Part 29 (1/2)
We all listened to Secretary Seward with the profoundest respect and attention; but as I look back on it now, I think that Secretary Seward probably entertained more than he instructed the members.
He seemed to enjoy attending the sessions.
I thought that it would be a help if we could have Mr. Olney, then Secretary of State, before us. I suggested to Senator Davis at one meeting, that Secretary Olney should be invited to come and explain some question concerning which we seemed to be in doubt.
Senator Davis declined to invite him, and said so in so many words.
Apparently he did not desire any interference or information from the Executive Department. I felt pretty free to express my opinion to Senator Davis, and I told him that inasmuch as he did not care to invite Secretary Olney, I would invite him myself, if he did not object. I did so, and Secretary Olney, at a subsequent meeting, met with the committee and very quickly explained the question under consideration.
Senator Davis was a well recognized authority on international law, both as a lecturer on that subject and a writer. Judging from his display of ability, he ought to have been able to write a monumental work on the subject. But he was an indolent man and contented himself with publis.h.i.+ng merely a little volume containing a _resume_ of his lectures before a Was.h.i.+ngton college of law. The publication of this work detracted from, rather than added to, his reputation as a student and writer.
He was not an orator, but on occasions, in executive session, when great international questions were before the Senate, I have heard him deliver wonderfully eloquent speeches. He always commanded the closest attention whenever he spoke in the Senate, whether in executive or open session (which latter he only infrequently did, by the way), and he always exhausted the subject.
President McKinley appointed him a member of the Paris Peace Commission to frame the treaty of peace with Spain. How well he performed that service those of his colleagues on the commission who are still living, can attest. He returned from Paris and had charge of the ratification of the treaty in the Senate.
I have always believed that Senator Davis's death was the result of his indolent habits. I do not believe he ever took any physical exercise; at least he did not do so during the time that I knew him. He was so much of a student, and so interested in books, that he seemed to think that time devoted to the proper care of his physical condition was so much time wasted. The result was that when disease attacked him he became an easy prey, and when he pa.s.sed away it was said that he bore all the marks of a very old man, even though he was comparatively young in years. It was my sad duty, as a member of the United States Senate, to attend his funeral in St. Paul, in 1900.
The northwest section of the United States has not now, and never had before, as capable a scholar and statesman as Cushman K. Davis.
I succeeded Senator Davis as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. I have enjoyed my work on the committee more than I have enjoyed any other work that I have done in the Senate. There are a number of reasons for this. First, the members of the committee, during my service, have been particularly able and agreeable men, and during those years some of the greatest men of the Senate have been numbered among its members. Aside from one, whom I have long since forgiven, I do not recall now that I have had a single controversy or unkind word with any member. In addition, the work is not only of the greatest importance, but it has been very satisfactory, because partisans.h.i.+p has not at all entered into the disposition of matters pertaining to our foreign affairs. The members of the committee during my time have always seemed to take a deep interest in the work coming before them, and, unlike most of the committees of the Senate, it has never been difficult to secure the attendance of a working quorum. In the ten years that I have been chairman, I do not believe the committee has ever been compelled to adjourn for want of a quorum when any important business was before it.
Until his death in 1911, Senator Wm. P. Frye, of Maine, was in point of service the oldest member of the committee. He had served as one of its members ever since 1885. He could have been chairman, by right of seniority, when Mr. Davis was made chairman in 1891, on the retirement of Mr. Sherman; and again he could have become chairman when Senator Davis died. He did act in that capacity for nearly a year, but he always seemed to prefer the chairmans.h.i.+p of the Committee on Commerce.
I believe that the late Senator Hanna had a good deal to do with Senator Frye's declining to succeed the late Senator Davis as chairman. s.h.i.+p-subsidy and the building up of the merchant marine of the United States were then before the Senate, and Senator Hanna, a s.h.i.+p owner himself, was deeply interested in that legislation.
