Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 17/Extracts from the Unpublished Reminiscences of H. R. Kincaid
THE QUARTERLY
of the
Oregon Historical Society
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EXTRACTS FROM THE UNPUBLISHED REMINISCENCES OF H. R. KINCAID
Go it Tip, come it Tyler,
Beat Old Van, or bust your biler.
While living in Madison County, Indiana, my native home, in my fifth year, 1840, I remember distinctly hearing men riding along the road in front of our house, and singing: "Go it Tip, come it Tyler, beat old Van, or bust your biler."
William Henry Harrison, the hero of the battle of Tippecanoe, was the Whig candidate for President, and John Tyler, the candidate for Vice-President, against Martin Van Buren, the Democratic candidate. Both were elected. That was the fourteenth Presidential election, but Harrison was the ninth President. Harrison died April 4, 1841, one month after his inauguration, and Tyler became President.
In 1844 I remember hearing men riding past our house, singing:
High O, the Ho osier boys, lay Polk low.
Henry Clay was the Whig candidate for President and James K. Polk was the Democratic candidate. The Democrats were shouting for war with Mexico, while the Whigs were trying to be neutral or were keeping still. That elected Polk, an obscure Tennesseean, over Clay, the great statesman and orator of Kentucky.
My father had a little pamphlet of sixty odd pages which he prized very highly, and brought it to Oregon. My mother kept it among her keepsakes for more than sixty years, until she passed away, November 4, 1912, in her 97th year. The inscription on the front page reads as follows:
One hundred and fifty reasons for believing in the final salvation of all mankind by Erasmus Manford. "What Is Truth?" Indianapolis: Erasmus Manford. 1848.
He quotes from the Prophets and some from the New Testament, frequently from the writings of Paul, and from other noted writers and commentators on the scriptures and religious subjects. He comments extensively and ably on all the sentences he copied as texts, and makes a very plausible argument in favor of universal salvation of all mankind. My father often argued with orthodox preachers, proving by the Bible, to his satisfaction, that the Bible does not teach or does not mean hell and damnation for lost sinners. According to my understanding it does threaten such punishment. But I hope and believe that the writers of such statements were mistaken. I have more confidence in the justice and good sense of the Lord, or God, or Universal Intelligence, than the men had who wrote such things.
In 1851 our family started to Oregon. In Benton County, Indiana, about thirty miles west of Lafayette, my father's oldest brother, James, resided. We stopped there for a short visit and then concluded to settle and give up the journey to Oregon. My father located on a claim, in the wide prairie, near Parish Grove, where he had to haul his firewood sixteen miles. We lived there one winter and summer. I went to Lafayette, when 16 years old, and worked several months in a brick yard at 25 cents a day. I got only a few dollars of my pay and went back in the winter to try to collect the balance. I got about thirty pounds of brown sugar, which
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was nearly all I ever received for my summer's work, and carried it thirty miles on my back in a sack, traveling over deep snow in cold weather, and got home about midnight. That was one of my very hard and unpleasant experiences. The winter was very cold and we gave up trying to live there in the bleak prairie, so far from timber. Early in 1853 we started on to Oregon with one ox and one horse team and arrived in the Willamette Valley September 29, 1853.
On the 5th day of May, 1855, I started alone on foot from Eugene with my provisions and bedding on a little Indian pony, for the mines in Southern Oregon and California.
After there was no longer a chance to get work in the mines, on account of the Indian war, I and a young man named John Williams, took our blankets, frying pan and provisions on our backs and walked over the Coast Moun- tains from Althouse Creek to Crescent City on the Pacific Coast in California. I was not yet twenty years old and was slim and light built, but very strong and active. Williams was a good deal larger and several years older and stood the
trip better than I did.
In the spring I left my "partner" there at Crescent City and went to San Francisco, and have never seen nor heard of him since. There was no harbor nor wharf at Crescent City. Steamers anchored out in the ocean and little lighter boats carried passengers and freight to and from them. I took passage in the steerage of a little steamer called the Goliath and paid $20 for the trip to San Francisco.
I took passage on a steamboat at San Francisco and went up the Sacramento River to Sacramento City. There was a bar on the lower deck which was well patronized. Ex-U. S. Senator, who was then Governor of California, John B. Weller,
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was on board, and he and others patronized the bar and were a lively crowd.
Returning to Oregon I arrived at the family home, in the hills about three miles southeast of Eugene, about the last week in December, in the year 1857, having been away a little more than 31 months, tramping and working wherever I could find employment, in Southern Oregon and California, usually on ranches at about $25 a month. During my absence my father had purchased six acres of land in the southern part of Eugene, at the south end of Olive street, now in almost the center of the town, and had the deed made to me.
In October, 1866, I started east, intending to visit a World's Fair to be held in Paris, France, the next year. I went with my friend Congressman J. H. D. Henderson, to Washington, D. C, to spend the winter there and witness the proceedings of Congress and the scenes at the national capital, and then intended to go on to France the next Summer. I went to Portland and from Portland to San Francisco by steamer. At San Francisco he engaged the same stateroom for both of us on the new steamer Montana, which had just been sent around Cape Horn.
At Aspinwall, or Colon, we were put on board an old steamer called the Ocean Queen. When in sight of Cuba the boat caught fire and the officers expected it would be de- stroyed. They got the life boats ready, and we all expected to be burned or drowned, unless we could escape in the life boats to Cuba, which was about eight miles north. But after great efforts the fire was put out. One engine was disabled, and the steamer ran to New York with one engine. We were twenty-one days making the trip, about 7,000 miles, from San Francisco to New York. We ran down a tug in the Hudson River and sank it just before landing at the wharf.
