Fifty years in Wall Street

by Henry Clews

Judge Robertson, himself the greatest sufferer by the curious turn affairs had taken, was the first to believe that the nomination of Dix was one of Conkling’s masterstrokes of political policy. He never thought of looking to any other source for its emanation. He believed in his soul it was the work of Conkling, and he thinks so to this day.

I happened to have been better informed, however; but my explanation would have hardly passed muster at that time, and I would have been charged with egotism if I had attempted to explain. I think an explanation is now in order, however, and may point a moral as well as help to adorn a tale.

History is said to be philosophy teaching by example, and one great historian has said that no one event in itself is any more important than another, except from what it teaches posterity by its example. So, for the benefit of posterity, I now state the facts on this historical principle.

I am willing to make affidavit on the revised edition of the good book that prior to the Utica Convention the name of General Dix was not even lisped by Senator Conkling within my hearing, nor was Dix ever thought of even remotely by the Senator as a possible candidate.

I am almost certain that the Senator had taken no action that could possibly conflict with the interests of Judge Robertson prior to the mention of the name of Dix at the Convention. In fact, with the exceptions previously stated, I am quite certain that the name of Dix was a genuine surprise to the entire Convention, managers and all.

Judge Robertson thought differently, however. He believed that Conkling was the cause of his defeat, and to this misapprehension is due the enmity that sprang up between these two men, and worked with various results to the defeat of the political aims of both ever since.

As I was Senator Conkling’s guest, this seemed to create a conviction in the mind of Judge Robertson, without any inquiry into the matter, that I had acted at the instigation of Conkling in bringing Dix to the front; whereas the conception of Dix as the best candidate originated solely with myself, nor did I ever suggest the idea to Conkling until I addressed the Convention, in favor of General Dix.

Believing as he did, that the Senator had played the marplot to such perfection at Utica, Robertson was naturally on the watch for the first opportunity that would enable him to get even with the friend whom he suspected of having so basely betrayed him, and with having blocked his way to political preferment.

This opportunity came at the Chicago Convention, when the Utica statesman was managing matters very successfully to nominate General Grant for a third term.

It is curious that the very circumstance which was most conducive to Grant’s success for the second term was the remote cause of his defeat for the third. Senator Conkling had no idea of the deep-seated enmity that lodged in the breast of Robertson. He had done nothing, knowingly, to merit it, and had been calculating on the co-operation of Robertson, as usual. He was not aware of the smouldering fire of vengeance that lay latent in the bosom of his friend. He supposed that Robertson and his co-mates in politics were with him as in days of yore in the support of General Grant. He imagined that he had gone to Chicago with a full hand, but instead of that he was short of some of his best cards, and his enemies had them stocked in a way that finally brought him to grief.