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davits and the boat suspended on it, and deluged the deck and Mr. Tilden as well. He was obliged to sit in his wet clothes, not only until we arrived at Dover, but in the cars during the rest of our journey to London; in all more than four hours. It was a fearful exposure for a person in his condition, and filled me with alarm. He arrived at his hotel in London chilled through and almost insensible. After a warm bath and some supper he felt somewhat refreshed; about half-past ten, however, and immediately after he retired to his bed, he had a chill, which was soon followed by a fever. I sent for Dr. Garrod, who was then in London, and who prescribed for him. He said the lower tips of Mr. Tilden's lungs were slightly congested, and that he must remain in bed for a day or two. For two days we were in doubt whether he would be well enough to sail for home in the "Scythia," in which we had taken passage for the 12th. Happily, however, he continued to improve, and we were enabled to reach Liverpool in time to sail as had been arranged, arriving in New York on the 25th.

On the evening of the 27th Mr. Tilden was serenaded at his residence in Gramercy park by the Young Men's Democratic Club, whose presence, of course, attracted a crowd. In reply to a few words of welcome from the late Augustus Schell, Mr. Tilden made a short speech which, because of his allusions to our great national staple, came to be known as the Indian Corn Speech. In the course of it he said:

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I predict a great increase in the consumption of our corn by Great Britain over the 60,000,000 bushels which it reached last year. It is the most natural and spontaneous of our cereal products. Our present crop ought to be 1,500,000,000 bushels against 300,000,000 of wheat. It is but little inferior to wheat in nutritive power. It costs less than one-half on the seaboard, and much less than one-half on the farm. It can be cooked, by those

who consent to learn how, into many delicious forms of human food. Why should not the British workmen have cheaper food? Why should not our farmers have a great market? Why should not our carriers have the transportation?

"Let us remember that commercial exchanges must have some element of mutuality. Whoever obstructs the means of payment, obstructs also the facilities of sale. We must relax our barbarous revenue system so as not unnecessarily to retard the natural processes of trade. We must no longer legislate against the wants of humanity and the beneficence of God." [Applause.]

He also referred to what he termed "the greatest political crime in our history" in impressive terms.

"In the canvass of 1876 the federal government embarked in the contest with unscrupulous activity. A member of the cabinet was the head of a partisan committee. Agents stood at the doors of the pay offices to exact contributions from official subordinates. The whole office-holding class were made to exhaust their power. Even the army, for the first time, to the disgust of the soldiers and many of the officers, was moved about the country as an electioneering instrument. All this was done under the eye of the beneficiary of it, who was making the air vocal with professions of civil service reform, to be begun after he had himself exhausted all the immoral advantages of civil service abuses.

"The step from an extreme degree of corrupt abuses in the elections to a subversion of the elective system itself is natural. No sooner was the election over than the whole power of the office-holding class, led by a cabinet minister, was exerted to procure, and did procure, from the State canvassers of two States, illegal and fraudulent certificates which were made a pretext for a false count of the electoral votes. To enable these officers to exercise the immoral courage necessary to the parts assigned to them, and to relieve them from the timidity which God has implanted in the human bosom as a limit to a criminal audacity, detachments of the army were sent to afford them shelter.

"The expedients by which the votes of the electors chosen by the people of these two States were rejected, and the votes of the electors having the illegal and fraudulent certificates were counted, and the menace of usurpation by the President of the Senate of dictatorial power over all the questions in controversy, and the menaced enforcement of his pretended authority by the army and navy, the terrorism of the business classes, and the kindred measures by which the false count was consummated, are known.

"The magnitude of a political crime must be measured by its natural and necessary consequences. Our great Republic has been the only example in the world of a regular and orderly transfer of governmental succession by the elective system. To destroy the habit of traditionary respect for the will of the people, as declared through the electoral forms, and to exhibit our institutions as a failure, is the greatest possible wrong to our own country. The American people will not condone it under any pretext or for any purpose.1

"Young men, in the order of nature we who have guarded the sacred traditions of our free government will soon leave that work to you. Within the life of most who hear me our Republic will embrace a hundred millions of people. Whether its institutions shall be preserved in substance and in spirit, as well as in barren forms, and will continue to be a blessing to the toiling millions here and a good example to mankind, now everywhere seeking a larger share in the management of their own affairs, will depend on you.

"I avail myself of the occasion to thank you, and to thank all in our State and country who have accorded to me their support, not personal to myself, but for the cause I have represented, and which has embraced the largest and holiest interests of humanity."

1 "Writings and Speeches," Vol. II. p. 486.

CHAPTER V

The trials and temptations of a bachelor millionaire

marriage in verse and prose.

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MR. TILDEN'S political opponents gave an involuntary but unequivocal recognition of his singularly unassailable public and private character by their exaggeration of his wealth, and by their misrepresentations of the use he made of it. Failing to find any political doctrine that could be successfully challenged on moral grounds, or any personal infirmities or delinquencies upon which they could make a combined attack, they condescended to appeal to one of the basest sentiments of our unregenerate nature by making a party shibboleth of "Old Tilden's barrell." This gave great notoriety to his wealth and a proportionate annoyance to himself, for every mail brought him proffers of assistance in distributing it, not only from all parts of his own country, but, not infrequently, from foreign lands.

Of the number and variety of these communications only men of large wealth are apt to have any idea, nor they, unless their stores have had the factitious advertising which the Republican press and touters gave to Mr. Tilden's accumulations. Churches wanted their debts paid; parents wanted children adopted, or educated, or established in business; debtors wanted their farms cleared of mortgages; unsuccessful speculators wished help to try their luck again; inventors appealed to him to buy an interest in their patents; mothers invited him to marry their daughters; gentle maidens of marriageable age asked for his photograph in exchange for their own, and the honor of a correspondence with him; cranks wished him to let them cure him; promoters wanted, some to have him join them in great

VOL. II.-10

mining enterprises, others in draining swamps, and others in cornering the timber of the country. The largest number of applications came from men and women wishing to market their political influence for his.

The late George Bancroft is reported to have said that his experience in teaching the Round Hill Academy at Northampton removed whatever doubt he had ever entertained of the total depravity of human nature. But neither priest nor pedagogue are often, if ever, forced into such a disgusting familiarity with the morbid anatomy of human society as a notoriously wealthy and successful candidate for popular favor. In this respect Mr. Tilden's experience was unique, for he was the first candidate for the chief magistracy of the United States whose wealth was sufficient to attract public attention, and whose heart and hand were unappropriated. There were times when, had Mr. Tilden listened to all the appeals that were made to him, with all his wealth, he would have been himself a beggar at the end of any week. To comprehend the nature and extent of this species of annoyance, I will give a few specimens of such appeals as were made by post, and were most readily disposed of; though personal appeals were nearly as numerous, and, unless made by absolute strangers, usually consumed more time and therefore proved more serious interruptions. The names and addresses of the writers are of course suppressed.

A Kentuckian, who, though blessed with a large family, thought he was poor, wrote:

"I am a poor man with a large family and am not able to bring them up as I would like. My three youngest are girls aged respectively about thirteen (13), ten (10), and eight (8) years old; and I am anxious that they be decently brought up and respectably educated. How would you like to take charge of the education and rearing? and if you should be so disposed, I will give you full charge of them.

. I know this proposition sounds cruel and unparental, but, sir, it is my overpowering anxiety about

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