefatigable industry and vast information. He seemed constantly possessed by an intelligent curiosity in regard to all subjects. He had a tenacious memory. Its stores were always ready at hand for his use on all occasions. There has been no man in public life in my time, except Charles Sumner, who was always so glad to render any service in his power to literature and science. He was a great friend of the Congressional Library, and helped largely to increase its appropriations. I got his powerful aid in procuring the purchase of the Margry papers, at the instance of Parkman, the historian.
During Garfield's service in the House he was the leader of its best thought. Everything he did and said manifested the serious, reverent love of excellence. He was ever grave, earnest, addressing himself only to the reason and conscience of his auditors. You will search his speeches in vain for an appeal to a base motive or an evil passion. He was remarkably independent in forming his judgments and inflexible in adhering to them on all grand and essential questions. His friend and Commander, General Thomas, whose stubborn courage saved the day in the battle for the possession of Tennessee, was well called The Rock of Chickamauga. In the greater battle in 1876 for the Nation's honor Garfield well deserves to be called The Rock of Ohio. There has been hardly any single service to this country in recent times greater than that rendered by him when he stood against the fiat money movement in Ohio.
CHAPTER XXIX FOUR NATIONAL CONVENTIONS 1884
It happened to me again to be put at the head of the Massachusetts delegation in the convention of 1884. The leading candidates were Mr. Blaine and President Arthur. Mr. Arthur had, in many respects, made a very satisfactory President. He was a man of pleasant manners and skilled in the subtle ways of New York politicians. He had been one of the chief representatives of a faction in the Republican Party, and he never seemed able to shake off the influences which had surrounded him before his election. At a dinner shortly after he was chosen Vice-President, he made an apparently approving allusion to what he called the use of soap, which was understood to mean the use of money for corrupt purposes. He made a fatal mistake, as it always seemed to me, in permitting the resignation of President Garfield's Cabinet and filling their places with men who, like himself, belonged to the Grant faction. If he had said that he would not allow the act of an assassin to make a change in the forces that were to control the Administration so far as could be helped and that he would carry into effect the purposes of his predecessor, wherever he could in conscience do so, he would have maintained himself in the public esteem. But that was not his only mistake. Inconsiderately he lent himself to the popular prejudice against the policy of river and harbor improvements, and, in vetoing a bill passed by large majorities in both Houses of Congress, he sent in a message in which he said in substance that the more corrupt the measure the more votes it was likely to get in Congress. When in the next winter he was asked to specify the objectionable items in the bill he had vetoed, which appropriated about $18,000,000, he was able to point out less than five per cent. of all the appropriations which he could say he thought were for purposes not required by the interests of international or interstate commerce. And his claim was thoroughly refuted even in regard to the items which he specified. He also made some very bad appointments, which deeply offended the best Republican sentiment in many of the States. It is a little singular that the appointment of the Collector of the Port of Boston should have cost two Presidents of the United States a renomination. Yet so it is. The old feeling in Massachusetts that it was not, on the whole, desirable to nominate Mr. Blaine existed in great strength. The business men liked Arthur. They thought their interests were safe with him. But the honest Republican sentiment of Massachusetts was deeply outraged by the appointment to the office of Collector of Boston, of Mr. Roland Worthington, against the protest of her Senators and Representatives in Congress. He had been known only as an unscrupulous supporter of General Butler, and as the editor of a scurrilous newspaper which bitterly attacked the opponents of that person even where they were honest and trusted Republicans. To give this place to Mr. Worthington the President refused to reappoint Mr. Beard, who had made an admirable Collector, and who was supported by a large majority of the best men of Boston. It was believed that this appointment had been made in exchange for assurances of General Butler's support in the approaching election. Worthington made a poor Collector, and, at the State election after his appointment, voted for Butler against the candidate of the Republican Party. But for the indignation caused by this appointment, I think the delegation from Massachusetts, with three exceptions, would have supported Mr. Arthur for reelection. There would have been no movement for Mr. Edmunds, and but for that movement Mr. Arthur would have received the Republican nomination. Upon the final ballot the vote of Massachusetts was seven for Arthur, three for Blaine and eighteen for Edmunds.
