Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

District.—Frank S. Stevens, Swansea; Jonathan Bourne,
New Bedford; William H. Bent, Taunton; Eben L. Ripley, Hingham;
Arthur W. Tufts, Boston; Edward P. Wilbur, Boston; Jesse M.
Gove, Boston; Charles J. Noyes, Boston; Edward D. Hayden,
Woburn; Elmer H. Capen, Somerville; William B. Littlefield,
Lynn; Samuel W. McCall, Winchester; William Cogswell, Salem;
William E. Blunt, Haverhill; Joseph L. Sargent, Dracut; George
S. Merrill, Lawrence; J. Henry Gould, Medford; David Farquhar,
Newton; William A. Gile, Worcester; George L. Gibbs, Northbridge;
John W. Wheeler, Orange; John G. Mackintosh, Holyoke; Emerson
Gaylord, Chicopee; and William M. Prince, Pittsfield.

I was very desirous that the vote of Massachusetts should be given to John Sherman. He was, except Mr. Blaine, unquestionably the most distinguished living Republican statesman. He had been an able champion of the opinions which the Republicans of Massachusetts held, and of the policies under which her special industries had been fostered. To nominate him would be to go back to the early habit of placing the greatest and wisest statesmen of the country in its highest offices. But I could not get the majority of the Massachusetts delegation to come to my way of thinking. General Coggswell, a very able and accomplished member of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Edward D. Hayden, also a member of the House—a service which he left greatly to the regret of his own constituents and the people of the State—seemed to have very strong objections indeed to Mr. Sherman. The delegation very kindly offered before the first ballot, and again just before the fourth or fifth ballot, to present my name as the candidate of Massachusetts. It would have been a very great honor to have received such a vote from Massachusetts. I was told also by gentlemen from other States, who spoke to me about it, that I should have had a considerable vote from other parts of the country. I had quite a number of very intimate friends in the convention from States outside of Massachusetts. I thought then, and think now, though that is a matter of conjecture, that I should have got about seventy votes. But I thought my nomination out of the question. I thought also that it would be utterly inexpedient, if it could be accomplished. And I thought also that the office of a Senator from Massachusetts would be more agreeable to me, and better adapted to my capacity than that of the President of the United States. Still the temptation to get the high compliment and honor of such a vote was very strong indeed. But there were thirteen of our delegation of twenty-eight, who were willing to vote with me for Mr. Sherman. If I had consented to the subtraction of their votes from his column on the first ballot, it would have made a serious diminution of his strength.

If I had consented to the same thing on a later ballot it would have put him in the position of having his forces diminishing and falling away. I thought I ought not, for a mere empty honor to myself, to permit such an injury to be inflicted upon him, although I confess I did not then think his nomination likely. But while the Massachusetts delegation does not seem to me to have exerted a very decisive influence upon the result of that convention, it came very near it. After several ineffectual ballotings, in which the votes of the different States were divided among several candidates, the convention took a recess at twelve o'clock to four o'clock of the same day. Immediately a meeting was called by a number of gentlemen representing different delegations in a room in the building where the convention was held, for consultation, and to see if they could agree upon a candidate. The Massachusetts delegation had authorized me to cast their vote as a unit for any candidate whom I should think best, whom sixteen of the delegates— being one more than a majority—approved. I had ascertained their opinion. While as I said there were but thirteen at most who would support Sherman, considerably more than sixteen were willing to support either Harrison or Allison, and perhaps one or two others, who had been prominently mentioned, including, I think, Mr. Depew, although of that I am not certain. We met as I said. The New York delegation had authorized its vote to be cast unanimously for any person on whom the four delegates at large, Platt, Miller, Depew and Hiscock, representing different shades of opinion in the Republican Party of that State, should agree. Three of these gentlemen, Platt, Miller and Hiscock, were present at the meeting. Mr. Quay, Chairman of the Pennsylvania delegation, was also authorized to cast the vote of the entire delegation as he should think fit. Mr. Spooner of Wisconsin, Chairman of the Wisconsin delegation, was present with a like authority. Mr. Farwell, Chairman of the Illinois delegation, was present with a like authority from his State. Mr. Clarkson, Chairman of the Iowa delegation, was present with authority to vote for Mr. Allison from the beginning. De Young, of California, thought he could speak for his people, though I believe without claiming authority from them. Filley, of Missouri, was also present. There were several other gentlemen of influence, though not all of them delegates, and not all of them entitled to speak for their States, but feeling able to assure the company that their States would accede to whatever agreement might be made there. The names of several candidates were discussed. I made a very earnest speech in favor of Mr. Allison, setting forth what I thought were the qualities that would make him a popular candidate, and would make him an able and wise President.

