Chapter XXIV: Grant's Administration

The demerits of the first Grant Administration were the principal cause of the Liberal uprising of 1872. They were enumerated in detail by Charles Sumner in open Senate, on May 31 of that year. They need not be reiterated here. I have no inclination to rake over the ashes of a dead controversy or to detract from the fame of one who rendered inestimable service to the nation in its greatest crisis, without which all other service might have been unavailing. At the same time, the thread of this narrative requires some notice of the stings planted in the minds of sensitive persons, who were not seeking office, by the man who was then the nation's head.

Grant's shortcomings in civil station were such as might have been expected from one who was suddenly charged with vast responsibilities without his own solicitation or desire and without any previous experience or training for them. His most striking characteristic was tenacity. Whether on the right track or on the wrong, he was deaf and blind to obstacles and opposition, because there was resistance to be overcome. This quality was reflected in his determination "never to desert a friend under fire"--a maxim more generous than wise, fitter for the field than for the forum, and which in his last days brought misfortunes to his own door which were lamented by everybody.

The Republican politicians nominated him for President, not because they deemed him qualified for the position, but because of his military renown. He was elected at a time when military habits and modes of thought were the worst possible equipment for the solution of political problems. Nevertheless, he rendered great service on two occasions--in the settlement of the Alabama Claims and by vetoing the Currency Inflation Bill. In both these cases he was much indebted to Hamilton Fish, his Secretary of State, but the credit is justly his own and the fame thereof will outlast all the scandals that arose from his confidence in, and association with, such characters as Orville Babcock, John McDonald, Ben Butler, W. W. Belknap, and Tom Murphy.

The rottenness of the New York Custom-House was a crying evil before Grant became President, and its flavor was not improved by the appointment of Murphy as its chief officer. It was crammed with men who "had to be taken care of," whose work was not needed by the Government, and who were incompetent even if it had been needed--small politicians, district leaders and "heelers," who were useful in carrying primaries and getting delegates elected to conventions. A Joint Committee on Retrenchment, organized as early as 1866 and kept alive by every subsequent Congress, had been investigating frauds and abuses in various quarters. Its chairman, Senator Patterson, of New Hampshire, made a report early in 1871 containing many interesting disclosures.

On December 11, Senator Conkling offered a resolution directing the Committee on Military Affairs to inquire into the defalcation of an army paymaster named Hodge. Trumbull moved as an amendment that the Joint Committee on Retrenchment be reconstituted and instructed to make a general investigation of the waste and loss of money in the public service. A debate sprang up on the proposed amendment, which continued for a week and aroused keen interest throughout the country. Wilson, the chairman of the Military Committee, sustained the amendment, saying that the Hodge case did not appertain to military matters, but to finance, to the handling of public money. Sumner took the same view. Chandler objected to a joint committee with power to investigate all the executive departments. He preferred to have each department investigated by a separate committee, if it needed investigation. In the course of the debate extracts were read from the Patterson Report, together with the testimony of witnesses. Weighers in the custom-house testified that men were sent to them by the collector as assistants for whom there was no work to do. They were simply put on the pay-roll and did nothing but draw their salaries. In the weighers' department alone $50,000 per year was thus squandered. Collector Murphy was quoted as saying, in answer to a remonstrance about unnecessary help in the custom-house, "There were certain people who had to be taken care of: it was well known that they had to be taken care of, and nobody in the party would say anything about his taking care of them, and he would do it."[122]

Trumbull said that he did not denounce officers of the Government indiscriminately. He merely wished to have some system introduced by which appointments should be made with regard to the fitness of the appointees and the need of their services. As the debate enlarged, a line of cleavage was disclosed among Senators similar to that which occurred on the deposition of Sumner; Morton, Conkling, Chandler, Edmunds, and Sherman opposing, and Schurz, Sumner, Logan, Tipton, and Wilson supporting, the Trumbull amendment. Finally the Republican Senatorial Caucus took the matter in hand and adopted a substitute to the Trumbull Resolution, which was offered in the Senate by Anthony and adopted by 29 to 18. It provided for a select committee to investigate only such subjects as the Senate should designate.

