Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SEVENTY YEARS

CHAPTER I ELECTION TO THE SENATE

I have every reason to believe that my constituents in the Worcester district would have gladly continued me in the public service for ten years longer, if I had been so minded. I presided over the District Convention that nominated my successor. Before the convention was called to order the delegates crowded around me and urged me to reconsider my refusal to stand for another term, and declared they would gladly nominate me again. But I persisted in my refusal. I supposed then that my political career was ended. My home and my profession and my library had an infinite attraction for me. I had become thoroughly sick of Washington and politics and public life.

But the Republican Party in Massachusetts was having a death struggle with General Butler. That very able, adroit and ambitious man was attempting to organize the political forces of the State into a Butler party, and to make them the instrument of his ambitions. He had in some mysterious way got the ear of General Grant and the control of the political patronage of the State, so far as the United States offices were concerned. I had denounced him and his methods with all my might in a letter I had written to the people of Massachusetts, from which I have already made extracts. I had incurred his bitter personal enmity, and was regarded with perhaps one exception, that of my older brother Judge Hoar, as his most unrelenting opponent.

The people of Massachusetts were never an office-seeking people. There is no State in the Union whose representatives at the seat of Government have less trouble in that way, or that gives less trouble to the Executive Departments or to the President. I have had that assurance from nearly every President since I have been in public life. And the people of Massachusetts have never concerned themselves very much as to who should hold the Executive offices, small or large, so that they were honestly and faithfully served, and that the man appointed was of good character and standing. The reform which took the civil service out of politics always found great favor in Massachusetts. But since General Butler, in some way never fully explained to the public, got the ear of the appointing power he seemed to be filling all the Departments at Washington with his adherents, especially the important places in the Treasury. The public indignation was deeply aroused. Men dreaded to read the morning papers lest they should see the announcement of the removal from the public service of some honest citizen, or brave soldier, who was filling the place of postmaster or marshal, or Custom House official, or clerk in a Department at Washington, and the putting in his place some unscrupulous follower of the fortunes of General Butler. The climax was reached when Butler's chief lieutenant, Simmons, was appointed Collector of the Port of Boston. Judge Russell, the old Collector, was an able and very popular man. He had given Butler a sort of half-hearted support. But he was incapable of lending himself to any base or unworthy purpose. He was compelled to vacate the office, much to his disgust. He accepted that of Minister to Venezuela, an unimportant foreign mission, and William A. Simmons was appointed in his place. The process of weeding out the Custom House then went on with great rapidity. Colonel Moulton, one of the bravest soldiers of the Civil War, who had been under rebel fire in a Charleston dungeon, and Colonel A. A. Sherman, a man with a marvellous military record, were removed to make way for men for whom, to say the least, the public had no respect. The order for their removal was recalled in consequence of a direct appeal to President Grant. Mr. Hartwell, the Treasurer, an excellent officer, who had graduated the first scholar at Harvard, was removed. Mrs. Chenoweth, a very accomplished lady, widow of one of the bravest officers of the Civil War, a member of Grant's staff, who was filling a clerical position at the Custom House, was notified of her removal. That also was arrested by a direct appeal to Grant. General Andrews, one of our best officers, afterwards professor at West Point, was dropped from the office of Marshal, and one of the adherents of Butler put in his place.

The indignation of the better class of Republicans was aroused. Before the appointment of Simmons, Mr. Boutwell had been elected Senator, and Mr. Richardson had succeeded him as Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Boutwell was a favorite with the President. Mr. Sumner, then the senior Senator, was on the most unfriendly relations with the President, and had opposed his reelection to the best of his ability. It was not considered likely, under the custom then universally prevailing and indeed prevailing ever since, that President Grant would ever have made such an appointment without the entire approval of the Senator from the State interested, with whom he was on most friendly terms and who had served in his Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury. Governor Boutwell was consulted about it, and gave it his approval, although it is understood that afterward, in obedience to the indignant feeling of the people, which was deeply excited, he voted against the confirmation of Simmons in the Senate. At the same time he informed his associates that he did not wish to have them understand that he requested them to vote against Simmons because of his opposition, or because of any so-called courtesy of the Senate. Simmons was the manager of Mr. Boutwell's campaign for reelection, and General Butler was his earnest supporter, giving him notice and urging him to repair at once to Boston when the movement against him became formidable.

I am quite sure that but for the determination of the people of Massachusetts not to endure Butler and Butlerism any longer, and probably but for the appointment of Simmons, I should never have been elected Senator. It is likely there would have been no change in the office until this moment.

When I left home for Washington at the beginning of the December session of Congress in 1876, the late Adin Thayer told me that some of the Republicans had got sick of Butler's rule, and they were determined to have a candidate for Senator who could be trusted to make zealous opposition to him and his methods, and that they proposed to use my name. I told him I did not believe they would be able to get twenty-five votes, that Mr. Boutwell, then Senator, was an able man, and that I did not think the fact even that he was understood to be a strong friend and ally of General Butler would induce the people to displace him. Mr. Thayer replied that at any rate there should be a protest.

I had no communication from any other human being upon the subject of my candidacy for the Senate, and made none to any human being, with one exception, until my election by the Legislature was announced. My oldest sister was fatally sick, and I received a letter every day giving an account of her condition. In a postscript to one letter from my brother, he made some slight allusion to the election for Senator then pending in the Massachusetts Legislature. But with that exception I never heard about it and had nothing to do with it.

I can truly say that I was as indifferent to the result, so far as it affected me personally, as to the question whether I should walk on one side of the street or the other. I did not undervalue the great honor of representing Massachusetts in the Senate of the United States. But I had an infinite longing for my home and my profession and my library. I never found public employment pleasant or congenial. But the fates sent me to the Senate and have kept me there until I am now the man longest in continuous legislative service in this country, and have served in the United States Senate longer than any other man who ever represented Massachusetts.