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We remained a day or two in New York at the old Astor House. I put in the time sight seeing. I climbed to the top of Trinity church, walked from the Battery to Central Park, and saw more of New York City in one day than many people born and raised there had seen in a HTe time. On the cars, going from Jersey City to Washington, Mr. Hen- derson introduced me to Senator Charles Sumner of Massa- chusetts, the famous champion of freedom.
The first day in Washington I visited the dome of the capital, the Smithsonian Institute, the patent office and many of the public buildings, and saw more of the city than many who had resided there all their lives.
Before Congress assembled Mr. Henderson and I went to Richmond and Petersburg, Va., to see the famous battlefield of Petersburg where the last great battle was fought between the Union and Confederate armies before Lee surrendered
to Grant.
As my position in Washington was a pleasant one, and I was promoted from time to time, I remained there about fourteen years, during the sessions of Congress, serving nearly twelve years as clerk in the U. S. Senate, going home to Oregon or visiting other places when Congress was not in session, cross- ing the continent on the Union and Central Pacific railroads eight times, both ways, after they were completed in 1869. C. P. Huntington, Vice-President of the Central Pacific, was the manager in the East, and was around Congress a great deal. His tall form was quite familiar to me, and also his handwriting, for he occasionally wrote me passes and signed them, and they were as good as gold with any conductor or officer of the road. He was a big man, mentally and finan- cially, as well as physically, and his word or written order was law all along the line.
In 1867 I attended a Fourth of July celebration on the battlefield of Manassas Junction or Bull Run. Senator John
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A. Logan, of Illinois, delivered the oration. I picked up a shell on the battlefield that had not been exploded. I sent it to Oregon by way of Panama before the railroad across the continent was completed, and have since placed it in the Oregon Historical Society's collections at Portland.
During that year I was sent to western New York to meet a committee of Congress that had gone there to investigate. I did not find the committee, but made the trip, going and returning by way of New York City.
In 1867 I went to Boston and visited the Museum, Harvard College, Bunker Hill Monument, and other places of interest. I arranged with the librarian of Harvard College to have the volumes of the Oregon- State Journal bound by the library and kept in the library. As long as the paper was continued after that date, for more than 40 years, I had every copy of the paper sent to that library. I made the same arrangement with Mr. SpofTord, Librarian of Congress, at Washington, one of the largest libraries in the world, and always furnished the paper, and missing papers when called for, and suppose complete sets may be found in these libraries. To meet these and other demands I had twelve papers each week, after the first two or three years, put in boxes in Eugene, and have had three sets bound, and nine sets not bound. I also sent the paper always free to libraries in Portland, San Francisco, New York and other cities, but in most places they were not bound, but kept on a stick file awhile and then destroyed to make room for newer dates.
From Boston I went to Montreal; then on a steamboat up the St. Lawrence River to Niagara Falls, passing the Thousand Islands on the way. From Niagara Falls I went by rail to the Hudson River and took passage on the steamboat Dean Richmond, at Athens. Some distance below Athens we met the steamboat Vanderbilt, of an opposition line, coming up the river. It was about 11 o'clock at night, and many of the passengers, including myself, had gone to bed in staterooms.
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The Vanderbilt ran into the Dean Richmond, intentionally as many believed, and in a short time our boat was resting on the bottom, with the upper deck barely above water, which must have been 25 or 30 feet deep, because both boats were very large and high regular floating palaces. When I heard the shock and commotion I tried to open the door, but the sinking of the boat had cramped the door. I got out through a window. The passengers were crowded on the upper deck. Whether any passengers were drowned on the lower decks I never knew, but supposed some were, the boat went down so fast. The baggage was on the lower deck and was under water several weeks before the boat was raised. I did not get my trunk in Washington for about a month, and then everything was faded. The passengers were taken off on small sail boats that were near, and were taken to New York on another steamboat.
In 1868 I was elected by the Oregon Republican State Convention one of the six delegates to the National Repub- lican Convention at Chicago. A proxy was also sent me to represent one of the other Oregon delegates. I attended and voted for U. S. Grant for President and Schuyler Colfax, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, for Vice-Presi- dent. Both were nominated and elected. I gave my proxy vote to Congressman Rufus Mallory, who attended and voted for the successful nominees. I represented Oregon on the committee on platform. Eugene Hale represented Maine on that committee. He was a young man, then unknown to fame, but afterwards became quite a figure in national affairs as Congressman and Senator, serving in the Senate perhaps about thirty years until lately. He was active and put him- self forward at every opportunity, in making the party plat- form. I noticed and remembered him on that account. He married, some years later, the only daughter of Senator Zach Chandler, of Michigan, distinguished for his wealth and for his speeches, about once a year, in which he twisted the British
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lion's tail, and made himself popular with the Michiganders who didn't like the Canadians who lived across the river from them. Chandler was the Senator who telegraphed that Hayes had a majority and was elected. Hayes was finally put into the White House by herculean efforts of the Republicans, and Tilden was kept out.
Again in 1872 the Republican State Convention of Oregon elected me one of their six representatives in the National Convention at Philadelphia and another representative sent me his proxy. So I had two of the six votes of Oregon at Philadelphia the same as at Chicago. I gave the proxy to Senator Henry W. Corbett and he was admitted on it. Grant was re-nominated for President without much or any opposi- tion, but Schuyler Colfax, who had been Vice-President four years, was defeated, and Senator Henry Wilson of Massa- chusetts was nominated and elected, and served until he passed away during his term. He died suddenly in the Vice-Presi- dent's room adjoining the Senate chamber. I was the only person in the Vice-President's room except the doctors when they dissected his body. I voted for Colfax, but did not know how Corbett voted, but thought perhaps he voted for Wilson. It was common rumor among the clerks of the Senate that his name was not Wilson but Colbath. He was either a foundling or an orphan, they said, and was raised by a family named Wilson. On both of these occasions, when given a vote and a proxy in two National Conventions to name a President and Vice-President and formulate a national policy, I was in Washington, D. C, and was, therefore, shown a preference by the convention in Oregon and by the delegate who sent the proxy over many active politicians in Oregon as well as the Senators and Representatives in Congress.
