The inner sanctuary of our proceedings was a common drawing-room between two bedchambers, occupied by Schurz and myself. Here we repaired after supper to smoke the pipe of fraternity and reform, and to save the country. What might be done to kill off “D. Davis,” as we irreverently called the eminent and learned jurist, the friend of Lincoln and the only aspirant having a “bar’l”? That was the question. We addressed ourselves to the task with earnest purpose, but characteristically. The power of the press must be invoked. It was our chief if not our only weapon. Seated at the same table each of us indited a leading editorial for his paper, to be wired to its destination and printed next morning, striking D. Davis at a prearranged and varying angle. Copies of these were made for Halstead, who having with the rest of us read and compared the different scrolls indited one of his own in general commentation and review for Cincinnati consumption. In next day’s Commercial, blazing under vivid headlines, these leading editorials, dated “Chicago” and “New York,” “Springfield, Mass.,” and “Louisville, Ky.,” appeared with the explaining line “The Tribune of to-morrow morning will say—” “The Courier-Journal”—and the Republican—will say to-morrow morning—”
Wondrous consensus of public opinion! The Davis boom went down before it. The Davis boomers were paralyzed. The earth seemed to have risen and hit them midships. The incoming delegates were arrested and forewarned. Six months of adroit scheming was set at naught, and little more was heard of “D. Davis.”
We were, like the Mousquetaires, equally in for fighting and foot-racing, the point with us being to get there, no matter how; the end—the defeat of the rascally machine politicians and the reform of the public service—justifying the means. I am writing this nearly fifty years after the event and must be forgiven the fling of my wisdom at my own expense and that of my associates in harmless crime.
Some ten years ago I wrote: “Reid and White and I the sole survivors; Reid a great Ambassador, White and I the virtuous ones, still able to sit up and take notice, with three meals a day for which we are thankful and able to pay; no one of us recalcitrant. We were wholly serious—maybe a trifle visionary, but as upright and patriotic in our intentions and as loyal to our engagements as it was possible for older and maybe better men to be. For my part I must say that if I have never anything on my conscience worse than the massacre of that not very edifying yet promising combine I shall be troubled by no remorse, but to the end shall sleep soundly and well.”
Alas, I am not the sole survivor. In this connection an amusing incident throwing some light upon the period thrusts itself upon my memory. The Quadrilateral, including Reid, had just finished its consolidation of public opinion before related, when the cards of Judge Craddock, chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Committee, and of Col. Stoddard Johnston, editor of the Frankfort Yeoman, the organ of the Kentucky Democracy, were brought from below. They had come to look after me—that was evident. By no chance could they find me in more equivocal company. In addition to ourselves—bad enough, from the Kentucky point of view—Theodore Tilton, Donn Piatt and David A. Wells were in the room.
When the Kentuckians crossed the threshold and were presented seriatim the face of each was a study. Even a proper and immediate application of whisky and water did not suffice to restore their lost equilibrium and bring them to their usual state of convivial self-possession. Colonel Johnston told me years after that when they went away they walked in silence a block or two, when the old judge, a model of the learned and sedate school of Kentucky politicians and jurists, turned to him and said: “It is no use, Stoddart, we cannot keep up with that young man or with these times. ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!’”
IV
The Jupiter Tonans of reform in attendance upon the convention was Col. Alexander K. McClure. He was one of the handsomest and most imposing of men; Halstead himself scarcely more so. McClure was personally unknown to the Quadrilateral. But this did not stand in the way of our asking him to dine with us as soon as his claims to fellowship in the good cause of reform began to make themselves apparent through the need of bringing the Pennsylvania delegation to a realizing sense.
He looked like a god as he entered the room; nay, he acted like one. Schurz first took him in hand. With a lofty courtesy I have never seen equalled he tossed his inquisitor into the air. Halstead came next, and tried him upon another tack. He fared no better than Schurz. And hurrying to the rescue of my friends, McClure, looking now a bit bored and resentful, landed me somewhere near the ceiling.
It would have been laughable if it had not been ignominious. I took my discomfiture with the bad grace of silence throughout the stiff, formal and brief meal which was then announced. But when it was over and the party, risen from table, was about to disperse I collected my energies and resources for a final stroke. I was not willing to remain so crushed nor to confess myself so beaten, though I could not disguise from myself a feeling that all of us had been overmatched.