[Conversed with Messieurs Seymour, Tilden and Kelly at 15 Gramercy Park to-day. Big fellows all of them, but entirely distinct types. Let me see if I can depict them.
Horatio Seymour is a man well advanced in life, tall, well-shaped, though rather spare in build, with a beaming open countenance, a bright speaking eye, expressive mouth and a large nose. The marks and lines of the face and forehead are deep and strong. His language is quite Saxon in its selection and character, words of one or two syllables prevailing. His expression of thought was clear enough to be taken down by a stenographer as prepared utterances. His range of subjects is large, and his treatment of each ready and versatile. It is conversation all the time, not platform or stump-speaking. The fault with him seems to be one which any person of such eminent parts might be liable to—it is an occasional tendency to diffusion, a Narcissus-like disposition to dwell on the shadow mirrored in the wave; not vanity, but an introspective play of thought. His mental bent is speculative, which perhaps accounts for his sometimes presenting a thought under a great variety of aspects. He throws out an opinion, and follows it up by a profusion of suggestive considerations. Instead, however, of pausing after the stroke was dealt, he would now and again keep on elaborating his points until the conversation began to expand into a disquisition. The key remained conversational still, while the range was widening. But let an interruption occur, and the ex-Governor knew how to conclude with a hasty stroke or two. His descriptive power is good, but not so good as his reach and closeness of observation into general principles, and his capacity to grasp and develop causes and effects. He is more of a philosopher than a delineator, and has humor too, which draws the laugh at will.
Governor Tilden is a spare, close-cut man, of rather a nautical appearance. You might mistake him in a crowd for a weather-beaten old tar retired from the deck of a man-of-war, to enjoy a little needed repose. His movements and quiet speech suggest the idea to a stranger of a cold, formal, negative man, reticent, receptive, and not easily to be enlisted in ordinary matters. Five minutes conversation with him will suffice to upset such an opinion. First you will most probably be struck with his eyes, which have an indefinable expression. It would be spectral, if it were not now melancholy, and again indicative of a womanly tenderness. There is a peculiar play in them which expresses a great deal. His voice is low, and one might suppose, till he begins to converse, that he is a better listener than talker. The forehead is gnarled and concentrated, and on phrenological principles would not indicate a marked presence of the intellectual faculties, considered by itself; but if you draw an imaginary line from the tip of the ears across the head, it is evident that the brain power from the brows to this line is proportionately very large, and phrenologically very strong. His nose is a decided aquiline, the mouth full but compressed, and the chin prominent, and indicative of a marked preponderance of the vital forces. His conversation is more nervous than Seymour’s, but not so copious. He seems better pleased with the suggestion than elaboration of ideas. He can, however, when you don’t want to talk but to listen, throw an analytical strength into his expressions which sustains his reputation for sagacity and vigor. Governor Tilden is classical in diction. The right word is used all the time, although not a shadow of art is perceptible in the language. He seems bent on convincing you by what he has to say, and not by his manner of saying it. His method of reasoning is logical and exhaustive, and yet it is analytical and not synthetical. He leaves his listener to draw conclusions. He is less given to generalization than to subtle methods of mastering subjects. He has a quiet way of talking, and of saying trenchant, sententious things. Governor Tilden strikes me as a man who would be very slow to gain popularity by dash of manners or exterior conduct, but as having grit in him, and a genius for accomplishing what he undertakes. He is already named in several quarters as a prominent Democratic candidate for the next Presidency.
