The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian/10 Governor, 1903
CHAPTER X
Governor, 1903
AT the opening of the year 1902 my life appeared to
be fixed in certain well-defined grooves and my
future to be assured along lines of advancement
entirely satisfactory and agreeable.
I was president judge of what was regarded as the
strongest court in the city, my services were acceptable
to the bar and the community, I had recently been elected
for a further term of ten years, and it was generally believed
by both lawyers and politicians that upon the occurrence of
the next vacancy, I would be sent to the Supreme Court.
From the estates of my Uncle Joseph and my mother I had received about fifty thousand dollars, and I had also a share of my uncle's inheritance, from which, some years before his death, he had distributed, in accordance with his view that while he was free to bestow his own accumulations as he saw fit, inherited money was in the nature of a trust fund to be divided without favor among members of the family.
Having always lived within my income, I was entirely out of debt. I had a house in town and had recently bought the historic home of the family, which had been in its possession for one hundred and fifty years, and there I intended to spend my summers. I owned a library of over ten thousand volumes of Americana especially relating to Pennsylvania, which in some respects was unequaled in the world.
I was president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, and these were to be the diversions and activities outside of my professional work. In a twinkling, within a period covering a few weeks of time, all of these conditions, plans and purposes were cast into the rubbish heap and I was out upon the broader sea of public affairs. As an illustration of how far was I from thinking of such a career, it may be told that just at this most inappropriate time I resigned my membership in The Union League, which I had held for fifteen years, upon the theory that it meant nothing in the pursuits of my life and was an unnecessary expense.
A long time ago, in the Far East, in the land where the Bulbul sings and the roses bloom and scatter fragrance, the soothsayers gave warning that upon a certain morning the man who was the first to see the sun rise in its glory was destined to be king. Upon that day all of the people gathered upon the plain and each man with neck stretched and eyes fixed upon the far East, intent and eager, watched to catch the first glimpse of the coming dawn. But there was one among them who, too proud and indifferent to enter into the contest, turned his back upon the sun and fastened his eyes upon the mountain tops of the far West where stood the hut in which he was born, and behold! when the sun rose its earliest rays glinted along these peaks and he was the man of destiny who first caught the light. It is a true story. Men never secure the great rewards of life through eagerness. Fortune, like a woman, despises those who crouch at her feet. Clay, Webster and Blaine hunted the presidency with great ability and unwearied zeal, only to fail. The only man who ever set about to get it, sacrificing old friendships and present duties in his thirst, who met with success, was Woodrow Wilson, and the fact that he reached it was due to entirely different causes. Chief Justice Edwin M. Paxson besought the politicians to let him have the Governorship of Pennsylvania as a climax to his career, and found their hearts hardened against him. Jonah V. Thompson, reputed to be worth thirty millions of dollars, hoped
that the weight of wealth would secure it. John P. Elkin 
Pennypacker's Mills
Home of Governor Pennypacker, General Washington's Headquarters, September 26-29, October 4-8, 1777.
In each case the effort was a dreary waste. It came to me without the lifting of a finger, the expenditure of a dime or the utterance of a sigh.
It would be the expression of a superficial thought to say that this outcome was the result of accident. In the play of forces and the working of the laws of nature there is no such thing as accident. Men are like the trees. Many of them perish early, but if they once get rooted in the ground, then they grow. Men gather strength and facility by that which they do, and if a man can do anything well he is presently in demand. To every man certain opportunities come in the course of his life. Fortune occasionally knocks at his door. The difference in men is that some see and listen, and to others, failing to heed, she comes no more. I was a judge, but something more than a judge. I bore a part in the affairs of the city and the state beyond the performance of my mere professional duties. Through the years I had been slowly collecting the out-of-the-way books relating to the state and these gave me information which other men did not possess, utilized in papers and addresses until I had come to be a representative and even a champion of its cause in literature and history. For instance, July 16, 1902, the State of New York dedicated its State Park at Stony Point and invited me to deliver the oration. It was a hot day, there was a great crowd with much noise, a sufficiently long programme, in the course of which Governor Odell made an impromptu address, and as a result my formal paper was not listened to with eagerness, but it was a careful study of the event and of Wayne's relation to it and it has had a permanent effect. And now the time had come when the politicians of the state in an emergency needed a man of a type different from that of the ordinary partisan. The politician, upon the whole, does his work on a somewhat higher plane and with a little more regard for its appearance than does the business or professional man. This is not due to the fact that he is of a different mold from his fellows, but is because his work is done in the face of the public, with all eyes fastened upon it and, therefore, his interest requires him to be more careful.
When the successful man in business trains up assistants who under his supervision learn the methods and become familiar with the custom, he always runs the risk of their going off for themselves and carrying the trade with them. In a greater degree the same danger confronts the successful party leader. There are ever around him ambitious men watchful to seize the power which he wields. Quay had long been in control and was growing old. John P. Elkin of Indiana County had been in Harrisburg through several administrations and had been assistant attorney general and then attorney general under Governor William A. Stone—a capable lawyer, an eloquent speaker, an affable gentleman; he had participated in many political campaigns and was known and popular all over the state. He had the state administration behind him and he proposed to be the next governor. His success would have meant the beginning of another régime and the bones of the old leaders would have been scattered along the plains. Quay accepted what was in effect a challenge, told Elkin definitely that he could not be the governor and sought for an available candidate against who nothing could be said and who could appeal to popular support. Philander C. Knox, of Pittsburgh, and Charles Emory Smith, the editor of the Press, who had been Minister to Russia and Postmaster General, were under consideration. General John R. Brooke, who had fought at Gettysburg and later had commanded our forces in Porto Rico, came pretty close to selection. One evening David H. Lane, representing the organization of the Republican party, came up to my house. Lane is a remarkable man. Slight in frame, sandy in complexion, with a face of the Shakespearean type, he is very much of a philosopher and has often been called the brains of the party in Philadelphia, and is conceded by all to be one of its most astute leaders. As a plenipotentiary he tendered to me the nomination. I told him that my means were limited and that I had no money to spend, that my ambitions ran in an entirely different direction, and that to accept would be at the sacrifice of pretty much all that I myself wanted to do. He went further and pledged to me the first vacancy in the Supreme Court which should occur after my term as governor should be concluded. As a result of this interview, and at his request, I saw Quay a day or two later at the Republican headquarters, in the presence of Senator Penrose and W. R. Andrews. Quay and I sat together on a sofa and he asked:
“What have you concluded to do?”
“If this means that I am expected to put a lot of money into the campaign, I decline. What property I have I must endeavor to keep for my children.”
“You will not be called upon to spend one cent.”
“Senator, you have time and again indicated a kindly interest in my welfare, what would you advise me to do?”
This was an appeal to his friendship at a time when he was attending to business.
“You will have to determine that question entirely from your own point of view. I can give you no advice.”
Nothing could have been more true to correct principles or have indicated a nicer sense of propriety. He would not take the responsibility of leading me into what might have resulted in disaster, by the slightest suggestion. Then I said:
“I accept, and will take the chances.”
He, on the instant, turned to Andrews and ordered:
“Now get to work at once. Write to (naming certain persons) and tell them the candidate will be Pennypacker.”
A few months later I received from the party treasurer a receipt for $5,000 as my contribution to the expenses of the campaign. Surprised at the form the promise given me, and kept with absolute faith from beginning to end, had taken, I went to Quay and inquired, showing him the receipt:
“Where did this money come from?”
“Since it has been paid and since you did not pay it, I do not see that the matter need concern you in any way.”
I never received the slightest explanation, intimation or even hint as to its source.
The motives which led to acceptance were blended. I knew well that there was the certainty of much discomfort and of financial loss. Even if nominated and elected, the office could be held for but four years and I was giving up for it an assured future. But I had a strong desire to test myself, to see what I could do upon a broad field in a place of real serious importance. I had the knowledge that two of the family had before been talked about for the governorship—Elijah F. and Galusha—and the feeling that to have one of us reach the head of the state would be the gratification of a pride. Above all was the sober and conscientious thought that Pennsylvania in achievement was above every other state and that when she called any man it was his duty, no matter what might be his inclinations or pursuits, to drop them like the wedding guest in the Ancient Mariner and obey. And:
| He either fears his fate too much, |
| Or his deserts are small, |
| Who dares not put it to the touch |
| To win or lose it all. |
There was a severe contest over the nomination, Elkin showing much strength, pluck and determination, in which I had no part or parcel. One of the men upon whom Elkin relied was Frank M. Fuller of Union town in Fayette County, and Elkin sent him the money with which to carry the county. Fuller decided to support Quay and asked the Senator whether he should return the money which had been received.
“No,” said Quay. “If you return that money Elkin will use it somewhere else against me. You deposit it in your name in a trust company and get three per cent interest. After the campaign is over Elkin is sure to be dead broke. Then you give him that money. He will be glad and you will help him and me too.”
There was a stormy time at the convention in June. Louis A. Watres, a wealthy man living in Scran ton, who had been lieutenant governor, was also a candidate with twenty-six delegates. His role was that of a dark horse, but he turned his delegates over to Quay on the first ballot. I had two hundred and six votes and Elkin one hundred and fifty-two. The delegates sang their coarse improvised song:
| Sit down, you beggars, sit down, |
| Elkin will have his say |
| But not to-day; |
| Sit down, you beggars, sit down, |
| One, two, three, four. |
| Who in hell are we for? |
| Pennypacker, Pennypacker, |
| Pennypacker, Pennypacker. |
It was all over and the old political warrior had won what he declared to be at the time, and what proved to be, his last battle. A telegram informing me of the result was handed me while sitting in the trial of a case in the quarter sessions court just as I was about to charge the jury. A newspaper the next morning reported:
The case was a long and tedious one, involving several complex questions in law and requiring careful attention to uninteresting facts and statistics. In his charge to the jury Judge Pennypacker reviewed the evidence at length. He did not omit an important feature of the evidence and even took occasion to clarify some of the less important testimony. His statement of the law was not only satisfactory to both sides, but his language was as clear and terse as the rhetoric of the text-books.
Just at this juncture appeared General George Weedon's Orderly Book, kept during the Revolutionary War, which I had undertaken to supervise and annotate for the American Philosophical Society and which was published by Dodd, Mead & Co., of New York. It gives the most complete record we have of the campaign of 1777 for the possession of Philadelphia. The publishers expected little demand for a book of interest only to scholarly investigators and they were much surprised to find that their whole edition was sold in a comparatively brief time.
Within a few days after the nomination, at the request of Mr. Charles W. Henry, I delivered an address at the dedication of the statue to Teedyuscung, the Indian chief, erected on the Wissahickon.
Robert E. Pattison became the Democratic candidate for the governorship. He had twice before been elected governor, had the prestige of unusual success in a Republican state, and was ready to tempt fortune for the third time. He was a man inspired by worthy motives, with rather limited views of life, possessed of respectable attainments, who had come within sight of the Democratic nomination for the presidency and who, if he could win in this campaign, might well cherish such prospects.
On the 1st of August I resigned from the bench in order to go upon the stump. This left me without a salary for about eight months, and for the first time in my life I was under the necessity of borrowing money in order to provide for family needs. The beginning of the introduction into the service of the public was likewise the beginning of the sacrifice of personal comfort. Along with Senator Penrose, I spoke August 20th at Fogelsville in Lehigh County, not far from Allentown, and there, in a sense, the campaign was opened. For the next two and a half months my only occupation was that of following out the itinerary prepared by the campaign committee, and making speeches, oftentimes three in the course of the day. Without much regard for the physical capabilities of those taking part, the itinerary was arranged so as to provide for much of the traveling by night. The changes were so sudden and continual that nothing made a distinct impression. The crowds were pretty much alike, made up of the same kind of faces and shouting the same shouts. One of the serious annoyances was, that on getting off the train at a station, the assembled partisans, loud and enthusiastic, all wanted to shake hands, and while this proceeding was in progress, some one, whom I did not know, would grab my valise and make off with it, and what was to become of it I never could tell. Generally he soon wearied and put it in some corner. Governor Hastings, who gave me a reception at Bellefonte, said to me: “If you do not get a private car and have your doctor with you, you will break down before you get half the way through.” He had pursued that policy and, though a powerfully constituted man, his voice failed and he had to quit. While those who were with me occasionally withdrew for repairs, I was able to keep it up to the end, and on the last day made three speeches. My explanation of the fact was that, after speaking in the evening I insisted upon going around to the hotel and up the stairs into my room to bed and positively refused to go into the bar-rooms. Sometimes I was called a crank, but my night's sleep was saved.