Senator Hanna and Senator Frye were devoted friends; and, although I do not know, I have always felt that it was Senator Hanna who induced Senator Frye to remain at the head of the Committee on Commerce.
Senator Frye was a very capable and faithful Senator, and enjoyed the confidence and respect of the people of his State to a greater degree than any other Maine statesman, with the exception of Mr.
Blaine. As chairman of the Committee on Commerce, I would say he dominated that committee, and at the same time he was a most satisfactory chairman to every Senator who served on it. He was thoroughly familiar with every question pertaining to rivers and harbors, the s.h.i.+pping interests, and the mult.i.tude of matters coming before the committee. Senator Burton, of Ohio, is probably the only member of the United States Senate at present who is as well posted on matters before the Committee on Commerce.
Mr. Frye was an active member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and during the brief periods when I have been compelled by reason of illness to remain away from the Senate I always designated Senator Frye to act in my stead.
Among his colleagues in the Senate, he enjoyed the greatest degree of popularity; and aside from one or two occasions when his own colleague opposed him, no Senator ever objected to any ordinary bill which Senator Frye called up and asked to have placed on its pa.s.sage. In fact it was his custom to report a bill from his committee, or the Committee on Foreign Relations, the only two working committees of which he was a member, and ask for its immediate consideration. No one ever objected, and the bill went through as a meritorious measure without question, on his word alone to the Senate.
He was an ideal presiding officer. For years he was president _pro tempore_, and the death of Vice-President Hobart, and the accession of Mr. Roosevelt to the Presidency, necessitated his almost constant occupancy of the chair. With the peculiar rules existing in the Senate, the position of presiding officer is comparatively an easy one. Senator Frye made an especially agreeable presiding officer, expediting the business of the Senate in a degree equal to that of any presiding officer during my service.
I recollect when he was elected president _pro tempore_, in 1896, I had been talked of for the place, but he had not heard that I desired it; and a Republican caucus was held which named him president. Senator Chandler, for whom I have always had the greatest respect as a man and as a Senator, after the caucus was held told Senator Frye that he had heard I had some ambition for the place.
Mr. Frye came at once to my house and to my study and asked me, in so many words, if I had desired to be president of the Senate. I replied that I had not, adding that I had had no particular concern about it at any time. He thereupon a.s.serted that he had called simply to apprise me that whenever I wanted the position he would very cheerfully resign and yield it to me. I a.s.sured him that if he did not yield it until I asked him to do so, he would hold it for a long time. He never had any opposition, and on both sides of the chamber he was, as presiding officer, equally popular. He voluntarily relinquished the office at the beginning of the Sixty- second Congress.
When the tariff was one of the issues--during the first Cleveland, the Harrison, and the second Cleveland campaigns and to a lesser degree in 1896 and 1900,--Senator Frye was regarded as one of the foremost orators and stump speakers on the tariff question. During his later years it was very much to be regretted that he did not feel able to take an active part in national campaigns.
The news of Senator Frye's death comes to me while I am engaged in reading the proof of what I have said about him in this book. He died at four o'clock on the eighth day of August, 1911, pa.s.sing away at the age of eighty-one years. When asked by a newspaper man for a brief estimate of Mr. Frye's character, I said: ”He was not only one of the ablest and most devoted of public servants, but one of the most charming men that I have ever known.” This expression I desire to repeat here for perpetuation in endurable form.
Seldom has this country commanded the services of a more enlightened or more self-sacrificing man than Mr. Frye. He was patriotic to the very heart's core; no sacrifice for the country would have been too great for him. He, and his colleague Mr. Hale, and Senators Allison, of Iowa, Platt, of Connecticut, Teller, of Colorado, c.o.c.krell, of Missouri, Morgan, of Alabama, and Spooner, of Wisconsin, const.i.tute a coterie of public men of the last half century such as any nation should be proud of. Unselfish, energetic, and patriotic, they have done much to keep the United States on the proper level. Let us hope, as we must, that the public councils of the nation may always be guided by men of their character and abilities.
