I next took part in the Cleveland-Blaine campaign. In 1884 we formed in New York City the Cleveland and Hendricks Merchants' and Business Men's Association, of which I was secretary of the executive committee, and we coöperated with the Democratic National Committee, Senator Arthur P. Gorman, chairman, whose headquarters were at the old Fifth Avenue Hotel, corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street. We organized a parade and marched forty thousand strong from lower Broadway to Thirty-Fourth Street. It was the first time business men had ever been organized along political lines.
All who remember this campaign know what an exciting and close battle it was. The dramatic event which doubtless put the balance in Cleveland's favor was the speech of the Rev. Dr. Samuel D. Burchard, a Presbyterian minister of New York, at Republican headquarters. A few days before the election the Republican managers had called what they termed a ministers' meeting, to which came some six hundred clergymen of all denominations to meet Mr. Blaine. Dr. Burchard, noted as an orator, was to speak, followed by Mr. Blaine. In concluding his address, Dr. Burchard evidently lost control of his dignity, for he stigmatized the Democratic Party as the party of "rum, Romanism, and rebellion." In the face of the great efforts the Republican Party had made, with some measure of success, to secure the Roman Catholic vote, this denunciation gave a big opportunity to the Democrats. Furthermore, Blaine, keen a politician as he was, failed immediately to repudiate the remark.
I was present at Democratic headquarters when the reporter who had been sent to this meeting returned. Senator Gorman asked him to read from his shorthand notes, and when he came to the expression, "rum, Romanism, and rebellion," Gorman at once said, "Write that out." The Democratic managers saw their chance. Quickly the whole country was placarded with posters headed "R.R.R.," with all sorts of variations and additions of the original phrase. In the end it was the New York vote that determined the victory for the Democrats, and doubtless because of the influence the words of Dr. Burchard had had upon Roman Catholic voters.
When the election returns were in, Cleveland had won by only 1047 votes. Because of the closeness of the vote in New York the Republicans did not at first concede the victory. Among the Democrats, on the other hand, there was a great feeling of bitterness and nervous apprehension lest an effort be made to make it a Republican victory, as was the case in 1876 when the uncertain returns were decided by an electoral commission, which, to the disappointment of many, made its decision on party lines. Jay Gould, who controlled the telegraph lines, was accused by the Democrats of holding back returns.
The Merchants' and Business Men's Association promptly organized a large meeting in the Academy of Music, to proclaim and celebrate Cleveland's election. August Belmont, Sr., as chairman, presided, and I, as secretary, presented the resolutions. We had invited the most prominent speakers we could get, and there were Henry Ward Beecher, Daniel Dougherty of Philadelphia, Algernon S. Sullivan, among others. I distinctly recall a humorous and cryptic remark of Beecher's address that day: "If the chair is too small, make it larger"—referring to Cleveland's avoirdupois and the claim that he did not fit in the presidential chair. The note of victory, and the determination to stand by that victory at all costs, had a reassuring effect throughout the country.
When the campaign was over I was told by a member of the National Committee that if there was any political office to which I aspired, the Committee would be glad to further any ambition I might have; but I replied my only wish was that Cleveland live up to the political principles which had brought him the support of so many independent or "mugwump" voters and so made possible his election.
During the winter of 1883-84 the Young Men's Hebrew Association invited me to speak in their course of lectures. I was to choose my own subject. They had hired Chickering Hall, at Fifth Avenue and Fifteenth Street, a large lecture hall in those days, and as great importance was being attached to the occasion I naturally put my best foot forward in the preparation of my material. I chose as my theme "The Origin of the Republican Form of Government." In it I traced the rise of democracy, in contradistinction to monarchy, from the Hebrew Commonwealth as expounded in the Old Testament and interpreted by the early Puritans of New England, especially in their "election sermons," which were of a politico-religious character and were delivered annually before the legislatures of the various New England colonies.
There was a huge audience, and the next morning the press gave very generous reports of the address. It attracted the attention of various ministers in Brooklyn, and subsequently I was asked to repeat it before the Long Island Historical Society, in that city. There I had an amusing experience. In the course of the talk I quoted ideas similar to mine that had been advanced over a hundred years before by Thomas Paine in his "Common Sense," and I referred to the high estimates of Paine held by Washington, Monroe, Dr. Rush, and others of the time. I refrained from expressing opinions of my own, contenting myself with a reference to those of the fathers of the Republic. Suddenly, however, several ministers left the hall, protesting that they had not come to hear a eulogy on Paine.
Later I developed this address, under its original title, and published it in book form. The first edition came out in 1885. The appearance of a first book is quite an event in one's life, especially when it is well received among critics and by the press. At any rate, it seemed like a landmark in my own life. Historical writers referred to it as a distinct contribution to our historical literature, and I felt that so far as the pen was concerned I had discovered this branch of writing to be my forte rather than poetry. After all, historical writing is no less imaginative than poetry. Without the use of imagination history is lifeless and a dry record of facts instead of literature.