According to popular theories every generation ought to improve on their ancestors. But I once heard Wendell Phillips lecture in Washington, D. C., on the "Lost Arts." He said
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a good deal about the superior knowledge of the ancients ; about "Damascus blades," as sharp as a razor, that would cut the hardest substances without dulling; about malleable glass that would bend ; about magnifying glasses that gave them better knowledge of astronomy and the planets than we have ; about the pyramids, composed of immense stones trans- ported long distances and hoisted by machinery much more powerful than any which we now have ; about railroads found in abandoned mines; about mummies preserved for thousands of years by processes not now known to the human race, after "developing" for thousands of years. He did not claim that the masses were then as intelligent as they are now, for they were not educated, but that the educated people then had more and higher knowledge than the same class of people have now. He seemed to believe that our universities and scientists have only found out a little of what their ancestors knew.
In a long letter dated at Washington February 28, 1868, and printed in the State Journal at Eugene April 11, I de- scribed one of the most exciting periods in the history of the United States. A few lines are as follows :
"Sunday, the 23d of February, was a day of excitement in Washington. There has been nothing like it since the close of the war. * * * Monday came, and a vast crowd of people flocked to the capitol. A little after 8 o'clock every seat in the gallery of the house was taken, and by 10 o'clock, when the session opened, two hours earlier than usual, the vast building was alive with people. They swept through every corridor and passage from the first to the third story. The rotunda was full, the corridors around the galleries were blockaded, and the passage on the lower floor, extending the full length of the building, 750 feet, presented the appear- ance of a crowded thoroughfare." * * *
Then followed nearly two columns describing the debate in the House over the impeachment resolution, charging Presi- dent Andrew Johnson with high crimes and misdemeanors, which had been introduced into the 39th Congress by Ashley of Ohio. A great many five-minute speeches were delivered.
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Thad. Stevens, chairman of the committee on reconstruction that reported the impeachment resolution, closed the debate. Being too feeble to speak his speech was read by Clerk Mc- Pherson. At 5 o'clock Speaker Col fax called for a vote. The resolution passed, 126 yeas, and 47 nays, every member of the Union party present, including the Speaker, voting for it, and every Democrat against it. The great crowd then dispersed in the midst of a heavy snow storm that had continued all day. They had witnessed, by the House, the impeachment of the first American President, one of the most important acts ever performed by any legislative body in the history of the world. I was absent part of the time at Chicago and lost the run of the impeachment proceedings.
The trial before the Senate as a court, commenced March 30, and ended May 12, 1868, taking about six weeks in the court, presided over by Chief Justice Chase, and about ten weeks from the time it had commenced in the House, Feb- ruary 24.
"Andy" Johnson was in a pitiful condition at the time of this extraordinary trial. The trial was caused more by foolish words and acts on his part, and anger and jealousy on the part of Congress, than by any real necessity for turning him out of office. I believe now that Grimes, Trumbull and Van Winkle were right in voting to let him remain in office until the close of his term. But "old Grimes was dead" politically when he cast that vote, and so were Trumbull and
Van Winkle.
"Andy" was reported to be drunk in the White House nearly all the time and an "old fool" all the time. I do not know that he was drunk any time. I attended his receptions, and he appeared to be sober then, but had a sad, careworn face, showing a life of much labor, care and worry. Perhaps he was being lied about by the Republicans. Perhaps the Demo
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crats lied about Grant when they said he was nearly always drunk when he was on the Pacific Coast and a good deal of the time afterwards when commander-in-chief of the armies and when President. I attended his receptions when he was General and when he was President, and he always appeared sober, not the least hilarious, but a little sad, showing the effects of much worry and many cares. He did not look quite as sad as Andrew Johnson. Perhaps he did not take his troubles as much to heart as Johnson had. The gossips said President Johnson had a son in an inebriate asylum. I do not know whether there was any foundation for that. The President's wife had died, and the wife of Senator Patterson, of Tennessee, who was the President's daughter or sister and another daughter or sister kept house for him and helped him with his receptions.
Lincoln said he had not much influence with his adminis- tration. In fact, no king, president, governor other important officer has much influence with his administration. They are hedged in with so many circumstances over which they have no control, and which must be controlled by other human power or by the Supreme Power of the Universe, that they are seldom free to do as they wish. President Johnson could have said truthfully that he had no influence with his admin- istration. Nesmith of Oregon said when he got into the Senate he wondered how he got there. After he had been there a little while he wondered how the other fellows got there. Andrew Johnson was not the only man the world is full of them who have held important positions and no doubt have wondered what evil influence ever put them into positions which brought so much trouble upon them. But if they would reflect they might come to the conclusion that there are no two people just alike, and no two positions or conditions in life just alike, and somebody must fill every condition (?) and be in every position, whether he is called Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Kaiser, Lincoln, Grant or An
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drew Johnson. Why is it so? I do not know. After John- son went out of the office of President he was elected a Senator from Tennessee. I sat on a sofa a few feet from him and heard him speak in the Senate about one hour in defense of his administration as President. The Senators did not give him much attention. He did not seem to have any more influence in the Senate than he had with his administration when he was President.