I wrote no speeches, made a different speech at each place, often suggested by the surroundings, and depended upon trying to think straight and telling the people exactly what I thought. This was relieved to some extent by the adaptation of a store of anecdotes. One illustration was used often and generally with good effect. It was the season of the year when the katydids were singing in the woods. Pattison had a stereotyped speech which he had committed to memory, telling of the many ills which had befallen the state under Republican rule. I likened the Democrat to the katydid. There never was any Katie— she never did anything, and yet this absurd insect, year in and year out, kept repeating the same old song. Strong of voice and short of ballast, it retired with the frosts of November, i. e., the elections, but was sure to return with the next campaign.
At Pittsburgh there had been much dissatisfaction with a recent act which deprived the mayor, who had been elected, of his office and changed the form of government—in popular parlance called The Ripper Bill. On the train from Erie to Pittsburgh to attend a great meeting there. Senator Penrose said to me:
“I hope you will not say anything about the Ripper Bill.”
“Senator,” I answered, “that is the very subject about which I propose to talk to them.”
And I did, denouncing its policy, and I won what he conceded to be a success. I made not a single promise of any kind, either to an individual or to the public, and told the people wherever I went that I did not know whether I would make a good governor or not, that they would have to run the risk and take the responsibility, but that if elected, I should endeavor always to look solely to the welfare of the state. Quay made to me only one suggestion with regard to the future. Alexander J. Cassatt, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, was very much interested in horse-racing and improving the breed of horses. Practically a race-track could only be maintained if betting upon the horses should be permitted. The Senator asked me from Cassatt whether I would favor the passage of such a law. I replied:
“Senator, I am not sure that gambling is essentially a crime. If you choose to introduce an act which abolishes our laws against gambling, I will carefully consider the question. But, remember, that permits the negro to shoot craps. I think it would be a mistake to allow betting on horses and not on craps.”
I heard no more of the subject.
Those who accompanied me during the greater part of the time were William M. Brown, of New Castle, the candidate for lieutenant governor; William I. Schaffer, a leading lawyer of Chester and state reporter, and Colonel Ned Arden Flood, of Meadville. Brown, a short man with intense eyes, had all the look of a pirate, especially after he had examined the bottom of a glass, as he sometimes did, but he had many merits and I grew to be quite fond of him. He could hold his own in a scrap with great quickness and pertinacity. It is told of him that once in early youth with no prospects before him, he went into a gambling house, ventured his stakes and won $5,000. This sum was said to have been the foundation of his fortune and he never went near a gambling house again, which shows his good sense. He now had money and lived in a large and well-appointed house and I am told he has since become very rich. Schaffer and Flood were both orators of much power, but using very different methods.
Among my literary friends, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell favored my election and Henry C. Lea thought that it would only be a prolongation of existing iniquity.
One of the last speeches was at Norristown, October 30th, in which I said:
I have never sought the office of Governor of Pennsylvania. I do not seek it now; I have asked no man in this state to vote for me. I do not ask you to vote for me. The responsibility of this election rests upon you. Should I be elected next Tuesday, then without any sense of elation, with an appreciation of the great confidence you have resposed in me, I shall accept that high office which I regard as one of the highest upon the face of the earth because it is the highest executive office in the greatest of the American commonwealths, and I shall go forward to the performance of my duties with a sense of responsibility and with a determination to perform those duties to the very utmost of my abilities.
Roosevelt announced from Washington that my defeat would be “a national calamity.”
Charles Emory Smith followed suit with the statement that I was “the ablest, truest and bravest candidate for governor that has been nominated in Pennsylvania in a quarter of a century.”
The day before election Quay, who had himself been state chairman and conducted the contest, gave out to the public his calculation that I would have a majority in the state of 163,435 votes. The official returns, later tabulated, showed that my majority over Pattison was 142,350 and that I had polled 593,328 votes, the largest number ever given to a candidate for governor in this state down to the present time (1914). There was much jubilation and some serious thought over the result within the state and it may be added, incidentally, that it gratified Com Paul Kruger, who spoke warmly upon the subject, and many people in Ireland and Holland, in which countries there was considerable comment.
At my house for the next two months I held an almost continuous reception of persons, who wanted to fill the places under the control of the administration, and their friends. Among the very first was Charles Emory Smith, who came to urge that I appoint his friend, Captain John C. Delaney, factory inspector. James M. Shumaker came with a delegation from Johnstown asking to be appointed superintendent of grounds and buildings, and the result of a long and sifting cross-examination was that he pleased me very much, and I never saw any reason later to change the impression he then gave. A young man named H. A. Surface came to see me every few days. He had no political support whatever, but he made up for it in zeal.
There was an office on “the Hill” which had the imposing designation of “Economic Zoologist.” It was filled by George Hutchinson, a hale, stout, agreeable fellow from the western part of the state who could hardly tell a cricket from a grasshopper, but who knew right well every voter in his township and how to bring him along. Surface wanted his place. Surface had edited an entomological magazine and was teaching in one of the colleges, but he had the idea that a great work could be done to help the farmers, fruit growers and bee culturists of the state. Later I appointed him and he certainly made a success of his bureau. Like all enthusiasts, however, he could see nothing else and during my whole term he kept me busy getting him out of the scrapes into which his zeal had led him, and preventing the politicians from eating him up. At one time the North American newspaper got a number of other papers to help and set a trap to ruin him, but I succeeded in thwarting it. He is still in his place and has done much to advance a scientific knowledge of insects and to prevent their depredations. Hutchinson, who was of little use as a clerk, floated from one department to another and was finally handed back to Surface. One night when Surface was preparing for the St. Louis Exposition a friend met Hutchinson about eleven o'clock looking very doleful.
“What is the matter?” inquired the friend. “Do you know what that damned man has had me at?” he replied, “I have been down there skinning skunks.”
I listened to Quay about the heads of departments and ever found him sensible, conciliatory and anxious for my comfort and success as well as his own. After talking the matter over with Penrose, Durham and probably others, his suggestions to me were to appoint I. W. Griest of Lancaster, Secretary of the Commonwealth; William B. Rogers of Pittsburgh, Attorney General; Robert McAfee, of Allegheny, Banking Commissioner; and to retain Israel W. Durham as Insurance Commissioner and Thomas J. Stewart as Adjutant General. I told him I had thought carefully over the matter and had concluded to ask Hampton L. Carson to be the attorney general, and I told him frankly the reason, among others, that such an appointment would give color to the whole administration.
“Do you know that he was counsel against me in the United States Senate?”
“Yes, I do. But, after all, he was only counsel. He is a true-hearted man and will be as faithful as steel. You and I can both depend upon him and that means much.”
Penrose, Durham and George T. Oliver all came to me to protest, the last named leaving me with the statement that he felt sure I would agree with them and select Rogers. Finally Quay said to me:
“Do you feel that you are able to give assurance for Carson?”
“Entirely.”
“Well then, that will make other changes necessary. Fuller ought to be Secretary of the Commonwealth.” I assented. Then I said:
“There was a man here the other day from Johnstown named Shumaker who pleased me.”
“He will do very well.”
And so were the chief appointments determined.
I wrote my inaugural address without consultation with anybody and sent a copy to Quay alone. He replied, saying that it was a statesmanlike document, suggesting no additions and only one omission upon the ground that the subject was rather one of detail than proper for such a paper. I struck this matter from the address.
January 19, 1903, Mrs. Pennypacker and I, with our three daughters, closed the house at 1540 North Fifteenth Street in Philadelphia, took a street car to the station of the Pennsylvania Railroad, where I bought tickets and checked the baggage for Harrisburg and that night we spent in the Executive Mansion. That mansion was to me never anything more than a temporary abiding place. There was not a single feature about it which had the slightest attractiveness for me. All over it were the manifestations of great outlay, awkwardness and bad taste. There was not a print or a book or a piece of furniture which indicated the thought that it represented the state. Two adjoining plain houses had been thrown together and by that method space had been secured. The ground floor front was taken up with a huge reception room in a brilliant red color looking like the saloon of an ocean steamer and supplied with slight French chairs upon which you sat down only at the peril of going through them. A flight of stairs at each end ran to the fourth story, but there was no means of communication aloft except through the chambers. When, therefore, these were occupied and the traveler wanted to go twenty feet across, the only course was to go down one flight of stairs through the reception room and up the other flight, suggesting a journey of a quarter of a mile. In the second story was another huge room called “the guests' chamber.” It had been furnished with an expensive and profuse suit of mahogany, which, with a grand piano, the judgment of some prior lady occupant of the mansion had decreed should be painted white. There were twenty-three mirrors in the room, all at such elevations that in no one of them could a man see to shave himself. The light was at the head of the bed. It was turned off at the other end of the room. On the way stood two or three narrow upright pedestals surmounted with heavy and costly vases. After putting out the light the stranger threaded his way to bed in terror. One of the vases was knocked over while we were there, and I thanked the Lord. The mansion was supplied by the state; there the official entertainments were given, and there it was expected that the governor should live. A statute provided that the board of public grounds and buildings should pay the expenses, but what was to be included in these expenses was nowhere defined. The state employed a butler and other servants and put them in the house to take care of its property and render service, but it was left to the governor to feed them from his own resources. This was an imposition, for the reason that if left to himself he could secure a house and appointments to accord with his means and salary. There had been seven employees in the house. We cut them down to five. In the course of my term the feeding of these people cost me several thousands of dollars. At one time I asked the opinion of the attorney general upon the matter and he informed me that in his view the state was required to provide this sum. It appeared to me, however, to be a question of some uncertainty and, preferring to feel entirely clear in all financial transactions between the state and myself, I paid the bills and let the subject rest. Each successive governor, with the aid of his wife, had taken a hand in fixing the mansion, and my successor made extensive improvements, but nothing except repair was done to it during my term. In my view it was not worth the expenditure. The space between the Capitol and the Susquehanna River, now occupied by the gentry of the town, ought to be confiscated and thrown into a park and somewhere within the enclosure a home for the governor erected in keeping with the importance of his office.
The next day, January 20th, a cold, raw, bleak day with occasional falls of snow, the chief justice, the Honorable D. Newlin Fell, my old friend, administered to me the oath of office and I stood, with uncovered head, in the presence of an immense crowd and read my inaugural address. There was a great parade of the National Guard and clubs, at the head of which rode Marlin E. Olmsted, a leading lawyer and a member of Congress who just missed being the speaker. He was capable of filling, with credit, any public position. He did not have that quality which is called magnetism, but, what is more important, he possessed in abundance character and intelligence. Coming to Harrisburg as a clerk in one of the departments, he died unfortunately only too early, leaving a beautiful and attractive young wife and a vast estate. After an experience of four years of contact with them, in my opinion the strongest men in public work in the state were Marlin E. Olmsted, David T. Watson of Pittsburgh, Philander C. Knox of Pittsburgh and William U. Hensel of Lancaster, the last named having among other qualities a pronounced taste for literature.
The State of Pennsylvania was a great commonwealth of over seven millions of people, twice as many as those presided over by Queen Elizabeth, William of Orange and George Washington. I approached the duties of governor with certain well-defined convictions to be regarded and certain lines of policy to be pursued. The governorship was a climax of a career attained, and not a stepping stone to something beyond. The efforts of men are always weakened when they have some other end in view apart from the object they are called upon to accomplish. A trustee or director, who builds with the trust funds upon his own lands is always in danger. Therefore, I determined to make no attempt to build up any party or force to be used for my own purposes and to make no money save what came from my salary. Many governors had had their eyes fixed so intently upon the United States Senate and the presidency that they overlooked their opportunities as governors. I determined to give my personal attention to the work, as far as it was possible, and to have my future and repute rise or fall in accord with what was accomplished or left undone. I entertained the common and erroneous belief that the incumbents of public office were in the main idle and untrustworthy and I determined that I would improve conditions so far as it was within my power to do it. The man who endeavors to convince the populace of his own virtues by proclaiming the wrongs which other people commit is an admitted charlatan. Improvement is accomplished only by taking the steps which are necessary to make conditions better, and these steps generally begin pretty near to home. It would have been very easy for me to have gained temporary repute by raising a clamor over the shortcomings of my predecessor. Such opportunities always exist. What I did was to say to him that I supposed he had some personal friends in station who were near to him and whom he would like to have retained and that so far as I could I would protect them. He named to me a brother of his wife and a few others holding minor positions. Nobody ever heard me say a word to his discredit. Nobody ever heard me utter a word of abuse of the members of the legislature. There was no occasion for it. As a general thing they were the representative men of their respective locations, ranging from men of high culture—like Roberts, Fox and Sproul—to the ordinary artisan engaged in doing a public work as well as he knew how to do it. Those who, like my old friend Blankenburg, Mayor of Philadelphia, think that they can get a legislative body to adopt measures by calling them thieves make a great mistake and generally accomplish little.
