Anglo-American Memories

by George W. Smalley

I will quote one passage, not from Phillips, but a passage from Edward Everett on free speech which Phillips himself quoted toward the end of his discourse. I quote it because Phillips used often to say that American oratory had few finer examples to show:

I seem to hear a voice from the tombs of departing ages, from the sepulchres of nations that died before the sight. They exhort us, they adjure us, to be faithful to our trust. They implore us, by the long trials of struggling humanity, by the awful secrets of the prison house where the sons of Freedom have been immured, by the noble heads which have been brought to the block, by the eloquent ruins of nations, they conjure us not to quench the light that is rising on the world. Greece cries to us by the convulsed lips of her poisoned, dying Demosthenes, and Rome pleads with us in the mute persuasion of her mangled Tully.

It is not often that a great orator opens his heart to us about the merits of a rival, or whispers to us any one of the secrets of his own or another's eloquence. I cannot remember whether Phillips ever paid to Everett in public the tribute I have often known him pay in private. If he had lived in an age when issues were less vital, or less deadly, he might have found in Everett a model. But Everett has no passion, and passion is an element in almost all Phillips's speeches. And passion, of quite another kind, fierce, vindictive, murderous, he was to meet in another ten minutes.

CHAPTER X
WENDELL PHILLIPS AND THE BOSTON MOBS

Phillips's speech had been all through one to stir deep resentment. The atmosphere of the Music Hall was seething with fierce passion, and it seemed likely enough there would be a rush for the platform when he had finished. If it had come it would have been met. The little band of armed men who concerned themselves about his safety never left his side. But there was no rush. The plans of the enemy were of a different kind. The audience passed quietly out of the hall. A police officer came to tell us that there would be trouble outside. A mob—of course a broadcloth mob—had assembled. What the mob intended only the leaders of it knew, but he assured us that the police were strong enough to deal with it. But he said Mr. Phillips's friends should go with him when he left the hall, and keep with him.

There were, I think, not more than half a dozen of us who were armed—Le Barnes, Hinton, Redpath, Charles Pollen, and one or two others. We told Phillips what he was likely to meet, and that we should walk next to him. When we got to the outer door we found the police disputing with the mob the narrow passage, perhaps fifty yards long, from the hall to Winter Street. It was slow work thrusting these disturbers out, because Winter Street was crowded with the main body of rioters, and there was no room for more. But the police knew their business, and meant to do it, and did it. Inside the passage there was not space enough for an effective attack, even had not the police been too strong. But it took us, I judge, some fifteen minutes to make our way from the hall door to the street.

During this space of time the mob in Winter Street roared at us. They seemed to think we were afraid to go on, and they flung at Phillips such insults as hatred and anger supplied them with—coward, traitor, and so on: with threats besides. Phillips met it all with a smiling face. His hand was on my arm, so that if there had been any nervousness I should have been aware of it. But the pressure of the hand was firm and steady. He was as cool—to use Mr. Rufus Choate's similitude—as a couple of summer mornings. The police who had been a rear-guard, satisfied they were not needed there, had gone to the front.

At first the mob gave little heed to the police. They expected the police, as in Tremont Temple, December 3rd, to be on their side. But this time an officer had command who knew only his duty as policeman. No politics but to keep the peace and protect peaceful citizens. The officer was Deputy Chief Ham. I have since seen a great deal of police work in many parts of the world; in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere; nowhere any better handling of a dangerous mob than this by Deputy Chief Ham. His force was none too large, but his mastery over the mob was never in doubt. In their hand-to-hand struggles in the little passageway the police showed what they were made of. Of Phillips's friends the number had increased as we passed from the platform, but if we had been alone we should have been swallowed up, or we should have been driven almost at once to use our revolvers. But the police were an impregnable wall.