Part 23 (1/2)
The bill pa.s.sed the Senate; and after going to conference, when it seemed likely the Conference Committee would not agree, the Democratic leaders of the House, fearing the bill would fail entirely, decided to surrender to the Senate and accept the Senate bill with all its amendments. President Cleveland denounced this temporizing, coining the famous expression, ”party perfidy and party dishonor” in the Wilson letter, evidently referring to Mr. Gorman and other leaders of the Senate.
There has been endless controversy and discussion over the att.i.tude of Senator Gorman on the Wilson Bill. I myself have always believed that Senator Gorman felt that the industries of the country could not prosper under a Democratic Free Trade Tariff, and that he was willing to afford them a certain amount of protection. Especially was he criticised on account of the sugar schedule. Senator Tillman in his memorial address in the Senate, on the occasion of the delivery of eulogies on Senator Gorman, said in reference to this:
”In the conversations I had with the Democratic leaders, it was clearly brought out that the sugar refineries were ready to contribute to the Democratic campaign fund if it could be understood that the industry would be fostered and not destroyed by the Democratic Tariff policy, and I received the impression, which became indelibly fixed on my mind then and remains fixed to this day, that President Cleveland understood the situation and was willing to acquiesce in it if we won at the polls. I did not talk with Mr. Cleveland in person on this subject, though I called at his hotel to pay my respects, and I am thoroughly satisfied that the charge of party perfidy and party dishonor was an act of the grossest wrong and cruelty to Senator Gorman. If Mr. Cleveland, as I was told, knew of these negotiations and was the beneficiary of such a contribution, it is inconceivable how he could lend his great name and influence toward destroying Senator Gorman's influence and popularity, in the way he did.”
Senator Gorman himself was very justly indignant and displayed much feeling when he addressed the Senate on July 23, 1894, replying to Mr. Cleveland's letter.
He used, in part, the following language:
”As I have said, sir, this is a most extraordinary proceeding for a Democrat, elected to the highest place in the Government, and fellow Democrats in another high place, where they have the right to speak and legislate generally, to join with the commune in traducing the Senate of the United States, to blacken the character of Senators who are as honorable as they are, who are as patriotic as they ever can be, who have done as much to serve their party as men who are now the beneficiaries of your labor and mine, to taunt and jeer us before the country as the advocates of trust and as guilty of dishonor and perfidy.”
It was a Democratic controversy, and I am not in a position to say whether Mr. Cleveland or Mr. Gorman was right; whether it was a bargain in advance of the election to secure campaign funds; whether the sugar schedule was framed to secure the support of the Louisiana Senators; but I do know that Mr. Cleveland's attacks on Mr. Gorman turned the State of Maryland over to the Republicans and relegated Mr. Gorman to private life.
The Wilson Bill became a law without the approval of the President, Mr. Cleveland taking the position that he would not permit himself to be separated from his party to such an extent as might be implied by a veto of the tariff legislation which, though disappointing to him, he said was still chargeable to Democratic efforts.
There was one provision of the Wilson Bill which, I have been convinced since, was a very wise measure, and which will yet be enacted into law; and that is the income tax provision. That bill provided for a tax of two per cent on incomes above four thousand dollars. A separate vote was taken on this section and I voted against it. It was Republican policy then to oppose an income-tax, and the view I took then was, that if we started out taxing incomes the end would be that we would derive, from the source, sufficient amount of revenue to run the Government and that it would gradually break down the protective policy. It was declared unconst.i.tutional by a vote of five to four of the Supreme Court. A previous income- tax had been declared const.i.tutional during the Civil War, and I am very strongly of the opinion that if the case is again presented to the Court the decision will be in harmony with the first decision, overruling the decision of 1895. An income-tax is the fairest of all taxes. It is resorted to by every other nation. It falls most heavily on those who can best afford it. The sentiment in the Republican party has changed, and I believe that at no far distant day Congress will pa.s.s an income-tax as well as an inheritance-tax law.
The pa.s.sage of the Wilson Bill increased, rather than diminished, the hard times commencing with the panic of 1893. The Democratic party, or the free silver element of it, claimed that the panacea was the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. The silver question was argued week after week in both branches of Congress, and was never finally settled until the election of McKinley and the establishment by law of the Gold Standard. In recent years we hear very little about free silver; but the Democratic party split on that issue, Mr. Cleveland heading the faction in favor of sound money.
In those closing days of the Cleveland Administration, it was very seldom that a Democratic Senator was seen at the White House. The President became completely estranged from the members of his party in both House and Senate, but it seemed to bother him little. He went ahead doing his duty as he saw it, utterly disregarding the wishes of the members of his party in Congress.