There was more or less rivalry and jealousy between the Senators of nearly every state when there were two belonging to the same party. When there was one Republican and one Democrat they could get along all right, because one could not interfere with the appointments or party affairs of the other. The one belonging to the party in power was sole monarch of all he surveyed, and, like the devil in olden time, could take a constituent up on a high mountain and show him that he owned the whole world with a fence around it. But if there was another Senator of the same party to butt in, there was usually a row in the family or a feeling that one was superior to the other. Morton was the great man from Indiana, and any colleague of the same party who would have had the temerity to interfere with the great "War Governor" would have been reprimanded. Conkling of New York was the unquestioned Republican boss of New York. Edmunds of Vermont did not have to worry about old Morrill of Ver- mont, who usually kept quiet, but sometimes read or spoke a piece, slowly in a kind of stuttering voice, which Senators had heard for thirty years until they had become used to it. He did not interfere with Edmunds, the great, tall, stoop shouldered, bald-headed lawyer who tore to pieces every measure he failed to approve, and he usually disapproved of nearly everything and jumped on it with both feet. Lot M. Morrill, of Maine, whose bald head often arose when, in a loud voice, he laid down the law to his fellow Senators, did not seem to disturb or worry old Hannibal Hamlin, who had
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been in office nearly fifty years, part of the time as Vice- President. Hamlin seldom had anything to say, and then only a few words, in a conversational tone, in reply to a question or explaining something, never anything like a "speech." But he always delivered the goods. When he went hunting he nearly always brought in meat. While his colleagues would be orating, Hamlin would perhaps go up to the President or one of the departments to get an appoint- ment, or order, or recommendation for his state or for a con- stituent, and take off his old battered hat, and that old hat would never be put on again until he got what he went for. It was current rumor around the Senate that every President and every Secretary for generations had learned from experi- ence that when that old stovepipe made its appearance and was set down on the floor or desk, there would be something doing before it would ever be taken up again to ornament the head of a statesman. Then there was old Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, the greatest Roman of them all. He started out like Ben Franklin as a poor printer boy. When he got into politics his party was in a minority in the legislature. He pulled over two or three of the majority party and elected himself Senator. It was never known just how he did it. But it gave him a great reputation all his life as a worker of wonders. For forty years or more he controlled the politics of the great State of Pennsylvania, and made and unmade presidents, and was a senator, a cabinet officer or foreign minister for nearly half a century. He said he had been called a leader of the people but he never was. He found out which way the people were going and marched right along with them in the front ranks. He could not have a rival, and did not need to be jealous of any other senator. They might orate all day, or two or three days at a time, as Conkling did in favor of the electoral commission bill to settle the dispute between Hayes and Tilden for the Presidency in 1877, but that did not disturb or arouse the envy of Simon Cameron, who had then perhaps lived 80 years, and had been used to
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hearing outbursts of eloquence all his life. He never made speeches. He knew better. He would some times take a string and pull it with his fingers, and say a few words in favor of an appropriation to improve some Pennsylvania har- bor on Lake Erie, and ridicule the outlandish names of Ohio towns in which old Ben Wade and John Sherman were inter- ested, such as "Sandusky" and "Ashtabula." When he wanted anything he did not blow a trumpet or make a loud noise, but went around quietly and talked to senators privately, and usually got what he wanted.
In 1872 the Legislature of Oregon met in the summer or fall when Congress was not in session. I came home to Oregon and remained in Salem during the entire session, working for the election of John H. Mitchell for U. S. Sena- tor, the act to locate the University of Oregon at Eugene, and the act to build the locks at the falls of the Willamette at Oregon City. Personally I had the most friendly feeling for Senator Corbett, whose successor was to be elected, but I believed that Mitchell would make the best senator that could be elected, and I wished to help my personal and political friend, Attorney-General Williams, who had often helped me in securing appointments for my friends in Oregon and in many other ways, and who believed that his political future would be helped and depended largely on the success of Mitchell. I sent letters to the Attorney-General in Wash- ington nearly every day, reporting the progress of the con- test, and received frequent replies. Mitchell had a decided majority of the Republicans from the start, but the Democrats had a majority in the Senate, which was presided over by James D. Fay of Southern Oregon. On joint ballot the Republicans had a majority, but of these Senator Corbett had a strong and determined minority. Day in and day out, week in and week out, the struggle continued till Corbett, who had made a good senator and was one of Oregon's honored pioneers and best citizens, withdrew and Mitchell
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was elected. Wakefield, the postmaster of Portland, was managing Corbett's campaign, and some mismanagement on his part caused Corbett to withdraw. Senator Bristow of Lane county supported Corbett and withdrew his name. The three Lane county representatives supported Mitchell.
Dr. A. W. Patterson, Democrat, and William W. Bristow, Republican, were the senators from Lane County. The three members of the House from Lane County, all Republicans, were C. W. Washburne, A. S. Powers and Nat Martin. The Senate passed the bill locating the State University at Eugene without much delay and sent it to the House. Rufus Mallory, ex-Member of Congress, was Speaker of the House, and S. A. Clarke was chief clerk of the House. I was well acquainted with both of them, having roomed with Clarke in Washing- ton, and having been with Mallory much during his term in Congress and sometimes having attended to his correspondence when he was absent. When the session of the Legislature was near the close it appeared that the University bill could not be passed by the House. There was no printed calendar. Clarke had the bills tied with a string in a large package. The University bill was at or near the bottom and it would be impossible to reach it. I stood behind a railing at the back of the Speaker a long time to see that the University bill should not be neglected or overlooked in the shuffle, and frequently reminded him and the clerk of its great import- ance. In some way that bill got up from the bottom to the top of the package and was passed. Had it remained on the bottom the University would perhaps have been located at some other place by the next Legislature. How did it get up ? It did get up and became a law! Many large buildings, a number of professors, and hundreds of students are now at Eugene, which would not be there if that bill had not become a law, and it surely would have failed if it had been left to take its chances with other measures and come up in its regular order. I have long believed that everything is possible if you know how to do it. Clarke and Mallory are entitled to much
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credit for the success of the University at Eugene. B. F. Dorris, Judge J. J. Walton, W. J. J. Scott and others are entitled to much credit for organizing a society which helped the plan to locate the University at Eugene, but had not the bill been carefully looked after by one who had influence with the clerk and Speaker their efforts would have failed. The bill providing for the locks at Oregon City also became a law after a bitter fight against it by its opponents who called it "the lock and dam swindle."