One of the things stumbled on by the Patterson Committee was the "general order" system in the New York Custom-House, which led up to the Leet and Stocking scandal, one of the most exasperating incidents of the Grant regime. Leet had been a member of General Grant's staff. The Patterson Committee found that he was enjoying the rank and pay of a colonel in the army, and also of a clerk in the War Department, and was receiving an additional income, estimated at $50,000 per year, for the warehousing of imported goods in New York, without the expenditure of any labor or capital of his own and without even his personal presence in New York, he being a resident of Washington City. All goods arriving by the Cunard and Bremen lines were sent by the collector's order to the Leet and Stocking warehouse, and were required to pay one month's storage whether they remained there a month or only a day, the cost being not less than $1.50 per package. This "general order" system had been devised before the Republican party came into power. It was flourishing in 1862.[123] Collector Grinnell, Grant's first appointee to that position, found it in force when he came into office. Before it was devised the arriving goods had been stored temporarily in warehouses belonging to the steamship companies, adjacent to the docks, without cost to the owners.

When the Patterson Committee made this discovery they reported the facts personally to the Secretary of the Treasury (Boutwell), who appointed a board of three officers of the department to make an independent investigation. This board made a report sustaining the findings of the Patterson Committee. Boutwell thereupon wrote to Collector Murphy, who had succeeded Grinnell as collector, advising him to discontinue the "general order" system altogether and go back to the old system, no good reasons for the former change, but many objections to it, having been found. Months passed after Boutwell's letter was sent, but the "general order" system was still flourishing and the coffers of Leet and Stocking were still receiving an income, at least double that of the President of the United States, as a reward for putting an obstruction in the pathway of lawful commerce. A. T. Stewart, Grant's first choice for Secretary of the Treasury, testified that the "general order" system was a damage to honest traffic and a general nuisance. William E. Dodge testified that he had been compelled by it to curtail his imports at New York and to use other ports of entry to avoid the delays and exactions of the "general order" system.

The indifference of the only man higher up than Secretary Boutwell--the only man who had power to remove Collector Murphy or to choke off Leet--was incomprehensible. Schurz made comments on the case which the Administration Senators could not answer and dared not leave unanswered. On the 18th of December, Conkling introduced a resolution directing the Committee on Investigation and Retrenchment to make an inquiry into the Leet and Stocking scandal. This resolution was preceded by a preamble quoting the words of Schurz as a reason for making the inquiry, in the following form:

Whereas it has been declared in the Senate that at the port of
New York there exists and is maintained by officers of the
United States under the name of the "General Order business" a
monstrous abuse fraudulent in character, and whereas the
following statement has been made by a Senator: "It was
intimated by some of the witnesses that Mr. Leet, who pockets
the enormous profits arising from that business, had some
connection with the White House; but General Porter was
examined, Mr. Leet himself was examined, and they both
testified that it was not so, and, counting the number of
witnesses, we have no right to form a different conclusion. But
the fact remains that this scandalous system of robbery is
sustained--is sustained against the voice of the merchants of
New York--is sustained against the judgment and the voice of
the Secretary of the Treasury himself. I ask you how is it
sustained? Where and what is the mysterious power that sustains
it? The conclusion is inevitable that it is stronger than
decent respect for public opinion, nay, a power stronger than
the Secretary of the Treasury himself":

Therefore resolved, that the Committee of Investigation and
Retrenchment be instructed to inquire into the matter fully and
at large, and particularly whether any collusion or improper
connection with said business exists on the part of any officer
of the United States, and that said committee further inquire
whether any person holding office in the custom-house at New
York has been detected or is known or believed by his superior
officer to have been guilty of bribery or of taking bribes or
of other crime or misdemeanor, and said committee is hereby
empowered to send for persons and papers.

