Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

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Transcriber’s Notes

This e-text is based on ‘The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine,’ from May 1913. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation have been retained, but punctuation and typographical errors have been corrected. However, passages in English dialect and in languages other than English have not been altered.

Italic text is represented by _underscores_; small caps are symbolised by ~tilde characters~.

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THE CENTURY

ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY

MAGAZINE

VOL. LXXXVI
NEW SERIES: VOL. LXIV
MAY TO OCTOBER, 1913

THE CENTURY CO., NEW YORK

HODDER & STOUGHTON, LONDON

Copyright, 1913, by ~The Century Co.~

THE DE VINNE PRESS

INDEX

TO

THE CENTURY MAGAZINE

VOL. LXXXVI NEW SERIES: VOL. LXIV

PAGE

~Adams, John Quincy, in Russia.~
(Unpublished letters.)
Introduction and notes by Charles
Francis Adams. Portraits of John
Quincy Adams and Madame de Staël 250

~After-Dinner Stories.~
An Anecdote of McKinley. _Silas Harrison_ 319

~After-the-War Series,
The Century’s.~
The Hayes-Tilden Contest for the
Presidency. _Henry Watterson_ 3
Pictures from photographs and
cartoons.

Another View of “The Hayes-Tilden
Contest”. _George F. Edmunds_ 192
Portrait of Ex-Senator Edmunds.

~Americans, New-Made.~ Drawings by _W. T. Benda_ Facing page 894

~Artists Series, American, The
Century’s.~
John S. Sargent: Nonchalance. 44
Carl Marr: The Landscape-Painter. 110
Frank W. Benson: My Daughter. 264

~Auto-Comrade, The~ _Robert Haven Schauffler_ 850

~Avocats, Les deux.~ From the
painting by _Honoré Daumier_
Facing page 654

~Balkan Peninsula, Skirting the~ _Robert Hichens_

III. The Environs of Athens. 84
Pictures by Jules Guérin and
from photographs.

IV. Delphi and Olympia. 224
Pictures by Jules Guérin and
from photographs.

V. In Constantinople. 374
Pictures by Jules Guérin and
from photographs.

VI. Stamboul, the City of Mosques. 519
Pictures by Jules Guérin, two
printed in color.

~Beelzebub Came to the Convent, How~ _Ethel Watts Mumford_ 323
Picture by N. C. Wyeth.

“~Black Blood.~” _Edward Lyell Fox_ 213
Pictures by William H. Foster.

~Book of his Heart, The~ _Allan Updegraff_ 701
Picture by Herman Pfeifer.

~Borrowed Lover, The~ _L. Frank Tooker_ 348

~British Uncommunicativeness.~ _A. C. Benson_ 567

~Brother Leo.~ _Phyllis Bottome_ 181
Pictures by W. T. Benda.

~Business in the Orient.~ _Harry A. Franck_ 475

~Camilla’s First Affair.~ _Gertrude Hall_ 400
Pictures by Emil
Pollak-Ottendorff.

~Cartoons.~
Noise Extracted without Pain. _Oliver Herford_ 155
Foreign Labor. _Oliver Herford_ 477
Ninety Degrees in the Shade. _J. R. Shaver_ 477
A Boy’s Best Friend. _May Wilson Preston_ 634
“The Fifth Avenue Girl” and “A Bit
of Gossip.” Sculpture by _Ethel Myers_ 635
The Child de Luxe. _Boardman Robinson_ 636
The “Elite” Bathing-Dress. _Reginald Birch_ 797
From Grave to Gay. _C. F. Peters_ 798
Died: Rondeau Rymbel. _Oliver Herford_ 955
A Triumph for the Fresh Air Fund. _F. R. Gruger_ 957
Newport Note. _Reginald Birch_ 960

~Casus Belli.~ 955

~Century, the, The Spirit of~ _Editorial_ 789

~Choate, Joseph H.~ From a charcoal
portrait by _John S. Sargent_
Facing page 711

~Christmas, On Allowing the Editor
to Shop Early for~ _Leonard Hatch_ 473

~Clown’s Rue.~ _Hugh Johnson_ 730
Picture, printed in tint, by
H. C. Dunn.

~Cole’s (Timothy) Engravings of
Masterpieces in American Galleries.~
Une Dame Espagnole. From the
painting by _Fortuny_ 2

~Coming Sneeze, The~ _Harry Stillwell Edwards_ 368
Picture by F. R. Gruger.

~Common Sense in the White House.~ _Editorial_ 149

~Country Roads of New England.~
Drawings by _Walter King Stone_ 668

~Devil, The, his Due~ _Philip Curtiss_ 895

~Dinner of Herbs,” “Better is a.~
Picture by _Edmund Dulac_
Facing page 801

~Dormer-Window, the, The Country of~ _Henry Dwight Sedgwick_ 720
Pictures by W. T. Benda.

~Dorothy McK----, Portrait of~ _Wilhelm Funk_ 211

~Down-town in New York.~
Drawings by _Herman Webster_ 697

~Elephant Round-up, An~ _D. P. B. Conkling_ 236
Pictures from photographs.

~Elephants, Wild, Noosing~ _Charles Moser_ 240
Pictures from photographs.

~Elixir of Youth, The~ _Albert Bigelow Paine_ 21
Picture by O. F. Schmidt.

~Floods, The Great, in the Middle
West~ _Editorial_ 148

~French Art, Examples of Contemporary.~
A Corner of the Table. From the
painting by _Charles Chabas_ 83

~Garage in the Sunshine, A~ _Joseph Ernest_ 921
Picture by Harry Raleigh.

~Get Something by Giving Something Up,
On How to~ _Simeon Strunsky_ 153

~“Ghosts,” “Dey Ain’t No”~ _Ellis Parker Butler_ 837
Pictures by Charles Sarka.

~Going Up.~ _Frederick Lewis Allen_ 632
Picture by Reginald Birch.

~Golf, Mind Versus Muscle in~ _Marshall Whitlatch_ 606

~Government, The Changing View of~ _Editorial_ 311

~Grand Cañon of the Colorado, The~ _Joseph Pennell_ 202
Six lithographs drawn from
nature for “The Century.”

~Gutter-Nickel, The~ _Estelle Loomis_ 570
Picture by J. Montgomery Flagg.

~Hard Money, The Return to~ _Charles A. Conant_ 439
Portraits, and cartoons by
Thomas Nast.

~Her Own Life.~ _Allan Updegraff_ 79

~Home.~ I. An Anonymous Novel. 801
Illustrations by Reginald Birch.