The most exciting time in Congress while I was in Wash- ington, with the exception of the impeachment trial of Presi- dent Andrew Johnson, was the long and almost revolutionary struggle over the Presidency in 1877, when the Republicans claimed that Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, had been elected, and the Democrats claimed that Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, had been elected at the election in 1876. Dr. J. W. Watts, postmaster at a little town in the Willamette Valley, I believe the place was Lafayette I am writing these sketches entirely from beginning to end from memory without referring to any records was one of the three electors from Oregon. The other two were Gen. W. H. Odell and, if I remember the name, John C. Cartwright. The Democrats objected to allow- ing Dr. Watt's vote to be counted for President, because ac- cording to their construction of a law a Federal "officer" could not hold the office of elector, and they held that a postmaster was an "officer" and an elector was an "officer," and no "officer" of the United States could hold two offices at the same time. I believe Watts had resigned. Governor Grover had appointed a man named [Eugene A.] Cronin to cast the vote in place of Watts. The Democrats also objected to the vote of an elector from the State of Florida. If Dr. Watts and the Florida elector, either one or both, I don't remember which, should be counted out, Tilden was elected. If one or both should be counted in Hayes was elected. The Ore- gon electors, including Governor Grover's man, Cronin, were
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there in full force for weeks. Senator Zach Chandler, of Mich- igan, sent telegrams abroad, informing an anxious world, that Hayes was elected and would be inaugurated on the 4th of March. The Democrats threatened that if "old Zach" and his gang undertook to inaugurate Hayes and steal the Presi- dency from "President" Tilden, there would be war. They would march on Washington and destroy the city. The stand- pat Republicans said Hayes should be inaugurated at any cost. The Democrats said Tilden should be President if there were enough Democrats in the United States to put him in. Tilden, an excellent and sensible man, seemed to be more inter- ested in preserving peace than in being President. Before re- sorting to force there was a kind of general agreement among members of Congress to frame some compromise and arbitrate the dangerous dispute.
The electoral commission bill was then introduced, and after long debate passed both houses of Congress. It created a commission composed of Senators and Representatives and one member of the Supreme Court. This commission had power to decide all disputed questions. This bill was debated several days in the Senate. Conkling, of New York, spoke all or a part of two days in favor of it, and had his desk and the floor around him covered with documents from which he quoted. My recollection is that Morton spoke against it. The general impression in and around the Senate was that this commission would decide in favor of Tilden. Elaine came into the room where his brother Bob and I worked and talked about it. He seemed to be worried and was in doubt whether he should vote for or against the bill. I do not re- member how he voted, but the stand-pat Republicans mostly opposed it. Judge David Davis, of the Supreme Court, had been agreed upon to represent the Supreme Court on the com- mission, which otherwise was equally divided between Repub- licans and Democrats. He had Democratic leanings and it was about as certain as any future event can be that he would have cast the deciding vote in favor of Tilden. But while
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this was going on in Washington the Illinois Legislature was contending over the re-election of Senator John A. Logan. A few Republicans bolted and helped the Democrats to elect Judge Davis as an independent to the Senate in place of Logan. This unexpected and unforseen act upset the commission. He was then a Senator and not a Judge of the Supreme Court. The Senate and the House both had their members on the commission. Justice Bradley, of New Jersey, was then placed on the commission. He gave the casting vote in favor of Hayes and made him President of the United States. No doubt some of the Republicans who forced the act through Congress were disappointed and surprised. At any rate it was generally believed that Conkling and some of the New York members and their friends in other states did not want Hayes. "The best laid schemes of men aft gang aglee." I am not sure if that- is the correct quotation.
One of the clerks who had charge of enrolling the laws on parchment for preservation in the State Department, with whom I worked several years, named Cole C. Sympson, was from Illinois. He had secured his appointment through Presi- dent Lincoln. When Judge Davis came into the Senate as an independent he went into the Democratic caucus, as soon as they had a majority in the Senate two years later, March 4, 1879. This he did to prevent the Democrats from remov- ing the clerk from his state, while all the other Republicans had to go. This was the only time a change, for political reasons to make places, has been made in the Senate below secretary and sergeant-at-arms, except in 1861, in the time of the war of the rebellion. My Democratic successor is there yet under several Republican Senators. So here again a smaller matter controlled a larger one, the same as the election of a Supreme Justice to be a member of the Senate and the defeat of John A. Logan for re-election, had kept Tilden from becom- ing President of the greatest nation of the world and put Hayes in that office.
