Volume V Part 10 (1/2)

President Harrison's quadrennium was a milestone between two generations. Memorials on every hand to the heroes of the Civil War shocked one with the sense that they and the events they molded were already of the past. Logan, Arthur, Sheridan, and Hanc.o.c.k had died. In 1891 General Sherman and Admiral Porter fell within a day of each other.

General Joseph E. Johnston, who had been a pall-bearer at the funeral of each, rejoined them in a month.

This presidential term was pivotal in another way. The centennial anniversary of Was.h.i.+ngton's inauguration as President fell on April 30, 1889. In observance of the occasion President Harrison followed the itinerary of one hundred years before, from the Governor's mansion in New Jersey to the foot of Wall Street, in New York City, to old St.

Paul's Church, on Broadway, and to the site where the first Chief Magistrate first took the oath of office. Three days devoted to the commemorative exercises were a round of naval, military, and industrial parades, with music, oratory, pageantry, and festivities. For this Centennial Whittier composed an ode. The venerable Rev. S. F. Smith, who had written ”America” fifty-seven years before, was also inspired by the occasion to pen a Century Hymn, and to add to ”America” the stanza:

”Our joyful hearts to-day, Their grateful tribute pay, Happy and free, After our toils and fears, After our blood and tears, Strong with our hundred years, O G.o.d, to Thee.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Parade.]

Was.h.i.+ngton Inaugural Celebration, 1889, New York.

Parade pa.s.sing Union Square on Broadway.

[1890]

At the opening of this its second century of existence the nation was confronted by entirely new issues. Bitterness between North and South, spite of its brief recrudescence during the pendency of the Force Bill, was fast dying out. At the unveiling of the n.o.ble monument to Robert E.

Lee at Richmond, in May, 1890, while, of course, Confederate leaders were warmly cheered and the Confederate flag was displayed, various circ.u.mstances made it clear that this zeal was not in derogation of the restored Union.

The last outbreaks of sectional animosity related to Jefferson Davis, in whom, both to the North and to the South, the ghost of the Lost Cause had become curiously personified. The question whether or not he was a traitor was for years zealously debated in Congress and outside. The general amnesty after the war had excepted Davis. When a bill was before Congress giving suitable pensions to Mexican War soldiers and sailors, an amendment was carried, amid much bitterness, excluding the ex-president of the Confederacy from the benefits thereof. Northerners naturally glorified their triumph in the war as a victory for the Const.i.tution, nor could they wholly withstand the inclination to question the motives of the secession leaders. Southerners, however loyal now to the Union, were equally bold in a.s.serting that, since in 1861 the question of the nature of the Union had not been settled, Mr.

Davis and the rest might attempt secession, not as foes of the Const.i.tution, but as, in their own thought, its most loyal friends and defenders.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Statue about three times life size on a 30 foot pedestal.]

Unveiling of the Equestrian Statue of Robert E. Lee, May 29. 1890.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Henry W. Grady.

By 1890 the days were pa.s.sed when denunciation of Davis or of the South electrified the North, nor did the South on its part longer waste time in impotent resentments or regrets. The brilliant and fervid utterances on ”The New South” by editor Henry W. Grady, of the Atlanta Const.i.tution, went home to the hearts of Northerners, doing much to allay sectional feeling. Grady died, untimely, in 1889, lamented nowhere more sincerely than at the North.

When Federal intervention occurred to put down the notorious Louisiana Lottery, the South in its grat.i.tude almost forgot that there had been a war. This lottery had been incorporated in 1868 for twenty-five years.

In 1890 it was estimated to receive a full third of the mail matter coming to New Orleans, with a business of $30,000 a day in postal notes and money orders. As the monster in 1890, approaching its charter-term, bestirred itself for a new lease of life, it found itself barred from the mails by Congress.

And this was, in effect, its banishment from the State and country. It could still ply its business through the express companies, provided Louisiana would abrogate the const.i.tutional prohibition of lotteries it had enacted to take effect in 1893. For a twenty-five year re-enfranchis.e.m.e.nt the impoverished State was offered the princely sum of a million and a quarter dollars a year. This tempting bait was supplemented by influences brought to bear upon the venal section of the press and of the legislature. A proposal for the necessary const.i.tutional change was vetoed by Governor Nicholls. Having pushed their bill once more through the House, the lottery lobby contended that a proposal for a const.i.tutional amendment did not require the governor's signature, but only to be submitted to the people, a position which was affirmed by the State Supreme Court. A fierce battle followed in the State, the ”anti” Democrats of the country parishes, in fusion with Farmers' Alliance men, fighting the ”pro” Democrats of New Orleans. The ”Antis” and the Alliance triumphed. Effort for a const.i.tutional amendment was given up, and Governor Foster was permitted to sign an act prohibiting, after December 31, 1893, all sale of lottery tickets and all lottery drawings or schemes throughout the State of Louisiana. In January, 1894, the Lottery Company betook itself to exile on the island of Cuanaja, in the Bay of Honduras, a seat which the Honduras Government had granted it, together with a monopoly of the lottery business for fifty years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Francis T. Nicholls.

Matters in the West drew attention. The pressure of white population, rude and resistless as a glacier, everywhere forcing the barriers of Indian reservations, now concentrated upon the part of Indian territory known as Oklahoma. This large tract the Seminole Indians had sold to the Government, to be exclusively colonized by Indians and freedmen. In 1888-89, as it had become clearly impossible to shut out white settlers, Congress appropriated $4,000,000 to extinguish the trust upon which the land was held. By December the newly opened territory boasted 60,000 denizens, eleven schools, nine churches, and three daily and five weekly newspapers. In a few years it was vying for statehood with Arizona and New Mexico.

[Ill.u.s.tration: About twenty-five tents.]

A general view of the town on April 24, 1889, the second day after the opening.

[Ill.u.s.tration: About 25 one-story buildings.]