~Homer and Humbug.~ _Stephen Leacock_ 952

~Hyperbole in Advertising, On the
Use of~ _Agnes Repplier_ 316

~Illusion of Progress, The~ _Kenyon Cox_ 39

~Impractical Man, The~ _Elliott Flower_ 549
Pictures by F. R. Gruger.

~International Club, the, On the
Collapse of~ _G. K. Chesterton_ 151

~Japanese Child, a, The Training of~ _Frances Little_ 170
Pictures from photographs.

~Japan, the New, American Makers of~ _William Elliot Griffis_ 597
Pictures from photographs.

~Jefferson, Thomas.~ From the statue
for the Jefferson Memorial in St.
Louis by _Karl Bitter_ 27

~Juryman, the, The Mind of~ _Hugo Münsterberg_ 711

~Lady and her Book, the, On~ _Helen Minturn Seymour_ 315

~Lawlessness in Art.~ _Editorial_ 150

~Life After Death.~ _Maurice Maeterlinck_ 655

~Literature Factory.~ _E. P. Butler_ 638

~Louise.~ Color-Tone, from the
marble bust by _Evelyn Beatrice Longman_
Facing page 766

~Love by Lightning.~ _Maria Thompson Daviess_ 641
Pictures, printed in tint,
by F. R. Gruger.

~Mannering’s Men.~ _Marjorie L. C. Pickthall_ 427

~Man who did not Go to Heaven on
Tuesday, The~ _Ellis Parker Butler_ 340

~Millet’s Return to his Old Home.~ _Truman H. Bartlett_ 332
Pictures from pastels
by Millet.

~Money behind the Gun, The~ _Editorial_ 470

~Morgan’s, Mr., Personality~ _Joseph B. Gilder_ 459
Picture from photograph.

~Moving-picture, the, The Widening
Field of~ _Charles B. Brewer_ 66
Pictures from photographs.

~Mrs. Longbow’s Biography.~ _Gordon Hall Gerould_ 56

~Nemours: A Typical French Provincial
Town.~ _Roger Boutet de Monvel_ 844
Pictures by Bernard Boutet de
Monvel.

~Newspaper Invasion of Privacy.~ _Editorial_ 310

~Niagara again in Danger.~ _Editorial_ 150

~Noteworthy Stories of the Last
Generation.~
The Tachypomp. _Edward P. Mitchell_ 99
Portrait of the author, and
drawings by Reginald Birch.
Belles Demoiselles Plantation. _George W. Cable_ 273
With portrait of the author,
and new pictures by W. M.
Berger.
The New Minister’s Great
Opportunity. _C. H. White_ 390
With portrait of the author,
and new picture by Harry
Townsend.

~One Way to make Things Better.~ _Editorial_ 471

~Oregon Muddle,” “The~ _Victor Rosewater_ 764

~Paderewski at Home.~ _Abbie H. C. Finck_ 900
Picture from a portrait by
Emil Fuchs.

~Paris.~ _Theodore Dreiser_ 904
Pictures by W. J. Glackens.

“~Peggy.~” From the marble bust by _Evelyn Beatrice Longman_ 362

~Polo Team, Undefeated American,
Bronze Group of the~ _Herbert Hazeltine_
Facing page 641

~Progressive Party, The~ _Theodore Roosevelt_ 826
Portrait of the author.

~Puns, A Paper of~ _Brander Matthews_ 290
Head-piece by Reginald Birch.

~Remington, Frederic, Recollections
of~ _Augustus Thomas_ 354
Pictures by Frederic Remington,
and portrait.

~Romain Rolland.~ _Alvan F. Sanborn_ 512
Picture from portrait of Rolland
from a drawing by Granié.

~St. Bernard, The Great~ _Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg_ 161
Pictures by André Castaigne.

~St. Elizabeth of Hungary.~ By
Francisco Zubarán. Engraved
on wood by _Timothy Cole_ 437

~Scarlet Tanager, The.~ Printed in
color from the painting by _Alfred Brennan_ 29

“~Schedule K~”. _N. I. Stone_ 111

~“Schedule K,” Comments on~ _Editorial_ 472

~Sculpture.~ _Charles Keck_ 917

~Senior Wrangler, The~ 958
Snobbery--America vs. England.
Our Tender Literary Celebrities.

~Sigiriya, “The Lion’s Rock” of
Ceylon.~ _Jennie Coker Gay_ 265
Pictures by Duncan Gay.

~Socialism in the Colleges.~ _Editorial_ 468

~Spinster, American, The~ _Agnes Repplier_ 363

~Summer Hills,” the, In “The
Circuit of~ _John Burroughs_ 878
Portrait of the author by Alvin
L. Coburn.

~Sunset on the Marshes.~ From the
painting by _George Inness_
Facing page 824

“~Them Old Moth-eaten Lovyers~”. _Charles Egbert Craddock_ 120
Pictures by George Wright.

~Trade of the World Papers, The~ _James Davenport Whelpley_
XVII. If Canada were to Annex the
United States 534
Pictures from photographs.
XVIII. The Foreign Trade of the
United States 886

~T. Tembarom.~ _Frances Hodgson Burnett_
130, 296, 413, 610, 767, 929
Drawings by Charles S. Chapman.

~Two-billion-dollar Congress, The~ _Editorial_ 313

~Uncommercial Traveler, An, in London~ _Theodore Dreiser_ 736
Pictures by W. J. Glackens.

~Under which Flag, Ladies, Order or
Anarchy?~ _Editorial_ 309

~Venezuela Dispute, the, The Monroe
Doctrine in~ _Charles R. Miller_ 750
Cartoons from “Punch,” and a map.

~Verita’s Stratagem.~ _Anne Warner_ 430

~Voyage Over, The First~ _Theodore Dreiser_ 586
Pictures by W. J. Glackens.

~Wagner, Richard, If, Came Back~ _Henry T. Finck_ 208
Portrait of Wagner from photograph.

~Wall Street, The News in~ _James L. Ford_ 794
Pictures by Reginald Birch and May
Wilson Preston.

~War against War.~ _Editorial_ 147

~War-horses of Famous Generals.~ _James Grant Wilson_ 45
Pictures from paintings and
photographs.

~War Worth Waging, A~ _Richard Barry_ 31
Picture by Jay Hambidge.

~Washington, Fresh Light on~ 635

~Watterson’s, Colonel, Rejoinder to
Ex-Senator Edmunds~ _Henry Watterson_ 285
Comments on “Another View of ‘The
Hayes-Tilden Contest.’”