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There was a clerk in the Senate from Maine named Fitz. He got in through the influence of the Maine Senators, Lot M. Morrill and Hannibal Hamlin, or perhaps the last named. Fitz' desk was near mine. Hamlin used to come in when nothing interesting was going on in the Senate and spend much time talking with Fitz, the same as Senator Kelly of Oregon did with me. Hamlin was then quite old in years but extremely rugged and young for his age. He was of dark complexion, like Logan of Illinois. He had held office, Congressman, Senator, Vice-President and one place after another nearly all of his life after he became old enough. His experience in public affairs had been great. He liked to talk about the interesting things he had seen and heard. On one occasion I heard him telling about Daniel Webster. He said he was present in the Senate, probably then as a member of the House, and heard the famous debate between Hayne of South Carolina and Webster of Massachusetts. He said that while Hayne was speaking Webster was leaning his elbows on his desk with his face in his hands and was sound asleep and "drunk." When Hayne got through Webster appeared to wake up, and raised himself by holding to his desk. He soon seemed to get wide awake, and the result was that world- renowned speech. It is not likely that Webster was sound asleep or "drunk" either, although he used stimulants, as many public men did in those days, but was not a drunkard. It is very doubtful if the Union will be preserved forever. If Nature does not destroy it, by making oceans where con- tinents now are and continents where oceans now exist, as has apparently been done in past ages, man will be likely to destroy it. The "Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," are not all dead yet. "Religions take their turns and other creeds will rise with other years." And reformers, who can make laws to take the place of Nature, temporarily will destroy the government, perhaps, or change it into an absolute democracy, without constitutions, courts or restraints of any kind, where might makes right. It is not a republican representative govment in some of the states now, as it was in Webster's time.
Senator Charles Sumner had secured the appointment of a young man as reading clerk in the Senate. Senator Edmunds of Vermont induced George C. Gorham, Secretary of the Senate, to remove Sumner's clerk and appoint a tall, fine looking man named Flagg from Vermont. Edmunds was a great lawyer, tall, with a head as bald as a billiard ball. He was perhaps the most influential man in the Senate on questions of law. During the administration of President Grant, Morton, of Indiana, whose legs were paralyzed so he could not walk and had to sit when he spoke, in a sledge-hammer, bulldog style, was considered the administration leader. Conkling, Zach Chandler, Edmunds, Logan and a few others were close seconds, and whooped it up for the President whenever he wanted anything. They looked upon Sumner, who had such a great name abroad, with the utmost contempt. In their opinion he was devoid of common sense, a man of one idea, a fanatic who never thought of anything but opposition to negro slavery, which had been abolished and was a dead issue. In their opinion he was a nuisance. He had little or no influence in the Senate for years. They had his clerk discharged and removed the Senator from the chairmanship of the committee on foreign relations, then considered the leading committee of the Senate, as the Secretary of State is considered the leader of the President's cabinet. They were hardly on speaking terms with him. Carl Schurz of Missouri was Sumner's close personal friend, and they voted the same on nearly everything. When the President wanted anything Sumner and Schurz jumped on it with both feet. When the President proposed to purchase and annex San Domingo, which required a two-thirds majority to ratify the treaty, they rejected it. Henry Wilson, the other Massachusetts Senator, was just the opposite of Sumner.
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When Conkling and Platt were the Senators from New York, just before I left Washington, Conkling became so enraged at Blaine for interfering in the appointment of col- lector of customs at New York City, that he and Platt both resigned. That quarrel perhaps caused the assassination of President Garfield by Guiteau, who in his muddled brain imagined that the President had committed a great wrong in allowing Blaine, Secretary of State, to dictate a New York appointment. Conkling was a very handsome, tall, aristocratic man. Governor William Sprague of Rhode Island raised the first regiment to fight for the Union in the war of the rebellion. He commanded them as General. After the war he was a Senator from Rhode Island for many years. He married Kate Chase, a very beautiful woman, daughter of Chief Justice Chase, Secretary of the Treasury under President Lincoln. Sprague became jealous of his wife, and left her because she was unusually bright and attracted the attention of public men. Shje held brilliant receptions at the Chief Justice's house when he was trying to get the nomination for President in place of Grant. The gossips had Conkling's name mixed up with this affair. They also said he lived mostly on milk and crackers. After Conkling resigned his seat in the Senate he practiced law in New York City. He got out in a deep snow in the streets and took cold and died.
When Fenton was elected Senator to succeed Senator Mor- gan, who had been the "war governor" of New York, the same as Senator Morton had been the "war governor" of Indiana, I was in the gallery of the State House of New York at Albany, and saw and heard the voting when Fenton was elected. When Fenton came into the Senate Conkling and the other administration Senators looked upon him about the same as they did on Sumner.
Russell Sage was the projector and builder of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad. He was when a young man a member of Congress from the State of New York. After
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wards for many years he became one of the most powerful capitalists among railroad men in New York City and a great power in Wall street. It was said that he was the only man in New York at that time who always kept ten million dollars in bank ready to loan or be used in any emergency. When the Senate was not in session I was frequently in New York and became acquainted with Sage. He visited at my house in Washington and I received many autograph letters from him. My reminiscences, covering a period of nearly 80 years, from which these few paragraphs are taken in a condensed form, contain some of Sage's letters, and letters from gov- ernors, senators, congressmen, judges, clergymen, authors and others, taken from a collection of many thousand letters, and some of my editorials and other newspaper comments. It would make a large book and whether it will ever be published I do not know. When an attempt was made to assassinate Sage I wrote a lengthy editorial, taking that for a text. He sent me a letter of thanks, and Senator Dolph sent a letter saying he wished the article could be read by every person in the United States. I sent Sage my paper for twenty years or more, up to the time he passed away, perhaps about fifteen years ago. He left over seventy million dollars ($70,000,000) for the Sage foundation, a charitable institution.
During the four years that I served as Secretary of State of Oregon, along with Governor Lord, his wife was an en- thusiastic advocate of making the growing of flax in Oregon an important industry. She was the pioneer of flax-growing in Oregon, and never lost an opportunity to talk about and explain her hobby. If Oregon ever becomes a flax-growing state, as it probably will, she will be entitled to most of the credit. The Governor was so much occupied with politics and the cares of state that he did not have the time nor patience to give much attention to the flax industry at that time, however important it might become in the distant future. Like Huntington, who said posterity might build their own
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railroads, the Governor perhaps thought that posterity might raise their own flax or do without flax. The Governor was hard of hearing and did not hear all or much of his wife's eloquent appeals for flax in his presence, but he heard enough to know that flax nearly always came in somewhere. On one occasion, when the Secretary of State and the Attorney- General were attending a dinner party with others at the Governor's house, Mrs. Lord was explaining to the guests the great advantages that flax raising would be to Oregon. The Governor did not hear what she was saying but became suspicious that she had started on her hobby. He leaned over at the table and asked the Attorney-General in a low voice: "Is Julia talking about that damn flax?"
