Part 19 (1/2)

We have left behind us the gibbet and the stake No further need of the Voltaires, the Rousseaus and the Diderots to declai ress Yet despite the overnht since the old tribal days, and what has it learned except to enlarge the area, to aencies, to multiply and complicate the forms and processes of corruption? By corruption I e of the few over the many

The dreams of yesterday, we are told, become the realities of to-morrow

In these despites I am an optimist Much truly there needs still to be learned, much to be unlearned Advanced as we consider ourselves we are yet a long way from the most rudimentary perception of the civilization we are so fond of parading The eternal verities--where shall we seek theious affairs, less still in commercial affairs, hardly any at all in political affairs, that being right which represents each organisins to turn froy and to teach the simple lessons of Christ and Him crucified The press, which used to be o by force of publicity, if not of shi+ne, a kind of light through whose diverse rays and foggy luster we li, if it has not already arrived, when aent A the Hayes-Tilden contest for the presidency in 1876-77--that both by the popular vote and a fair count of the electoral vote Tilden was elected and Hayes was defeated; but the whole truth underlying the determinate incidents which led to the rejection of Tilden and the seating of Hayes will never be known

”All history is a lie,” observed Sir Robert Walpole, the corruptionist, mindful of as likely to be written about himself; and ”What is history,” asked Napoleon, the conqueror, ”but a fable agreed upon?”

In the first administration of Mr Cleveland there were present at a dinner table in Washi+ngton, the President being of the party, two leading De Republicans who had sustained confidential relations to the principals and played important parts in the dra upon terms of personal intiood fellowshi+p of the heartiest

Inevitably the conversation drifted to the Electoral Commission, which had counted Tilden out and Hayes in, and of which each of the four had soes of badinage it presently fell into re as the interest of the listeners rose to what under different conditions ayety if not iarrulity The little audience was rapt

Finally Mr Cleveland raised both hands and exclaimed, ”What would the people of this country think if the roof could be lifted from this house and they could hear these entleman noted for his wealth both ofto be lifted from this house, and if any one repeats what I have said I will denounce him as a liar”

Once in a while the world is startled by some revelation of the unknohich alters the estiure; but it is measurably true, as Metternich declares, that those who make history rarely have ti to the events of nearly five-and-forty years ago to invoke and awaken any of the passions of that time, nor my purpose to assail the character oractors

Most of the the principals, I kneell; to , in a sense, as Mr Tilden's personal representative in the Lower House of the Forty-fourth Congress, and as aCommittee of the two Houses, all that passed came e; and long ago I resolved that certain matters should remain a sealed book in ; the dead should be sacred The contradictory pros, not always crooked; the double constructions possible toof ambition and patriotis unconscious of itself; soled web of good and ill inseparable froround for every step of the Hayes-Tilden proceeding

I shall bear sure testirity of Mr Tilden I directly know that the presidency was offered to him for a price, and that he refused it; and I indirectly know and believe that two other offers came to hi to buy, and through the cipher dispatches and other ways tried to buy, rests upon appearance supportingof the cipher dispatches until they appeared in the New York _Tribune_ Neither did Mr George W Smith, his private secretary, and later one of the trustees of his will

It should be sufficient to say that so far as they involved No 15 Gra on his own responsibility, and as Mr Tilden's nephew exceeding his authority to act; that it later developed that during this period Colonel Pelton had not been in his perfect mind, but was at least semi-irresponsible; and that on two occasions when the vote or votes sought seemed within reach Mr Tilden interposed to forbid Directly and personally I know this to be true

The price, at least in patronage, which the Republicans actually paid for possession is of public record Yet I not only do not question the integrity of Mr Hayes, but I believe hih- for the best in a situation unparalleled and beset with perplexity What they did tends to show that men will do for party and in concert what the sa to do each on his own responsibility In his ”Life of Saelow says:

”Why persons occupying the most exalted positions should have ventured to compromise their reputations by this deliberate consummation of a series of crimes which struck at the very foundations of the republic is a question which still puzzles many of all parties who have no charity for the crimes themselves I have already referred to the terrors and desperation hich the prospect of Tilden's election inspired the great army of office-holders at the close of Grant's administration

That army, numerous and formidable as it as coer and justly influential class ere apprehensive that the return of the Democratic party to power threatened a reactionary policy at Washi+ngton, to the undoing of some or all the important results of the war These apprehensions were inflamed by the party press until they were confined to no class, but more or less pervaded all the Northern States The Electoral Tribunal, consisting mainly of men appointed to their positions by Republican Presidents or elected fro, and fro proportions of dread of the Democrats, personal ambition, zeal for their party and respect for their constituents, reached the conclusion that the exclusion of Tilden from the White House was an end which justified whatever arded it, like the emancipation of the slaves, as a war measure”

IV

The no defeat that followed left the De party, after the disaster that overtook it in 1852, had been not eneral elections of 1874 the De reat ress

Reconstruction was breaking down of its very weight and rottenness The panic of 1873 reacted against the party in power Dissatisfaction with Grant, which had not sufficed two years before to displace hi apace Favoritisrant Succeeding scandals cast their shadows before Chickens of carpetbaggery let loose upon the South were co home to roost at the North There appeared everywhere a noticeable subsidence of the sectional spirit Reform was needed alike in the State Governments and the National Govern other than an idle word All things made for Democracy

Yet there wereof the historic Democratic party which had issued from the South were in obscurity and abeyance, while uished in the party conduct and counsels were disabled by act of Congress Of the few prominent Democrats left at the North many were tainted by as called Copperheadism--sympathy with the Confederacy

To find a chieftain wholly free fro failed of success in presidential cans, not only with Greeley but with McClellan and Sey to such Republicans as Chase, Field and Davis At last heaven seemed to smile from the clouds upon the disordered ranks and to su the requirements of the time This was Samuel Jones Tilden

To his familiars Mr Tilden was a dear old bachelor who lived in a fine old h 60 years old he see scholar; a trained and earnest doctrinaire; a public-spirited, patriotic citizen, well known and highly esteemed, who had made fame and fortune at the bar and had always been interested in public affairs He was a dreaanizer He pursued the tenor of his life with ured by none of the isolation and squalor which so often attend the confirmed celibate His home life was a ed as a bishopric, its hospitality, though select, profuse and untiring An elder sister presided at his board, as simple, kindly and unostentatious, but as methodical as himself He was a lover of books rather than s and out-of-door activity