Those acquainted with Mr. Kelly will be proper judges of the fidelity or shortcomings of this picture. They who have read the absurd delineations of him in some of the newspapers, and accept them without more inquiry as reliable, may reject this description of his character as contradictory of their preconceived notions on the subject. There is a third class of witnesses—an increasing class—perhaps more impartial than the two former ones, whose testimony on the point is important. These are strangers who have formed violent prejudices against the man after reading certain newspapers, but who on becoming acquainted with him repudiate their own opinions as rash and preposterously unjust.
“Oh!” but say his enemies, “this is not a fair test; Kelly is plausible and fair-spoken, and has great personal magnetism. Strangers when they meet him fall under his spell.” The objection is a weak one, for these strangers never relapse into their former absurd opinions after they have gone away, and withdrawn themselves out of his spell. Let such strangers decide as to the faithfulness or unfaithfulness of the picture sketched here. A case of the kind occurred at the Cincinnati Democratic Convention in 1880. A delegate to the Convention from the State of Rhode Island was very severe on John Kelly. He had been reading an unfriendly newspaper. He denounced him as a boss, and uttered many just sentiments on the evils of bossism. While he was speaking John Kelly and Augustus Schell passed by, and the former was pointed out to him. “Is that Kelly?” said he. “Well, he doesn’t look much like a New York rough, or bar-room bully anyhow. I have been told he was both.” An introduction followed, and a conversation took place between the delegate and the subject of his recent execrations. “I am greatly obliged to you,” said the Rhode Island delegate to the author of this memoir, who gave the introduction, after Mr. Kelly had parted from him and re-joined Mr. Schell. “I honestly detested John Kelly, as a low, ignorant ward politician, who had conducted a gang of rowdies to this Convention to try and overawe it. So I had been told again and again. Now I don’t believe a word of it. I never talked to a more sensible man, and modest gentleman than John Kelly. This opens my eyes to the whole business.”
In the course of this chapter particular attention has been directed to Mr. Kelly’s war on Know-Nothingism as his chief claim to distinction and the gratitude of his country during his younger days. He became identified with the cause of equal rights in the minds of adopted citizens of various nationalities, especially of the Irish, and contributed as much, after Henry A. Wise, towards the overthrow of the Know-Nothing party, as any man in the United States. The adopted citizens were proud of their champion, and the place which he gained in their affections became so deep that, like Daniel O’Connell in Ireland, he could sway them by his simple word as completely as a general at the head of his army directs its movements. Mr. Kelly never abused this confidence, and consequently has retained his influence to the present day. Many have marvelled at his hold on the people of New York, as great when out of power, as when he has had the patronage of office at his disposal. Among the causes which have conspired to give him the largest Personal following of any man of the present generation, his patriotic services in the old Native American and Know-Nothing days must be reckoned among the chief. Such a hold Dean Swift had upon Irishmen in the eighteenth century. Nothing could break it, nothing weaken it, the King on his throne could not withstand the author of the Drapier’s Letters in his obscure Deanery in Ireland. It is fortunate John Kelly is a just and honest man, unmoved by clamor, not to be bribed by place or power, nor seduced by the temptations of ambition; for were it otherwise, his sway over great multitudes of men might enable him to lead them to the right or left, whichsoever way he might list, a momentous power for good or evil. The politician who ignores this man’s influence, the historian who omits it from his calculation of causes, has not looked below the surface of things, and knows nothing of the real state of affairs in the city and State of New York.
Alexander H. Stephens was acquainted with John Kelly for over a quarter of a century; came into daily contact with him for four years on the floor of Congress; served with him for two years on the Committee of Ways and Means in the House; and his estimate of Mr. Kelly’s character, referred to at a former page, is entitled to respectful consideration from every man in the United States, especially on the part of those who know nothing about him except what they have read in partisan newspapers. “I have often said, and now repeat,” declared Georgia’s great Commoner, “that I regard John Kelly as the ablest, purest and truest statesman that I have ever met with from New York.”
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Cleveland’s Life of A. H Stephens, p. 469.
[7] The greater number of those he was addressing were Know-Nothings.
[8] Cleveland’s Life of A. H. Stephens, p. 472, et seq.
[9] The Carolina Tribute to Calhoun (Rhett’s oration), p. 350.