I determined also to consult as much as possible with the politicians. There was no probability of my knowing too much and their experience was of a kind which enabled them to give useful information. Beside, no man is strong enough to go it quite alone, and his ability to do depends largely upon the forces behind him. While, then, my first duty was toward the state, I recognized a subsidiary duty to the party which elected me and an obligation to those who had trusted me and given me support. If I had turned upon Quay, as Wilson turned upon Harvey and Smith in New Jersey, I should have given an exhibition of what I regard as doubtful ethics. Again, unlike Wilson, I did not regard the duties of the executive office and the success of the party as being upon the same plane. To me the latter was subsidiary and subordinate, and, doing what I could to help the party and its leaders, the determination of the questions arising within the state depended upon me, and my obligation was to look to the welfare of the state.
Nor is the test of what ought to be done the outcry of the people. He who has the true spirit of a statesman will seek to ascertain not what the people want but what it is that for their permanent good they should have. Often an imp of a demagogue leads a herd of swine into the sea and there are they drowned. The real truth of the matter is that the masses of the people are ill trained and uninformed. Their judgment upon any specific subject, and especially upon the involved questions of laws and statescraft, is an imperfect judgment. There are a few men who know how to run a railroad train and the rest of us only travel. There is one man who can perform an operation for appendicitis and we let him cut us to pieces. Since the permanence of the institutions of this country depends ultimately upon the good sense and conscience of the people, the outcome is still problematical and uncertain. It may be conceded that, given sufficient time, the popular judgment is apt to settle upon the correct principles, yet in the meantime Joan of Arc has been burned to death, Poland has been parted in fragments, the Boers have been robbed of their mines, and the Capitol at Washington has been lain in ashes.
Quite recently our system of government was changed by providing for the popular election of United States Senators. It was a long step in a wrong direction. But, what gives warning is the fact that it was done without anybody stopping to consider the significance or consequences of the change. Therefore, my inclination was to regard measures from the point of view of their propriety and utility and to give little heed to the interested or irresponsible comment which might follow
There were two subjects which gave me cause for anxiety. Having never been tested in serious executive work, I felt uncertain as to how I should act in the event of an extended labor strike. Mentally I proceeded no further than to determine to go to the locality and gather the facts for myself. I had also some dread of a collision with Roosevelt should he attempt to come into the state, as he had done before, a movement which it was my intention to prevent. It was one further step in the direction of a development, that has steadily taken place for many years, of the destruction of the authority of the states and the concentration of all power in Washington. This tendency meant that in the end, after the national government has become top-heavy, some man with the impulses and lack of self-restraint of Roosevelt will stay there continuously. To me the situation seemed to be propitious. It is very doubtful whether the like of it had ever occurred in an American state before. A man had been chosen for governor whose associations with the state took him back to the settlement, whose studies had made him familiar with the growth of its institutions, whose training had been in a profession which ought to have prepared him for carefulness in deliberation and circumspection in action, and whose habits had been such as fairly to insure propriety of conduct. Moreover, he had been elected without seeking the office, without having paid any money to secure it and without having been tied up with promises and obligations which might interfere with the performance of his duties. He came to the office, therefore, with no other purpose than to endeavor to advance the interests of the state. The situation was emphasized by the fact that contemporaneously Massachusetts chose a governor, William L. Douglass, who put his face, as an advertisement for the sale of shoes, in every available place in the country and whose purpose in securing the office appeared to be to use his influence in lowering the duties on hides; and that New York, a few years later, elected as Governor, William Sulzer, an uncleanly outcome of the slums, who had to be removed by impeachment. There are two essentials, however, to a full harvest: good seed and favorable conditions. No poet ever arises until there is sufficient literary development about him to appreciate what he writes. Rembrandt paints no portraits until the time comes when there is a desire for the expression of art. No Vanderbilt constructs a fortune on the island of Juan Fernandez, no statesman ever appears among a people until they are ready to do their part in giving him recognition. When the stress comes the arms of Joshua have to be supported. Quay had earnestly tried to do a service for Pennsylvania. Little esteem did he win by the effort. The difference between his reputation and that of Clay over the country and abroad consists in the fact that Kentucky stood firmly behind Clay with all of his faults and that Pennsylvania, so far as expression went, failed so to stand behind Quay with all of his merits.
Having thought carefully over the policy which ought to be pursued in order to secure the public benefit, in my inaugural address I announced definitely these propositions:
1. There is too much legislation. More consideration ought to be given to acts of assembly and the bulk of legislation ought to be lessened.
2. The modern tendency to create new crimes by act of assembly ought to be curbed.
3. The state ought to be apportioned into senatorial and representative districts, as required by the constitution.
4. The ballot ought to be made more simple, and the right of a man to vote a straight party ticket, if he desired, ought to be maintained.
5. The power of corporations to take private property upon the theory of public need by the exercise of the right of eminent domain ought to be permitted, after the ascertainment by the state itself of the existence of such need. The right of eminent domain should be carefully restricted.
6. The state is interested, within reasonable bounds, in bringing about a condition of things in which, in the distribution of the rewards resulting from business ventures, capital shall have less of profit and labor more of compensation.
7. No man should be permitted to interfere, upon any pretense whatever, with another who may choose to sell his labor, and violence should be promptly and rigidly suppressed.
8. To permit foreign corporations to exploit our coal, iron, oil and other products and the state get no benefit, is a mistake. A tax should be imposed upon these products, the proceeds to be applied to the betterment of the roads.
9. In order to increase a sentiment of patriotism, the Camp Grounds of Valley Forge and Bushy Run should be preserved by the state.
10. The University of Pennsylvania should be cared for by the state as provided for in the Constitution of 1776.
11. Newspapers ought to be held responsible for the want of reasonable care in what they publish, and to be required to publish the names of their owners with each issue.
12. The state should aid Pittsburgh to unite, in one municipality, the populations at the head waters of the Ohio.
13. The state should aid Philadelphia in opening a way to the sea.
As will be seen hereafter, each one of these propositions was given effect before my term was finished, except that of taxing coal, oil and iron as it is produced, and since I left the office my suggestion has been followed and such a tax imposed upon coal. But to accomplish such a programme required effort; at every step there was obstruction, and my four years were filled with storms from start to finish. Human nature is so constituted that the individual who does anything beyond the ordinary, in any line of endeavor, is sure to encounter the opposition of the interests adversely affected, of the doctrinaires who want things done in some other way, and of the conservatives who want nothing done at all; and it generally happens that those who may be benefited go off to enjoy what they have secured and leave the battle to be waged without their assistance.
I offered the position of private secretary to Colonel J. Granville Leach, a friend of long standing, who had been in the legislature and whom I had been helping all of the time I was on the Bench, but he declined, no doubt waiting for something of larger consequence. I then chose Henry S. Dotterer, of a German family along the Perkiomen, who had been chief bookkeeper for Peter Wright & Sons, an author of some note, and who had a certain canny wisdom of his own. He was a hale, hearty, strong man, but only a few days before we had arranged to go to Harrisburg he caught cold which inflamed the prostate gland. He wanted to get well immediately, and went to the Medico-Chirurgical College. The physicians looked him over, told him he ran no risk, and performed an operation. In a day or two he was dead. Then they said he had had Bright's disease.
With some uneasiness, at the suggestion of Leach, I then selected Bromley Wharton, a brother of Anne Hollingsworth Wharton, the authoress, whom I had long known, a member of an old family, and he did very well indeed, being ever quick, active and attentive, having quite a faculty for being obeisant to the important and for dismissing the bores affably.
A day or two after the inauguration an ostensible lady drove up in a carriage to the mansion and sent up her card to Mrs. Pennypacker, who was an entire stranger in the city and did not know its people. In the reception room the woman began to talk, presently mentioned public affairs and began to ask questions. This awakened suspicion and she was dismissed. A few days later a full-page portrait of Mrs. Pennypacker, secured by making a sketch in pencil while she was on a railroad train, appeared in the North American, accompanied by what purported to be portraits of my daughters, which had been probably taken from the stock of actresses on the shelves, and a long rigmarole was printed under the lie in huge head lines: “The First Lady of Pennsylvania writes for the Sunday North American on Live Current Problems.” What could be more despicable? The woman ought to have been trounced and Van Valkenberg, the editor of the sheet, ought to have been given severer punishment.
The State Library had long been neglected. With the exception of Ehrenfeld and Egle, the librarians had either been politicians, pure and simple, or incompetents, who neglected their work. The archives, consisting of papers tied up in loose bundles, had long been the stamping ground of literary thieves. I put at the head of the library Thomas Lynch Montgomery, a trained librarian, who had been in charge of the Wagner Institute in Philadelphia, a member of a family of high social standing and a man of great efficiency. I likewise had arrangements made to have the archives that remained and all of the papers of the departments, prior to a certain early date, repaired, chronologically arranged, bound into volumes and put in the library. Carson, Wharton and Montgomery, who came with myself, and Dr. Samuel G. Dixon, president of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and John C. Groome, captain of the First City Troop, whom I drew along later, were referred to as the influx of gentlemen into the political life of the state.
Believing that improvement, like all of the virtues, begins at the home and would be best advanced by setting a proper example, I began the work of reformation with the governor. All the passes from the railroads and all the free privileges from express companies and other corporations, which were poured in upon me, were returned, with expressions of appreciation, and, when traveling, I paid my fare. The expenses of the mansion, paid by the state, were cut down from about fourteen thousand dollars a year to about two thousand dollars. I kept no horses and rode in a cab. I declined to toss the first ball at the opening of the baseball season, and the like, not that there was any harm in so doing, but it seemed to me that the office ought not to be used for advertising purposes, and that it was well to let people see that the incumbent had regard for its dignity. I made it a point to be at the Executive Department at 9 A. M. and to remain there until 6 P. M., and to see that no papers were issued under the authority of the governor without my personal knowledge of their contents. While Woodrow Wilson, as governor, was stumping through the West denouncing the methods of the Standard Oil Company, chartered in New Jersey, no doubt other charters granting like powers were being issued at Trenton. The world would be ever so much better if we could only succeed in prevailing upon each man to attend to his own duties and look after his own conduct. And now, after having, along with some moralizing, indicated the groundwork upon which the structure was to be built, let the narrative proceed.
Strange to relate, my first struggle against opposing forces was with my old friends, the corporation lawyers. All of the trouble in this country over the corporations—and much of it has been the hullabaloo of persons eager to catch the ear of the populace in order to help their own fortunes—has arisen because those who had charge of the granting of their powers were careless and indifferent. This is the point at which the correcting agency ought to be applied. Complaint afterward is feeble and apt to be futile. It had become the habit at Harrisburg, as elsewhere, for charters to be issued as a matter of course, and they were supervised in the outer office. It is even said that a clerk was trained to imitate the signature and add the approval of the governor. Every charter which went out during my four years had my actual approval and bears my autograph. It had been the custom for the lawyer, in drafting the grant of power, to use the general words of the statute. I required that the objects be defined and saw to it that the constitutional provision that no two different purposes should be included, was carried into effect. On one occasion an application was made for the right to make and sell explosives in perpetuity. The danger of such a grant can readily be seen. It was refused until the time was limited to twenty-five years. The statute required that ten per cent of the capital stock should be paid into the treasury of the corporation. It had come to be the practice to take out charters with only nominal capital, with the expectation that as need arose the capital could be increased. In other words, it was speculation in chartered rights. The Donora Light, Heat and Power Company, with a capital stock of only one thousand dollars, a hundred dollars in the treasury, entirely insufficient for the work proposed to be done, desired a charter and I refused approval, holding that there must be a capital stock of at least five thousand dollars. This was an arbitrary sum of my own fixing, but it meant that there must be five hundred dollars in the treasury, enough to ensure good faith. There ensued a great hubbub and outcry among the lawyers. The governor had no such power. It was his duty to approve. A public hearing was asked in order that a re-consideration might be secured, and was granted. Lawyers from over the state, including Robert Snodgrass of Harrisburg and Richard C. Cochrane of York, gathered before me and argued at length the questions of the power of the governor and his relation to the granting of charters. I wrote an opinion holding that the approval by the governor was not intended to be merely that he should see that the paper was in proper form, but meant his assent to the granting of the power contained in it. There was much professional and newspaper talk about the necessity of my receding and about compelling me to approve by mandamus. Had such a writ come, I should not have given it the slightest attention, holding that within his sphere the governor is entirely beyond the control of the courts. However, the profession finally accepted the decision gracefully. My successors followed the precedent which had been established, and since that time no corporation has been chartered in Pennsylvania unless it had a capital of five thousand dollars, with five hundred dollars in the treasury. The reform was real and important.