A somewhat interesting incident occurred which shows the depth of a feeling, which I think was largely a prejudice, which is still manifesting itself as a disturbing element in American politics. There was a great desire on the part of those who were opposed to both Arthur and Blaine, to find a candidate upon whom they could unite, of such popularity and national distinction as to make it impossible for the managers for these candidates to hold their forces together. We thought that General Sherman was the person that we wanted. It was known that he had written a letter to Mr. Blaine declining to have his name used, and that a telegram had been received from him by a delegate during the session of the convention to the same effect. But it was thought that if he were once nominated he would find it impossible to decline, and that his previous refusal would be an element of strength and not of weakness in the country. After the adjournment, which was at 11:45 A. M., on Friday, June 6, the day before the balloting, I made an arrangement to meet Mr. George William Curtis, the Chairman of the New York delegation, and one or two other gentlemen of the same way of thinking, from one or two other States, and we agreed that when the convention came in again we would cast the votes of our delegates who agreed with us for General Sherman. I had been authorized by a large majority of the Massachusetts delegation to have this interview, and I knew that I represented their opinions, although they had not, all of them, spoken to me about General Sherman. When I got back to the next meeting of the convention, I made known to them what I had done. I was told by several of them that they would stand by me, but that it would cause great dissatisfaction when they got home.
"What is the matter?" I said. "Our people do not want a Father Confessor in the White House," was the answer. Although General Sherman was a Protestant, it is well known that his wife was a Catholic. Soon after, Mr. Curtis came over to my seat and said: "Mr. Hoar, I cannot carry out our agreement." "What is the matter?" said I. "There is an insurrection in the New York delegation," was his reply. "They do not want a Father Confessor in the White House." So we agreed we should have to give it up. When I came back to Washington, I called at John Sherman's house and talked over the convention with him. I told him the story I have just related. He said he was not surprised, and that he believed the unwillingness to have the religious faith of his wife made matter of public discussion had a good deal to do with his brother's refusal to permit himself to be a candidate.
While the convention of 1884 did not nominate the candidate favored by the Republicans of Massachusetts, the action of the State, in my opinion, was decisive in defeating the nomination of President Arthur. But for that there would have been no movement for Edmunds, and his support would have gone to the President. Mr. Blaine, who was nominated, was defeated at the election. The event proved him a much stronger candidate than I had supposed, and his subsequent career in the Department of State, I believe, satisfied a majority of his countrymen that he would have made an able and discreet President. I suppose it would hardly be denied now by persons acquainted with the details of the management of the Democratic campaign, at any rate I have heard the fact admitted by several very distinguished Democrats, members of the Senate of the United States, that the plurality of the vote of New York was really cast for Mr. Blaine, and that he was unjustly deprived of election by the fraud at Long Island City by which votes cast for the Butler Electoral Ticket were counted for Cleveland. I suppose also that but for the utterances of a foolish clergyman named Burchard, Mr. Blaine's majority in that State would have been so large that these frauds would have been ineffectual.
CHAPTER XXX FOUR NATIONAL CONVENTIONS 1888
In 1888 there was a very strong, almost irresistible feeling among Republicans in the country that Blaine should be put in nomination again, although he had peremptorily and publicly refused to be a candidate. He was travelling abroad during that year. His mental vigor was unabated, as was shown by his answer to Cleveland's free trade message, which was cabled across the ocean and reached the people almost as soon as the message. But the disease of which he afterward died was then upon him, as was known to some few of his intimate friends. Besides that, he had had an attack at Milan, which deprived him for a good while of the use of his limbs on one side. In 1892 I was in the care, at Milan, of a man who I suppose was the most eminent physician in the north of Italy, Dr. Fornoni, who gave me an account of Mr. Blaine's illness in the very apartments where I was ill, and which Blaine had occupied before me. But when the convention came together they were so eager to nominate Blaine that he was obliged to send another cable, I think, from Paris, insisting that his wishes should be respected. There was a great diversity of opinion as to candidates, but little of the eager antagonism that had characterized the preceding convention. The Republican Party had been sobered a good deal by four years of adversity. The delegates from Massachusetts where:
At Large.—George F. Hoar, Worcester; Henry S. Hyde, West Springfield; Frederick L. Burden, North Attleboro; Alanson W. Beard, Boston.