~Whistler, A Visit to~ _Maria Torrilhon Buel_ 694

~White Linen Nurse, The~ _Eleanor Hallowell Abbott_
483, 672, 857
Pictures, printed in tint, by
Herman Pfeifer.

~Widow, The.~ From the painting by _Couture_ 457
An example of French portraiture.

~World Reformers--and Dusters.~ _The Senior Wrangler_ 792
Picture by Reginald Birch.

~Year, The Most Important~ _Editorial_ 951

VERSE

~Ballade of Protest, A~ _Carolyn Wells_ 476

~Beggar, The~ _James W. Foley_ 877

~Belle Dame Sans Merci, La~ _John Keats_ 388
Republished with pictures by
Stanley M. Arthurs.

~Blank Page, For a~ _Austin Dobson_ 458

~Brother Mingo Millenyum’s Ordination.~ _Ruth McEnery Stuart_ 475

~Continued in the Ads.~ _Sarah Redington_ 795

~Cubist Romance, A~ _Oliver Herford_ 318
Picture by Oliver Herford.

~Daddy Do-funny’s, Old, Wisdom Jingles~ _Ruth McEnery Stuart_
154, 319, 478

~Double Star, A~ _Leroy Titus Weeks_ 511

~Emergency.~ _William Rose Benét_ 916

~Experimenters, the, To~ _Charles Badger Clark, Jr._ 43

~Finis.~ _William H. Hayne_ 295

~Gentle Reader, The~ _Arthur Davison Ficke_ 692

~House-without-Roof.~ _Edith M. Thomas_ 339

~Husband Shop, The~ _Oliver Herford_ 956
Picture by Oliver Herford.

~Invulnerable.~ _William Rose Benét_ 308

~Justice, At the Closed Gates of~ _James D. Corrothers_ 272

~Lady Clara Vere de Vere: New Style.~ _Anne O’Hagan_ 793
Picture by E. L. Blumenschein.

~Last Faun, The~ _Helen Minturn Seymour_ 717
Picture, printed in tint, by
Charles A. Winter.

~Last Message, A~ _Grace Denio Litchfield_ 26

~Life’s Aspiration.~ _Louis Untermeyer_ 156
Drawing by George Wolfe Plank.

~Limericks.~:
Text and pictures by Oliver Herford.

XXVII. The Somnolent Bivalve. 157
XXVIII. The Ounce of Detention. 158
XXIX. The Kind Armadillo. 320
XXX. The Gnat and the Gnu. 479
XXXI. The Sole-Hungering Camel. 480
XXXII. The Eternal Feminine. 639
XXXIII. Tra-la-Larceny. 640
XXXIV. The Conservative Owl. 799
XXXV. The Omnivorous Book-worm. 800

~Little People, The~ _Amelia Josephine Burr_ 387

~Maeterlinck, Maurice~ _Stephen Phillips_ 467

~Marvelous Munchausen, The~ _William Rose Benét_ 563
Pictures by Oliver Herford.

~May, from my Window.~ _Frances Rose Benét_ 155
Drawing by Oliver Herford.

~Message from Italy, A~ _Margaret Widdemer_ 547
Drawing printed in tint by
W. T. Benda.

~Mother, The~ _Timothy Cole_ 920
Picture by Alpheus Cole.

~My Conscience.~ _James Whitcomb Riley_ 331
Decoration by Oliver Herford.

~Myself,” “I Sing of~ _Louis Untermeyer_ 960

~New Art, The~ _Corinne Rockwell Swain_ 156

~Noyes, Alfred, To~ _Edwin Markham_ 288

~Off Capri.~ _Sara Teasdale_ 223

~Parents, Our~ _Charles Irvin Junkin_ 959
Pictures by Harry Raleigh.

~Prayers for the Living.~ _Mary W. Plummer_ 367

~Ritual.~ _William Rose Benét_ 788

~Royal Mummy, To a~ _Anna Glen Stoddard_ 631

~Rymbels~:
Pictures by Oliver Herford.
The Girl and the Raspberry Ice. _Oliver Herford_ 637
The Yellow Vase. _Charles Hanson Towne_ 637
Tragedy. _Theodosia Garrison_ 638
“On Revient toujours à Son Premier
Amour”. _Oliver Herford_ 638
A Rymbel of Rhymers. _Carolyn Wells_ 796
The Prudent Lover. _L. Frank Tooker_ 797
On a Portrait of Nancy. _Carolyn Wells_ 797

~Same Old Lure, The~ _Berton Braley_ 478

~Scarlet Tanager, To a~ _Grace Hazard Conkling_ 28

~Sierra Madre.~ _Henry Van Dyke_ 347

~Socratic Argument.~ _John Carver Alden_ 960

~Submarine Mountains.~ _Cale Young Rice_ 693

~Triolet, A~ _Leroy Titus Weeks_ 636

~Wine of Night, The~ _Louis Untermeyer_ 119

~Wingèd Victory.~ _Victor Whitlock_ 596
Photograph and decoration.

~Wise Saint, The~ _Herman Da Costa_ 798
Picture by W. T. Benda.

~Young Heart in Age, The~ _Edith M. Thomas_ 78

TIMOTHY COLE’S
WOOD ENGRAVINGS
OF
MASTERPIECES
IN
AMERICAN GALLERIES

UNE DAME ESPAGNOLE
BY
FORTUNY
]

UNE DAME ESPAGNOLE. BY FORTUNY

(TIMOTHY COLE’S WOOD ENGRAVINGS OF MASTERPIECES IN AMERICAN GALLERIES)]

Copyright 1913, by ~The Century Co.~ All rights reserved.

~The Century Magazine~

~Vol. LXXXVI~ MAY, 1913 ~No. 1~

THE HAYES-TILDEN CONTEST FOR THE PRESIDENCY

INSIDE HISTORY OF A GREAT POLITICAL CRISIS

(THE CENTURY’S AFTER-THE-WAR SERIES)

BY HENRY WATTERSON

Editor of the Louisville “Courier-Journal”

I

The time is coming, if it has not already arrived, when among fair-minded and intelligent Americans there will not be two opinions touching the Hayes-Tilden contest for the Presidency in 1876-77--that both by the popular vote and a fair count of the electoral vote Tilden was elected and Hayes was defeated--but the whole truth underlying the determinate incidents which led to the rejection of Tilden and the seating of Hayes will never be known.

“All history is a lie,” observed Sir Robert Walpole, the corruptionist, mindful of what was likely to be written about himself, and, “What is history,” asked Napoleon, the conqueror, “but a fable agreed upon?”