The next jolt was with the Republican organization of Dauphin County, supported by both of the United States Senators. A vacancy occurred in the court of common pleas of that county and the forces there agreed upon S.J. McCarroll. I was especially anxious not to make mistakes in the appointment of judges and felt that professional fitness was the most important qualification. I listened to everybody who wanted to talk to me upon the subject. Lyman D. Gilbert and Charles H. Bergner, leaders of the local Bar, were in accord in the opinion that the fittest appointment would be that of Michael W. Jacobs. Justice J. Hay Brown of the Supreme Court came to me to urge that appointment, and he was very decided in his opinion. In deference to these professional judgments I appointed Jacobs. The blow was mitigated, however, by the appointment at the same time of John J. Henderson, who had been supported by both senators and had the reputation of having done good legal work in his county court, to the Superior Court. Against Jacobs the party nominated and elected George Kunkel and, therefore, in my first bout with the politicians I finally came out second best.
An act was passed giving to Governor Stone and some of the heads of departments the desks they had used while in office. It pursued a custom which had long prevailed. I approved the act, with the suggestion that the furniture to be put in their places be selected with a view to its remaining as the property of the state.
With the growth of the work of the state there is a steadily increasing need for additional employees to attend to it. Each head of a department is loath to ask for such increase, for the reason that he is at once assailed in the newspapers for causing further outlay. I found a long list of such persons whose salaries were paid from the contingent funds, a timid way of meeting a difficulty, and I put an end to the practice by sending to the legislature a message naming these employees and recommending that they be regularly employed. This treatment of the matter led to no criticism, although it openly increased the force.
As the legislative session progressed, and the bills as they had been passed began to come to me, they were all analyzed and those which were faulty either in thought or construction were vetoed. Since this method of treatment had no reference to the sponsors of the bill or the interests which favored the enactment, it not infrequently happened that bills which were rejected had been favored by the Republican party and its leaders. Such happenings had just that flavor of excitement which pleased the newspapers, and by the close of the session I had received very general encomiums. It was my endeavor always in expressing disapproval of a measure to do it good-naturedly. Often a state senator who heard that some pet measure, which he thought safe, had gone overboard, would come to the office in wrath and after reading the veto message, laugh and say that “the old man was right after all.” A Quaker wrote to me March 21st:
Dear Governor:
Right now I want to tell thee that on account of thy connection with the Quay forces I opposed thy election, but now I extend my hearty support. The stand thou hast taken against vicious and mercenary legislation is to be commended and encouraged.
To which I replied:
Dear Friend:
I very much appreciate your letter and still more appreciate the spirit which induced you to write it. My only purpose is to do as well as I know how. I feel quite sure if you were to observe closely the course of Senator Quay and could become better acquainted with him you would find much in him also to commend.
There was nothing, however, spectacular about this kind of service and nothing likely to attract wide or prolonged attention. It was only doing the work of the state as it ought to be done. The volume of laws was reduced in size from the twelve hundred pages of that of my predecessor to seven hundred pages. My two volumes stand among the printed acts of assembly like oases, since, with the advent of my successor, the volume immediately ran up to the old dimensions.
In the State of Missouri a law was passed relating to baking powders. It led to great scandal and was followed by many prosecutions, so that Governor Joseph W. Folk, who urged them, was praised all over the country for his vigilance, became a national character, and almost reached the presidency. A like act of assembly was passed in Pennsylvania and I threw it into the waste basket, saying:
This bill makes it a misdemeanor, subject to a fine of $100, for any person to manufacture or sell baking powder which contains alum in any form or shape, unless there be printed on a label on the outside of the package, in black ink in legible type, not smaller than small pica, the full name and address of the manufacturer and the words, “This Baking Powder contains alum.” It is evident that the passage of this bill was secured by the manufacturer or vendor of some rival baking powder with intent to obtain an unfair advantage. It is evident from the fact that the conspicuous printing of these words would be likely to deter purchasers. It would be entirely proper to require that all baking powders should have upon the outside of the package a label describing the ingredients and their quantities, but it would be manifestly unjust to require one ingredient to be displayed without any reference to quantity.
There was no commotion, no scandal, and the event entirely escaped attention. The incident well illustrates two different methods of meeting the same problem and the temptations that beset men in public life to do the sensational in preference to the useful.
A message which was very widely circulated was one vetoing a bill for the protection of bears and cubs. The message ran:
For the 20th of March I had an engagement to go with Dr. John H. Fager, a gentleman of Harrisburg interested in the study of natural history, on an exploring tour through Wetzel Swamp. The newspapers announced that Senator Penrose and State Senator James P. McNichol were coming that afternoon to consult with me about some affairs of state, but there was no engagement with me and no message sent to me. I went with Fager to the swamp. The gentlemen came, did not find me; McNichol returned to Philadelphia and Penrose and I had a consultation when I returned in the evening. There was much talk about the incident, many editorials written and glaring headlines printed stating that “Penrose Waits and Frets while Governor in Boots Hunts for Bugs in the Bogs.”
The constitution provides that the incoming governor shall take his seat during a session of the legislature. It is the provision of dilettanti, who constructed an impracticable and in some ways an unworkable constitution. There is no reason why he could not have begun in the years between sessions and so have had time to prepare for his work. Governor Stone, just at the close of his term, sent in to the senate the names of many officials appointed by him. I had no time to interfere and they were confirmed. I issued commissions to all of them, but later took the bull by the horns and removed some of them where I had other views. This, of course, led to some trouble.
It is one of the unwritten laws, never infringed upon, that the governor shall not appear before the legislature, and it is founded upon the correct theory that the legislative bodies shall be kept free from undue influence. On the 24th of March I was officially invited to be present at a session of the legislature. No other governor ever received such an invitation. The members of the legislature received me very graciously and I made an address in the course of which it was said:
It would be a breach of courtesy, and it would ill become me to make reference to any legislation before you or which may come before you. The constitution provides a method by which the governor may make his recommendations. It is wise that that method should be pursued. I may, however, say a word about our mutual relations. We are both, in-so-far as we may, edeavoring together to work out results for the good of the people and the commonwealth. I may say that if the governor should use his power for the purpose of enforcing legislation it would be an interference with our principles of government. On the other hand, if the legislature in its legislation attempts to carry it out by other methods than those of the executive, to that extent it interferes with those principles.
Here is broached a theory of government very different from and much more nearly correct and safe than that acted upon by Roosevelt and Wilson in our national affairs. In the days of Thaddeus Stevens the Congress endeavored to impose upon the President. In more recent days the President is making rapid strides in the way of encroaching upon Congress. Both ventures are based upon impulse rather than upon reason, and they are equally dangerous to our institutions.
In my opinion pretty much all of the value of civil service reform consisted in the principle of permanence of tenure and, therefore, in no instance was there a removal from the routine offices because of factional or political differences. There was much pressure for the removal of Frederic W. Fleitz, assistant attorney general and Colonel Lewis E. Beitler, the deputy secretary of the commonwealth and others, because of political disobedience, but they were all retained. The heads of departments were called together at stated times to consult with each other and me about the good of the service. There had been much talk about the profits of the printing office. The reports of the departments had grown to be bulky volumes, and as a general thing they were little read, and for the most part in a short time thrown away as rubbish.
The profit came from spreading out tables and leaving pages and half pages with nothing on them, called by the printers “fat.” This “fat” was eliminated. For instance, the report of the factory inspector was cut down from a volume of six hundred pages to a pamphlet of forty pages. And during my term the acts of assembly were bound in sheepskin as the contract required, instead of in “skiver.” In fact, the profits were so taken out of the printing that it became difficult to find a printer willing to undertake the state printing, and there has been no scandal in connection with the work since. Much of this success was due to the fact that A. Nevin Pomeroy, put at the head of the department, was a capable man, himself the publisher of a newspaper, and skilled in the ways of the trade.
Cassatt's bill to legitimatize betting upon horse-racing was introduced in one of the houses but recalled, as I understand, because of the fear that it would meet with a veto.
An incident occurred which caused some amusement. It was known that I favored state aid to the University of Pennsylvania, but the pet among the legislators was the Medico-Chirurgical College, and a bill making a large appropriation to the latter institution came to me, passed by both houses. I sent a message to the legislature explaining that the approval of such bills depended upon a general examination of the finances, that, therefore, it was necessary to have all the bills relating to such institutions before me at the same time and asking that the others be sent at once. They complied. A correspondent wrote to the Philadelphia Record:
No use trying to fool that man on appropriations or money matters, on anything in fact outside of political scheming or other politics on which he defers to Quay's judgment. With these exceptions he is too canny for the boys here. In the present case the ferret started after the rat but the rat has annihilated the ferret.
For the first time in recent periods the University of Pennsylvania received a direct appropriation apart from that given to the hospital. I revived the custom of having its trustees meet once a year in the office of the governor and of having it report its finances annually to the legislature, and I had its report as a state institution incorporated in Smull's Handbook.
A bill was passed increasing the salaries of the judges of the state. A like bill had been vetoed by Governor Beaver upon the ground that attempting to add to their compensation during their existing terms, it was unconstitutional. My view was that it could not possibly be unconstitutional, for the reason that it could be sustained by holding it not to apply to the existing terms of the judges then in office. I, therefore, signed the bill, thus aiding my old associates of the judiciary, including Beaver himself, who was then a judge of the Superior Court. It never came to my knowledge, however, that any of them refused the salary during the then existing terms. While giving them larger compensation to encourage more steady application, there was no increase of the number of the judiciary while I was governor. Bills were passed to add to the courts in Philadelphia, Allegheny, Erie, Cambria, Delaware and other counties, and all of them failed. This course interfered with many movements and caused many disappointments, but my judgment was the judges were already too numerous and that, besides, litigation was not a thing to be encouraged.
The movement for the improvement of the roads of the commonwealth interested me exceedingly. A bill for the purpose was fostered in the senate by Sproul of Delaware and Roberts of Montgomery, but another was introduced in the house and the two houses failed to agree. The end of the session was approaching and I was informed the movement had failed. Then I sent a message saying:
“He shall recommend . . . to their consideration such measures as he may judge expedient.”
I feel that the time has come when my duty requires me to indicate my view upon a measure now pending before you. In my opinion the most important subject you have had to consider during this session is that of providing a system for improving the roads of the commonwealth. The measures affecting the government of cities and extending the privileges of railroads and other corporations, grave as they may seem to be, are of much less consequence and can much better be deferred. To reach a conclusion with regard to roads I believe to be essential. I have read with great care the bill which recently passed the senate and failed to meet the approval of the house and, while not perfect, it seems to be a bill which, if it became a law, would go far toward the accomplishment of the purposes intended and be of great benefit to the people. I, therefore, earnestly recommend its passage with assurances that whatever the governor can do to have it executed so as to be fair toward all parts of the state will be done.
Then I summoned the entire committees of both houses before me, listened to a full discussion of their troubles and dismissed them with the statement that I expected them to come to an agreement. The bill was passed and this important step in the way of progress taken.
As had been recommended in the inaugural message, an act had been passed and approved uniting the cities of Allegheny and Pittsburgh.
And now the session of the legislature ended and that ordeal had been passed with general approval and with much of importance accomplished. The newspapers began to make suggestions that I would be the next Republican candidate for the Presidency of the United States. This situation, however, lasted for a very short time. The effort to better the conditions of life, so long as it only interfered with the plans of corporations and politicians, was much to be commended, but when the same care and thought were directed toward the improvement of journalism it was dreadful to contemplate. A bill had been passed called the “Salus-Grady Bill,” which made newspapers responsible for the want of reasonable care, and required them to publish on the editorial page, with each issue, the names of those responsible for the management. In other words, it made them subject to the legal principles which govern the other business relations of men. It was a slight step in the right direction, that was all. It had been recommended in my inaugural address and had been carefully drawn, Carson and myself taking pains to see that it could result in no injury to legitimate newspaper enterprise. It was not the suggestion of Quay, Penrose or any other politician, but was the outcome of my experience upon the bench, where I had known many an unfortunate to be convicted, and many a criminal to be acquitted, because of impressions made upon the minds of jurors by the reckless and inaccurate publication of the facts, and because of the irresponsible interference of the press in all sensational trials, to the disadvantage of the administration of justice. In fact, the doctrine of the liberty of the press is an anachronism which has become harmful and the time has come when it ought to be discarded from our constitutions and laws. Like monarchy and priestcraft, it once answered a good purpose. When kings secretly imprisoned and beheaded men who thwarted their purposes it was an agency for the welfare of the people. Those times have gone. The newspaper is now a venture to make a profit and everywhere it shows the results of the temptation to sell those wares that find a market—filth, scandal and crime. The secrecy which was once a weapon for kings is now its weapon, since it prints attacks and destroys, and whose was the brain that conceived or the hand that struck, no man knows. The privileges once helpful now serve the purposes of gain. The proprietors and editors of newspapers are no worse than the rest of us, but they require the same kind of watching and ought to have no greater facilities.
