After dinner the conversation turned to the bond loans during Cleveland's second Administration—the first made through J. P. Morgan & Company and the subsequent popular loans—to keep the gold in the United States Treasury. The ex-President referred to his fight against the silver craze and said he had been compelled to abandon the fundamental issue, the tariff reform, to combat that dangerous heresy.
When the guests had gone, Cleveland wanted to know whether we would like to hear the speech he was to deliver that evening, and of course we assured him we should be delighted. This led to conversation about Beecher, and I showed him the original letter that Beecher wrote him in 1887 recommending my appointment to Turkey. He said he remembered it perfectly, and it was the thing that turned the scale while he was considering whether or not he could properly appoint a person of my race to a post largely concerned with the protection of Christian missions. I made bold to request the manuscript of his Memorial Address to file with my Beecher letter, and he kindly consented with the words: "Yes, certainly; they are kind of cousins."
After a light supper we drove to Brooklyn. Cleveland liked to be punctual and I took care that we should arrive at the appointed hour, 7.45. It was pouring rain, and Cleveland anticipated that most people would be kept away; but when we entered the hall it was packed from pit to dome and several thousand persons were turned away. At the close of the meeting hundreds crowded onto the stage to greet the ex-President, showing that the love and admiration of the people had in no degree waned.
The next morning we prevailed upon him to stay another day. He said he knew I had a speech to make at Brown University and that its preparation would engage my time. But I assured him the speech was all prepared and the subject was "Brown in Diplomacy." He asked me to read it to him, and I did. He pronounced it appropriate and fine, which gave me some confidence in the success of the occasion, for I knew he was not given to flattery and would not have praised the speech without meaning it; that was not his habit.
He had to go to Rockwood, the photographer, at Thirty-Ninth Street and Broadway, so I went with him. He said he had hundreds of requests for pictures and wanted a new one taken so that when people wrote for them he could refer such requests to Rockwood; similarly he had had some pictures made by a Philadelphia photographer. These arrangements would save him much trouble. I asked Rockwood to take a special, large picture for me. He brought forward his larger camera and took one of the best photographs of Cleveland I have ever seen. I had two finished: one for Mrs. Cleveland and the other for myself, and it now hangs in my library.
For luncheon we met Isidor at Delmonico's. At the next table sat Charles F. Murphy, successor to Croker as boss of Tammany Hall, who requested me to introduce him to Cleveland. They had quite a chat, after which Cleveland remarked: "He looks like a pretty clean fellow."
During the meal our guest told us, with language, voice, and manner befitting the tale, how, when he was being spoken of for reëlection before his second term, he met a farmer who said to him: "Now if you will go on sawin' wood and don't say nothin', they will give you back that job in Washington." No actor could have given a more vivid characterization of that farmer.
That evening we went to Weber and Field's Music Hall, on Twenty-Ninth Street near Broadway. Cleveland suggested this himself. He said he liked to be amused at the theater and not saddened or instructed.
At about this period Cleveland from time to time showed evidences of illness. He called them stomach attacks. Whether or not his personal friend and physician, Dr. Joseph D. Bryant, had diagnosed the malady as more serious I do not know; but at times I rather inferred that he had. Dr. Bryant made it a point to accompany Cleveland on several of his hunting and fishing expeditions, which were taken not alone for pleasure, but as health measures, for a change of air and the outdoor recreation.