In the first administration of Mr. Cleveland, there were present at a dinner-table in Washington, the President being of the party, two leading Democrats and two leading Republicans who had sustained confidential relations to the principals and played important parts in the drama of the Disputed Succession. These latter had been long upon terms of personal intimacy. The occasion was informal and joyous, the good-fellowship of the heartiest. Inevitably the conversation drifted to the Electoral Commission, which had counted Tilden out and Hayes in, and of which each of the four had some story to tell. Beginning in banter, with interchanges of badinage, it presently fell into reminiscence, deepening as the interest of the listeners rose to what under different conditions might have been described as unguarded gaiety, if not imprudent garrulity. The little audience was rapt. Finally, Mr. Cleveland raised both hands and exclaimed, “What would the people of this country think if the roof could be lifted from this house and they could hear these men!” And then one of the four, a gentleman noted for his wealth both of money and humor, replied, “But the roof is not going to be lifted from this house, and if any one repeats what I have said I will denounce him as a liar.”

Once in a while the world is startled by some revelation of the unknown which alters the estimate of an historic event or figure; but it is measurably true, as Metternich declares, that those who make history rarely have time to write it.

It is not my wish in recurring to the events of five-and-thirty years ago to invoke and awaken any of the passions of that time, nor my purpose to assail the character or motives of any of the leading actors. Most of them, including the principals, I knew well; to many of their secrets I was privy. As I was serving, in a sense, as Mr. Tilden’s personal representative in the Lower House of the Forty-fourth Congress, and as a member of the joint Democratic Advisory or Steering Committee of the two Houses, all that passed came more or less, if not under my supervision, yet to my knowledge; and long ago I resolved that certain matters should remain a sealed book in my memory. I make no issue of veracity with the living; the dead should be sacred. The contradictory promptings, not always crooked; the double constructions possible to men’s actions; the intermingling of ambition and patriotism beneath the lash of party spirit; often wrong unconscious of itself; sometimes equivocation deceiving itself; in short, the tangled web of good and ill inseparable from great affairs of loss and gain, made debatable ground for every step of the Hayes-Tilden proceeding.

I shall bear sure testimony to the integrity of Mr. Tilden. I directly know that the Presidency was offered to him for a price and that he refused it; and I indirectly know and believe that two other offers came to him which also he declined. The accusation that he was willing to buy, and through the cipher despatches and other ways tried to buy, rests upon appearance supporting mistaken surmise. Mr. Tilden knew nothing of the cipher despatches until they appeared in the “New-York Tribune.” Neither did Mr. George W. Smith, his private secretary, and later one of the trustees to his will. It should be sufficient to say that, so far as they involved No. 15 Gramercy Park, they were the work solely of Colonel Pelton, acting on his own responsibility, and, as Mr. Tilden’s nephew, exceeding his authority to act; that it later developed that during this period Colonel Pelton had not been in his perfect mind, but was at least semi-irresponsible; and that on two occasions when the vote or votes sought seemed within reach, Mr. Tilden interposed to forbid. Directly and personally, I know this to be true.

The price, at least in patronage, which the Republicans actually paid for possession is of public record. Yet I not only do not question the integrity of Mr. Hayes, but I believe him, and most of those immediately about him, to have been high-minded men who thought they were doing for the best in a situation unparalleled and beset with perplexity. What they did tends to show that men will do for party and in concert what the same men never would be willing to do each on his own responsibility. In his “Life of Samuel J. Tilden,” John Bigelow says:

Why persons occupying the most exalted positions should have
ventured to compromise their reputations by this deliberate
consummation of a series of crimes which struck at the very
foundations of the Republic, is a question which still puzzles
many of all parties who have no charity for the crimes themselves.
I have already referred to the terrors and desperation with which
the prospect of Tilden’s election inspired the great army of
office-holders at the close of Grant’s administration. That army,
numerous and formidable as it was, was comparatively limited.
There was a much larger and justly influential class who were
apprehensive that the return of the Democratic party to power
threatened a reactionary policy at Washington, to the undoing of
some or all the important results of the war. These apprehensions
were inflamed by the party press until they were confined to no
class, but more or less pervaded all the Northern States. The
Electoral Tribunal, consisting mainly of men appointed to their
positions by Republican Presidents, or elected from strong
Republican States, felt the pressure of this feeling, and from
motives compounded in more or less varying proportions of dread of
the Democrats, personal ambition, zeal for their party, and respect
for their constituents, reached the conclusion that the exclusion
of Tilden from the White House was an end which justified whatever
means were necessary to accomplish it. They regarded it like the
emancipation of the slaves, as a war measure.

II

The nomination of Horace Greeley in 1872 and the overwhelming defeat that followed left the Democratic party in an abyss of despair. The old Whig party, after the disaster that overtook it in 1852, had been not more demoralized. Yet in the general elections of 1874 the Democrats swept the country, carrying many Northern States and sending a great majority to the Forty-fourth Congress.

Reconstruction was breaking down of its very weight and rottenness. The panic of 1873 reacted against the party in power. Dissatisfaction with Grant, which had not sufficed two years before to displace him, was growing apace. Favoritism bred corruption, and corruption grew more and more defiant. Succeeding, scandals cast their shadows before. Chickens of “carpet-baggery” let loose upon the South were coming home to roost at the North. There appeared everywhere a noticeable subsidence of the sectional spirit and a rising tide of the national spirit. Reform was needed alike in the State governments and the National government, and the cry for reform proved something other than an idle word. All things made for Democracy.

SAMUEL J. TILDEN, GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK, 1875-76]

Yet there were many and serious handicaps. The light and leading of the historic Democratic party which had issued from the South were in obscurity and abeyance, while most of those surviving who had been distinguished in the party conduct and counsels were disabled by act of Congress. Of the few prominent Democrats left at the North, many were tainted by what was called Copperheadism (sympathy with the Confederacy). To find a chieftain wholly free from this contamination, Democracy, having failed of success in presidential campaigns not only with Greeley but with McClellan and Seymour, was turning to such disaffected Republicans as Chase, Field, and Davis of the Supreme Court. At last Heaven seemed to smile from the clouds upon the disordered ranks and to summon thence a man meeting the requirements of the time. This was Samuel Jones Tilden.

SENATOR ZACHARIAH CHANDLER

Chairman of the Republican National Committee in the Hayes-Tilden campaign.]

To his familiars, Mr. Tilden was a dear old bachelor who lived in a fine old mansion in Gramercy Park. Though sixty years of age, he seemed in the prime of his manhood; a genial and overflowing scholar; a trained and earnest doctrinaire; a public-spirited, patriotic citizen, well known and highly esteemed, who had made fame and fortune at the bar and had always been interested in public affairs. He was a dreamer with a genius for business, a philosopher yet an organizer. He pursued the tenor of his life with measured tread. His domestic fabric was disfigured by none of the isolation and squalor which so often attend the confirmed celibate. His home life was a model of order and decorum, his home as unchallenged as a bishopric, its hospitality, though select, profuse and untiring. An elder sister presided at his board, as simple, kindly, and unostentatious, but as methodical as himself. He was a lover of books rather than music and art, but also of horses and dogs and out-of-door activity. He was fond of young people, particularly of young girls; he drew them about him, and was a veritable Sir Roger de Coverley in his gallantries toward them and his zeal in amusing them and making them happy. His tastes were frugal and their indulgence was sparing. He took his wine not plenteously, though he enjoyed it--especially his “blue seal” while it lasted--and sipped his whisky-and-water on occasion with a pleased composure redolent of discursive talk, of which, when he cared to lead the conversation, he was a master. He had early come into a great legal practice and held a commanding professional position. His judgment was believed to be infallible; and it is certain that after 1871 he rarely appeared in the courts of law except as counselor, settling in chambers most of the cases that came to him.

CONGRESSMAN ABRAM S. HEWITT

Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in the Hayes-Tilden campaign.]

It was such a man whom, in 1874, the Democrats nominated for Governor of New York. To say truth, it was not thought by those making the nomination that he had much chance to win. He was himself so much better advised that months ahead he prefigured very near the exact vote. The afternoon of the day of election one of the group of friends, who even thus early had the Presidency in mind, found him in his library confident and calm.

“What majority will you have?” he asked cheerily.

“Any,” replied the friend sententiously.

“How about fifteen thousand?”

“Quite enough.”

“Twenty-five thousand?”

“Still better.”

“The majority,” he said, “will be a little in excess of fifty thousand.” It was 53,315. His estimate was not guesswork. He had organized his campaign by school-districts. His canvass system was perfect, his canvassers were as penetrating and careful as census-takers. He had before him reports from every voting precinct in the State. They were corroborated by the official returns. He had defeated General John A. Dix, thought to be invincible, by a majority very nearly the same as that by which Governor Dix had been elected two years before.

III

The time and the man had met. Although Mr. Tilden had not before held executive office, he was ripe and ready for the work. His experience in the pursuit and overthrow of the Tweed Ring in New York, the great metropolis, had prepared and fitted him to deal with the Canal Ring at Albany, the State Capital. Administrative Reform was now uppermost in the public mind, and here in the Empire State of the Union had come to the head of affairs a Chief Magistrate at once exact and exacting, deeply versed not only in legal lore but in a knowledge of the methods by which political power was being turned to private profit, and of the men--Democrats as well as Republicans--who were preying upon the substance of the people.

The story of the two years that followed relates to investigations that investigated, to prosecutions that convicted, to the overhauling of the civil fabric, to the rehabilitation of popular censorship, to reduced estimates and lower taxes.

The campaign for the presidential nomination began as early as the autumn of 1875. The Southern end of it was easy enough. A committee of Southerners residing in New York was formed. Never a leading Southern man came to town who was not “seen.” If of enough importance, he was taken to No. 15 Gramercy Park. Mr. Tilden measured to the Southern standard of the gentleman in politics. He impressed the disfranchised Southern leaders as a statesman of the old order and altogether after their own idea of what a President ought to be. The South came to St. Louis, the seat of the National Convention, represented by its foremost citizens and almost a unit for the Governor of New York. The main opposition sprang from Tammany Hall, of which John Kelly was then the Chief. Its very extravagance proved an advantage to Tilden. Two days before the meeting of the Convention I sent this message to Mr. Tilden: “Tell Blackstone [his favorite riding horse] that he wins in a walk.” The anti-Tilden men put up the Hon. S. S. (“Sunset”) Cox, for Temporary Chairman. It was a clever move. Mr. Cox, though sure for Tammany, was popular everywhere and especially at the South. His backers thought that with him they could count upon a majority of the National Committee.

The night before the assembling, Mr. Tilden’s two or three leading friends on the Committee came to me and said: “We can elect you Chairman over Cox, but no one else.” I demurred at once. “I don’t know one rule of parliamentary law from another,” I said. “We will have the best parliamentarian on the continent right by you all the time,” they said. “I can’t see to recognize a man on the floor of the convention,” I said. “We’ll have a dozen men to tell you,” they replied. So it was arranged, and thus at the last moment I was chosen.

I had barely time to write the required “key-note” speech, but not to commit it to memory, nor sight to read it, even had I been willing to adopt that mode of delivery. It would not do to trust to extemporization. A friend, Colonel Stoddard Johnston, who was familiar with my penmanship, came to the rescue. Concealing my manuscript behind his hat, he lined the words out to me between the cheering, I having mastered a few opening sentences.

From a photograph by Brady FRANCIS KERNAN of New York

From a photograph, copyright by C. M. Bell

ALLEN G. THURMAN of Ohio

From a photograph, copyright by C. M. Bell JOSEPH E. McDONALD of Indiana

From a photograph by Brady JOHN W. STEVENSON of Kentucky

SENATORS OF THE DEMOCRATIC “ADVISORY COMMITTEE” IN THE HAYES-TILDEN CONTEST]

Luck was with me. It went with a bang--not, however, wholly without detection. The Indianians, devoted to Hendricks, were very wroth. “See that fat man behind the hat telling him what to say,” said one to his neighbor, who answered, “Yes, and wrote it for him, too, I’ll be bound.”

One might as well attempt to drive six horses by proxy as preside over a National Convention by hearsay. I lost my parliamentarian at once. I just made my parliamentary law as we went. Never before nor since did any deliberative body proceed under manual so startling and original. But I delivered each ruling with a resonance--it were better called an impudence--which had an air of authority. There was a good deal of quiet laughter on the floor among the knowing ones, though I knew the mass was as ignorant as I was myself; but, realizing that I meant to be just and was expediting business, the Convention soon warmed to me, and, feeling this, I began to be perfectly at home. I never had a better day’s sport in all my life.

One incident was particularly amusing. Much against my will and over my protest, I was brought to promise that Miss Phœbe Couzins, who bore a Woman’s Rights Memorial, should at some opportune moment be given the floor to present it. I foresaw what a row it was bound to occasion. Toward noon, when there was a lull in the proceedings, I said with an emphasis meant to carry conviction, “Gentlemen of the Convention, Miss Phœbe Couzins, a representative of the Woman’s Association of America, has a Memorial from that body and, in the absence of other business, the chair will now recognize her.”

Instantly, and from every part of the hall, arose cries of “No!” These put some heart into me. Many a time as a school-boy I had proudly declaimed the passage from John Home’s tragedy, “My name is Norval.” Again I stood upon “the Grampian hills.” The Committee was escorting Miss Couzins down the aisle. When she came within the radius of my poor vision I saw that she was a beauty and dressed to kill! That was reassurance. Gaining a little time while the hall fairly rocked with its thunder of negation, I laid the gavel down and stepped to the edge of the platform and gave Miss Couzins my hand. As she appeared above the throng there was a momentary “Ah!” and then a lull broken by a single voice: “Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order.” Leading Miss Couzins to the front of the stage, I took up the gavel and gave a gentle rap, saying, “The gentleman will take his seat.”

“But, Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order,” he vociferated.

“The gentleman will take his seat instantly,” I answered in a tone of one about to throw the gavel at his head. “No point of order is in order when a lady has the floor.”

After that Miss Couzins received a positive ovation, and having delivered her message retired in a blaze of glory.

Mr. Tilden was nominated on the second ballot. The campaign that followed proved one of the most memorable in our history. When it came to an end the result showed on the face of the returns 196 in the Electoral College, 11 more than a majority, and in the popular vote 4,300,316, a majority of 264,300 over Hayes.

How this came to be first contested and then complicated so as ultimately to be set aside has been minutely related by its authors. The newspapers, both Republican and Democratic, of November 8, 1876, the morning after the election, conceded an overwhelming victory for Tilden and Hendricks. There was, however, a single exception. “The New York Times” had gone to press with its first edition, leaving the result in doubt but inclining toward the success of the Democrats. In its later editions this tentative attitude was changed to the statement that Mr. Hayes lacked the vote only of Florida--“claimed by the Republicans”--to be sure of the required 185 votes in the Electoral College.

The story of this surprising discrepancy between midnight and daylight reads like a chapter of fiction.

CONGRESSMEN OF THE DEMOCRATIC “ADVISORY
COMMITTEE” IN THE HAYES-TILDEN CONTEST

From a photograph, copyright by C. M. Bell

R. L. GIBSON of Louisiana

From a photograph WILLIAM S. HOLMAN of Indiana

From a photograph by Sarony HENRY WATTERSON of Kentucky

From a photograph, copyright by C. M. Bell SAMUEL J. RANDALL of Pennsylvania (Speaker)

From a photograph, copyright by C. M. Bell EPPA HUNTON of Virginia

From a photograph, copyright by C. M. Bell

L. Q. C. LAMAR of Mississippi

From a photograph, copyright by C. M. Bell

HENRY B. PAYNE of Ohio]

After the early edition of the “Times” had gone to press certain members of the editorial staff were at supper, very much cast down by the returns, when a messenger brought a telegram from Senator Barnum of Connecticut, financial head of the Democratic National Committee, asking for the “Times’s” latest news from Oregon, Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina. But for that unlucky telegram Tilden would probably have been inaugurated President of the United States.

WHAT A COOLING OFF WILL BE THERE, MY COUNTRYMEN!

From “Harper’s Weekly” of February 3, 1877

THOMAS NAST’S CARTOON ON COLONEL WATTERSON’S SUGGESTION OF A GATHERING OF ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEMOCRATS IN WASHINGTON

The ice-water is being applied by Murat Halstead, editor of the Cincinnati “Commercial,” which was opposed to Tilden; but in the Greeley campaign of 1872 Halstead had worked with Watterson. (See ~The Century~ for November, 1912.)]

The “Times” people, intense Republican partizans, at once saw an opportunity. If Barnum did not know, why might not a doubt be raised? At once the editorial in the first edition was revised to take a decisive tone and declare the election of Hayes. One of the editorial council, Mr. John C. Reid, hurried to Republican Headquarters in the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which he found deserted, the triumph of Tilden having long before sent everybody to bed. Mr. Reid then sought the room of Senator Zachariah Chandler, Chairman of the National Republican Committee. While upon this errand he encountered in the hotel corridor “a small man wearing an enormous pair of goggles, his hat drawn over his ears, a greatcoat with a heavy military cloak, and carrying a gripsack and newspaper in his hand. The newspaper was the ‘New-York Tribune,’” announcing the election of Tilden and the defeat of Hayes. The new-comer was Mr. William E. Chandler, even then a very prominent Republican politician, just arrived from New Hampshire and very much exasperated by what he had read.

Mr. Reid had another tale to tell. The two found Mr. Zachariah Chandler, who bade them leave him alone and do whatever they thought best. They did so consumingly, sending telegrams to Columbia, Tallahassee, and New Orleans, stating to each of the parties addressed that the result of the election depended upon his State. To these were appended the signature of Zachariah Chandler. Later in the day Senator Chandler, advised of what had been set on foot and its possibilities, issued from National Republican Headquarters this laconic message: “Hayes has 185 electoral votes and is elected.” Thus began and was put in motion the scheme to confuse the returns and make a disputed count of the vote.

IV

The day after the election I wired Mr. Tilden suggesting that, as Governor of New York, he propose to Mr. Hayes, the Governor of Ohio, that they unite upon a committee of eminent citizens, composed in equal numbers of the friends of each, who should proceed at once to Louisiana, which appeared to be the objective point of greatest moment to the already contested result. Pursuant to a telegraphic correspondence which followed, I left Louisville that night for New Orleans. I was joined en route by Mr. Lamar of Mississippi, and together we arrived in the Crescent City Friday morning.

“Let us have peace. I don’t care who is the next President,” cries our bold Patriarch at the ~FIRST~ arrival.

“The Hon. Henry Watterson has just been presented with a son--weight, 11 pounds.”--_Washington Correspondence._

This cartoon by Thomas Nast, with the above titles and explanation,
appeared in “Harper’s Weekly” of March 10, 1877, as an apology for
the lampoon on the opposite page. (See page 17.)]

It has since transpired that the Republicans were promptly advised by the Western Union Telegraph Company of all that passed over its wires, my despatches to Mr. Tilden being read in Republican Headquarters at least as soon they reached Gramercy Park.

STANLEY MATTHEWS OF OHIO]

Mr. Tilden did not adopt the plan of a direct proposal to Mr. Hayes. Instead, he chose a body of Democrats to go to the “seat of war.” But before any of them had arrived General Grant, the actual President, anticipating what was about to happen, appointed a body of Republicans for the like purpose, and the advance guard of these appeared on the scene the following Monday.

Within a week the St. Charles Hotel might have been mistaken for a caravansary of the National Capital. Among the Republicans were John Sherman, Stanley Matthews, Garfield, Evarts, Logan, Kelley, Stoughton, and many others. Among the Democrats, besides Lamar and myself, came Lyman Trumbull, Samuel J. Randall, William R. Morrison, McDonald, of Indiana, and many others. A certain degree of personal intimacy existed between the members of the two groups, and the “entente” was quite as unrestrained as might have existed between rival athletic teams. A Kentucky friend sent me a demijohn of what was represented as very old Bourbon, and I divided it with “our friends the enemy.” New Orleans was new to most of the “visiting statesmen,” and we attended the places of amusement, lived in the restaurants, and “saw the sights,” as if we had been tourists in a foreign land and not partizans charged with the business of adjusting a presidential election from implacable points of view.

My own relations were especially friendly with John Sherman and James A. Garfield, a colleague on the Committee of Ways and Means, and with Stanley Matthews, a near kinsman by marriage, who had stood as an elder brother to me from my childhood.

Corruption was in the air. That the Returning Board was for sale and could be bought was the universal impression. Every day some one turned up with pretended authority and an offer. Most of these were of course the merest adventurers. It was my own belief that the Returning Board was playing for the best price it could get from the Republicans and that the only effect of any offer to buy on our part would be to assist this scheme of blackmail.

The Returning Board consisted of two white men, Wells and Anderson, and two Negroes, Kenner and Casanave. One and all they were without character. I was tempted through sheer curiosity to listen to a proposal which seemed to come direct from the Board itself, the messenger being a well-known State senator. As if he were proposing to dispose of a horse or a dog he stated his errand.

“You think you can deliver the goods?” said I.

“I am authorized to make the offer,” he answered.

“And for how much?” I asked.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” he replied. “One hundred thousand each for Wells and Anderson and twenty-five thousand apiece for the niggers.”

To my mind it was a joke. “Senator,” said I, “the terms are as cheap as dirt. I don’t happen to have the amount about me at the moment, but I will communicate with my principal and see you later.”

Having no thought of entertaining the proposal, I had forgotten the incident, when two or three days later my man met me in the lobby of the hotel and pressed for a definite reply. I then told him I had found that I possessed no authority to act and advised him to go elsewhere.

It is asserted that Wells and Anderson did agree to sell and were turned down by Mr. Hewitt, and, being refused their demands for cash by the Democrats, took their final pay, at least in patronage, from their own party.[1]

V

I passed the Christmas week of 1876 in New York with Mr. Tilden. On Christmas day we dined alone. The outlook, on the whole, was cheering. With John Bigelow and Manton Marble Mr. Tilden had been busily engaged compiling the data for a constitutional battle to be fought by the Democrats in Congress, maintaining the right of the House of Representatives to concurrent jurisdiction with the Senate in the counting of the electoral vote, pursuant to an unbroken line of precedents established by the method of proceeding in every presidential election between 1793 and 1872.

There was very great perplexity in the public mind. Both parties appeared to be at sea. The dispute between the Democratic House and the Republican Senate made for thick weather. Contests of the vote of three States--Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, not to mention single votes in Oregon and Vermont--which presently began to blow a gale, had already spread menacing clouds across the political sky. Except Mr. Tilden, the wisest among the leaders knew not precisely what to do.

From New Orleans, on the Saturday night succeeding the presidential election, I had telegraphed to Mr. Tilden, detailing the exact conditions there and urging active and immediate agitation. The chance had been lost. I thought then, and I still think, that the conspiracy of a few men to use the corrupt Returning Boards of Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida to upset the election and make confusion in Congress, might, by prompt exposure and popular appeal, have been thwarted. Be this as it may, my spirit was depressed and my confidence discouraged the intense quietude on our side, for I was sure that beneath the surface the Republicans, with resolute determination and multiplied resources, were as busy as bees.

WILLIAM E. CHANDLER OF NEW HAMPSHIRE]

Mr. Robert M. McLane, later Governor of Maryland and Minister to France--a man of rare ability and large experience, who had served in Congress and in diplomacy, and was an old friend of Mr. Tilden--had been at a Gramercy Park conference when my New Orleans report arrived, and had then and there urged the agitation recommended by me. He was now again in New York. When a lad he had been in England with his father, Lewis McLane, then American Minister to the Court of St. James’s, during the excitement over the Reform Bill of 1832. He had witnessed the popular demonstrations and had been impressed by the direct force of public opinion upon law-making and law-makers. An analogous situation had arrived in America. The Republican Senate was as the Tory House of Lords. We must organize a movement such as had been so effectual in England. Obviously something was going amiss with us and something had to be done.

THE SESSION OF THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION TO CONSIDER THE CASE OF THE FLORIDA RETURNS, IN THE SUPREME COURT ROOM, FEBRUARY 5, 1877]

NOTE TO “THE SESSION OF THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION,” ETC. (SEE THE
PREVIOUS PAGE)

With the purpose of making a picture typical of the sessions of the
Electoral Commission, Mrs. Fassett included prominent people who
were in Washington at the time, and who gave the artist sittings in
the Supreme Court Room.

The Commissioners on the bench, from left to right are: Senators
Thurman, Bayard (writing), Frelinghuysen, Morton, Edmunds; Supreme
Court Justices Strong, Miller, Clifford, Field, Bradley; Members
of the House, Payne, Hunton, Abbott, Garfield, and Hoar. At the
left, below Thurman, is the head of Senator Kernan who acted as
substitute for the former when ill.

William M. Evarts, counsel for Hayes, is addressing the Commission,
and his associate, E. W. Stoughton (white-haired), sits behind him;
Charles O’Conor, chief counsel for Tilden, sits at his left. Other
members of counsel are grouped in the middle-ground. At the left
is seen George Bancroft (with long white beard), and in the middle
foreground (looking out), James G. Blaine.

It was agreed that I return to Washington and make a speech “feeling the pulse” of the country, with the suggestion that in the National Capital should assemble “a mass convention of at least one hundred thousand peaceful citizens,” exercising “the freeman’s right of petition.”

The idea was one of many proposals of a more drastic kind and was the merest venture. I, myself, had no great faith in it. But I prepared the speech, and after much reading and revising, it was held by Mr. Tilden and Mr. McLane to cover the case and meet the purpose, Mr. Tilden writing Mr. Randall, Speaker of the House of Representatives, a letter, carried to Washington by Mr. McLane, instructing him what to do in the event that the popular response should prove favorable.

Alack-the-day! The Democrats were equal to nothing affirmative. The Republicans were united and resolute. I delivered the speech, not in the House, as had been intended, but at a public meeting which seemed opportune. The Democrats at once set about denying the sinister and violent purpose ascribed to it by the Republicans, who, fully advised that it had emanated from Gramercy Park, and came by authority, started a counter agitation of their own.