The Committee of Investigation and Retrenchment had not been appointed when Conkling offered this resolution. It had been agreed upon in the Republican Caucus, but had not been reported to the Senate. Senator Anthony immediately reported the names: Buckingham (Connecticut), Pratt (Indiana), Howe (Wisconsin), Harlan (Iowa), Stewart (Nevada), Pool (North Carolina), Bayard (Delaware). Sumner expressed mild surprise that no Senator who had favored an investigation of the New York Custom-House, or of frauds in general, was a member of the committee, unless Bayard (Democrat) might be counted as such. He quoted from Jefferson's "Manual of Parliamentary Law" to show that the proper course was to give the leading place in such a committee to the prime mover of it, who was, in this case, undoubtedly Trumbull, but that nobody who had shown any interest in the matter to be investigated, not even the Senator from New Hampshire (Patterson), whose investigation of the previous session had uncovered the alleged frauds, and whose familiarity with the case would be most useful now, had any place on it. Anthony contended that inasmuch as all the Senators had voted to raise the Committee, the vote having been unanimous, all the requirements of parliamentary law were satisfied by the appointment of the seven Senators named, or any other seven. Thurman, of Ohio, thought that Anthony was "sticking in the bark" and not reaching the sound wood of the tree. Considerable time was spent in the debate on the composition of the committee, but in the end the list reported by Anthony was adopted, as was Conkling's resolution, with its bulky preamble. The preamble was doubtless intended to convince Grant that Schurz (not Conkling) made the investigation necessary. The committee went to work early in 1872 and eventually furnished a solution of the Leet and Stocking mystery.

Leet learned in 1868, soon after Grant's election, that he intended to appoint Moses H. Grinnell collector of the port of New York. He procured from Grant a letter of introduction to Grinnell, but Grant cautioned him, when he gave it, not to use it for the purpose of getting an office. When Leet handed the letter to Grinnell he remarked to him that he (Grinnell) was to be appointed collector of the port. Grinnell had not received any intimation of the fact before, and he inferred that Leet had been designated by the President to inform him of it. He asked Leet what he could do for him, and Leet replied that he wanted the "general order" business of the custom-house. Grinnell thought that this also was a message from the President, and he arranged as soon as possible to give Leet a portion of it. Leet farmed out this portion to a man named Bixby for $5000 per year, plus one half of all the profits in excess of $10,000. Then he went back to Washington and resumed his place as a clerk in the War Department; but he complained bitterly to Grinnell that his share in the "general order" business was not large enough, and he told Grinnell that he would be removed from office if he did not give him the whole of it. After much threatening, Grinnell did give him the whole of it, but he was removed, nevertheless, after holding the office about one year, and Murphy was appointed collector in his place. Murphy kept the "general order" business in the hands of Leet and Stocking until March, 1872, when the committee made its report. On the 14th of March, the newspapers announced that Murphy had been removed as collector and General Arthur appointed in his place, that the "general order" business had been radically reformed, and that Leet and Stocking had disappeared from history. In making this announcement the _Nation_ called the attention of the editor of _Harper's Weekly_ (George William Curtis), who was still a little deaf to the shortcomings of the Administration, to some things hard to understand.

When the President [it said] became aware that Leet had abused
his confidence, disregarded his wishes, made false
representations as to his influence over him, and concealed his
doings from him,--facts which were revealed by the repeated
complaints of prominent merchants and by Leet's appearance in
public as owner of the "plum," and finally by a congressional
investigation,--he took no notice of them whatever. So far as
we know he gave no sign of displeasure, paid no attention to
the complaints against him, and let him go on for nearly two
years preying on the commerce of the port, till a second
congressional investigation, obtained with great difficulty,
and the savage assaults of the press on the eve of an election,
made the change we have just witnessed imperatively necessary.
It has been the custom of the friends of the Administration
hitherto, whenever charges of this kind are brought up, instead
of answering them, to tell you that they endear the President
more than ever to the American people; that his renomination is
a sure thing, etc.; and that Horace Greeley is a friend of Hank
Smith. Now is this satisfactory? Let us have a candid answer,
without allusions to cigars, or fast horses, or investments, or
summer vacations, Hank Smith, or Horace Greeley.

No dollar of the Leet and Stocking "plum" ever reached President Grant or any member of his family. We are left to conjecture what were his reasons for allowing the scandal to continue so long after the facts became known. Judging his course here by his second term, we are forced to conclude that his combativeness was aroused by the criticisms of Schurz, Trumbull, and others, which he interpreted as marks of personal hostility to himself. In fact, his senatorial supporters so interpreted them in public discussions. He probably upheld Leet for the same reasons that he shielded Babcock in the greater scandal of the St. Louis Whiskey Ring in 1876.[124] It was a mistake, however, to suppose (if he did suppose) that Trumbull was moved by any personal hostility. An interview with the latter, dated December 3, 1871, published in the Louisville _Courier-Journal_,[125] shows that he was still on friendly terms with the President. His interlocutor began by asking him if he would consent to the use of his name as a conservative candidate for the Presidency against General Grant, to which the "Illinois statesman replied with more than usual emphasis, 'No sir, I would not.'"