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When the 18th regular session of the Legislature of Oregon met in Salem January 14, 1895, I went into office as Secretary of State, to succeed Geo. W. McBride, who had held the office two terms, eight years. I administered the oath of office to Charles B. Moores, Speaker of the House, and to the sixty Representatives. The platform on which I and all the members of the Legislature had been elected had been unanimously adopted, on motion of Rufus Mallory, by the Republican State Convention, at Portland, as follows :
"The American people, from tradition and interest, favor bimetallism, and the Republican party demands the uses of both gold and silver as standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions, to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of the parity of values of the two metals, so that the purchasing and debt paying power of the dollar, whether of silver, gold or paper, shall be at all times equal. The interests of the producers of the country, its farm- ers and its workingmen, demand that every dollar, paper or coin, issued by the government, shall be as good as any other."
Senator Dolph had declared in a speech in Boston, or some place in the East, that he "had the temerity to oppose" this silver Republican platform. All the Republicans had been elected on this platform and nearly all were in favor of silver
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regardless of the platform. All parties on the Pacific Coast then favored it. I had the kindliest feelings for Senator Dolph. I appreciated his valuable services as a Senator and his worth and ability as a man. I tried to persuade him to make some concessions to those who favored silver as standard money, and had written to him in the East to that effect, during the Summer, between the time of the election, June 4, 1894, and the meeting- of the Legislature, January 14, 1895. But he would not. He was the only Republican candidate for Senator before the people when the Legislature was elected, and he reasoned logically that the election of a Republican Legislature settled it. He stood on his dignity and would not try to conciliate or influence any member of the Legislature in any way. The result was that nearly one-half of the Re- publicans refused to vote for him on account of his gold standard views. He lacked two or three votes. "From tra- dition" if not "from interest," I could not do otherwise than sympathize with those who refused to vote for him.
Those who were trying to whip in the opposition believed that the Secretary of State, with the power of his office, which then included the business of Secretary, State Auditor, State Insurance Commissioner, State Corporation Commissioner and member of every state board, could control two or three members and elect the Senator. One Senator introduced a bill in the Senate and two Representatives introduced bills in the House to repeal the laws allowing the Secretary of State fees. The fixed salary was very small and fees had been provided in lieu of salary. Without the fees the office would have been a liability that nobody without a large income would have wanted or could have afforded to hold. They let it be known that if the Secretary would get the members necessary to elect their man, which they said they knew he could, these bills would be withdrawn or put to sleep, otherwise away would go the fees ! They were informed that they might go ahead with their bills and go to any old place with the fees ! Then the fight started in earnest, and lasted till the last day of the
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forty days' session, when Geo. W. McBride was elected after midnight.
Thirty members signed a pledge not to allow any law to be passed such as they threatened. Without that pledge they could not have done it, for the Secretary of State had a ma- jority in both houses and the Governor behind him. I do not blame Senator Dolph and his friends for anything they did or tried to do. They felt sore at the bolters and at the Secretary. He might have felt the same if he had been in their places. Senator Dolph was entitled to re-election on account of his superior ability and his valuable public services. The everlasting money question, the almighty dollar, pre- vented his re-election. It also prevented the re-election of Sena- tor Mitchell, in 1897, and the re-election of Secretary of State Kincaid in 1898.
Gold and silver had been the standard of values at about 16 to 1 throughout the world for 2,000 years, until England adopted the single gold standard in 1816. This was done because England had billions of dollars invested in bonds and other securities in the United States and other debtor nations. Germany and other creditor nations followed Eng- land. These creditor nations used their great financial power to force it upon the United States. Iron, copper and other base metals have so little intrinsic values that they are not suitable for money. Paper is the same. Gold and silver are the only metals suitable for money, and, without silver, there is not enough gold in the world to pay ten cents on the dollar of the debts and carry on the business. Under this gold standard system all debts and all business is made pay- able in "gold coin," a physical impossibility.
The striking out of silver, the greatest part of the money of the world, doubled the value of gold, and the value of billions of bonds and interest and of investments originally made on a basis of gold arid silver, so that it will take for an indefinite time double the amount of the products of labor to pay the
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principal and interest on these "investments." Now, when England is spending five billions of dollars a year in war, Parliament is assured that they can carry on the war five years on what the debtor nations owe England. Had it not been for the single gold standard, which enabled them to draw such vast wealth from their bonds and "investments," they would not have the means to carry on so great a war. Nor would their interests prompt them to do it. It is the desire to keep up this system of drawing wealth from other nations that has caused the war. England wants a monopoly of this "business," and Germany is fighting for "self-preservation," that is, to keep England from getting all or more than her share of the trade and wealth of other countries. Under the gold and silver system of money that had existed for thou- sands of years these nations could not have drawn such fabulous wealth from "investments" in other countries, and this greatest war the world has ever known would in all human probability not have ever been, and surely not during the present age. It was forced on the United States by the great money power of England and Germany, in the interest of great wealth, when they were drawing billions of dollars for bonds, stocks and all kinds of investments in America, all made payable in gold coin of much greater purchasing power than the original investments, constantly being rein- vested and increasing in values. Now this vast increase of wealth in the hands of the already wealthy owners of stocks and bonds and accumulated money, by laws increasing the power of their accumulated capital, at the expense of the debtors and laborers, is reacting with terrible force against those who did it. It is sweeping away billions of dollars, millions of lives, and destroying the labors of a century. War expenses, war taxes and income taxes will take all their income in "gold coin" and some more, and they will be glad to remonetize silver and have the money of the world, gold and silver, when this war is over.