John Kelly, leader of Tammany Hall, remains to be described. He is a very different man from Seymour or Tilden. An English traveler once heard Daniel Webster on the stump in an interior New England town. As he gazed at “Black Dan” with his massy brows playing with ponderous thought, and his great arm and big body swaying back and forth in obedience to the ideas he was expressing, the first impression of the Englishman was: “Why this man Webster, with his herculean frame and sledge-hammer fist, would have proved the most formidable gladiator that ever entered the arena—if Providence had not given him a still bigger head than body. He is a magnificent creature considered as an animal, but a still more magnificent man.” Kelly answers this description. The New York Herald once compared him to General Grant on account of his quiet manners and reticence. He stands two or three inches under six feet, weighs about two hundred and thirty or forty pounds, is active and firm in step and movement, and from his leonine aspect must be the envy of those who delight in the manly art of self-defence. His forehead is massive and broad, with a wealth of phrenological development; over his physiognomy are the lines of decision and benevolence of character. The under jaw is large and firmly set, imparting to his face an air of command and resolution. In conversation he is modest and direct, and seldom speaks of himself. That he is a man of action is at once revealed to the observer. He has humor and a keen appreciation of the amusing side of human nature. His manners are quiet and frank, but underneath there is discernible a cool and commanding spirit. A mingled air of bonhommie and sternness proclaims to all that he knows how to command obedience as well as respect, and if once fairly aroused no man can confront an enemy with sterner mien, or more annihilation in his glance. Those who have seen him in stormy public place, where such qualities alone avail, have often witnessed this quiet man’s transformation into the fiery ruler of his fellows.[64]]
The extraordinary victories of the Tammany Democracy for several years after Mr. Kelly became its leader, at length aroused jealousies and rivalries, and it began to look as though the successful leader had enemies in Printing-house Square. Perhaps the editors thought they should have been consulted more frequently in regard to nominations and other matters, and perhaps Mr. Kelly made a mistake in not oftener seeking their advice. At all events, an animated newspaper fire was opened upon him in 1875. He was called a boss, a dictator; “one man power” was furiously denounced; and so savage was this onslaught, that if the editors had not modified their expressions after election, and even begun again to speak handsomely of him, one might have imagined that John Kelly was a veritable Ogre, a lineal successor to Tweed, instead of the destroyer of Tweedism. But it was all only a custom of the country at elections, and not an expression of the editorial conscience. No man occupying a high place ever escapes these fusillades; John Kelly formed no exception to the invariable rule. At the election of that year the Tammany ticket was badly defeated. Replying to these denunciations against the Tammany Chief, Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, then Chairman of the General Committee of the Tammany Democracy, made a speech, October 30, 1875, in the course of which he said:
“The assertion that John Kelly is a dictator is an insult to Tammany and its members. All organizations must have leaders, and no one but John Kelly could have done the work that he has performed. The city of New York owes to that calumniated man honors that statues could not adequately pay. There is no desire in John Kelly’s breast so strong as to be relieved from his present onerous position but if some one of respectability was not found to do such labors, the city of New York would be soon as uninhabitable as a den of wild beasts.”[65]
One of the shrewdest political observers who has figured during recent years in New York politics, was the late Hugh J. Hastings, editor of the Commercial Advertiser. As a Republican he was opposed to Democrats, but he had the blunt candor to speak of John Kelly in the following manner:
“On the ruins of Tweed rose Kelly, of Tammany Hall, and Tilden, Hewitt, and Cooper joined his Court, and were numbered among his legions. Under Kelly the condition of society has improved in the city, and we might add the municipal government,—all know there was great room for improvement. Kelly has ruled the fierce Democracy in such a manner that life and property are comparatively safe. It is a fearful responsibility to hold this wild element in check. Beasts of burden may easily be managed by a new master. But will the wild ass submit to the bonds? Will the unicorn serve and abide his crib? Will the leviathan hold out his nostrils to the hook? The mythological conqueror of the East, whose enchantments reduced wild beasts to the tameness of domestic cattle, and who harnessed lions and tigers to his chariot, is but an imperfect type of the man who can control the wild, whiskey-drinking and fierce spirits that make up the worst elements of this great city. It requires a great man to stand between the City Treasury and this most dangerous mass. It demands courage, activity, energy, wisdom, or vices so splendid and alluring as to resemble virtues. Again we say, dethrone Kelly, and where is the man to succeed him?”[66]
The spirit of faction, the curse of New York politics from the beginning of the century, was again distracting the Democratic party. New York and Albany are natural political antagonists, as were Carthage and Rome of old.
The Constitutional Conventions of 1821 and 1846, by enlarging the elective features of government, had greatly relieved New York, and greatly diminished the power of the Albany Regency, but the love of power is inbred in man, and special legislation at the State capital still holds the giant metropolis in political leading strings. During Mr. Tilden’s administration as Governor, he and his old friend Mr. Kelly became involved in unfortunate differences as leaders of rival wings of the Democratic party of the State. It were useless here to recapitulate the story of this disastrous breach between two statesmen who had done so much when acting together to purify the public service; each occupying the place he held at the wish, and by the powerful assistance of the other; Kelly in Tammany at Tilden’s urgent request, and Tilden called back from Europe by a cable dispatch from Kelly to run for Governor of New York. It were worse than useless to revive the bitter memories of the strife. Let them be buried in oblivion. A few weeks before the St. Louis Convention in 1876, Mr. Tilden called upon Mr. Kelly, and talked over old times. Before leaving, the Governor humorously remarked: