From a photograph by Sarony, taken in 1872
SAMUEL BOWLES
We considered this flat burglary. It was a gross infringement upon our preserve. What business had the professional politicians with a great reform movement? The influence and dignity of journalism were involved and imperiled. We, its custodians, could brook no such defiance from intermeddling office-seekers, especially from brokendown Democratic office-seekers.
The inner sanctuary of our proceedings was a common drawing-room between two bedchambers shared by Schurz and me. Here we repaired after supper to smoke the pipe of fraternity and reform and to save the country. What could be done to kill off “D. Davis,” as we irreverently called the eminent and learned jurist, the friend of Lincoln, and the only aspirant having a “bar’l”? That was the question. We addressed ourselves to the task with earnest purpose, but characteristically. The power of the press must be invoked. It was our chief, if not our only, weapon. Each of us indited a leading editorial for his paper, to be wired to its destination and printed next morning, striking “D. Davis” at a prearranged and varying angle. Copies of these were made for Halstead, who, having with the rest of us read and compared the different screeds, indited one of his own in general comment and review for Cincinnati consumption. In next day’s “Commercial,” blazing under vivid head-lines, these leading editorials, dated “Chicago,” “New York,” “Springfield, Mass.,” and “Louisville, Ky.,” appeared with the explaining line, “‘The Tribune’ of to-morrow morning [or the ‘Courier-Journal’ or ‘Republican’] will say,” etc.
Wondrous consensus of public opinion! The Davis boom went down before it. The Davis boomers were paralyzed. The earth seemed to have arisen and hit them amidships. The incoming delegates were stopped and forewarned. Six months of adroit scheming was set at naught, and little more was heard of “D. Davis.”
From a photograph by Gutekunst
ALEXANDER K. McCLURE
Like the Mousquetaires, we were equally in for fighting and foot-racing; the point with us being to “get there,” no matter how; the end—the defeat of the rascally machine politicians and the reform of the public service—being relied upon to justify the means. I am writing this forty years after the event, and must be forgiven the fling of my wisdom at my own expense and that of my associates in harmless crime. Reid and White and I are the sole survivors. We were wholly serious, maybe a trifle visionary, but as upright and patriotic in our intentions and as loyal to our engagements as it was possible for older, and maybe worse, men to be. For my part, I must say that if I have never anything on my conscience heavier than the massacre of that not very edifying, yet promising Davis “combine,” I shall be troubled by no remorse, but to the end shall sleep soundly and well.
In that immediate connection an amusing incident throwing some light upon the period thrusts itself upon my memory. The Quadrilateral, with Reid added, had finished its consolidation of public opinion just related, when the cards of Judge Craddock, Chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Committee, and of Colonel J. Stoddart Johnston, editor of the “Frankfort Yeoman,” the organ of the Kentucky Democracy, were brought from below. They had come to look after me, that was evident. By no chance could they have found me in more equivocal company. In addition to ourselves, bad enough from the Kentucky point of view, they found in the room Theodore Tilton and David A. Wells. When they crossed the threshold and were presented seriatim, the face of each was a study. Even an immediate application of whisky and water did not suffice to restore their lost equilibrium and bring them to their usual state of convivial self-possession. Colonel Johnston told me years after that when they went away they walked in silence a block or two, when the old judge, a model of the learned and sedate school of Kentucky politicians and jurists, turned to him and said: “It is no use, Stoddart. We cannot keep up with that young man or with these times. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!”