Senator Frye's death leaves me the oldest member of the Senate in point of service. He entered the Senate in March, 1881, giving him more than thirty years of service, while I entered in March, 1883, which gives me more than twenty-eight years up to date. It thus will be seen that we have served together for almost an average lifetime.
Senator Jacob H. Gallinger of New Hamps.h.i.+re, who was promoted from the House to the Senate in 1891, now becomes the second member of the latter body in respect to length of service. Mr. Gallinger is not a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, of whose members.h.i.+p I am now especially speaking, but it cannot be out of place for me to pause here to give him a word of commendation and salutation as I pursue my way through this maze of memory. A physician by profession, and a native of Canada, Mr. Gallinger has shown marked adaptability in taking on the American spirit and in performing the public's service. He has for many years been Chairman of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, which, possessing many of the attributes of an ordinary city council, requires minute attention to detail. Mr. Gallinger is the second member of the important Committee on Commerce, and one of the leading members of the Committee on Appropriations. His committee work therefore covers a wide range of subjects. Never has he been known to fail in the performance of his duties in all these connections. Moreover, he is a constant attendant upon the sessions of the Senate, and one of the most alert of its members. Apparently, often, he is impulsive and explosive, and occasionally under the excitement of debate says what seems to be a harsh thing. If, however, his manner is indicative of feeling, such a feeling, like a pa.s.sing summer cloud, is soon dissipated, and almost immediately gives way to the suns.h.i.+ne of his really genial and lovable nature. Senator Gallinger as a member of the House and Senate has given the American public as much genuine and patriotic service as any man in public life during the past quarter of a century. I hope he may continue long to adorn the Senate.
Senator John T. Morgan, of Alabama, was appointed a member of the Foreign Relations Committee in 1879, and served continuously as a member of it until his death in 1907, a total service of twenty- eight years. I do not know of any other Senator who served on that committee for so long a period. When the Senate was in control of the Democrats under the second Cleveland Administration, he was chairman of the committee.
Senator Morgan was an extraordinary man in many respects. He had a wonderful fund of information on every subject, but was not a man of very sound judgment, and I could not say that he was a man on whose advice one could rely in solving a difficult problem. At the same time, no one could doubt his honesty and sincerity of purpose. He did not have the faculty of seeing both sides of a question, and once he made up his mind, it was impossible to change him, or by argument and reason to move him from a position deliberately taken. I probably had as intimate an acquaintance with him as any other Senator enjoyed, for we not only served as colleagues on the Committee on Foreign Relations, but, as I have stated in another chapter, we served together on the Hawaiian Commission. He was one of the most delightful and agreeable of men if you agreed with him on any question, but he was so intense on any subject in which he took an interest, particularly anything pertaining to the interoceanic ca.n.a.l, that he became almost vicious toward any one who opposed him.
If an Isthmian ca.n.a.l be finally constructed, Senator Morgan must be accorded a large share of the credit; and his name will go down as the father of it, even though he himself affirmed in debate in the Senate one day, after the Panama route had been selected, that he would not be ”the father of such a b.a.s.t.a.r.d.” Senator Morgan fought for the Nicaraguan route with all the power at his command.
He fought the treaties with Colombia and Panama, first for many weeks in the committee, and then in the executive sessions of the Senate. He wanted to arouse public sentiment against the Panama route, and he addressed the Senate about five hours every day for thirteen days on the subject, desisting only when we consented to publish his speeches and papers on the subject, notwithstanding they had been made and presented in executive session. Nevertheless, it was Senator Morgan who for very many years kept the subject of an interoceanic ca.n.a.l before Congress and the country, and finally, partially through his efforts, interest in the project was kept alive until it was determined, first, that the ca.n.a.l should be constructed; and second, that it should be over the Panama route.
Many people thought that the selection of the Panama route would break Senator Morgan's heart; but they did not know him. He made the best fight he could, and when the Panama route was selected he took the same deep interest in the legislation to carry the work forward that he had always taken in the possible alternative route.