The bill before me was to be treated like all other bills and to be determined according to its merits. Of course, I was well aware of the capacity of the press to do personal mischief. When I vetoed the bill authorizing the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and other railroad companies to take homesteads in the exercise of the right of eminent domain, no doubt they were pained, but they were noiseless. I did not need to be told that the stopping of the sale of scandal would not be noiseless, but I was anxious that Pennsylvania should make the first real effort to correct what thoughtful men regard as the most far-reaching of the evils of modern life. Before any disposition of the bill should be made, the newspaper men asked for a public hearing. It was to be made a great occasion to which the attention of the country should be attracted. They prepared for it by proclaiming that the bill, which no one of them printed so that what it contained could be seen, had been devised by the “gang” in order to be a “gag” upon the press which was only eager to expose iniquity for the good of the public. My reputation was at stake and now it was to be finally determined whether I should take my place as the creature of a corrupt gang or become the glorious champion of the rights of the people. On such an issue who could be in doubt. The Press had a cartoon representing a beautiful and chaste maiden (the newspaper press), proudly erect, pleading for justice before me, a judge in robes, while a brutal and hideous fellow with a cigar in his mouth and wearing the prison stripes (the legislature of the state) was whispering in my ear and tendering me a chain to fasten around her beautiful limbs. I granted the request for a hearing and fixed it for the 21st of April in the hall of the House of Representatives. At that time George Nox McCain wrote: “I faced the most imposing array of journalistic talent and ability that any Governor of Pennsylvania ever greeted.” The bill was supported by Richard C. Dale and Alexander Simpson, Jr., able lawyers, and Charles Emory Smith had been selected to represent the newspapers. Smith was a man of commonplace ability, with a round, good-looking face, dark eyes and a pleasing voice which could make the most ordinary and conventional utterances sound as though they had some meaning. To evolve an idea was beyond him and he never undertook the task. He had gone in youth from Connecticut to New York, and later had come from New York to Philadelphia and, like many others whom I shall not undertake to mention, he was forever seeking to make Pennsylvania take on the aspects of the place of his birth, which he had abandoned because it afforded him no opportunities. If Smith had been at all a wise man he would have said that the bill had no terrors for newspapers like the Press, he would have welcomed an effort at improvement beneficial to real journals and would have left the odium to be borne by such sheets as the North American, whose standing was such that if ever any decent person was caught reading it he excused himself by saying that he had picked it up on the cars. But there was an appeal to his vanity. He was made to believe that he would stand forth hereafter as the defender of the liberty of the press alongside of those heroes in the past who had confronted real dangers. Since the danger had disappeared, all of this was opera bouffe, but Smith was a serious-minded man, with little sense of humor, and he failed to catch this aspect of the situation. He committed his speeches to memory. I have heard him many times, and his orations and stump speeches often wound up with the description of the pathos with which a born American in far-away oppressed China beheld the Stars and Stripes, the Flag of the Free. He had not gone very far in his address on this occasion before he referred to the insolence of the legislature. I stopped him at once and said:
“They may be mistaken, but cannot be insolent, because they are vested with authority. Therefore, nothing that they do can be insolence. Beside, they are, like myself, a branch of the government and it would not become me to listen to any offensive terms applied to them. We must all treat them with respect. I think, therefore, Mr. Smith, you had better confine your remarks to arguments upon the merits or demerits of the bill.”
I had done the same kind of thing many a time in court, but doubtless it was an unusual experience for Smith. In all probability he had committed to memory an oration in which there was much denunciation intended for wide distribution. My interruption had disturbed his mental processes. He was unfitted for extemporaneous discussion, was very much overweighted by his opponents and, even in the opinion of his newspaper friends who were present, he made a failure. Smith had given those friends to understand, as I was told, that his influence with me was such as to prevent the bill from becoming a law. His oration was printed, not as it was delivered, but as it was intended to have been delivered. A cunning man, looking to what he thought to be his own interest, would have gratified him, and, vetoing the bill would have earned the praise, if not the approval, of a set of men whose voices extend far and are to some extent potent. A timid man, signing it, would have said nothing and left the legislature and the party leaders to share with him the buffets. I made the bill a law and gave my reasons, published with the statute, taking the full responsibility and thereby drew upon myself all of the javelins that could be hurled. No more was I a persona grata in the editorials. The reasons given in support of the act were never answered; they could not be; but the public was made familiar with the fact that I wore boots, that my hair, of which it may be incidentally noted there is a full supply, was often frowsy, and that I hunted bugs in Wetzel Swamp and other places. Artists were employed to exercise their ingenuity and prostitute their talents in making ugly pictures, and the newspapers, as the children are wont to say, made “snoots” at me. In one sense the attacks were a tribute, since, after raking the field with the aid of money and research, as I have no doubt occurred, they were unable to find that I had ever taken money which did not belong to me, that I had ever betrayed anybody to his disadvantage, or that I had ever led any but the decent life of a gentleman. Besides, they overdid the matter. They made me known all over the United States and people felt that there must be some character in a man who did not fear the united power of the press and could come, unscathed, out of a contest with it.
A few years later there was sent to me an article printed in Birmingham, Alabama, telling of the important events which had occurred on the 9th of April. Among them were the discovery of the Mississippi by Ferdinand de Soto, the Battle of Appomattox, and the birth of Samuel W. Pennypacker, Governor of Pennsylvania. My biography was printed throughout the far West. All sensible people, including such able newspaper correspondents as George Alfred Townsend (“Gath”), regarded it as entirely proper legislation likely to be helpful to their profession. Poor Smith, however, had lost his case, he was not large enough to see that my duty was not toward him or the newspapers, his vanity was hurt, and he made a personal matter of it, and became an enemy for life. Everything thereafter which he thought would be disagreeable to me was printed in his paper. On visiting “Kuchler's Roost” on the mountain top at Reading, at the request of its old owner, I wrote an impromptu squib in his album. Thereupon Smith worked up an editorial upon it in an effort at ridicule. He did worse. In my library is a bound volume labeled Newspaper Ethics, put away for the enlightenment of posterity as to current manners. In it are preserved:
1. A column dispatch; printed in The Press, June 26, 1903, saying that Governor A. B. Cummins of Iowa, in an address at Waynesburg College, had denounced the Pennypacker press muzzling law and said it would “forever stigmatize its author.”
2. Smith's editorial of June 27th, saying that “Governor Pennypacker and his libel law have had no more stinging rebuke than was administered by another governor, Albert B. Cummins of Iowa.”
3. Letter of July 17, 1903, from Albert B. Cummins to John W. Campbell, saying:
“I cannot say how the absurd story got abroad. . . . I did not say one word upon the subject nor did I in any manner refer to Governor Pennypacker.”
4. Letter of Charles Emory Smith, August 11, 1903, saying:
“While he did not make the statements imputed to him in a public address at Waynesburg , College, he did make them in a public interview. . . . Publication awaits a full ascertainment of the facts.”
The publication of the facts was never made.
5. Letter of Albert B. Cummins, August 22, 1903, saying:
“I repeat that I did not say anything about the libel law or Governor Pennypacker to anybody in Waynesburg or in Greene County. Indeed, I may make it stronger; I did not think about the libel law or of Governor Pennypacker while there. No matter who is responsible for it, it is pure fabrication.”
6. Letter of Edward W. Hacker, a correspondent of the Press, April 1, 1907, saying:
“I am not responsible for the ridiculous stuff that appeared after the first sub-head in the Press' Schwenksville story on Sunday morning. I telegraphed them only the preceding matter, and some one in the office added the other details.”
7. Three clippings from successive issues of the Press, August 22, 1907, containing a dispatch from Johnstown purporting to give statements made by J. M. Shumaker, and showing the modifications made by “some one in the office” so as to reflect upon me.
8. The dispatch as sent from Johnstown inserted so that the comparison may be made.
9. The denial by J. M. Shumaker of the alleged statements.
10. An anonymous letter August 23, 1907, from an employee in the Press office to me, signing himself as “an admirer,” in which he says that the Johnstown dispatch “was read to the managing editor or at least he was given the gist of it over the telephone, and he ordered that it be re-written so as to identify you as the person meant in the alleged statement of Shumaker's friend.” He further says that the writer “lost his nerve and eliminated these two paragraphs from the later issues.”
All of these original papers found their way to me and I had them bound for preservation. The volume will never be purposely destroyed, because it is a curiosity and has a market value. As is apt to happen, in all probability, it will finally reach some public library and there be kept where the future investigator of morals will be able to see some of the causes which brought about the passage of the “Salus-Grady Press Muzzler” of 1903.
Another word about Smith and then I think he will disappear from these pages. On the 4th of October, 1906, I gave a dinner at the Executive Mansion to Roosevelt, then President of the United States. Penrose came to me and asked me whether I would not invite Smith to be there, saying that for political reasons the party managers were anxious to have Roosevelt get the opportunity to talk to him. I am sure Penrose expected me to refuse. My reply was that if it were to be at my home, a different question would arise, but that this was not my private party, that it was proper the Press should be represented and Smith was a very suitable representative, and without any hesitation I promised to invite him. He accepted the invitation and came, altogether bland. It was after this dinner that the despatches referred to were re-written in the office of the Press.
It would be incorrect to suppose that the newspaper assaults, though generally understood, were without injurious effect upon the state and me. The impression made by an attack is not removed by disproof. The reputation of a woman is soiled not only by a fact but by a breath. In men, the old animal instincts lie very close to the surface and animals instinctively turn upon anything stricken. There were those, even among my associates, who had seen me succeed up to the present, but who began to doubt whether, in the face of such a storm, I would not be compelled to succumb. The assaults made it more difficult for me to secure such legislation as the apportionment of the state and the creation of the constabulary. They weakened the loyalty of some of my subordinates. They induced at one time some of the leading members of the Philadelphia bar to assume a critical attitude. They affected some of my personal friends, and with Colonel J. Granville Leach, two of whose sons I kept in station; Major William H. Lambert, with whom I had been most intimate and whom I had placed on the Board of City Trusts and in the council of the Historical Society and who had asked me to be his executor, and William Brooke Rawle, my relations were never quite the same afterward. They so influenced my successor, a well-meaning but timid man, that he felt that the main purpose of a governor was to see to it that he escaped with his life and a whole skin; and when Senator Knox asked Roosevelt to appoint me to the Supreme Court of the United States, the hero of San Juan Hill inquired:
“What would the newspapers say?”
Even now events were so shaping themselves as to afford later an opportunity to hostility, since the commission to erect a new capitol building, which commission I permitted to remain unchanged, had begun their work.
By this time the administration had been completely organized and such changes as it was thought advisable to make had been made. Thomas J. Stewart, the Adjutant General; Israel W. Durham, the Insurance Commissioner; Nathan C. Schaeffer, Superintendent of Public Instruction; J. T. Rothrock, Commissioner of Forestry, and James E. Roderick, who became head of the Department of Mines, were inherited from the last and former administrations.
Frank M. Fuller, Secretary of the Commonwealth; Robert McAfee, Commissioner of Banking; N. B. Critchfield, Secretary of Agriculture; Dr. B. H. Warren, Dairy and Food Commissioner, and A. Nevin Pomeroy, Superintendent of Printing, had been recommended by Quay. Joseph W. Hunter, State Highway Commissioner, had been recommended by Senators Sproul and Roberts, John C. Delaney, Factory Inspector, had been appointed at the request of Charles Emory Smith. William E. Meehan, Commissioner of Fisheries, had been appointed on the recommendation of Henry F. Walton, Speaker of the House. Hampton L. Carson, Attorney General; Bromley Wharton, Private Secretary; Thomas L. Montgomery, State Librarian; H. A. Surface, Economic Zoologist, and James M. Shumaker, Superintendent of Grounds and Buildings, were my own selections. They all proved to be faithful to their duties and, with two exceptions, they never gave me cause for criticism. Durham was disposed to insist that his work should be conducted from Philadelphia rather than from the department at Harrisburg, which was unsatisfactory to me. Warren, a tall, slim man, with dark eyes and a furtive manner, possessed of some scientific attainments, had some years before written a book upon the birds of Pennsylvania which was published by the state. The newspapers, utterly indifferent as to whether it was good or bad, assailed him unmercifully and he became known as “Birdie Warren.” They had so cowed him that he was abject before them. Several times I endeavored to argue him into more courage, telling him it made no difference what they said, that their opinion was of no value, that the book was most meritorious, and it was entirely proper that the state should publish it, and the proof of its merit was that a copy could not be bought on the market for less than seven dollars, as I well knew, but all in vain. He felt that their power to harm a man in public life was unlimited. When, therefore, toward the end of my administration these forces blew a storm against me, he had no faith in my ability to withstand it; he thought the safer place was under their wings, and he proved unsteadfast. I would have removed him had it not been for the fact that he had really tried to make a good record in the work of his office.