I became the target for every kind of ridicule and abuse. Nast drew a grotesque cartoon of me, distorting my suggestion for the assembling of one hundred thousand citizens, which was both offensive and libelous.

Being on friendly terms with the Harpers, I made my displeasure so resonant in Franklin Square--Nast himself having no personal ill-will toward me--that a curious and pleasing opportunity which came to pass was taken to make amends. A son having been born to me, “Harper’s Weekly” contained an atoning cartoon representing the child in its father’s arms, and, above, the legend: “10,000 sons from Kentucky, alone.” Some wag said that the son in question, was “the only one of the hundred thousand in arms who came when he was called.”

For many years afterward I was pursued by this unlucky speech, or rather by the misinterpretation given to it alike by friend and foe. Nast’s first cartoon was accepted as a faithful portrait, and I was accordingly satirized and stigmatized, although no thought of violence ever had entered my mind, and in the final proceedings I had voted for the Electoral Commission Bill and faithfully stood by its decisions. Joseph Pulitzer, who immediately followed me on the occasion named, declared that he wanted my “one hundred thousand” to come fully armed and ready for business; yet he never was taken to task or reminded of his temerity.

VI

The Electoral Commission Bill was considered with great secrecy by the Joint Committees of the House and Senate. Its terms were in direct contravention of Mr. Tilden’s plan. This was simplicity itself. He was for asserting, by formal resolution, the conclusive right of the two Houses acting concurrently to count the electoral vote and determine what should be counted as electoral votes, and for denying, also by formal resolution, the pretension set up by the Republicans that the President of the Senate had lawful right to assume that function. He was for urging that issue in debate in both Houses and before the country. He thought that if the attempt should be made to usurp for the President of the Senate a power to make the count, and thus practically to control the Presidential election, the scheme would break down in process of execution.

Strange to say, Mr. Tilden was not consulted by the party leaders in Congress until the fourteenth of January, and then only by Mr. Hewitt, the extra-constitutional features of the Electoral Tribunal measure having already received the assent of Mr. Bayard and Mr. Thurman, the Democratic members of the Senate Committee. Standing by his original plan, and answering Mr. Hewitt’s statement that Mr. Bayard and Mr. Thurman were fully committed, Mr. Tilden said: “Is it not, then, rather late to consult me?” to which Mr. Hewitt replied: “They do not consult you. They are public men, and have their own duties and responsibilities. I consult you.” In the course of the discussion with Mr. Hewitt which followed Mr. Tilden said, “If you go into conference with your adversary, and can’t break off because you feel you must agree to something, you cannot negotiate--you are not fit to negotiate. You will be beaten upon every detail.” Replying to the apprehension of a collision of force between the parties, Mr. Tilden thought it exaggerated, but said: “Why surrender now? You can always surrender. Why surrender before the battle, for fear you may have to surrender after the battle?”

In short, Mr. Tilden condemned the proceeding as precipitate. It was a month before the time for the count, and he saw no reason why opportunity should not be given for consideration and consultation by all the representatives of the people. He treated the state of mind of Bayard and Thurman as a panic in which they were liable to act in haste and repent at leisure. He stood for publicity and wider discussion, distrusting a scheme to submit such vast interests to a small body sitting in the Capitol, as likely to become the sport of intrigue and fraud.

Mr. Hewitt returned to Washington and, without communicating to Mr. Tilden’s immediate friends in the House his attitude and objection, united with Mr. Thurman and Mr. Bayard in completing the bill and reporting it to the Democratic Advisory Committee, as, by a caucus rule, had to be done with all measures relating to the great issue then before us. No intimation had preceded it. It fell like a bombshell upon the members of the Committee. In the debate that followed Mr. Bayard was very insistent, answering the objections at once offered by me, first aggressively and then angrily, going the length of saying, “If you do not accept this plan I shall wash my hands of the whole business, and you can go ahead and seat your President in your own way.”

Mr. Randall, the Speaker, said nothing, but he was with me, as was a majority of my colleagues. It was Mr. Hunton, of Virginia, who poured oil on the troubled waters, and, somewhat in doubt as to whether the changed situation had changed Mr. Tilden, I yielded my better judgment, declaring it as my opinion that the plan would seat Hayes, and there being no other protestant the Committee finally gave a reluctant assent.

In “open session” a majority of Democrats favored the bill. Many of them made it their own. They passed it. There was belief that justice David Davis, who was expected to become a member of the Commission, was sure for Tilden. If, under this surmise, he had been, the political complexion of “eight to seven” would have been reversed. Elected to the United States Senate from Illinois, Judge Davis declined to serve, and Mr. Justice Bradley was chosen for the Commission in his place. The day after the inauguration of Hayes my kinsman, Stanley Matthews, said to me, “You people wanted Judge Davis. So did we. I tell you what I know, that Judge Davis was as safe for us as Judge Bradley. We preferred him because he carried more weight.” The subsequent career of Judge Davis in the Senate gives conclusive proof that this was true.

When the consideration of the disputed votes before the Commission had proceeded far enough to demonstrate the likelihood that its final decision would be for Hayes, a movement of obstruction and delay, “a filibuster,” was organized by about forty Democratic members of the House. It proved rather turbulent than effective. The South stood very nearly solid for carrying out the agreement in good faith. “Toward the close the filibuster received what appeared formidable reinforcement from the Louisiana Delegation.” This was in reality merely a “bluff,” intended to induce the Hayes people to make certain concessions touching their State government. It had the desired effect. Satisfactory assurances having been given, the count proceeded to the end--a very bitter end, indeed, for the Democrats.

The final conference between the Louisianians and the accredited representatives of Mr. Hayes was held at Wormley’s Hotel and came to be called “the Wormley Conference.” It was the subject of uncommon interest and heated controversy at the time and long afterward. Without knowing why or for what purpose, I was asked to be present by my colleague, Mr. Ellis, of Louisiana, and later in the day the same invitation came to me from the Republicans through Mr. Garfield. Something was said about my serving as “a referee.” Just before the appointed hour General M. C. Butler, of South Carolina, afterward so long a Senator in Congress, said to me: “This meeting is called to enable Louisiana to make terms with Hayes. South Carolina is as deeply concerned as Louisiana, but we have nobody to represent us in Congress and hence have not been invited. South Carolina puts herself in your hands and expects you to secure for her whatever terms are given to Louisiana.” So, of a sudden, I found myself invested with responsibility equally as an “agent” and a “referee.”