There was a surplus of men fit for official position in America when the hour of our new appointments arrived. There were hundreds of men competent to become ministers to England, to France, to Germany, to Russia; as competent as James Russell Lowell or Mr. Phelps. This was all due to the affluence of American institutions, that spread the benefits of education broadcast. I remember when Daniel Webster died, people said, "We shall have no one now to expound the constitution," but the chief expositions of the constitution have been written and uttered since then. There were pigmies in the old days, too. I had a friend who, as a stenographer some years ago, made a fortune by knocking bad grammar out of the speeches of Congressmen and Senators, who were illiterate. They said to him haughtily, "Stenographer, here are a couple of hundred dollars; fix up that speech I made this morning, and see that it gets into the Congressional Record all right. If you can't fix it up, write another."
In 1885, there were plenty of women, too, who understood politics. There were mean and silly women, of course, but there was a new race springing up of grand, splendid, competent women, with a knowledge of affairs. The appointment of Mr. Cox as Minister to Turkey was a compliment to American literature. In consequence of a picturesque description he gave of some closing day in a foreign country, he was facetiously nicknamed "Sunset Cox." I rechristened him "Sunrise Cox." When President Tyler appointed Washington Irving as Minister to Spain, he set an example for all time. Men of letters put their blood into their inkstands, but the sacrifice is poorly recognised.
Some of us were faintly urging world-wide peace, but around the night sky of 1885 was the glare of many camp fires. Never were there so many wars on the calendar at the same time. The Soudan war, the threat of a Russo-English war and of a Franco-Chinese war, the South-American war, the Colombian war—all the nations restless and arming. The scarlet rash of international hatred spread over the earth, and there were many predictions. I said then it was comparatively easy to foretell the issue of these wars—excepting one. I believed that the Revolutionist of Panama would be beaten; the half-breed overcome by the Canadian; that France would humble China, but that the Central American war would go on, and stop, and go on again, and stop again, until, discovering some Washington or Hamilton or Jefferson of its own, it would establish a United States of South America corresponding with the United States of North America. The Soudan war would cease when the English Government abandoned the attempt to fix up in Egypt things unfixable. But what would be the result of the outbreak between England and Russia was the war problem of the world. The real question at issue was whether Europe should be dominated by the lion or the bear.
In the United States we had no internal frictions which threatened us so much as rum and gambling. In Brooklyn we never ceased bombarding these rebellious agents of war on the character of young men. Coney Island was once a beautiful place, but in the five years since that time, when it was a garden by the sea, the races at Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay had been established. In New York and Brooklyn pool rooms were open for betting on these races. In ten years' time I predicted that no decent man or woman would be able to visit Coney Island. The evil was stupendous, and the subject of Coney Island could no longer be neglected in the pulpit.
Betting was a new-fashioned sort of vice in America in 1885; it was just becoming a licensed relaxation for young boys. As the years went on, it has grown to great distinction in all forms of American life, but it was yet only at its starting point in this year. Looking over an address I made on this subject, I find this statement:
"What a spectacle when, at Saratoga, or at Long Branch, or at Brighton Beach, the horses stop, and in a flash $50,000 or $100,000 change hands—multitudes ruined by losses, others, ruined by winnings." Many years afterwards the money involved in racing was in the millions; but in 1885, $100,000 was still a good bit. There were three kinds of betting at the horse races then—by auction pools, by French mutuals, and by what is called bookmaking—all of these methods controlled "for a consideration." The pool seller deducted three or five per cent. from the winning bet (incidentally "ringing up" more tickets than were sold on the winning horse), while the bookmaker, for special inducement, would scratch any horse in the race. The jockey also, for a consideration, would slacken speed to allow a prearranged winner to walk in, while the judges on the stand turned their backs.
It was just a swindling trust. And yet, these race tracks on a fine afternoon were crowded with intelligent men of good standing in the community, and frequently the parasols of the ladies gave colour and brilliancy to the scene. Our most beautiful watering places were all but destroyed by the race tracks. To stop all this was like turning back the ocean tides, so regular became the habit of gambling, of betting, of being legally swindled in America. No one was interested in the evils of life. We were on the frontier of a greater America, a greater waste of money, a greater paradise of pleasure.
Some notice was taken of General Grant's malady, mysteriously pronounced incurable. The bulletins informed us that his life might last a week, a day, an hour—and still the famous old warrior kept getting better. One moment Grant was dying, the next he was dining heartily at his own dinner table. This was one of the mysteries of the period. Personally, I believe the prayers of the Church kept him alive.
In April, 1885, the huge pedestal for the wonderful statue of Liberty, presented to us by the citizens of France, was started. That which Congress had ignored, and the philanthropists of America had neglected, the masses were doing by their modest subscription—a dollar from the men, ten cents from the children. All Europe wrapped in war cloud made the magnificence and splendour of our enlightened liberty greater than ever. It was time that the gates of the sea, the front door of America, should be made more attractive. Castle Garden was a gloomy corridor through which to arrive. I urged that the harbour fortresses should be terraced with flowers, fitting the approach to the forehead of this continent that Bartholdi was to illumine with his Coronet of Flame.
The Bartholdi statue, as we read and heard, and talked about it, became an inspired impulse to fine art in America. In the right hand of the statue was to be a torch; in the left hand, a scroll representing the law. What a fine conception of true liberty! It was my hope then that fifty years after the statue had been placed on its pedestal the foreign ships passing Bedloe's Island, by that allegory, should ever understand that in this country it is liberty according to law. Life, as we should live it, is strong, according to our obedience of its statutes.