Thomas J. Lynch, whom I filched from one of the departments for my own service as executive clerk, was a source of great comfort. Intelligent and loyal, he was one of those hunters who always come back with the game in their bags. When sent upon a task all necessary efforts were made, the facts were always ascertained, and the principles governing them unraveled.
Stewart deserves more than passing mention. He was born in Ireland and had his home in Norristown. He was a most persuasive and winning orator, having a rich voice, and no man knew better how to blend humor and pathos in order to produce results. In this respect it was nip and tuck between him and Henry Houck, later Secretary of Internal Affairs. Houck had the disposition of a Celt with the name and intonations of the Pennsylvania Dutch, and in his speeches, with his anecdotes, his tears, his native wit and his accent, was inimitable. When he went to Boston, he captured the town; when he ran for office, he always got more votes in the state than any one else on the ticket. It is said that he was never confused but upon one occasion. He had promised to speak at a dinner, and as it was an important affair, he made some memoranda. By an unlucky chance Stewart got hold of them, and being called upon first, he arose and made Houck's speech. Stewart knew every detail of the National Guard, and in executive work was a marvel. He thought out every preparation in advance and, under his guidance, a dinner party, a gubernatorial expedition to a Southern battlefield, or the ten thousand guardsmen going into camp, and all of the individuals concerned in them, moved as smoothly in their places as the hands on a clock. He would have made a most efficient governor, but his talking in all of the campaigns wore off something of the gloss and novelty, and he was too true and faithful to the cause ever to be selected.
| For Good and Faithful's sure to lose |
| Which way soever the game goes |
In the course of the summer I made addresses before the Sons of the Revolution at Neshaminy, before the graduating class at Franklin and Marshall College, and at the dedication of the monument to old John Burns on the battlefield at Gettysburg. At Gettysburg I said:
We have come together upon one of the battlefields of the most momentous in its consequences of all the American wars. We meet upon the field where the issues of that war were determined, and, with them, the fate of a great nation, and it may be the future of the peoples of the world for the ages yet to come. It is a field made famous by the sword of George Gordon Meade and consecrated by the words of the modern psalmist, Abraham Lincoln. Throughout the centuries yet to be, Americans will come to Gettysburg to gather inspiration for the struggles of life as the Greek went to Marathon, as the Briton goes to Waterloo, as the followers of the prophet turn to Mecca.
Upon the anniversary of that tremendous contest, surrounded on all sides by the memorials erected by a grateful people, with all things to suggest the more than forty thousand men who were here stricken, we have come to dedicate a monument to a man who held no rank, who wore no uniform, and who belonged to no army. It is a most impressive occasion. It is an event of no ordinary significance. It means that upon the citizen and his character the state rests.
This quiet Pennsylvania town, typical in its repose, as well as in its strength and in its everlasting fame, of the great commonwealth wherein it was fostered, had sent forth its young men to do battle in the cause of their country, and they were carrying their muskets in the Army of the Potomac. When invasion was threatened and the storms of war began to roll near, it contributed a company to a regiment which by a strange fatality was sent here and was the first force to encounter on this ground the Army of Lee, and when the cannon roared and muskets rattled through its streets, the old constable of the town, a hero of two earlier wars and hoary with the frosts of over seventy years, plunged into the fray and was thrice wounded. It was fitting that Pennsylvania should arise to repel the invaders. It was meet that at every vital point in this most fateful of contests, fought upon her soil, her sons should be to the fore. Happy is that land, and much has the future in store for it, which, when grave dangers threaten, can call upon young and old, soldier and citizen, to come to the rescue and call not in vain. While such courage and such virtue characterize its people it need fear neither aggression from abroad nor dissension at home.
In July, along with Judge John Stewart of Franklin County, I inspected the tuberculosis camp at Mont Alto, and during the same month the quarantine station maintained by the state on the Delaware. The governor is commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the state and the army consisted of the National Guard of three brigades, numbering about ten thousand men. The Guard is to a considerable extent supported by the United States under an act of congress which provides that it may be called into the national service. The money was, of course, a temptation, but the system is wrong in principle and would never have been established had I been governor at the time. The Guard was established under Hartranft for the defense of the state and has been maintained by it for many years at great expense. Should the state ever be invaded, and the occasion arise for its use, it will, just when it is needed, be a part of the national force, subject to national control and perhaps called to a distant point. The nation ought to have been left to provide its own army and militia. The arrangement was, besides, another step in the direction of the obliteration of the states, a tendency which good sense will ever be on the watch to resist.
In July the First Brigade went into camp at Perkasie, the Third Brigade at Mount Gretna, and the Second Brigade at Somerset. At each camp I inspected and reviewed the troops and lived in a tent. To me the object appeared to be not one of formal display, but that the governor should be enabled to gain a knowledge of the force and be in a better position to use it if need be, and in the meantime to provide for its wants. Therefore, I went on foot through the camps, looking into the tents and their appointments and into the kitchens. Therefore I accompanied the Inspector-General, Colonel Frank G. Sweeney, a keen-eyed fellow, along the lines, seeing every man of the ten thousand, and I vied with him in the discovery of omitted attention to discipline. At Mount Gretna I told a private that he had his bayonet reversed, whereupon the United States Army colonel who was with the party declared that he knew it to be mechanically impossible. The colonel was shown that the thing had occurred, nevertheless, and the story ran all over the camp. I likewise refused to ride a horse on review and overlooked the marching of the troops from a barouche or on foot. Stewart did his best to dissuade me from this step because it was an innovation upon which the newspapers would be sure to seize and he was very anxious for the welfare of his Guard. There were several reasons for this course. In my youth I had often ridden forty miles on a stretch, and in young manhood had ridden at the head of my Grand Army Post through the streets of Philadelphia, but I had grown old and heavy and was unused to the exercise. There was no inducement for me to make a display of horsemanship. A man unaccustomed to the situation is more apt to be absurd, and when one of my predecessors fell from his horse at Pottstown the story went forth broadcast that he was drunk. If the purpose be to observe the manner in which the soldiers keep their lines and steps and carry themselves, nothing is more likely to interfere with that purpose than to be required to give attention to a horse made restive by the music and excitement. Moreover, army regulations recognize these facts. Marshal Bazaine reviewed his army from a barouche and the President of the United States reviews his army from a grand stand. My being on foot among the troops had many good results. It showed them that I was interested in what they were doing and willing to make the effort required. At Mount Gretna it was very warm. A young soldier standing stiff in line to be inspected plunged over on his face unconscious. It is not an unusual occurrence and it has a sort of hypnotic influence. Soon others were falling in various directions. The orders had been that when the inspection began the troops were to take the position of a soldier and I felt sure that the continuous rigidity of attitude had much to do with this effect. I then on the spot gave orders that until the particular line under inspection should be reached the troops should remain at “parade rest.” The tension was relieved and there was no more falling. A correspondent of the Press, thinking it would be agreeable to that journal, sent to it a malicious and untruthful account of the occurrence, evidently so intended. I concluded to have him drummed out of camp to the tune of “The Rogue's March” and sent Colonel Walter T. Bradley after him, who soon returned bringing the culprit. Seeing, however, that he was very young and in a sad state of fright, I pointed out to him the impropriety of his communication and dismissed him. As had been expected, the newspapers in cartoons and editorials told the people that I was afraid to ride a horse. I met this proposition in my own way. At the inauguration of Roosevelt, I rode down Pennsylvania Avenue, in command of a division of ten thousand men from different states, before a crowd of two hundred thousand people, and all over the country it was learned that the journals had been scattering false reports. They kept me, however, all the while playing a game in which the effort was to thwart the ill effects of misrepresentation upon the public work. To me personally it was often an interesting amusement. One day I sat on my porch with a reporter and he asked:
“Does not this continual objurgation disturb you?”
As it chanced there was a slight rumbling in the west and I replied:
“I have often sat upon this porch when the clouds gathered out yonder, and presently the lightnings flashed and the thunders rattled until in the uproar my voice could not be heard. Where those storms have gone no man knows, and here I am sitting on this porch still,” and he was man enough to print the illustration.
On the way home from Somerset, a town among the mountains, where the first Bible was printed west of the Alleghenies, where George F. Baer, the wonderfully able president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company, was born, and which has the most elevated court house in the state, Mrs. Pennypacker and I were taken in charge by Colonel Samuel Moody, a high official of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Pittsburgh. He was very droll, agreeable and entertaining. His influence with his road was great and he was ready to show it to us. Somerset was the terminus of a little single-track railroad which branched off from the main line. He had a car ready at Somerset, but, behold! it had not been dusted for a month. He kept us outside on some pretext while he swore at the man in charge and had it cleaned. Then we went by rail to the station on the main line and there waited. Presently we heard the Chicago express, which never stopped there, but was to stop for us because of the influence of Moody, thundering in the distance.
“Now,” said Moody, “come outside and all be ready to get on.”
In an instant the train was there and in an instant later beyond the station and rushing to the far-away East. Then I roared and Moody, seldom crestfallen, was in a state of confusion. Presently, however, came the second section, which stopped, and all was well. Just at this juncture Judge Henry J. McCarthy died and this made a vacancy in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas No. 3. The leaders of the Republican party in that city asked for the appointment of Robert von Moschzisker, a bright young lawyer, formerly an assistant in the office of the district attorney, but lacking both years and legal experience, who had made himself useful and agreeable to Durham. I appointed George Tucker Bispham, the author of our leading work upon equity, and a lawyer of long and varied practice. He was then in Europe, but he had at one time made an earnest effort to reach the bench and, after consultation with Mr. Brinton in his office and with Lyman D. Gilbert, a friend and associate in many cases, who thought he would accept, I made the venture. My hope was, by a distinguished appointment, to benefit the profession, and that he, with such an opportunity, would feel it to be his duty to his profession to see that it was utilized. He failed me and, much to my disgust and with very poor taste, telegraphed his declination not to me but to the Press. One of the experiences which come often to those having responsibility and seeking to do decent things is the little assistance given by men who are ever complaining about existing conditions.
On one occasion at Harrisburg I was called up by long-distance telephone from Washington and Penrose at the other end inquired:
“When are you going to make out the appointment of Dr. Shoemaker as surgeon general?”
Shoemaker was a political doctor, continually mingling the two professions which did not well fit, and I had no confidence in him whatever. So I answered:
“I do not think of appointing him at all.”
“Damn it to hell!” I overheard upon the wire.
I had written to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell and Charles C. Harrison to suggest to me a suitable and competent physician for this position. They recommended Dr. Robert G. Le Conte, a man of professional attainment and now one of the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, and I appointed him. He remained long enough to secure his title as colonel, but with the first encampment, when there was work to do, he resigned and that plan failed. I then appointed Dr. Weaver, much less showy but more stable and useful, and he proved to be entirely acceptable.
There had been much adverse comment upon affairs at the Eastern Penitentiary, and I put at the head of it a penal expert from without the state, of wide reputation. He remained a few months and, instead of improving the institution, used it as a means of getting a larger salary elsewhere and departed. Such instances, of course, went a long way to justify the position of the politicians.
Theoretically the state had a navy, but it never owned a vessel until at this time a quarantine cutter was built for it by Neafie & Levy. The boat was launched September 17th, named the “Governor Pennypacker” and was christened by my daughter Anna, who broke a bottle of wine over the bow.
On the 22d of September, along with Elkin, I made a speech at Wilkes-Barre before the League of Republican Clubs, reviewing what had been accomplished, including the newspaper act. The resolutions adopted declared that I had proven to be “a wise, prudent, firm and conscientious executive.” On the invitation of “Uncle Jerry Roth,” an enterprising Pennsylvania Dutchman, I saw the Allentown Fair, generally regarded as the most successful agricultural fair in the state, and found thirty thousand people there. Colonel Henry C. Trexler, of my staff, a comparatively young man, who has made a great fortune in the manufacture of cement, having the largest cement works in Allentown, drove me through the country to see his large unfenced farms, and he entertained me at supper, where, in a stately home, his agreeable wife dispensed hospitality.
On the 29th, Major General Charles Miller, in command of the National Guard, gave an entertainment at Franklin to the governor and his staff. Miller, a poor boy born in Alsace, came over to this country and, little by little, by energy, activity and business sense, combined with a canny, worldly wisdom, he got alongside of the Standard Oil Company, was one of its magnates, and secured an immense fortune. Seldom are the fates altogether kindly to any man. With all his success, there was much unhappiness in his life. He was a captain on the staff of one of the brigadiers, was ambitious, made large contributions in the political campaigns, and was put in command of the Guard, over the heads of his general and many other officers. Elevations so obtained are ever more or less tottering. At Mount Gretna he said to me in the presence of Stewart, after exhibiting to us the antics of his beautiful and trained riding horse:
“Governor, I am going to send down to your home one of the finest pair of horses to be found in the state.”