I saw him many times during this period, and I remember on one occasion I had seen a notice in one of the papers indicating that the President was about to appoint my old friend Mr. Charles Ridgely, of Springfield, Illinois, as Comptroller of the Currency. I had the highest regard for Mr. Ridgely, and I called at the White House to congratulate the President on the selection. He seemed to be out of humor, and was more than usually abrupt. He declared that he knew nothing about it, that he did not know Ridgely, and never had had any intention of appointing him. I repeated that I had seen the announcement in a newspaper, adding that it looked to me as though the report were authentic, and that I only wanted to congratulate him. But the President merely reiterated, somewhat curtly, that he knew nothing about it. I became a little annoyed, finally losing my temper.
”I don't care a d.a.m.n whether you appoint him or not,” I exclaimed; ”Ridgely's a Democrat, anyhow.”
Thereupon his att.i.tude quickly changed, and he inquired about Ridgely, listening with interest to what I had to say. He then talked with me on the silver question and other matters, detaining me while he kept his back to the crowd waiting to see him. I almost had to break away in order to give others a chance.
Among the other embarra.s.sments and difficulties of the Cleveland Administration were the famous Chicago riots of 1893. The trouble grew out of a railroad strike; much damage was done and a great deal of property was destroyed, with consequent loss of life. The city itself seemed to be threatened, the business and manufacturing interests appealed to the Governor first, and then to the President, to send troops to Chicago to protect property. When the Governor failed to act, the President ordered Federal troops to Chicago.
The action was regarded as very wise, and it endeared him to the business people of that city. Governor Altgeld protested, and that was one of the reasons why he became Mr. Cleveland's most bitter enemy.
I think I should say a few words in reference to Governor Altgeld.
He has been called an anarchist and a socialist. In my judgment, he was neither. Of his honesty, his integrity, his sincerity of purpose, his determination to give the State a good administration, I never had the slightest doubt. The mainspring of the trouble, I believe, was an inability to select good men for public office.
He was not a good judge of men; he surrounded himself with a coterie that betrayed his trust and used the State offices for personal gain. I have always sympathized with Governor Altgeld. Had he been eligible I believe he would have been the nominee of his party for the Presidency; but he was born abroad.
One can scarcely imagine industrial conditions in a worse state than they were at the close of the Cleveland Administration. The election of a Republican Congress in 1894 had helped some, but the revenues were not sufficient to meet the ordinary running expenses of the Government; bonds had to be issued, labor was out of employment, the mills and factories were closed, and business was at a standstill.
This was the condition of affairs when the Republican National Convention a.s.sembled in 1896.
CHAPTER XIX McKINLEY'S PRESIDENCY 1896 to 1901
The hard times, the business depression, all attributable to the Wilson Tariff Bill, made the Republicans turn instinctively to Governor McKinley, the well-known advocate of a high protective tariff, as the nominee of the Republican party, who would lead it to victory at the polls.
The Republican National Convention of 1896 was held at St. Louis.
It was one of the few national conventions which I failed to attend.
Since entering the Senate, I have been usually honored by my party colleagues in the State by being made chairman of the Illinois delegation to Republican national conventions. But for some reason or other--just why I do not now recollect--I was not a delegate to the St. Louis Convention. Congress was in session until near the time when the convention was to meet, and Mr. McKinley, who, it was well known, would be the nominee of the party, invited me to stop off in Canton on my way from Was.h.i.+ngton to Illinois and spend a day with him. I did so, arriving at Canton about nine in the morning, Mr. McKinley meeting me at the station and driving me to his house, where I remained until my train left at nine in the evening. From his residence in Canton, I wired the Illinois delegation, appealing them to vote for McKinley. He received all but two of the votes of the delegation. He was nominated without any serious opposition, through the brilliant generals.h.i.+p of that master of party manipulation, the Hon. Marcus A. Hanna.
I was talked about a little as a candidate for President during the closing days of the Cleveland Administration. I was urged to lend my name for the purpose, particularly by men in the East whom I always regarded as my friends. I afterwards learned, although I was not so informed at the time, that they had determined to beat McKinley at all hazards and nominate Speaker Reed if they could, their policy being to have the different States send delegations in favor of ”favorite sons.” Senator Allison was selected as the ”favorite son” from Iowa, and efforts were made to carry the Illinois delegation for me. They hoped by this means, when the delegates a.s.sembled at St. Louis, to agree on some one, almost any one, except McKinley--Reed if they could, or Allison, or me.
Mr. McKinley, through friends, about this time offered me all sorts of inducements to withdraw. Judge Grosscup was the intermediary, and there was hardly anything in the Administration, or hardly any promise, he would not have made me if I had consented to withdraw.
I felt that I could not do so. When they found it was impossible to beg me off they determined to carry the State over me. Money was spent freely in characteristic Hanna fas.h.i.+on, his motto being, ”accomplish results.” McKinley was exceedingly popular, in addition, and after our State Convention had a.s.sembled and endorsed him, I withdrew from the contest. At the time I thought that if I could have carried the delegation from my own State, as Senator Allison did his, it would have broken the McKinley boom, and one or the other of us would have been nominated. But as I look back on it now, it seems to me that no one could have beaten McKinley; and even if he had lost Illinois, as he lost Iowa, he still would have had sufficient delegates to secure his nomination.