Then the following conversation ensued:

Why not?

For many reasons. In the first place, I am satisfied where I
am. I consider a seat in the Senate of the United States a
position in which I can be more useful than in any other, and I
believe it to be as honorable as any under the Government if
its duties be efficiently and properly discharged. In the next
place, I do not agree with the programme which has been marked
out by those who refuse to support the candidacy of the
President for reelection. I am conscious of the need for many
reforms, and I am daily striving to accomplish them. But I do
not believe that a revolution of parties would be salutary. I
do not believe that either the people of the North or of the
South are ready to profit by such a change.

And why not?

Because the people of the South have really accepted nothing,
and are not willing to cooeperate with the Liberals of the North
in settling the practical relations of society on a sure and
generous basis. I know that the South has much to complain of.
But so have the Liberal Republicans. It is not the rebel
element, perhaps, but the nature of things, that the South
should not realize the complete overthrow of the old order and
the necessity for a complete change of the domestic policy. I
believe that the defeat of General Grant would involve a
reaction at the South whose consequences would be even worse
than the present state of affairs.

Don't you think General Grant meditates the permanent
usurpation of the Executive office?

No, I do not. My opinion is that General Grant is, in the main,
a conservative man. He has made mistakes. But I cannot say they
justify his removal.

What are your personal relations?

Very friendly. I have opposed some of his measures, but I have
no personal feeling, and, indeed, this is one of the reasons
why it is disagreeable to have my name mentioned in the
connection you name.

The interview closed with the writer's assurance that the views of Senator Sumner coincided with those of Trumbull. A Washington letter in the _Nation_ of December 28 said:

From what I see and hear, the conviction is forced upon me that
there will be no lead given by men like Trumbull voluntarily.
They may be forced by the Administration party into opposition,
but they will go reluctantly and timidly.

Among the letters received by Trumbull at this time was the following from a man of high repute and influence in Ohio:

COLUMBUS, December 15, 1871.

You may remember me sufficiently to know who I am and my
position in Ohio. My special object in this writing is to
congratulate you for your proper and patriotic position on the
Retrenchment Resolution. Messrs. Morton, Sherman _et al_, are
grievously mistaken as to the state of public sentiment in
regard to the Administration and the President. I am bold to
say that outside of the Grand Army of the Republic and the
office-holders (an _imperium in imperio_), more than one half
of the Republicans are intensely dissatisfied with General
Grant. His indecent interference in Missouri and Louisiana, his
disgusting nepotism, his indefensible course in regard to San
Domingo, and his recent complimentary letter to Collector
Murphy have produced the conviction that he is intellectually
and morally unqualified for his present position. He will hear
deep and alarming thunder before the Kalends of November, 1872.

Go forward with your associates, Schurz, Sumner, Patterson, and
Tipton, in your exposure of the faults and frauds of the
Administration, and the best class of Republicans will honor
your magnanimity and patriotism. I know General Grant
personally. I have not asked him for any favor. As Senatorial
Elector I traversed the state, and advocated the Republican
principles and policy, but I have the pleasant consciousness
and delightful remembrance that I never eulogized General Grant
nor recommended him as suitable for the place. As long as he is
under the special superintendence of Morton, Chandler, and
Cameron, he must necessarily deteriorate, as none of them has
ever been suspected of having any profound sense of right or
wrong.

Confidentially yours,

SAM'L GALLOWAY.

HON. LYMAN TRUMBULL, U.S.S.

FOOTNOTES:

[122] _Cong. Globe_, 1871, p. 51.

[123] See House report No. 50, 37th Congress, 3d session, page 38.

[124] Rhodes, _History of the United States_, VII, 182-89.

[125] This interview was reprinted in the New York _Times_ of December 6. It is corroborated in sentiment by the Trumbull manuscripts of that date, but it was probably not intended for publication. It purports to be a conversation between Trumbull and an ex-Senator.