I told him this story:
“General, when I was a boy I went to school among the Irish on Tunnel Hill in the town where I was born and had three fist fights with a boy named Bradley. Many years later we both drifted to Philadelphia, and I became a judge and he became a bartender in a liquor saloon. Much to his surprise and pleasure he, on one occasion, received a license to conduct an establishment of his own. Later, he one day came to me and said he was about to send a pair of horses to my summer home at Moore Hall, and I said to him that if he did I should go into court on the following Saturday and revoke that liquor license.”
Neither of those pairs of horses was ever received.
At Franklin there was a reception, a banquet and a ball. Everything was done upon a magnificent scale. The decorations were profuse, the ornamentations and appointments were costly, flowers were hurled at Mrs. Pennypacker and the music was lively and plentiful. In charge was Colonel Lewis E. Beitler, who was especially apt at that kind of thing and besides tall and handsome. Years before Mrs. Pennypacker and I had been at his wedding, and here we were met again. All of the members of the staff were gentlemen, but there were two of them especially marked by gentility and nicety of conduct—Colonel Paul S. Reeves, an old friend of mine at Phœnixville, and Colonel Horace L. Haldeman of Chickies, Lancaster County, whom I had selected at the request of Quay. One of the satisfactions in being at Franklin was a call upon Christopher Heydrick, a long-time friend, now aged, a scion of one of the Schwenkfelder families of the Perkiomen Valley, who had become a corporation lawyer and reached the Supreme Court of the state. He never lost interest in the church of his fathers, wrote a book upon the genealogies of Schwenkfelder families, and was a dependence when financial assistance became necessary. At Erie, on the 30th, I examined affairs at the Soldiers' Home and made an address to the veterans there awaiting the end of their careers. Anthony Wayne died at Erie and was there buried at the block-house. Thirty years later his son Isaac drove across the state in a buggy, loaded into it the bones of his father and took them to St. David's at Radnor, where a monument was erected over them. Two or three of the fingers which he failed to find are preserved in a bottle (happy thought!) at the block-house where we saw them. We also visited the club house upon the shore, went out on the lake, went to the life-saving station of the national government and witnessed the excitement and intelligence of a dog which, when the rope was shot to a vessel supposed to be in distress on the lake, understood and took part in an imaginary rescue.
Just at this time Chief Justice McCollum died and left a vacancy to be filled in the Supreme Court. He had had a run of luck. When Mitchell was nominated by the Republicans, the hopeless Democratic nomination went begging. Judge Arnold of Philadelphia, and others of prominence, refused and there was given to McCollum what no one else wanted. McCollum's home friends desired for him the state nomination for the Supreme Bench by the Democratic party, merely as a graceful way for him to retire from the common pleas bench of Susquehanna County. His term was about to expire. He was a Democrat in a strongly Republican county and stood no chance of re-election. His brother-in-law, Daniel W. Searle, would be the Republican candidate for the seat in the county court, for which several reasons McCollum did not desire a re-nomination in Susquehanna and what seemed then the empty honor of the Democratic nomination for the Supreme Bench would open a door of escape from a local complication. But in the midst of the campaign one of the seven judges died, and under the constitutional provision both Mitchell and McCollum were elected. Then they drew lots to determine which should have the long term carrying with it the right to succeed eventually to the chief justiceship, and McCollum won.
On the 6th of October the Germans celebrated, in Philadelphia, the two hundred and twentieth anniversary of the settlement of Germantown. I read to them my translations into English verse of Corinna, a love song, and another local bit which had been written there in the early time, which were of great interest. This translation, as I have already said, was set to music by the Orpheus Club and has been several times sung by that club in the Academy of Music. Henry Starr Richardson wrought it into a play of a comic character which held the boards at the Fellowship Club.
On the 13th of October, Montgomery and I addressed the Federation of Women's Clubs at Carlisle and I read to them A. J. H. Duganne's inspiring and meritorious lyric upon Pennsylvania which has been neglected and forgotten, but which shall yet, Deo volente, be familiar to all of the people of the state. At least, it shall be drummed into their ears and minds so long as my voice, pen and energy are unweakened.
A negro had recently been burned to death near Wilmington, Delaware. A requisition was made upon me at this time by Governor Hunn of that state for the return of a negro named George White, charged with murder. The papers, as often happened, were in very loose shape. No indictment had been found and there were no affidavits as to the truth of the charge. The requisition stood, therefore, upon no foundation. The officers went home without the man and I wrote to Governor Hunn:
“In view of the fact that the alleged crime committed by the defendant is punishable by death, I think the circumstances which indicate the commission of the crime and the connection of the defendant with it ought to be set forth with particularity and care and should be accompanied by affidavits as to their correctness. Especially is this true when as in this case no indictment has been found.”
Since there seemed to be in the suggestion a reflection upon the methods of the State of Delaware, there was a commotion there, more or less reflected in Pennsylvania. However, the affidavits were sent and the fugitive was surrendered. Such papers coming from the South, almost invariably lacked the essential requirements, showing a want of attention or of information. Some time afterward the Governor of North Carolina made a requisition for the return of a negro charged with murder. After an examination of the papers, being dissatisfied with them, I required some further support for the charge and it led to a sharp correspondence. In this instance the negro was never returned.
On the evening of November 5th, toward the close of a campaign for the election of a state treasurer and auditor general, I made an address to the Penrose Republican Club in the Eighth ward of Philadelphia, in the main commending political effort and pointing out to them the fact that in Quay, who was not present, we were fortunate in having a man unequaled in his line of effort anywhere else in the country and that it was the part of unwisdom to keep those capacities engaged in conflicts at home which ought to be utilized for our benefit in the contests of a larger sphere. The correctness of this line of thought, however, never made it palatable.
Some time before my advent, the policy had been adopted by the state of erecting memorial stones to mark the service of its regiments upon the different battlefields throughout the South, and it so happened that the greater number of these monuments, after being erected, were accepted and dedicated during my administration. The performance of this duty took me over the South to an extent that under no other circumstances would have occurred. Early in November, accompanied by the adjutant general and the staff, I set out for Chattanooga, Tennessee, a town which during the war saw many battles and military movements and which since the war has grown to be a thriving manufacturing city.
On the 9th of November, at Sherman Heights, in the presence of the surviving members of the regiment, the monument of the Seventy-third Pennsylvania Regiment was dedicated and transferred by me, representing the commonwealth, to General H. V. Boynton, representing the Chickamauga Park Commission and the nation, for preservation. I said:
Ladies and Gentlemen; Comrades:
As Chief Executive of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, representing that great commonwealth, and as surviving soldiers of a war momentous in its consequences, we have come from the far away North to the mountains of Tennessee to assist at the dedication of a monument to commemorate the services of a single regiment upon one of the battlefields of that war. We bare our heads to the breezes, and our feet tread the soil of a typical Southern state. While we recall the events of the forty years ago we do not forget that earlier time, when the riflemen of these mountains, with a brave leader from among their own people, in behalf of a cause to which we too were committed, marched to New Orleans to deal destruction to the veterans of Wellington. We do not forget the three Presidents whom Tennessee gave to our common country or the lasting impress they made upon the development of our national affairs. We clasp your hands and as we grasp them we see all plainly that, no matter how much we may have differed and no matter how fiercely we may have contended in deadly conflict, the results of that war led necessarily to the advancement of the South as well as of the North, and brought all sections of the country together in a closer compact, under a firmer and more durable government. To bring about those results no part of the American people made greater efforts, endured more hardships, and submitted to more personal sacrifices than those who lived in the mountain regions of this state. What La Vendee was to the royalists of the French Revolution, Eastern Tennessee was to the cause of the Union during the War of 1861. No losses could appall those brave people and no dangers could intimidate them. The defeats of the early part of the war did not dismay them and the march of contending armies through their valleys and the terrific battles fought within sight of their homes only strengthened their faith. Death in its most terrible form confronted them and they never faltered. The voice of their fiery Methodist parson, as from these hill-tops he hurled denunciation or sang a pæan of victory, echoed all over the United States giving heart to the timid and encouraging the strong. No other people hailed the final triumph with more pious gratitude, and their only reward was the consciousness of duty well performed and the satisfaction which came from the sense that to the end they had remained steadfast.
Pennsylvania may well offer her greetings to Tennessee. They have had many like experiences; they have in the past been upon the same side in many contests, and they have had much in common. No other President made a more pronounced and indelible mark upon the events of his time than did Andrew Jackson, and he ever received, in all of his endeavors, the earnest support of the yeomanry of the Keystone State. Without her aid he could not have succeeded. With her support he was invincible.
In the early days the thrifty Germans and the pugnacious Scotch-Irish from the inland counties of Pennsylvania followed the Cumberland Valley into the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, and made their homes upon the fertile lands along its beautiful river. Thence, like the Boones, the Lincolns and the Todds, they crossed the mountains in venturesome quest to Kentucky and Tennessee. Many of Tennessee's soldiers who have won renown in the field, and many of her statesmen who have won distinction in the halls of legislation look back to the land of Penn, of Wayne and of Meade as the home of their forefathers.
To these great battlefields, amid your mountains, Pennsylvania sent fifteen regiments and two batteries of artillery. The Seventy-third Regiment, whose monument we are here to dedicate, after having fought with conspicuous valor in the East at Manassas, and in the Shenandoah Valley, with Hooker at Chancellorsville, and with Meade in the decisive battle of Gettysburg, here, upon this field, after a severe struggle upon the front where their colonel was killed, were nearly all captured and sent to the prisons of Belle Isle and Libby. In commemoration of their faithful services and in recognition of their gallant careers the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has erected this monument. In behalf of the Commonwealth, I now accept it and transfer it to you (General Boynton) as the representative of the Government of the United States, with the full assurance that it will be maintained and cherished through all time to come, and that future generations of Americans will here come to be reminded of the struggles and sacrifices of their fathers and to gather inspiration for future deeds of heroism and patriotism.It was a satisfaction to me in this speech, upon the land of Tennessee and in the presence of the Southern people, to pay my tribute to the mountaineers of East Tennessee. During the war they suffered the greatest of hardships and at its close the successful North abandoned them and almost at once began to turn its face in homage to the Stonewall Jacksons and the Lees. The speech, pointing out the relations between the two states and the strength of Andrew Jackson, was received in the best of spirit and much commended through the South.
We visited the battlefields of Chattanooga, Orchard Knob and rode over the grounds at Chickamauga. There was so much breaking up of the lines at Chickamauga and the movements of the two armies there were so involved that the battle is difficult to understand. We went to the top of Lookout Mountain, where was fought the Battle above the Clouds, in a trolley car lifted almost vertically to the crest, an experience which has its own uncertainties. In Chattanooga we discovered a particularly attractive brand of sugar maple candy blended with nuts, and each year since Colonel Walter T. Bradley remembers to have a box of it sent to Pennypacker's Mills upon Christmas.
From Chattanooga we went to Shiloh, in which battle the Seventy-seventh Pennsylvania Regiment, the only one from any of the Eastern states, participated on the part of the North. Shiloh is most difficult of access and the trip involved a ride upon a steamboat from John son ville of about one hundred and fifty miles up the Tennessee River. Shiloh had for me a special interest. Here Grant ventured his army across the river and, had it not been for the fortunate arrival of Buell, he would have been driven into it by the rebel General A. Sidney Johnston, and he and his career would have been closed at its very beginning. In command of the advance, in the “Hornets' Nest,” where the fighting was most severe, was Major General Benjamin Mayberry Prentiss, whose grandmother was a Pennypacker. He and what was left of his division were nearly all captured. At this distant point, in the wilds of the forest, twelve hundred miles from home, there were few of the survivors present.
On the way home, we had to wait for an hour at Johnsonville for the arrival of the train. Johnsonville had a little country store, a blacksmith shop, a house or two and that was all. After looking at the hulks of the steamboats, still lying in the river, where they had been burned during the war to save them from capture, there was absolutely nothing to do. I said to a lounger:
“Is there anything to be seen in this region?”
“Over there on the bank of the river we find Indian things."
It proved to be what I had never seen before, a place of manufacture, and in the course of that hour I was able to find the whole process exemplified, including the original washed cobble, the chips stricken off, the fragments left, the core and the completed implements, together with some pieces of red paint with which the Indians made themselves handsomer. On the way home we crossed the mountains into North Carolina, viewing the magnificent scenery from a perch on the front of the engine. At Asheville we saw Biltmore, the summer home of the Vanderbilts, and ate a “possum," which was likewise a new experience added to life.