In the United States silver continued to be standard of
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value at 16 to 1 until 1873. Then, by mistake or design, silver was dropped out in revising or codifying the coinage laws. Congressmen denied that it had been done intention- ally. A great clamor went up all over the United States, the great silver producing country of the world, for the remone- tization of silver, for "free silver" or "bimetallism," as it was variously called. The Pacific Coast and all the silver pro- ducing states and territories, which produced about $70,000,000 a year, were greatly damaged. All parties professed to be in favor of remonetizing silver, for twenty years. Suddenly the "gold bugs" took control, first of Grover Cleveland and a part of the Democratic party, and then of Wm. McKinley, who had advocated silver, and the leading faction of the Re- publican party, and changed the financial system of the United States. Now an army of financial doctors are trying to devise some scheme by which promises to pay money can take the place of money, but all the promises stipulated that they must eventually be paid in "gold coin," when the government, the banks, the corporations and the individuals who make these promises know there is not enough "gold coin" in the world and never can be, to pay ten cents on the dollar of their promises.
i
The gold standard candidate for Governor and a lot of imported hired orators from the East made a whirlwind cam- paign throughout Oregon in 1898. They whooped up the war against Spain, and made it clear to themselves and to a majority of the voters that if any nominee on the Union ticket should be elected, the volunteers who were being marched around through Oregon, at large expense, for political effect, would be without food and clothing in the Philippine Islands or wherever they should be. The election of a state officer in Oregon opposed to the gold standard would paralyze the army and navy of the United States, and the sons and brothers of Oregon voters might starve and go naked while fighting for their country in foreign lands! The re-election of the Sec
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retary of State, as a silver Republican, on the Union ticket, would be the unkindest cut of all to the patriotic soldiers. He had caused to be printed and distributed a pamphlet con- taining his writings against the gold standard for twenty-two years, from 1873 to 1895. A man who would for twenty- two years support the Republican platforms favoring bimetallism silver and gold for standard money and opposing the single gold standard, and would then keep right on doing the same thing, after the leaders of the party, in England and Germany and some in America, had taken control of the party and elected a former free silver advocate President on a gold platform ; a man who would fight for the principle on which he had been elected and which he had always favored, was especially offensive to the refined tastes of the advocates of "sound money" and "criminal aggression," as McKinley at first styled the clamor for a war against Spain. No party could change oftener or faster than they could ! By such represen- tations the gold standard candidates were all elected by large majorities, but the defeated candidate for Secretary of State had more than 1,200 more votes than the average vote for the other Union candidates.
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Just before I went out of office of Secretary of State my friend Governor Lord, who stood by me loyally all the time, regardless of political dissensions and divisions in the Re- publican party over the money question, nominated four or five regents of the University of Oregon, my name being one of the number. Dolman, a California newspaper writer, had come to Salem and was writing for the Oregonian. As soon as I was out of office he filled his letters mainly with attacks on my administration. Governor Geer sent a message to the Senate asking for the withdrawal of Governor Lord's nomina- tions. He objected to the name of Kincaid, but would return
i. Alfred Holman, born in Yamhill County, Oregon, July 6, 1857. He began his newspaper career on the Portland Daily Bee in 1876, and was attached to the editorial staff of t'-<e Oregonian from 1888 to 1891. His grandfather, John Holman, was a pioneer of 1843, his father, Francis Dillard Holman, a pioneer of 1845, and his mother, Mrs. Mary McBride Holman, a pioneer of 1846.
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all the others. The Senate refused to return the names, about 25 of the 30 Senators, including nearly all the Republicans, voting against returning and being in favor of confirming, but they were in the hands of a chairman of a committee who refused to report them so the Senate could vote on them. Those who were engaged in inspiring these attacks and this petty spite-work went to the presiding officer and informed him that he had a legal right to send the names to Governor Geer without the consent of the Senate, which he did before the Senate had time or thought to order the committee to report the names. Governor Geer then returned all the names but Kincaid's name, in place of which he substituted the name of Wm. Smith, Populist Senator from Baker County. He remarked that he did not understand why the Governor had objected to a Republican and then sent in the name of a "wild- eyed Populist." Holman was a relative of Senator McBride, for whose election to the Senate I had contributed more than anybody by keeping him in the State House during the entire session of the Legislature in 1895 and by refusing to get a vote or two necessary to elect Senator Dolph as his friends had demanded on threat of cutting off the fees of the office of Secretary of State. But McBride had no part in the fight that was being made on his friend, and was not to blame, and perhaps those in Salem who were inspiring and directing the attacks felt justified. From their point of view I had de- serted the party and had tried to prevent their election. From my point of view they had deserted the principles of the party and had prevented me from being re-elected to an office to which I was entitled "from tradition and interest." The nation was changing its financial system. The party with which I had always acted and have continued to act since, had suddenly reversed itself on a very important subject. It was natural that the majority should go with the party wherever it went, following the name. I was responsible for my defeat by refusing in an interview in the Oregonian to accept a nomi- nation on a gold standard platform. I was the nominee on
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the Union ticket, not of the Democrats or Populists, who had their candidates, but of the "Silver Republicans." The senti- ment in favor of a second term, which every Secretary of State had held, was almost unanimous. Nothing could have prevented a re-election on the Republican ticket. Some of my most devoted friends for many years were very angry because I had "deserted" or "betrayed the party," as they called it. Some of them lived to realize, no doubt, and others will if they are in the land of the living long enough, that they and the party made a mistake when they forced the English and German financial system on the United States.