Finally, all agreed that their States should vote for Mr. Allison when the convention came in in the afternoon. Depew, as I have said, was absent. But his three colleagues said there could be no doubt that he would agree to their action, and there would be no difficulty about New York. We thought it best as a matter of precaution, to meet again a half-hour before the coming in of the convention, to make sure the thing was to go through all right. I suppose that everybody in that room when he left it felt as certain as of any event in the future that Mr. Allison would be nominated in the convention.

But when we met at the time fixed, the three delegates at large from New York said they were sorry they could not carry out their engagement. Mr. Depew, who had been supported as a candidate by his State in the earlier ballots, had made a speech withdrawing his name. But when the action of the meeting was reported to him, he said he had been compelled to withdraw by the opposition of the Agrarian element, which was hostile to railroads. He was then President of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company. He said that his opposition to him came largely from Iowa, and from the Northwest, where was found the chief support of Allison; that while he had withdrawn his own name, he would not so far submit to such an unreasonable and socialistic sentiment as to give his consent that it should dictate a candidate for the Republican Party. The three other delegates at large were therefore compelled to refuse their support to the arrangement which had been conditionally agreed upon, and the thing fell through. If it had gone on, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Iowa, California, and perhaps Missouri, would have cast their votes unanimously for Allison, and his nomination would have been sure. I think no other person ever came so near the Presidency of the United States, and missed it.

The result was the nomination of Mr. Harrison. It was a nomination quite agreeable to me. I had sat near him in the Senate for six years, my seat only separated from his by that of John Sherman, who, for a large part of the time, had been President pro tempore. So Sherman's seat was not then occupied and Harrison and I were next neighbors. I had become very intimate with him, and had learned to respect him highly as a very able, upright and wise man, although he developed, as President, an ability which I think his most intimate friends had not known before. Our relations then, and afterward, were exceedingly cordial. He was a wise, pure, upright and able President, and an eloquent orator, capable of uttering great truths in a great way, and able to bring them home to the understanding and conviction of his countrymen. He lacked what gave Mr. Blaine so great a charm, the quality of an agreeable and gracious manner. He had little tact in dealing with individuals. If a man travelled three thousand miles across the continent to say something to President Harrison, he would find himself broken in upon two minutes after the conversation began with a lecture in which the views in opposition to his were vigorously, and, sometimes roughly, set forth. He did this even when he was of the same way of thinking and meant to grant the gentleman's request. Blaine would refuse a request in a way that would seem like doing a favor. Harrison would grant a request in a way which seemed as if he were denying it. An eminent Western Senator said to me once what, of course, was a great exaggeration, that if Harrison were to address an audience of ten thousand men, he would capture them all. But if each one of them were presented to him in private, he would make him his enemy.

However, in spite of all this the country was safe with him. While his hand was on the helm she would keep the course of safety, of honor, of glory, of prosperity, of republican liberty. There would be no fear for the future of the country if we were sure to have in the great office of President a succession of Benjamin Harrisons.

This fault of his is a fault apt to beset good and honest men, especially when they are under the burden of great anxieties and cares. Such men at such times are intent upon the object to be accomplished. They are not thinking of personal considerations, of making friends or allies, or of the impression they are making for themselves upon mankind. But they need to learn a lesson. It is a lesson which many of them learn very late in life, that many a good cause has been jeopardized or lost by this infirmity of men who are leaders on the righteous side. There is written on the walls of one of the great English schools a legend which I suppose has been there for seven hundred years: "Manners Makyth Man." It is a curious fact, however, that this legend illustrates a portrait of a pig.

But while public men ought to be made to see how great a thing this is, the people ought to learn how little a thing it is— how insignificant are these foibles, irritable temper, habits of personal discourtesy, impatience, even vanity and self- confidence, compared with the great things that concern the character, the welfare, and the glory of the State. I beg to assure my readers that I make these observations partly as a critic and partly as a penitent.

I wrote to Benjamin Harrison after the Presidential campaign of 1896, urging him to consent to come to the Senate from Indiana, citing the example of Presidents Adams and Johnson, both of whom came back to public life after they had been President, although Mr. Johnson did not live to render any service in the Senate.