On November 18th, Quay spent the night with me at the Executive Mansion and he remained over the next day, receiving people there while I was up at the department at work. He had visited me before at Moore Hall and at Pennypacker's Mills, and the effort to fathom the underlying impulses of a man so remarkable, was an interesting study. He had no presence, he had no voice, he was never imperative, and yet he molded men to his will. Durham had wanted to have T. Larry Eyre retained as superintendent of public grounds and buildings, and, after another appointment had been made, he sent a telegram to Quay which was regarded as offensive. Quay showed it to me and said:
“I am done with that fellow; I shall not permit him to do a thing again.”
To me the quickness with which he announced a purpose to dismiss a man with the strength of Durham was startling. In this instance I threw oil on the waters and said:
“Senator, Durham is not at all well. With all of us when the nerves are a little jangled and things do not come our way we are apt to show irritation. Durham will come around all right.”
The thought seemed to appeal to his sympathy and experience.
On one occasion about this time there was a vacancy in the court of common pleas in the Twentieth Judicial District, and I consulted with Quay and Penrose about it. Penrose urged the appointment of a man who had been active and useful in the politics of one of the counties. Then I indicated a preference for, Joseph M. Woods, a gentleman and a man of good antecedents, being a descendant of John Witherspoon, and a lawyer of standing in the profession. At once Quay said:
“Woods will be the best appointment.”
Penrose did not utter another word, but immediately after the interview telegraphed to Woods that he would be appointed. I was informed long afterward that Judge Woods was under the impression that he owed his appointment to the intervention of Penrose.
Sometimes I queried whether Quay ever tried to influence the men around him, whether he was even fully aware that he was influencing them, whether he did anything more than, seeing clearly what the situation required, indicate his line of thought, with the result that they, after pondering, saw that he was correct. At all events, he made no apparent effort. He was, of course, helped by the fact that his success in many contests made men feel that he was probably correct, especially since often he had information outside of their ken. Sometimes, where I have differed with him, I have later found myself doubting whether, after all, I was not mistaken. His sympathies were quickly aroused and there never was a man more of whose actions were determined by altruistic sentiment. One secret of his success was no doubt the fact that he felt and manifested a genuine interest in the welfare of others. He helped the Indians and became a chief among them, not for what they could do, but because he felt an interest in them. On this evening he talked to me about the matter, as an interesting fact, that we two descendants of Major Patrick Anderson, of the Revolutionary Army, were at the same time senator and governor. He told me at length of his plans to remove the bones of his grandmother from Ohio, where she had been buried, to the Anderson family yard in Chester County. It seems the old woman had expressed the desire to be buried among her kindred, but at the time of her death those around her were too poor to comply, and he carried out the wish of this long-dead woman. He talked to me of his son “Dick,” with apparent regret that he was nothing of a politician and only a maker of money, in which pursuit he was fortunate. What seemed to me remarkable, I found in him a strong vein of superstition, that kind of fatalism which gave Napoleon faith in his star and which made Jacob Boehm, the shoemaker of Goerlitz, so sure of his inspiration. We even talked of ghosts, and I was astonished to hear him say in all soberness:
“Lately I was sitting in my library and out of the darkness a woman in white loomed up before me. I knew right well who she was and what she wanted.”
I should have been glad to have pursued the subject further, but it was too delicate and I waited, but he said no more.
Then we talked over the vacancy in the Supreme Court. I had thought over the matter seriously and had prepared a list of six men whom I regarded as the most eligible professionally. At its head was Charles E. Rice, President Judge of the Superior Court, and on it were Mayer Sulzberger, David T. Watson, a Democrat, Lyman D. Gilbert and Judge John A. McIlvaine of Washington County, of whom the justices of the Supreme Court held a high opinion. He looked it over and said:
“I do not want Rice. If you appoint him I shall have to oppose him myself in the convention. He is one of those Yankees from around Wilkes-Barre, and you cannot trust one of them.”
I said:
“Senator, if you are opposed to him, I shall not appoint him.”
During the conversation he said to me:
“It would be a gracious thing upon your part to appoint John P. Elkin.”
“It would be too plain, and, since Elkin has been rejected for the governorship, I do not think I could put him on the Supreme Court.”
Presently he said:
“I will send tomorrow for Lyman D. Gilbert.”
This interview with Gilbert occurred in the mansion in my absence. He was not prone to giving unnecessary confidence and what then occurred neither he nor Gilbert ever informed me. I saw him later and this was his suggestion:
“McCollum was a Democrat. There is no other Democrat on that Bench. How would it do to appoint Sam Thompson?”
Samuel G. Thompson was the son of a former chief justice, he had himself served a brief term on the Supreme Court with satisfaction to everybody, and he had a large practice in Philadelphia and was conceded to be an able lawyer. From the professional point of view no better solution could have been found and it was accompanied with a concession to the proprieties. With very little hesitation I appointed Thompson. These are the exact facts. What were the motives of Quay anybody may amuse himself by trying to conjecture. He may have wanted to escape from my power to name the permanent occupant by having me make an appointment in its nature temporary. It is certain that he had the purpose of putting me on the Supreme Court, sooner or later. He may even have considered the nomination of Elkin and thus disposing of a formidable rival, or he may have retained all of these purposes in mind as possibilities. It seldom happens that men are able to analyze even their own motives correctly.
At this interview he suggested the probability that Thompson would be content with a term of thirteen months and that it might open a way for my own nomination. I wrote to him November 26th:
I have appointed the Honorable Samuel Gustine Thompson a judge of the Supreme Court. As you are aware, you have suggested to me the probability of my own nomination for that office by the approaching Convention of the Republican Party. Though that position would be entirely agreeable to me, you will perhaps pardon me for saying that I doubt the wisdom of such a course of action from your point of view of responsibility for the outcome of the party deliberations. I write this letter to say that should you find the difficulties greater than you supposed, or should you become convinced that this course is not suitable or feasible, you need not feel in the least embarrassed by the fact that you have made the suggestion.
November 24th, at the Hotel Schenley, at Pittsburgh, along with Judge Buffington, United States Senator J. B. Foraker and others, I spoke to over two hundred of the city's wealthy men and expressed a pet thought.
“What has occurred in New York when she recently absorbed Brooklyn, what has occurred in Chicago when she took into her embrace the whole of Cooke County, must inevitably happen to Pittsburgh. Sitting at the head of the Ohio with her iron and coal, she is to become the foremost of all the inland American cities.”
On the 28th I spoke at the Founders' Day dinner at The Union League in Philadelphia, where were Admirals Dewey, Higsbee and Melville and Generals Young, Bates, Brooke and Gregg and Governor Frank S. Black of New York.
I had now been governor for nearly a year and the newspaper act had been on the statute books for over six months, and up to this time no attack had been made impugning my integrity. This final step on the downward path to Avernus was now taken by the Philadelphia Record. One day I was at the rooms of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania when a man appeared who said he had been sent by the Record to show me a paper, and he asked me to read it. The paper purported to be signed by “A Lawyer” and it set forth “that Governor Pennypacker's appointment of Judge Thompson was prompted wholly by the selfish desire and indecent purpose of Governor Pennypacker to get the place for himself as soon as he can,” and “He, therefore, stooped to a plot that is absolutely without precedent or parallel in all the history of intrigue and corruption in Pennsylvania politics.” I read the paper over and handed it back to him.
“What are you going to do about it?” he inquired. He said nothing about money, but I inferred that was what he meant. Angry, I looked him in the eyes and said:
“I am not going to do anything about it.”
“Then we will print it.”
“Why do you tell me what you are going to print. I have no responsibility for what you print. That is your responsibility.”
The next day the Record, then edited by Theodore Wright, printed the communication with an editorial headed “A Foul Conspiracy,” and saying:
“It lays bare a plot to swap the governorship for a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court, as if the two highest offices in the gift of the people could be bartered or bought and sold with the indifferent regard for popular opinion or popular right that might be expected of jockeys making a horse trade.”
A few years later the Record saw Woodrow Wilson swap the governorship of New Jersey for another high office, and use the office, neglecting its duties, to accomplish the result and supported the effort as a delectable proposition. There was this difference: Wilson did what the Record only said that I intended to do, and in making the statement it was mistaken. Looking at the matter with deeper insight, testing it ethically, and assuming the facts to be true, as they were not, the accusation of the lawyer, if he was a lawyer, and of the Record was silly. In appointing a thoroughly competent judge I had performed my only duty to the court and nobody had any right to ask anything more so far as the court was concerned. It was no case of barter or buying and selling with Thompson because, according to the story, he knew nothing about it, and beside had nothing to give. It was no case of selling to Quay because he got neither office. It would not be a nice thing for me to appoint a good judge simply upon the hope of helping myself, but that involves questions of propriety, not of integrity, and there are few people who rise to such heights.
I had no intention of permitting talk to go on as though some wicked thing were being done in secret, and the next day I wrote to the Ledger:
I have carefully read the wanton attack upon myself in yesterday's Record, to see whether there could be any possible justification for it except a wish to excel in newspaper enterprise. I may be wrong but it seems to me there is no principle of ethics which would prevent me from going before the next Republican State Convention as a candidate for the Supreme Court, or from asking the support of Mr. Quay or anyone else who may have influence, provided I do not use the power of the governor for that purpose. If I chose to take this course, I should not hesitate in order to escape illogical comment. As a matter of fact I have not asked any person who may be a delegate to that convention, or any one who may have weight in its deliberations, to do anything whatever in connection with it and do not expect to do so in the future. As governor I have refrained from efforts to influence political movements.
In the appointment of judges I have endeavored to do my full duty to the courts and in each instance, save in the selection of Mr. Bispham, have ascertained and given due weight to the views of the court most concerned. In appointing Mr. Thompson I have indicated so plainly, that even the blind may see, my opinion as to the kind of man who ought to be placed in that position. I have given him a term of thirteen months, all that I had to give, and only folly or malevolence could ask me for more.
If, however, as the Record predicts, the Republican State Convention should see fit in its wisdom to nominate me for the Supreme Court and that should be followed by an election, I shall return to the bench.
This letter told the exact truth and in effect declared to any one, skilled in the language, that I did not intend to be a candidate. It asserted my right to go before the convention and solicit help in any direction and affirmed that I had not so done and did not intend so to do; in other words, that I was not doing the things I would have done had I purposed to be a candidate. If, notwithstanding, the party should nominate me and the people elect me, as the newspaper asserted, then I would return to the bench. It would in that event be a duty. Nothing could have been straighter. It was likewise a defiance and intended to be a defiance. Should I choose to be a candidate, and should I choose to ask Quay to help me, then it asserted I would do it in utter disregard of what might be published in the newspapers. Again did the heathen rage, and again the cartoonists earned their hire. That a man should be so constructed as to act decently in a matter concerning his own interests was not to be conceived, and one who was willing to go to the Supreme Court must necessarily be taking all sorts of underhand measures in order to get there.
Quay thought my letter to be wretched politics, but there were some things more important to me than either office, and we were not viewing the subject from the same angle. And I still think it was good politics, since it did away with all talk about secret plotting. On the 12th of December I was the guest of honor at the dinner of the Pennsylvania Society of New York, a most successful society, the active spirit in which is Barr Ferree, and there I met Governor Odell of New York and Governor Edwin Warfield of Maryland.
At the urgent request of Provost Harrison of the University of Pennsylvania, I left my work and went down to Washington in order to secure Roosevelt as the orator for the following 22d of February ceremonies in the Academy of Music. Quay had promised to help me. He met me with his carriage at the depot and entertained me at his home. The following day, through his arrangement, we lunched with the President and Mrs. Roosevelt at the White House. The details of this luncheon are given elsewhere in my personal sketch of the President. On this occasion Quay brought up the subject of the nomination for the Supreme Court and I told him I had given up all thought of being a candidate. The reasons which influenced me were:
I had taken with me to Harrisburg a number of gentlemen who never would have entered this kind of life but for me, and to abandon them to the mercies of political chance, almost at the outset, would have been to have treated them unfairly. I had taken the responsibility of leaving the judgeship behind me when I became governor, the things I had hoped to do were still in large part not accomplished, and to leave the wheel now for the sake of comfort would be pure vacillation and weakness.
In a column on the front page, the Ledger, December 24th, explained to its readers the purpose of my visit to Washington, with the staring headline: “Why Did Pennypacker Go to Washington?” in this way:
“A sensation is due which will recall and perhaps surpass the notorious troubles that arose when Blake Walters was cashier of the Pennsylvania State Treasury from 1878 to 1880 and party leaders were accused of having been accommodated with state funds to use in speculation.”
With this illustration of the reckless wickedness of the most decent of the Philadelphia newspapers in my time, ready to harm, without information and without inquiry, the record of my first year as governor closes.